Funmurphys: the Blog

A Cosmic Back Of the Envelope Calculation

Scientists and engineers love equations. Not only do they make the modern world possible, they can be a lot of fun at parties. At least the kind scientists and engineers throw. And we (I'm just a country engineer) all love a good back of the envelope calculation, which is how one turns a WAG (Wild Assed Guess) into a SWAG (Scientific Wild Assed Guess). So I have to applaud Prof Andrew Watson for this Cosmic SWAG of a calculation:

Is there anybody out there? Probably not, according to a scientist from the University of East Anglia. A mathematical model produced by Prof Andrew Watson suggests that the odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are low, given the time it has taken for beings such as humans to evolve and the remaining life span of Earth.

Structurally complex and intelligent life evolved late on Earth and it has already been suggested that this process might be governed by a small number of very difficult evolutionary steps.

Prof Watson, from the School of Environmental Sciences, takes this idea further by looking at the probability of each of these critical steps occurring in relation to the life span of Earth, giving an improved mathematical model for the evolution of intelligent life.

....

His model, published in the journal Astrobiology, suggests an upper limit for the probability of each step occurring is 10 per cent or less, so the chances of intelligent life emerging is low - less than 0.01 per cent over four billion years.

I bet that makes him a big hit at all the parties, especially with the Panspermia-ists, who were a pretty lively bunch to begin with.

The Other Metabolic Clock

Or we've all got rhythm in our bones, even if it was discovered in our teeth.
Dr. Timothy Bromage discovered a pattern to growth rings in human teeth, and then in our bones as well. Then he discovered them in other organisms, including that lab favorite, the rat:

The newly discovered rhythm, like the circadian rhythm, originates in the hypothalamus, a region of the brain that functions as the main control center for the autonomic nervous system. But unlike the circadian rhythm, this clock varies from one organism to another, operating on shorter time intervals for small mammals, and longer ones for larger animals. For example, rats have a one-day interval, chimpanzees six, and humans eight.

The article links short intervals to small size and short life:

Reporting his findings today in the "Late-breaking News" session during the 37th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Dental Research, Bromage said, "The same biological rhythm that controls incremental tooth and bone growth also affects bone and body size and many metabolic processes, including heart and respiration rates. In fact, the rhythm affects an organism's overall pace of life, and its life span. So, a rat that grows teeth and bone in one-eighth the time of a human also lives faster and dies younger."

Humans have by far the most variation in these long-term incremental growth rhythms, with some humans clocking as few as five days, and others as many as ten. Correspondingly, humans have the most variability in body size among mammals.

I assume you have the exact same question I do - namely, do human also have the most variability in life span among mamals as well? Should I be happy that my son, who just turned 14, still has some baby teeth left? Maybe people who live fast and die young are just metabolically programmed that way. Will life insurance companies request a tooth so they can set their rates appropriately? Maybe you should look a gift horse in the mouth.

Who Says Adventure is a Thing of the Past?

Have you ever desired to pit yourself against nature and see who comes out on top? Have you ever wanted to go off into the wild blue and bring back enlightenment? Have you ever seen a gladiator movie? OK, I have a deal for you - join a Russian Arctic drift expedition and spend 7 months drifting around on a piece of ice. You can follow the path blazed by Jürgen Graeser, the first German to take part in a Russian expedition. But floating around on a slab of ice and sending a weather balloon up every day wasn't all fun and games (unlike playing peek-abo with Polar Bears):

In spite of its importance for the global climate system, the Arctic is still a blank on the data map. Up to now, continuous measuring in the atmosphere above the Arctic Ocean is missing. „We are not able to develop any reliable climate scenarios without disposing of data series with high temporal and local resolutions about the Arctic winter. The data which Jürgen Graeser has obtained in the course of the NP 35 expedition are unique, and they are apt to considerably diminish the still existing uncertainties in our climate models" said Prof. Dr. Klaus Dethloff, project leader at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.

Eh, what's this, you mean there's still some real science to be done in Climatology? Say it ain't so, Al, say it ain't so.

I have to applaud Jürgen Graeser's dedication to science. Adventure and learning in one package - what a deal. Who says adventure is a thing of the past?

Funny Bone Meets Thinking Cap

Hot off the press, get it while it lasts -- the 2007 Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded:

MEDICINE: Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, USA, for their penetrating medical report "Sword Swallowing and Its
Side Effects." You can see one of the authors do his Sword Swallowing

PHYSICS: L. Mahadevan of Harvard University, USA, and Enrique Cerda Villablanca of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, for studying how sheets become wrinkled - and the allied topic of draping.

BIOLOGY: Prof. Dr. Johanna E.M.H. van Bronswijk of Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, for doing a census of all the mites, insects, spiders, pseudoscorpions, crustaceans, bacteria, algae, ferns and fungi with whom we share our beds each night. No link to her classic lecture
"A Bed Ecosystem," but you can look it up in the lecture abstracts of the 1st Benelux Congress of Zoology, Leuven, November 4-5, 1994, p. 36. However, if you value a good nights sleep as I do, I recommend against actually reading her work.

CHEMISTRY: Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin -- vanilla fragrance and flavoring -- from cow dung. I just wonder why they thought to look for vanillin there in the first place. Toscanini's Ice Cream, the finest ice cream shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, created a new ice cream flavor in honor of Mayu Yamamoto, and introduced it at the Ig Nobel ceremony. The flavor is called "Yum-a-Moto Vanilla Twist."

LINGUISTICS: Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, of Universitat de Barcelona, for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards. No word if this effect has been replicated in mice, which make a better analog for humans.

LITERATURE: Glenda Browne of Blaxland, Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of the word "the" -- and of the many ways it causes problems for anyone who tries to put things into alphabetical order. Hey, Microsoft can't properly order numbers, so we have no hope of handling "The" properly. A maybe, An probably, but not The.

PEACE: The Air Force Wright Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio, USA, for instigating research & development on a chemical weapon -- the so-called "gay bomb" -- that will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other. I'm outraged they didn't include a citation for the fact that this groundbreaking work also examined the desirability of a chemical weapon that created "severe and lasting halitosis" - or that it dates back to at least 1994.

NUTRITION: Brian Wansink of Cornell University, for exploring the seemingly boundless appetites of human beings, by feeding them with a self-refilling, bottomless bowl of soup. If you're interesting in losing weight, try his book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. Professor Wansink is also a Stanford grad.

ECONOMICS: Kuo Cheng Hsieh, of Taichung, Taiwan, for patenting a device, in the year 2001, that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them.

AVIATION: Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek of Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina, for their discovery that Viagra aids jetlag recovery in hamsters. So next time you take your hamster on a long flight, don't forget the Viagra.

While there is a certain silliness to the these, there is more than a little importance. As the award states, the Ig Nobel is for achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think.

The Skinny On the Skinny Gene

The good news is that yes indeed there is a gene that can keep you skinny. The bad news is that a therapy utilizing it is 10 years away.

Khosrow Adeli, professor of clinical biochemistry at the University of Toronto and Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, who studies obesity, called the most recent finding an important one.

"Many of the genes we have found so far appear to promote obesity," he said. "This one appears to basically control it."

However, multiple factors are involved in obesity, including metabolism, fat cells, liver, and most recently, the brain, Prof. Adeli said.

"We certainly are going to see more of these similar discoveries to fully understand all of the factors involved," he said, adding that it's more difficult to design drugs that increase, rather than inhibit, something.

"If one can devise a way to increase activity of this adipose [gene], then it can certainly be very helpful in treating cases of obesity."

Until then, I'll be eating whole grain barley for breakfast.

Hey, I'm not overweight, I just don't provide enough stimulation for my adipose gene.

Why Do Research?

How's this for a provocative title: Why Most Published Research Findings Are False:

There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.

The article is relatively short and readable, and makes me wonder why I haven't heard about it before -- I guess because it isn't in scientists or journalists interest for the public to know this. Here's something to ponder as you read the lastest research finding:

Corollary 6: The hotter a scientific field (with more scientific teams involved), the less likely the research findings are to be true. This seemingly paradoxical corollary follows because, as stated above, the PPV of isolated findings decreases when many teams of investigators are involved in the same field. This may explain why we occasionally see major excitement followed rapidly by severe disappointments in fields that draw wide attention. With many teams working on the same field and with massive experimental data being produced, timing is of the essence in beating competition. Thus, each team may prioritize on pursuing and disseminating its most impressive “positive” results. “Negative” results may become attractive for dissemination only if some other team has found a “positive” association on the same question. In that case, it may be attractive to refute a claim made in some prestigious journal. The term Proteus phenomenon has been coined to describe this phenomenon of rapidly alternating extreme research claims and extremely opposite refutations [29]. Empirical evidence suggests that this sequence of extreme opposites is very common in molecular genetics.

Make sure you read the part "Claimed Research Findings May Often Be Simply Accurate Measures of the Prevailing Bias" - and wonder how much out there is a null field and ponder this the next time someone tells you about "the scientific consensus" in a particular field.

There is science, and then there is science - like the time my mother claimed a study showed the worst weather was on Saturdays and the best was on Tuesdays. Does such a study have any meaning - the weekly cycle is a human invention that has no basis in meterology, but statistically you can pick out a "best" and "worst" based some definition of weather quality (rain, snow, departure from mean temperature, or whatever).

But even within real science, there is research and then there is research. Number one would be studies that are just too small to pick out the effect they are looking for. When examining probabilistic effects, sample size matters. How much does smoking increase heart disease? It's not a simple smoke and get heart disease, or not smoke and don't. It's normally 50% of non-smokers get heart disease, and 75% of smokers do (in made up numbers). Teasing that kind of information out of an assemblage of non-identical people requires lots of people. I'd be willing to bet most health studies simply lack enough participants out of the gate to be reliable. Yet they still happen, the results are still reported breathlessly, and some other equally unreliable study will be equally breathlessly reported when it contradicts the first - or worse, the study that comports with accepted ideas will be given far more play than the one that doesn't.

Common sense has a part in science:

Finally, instead of chasing statistical significance, we should improve our understanding of the range of R values—the pre-study odds—where research efforts operate [10]. Before running an experiment, investigators should consider what they believe the chances are that they are testing a true rather than a non-true relationship. Speculated high R values may sometimes then be ascertained. As described above, whenever ethically acceptable, large studies with minimal bias should be performed on research findings that are considered relatively established, to see how often they are indeed confirmed. I suspect several established “classics” will fail the test.

Sadly, common sense isn't common enough.

I suppose this is one of the things turn of the century physicist types disliked about quantum mechanics - probabilistic vs. deterministic results. The great thing about all the classic phyiscs experiments is that they are deterministic -- the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant that can be measured; either there is an ether or there isn't (as Michelson and Morley proved), the charge on an electron is constant and can be measured exactly (for which Robert Milikan won the nobel.) But I digress.

There have been a couple of recent responses to Dr. Ioannidis. First is
Most Published Research Findings Are False—But a Little Replication Goes a Long Way:

In a recent article in PLoS Medicine, John Ioannidis quantified the theoretical basis for lack of replication by deriving the positive predictive value (PPV) of the truth of a research finding on the basis of a combination of factors. He showed elegantly that most claimed research findings are false [6]. One of his findings was that the more scientific teams involved in studying the subject, the less likely the research findings from individual studies are to be true. The rapid early succession of contradictory conclusions is called the “Proteus phenomenon” [7]. For several independent studies of equal power, Ioannidis showed that the probability of a research finding being true when one or more studies find statistically significant results declines with increasing number of studies.

As part of the scientific enterprise, we know that replication—the performance of another study statistically confirming the same hypothesis—is the cornerstone of science and replication of findings is very important before any causal inference can be drawn. While the importance of replication is also acknowledged by Ioannidis, he does not show how PPVs of research findings increase when more studies have statistically significant results. In this essay, we demonstrate the value of replication by extending Ioannidis' analyses to calculation of the PPV when multiple studies show statistically significant results.

Sorry Virginia, don't trust a result until it's been replicated more than once. When will you know, since you'll never read about even a second study replicating the first in general publications? Now you're starting to see the problems I hope.

The other response is When Should Potentially False Research Findings Be Considered Acceptable?:

As society pours more resources into medical research, it will increasingly realize that the research “payback” always represents a mixture of false and true findings. This tradeoff is similar to the tradeoff seen with other societal investments—for example, economic development can lead to environmental harms while measures to increase national security can erode civil liberties. In most of the enterprises that define modern society, we are willing to accept these tradeoffs. In other words, there is a threshold (or likelihood) at which a particular policy becomes socially acceptable.

In the case of medical research, we can similarly try to define a threshold by asking: “When should potentially false research findings become acceptable to society?” In other words, at what probability are research findings determined to be sufficiently true and when should we be willing to accept the results of this research?

Here's the basic conundrum: If you don't do any research, you won't discover anything. If you do do research, you will discover all kinds of stuff that isn't so -- and you won't be able to tell the accurate from the spurious without even more research. And you will do things that while intended to help will in fact cause harm. Of course, the same thing will happen without doing any research.

The conclusion:

In the final analysis, the answer to the question posed in the title of this paper, “When should potentially false research findings be considered acceptable?” has much to do with our beliefs about what constitutes knowledge itself [24]. The answer depends on the question of how much we are willing to tolerate the research results being wrong. Equation 3 shows an important result: if we are not willing to accept any possibility that our decision to accept a research finding could be wrong (r = 0), that would mean that we can operate only at absolute certainty in the “truth” of a research hypothesis (i.e., PPV = 100%). This is clearly not an attainable goal [1]. Therefore, our acceptability of “truth” depends on how much we care about being wrong. In our attempts to balance these tradeoffs, the value that we place on benefits, harms, and degrees of errors that we can tolerate becomes crucial.
...
We conclude that since obtaining the absolute “truth” in research is impossible, society has to decide when less-than-perfect results may become acceptable. The approach presented here, advocating that the research hypothesis should be accepted when it is coherent with beliefs “upon which a man is prepared to act” [27], may facilitate decision making in scientific research.

So why do research? Because you will have less imperfect information on which to act.

Not All Science Is As Fun And Pointless

If you're like me, you hear "like nailing jello to a wall" and you immediately translate the phrase to "impossible." Fortunately, not everybody thinks that way, as this scientifically inclined person demonstrates. The man (while I don't know the person's gender, I'm assuming only a man spends so much time on a project like this) chronicles his attempts to nail jello to a wall, starting with the expected tragedies but culminating in triumph.

He then attempts to nail jello to a wall while the jello is vertical! Did he succeed? You'll have to check the extended entry to find out:

Keeping The Immune System On The Right Track

How's this for a mystery: You have more bacteria living in your small intestine than cells in your body, and your immune system does nothing:

For years, scientists have wondered whether the same mechanism is at work in tissues that come in regular contact with bacteria and other microbial organisms. The small intestine, for example, which absorbs essential nutrients from food and drink and protects the body from invasive microbes, is literally teeming with bacteria, which help break down waste. The presence of so many bacteria is a potential trigger for an immune system response. Why do T cells almost always ignore the small intestine, leaving this vital tissue unharmed

No, the butler doesn't do it.

Normally, dendridic cells by displaying antigens teach the immune system what not to attack. But not in the small intestine. Instead, stromal cells in the lymph node do it. Why should you care? Scientist wonder if this method to keep healthy tissue from being attacked by the immune system can't be used in autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

Lawyers: Another Hazard of Research

Here's another entry in why I think our current judicial system sucks: Fast-multiplying lawsuits can stymie medical science. Actually, I was surprised by one reason why:

The lead author, Brad A. Racette, M.D., associate professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, writes from personal experience: His studies tentatively linking welding to increased risk of Parkinson's disease resulted in a torrent of subpoenas for research data. Responding to them slows or stops his follow-up research.

"Participation in the legal system can be a huge burden on a researcher's schedule," Racette says. "There comes a point where a scientist needs the right to be able to say, testifying in court is not what I'm supposed to be doing, I'm supposed to be studying disease."

And the authors are grown up to realize conflicts of interest cut both ways (i.e. both plaintiffs and defendants):

The authors note that the substantial financial interests at stake in lawsuits often leads to biased research by well-paid expert witnesses. They cite the example of a Texas doctor found to be overdiagnosing a disease known as silicosis. The doctor had a financial interest in the number of patients diagnosed.

Peer review is of course a part of the regular scientific process, Racette notes, but a knowledgeable expert can design a study with a predetermined goal of discrediting earlier studies that linked a suspected toxin to a disease.

Industries on the defensive have also attempted to impugn the credibility of researchers. As an example, the authors cite the case of Herbert Needleman, M.D., professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh and the first scientist to link lead exposure to low IQ levels in children. The lead industry attacked Needleman's integrity, alleging academic fraud and triggering investigations by the Federal Scientific Integrity Board and his university. The investigations failed to find any evidence of academic fraud, and Needleman's results were later replicated, leading to beneficial changes such as the removal of lead from gasoline.

Slow, capricious, expensive, and fails to deliver justice is how I would describe our system, and on both the civil and criminal sides of the house. This is just one more example.

Full Disclosure: While I haven't met them, both authors are on staff at St. Louis Children's Hospital where my daughter has had two visits and of which I have the highest opinion.

Stupid Headline

Here's a stupid headline:

Mental Health Risks Vary Within the U.S. Black Population

Is that a surprise? Would we ever read "Mental Health Risks Vary Within the U.S. White Population"?, or "Mental Health Risks Vary Within the U.S. Population"? Are black people some sort of homogeneous entity where no variation is expected?

This was another shocking line from the report: "He believes clinicians need to look beyond crude categories of race in order to learn more about the backgrounds of their clients in order to better treat them." That's your tax dollars at work, funding Captain Obvious.

Forest Management

My backyard would appear to have a remnant of the primeval Missouri Forest: Oak, Ash, Hickory, and Dogwood. The previous owner had marked several trees for removal by putting a big red paint blotch on them. I have removed a trio of live trees (oddly enough none had a big red splotch) and a bunch of dead trees - two white pines and the remainder dogwoods. I didn't try to change the variety, however, but had other concerns. But in the larger forest outside my backyard, Oaks and Hickories are on the decline. Researchers at Case Western University surmise that fires caused by lightning help the Oaks compete against more shade tolerant trees:

Paul Drewa, assistant professor in Case's biology department, and graduate student Sheryl Petersen, suspect that these kinds of fires may provide a natural mechanism to deter encroachment of shade tolerant hardwoods, especially red maples that are crowding out oaks and other plants on the ground floors of numerous forests throughout the eastern United States.

...

"Human alterations to the natural fire regime, especially decades of fire suppression, have changed oak-dominated ecosystems in southern Ohio and throughout the eastern US," reported Petersen. "As a result, there is a preponderance of shade tolerant hardwoods that are preventing oaks and other native species from regenerating."

The oak canopies of remaining forest fragments are deceptive, according to the researchers, who found that oaks are not thriving well beyond the seedling stage, with few developing into older life history stages, including juveniles, saplings, and poles.

"Eventually this means the demise of oak trees and other less shade tolerant plant species in future years," said Drewa

This isn't any new idea though -- as a 2004 article in Missouri Conservationist Magazine makes clear:

In the fall, the hills adjacent to the Missouri and Mississippi rivers seem ablaze with brilliant orange sugar maples. Few trees are as attractive as a sugar maple in autumn, but there is something haunting in all that orange.

Not long ago, these same hills contained a lot more of the reds, purples and yellows of oak and hickory. Slowly but surely, the oranges are taking over, indicating that the river hill forests are changing, and not for the better.

We have long had some sugar maple in our woods. In the last 50 years, however, the amount of sugar maple has increased dramatically. This is especially true in counties adjacent to the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, where land is especially productive because of loess, or wind blown silt. Loess is blown from the river bottoms and deposited on nearby slopes. In some areas, loess is more than 100 feet deep. In areas like these, sugar maples are overtaking most other forest vegetation.

The primary reason for the maple takeover is that over the last 50 or so years, we have stopped fires from burning our woods. Native Americans commonly used fire as a tool in Missouri. They burned the landscape to aid in hunting and fighting wars. They also used fire to improve wildlife habitat, which helped ensure an abundance of game. The first European settlers also used fire, primarily to create and improve pasture lands.

Fire played a huge role in shaping the composition of our woods. Oaks and hickories are relatively tolerant of fire. Their thick bark helps protect them from intense heat. Smaller seedlings and trees may be "top-killed," but their deep root crown allows them to resprout quickly and vigorously.

Fighting forest fires is done with the best of intentions, but not always smartly (just like the new model, prescribed burns). The problem with the old zero tolerance policy is that it allows fuel to build up and huge conflagrations to occur. And if it weren't for the obvious fact that the longer we fought forest fires, the worse they got, we would still have a zero tolerance policy.

The problem is how to transition back to way forests were prior to zero tolerance without burning the forests down in the process. And another thing to consider is that prior to zero tolerance, the policy was not just let natural fires burn, but set our own. For millenia, the Indians set fires across North America. So to get back to what we consider virgin forest, we have to realize that in fact there has been nothing virgin about North American forests for millenia. What we really want is to go back to actively managed forests with fire as the primary tool.

Prescribed burns seem to be the favored way for the Forest Service to manage forest fires and an immediate return to older practices, but as Mike at SOS forest points out:

So the New Plan is to destroy America’s priceless, heritage forests (whoops, we mean worthless wildlands) in catastrophic fires. The idea is to burn them down sooner so they don’t burn down later.
...
Does this make sense? Burn our forests down so they don’t burn down? It makes sense to the Dale Bosworth, Chief of the FS, because he signed onto all the recommendations in the Audit.

The trouble with prescribed burns is that they are hard to control - they result in both not enough fuel removal, and far too much -- causing the inferno that fire fighting was supposed to stop in the first place. The sad thing is, we already know a better way - mechanical removal of fuel. Of course, that brings up the dreaded L word - logging. But the science is clear:

Our findings indicate that fuel treatments do mitigate fire severity. Treatments provide a window of opportunity for effective fire suppression and protecting high-value areas. Although topography and weather may play a more important role than fuels in governing fire behavior (Bessie and Johnson 1995), topography and weather cannot be realistically manipulated to reduce fire severity. Fuels are the leg of the fire environment triangle (Countryman 1972) that land managers can change to achieve desired post-fire condition. However, in extreme weather conditions, such as drought and high winds, fuel treatments may do little to mitigate fire spread or severity.
...
There are at least three ways to reduce tree densities and accomplish fuel treatments: wildfire, prescribed fire and mechanical thinning. The first, natural fires, are often impractical. Letting natural fires play their historical role may have unwanted effects in forests that have undergone major stand structural changes over the past years of fire exclusion. Any fire started may result in historically uncharacteristic high severity. In many ponderosa pine forests choked with dense, small-diameter trees, or encroached by shade-tolerant trees, natural fires may no longer play a strategic role.

The second strategy for restoring these forests is large-scale prescribed burning. This is likely to be effective in stands that have moderate or low tree densities, little encroachment of ladder fuels, moderate to steep slopes which preclude mechanical treatment, and expertise in personnel to plan and implement such large prescribed burns. Large-scale implementation of this strategy will require funding for the planning and implementation over current expenditures and may require modifications to current air quality legislation. Future results of such expenditures may be seen down the road in lessened wildfire suppression costs, reduced fire severity, and reduced air quality impacts.

Mechanical tree removal, the third strategy, works best on forests that are too densely packed to burn, that have nearby markets for small-diameter trees, and areas where expertise and personnel are not available for prescribed burning programs. Mechanical tree removal may be accomplished by many different types of harvest, including precommercial thinning, selection or shelterwood harvest coupled with small-diameter tree removal, and thinning from below (Fiedler 1996). The goal is to manage forests for much lower tree densities leaving larger residual trees. Harvests to reduce wildfire hazard will remove small-diameter trees in contrast to traditional timber harvests. Mechanical fuel treatments can be very labor intensive, especially on steep slopes and in remote areas, and may not be commercially attractive due to the small diameter trees that need removal. To make fuel treatments more cost-effective for small-diameter trees, consistent markets are necessary (Nakamura 1996). Fiedler et al. (1997) assert that mechanized tree harvest on moderately-steep terrain coupled with removal of large amounts of biomass can generate considerable revenue. Periodic underburns and programs for restoring natural fire are critical to maintain these post-harvest stands.

In other words, go in and remove the undergrowth mechanically (i.e. logging, but not clear cutting), then use fire afterwards for maintanence. This was essentially the goal behind the Healthy Forests Initiative, but the logging (i.e. mechanical removal) aspects were controversial and unpopular with a lot of people. Another problem is that the trees and underbrush to be removed isn't what timber companies are really after. So it looks like will be mainly using fire to fight fire for a while longer.

BTW, if you aren't getting Missouri Conservationist Magazine, you should be if you have any interest in the Midwestern Great Outdoors.

Computer Modeling of Cancer

If we can predict the weather, can we predict the course of a tumor? Vito Quaranta, professor of cancer biology at Vanderbilt, thinks so. So he and colleagues from Vanderbilt and the University of Dundee
are computer modeling cancer tumors to understand them better and eventually tailor individual treatments:

The investigators have focused on the events of invasion and metastasis (movement of a tumor to distant sites), Quaranta said, because these events mark "the critical transition of a tumor that in the end will be lethal for the patient." A tumor that does not penetrate the surrounding tissue can often be surgically removed with curative success.

"When a patient comes in with a tumor, we'd like to understand for that particular tumor, what are the chances that metastasis is going to occur," Quaranta said. "Does that patient need to be treated very aggressively, or not so aggressively""

Today, a tumor's size and shape are evaluated, but they can be poor indicators of invasive potential: a very small tumor can be highly invasive. Even "molecular signatures" – profiles of molecules that suggest how tumor cells will behave – are not entirely predictive, he added.

Quaranta and colleagues opted for a new approach – using the tools of mathematics to tackle the complex problem of cancer behavior.

What a great idea. Kind of makes you wonder why it hasn't been tried before, but then that's the way it is with lots of great ideas.

The findings suggest that current chemotherapy approaches which create a harsh microenvironment in the tumor may leave behind the most aggressive and invasive tumor cells.

"In the immediate term we may be diminishing tumor burden, but the long term effect is to have a much nastier tumor than there was to begin with," Quaranta said. There is anecdotal evidence, he added, to support the idea that changes to the microenvironment result in a tumor with more or less invasive potential. Such manipulations of the microenvironment could offer new directions for cancer treatment, he said.

Hmm, will appeasement work for cancer?

Turns Out My Kid Can Draw Like That

Physists give, and physists take away. The ability to be a master of chaotic motion that is:

In articles that appeared in scientific journals and news magazines including Nature, Physics World and Scientific American, Taylor and coworkers also claim that fractal analysis can be used to distinguish Pollock's drip paintings from imitations.

Intrigued, Jones-Smith began to examine Taylor's articles, but quickly found that the work was seriously flawed She showed that doodles that she could make in minutes using Adobe Photoshop were as fractal as any Pollock drip painting, vividly refuting Taylor's claim that Pollock was able to generate fractals by hand only because he had attained a mastery of chaotic motion.

Jones-Smith presented a pointed critique of Taylor's work to Case astrophysicists and was encouraged to write up her critique for publication. But since Taylor's original work had appeared in Nature five years earlier, she thought interest in the topic had waned.

Actually, this isn't entirely inside baseball for a couple of reasons: the use of scientific analysis in areas they weren't originally used is a great way to make breakthrough discoveries, and there's a lot of money at stake in being able to determine real Pollock's from somebody else's work. And besides, I just don't like people claiming more certainty than they should.

Is Success Hereditary?

German researchers say that success is hereditary -- or at least the willingness to take risks and the willingness to trust other people runs in families. And along the way they discovered that likes, not opposites attract.

Parents shape the character of their offspring, who in turn prefer to choose a partner similar to themselves. These two effects could contribute to attitudes such as willingness to take risks and confidence in others being "inherited" across several generations. At the same time these character traits are decisive, among other factors, for economic success. "Every economic decision is risky, whether it is about buying shares, building a house or just starting to study at university," Armin Falk emphasises. "On the other hand success in business also involves the right amount of trust."

If you are that interested, you can read the original article here. I didn't wade through it to see if they actually correlated economic success with the traits of risk taking and trust.

Counterintuitive: Adolescents Reason Too Much

Here's important reading for all of us with adolescents: Risk and Rationality in Adolescent Decision Making.

Is it a good idea to swim with sharks? Is it smart to drink a bottle of Drano? What about setting your hair on fire -- is that a good thing to do?

People of all ages are able to give the correct answer (it's "no," in case you were wondering) to each of these questions. But adolescents take just a little bit longer (about 170 milliseconds longer, to be exact) to arrive at the right answer than adults do. That split second may contain a world of insight into how adolescents tick -- and how they tick differently from adults.
...
It is often believed that adolescents think they are immortal, just plain invulnerable to life's slings and arrows. This notion is often used to explain why young people are liable to drive fast, have unprotected sex, smoke, or take drugs -- risks that adults are somewhat more likely to shy away from.

Research shows that adolescents do exhibit an optimistic bias -- that is, a tendency to underestimate their own risks relative to their peers. But this bias turns out to be no more prevalent in adolescents than in grownups; adults commit the very same fallacy in their reasoning. And actually, studies on perception of risks by children, adolescents, and adults show that young people tend to overestimate their risks for a range of hazards (including car accidents and sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS), both in absolute terms (i.e., as compared with actual risks) and relative to adults. Their estimation of vulnerability declines rather than increases with age.

So why do adolescents take risks? Decision research answers this with another counterintuitive finding: Adolescents make the risky judgments they do because they are actually, in some ways, more rational than adults. Grownups tend to quickly and intuitively grasp that certain risks (e.g., drunk driving, unprotected sex, and most anything involving sharks) are just too great to be worth thinking about, so they don't proceed down the "slippery slope" of actually calculating the odds. Adolescents, on the other hand, actually take the time to weigh risks and benefits -- possibly deciding that the latter outweigh the former.

So adolescents engage in just the sort of calculations -- trading off risks against benefits -- that economists wish that all people would make. But economists notwithstanding, research is showing more and more that a faster, more intuitive, less strictly "rational" form of reasoning that comes with increased experience can often be more effective. Mature or experienced decision makers (e.g., experienced vs. less experience physicians) rely more on fuzzy reasoning, processing situations and problems as "gists" rather than weighing multiple factors and evidence. This leads to better decisions, not only in everyday life but also in places like emergency rooms where the speed and quality of risky decisions are critical.

These counterintuitive conclusions about the decision-making processes of young people have major implications for how to intervene to help steer them in the right direction. For example, interventions aimed at reducing smoking or unprotected sex in young people by presenting accurate risk data on lung-cancer and HIV may actually backfire if young people overestimate their risks anyway. Instead, interventions should focus on facilitating the development of mature, gist-based thinking in which dangerous risks are categorically avoided rather than weighed in a rational, deliberative way.

Just another example of the triumph of experience over reason.

I guess you can throw those books out that tell you to calmly reason with your child to get them to see the error of their ways and go back to "Because I said so!"

It looks like McCoy wins the argument -- who needs a Spock to calculate the odds of almost anything when you can imploy McCoy's fuzzy logic so much faster to arrive at the correct answer.

Maybe its a good thing many teenagers factor in their parent's natural overreaction when deciding whether to engage in risky behavior. So parents, let's up the ante and overreact to just about everything. Put your thumbs firmly on the scale of right behavior.

It supports my personal study of non-adolescent reasoning, namely, that adults simply do what they think is right and engage in reason only after the fact when pressed to provide reasons for what they did.

Ride My Bipolar SeeSaw

Everything old is new again, and today's example is the so called Bipolar Seesaw freshly discovered. The bipolar seesaw is the swing in temperatures between the two poles of earth, where if its up in one pole its down in the other. But how freshly discovered is it? Well, here's an article from 1998 about -- ta da -- the bipolar seesaw, complete with polar ice cores showing temperature fluctuations.

Even more interesting is this 2001 article by Wallace S. Broecker that ties it all together:

Geologists are now investigating whether these groupings correspond to another new source of evidence of cyclic patterns in Earth’s recent history. This evidence comes from studies of sediment in the deep waters of the North Atlantic. The rock fragments in these sediments are much too large to have been transported there by ocean currents; they could have reached their present location only by having been frozen into large icebergs that floated long distances from their point of origin before melting. During the past decade, Gerard Bond, my colleague at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, has studied the makeup of such ice-rafted debris. Noticing that some of the sediment grains were stained with iron oxide, he reasoned that they must have come from locales where glaciers had overrun outcrops of red sandstone. Bond concluded that a detailed analysis of deep sediment cores would reveal changes in the mix of sediment sources over time. This proved to be an excellent strategy, for Bond found something so unexpected that it stunned all of us who study climate history. The proportion of these red-stained grains fluctuated back and forth over time from lows of 5 percent to highs of about 17 percent, and these fluctuations had a pattern: a nearly regular, 1,500-year cycle. Even more amazing, he found that the cycles ran virtually unchanged, in both amplitude and duration, through both ice-age and non-ice-age periods during the last 100,000 years.

Bond puzzled over what might be pacing this cycle. As a geologist, he knew that the sources of the red-stained grains were generally closer to the North Pole than were the places yielding a high proportion of “clean” grains. At certain times, apparently, more icebergs from the far north were making their way well to the south before finally melting and shedding their sediment. Bond hypothesized that the alternating cycles might be evidence of changes in ocean-water circulation.

Ocean waters are constantly on the move, and water temperature is both a cause and an effect. As water cools, it gets denser and sinks to the bottom. In one part of what I like to call the “bipolar seesaw,” the bottom layer of the world’s oceans comes from cold, dense water sinking in the far North Atlantic. This causes the warm surface waters of the Gulf Stream to be pulled northward, as they are today. Bond realized that during this part of the ocean cycle, a large proportion of the icebergs that bear red grains would melt while still fairly far north. But sometimes the ocean reorganizes itself, and the Southern Hemisphere holds sway in driving ocean circulation. At such times, surface waters in the North Atlantic would generally be colder, permitting icebergs bearing red-stained grains to travel farther south before melting and depositing their sediment.

So what we have is just more confirmation, not anything new with the latest announcement of findings. Although I can't complain too much, because it was new to me.

Did the Rise of Mountains Cause the Lowering of Temperatures?

I'm a global warming skeptic - and by that I mean I'm skeptical that human actions are the driving factor behind current climate change. Now, that doesn't mean we aren't, that just means I'm not convinced that we are. So I read this article on a connection between the Appalachian Mountains and global cooling with interest -- not because it supports my skepticism, but because it doesn't.

One such debate is whether atmospheric carbon dioxide truly drives Earth's climate. The planet has shifted between greenhouse conditions and icehouse conditions throughout its history, and research from Saltzman's team strongly suggests that carbon dioxide levels are a key cause.

"In this study, we're seeing remarkable evidence that suggests atmospheric CO2 levels were in fact dropping at the same time that the planet was getting colder. So this significantly reinforces the idea that CO2 is a major driver of climate," Saltzman said.

...

"We observed a major shift in the geochemical record, which tells us something must have changed in the oceans," Young said.

The timing of the strontium ratio decline matches the rise of the Appalachian Mountains . The crustal plate underneath what is now the Atlantic Ocean pushed against the eastern side of North America, lifting ancient volcanic rock up from the seafloor and onto the continent.

This kind of silicate rock weathers quickly, Young explained. It reacts with CO2 and water, and the rock disintegrates. Carbon from the CO2 is trapped in the resulting sediment.

The chemical reaction that weathered away part of the Appalachians would have consumed large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere –- right around the time that the Ordovician ice age began.

When I read the first part, I immediately thought to myself does it tell us that CO2 drives temperature, or temperature drives CO2. And that's always the hard question - which change came first - CO2 or temperature. But part 2 contains an explanation that we would expect the CO2 to drop for a reason other than temperature, which surely strenghthens the case for CO2 to drive temperature, and not the other way around.

So we have one case, and the article goes on to say that the rise of the Himalayas may have caused our current ice age (we're in an interglacial period at the moment). So now we have two possibles, and wikipedia claims there have been 4 major ice ages.

That leaves us with some unanswered questions, like what about the other two ice ages, and how did CO2 get back into the atomosphere to end an ice age, and what is driving our current cycle of glacials/interglacials? I'm still stuck with suggestive, but not conclusive.

Necessity

Congratulations to Matthew Haugland, winner of the 2006 Collegiate Inventors Competition for inventing a better way to forecast nighttime temperatures:

When Matt Haugland was a child in San Jose, California, he remembers that his parents gave him a small thermometer that he used to measure the temperature in different spots around his yard. Although the yard wasn’t large, Haugland was fascinated by the temperature differences in the different parts of his yard. As he grew older, he became fascinated by the microclimates of the San Francisco Bay region and the reasons behind them.

Consequently, Haugland hoped to own land for the purpose of researching the microclimates on it. In 1999, he transferred from school in San Jose to the University of Oklahoma in search of affordable land. He bought a five-acre plot and installed several weather stations across it. Through his research, based on weather observations from these stations, Haugland developed a weather forecasting technique that accurately predicts nighttime temperatures.

As Haugland says, “I’m hoping that this model will help improve weather forecasts around the world.” The implications of his work are broad, from helping farmers protect their crops from frost and freezing, to helping predict nighttime fog formation, the biggest weather-related cause of death in transportation.

Maybe now there will be a good scientific explanation of why Beaumont Scout Reservation is always a good 10 degrees colder at night than nearby residential areas.

You should also check out the Inventor's Hall of Fame while you're at it.

New Meaning To Dress For Success

After reading this story about how researchers investigated how women dressed differently during their menstrual cycle and discovered, I kid you not:

A new study shows that young women in relationships may dress a bit more enticingly as they reach the ovulation phase of their monthly fertility cycle — the time when they are most fertile.

I've decided I clearly went into the wrong line of work. Researchers studied 30 college women and took a bunch of pictures of them (mental flash - should I report these guys to the FBI per the fallout over Rep. Foley?) over time.

First, who thinks up these studies - nerdy men who want to meet college women? This really addresses a burning question about human behavoir.

Secondly, I'm not surprised that women would dress "more enticingly" and that's because women are a lot hornier as ovulation approaches. I'm wondering when that bit of research gets done.

Bonus tip: Men are always horny, except when sporting events are on TV.

A Jug Of Wine, And Thou

You can get a grant for a study like this?

Studies to date looking at the association between alcohol consumption and risky sex, however, have largely used potentially biased clinic-based samples or alcohol venue-based sampling strategies [2,4,10,13,16,17]. In addition, risk factors for heavy alcohol use itself with regard to sexual behavior have not yet been adequately characterized. Finally, there are few data on whether the relationship between alcohol and risky sex is the same for men and women, and on the interplay between alcohol, intergenerational relations, and sex exchange. We therefore set out to assess the following in a large, population-based sample covering rural, urban, and semi-urban areas in Botswana: (a) the prevalence and correlates of heavy alcohol consumption; and (b) gender-specific relationships between heavy alcohol use (as a primary independent variable) and a number of HIV transmission risk outcomes, including having unprotected sex with a nonmonogamous partner, having multiple partners, and paying for or selling sex in exchange for money or resources.

As Gomer would say, surprise surprise surprise. When drunk, people are more likely to engage in risky sex. I could have told you that more clearly for less money. Far less money. It's the basis for men buying women (and vice versa) drinks in bars. In fact, I'll give this one to you for free - alcohol consumption lowers inhibitions.

Lasers And Chlorine Dioxide

You want to eat healthy, which means eating your vegetables, but you're scared because of outbreaks of food pathogens like E. Coli and Listeria. You've read that washing it, even by the supplier, isn't always effective. And when you find out that growers in the Salinas Valley, where most of the country's produce is grown, use tertiary treated sewage effluent for irregation, you really don't want to eat your vegetables.

But Purdue has your back. Researchers at the Purdue University have devised a one-two punch to knock out food pathogens. First, they have a laser system to detect the pathogens, and then they kill them with Chlorine Dioxide gas.

"If the product is safe, but nobody will eat it, that's not what we want," Linton said."We are always thinking in terms of, "Will this work for industry?' In this case, I believe the answer is yes. I would like to see this technology used regularly by industry in a couple years from now."

Both technologies have the potential to help prevent food-borne illness, Linton said, but he also noted that following proper agricultural practices is as important, if not more important, for food safety.

Since E. coli, or Escherichia coli, is found in the intestines of warm-blooded animals, it does not naturally contaminate most produce. Therefore, following more stringent sanitary policies, as well as practicing better manure and water management, can go a long way to help prevent future outbreaks, Linton said.

I'm with Dr. Linton on this - let's do all the things we should be doing, and not just rely on trying to clean up the mess at the end. But I'm glad we may well have a more effective way to clean up the mess at the end.

The New Phonebooks are Here!

The Nobel prize winners have been in the news lately, and so here is a complete listing:

ORNITHOLOGY: Ivan R. Schwab, of the University of California Davis, and the late Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los Angeles, for exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches.

NUTRITION: Wasmia Al-Houty of Kuwait University and Faten Al-Mussalam of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority, for showing that dung beetles are finicky eaters.

PEACE: Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers.

ACOUSTICS: D. Lynn Halpern (of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, and Brandeis University, and Northwestern University), Randolph Blake (of Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University) and James Hillenbrand (of Western Michigan University and Northwestern University) for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard.

MATHEMATICS: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed

LITERATURE: Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University for his report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly."

MEDICINE: Francis M. Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, for his medical case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage"; and Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan, and Arie Oliven of Bnai Zion Medical Center, Haifa, Israel, for their subsequent medical case report also titled "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage."

PHYSICS: Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, for their insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces.

CHEMISTRY: Antonio Mulet, José Javier Benedito and José Bon of the University of Valencia, Spain, and Carmen Rosselló of the University of Illes Balears, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, for their study "Ultrasonic Velocity in Cheddar Cheese as Affected by Temperature."

BIOLOGY: Bart Knols (of Wageningen Agricultural University, in Wageningen, the Netherlands; and of the National Institute for Medical Research, in Ifakara Centre, Tanzania, and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna Austria) and Ruurd de Jong (of Wageningen Agricultural University and of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Italy) for showing that the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted equally to the smell of limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet.

That would be the Ig Nobel prizes, that is. They are awarded to those who first make people laugh, then make them think. Something we strive mightily for here at funMurphys, but without the coveted award.

Some winners got into the spirit, as this press release shows.

LSD and Alcoholism

You can't make this stuff up. A history of medicine professor at the University of Alberta, Erika Dyck, has rediscovered studies from '60s Canada that show LSD can be an effective treatment of alcholism.

According to one study conducted in 1962, 65 per cent of the alcoholics in the experiment stopped drinking for at least a year-and-a-half (the duration of the study) after taking one dose of LSD. The controlled trial also concluded that less than 25 per cent of alcoholics quit drinking for the same period after receiving group therapy, and less than 12 per cent quit in response to traditional psychotherapy techniques commonly used at that time.

Published in the Quarterly Journal for Studies on Alcohol, the 1962 study was received with much skepticism. One research group in Toronto tried to replicate the results of the study, but wanted to observe the effect of LSD on the patients in isolation, so they blindfolded or tied up the patients before giving them the drug. Under such circumstances, the Toronto researchers determined LSD was not effective in treating alcoholism.

The Saskatchewan group argued that the drug needed to be provided in a nurturing environment to be effective. However, the Toronto researchers held more credibility than the Saskatchewan researchers--who were led by a controversial, British psychiatrist, Dr. Humphry Osmond--and the Saskatchewan group's research was essentially buried.

I just have to wonder, did they researchers in Toronto tell the subjects they were going to be tied up or blindfolded?

Wikipedia has more about Dr. Humphry Osmond, the man who coined the term "psychedelic" and who's middle name was "Fortescue", including this bit about the study in question:

Osmond is also known for one study in the late 1950s in which he attempted to cure alcoholics with acute LSD treatment, resulting in a claimed 50% success rate. He also treated Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill W. with LSD with positive results. There exists however an alternate version of the events that is told by psychiatrist Abram Hoffer, MD. Osmond and Hoffer not only worked with LSD but also with niacin, which is now called vitamin B3. It is Bill W. himself who made this term popular, after he realized, thanks to the two researchers, the antipsychotic potential of this vitamin when given in supraphysiologic doses. B3 became known as a treatment for alcoholism, as well as for LSD-induced and schizophrenic psychosis Vitamin B-3: Niacin and Its Amide by A. Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.. The underlying adrenochrome and kryptopyrrole (mauve factor) hypotheses were met with stiff, unsubstantiated opposition. The B3 protocol for alcoholism, despite encouraging results, fell into oblivion amongst the Alcoholics Anonymous organization, which gradually became a faith-based organisation reflecting the orientations of the other AA co-founder.

I'm glad I'm not an alcoholic so I don't wind up tied to a bed on an acid trip in the name of science. I think I'll just stick with the niacin I take to help lower my cholesterol.

Natural Frankenfoods

Where do you stand on genetically engineered crops? Personally, I'm all in favor and don't see a whole lot of difference between seed companies selecting for traits and a scientist taking a short cut and inserting the actual gene(s) they want, even when the gene comes from a completely different organism. But not everyone sees it that way, and they do raise some valid points. Certainly not all engineering is equal, but what about the most basic complaint -- that such engineering is not natural? Well, research into the past genetic history shows that such staple crops as rice and corn (maize for all you britishers out there) have undergone massive genetic alteration over time:

"Our findings elucidate an active evolutionary process in which nature inserts genes much like modern biotechnologists do. Now we must reassess the allegations that biotechnologists perform 'unnatural acts,' thereby creating 'Frankenfoods,'" said Professor Joachim Messing, project leader and director of the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

By comparing corresponding segments of two maize (corn) chromosomes with each other, and then to a corresponding segment of rice, project scientists reconstructed a genetic history replete with "reconfiguration and reshuffling, reminiscent of working with Lego blocks," Messing said.

Public awareness groups have argued that genetic engineering of crops deviates from "natural processes" when biotechnologists insert genes at seemingly random places, altering the normal order of genes in the genome. The view of genes being fixed in their position in the genome is largely based on studies in animal genomes. In contrast to those studies, however, the authors show that plant genomes evolved from a far more dynamic structure than previously believed.

Well, I think that answers the basic objection; all the rest are really ones of process and can dealt with by reasonable people -- and should be.

Giant Anti-Sucking Sound

I just couldn't resist the title of this article: World’s biggest whoopee cushion helps kids understand the science of sound. Who says science can't be fun? Not Professor Trevor Cox, that's for sure:

Trevor Cox, Professor of Acoustic Engineering at Salford University, will deliver this Royal Institution Science for Schools lecture. It is the biggest live event ever to be organised by the Royal Institution of Great Britain and their first-ever collaboration with the Royal Albert Hall. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded the research that forms the basis of the lecture and helped to fund the development of the show.

Audience participation will feature strongly throughout the event. Volunteers will be encouraged to sit on a specially made 2 metre-diameter whoopee cushion – the largest in the world – to demonstrate exactly how wind instruments work. The physics involved when whoopee cushions make a noise is the same as blowing through the mouthpiece of a saxophone, for instance (although the sound produced is quite different!). Trevor’s whoopee cushion will also be assessed at the event for a place in the Guinness World Records.

Ah, reminds me of the school science night when I made a flush toilet out of a plastic pretzel jar, a funnel, tubing, a bucket, plenty of caulk, and wood framing -- only a whole let better.

Dobson, Seipp, and HPV Vaccination

Cathy Seipp is a smart person, so why does she her analysis of the response to an HPV vaccine stumble so badly?

First off, she claims that certain religious fanatics are attacking the new vaccine for HPV:

One of the first things I had my 17-year-old daughter do when she began college this fall was make an appointment to get the new anti-HPV (for “Human Papillomavirus”) vaccine at the university’s student health center. HPV is the sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer, and the new vaccine (which in my view should only be celebrated, as should all medical progress) has been attacked by religious fanatics almost as soon as it was introduced. ‘Why, this will only encourage young girls to have sex!’ Or so that kind of thinking goes — if you can even call it “thinking.”

OK, what is Focus on the Family's position? Oddly enough, they have a .pdf position statement on their web site:

Recognizing the worldwide detriment to individuals and families resulting from HPV, Focus on the Family supports and encourages the development of safe, effective and ethical vaccines against HPV, as well as other viruses. The use of these vaccines may prevent many cases of cervical cancer, thus saving the lives of millions of women across the globe. Therefore, Focus on the Family supports widespread (universal) availability of HPV vaccines but opposes mandatory HPV vaccinations for entry to public school. The decision of whether to vaccinate a minor against this or other sexually transmitted infections should remain with the child’s parent or guardian. As in all areas of sexual health and education, Focus on the Family upholds parents’ right to be the primary decision maker and educator for their children. The use of these vaccines should involve informed consent for parents as well as education for both parents and youth regarding the potential benefits and risks of the vaccine. In making this decision, parents should consider the following:
• No vaccine is 100% effective against disease;
• There are more than one hundred sub-types of HPV and the current vaccines being tested are effective against, at most, four of these;
• The sub-types of the virus that these vaccines protect against are the cause of most but not all cases of cervical cancer;
• The possibility of HPV infection resulting from sexual assault, including date rape;
• The possibility that young persons may marry someone previously exposed to and still carrying the virus;
• The HPV vaccines do not protect against other STIs or prevent pregnancy;
• The HPV vaccines do not, in any circumstance, negate or substitute the best health message of sexual abstinence until marriage and sexual faithfulness after marriage.

Hmm, how about Family Research Council:

The Family Research Council welcomes the news that vaccines are in development for preventing infection with certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV). We also welcome the reports, like those we've heard this morning, of promising clinical trials for such a vaccine. Forms of primary prevention and medical advances in this area hold potential for helping to protect the health of millions of Americans and helping to preserve the lives of thousands of American women who currently die of cervical cancer each year as a result of HPV infection. Media reports suggesting that the Family Research Council opposes all development or distribution of such vaccines are false.

...

We will also continue to take an interest in the activities of the pharmaceutical companies, the federal and state governments, and of the medical community, as vaccines for HPV are approved, recommendations for their use are developed, and their use is implemented. In particular, we encourage follow-up studies to determine whether use of the vaccine has any impact on sexual behavior and its correlates, such as rates of other sexually transmitted diseases or rates of pregnancy.

We are particularly concerned with insuring that medically accurate information regarding the benefits and limitations of an HPV vaccine is distributed to public health officials, physicians, patients, and the parents of minor patients. It is especially important for those parties to understand that such a vaccine:

* will not prevent transmission of HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases, of which there are many;

* will not prevent infection with other strains of HPV, of which there are also many;

* will not prevent infection with all of the strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer;

* and lastly, will not eliminate the need for regular screening.

We recognize that the most current immunological studies suggest that these vaccines would be most effective in pre-adolescents. Our primary concern is with the message that would be delivered to nine- to twelve-year-olds with the administration of the vaccines. Care must be taken not to communicate that such an intervention makes all sex "safe." We strongly encourage the health care community to clearly communicate the medically accurate fact that only abstaining from sexual contact with infected individuals can fully protect someone from the wide range of sexually transmitted diseases.

However, we also recognize that HPV infection can result from sexual abuse or assault, and that a person may marry someone still carrying the virus. These provide strong reasons why even someone practicing abstinence and fidelity may benefit from HPV vaccines.

Because parents have an inherent right to be the primary educator and decision maker regarding their children's health, we would oppose any measures to legally require vaccination or to coerce parents into authorizing it. Because the cancer-causing strains of HPV are not transmitted through casual contact, there is no justification for any vaccination mandate as a condition of public school attendance. However, we do support the widespread distribution and use of vaccines against HPV.

Vaccination at the beginning of adolescence may provide a unique opportunity for both health care providers and parents to discuss with young people the full range of issues related to sexual health. We would encourage this committee to recommend that policy-making bodies, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, should develop and formalize clinical counseling interventions directed toward sexual risk elimination strategies for pre-adolescents. Such strategies could be incorporated into anticipatory guidance protocols. Such a strategy would also mirror the risk elimination messages presented to adolescents regarding tobacco, alcohol, and drug usage, and youth violence prevention. This risk elimination message is the best form of primary prevention youth can receive.

Both health care providers and parents should reinforce the fact that limiting sexual activity to the context of one faithful and monogamous long-term relationship is the single most effective method of preventing all sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancies, and the whole range of negative psychological and social consequences that can result from sexual activity outside marriage.

OK, how about Jerry Falwell? Silent on the issue.

National Abstinence Clearinghouse? OK, I admit I'm not a member and don't want to join so I can't actually see what's in their resource library, but here are some titles:

07.05.2006 More on HPV and Condoms…
06.29.2006 HPV Vaccine: How Much Will it Cost?
06.21.2006 HPV Vaccine: Progress, But the Battle’s Not Over Against HPV
05.24.2006 HPV Vaccine Clears FDA Hurdle
04.26.2006 Data from Eight Collected Studies Shows Enormous Risk of Cervical Cancer from HPV
04.07.2006 New Way to Encourage Someone to Test for STD
04.05.2006 Teens and STDs: A New Message for a Healthy Millennium

Call me crazy, but it strikes me that they are in line with Focus on the Family, not opposed, and I'm assuming their position is best summed up by "HPV Vaccine: Progress, But the Battle’s Not Over Against HPV".

Now perhaps these organizations have all moderated their opposition after the FDA approved it and I'm (admittedly) late to the party. But that isn't what is claimed. Now to be sure there may be some people out there actually flat out opposed to the HPV vaccine who are Christians, but I'm sure not seeing some movement by any influential organization.

But it doesn't end there. Ms. Seipp continues:

This naturally brought out all the true believers in hordes -- many of whom insisted that my comparison of vaccines that prevent disease to locked doors that prevent burglars is wrong, wrong, wrong. I don't see why. Some of these people insist the analogy is flawed because airbags and seatbelts encourage people to drive more recklessly, not less.

But while it's true there are some studies that indicate improved safety features in cars do make some people feel inoculated against road hazards and so more likely to speed, what about people like me? I never speed and haven't had a traffic ticket in 26 years -- pretty much what you'd expect from a typical Volvo-driving fuddy-duddy...whose seatbelts always fastened, and whose car has airbags.

It's true my analogy about burglars and disease may be imperfect, but it's nevertheless essentially true. One person, for instance, said I should have used the example of theft insurance instead of locked doors. But I don't see why. Vaccinating against disease and locking your doors against burglars both recognize that we live in a world where bad things can happen even if we don't deserve them. Recognizing that fact no more encourages promiscuity than locked doors encourages burglary; both are simply precautions.

Now let's take up the question of whether or not reducing the risk associated with a behavior increases the incidence of said behavior. That is the what is claimed again by Ms. Seipp as the religious fanatic's objection to this vaccine.

So her analogy is that since locking your doors at night doesn't encourage burglars, making sex less risky won't encourage sex. There are two problems that make her analogy a non-sequitor. The original is about how your ability to lower the risk of your behavior to yourself encourages you to do more of that behavior. The analogy is about how your ability to (1) increase the risk of (2) someone else's behavior doesn't encourage them. Gee, when you get to stand the other person's points on their heads, you can easily refute them.

Now a reader tries to rescue her "One person, for instance, said I should have used the example of theft insurance instead of locked doors. But I don't see why." Here's why: the analogy becomes just because you have theft insurance [lower the risk] you don't stop locking your doors at night [risky behavior]. The reason you should use it is that it actually conforms to the logic of the objection. I have to admit I don't have data, but I'd say there are more people who would take less precautions with their property knowing they would be paid for a loss than there are who would take more.

But I don' have to think too hard about this, because we already have data about this very effect, and Ms. Seipp cites it - anti-lock brakes and airbags have made people feel safer, so we have engaged in riskier driving behavior to the point we are no safer, and even less safe than before. So we have valid evidence that low and behold, if you lower the risk of a certain behavior, people will do more of it.

And how does Ms. Seipp respond to actual real hard data? Anecdote. Hey I own a safe car and I don't engage in risky behavior. OK, what does that have to do with the measurement of real behavior by real people? Yep, none.

As far as Ms. Seipp's analogy, how about we ask the question, if burglars were given a "get out of jail free" card that really worked, even if only once, would they commit more or less burglary? I don't have to think too hard about that one.

But one has to ask, so what? As far as I can tell, what Focus on the Family and Family Research Council are warning against is a false sense of security - that is they don't want the message to be that because of this vaccine, sex has been rendered safe and complication free. Kind of like, just because you lock the front door everynight, don't think you can't be burglarized.

A better response would be that given all of the factors that go into becoming sexually active, the risk of HPV is pretty far down the list and is just not very significant, and that the risk that young girls would misjudge and take this vaccine as a license for risk free sex could be overcome through the proper education -- which sound a lot like the positions take by those religious fanatics at FOTF and FRC.

So what did I learn from reading Ms. Seipp in this case? Nothing about so called religious fanatics. But I did learn that even smart, reliable people goof: they don't accurately represent other people's positions, they don't reason well, they dismiss data if it disagrees with their opinion, and in general can just go off half-cocked. And yes, I'm sure if you were a glutton for punishment and went through my archives you could find similar problems from time to time.

If A Tree Is Not In The Forest, Can You Hear It Fall?

What tree doesn't like a forest? The Live Oak, which apparently is the introvert of the tree family. A study of the live oak by University of Florida researchers reveals that live oaks are under pressure in Florida (an no doubt elsewhere) from the encroachment of other trees:

It is an irony of nature that the successes of reforestation and urban forestry threaten live oaks, which in the past maintained the elbow room they needed from logging, cattle grazing and frequent fires, said Putz, whose work is published in the June issue of Forest Ecology and Management. “We are confusing our natural savanna heritage with forested landscapes and the tragedy is that the forest is killing live oaks,” he said. “If we allow other trees to grow up too close to the live oak, the live oak will die. Our research clearly establishes this fate in both rural and suburban landscapes.”

...

Based on these findings, Putz said he believes more than half of the live oaks in the city of Gainesville alone are in danger of being destroyed by encroaching trees, a process that can take anywhere from 10 to 30 years and is most rapid in the suburbs where lawns are fertilized.

The problem is widespread because suburban sprawl and forest expansion are threatening savannas and open-canopied woodlands in many parts of the world, Putz said.

“The trees of these savannas, from the oaks of California and Europe to the acacias of Africa and the legumes of tropical America, are all likely to suffer when forest trees encroach on their crowns,” he said. “In the U.S. alone, savanna is the natural vegetation all across the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas.”

Saving live oaks sometimes means having to kill other trees, which can be expensive, but preserving a single live oak can add as much as $30,000 to the value of a house, Putz said. Furthermore, having a live oak nearby is good protection against hurricane damage.

I have to admit it's counter-intuitive for me to consider the growth of forest can come at the expense of a particular tree species, or to contemplate killing one set of trees to save another.

Diabetes, Not Obesity Kills

I count this as good news/bad news - obesity by itself carries no extra risk of early death, but diabetes sure is a killer. Since obesity is a significant risk factor in diabetes, and being overweight is no picnic, don't start ignoring your size. And in light of the last post about how scaring people into action is ineffective, this quote makes double sense:

"Telling an overweight person that they either need to lose weight or they will die is the wrong message," he says. "There is increasing evidence that aggressively treating diabetes and other risk factors that go along with obesity, like cholesterol and high blood pressure, is even more important than losing weight."

Not everyone is convinced:

But JoAnn Manson, M.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, doesn't buy the idea that diabetes alone is responsible for the increased risk of early death in people who are obese. Manson led the team which reanalyzed the CDC data. She tells WebMD that there is plenty of good evidence implicating obesity in death from cardiovascular disease and several types of cancer, as well as diabetes.

"There are clearly pathways through which obesity increases the risk of death that do not involve type 2 diabetes," she says.

That's the beauty of science -- it's only settled once you're dead.

Read This Blog Or Else!

"You can't scare people into getting fit or going green" says the Economic and Social Research Council. No word on if you can scare people into voting Republican. No rebuttle from the Catholic church or Jewish mothers, either.

The team identified 33 distinct strategies for changing intentions and behaviour across the 129 different studies. The most frequently used strategies provided general information, details of consequences and opportunities for comparison. Yet the most effective strategies were to prompt practice, set specific goals, generate self-talk, agree a behavioural contract and prompt review of behavioural goals. The two least effective strategies involved arousing fear and causing people to regret if they acted in a particular fashion.

Gee whiz, sounds like all that metrics stuff - "What you can't measure, you can't manage" might be true after all.

Actually, I'm not sure how they got from the most effective strategy for a personal trainer to you can't scare people into adopting your position. I guess it 's the difference between you can't scare people into actually doing something about the environment but it's easy to get them to pay lip service to the environment, you know people who natter on about what you can do while doing nothing themselves.

Bigger Is Not Happier

The latest word on breast implants is a study from Canada that concludes that breast implants are safe - however, they are not effective. The researchers studied almost 25,000 women who had implants to determine that those who had cosmetic breast implants had the same mortality rate as the general public -- actually, it was lower -- but they had a significantly higher suicide rate -- 73% higher. The study authors concluded that the lower mortality rate was due to double selection bias - they were healthy and wealthy enough to undergo cosmetic surgery. So they compared the women who had other cosmetic surgery to the general public and got similar results - lower morality, higher suicide rate. So while the researchers say implants are safe (with reservations for individual complications), I say they are not effective since they do not seem to be a long term fix -- based on the increased suicide rate, they do not do what the woman is hoping for.

The Science of Diversity

Does a diverse student body matter to a school? Has there been any study on its effectiveness at changing attitudes among students? OK, a study at long last a study has looked at this question and determined, that yes, "Children's racial attitudes may be related to ethnic composition of their school":

"These findings inform our knowledge about the role that contact with members of different ethnic and racial groups plays in children's intergroup attitudes," said Dr. Killen. "This contact, under the right conditions, can foster positive attitudes towards 'outgroup' members."

At last, school diversity has a leg to stand on. With only 138 subjects I'm not saying the study is definitive, but at least this question is starting to be addressed.

Mortality and Race

John Edwards liked to talk about 2 Americas while on the stump, but he was wrong according to the latest study of mortality in America. Wouldn't that be a great headline over the articles - "Edwards Lied"? OK, turns out there are eight Americas:
Asians, northland low-income rural whites, Middle America, low-income whites in Appalachia and the Mississippi Valley, western Native Americans, black Middle America, southern low-income rural blacks, and high-risk urban blacks. Although looking at the numbers, they could have had sixteen Americas by dividing each group by gender. I guess they thought that was excessive. Or they could have just divided it between men and women and then Edwards would have been right.

Hmm, is there any link between life expectancy and test scores?

Interestingly, based on Figure 1. Alaska and the frozen north seem to have the highest life expectancies - maybe we should all move to the Arctic to maximize our life expectancy.

I like the Middle America category - its neither race nor geography based, it's basically the left overs from the other seven. Middle America sounds so much better than Leftovers, though. Or average White People, which is overwhelmingly what the category is.

According to Figure 3, the difference in life expectancy between Asians and the next group, Americans who sey eh, is much larger than between any other groups.

Would they have made a much bigger deal about the gender difference if it were women on the short end of the life expectency? Just curious.

Why I Don't Understand "Medical Ethics"

I guess I don't undertand medical ethics. You'd think providing healthcare in the manner that causes the least deaths would be the most ethical way, right? Wrong, according to Dr. Sally Blower discussing the best strategy to treat AIDS in South Africa:

Using data from the KwaZulu-Natal province for their parameters, researchers from UCLA and the University of California, San Francisco, devised a mathematical model to predict the impact of drug allocation strategies that the South African government is implementing to treat 500,000 people by 2008. These data included birth rates, natural death rates and death rates stemming from AIDS.

They looked at three drug allocation strategies: one that would allocate antiretroviral drugs only to the city of Durban and two making them available in both urban and rural areas.

Of those, the Durban-only strategy would be the most effective in preventing new infections, reducing them by up to 46 percent -- amounting to preventing an additional 15,000 infections by 2008 -- compared with the two strategies that would include both urban and rural areas. The strategy also would avert the greatest number of deaths from AIDS and generate the least amount of drug resistance.

But major problems would emerge with that approach, said Sally Blower, professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and senior author of the study. Most important, this approach is against basic ethical principles guiding treatment equity and would lead to more urban/rural healthcare disparities than already exist.

"If there was rational planning, you could determine drug allocation strategies by balancing ethical objectives with epidemiological objectives," said Blower, a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute. "But it's obviously unlikely that this type of rational planning would or could occur. So it's much more likely that the actual drug allocation strategy will be determined by a mix of politics and feasibility."

She added: "Unfortunately, you can't have the maximum impact on the epidemic and be ethical."

Forgive me, but isn't there a difference between providing treatment for a deadly disease ravaging a continent, and handing out candy to first graders? I suppose you have to ask yourself, do we allocate scarce goods where they do the most good, or do we allocate scarce goods where we feel good about ourselves? What we have here is just creeping socialism. What we don't have is an appreciation of the fairness of treatment to not just those who have the disease, but to those who don't yet have the disease - they are completely ignored in conventional medical ethics, yet they are more numerous than those who have it.

I suppose it goes hand in hand with the whole no money for organ donors even if it increases organ donation because while the doctors, nurses, orderlies, janitor, and the hospital itself are being paid to perform the operation, it would just be wrong to pay the donor.

Fluid Dynamics Meets Finite Element Modeling

Researchers at Purdue University have created a simulation to study what happens when a airplane crashes into a building for use in studying the 9/11 World Trade Center attack. The researchers had earlier developed a simulation to investigate the 9/11 Pentagon attack.

"As a result of the Pentagon research, we have a better understanding of what happens when a tremendous mass of fluid such as fuel hits a solid object at high velocity," Sozen said. "We believe most of the structural damage from such aircraft collisions is caused by the mass of the fluid on the craft, which includes the fuel.

"Damage resulting solely from the metal fuselage, engines and other aircraft parts is not as great as that resulting from the mass of fluids on board. You could think of the aircraft as a sausage skin. Its mass is tiny compared to the plane's fluid contents."

...

Santiago Pujol, an assistant professor of civil engineering, worked with the researchers to develop experimental data to test the accuracy of the simulation by using an "impact simulator" to shoot 8-ounce beverage cans at high velocity at steel and concrete targets at Purdue's Bowen Laboratory. These data enabled the researchers to fine tune and validate the theoretical model for the simulation.

"We created a mathematical model of the beverage can and its fluid contents the same way we modeled the airplane, and then we tested our assumptions used to formulate the model by comparing the output from the model with that from the experiment," Sozen said.

Who says science can't be fun and relevant? I bet shooting the coke cans into steel and concrete targets was a blast -- the Mythbuster guys are so jealous. Personally, I'd worry about scaling up from 8oz coke cans to a plane weighing over 200,000 lbs, but that's just the engineer in me, but I understand the difficulty in trying to set up a test anywhere close to full scale. Of course, if they used beer cans, I can see that researchers might decide that enough data had been collected before they were all used.

OK, in all seriousness, this is some real science and engineering, and might even help with those people who claim it wasn't planes that brought down the towers or hit the Pentagon.