Category Archives: Students

Items for students and others, interested in learning about science and engineering and the application of science in our lives. We post many of the general interest items here.

Bollworm Evolves Resistance to Genetically Engineered Cotton

Bollworm Evolves Resistance to Bt Cotton

The genetically modified cotton that was designed to make the Bt (that’s short for Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium) toxins that kill boll weevils has been thwarted by the bugs, according to new research to be published in Nature Biotechnology. The bollworm is the first pest to evolve resistance in the field to so-called Bt crops, according to University of Arizona entomologists.

Bt-resistant populations of bollworm (Helicoverpa zea) were found in more than a dozen crop fields in Mississippi and Arkansas between 2003 and 2006. The first resistant worms showed up just seven years after the genetically modified crops were introduced, in 1996, according to the analysis of monitoring studies.

“What we’re seeing is evolution in action,” said lead researcher Bruce Tabashnik.

Clean Clothes Without Soap

photo of eco washing balls

The Soap-free Green Laundry Revolution by Tania Rabesandratana:

Then, there’s the sheer weirdness of entirely eradicating washing powders in favor of such an intangible washing concept. “The balls are made of a special kind of plastic,” explains Steve Jones, the founder of Ecotopia, which sells a variety of washing balls he believes are top of their league, and a scientific breakthrough. “It is the chemical reaction between the plastic and the agitated water that actually does the washing,” he says. The product’s blurb says the balls “produce ionized oxygen that activates the water molecules naturally and allows them to penetrate deep into clothing fibers to lift dirt away.”

Right. Let’s go back to washing basics. Our machine works by combining three actions. First comes chemical action. Here, detergents act as surfactants: they lower the water’s surface tension, making it more likely to mix with oil, so that yucky grease and grime can be removed during rinsing. Second comes the mechanical action from the spinning of the washing machine drum. And finally, there is heat action, which consists of dunking your laundry in hot water.

The eco balls mostly increase the mechanical action so that you can do without the chemical action, thereby saving money and avoiding the use of evil pollutants. The increase of mechanical action also does away with the need for heat action, which in turn conserves electricity and water, which is good for your wallet and your planet.

Pretty cool, if they actually work. I think I might have to try these out. For the next stage of the process, DryerMax Dryer Balls claim to cut the drying time by 25% and soften the fabric. Some other cool gadgets and gizmos.

Giant Duck-Billed Dinosaur Discovered in Mexico

“‘We only know about 29 percent of all dinosaurs out there to be found,’ said study co-author Peter Dodson, a paleobiologist and anatomy professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.” I found this quote to be surprising when I first wrote about it in 2006: Most Dinosaurs Remain Undiscovered. Yet we keep getting new discoveries announced (New Triceratops Ancestor – Nigersaurus the Mesozoic Cow!) showing, while I was surprised, the scientists knew what they were talking about.

Giant Duck-Billed Dino Discovered in Mexico

The discovery of the 72-million-year-old fossil adds to the rich gallery of dinosaurs that scientists now know lived in western North America during the latter part of the dinosaur era. The new species was dubbed Velafrons coahuilensis in honor of the state of Coahuila in north-central Mexico where the fossil was found.

Reaching lengths up to 35 feet (10.5 meters) long, the newfound dino was a plant-eater belonging to a group of duck-billed dinosaurs, or hadrosaurs, that roamed the region together with carnivores like tyrannosaurs and velociraptors.

Electrical Brain Stimulation Boosts Memory

Deep stimulation ‘boosts memory’

The technique involves implanting electrodes into the brain: in this case into an area in the limbic system called the hypothalamus, which is thought to control the appetite. When the electrodes were stimulated by electrical impulses the patient began to experience feelings of deja vu.

He then had a sudden perception of being in a park with friends. He felt younger, thought he was around 20-years-old, and his girlfriend of the time was there. He was an observer, and saw the scene in colour. As the intensity of the stimulation increased, details in the scene became more vivid.
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The results suggest it might be possible to use deep brain stimulation directly to boost memory. “We hopefully have found a circuit in the brain which can be modulated by stimulation, and which might provide benefit to patients with memory disorders,” said Professor Lozano. He is now leading a pilot study into whether deep brain stimulation can help people with early Alzheimer’s disease. They are initially testing six patients.

Darwin Day

Find a Darwin Day Celebration near you. Events from hundreds of sites including:

Darwin Day in Italy
University of Oslo, Norway
University of Valencia, Spain
Shrewsbury Darwin Festival, UK (Darwin’s home town)
2008 Darwin Festival, Salem State College, Massachusetts, USA
Darwin Day Lecture, Central Washington University, USA
Darwin Day, Case Western Reserve University, USA

The Mystery of the Voynich Manuscript

image from the Voynich manuscript

A fun read – The Mystery of the Voynich Manuscript:

Voynich asked the leading cryptographers of his day to decode the odd script, which did not match that of any known language. But despite 90 years of effort by some of the world’s best code breakers, no one has been able to decipher Voynichese, as the script has become known. The nature and origin of the manuscript remain a mystery. The failure of the code-breaking attempts has raised the suspicion that there may not be any cipher to crack. Voynichese may contain no message at all, and the manuscript may simply be an elaborate hoax.
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This study yielded valuable insights into the process of reexamining difficult problems to determine whether any possible solutions have been overlooked. A good example of such a problem is the question of what causes Alzheimer’s disease. We plan to examine whether our approach could be used to reevaluate previous research into this brain disorder. Our questions will include: Have the investigators neglected any field of relevant expertise? Have the key assumptions been tested sufficiently?

Dr Gordon Rugg at the Department of Computer Science Keele University – Replicating the Voynich Manuscript

Related: Scientific Method Man – The medieval Voynich Manuscript – in the language of the angels…. or a hoax? – Ancient Greek Technology 1,000 Years Early – Prayer Book Reveals Lost Archimedes Work Studying Ideas at Heart of Calculus – Seeing Patterns Where None Exists

The Science of Kissing

The Differences in Gender — Sealed With a Kiss

In people, kissing to express affection is almost universal. About 90 percent of human cultures do it. One traditional view is that kissing, known scientifically as osculation, evolved from women chewing food for their children and giving it to them mouth-to-mouth, Fisher said.

But, she said, “I’ve never believed that,” adding that similar behavior is found in many species. Birds tap beaks. Elephants shove their trunks in each other’s mouths. Primates called bonobos practice their own version of French kissing. Fisher believes kissing is all about choosing the right mate.

“There’s so much information exchanged when you kiss someone that I just thought it must play a vital role in mate choice, and this paper is elegantly showing that,” Fisher said. A disproportionate amount of the brain, she noted, is geared toward interpreting signals from the mouth.

The research paper – Sex Differences in Romantic Kissing Among College Students: An Evolutionary Perspective

Scientists on Changing Their Minds

When the world’s great scientific thinkers change their minds

The obligation of a scientist to do science by Leon Lederman, Nobel Laureate in Physics (author of The God Particle)

I have always believed that the scientist’s most sacred obligation is to continue to do science. Now I know that I was dead wrong. I am driven to the ultimately wise advice of my Columbia mentor, I.I. Rabi, who, in our many corridor bull sessions, urged his students to run for public office and get elected. He insisted that to be an advisor (he was an advisor to Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, later to Eisenhower and to the AEC) was ultimately an exercise in futility and that the power belonged to those who are elected. Then, we thought the old man was bonkers. But today… A Congress which is overwhelmingly dominated by lawyers and MBAs makes no sense in this 21st century in which almost all issues have a science and technology aspect.

It is important for some scientists to take on other important rolls in society – political leaders, popular authors, business leaders, government officials (regulators etc.), political commentators…

Water Pump Merry-go-Round

I wrote about PlayPumps in 2006: Safe Water Through Play. This video by National Geographic gives more detail on PlayPumps and water needs in general. Some facts from KnowH₂O

A child dies every 15 seconds from diseases related to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water.

40 billion hours each year are spent collecting water in sub-Saharan Africa, equal to over 19 million full-time employees.

Every $1 invested in water yields an economic return worth $8 in saved time, increased productivity and reduced healthcare costs. (UNDP)

In many areas of sub-Saharan Africa women and girls often walk an average of five miles to the nearest water source every day. If a woman only had to carry water for one hour a day, she could earn an additional US $100 a year.

Million-Degree Plasma May Flow throughout the Galaxy

Researcher Manuel GÃ¼del at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland and colleagues from Switzerland, France and the US have recently observed the plasma flow phenomenon for the first time in the Orion Nebula. Based on images taken with an x-ray satellite called the XMM-Newton, the researchers observed the existence of a million-degree plasma flowing from the nebula into the adjacent interstellar medium, and then into the neighboring superbubble Eridanus.

“Although there has been a theoretical model that predicted hot gas bubbles blown by just one massive star, such has not been detected until we found confirmation in the Orion Nebula,” GÃ¼del told PhysOrg.com. “We didn’t look for it – we actually found this diffuse emission by chance while looking at the many stellar x-ray point sources in the field.
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“Hot gas has been seen in some extremely massive star-formation regions, and some of this gas might have been produced by supernova explosions,” said GÃ¼del. “However, the Orion Nebula is the first region of its (more modest) kind that shows this phenomenon, and there is no supernova that can account for it. Such more modest regions of star formation are naturally more frequent in the galaxy than the more extreme cases. Therefore, we believe that plasma outflows from star-forming regions are widespread.”