Science Cheerleader

From Scientific American Magazine: The first doses of approved vaccines for the H1N1 “swine” flu will start trickling in across the U.S. on Tuesday. The first to arrive, 600,000 doses of MedImmune’s FluMist nasal spray, will be for healthy people ages two to 49, the Associated Press reported.  Full report here.

From Scientific American:

“With Major League Baseball’s All-Star game taking place tonight, a researcher explains why, when it comes to swinging a baseball bat, heavier isn’t necessarily better….Swinging light or normal weight lumber just before stepping up to the plate helps players become accustomed to swinging fast, repetition that is key to athletic training, the researchers say.”

Read the full story.

Read this, from the editors at Scientific American: “Millions of us dream of transforming our lives, but few of us are able to make major changes after our 20s. Here’s why.” Read the full article: Set in our ways. Why change is so hard. 

An easy way to enhance your life, apply your mind and do something good for mankind, is to participate in one of the thousands of citizen science projects out there. We’re developing a project finder where you’ll find a handy snapshot of each project and links to key information.

For those of you who desire to see the world this year in a big way, consider one of EarthWatch’s ”voluntourism” opportunities, where you can zip over to Easter Island for an archeological dig with scientists, for example.  W.O.W.

Cheers!

I met many fascinating people in Minneapolis at Innovation 2008.  One of them is Lynn Fellman, an artist who creates personalized portraits–and I do mean personalized. Her portraits are based on DNA sequences and mutation markers.

I’m ordering one–choosing to ignore that nagging inner voice cautioning me against this. “Do you REALLY want your DNA information to end up in the hands of scientists, insurance agents, future employers or worse–marketers!?”  Lynn assures me my DNA will be kept top secret and remain nameless.

Hey, a couple of weeks ago, ten super smart people volunteered to donate their DNA to science. More from Scientific American: (more…)

May I share something with you? Don’t tell anyone, ok?  When it comes to the gossip see-saw, I’ve been on top, crashed to the bottom and had to balance very carefully right in the middle at times. All three on any given day, come to think of it. So it was with great relief and a bit of amusement that I read this Scientific American article, by Frank McAndrew: The Science of Gossip: Why We Can’t Stop Ourselves. (more…)

Two timely science facts from Scientific American:

Why Trees Lose Leaves: University of Missouri plant biologist John Walker says he and colleagues have identified a group of compounds [in Arabidopsis thaliana] that prompt production of the proteins that cause plants to shed their petals. By blocking these chemicals, they succeeded in keeping petals intact, according to their paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Well, assuming nature continues to take its course and old leaves are replaced with new ones in the spring, Project BudBurst will seek your help in observing the tree buds to detect long-term impacts of climate change. 

Each spring, thousands of citizen scientists participate in Project BudBurst by observing and recording buds and blooms across the nation. Scientists are using this data to learn about the responses of individual plant species to climatic variation locally, regionally, and nationally, and to detect longer-term impacts of climate change by comparing with historical data.  

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Why hurricanes hit the East Coast of the U.S. (From Scientific American): Hurricanes almost always form over ocean water warmer than about 80 degrees F. in a belt of generally east-to-west flow called the trade winds. California’s cool coastal buffer appears to keep the West Coast hurricane free. If you want to learn a little more, here’s a nice primer on hurricanes from an Earth Science Teacher.

Cheers!

No one disputes that a lot of oil lies untapped under the rocky floors of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans off the U.S. coasts, in areas where Congress has banned drilling since 1982. But is it enough to free the U.S. from its dependence on foreign suppliers?

Based on this Scientific American article, the answer is no. However, read the reader feedback to gain a broader perspective. Regardless of whether you lean right or left, I think you’ll find the article and the comments enlightening (or infuriating).

We’re talking science, economics, statistics, values, and pure politics piled up like a giant parfait. If you can provide some clarity to this heavily layered conversation, please do. 

Surely you recall the infamous “hanging chads” of the Bush/Gore election….that’s what Congress was trying to avoid when it voted to switch over to electronic voting machines six years ago. If asked, you could have warned Congress that when it comes to electronics, one should never underestimate the malicious power of troubled teens, evil terrorists, representatives of the esteemed Nigerian Chamber of Commerce, and most dangerous of all perhaps, stealth 85-year-old poll watchers. 

Congress surely could have used some unbiased technical advice from the now defunct Office of Technology Assessment (once their most reliable source of science and technology advice on policy matters). Instead, they are facing this mess (from Scientific American):  ”with another presidential election less than three months away, many e-voting systems are fraught with security glitches, and the technology has yet to prove itself as the solution voters were looking for. Such systems could allow voters and poll workers to place multiple votes, crash the systems by loading viruses, and fake vote tallies”

If you were given the opportunity to hear the pros and cons of mandating electronic voting machines and presented a mechanism to share your thoughts with Congress, you probably would have told Congress to think more carefully about their decision to do so. And, at the very least, Congress should have been able to turn to their most trusted source of science and technology policy advice.  

I suspect, between the OTA and us, we would have simply suggested a ban on silly people from entering  voting booths rather than a complete overhaul of a system that appeared to work well for 99% of the country. But alas, the OTA was closed 14 years ago. Hence, the mess. The list of “reasons we need the OTA” continues to grow. As does the justification for including public input in major sci/tech policy discussions.

We weren’t asked about our opinions six years ago when Congress opted for the electronic machines but boy do folks need our help now. Help wanted: Election Day techies to monitor e-voting mess.

Transparency, democracy, basic civic rights and common sense….all reasons Congress should reopen the Office of Technology Assessment and mandate mechanisms for public participation.  Check out this  petition to reopen the OTA with citizen participation. 

Here’s hoping the electronic voting machines are both fool-proof and immune to those senior citizen hacker/poll watchers.  (I’m on to you, Agnes!)

Cheers!

No doubt about it: cancer is scary and it “sucks,” as the kids say.  As we age and start to peer ahead at our approaching demographics, the statistical odds aren’t quite as rosy as they were, say, 15 years ago.   And, the American Cancer Society projects that 1,437,180 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed here in the United States this year alone. 

But, far be it from the Science Cheerleader to put a downer on your day. I come to you with some promising news! (more…)

Tired of watching the know-it-all, walking encyclopedia get all the attention at cocktail parties and neighborhood BBQs? Here’s your chance to steal the spotlight (if only for 2.5 minutes). Try one of these trivia questions on for size and let me know how it goes. (This is part of our ongoing Social Network Science experiment.)

Women: Why does organic milk have a longer expiration date than regular milk? See Scientific American’s simple but comprehensive answer here.  

Men: Does jet lag cause Major League Baseball teams to lose games? See what Scientific American has to say here.