Dude… Check it!

MC Hawking Rawks! I LOVE this video (Click on the watch this movie link on the right).

Sorry to those of you who would rather not navigate to a new page. NewGrounds has some code that takes over any embed you try to do, and puts a way too big box in the middle of your page that doesn’t fit right, and looks awful. So, instead of having a nice clean embedded link to the video itself here on my site, you have to navigate elsewhere and click lots of buttons and look at lots of popup ads. Grrr. The video is still great though.

Why Does Everything Have to be Political?

This is from an email that I received recently:

Remember that Stanford scientific ³genius² Paul Ehrlich and his prophecies
of ³the end is near?² Well a funny thing happened on the way to disaster.
We¹re still …you never know. Right?

Now another ³scientific genius² has materialized in the person of Al Gore,
member of the lowest third of his class at Harvard. Like Michael Moore, the
believers yearn, nay, are desperate, to report on such matters as this:

³Because of melting ice caps and glaciers, “The End Is Near!” But melting
Arctic ice won’t raise sea levels any more than the melting ice in your
drink makes your glass overflow.

³The fundamentalist doom-mongers ignore scientists who say the effects of
global warming may be benign. Harvard astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas says
added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may actually benefit the world
because more CO2 helps plants grow. Warmer winters would give farmers a
longer harvest season.

³Why don’t we hear about this part of the global warming argument?

“It’s the money!” says Dr. Baliunas. “Twenty-five billion dollars in
government funding has been spent since 1990 to research global warming. If
scientists and researchers were coming out releasing reports that global
warming has little to do with man, and most to do with just how the planet
works, there wouldn’t be as much money to study it.”

³And the politicians would have one less excuse to take control of our
lives.²

Quotes excerpted from an article by Jon Stossel.

I feel very strongly about the misinformation that is being disseminated regarding the science behind global warming. So, I’m posting my response to the email.

Several problems with the excerpts:

1) true, ice floating in water will not raise water levels because ice actually takes up more space than water. So, ice floating in the form of icebergs, etc. in the Arctic will not affect water levels. However, water in the form of ice on land will run-off into the oceans when it melts, and add water to the water, thus increasing the total amount of water. The water level will therefore increase. There is a LOT of ice on land in Greenland and in Antarctica, which could significantly affect the levels of our oceans. Current research shows Greenland’s glaciers to be melting at a significantly increasing rate.

2) So-called doom-mongers aren’t ignoring those other scientists, rather the scientific evidence on the side of global warming is becoming overwhelming. Sallie Baliunas is but one skeptic. True that she is an astophysicist, but I don’t know what that has to do with plant biology. While it may seem logical that an increase in CO2 would be beneficial to plants, recent studies have shown that increases in CO2 actually hamper the ability of plants to respire. They grow less, and convert less CO2 to O2 as CO2 increases. I challenge Jon Stossel to write a less biased atricle by talking to more scientists who are actually on the forefront of atmospheric and biological research. He might actually learn something.

3) The statement “warmer winters would give farmers a longer growing season” is a fallacy. Global warming is defined as an increase in the average temperatures worldwide. It makes no prediction that there will be longer, warmer winters or even longer warmer summers in any one place. There is no way to estimate what will happen to the areas in which farmers grow crops currently. The midwest could end up with massive glaciers, thus putting a lot of farmers out of work. There is no way to know what will happen to the climate, or the day to day temerature changes for that matter, in any one region on the planet for certain at this point in time.

4) Governemtal science grants are given to people with worthwhile project ideas and hypotheses. Scientists are publishing the results of their studies no matter what conclusions are to be made from the data. The government is not pushing scientists to publish pro-global warming papers. In fact, most governmental actions have tried to cover up or discredit the mounting scientific evidence that global warming is in fact becoming a serious issue. If anything, the oil and coal lobbies have a lot more money invested in the outcome of this debate than the scientists.

5) I have a question to those who argue against human involvement in global warming. So what if we aren’t fully responsible? But, what if our actions could mitigate the effects of the warming that is occurring? What if we can do something now to preserve the earth as we know it for future generations? Shouldn’t we do something if we can?

We are a part of this planet, and there are so many humans (with numbers still growing) that our actions do effect it. It is egotism and greed that have blinded so many of us against the probablility that we are damaging the only planet we have to live on.

This is not a political issue, or at least it shouldn’t be. This is a human issue. People like John Stossel ought to be ashamed of themselves for spreading unscientific myths in order to propagate divisive political discord.

So, It’s Only a Rat

Cool study published in the Journal of Neuroscience… scientists have used a drug that stimulates D3 Dopamine receptors in the brain to produce neurogenesis (that’s new cell BIRTH!) in the substantia nigra of rats with Parkinson’s-like disease. The new cells went on to make functional connections to other areas of the brain and allow the rats to regain abilities that they had lost due to their disease. The study suggests that drugs currently used to treat Parkinson’s in humans could possibly be manipulated to result in a similar effect in humans. If true, it would do away with the need for invasive implantation of embryonic stem cells as a treatment because the drugs would stimulate endogenous stem cells (those lying dormant in the brain) to jump into action. This then would probably reduce patients’ reliance on drugs like L-DOPA, which lose the efficacy over time. The researchers are looking for similar drug effects in other neurodegenerative dieases, like Alzheimers, as well.

It’s exciting to think that one day we may be able to reverse degenerative diseases by simply stimulating the appropriate receptor, and letting the body do the rest of the work naturally.

Happy 4th of July

As everyone heads out to their barbecues and softball games, I’d just like to wish you a safe and happy 4th. Maybe we could all benefit from a moment of remembrance today: remembering in this time of war and revocation of freedoms the basic tenets on which our government was founded, and the life that was sacrificed for those freedoms once held so sacred to now be so taken for granted.

More writing…

Here is the link to an article I had published this past month in ‘The Physiologist’, the American Physiological Society’s quarterly publication. It’s nice to see things in print. Hopefully, much more will be captured in ink as my career progresses.

Beautiful Butterflies

How do you make a new species? Scientists are on the trail of the answer to that question.

Researchers working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama have apparently copied one possible form of speciation in the laboratory, maybe even recreating the evolutionary steps that took place in birth of a species. In the wild, a species called Heliconius heurippa looks suspiciously like a blend between the two species H. cydno and H. melpomene. To see whether H. heurippa may have resulted from a process called hybridization, the scientists brought H. cydno and H. melpomene into the lab for breeding. After just three generations of interbreeding the two species, the scientists had an intermediate color form of butterfly that exactly matched H. heurippa individuals in the wild. Genetic analysis also supported that they had produced a strain of butterfly genetically distinct from either of the parent species.

That’s fine, but what about breeding? Usually some sort of isolation has to occur for a species to become truly distinct as a species or else it will eventually blend back into the parent populations remaining only an occassional variant form. Well, it turns out that H. heurippa is reproductively isolated, which means that its reproductive behavior doesn’t usually lead it to mate with any but its own kind. The researchers found that when given a choice of mating with H. cydno, H. melpomene, or H. heurippa females, males chose H. heurippa 75-90% of the time. This suggests that this sort of natural reproductive isolation might occur quite often in nature allowing hybrids to branch off and become a separate species.

Hybridization is an interesting occurrence, which can lead one to question the defined boundaries of species. Many times in nature the process results in reproductively inviable individuals, like the mule, but can sometimes lead to perfectly viable animals. Dogs, cats, and birds are often hybridized by breeders in order to create new strains for pet enthusiasts. After time, hybrids can be considered their own species if they don’t tend to mate with dissimilar individuals for either behavioral or physical reasons. But, if they maintain that ability to even a slight degree what does it mean for speciation, and to that end for conservation?

Are animals that maintain some amount of reproductive connectedness with other members of their genus or species more or less likely to weather changes to their environment? Does it matter if a hybrid species like H. heurippa goes extinct as long as the probable parent species remain extant? How much information will be necessary to make such a decision as we learn more and more about genetics and the complexities of speciation? Where will we start to draw lines?

Disserting…

So, I have been neglecting my blog lately. The reason is that I am currently trying to focus as much of my energy as possible onto completing my dissertation. I am spending half of each week at the University of Reno counting bird brain cells in the hippocampuses of White-crowned sparrows, and the other half here in Davis working on writing and my radio program. It’s amazing how much time can be spent in front of a computer with nothing getting done when you would rather be writing something else. Anyway, the work is coming along. And, I hope to be able to share bits and pieces with you all as it progresses. Proof of progress if nothing else.

Today’s blog, however, is a hodge-podge of things that I have been thinking about in the interim… mostly political in nature.

I was recently interviewed by an online magazine called W. Weekly for their new section on podcasts to check-out. It was neat to be interviewed, and hopefully this will be just the beginning of good press for This Week in Science. I’m going to need all the help I can get in turning my podcast into my livelihood after finishing the Ph.D.

Recent important items in the news that have caught my attention, and I feel must be shared as widely as possible involve attacks by our government and respected leaders on personal freedoms and media. While it may not seem like much to some people, the end results of each individual bill or budget cut chips away ever so slightly at our freedom. Unless we begin to take action now by letting our leaders know that we do not stand with them in their actions, we will wake up one day in a world much less colorful than the one in which we now live.

I learned that Diane Feinstein (D-CA), who I have mostly respected for many years, has introduced/is introducing a bill which will effectively make it illegal for radio stations and internet radio stations to stream mp3s.

According to local low-power and community radio station activist, Todd Urick:

“people would be forced to use proprietary streaming technologies with DRM (digital rights management). This will cause internet broadcasters to drop high-quality streaming, and force consumers to buy a DRM-friendly sound card. This should aid in killing-off internet community radio and small streamers.”

Read http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004587.php

I have to say that I was suprised to hear that such a bill is being proposed by Feinstein. She must honestly think that what she is proposing will protect musicians rather than only the music industry. Unfortunately, the bill will just end up protecting the homogenizing force that big music moguls these days are pushing. If you are interested in stopping such basic infringements on communication and personal choice in media, please send a letter to Feinstein. Here is a template letter that you can use to get started:

Dear Senator Feinstein,

It has come to my attention that you are working to pass S. 2644 “PERFORM Act,” that would make it illegal for radio stations/internet radio to use MP3 streaming. In a time of unprecedented media consolidation, democracy is losing face. We cannot run a successful democracy if citizens do not have the basic freedom to iterate and rebut ideas and opinions (through access to media, like internet radio). I understand that this bill is aimed at punishing satellite radio for offering its subscribers devices capable of recording off the air. However, adding a provision that would effectively require music webcasters to use DRM-laden streaming formats, rather than the MP3 streaming format has the latent function of undermining basic access to non-corporate, public media across the country and around the world. This bill would punish those it is not aimed at (like community low power radio stations, public radio and college radio stations) and must either be scrapped or re-written to protect our civil rights and our democracy!

Additionally, the word is back out on the street that The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and therefore NPR and PBS, are under attack again this year. It is true that Congress just voted to reduce the CPB budget by 23%, and are looking to cease all funding of the CPB after 2008 even though we just managed to save it last year. Currently, funding is assured through the end of 2008. The House still has to vote to approve the budget cuts if it is to pass, so there is still a chance to maintain CPB funding if people bring back a repeat performance of the outcry that saved the CPB budget last year. MoveOn.org has a petition that you can sign as well as information on how to contact your representatives before they vote.

I found an interesting perspective here. Maybe we can talk the House and Congress into making it possible for the CPB to become fiscally independent before they take all the funding away. anyway, that’s my political two cents for today and I haven’t even touched on recent science/politics news like the FDA’s approval of the cervical cancer vaccine and Harvard’s plan to start stem cell research into cloning (TWIS’ interview w/ Christopher Scott on Jan. 10, 2006 can be found in iTunes).

What is Intelligence Anyway?

So, the following is a conversation I had with a linguistic software AI last night. The lucidity at moments is almost frightening, but bearable because of the humorous gems that pop up throughout. Enjoy the read.

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Ants in Your Pants

Some people do really cool things… I’m sure this isn’t new (in fact the article I’ll send you to is from 2001), but how cool to actually be able to see the structure of ant colonies. Walter R. Tschinkel pours orthodontal cement into colonies and digs out the hardened molds to view the beautiful structural creations.

See here and here.

Envirovideo’s Galore

With all the extreme views on both sides of the issue, it’s a miracle anyone can make sense out of the information about global warming being forced down people’s throats. I’ve swiped a few videos from YouTube that held side to side really demonstrate the the obsurdity of the situation playing itself out on our televisions. But, thank goodness for the rise of the internet as a way to disseminate information. Hopefully, people will be able to use this rapidly developing medium to properly educate themselves enough to separate the chaff from the wheat. There is so much potential for a re-emergence of popular intelligence from behind the soporific curtain of mass media. I can’t wait to see how the world changes.

Take a look for yourself…

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