Life Science
drorzel | September 1, 2010There's a new medical study of the effects of alcohol consumption that finds a surprising result:
Controlling only for age and gender, compared to moderate drinkers, abstainers had a more than 2 times increased mortality risk, heavy drinkers had 70% increased risk, and light drinkers had 23% increased risk. A model controlling for former problem drinking status, existing health problems, and key sociodemographic and social-behavioral factors, as well as for age and gender, substantially reduced the mortality effect for abstainers compared to moderate drinkers. However, even after adjusting…
drorzel | August 18, 2010We picked up a used copy of Charles Mann's pop-archeology book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus a while back. I didn't read it at the time, because I was a little afraid that it would be rather polemical in what I think of as the Neil Young mode-- wildly overstating the awesomeness of pre-Columbian cultures, and exaggerating the evil of the European invaders (Neil's recorded some great stuff, but the lyrics to "Cortez the Killer" are pretty dopey). It came up several times recently in discussions elsewhere, though, and seemed like it would make a nice break from the…
drorzel | July 30, 2010The New York Times today has a story with the provocative title Getting Into Med School Without Hard Sciences, about a program at Mount Sinai that allows students to go to med school without taking the three things most dreaded by pre-meds: physics, organic chemistry, and the MCAT:
[I]t came as a total shock to Elizabeth Adler when she discovered, through a singer in her favorite a cappella group at Brown University, that one of the nation's top medical schools admits a small number of students every year who have skipped all three requirements.
Until then, despite being the daughter of a…
sschoenbaum | June 24, 2010Steve Schoenbaum writes: "Inside the Outbreaks", Mark Pendergrast's wonderful history of the Centers for Disease Control's Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), can be read on many levels. I confess that as a former EIS officer (1967-1969), personally familiar with most of the "elite medical detectives" of the first few decades, I tended to read it "between the lines". I found myself recalling many personal incidents, interactions with others, and themes mentioned but not necessarily fully developed in the book. I'd like to consider a couple of those here:
Early on in "Inside the Outbreaks…
drorzel | May 30, 2010Looking for something else, I was reminded of some pictures I took a week or two ago. This one came out pretty well:
This also reminds me that it's a really nice day here in Niskayuna, and I shouldn't be spending it all at the computer. So, enjoy the bird picture, and I'll post something more substantive tomorrow.
drorzel | April 26, 2010As of 1:45 Monday, 217 people have cast votes in the Laser Smackdown poll. That's not bad, but it's currently being handily beaten by the 271 people who have voted for a favorite system of units.
The nice thing about using actual poll services for this sort of thing, though, is that I can re-post the poll to boost signal a little. So, here it is again, a list of the twelve most amazing laser applications suggested by my wise and worldly readers, with links to short explanations of the pros and cons of each:
Which of the following is the most amazing application of a laser?Market Research…
drorzel | April 15, 2010A neighbor pointed out to me yesterday that there's a big hole in our clapboard siding that was made by some sort of bird. This morning, I got a picture of the culprit:
I'm not quite certain why the animal kingdom has decided to trash my stuff this year-- insane jealousy of Emmy?-- but I would like it to stop. I will call the contractor who did our garage conversion to replace the siding, but it would be very helpful if somebody with actual knowledge of birds could tell me what these little guys are, and whether this hole-digging is a fluke behavior (which would be just my luck), or…
drorzel | February 12, 2010What's the application? Optical tweezers use focused light beams to trap small particles in the focus of the beam, and drag them around by moving the beam.
What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "How do we move these tiny little things around without touching them?" 2) "How do we measure the forces exerted by biological molecules?" 3) "How do we tie knots in DNA strands?"
How does it work?The basic optical tweezer scheme uses a single beam of light focused down to a very small spot. If you take some small (mostly) transparent object and place it in the beam, it will feel a force pulling it…
drorzel | January 24, 2010... are welcome in the DogPhysics Pet Gallery. Even aquatic ones:
We've currently got seventeen dogs, six cats, two horses, a lizard, and these fish. If you've got a pet, of whatever species, and a copy of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, take a picture of the one with the other, and send it to queen_emmy@steelypips.org, and we'll add it to the Gallery.
drorzel | January 22, 2010The NSF's Science and Engineering Indicators report came out not too long ago, and the bulk of it is, as usual, spent on quasi-quantitative measures of scientific productivity-- numbers of degrees granted, numbers of patent applications for various countries, etc. I find all of those things pretty deeply flawed, so I tend to skip past them and go straight to the stuff about public knowledge and understanding (chapter 7, available as a PDF at the link above).
This doesn't get much press, probably because the results are depressing. They've asked a bunch of factual knowledge questions of people…
drorzel | November 11, 2009I've gradually gotten used to the idea that as a semi-pro blogger, I will occasionally be sent review copies of books I've never heard of. These are generally physics books, and I have a stack of them sitting next to the bed at the moment, not being read nearly fast enough.
It's only recently that I realized that, having written a book in which I explain quantum mechanics through conversations with my dog, I'll probably start getting dog books as well. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind-- we like free books, here in Chateau Steelypips-- but it's going to be a significant change.…
drorzel | October 28, 2009Some time back, commenter HI won a guest post by predicting the Nobel laureates in Medicine. He sent me the text a little while ago, and I've finally gotten around to posting it (things have been crazy around here):
Since Chad gave me the right to guest blog as a prize for correctly predicting the Nobel Prize winners, I thought it would be appropriate to write a post about the Nobel Prize. (It would have been more timely if I had written this sooner. This is why I'm not a real blogger.)
It was fun to be able to predict some of the Nobel Prize winners this year and last year. It is more…
drorzel | October 23, 2009You sometimes hear people say that it's good to make a splash when embarking on a new media project. David Sloan Wilson has apparently taken this to heart, and tucks himself into a tight ball as he leaps off the high board into the ScienceBlogs pool:
Thinking of science as a religion that worships truth as it god enables me to praise its virtues and criticize its shortcomings at the same time. In my previous blogs, I have played the role of scientific reformer for two major issues. The first is the "new atheism" movement spearheaded by the so-called four horsemen: Richard Dawkins, Daniel…
drorzel | October 14, 2009SteelyKid has a fever, and can't go to day care, so I'm staying home with her. This pretty much rules out significant serious blogging, so here's a poll to keep you amused:
Which of these threats is most threatening?(survey)
Choose only one.
drorzel | October 7, 2009The 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome." I know just about enough to recognize this as something biochemical, but I'm sure there will be plenty of commentary about this around science blogdom.
"Curious Wavefunction" is the name left by the commenter who predicted Yonath would win in this year's betting pool, and thus wins the right to author a guest post here. Congratulations, Curious. Send me email from the address you left in the comment form, and we can set…
drorzel | October 2, 2009We're currently in the early stages of the annual DonorsChoose fundraiser, helping to raise money for educational projects. This is especially important in the current economic climate-- even before things went south, many schools and classrooms were strapped for cash, but now it's even worse.
But I can understand if that's not a noble enough cause for you. Helping poor people isn't enough for everyone. So here's something to sweeten the deal: PETA doesn't like DonorsChoose because some of the science classes seeking funds are looking for dissection equipment for biology classes. Janet gives…
drorzel | September 7, 2009It's Labor Day today in the US, and Emmy and SteelyKid have both categorically refused to work on the holiday. So here's a picture of some pretty yellow birds.
(That's a thistle seed feeder hanging outside the bay window in our living room. It's shot through the glass, which accounts for the slightly soft focus. Still, it came out surprisingly well. Hooray for the new camera.)
drorzel | August 18, 2009The New York Times yesterday had a story with the dramatic headline DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show, explaining that, well, there are nefarious tricks you can pull to falsify DNA evidence, provided you have access to a high-quality biochemical laboratory. The story is a great boon to conspiracy theorists everywhere, especially with this sentence:
Dr. Frumkin is a founder of Nucleix, a company based in Tel Aviv that has developed a test to distinguish real DNA samples from fake ones that it hopes to sell to forensics laboratories.
"See! They're selling fake DNA samples to…
drorzel | August 17, 2009Via I-no-longer-remember-who (the tab's been open for several days), there's a list of What You Might Not Know About Scientific Journals, outlining some of the facts about scientific publication. There's some good stuff, but as you can tell from my title, a lot of it is fairly specific to biomedical journals, and doesn't really apply in my usual context of physics. For example:
The most popular articles in a journal are reviews, editorials, letters, etc. and not research papers. Consequently, journals contain more narrative reviews than genuine research. It's what keeps them in business.
The…
drorzel | August 7, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Alric, a veterinary pathologist at a drug company)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I am toxicologic veterinary pathologist and work at a contract research organization. We use animal models to evaluate the…