Category Archives: Science

The votes are in…

By rivqa Posted in Science Tagged , ,

… and so is stem cell research. Those who know me (and/or read this blog) will know I’d be pleased.

Before the Patterson Bill was passed, I was going to post about how I wonder if the change in Labor leadership will mean anything for science. It may not mean much in terms of votes, but it does give Julia Gillard a bit more attention when she makes her statements as Labor’s health spokesperson:

They are saying surplus eggs from IVF processes and I think that is the best place to start. Obviously there may be future issues about donation but I don’t believe we are there yet and we should see if the supply of surplus eggs from IVF processes is sufficient.

I agree with this. Avoiding egg donation directly from women is definitely to be avoided: Woo-Suk Hwang has taught us that. All the ethics committees in the world can’t stop subtly coercion of junior, female staff. It’s a sad inevitability of humanity. And the risks of egg donation mean that they should only be given freely.

So yes, I’m pleased. In August, I posted about three areas where I think Australia is lagging behind the rest of the developed world. Two out of three of those areas have improved tremendously. Now all we need is a better strategy to slow climate change and we’ll be set. Well, not quite, but we’re on the right track.

Unintelligent design, redux

By rivqa Posted in Reviews, Science

Last Thursday I went along to hear Robyn Williams promote his new book, Unintelligent Design. (I can’t stop myself from feeling pleased with myself for having a post of the same title almost a year ago [I know, it’s pretty obvious].)

It’s a pretty good gamble, going to hear a radio presenter speak. You know he’s not likely to be dry and boring. (Well, unless he was a dry and boring presenter.) And I do love a good English accent.

Superficialities aside, Robyn’s talk was excellent. Like the book itself, he’s very chatty and entertaining. His talk touched on the main points of the book, which goes through the history of the science vs creationism/intelligent design (ID) debate, and unpicks the ID side.

It was interesting to hear the questions at the end. Some of the questions were really comments in disguise, but people did have interesting ideas. There wasn’t as much heckling as I expected. Just one polite, reasonable question from a young man who was most likely part of the campus Bible study group. He asked about whether Robyn thought that believing in evolution precluded one from believing in Jesus, and Robyn gave a suitably (for an atheist) vague, diplomatic answer.

I bought the book afterwards. Robyn was signing them, which was cool. And we had a chance to chat with Mike Archer about the future of science education, which was fun. I think Mike Archer is great and UNSW is lucky to have him.

As for the book itself…

It’s a slim little book and he does rush through topics, but it’s an easy read nonetheless, and not designed (haha) to be comprehensive.

Still, the main arguments are all there, from the flaws in our design (poorly draining sinuses and bad backs are two that I suffer from), to the non-scientific agenda of ID, as detailed in the Wedge document. From the use of religion to justify injustice to the flaws in the statistics that ID proponents put forward (it might be unlikely that we’re here, but we are).

It’s full of references to popular culture and his famous friends, like Richard Dawkins and Douglas Adams. And his rather interesting life. Which is probably what makes it such an enjoyable read. He is a little too harsh with his atheism (nothing like Dawkins, of course) but with the fundamentalists around these days, I can forgive him for that. He does acknowledge that science deals with the “how” and religion tackles the “why”, but is overly critical, in my opinion, of religion in general. Yes, religion has been the root of many terrible things, but it also has a lot of good to offer.

However, that doesn’t mean that religion, Judeo-Christian or otherwise, should be distorted, presented as science, and forced down people’s throats. Which is really the point.

Thought-provoking laughter

By rivqa Posted in Science

I love the Ig Nobel Prize. How could you not love an event whose website is sub-titled “Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK”? Like the Darwin Awards (“We salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who remove themselves from it. Of necessity, this honor is generally bestowed posthumously.”), the Ig Nobels draw people into science in a fun and engaging way. The Darwin Awards provide the best lesson on evolution for the lay person — that I know of, anyway.

The Ig Nobels, by nature, are much broader. They give great insight into how wacky one’s brain needs to be in order to be a research scientist. You really need to think outside the square. The stereotype of a scientist is a stuffy, boring, middle-aged or elderly man (of course it’s a man) with nothing interesting to offer. The Ig Nobel scientist is a much closer representation of the scientists I know. For an idea, look at the picture on the link above. And add a few more women, dressed in punk band T-shirts or other funky clothes. (This is not to say that I think the Ig Nobels under-represent women, just that that photo does.)

Interestingly, the Ig Nobels (more than cancer research) illustrates to regular people how much science is a part of their lives, whether they’re aware of it or not. Winners included research on why fingernails scratching a blackboard irritate people; why woodpeckers don’t get headaches; the invention of the now-infamous “Mosquito” ringtone; and an Aussie team who calculated how many photos you need to take of a group before getting one where no one is blinking.

It’s fun science at its best. When I was involved with OnSET, a student online science journal, we often struggled with how to present ourselves in an engaging way. I think that ventures like the Ig Nobels, the Darwin Awards, and even Dr Karl, have the answer. They’re all firmly grounded in reality but slightly oddball and lots of fun.

Dr Net

By rivqa Posted in Reflections, Science Tagged , ,

I’ve heard of people that self-diagnose based on information from the net, but a couple of recent incidents really made me aware of how dangerous it can be.

One friend called me up and asked me if I knew anything about a particular treatment. The treatment involved radiation, so it sounded pretty scary to her and she didn’t want to agree to it without looking into it. For reasons unclear to me, her specialist didn’t give her any background information on the treatment. Both of us found that the information on the internet was scant, limited to alternative therapy sites.

Another friend casually mentioned that she had “worked out” what was wrong with her toddler when she had a sudden screaming attack after her bath. She’d put the symptoms into Google and made a diagnosis based on what came up. It was at night and not quite urgent enough to go to Emergency, she said. But she didn’t even go to the doctor the next day.

Information on the internet is varied. Some sites are for practitioners and have disclaimers for patients. Type “cancer cure” into Google and lots of dodgy stuff comes up, including sites selling Laetrile, which is toxic. Generally if you put in a specific disease you’ll find organisations dedicated to it with good quality information. But typing in symptoms brings up a hodgepodge of different sites, and it can be hard to tell the good from the bad.

Not to mention the concern of self-diagnosis, regardless of the source. One of my friends who works as a medical receptionist told me she’s “had cancer six times”. That is, she’s thought she had it.

Of course, the increased access to information that the internet obviously provides increases the scope of this problem. Perhaps the general public needs better medical education to combat this, since something is obviously lacking in medical care. Probably access, sufficient explanations of diseases and treatments, and just plain old reassurance.

Two words…

By rivqa Posted in Science

… start downloading.

For the first time the Archive provides online access to all journal content, from Volume One, Issue One in March 1665 until the latest modern research published today ahead of print. And until December the archive is freely available to anyone on the internet to explore.

Spanning nearly 350 years of continuous publishing, the archive of nearly 60,000 articles includes ground-breaking research and discovery from many renowned scientists including: Bohr, Boyle, Bragg, Cajal, Cavendish, Chandrasekhar, Crick, Dalton, Darwin, Davy, Dirac, Faraday, Fermi, Fleming, Florey, Fox Talbot, Franklin, Halley, Hawking, Heisenberg, Herschel, Hodgkin, Hooke, Huxley, Joule, Kelvin, Krebs, Liebnitz, Linnaeus, Lister, Mantell, Marconi, Maxwell, Newton, Pauling, Pavlov, Pepys, Priestley, Raman, Rutherford, Schrodinger, Turing, van Leeuwenhoek, Volta, Watt, Wren, and many, many more influential science thinkers up to the present day.

Have I ever mentioned that I love the Royal Society’s motto? It’s “Nullius in Verba” (“On the words of no one”). The core of the scientific method.