David Bradley – Page 361

Scientific Media News Release Service

Exposing yourself – Have you recently made an important discovery? Is your research now in press or accepted for publication? Does your research deserve to reach as wide an audience as possible?

If you answered, “Yes!” to any of these questions, then we can can help you create a news release that will grab the science headlines. The release can then be placed in the hands of science writers and journalists safe in the knowledge that the facts are straight and your results are highlighted not hyped. Your work could make the headlines in popular science magazines, papers, websites and many other outlets the world over, providing useful support for those funding applications that ask, “So what?”

When you hear your paper is accepted get in touch with us right away. Tell us briefly the purpose of your study, the reasons you think non-specialists and non-scientists will find it interesting, and whether there are any particular aspects of the work we should bear in mind when writing about the research. We can then tailor appropriate questions to you to get to the heart of the story and prepare the news release.

You can make the most of the process by sending us a preprint in advance (PDF is best, but Word and other formats are fine) and be assured that we will adhere strictly to any embargo conditions laid down by the journal in question. You can also assist in the preparation of the release by highlighting other pertinent references in the field. Any images that might be used to improve the visual impact of the release could also be suggested at this stage. The more information you provide the more we will have to create an accurate and exciting summary of your work. You may wish to list two or three relevant websites, including your own, that would help journalists who follow up the story. Most importantly, tell us how your findings might affect people in their every day lives or whether applications might ultimately be developed from it.

Please be aware that we will breach no journal embargoes and will work in conjunction with your institute’s press office or public relations department as appropriate. We will prepare a draft of the news release and return it to you for editing and approval. We will also coordinate with your news office as necessary to ensure the news reaches the widest possible media audience to coincide with the date of publication.

The David Bradley Science Writer partnership has been in the business for sixteen years writing for many markets including daily papers, magazines, websites and others including Science, New Scientist, American Scientist, Nature, and Proc Natl Acad Sci. We also have extensive experience of creating attention-grabbing news releases for the likes of the Institute of Physics and publicity materials for the National Academy of Sciences, Royal Society, Argonne National Laboratory, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), PSIgate, and Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC). Senior partner David Bradley is a qualified chartered chemist and a member of the US National Association of Science Writers and the Association of British Science Writers. The Partnership also includes experienced proof-reader and editor Tricia Cross BS Dip RSA who ensures each news release is crafted with precision to reflect your science in the best possible light.

Scientific Research in the Past

If you’re about to complete your degree in science and contemplating your future, then one area of science that is persistently digging up the past could be worth investigating. Check out our feature article on scientific research in the past.

Even if that doesn’t provide you with career inspiration, then take a look at our Science Jobs channel.

Keep Eating your Greens

“Research has shown that most essential nutrient deficiencies can be eliminated by small increases in diversity in the diet,” says Dr Emile Frison, Director General of IPGRI (the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute). He stresses that “this has important implications for the health and nutrition of people living in the West, but it is even more important for people living in developing countries.”

The bottom line is that you should put away those health food supplements and simply make sure you eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. But, isn’t this the fundamental advice that we’ve all known for years – “an apple a day,” “eat your greens”, “a rolling stone…”. Okay, that last one doesn’t fit, but the idea of fruit and veg being good for you, and more specifically, better for you than the contents of a pile of blister packs and little plastic bottles, is not just received wisdom, it’s pretty much been demonstrated again and again in scientific studies.

But, there is perhaps more we can do to improve even a diet rich in fresh fruit and veg, according to an IPGRI press release.

Scientists at the Catholic University in Leuven (KUL), Belgium, are working with IPGRI and partners to improve the nutritional qualities of staple foods such as the banana. “There are orange-fleshed varieties in the South Pacific that deliver the complete daily requirement for vitamin A in one banana,” says Professor Rony Swennen, director of the International Transit Centre at KUL. “We’re working to ensure that other people who depend on bananas can get the same level of nutrition from their crops, instead of having to use supplements.”

Supplements can help address specific deficiencies in essential nutrients, but a diet that is diverse offers a more holistic approach to nutrition and health. Buckwheat and finger millet, for example, reduce the risk of heart disease. Other plants contain compounds that can improve the body’s ability to assimilate nutrients and to defend itself against illness. Fenugreek, for instance, contains compounds that help the body to respond to insulin, and leafy vegetables contain antioxidant carotenoids that can prevent damage to cells and tissues. These findings are particularly significant for the developing world’s poor.

IPGRI has launched an initiative to improve the health, nutrition and livelihoods of people in the developing world by promoting dietary diversity. For example, IPGRI has been promoting the use of millets as a way to improve the income and nutrition of farmers in Tamil Nadu, in the south of India. Millets can thrive in marginal conditions, making them easier to grow and better for the environment. They are also nutritious and therefore a healthy option for urban dwellers.

“Affluent consumers are not the only ones who need to combat diabetes, obesity and other diet-related diseases,” explains Frison. “The poor in developing countries increasingly face the same problems and the solutions are the same for them.” The message is clear: diversity is a powerful source of good nutrition and thus, better health.

Promise of a Rain Garden

According to a report due to appear in the journal Environmental Science & Technology on February 15, properly designed rain gardens can trap and retain almost all common pollutants from urban storm water runoff. The finding could have a huge impact on improving water quality and ensuring that potentially harmful pollutants are remediated into less harmful compounds.

Most important, however, is that rain gardens are affordable and easy to design, say the authors, Michael Dietz and John Clausen of the University of Connecticut.

The gardens mimic the natural water cycle that existed before roads and other impervious surfaces. As the water collects and soaks into the rain garden, it infiltrates the ground rather than draining directly into sewers or waterways.

More than half the rainwater falling on a typical city block leaves as runoff, according to EPA info, this runoff contains metals, oils, fertilizers and putatively harmful particulate matter. The Connecticut team reckons shallow depressions in the earth landscaped with hardy shrubs and plants such as chokeberry or winterberry surrounded by bark mulch – so-called rain gardens – offer a very simple and esthetically pleasing solution to this problem.

A PDF file explaining more about rain gardens was previously available at http://cleanwater.uwex.edu/.

Say NO to Straddling Molecules

“Imagine you are standing, John Wayne style, on the backs of two runaway horses pulling a stagecoach. You try to bring the horses to a stop but instead the harnesses break, the horses separate, and an unlucky passenger gets thrown from the stage.”

That’s how the latest chemistry news release from Sandia National Laboratories. Poetic in its own way, I suppose, but couldn’t they have got the scientist in question Carl Hayden to put on a ten-gallon hat for the photo shoot at least?

The news release goes on to explain how he and colleagues at SNL and the National Research Council in Ottawa, Canada, and elsewhere, straddled a molecule by, in effect, standing on pair after pair of joined nitric oxide molecules (NO dimers) and watching as each pair split after being excited by an ultrashort laser pulse.

The researchers not only measured the direction of each separating NO molecule but also the direction and energy of an electron spat out as each molecular break up occurred. The electron reveals the quantum energy levels of the dimer as it separates.

Then, computer back calculations from the final speeds and angles provided the team with a way to reconstruct the event and so “see” the exact path the electron and each dimer fragment had taken, exactly as though they had ridden on the dimers as they split.

The detailed experimental results, reported in Science, allow the team to test the computational methods used for combustion and atmospheric modelling involving NO.

Smallest Fish in the World

The BBC’s Roland Pease reports on the world’s smallest fish, recently discovered in a Sumatran swamp: Smallest fish. According to Pease, “Mature individuals of the Paedocypris genus can be as small as 7.9mm (0.3in) long, researchers write in a journal published by the UK’s Royal Society.”

7.9mm? I suppose saying “about 8mm” would be too imprecise and would have the Guiness people up in arms. But, what happened to the precision in the conversion to inches, they lost a significant figure! More to the point, why give it the length in inches at all. Members of the generation who don’t comprehend millimetres yet are unlikely to be able to get a handle on decimal numbers, surely he should have said “about a third of an inch”, or perhaps we could have the measurement in Russian arsheens, or Austrian fadens, or perhaps Indian moots.

Who is Erin Ellington?

33 people have searched the Sciencebase site for the phrase Erin Ellington since the beginning of the year and keen as I am to provide a useful service for all comers to the site I cannot yet think of a valid and scientifically sound excuse to include a picture of said centerfold.

Of course, those visitors may not have been searching for the model at all. There was an Erin Ellington on the 1995 UW-Oshkosh women’s cross country team, maybe she’s a scientist and that’s who they were after…

Male and Female Scientists are Different

Peter Lawrence of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in Cambridge, UK argues in a paper published in Plos Biology, that men and women really are different and that current political correctness simply glosses over the inherent bias in job interviews and tests. Indeed, these assessments, he argues, favour male candidates because they seek out characteristics such as self-confidence and aggression, which are, despite attempts at being wholly PC, predominant in men.

Rather than choosing an employee on the basis of those characteristics, Lawrence argues, science would be better served “if we gave more opportunity and power to the gentle, the reflective, and the creative individuals of both sexes.” He suggests that if we followed that approach to the selection process, more women would be selected, more would choose to stay in science, and more would get to the top.

He points out that even though discussions of men and women as different are taboo in the current sociopolitical climate we are nevertheless “constitutionally different”. This intrinsic diversity, Lawrence suggests, is not something to hide and employ in political battles, but something to “celebrate and discuss openly…both women and men should be leading such discussions with pride,” he adds.

Chemical wedding anniversary gifts

Most people have heard of the traditional wedding anniversary gifts – silver, ruby, gold, cotton, paper etc, but we’ve compiled a list of wedding anniversary gifts aimed at the chemical couple in your life. So, if you’re looking to celebrate a stable bond take a look, but please avoid if you’re easily offended, some of the entries might cause a reaction.

Fighting Tooth Decay with Licorice

Licorice root could be the dentist’s nightmare come true – a “candy” that actually prevents cavities. Researchers at UCLA have demonstrated that an extract from the plant root used to make all sorts of candies and other products contains at least two chemicals that block replication of the bacterium Streptococcus mutans, a major cause of dental caries.

Qing-Yi Lu and Wenyuan Shi point out that more studies are needed before these compounds could ever be considered as additives for cavity-thwarting toothpaste or mouthwash. Chinese medicine has used licorice root for centuries and it is only recently that western science has been alerted to its potential in reducing inflammation, fighting viruses, and healing ulcers.

A word of caution though, too much licorice, whether in licorice candies, tea, or other foods, can trigger high blood pressure in susceptible people, far outweighing the protective effects on your teeth.