Degradational is when the science or the scientists are depicted as evil or as the cause of problems – you know the type: Jurassic Park and such. Inspirational (which might need some subcategories) – is when there is science in a piece of art, but the science is just there as set decoration, or because a main character is a scientist, or because some minor plot points hinge on some sciencey-sounding mumbo-jumbo-speak that (supposedly) makes the audience feel that serious science has saved the day (or at least moved the plot forward incrementally). Inspirational SciArt is the bulk of what is out there – pushing 98% in my opinion (mostly because of a significant decrease in degradational SciArt, which used to occupy a sizable portion of what was out there.

In the minority, however, is informational SciArt. I am not talking about documentaries here – or Nova specials – they are clearly informational and have a lot of artistry to them, but in my opinion are in a different genre than SciArt. So what is informational SciArt: it is a play or a movie that stands on its own in terms of plot or character but at the same time has a LOT of real and accurate science in it (or culture of science – how scientists act and such). Can you think of many of these? Not many out there, eh. And many of the ones that are out there are medically oriented (because people can relate better to something medical – as opposed to say, something about neutrinos or identifying a new species of frog.  Movies like Contagion or Contact or Gorillas in the Mist or Awakenings, or October Sky, or And the Band Played On, or the classic 2001 – these are at least moving in the direction of informational SciArt – and they are definitely more than inspirational.  What sets these movies apart from “inspirational” ones?  The fact that you can walk away from these movies and actually have learned some real science (or science culture) – even among these, however, the amount of science information is wildly variant (and mostly on the lower side).  Think of “A Beautiful Mind” – is it informational because there is a 30 recap of one of John Nash’s therories?  Or is it really more suitable for the “inspirational” category?

Why bring this up?  I feel that the informational SciArt category has long been in the minority and largely because the commercial side of the SciArt couple is afraid that audiences don’t want to see things with lots of real information in them – movies or plays.  Yet in day to day conversations, with scientists and non-scientists alike – I continually hear people say that they really enjoy learning new science through movies or television shows or even plays (although the fraction of informational SciArt plays is even lower than that for movies and television).  So why not trust that people want to pack some of their entertainment with science and let’s start seeing more informational SciArt – or at least information heavy SciArt.  When you see something labelled as SciArt – something funded by the Sloan Foundation or something in the Imagine Science Film Festival – both fantastic programs, but both of which support 98% inspirational SciArt – when you see SciArt – talk it up – did you learn any science from it?  If not – ask: would it have been improved or more interesting if there had been more hard science in it?  There is certainly a place for inspirational SciArt – art that intrigues and excites us about science – but there also needs to be more of a place for informational SciArt out there – at least more than 2%, which, in my opinion, is even an optimistic estimate of what is out there right now.

Daumantas has a relatively large lab group slotted into his multiple little rooms where they study a variety of biophysical questions centered on drug binding and protein stability. Daumantas uses changes in protein stability to assess drug binding, and is designing new chemical entities to bind to a variety of well known drug targets – but the lab is not just a drug screening operation, in fact the bulk of the lab publications are concerned with fundamental biophysics and biological thermodynamics.

Saulius Grazulis is also at the Institute for Biotechnology and is a resident crystallographer in the laboratory of Virginijus Siksnys. Saulius is one of those semi-autonomous scientists (mentioned above) within a faculty lab (the Institute labs also have more “normal” postdoc positions within each lab, but there are a large number of these semi-autonomous positions that are more similar to so-called Research Professor or Research Associate positions in the US). Saulius is an extremely energetic and curious guy who carries two different cell phones and rarely utters a sentence that does not contain a physical chemical concept. (Okay, he really does talk about normal things too – but he loves to talk shop and we probably talked pure biophysics for about 92% of the time I spent talking to him over three days.)

After giving a Thursday seminar in Vilnius, Daumantas and several of his lab members drove me to Kaunas (about 100 kilometers from Vilnius) for another seminar and for a meeting that was part of an effort that Daumantas is mounting to coalesce several of the smaller biophysical clubs and local societies in Lithuania into one big Lithuanian Biophysical Society. This meeting in Kaunas was supported by the US Biophysical Society, as part of its new Biophysical Society mini-grant program (thank you Biophysical Society!). About 40 different Lithuanian biophysicists from many different specialization areas met in a sort of futuristic round conference room that looked like a mini-version of the UN Security Council meeting room, with a table in the middle for refreshments.  Most of the proceedings were conducted in Lithuanian, but Saulius (the crystallographer mentioned above) kept me somewhat informed of what was going on. It seems that there are already many small biophysical clubs and consortiums in Lithuania (about 5-6 in all, some quite well established – which is rather impressive for a country that has a population roughly that of the state of Minnesota, and which has only been free from Soviet rule for under two decades). Coalescing these many different mini-societies into a more comprehensive national one will take a few more meetings and a few more discussions of logistics, but Saulius indicated that this meeting appeared to be a good start to that effort.

While in Kaunas, we also visited the laboratory of V.Arvydas Skeberkis in the Institute of Cardiology there in the Lithuanian Univ. of Health Sciences. Arvydas gave us a 40 minute long tour of the many small rooms in his lab, where he is doing things like transplanting stem cells into damaged heart tissue (in rabbits) and then measuring current, contraction, and gap junction behavior using fluorescent methods and patch clamp techniques. The fluorescence techniques he uses are really interesting: where he uses fluorescent dyes that react to changes in intracellular pH or electric potential. He also studies cellular nanotubes – not the tubular equivalent of a nanoparticle, but actual cellular membrane projections that some cells send out from their surface in order to make contact with other nearby (but physically separate) cells. His lab wants to know how the cell that originates the nanotube knows which direction to grow it in (it always grows in a strait line toward a nearby cell), and what the cells send through the nanotubes once contact is made.

All in all, at least from the few samples that I saw, biophysics in Lithuania is clearly a thriving and valued component of the biological research going on there.

Dear Victor,

I just saw the most recent portrayal of your exploits – the Nick Dear authored, Danny Boyle directed, broadcast version of the National Theatre play. What a masterpiece production – one of the best versions of your story I’ve ever seen – largely because of the intense focus on the interaction between you and “the monster”. And Danny Boyle as a director! Wow!  I, of course, love his film work (Slumdog Millionaire, The Beach, Trainspotting) – I mean, who doesn’t love Danny Boyle’s work? And two fantastic actors: Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller – each getting to switch back and forth between playing you and the monster (I saw the version with Cumberbatch as you and Miller as the monster). Yes – it was/is a most fabulous and exciting production.

But, Victor, once again you’ve allowed yourself to be portrayed as a scumbucket. Once again, you’ve cast a stench over all scientists with your Faustian egomania and self-absorption. I mean, come on, the monster kills no less than five people in this production, including your own brother and your fiancé, and every single person who views this play comes out of the theater with more sympathy for the monster than for you. What does that say to you Victor? Well, obviously nothing.

Yes, yes, I know you didn’t write this version, or any of the others, but you do have some influence you know. You could have sat down with Nick Dear and/or Danny Boyle and let them know a few things. Such as:

1) Scientists don’t generally look down on their hometowns from mountaintops and shout out about how stupid everyone else in the world is. In fact, most scientists harbor a fair amount of self-doubt.

2) Most scientists would not abandon their own results/creations simply because they found them ugly. I mean, what is wrong with you Victor? You want the credit for being the world’s greatest genius (which you so vainly believe you are) and yet you cannot even look upon your own creation? Why not take the opportunity to reflect on how subtle the concept of human beauty is? How even small deviations from symmetry or shape or smoothness can cause someone to go from beautiful to hideous with very little actual change (think of Charlize Theron playing Aileen Wuornos in “Monster”). Sure, you can’t help being disgusted – but to abandon your creation? To leave him alone to die, just because you didn’t like the results? What a shit.

3) Victor – it gets really tiresome when every time someone asks you about your work you reply with something to the effect of: that the purpose of your work is to prove how smart you are. It especially happens over and over again in this play: Why did you create the monster? To prove you were a genius. Why did you want to create life? To demonstrate to everyone that you were smarter than them. Why would you agree to try to make a female creature? To help out your first creature? No. To test some of your theories further? No. To refine your bioengineering techniques further so that they might someday be used for medical advances? No. You decide to do it so you can show everyone that you are the greatest scientist in the world! I have known some scientists for whom self-aggrandizement does seem to be their overarching goal in doing science, but I’ve known many, many more for whom the reason to do science is to: solve the puzzle, unlock the secret, find something novel, figure out why something happens, become able to design a new function into an existing biosystem, attempt to cure a disease. Do none of these less self-centered goals appeal to you Victor? Or is it the writers, like Nick Dear, who have gotten you wrong all these years? Is it they who just don’t understand what a real scientist is like? Is it they who just don’t know how to write the story about your work without vilifying all of science through you? Or are you really such a piece of garbage?

I find it difficult to believe that one could not create a version of Victor Frankenstein that is at least as human as his own monster, and at least as much of a real scientist as the average graduate student. But I just don’t see it in most of the versions of your story, Victor. I’ve yet to see you as a conflicted Galileo, who desperately wants the truth to be known, but who also fears the consequences. I’ve yet to see you as a passionate Dian Fossey, who would sacrifice all for the benefit of your creations/charges. I’ve yet to see you as a J. Robert Oppenheimer, who knows he must touch the void, who knows his creation can go off in both extreme good and extremely evil directions, and who works the rest of his life to try to insure against the evil uses. No, with you it’s just all about Victor, all the time. Quite frankly, Frankenstein, I don’t even know why your monster gives you the time of day. In my opinion, Victor, especially as you’ve been portrayed in this play, you are a supreme bio-technician, but one who does not even begin to understand the implications of your own work, who cannot see past your own ego, and who most certainly I would not want to count as a fellow scientist. I thank goodness that you are, and always will be, a fictional character. I long for the day when you might become a less uni-dimensional one.

Love and kisses…

Kirby interviewed a large number of consultants and filmmakers for the book, and he makes it clear that the science consultant is just that: a consultant, someone who can give advice which is as often, or more often, discounted than it is utilized. He discusses the highly variable relationships with directors: some of whom hire science consultants seemingly solely for the purpose of ignoring every single piece of advice they offer, and some of whom rely heavily on science advisors to help them shape the drama, the story, the setting, and the characters. He emphasizes that there has not been a single science advisor in the history of film who has walked away from a film saying, “Ah, everything was accurate” – never, ever, ever. When the director does take accurate science seriously, the result is always a hybrid of real science and cringe-worthy gobbledygook. Probably one of Kirby’s most illuminating conclusions is when he notes that scientists often think there is a tension in film-making between the story/entertainment content and the science-accuracy content. Kirby says this is a myth that lives in the minds of scientists – there is no such tension between science and entertainment: entertainment issues always win: always. When the science enhances the entertainment or story, it gets included.

But all this is not to say that Kirby, or the many science-consultants he interviewed for the book, view science-consulting as futile or from a predominantly negative perspective. Quite the contrary – he sees science consulting as an effective way to get a variety of scientific concepts into the mainstream consciousness. And while he cautions that science in the movies, for some of the reasons described above, will never be fully accurate – that scientists should count any enhancement of science accuracy in the movies as successful. The realistic picture of science consulting that Kirby paints is tremendously useful to anyone considering doing paid or pro bono science consulting. If you have any need or desire for real creative control on a project, then science consulting is probably not for you – and you’d be best off working on your own “entertainment” projects, like an increasing number of scientists are doing. If, however, you want to experience the fun of working with the talented teams of people who put together both big and small budget films, and if you want to help make the world of cinema a little more science-savvy and a little less science-cringe-worthy, then science consulting can be quite enjoyable, and sometimes lucrative. As for how to become a science consultant: according to Kirby, this often involves google-induced phone calls from producers to unsuspecting scientists, but Kirby’s book also describes a number of different ways for scientists to try to purposefully get involved in this growing new form of science outreach.

Here at LSU we’ve been discussing almost the Exact Same Issue in the Honors College for the past few weeks and coming to the Exact Opposite Conclusion to CUNY. We are re-designing an Honors version of Introductory Biology for Non-majors – and everyone is on board with the need for an associated laboratory in the course – even though (get this): the lab is not even a General Education requirement at LSU. Doing some science experiments with your own hands completely changes your perspective on it — every scientist knows that — we don’t design expensive, staff-intensive, time draining, space-hogging teaching labs just for the fun of it – we design them because without them, you’re only getting part of the picture.

So, for commitment to educating our future non-scientist leaders in the basics of science, the score this week is: LSU: 1 and CUNY: 0. (of course in the competition for good nearby pizza, the score is the opposite, thus creating a stalemate at present). Sadly, however, outside of the Honors College, as noted above, LSU’s non science majors face some of the same incompleteness of their general science education, since labs are not part of the General Education requirements.

Not having some decent science literacy is a bit crippling for anyone who wants to be a future societal leader in any field. In the same way that not having some familiarity with foreign languages or art likewise makes for poorer scientists. And both situations make for poorer citizens.

Our lab’s contribution focuses on how the thermodynamics of binding of DNA polymerases different DNA structures might influence the balance between replication and repair in the cell. Yanling examined DNA molecules with normal replication start sites, along with DNA molecules with nicks and gaps between bases, and DNA molecules with mismatches near the polymerase binding site. One of the major questions was: do the “same” enzymes from two different organisms (in this case the Pol I DNA polymerases from E. coli and Thermus aquaticus) actually perform the “same” functions in the two different organisms? The thermodynamic results of this paper suggest that there are some serious differences between these two “homologous” enzymes, such that the E. coli enzyme is more advanced in being able to recognize different DNA structures.

The schematic below illustrates this in cartoon fashion by illustrating how Klentaq (from Thermus aquaticus) sees a primer-template (i.e. a “normal” replication start site) as being equal to a DNA with a gap in it. In contrast, Klenow (from E. coli) binds the primer-template DNA with much higher affinity than it binds the gapped DNA.

The paper compares the binding preferences among a large number of different DNA structures, and consistently finds that the E. coli enzyme is capable of distinguishing among all these DNAs (and binding to them with differing affinities), while the T. aquaticus enzyme sees and binds to almost every DNA exactly equivalently. We spend some time discussing how this might shift the balance between repair and replication in the two different organisms, and discussing how evolutionary time has made this enzyme more subtle and sophisticated in its DNA substrate choices.

As always, if your institution does not have access to the paper and you would like a copy, I will be happy to send you one.

So what’s going on? The short version is that this is a goodbye post. The long version goes a little like this:

1. For a while now, I’ve been using twitter, primarily as a place to highlight interesting things. It has more or less replaced my blogging output. These tweets are often science-y, visual in nature, and with (of course) the occasional dose of Chewbacca. However, it soon became obvious to me that I should start blogging again so that such things could be compiled: more so because I’m a big fan of using these odd snippets to segue into scientific discussions in class. With twitter (as lovely as it is), it was just too easy to lose these interesting links. With blogging, I figured there would be more features to archive things more effectively. Plus, this was an easy way to make sure there was a consistent stream of content (kind of like using twitter to blog).

2. I really wanted to start writing again. What I mean here, is that I’m quite out of practice. You consistently hear from other folks that writing is a little like a muscle. It needs more than the occasional flex, but rather a full-on regime of exercise. Things at work have been busy (aren’t they always?), but writing is definitely something that I’ve missed doing, and something that I feel I need to practice all over again. I can also add that the last post I did for boingboing.net was a major proverbial kick in my ass. Clearly my editorial spider sense is off, and so (as they say) practice, practice, practice…

3. Here is the heart of the matter. My really wanting to do something, and actually doing it are two very different things. Indeed this whole desire to start writing again was initiated by an act of irony. That is, I’ve just sent in a friendly “thanks for the memories” email to Scienceblogs, who were asking to renew contracts etc. Here, I declined because I really wasn’t doing much at the World’s Fair (again with the busy excuse). For whatever reason, I wasn’t necessarily inspired by having an outlet at Scienceblogs. Because of this, it was only fair to ask to be taken off Scienceblogs – hence the reason why you are reading this goodbye post.

Ironically, this course of action is what is getting me to blog again. By ending things here, it feels like an opportunity to start fresh: and fresh starts can be incredibly exciting and invigorating. In many ways, the idea of having a new online home is making me want to write more – does that make sense? Plus, this is also a chance to have full aesthetic control over how a blog might look, which is something I’ve always kind of wished I could do. I’ve never been a fan of websites that were overly busy looking, so getting to do my minimalist thing was definitively an advantage.

In any event, this is to say that overall, Scienceblogs was a great experience, and was a wonderful way to connect with similar folks around the globe. Sharing this platform with Ben and Vince (and indeed the rest of the community, bloggers and managers alike) over the years has been an absolute privilege. For that I am grateful, but now it is time to move on.

4. And where will I move on to? As mentioned above, I’m keen to try this independently for while. I’ve been collecting my tweets for the last few weeks at Popperfont, so that seems as good a place as any to “have a go.”

And what will I blog about? Mostly, the content that my twitter account points to, but hopefully there will be some meaty stuff here and there as well.

Specifically, I’m keen to produce a weekly (this might be optimistic but I will do my best) series, which I’m going to call “sciencegeek fundamentals.” In essence, the aim of these pieces is to discuss and go over some key scientific concepts, but in a manner that is hopefully engaging to readers and possibly unconventional. We’ll start next week, but to give you a sense of the sort of writing I gravitate to, you can take a gander at some of my clips, as well as consider the working title of my first “sciencegeek fundamentals” piece (The scientific method by way of Chewbacca).

As well, I’m already working on a book for children where the scientific method is central to the plot (It’s called Lizzie Popperfont and the Collider Whale Tale). No expectations here… just enjoying myself as I put ideas down and work out the narrative. Who knows – maybe one of these days, we’ll try to find an agent and and publisher for this endeavor.

5. Finally… what’s with the name “Popperfont?” Nothing too deep… just kind of rolls nicely on the tongue, and with my inherent interest in creative arts and science, I thought the mix of Karl Popper and Typology sort of works.

cheers
dave

@dnghub
popperfont.wordpress.com

So what is this? Basically: you create an interpretive dance that “explains” your Ph.D. research and videotape it. Sounds easy, eh? No words, no powerpoint, just dancing. And you want the audience to walk away with a reasonable understanding of what you did or are currently doing your Ph.D. on. Send in a video and John will collect them all on his website (which is also linked from the Science website, since he is a contributing writer at Science). Then, on October 10th (yes, SOON!), me and about 8 other judges will pick some winners: with prizes ranging from $500 to a trip to Brussels. But one of the most rewarding “prizes” is the making of the video itself.

So check it out and start planning your dance video:

http://gonzolabs.org/dance/

the site tells you how to apply and has links to all previous entries.

(A previous WorldsFair post about the 2010 “Dance your Ph.D.”, which also includes some videos, is here.)

Caution: spoilers.

Andy Serkis’s Caesar and the rest of the ape-men were wonderful, as was slow build of the story. I also loved that the apes’ goal was not world domination but to spend some time in the Muir Woods (although apparently this changes later in the series). The filmmakers clearly spent a lot of time getting the apes and orangutans and chimpanzees “right”. I was a bit hesitant about seeing it at first since I don’t like James Franco’s so called “acting” (really mostly a lot of frowning) – but the ape-actors and the rest of the ensemble so overshadowed him that I barely retched at all. It was also nice that the writers and the filmmakers concentrated all of their inaccuracies into his character – somehow it seemed easier to take a bad actor playing a badly written character (and compared to Caesar, Franco’s character, and the portrayal of science in the movie, seemed to have been written by a monkey).

The character of Caesar is beautifully complex and conflicted; simultaneously altruistic and cruel, understanding of group dynamics and yet with strong personal needs. We get to watch Caesar as a playful toddler and as a sulky teen – it is a wonderfully written and played part. The only “major” problem with the apes seemed to be their superpowered ability to jump through glass windows without ever being cut – it was surprising no one noticed this beneficial side effect to the drug. (It would be nice, however, to hear a primatologist’s take on the characters of the apes in the film.)

Sadly, in contrast, if the filmmakers had spent even an hour googling “drug discovery” or “pharmaceutical development” they would have been able to write a less ridiculous portrayal of the scientists. A decent science advisor could have spent 2 hours with the script and made it far less embarrassing. Where to begin:

At the start of the film, Franco’s scientist notices the only positive result with his drug over a five-year period, and instantly goes into a board meeting to request human trials for his drug. The writing is so bad that within a minute or two after he notes that this is the only positive result in five years, he tells his CEO that he has five years of support data (no one caught this contradiction in the script?). And here’s a google search word for the writers: “FDA” – you see in this country pharmaceutical companies have to build up a multi-year case they submit to the FDA to request human trials (oh, wait, it’s not just this country, there’s a similar process in EVERY country). And it was wonderfully inane when Franco’s character convinces the CEO of the company to restart testing in chimpanzees: something that would be carefully and critically evaluated in any real biotech company – especially since testing in primates can run into the millions, but in this movie it occurs during a walk down the hallway where the “scientist” reveals that his data, collected on his own father, is both illegal and undocumented in any way. I believe that even abused pet-shop monkeys know more about drug discovery than these screenwriters did.

While there are mounds of inanely inaccurate science details in the movie, a vast majority of them fall into one major pattern: they portray the science as long periods of total inactivity, followed by a single, sudden, spectacular result (often with no documentation) that then sparks profound action (like restarting a multi-million dollar project). For example: after 3 years of playing with Caesar at home, suddenly Franco’s character has a modified viral drug that works! To some outside observers, science must actually look like this – but what most sci-fi and sci-reality movies have done recently is more accurately portray the mounds of work and data that fill those “apparent empty spaces” between the major discoveries. The screenwriters for this movie must have missed that major ongoing push in the arts.

All in all, the movie is definitely exciting, and the plot is both emotionally and “humanly” satisfying in many ways, and even with the plot reboot it effectively connects to the original series in satisfying ways, but if, as several science outreach studies have noted, the public gets a fair amount of their “science education” from popular media, then sadly, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a definitive de-evolutionary step in this process.

PS: Take a look at this really nice (and similarly themed) Planet of the Apes review over at the PsiVid blog at Scientific American.

Mother-post: the “apparent first” or “most snarky” report of an item, that then provides “the facts” for most of the other stories about that item online (even those that don’t reference or link to the mother-post).

The flurry of recent news about the question “Should evolution be taught in public schools?” that was asked of the recent crop of MIss USA contestants is fascinating for a number of different reasons. It is a wonderful attention getter for the contest, taking away the usual annual spotlight on the structural misogyny and objectification of the contest. (She says “misogyny”, he says “philogyny”…let’s call the whole thing off). And it is double-bonus fantastic that the winner is a self-proclaimed “huge science geek” — hooray for Miss USA!

Interestingly, the reported number of contestants who believe evolution should be taught in schools has been bizarrely scattershot. The numbers are all over the place, even though everyone seems to be looking at the same video — but one set of numbers seems to “dominate the web”.

1) The ever influential Huffington Post’s headline states that “only 2 contestants believe in evolution” (no need to post a link to Huffington, IMHO). This seems to be the most reblogitated number. The “2 of 51″ actually appears to actually originate from a Think Progress post, which seems to be the real mother-post, but Huffington, seems to dominate in search results.) Although it appears the most online, this is clearly the most incorrect number.

2) Salon counts 24 in favor, 3 against, and 24 “equivocating to some degree”.

3) A USA Today blogger says they “lost count of the correct number”, then a couple of paragraphs later says 5 of 51 were “clearly for teaching evolution”.

(I guess that shows that essay questions are harder to grade than true-false questions.)

A few other bloggers (e.g. here and here and here) have noticed and commented on the fact that the “only 2 contestants” information is incorrect, despite its massive reblogitation.

So what is the correct number? It will depend on your own interpretation of some of the more rambling answers in the video. But the “truth” is certainly not “2 of 51″.

Perhaps next year the Miss USA contest will ask: “Do you believe global warming should be taught in public schools?”