Science Extra Geeky Bits from David Bradley
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The latest science extra Geeky Bits news from Sciencebase's David Bradley. The most recent 30 days of news snippets, worthies and oddities, as well as other items of interest that didn't make it on to the Sciencebase Science Blog homepage because I was (a) too busy to do a full write-up (b) too lazy to do a full write-up (c) too bored to do a full write-up. Visit the Science Extra Geeky Bits Archive for all items posted during the last year.
- Save the children from secondhand smoke - January 31, 2008 → Global initiative launches February 4 to persuade people not to smoke in homes and cars in the presence of children
- Fruitfly semen alters female biology - January 31, 2008 → Cornell study reveals how seminal fluid from the fruitfly can affect female fertility, could offer clues to human reproduction problems. And, before you ask, no that doesn’t mean anyone has to get down and dirty with Jeff Goldblum or Vincent Price.
- Black is black, but black is blacker - January 29, 2008 → My SpectroscopyNOW report on the world’s darkest material that is almost ideally black, reflecting virtually no visible light at all.
- Black Holes and Revelations - January 28, 2008 → The dangers of a desktop black hole as seen by Robert Wagner, Sciencebase guest editorial.
- Chiral cosmetics - january 27, 2008 → Are chiral cosmetics worth the $$$ premium and what are they anyway? Find out on the Molecule of the Day site.
- Blood type switch - January 25, 2008 → A single instance of blood type changing in a girl given a blood transplant hit the headlines this week. I wonder whether they’ll begin to find other instances and whether it might have medical application in transplant surgery. If it were possible to switch blood/immunological type completely then everyone would become a universal donor. Also, might there be implications for allergy? They need to find out fast how and why it happened and whether it’s controllable.
- Venter creates artificial life, solves energy crisis - January 25, 2008 → Well, at least according to the headlines that’s what he’s done…we’ll just have to wait and see what emerges from this work, although it looks promising…
- 23andMe pPersonal genomics - January 23, 2008 → 3andMe now in Canada and Europe. The personal DNA company is moving quickly around the world. Coming soon - Google DNA Search. No, seriously, it’s coming…
- Alchemical Happenings - January 22, 2008 → The Alchemist learns this week of a novel twist on the standard substitution reaction mechanism, how chemists in Taiwan are threading molecules to make a daisy chain, about the structure and properties of doped up silver clusters and more.
- Web 3.0 - January 22, 2008 → Web 2.0 is all about networks with user-generated content. Could web three be about user-generated networks?
- Vitamin D oversight - January 21, 2008 → Might too much vitamin D, rather than a deficiency be the underlying cause of worsening symptoms in some diseases?
- Pollarding the tree of life - January 21, 2008 → Apparently, we need to lop off a branch from the tree of life to complete the evolutionary family tree, according to Norwegian and Swiss biologists.
- How you feeling PC? Ruff? - January 19, 2008 → Computers can discern “meaning” in dog talk better than people
- Elemental discoveries - January 17, 2008 → Reports just in of the discovery of a new isotope borhium-260. This intriguing species exists only fleetingly with a half-life of 35 milliseconds.
- GM Carrots healthier - January 16, 2008 → Despite the reservations about GM crops of a decade since, fears about their negative health effects seem to have dwindled, at least outside the UK. The development of GM carrots that help the body absorb the essential nutrient calcium could mark a turning point for the public perception of GM food.
- Less is actually less - January 15, 2008 → At the height of genomics, there were outlandish claims that humans have 150,000 genes, if not more. Since then the estimate has been reined in quite harshly. In 2001, the best estimate was 35,000, but today MIT and Harvard scientists reckon there may only be 20,500 genes in our genome. That’s fewer than the sprouty plant Arabidopsis! Of course, the count for that species may be way over the top too. Who knows? The scientists certainly don’t seem to!
- Is everybody happy? - January 15, 2008 → In-camera software that prevents the shutter being released until everyone’s smiling :-)
- 12 ways to be greener - January 14, 2008 → This is yet another one of those items attempting to assuage our guilt for extravagance and wastefulness in the developed world by offering trivial ways of reducing one’s carbon footprint. Making sure your car is regularly serviced and switching to compact fluorescent lightbulbs will NOT save us from climate change.
- Carbon Offset Warning - January 11, 2008 → Marine scientists are warning that it’s too early to trade carbon offsets released by iron fertilisation of the oceans. As far, as I can see the whole concept of carbon trading has to be fundamentally flawed, it’s worse than sweeping the problem under the carpet, or burying one’s head in the sand, it’s like lending billions of taxpayer dollars to a UK mortgage company up to its ears in US sub-prime debt at the start of a recession.
- Zoo count - January 10, 2008 → Zoos across the UK are carrying out an animal headcount. Is it purely coincidence that a headcount of children in schools begins next week too?
- LED Lightbulbs - January 9, 2008 → Now that we know energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs are habingers of 5mg of mercury vapour each, let’s hope they finally get decent LED lightbulbs on the market soon. Oh, they contain other toxic metals, you say? D’oh!
- Too much perfume is depressing - January 8, 2008 → Could dowsing oneself in “too much” perfume be an indicator of olfactory failure linked to depression? That’s the question scientists in Israel claim to have answered. Personally, I think it stinks.
- Google PageRank beats superbugsJaunary 8, 2008 → Could the Google software algorithm that ranks sites according to inbound links and other factors be used to help hospitals seek out and destroy superbugs, such as MRSA? Catchy title, but probably an inopportune mashup of search engines and medicine.
- Circumcision Doesn’t Reduce Sexual Satisfaction - January 8, 2008 → Circumcision is being touted as a way to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Now, a study of almost 4500 men shows that for more than 98% of men it doesn’t reduce sexual satisfaction or performance.
- Critical difference between human flu and bird flu - January 7, 2008 → Researchers at MIT have determined the critical difference between human and avian forms of influenza. Discovery could help in spotting if and when an avian influenza strain mutates into a human transmissable form.
- Magnetic reduction - January 4, 2008 → Magnets ten times stronger than a “fridge magnet” could reduce swelling injuries according to US researchers. Personally, I am not sure this work will stick!
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