What do I do now?

Well, I’d love you to tell me. What have you enjoyed about the show over the past year? What are its strong points? What would you like to see more of? Who would you like me to interview? Is there anything I should change?

All these questions, and more, I am asking of you since this show is for you.

To answer these questions and leave comments for me, you can do several things:

1. send me an email (drkiki at drkiki dot tv),
2. leave a comment here,
3. send me a video message through youtube, or
4. call me and leave me a message (yup, I’m giving you a phone number… 650-741-KIKI).

I will play and read your responses on Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour tomorrow afternoon. This anniversary is about you.

I want to make Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour even better this year, and I would love your help to make it happen.

There is something mesmerizing about watching the numbers scroll past.

The numbers of gallons leaked is so high at this point that it seems unreal. How did this happen? Why isn’t it fixed yet? Can that really be the low estimate?

I can’t even wrap my brain around the enormity of the disaster. What do the numbers really mean?

So, here are some numbers I’ve calculated as I try to make sense and get perspective:

The low estimate of around 20,414,200 gallons (and rising) is about 486,052 barrels of oil, or 30 Olympic sized swimming pools. This quantity of oil would fill the tanks of approximately 1,360,946 cars, assuming a tank size of 15 gallons. That’s more cars than the number of people who live in San Francisco.

Or, it could fill my car’s tank nearly 1.4 million times. My car gets 25 miles to the gallon on average, and can potentially travel 375 miles on one tank of gas. I could conceivably drive somewhere around 510,355,000 miles with the low estimate of how many gallons have leaked so far. That’s 20,414 times around the earth’s equator, or 2041 times to the moon (or about 1020 round trips).

It’s 93 million miles to the sun, so I could make the round trip there almost two and three-quarters times. And, depending on where Mars is, I could get there and back either 7 times or once.

On the high end of the leak estimates, I’m looking at being able to travel about 4,400,000,000 (that’s 4.4 billion) miles! That could get me to Pluto when it’s at its closest.

Obviously, I know my car couldn’t travel in outer space, but it’s interesting to think of what the oil that’s leaking into the Gulf of Mexico could have done.

The low estimate of the leak is far lower than the amount of oil being produced per day for our consumption, but the high estimate is getting up there… a bit more than China and Iran produce in a day. Interestingly, depending on the estimate you choose to look at, we are either looking at a disaster that is simply two times as large as the Exxon Valdez or something that is somewhere between the first and second worst oil spill in history.

I can only hope that the worst case estimates are not correct, but regardless, this is big and is bound to get bigger until it is fixed. The numbers and constant news reports are mind-numbing, but don’t get complacent.

If it matters to you, make some noise that this is not what you want for your world.

In my personal opinion, which I tried to discuss a few places, it is a landmark report if only for the sheer technological know-how. The Venter Institute has proof-of-concept of various techniques working together for the first time. The bacterium they created are copies of an existing bacterium, but the copy genome was produced base by base in a dish rather than inside a living organism. Also, the copy genome was inserted into another species of bacteria whose genome had been removed (it was a shell of its previous self), and successfully took over the management of the bacterial body.

Now, the Venter Institute has generations of little baby bacteria that are the product of successful asexual bacterial reproduction (i.e. cell division) from that first synthetic generation. If they are dividing and multiplying like regular bacteria, I have to say it is a job well done. But, if they truly want to create artificial life, they are going to have to figure out how to create the bacterial body that goes with the DNA.

I’m sure scientists are already working on that problem, but in the meantime, the Venter Institute will be working with the DNA to determine what genes are necessary for life, what the minimum size limit is for a genome to run a microbe, and which genes can be added successfully to bacteria to make them do our bidding.

In addition to this very visible bacteria story, another equally interesting and potentially sci-fi scientific development hit the journal Nature this last week. Robots… little tiny robots that crawl around inside your cells to fix things are a bit closer to reality.

According to Bethany Halford of Chemical &Engineering News:

“Using DNA as the key construction material, one group of researchers created a nanoscale robot that can autonomously walk across a track, and a different group prepared a nanofactory in which DNA robots can carry and deposit nanoparticle cargo.”

The track in question will eventually be your cytoskeleton, the tiny fibers that give your cells their shape, and act as the transportation routes for cellular delivery systems. If the groups involved in these two studies can put their work together, we will have tiny machines that can carry payloads from place to place within your cells - a goal of researchers wanting very specific intracellular chemical delivery.

Also from the article:

“A goal of our field is to refashion and reimagine all the complex biochemical machinery of cells to suit our own purposes—to have synthetic molecules that can move around and carry cargo as protein motors do in cells, to have molecules that act as chemical factories, which make a particular product based on a particular chemical input, and above all to make these processes modular, to make them engineerable,” notes Paul W. K. Rothemund, the Caltech scientist who invented DNA origami.”

So, someday in the possibly not-so-distant future we may have synthetic bacteria that do our bidding in the environment, AND synthetic machines that help us live healthier lives.

Last Friday, I got to talk with Dr. Vincent Racaniello, Dr. Rich Condit, and Dr. Alan Dove (PhD turned science writer), virus experts the lot of them, on their show, This Week in Virology. Ostensibly, I was invited on the show to discuss my transformation from scientist grad student to scientist media person, but I was really just there for the virus science.

If you haven’t had a chance to listen to this podcast, I highly suggest giving it one. The hosts are Columbia University professors, and they eloquently discuss the finer details of the viruses that make you sick. However, it’s not a show for the scientifically faint of heart. These guys really dig into the nuts and bolts of the living dead. The conversation is fairly high level, but they do a great job of making it interesting. I found myself hanging on their words wanting to learn how the little things work.

But, I am a certified geek. I thrive on the details because to me they add nuance to the scientific story unfolding around my ears.

You will just have to see what you think for yourself. Check it out at www.twiv.tv.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a live-streaming set-up that allows me to take callers and actually vocally chat. But, I am able to respond to all the people who show up and ask questions or make comments in the chat room.

I have to say that I was completely overwhelmed the first week by all the people who were really interested in asking questions about science itself, recent news items, or were just curious about the way things work. I had a hard time keeping up with the flow of the chat, but I’m not complaining at all. All the activity made for an intense hour that I think was extremely fun.

And, I think lots of people who showed up enjoyed it too. I had over 30,000 unique views that first week, and hit that mark again this week. Not too shabby for a little science show… check out the premier…

Watch live video from DrKiki on Justin.tv on Justin.tv

and the 2nd episode for yourself…

Watch live video from DrKiki on Justin.tv on Justin.tv

Anyway, I definitely have to thank all the people at Justin.tv for getting this started, (moderating all the unnecessary commentary in the chat room) and making it a success right out of the gate. Neha, you and the Justin.tv team rock! I never would have started doing this or found out about the great Justin.tv audience without your suggestions.

It’s been such a great experience that I’m definitely going to be chatting on a weekly basis, if not more often. I’d also love to get interesting science-y people over to my home studio to do the chat with me (I do have two microphones…). I’m sure company would make it even more fun. So, let me know if you, my science-y friend, are interested in chatting with me and the Justin.tv audience.

Let’s see where this thing can go…

In the book, Dr. Everett tells the story of his years spent in the amazon jungle studying the language of a small tribe of Indians. There are ups and downs, thrills and spills throughout, but the most important part of the story is the language and how it changed the Dr.’s life forever.

You would be amazed at everything Dr. Everett went through in the name of science. I know I was when I read the book.

Even more amazing was getting to speak with him on the Science Hour. See for yourself…

It was a fabulous conversation, and I do believe that we did, indeed, celebrate the women in the field. And, really, I think that is the key to continued success these days. People are not responsive to whining about problems. People want to feel hopeful, to see positive role-models, be given next steps they can take themselves, and to know that their actions can make a difference.

If you are a female success in science or technology, get out there! Tell people about yourself, and don’t be afraid to do it. People want to know how you got to where you are.

Be a model for future generations of women in science by living successfully yourself.

Anyway, here is the show. Check it out:

Today (and most Thursdays) on TWiT I host Science Thursday…

It starts at 2pm PT with Maxwell’s House starring Ray Maxwell. Ray delves into the world of aviation, and today’s show will focus on Ash Clouds, Aero Cars, and being a Test Pilot.

From 3:30 - 4:30pm PT, you can catch Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour. Today I interview Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, about her book, the science of cells, and finding such an amazing story.

Then from 5-5:30pm PT, Roz Rows the Pacific will find Roz Savage wherever she is in the Southern Pacific Ocean to discuss her journey and the concept of sustainability. Our guest will be Marcus Eriksen of the 5Gyres project.

Happy Earth Day, everyone. May you live the life you love, and may that love give back to the planet.

I hope you can join in the fun on TWiT.tv.

The Scientist Magazine just announced “The Labbies”, a competition to find:

scientists and scientific laboratories that show real tech savvy in presenting their research to the wider world. Send us your coolest videos, neatest lab websites, sharpest blogs, most user-friendly interactive multimedia, and any other technologically-advanced presentations you use to communicate your science.

I’m one of several judges who will be rating your cool-factor, “including the father of the infographic Nigel Holmes, … Jeffrey Segall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY, and David Kirby of the University of Manchester.”

I am really excited to see what scientists are doing in the multimedia and transmedia spaces these days. It’s no longer a flat website world. It’s an immersive universe of information and communication. Scientists need to understand this change and progress with it in order to keep up with cultural demands.

So, whatchya got?