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Science Delivers - For Keeps |
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Unlike religion, politics or commerce |
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"Some people think science is a matter of idle
curiosity. A cure for this nonsense is a few hours of observation in a
hospital intensive care ward. And if one happens to be a patient in such
circumstances, even astrophysics is suddenly relevant" |
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"While everyone is entitled to their opinions, when dealing with detailed technical matters of science or medicine or any subject that requires enormous qualifications and experience, the notion that all opinions have equal validity is simply downright wrong. If you want real information on the safety of heart surgery procedures, do you follow the advice of a qualified heart surgeon or the local butcher? If you want advice on flying a jumbo jet, do you ask the local bus driver or a pilot with 10,000 hours of experience flying jumbo jets? And if you want advice on how to captain a supertanker, do you ask a person whose experience is limited to rowing a dinghy? Mistakes by surgeons are not uncommon, 70% of air crashes result from pilot error, and occasionally supertankers hit the rocks. But relying on rank amateurs instead of professionals would guarantee instant catastrophe. Many branches of science are very complex. However, being a scientist isn't enough, of course, as being a scientist doesn't qualify you to advise on any subject except your specialty. To provide advice that can lead to sensible policy requires not only a thorough understanding of the workings and literature of the particular scientific area but many decades of experience in that field." - Redefining “Natural” in Agriculture, Tony Trewavas, 2008 |
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Who Loves Designer Vaginas? Science and nature are mocking America's fickle God. Please, no screaming. Mark Morford SF Gate Columnist Wed June 20, 2007 What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about the fact that Mother Nature once again appears to be thwarting and mocking and then grinning like a wicked divine trickster at every cute rigid godly idea of how humans and animals are supposed to move and hump and lick and behave, as loosely and, yes, rather bitterly delineated in the Bible and by the Bush administration and Focus on the Family and every other uptight sexually confounded person you have ever known, et al. and ad nauseam? What, furthermore, are you gonna do about human knowledge? About how science insists on marching hell-bent forward with such astonishing speed and with such incredible dexterity toward some glorious otherworldly nightmare dreamscape of anima manipulation, a land where we can effortlessly rescramble our genetic code and reconfigure this none-too-solid flesh as we "play God" in so many bewildering ways the Christian right can't even figure out where to aim its hollow, horrified indignation? Here is the thing you must know: It is all changing with incredible, butt-tingling speed. It is all fast becoming more than we ever imagined, with ramifications we are only beginning to fully taste. There is no stopping it. There is little that can slow it down. There is only the single, looming question: How will you respond? Will you recoil and gag and spit, or will you gurgle and swallow and smile? Example: We are on the cusp of being able choose, should you so desire, the exact size and length and speed and eye color and specific pleasing fur markings of ... your dog. And your cat. And your baby (well, minus the fur). And by the way, we have also invented new drugs to eliminate menstruation and we can now grow designer vaginas in the lab and plastic surgery is more common than bad sacrum tattoos and it's becoming increasingly obvious that males of many species -- including our own -- are largely unnecessary for procreation (but not, say, parallel parking, the lifting of heavy things or buying you a nice postcoital breakfast). Fascinating, that last thing. Have you heard? Scientists are discovering more and more creatures, from sharks to bees to ants to turkeys to Komodo dragons to turtles to sea bass, that can reproduce via parthenogenesis (i.e., virgin birth; i.e., no father) either by actually switching sexes so as to fertilize themselves, or via storing sperm for years for later use, or because they're hermaphrodites, or by way of undertaking all manner of clever unholy gender trickery so as to circumvent their own extinction and confound creationists and ensure that all humans everywhere will continue to look around and blink furiously and go, Wait wait wait, didn't we have some of this figured out already? What the hell happened? Wait, did I say designer vaginas? Indeed I did. Doctors can now grow new vaginal tissue in a lab, from the original stem cells, for eventual replanting (not to be confused with the hot trend in cosmetic vaginoplasty, by the way, which is an entirely different fascination and has to do with reshaping the labia for improved aesthetics and, you know, functionality. God bless America). Fabulous news for victims of birth defects and cancer and rare vaginal disorders? You bet. Intriguing implications for all sorts of cosmetic applications, not to mention what it might mean for transsexuals, not to mention how close we are to doing the same thing with other organs -- and even, eventually, entire limbs? One guess. It is, we can all agree, a lot to take in. It is a great deal to attempt to process in one tiny and oh-so-fleeting lifetime. The notion of human eugenics alone is, for many, overwhelming enough, the idea that new parents will soon have some sort of checklist at the gynecologist's office wherein, when docs go in to tweak your fetus' DNA to eliminate diseases, you can also easily choose not only its sex, but also the skin tone and hair color and eye tint and muscle dexterity and 0-60 acceleration and number of cupholders and overall genetic propensity toward an IQ that may or may not lead to voting for aw-shucks warmongering neocon imbecile politicians. Neat! Or, you know, not. They are, quite obviously, the sort of advances that open so many cans of ethical and spiritual worms it shakes us to the very core of what we believe, of who we think we are and where we fit in and What It All Means. You know, the good questions. At the same time, it's really nothing new. It's little different than previous periods of explosive growth in human knowledge that both titillated and terrified the populace, such as, say, when Galileo pointed out (much to the church's quivering rage) that not only is man's little spinning blue spaceship not at the center of the universe, but we're actually so far out on the fringes, so minute and insignificant in our Copernican swirlings that we're really nothing more than a wisp of belly-button lint in the giant laundry hamper of the gods. Talk about your existential angst. Hence, religion. This (at least partially) explains why so many are so eager to cling to religious dogma, to some sort of immovable, reliable framework of understanding, something that can help make sense of it all, even if making sense of it all involves shutting off your brain and killing your divine intuition and soaking up giant gobs of blind faith so you don't have to actually swim in those bloody murky confusing pools of ethics and meaning and actually thinking for yourself. Mmm, numb groupthink. It's what's for dinner. There are only two real options. One is to hold tight to the leaky life raft of inflexible ideology (hello, organized religion), to rules and laws and codes of conduct written by the fearful, for the fearful, to live in constant low-level dread of all the extraordinary changes and radical rethinkings of what it means to be human or animal or male or female or hetero or homo or any other swell little label you thought was solid and trustworthy but which is increasingly proven to be blurry and unpredictable and just a little dangerous. There is another option. You can choose nimbleness, lightness, a sly and knowing grin to go with your wine and your vibrator and your never-ending thirst for more and deeper information. It's possible. You can refuse to let your brain, your soul lock down into one way of looking at the world as you see all the science and genetic manipulation and designer vaginas, all the insane, incredible possibility as merely more evidence that we are, in the end, just one big karmic science experiment. Is this latter choice frustrating and brutally difficult and will it challenge every notion of self you hold dear? Hell yes. Is it the only way to enjoy this bizarre circus of a planet without grabbing a gun and cowering in the corner with your homophobia and your flag and your Army of Christ brochure, dead certain the terrorists and gays and hippies are coming to eat your soul for breakfast? Well, probably. Because, baby, the changes are coming, harder and faster than ever, with all sorts of juicy, terrifying, delightful implications. Really now, what are you gonna do about it? |
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'Keats claimed physics
destroyed beauty. Keats was being a prat'
Britain produced some of the world's great physicists but few schoolchildren want to study the subject now. Simon Singh explains why we should worry Simon Singh We are nearing the end of the "World Year of Physics", otherwise known as Einstein Year, as it is the centenary of his annus mirabilis in which he made three incredible breakthroughs, including special relativity. In fact, it was 100 years ago yesterday that he published the most famous equation in the history of physics: E=mc2. But instead of celebrating, physicists are in mourning after a report showed a dramatic decline in the number of pupils studying physics at school. The number taking A-level physics has dropped by 38% over the past 15 years, a catastrophic meltdown that is set to continue over the next few years. The report warns that a shortage of physics teachers and a lack of interest from pupils could mean the end of physics in state schools. Thereafter, physics would be restricted to only those students who could afford to go to posh schools. Britain was the home of Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday and Paul Dirac, and Brits made world-class contributions to understanding gravity, quantum physics and electromagnetism - and yet the British physicist is now facing extinction. But so what? Physicists are not as cuddly as pandas, so who cares if we disappear? You should care, and this is why. First, physicists reveal the beauty of the universe. E=mc2 provides us with an incredible insight into how the universe works, showing us that energy (E) and mass (m) can be converted into each other, so that a tiny amount of mass can be destroyed to create a vast amount of energy. That is how the Sun shines. Four million tonnes of the Sun literally vanishes every second, only to reappear in the form of sunshine - energy that lights up our lives. John Keats talked of "unweaving the rainbow", suggesting that Newton destroyed the beauty of nature by analysing light with a prism and splitting it into different colours. Keats was being a prat. Physicists also smile when we see rainbows, but our emotional reaction is doubled by our understanding of the deep physics relating to the prismatic effects of raindrops. Similarly, physicists appreciate sunsets more than anybody else, because we can enjoy the myriad colours and at the same time grasp the nuclear physics that created the energy that created the photons that travelled for millions of years to the surface of the Sun, which then travelled eight minutes through space to Earth, which were then scattered by the atmosphere to create the colourful sunset. Understanding physics only enhances the beauty of nature. If you want a concrete return, then physics can deliver that too. E=mc2 underpins the nuclear power industry, which could provide more energy in the future. If nuclear power replaced fossil fuels, we would pump less carbon into the atmosphere and thereby halt global warming. If, instead, you want clean energy via solar cells or wind turbines, then an understanding of solid state physics or the physics of fluids will get you several steps closer to an economically viable solution. Either way, physics provides the best hope of saving the planet. Also, it should not be forgotten that A-level physicists have a direct impact on the economy, because some of us become the inventors, innovators and engineers that create high-quality jobs and major exports. The people behind Google and Microsoft and Apple did physics at high school, as opposed to majoring in psychology or media studies. So, without British physicists, our country will not win any more Nobel prizes in physics, we will not do our part in fixing global warming - and UK plc will go down the drain. And yet nobody in power really cares. Physics in British schools has been going downhill for a couple of decades, but both Labour and Conservative governments seem to have taken no notice. After all, nobody is going to die because A-level physics is going out of fashion. There are no photo opportunities in being seen with a physicist. Personally, the desperate state of British physics education was brought home to me when I reflected on why my parents migrated to this country in 1950. They came here so that their children had the guarantee of a good education. However, today India produces more mathematicians than the whole of the European Union. A budding boffin in Bangalore probably stands more chance of having good mathematics and physics teachers than the equivalent bright young spark condemned to a British science education. A British politician in 1950 would have laughed at the thought of Indian schools ever being better than British schools, but last year's Physics Olympiad shows how things have changed. In this international competition for schools students, India won two gold medals, two silvers and a bronze, whereas Britain won only two bronzes. With Britain's negligent attitude to physics education, we do not deserve to be celebrating the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis. Instead, perhaps we should be marking 2005 as the 50th anniversary of his death, which would be in keeping with the moribund status of A-level physics Simon Singh has a PhD in particle physics. He is the author of Big Bang, a history of cosmology. Do you know your Newton from your neutrons? 1. A metal plate is heated to 200C with a bunsen burner. It
subsequently cools by emitting what kind of radiation? 2. You're in the back of a stationary car with a helium balloon. When
the car accelerates, which way does the balloon move? 3. What two properties of a particle does Heisenberg's uncertainty
principle say you can't measure at the same time? 4. A skater is spinning on a spot with her arms outstretched. What
happens when she pulls her arms in? 5. A big wooden ball and a small ball bearing sit at the top of a
slope. When they are released, which reaches the bottom first? 6. If the Sun were to disappear right now, how long would it be before
we noticed? Answers: 1c, 2a, 3b, 4d, 5c, 6b |
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New Tools to Help Patients Reclaim Damaged Senses by Sandra Blakeslee The Times November 23, 2004 Cheryl Schiltz vividly recalls the morning she became a wobbler. Seven years ago, recovering from an infection after surgery with the aid of a common antibiotic, she climbed out of bed feeling pretty good. "Then I literally fell to the floor," she said recently. "The whole world started wobbling. When I turned my head, the room tilted. My vision blurred. Even the air felt heavy." The antibiotic, Ms. Schiltz learned, had damaged her vestibular system, the part of the brain that provides visual and gravitational stability. She was forced to quit her job and stay home, clinging to the walls to keep from toppling over. But three years ago, Ms. Schiltz volunteered for an experimental treatment - a fat strip of tape, placed on her tongue, with an array of 144 microelectrodes about the size of a postage stamp. The strip was wired to a kind of carpenter's level, which was mounted on a hard hat that she placed on her head. The level determined her spatial coordinates and sent the information as tiny pulses to her tongue. The apparatus, called a BrainPort, worked beautifully. By "buzzing" her tongue once a day for 20 minutes, keeping the pulses centered, she regained normal vestibular function and was able to balance. Ms. Schiltz and other patients like her are the beneficiaries of an astonishing new technology that allows one set of sensory information to substitute for another in the brain. Using novel electronic aids, vision can be represented on the skin, tongue or through the ears. If the sense of touch is gone from one part of the body, it can be routed to an area where touch sensations are intact. Pilots confused by foggy conditions, in which the horizon disappears, can right their aircraft by monitoring sensations on the tongue or trunk. Surgeons can feel on their tongues the tip of a probe inside a patient's body, enabling precise movements. Sensory substitution is not new. Touch substitutes for vision when people read Braille. By tapping a cane, a blind person perceives a step, a curb or a puddle of water but is not aware of any sensation in the hand; feeling is experienced at the tip of the cane. But the technology for swapping sensory information is largely the effort of Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita, a neuroscientist in the University of Wisconsin Medical School's orthopedics and rehabilitation department. More than 30 years ago, Dr. Bach-y-Rita developed the first sensory substitution device, routing visual images, via a head-mounted camera, to electrodes taped to the skin on people's backs. The subjects, he found, could "see" large objects and flickering candles with their backs. The tongue, sensitive and easy to reach, turned out to be an even better place to deliver substitute senses, Dr. Bach-y-Rita said. Until recently sensory substitution was confined to the laboratory. But electronic miniaturization and more powerful computer algorithms are making the technology less cumbersome. Next month, the first fully portable device will be tested in Dr. Bach-y-Rita's lab. The BrainPort is nearing commercialization. Two years ago, the University of Wisconsin patented the concept and exclusively licensed it to Wicab Inc., a company formed by Dr. Bach-y-Rita to develop and market BrainPort devices. Robert Beckman, the company president, said units should be available a year from now. Meanwhile, a handful of clinicians around the world who are using the BrainPort on an experimental basis are effusive about its promise. "I have never seen any other device do what this one does," said Dr. F. Owen Black, an expert on vestibular disorders at the Legacy Clinical Research and Technology Center in Portland, Ore. "Our patients are begging us to continue using the device." Dr. Maurice Ptito, a neuroscientist at University of Montreal School of Optometry, is conducting brain imaging experiments to explore how BrainPort works. Dr. Eliana Sampaio, a neuroscientist at the National Conservatory of Arts and Mtiers in Paris, is using the BrainPort to study brain plasticity. Sensory substitution is based on the idea that all sensory information entering the brain consists of patterns carried by nerve fibers. In vision, images of the world pass through the retina and are converted into impulses that travel up the optic nerve into the brain. In hearing, sounds pass through the ear and are converted into patterns carried by the auditory nerve into the brain. In touch, nerve endings on skin translate touch sensations into patterns carried into the brain. These patterns travel to special sensory regions where they are interpreted, with the help of memory, into seeing, hearing and touch. Patterns are also seamlessly combined so that one can see, hear and feel things simultaneously. "We see with the brain, not with the eyes," Dr. Bach-y-Rita said. "You can lose your retina but you do not lose the ability to see as long as your brain is intact." Most important, the brain does not seem to care if patterns come from the eye, ear or skin. Given the proper context, it will interpret and understand them."For me, it happened automatically, within a few minutes," said Erik Weihenmayer, who has been blind since he was 13. Mr. Weihenmayer, a 35-year-old adventurer who climbed to the summit of Mount Everest two years ago, recently tried another version of the BrainPort, a hard hat carrying a small video camera. Visual information from the camera was translated into pulses that reached his tongue. He found doorways, caught balls rolling toward him and with his small daughter played a game of rock, paper and scissors for the first time in more than 20 years. Mr. Weihenmayer said that, with practice, the substituted sense gets better, "as if the brain were rewiring itself."
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Space science joins battle against cancer ESA research can lead to better medical equipment 19 November 2003 Ground-breaking techniques which will be used to find tiny planets orbiting stars outside our Solar System are already being developed to help scientists detect cells in the early stages of cancer. The enormous amount of light emitted by a star makes it extremely difficult to spot a planet in orbit around it. By using a technique that combines signals from two or more telescopes, ESA astronomers are able to create an artificial solar eclipse, 'neutralising' the effects of the bright starlight so that the fainter light from a planet can be detected. Darwin's flotilla of telescopes look for Earth-like planets European space scientists have now developed the technique even further so that they can even study the atmospheres of such planets. ESA's Darwin mission, which will study up to 1000 nearby stars, will be one of the first to use this technique to take us a step further towards answering the question 'Are we alone in the Universe?' But scientists in the Netherlands are excited about another application for this revolutionary technique. The national research organisation TNO/TPD has developed this imaging technology for medical use. Using this technique, scientists can now obtain images of skin or tissue that are of much higher resolution than currently available. The technique is already being used to study changes in blood vessels and the retina, but it could be used as an early detection method for cancerous growths. This will not be the first time that space technology has been used in the fight against cancer. A computer program originally developed by European scientists to find the sources of X-rays in deep space has been modified to produce a computer-aided early recognition system for skin melanomas. The original software was used to block out background 'noise' in signals
coming from space in order to detect weaker signals emitted from the
remnants of supernova explosions. |
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