The Homely Scientist

On my bacteria making hydrocarbons post, Dave commented on what if something hadn’t been discovered or had been discovered by a different person…how would things be different.  Which leads to ethics and science.  Both Einstein and Oppenheimer decried the use of their discoveries.  Yes, Oppenheimer is noted as “the father of the atomic bomb”, but he also didn’t want the world destroyed either.  Nobel invented dynamite, but was so morally devastated by its use that the Nobel Prize was created.

We scientists often discuss how discoveries are ethically “neutral”, it is their use that matters.  Is that entirely true, though?  Are all discoveries neutral?  I would say they aren’t.  Nuclear power, has both good and bad uses.  However regardless of the use, the waste and radioactivity left behind is not good.

Electricity, lots of good there, and bad.  Silly putty … as failed synthetic rubber (I’ve also heard plastic explosive).

But what if Gandhi, and not Einstein, discovered E=mc^2?  Would it have come to the same end?  Would The Bomb have been made?

What if gunpowder had never been discovered?  Or petroleum?  What about something as seemingly innocuous as the colour mauve (the book Mauve is an amazing read, do look it up)?  Mauve was the first human created colour.  The aniline dye, which gave us mauve was invented by Sir William Perkin gave us the whole petrochemical industry…plastics, medicines, everything.  He was a very, very interesting man.

Consider then, what, if undiscovered, would change.  Perhaps, even the smallest change would do that.  Of course that’s where Chaos Theory (and the book Chaos another recommended read) comes in … and that’s a post of a different colour (pun intended).

Books:
 

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One of the weaknesses of science is the ability of others to take legitimate questioning of results and twist them to their own ends. For example, Global Warming. For a long time some scientists took the stand that all the data wasn’t in, etc. I think they thought they were doing a service to science, but in reality they did a disservice to humanity. The dissention and delay has made progress difficult until recently and well, maybe it’s too late.

I saw today this great YouTube video that illustrates how science can be perverted by others:

Granted, some of the tobacco lobby’s scientists might not have been the most ethical people in the world. Or they really wanted to be sure the data was solid, that there was no doubt. Rarely are scientific findings beyond a shadow of a doubt. The question is then, when does science have to take a backseat to the greater good?

Would global warming dissenters been better to have kept quiet and publicly went along with it, while behind the scenes working towards better data and models? Don’t have an answer to that. Wish I did though because I foresee humanity facing these ethical dilemmas more not less in the future.

Tags: Global Warming, Global Warming is real

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This Beyond the Beyond post really only the title, because the text is a letter from Dick Armey encouraging people to stop Al Gore, et al and their evil Global Warming hysteria.

Hysteria, hmm, stuff like the Northwest Passage once a fable now becoming a potentially viable sea lane? Like increasingly intense weather events? Like growing problems with consistently good weather in the major food-growing areas of the world?

Naw, nothing to worry about. Let me just shoo these tropical birds off my deck…in Canada.

Tags: Global Warming, Global Warming is real, global climate change

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It seems that the mainstream media (MSM) aren’t the only ones looking down there noses at blogs are “legitimate” news outlets.  The venerable AAAS’ EurekAlert! news service turned down Hsien to recieve embargoed press releases.  Hmm, thought we had worked this out already.  Mark Evans told all us B5-ers that we qualify for press credentials (he would know, as a journalist himself), that should be good enough.  Oh wait she also has a Ph.D.  Gee that sounds like a nice match.  Lots of readers.  Yeah.  Great writer.  Okay.

It’s time for all of us Science bloggers to stand up an be recognized!  Panda’s Thumb is trying to rally the troops as well.  They are encouraging all sci bloggers to fill out EurekAlert!’s little form and make note that you’re a blogger.

Let’s get their attenion, shall we?

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So this post is both a Jedi Knight and Sith Lords kind of science post.  David on ScienceBase is taking issue with the "superheated beverage" phenomenon that is oft reported:

There is an urban myth that has done the rounds for many years that it is possible to cause yourself serious injury by reheating a cup of coffee in a microwave oven and then giving it a stir as soon as you remove it from the oven, thus causing the supposedly “superheated” drink to release its pent up energy in a great scalding geyser. Who hasn’t received the spam-mail describing the 26-year old who was several disfigured by such an incident?

Now, one thing that concerns me about this video, aside from the fact that some viewers of a thrill-seeking bent may wish to emulate it, is that it is actually very hard not to have any nucleation points in a generic beaker of water, and it would be nigh on impossible to superheat an open beaker of water in this way. I suspect that what the perpetrators did instead was to heat the beaker of “water” (maybe with some clarified vinegar added) to near boiling point and then to simply drop in the coffee (with a dose of added some sodium bicarbonate). The rapid neutralization of the acetic acid in the vinegar with the bicarb would be adequate to produce the result you see in the video clip.

His post is both dangerous and wrong.  The thing is that, while it might not be "superheated", you can very easily heat coffee (or water as I did) to the boiling point, not see the indicative bubbles, grab it, and have it go FOOOMMM!!! in your hand.  Like I said, it happened to me so I know of which I speak.

So let’s get the Jedi Knight bit here.  First you need to understand a bit about microwaves (discovered by accident at Raytheon, btw).  When you heat something in the old nuker oven it doesn’t heat evenly.  This is really important to know.  You  should always stir food coming out of the nuke before serving—especially to kids.  Uneven heating, IMHO, is one of the factors that play into this FOOM phenomenon.

Next boiling.  Remember there is the boiling point of something and the activity of "boiling" (bubbles).  Everything has a boiling point.  Water, as you know, is 100 deg C/212 deg F.  The bubbles come from the lower pressure on the surface of the liquid causing the air to rise.  The bubbles form, as David rightly says, on nucleation sites.  Yes, same thing as the old Mentos - Diet Coke thing.  What can happen is that in a microwave a liquid, for some reason, doesn’t have enough or any nucleation sites.  Maybe the liquid is really hot at the top (which it usually is in a microwave) and all the particles are at the bottom.  Who knows, who cares.  The effect is that the bubbles don’t form.  That means there is an imbalance in the pressure (essentially).  When you remove the vessel from the microwave it jostles or when you put something in it (spoon, sugar, whatever) the bubbles just dying to form do.  All at once.  Explosively.

Yes, I burned the snot out of my hand when it happened to me.  It hurts.  A lot.  Is the liquid superheated?  Probably not.  Getting water above 100C is rather hard unless you put it under pressure (hence super-heated steam pipes).  Still 100C water will burn. So technically I don’t care.

What can you do to prevent this?  Well one thing is to be careful of how long you heat a liquid in the microwave.  Might not need as long as you think.  Can you tell if you have one of these coffee-geyers in your mug?  Nope.  That’s the problem.  If you aren’t sure there are two things I suggest you try.  First is to nudge the mug with a long spoon (you want to make sure your hand IS NOT in the microwave).  The other is to remove the mug with an oven mitt on.  That should protect your hand.  Then when you set the puppy down, just wait a min.  Then try a spoon or something in it and stir.  Keeping the oven mitt on might look goofy, but … well you know.

All the above said I’ve only ever had this happen to me once.  Once was enough though.  Now, I’ve come close when I was boiling water for hummingbird food (gotta have the water clean and hot to get all the sugar in).  But knowing ahead of time, I was careful.  No, I never got a geyser, but when I hurt myself the amount that came out of the top was enough.

Okay, my rant is over.  Be careful out there.

Tags: boiling water, microwave safety

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Science has been used for both good, and ill.  We all know it.  We all live with it.  It’s one of those things that good scientists think about.  Is this learning going to benefit the world, or destroy it.  Now, I think the development of nonlethal weapons is a good thing.  Killing a person should be the absolute last resort, and when you’re dealing with a mob, well lethal force shouldn’t be an option.  Fine.

So via Wired News, I learned about the Air Force’s new Active Defense System.  Here’s a description from the article:

The crowd is getting ugly. Soldiers roll up in a Hummer. Suddenly, the whole right half of your body is screaming in agony. You feel like you’ve been dipped in molten lava. You almost faint from shock and pain, but instead you stumble backwards — and then start running. To your surprise, everyone else is running too. In a few seconds, the street is completely empty.

Okay I’m not liking the sound of this.  It works by using a beam of millimeter waves, smaller than the waves used in microwaves.  The effect is supposed to be nonlethal or cause permanent (or any they claim) damage.  Get this:

The beam produces what experimenters call the "Goodbye effect," or "prompt and highly motivated escape behavior." In human tests, most subjects reached their pain threshold within 3 seconds, and none of the subjects could endure more than 5 seconds.

"It will repel you," one test subject said. "If hit by the beam, you will move out of it — reflexively and quickly. You for sure will not be eager to experience it again."

Why don’t they spend time and energy on stuff like those gooey balls from The Incredibles?  Or maybe some kind of foam that hardens to make a barrier?  Or super sticky Silly String?  Maybe an incredibly noxious smell?  Why cause pain?  Why tap into that part of our being (the don’t hurt me part)?

I don’t get it.

Tags: ADS, Active Defense System, Goodbye effect

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Fox News is reporting (and not in an unbiased way BTW) that a recently published study correlates cosmic ray output from the Sun to the formation of lower atmosphere clouds.  Lower atmosphere clouds are the ones that have a significant effect on the warming and cooling of the planet.  Okay.  So the study found that lower cosmic ray emissions, less cloud cover, less cloud cover warmer Earth.  Okay.  Now since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution we’ve had rising temperatures and lower cosmic ray input.  So is it only the Sun responsible for Global Warming?

Frankly I don’t know.  Sounds like it could be factor, but I’d like to see more than just lab studies.  I’d like to see something like using temperature analogues for the past connected to cosmic ray output in the past.  Does this pattern repeat over time?  Was this a one off?

The way Fox portrays this, however, is a giant conspiracy against the research.  It isn’t getting picked up because it runs counter to conventional wisdom.  Okay, maybe.  Maybe also the scientific community is still digesting this one.  Maybe, and I think this is a good reason, this is a pretty tough thing to wrap ones head around, even for a science journalist.

This is what really bugs me.  The author of the story is biased against the CO2 theory explaining global warming.  Me?  Sure I think it’s CO2, but this is an interesting bit of information and I’m intrigued.  I also think that regardless of what is causing global warming, we have to get better at conserving energy.  To write something that people could conclude that, hey it isn’t my fault, let’s drive our Hummer two blocks to the store instead of walking … is irresponsible IMHO.

My job now, as a scientist, is to ask some folks I know and respect for their opinions and get back to you.

Hat tip: Meddle

Tags: global warming, CO2, cosmic rays, scientific bias

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This news is actually a month old, but I just saw it on CNN and man did it make my blood boil.  So a researcher at the University of Western Ontario (usually just called Western) did a study using data from the SATs (those evil tests foisted on kids who want to go to college in the States) and says his results show that men are smarter than women (coverage LiveScience, Daily Mirror).

What makes me angry about this?  Come on I’m a man, shouldn’t I be happy to get this news?  It’s the use of a known flawed dataset.  Look tests, especially the SATs, test how people take tests.  They also have significant cultural bias.  Yes, I know the "new SAT" is supposed to be better, but frankly I can’t believe that there isn’t an inherent bias in using the SAT scores as a sample.  Who cares if it’s a large sample.  Who cares that lots of people take it.  IMNSHO, it’s flawed.

Do I think one sex is smarter than the other?  Yes and no.  Generally, I think it’s a draw.  On specific things I think one sex has the edge over the other.  Does it really matter though?  Not a freakin’ bit, unless you have another agenda to promote … and that’s using Science for the Dark Side for sure.

Tags: intelligence

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 I saw on UNEASYsilence yesterday a post on making water “magnetic”.  Water, of course, isn’t magnetic because it doesn’t have any magnetic materials in it.  The post linked to a couple folks who claimed to be able to infuse enough iron into the water using lemon or lime juice and spinach leaves (spinach is has a lot of iron).  There was even a YouTube video about it (which is no longer available).  Hey I was interested in this.  I though, hmm I could try this.  Sounds fun.  Last night I went back to the post to look at the video (that’s when I learned it had bee removed) and read the comments.  Those who had seen the video all screamed (in a cyber sort of way) FAKE!!!

What’s the science lesson here?  Question everything.  Look at the facts.  Tap into what you already know.  Make a hypothesis on whether it might be true or not.  Then examine the evidence.  Pretty simple.  So while I originally wanted to post about how cool it would be for water to be pulled by a magnet, now I’m posting a greater lesson.  The lesson of how science works.  That’s good science.

tags: science education, science hoaxes

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According to Wired, the home chemist is under siege, from the U.S. Government!  It seems that the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) feels that home chemists and the chemicals they purchase could be a threat to safety and national security.  It’s not the meth labs they are worried about, but people making explosives, etc.

The Wired article talks about United Nuclear, where you can buy all manner of fun science stuff from ultra strong magnets to supplies to make firery volcanoes.  All was well until the police showed up to raid them.  They are now fighting the good fight to allow home chemists and inventors supplied.

Oh and if you’d like to make an exploding volcano … Wired gives you that info too!

Tags: home chemistry, chemistry sets, homemade volcano

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