Category Archives: science

books, memes, personal, photography, science

Memories Meme


Memories Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr Photo Meme is about Memories. As usual here are the questions and my answers:

1. What is a special memory of childhood? Hot summer days camping at nudist club; I would have been about 10; in consequence I’ve never been uncomfortable with my body or anyone else’s
2. A memorable romance with? Faith, when I was a postgraduate; I was 23. she was 32; she taught me a lot
3. What was the most memorable gift you have ever received? My first camera, a Halina, has to be up there near the top; I don’t recall exactly when I was given it but I must have been about 12 or 13; look where it has gotten me!
4. What place have you visited that had a memory attached to it? Rye, East Sussex; I remember it from camping with my parents when I was 4 or 5 and have been back numerous times in recent years with Noreen
5. What was a memorable occasion that you recently attended? Almost any meeting of the Anthony Powell Society; this trip to the Widmerpool area of Nottinghamshire was an interesting day!
6. What was the most memorable toy you ever had? My teddy bear and black cat, both of which I still have, must be very near the top of the list
7. Who is the most memorable teacher you ever had? There were many, but Bob Goss and Derek Beadle, who taught me Chemistry and Physics, respectively, in the 6th form were probably the stars
8. Do you have a special collection that is memorable? My Memories, of course! I’m not really one for collecting personal mementos
9. What is your most cherished memento? Noreen, for lots of reasons and not just because she married me!
10. What trophy, ribbon, award, certificate are you most proud of that serves as a memory of an important event? My PhD, not just for the academic stuff but for all the formative extracurricula things too
11. It would be wonderful if all memories were good, but some aren’t; is there a bad memory that you carry with you? Breaking up with my first fiancée, Jill, at the start of our second year as undergraduates; I nearly failed my Part I exams as a result
12. What is your favourite summer memory? Playing Cricket, not that I was ever any good

1. Mother & Son, 2. FAITH: Earth element focal art bead pendant/necklace 1, 3. Halina 35X, 4. Rye, 5. AP Soc Members at Wysall, 6. Little Black Cat, 7. is there a shark behind me? …is that a yes?, 8. memories collage, 9. Noreen, 10. Student Life, 11. Jack and Jill went up the hill, 12. Playing Cricket

As always these are not my photos (except numbers 1, 5, 6, 9 which are mine) so please follow the links to enjoy the work of the photographers who did take them!

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

current affairs, science, thoughts

Politicians Out of Their Minds on Drugs

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There’s a thoughtful editorial in this week’s issue of New Scientist. As so often I give you an edited version …

Drugs drive politicians out of their minds

Imagine you are seated at a table with two bowls in front of you. One contains peanuts, the other tablets of the illegal recreational drug MDMA (ecstasy). A stranger joins you, and you have to decide whether to give them a peanut or a pill. Which is safest?

You should give them ecstasy, of course. A much larger percentage of people suffer a fatal acute reaction to peanuts than to MDMA.

This, of course, is only a thought experiment […] But it puts the risks associated with ecstasy in context with others we take for granted. Yes, ecstasy is dangerous and people who take it are putting their lives on the line. But the danger needs to be put in perspective.

Sadly, perspective is something that is generally lacking in the […] debate over illegal drugs […] drug policy should be made on the basis of evidence of harmfulness – to individuals and to society. The British government’s stated line is similar, yet time and again it ignores its own rules and the recommendations of its experts. Most other western governments act in a similar way.

The latest example of doublethink concerns MDMA. […] the UK government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs […] recommend downgrading it, based on evidence of its limited harmfulness […] Yet the government has already rejected the advice.

No doubt this is partly a reaction to the furore over the […] decriminalisation of cannabis in 2004 […] Despite the fact that the move actually reduced the quantity of cannabis being smoked – surely a welcome outcome […]

[…] David Nutt, found himself in hot water last weekend for comparing the harm caused by ecstasy to the harm caused by horse riding […] [his] intention was simply to put ecstasy in context with other sources of harm. But his comments […] caused predictable squeals of outrage […]

This is a worldwide problem. We need a rational debate about the true damage caused by illegal drugs – which pales into insignificance compared with the havoc wreaked by legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco. Until then, we have no chance of developing a rational drug policy.

I don’t pretend to know the answer to any of this. But I would echo the sentiments of the editor of New Scientist in pleading for rational and logical debate and thinking which puts all the arguments and risks into a reasoned perspective.

current affairs, natural history, science

Hills are Alive with the Sound of Ants

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There was an incredible article in The Times last Friday (6 February) … Scientists have discovered that ants talk to each other, and they now have miniaturised technology to such an extent that they can listen in. You can find the whole article online here; what follows is a very condensed version:

Advances in audio technology have enabled scientists to discover that ants routinely talk to each other in their nests. Most ants have a natural washboard and plectrum built into their abdomens that they can rub together to communicate using sound. Using miniaturised microphones and speakers that can be inserted unobtrusively into nests, researchers established that the queens can issue instructions to their workers.

The astonished researchers, who managed to make the first recordings of queen ants “speaking”, also discovered that other insects can mimic the ants to make them slaves. Research several decades ago had shown that ants were able to make alarm calls using sounds, but only now has it been shown that their vocabulary may be much bigger and that they can “talk” to each other. Improvements in technology had made the discoveries possible because it meant the ants could be recorded and subjected to playbacks without becoming alarmed.

By placing miniature speakers into the nest and playing back sounds made by a queen, the researchers were able to persuade ants to stand to attention […] It remained unclear how much the ants relied on sound for language but he suspected that further analysis would reveal a wider vocabulary than had been seen yet.

The most important discovery is that within the ant colony different sounds can provoke different reactions […] It’s within the power of the ant to play different tunes by changing the rhythm with which they rub […] The detection of the role of sounds provided the “final piece of the jigsaw” to explain how [some species of butterfly] caterpillars survive in ants’ nests and should help to guide conservationists in trying to save the endangered European mountain species.

[The] new work shows that the role of sound in information exchange within ant colonies has been greatly underestimated.

amusements, current affairs, environment, science

Zen Mischievous Moments #148

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The following from New Scientist dated 07/02/2009 …

Danger: airborne turtles

BLAMING Canada geese for forcing a US Airways jet to ditch in the Hudson river seems logical. They’re big enough to cause serious damage to any plane that hits them, and thousands have settled around New York City. Sure enough, when we checked the Federal Aviation Administration’s National Wildlife Strike Database at www.planestrikes.notlong.com, Canada geese were high on the list, with 1266 reports of them hitting aircraft between 1990 and 2008, 103 of which were in New York State.

With all three New York City airports close to the ocean, gulls also seemed likely suspects and, yes, over the same period, 1208 gull strikes were reported in New York, out of a total of 9843 gulls that collided with planes across the US. Further scrutiny of the list revealed that other collision victims include 145 bald eagles and 15 black-capped chickadees. An endangered whooping crane was hit in Wisconsin. We began to think that nothing that flies is safe. Then we spotted an entry for turtles.

One can imagine circumstances in which turtles could become airborne, although not of the turtle’s volition. It would, however, seem quite hard to hit a plane with a tossed turtle. Yet 80 turtles suffered this fate, including 23 in New York State. The turtles weren’t alone. Armadillos are, if anything, even less aerodynamic than turtles, yet planes struck 14 of them in Florida, two in Louisiana and one in Oklahoma, although Texas armadillos successfully avoided aircraft. In addition, 13 American alligators hit planes in Florida.

We can report that our mental picture of airborne armadillos, alligators and turtles did not survive long. We were forced to conclude that although the FAA doesn’t specify it, these animals had their collisions with aircraft on the ground, presumably during take-off and landing. It was interesting to note, though, that some terrestrial species seem much better at dodging planes than others. No one reported hitting wolves, bears, sheep or goats, but the toll included 811 deer, 310 coyotes, 146 skunks, 146 foxes, 33 domestic dogs, 18 domestic cats, eight cattle, six moose, five horses, two river otters, and a single unfortunate pig.

personal, science

Research, 35 Years On

Thirty-five years ago I was a postgraduate student at the University of East Anglia and in the middle of the research for my doctorate. In simple terms I was looking at how metal-compounds interact to quench light-driven chemical and physical processes in organic compounds; this was done using pulses of laser light which typically lasted millionths of a second (a technique called laser flash photolysis). The technique was already well characterised and the metal-induced photochemical quenching already of industrial importance in developing additives to make plastics more light stable – after all one doesn’t want buckets or sinks which fall apart after a short while as happened in the chemistry labs at University of York when I was an undergraduate there. In our research we were extending the work to try to better understand the physics of the systems at a quantum energy level, and (as my supervisor memorably expressed it) fill in one piece of the jigsaw puzzle which is photosynthesis – the chemical and physical processes by which plants turn water, carbon dioxide and light into energy, sugars, proteins and oxygen; the veritable bedrock of life. It was but a very tiny piece of a massive jigsaw puzzle and to this day I still do not understand how it earned me a doctorate!

This was at the time when Lord Porter (then Professor Sir George Porter) who won a Nobel prize for the invention of flash-photolysis was at the Royal Institution and was just beginning to develop systems using picosecond lasers which we thought at the time was mind-blowing. (A picosecond is one million-millionth of a second, so around a million time shorter than the equipment I was using).

Thirty-five years on scientists are now on the threshold of putting in the very last pieces of that jigsaw. This at least is the way I read today’s BBC News item which describes scientists watching the reacting electrons in the molecules using a similar photolysis technique but with laser pulses lasting just 100 femtoseconds, that’s one ten-thousandth of a billionth of a second (or ten thousand million times shorter than an average camera flash). I’m not so much gobsmacked at the rate of technological innovation – one has almost come to expect that – but more that not only has this been done but that it is possible to achieve such incredibly fast pulses of light AND use them to watch chemical reactions in such real-time detail. It is something we dreamt of doing but never imagined would become a reality. For me this is much more gobsmacking science than any piece of cosmology or particle accelerator physics.

science, sexuality

Men Like Looking at Women

Let’s face it: men like looking at women. And there are good biological reasons that can be used to explain this affliction, at least according to this article at canada.com.

Like the masses of planets and stars, our bodies curve the space around us. We
radiate signals constantly, radio sources that never go off the air. We cannot
help being centers of attraction and repulsion for one another.

Well that explains it all then, really. But for more read the article; it’s interesting even if some will say it is male chauvinist. Personally I don’t think it is, just good biological sense. But then I’m male!

history, memes, natural history, photography, pleasures, science, thoughts

Wonders of the World Meme


Wonders of the World Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s meme is to say what you think the 12 Wonders of the World are? This can be man-made, natural, things you’ve seen, things you haven’t! Or a mixture!

So here are my twelve …

1. Power of Natural Forces, especially the sea
2. Existence of Life. Even as a scientist just the sheer chemical and anatomical complexity blows my mind
3. Diversity of Life, from amoeba to elephant; from top of Everest to ocean depths
4. Amazon: the rainforest, the fish, the parrots
5. Cats, from domestic cats to terrifying tigers
6. Human Intellect / Mind, without which we wouldn’t have any of the following …
7. Agriculture. How do you get from being a hunter-gatherer to a settled community growing rice and pigs?
8. Stonehenge, being a representative of all incredible building by ancient peoples who as far as we know had no writing and no recognisable mathematics
9. Bread and Wine. How did anyone go, A, B … X to discover them; bread especially
10. Writing, without which we wouldn’t have society or literature
11. Medieval Cathedrals: complex architecture, brilliantly built with no advanced mathematics or science
12. Zero, without which we wouldn’t have maths or science

1. Stormy Seas, 2. Coral Reef, 3. Bugs life, 4. Rainforest Parrot, 5. Wild Jaguar, 6. The Labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, 7. Terraced Rice Fields of Sapa, 8. Stonehenge, 9. Wine and Bread, 10. Book of Hours : Use of Sarum, Prayer to St. Thomas Becket of Canterbury (circa 1330), 11. Focs artificials gòtics, 12. zero

As always these are not my photos so please follow the links to enjoy the work of the photographers who did take them!

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

medical, memes, personal, photography, science

Eye-Eye!

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Eye-Eye!, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s self-portrait: 52 Weeks 47/52 (2009 week 03).

I had my annual diabetic retinopathy scan today, where they take (digital) photos of the back of they eye. This entails having eye-drops to dilate the pupils so you can’t see properly for several hours afterwards – not invasive or nasty, just a damn nuisance ‘cos you can’t focus. This is my eyes 3 hours after the drops when they are starting to wear off – and look how dilated my pupils still are!

quotes, science

Zen Mischievous Moments #146

Here follows the opening paragraph of an article entitled “Quantum Brinkmanship” by George Musser printed in the December 2008 edition of Scientific American. Just to demonstrate what you already knew: science is weirder than you imagined.

A good working definition of quantum mechanics is that things are the exact opposite of what you thought they were. Empty space is full, particles are waves, and cats can be both alive and dead at the same time. Recently a group of physicists studied another quantum head spinner. You might innocently think that when a particle rolls across a tabletop and reaches the edge, it will fall off. Sorry. In fact, a quantum particle under the right conditions stays on the table and rolls back.