Canada’s lost generation of scientists

By: | October 25, 2013

walkway smallThe first major warning sign came in 2006, shortly after Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper first ascended to power. The office of the National Science Advisor was to be phased out. It was a blunt and open declaration of what would come to be called, in environmental writer Chris Turner’s new book, Canada’s War on Science. No thanks, science, we don’t need your advice. We already know everything.

Then came the layoffs and outsourcing at the National Science Library, the cuts to basic research funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the closure of the Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Laboratory.

After a while, there emerged a more specific pattern to the dismantling of Canada’s science infrastructure. A bright red sniper’s laser danced on every environmental protection program that could possibly cry foul on the resource extraction industry or slow down development permits. Continue reading →

A Taste of Authenticity

By: | October 24, 2013

Apples_shutterstock_158675210Growing up, I hated red apples. The grocery store specimens, which were always Red Delicious, looked pretty in the grocery bin, but their perfect skin tasted slightly bitter, their flesh bland and mealy. I didn’t mind varieties like Yellow Delicious, Granny Smiths, or Galas, but they still provided too little flavor to evoke desire.

I considered the apple a durable and highly acceptable snack — something to stash in my jersey pocket during a long bike ride or my backpack for a long day at the lab. Chopped up and cooked with cinnamon in my oatmeal or baked with butter and brown sugar in a crisp, a Granny Smith or Yellow Delicious could transform into something resembling a treat, but they were never a food whose mere mention could make my mouth water.

So when my husband and I bought a small farm nine years ago, I eagerly awaited the fruits of the property’s apricot trees, while almost overlooking the half dozen aging apples trees in our front yard. These trees were all the more easy to dismiss because these once-heralded varieties — Red and Yellow Delicious — were no longer chic. Continue reading →

Who’s Your Momma?

By: | October 23, 2013

265308313_5ebcd1f1aeJoy Morgan* isn’t a mother, but she may have kids. When Morgan was 27, she decided to donate her eggs. The first time she did it for money. “I was about to go back to school, and I had been drowning in a bit of credit card debt,” she says. Eight thousand dollars is a lot of cash, and it wasn’t like she was using her eggs. But by the time she went in for her third donation, Morgan had a good job. “I kind of fell in love with the process,” she says. “I loved the science of it.”

Morgan donated a total of seven times in three years. Each time she produced between 10 and 20 eggs. The fertility clinic likely discarded some, and surely not every egg that made it into a womb produced a baby. But it seems safe to assume that Morgan has a child, possibly several of them. Those kids may one day want to find her.

Most egg and sperm donors donate with the expectation that their identities will remain anonymous. But with ancestry sites now offering genetic testing for as little as $99, it has become increasingly easy for children to track down their donor parents — whether they want to be found or not.

Continue reading →

Guest Post: Not Ready For Their Close-Up

By: | October 22, 2013

Screen shot 2013-10-21 at 4.40.27 PMWe have a lot to learn about “Nom nom nom.”

Consider the user comments for a homemade YouTube video called “Cute Kitten says ‘YUM YUM YUM’ while eating.” They include “That is one Happy cat :),” “Awwww,” and “MELTING IN HAPPINESS.” Only a few recognize the meaning of the growling noises as the cat eats from a bowl: “That kitten is saying to back off of his food!”

At more than 1.8 million views, this video belongs to a growing class of viral clips that show animals in anger, pain, or sexual arousal but are generally misinterpreted as cute, funny, and oh-so-human. Most people click, comment, and share the “cuteness” without hesitation. And that’s precisely the problem.

Continue reading →

Unknown legends in their time

By: | October 21, 2013

Sea_serpent_1877One if by land, two if by sea. And it was the sea that the two of them came on—first, an 18-foot-long fish spotted by a snorkeling science teacher off California’s Catalina Island last week. Fifteen people had to haul the creature to shore.

And then, on Friday, a slightly smaller one—just 14 feet—washing in with the waves on an Oceanside beach. A crowd gathered on the beach around the second silvery fish. Someone called the police and said it was a whale. Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | October 19, 2013

Capitol at nightOctober 14 – 18

This week. Oh cripes, this week.

We’ve been told that the US government shutdown cost more than the NASA budget, and had all kinds of knock-on effects on everything from basic science to public health. But what’s it like on the ground when a city shuts down? Helen gave us the inside scoop.

Guest poster Meg Urry explained gravitational lenses — nature’s telescopes — and how she might have inadvertently discovered the first one.

Mr. Cosmology rocks.

Erik dissected the abortion question according to the following lines: Am I, at my core, a collection of thoughts or a collection of genes?

How will you feel when recording every detail of your life for the hive mind is as essential to polite society as showering and brushing your teeth? Roberta put Dave Eggers’ novel The Circle into the context of our self-quantifying life-logging society. Warning: read her review, and you’ll probably be compelled to shell out for the book.

Big Brother Science

By: | October 18, 2013

shutterstock_86310265I’m eager to read Dave Eggers’ new book, The Circle. In this novel, a mega-tech company seeks to make the world as “transparent” as possible by encouraging people to place cameras everywhere and share the details of their private lives. The company declares that “ALL THAT HAPPENS MUST BE KNOWN” and “SECRETS ARE LIES.”

The Circle 200x286In an excerpt published in the New York Times Magazine, a young hire named Mae shows up at the company campus and is immediately awed by its sculpted hills, tree-lined walkways, and curvy blond wood desks, “arranged in groups of five, like petals on a flower.” Coworkers berate her for attending to her sick father without “reaching out” for support to other employees and for kayaking on the weekend without posting any photos online. In the final scene of the excerpt, a company executive presents a new, inexpensive, lollipop-shaped camera that people can deploy anywhere they like and easily stream to their friends’ computers. And eventually, Mae allows the company to document her every move.

We’re not quite there yet. But in the meantime, scientists are making use of pervasive images that already exist on the Internet: Google Street View photos. These roadside pictures, taken by people driving camera-equipped cars down streets from San Francisco to Hong Kong, are mainly used to check out neighborhoods or buildings. Since some images also include wildlife, researchers have investigated whether these online panoramas could provide a cheap way to survey plants and animals. Continue reading →

Strange Times in Washington

By: | October 17, 2013

Capitol at nightThe first I knew of it was about 11:00 Monday night. The Capital Weather Gang, a brilliant blog that was snapped up by the Washington Post a few years ago, posted on Facebook: “Have seen some reports of a fireball (large meteor) in DC area around 8:25 pm. Anyone see it?”

Comments came in. A friend saw it while driving home after a rehearsal with her teenaged daughter. “Very cool!” she wrote. Other people spoke up, reporting seeing it in Herndon, Va., and Baltimore, Md. The meteor, it turned out, entered the atmosphere over southern New Jersey and headed northwest into Pennsylvania. Its flame was visible from Virginia all the way up into New York and Connecticut. Continue reading →