Tag: science

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I, Borg…

So, I was sitting in class this morning and we were learning about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system(s). Overall, these are part of the autonomic nervous system, which includes the parts of the body that are not under our control, including the heart and the lungs. Generally, the circuitry is relatively simple in concept, yet does include some more complicated features. As in, depending on the system, the sympathetic side of the system will be excitatory (as in, turn “on”) while the parasympathetic will be inhibitory (as in, turn “off”).

My word choice of “circuitry” was on purpose, of course, and that brings me to the point of the posting… I find it rather interesting how I developed interests in two radically different things that are completely related in function: computers and the brain. I’ve been interested in all things “tech” for many a year now, building new computers, installing alternative operating systems, etc…and now I’ve begun a graduate school journey largely focusing on the central nervous system and its function within the body. Just as computers talk in “1s” and “0s” (i.e. binary), the nervous system works very similarly where connections are either made or not made, allowing for basic functions like movement and memory.

I guess I just don’t know whether my interest in these seemingly disparate subjects came from. Was I first fascinated by computer circuits or neuronal circuits? Or, was my interest in some facet inherent to both? Or, on a larger scale, is this how all our interests and hobbies come together? Do people get interested in one subject and then learn about a related one…or do they get interested in some concept that ends up leading to the two different subject areas?

…or maybe this is just a stupid question… Regardless, these are thoughts I had in class and figured I’d share them… 😛

P.S. The subject heading is, of course, a Star Trek reference, where the “Borg” are a synthetic race of cyborgs representing the perfect marriage of organic life and machine. The more I learn about the nervous system, the more you realize that Man and Machine are more similar than we would otherwise realize…

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Hell freezes over…

1). Dell has officially decided to start using AMD chips in their desktop line of PCs beginning as early as next month. Honestly, I’ve had three major reasons for hating Dell over the past few years: reliance on only Windows, reliance on only Intel, and the fact that their systems suck because of both. So yeah, hopefully by adding AMD, they’ll improve the quality of their systems and give AMD a boost in the process.

2). Due to the new planet-naming structure, if Pluto is to remain a planet, then other “celestial bodies” needed to be re-designated as planets, including an asteroid (Ceres) and even Pluto’s moon, Charon. Well, apparently, if Charon is to be added, then that means that our own moon would count as a planet, as well.

Anyway, we’re off to Columbia a little later today…just figured I’d post a bit…

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Why we publish…

So, whenever our department at school has a seminar speaker in town, we (the grad students) get to have lunch with them and chit-chat about what we do, what they do, research in general, etc. This guy, Dr. Christopher Ellis, is from the University of Western Ontario and is in the Department of Medical Biophysics. Anyway, coming from Canada, he’s exposed to a relatively different research and academic environment than we are, so he had a few fresh perspectives on scientific research in general.

The thing that struck me most, though, was a story he told us about a class awhile back where he asked graduate students: “Why do we publish papers?” He said the responses were very interesting, ranging from “To get grants” to “To get a good postdoctoral fellowship (i.e. job).” He couldn’t remember if anyone said “To further our understanding of science.”

His point, as he then told us, was this: researchers create knowledge, and that’s something to be admired and respected.? While promotions and funding are important, we should never forget that we’re finding new things out that no one has done before.

Regardless, I had just never heard to anyone refer to research as “creating knowledge.” Certainly an interesting concept, realizing that for all the knowledge and information that there is on Wikipedia and in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, there’s still more to be found.

Sounded pretty cool to me, I guess… 😛

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Review: An Inconvenient Truth

So, since Brooke and I are without cable, we decided to go see a movie…well, we wanted to see this one, anyway. We saw “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s latest attempt to explain to the American public about the dangers of global warming, a battle that he’s been fighting since the 1970s.

You may wonder why all the reviewers love this documentary, and why it’s creating a stir in the news media, reigniting a decades-old argument about the validity of global warming and whether humanity causes it. I was rather curious how interesting this documentary could be, but I was pleasantly surprised. The movie generally recounted a “slide show” (i.e. beefed-up PowerPoint) that Gore has presented many times over the years, talking about the evidence supporting the idea that mankind has caused, if not accelerated, global warming on Earth. The show is interspersed with testamonials by Gore talking about how he became interested in the subject, and how events in his life (including the 2000 “election”) shaped his mission to educate the world about this problem.

It was certainly scary to see the statistics. He showed graphs and pictures depicting history and modern times…showing CO2 levels taken from ice core samples over 600,000 years…and how the current levels are unbelievably higher (as in, they never crossed 300 ppm [parts-per-million] over that time, but are now well above that and will cross 600 ppm by 2050 at current rates). He showed how the polar ice caps have noticeably decreased in size, and that ice melting in Greenland could stop the flow of the gulf stream, effectively shutting down the “engine” that prevents Europe from entering another ice age.

He informs the masses, he addresses the critics, and he calls for action, whether by switching to more energy-efficient light bulbs and hybrid cars, or by running for political office yourself to make a difference. He makes you see the evidence for yourself and understand it. And, on a side-note, it’s interesting to note how confident he seems in presenting this story, as opposed to some interviews and debates during the 2000 election. This is the voice of someone who believes in this cause and will do what it takes to get the job done.

You should go see it, if you can. And, believe you me, if you drive a large SUV, you’re getting a copy of it for Christmas…

And since I couldn’t say it better, in the words of another great reviewer:

“In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.”

— Roger Ebert; Chicago Sun-Times

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Kinda sad…

Some statistics from the May 2006 issue of Popular Science:

  • 68% of American fourth-graders perform below math-proficiency levels for their grade
  • American 15-year-olds rank 21st out of 30 industrialized countries in math
  • American 15-year-olds rank 19th out of 29 industrialized countries in science
  • 42% of American middle school science teachers lack certification in their field
  • 23% of undergraduate degrees are awarded in science, technology and engineering in the United States
  • 64% of undergraduate degrees are awarded in science, technology and engineering in Japan

It’s stuff like this that makes me consider teaching high school instead of going into industry, etc…or at the very least, teaching high school around retirement time rather than at a college somewhere…

Brooke and I are both reading a book now titled “The World is Flat,” by Thomas Friedman, which is about rapid globalization in the 21st century…how the U.S. is quickly falling behind other countries like India and China in technology, etc…? He points out how it can be a good thing for the U.S., since we as Americans tend to do well when we’re challenged (i.e. World War II, the Space Race, etc.), but we’ve gotta start getting in gear unless we want to be left behind.

In any case, it makes me wonder what everyone’s doing with their lives, then. If we’ve got so many people going to college nowadays, why aren’t more of them majoring in “pure” sciences or engineering? It’s not like getting degrees in physics or chemical engineering are going to leave you without a lucrative job when you get out… Maybe it’s because you really need a graduate education before you get a money-making job (not in all cases, of course)?

I dunno…I still find it sad, though…especially sad that the American public is more preoccupied with their own wealth and with Tom and Katie’s new baby rather than with trying to figure out how the world works and, therefore, how to fix its problems.

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Oh, ignorance…

So, Slashdot has run a few stories in the past few days about global warming.?? According to a recent poll, 71% of Americans are now ready to believe that global warming is real and is a problem.? This is after researchers, for years, have said that it’s a problem.? Science Magazine, in Dec. 2004, reported that out of 928 scientific papers published in research periodicals, 75% accepted the “consensus view” that global warming is caused by humans, while the other 25% didn’t say either way; none of them said explicitly that humans are not the cause.

So, with overwhelming evidence, why is it that many people refuse to believe it? I mean, there’s a girl in my class that refuses to believe that global warming is caused by human involvement!? She admits that it’s happening, but says that it’s caused by the “natural cycle” that Earth goes through between ice ages. Perhaps most disturbing, researchers are finding it difficult to report their findings due to pressure from the Bush Administration, being told to remove references to global warming from web sites and their reports.

…so wtf?!? I mean, so far as the Bush Administration goes, they just want to keep us under an oil-based economy so they keep getting kickbacks from the Middle East, but why does the American public go along with it?!? Are the just stupid? What is with that remaining 29% that makes them not believe that humans are the primary cause of accelerating global warming?

…as with many social issues, I guess I just don’t get it…

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So, I was sitting in class…

…and Dr. Ryerse was talking to us about Gap Junctions. Basically, these are connections between cells that are made up of proteins. Think of them like connecting two pieces of cloth with a hollow rivet… They are very important in a variety of cellular functions, but perhaps most importantly, in synchronizing all of the cells in the heart (and muscle in general) to make one single contraction and pump our blood.

Anyway, in talking about these, he brought up a few points (most of which I can’t remember…) that got me thinking about how much of ourselves we know nothing about. In the physical sense, our bodies “just work”…but how and why? I mean, we go walking around every day and the general public doesn’t know (or care…) about how the cells in our heart know how to contract at the same time and pump our blood.But we’ve been working on “science,” in the general sense of the word, for thousands of years yet we’ve only scratched the surface.
Shouldn’t we care about these things? Shouldn’t we be more interested in learning all that there is to know about our bodies, so we know how to fix the problems there, rather than the problems between bodies in foreign countries? If I remember right, Bush plans on cutting a variety of programs, generally social, educational and scientific interests, in favor of more money to finance his Iraq vendetta. Does this make sense?
I guess it’s just human nature, but here’s the point: people don’t care how something works, only that it continues to work. People don’t care about science until it affects them. Funding for scientific endeavours is only readily available to people working on health-related fields, while funding for other research (such as ecology, sociology, etc.) is harder to come by. We save the minimal amount of funding to pay for “important” things like helping fix lung cancer (caused by cigarettes) or funding faster propulsion (so we can blow up other countries) or funding research into lower emission vehicles (because we have to drive big SUVs rather than using the smaller vehicles we already have).

Seriously, I think if the USA just saved a third of the money being poured into Iraq and other worthless ventures (congressional salaries, military stockpiling, tax cuts for the rich, etc.) and instead put it into general scientific (physics, biology, chemistry…) and social (arts, humanities…) research, the world would get a lot better really quickly.

At the very least, we, as a culture, would be seen as less hypocritical in the eyes of our enemies…’cause that’d solve a lot of other problems…

…it’s amazing what thoughts can come out of a discussion on gap junctions, eh?

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Faith in Government

My faith in the US Judicial System has been restored…somewhat… According to CNN, the judge overseeing the Intelligent Design case in Dover, PA has ruled the teaching of ID in public school as unconstitutional. To quote the judge:

“It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.”

He apparently left a 139-page opinion on the subject. Needless to say, I’m glad it turned out this way. At least our classrooms and children are safe from the religious right yet again…

…for the time being…

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Something to worry about…

So, we talked in class today about transposons. For those who don’t know what they are, I’m going to give a brief description. For those who usually stop reading by now when I start talking science, keep reading ’cause there’s a relatively important point toward the end that warrants discussion…

A transposon is also known as a “jumping gene.” They are pieces of genetic information that can code for the machinery to either copy itself to another location in a genome, or even excise itself from one location and move itself to another. Cool, eh?

Well, think of it this way. Let’s say a transposon lands at some location in a bacterial cell that’s pretty close to a gene that codes for tetracycline resistance (that’s an antibiotic…). Let’s say another transposon lands on the other side of this resistance gene. Now, what you have is a bigger transposon that, at either side, can cut itself out and move the whole thing (including resistance) to another location, or replicate itself.

Why is this bad? Well, that’s one easy (and scary) way that antibiotic resistance is spread between bacteria. Apparently, for example, there’s a transposon in the fruit fly that is found in all fruit flies…but wasn’t there 50 years ago…so within a span of 50 years, all fruit flies on Earth got this gene. Do you know how fast bacteria divide? It’s insane to think of how fast bacteria can get these “jumping genes” and then become resistant to all of our antibiotics.

Know what else is bad? And this is the point of the discussion… The government is more concerned with developing defenses for smallpox and anthrax than they are about protecting us from resistant strains of flu, or pneumonia, etc. How many people do smallpox and anthrax kill every year? Not that many. Now, flu and pneumonia (etc…)? How many? Lots. And those guys aren’t resistant to all of our antibiotics…yet…

So yeah, at this point, it’s likely that within the next 20-30 years (or sooner?), all of our current antibiotics won’t be effective against common ailments that are curable today. And we’re wasting our money “protecting” ourselves from dangers that barely blip on the radar in the natural world.

Believe you me…I’m more worried about an antibiotic-resistant strain of influenza than I am about anthrax…and you should be, too…

Update (12/2/05): Case in Point. Here’s an article about a new strain of bacteria that is proving difficult to fend off… Be afraid…be very afraid…

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Rotation #3

So, here’s Nathan’s “what’s Andy doing in his rotation this time” blog posting (i.e. he’ll be the only one to comment because no one else cares…). Regardless, I’m working in Dr. Scott Zahm’s lab in the Pharmacology and Physiology department until the end of this semester. He works with neuroanatomy in rats, generally trying to “map out” sections of the brain that are integral to motivation and, consequently, motor skills. By “motivation,” I mean a lot of things. For example, he is currently focusing on the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) in the rat brain, which is involved in motor function. More specifically, consider this: when we’re hungry, we have a few different competing ideas going through our brain, one of which is “where do I get food” and the other is “how do I survive while I try to get this food” (self-preservation). Our VTA works in concert with other parts of the brain to weigh each competing idea and then control our “need” for things like food, warmth, TV, drugs, whipped cream, etc.

Zahm, et al. are working to map the neurons that come in and go out of the VTA (and other structures) in the rat brain. Specifically, they want to better understand the brain “circuits” and how something that is signalled in one part of the brain can signal another part of the brain. They do this using “tracers” that can label neurons in a certain area (injected into the rat’s brain…) and then the neurons take up the tracer and transport it to other areas of the brain.

The cool pharmacological part of this is two-fold. First, his lab deals with reward systems. So, if you are taking a drug and you become addicted to it, you’ll have more motivation to try and get that drug back. The drug itself could completely rearrange different neurons in your brain as well, connecting something to the VTA that wasn’t connected before (thereby leading to addiction). This leads into the second part: we don’t know how the brain works, but perhaps more importantly, we don’t know how a lot of drugs (like Prozac) really work… The brain needs to be mapped so we know where things happen, what’s connected to what, and how a change in one area can affect transmission to another area. My interests in neuropharmacology are somewhat contingent on this fact…you can’t effectively develop new drugs unless you know how the brain is set up. We’ve found lots of drugs that have an effect…but we don’t necessarily know why… We could be prescribing drugs for ADHD that are “re-mapping” the brain of our children and not really know it… This research, and studies like it, will help us better understand how the brain is set up and how a drug can affect its organization.

As far as what I personally am doing, it’s relatively small stuff. So far, I’ve worked with putting brain sections on slides, staining brain sections with antibodies, seen the surgeries for injection of tracer into the brain and, consequently, the brain’s removal. Starting tomorrow, I’ll work on the actual mapping using light microscopes (and electron microscopes, eventually…) to take a look at the neurons and see where they go.

Nifty, eh?