2018 Chemistry Nobel Prize Winner Frances H. Arnold

Ed Yong presents at Chautauqua Institution

President Obama and Bill Nye Talk Science and Politics

Vampire Phylogeny

 

"Teeth lengthened by receding gums glow in the shaded valleys of the Carpathian basin. The genetic milieu of the Visigoths, Huns, Carpians, and Slavic peoples have swirled over centuries as granite crags pushed populations into shallow gene pools. A ghoulish thing of legend emerged from Transylvania and has since soaked literature and pop-culture with a reddish froth. Science and medicine have given us reason not to fear for our necks in a story that is truly stranger than fiction... "

Thus begins one of my most successful Blog Posts.  The idea to write up this particular hypothesis on a biochemical etiology of vampires was born on a fall day in 2008. A fellow graduate student at Colorado State - Nicholas Clark and I were talking about "talking about science" to the public.  We decided a useful method to engage the public would be to hook them in with a popular topic and then sneak in some hardcore biochemistry.  So we did it. We planned a "Biochemistry of Halloween" lecture and delivered it the following fall.  There were 60-70 people in attendance and the talk was wildly popular. So popular in fact that Nick and I were invited to present the talk for the Colorado State Alumni association at the Park Hill library in Denver the following year. This time there were more people from the general public and our presentation was met with even greater enthusiasm.  One of the attendees even came up to us afterwards and asked us for all our references as she was particularly interested in the porphyria/vampire hypothesis as her ex had a form of the disease and was now in jail for attempting to slit her throat with a paring knife.

After this experience I have been hesitant to present this talk because I feared it may be taken the wrong way. As if we were saying "people with porphyria are vampires." This is not what we were trying to get across. I have since finished graduate school and moved on to a postdoc at Emory University in Atlanta. Nick is Postdocing at NIST near Washington DC. 

Recently, I took it upon myself to raise the talk from the dead. I presented it at Nerd Nite Atlanta at Manuel's Tavern on October 16th, 2013.  I also amended the talk to include several disclaimers about porphyria patients and attempt to address the stigma that has recently become associated with this very serious genetic disease. I felt much better about the talk this time and it was well-received by an enthralled audience though it was not the same without Nick and his unique knowledge-set on the biochemistry of Zombies and Zombification. 

Mating Display

Jason Silva delivers a new "cinematic espresso shot."

Here Jason shares his enthusiasm for a variation of the "handicap principle."

This hypothesis was originally proposed in 1975 by biologist Amotz Zahavi.

Think conspicuous consumption.

When it comes to sexual-selection the mating display itself is the hadicap. Huge indigo tail-feathers, an egregiously expensive engagement ring or a PhD are possible example "handicaps." Squandering precious resources (metabolic energy, money or time) just to show you are capable of shouldering a heavy burden makes you more attractive to the opposite sex. Or so the theory goes.

Silva attributes a version of this hypothesis to Geoffrey Miller an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico.

Curious to hear what my readers think of this idea.

Are our brains such amazing computers because we just have a burning desire to get laid?

Bridging the gaps in science communication

In this Google+ Hangout organized by the illustrious @DNLee5 a wonderful group of people discuss the methods to most effectively communicate science to a wider audience. A big thanks to Danielle for inviting me to participate in such a significant and timely discussion.

When cars drive themselves I'll tweet like there's no tomorrow.

#SciO13 - Photo Journal

The conference ended late Saturday night. Though I folded myself into crispy hotel sheets my mind would not allow me fall asleep. Every five minutes throughout the night I got up, flipped open my computer and wrote down another idea. It was the first night since high-school I saw the sun rise without sleeping a wink. All thanks to the most epic conference I've ever attended.

Science Online is an annual meeting of people interested in science on the internet. As you can imagine this constitutes a lot of people. To distill the attendees the conference organizers (first photo below) allow a limited number of participants to sign up each year. Sign-up inevitably turns into a race on Twitter. This year I was one of the lucky 450. Like Charlie and his golden ticket I bounded off to Science Online 2013 in Raleigh, North Carolina to take part in a three-day extravaganza of beautiful ideas and new connections.  I met more interesting people in those few days than most people meet in a lifetime. One aspect of the conference I think worth noting was the incredible tolerance that flowed through the entire thing. I was amazed at how rapidly we all connected and immediately formed a large protective family. This was the first time I had been around a large group of people who were all twitter super-users. Indeed part of sign-up required disclosure of our twitter handles. These handles and our names were the only identifiers on our neck-credentials. The speed of connectivity in such an environment is breathtaking. If you have the opportunity to take part in an event like this I highly recommend it.

What follows are pictures and brief descriptions of just a few of those interactions. Over the next few weeks, as my mind mends itself from the internal combustion, I hope to bring you more descriptions and flesh out more ideas born at Science Online.
 

Karyn Traphagen                                                            Bora Zivkovic                                      Anton Zuiker

The organizers of Science Online welcome participants to Raleigh at the North Carolina Natural Science Museum - free to the public and a marvel to behold.

Carl Zimmer - Writes The Loom at National Geographic. Some T.Rex feathers were ruffled among scientists during the #explain session when Carl told the scientists in the room not to unload a textbook on anyone if asked to explain scientific concepts... unless they happen to be writing a textbook. I later unloaded his textbook on him. Carl's comment was taken poorly by scientists as it sounded like he was saying - "you do the science we'll do the journalism." He was later paraphrased by Karen James as saying "Wait, allow me to #journosplain."  I respect Carl and Karen both.  I hope we come to a time in the future when good scientific explanations come about organically from scientists in situ and are not the product of incentives in the publishing biz but then again I am just a naive scientist.

Karen James, who I mentioned above,  is a research scientist and educator. She and I had never met before but bonded while tweeting the Mars Curiosity landing in parallel last fall. I will never forget that night; my enthusiasm for science was set aflame once again. So, I was happy to make her acquaintance in person at Science Online 2013, I even got the chance to have dinner with her and Jonathan Eisen. Listening to them exchange stories about their first trip to the Galapagos Islands and their shared affection for Darwin made me want to buy a plane ticket.

Ed Yong is a renegade science journalist gone legit. He writes a brilliant blog I've followed for years called Not Exactly Rocket Science. NERS recently migrated from Discover Blogs to Nat. Geo.  I wonder how he feels about all the shuffling about that happens as the result of procuring "branded content" as it were. (I always begin writing with a British tone when I think of Edmond)

Kate Clancy is a force to be reckoned with. Thanks to Kate I am now more sensitive to the way I might phrase my explanations of science. #Mansplaining is a pitfall to avoid at all costs. Maintaining self-awareness of how one comes off as a writer and educator is extremely important.  Kate Blogs at Context and Variation. Put her and the rest of this lot up there in your bookmark toolbar!

Mark Henderson is the head of communication at the Wellcome Trust in the UK. He Blogs at the Geek Manifesto. What Can I say, Mark is a hero of mine, up there with Jonathan Eisen and Stephen Curry as crusaders for open access to all knowledge great and small. Bully to the bunch!

Michelle M. Francl was new face for me in world of online science-writing. I am certainly privileged to be connected to her and her brand of writing. She is professor of chemistry on the Clowes Fund for Science and Public Policy at Bryn Mawr College and Blogs at the Culture of Chemistry. Michelle had a phenomenal piece in Slate recently. The piece outlines the perils of irrational fear of "chemicals" it undoubtedly resulted from a session we both attended on #Chemophobia.  I was going to write a piece on this topic and I may still conjure up something of my own but I really do recommend her piece in the interim.

Seth Mnookin is a best-selling author and journalist and is currently co-director of MIT's Graduate Program in Science Writing. He is a contributor to Vanity Fair and blogs with PLoS. I like Seth. We first met in New York City at the 2010 World Science Festival at a panel discussion on Blogs and science-journalism. I sense he is becoming comfortable with his status inside the establishment of science-writing.  Wish time would stop washing revolution from our minds.

I know Jennifer Ouellette because of her presence on the Google+ social network though she is famous in her own right as an author and science blogger. She blogs at Cocktail Party Physics, part of the Scientific American blog network. It is funny how people you've never met before and are not paying any attention to you become like family on the internet. It was through Jennifer's Google+ channel that I first saw the Gangnam Style video.  Ha! She is pictured above inspiring us to use science fiction to explain real science. She encouraged us not to get hung-up on the short-comings of science fiction but to go with it and take liberties to get the audience into a mode of thinking where they can think about big scientific concepts like black-holes or alternate dimensions. I asked her if I could use the tree of Yggdrasil from Norse Mythology as an analogy for the phylogenetic tree of life without running the risk of getting in a creation vs. evolution debate. She gave me the go-ahead with Gusto.  I appreciate her style and hope to stay connected.

And Finally I come to Annalee Newitz. Annalee is editor-in-chief at the best blog in the universe - iO9.  I had only become aware of iO9 over the last year by using a personalized magazine app called Zite. Let me just say, my goodness is iO9 fucking awesome.  I had just read this article on the Evolutionary Biology of Star Trek a few weeks ago and had no idea Annalee wrote it and would be at this conference. How cool is it when you read someone's work before you know you will know them? Really really really cool I say. We got to talk while waiting of for the bus about our favorite TNG episodes. (Mine - Measure of a Man, Annalee's - Darmok, maybe... others were discussed). On top of all this I think the most thought-tastic moment of the whole conference came for me during the #SciFiSci session when Annlee described one utopian/dystopian vision of the future. A vision in which the earth is engulfed by an ever-expanding sphere of technology melded with human consciousness. A physical description of the singularity that sent my frontal lobes swirling into oblivion for several days thereafter. And thus you see why I have had such a hard time writing this first post to summarize my experience at Science Online 2013. It will take me awhile to get it all out there but I hope you stick with me while I try. Thanks for reading and happy Bookmarking!

Udder Debauchery: mixing milk, alchohol, and science

Alya Red: Science really does have a heart

I am still reeling from my participation in the 2013 Science Online Conference. The number of friends made and stories told has my cup overflowing. Much more on the after-haze to come. While I have some people's attention I wanted to point out that many I met at the conference were about to head up to Boston for the AAAS meeting. I am quite jealous. On the drive back from Raleigh to Atlanta I listened to the Science Magazine podcast and was just floored; driving along enraptured in science-soaked awe. This week's Science is essentially the published results of the 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. The video below is just one example of many awesomes in there.

On Air Hangouts - Google Game Changer

Kristopher Hite - New York

In the last several weeks I have watched various online companies scramble to get in on a new game changing technology - live On Air web video conferencing. The winner by a mile is Google. 

The newish free service is the ability to watch or participate in live video conferences with the greatest minds of our time. The inherent transparency is worthy of high praise as the service is now available to any person with a Gmail account. It is just a matter of time before the masses start coming online as I feel the service has come to a tipping point of sorts.

As it is currently set up there can be up to ten people participating in a live video conference. The speaker on the main stage is put there automatically when the sound of their voice is detected via their microphone. The whole set up takes about 5 minutes to get used to but quickly feels very natural.  

I predict the ubiquity of these conferences will grow exponentially in the coming weeks and soon change, once again, the way we interact with the world. Before this innovation most content on the web followed the old publishing paradigm. Content was static and came to us in distinct consumable packages. Now ideas are more malleable and participatory than ever. Anyone with an interest in a topic can weigh in if they have a good internet connection. 

Meritocracy rising. 

Though the web (blogs especially) have been an extremely dynamic medium of permissionless innovation, this new tweak of technology will usher in a new era. Now thought-casters will have more of their phenotype up on the web to work with. Mind, voice, smile, eyes. Those people who are good communicators will rise according to their talents more than just their luck at getting in the game early or knowing the right people in the publishing business.  I am so utterly enthused to see a new meritocracy unfurl.

From a publisher's perspective it will be the people who bring you the most timely lists of the upcoming On Air Google hangouts. Say a discussion of the Personal Genome Project (which I recently signed up for) with Jonathan Eisen, George Church, and Steven Pinker, or a discussion of the meaning of "Free Will" with Dan Dennet, Sam Harris, and Harold Varmus. These are fictitious live discussions I just made up but would be unbelievable to see happen.  I hope Tom Paine's Ghost can be a resource for you to find portals to these discussions and a forum for follow up discussions.

I am going to try and get in on the second-ever Pharyngula On Air Hangout this Saturday June 30th at 11 AM Eastern time. Bully to PZ Myers for embracing and popularizing this new feature of Google+.  If I am not a participant I can at least watch and comment and so can you. I do hope this sets a precedent and that these events become publicized! If you know any good resources out there already alerting us to the URLs and times of said events please leave links in the comments.

Cheers!

May the dialogue continue!

"Plato is right; thought is dialogue, people in lively discussion, not Rodin’s isolated Cartesian." 

     ~Bernard Rollin PhD

 

Before Sagan came Bronowski

During my second year of graduate school I became obsessed with Carl Sagan. I read many of his books - Dragons of Eden being my favorite. I incessantly watched episodes of the Cosmos series. The more episodes I watched the more I fell in love with the history of science. It became clear to me that, contrary to popular belief, science is an extremely HUMAN endeavor. The series clearly demonstrated how concepts build on each other over time. Understanding how this process of accumulating concepts works is essential to understanding any one branch of science, no matter how tiny and frail that branch may be.

When I found out that Sagan had based his Cosmos on the earlier work of another I was immediately primed to go deeper into this rabbit hole. His name was Jacob Bronowski and he produced a 13 part series called the Ascent of Man. This series made its debut on the BBC in 1973. Tragically, Bronowski died a year later. Though the title might be a bit misogynistic for this age the messages within are timeless. 

Recently in the middle of dinner at a sushi restaurant here in southern Oregon I had an encounter with a creationist in his early 30s. I saw this as an opportunity to try and teach him the evidence for evolution and the geologic age of the earth in the most direct way possible. One question that many creationists ask is how could a person just come into existence randomly? How could all the atoms of a human being just pop into existence? 

Back at Umi-Sushi this very question was asked. I tried my best to explain that this is not what evolution suggests and that physical beings are the product of millions of years of accumulated chance. I tried my best to explain this and I hope my partner in conversation stayed with me. The fact that he continued to ask questions told me he was indeed open-minded. I caught him at a good time in his life as he was not totally entrenched in his beliefs as I suspect some people can be. Questions were sparked in his head and that was the first step. I wish I had memorized the unscripted monologue Jacob Brosowski launches into in the video below. Beginning at 30:30 in he explains a concept echoed by Carl Sagan - in essence we are made of star-stuff. As I have talked to people over the years who have had their own scientific epiphanies, the epiphany, in many cases begins with this beautiful notion that every human being began to exist in the center of a star somewhere out there.