Science – Page 320 – David Bradley

Cornell university researchers

Cornell University researchers are working hard to ensure P2P systems work as they should. Assistant professor in Computer Science, Emin GÜ® Sirer, for instance is working on various programs such as Credence, which he hopes will counter P2P pollution.

He’s also spotted a serious vulnerability in the Limewire P2P program, which runs on the Gnutella file sharing system and triggered Limewire to send out a patch to its approximately 35 million users.

Maybe this is a naive question, given the sheer number of users out there, but what are Cornell researchers doing improving systems that are commonly used to propagate copyright material illicitly across the net? Are there actual legitimate reasons why people would be using Limewire and other P2P software? Presumably, business users and academics wishing to share their information would do so through an intranet, ftp, or by email, rather than allowing all and sundry to access their files through a P2P network.

I could understand it if the academic community were working with the copyright holders on techniques to prevent copyrighted materials being propagated in this way, but this seems to be an odd way to spend research funds, or am I missing something here?

Trumpet Blowing

Ever since I first brought to Western attention the problem of arsenic in groundwater on the Indian sub-continent through my article in The Guardian a decade ago, I’ve tried to keep up with developments. Now, researchers have discovered that the dried roots of the water hyacinth can remove arsenic from contaminated water. This could provide a simple, effective and, most importantly, cheap method of removing arsenic from the water supply in some of the poorest regions of the world.

Chemistry Student Beats Microsoft

A chemistry student in the US has beaten software giant Microsoft to a legal pulp, according to a report in The Register. David Zamos of Kent State University re-sold on e-bay some MS software bought at an educational discount rate. MS sued and then Zamos counter-sued says The Register. The funniest thing about the article though isn’t Zamos’ contorted retort to the MS legal claims (“Microsoft purposely established and maintained a sales and distribution system whereby rightful rejection and return of merchandise that is substantially non-conforming is either impossible or practically impossible due to the ineptness of its employees, unconscionable policies malicious intent and deceptive practices,” he wrote in the countersuit, reports The Register), but that the webzine then asks, “What’s this kid doing messing around with Chemistry?”

Well…if Zamos is clever enough to out-do MS in legalese, he could only be a boon to the chemical industry and ought to be given a high-level position as soon as he graduates…

Joel Shurkin’s Blog

My mentioning Joel Shurkin’s blog brought forth some sarcastic comments because of my quoting his remark on cancer cause and cure. One blog made the quite obvious comment in joannejacobs.com that “make a mouse drink enough water, it’ll develop cancer from it”. I wasn’t sure if that entry was being sarcastic or not, but I think Joel himself was being ironic…science writers see dozens of research papers that swing both ways on such matters as cancer cause and cure. Equally we see headlines proclaiming “[insert favourite chemical here] Causes Cancer” and just as many saying, “Scientific Breakthrough in Cancer Fight”.

Any compound can be demonstrated to be cytotoxic under the right conditions and so kill cancer cells or cause cancer in healthy cells. It’s the “right conditions” that matter though. Nevertheless we should heed the warnings about some chemicals: DHMO.org

One Week They’re Telling Us One Thing

One week they’re telling us that fidgety people stay slimmer because they burn 350 (k)cals a day more than the non-fidgets, then there are warnings that exercise might not work for some people, might cause some people more harm than good, and gym goers might even pick up MRSA from infected equipment. Then we hear, cutting calories is the way to live longer, but at the same time laziness might reduce stress on the heart, presumably only if you are not of a gloomy disposition and laugh a lot. It’s a confusing world, the world of medical advice. Check out the sciencebase medical newsfeed for the latest word on discoveries in medicine.

How to Maintain a Healthy Windows System

How to maintain a healthy Windows System. This page does what it says on the tin, providing a run down of what you need to do to maintain your Windows set up and cut down on the old Bluescreen of Death. One thing though lots of the text on this page is very pale and impossible to read if there’s a lot of glare on your screen…so here’s a quick tip to make any “too pale” text easily readable: “Control A” (Selects all). All text on the page then becomes white on a nice dark blue background. Much easier on the eyes if browsing in bright conditions…

Significant Figures

Check out the Significant Figures blog also run by David Bradley Science Writer. In it, he and colleagues name and shame the perpetrators of the misuses of significant figures, the metric system, and other old sawhorses of scientific pedantry. Today, something positive with a cynical twist regarding the Large Hardon Collider

UPDATE: The Sig Figs site has rebranded as a blogging, browsing, computing tips, tricks and hacks site, although you will still find the criticism of media innumeracy on sciencetext.com

Couple of Weeks Ago

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the news (in The Alchemist on ChemWeb.com) that NASA scientists had announced evidence of life on Mars. Thence followed withdrawals, denials, and retribution. Apparently, the announcement was pre-emptive of a paper in Nature and the scientists and NASA having realised their faux pas, allegedly then claimed not to have staked a claim for life on Mars after all. space.com who made the original announcement then published a follow-up that effectively retracted the claim. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency has been making its own proclamations: ESA – Science – Chances of life are linked to water and the media is full of it. Could it be that the publishers of Nature were simply trying to keep editorial control of such earth (or should that be mars) shattering results. It’s pretty unlikely, but the truth will likely emerge in the next week or so, as the pressure builds…

Dr Myriam Sarachik

Dr Myriam Sarachik (of City College in New York City) escaped the Holocaust from Belgium to become a prominent physicist and educator.

She will be honoured on 28th February in Paris as the recipient of the L’Oreal-UNESCO’s Women in Science Prize as a laureate.

The selection of five laureates representing five regions of the world, by a jury of world class scientists that includes some Nobel Prize winners, and the award of 15 Fellowships to aspiring young women scientists, has attracted the attention of the scientific community. The prize which has now recognized 91 women from 45 different countries has enabled young women to continue their education and scientific research as they enter the field and has promoted the groundbreaking research of senior women scientists.

Sarachik’s career in experimental condensed matter physics has included work on superconductivity, disordered metallic alloys, metal-insulator transitions, hopping transport in solids, and the behavior of molecular magnets. In particular, she has made seminal contributions to Kondo physics, metal-insulator transitions, and quantum spin dynamics. In her low temperature laboratory, she and her team are pursuing the study of condensed matter properties at low temperatures, with particular focus on two areas: molecular nano-magnets and the novel behavior of two-dimensional electron systems.

US Consumers and Vitamins

Friends and I were discussing the claim that US consumers are about to lose the right to purchase vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements, and one member of the clan pointed out a Snopes page that debunks the news as a hoax:

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (Vitamin See). However, there is a claim from cynical skeptics that Snopes is not so righteous as it claims…

Anyway, while this CODEX issue might very well be an urban legend, I’m afraid the truth is that here in the EU, they really are intending to stifle vitamins and supplements. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing I don’t know. Personally, I try to avoid supplements, but I realise millions of people have a use for them.

There are, however, lots of problems with certain supplements (natural cadmium levels associated with zinc, mean that zinc tablets are high enough to cause problems with long-term use, mega-doses of any vitamin cause toxicity, calcium bodies (kidney
stones) for instance with vitamin C, many herbal remedies need not necessarily be contaminated to be harmful, although contamination of Chinese herbal medicines with mercury and arsenic have been reported on many separate occasions here and
in the US), and wasn’t there a fairly recent problem with a contaminant in taurine?

Long-term use of echinacea can cause health problems, while the use of St John’s Wort is contraindicated for several prescription medicines. Even drinking too much grapefruit juice can interfere deliteriously with liver enzymes and cause heart
problems for users of certain antibiotics and antihistamines.

Dose is always the issue in toxicity, whether that’s dose of the active or a contaminant.

There may be a place for vitamins and supplements, but perhaps it is about time these were brought under more strict regulations so that benefit-risk management (BRM) can be considered in a more logical manner than it currently is. BRM is after all at the top of all pharmaceutical company agendas and adverse drug reactions (ADRs) feature prominently in the minutes.

http://tinyurl.com/6da7l – PDF from EU on the directive set to be enforced 1 August 2005

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3831931.stm – WHO warnings on supplements and vitamins

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3443651.stm – EU rule change attacked.