Month: March 2011

• Free complete works of H.P. Lovecraft for Nook and Kindle (and Calibre) – You can now download the complete works of HP Lovecraft as an ebook for your Kindle (or if you haven't wasted your money on that device you can read it with the Calibre software for Windows, Mac and Linux.
• FYI: OMG, tinfoil hat entry updated in OED, LOL – Forget the addition of FYI, LOL and OMG 2 the OED, the new entry for tinfoil hat  n. recounts how the shiny chapeau began its life with only festive connotations. However, in 1986, just over a century after its first attestation as an innocent party favour, the tinfoil hat migrated to a more sinister milieu, popularly associated with conspiracy theories suggesting that such headwear could protect the wearer from mind control or surveillance. This association, in turn, led to the development of a depreciative attributive use, designating people regarded as paranoid or delusional, and to the adjectival compound tinfoil-hat-wearing, also included in this update.
• Chemicalize your website or blog – If you write about chemical matters you can "chemicalize" your website with a neat WordPress plugin that automatically adds links to chemicals mentioned in your posts so that readers can access data and web pages about these structures. The primary use is to parse chemical names from web page text and serve an annotated web page version which includes structure images hyper-linked from the chemical name source.
• Inventions vs Discoveries – An invention is a new combination of known techniques or technologies, to produce something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Invention is a process of synthesis. A discovery is a previously unknown product of the workings of nature. This comes from an analysis of the observed world. Engineers make inventions, scientists make discoveries.
• Good news for meat lovers – Despite the scaremongering concerning meat, it turns out that hot dogs, pepperoni and other ready to eat deli meats are all relatively free of carcinogenic compounds. Same isn't true for rotisserie chicken skin or bacon…

The latest selection of five science stories, picked up by David Bradley Science Writer @sciencebase.

Debunking crackpot and fraudulent inventions has never been easier than now thanks to the world-shattering invention of the Crackpot Flowchart(TM) from Sciencebase. Based on the 13 unlucky-for-crackpots warning signs published some time ago on ka9q.net, this handy multicoloured flow chart lets you assess that recent email touting the latest ground-breaking breakthrough invention.

The Crackpot Flowchart(TM) will let you know in an instant whether the invention being touted is not only earth-shattering but whether it will rock the very foundations of modern science itself. No more worrying that you missed out on a Pulitzer, kick the frauds and the deluded into a cracked pot and save the real breakthrough for a sneaky call to the newsdesk at Science and Nature.

As a bonus, just swap out invention for theory to test whether that email is from the next Albert Einstein or the next Peewee Herman.

Flowchart originally drawn using Gliffy.com

The following comment was left on the site today, it begins:

“Telepathy is possible, it works very good…I can exchange voice and videos messages , smell and bad and good filings with people around, people can move muscles on my body from distance and much more.”

Aside from the “filings” typo, it all points to a deluded mind. A quick Google search found the exact same comment spam on four other sites, of course, I have trashed it rather than approving it on the inappropriate post to which it was attached. But, what should we make of such a comment? The commenter did link back to his/her site but in an obfuscated way, so perhaps they’re not a comment spammer in the strict sense wanting the SEO link juice, more a kind of deranged troll (the contents of the website expands on the theme at great length, but in a single blog post). Further insight comes from the subsequent paragraph that smacks of paranoia:

“People in some countries found a mad fun, they collected money and they finance some mad psycho to stalk on me day and night. Maybe psycho can get 50 000 hours paid and earn few hundred thousand Euro but I have to spend over 10 years in poverty because of this. Number one he use it to terrorize me all the time, I have no job and no normal sleep, I am mad , sick and tired of this. People in some countries( Sweden, Norway) are boycotting me , I have no human rights there , can not get job and no friends I think they are taking part in financing this show.”

It all sounds very sad – paranoia and delusions – isn’t that a sign of schizophrenia? The commenter then concludes:

“I have to find a way to protect me of telepathy. Is it any medicine that could stop this? I was thinking that some metal shield should stop brain waves. Any idea what can I do?”

At this point, one has to assume that the commenter has been around the net a while and picked up on the notion of a tin foil hat. But, they first ask about medication…a good move. I am sure a doctor could help.

I seem to have something of a reputation for a fertile imagination; don’t know why, although regular readers will know that I cover a lot of ground between my blog and a hard place. Anyway, Diane Richards pointed this out to me following a Facebook post about social networking for sex and about the most inappropriate orifices into which people insert the most inappropriate objects, so maybe I do.

Anyway, it occurred to me that someone with a fertile imagination could be stifled by the mental equivalent of a vasectomy, a mental snip, if you like.

I asked my twitter colleagues to suggest what they thought would be the equivalent of a vasectomy and some interesting responses have started rolling in.

First, was the pragmatic suggestion of tmtn that it would be an “innovation lobotomy” or “creativity-bypass surgery”. Jean-Charles Dordain lamented the current education system and equated a mental vasectomy to being “forced to sit down in a classroom and forced to think one way and only one way.”

Dennis D McDonald took it to a higher level with the notion of “Cutting off all Federal funding for public broadcasting” while zevans23 took a contrary view that “watching too much TV” would be the equivalent. Neil Withers threatened to bring the growing meme to a close by offering: “Joining Twitter”, but luckily Damien Ryan chipped in with “a BSc in Computer Science” being the closest thing to the mental snip. Liz Scherer suggested a good old-fashioned lobotomy and Joe Garde asked whether a biomedical solution was appropriate in terms of “the inability to produce serotonin”.

Anyway, that’s all the ideas that have come in at the time of writing, so I ask again:

What would be the mental equivalent of a vasectomy for someone with a fertile imagination?

The Royal Society of Chemistry is warning against panic buying of potassium iodide tablets as a protective agent against exposure to radioactive iodine. It also cautioning cautioned against scaremongering regarding the potential effect of explosions at the Fukushima nuclear plant, saying that any comparisons with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster are unfounded.

Radioactive iodine (I-131) forms as a by-product in many nuclear reactors.

But, iodine itself is an essential constituent of a healthy diet in tiny amounts as it forms a component of thyroid hormones. The element is is absorbed by the human body into the bloodstream where it is taken up by the thyroid and incorporated into these hormones. Exposure to a radioactive isotope of iodine, and subsequent concentration in the thyroid, can therefore result in damage to the thyroid.

It is thought that by ingesting potassium iodide tablets, a high dose of non-radioactive iodine can overwhelm the uptake mechanisms and so reduce the amount of radioactive iodine that might reach the thyroid. Of course, taking potassium iodide tablets after exposure to radioactive iodine will still have some protective effect.

The RSC reports that US citizens have been panic buying potassium iodide tablets, perhaps on the back of a fraudulent map scurrilously claiming that a radiation cloud is heading for the western coast of the USA. One supplier says it has sold 250,000 “anti-radiation pills” since news of the Japanese nuclear reactor incidents broke.

“For the US to be affected, an explosion would have to occur that was powerful enough for radioactive iodine to reach the upper atmosphere, get picked up by the jet stream then carried to the United States,” says Brian Carter, environmental sciences programme manager at the RSC. He adds that that there is a plentiful global supply of iodine and that the people who do need the tablets are those in and around the exclusion zone in Japan. “Supply is incredibly unlikely to be an issue, provided that people are not driven into buying and using the pills by scaremongering,” he adds.

More on RSC site.

It is not skilful engineering or clever reactor design that precludes a nuclear explosion at a nuclear power plant, it is the laws of physics.

The materials in a nuclear reactor core and the uranium enrichment level make impossible a nuclear explosion of the type for which nuclear weapons are designed. Despite this, repeatedly we have heard talk of nuclear explosions in the media from observers, pundits, anti-nuclear activists and journalists.

An explosion at a nuclear reactor is not a nuclear explosion and can never be. Power plant grade uranium contains the fissile form of uranium, the uranium-235 isotope, at just a few percent, the majority is non-fissile U238. Compare that to weapons grade uranium which has to contain 80% or more of U235. Moreover, a nuclear weapon requires that a critical mass of the radioactive material be forced together quickly in a relatively small volume. This cannot happen in a nuclear plant, the low concentration of fissile U235 means it can never reach an explosively critical mass of fissile material but there is also no process that could force it together into a small volume quickly, anyway.

The same applies to the mixed oxide type reactor that use plutonium oxide and uranium oxide. It should be noted that plutonium is generated by the normal operation of a uranium-using power plant, although again it is the wrong ratio of isotopes for a nuclear weapon.

Essentially, the fuel concentration in a power plant is far too low to build the high-energy neutron stream needed to cause an explosive chain reaction. As to nucleear meltdown. The term nuclear meltdown is laden with China Syndrome style drama, but it does not lead to a nuclear explosion; a lot of heat is produced, and the nuclear fuel melts (happens at about 2700 Celsius). That’s it. Moreover, the melting process leads to less fissile material being in close contact when it spreads and melts through the floor of the reactor and the rock beneath. Incidentally, the hypothetical limit on depth the molten fuel could penetrate is about 15-20 metres, not the Earth’s core. Inevitably, the chain reaction that generates the heat slows of its own accord.

None of this is to say that what has happened in Japan is any less of a tragedy, it is just that phrases like nuclear meltdown and nuclear explosion used in this context in no way help, they spread fear, give tabloid headline writers scaremongering fodder, and are being hijacked repeatedly for personal agendas. Conventional explosions do occur, as we’ve learned this week from tragic events in Japan. But, these are not nuclear explosions. There is a risk of particles of radioactive material entering the atmosphere or the ocean, but this does not amount to the impact of an actual nuclear explosion.

New Scientist has a useful summary of what is happening at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan following the Sendai earthquake and subsequent devastating tsunami.

• Astrologer Richard Nolle says the March 19 Supermoon will cause major earthquakes or other disasters. Scientists are not expecting any major disasters from the supermoon. | Space.com – On March 19, the moon will swing around Earth more closely than it has in the past 18 years, lighting up the night sky from just 221,567 miles (356,577 kilometers) away. On top of that, it will be full. And one *astrologer* believes it could inflict massive damage on the planet. But, who gives a sh*t what an astrologer thinks. Astronomers point out that this is only 7% closer than the average distance and will have very little impact other than the moon looking ever so slightly bigger in the night sky.
• Science Spot – Physical Science News – I archived my Spotlight column (2002-2010) on ScienceSpot.co.uk – acid astronomy atoms carbon catalyst chemistry climate change earth sciences electricity electrons energy engineering environment fuels galaxy geography and environment geology global warming materials meteor molecules nuclear oil organic oxygen particles physical physics planets rocks solar space spin stars sun telescope time universe waste water x-ray…
• Did scientists discover bacteria in meteorites? : Pharyngula – The people at that "journal" have emailed me on several occasions (once or twice asking me to write for them, once or twice asking me to write about them and sending me some huge, overpriced book of silliness that is now a great doorstop and another time telling me I was rude [because I was skeptical of their claims]). I have never had the heart to tell them what I actually  think of them, having assessed the evidence of their activities. Thankfully, PZ Myers does it so eloquently.
• Baby dies after infection at maternity unit – A baby has died and another child is in an isolation unit at Glasgow's Princess Royal Maternity (PRM) hospital after contracting a bloodstream infection – Serratia marcescens.
• Serratia marcescens – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Serratia marcescens led to a recent newborn death in the UK. But, what is it? Due to its ubiquitous presence in the environment, and its preference for damp conditions, S. marcescens is commonly found growing in bathrooms (especially on tile grout, shower corners, toilet water line, and basin), where it manifests as a pink discoloration and slimy film feeding off phosphorus-containing materials or fatty substances such as soap and shampoo residue. It is a species of Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium in the family Enterobacteriaceae. A human pathogen, S. marcescens is involved in nosocomial infections, particularly catheter-associated bacteremia, urinary tract infections and wound infections.
• Topic of the day – topical painkillers – Non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have a bad side effect profile (stomach and heart problems). Now turns out they cause more harm than we thought. Evidence has emerged to demonstrate that topical NSAIDs are effective for many conditions that might otherwise require oral therapies so could be the way forward and avoid those side-effects. However, there is little evidence to suggest that topical NSAIDs are effective for some types of pain, like back pain, headache, or neuropathic pain.

My latest selection of six science stories, picked up by David Bradley Science Writer @sciencebase.