Science – Page 307 – David Bradley

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.

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.

Nancy Greenspan and Max Born

Science writer Nancy Greenspan, biographer of Nobel quantum physicist Max Born, emailed to alert me to her imminent conversation tour with Born’s son, Professor Gustav Born FRS. The pair will discuss the great scientist’s life and work:

Cambridge: Monday 6 February – 5-6.30pm Sidgwick Hall, Newnham College. Tel (Whipple Museum of the History of Science): 01223 330906

London: Wednesday 8 February – 6.30-8.30pm British Library Conference Centre. Tel: 0207 412 7222

Oxford: Thursday 9 February – 6.30-8pm Museum of the History of Science. Tel: 01865 277280

Switch off and Save the World

The BBC reports today that millions of TV watchers, tech-heads, and gadget freaks are costing us the earth when they put their equipment into standby rather than switching it off “properly”: TV’s ‘sleep’ button stands accused.

Apparently, standby mode is costing Britain 7TWh of energy and emitting around 800,000 tonnes of carbon a year. That’s purely wasted energy. With TV standby mode using up to two-thirds the “on” power for some TVs, the Brits might actually be “wasting” more energy than American TV users, since “it is a known fact” that Americans watch more TV.

Jobs for the Girls

Bradley’s Almanac [no relation] reveals a hidden treasure from a 1960s American childhood – The Exciting Game of Career Girls, a board game not unlike Monopoly for 2-4 players through which young ladies can decide your future career.

Good at Biology? asks one token, that’s good for nurse and teacher apparently, a propensity to neatness is perfect for an airline hostess, teacher, nurse, and model. Being pretty suits you being a model or an actress.

But, you can forget it if you’re clumsy – you’ll never be an air hostess, a ballet dancer, model or nurse. And if you’re overweight that’s “bad for: airline hostess, ballet dancer, and model” but presumably okay for nurses and teachers!

Apparently, there was a boy’s version too that helped young lads decide on whether they were to be future statesmen, scientists, athletes, doctors, engineers, and astronauts. No teaching, acting, or modelling jobs for the boys it seems.

Such a game looks incredibly un-politically correct from a modern perspective and no toy maker would even consider launching a product even vaguely touching on such political issues these days. But, as we found out when I reported for BMN on women in science, gender bias in employment in this crucial field still exists and one wonders just how many girls of the 1960s opted to be an air-borne trolley dolly rather than a scientist because of this game.

BioProcess International

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If you’re working in biopharmaceutical, biovaccine, and biodiagnostic development and manufacturing processes you could qualify for a free subscription

Cat scat and schizophrenia

Imperial College is on a roll today, with the second press release appearing within seconds of the news reported in my earlier posting.

Now, IC scientists reckon they have found new evidence of link between cat faeces and schizophrenia. Sounds bizarre, but apparently invasion or replication of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii in rats can be inhibited by using the anti-psychotic or mood-stabilising drugs commonly prescribed for schizophrenia. T gondii is found in infected cat faeces and can be present in undercooked meat.

Joanne Webster and her colleagues reckon the activity of these drugs against the parasite suggests a role for it in causing mental problems in some patients.

At a time when the UK government is soon to back peddle on its lowering of the cannabis classification in law because of suspicions prolonged use can cause mental health problems, this finding could provide just the evidence the pro-pot lobby is after. Bird lovers too are provided with new evidence for an attack on their nemesis – the cat.