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Scientists Tackle the Water Crisis

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 16, 2022| 2 Comments »

Photo: Akhila Ram.
High School student Akhila Ram won a 2022 ‘Most Innovative’ award for her invention to measure groundwater.

When I get discouraged about what we’re doing to the planet, I remind myself of all the young people coming along who like to solve problems.

Today’s post is about those who are addressing water scarcity. Akhila Ram, a high school student in Lexington, Massachusetts, won a science award for her groundwater-measuring gadget. And at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), there are young professors focused on reusing wastewater to save on potable water.

Collin Robisheaux writes at the Boston Globe, “Akhila Ram, a 12th-grader at Lexington High School, isn’t exactly like other high school students. In her free time she enjoys baking, painting – and inventing technologies to map out groundwater levels across the United States in order to monitor problems like water depletion.

“Ram’s invention is a computer model that uses machine learning to interpret data collected by NASA’s GRACE satellite in order to predict groundwater within a few feet of its actual level. While groundwater monitoring tools already exist, they can be expensive to install.

“Ram’s system could give farmers, well owners, and local officials a cost-effective method of monitoring groundwater. According to Ram, this model is the first to use a statistical approach on a large region to predict changes in groundwater levels. …

“The inspiration behind the invention is personal for Ram.

“ ‘My grandparents live in India, and their city faced a major drought,’ Ram said in an interview. ‘It was because of poor management. And I wanted to [do research on] solutions that could be used to properly manage water resources. … I’ve always been really passionate about climate change,’ Ram said. ‘That’s what led me here. I’ve always been trying to come up with ideas in this realm of sustainability and the environment.’ More at the Globe, here.

Meanwhile young college professors at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) are finding ways to make better use of wastewater.

David Staudacher reports at Rise magazine, “Water is our most precious resource, but climate change, pollution, and a growing human population has made this resource even more scarce. More than 2 billion people live in water-stressed countries. …

“To reduce this scarcity, two professors in civil, materials and environmental engineering are looking around in the world to find better ways to reclaim and reuse both fresh water and wastewater.

“To find best practices in water reuse, Associate Professor Sybil Derrible and his team have studied the work done in cities and countries around the world. In search of new water sources, many countries are turning to ocean water. …

“ ‘In places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, there are only a few ways to get water,’ Derrible said. ‘One is from the sea through desalination, and another is by reclaiming used water. Desalination requires a lot of electricity. Recycling used water can save energy and money.’

“Derrible and his team are developing a framework to analyze water circularity — which is the practice of not wasting or losing water and recovering the resources it contains as it is reused in multiple applications — by examining how cities collect, treat, and reuse water. In Singapore, for example, municipalities collect rainwater and recycle wastewater back to industries where it doesn’t need to be treated.

“Derrible wants to create a universal framework that takes into account ideas like this and that can be used anywhere in the world, including places where fresh water is not scarce.

“ ‘Many industries require extensive volumes of water, but the water does not need to be potable. Here, used water that was minimally treated can be sufficient,’ he said. Some places in the United States are already reusing wastewater. In warm climates like Las Vegas, wastewater is used to irrigate golf courses.

“ ‘It’s a big deal because the future of many cities includes reusing water and it is becoming more and more common for many cities in the world because water is a precious resource,’ he said.

“Also, in most countries, water distribution systems consist of large, highly pressurized pipe networks that require an excessive amount of energy and that are vulnerable to large-scale contamination if something goes wrong. However, in Hanoi, Vietnam, water is distributed at low pressures, and most buildings are equipped with a basement tank, a rooftop tank, and separate water treatment processes, resulting in a system that consumes less energy and that is more resilient. …

“Even a city like Chicago — with its vast freshwater resource in Lake Michigan — can benefit from reusing water. Professor Krishna Reddy is working with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC) and several UIC professors on an interdisciplinary project investigating ways to reuse treated wastewater from MWRDGC processing plants in the region and beyond.

“The district discharges some treated water into the Chicago River, where it makes its way into the Mississippi River and ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico. But ‘from a sustainability point of view, this is not a good reuse of a resource,’ Reddy said. ‘We suggest recycling the treated water where it can be reused for beneficial purpose without any further treatment.’ The researchers are gathering data to understand how much water MWRDGC produces, uses, and discharges, and are examining the quality of the water the plants both take in and discharge. One goal is to find new uses for wastewater.

“ ‘One interesting thing is that there are a large number of industries near the water reclamation plants, and they use a lot of water,’ Reddy said. ‘Maybe some of the industries nearby could use the treated water, or it could be used for other applications like agriculture or recreational parks irrigation, toilet flushing, landscaping, and golf courses.’ “

More at the UIC College of Engineering, here.

Photo: Jim Young
Sybil Derrible and his team are developing a framework to analyze “water circularity.“

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15-Year-old Scientist

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 28, 2021| 3 Comments »

Photo: Time magazine, 2020.
At 15, scientist Gitanjali Rao made history with a device to detect lead in drinking water. ‘You don’t need a PhD to make a difference,’ she says.

More kids are getting into science these days, and I think their enthusiasm is going to benefit us all.

Anne Branigin reports at the Lily, “Gitanjali Rao just finished her final exam of the year and, like any other teenager, is eager to begin her summer.

“The 15-year-old is, in many ways, not your typical teen. She landed on the cover of Time magazine in 2020 as its inaugural ‘Kid of the Year’ for her scientific achievements, which include building a device, Tethys, that detects lead in drinking water.

“But Rao doesn’t see herself as exceptional. In fact, when she was younger, she didn’t even see herself as ‘the science type.’ She was driven, instead, by trying to find solutions to problems in her community. Once she discovered science and technology could be a means of finding those solutions, there was no turning back.

‘Using science and technology as social change became something that was intuitive to me and something that I wanted to keep doing,’ she said. …

“Rao says her passion for STEM has shaped her days and her goals — she is working on creating a global network of young innovators to tackle global problems. It also fuels her relentless optimism for the future and all its possibilities. …

“Anne Branigin: I’m curious what a normal day looks like for you during a very not-normal year.

“Gitanjali Rao: A normal day obviously involves being your normal high school student, just, you know, maintaining a social life, still doing homework every single day, studying for exams. But then there’s this added layer of my research and innovations. A lot of my work has been focused on running my innovation workshops for students all over the globe, which is also taking up a little bit — a lot of my energy and time trying to maintain that sort of situation as well. And also just being, even remotely, in the public eye obviously comes with its own perks, but also disadvantages of being able to manage that as well. …

“I love helping people. I love using science and technology to do that. So that priority always comes first. … I don’t do eight things at a time. I might do eight things in a day, but not eight things at a time because I know what I need to focus on. I know how to prioritize my work. …

“Anne Branigin: On the subject of your generation, there’s a recent study showing that interest in STEM is at an all-time high among young people.

“Gitanjali Rao: It honestly makes me really happy to see younger generations engaging in science. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s innovators and they [will] make the world better, stronger and more sustainable in the future. …

“Anne Branigin: What do you think makes your generation’s approach to science unique?

“Gitanjali Rao: So a question that I commonly get is, what is one word to describe your generation? And I like to say, hotheaded — but in a good way. Our generation, if we put our mind to something, we want to get it done. That’s how I have been. That’s how a lot of my friends have been. …

“Anne Branigin: In the past, we haven’t always seen people of color and women and other members of marginalized communities really be the drivers of this technology. I’m curious how you’ve been thinking about equity and how those conversations have come up with your peers.

“Gitanjali Rao: My generation is destined to be innovators more than any generation that came before. And we’re the first generation to grow up as natural innovators because of how we live, where we live and what we have access to from a technology standpoint.

“Where I want to see that equity change is in education. Access to resources is something that obviously people have faced across the world. It’s an issue still to this day. It’s the 21st century, and we’re still talking about girls and women struggling to get education. But what it’s important to recognize is that a lot of times, the ideas start in the bare minimum.

“With my device, Tethys, to detect lead in drinking water, I started with a cardboard box and a couple of drawings on a piece of paper. And honestly, what that turned into was not looking at what resources I had, but dreaming big and then thinking back to reality.

“So equity is something that we need to work together to make a difference. But until then, it’s about using what we have on hand. Most of the innovators that I talk to online don’t have their driver’s license. I don’t have my driver’s license. But at the same time, it gives me this opportunity to be like, ‘Okay, with the resources that I have on hand, without having money to spend, what can I do?’ “

More at the Lily, here.

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Secret Weapon: Science Moms

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 16, 2021| 4 Comments »

Photo: Jay Godwin
At a 2018 LBJ Library Future Forum, climate scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a professor at Texas Tech University, discusses how climate change is affecting Texas.

Some people think religion is incompatible with science, but that depends on the individual and the particular field of science you’re talking about. One of my brothers is both devout and a scientist. And at his Zoom retirement party this past year, I learned he wasn’t the only one in his lab.

A woman who heads up an important climate change center is Texas is another example. Sarah Kaplan wrote about her at the Washington Post.

“ ‘What world have I brought my child into?’ the new mom pleaded. ‘What can I do to make sure my baby isn’t brought up in a world that’s being destroyed?’

“It was 2019, and climate researcher Katharine Hayhoe was at a church breakfast in Fairbanks, Alaska, when a young woman tapped on her shoulder and confessed that she was terrified. Ever since the birth of her daughter, the young woman said, she couldn’t stop worrying about the threat of a rapidly warming planet.

“ ‘That heartfelt question is one I thought I could only really answer as a fellow mom,’ said Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University and an evangelical Christian who has spent years trying to educate the public about climate change.

“Hayhoe told the Alaska woman the same thing she sometimes had to tell herself when she worried about her own son’s future: Channel your fear into action. Talk to your friends and family. Advocate for change in your town, your church, your school, your state. Now, Hayhoe aims to replicate that exchange on a much bigger scale.

“Along with five fellow climate scientists who are also mothers, she has teamed up with Potential Energy, a nonprofit marketing firm, to launch Science Moms, a $10 million campaign to educate and empower mothers to do something about climate change.

“Advertisements featuring Hayhoe and the female scientists will air on national TV and online for the next month. The initial push will be followed by ads in several key states where the effects of climate change are already being felt, including North Carolina, Arizona and Wisconsin. …

“In one video, Colorado State University atmospheric scientist Melissa Burt narrates a montage of images of her 4-year-old daughter, Mia, juxtaposed with footage of a hurricane.

“ ‘You don’t have to be a climate scientist to want to protect the Earth,’ she says. ‘And for Mia, I want you to know that I worked really hard to be a part of the change and to make it a better place for you.’

“The campaign also has a website featuring facts and resources, including links to books on talking to kids about climate and a form for contacting elected officials. …

“Mothers are the ‘sweet spot’ for inspiring social change, said John Marshall, a veteran marketing executive and consultant and a founder of Potential Energy. They have a long track record of political activity: Mothers Against Drunk Driving helped lower the legal limit for blood alcohol content in drivers. Moms Demand Action has lobbied for initiatives to prevent gun violence. …

“His research suggests that mothers are not more vocal about the warming threat because they’re not confident they understand the science and are unsure of what to do about it. That’s where Science Moms comes in.

‘Moms trust moms,’ said Burt. She hopes that viewers will see her — a Black woman who studies the warming Arctic and presents at scientific conferences but also cooks spaghetti for her family and gardens with her daughter — and feel represented.

“ ‘I want to connect with moms who look like me. … We are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change. I just want other moms who look like me to know they have a role in combating this crisis,’ she added.

“Science Moms is funded through donations, including large gifts from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott and former Nature Conservancy chief executive Mark Tercek. The group says it will be the biggest educational awareness campaign around climate since Al Gore’s $100 million ad blitz about the issue in 2007. [The] group cannot engage in political campaigns or seek to influence legislation.

“Marshall will measure success in heightened awareness of the threat posed by global warming and increased willingness to take action. He said his aim is to double the proportion of Americans who say they are ‘alarmed’ about climate change — a number that hovers around 26 percent, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. …

“Hayhoe hopes the ads will help counter the climate misinformation and misconceptions that so many Americans are exposed to: claims that it only affects polar bears (weather-related disasters cost the United States $95 billion and killed more than 200 people last year); assertions that the climate is always changing (in 4.6 billion years it has never warmed this fast); accusations that other countries are more at fault (the United States is the largest historical source of planet-warming emissions). …

“ ‘What we want to do is empower other moms to become messengers in the most-trusted category, which is friends and family,’ she said. ‘I really believe that using our voices is the way we can make a difference.’ ”

More at the Washington Post, here.

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Lessons from a Dancing Parrot

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 24, 2019| 5 Comments »

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Photo: Irena Schulz
This is YouTube personality Snowball the dancing parrot.

Internet videos of cute animals doing surprising things can sometimes lead to research that expands scientific knowledge. Such was the case with Snowball, better known on YouTube as the dancing parrot.

Ed Yong writes at the Atlantic, “Before he became an internet sensation, before he made scientists reconsider the nature of dancing, before the children’s book and the Taco Bell commercial, Snowball was just a young parrot, looking for a home.

“His owner had realized that he couldn’t care for the sulfur-crested cockatoo any longer. So in August 2007, he dropped Snowball off at the Bird Lovers Only rescue center in Dyer, Indiana — along with a Backstreet Boys CD, and a tip that the bird loved to dance. Sure enough, when the center’s director, Irena Schulz, played ‘Everybody,’ Snowball ‘immediately broke out into his headbanging, bad-boy dance,’ she recalls. She took a grainy video, uploaded it to YouTube, and sent a link to some bird-enthusiast friends. Within a month, Snowball became a celebrity. When a Tonight Show producer called to arrange an interview, Schulz thought it was a prank.

“Among the video’s 6.2 million viewers was Aniruddh Patel, and he was was blown away. Patel, a neuroscientist, had recently published a paper asking why dancing [was rare in animals.] …

“Patel reasoned that dancing requires strong connections between brain regions involved in hearing and movement, and that such mental hardware would only exist in vocal learners — animals that can imitate the sounds they hear. …

“In 2008, he tested Snowball’s ability to keep time with versions of ‘Everybody’ that had been slowed down or sped up. In almost every case, the parrot successfully banged his head and lifted his feet in time. Much like human children, he often went off beat, but his performance was consistent enough to satisfy Patel. …

“Meanwhile, Snowball was going through his own dance dance revolution. Schulz kept exposing him to new music, and learned that he likes Pink, Lady Gaga, Queen, and Bruno Mars. He favored songs with a strong 4/4 beat, but could also cope with the unorthodox 5/4 time signature of Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five.’ …

“In 2008, Patel’s undergraduate student R. Joanne Jao Keehn filmed these moves, while Snowball danced to ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ and ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun.’ And recently [she] she combed through the muted footage and cataloged 14 individual moves (plus two combinations). Snowball strikes poses. He body rolls, and swings his head through half circles, and headbangs with a raised foot. …

“His initial headbangs and foot-lifts are movements that parrots naturally make while walking or courting. But his newer set aren’t based on any standard, innate behaviors. He came up with them himself, and he uses them for different kinds of music. …

“Snowball’s abilities are all the more impressive because they’re so rare. Ronan the sea lion, for example, was recently filmed bobbing her head to music (including, again, the Backstreet Boys), but she was trained. And when [another researcher, Adena Schachner,] combed through thousands of YouTube videos in search of animals that could be charitably described as dancing, she found only 15 species that fit the bill. One was the Asian elephant, which sometimes sways and swings its trunk to music. The other 14 species were parrots.”

Are any of you owners of parrots? I wonder if you have seen dancing behaviors. Read more here. And be sure to note the videos of early and late Snowball moves.

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Wild Musical about Electron Physics

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 2, 2019| 4 Comments »

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Photo: Matthias Le Dall
Thanks in part to his original songwriting, singing, and guitar-playing, physics doctoral student Pramodh Senarath Yapa won this year’s “Dance Your PhD” contest.

This is such a creative idea: a “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest!

Just as almost any information can be compressed into a haiku, almost any abstract concept can be danced. That’s what my high school dance teacher said when she made us partner with classmates to choreograph scientific principles.  And when Page and I started to choreograph Lavoisier’s discovery of oxygen to the Firebird Suite, Miss Hinney reminded us that we had to give life to the concept, not do a historical reenactment. Hard but memorable.

That’s why I loved this story about dancing your PhD. Emma Bowman writes at National Public Radio (NPR), “Pramodh Senarath Yapa, a physicist currently pursuing his doctorate at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, has been named the 2018 winner of the ‘Dance Your PhD’ contest.

“The competition, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Science magazine, invites doctoral students and Ph.D. recipients to translate their research into an interpretive dance. The winner takes home $1,000.

“It took Senarath Yapa six weeks to choreograph and write the songs for ‘Superconductivity: The Musical!’ — a three-act swing dance depicting the social lives of electrons. The video is based on his master’s thesis, which he completed while pursuing his degree at the University of Victoria in Canada.

“The 11-minute sing-songy rendition is far less paralyzing than the jargony title of Senarath Yapa’s thesis alone: ‘Non-Local Electrodynamics of Superconducting Wires: Implications for Flux Noise and Inductance.’

” ‘Superconductivity relies on lone electrons pairing up when cooled below a certain temperature,’ Senarath Yapa told Science. ‘Once I began to think of electrons as unsociable people who suddenly become joyful once paired up, imagining them as dancers was a no-brainer!’ …

“John Bohannon, a former contributing correspondent for Science, founded the contest, now in its 11th year. It all started at a party one New Year’s Eve that was heavy on scientist attendees and light on the dancing. ‘I tapped into their competitive spirit,’ Bohannon tells NPR’s Scott Simon. …

” ‘I think in general, they’re exhibitionists. If you’re willing to stand up and defend some crazy obscure research topic that you’ve devoted your life to then there’s probably something in you that wants to dance.’ ”

More at NPR, here.

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Butterflies Remember

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 9, 2018| 11 Comments »

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Credit: Tjflex2/Flickr
Inside the pupa (or chrysalis), the caterpillar actually turns to liquid during metamorphosis. Despite such an extreme transformation, the butterfly or moth can retain learning from its caterpillar days.

Do you remember being a newborn? I don’t think our species is capable of that kind of remembering. What about other species? Recent research suggests that butterflies have a kind of muscle memory from the good old days of their caterpillar-hood.

An article from Curious Kids — a series that gets experts to answer questions that kids send in — has the scoop. Evan, age 5, asked the question.

“We have caterpillars at home. I would like to know whether they will remember being caterpillars when they are butterflies.”

“Dear Evan,

“I think it is highly unlikely that a butterfly or moth remembers being a caterpillar. However, it may well remember some experiences it learned as a caterpillar.

“That fact in itself is especially amazing because inside the pupa (or chrysalis), the caterpillar actually turns to liquid as it transforms into a butterfly or moth (the adult stage).

“The transformation from the pupa to the adult is the most dramatic change in the life cycle of a butterfly, and scientists refer to this change as metamorphosis. During metamorphosis, the body tissues of the caterpillar are completely reorganised to produce the beautiful adult butterfly that emerges from the pupa.

“Scientists have known for a long time that caterpillars can learn and remember things when they are caterpillars, and adult butterflies can do the same when they are butterflies. However, because of metamorphosis, we were not sure if an adult butterfly could remember things it learned as a caterpillar.

“This ability to remember caterpillar experiences as an adult was tested in a study by a team of scientists at Georgetown University in the US.

“The researchers trained the caterpillars to dislike the smell of ethyl acetate, a chemical often found in nail polish remover. They did this by giving the caterpillars little electric shocks every time they smelled the chemical. Soon, these caterpillars were trained to avoid that smell because it reminded them of the electric shock.

“They let the caterpillars transform into adult moths, and then tested the moths again to see if they still remembered to stay away from the ethyl acetate smell.

“And guess what? Most of them did! The scientists had shown that the memories of avoiding the bad smell experienced as a caterpillar had been carried over into the moth stage. …

“Thank you for sending in this very interesting question.

“Yours sincerely,

“A/Prof Michael F. Braby”

More at the Conversation, here.

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Mary Delany’s Botanical Art

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 4, 2018| 9 Comments »

Art: Mary Delany (1700-1788)
Flowering Raspberry (Rubus odoratus) paper collage.

I’m not sure how I learned about the extraordinary botanical collages of Mary Delany, but as soon as I saw photos of her work, I headed straight to Wikipedia.

There I got enraged for the umpteenth time about the helplessness of women in past centuries (Delany was forced to marry a 60-year-old when she was 17). Finally, I came to this description of her late-blooming avocation.

“In 1771, a widow in her early 70s, Mary began on decoupage, a fashion with ladies of the court. Her works were detailed and botanically accurate depictions of plants.

“She used tissue paper and hand colouration to produce these pieces. She created 985 of these works, calling them her ‘Paper Mosaiks,’ [from] the age of 71 to 88, when her eyesight failed her.

‘With the plant specimen set before her she cut minute particles of coloured paper to represent the petals, stamens, calyx, leaves, veins, stalk and other parts of the plant, and, using lighter and darker paper to form the shading, she stuck them on a black background. By placing one piece of paper upon another she sometimes built up several layers and in a complete picture there might be hundreds of pieces to form one plant. It is thought she first dissected each plant so that she might examine it carefully for accurate portrayal.’ [Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers] …

“Frances Burney (Madame D’Arblay) was introduced to her in 1783, and frequently visited her at her London home. … She had known many of the luminaries of her day, had corresponded with Jonathan Swift [among others], and left a detailed picture of polite English society of the 18th century in her six volumes of Autobiography and Letters (ed. Lady Llanover, 1861–1862).”

More pictures at Wikipedia, here. You may also be interested in this post, about the botanical art of Peter Rabbit creator Beatrix Potter. Potter, as a woman, failed to receive the attention men in science achieved — a century after Delany.

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Turtles Head to School

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 28, 2018| 4 Comments »

Photo: Don Lyman
Threatened Blanding’s turtles have been parceled out to Massachusetts teachers and students to protect until big enough for the Grassroots Wildlife Conservation to return them to the wild.

I’m increasingly impressed with the science projects that schools are pursuing these days. My kindergarten grandchild, for example, brings home interesting science kits regularly — the latest involving batteries, wires, and electricity.

In Carlisle, Massachusetts, students are giving a leg up to tiny Blanding’s turtles, as Don Lyman, of the radio show Living on Earth (LOE), reports. The edited transcript follows.

“Lyman: On a clear but cold February day, snow from a recent storm blanketed the outdoor basketball courts at the Carlisle School. But inside the tank where two young turtles lived [Tsunami and Squirtle], it was a balmy 80 degrees or so, and the classroom itself teemed with excitement. I found myself among perhaps the only people with more questions than journalists: fifth graders. …

“Chris Denaro’s students grilled Emilie Schuler, the Director of Programs and Operations at Grassroots Wildlife Conservation, about everything from how many turtles are left in the world, to potential hazards the littlest ones face. …

“The kids were in the midst of a yearlong project to take care of two baby turtles, to give the hatchlings a head start in life, so they’d have a much better chance of surviving to adulthood and boosting the threatened species’ numbers when they’re released in the spring. … The kids were pros at feeding the turtles, giving them fresh water and weighing them, but they still had lots to learn about some amazing things the hatchlings – which they’d named Tsunami and Squirtle — could do. …

“Schuler: Can a turtle’s body – is it okay for a turtle, for its body to be 33 degrees? … That’s the really cool thing. It’s like kind of a superpower of turtles and of reptiles that they can have their body so, so cold. They can drop their body temperature like that and still be fine.

“Lyman: In order to still be okay with such a low body temperature, Blanding’s turtles have to slow down. Wa-a-ay down.

“Schuler: They’ve measured turtles that are this cold, and their heart was beating only one time every ten minutes. … Turtles have the ability to hold their breath for a really, really, really long time. Scientists have even done studies where they’ve purposely put turtles in water where they’ve bubbled out all the oxygen. Those turtles stayed under the water super-chilled for five months. …

“Your Blanding’s turtle cousins that are outside … in the winter right now … even if they were the same age as Tsunami, come April or May, when it starts getting warmer and they come out – what’s the size difference gonna be between Tsunami and their cousins?

“Lyman: The answer: around 7 or 8 times the weight! That’s the main reason why the headstart program is proving so valuable for boosting Blanding’s turtle population numbers. In just eight months, the kids make the baby turtles look like four-year olds. So they’re less attractive to predators like raccoons, herons, and bullfrogs, and much more likely to make it out in the wild.”

When I was in fifth grade, the teacher let a praying mantis egg case hatch in the classroom (and all over the school). That was certainly memorable, but I think the contemporary science projects involve more learning.

More at Living on Earth, here.

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The Great Blue Whale

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 19, 2016| 5 Comments »

When I was a child, the great blue whale was the attraction I most looked forward to seeing at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Now my grandchildren look forward to it.

But in an article on the website called Seeker about how the whale gets cleaned every year, I learned that the model I saw was not anatomically correct.

“The original model was based on measurements taken by American Museum of Natural History scientists in the 1920s. The measurements were of a dead female blue whale captured by a whaling station in the southern Atlantic, and although the artists who crafted the whale followed the original records, there were anatomical inaccuracies, likely because the whale that the scientists examined was already decaying. …

” ‘It was the wrong color. It had bulging eyes, probably due to decomposition,’ [Melanie Stiassny, curator for the Department of Ichthyology] said. In 2001, artists adjusted the body color and flattened the whale’s eyes, also adding a navel that had originally been omitted.

“Today, the [whale] resembles living blue whales more closely than before. However, while scientists’ knowledge of blue whales has certainly improved, there is still much about these giants that remains elusive.

” ‘We still don’t know how many blue whales are out there,’ Stiassny said. ‘We don’t know exactly where they go to breed. They still remain one of the great mysteries of the ocean.’ ”

More at Seeker.

Art: Richard Ellis

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Science Becomes Art

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Our friend Mika is back in Hokkaido these days, after several years in New York working in restaurants and perfecting her “house” dancing. But every once in a while she ventures out to help on a street art project. Here is her friend Florence Blanchard’s mural for CBM Network (Crossing Biological Membranes) at the University of Sheffield in England.

At her WordPress site, Florence explains what the art represents, “I am delighted to present my newest mural here – a collaboration with CBMNet at the University Of Sheffield, in conjunction with Festival Of The Mind 2016 / Fear of the Unseen: Engineering Good Bacteria.

“The ‘Crossing Biological Membranes Network’ is composed of scientists working to understand the mechanisms by which substances are transported into, within, and out of cells. Their ultimate aim is to produce knowledge which will enable the development of new technologies in the Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy sector (eg: producing biofuels using E coli bacteria).

“My role in this collaboration has been to translate the CBMNet area of work into a large outdoor mural located within the university campus. For this occasion I have presented my interpretation of a detail of a cell membrane as seen under an electron microscope, having undergone a cryofracture.

“A cryofracture is a procedure in which the sample is frozen quickly and then  broken with a sharp blow so you are able to study its structure in very close detail – Imagine breaking a bar of chocolate with hazelnuts, this way you can see how hazelnuts are positioned inside the bar.”

“For an online animation of a biomembrane cryofracture follow this link: http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/530082/view.”

Check out the WordPress post.

Photo: Florence Ema Blanchard
Blanchard’s street art is tied to a scientific quest: “Engineering Good Bacteria.”

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Deep Play, Deep Magic

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Art: Maurice Sendak
From Kenny’s Window, Sendak’s first children’s book

Maria Popova recently posted about the importance of play, commencing her review of Diane Ackerman’s book Deep Play with an anecdote from her own life.

“One July morning during a research trip to the small New England island of Nantucket, home to pioneering astronomer Maria Mitchell, I had a most unusual experience.

“Midway through my daily swim in the ocean, my peripheral vision was drawn to what at first appeared to be a snorkel. But as I looked directly at the curious protrusion, I realized it was the long glistening neck of a stately bird, gliding over the nearly waveless surface a few away.

“By some irresistible instinct, I began swimming gently toward the bird, assuming it would fly away whenever my proximity became too uncomfortable.

“But it didn’t. Instead, it allowed my approach — for it was deliberate permission that this majestic bird gave me, first assessing me with a calm but cautious eye, then choosing not to lift off or even change course as this large ungraceful mammal drew near. I came so close that I could see my own reflection in the bird’s eye, now regarding me with what I took to be — or, perhaps, projected to be — a silent benevolence. …

“In this small act ablaze with absolute presence, I felt I had been granted access to something enormous and eternal.

“The experience was so intensely invigorating in part because it was wholly new to me, but it is far from uncommon. It belongs to the spectrum of experience which Diane Ackerman, one of the greatest science storytellers of our time, describes in Deep Play … a bewitching inquiry into those moods colored by ‘a combination of clarity, wild enthusiasm, saturation in the moment, and wonder,’ which render us in a state of ‘waking trance.’ …

The more an animal needs to learn in order to survive, the more it needs to play … What we call intelligence … may not be life’s pinnacle at all, but simply one mode of knowing, one we happen to master and cherish. Play is widespread among animals because it invites problem-solving, allowing a creature to test its limits and develop strategies. In a dangerous world, where dramas change daily, survival belongs to the agile not the idle. We may think of play as optional, a casual activity. But play is fundamental to evolution. Without play, humans and many other animals would perish. …

“It is hardly happenstance,” adds Popova, “that the word ‘play’ was central to how Einstein thought of the secret to his genius — he used the term ‘combinatory play’ to describe how his mind works. Ackerman considers what it is that makes play so psychologically fruitful and alluring to us …

Above all, play requires freedom. One chooses to play. Play’s rules may be enforced, but play is not like life’s other dramas. It happens outside ordinary life, and it requires freedom.

More.

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Fairy Tales 6,000 Years Old

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2016| 4 Comments »

You never know what you will pick up from twitter. I started following Ferguson Library tweets after the death of Michael Brown. The library has wonderful tidbits about books, among other topics.

A tweeted tidbit on the antiquity of fairy tales is from Science magazine.

David Shultz writes, “A new study, which treats these fables like an evolving species, finds that some may have originated as long as 6000 years ago.

“The basis for the new study, published in Royal Society Open Science, is a massive online repository of more than 2000 distinct tales from different Indo-European cultures known as the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index, which was compiled in 2004. Although not all researchers agree on the specifics, all modern Indo-European cultures (encompassing all of Europe and much of Asia) descended from the Proto-Indo-European people who lived during the Neolithic Period (10,200 B.C.E.–2000 B.C.E.) in Eastern Europe. Much of the world’s modern language is thought to have evolved from them.

“To conduct the study, Jamshid Tehrani, an anthropologist at Durham University in the United Kingdom, and colleagues scanned the repository. They limited their analysis to tales that contained magic and supernatural elements because this category contained nearly all the famous tales people are familiar with. This narrowed the sample size to 275 stories, including classics such as Hansel and Gretel and Beauty and the Beast. …

“Tehrani says that the successful fairy tales may persist because they’re ‘minimally counterintuitive narratives.’ That means they all contain some cognitively dissonant elements—like fantastic creatures or magic—but are mostly easy to comprehend.

“Beauty and the Beast, for example contains a man who has been magically transformed into a hideous creature, but it also tells a simple story about family, romance, and not judging people based on appearance. The fantasy makes these tales stand out, but the ordinary elements make them easy to understand and remember. This combination of strange, but not too strange, Tehrani says, may be the key to their persistence across millennia.”

More.

(from a Ferguson Library tweet)

An illustration of Beauty and the Beast from 1913.

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Critter Dragged Its Kids Around Like Kites

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 22, 2016| 2 Comments »

It’s amazing what mysterious creatures scientists find in the fossil records of life on our planet. Jonathan Webb describes one such creature at the BBC.

“A 430 million-year-old sea creature apparently dragged its offspring around on strings like kites — a baffling habit not seen anywhere else in the animal kingdom.

“Scientists who discovered the fossil have dubbed it the ‘kite runner.’ Ten capsules tethered to its back appear to contain juvenile progeny, all at different stages of development.

“Reported in the journal PNAS, the many-legged, eyeless, 1 centimeter [fossil] was dug up from a site in Herefordshire before being taken to Oxford and computerised. This process involved grinding away the specimen, slice by slice, and photographing each of those sections to assemble a 3D reconstruction. …

” ‘You take its anatomy, code it into a data set and then run probabilistic methods on it, which will tell you how likely it is that something evolved in a particular way,’ [David Legg, a palaeontologist from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History,] explained. …

” ‘Nothing is known today that attaches the young by threads to its upper surface,’ said co-author Derek Briggs, from Yale University. …

“It was the variety of shapes seen among the 10 tethered babies that Dr Legg found most convincing. ‘We see them develop and begin to resemble the adult form more and more, as they get bigger,’ he said. ‘I’m definitely convinced that that’s what they were.’ ”

More at the BBC, here.

Photo: D Briggs/D Siveter/ Sutton/D Legg
This tiny, eyeless fossil creature, unrelated to any living species, carried babies in capsules tethered to its back.

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Symbiotic Fungi Store Carbon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Here’s a recent story about how fungi, of all things, may be affecting global warming.

From ScienceDaily: “Microscopic fungi that live in plants’ roots play a major role in the storage and release of carbon from the soil into the atmosphere, according to a University of Texas at Austin researcher and his colleagues at Boston University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The role of these fungi is currently unaccounted for in global climate models. Some types of symbiotic fungi can lead to 70 percent more carbon stored in the soil.

” ‘Natural fluxes of carbon between the land and atmosphere are enormous and play a crucial role in regulating the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and, in turn, Earth’s climate,’ said Colin Averill, lead author on the study and graduate student in the College of Natural Sciences at UT Austin. …

“Soil contains more carbon than both the atmosphere and vegetation combined, so predictions about future climate depend on a solid understanding of how carbon cycles between the land and air.

“Plants remove carbon from the atmosphere during photosynthesis in the form of carbon dioxide. Eventually the plant dies, sheds leaves, or loses a branch or two, and that carbon is added to the soil. The carbon remains locked away in the soil until the remains of the plant decompose, when soil-dwelling microbes feast on the dead plant matter and other organic detritus. That releases carbon back into the air. …

“Where plants partner with [ecto- and ericoid mycorrhizal] (EEM) fungi, the soil contains 70 percent more carbon per unit of nitrogen than in locales where [other] fungi are the norm. The EEM fungi allow the plants to compete with the microbes for available nitrogen, thus

reducing the amount of decomposition and lowering the amount of carbon released back into the atmosphere.

More.

Photo: Colin Averill
The fruiting body of a fungus associated with the roots of a Hemlock tree in Harvard Forest.

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The Beauty of Scientific Illustration

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 11, 2016| 2 Comments »

I’m turning to Maria Popova again as she reviews a book on classic scientific illustrations for her blog.

“Natural Histories: Extraordinary Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library … [spans] five centuries of anthropology, astronomy, earth science, paleontology, and zoology representing all seven continents. Each highlighted work is accompanied by a short essay exploring its significance, what makes it rare — scarcity, uniqueness, age, binding type, size, value, or nature of the illustrations — and its place in natural history. …

“What makes many of these illustrations particularly fascinating is that they represent a brief slice of history in the evolution of visual representation — after the advent of photography in the early 20th century, many of these lavish artistic illustrations were supplanted by photographic images, which shifted science to a much more aesthetically sterile approach to describing and depicting species.

“They’re also a heartening and enduring example of the magic that lies at the intersection of art and science as scientists not only sought out the best artists to illustrate their articles, but also versed themselves in drawing and produced exquisite artworks of their own.”

More at Brain Pickings. Hippos, crabs, owls, whales, monkeys, frogs, trilobites!

Illustration: Louis Renard (1678-1746)
Although there are coloration and anatomical errors in these drawings, all the specimens can be identified to genus, and some even to species. 

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