Category Archives: Education

Scientists Denounce Global Warming Report ‘Edits’

Scientists Denounce Global Warming Report ‘Edits’:

The original, unedited testimony presented to Congress by Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and obtained by ABC News was 14 pages long, but the White House Office of Management and Budget edited the final version down to a mere six pages.

Scientists and public health organizations called the move “frustrating,” “terrible” and “appalling.” The edits essentially deleted all sections that referred to climate change as a public health concern — including the risks of increased food-borne and waterborne diseases, worsening extreme weather events, worsening air pollution and the effect of heat stress on humans.

“Dr. Gerberding is the lead of the premiere public health agency in the U.S.,” said Kim Knowlton, a science fellow on global warming and health at the National Resources Defense Council in New York. “It’s shocking that she was not allowed to say in a public discussion some of these vital details.

Political reasons for modifying testimony are not amazing. But when political edits to science testimony are too large you can really open up some questions about what is driving testimony. And those questions should be asked. Lets not allow science to be hidden and not allow the public to hear what the scientists working for us have to say – let the debate be open and public.

Innovation Academy for High School Students

Innovation Academy students get their feet wet

“They teach us about ocean life and animals — I like that kind of stuff,” she said. “It’s something different.”

Moody High School Innovation Academy students will make three more trips to the field station this semester and another five in the spring. Then they’ll gather up statistics and try to determine environmental trends for the station.

The trips are possible through an agreement made late this summer between the 2-year-old institute and Corpus Christi Independent School District. The Innovation Academy — one of seven academies at Moody — is in its first year and enrolls 75 Moody ninth-grade students and 105 Cunningham Middle School sixth-graders.

“Our kids are becoming very involved in the makeup of Laguna Madre plants and animals, as well as how to document their existence,” said Tina Dellinger, Texas Science Technology Engineering and Math district coordinator. The Innovation Academy is in its second year of a two-year, $750,000 Texas Science Technology Engineering and Math Initiative grant that last year funded academy planning and training and this year is funding its first activities.

Computational Science and Engineering by Gilbert Strang

New book, Computational Science and Engineering by Gilbert Strang, is available. The website includes some sections of the book. Video Lectures of Gilbert Strang on Linear Algebra, Spring 2005.

Why Planes Fly: What They Taught You In School Was Wrong

So we all know how planes fly, right? The top of the wing is rounded and the bottom of the wing is more straight. Air takes longer to travel over the top of the wing than the bottom, which results in more pressure on the bottom, hence the lift. Right? As it turns out, no.

This is what I was taught, and it’s what I’ve always believed (it’s even in most lower-level text books), but it’s simply not true. The concept is called the Bernoulli Principle, and it accounts for very little of the lift that makes flight possible. The main reason planes fly is far simpler: wings force air downward, which in turn pushes the wings upward.

The primary actor here is the the Coanda Effect, with the Bernoulli Principle taking a supporting role. It all starts with the air wrapping downward along the back of the wing (Coanda).

Nanoengineers Use Tiny Diamonds for Drug Delivery

Nanoengineers Mine Tiny Diamonds for Drug Delivery

Northwestern University researchers have shown that nanodiamonds — much like the carbon structure as that of a sparkling 14 karat diamond but on a much smaller scale — are very effective at delivering chemotherapy drugs to cells without the negative effects associated with current drug delivery agents.
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To make the material effective, Ho and his colleagues manipulated single nanodiamonds, each only two nanometers in diameter, to form aggregated clusters of nanodiamonds, ranging from 50 to 100 nanometers in diameter. The drug, loaded onto the surface of the individual diamonds, is not active when the nanodiamonds are aggregated; it only becomes active when the cluster reaches its target, breaks apart and slowly releases the drug. (With a diameter of two to eight nanometers, hundreds of thousands of diamonds could fit onto the head of a pin.)

“The nanodiamond cluster provides a powerful release in a localized place — an effective but less toxic delivery method,” said co-author Eric Pierstorff, a molecular biologist and post-doctoral fellow in Ho’s research group. Because of the large amount of available surface area, the clusters can carry a large amount of drug, nearly five times the amount of drug carried by conventional materials.

Deer Rescued 1.5 miles Offshore

Bambi Caught 1.5 miles OFFSHORE

They saw what appeared to be a seal with its snout out of the water, but they didn’t think any seals were around their fishing grounds and they kept watching. Soon they realized it was a deer trying desperately to keep afloat – and obviously losing the battle. Fearing the whitetail would get snagged in their lines they cranked in their rigs. Then the deer headed straight for the boat possibly thinking it was a spit of land.

But as it got closer and saw the two fishermen aboard, it had second thoughts. With its nose barely out of the water, it appeared to have been swimming all night, said Campbell. “Since the fish weren’t biting, we thought we’d give it a hand. Bo grew up around cows, was really handy with a bow line and lasooed the deer on the first attempt.”
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to the closest beach, Kent Point, where I beached the boat and we carefully unloaded our catch on the sand. We untied him and jumped back.

“Too weak to stand, he just sat there quivering. We picked him up again and put his feet underneath him, but he still couldn’t walk or stand. We left him sitting there looking at us. Before we left, I looked him in the eye and said ‘See you on opening day; payback time.’

See link for photos. Related:The Cat and a Black Bear – Polar Bear Playing with Wolves – Water Buffaloes, Lions and Crocodiles Oh My – The Engineer That Made Your Cat a Photographer

The Chemistry of Hair Coloring

Scientists Develop the First Significant Advance in Hair Dye in 50 Years by Kristen Philipkoski

Hair color is serious chemistry. Getting color into that hair shaft is no joke. That’s why Procter & Gamble employs 1,800 “beauty scientists” around the globe. I spoke to two of these beauty scientists this week who told me they have invented a kinder hair color, and that it marks the first significant advance in dye jobs in 50 years.
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Small, diffuse color molecules enter the hair, and while they’re inside, they oxidize and form a chemical reaction with a larger color molecule that’s already trapped in there. But the small molecules aren’t all that selective about who they get it on with, and they end up breaking some of the chemical bonds that hold hair together. That releases free radicals that make hair weaker and less able to resist things like aggressive brushing, blow-drying and ironing.
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So the beauty scientists came up with a whole new chemistry for getting the lightening molecules inside the hair. First, the new process works at a much lower pH. That makes it less alkaline, so it strips away much less of the lipid coating.

2007 William G. Hunter Award

T.N. Goh received ASQ Statistics Division’s 2007 William G. Hunter Award. He sent me this email:

You may not realize that I first met Bill 38 year ago, when he was in Singapore helping us set up the first school of engineering in the country. He persuaded me to go to the graduate school at UW-Madison and I daresay that’s the best advice I ever got in my whole career. Now when I come to think of it, what Bill stood for in his lifetime has not been, and never will be, out of date. He had advocated the use of statistical thinking and the systems approach, which if anything is even more critical today in handling issues such as global warming and government effectiveness.

Also, statistical design of experiments has assumed an increasingly important role in performance improvement and optimization in the face of constrained resources, again something always in the minds of engineers, managers and business leaders. From time to time there are others who package statistical tools under labels Bill might not even have seen himself, such as “Design for Six Sigma“, but the underlying idea is still the same: recognize the existence of variation, and the earlier you anticipate it and do something about it, the better off you will be in the end.

Bill’s zeal in spreading the message and sharing his knowledge and expertise with people in other parts of the world is well known; I would even say that he had recognized that “the world is flat” way before the likes of Tom Friedman discovered the reality of globalization!

So that’s to share my thoughts with you, having being honored by the Bill Hunter award. I am copying this to Stu, also to Doug who chairs the committee for this award. I reality enjoy the professional association and friendship with you all.

I had not realized Dad was helping set up the first school of engineering in Singapore. This is an example people telling me the positive impact Dad had on their lives that I mentioned in: The Importance of Management Improvement.

Untidy Beds May Keep us Healthy

Untidy beds may keep us healthy – I knew I was right not to make my bed, I just didn’t know why 🙂

Research suggests that while an unmade bed may look scruffy it is also unappealing to house dust mites thought to cause asthma and other allergies. A Kingston University study discovered the bugs cannot survive in the warm, dry conditions found in an unmade bed. The average bed could be home to up to 1.5 million house dust mites.

The bugs, which are less than a millimetre long, feed on scales of human skin and produce allergens which are easily inhaled during sleep.

Good news. Some other scientist is not being helpful however 🙁

“However, most homes in the UK are sufficiently humid for the mites to do well and I find it hard to believe that simply not making your bed would have any impact on the overall humidity.”

New Approach Builds Better Proteins Inside a Computer

With the aid of more than 150,000 home computer users throughout the world, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have, for the first time, accurately predicted the three-dimensional structure of a small, naturally occurring globular protein using only its amino acid sequence. The accomplishment was achieved with a newly refined computational method for predicting protein structure, which the researchers say can also improve the detail and accuracy of protein structures generated with experimental techniques.

A detailed understanding of a protein’s structure can offer scientists a wealth of information – revealing intricacies about the protein’s biological function and suggesting new ideas for drug design. Researchers often rely on x-ray crystallography to determine a protein’s structure – bombarding the molecule with x-rays and analyzing the resulting diffraction pattern to piece together its structure. But not all proteins are amenable to this time-consuming technique, and those that are do not always yield the atomic-level data researchers would like to have.
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The complex algorithms the researchers developed to carry out these analyses demand a tremendous amount of computing power. More than 150,000 home computer users around the world were an integral part of the project, volunteering their computers to participate in the quest for protein structures through Rosetta@home, a distributed computing project that is based on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) platform.

You can join in via Rosetta@home. Related: Protein Knots – molecular sieve advances protein research – Protein Science Art – Nobel Laureate Discusses Protein Power