Chemistry Instructor at Grand Rapids Community College
Recently I went to Chicago and there was a terrible thunder/lightning storm. The rumblings bounced between the buildings and continuously resonated. It was quite an event. I found this video on current lightning research on Science Friday’s site.
The video is “Bring Down the Bolt“…
In a world of continuing antibiotic resistance do we to resurrect another approach to kill dangerous bacteria? I recently read an article on how many bacteria can live on antibiotic compounds as their source for carbon (Antibiotics For A Meal). Antibiotics have improved the lives of many humans, but maybe we need another main stream approach to fighting infection? Science Friday covered using bacteriophages (Phages Fight Bacteria) as an approach to fighting these bugs. There is something interesting to me about infecting the infection in a human for the battle of health. There is this benefit of specificity that comes along with using bacteriophages that does not seem to be present with typical antibiotics. Have a read and a listen… this is a good mix of chemistry and biology.
If you could have a test telling you that some form of cancer MAY be in your future, would you have the test? Researchers find some genetic similarities in people that have certain forms of disease or cancer; this allows them to test people without the disease for similar “markers”. These markers don’t guarantee the person will get the disease or cancer, but they may have an increased risk (which may be very low).
On Science Friday last week (yeah, I am a little behind), they had a program on breast cancer markers. What interests me about these markers is the test may be able to indicate an increased risk, but not offer any suggestion on how to change those risks. SO, would you want to know if you couldn’t do anything about it? Might you live your life differently? More healthful?
Whenever I hear people talk about global warming it makes me cringe. Someone will mention how cold it has been in Michigan and make some comment like, “if someone thinks there is global warming, they should live here!”. This drives me nuts because it takes a single data point and assumes that it represents the world as a whole. I am not saying that I can wrap my mind around global climate change, but I certainly understand that we do indeed pollute as a species. Pollution can be quantified and we know it has effects on organisms.
When I listened to the Scientific American podcast on the human impact on oceans, it made me think of the cold weather analogy I mentioned above. One person not catching fish or getting “skunked” doesn’t constitute global ocean changes; BUT these scientists are trying to study an enormous ecosystem. This is a difficult task because they have to sift through all information available.
Both of these problems, global climate and ocean change, truly are overwhelming issues. What I don’t understand is why people struggle with whether or not pollution contributes to either. Whether it does or doesn’t contribute, we know pollution has local impacts – couldn’t this translate to global impacts? Do you think these are just hoaxes?
Now this is neat… supposedly there are MANY nematodes that we humans know little about, but these ants know something about them… that is for sure. These nematodes cause the ant’s rear end to balloon up like a berry, which makes birds much more interested in having an ant lunch. The birds then pass the nematodes and spread them around the forest – how cool is that? See the link below…
Parasite morphs ant into ripe red berry from PhysOrg.com
A newly discovered parasite so dramatically transforms its host, an ant, that the ant comes to resemble a juicy red berry, ripe for picking, according to a report accepted for publication in The American Naturalist. This is the first example of fruit mimicry caused by a parasite, the co-authors say.
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This is a quick little video explaining synthetic biology. Maybe this is the first step in creating a synthetic organism? Using the model that is already on earth of course.
Science Friday covered a story on how food has been minimized down into the fundamental nutrients rather than the enjoyment and benefits of the whole food. So, rather than eating fish – you may eat a pill that contains the fish oil? Why not? Well, maybe the food is important whole. Have a listen… (Note: the file is large (16MB); you may want to right-click and download the file)
Here is a link to the story: http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200801043
The podcast for Scientific American this week discussed neuroscience and the law. This topic brings so many different thoughts into my head. They might be the same thoughts people had before DNA evidence linked people to crimes? (Excitement and doubt! Is this possible? Is this reliable?) On the other hand, with neuroscience there are potentially less concrete concepts at work (at this point) when linking activities of human and neuroscience. Whether people think that this type of talk will excuse bad behavior OR help get to the cause of the behavior is an interesting discussion. Thoughts?
The podcast also makes me think of the movie Minority Report!
There is obviously more to heart disease (and other related diseases) than simple total cholesterol and LDL/HDL ratios. The myriad of information continuously has people searching for possible treatments or preventative lifestyle changes. One factor I recently read about was related to the particle size of LDL’s. Science Friday had a segment on good calories vs. bad calories and mentioned this concept. Although I remember hearing something about LDL particle size before, I found this related article and found it interesting. The human body is such a large system and it never ceases to amaze me with its complexities.
A student brought this article to my attention regarding the mass of a kilogram.
Getting the measure of a kilogram describes the mass changes in the standard kilogram and the attempts to redefine this extremely important mass measurement. If all balances and scales are calibrated off this standard, one can see the reaching implications if the mass of this standard changes. It makes me think about accuracy and the difficulty in reproducing a massed object identical to a standard. As technology improves maybe we will be able to count the “trillion trillion” atoms needed to standardize on a atom’s mass.
