Back From The Dead

Ok, so it has been a while since I last posted, but there was the Christmas holiday, and the beginning of a new term etc. But never mind that, the important thing is that the blog is back! Or rather, I’m back! 

Since I last posted there has been some cool news items, so I thought I should start this years blogging by bringing up a few of them.

Well, first of all, the voting for this years Weblog Awards just closed, and I am appalled by who won in the science category. There were some great nominees there, like Bad Astronomy, Pharyngula and Neurologica. These are all fantastic science blogs, but do you think any of them won? Oh no, the winner this year was this horrible, horrible global warming denial blog. That is just sad… 

Just today I read about a cool study in the Journal of Proteome Research. Some scientists in Italy have found abnormal proteins in the saliva of autistic patients, and the hope is that this will eventually give us some clue about the pathological biochemical processes of autism. Also, it could potentially be used as a biomarker in saliva-based autism tests. 

Now, this next one is a sad story, but it is a good example of why evidence-based medicine really should be the only kind of medicine. Russel Jenkins is, or rather was, a healer in Australia. One day, he stepped on an electrical plug in his house, and the small resulting wound later became infected. Even worse, the infection then turned gangrenous. Gangrene is a horrible condition of necrosis of body tissue. It looks really bad, and smells even worse. Instead of seeking medical help, Russel, being a healer, decided he would treat his condition by applying honey to the affected area. Naturally, this did not work out so well, and he later died from the gangrenous infection. 

This is of course an extremely sad story, but I think it is important to emphasize the importance of evidence-based medicine. I really don’t care much for the term Complementary and Alternative Modalities (CAM), because then it sounds like it is a scientific alternative to conventional medicine, which it isn’t. I can not stress this fact enough, that alternative medicine really is just a collection of inadequately tested and unproven drugs. And calling it complementary? A lot of people fail to tell their doctors that they are using these alternative remedies, and a result of that could be that they interfere with their conventional treatments. Because, as I said, they are drugs. Calling them natural is just a sales pitch. 

Ok, so the first post of 2009 turned out to be somewhat of a downer. But the next one will be positive! Promise.

Fine Polish

Scientists have developed a new method of protecting teeth from bacterial attacks. By using technology from the semiconductor industry, Igor Sokolov  and hh from the Clarkson University Center for Advanced Materials Processing used  silica nanoparticles to polish teeth down to nanoscale roughness. When polished this finely, the bacteria had difficulties sticking to the dental enamel, and could thus be removed fairly easily. Polishing teeth is in itself not new, but no one has thought to use nanoparticles to do it before Sokolov and Gaikwad.  The study was published in the Journal of Dental Research. 

To the left, the unpolished surface of a tooth. To the right, the surface of a tooth after nanoparticle polishing. 

The Perception of Pain

A recent study shows that pain hurts more of the person hurting you really means it (or rather, if the person being hurt believes the person really means it). The study was led by Kurt Gray along with Daniel Wegner, and published in Psychological Science. 

In the study, they paired up 48 participants with a partner who could either choose to give the other an electric shock or just play a audible tone for them. In the first set-up, the subjects received a shock when their partner chose this option (and to eliminate the factor of surprise, they were told in advance which option the partner picked). In the second set-up, the subjects were given a shock when the partner chose the tone, and vice versa. The resulting data showed that the subjects rated the pain from the intentional shocks significantly higher then that of the unintentional ones. This suggests that the perception of pain is closely tied with emotion, and that the latter can influence the first.

Thinking Clearly

A new study published by researchers at North Carolina State University shows a correlation between high blood pressure and decreased cognitive abilities in seniors. This could indicate that stressful situations may make it more difficult for seniors to think clearly. In the study, the researchers looked at persons with a systolic blood pressure of >130 mmHg. When their blood pressure spiked, it was accompanied by a decrease in cognitive function. The study was published in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.

Water Droplets And Black Holes

Researchers at the University of Nottingham have published a paper where they use water droplets to simulate the dynamics of black holes. By using magnetic fields and electrodes they managed to spin levitating water droplets, and this produced some interresting results. As the droplet was spun at different velocities, the shape changed to form, among others, triangles,  squares and pentagons. This was due to the surface tension of the water droplet, and the scientists say this is very much like what happens at the event horizon of a black hole. The droplet experiment could hence be used to model such systems, a valuable tool in learning more about the dynamics of black holes. 

There is a video of the dropet spinning here. 

You spin me right round, baby. 

Gravity Fingers Mathematically Explained

Since I have my math exam tomorrow, it seems only natural I should write about something math related. 

When water soaks down into the ground, it does not do so evenly, but rather forms spikes known as gravity fingers (see image below). Though it is a well known phenomenon in fluid mechanics, no one has been able to explain, mathematically, why it happens. In a recently published paper however, mathematicians at MIT give a both simple and elegant explanation. They got the idea when one of the researchers observed that gravity fingers looked very much like water flowing down a window (when you look at the picture it looks really obvious, it was definitely the first think I though of), which is a well understood phenomenon. Then it was just a matter of taking the equations describing that and apply it to water movement in soil. 

The short explanation to this phenomenon is that in order for water to flow down a window or in soil, the surface tension of the water has to be overcome. This will cause the water to flow in a finger-like pattern because as water builds up in the fingers, the weight overcomes the surface tension. My understanding of the phenomenon is that small indentations in the bottom flow line are bound to form no matter what because the soil/window is not perfectly uniform (and can never be), and when this happens the flow rate at the indentations increase because of the extra weight, leading to gravity fingers. 

Gravity fingers

Aquamantra

This is just too funny. Aquamantra is a brand of bottled water sold in the US, but it’s not really the water that is special about this particular brand. Oh no, the labels on the bottles have mantras on them, and this, according to the company’s web site, causes the water inside to resonate with the energy and frequency of the mantra in question. Yeah…. Whenever you see people using quantum mechanics to explain something “scientific”, 10 to 1 they are just full of s***. Just listen to this:

[Dr. Masaru Emoto ]showed us the basic principles of quantum theory, whereby the molecular structure of water was changed by a Zen Buddhist monk’s thought. Based on this premise, Aquamantra uses the design on its labels to affect the molecular structure of California natural spring water[…]

Sure. That sounds perfectly reasonable. 

Our bodies were designed to live 200 years, can you live that long with out Aquamantra?

200 years? Wow, I never knew! 

The message comes from the universe, love yourself, deliver unto yourself perfect health. From the intense sky, a sparkling stream of water shares with you its secrets and the waterfall brings the messages of perfect health.

Fantastic. If you want to look it up, just do a search for Aquamantra. 

Watch The Moon Tonight

Tonight, on Friday December 12th, the full moon will be bigger than it usually is. This is because its orbit will take it nearly as close to earth as is possible. The earth-moon distance is, on average, about 384,400 km, but tonight is is much closer, at about 356,567 km. Not since 1993 has the full moon been this close to earth, and it will take another 8 years before it happens again. Compared to the other full moons in 2008, this one will be 14% bigger and 30% brighter than any of them. So, get out and take a look. 

LHC: Damage Report

Earlier this year the Large Hadron Collider was fired up, but sadly it did not take long before it broke down. In fact, only nine days after the opening CERN was forced to shut it down again due to an accident during one of the test runs. An electrical connection melted, which subsequently led to failures in the pipes containing liquid helium. Because the superconducting magnets require temperatures at about -271°C (that is only about 2 kelvins!) to function properly, they failed dramatically when the helium cooling system was damaged. When the magnets started overheating, they damaged nearby equipment with a massive burst of pressure. The forces at play were so great that several of the magnets supports were literally ripped from the ground were they were secured. 

But, they say they will be able to fix the problem, an have the LHC up and running again next summer.

Remember To Set Your Clocks!

This coming New Years Eve everybody needs to remember to change the time of their clock….by one whole second. It sounds daft, but this happens every three years because the earth gets too out of sync. When the clock strikes 00:59:59 on New Years Eve,  make sure to pause time for about one second, and then let it strike 01:00:00. The insertion of this leap second was prescribed by the International Earth Rotation Service in Paris due to the fact that the earth tends to lag behind the extremely precise atomic clocks. So, happy leap second-year!