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Kevin is getting his PhD in Immunology studying the signaling networks down stream of Toll-like Receptors (TLRs). He thinks the immune system is mostly useless in the face of pathogenic microbes, which causes no small amount of existential angst.
One day, he would like to be a white-bearded professor perched high in the ivory tower of academia, but this dream is untenable since he's genetically incapable of growing facial hair.
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Science in the News
We beasties are members of a graduate student orgnaization called Science in the News. SITN's mission is to communicate science to a wider audience. To that end, we host a lecture series every fall, as well as science cafe's, science fairs and high-school out reach.
A little over 300 years ago, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a dry goods seller from Delft in Holland, learned to grind glass into lenses and fashion the best microscopes the world had ever seen. In those days, the idea of being a "scientist" as a profession was ludicrous. Natural philosophy was pastime for nobility or at least those with considerable disposable income. Leeuwenhoek was a successful business man, and in his spare time, he pointed his lenses at pond water (among other things). As Paul de Kruif recounted in his brilliant book Microbe Hunters:
[Leeuwenhoek] peeped into a fantastic sub-visible world of little things, creatures that had lived, had bred, had battled, had died, completely hidden from and unknown to men from the beginning of time. Beasts these were of a kind that ravaged and annihilated whole races of men ten million times larger than they were themselves. Beings these were, more terrible than fire-spitting dragons or hydra-headed monsters. They were silent assassins that murdered babies in warm cradles and kings in sheltered places. It was this invisible, insignificant, but implacable world that Leeuwenhoek had looked into for the first time of all men in all countries.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the discovery of "little animals," the wee beasties from which this blog derives its name, has radically changed the course of humanity. But how did humanity learn of this monumental news? Leeuwenhoek wrote a letter.
Since then, the world of science communication has changed radically. These days, there's an entire industry of academic publishers that have become so fully integrated into the research system that many scientists don't realize that there's any distinction between doing science and publishing in journals. However, these journals cost an enormous amount of money (mostly public tax dollars), yet add little value to scientific research, while simultaneously slowing the pace of discovery and limiting the dissemination of knowledge. Recently, some of these journals have backed a new law that would further inhibit public dissemination of science in an effort to prop up their already massive profit margins.
Back in December, Rees Kassen wrote an editorial for Nature arguing that if scientists want political decisions to reflect good science, they have to get involved.
scientists[...] think too highly of their own view of the world and fail to appreciate the complex, multifarious nature of decision making. Our mistake is to think that science will be given a privileged voice on an issue. This is almost always wrong. From a politician's point of view, science is an interest group like any other.
As if to confirm this point, a response was published in the most recent issue of Nature by Brett Favaro, in which he asserts "Nuh uh!"
Scientists must be impartial arbiters of data, not political agents. They need to be able to negotiate with governments, irrespective of their political hue, and to advise politicians in a useful and timely way.
Scientists have been trying to play "impartial arbiters" for decades, and what has it gotten us? Half of the political spectrum in the US disputes the reality of evolution and climate change. We have a political system in the US that is happily fact free about the simple things, does anyone really still believe that impartial facts will convince someone on issues as complicated at global climate or public health? The public and even policy makers listen to people that are passionate, and the sad fact is, scientists are often afraid to rise above the data and actually advocate.
Favaro asserts that academic researchers can't compete dollar-for-dollar with professional lobbyists, so we shouldn't even try. I call bull-shit. If scientists are passionate and vocal about our issues we can make ourselves heard.
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PS - To any graduates students reading this: if you're interested in making yourself heard politically, check out the ASBMB's Hill Day. It's a free trip to DC where you learn about policy making and meet with your congress people to try to influence their votes. I did it last year and had a blast. Go apply!
I grew up on the coast of California, and I loved to surf. At my favorite break, Pleasure Point, the best waves were often at low tide, but low tide also meant seaweed. Lots of seaweed.
The giant kelp of Monteray Bay is an astonishing organism. It's not actually a plant, it's a brown algae, and it can grow 12 inches per day. This rapid growth makes it an ideal resource, and a bane of surfers that get their fins caught in thick mats.
You can't tell, but it was definitely kelp that made me fall, not the fact that I was too far forward and unable to turn. No, really...
Brown algae like kelp can be harvested as a source of algin, and other types of seaweed are also used as sources for products like agar that we use in labs to make bacterial culture plates.
But there's also been a lot of interest in using different sorts of algae as feedstocks for the production of biofuels. Their rapid growth makes them eminently renewable, they require almost no effort to cultivate, no fertilizer, no fresh water, they would not use up arable land that can be used for food crops. The main draw back is that one of the most abundant sugars present in algae, called alginate, is not digestible by the microorganims currently used for biofuel production at an industrial scale. Until now.
"Reading" books on my iPod is usually great. I can download them from audible, and while I'm tending to the daily monotony that comprises much of labwork (tissue culture, prepping protein samples, running back and forth between centrifuges), I can just pop in my earbuds and keep my brain engaged with something interesting. But never have I so regretted listening to rather than reading a book as I did with Public Parts by Jeff Jarvis.
Not because he's a bad narrator - in fact he does better than many authors reading their own work (though he has the first audio typo I think I've ever heard... I don't think any of our interactions being "meditated by" corporations). Rather, I regretted listening because there's no way to dogear pages or highlight great lines. I tried briefly to write down the timestamp of some good bits, but based on the way I listen, I quickly realized that was untenable.
Normally, when I'm reading a book I plan to review for the blog, I like to read the book in print and take notes, but I didn't expect this book to be super relevant for people that want to read about science. I was wrong and I'll tell you why a bit later. But first, the book:
The latest issue of the Science in the News "Flash" is out now about the connections between atopic disorders - namely allergies, asthma and eczema.
Itchy, watery eyes, and a drippy nose. Constricted, swollen airways secreting thick mucus. Itchy, red, dry, cracked skin. These symptoms describe three conditions -- allergies, asthma, and eczema, respectively -- that are commonly found together in the same people. Yet, what causes these symptoms and why they are so closely associated with each other is still poorly understood.
The Flash is written and edited by graduate students, an all-volunteer effort to explain complex science to the general public. Last month, I wrote about the link between obesity, inflammation and type 2 diabetes. This month, graduate student Elizabeth Brown from the Human Evolutionary Biology department writes about another problem involving an overzealous immune system.
Despite progress in fighting infectious diseases in developed countries with increased sanitation, antibiotics, and antiviral medications, allergies have become increasingly common in these regions. A few hypotheses have been put forth to explain this trend.
The thing I like most about this mashup is that it's superficially just a mashup of the most popular music of 2011, but it also manages to be a statement on some of the most important events of 2011: the protests from Egypt and Libya to OWS
Maybe it's hard
We will never be never be broken and scarred
There's no way I'm turning back oh oh oh oh
Here's the situation
Got this feeling that you can't fight
Been to every nation
The city is on fire tonight
Maybe it's hard
We will never be never be broken and scarred
There's no way I'm turning back oh oh oh oh
Here's the situation
Got this feeling that you can't fight
Been to every nation
The city is on fire tonight
You wanted control
But you're a liar
And now everything is on fire
Don't underestimate things like this[...]
Take it all
Take the house
Take my car
Take the change in my pocket
I'm a superstar
We ain't stoppin'[...]
The show goes on
every night and day
The dream goes on
standing side by side
all again
At the risk of seeming like a one-trick pony, and piggybacking on my recent appearance on the Savage Lovecast, I thought I would close the loop on immune reactions to semen. I've already written about allergens being transmitted in semen, and about women having allergies to seminal plasma itself. In the latter case, I say women having allergies not only because the only examples I found were in women, but also because by definition men cannot have allergic reactions to semen. In response to a comment on that post I wrote:
If a man did get an immune response, it would probably be called "autoimmunity" rather than allergy. And the symptoms would likely be quite different - the cells that produced the protein in the prostate (alliteration not intended) would likely be destroyed without much outward symptoms, but the man might be infertile.
I wasn't far off the mark. Allergies aren't the only type of immunity gone wrong (they're just among the most annoying).
Antisperm antibodies (ASA) may be found in both males and females and are reported in up to 9-12.8% of infertile couples. However, these antibodies are present also in approximately 1-2.5% of fertile men and in 1.4% of fertile women[...]
________________________
Kevin is getting his PhD in Immunology studying the signaling networks down stream of Toll-like Receptors (TLRs). He thinks the immune system is mostly useless in the face of pathogenic microbes, which causes no small amount of existential angst.
A little over 300 years ago, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a dry goods seller from Delft in Holland, learned to grind glass into lenses and fashion the best microscopes the world had ever seen. In those days, the idea of being a "scientist" as a profession was ludicrous. Natural philosophy was pastime for nobility or at least those with considerable disposable income. Leeuwenhoek was a successful business man, and in his spare time, he pointed his lenses at pond water (among other things). As Paul de Kruif recounted in his brilliant book Microbe Hunters:
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the discovery of "little animals," the wee beasties from which this blog derives its name, has radically changed the course of humanity. But how did humanity learn of this monumental news? Leeuwenhoek wrote a letter.
![[Source]](http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/photos/kelp-gardens/#/kelp-catalina-island_255_600x450.jpg){kind=link}
