The Ascent of Science

Our modern understanding of sea level rise can be traced back to Dipsomedes. Like his cousin Archimedes, Dipsomedes was fond of taking baths, in his case mostly because he was so filthy all the time. On one occasion he had stepped out of the bath and was whistling as he dried himself off. He didn't know how to whistle, but the passage of a draught through his wet rolls of fat produced a whistle Otis Redding would be proud of. He glanced back at the bath and noticed the high water mark, defined by a thick sheen of darkened grease and the rainbow coloured streaks of waterproof crayons he liked to draw in the bath with. Dipsomedes immediately shouted out a catchphrase that was later to be made famous by his cousin: Zeus on a gyro! This was subsequently recorded in history books in the original Greek, so few scientists that utter Eureka today are aware of its theological yet mouthwatering origins.

Although the exact details were not fully worked out for over 2,500 years, Dipsomedes' intuition was essentially correct - sea levels are not fixed, and may wax and wane over the course of a bath, or indeed millenia. Dipsomedes expounded his theory in the needlessly long On the Dermal Expansion of the Seas. Today the treatise is of purely gastronomic significance, containing as it does his mother's recipe for baklava on the back of each page, almost certainly due to a photocopying error.

This story illustrates nicely how many of science's greatest discoveries have been made - in the nude. Charles Darwin successfully cultivated the image of a gentleman scientist, yet those who journeyed with him confessed off the record that his expeditions were little more than trumped up P&O style party cruises. It is said that there wasn't a woman within three hundred nautical miles of the Galapagos that hadn't succumbed to Darwin's famed oratory prowess, and although scant evidence remains, few doubt that Darwin conferred a lot more than just his name upon many of the beautiful finches of the islands.

Then there was Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist who helped usher in the stranger than fiction world of quantum theory. Bohr was also a vociferous campaigner for the rights of marmosets, and he famously spent the last ten minutes of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech decrying the plight of our evolutionary second cousins. "So they don't have prehensile tails," he would say, "does that give us the right to destroy their habitat? Even I, a genius, have no prehensile tail!" Bohr then dropped his trousers to prove his point, causing many in the Nobel Committee to question the existence of an objective reality. Bohr would go on to host a biennial man-marmoset three-legged race in the backstreets of his hometown Copenhagen, at which the shared history and future of these two species was underlined by the strict requirement of all participants to fully disrobe. The event was later wound up by angry administrators who claimed Bohr's grandson Tyler was diverting funds to Barbary apes, rhesus monkeys and other members of the macaque family.

Are isomorphisms crummy?

Raymond Smullyan, in his delightful book The Tao Is Silent, rejects the picture theory of ideas, which states that an idea resembles its object. What could be more ridiculous? The idea of Tao being vague because Tao is vague? The idea of red being red because red is red? The idea of stickiness being sticky because stickiness is sticky? Smullyan adds that some say there can be isomorphisms between thoughts and objects. But this strikes him as a crummy kind of resemblance!

I wasn't so quick to dismiss isomorphism between thoughts and objects. Why that is is worth a quick digression. Primarily it is the ways in which I see isomorphisms between thought and objects as nontrivial and meaningful. But I can also easily see that this is in large part due to my readings of mindologist extraordinaire Douglas Hofstadter, who has taught me the incredible value of isomorphism and analogy in human thought (and possibly porpoises too).

In a simple case, a thought may just be a label for an object, with no greater resemblance (or isomorphism) to it than the fact that we relate the two. This is a bit like language, in which some argue the labels we place on objects are completely arbitrary be could interchanged and, so long as we all agreed beforehand on what's attached to what.

But then I thought of Daniel Dennett's description of a computer simulation of a hurricane. How detailed does the simulation need to get - how many variables does it need to include - before we argue that we're actually getting kind of close to a real hurricane? It doesn't have to rain inside the hard drive for us to appreciate that the model may actually capture some aspects of this big, wet object.

So what happens when our thoughts are complicated, vague, multimeaninged and in other ways related to the objects they are about? I would argue that in precisely these cases, there are isomorphisms between the thoughts and the objects and this resemblance can be rather uncanny at times!

climate change science.

I have recently started working in the NSW environment department's climate change science section. So expect some more and more serious science-related posts in the coming days and weeks and months and years. Of course, strict public service codes of conduct prohibit any kind of disclosure of any kind of information at all related to the work one does... so i'll have to watch my words. But there'll be words, mark mine.

Some of his work is behind him

Another relic from ye olde archives, I'm including this one because it gives a glimpse into how I spent a year of my life. 2006: The Year of the Honours!

***

Cure cancer? Sure can, sir!

“…which may lead to a cure for cancer.” If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard these words, I’d have enough money to fund research which may lead to a cure for cancer.

The hopeful tone of media reports is indicative of the enormous problem cancer poses to society. First and foremost it is a profoundly personal issue, but these days you’re also likely to see it framed in economic terms — lost hours (and years) of productivity, the burden on the healthcare system. Whichever way you slice it, one result has been considerable investment into cancer research.

Thousands of torches have been flung into cancer’s dark caves. As more space is lit up, more caves are revealed, typically connected to the cavernous depths of other areas of biology such as the cell cycle, genetics and the immune system. What will be the outcome of this oncological spelunking? Will we cure cancer and if so, what are the implications for society? We will come to these questions in due course, but it behoves me to first explain my role in all of this.

The link between the cytoskeletal protein tropomyosin and cancer is not obvious, but I hope to change this. The cytoskeleton is an extraordinary system of filaments and regulatory proteins tied up in a huge range of processes, including mitosis and muscle contraction. I study the cytoskeleton in neurons, which are great for this purpose because of their unique shape and easily identifiable compartments.

The cytoskeleton hasn’t always been appreciated. In my school days I was taught that the cell was a watery sac through which the molecules of life whizzed and spun. The cytoskeleton, if mentioned at all, was merely cellular scaffolding, a backdrop to more important events. This picture has changed dramatically. Today a more appropriate mental image is of responsive, rapidly remodelling networks and vast cellular superhighways, complete with exits and accidents.

We have known for some time that cancer cells possess an altered cytoskeleton. This may help them leave their site of origin and invade other tissues — a most malignant act. As a major component of the cytoskeleton, actin has been considered a logical target for chemotherapy. The problem is that all attempts to develop a viable anti-actin drug have been stifled by actin’s involvement in more biological processes than you can poke a filament at, including the life-sustaining contractile machinery of the heart and diaphragm.

This is where tropomyosin comes in. Most actin filaments in the body are not naked, but adorned with tropomyosin, itself a filament. Recent research suggests that tropomyosin is well placed to regulate the actin cytoskeleton throughout the whole body[1].

Thanks to the molecular card shuffling that is alternative splicing, there are over 40 different versions, or isoforms of tropomyosin! Different tropomyosin isoforms reside in different cellular locales, and appear able to regulate the access of a litany of other proteins to the all-important actin filament. A diminutive doorman, if you will. Perhaps most significantly, different actin filaments are decorated with different tropomyosin isoforms.

The upshot of this is that we could disrupt specific (non-essential) populations of actin by directing chemotherapeutics against the tropomyosin isoforms which clothe them, rather than actin itself. Right now, more needs to be learnt about the localisation and function of different tropomyosin isoforms, which is how I busy myself. The ultimate goal of my research is an effective cancer treatment and a greater understanding of the cytoskeleton.

But what about preventing cancer, rendering treatment unnecessary? Might we upregulate DNA-repair enzymes, reducing mutation and with it the grist for evolution’s mill? Perhaps then we could truly say goodbye to cancer as a life-threatening condition. Before popping our champagne corks, we would do well to remember that as (currently) mortal beings inextricably connected to our environment, the war against illness and disease is perpetually waged but never won.

Before wading into the opaque waters of philosophy, I will end in a fashion increasingly required of scientists; a practical one. It is simply our duty to do what we can to reduce extremes of pain and suffering in our fellow human beings. And that is what I’m trying to do.

[1] Gunning, P. W., et al. (2005). Tropomyosin isoforms: divining rods for actin cytoskeleton function. Trends Cell Biol 15(6): 333-41.

An award-competing entry

This is another item from the vault, something I wrote in the attempt to win an essay contest that the Global Forum for Health Research was running around the middle of 2006. The theme was 'combating disease and promoting health'. Sadly, I didn't win. In retrospect it's a bit clunky, and could perhaps have been dressed up a bit better. Still, it's a decent read and I stand by the points I made. I like to think if I'd said I was from a developing country I'd have won pants down. Perhaps this all served me right for prostituting my goddess-given writing ability in the pursuit of glory and gold.

***

Rethinking Health Promotion

In the debate on how to promote health, I can think of no better starting point than to define what it is we actually mean by health. According to the Collins Concise Dictionary, health is:

“The state of being bodily and mentally vigorous and free from disease”

I would like to use this definition as the basis for a discussion of what it would really mean to promote the health of all people around the world today.

The first part of this definition is noncontroversial, obvious even. Good health means good physical health — the absence of bumps and bruises, aches and pains, stresses and strains. The second component, mental vitality, is far too often neglected. Indeed it appears that little more than lip service is paid to the notion of promoting mental health. The final term in our dictionary definition of health, freedom from disease, is also not as clear-cut as it may seem, as will be discussed further below.

As a society we do far too little to promote mental health. How can I justify this serious claim? For starters, how can you promote mental health when there is no consensus on what it is! Is it happiness? Peace of mind? A state of grace? Or is it merely the absence of illness? We seem to be quite good at defining mental illness. Not only do we think we know what it is, we keep adding to the list. There are a myriad medical manuals devoted to documenting and reifying all sorts of mental maladies. Incidentally, there are clear conflicts of interests in the writing of these manuals. Sheldon Krimsky, of Tufts University, has found that contributors to the widely used Diagnostic & Statistical Manual IV often have financial ties with companies selling treatments for these disorders. Where are the manuals for mental health?

To be fair, mental health is not much different from physical health in this respect. The majority of medical science proceeds by focusing on illness, rather than health. Over the years this has been a remarkably fruitful strategy, and it still has its place. Yet any researcher will tell you we are still a long way from a complete understanding of even ‘simple’ organisms. As controversial scientist Craig Venter eloquently put it, “We don’t know shit”. In the mental sphere we are even more in the dark (despite regular sensational reports to the contrary in the science media). If we want to take health to another level, both physically and mentally, sooner or later we must shift our focus from illness to wellbeing.

Of course, it is a luxury to ponder questions that must seem terribly remote to those in the midst of acute physical and mental trauma. Shouldn’t we be tackling these problems first? Sadly, our record of public and private support for mental illness is woeful. It is in areas of treatment and community support, rather than research, that we really let ourselves – and I do mean ourselves - down. While the main sufferers of mental illness are the afflicted themselves, society also bears the burden of mental illness gone undetected, untreated and effectively punished. Amongst the homeless, the incarcerated and the lower rungs of society the mentally sick are overrepresented. This last point may be no coincidence. Michael Marmot, of University College London, has found evidence to suggest a relationship between inequality and poor physical and mental health.

Yet along with the luxury to think about these things comes the responsibility to think big. Returning to the question of mental health promotion, what we need are some indicators of mental health. What about happiness? For all the material advances of certain countries, there is no evidence that people living in these countries are any happier than they were in the past. Not only this, but are they any happier than people living in different countries? This is no excuse for maintaining the disgraceful discrepancies between the haves and have nots, both within and between countries. It simply demonstrates that, above a certain baseline, there is no clear link between income and happiness.

And happiness is but one measure of mental health. What about a sense of belonging, the opportunity to fulfil one’s potential (in other words self-actualisation), a connection with the natural environment, mental stimulation, a feeling of control over one’s life? I suspect that the reader could contribute many items to a checklist of mental health indicators. You get an idea of how neglected this area is by the amount of questions it raises. What sorts of employers create a workplace that promotes mental health? What sorts of communities contain mentally healthy people? What sorts of environments are good for your mental health?

Moving away from the mental realm, we are closer to knowing the kinds of things that promote physical health. Diet is obviously important. So is some sort of regular exercise, although I suspect it would be more beneficial if it were integrated into our lives rather than slotted in twice a week between morning and afternoon meetings. Don’t be surprised if you are soon told which genes you need to be healthy, thanks to the massive investments being made into identifying genetic markers of disease. One problem with focusing on the genetic basis of disease, as David Suzuki has pointed out, is that it can shift the burden of responsibility onto the individual, rather than the firms which create hazardous work environments or emit pollutants, and the governments which regulate them. We would benefit by diverting some of our resources towards understanding these controllable environmental factors.

The last part of the dictionary definition of health is freedom from disease. While we are diverting resources, we would do well to remember that millions of people suffer from entirely preventable illnesses. We could make a huge dent in these very quickly by dramatically increasing funding targeted to those most at risk. Rather than detailing grim statistics on life expectancy, infant mortality and malnourishment, I would make two points, both of which apply locally and globally. Firstly, we must judge ourselves by how we treat those who are least well off. Secondly, acting is not a matter of charity, but obligation.

Can we all eventually be free from disease? This sounds like a reasonable request at first blush. Indeed it is the implicit underpinning of medical science. But on closer inspection, disease is a blurry concept (as are most useful concepts, by the way). There is a continuum from the obvious (eg HIV) to the mostly obvious (cancer is a disease, but it shares its lifeblood – mutation – with evolution), to the conditional (sickle cell anaemia arises from the trade-off between healthy blood cells and malaria resistance), to the ambiguous (eg a slightly less effective version of some metabolic enzyme). As with mental illness, it is in the interests of some to have the broadest possible definition of disease. If we take this to its logical conclusion, we reach what I call Clarke’s Principle: there is a disease phenotype for every genotype. In other words, if you look hard enough, you’ll find in every single person some inherited deficiency with respect to the majority of the population.

In this technical sense, none of us are or ever will be free from disease. It is a statistical impossibility, unless we all become clones of one another. In the case of more clear-cut diseases, can we realistically evade them completely? In nature the battle against illness and disease is perpetually waged but never won. Gains in one generation are lost in the next. The vanquishing of one illness merely paves the way for another. We cannot use this as an excuse not to act in the face of people dying preventable deaths. But even this is not so straightforward. How far do we go to prevent a centenarian from dying? Researchers are now openly discussing the possibility that we may never die. Is this the sort of health we want to promote? How will this affect the environment? Our children? I suspect that before we reach immortality something will cut us down a notch, not because I am a doomsayer but because I see no reason to exempt us from the sort of cyclical fluctuations of boom and bust that beset other species.

In conclusion, if we are serious about health promotion there are several things we can do as individuals and as a society. We must address inequality in access to healthcare. We must take mental illness seriously. But it is not enough to fire disease; we must promote health. As a corollary, we must define health in terms of more than just the absence of illness. Lastly, we should not confuse standard of living with quality of life. One has been rising in some countries for decades, but it appears to have completely detached from the other. Few would argue that good health is a prerequisite to a reasonable quality of life. Let’s make our society reflect this.

Fire in the belly

As I was conducting one of my occasional vain trawls through my hard drive looking at things I've written over the years, I came across this piece from late 2006. It's part of I reckon around 50% of files that haven't made it onto Artful Science or Hammertime's Brog. If you just take science related writings into account, it's more like 90% that haven't made it onto this here blog.

It pleases me that not everything I've written is on one of my blogs. It seems kind of weird to pour everything into those (these) two vessels, kind of like putting all my eggs in one basket. Won't, one day when I get discovered, I want to have items that haven't made it into the public domain? (But hang on, haven't only two people ever read this blog? And didn't they each only read one post, leaving 89% of the blog unread? I really need to build up my readership. At the moment it's a reader flotsam or jetsam) Then I thought of a humourous part from Vicki Cristina Barcelona, where Javier Bardem's poet dad refuses to publish his writing because he hates the world and wants to deprive them of beauty. At the end of the day we can probably file this dilemma under the already overcrowded heading "Things I think too much about".

I wrote this piece in response to an article by Martina Newell-McGloughlin spruiking the benefits of biotechnology and defending it against its critics. While it isn't exactly the kind of writing I envisioned ending up on the blog, I am strangely proud of it, belligerence, earnestness, profanity and all. And in the absence of any regular creative sciwriting spark, I might as well put the dang thing up. Stay tuned for a few more golden oldies from the C drive.

***

Response to “Green genes” (Cosmos Issue 12, p112)

If you want to understand Martina Newell-McGloughlin’s argument, you could do worse than starting with the following comment. I want to be fair to Newell-McGloughlin, so I’ll let her speak for herself.

“Biotechnology has the potential to … improve the volume and quality of food, feed, fibre and biofuels; reduce agriculture’s dependency on chemicals and fossil fuels; diminish overcultivation and erosion; and lower the cost of raw materials – all in an environmentally sustainable manner.”

When put like this, it’s hard to argue. If we are to proceed rationally, we must embrace biotechnology. It almost seems unfair to the world’s suffering to deprive them of this hope. Just like it would be unfair to the world’s poor students to deprive them of untested immune drugs that lead to horrific side effects.

David Suzuki has often pointed out that biotechnology proponents promise the earth. Even the apparently impressive figures quoted by Newell-McGloughlin don’t bear a great deal of scrutiny. Take a step back. If someone tells you that they can solve the world’s problems, and has been telling you this for the last – oh, ten years, and the problems haven’t even come close to being solved… My friend, you see them for what they are. Cranks suffering from delusions of grandeur, with difficulty perceiving their environment accurately.

“Trust me, trust me. I’m a scientist.” This is one of the arguments they like to deliver. There is a distinct lack of humility in these men and women.

I’d like the reader to imagine a day when the great biotech companies are in full stride. When they get what they want. Making billion dollar quarterly profits, products with a worldwide reach. And the clout that comes with money. Power, in other words. We’ll start seeing mergers and acquisitions. Smaller players will get bought out. Do you really think the world’s problems will be solved? Will the poor be fed? Definitely – those that can afford it, anyway.

Are banks with $4b profits making the world a better place? Fuck no.

A considerable problem with Newell-McGloughlin’s opinion is that it is one-sided. Does the author not see any problems with biotechnology, or are they for us to gather elsewhere? From sources the biotech camp has discredited? Can we have a comment from someone without vested interests? Perhaps not, but we can at least pretend to be ‘fair and balanced’. At least pay lip service to counterarguments. Well, let’s see if I can.

Gene technology is amazing. We are learning so much about genes, cells, organisms, environments. It seems we will be able to do so much. Make the hungry full. Make the sad happy. Make the flaccid erect. Make the weak assertive. The feeder of people faces certain fundamental problems wherever they may be. Produce enough food, of enough nutritional value, with as little impact on the environment as possible so as to allow future repetition of the process. There are many ways of reaching this end, and gene technology is one. But it is not the only one, it is not the cheapest one, it is not the safest one, it is not the most effective one, it is not the most efficient one (funny how efficiency’s a virtue and effectiveness isn’t any more) and it is not the most rational one. But it is one.

This kind of reasoning presented in the opinion piece is eerily reminiscent of the way some drugs are presented. We find out a lot about the benefits (essentially it does something, although whether it’s good for you, better than competitors, alternatives, or doing nothing is murky), nothing about the problems. What we need is information about the whole situation, not just the efficacy of one option. We cannot judge the situation without knowing alternatives.

Could there be other ways of feeding people? What about us fatties in the west eat a little less? I forgot, these same companies will solve that problem by letting us eat what we want, and decreasing our set point weight at the drop of a tabsule.

Could there be other ways of reducing emissions? How much energy goes into running laboratories?

Is it really ‘status quo’ versus GM alone? Newell-McGoughlin seems to think so. What the hell’s the status quo anyway?

Are there other avenues of action available to us?

Of course there are. It is our job as a society to think of these alternatives, and to foster the conditions which will lead to creativity. Capitalism is supposed to be creative, but it either isn’t, or what we have isn’t capitalism. Too often the monopoly, the duopoly. The perversion of market forces. The stifling of creativity. It’s quite funny to see leaders, officials, sensible people happily declaring the inevitability of the way society is run. The inevitability of globalism. Of market forces.

An idea doesn’t deserve to exist if it doesn’t make money. This is a wise and useful way to face the future. If we want to go extinct.

It’s a problem JR Saul has noted. When society is made up of interest groups – industry, government departments, non profit organisations, it doesn’t matter – they will fight for their interest, at the expense of other interests. It’s an exciting game, but I wouldn’t want my quality of life to be decided by the outcome of this game. The cards are stacked, even if it is the only game in town.

As mentioned above, Newell-McGoughlin invokes some impressive numbers in biotechnology’s defense. Quoting research just doesn’t carry the weight that it used to. People can quote statistics to justify many ends – in this case the positioning of biotechnology as saviour, without which society will founder. Do these people seriously believe this themselves? Are they surprised when their predictions do not come true? I suppose not, because they can point to statistics like a net farm income increase of $35.5 billion since GM crops were allowed.

Of course this (increase in net income) is the ultimate end which cannot be questioned. More money has been made by farm. Therefore biotechnology is goooood. QED. GDP increases when biotech PR people pollute the airwaves with their ‘information’. Seems like a sensible enough measure of the functioning of society.

It’s kind of like the way technocrats justify their existence and their miserable theories. IMF dude fishes around for some statistics that back her argument up. You’ll always find something. It’s basically how government advertising works.

We are told that “GM may actually be beneficial for animals as well”, owing to the fact that less space will be taken by ‘us’ away from ‘them’. People who think we’ll save species from extinction by using GM crops are kidding themselves. The idea that we’ll feed a forever-growing human population at no cost to the environment is ridiculous. And it’s not really the intention of businescientists. If you care to ask around, people will tell you there is already enough food to feed people. It’s an oh so simple question of political will, one which we are a long fucking way from at the moment. These people make me sick. Let’s try a little honesty. We are out to make a buck and would like you to get off our fucking back, or even better, defend us against our critics.

Biotechnology can be used to extend the climatic conditions at which we can grow food. That’s a great idea – let’s colonise whatever remaining space there is on earth. India and China will need more space in the future. What about the West – if the rest were like the West, we’d need five earths. How is biotech saving our souls here?

I should add a disclaimer that I am not in principle against technological advance aiding and abetting the human race. I just think that agendas exist, and we are kidding ourselves if we don’t question them. Simple question: who benefits? Who pays?

And what’s the real aim? Is it to feed everyone, or develop technology that allows us to survive in the desert for forty days and forty nights on a single pill? If we actually aim to improve the quality of life for the many who do not enjoy much of it, we might consider putting our resources to other more direct efforts.

The final joke of the opinion piece is to equate those in favour of biotechnology as being ‘enlightened’. It’s either that or the strange equating of ‘science’ with biotechnology. Nuclear weapons are based on science. Does that mean we should start developing them?

Enlightened, to me, would mean something like people having control over their own development. It would mean GM companies losing some control over their product. Funny, they’ll sue you if a GM seed accidentally takes in your soil, but they won’t cough up if there are any adverse effects from the business. Which is exactly what it is. A business. Can you predict who’ll bear the cost?

That’s right. You. Us. The government. We the fucking people.
And you better believe they want control. Why have so many millions of dollars been invested in drafting the bizarre TRIPS? In case you didn’t realise, that’s MINE and you cannot use it unless you PAY ME money. That bug. That’s mine. That plasmid. That’s mine. You can have it in fifty years.

Newell-McGloughlin thinks that if we steer clear of genetically modified agriculture, we run risks. No shit. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re running quite a few risks at the moment. If we hand over control to those few companies touting GM (which is pretty much the way academia operates these days – oh, I’ve found something cool, let’s convert public knowledge into private profit otherwise the public money will be wasted!), we’ll no doubt run few risks too. But to pretend that it’s GM or starve is seriously deceptive and the kind of fear mongering a politician would be proud of.

Of course, on some level people these days know well enough not to trust big business, the government or increasingly ‘experts’ with an education. But it’s that little bit harder to see the full picture when there’s so much damn emotive propaganda out there.

Am I questioning her credentials? Well, she is not industry, right? Well, websites proudly declare her expert ability to create links between academia and industry. And of course, there’s the little matter of her job and through it, her self-worth and security, depending in no small part on public acceptance of GM technology. None of this takes away from arguments that she makes, but I’ll be darned if finding out about someone’s background doesn’t help you discern their agendas.

Neonatal Vitamin K Injections

One thing I didn't think I'd be thinking about in the hours leading up to and immediately following the birth of my first child was whether or not to top up her fledgling baby body with Vitamin K (the biomolecule, not the recreational drug, as wikipedia so usefully disambiguates).

It is standard practice for Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney to provide this to newborn babies in their first hours outside the womb. The reasoning is as follows:
1) a tiny number* of babies have haemorrhagic disease of the newborn (HDN) a.k.a. vitamin k deficiency bleeding (VKDB). HDN can lead to brain haemorrhage or death in a small number of cases**
2) injecting babies with Vitamin K seems to prevent HDN
3) injecting babies with Vitamin K doesn't seem to do any harm to babies with or without HDN

On the surface of it then, there is no surprise that the Overlords of Australian Medicine decree that all babies should receive Vitamin K.

Yet when my wife and I decided that we'd like to dig a little deeper, we had no idea of the many and varied issues that lurk behind this seemingly simple and noncontroversial medical intervention.

These and other thoughts floated through mine and my wife's head
- what is the evidence, where do you get it and how do you weigh it up? are there any side effects to getting Vitamin K and what is the risk? How do they stack up with the same parameters for HDN?
- who do you trust - science? scientists? science as interpreted by public health authorities? dissenting opinions?
- public information on early childhood medical interventions is rather scanty
- somewhere (actually manywheres) out there lies the "hidden truth"
- the internet-facilitated self-education of the general public on health matters and others
- what the dickens is medical intervention all about? eradication of death? betterment of life? when is too much and when is not enough?
- what madness lies behind the word "management"? as in medical or business or natural resources management?
- why don't babies have Vitamin K if they need it so badly? Could there be (unknown) reasons babies have a low amount of Vitamin K? (nb I've seen 6 weeks and 6 months quoted as the time by which a baby builds up its own sufficient stores of Vitamin K). A study on rats by Israeli scientists tantalisingly suggests that low neonatal Vitamin K levels may be beneficial (especially if your mother's a smoker)
- the power of language e.g. VKDB assumes that no Vitamin K is the problem - as though that is the only way to cure HDN - presumably there are many other steps in the cascade of clotting events where intervention could be successful. By analogy, we could call headaches Panadol Deficiency Cranial Aches
- should we inject the Vitamin K (once, in the thigh muscle) or should we administer it orally (three doses, day 1, 6 and 28)? a study showed a link between intramuscular injections and childhood leukaemia - other studies have not. And how do we weigh up metadata (results from separate studies?)
- why the hell did we invest so much time investigating this 1 in 10,000 shot at badness, but not the myriad others that effect our lives and our baby's life? I now have in my possession a document outlining the causes of death in 0-17 year olds in NSW in 2006. Most are in the first 24 hours, and i didn't come across any due to HDN (or immunisation, or the diseases against which we immunise...). There are so many numbers out there, and who's going to analyse them?

The more you look into some things, the murkier they get.

I'd like to say we weighed up all the evidence carefully - the scientific papers, the medical brochures, the midwife run forums, the numbers... But a fair dose of emotion came into it - not that there's anything wrong with that! We came close to saying no - when the risk is so low, why intervene? We have no reason to suspect our bubba's at risk...

We chickened out in the end - what fools we'd look if little infant bled and bled and we'd done nothing! Funny how it comes down to fear - a friend once said fear is the underlying principle of society. It's just like insurance I guess. We plumped for the oral dose (why stick a needle into poor bubby's leg, plus a trace of cancer fear perhaps).

I wonder how many other parents have gone through something similar? At least a few, I'd suggest.

* the figure bandied about is 1 in 10,000, I have no idea on which population or at what time this number is based
** 1/2 and 1/5 of HDN cases respectively, again I haven't source the numbers

Climate change - real or false?

It's the question on everyone's lips, so I'd like to provide a few signposts to help navigate these waters with rocks in them.

STOP

ONE WAY

SPEED BUMP

NO STOPPING

2P TICKET PARKING 10-2 SATURDAYS

Dopple Comic greats

Although this has nary a speck to do with science, I must report here that my wife recently shared the important news that her life, together with mine, was uncannily similar to that of the famed comic duo, Harvey and Costello. Thanks for listening, world.

Japan Team Plans New Nuclear Reactor In Wales

Aside from the obvious typo, this is a very disturbing - but some would say not entirely unexpected - development in the brave new world of ever scarcer energy resources. In what must seem a slap in the face to the Sea Shepherds and Australian Environment departments, Japan has announced plans to build nuclear reactors inside minke whales.

This is an enormous engineering challenge, with the Japanese team commencing construction next month inside the gastrointestinal system of four whales currently in captivity. When the reactors come online in 2013, the whales will be released into the ocean and controlled remotely using microcontroller technology.

Shipping and transport are the fastest growing sources of greenhouse emissions, so we can at least say the Japanese Government is taking seriously their duty to reduce these emissions by providing a mobile source of clean energy. The engineering team pointed out that the project neatly avoids the major obstacle in nuclear energy – waste disposal. When the minke whales die, presumably in their sleep of old age, their carcasses will fall to the bottom of the ocean, safely storing the nuclear waste for tens of weeks.

Trust Suzuki to get it right

I hadn't read any David Suzuki for a while, and I'd forgotten just how brilliantly he cuts to the core of things.

"We are the earth, and whatever we do to it we do to ourselves."

It's from a speech Suzuki gave at at the 2008 Commonwealth Lecture in London. I thank Online Opinion for drawing my attention to it, but for some reason they decided to chop it up - it's much better in full here.

Of course if I argue for a full reading rather than a misleading excerpt, that should apply to the above quote too. Screw it. The quote illustrates one of many points he makes during the talk: we cannot separate ourselves from the environment. This is the fundamental perspective shift Suzuki argues humans (at least those that wear suits) still need to make before we can think properly about how to solve the environmental problems that so beset us.

Zoo apes egged on by treats

THEY'RE used to eating plants and small animals, but these apes weren't about to give up a special present yesterday.

Siamang apes Puteri and baby Chanee were among scores of animals at Taronga Western Plains Zoo which received Easter treats.

The playful primates received their Easter goodies inside a $6,000 Louis Vuitton bag.

Renualdo Obierto, a spokesperson for Louis Vuitton, said the gift represented the company’s deep and abiding respect for our evolutionary cousins.

“At Louis Vuitton we’re all about luxury fashion and leather goods. These monkeys have given us so much, it’s time we gave something back.

The bags were filled with carob eggs and handheld power tools, much to Puteri and Chanee’s delight.

Zookeeper Brad Higgins said that it had been a tough year at the zoo, so they wanted to give Puteri and Chanee a break from their normal diet of plants and wildlife such as insects and small birds.

“After the debacle last year when they refused to eat chocolate eggs, we thought we’d try carob – the all natural chocolate substitute.

Siamang apes, originally from southeast Asia, are large, dark gibbon apes and are considered harmless by the Australian Defence Force.

They have dense, shaggy hair over most of their bodies and have senses surprisingly similar to humans including touch and taste.

Taronga Western Plains Zoo, which leads the world with its 1:1 zookeeper to animal ratio, is located at Dubbo, in central west NSW.

Story and photo Daily Telegraph, with an Artful Science Twist

Your life, reduced to kilos of carbon dioxide

Every cremation creates around 160 kg (353 pounds) of carbon dioxide, compared to 39 kg of carbon dioxide for each burial.

From a story about an Adelaide crematorium claiming to offer zero carbon funerals.

It's a good thing that we now count the carbon dioxide emissions of a wide range of activities. Much is still unknown, and we need to calculate other environmental and social effects, not just emissions. But this is a great first step in purposefully creating a society where we know what's going on and choose activities based on their total impacts.

HARD DRUGS IN OUR DRINKING WATER

As usual, humans have been incredibly industrious in producing an assortment of society-saving goods (SSGs). Also as usual we are just now looking back over our shoulder and wondering whether the environment really does have a limitless capacity to absorb the byproducts of all these SSGs after all.

In this case the SSGs are pharmaceuticals. We are excreting them en masse into our toilets, and from there it’s but a plop, skim and pump to our sewage treatment plants, our waterways, our dams and our taps – and don't forget our bottled water. Hang on, our waterways? Who says their ours? Our propensity for property may actually spur us onto doing something in this case, as opposed to if it was just some remote wilderness that we didn’t claim or directly rely on.

This issue has been growing for a while, although it’s anyone’s guess as to whether it will turn out to be a big deal. The establishment says no big deal. Their argument is essentially “the solution to pollution is dilution.” Others say we should be worried – we’re talking massive and increasing quantities (albeit at very low concentrations - think pico, femto and attomolar) of drugs designed to act on humans, that could build up in our bodies over decades. There’s been very little research done as far as I know.

Yes, we need to investigate and no, I’ve no idea where this issue stands in relation to a bunch of other very pressing environmental problems. AP did some research, in their own journalistic ways (btw, halle-friggin-lujah, has anyone else noticed that real investigative journalism is dying a big fat death?) and the article that came out of it did a decent job. It gives a nice overview of some of the issues, with a sprinkling of scary quotes thrown in.

World's Oldest Bat Discovered Under Fat Man

Here's one from the archives, that now assumes its rightful location at ArtfulScience. In fact, there's a stack of other archived material that really belongs at this blog, but the transportation costs are considerable, not to mention greenhouse gas emissions. So check em out please. On to the story...

World's Oldest Bat Discovered Under Fat Man
The oldest bat in the world was discovered on a couch previously occupied by a morbidly obese man. The bloodsuckler was a Townsend's Big Eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii) and biological testing confirmed its age as 37, beating by seven the previous record held by a little brown bat.

The man involved was identified as Barry Templeton, a 62 year old man from a village near Bristol, England. Templeton, who weighs 132 kg, explained that he would not have noticed a thing, but his dog, Marmaduchess alerted him to the unlikely visitor's presence after he had gotten up to answer the door. Templeton took the bat to his local vet, who pronounced the bat dead on arrival. Templeton said he had "no idea" how the bat got there.

Although a battery of tests were used to establish the deceased bat's age, the clincher was DNA testing of blood which had dried around its lips. This was amazingly traced back to a male pig-tailed monkey (Macaca nemestrina) known as Bonnie, who died of heart failure whilst in orbit around the earth aboard the NASA spacecraft, Biosatellite III. The monkey passed away 9 days after being launched in June, 1969.Templeton, an amateur astronomer, casually mentioned the story to a friend working at NASA, who recounted the tale of Bonnie.

NASA regularly takes blood samples of humans and animals it sends into space for identification purposes. Although it usually keeps these records confidential, NASA had no problem releasing the data to the Bristol veterinarian.A NASA official was unable to confirm whether Bonnie had been bitten by a bat, but suggested that a trip to the zoo a few days before launch by members of the Biosatellite III team, including Bonnie, would have been the only time the monkey would have been exposed to bats.

First ever missionary found in Africa

WASHINGTON - Leah, the first gorilla ever seen using tools, has secured herself another ‘small place’ in history by becoming the first gorilla captured on film mating face-to-face, researchers reported on Tuesday.

A team from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Max Planck Institute for Marital Aids in Leipzig, Germany photographed the unusual scene in the Republic of Congo. Although other researchers have reported seeing gorillas in such a human-like position, none had ever been photographed.

"We can't say how common this manner of mating is, but if I had to guess I’d say about 15% of the time," said Max-Planck's Thomas Breuer, who photographed the gorilla couple along with colleague Mireille Ndoundou Hockemba and her husband.

"It is deeply satisfying to observe gorilla sexual behaviour."

The researchers have been studying the group of western gorillas in Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo.

"Understanding the behaviour of our cousins the great apes sheds light on the evolution of behavioural traits in our own species and our ancestors," Breuer added in a statement.

"This same adult female has been noted for innovative behaviours before, including using a stick to stimulate her partner."

Writing in the Gorilla Gazette, Breuer and Hockemba said they spent 45 minutes watching Leah mating with a silverback male named Barry, who dominates the small group.

"Leah was lying on the ground and Barry was looking into Leah's eyes," the report reads.

“They were both highly aroused and mated for what seemed like all day. We all went for coffee afterwards.”

The western lowland gorilla is a critically endangered species, with populations down 60 percent under pressure from human hunters, destruction of their habitat, and health threats such as the Ebola virus, which kills gorillas and humans alike.

Leah made headlines around the world in 2005 when she was seen using a stick to test the depth of a pool of water before breaking it.

Breuer said only a few primates such as bonobos mate in a face-to-face position, known technically as ventro-ventral copulation. Most usually mate while facing in the same direction.

"There have been unsubstantiated reports of primates mating while facing different directions - left and right, if you will," Breuer said.

Written by Reuters, with surprisingly little Artful Science twist.

More science headlines*

Tiny gene differences make us who we are
Scientists have found a single tiny gene that accounts for variations across human populations including skin colour, height and vulnerability to flattery, according to a new study. The gene, only 2 base pairs long, makes we who us are. Who Us Are! Who Us Are!

Online justice a world first
A person received justice while on the internet, becoming the first ever person to receive justice of any kind in the history of personages. It is not clear what kind of justice the person received, except that it was "sweet."

Spare jawbone grown in gut
An Abu Dhabi man has successfully grown a jawbone in his own stomach. The man, who goes by the nickname 'Gutful', was said to be ecstatic at achieving the world scientific first. When it was pointed out that the jawbone would have to come out somehow, the man tugged at his collar and sweated profusely.

Ah! Why we scratch an itch.
Oh, it brings such blessed relief and now scientists can tell you why. Scratching an itch temporarily shuts off areas in the brain linked with unpleasant feelings and memories. Scientists asked subjects to remember incidents such as coitus interruptus by a parent in law, being caught red-handed doing something naughty, and being dumped entirely unexpectedly and slackly. When an itch was induced by pouring concentrated sulfuric acid on the subject's perinasal cavity, the painful memories were quickly forgotten.

Sleep no escape from a wired world
A man trapped in a 6' by 12' wire cage found that his predicament remained even after waking up from a nap. He was later released by scientists.

New languages evolve in sudden bursts
New languages often evolve quickly, in a sudden burst of new words coined as groups of people strive to describe the world around them, says an international team of researchers. The timespan involved is usually 25 to 35 minutes, while the features of the world that need describing include who is on the cover of celebrity magazines, what's stuck on the bottom of their shoe, and why there is so much entrenched institutional stupidity around.

Mercury delivers the unexpected
Scientists have been astonished by their latest findings about the planet Mercury. It turns out that it doesn't actually exist. Astronomer Dmitri Galiatov tells the story. "All images of Mercury so far have actually been obtained using the same telescope. The cleaning service for the telescope expired back in '67, and they only just recently got round to cleaning it again. When they did, Mercury disappeared! It was actually just a piece of dust or something on the lens. I'm surprised it's taken this long to realise." The finding is a blow to amateur planetary scientists who are already coming to grips with the loss of Pluto as a card carrying planet.

Warmer seas boosted cyclones by 40%
In a survey of British 13-17 year olds, it was found that warmer seas will make cyclones 40% more boosted. The survey also found that a slowed Atlantic current will decrease the average Greenland winter temperature, currently 0 degrees Celsius, by half.

Thick clouds cast shadows over Mars
Thick clouds have made it hard to see the red planet this past week. The clouds, which are mostly of the cumulo nimbus variety, are expected to pass late Thursday. "Man, this really sucks," said planetary scientist Rita Fringberg. "Funnily enough though, I just saw a cloud that really looked like U.S. tennis player Mardy Fish."

Personality-breast cancer link debunked
The idea that a woman's personality traits can make her more prone to breast cancer appears nothing more than a myth, say Dutch researchers. The researchers, who are examining the effects of ritalin on baby alligators, hit back at comments they were ill-qualified to comment on a field with little relation to their own.

*Coopted from ABC Science headlines, with an artful science double half twist with pike.

Saddle sores and lil gold crystals

After a self-imposed hiatus of a quatter year or so, I'm back in the saddle, writing stories for Cosmos again. One of the secondary reasons for the break was to do some of my own writing, and I'm pleased to say that my production (if not quality) both here and at Hammertime's Brog has increased. The challenge will be to keep (get) it up.

So in the latest piece of dazzling research, scientists over United States of America way have bung together DNA and gold to form lovely, orderly lattices. Of course we're talking nanotechnology, a field that was massively buzzy a while ago but has kind of faded away in publicity compared to, say, biotechnology. Out of the public eye does not mean out of action though, and there is a mass of activity in the field at the moment. Expect to see the results permeate society in the coming decades.

For now, Nature still deemed the two articles which I wrote about worthy of front cover status, which is revealing in itself. Basically, the two teams stuck DNA (either single stranded or double stranded with an overhang) onto 15 nanometer gold particles. Take a bunch of these and mix them together, and the available base pairs of DNA will seek out their complementary base pairs and bind them nice and tightly. The result is nice and orderly little gold&DNA crystals, with different physico-chemico-electrico-whateverico properties.

Overall it seems scientists seem to be saying - screw nature, we're gonna build a superior product ourselves. This is a significant step on the way to doing so. Of course, there'll be a few unexpected twists and turns down the road, but that's half the fun, right? Who knows what disasters and scandals lurk out there in el futuro?

One thing I didn't get was whether they were planning on leaving the DNA in there, or getting it out somehow. And if they take it out, will the gold stay stuck together? I'm sure the scientists are on top of these questions. Overall very basic research, in the sense that applications will come a fair way down the track (I think). This heartens me, as a while ago I was convinced that governments were giving the finger to basic research in favour of applied research. Now I'm not so sure.

Spilling the beans on edge

Over at Hammertime's Brog there's a rather strange exploration of the origins of the term 'to spill the beans', but that needn't concern us here. Of more import, or at least relevance to this blog, is that at the bottom it talks about a cool science website called Edge.

Edge is a science website (and notfer profit) created by literary agent John Brockman. I wouldn’t mind working for him. It contains articles, essays, videos and more, with an impressive range of regular contributors. Prominent are zoologist-cum-atheist flagbearer Richard Dawkins, maverick* molecular biologist Craig Venter, author Ian McEwan and astronomer Paul Davies. Sadly no Hofstadter there, but I like to think he just hasn’t sold out. I have to admit, there’s something a little wanky about being on the list of Edge contributors, but to be fair, if you have to be on a list it might as well be this one.

Anyway, there’s always something stimulating to read there, whether it’s about the definition of life, the end of the universe, or the vagaries of human nature. Even better, it’s meant for a lay audience but never dumbs down, there’s conflict a plenty but it’s usually respectful and with justification, and it celebrates life’s big questions.

Speaking of questions, what prompted me to make this post was the annual question and answer frenzy from Edge’s World Question Centre. Questions are posed and heaps and heaps of insightful, amusing or controversial answers are provided by the aforementioned range of contributors. This year’s question is: What have you changed your mind about? Why? Hey wait a minute, that’s two questions!

There’s always a few writers whose answers I look for – Judith Rich Harris, (she of the “peers are more influential than parents in determining our behaviour” theory), Simon Baron Cohen (similar name to Ali G’s creator), Susan Blackmore (author of the Meme Machine and a cool user’s guide to consciousness book. Am I present?), Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Daniel Goleman (of emotional intelligence fame), Jaron Lanier (who once proposed a more useful question like: What’s the single most effective thing we could do to make the world a better place, or something like that), John Allen Paulos (wrote Innumeracy and I Think Therefore I Laugh) and Robert Trivers.

But you never know who will write something that makes you think. So far this year I like Karl Sabbagh’s response, that he used to think experts knew better than he, but now realises they may be knowledgeable but that doesn’t make them wise. So except for their field of expertise (I would argue even in their field of expertise sometimes), you’re just as likely as them to be right about any given issue.

Here’s a list of all the questions, one per year starting in 2008 and working backwards. The last few have been turned into books – a great Christmas or Birthday gift for the whole family, nerds and idiots alike.

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT?

WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?

"WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"

"WHAT'S YOUR LAW?"

"WHAT ARE THE PRESSING SCIENTIFIC ISSUES FOR THE NATION AND THE WORLD, AND WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE ON HOW I CAN BEGIN TO DEAL WITH THEM?" —GWB

"WHAT'S YOUR QUESTION?"

"WHAT NOW?"

"WHAT QUESTIONS HAVE DISAPPEARED?"

"WHAT IS TODAY'S MOST IMPORTANT UNREPORTED STORY?"

"WHAT QUESTIONS ARE YOU ASKING YOURSELF?"

* this word is always used to describe him in the media. I prefer Word’s thesaurus alternatives: unconventional person, odd one out

Recycled - hearts that spring back to life

PARIS: In experiments that would make Dr Frankenstein jealous, US scientists have coaxed recycled hearts taken from animal cadavers into beating in the laboratory after reseeding them with live cells, a study released today says.

Although entirely fictional, Dr Frankenstein was an egotistical and envious man . Literary experts agree that he would not have approved of anybody else doing work involving the revival of dead flesh, at least without speaking to his tax accountant first. When contacted for comment, the US scientists expressed surprise that anyone would raise the topic of Frankenstein in an interview.

If extended to humans, the researchers' procedure could provide an almost limitless supply of hearts, and possibly other organs, to millions of terminally ill people waiting helplessly for a new lease on life.

If extended to monkeys, the procedure could create a new super race of human-hearted monkeys, capable of love, greed and heartburn. It is predicted that of the millions waiting helplessly for a new lease on life, 612 will be able to afford the procedure.

About 50,000 patients in the United States die every year for lack of a donor heart, and about 22 million people worldwide are living with the threat of heart failure.

"The idea would be to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from your own cells," said the lead researcher, Doris Taylor, director of the Centre of Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota.

Intellectual property lawyer Steven Brodagge stressed the importance of patenting the bejesus out of the technology, enriching ourselves, our institutions, and most importantly our country in the process.

Philosopher of medicine Gordon Cumming mused: "I think of humans as 100-sided dice. Each side represents a category of illness - heart disease, cancer, depression, infectious disease. We have only enough resources to work on a few tens of faces. Cui bono? Plenty do, plentier don't. That is all."

The study is published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Co-opted from an Agence France-Presse article and given an Artful Science twist.