Author Archives: curiouscat

Parasite Rex

Parasite Rex is a great book by Carl Zimmer (one of the bloggers listed in the Curious Cat directory of science blogs). This is the first book read as part of my specific plan to read more about bacteria, cells, virus, genes and the like.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of writing this blog is that I have focused much more on cool things I read. And over time the amazing things I posted about related to these topics made me realize I should put some focused effort to reading more on these topics. Some of the posts that sparked that idea: Tracking the Ecosystem Within Us – Inner Life of a Cell: Full Version – Where Bacteria Get Their Genes, People Have More Bacterial Cells than Human Cells, Biological Molecular Motors – Energy Efficiency of Digestion – Old Viruses Resurrected Through DNA – Midichloria mitochondrii – Microbes – Using Bacteria to Carry Nanoparticles Into Cells – How Bacteria Nearly Destroyed All Life – New Understanding of Human DNA – Soil Could Shed Light on Antibiotic Resistance – Symbiotic relationship between ants and bacteria

Parasite Rex was a great place to start. Carl Zimmer is a great writer, and the details on how many parasites there are and how interconnected those parasites are to living systems and how that has affected, and is affecting, us is amazing. And the next book I am reading is also fantastic: Good Germs, Bad Germs. Here is one small example from Parasite Rex, page 196-7:

A person who dies of sickle cell anemia is less likely to pass on the defective gene, and that means the disease should be exceedingly rare. But it’s not – one in four hundred American blacks has sickle sell anemia, and one in ten carries a single copy of the defective gene. The only reason the gene stays in such high circulation is that is also happens to be a defense against malaria.

Malaria is a parasite. One of the amazing things with repeated examples in the book were parasites that seemed to have extremely complicated life cycles (that don’t seem like a great strategy to prosper but obviously work). Where they grow in one life form (an insect or mammal or whatever) but must leave that life form for some other specific life form for the next stage in life (they cannot have descendants without doing so…). Seems like a crazy way to evolve but it happens over and over again.
Continue reading →

In Tunguska, Siberia 99 Years Ago

Just What Happened 99 Years Ago in Tunguska, Siberia?

in the morning of 30 June 1908, a few native peoples in Siberia reported seeing a blue light in the sky that was as bright as the sun and hearing a series of loud explosions, accompanied by fierce winds and fire. These explosions, which flattened the pristine Siberian Taiga for 770 miles (2,000 kilometers) around, are estimated to have had the power of 2000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. However, this area is so remote and Russia was experiencing so much political turmoil that no one was able to investigate the scene until 1927
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Gasperini’s team says their data suggest that a 10 meter (33 foot) wide fragment of the celestial object was blasted free by the explosion and continued traveling in the same direction that the original object was moving in. This fragment traveled slowly, about 1 kilometer a second (0.6 mile) per second. When the fragment plowed into the marshy terrain five miles north of the explosion epicenter, it created a long, trenchlike depression.

“It splashed on the soft, swampy soil and melted the underlying permafrost layer, releasing CO2 [carbon dioxide], water vapor, and methane that broadened the hole, hence the shape and size of the basin, unusual for an impact crater,” argues Gasperini, adding that “our hypothesis is the only one that accounts for the funnel-like morphology of Lake Cheko’s bottom.”

Statistics for Experimenters Review

Disclosure, I am a bit biased – William G. Hunter was my father. But I agree with this review of Statistics for Experimenters: Design, Innovation, and Discovery , 2nd Edition posted by George Samaras

Superb! If you are involved, in any way, with science or engineering, you need this book on your shelf (after you have carefully read it twice). My only complaint is that I found out about it circuitously reading Prof. Box’s “Improving Almost Anything”; I was curious what the often cited BHH reference was. I think someone should have a word with the publisher’s marketing department; if we don’t know about it, how are we supposed to buy it?

George Box, Stu Hunter and Bill Hunter authored the first edition book in 1978 and the second edition in 2005.

I maintain Statistics for Experimenters web site. Visit the page to find resources, or to let us know about resources (data sets, exercises, etc.) for those using the book.

Norman Borlaug and Wheat Stem Rust

By increasing the production of wheat it is said Norman Borlaug has saved more lives than anyone else who ever lived. John Pollock provides a new look at his work in Green Revolutionary:

stem rust, a fungus whose airborne spores infect stems and leaves, shriveling grains.
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Many thought the work that earned ÂBorlaug his Nobel brought an end to stem rust, but it is back, in the form of a variant called Ug99, which emerged in Uganda and spread to Kenya and Ethiopia. “If it continues unchecked,” says Borlaug, “the consequences will be ruinous.”

Crystal Growth – Manganese Oxides

Photo of Manganese Oxides – Dendritic crystal growth, MnO2, at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington DC, by John Hunter. Related:Science and Engineering Web Search – Boston Science Museum photos

The Role of Science in Economy

Role of Science in Economy by Suh Nam-pyo, president of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology:

Over the past 30 years, Korea, led by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), has established a strong base fostering innovation in science and technology, leading to impressive industrial and economic development.
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organizations that can deal with both science and technology such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), IBM research laboratories and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have had a major impact on the economy as well as on science and technology.
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National Laboratories should not compete with these industrial firms in these areas where industry is active. National Laboratories should rather work on more advanced technologies that industry will need in the future but not working at this time. As scientific fields advance and as technologies become sophisticated, new ideas are often synthesized at the interface between various disciplines of science and technology. This means that highly monolithic, single disciplinary research laboratories will not likely generate new exciting ideas.
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Korea must follow the example of the U.S. in developing its research universities. By doing so, it too can create a new industrial base through research and technological innovation.

Good article making many of points I have posted about often relating to science, technology and economic success.

Discussing Medical Study Results

Brazilian berry destroys cancer cells in lab, UF study shows:

“Acai berries are already considered one of the richest fruit sources of antioxidants,” Talcott said. “This study was an important step toward learning what people may gain from using beverages, dietary supplements or other products made with the berries.” He cautioned that the study, funded by UF sources, was not intended to show whether compounds found in acai berries could prevent leukemia in people.

“This was only a cell-culture model and we don’t want to give anyone false hope,” Talcott said. “We are encouraged by the findings, however. Compounds that show good activity against cancer cells in a model system are most likely to have beneficial effects in our bodies.”

Other fruits, including grapes, guavas and mangoes, contain antioxidants shown to kill cancer cells in similar studies, he said. Experts are uncertain how much effect antioxidants have on cancer cells in the human body, because factors such as nutrient absorption, metabolism and the influence of other biochemical processes may influence the antioxidants’ chemical activity.

The title the University of Florida gives the press release is misleading I think (even though true). But at least the text provides reasonable caution. We really need to make sure press releases (especially from Universities) don’t focus on hype. Universities need to be held their missions of education which includes helping the public understand science not confusing the public. Dr. Talcott’s page on the AÃ§ai berry. Universities are obviously more and more focusing on revenue instead of education – I am sure they will claim to support education… but they need to show that is true.

Science Webcasts

I have high hopes for SciVee – essentially a science focused YouTube. It has not grown as fast as I hoped it would when I first wrote about it last summer. Here is one cool short from the site:

This is a highly accurate visualization of the Bacteriophage T4 based on Cryo-EM datasets of the virus. The scope of the animation is to show the infection process of the T4 into an E. coli cell.

If you like that you will love: Inner Life of a Cell – Full Version

Some other recent SciVee videos: Where does water go when it rains? – MicrobeWorld visits The Maloy Lab at San Diego State University – Science Gateways on the TeraGrid – Six Science bloggers talk about why they blog

Young IT Workers Demands

Young IT workers disillusioned, hard to hold, survey says

more than 50% of respondents described those teen and 20-something employees as the “toughest generation to manage.”
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“Millennials are coming in with high expectations and are disillusioned about the reality of a work place. They feel they should be rewarded and start at the top, when we all know you have to work your way up.
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“There is a shrinking talent pool of qualified IT professionals and some managers are talking about the graying of their current staff.

The IT job market continues to be very strong. The number of IT jobs continues to grow and remains at an all time high.

Could It Be? Data Shows U.S. Info Tech Jobs Grew 8% In 2007

Estimated employment in IT passed 3.76 million in 2007, based on the average of the BLS’ household surveys throughout the year. In 2006, employment was 3.46 million, for a gain of 292,000 jobs

The Science of Happiness

Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness

People with happy brains have their parents to thank, to a certain extent, not only for happy genes, but also for loving childhoods. Studies have shown that angry or critical parents can actually alter a child’s happiness level until it’s set around age 16.
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Scientists have known for decades that a large part of our temperament is genetically pre-determined; by studying the personalities of identical twins they’ve found that about 50 percent of our happiness — or unhappiness — can be traced to our genes. Adding the 40 percent that we can control with our daily thoughts and actions still leaves about 10 percent unaccounted for. This remaining 10 percent is related to our life circumstances, such as where we live, how much money we have, our marital status, and how we look.

This is a very interesting article. Like many social science claims I find these claims more open to question than most other studies – but interesting none-the-less.