Category Archives: Science

Rainforests

John Hunter in Costa Rica

Facts about Rainforests by The Nature Conservancy

Covering less than 2 percent of the Earth’s total surface area, the world’s rainforests are home to 50 percent of the Earth’s plants and animals.
Seventy percent of the plants identified by the U.S. National Cancer Institute as useful in the treatment of cancer are found only in rainforests.
Less than one percent of the tropical rainforest species have been analyzed for their medicinal value.
Originally, 6 million square miles of tropical rainforest existed worldwide. But as a result of deforestation, only 2.6 million square miles remain.
At the current rate of tropical forest loss, 5-10 percent of tropical rainforest species will be lost per decade.
Every second, a slice of rainforest the size of a football field is mowed down. That’s 86,400 football fields of rainforest per day, or over 31 million football fields of rainforest each year.

Photo of John Hunter in Costa Rican rain forest, by Justin Hunter.

Boiling Water And Plastic Spikes Bisphenol A Levels

Adding boiling water to polycarbonate plastic bottles causes a dramatic spike in the amount of bisphenol A, or BPA, leaching from containers into drinks, according to a U.S. research team.

The finding suggests that parents sterilizing polycarbonate baby bottles by heating them in water or in a microwave may be inadvertently increasing the amount of the estrogen-mimicking chemical leaching from the containers. It also indicates hikers who use the bottles as a thermos to store hot tea or liquids may be doing the same.

The addition of boiling water increased BPA migration rates by up to 55-fold compared with water at room temperature, according to experiments run at the University of Cincinnati.

From Ghost Writing to Ghost Management in Medical Journals

Ghost Management: How Much of the Medical Literature Is Shaped Behind the Scenes by the Pharmaceutical Industry?

As discussed below, a substantial percentage of medical journal articles (in addition to meeting presentations and other forms of publication, which are not the focus here) are ghost managed, allowing the pharmaceutical industry considerable influence on medical research, and making that research a vehicle for marketing.

Ghost writing and honorary authorship are not in and of themselves scientific problems, though they become so when they shape science to meet particular interests [1]. Some honorary authors are senior professors and chairs of departments, who are added to articles because of local academic politics rather than at the request of drug companies [15,16].
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It has been repeatedly and firmly established that pharmaceutical company funding strongly biases published results in favor of the company’s products [17–19]. Ghost management amplifies that bias, because when one set of commercial interests exerts influence at multiple stages of research, writing, and publication, it will shape the resulting article.

This PLoS published essay includes 52 citations of studies in this area.

While they are clear to distinguish drug company influence on authors and other influence, I can see no justification for honorary authorships. Why can’t people just be honest. Is that really too high an expectation for scientists? Academic politics should not trump truth – especially for scientists. I can understand that traditionally claiming authors that were not actually authors has not been uncommon. But what reason is there to be dishonest in this way now? I don’t know of a good reason. Therefore it seems to me this practice should be seen as any other dishonest practice and those interested in finding the truth should stop making dishonest claims of authorship.
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Synthesizing a Genome from Scratch

In the new study, scientists ordered 101 DNA fragments, encompassing the entire Mycoplasma genome, from commercial DNA synthesis companies. These fragments were designed so that each overlapped its neighboring sequence by a small amount; these overlapping stretches stick together, thanks to the chemical properties of DNA. Researchers then bound the fragments piece by piece, eventually generating the full 582,970 base pair Mycoplasma sequence.

Science and Engineering Instructional Webcasts

doFlick offers user-generated educational, technical and instructional videos on science and engineering. Examples include: Simple Circuits – How to do a basic leak test in vacuum systems – Bacteria in the Human Mouth – Transverse Standing Waves – Pulsed Layer Deposition Overview

The site offers a short videos on science and engineering topics (plus some other topics as well). The site fills a niche that is different that any other site I have seen. The videos are largely tips on lab or engineering techniques or edited labs. These are videos that might appear on network TV but they are exactly the type of resource that makes the internet great. Lets build this resource: upload your own webcasts. There is a great advantage to short targeted online videos (compared to full course lectures – which are also great) because the short targeted videos allow for targeted linking specifically to the video content you want to link to.

This is definitely worth adding to your bookmarks. Or you can just bookmark our directory of science and engineering videos.

Plants, Unikonts, Excavates and SARs

image of 4 biology supergroups

The Tree of Life Has Lost a Branch

“The results were pretty astounding. All non-bacterial life on Earth – called eukaryotic life – can now be divided into four main groups instead of the five groups that we have been working with up to now,” says Kamran Shalchian-Tabrizi, an associate professor from the University of Oslo’s Department of Biology
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All life on Earth can be divided into two essentially different life forms—eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The eukaryotes gather their genetic material in a nucleus, while the prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) have their genetic material floating freely in the cell. Eukaryotic organisms—such as humans—can, as a result of the new findings, be divided into the following four categories:

Plants (green and red algae, and plants)
Opisthokonts (amoebas, fungi, and all animals—including humans)
Excavates (free-living organisms and parasites)
SAR (the new main group, an abbreviation of Stramenophiles, Alveolates, and Rhizaria, the names of some of its members)

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Three billion years ago, there was only bacteria and Archaea. Eukaryotic life, which comprises all multi-celled organisms, developed in the sea—probably between 1.2 and 1.6 billion years ago. It was not before about 500 million years ago that the first creatures crept onto land.

Invest in Science for a Strong Economy

From a consistent voice in favor of scientific investment comes a call to invest in basic scientific research. Craig Barrett, Chairman of the Board at Intel, pens opinion piece – Flagging Economy Needs Science Investments

Legislation in the form of the America Competes Act was passed in the House and Senate in 2007, and it appeared the United States was finally going to move forward after years of neglect to increase investment in math, science and basic research. All parties agreed that our competitiveness in the 21st century was at stake and we needed to act.

So much for political will.

The recent budget deal between Republicans and Democrats effectively flat-funds or cuts funding for key science agencies. Excluding “earmarks,” the Department of Energy funding for fiscal year 2008 is up only 2.6 percent, thus losing ground to inflation. The National Science Foundation is up 2.5 percent, with the same result. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is up 11 percent, however the labs where research happens only get 2.3 percent, again losing ground to inflation.
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What are they thinking? When will they wake up? It may already be too late; but I genuinely think the citizenry of this country wants the United States to compete. If only our elected leaders weren’t holding us back.

It is a shame that the leaders are doing such a bad job. I wrote about their failures recently in the Curious Cat Investing and Economic Blog, Politicians Again Raising Taxes On Your Children. But we keep electing people that think the way to improve the economy is to borrow some more money (and science and engineering investments seem very far down on their lists of what to spend money on) for someone to pay back in the future. So while our leaders are disappointing, society at large is getting what they ask for.
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Country H-index Rank for Science Publications

The SCImago Journal and Country Rank provides journal and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus database. As stated in previous posts these types of rankings have limitations but they are also interesting (such as the best research universities 2007). The table shows the top 6 countries by h-index and then some others I chose to list.

Country	h-index	% of World Population	% of World GDP	total Cites	% Top 500 Schools
USA	793	4.6%	27.4%	43,436,526	33%
United Kingdom	465	0.9	4.9	9,895,817	8
Germany	408	1.3	6.0	8,377,298	8
France	376	0.9	4.6	5,795,531	4
Japan	372	2.0	9.0	7,167,200	6
Canada	370	0.5	2.6	4,728,874	4
Additional countries of interest
20) China	161	20.1	5.5	1,629,993	3
20) South Korea	161	.7	1.8	1,018,532	2
24) Brazil	148	2.9	2.2	752,658	1
25) India	146	17.0	1.9	994.561	.4

Read more about the h-index (Hirsh index). Country population and GDP data taken World Development Indicators 2007, by the World Bank.

via: Stat freaks, are you ready to play with the SCImago Journal & Country Rank?

Bicycle Engineering Blog

Cozy Beehive, where technology and engineering are given their atypical and due status in the sport of cycling by Ron in Buffalo, New York (mechanical engineer and aspiring cyclist). An example of what you will find:

Companies blend fibers with synthetic fibers for better properties and added with composite material (made in mats by processes like needle punching, thermoforming or compression moulding). Saab, led by GM did this to its door panels in the early part of this century. Others sandwich the fibers between composites like carbon fiber or polyurethane foam by the same processes. So interestingly, these fibers have extensive industrial applications. (I didn’t know that, until now! Learning is fun, boy!)

Following the ideas from the automotive sector, the bicycle industry has been quick to adopt this idea. By using the twill composite hybrid sandwich technique, Museeuw frames can be made with a combination of fiber and carbon composite that supposedly gives it a plush ride, without losing any stiffness.

20 Things You Didn’t Know About Snow

20 Things You Didn’t Know About Snow by Susan Kruglinski

1 Snow is a mineral, just like diamonds and salt
5 At the center of almost every snow crystal is a tiny mote of dust, which can be anything from volcanic ash to a particle from outer space.
7 Freshly fallen snow is typically 90 to 95 percent air, which is what makes it such a good thermal insulator.