TIZER'S SCIENCE NEWS

[Stanley]

Gravitational Waves.... I don't fully understand what these are all about but judging from the reactions of the cosmologists to the news that we can now detect them and so we have proved that Einstein got it right, I guess this is a pretty important point in the study of the origins of the universe.....

[Tizer]

Yes, it really is important. Think of how important the discovery of electromagnetic waves was and it's equal to that.

[Tripps]

I don't understand them either. This website is quite good at explaining it all. Gravitational Waves

I heard quite a lot on the subject from Doctor Karl (the insomniac's scientist ) during the night before the announcement on Radio 5live. He was embargoed, but gave a good 'guess' at what was to be announced.

My thoughts whilst listening, and subsequently, have centred on the times and distances involved. We are told that the black hole collision which caused the ripple happened 1.3 billion light years from earth. The researchers did not know how long they would have to wait for a result, and were pleased that they got one so soon after staring the experiment. That was handy wasn't it?

I heard that there is no way of knowing when these black hole pairs will collide, and the result now leads them to believe there are far more of such collisions than they realised. (Glasgow lady professor of such things, on Radio 5). Well - we'll see, when they repeat the experiment.

Dr Karl mentioned that the difference in the laser path distance which they measured, was of the order of (I think) a millionth of the diameter of an atom. May even have been a billionth? You'd need a good micrometer for that. Actually they measure the phase difference of the two lasers.

Subsequent discussions have spoken of the possibility of parallel universes. How can there be any thing other than one universe? The clue is in the name. I'd like to see the Venn diagram for that.

I've used smiles liberally - I'm afraid I'm always sceptical, and as usual - a bit flippant, but I didn't believe the last piece of such research concerning the big bang, and it was later found to be wrong.

[Tizer]

I'm not a physicist and I too don't fully understand gravitational waves but science is based on the best theories we can come up with at the time, using the best equipment available and the highest quality evidence. I got the impression that the LIGO apparatus had been out of action for some maintenance to take place and the signal was shortly after starting up again. I hope the maintenance man didn't leave his spanner inside! As you say, they now seem to think that the black hole collisions are more frequent than previously thought. I still have difficulty with black holes when astronomers talk about something 30 times the mass of the sun but the size of a football. Parallel universes are even worse!

What I have gleaned is that gravitational waves have extremely long wavelengths and very low amplitude, which is why they are difficult for us to detect. Also, gravitational waves radiate away the angular momentum of the earth's orbit around the sun, causing the earth to spiral inwards and eventually crash into the sun. But we shouldn't worry - apparently calculations show that it will take a period of time much longer than the present age of the universe before it happens.

[Stanley]

I am immensely relieved to hear that!

[Stanley]

I was alerted to THIS by an interview on World Service with a researcher from Macquarie University. They are picking up the consequences to lead exposure 30 years after the event. This interests me because I am always banging on about the politician's inability to recognise the long term consequences of their policies, they see no further than the next election. We need more research like this into long term effects, particularly in the fields of education and poverty with consequent damage to society. I dread to think of what we are manufacturing at the moment with the draconian austerity measures that are being imposed on society.

[Tizer]

There'll be a long `tail' of effects from the lead that was in petrol.

That report shows an example of what bothers me about the ability of journalists to write unambiguous text these days. At one point she writes: "The researchers found no link between lead exposure in childhood and fraud after accounting for income and education. In contrast to crimes of aggression, fraud is a considered to be a pre-meditated crime. The finding suggests a possibility that lead could be implicated because it is known to cause problems with impulse control. [My emphasis in bold]

She seems to suggest there is no link, then that there is a link. Which does she mean? It's only clarified when we get to the next paragraph:
“Crimes of aggression are considered impulsive crimes and the study showed quite clearly that that [sic] the highest assault rates were found in places of highest lead exposure.”

[Stanley]

The interview on World Service with the researcher was much better, straight from the horse's mouth.

[Tizer]

Two science reports that I find exciting and interesting, both connected with the ocean...

`Project to drill into 'dinosaur crater' gets under way'
"A joint UK-US-led expedition has got under way to drill into the Chicxulub Crater off the coast of Mexico. This is the deep scar made in the Earth's surface 66 million years ago by the asteroid that scientists believe hastened the end of the dinosaurs. Today, the key parts of the crater are buried beneath 600m of ocean sediment. But if researchers can access its rocks, they should learn more about the scale of the impact, and the environmental catastrophe that ensued." Chicxulub Crater

`Exploding stars left recent, radioactive mark on Earth'
"Two new studies confirm that multiple exploding stars, called supernovae, have showered the Earth with radiation within the last few million years. One study reports traces of radioactive iron-60, a strong indicator of supernova debris, found buried in the sea floor right across the globe. A second paper models which specific supernovae are most likely to have splattered this isotope across our historic, galactic neighbourhood." Exploding stars

[Stanley]

I can't help thinking what a good job it is that original science is still being done and peer-assessed. Imagine running it by referenda!

[Whyperion]

“Crimes of aggression are considered impulsive crimes and the study showed quite clearly that that [sic] the highest assault rates were found in places of highest lead exposure.”

Isnt that just correlation, not causation, as urban areas have quite high rates of assults ( unless less car-filled dense urban areas were compared )

[Tizer]

Whippy, the newspaper report says: "The study found that after controlling for major socio-demographic correlates of crime there is a strong positive relationship between lead in air levels and subsequent crime rates." The words in my italics cover what you are asking about - cars, environment diet etc. You try to subtract out all the other possible factors until your left with the lead alone. Of course, it's never possible to control everything but its the best you can do. You can't deliberately poison children with lead, for example, to see if they become aggressive adults, and even if you could you would still need to control for other factors. The other approach is biomedical research to look at the effects of lead on the human body but much of that is done and we know about its toxicity.

[Whyperion]

I cannot think of many dense, high population areas that dont have high lead levels, unless with the use of unleaded we know have a couple of time-series runs. One of my college friends who lived by a junction on the A10 in London left college with her law degree 2:2, she always said, If she had lived in the countryside she would have been a genius.

[Tizer]

The navigation mechanism underlying the migration of monarch butterflies from Canada to Mexico has been solved.
`Great monarch butterfly migration mystery solved' LINK
Prof Shlizerman worked with biologist colleagues, including Steven Reppert at the University of Massachusetts, to record directly from neurons in the butterflies' antennae and eyes. "We identified that the input cues depend entirely on the Sun," explained Prof Shlizerman. "One is the horizontal position of the Sun and the other is keeping the time of day. "This gives [the insects] an internal Sun compass for travelling southerly throughout the day." Having worked out the inputs for this internal compass, Prof Shlizerman then created a model system to simulate it. This consisted of two control mechanisms - one based on the timekeeping "clock" neurons in the butterflies' antennae and the other from what are called azimuth neurons in their eyes. These monitor the position of the Sun. "The circuit gets those two signals then matches them, according to how it's wired, to control signals that tell the system if a correction is needed to stay on the correct course," explained Prof Shlizerman.

[Stanley]

I saw the Monarch migration in Missouri while I was staying with Uncle Bob and Paulette. Amazing sight!

[Stanley]

I can't find anything on tinternetwebthingy but I heard a brief mention this morning on the radio that a virulent strain of drug resistant Gonorrhoea in the UK is causing considerable concern. I'm old enough to remember the posters in public lavatories warning of the dangers of what was then called Venereal Disease but with the advent of antibiotics they vanished. It looks as though it is time to start putting them up again! Another consequence of the way the drugs have been over-prescribed?

[PanBiker]

In another report, Polio is finally going to be eradicated. A new drug has been developed to target the remaining small pockets of the disease.

[Stanley]

My mother had a club foot caused by what was then called Infantile Paralysis. The treatment was to rub it with Neat's Foot Oil..... Things have advanced a bit since then!

[Stanley]

An interesting suggestion on Farming Today this morning. A man who evidently knew what he was talking about advocated giving processed chicken carcasses a quick blast of liquid nitrogen which would kill 90% of surface Campylobacter. He also said that freezing a chicken in the domestic fridge for three weeks would have almost the same effect. Evidently Campylobacter can't survive very low temperatures. He reckoned that based on trials in 2014 the cost would be under 2p a bird.

[Tizer]

Liquid nitrogen is dangerous stuff. I hate to see people (especially scientists!) splashing it about on TV without wearing goggles and gloves. I've even seen them do it on the televised Royal Institution Children's lectures. Besides burning the skin the nitrogen gas that's released can render you unconscious without you realising it's happening. When I worked in labs we had strict rules on the use of liquid nitrogen, especially in closed environments such as a cold room where the gas could accumulate. If they want to treat the skin of chicken carcasses I'd suggest steam instead of liquid nitrogen; that has it's dangers but at least it doesn't release a dangerous gas.

One use for nitrogen (gas, not liquid) where I believe it would be worth the risks is in rendering farm animals unconscious before slaughter. Placed in a nitrogen environment the animal would quickly go unconscious - no pain, no distress and not even knowing it was happening. To avoid risks to the slaughterer the final kill could possibly be made remotely from outside the container or it might be found that suffocation by continued exposure to the nitrogen gas was sufficient. Nitrogen is inert and insoluble in water and there would be no contamination of the meat.

[Stanley]

See THIS Guardian report on research led by the University of Birmingham which suggests that vaccinations given in the morning give a better immune response than those given later in the day. I always favour an early morning appointment, looks as though it was the right thing to do.....

[Tizer]

We always go in the morning and I don't think our surgery does an afternoon session. I was a bit sceptical about the claim at first because the difference could have been due to `afternoon people' being different from `morning people', i.e. those who chose to go for an afternoon appointment were born with a poorer immune response than those who chose to go in the morning. If you have a poor immune response you might be more prone to feeling bad and therefore choose afternoons rather than mornings. However I'm glad to say that when I checked the researchers' university web site it explained that they had done a `cluster-randomised trial' of general practices which would have eliminated bias due to this factor. They randomly allocated general practices to either morning or afternoon sessions. Birmingham University

[Stanley]

I like the theory, it rings true. I'll leave it to others better qualified than me to assess the study. Glad you like what you see Tiz.

[Tizer]

Lenses that are flat, very thin and made in a similar way to silicon chips have been developed. They will replace the heavy, bulky lenses in smartphones, cameras and telescopes. The BBC has a news report on its science web page but we can go `straight to the horse's mouth' and read the press release from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences: LINK

"Researchers...have demonstrated the first planar lens that works with high efficiency within the visible spectrum of light — covering the whole range of colors from red to blue. The lens can resolve nanoscale features separated by distances smaller than the wavelength of light. It uses an ultrathin array of tiny waveguides, known as a metasurface, which bends light as it passes through."

[Stanley]

Fascinating..... some of my Nikon lens had as many as seven elements, all hand finished and mounted. That's why Roger Perry once told me that all lens varied and the old 20mm f/4 that I had was what he called a 'master lens', a happy accident where they got everything almost perfect. He wanted to give me a brand new lens for it but I hung on to it and still have it. Many old Nikon aficionados reckon that this lens was the best Nikon ever made. It has ten separate elements in 8 groups but in terms of physical length it's the shortest of all their lens. A miracle of sub-miniature engineering! Looks as though it is now totally redundant but I can still use it on my D200 Nikon..... That's right, I'm a dinosaur! Mind you, it wouldn't surprise me if the quality of the image is different. Bit like comparing Compact Disc, Vinyl and good tape in terms of music reproduction....
Have a look at THIS BBC report on news from the States that replacement human organs are being grown in pigs. In some ways this is troubling and slightly repellent but if you had a bum organ and one of these could save your life I suspect you'd go for it!