Category Archives: Science

When Fair Use Isn’t Fair

In her post, Antioxidants in Berries Increased by Ethanol (but Are Daiquiris Healthy?), Shelley Batts, commenting on a journal article which was written based on publicly funded research, used “ONE panel of ONE figure, and a chart, from over 10+ figures in the paper.” The for profit journal sent a threat of legal action. This is exactly the type of behavior that leads many (including me) to push for open access publication of publicly funded research.

When Fair Use Isn’t Fair:

Isn’t the point of publishing data to disseminate it, rather that lob threats at grad students who happen to be excited about it?

It should be but many of the for profit publishers seem to have mistaken their mission to promote science (which would then generate funds to sustain their organization) for a mission to make money with no concern for science.

One comment on that post includes a link to the Standford Fair Use Project which looks like a great resource. Also see: Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation

Fruit Better Than Vitamins

Fruit proves better than vitamin C alone. Tests show that it isn’t just the vitamin that protects the body.

Other nutrition researchers have suggested that sugars in juice interact with vitamin C to generate the antioxidant effect2. But Guarnieri suspects that the phytochemicals found in oranges (cyanidin-3-glucoside, flavanones and carotenoids) are the substances that need further study. “But how they are interacting is still anyone’s guess,” she adds.

10 Lessons of an MIT Education

Very good, definitely worth reading – 10 Lessons of an MIT Education by Gian-Carlo Rota:

In science and engineering, you can fool very little of the time. Most of the sweeping generalizations one hears about MIT undergraduates are too outrageous to be taken seriously. The claim that MIT students are naive, however, has struck me as being true, at least in a statistical sense.

Last year, for example, one of our mathematics majors, who had accepted a lucrative offer of employment from a Wall Street firm, telephoned to complain that the politics in his office was “like a soap opera.” More than a few MIT graduates are shocked by their first contact with the professional world after graduation. There is a wide gap between the realities of business, medicine, law, or applied enginering, for example, and the universe of scientific objectivity and theoretical constructs that is MIT.

An education in engineering and science is an education in intellectual honesty. Students cannot avoid learning to acknowledge whether or not they have really learned. Once they have taken their first quiz, all MIT undergraduates know dearly they will pay if they fool themselves into believing they know more than is the case.

On campus, they have been accustomed to people being blunt to a fault about their own limitations-or skills-and those of others. Unfortunately, this intellectual honesty is sometimes interpreted as naivete.

Quantum Theory Fails Reality Checks

Reality just got a one-two punch. A new experiment has tried to suss out which of two counterintuitive ingredients is more basic to quantum theory, only to find that they go hand in hand.

Einstein was famously bugged by what are now well-established facts of quantum theory: the randomness of a particle’s choices and the possibility of instantaneous linkages between far-flung light or matter. Experimenters now conclude that Einstein cannot even pick his poison, because allowing for instant links kills any simple notion of reality, too.

$600 Million for Basic Biomedical Research

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) will hold a national competition for investigators that will result in an investment of at least $600 million in basic biomedical research. Up to 50 new researchers will be selected by spring 2008. HHMI Announces New Open Competition:

HHMI seeks applications from outstanding scientists studying biomedical problems in a broad array of disciplines, including not only biology and medicine, but related areas of chemistry, physics, engineering and computational biology. This competition is open to early career stage scientists at approximately 200 eligible institutions.
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HHMI values innovation and encourages its investigators to extend the boundaries of science. By appointing scientists as Hughes investigators — rather than awarding research grants — HHMI is guided by the principle of “people, not projects.” HHMI investigators have the freedom to explore and, if necessary, to change direction in their research. Moreover, they have support to follow their ideas through to fruition — even if that process takes many years.
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This new competition represents the first time that HHMI has opened up a general competition to the direct application process. In the past, faculty members had to be nominated by their institutions for HHMI investigator positions.

More details and apply via: 2008 HHMI Investigator Competition.

2007 National Science Board Public Service Award

Chemist, Educator, Communicator Receives 2007 National Science Board Public Service Award

Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, a chemistry professor who pioneered new ways to encourage public understanding of science through his enthusiastic communications and visually exciting chemical demonstrations, will receive the 2007 National Science Board Public Service Award.
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In 1983, Shakhashiri founded the Institute for Chemical Education at the University of Wisconsin. It has since become a national center for research and development, teaching and dissemination of information on chemistry at all educational levels. In the same year, he opened the first-of-its-kind interactive chemistry exhibit at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, which has remained permanently on display there.

Science if Fun with University of Wisconsin-Madison Chemistry Professor Bassam Z. Shakhashiri.

PhysicsQuest

PhysicsQuest is a story-based activity that exposes middle school students to the fun and relevance of science. APS provides a free PhysicsQuest kit to registered 6-9th grade physical science classes, home school groups, science clubs, and after-school programs. The kit includes a user’s manual and materials for four physics experiments.

PhysicsQuest aims to teach middle school students physics concepts, but its overarching goal is to give them a positive experience with physics. APS is focusing this program on middle school students because these grades have been identified as the point when many students lose interest in math and science.

Dark Cosmos

I just finished reading Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe’s Missing Mass and Energy by Dan Hooper. I found it an enjoyable read. The author writes well for a general audience, that like me, doesn’t have much of an knowledge of the topic. I think he did a good job of providing enough connection to the science but at a level that most interested in science could understand.

Some people think it is a bit too folksy, without enough science. I can see how some might feel this way, I think the balance is good but for those that want to dig into the details around dark matter and dark energy this is probably not the right book. For those that want to get a good idea of the basic concepts though I think this is a good choice. I like discussion of the process of scientific discovery – the uncertainly the adaption of ideas to new experimental results etc.. The tone is similar to Chaos and The Elegant Universe.

Related: science books – Dan Hooper

ScienceMatters@Berkeley April 2007

As usually the latest issue of ScienceMatters@Berkeley includes several intersting articles including, The Protein Machine by Kathleen M. Wong

A large percentage of known antibiotics target bacterial ribosomes, including tetracycline, erythromycin, and streptomycin. Many of these antibiotics have been isolated from microbes themselves. “It’s a byproduct of the chemical warfare that’s been going on among bacteria for hundreds of millions of years,” Cate says. “We want to understand how these natural products inhibit translation. Then, based on what we understand about the ribosome mechanism, we should be able to come up with new ways to stop bacterial translation based on the old compounds.”

Self-Tuning Genes:

Researchers such as UC Berkeley’s Adam Arkin have found that regulatory feedback is associated with chance fluctuations in mRNA or protein levels—a phenomenon called expression noise. “Even though they’re all genetically identical, and grown under the same conditions, yeast clones don’t express certain proteins at exactly the same level,” Brem says. “Some genes are noisier than others. That makes people think the cell is actively tuning the distribution around an expression level set by the regulatory network.” Noise may ensure that a few individuals can handle abrupt changes in their environment. In other words, if a colony is suddenly assaulted by toxic chemicals or high heat, a few individuals will already have expression levels suited to those conditions.

Stanford Center for Professional Development Seminars

Free, Stanford Center for Professional Development seminar webcasts

During the autumn, winter and spring quarters, the Stanford Center for Professional Development makes it possible for the public to view a series of thought-provoking seminars on a broad range of topics. The weekly seminars feature presentations by distinguished Stanford faculty, senior researchers and industry experts. They are available for viewing online via streaming video.
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Bioengineering and Biodesign Forum
Statistics for Research
Human-Computer Interaction
Entrepreneurship in Asian High-Tech Industries
Design and Manufacturing Forum
Lessons in Decision Making
Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar
Broadening the Appeal of Engineering to Women

Via: Stanford Engineering Research Seminars