Even though I didn’t get a chance to update my blog over the weekend (family is visiting for passover) somehow my page views increased to over 11 thousand from around 2 thousand. I think this is quite a feat for a couple days. I think this was mainly due this post: Why Objects are Blurry Underwater, which has been getting some love from StumbleUpon. So thanks to the stumbleupon community for taking an interest. Hopefully I’ll have more decent posts ahead of me that will draw even more traffic in the future.
So, hello to all stumblers. Be sure to check out my parent site: www.scienceforums.net for all your science forums needs.
And now the weather: cloudy with a small chance of a microbiology post sometime within the next 24 hours.
Update: now over 15500 page views… thanks stumblers!
Ultimately, what bugs me about this story is that it seems to boil down to a piece about a teenager who has done something unusual and become a minor celebrity because if it. Yet, there’s no critical examination of the something unusual that she’s done — in particular, of whether she’s done it in a way that holds up to scientific scrutiny — of what sorts of deeper motivations might be behind it, and of what the impacts of this project might be for the rest of us. To the extent that the “something unusual” this particular teenager is doing is presenting herself on the internet as a reliable source of scientific information, it feels to me like the critical analysis missing from this story is very important indeed.
Sadly, the one thing that Kirsten could have used is a public smackdown on NPR from a climate science who really knows his or her stuff, someone who could demonstrate in excruciating detail just how thin her knowledge base really is… By doing the piece, though, NPR put itself in a no-win situation. If it criticized Kirsten’s denialist arguments, NPR would have looked as though it was making fun of a teenaged girl who’s clearly smart but not well trained in science or critical thinking. If it didn’t, well, the results are easy to see: A puff piece that portrays the plucky outsider taking on the scientists and apparently beating them at their own game.
What’s with the recent obsession with green tea for its alleged medicinal properties?
Every weekend I turn on the radio, and I’ll hear on at least 3 major stations, and all day long is people talking about how great green tea is. Here’s a short list of the supposed healing powers of green tea, courtesy of the Beauty Blog.
• promotes blood circulation • increases the body’s natural resistance • helps with oxygenation • helps achieve “greater harmony” • improves the body’s ability to handle the external physical and psycological [sic] pressures of life • prevents tooth decay and maketeeth more resistant to acids • promote digestion and cleanses the body internally • tea drinkers say that they actually feel less tired and brightens their whole outlook
So anything this wonderful, of course makes me immediately suspicious. It sounds like alternative medicine to me, which I immediately wary of, because proponents almost invariably exaggerate the benefits, if there are any.
doing some quick poking around at scienceblogs, I found some mixed results. The Angry Toxicologist found some incorrect reporting in a major news outlet about green tea. Respectful Insolence found a study, the title of which was more enthusiastic than the results indicated.
On the other hand, this webpage from the University of Maryland lists some benefits and references, which I assume are relatively accurate (though I haven’t checked up on all them).
So, for now I conclude that we don’t yet know enough about green tea and the effects on the body to state anything overly positive or negative about it. I know that people who frequent places like the Green Tea blog and forum would like to believe that green tea is the magical mystery cure. However, just from my general experience with biology and medicine, there is rarely any single substance that is a cure all, and that even healthy substances should be rationed appropriately, balance and variety being key to a healthy diet. I also recommend sticking to reputable news sources, try to avoid those radio programs, and make sure to check the sources on all information. When it comes to health, you can afford to be skeptical about miracle elixirs and potions.
Small Things Considered reports on a scientific finding that shows that antibiotic resistance in bacteria strains taken from soil samples is fairly common. Even though in some of these samples, they would be unlikely to have come into contact with man-made antibiotics. Testing 18 antibiotics from man-made and natural sources against 11 different samples, researchers did not find any sample that didn’t have bacteria that could metabolize at least 1 antibiotic.
Its an interesting find, which has implications for medicine and health, but is it surprising? I would tend to disagree. Given the rate that bacteria can evolve antibiotic resistance, it stands to reason that there should bacteria exist in nature that can metabolize them.
I quote Paul Orwin who left a comment in the above blog post:
I thought it was fairly clear that in the environment, there are lots of bacteria making antibiotics, and others that can break them down and/or resist them… I can’t see any way that this doesn’t affect clinical use of antibiotics. First, we know that there is plenty of movement of bacteria between soil and host organisms. Second, we know there is plenty of gene transfer going on in both environments. Therefore, there is a very high probability that within a soil microbial population, there is a potential pathogen (Burk and Pseudo being pretty strong contenders) that eats antibiotics for breakfast.
Pay special attention to where the creationist lies about how fossils are dated, while standing in front of a placard describing about how it actually works.
I feel sorry for these kids that are getting brainwashed. I can only hope that they, like the museum curator, will one day be able to draw their own conclusions based on empirical evidence.
This could provide a new area of evolutionary microbiology. Apparently, Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli trade so much genetic material via horizontal transfer, that the two species are merging.
Ever open your eyes underwater without goggles? You probably noticed that objects are really blurry, a fact that has nothing to do with the chlorine, though that will cause them to sting after a while.
It has to do with the fact that a ray of light traveling through a medium refracts, or bends upon entering another medium. However, its not merely because water refracts light that makes underwater objects blurry. In fact, the refraction of light in water is the basis upon which human vision is based.
This is because our eye is filled with a fluid mostly consisting of water. We are adapted to light rays traveling from the air into the fluid in our eyes, which is refracted at a specific angle. Our eyes therefore focus incoming light in a specific way, which is projected on the back of the retina, and fine-focused with the lens. So we are adapted to a specific incoming angle of light, due to this refraction.
Under water, light travels from water into another water based media in the eye. Therefore the angle of refraction is fairly small. The eye cannot focus the light so the image appears blurry (the focal point is in the wrong place).
So, how to fix this problem?
Well you already know that goggles work. But, how they work is explained by Snell’s Law, the index of refraction (n) multiplied by the sine of the incident (incoming) angle is equal to the index of the refraction of the second medium times the sine of the angle of refraction. A light ray traveling through air into water will bend the same amount, though the opposite way, as a ray of light going from water to air. In other words, light coming from the water into the goggles will refract at a certain angle. When this light enter the eye, it will refract back to almost the original angle it was traveling in the water. So, by placing a layer of air over the eye via goggles refracts light, received from from objects underwater, in a way they would normally look in the air.
(PS - special thanks to klaynos for reviewing this post)
Thanks to the excellent folks at Digg, the last opening day at Shea Stadium was graced with the sounds of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Link.
The song received 5 million votes in the Met’s new theme song contest, but will probably be replaced with Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” or Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” because Rick Astley’s song was booed when it was played at the game today. I guess Mets fans can’t appreciate genius when they hear it. It’s no wonder they haven’t won a World Series since 1986.
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