As for my blogging… okay, okay, I’ll try to keep up.  Maybe I’ll even post again later this week.  For now, no good post is complete without a picture of something.  What’ll it be this time?  I’m going with my gut (aside: next week’s episode of Evolve is about guts!), and posting a tarsier.  They’re just too stinkin’ cute for their own good!

P. S. — Thanks to C for watching Singe while I’m in Tennessee.  Be careful not to laser-cut his highly evolved eyes while playing “stalk the uncatchable spot.”  Did you know they glow in the dark due to his Tapetum lucidum?

That said, you can understand why I am so excited about this: next month, the journal Genetics will publish research findings by University of Western Ontario biologist Graham Thompson, and Peter Oxley and Benjamin Oldroyd of the University of Sydney in Australia, who managed to isolate part of the honeybee genome that is responsible for reproductive altruism.¹  (Full text of the article is available now).²  As you may know, female worker honeybees [order Hymenoptera] are sterile.  In a honeybee colony, the queen is the only reproductively active female.  Sex determination for honeybees is haplodiploid, meaning that the queen may lay fertilized female eggs (with two sets of chromosomes, or diploid), or unfertilized male eggs (with one set of chromosomes, or haploid).  The queen, having stored sperm in a spermatheca during her numerous mating flights (what a slut!), can choose how many male and female offspring to produce.  Although all her female offspring possess the genetic potential to be queens, the overwhelming majority of them will remain sterile workers, toiling away to feed and groom the queen as she becomes a huge sibling factory.  Their ovaries will remain inactive, and they will devote their lives to the queen.  Occasionally, ‘anarchist’ colonies of honeybees are found, in which a small proportion of females besides the queen activate their ovaries and begin to reproduce.  Thompson, Oxley, and Oldroyd have at last discovered what appears to be conclusive, material evidence that the selfish gene is real!  Specifically, what they have done is identified four quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that account for 25% of the phenotypic variance in ovary activation.  These are regions of the honeybee genome that are almost certain to contain genes responsible for the selfish ‘cheating’ behavior found in the ‘anarchist’ colonies.  Although this does not mean that the actual genes have been defined, it does mean that they are now very close to doing so.  So the theoretical assumption underpinning modern biology, although quite strong on its own, finally has physical, molecular evidence to support it.  This sort of thing makes me a bit weak in the knees, so please forgive my ebullience.

Oh, and in case you couldn’t tell, I <3 honeybees.

¹ Western News - The University of Western Ontario

² Genetics Volume 179, No. 3, July 2008.  Four quantitative trait loci that influence worker sterility in the honeybee (Apis mellifera), by Peter R. Oxley, Graham J. Thompson, and Benjamin P. Oldroyd.

The bill puts new emphasis on disparity research by reporting health care data by race and ethnicity, as well as socioeconomic status and health literacy. The legislation outlines mechanisms to conduct educational outreach to minorities, increase diversity among health care professionals, and improve the delivery of health care to minorities.

If we’re going to have national health care, this sort of thing is critical and taxpayers should actually be demanding it! Preventative medicine is always cheaper than treating ailments and disease, and the potential benefits of a healthy population go far beyond the lower cost of health care (increased economic productivity, decreased poverty, decreased crime, decreased drug abuse, the list is endless).

What really turns me on the most about Obama’s priorities, though, was this part of the document:

Improve and Prioritize Science Assessments: Assessments should reflect the range of knowledge and skills students should acquire. Science assessments need to do more than test facts and concepts. They need to use a range of measures to test inquiry and higher order thinking skills including inference, logic, data analysis and interpretation, forming questions, and communication. High-performing states like Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, use an assessment that calls for students to design and conduct investigations, analyze and present data, write up and defend results. Barack Obama will work with governors and educators to ensure that state assessments measure these skills.

I cannot overemphasize how crucial that is! American science education is fast becoming a joke on the international level. With rare exceptions, I was not taught how to use inference, logic, or data analysis in the public high school system, and I went to a half-decent public high school—ten years ago! Most inner-city and some rural schools are far worse. Prioritizing how to think over what to think is the key to producing bright, engaged, and enthusiastic students who actually get what science is all about and are well prepared to hit the ground running when they find the field of science that really inspires them. After I finish graduate school, to the extent possible, I’d like to be involved in changing American science education. One dream I have is to work for Eugenie Scott and the National Center For Science Education, which does great work defending public school curricula against religious zealots who try to force intelligent design into the science classroom. I donated $10 to them to offset the damage done when I bought a ticket to Ben Stein’s disgusting crock-umentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. If you ever doubt the sniveling academic dishonesty of I.D. proponents, watch that film (download a pirated copy off the internet, please) and read how well the good people who made ExpelledExposed.com eviscerate just about every claim the film makes.

So, having veered just a bit off topic for a moment there, I’ll try to bring this back to the Obama science plan and wrap it up. From what I’ve read, I am cautiously optimistic that a Barack Obama administration would be a very science-friendly one. I think he doesn’t go quite far enough in emphasizing the need for interdisciplinary physical, chemical, and biological systems research. He also needs to use that generic science document better to tie into other large issues that are addressed elsewhere on the campaign website, and which I haven’t yet had time to peruse. I hope to post in the near future my thoughts on Obama’s proposed energy and environmental policies, and his position on NASA (as well as contrasting these with those of John McCain). For the rest of tonight, though, I would be glad just to get enough sleep so as not to be a total zombie at work tomorrow. I haven’t quit my day job yet; the blogging doesn’t have me rolling in benjamins yet like I hoped it would

For now, I’ll leave you with this video from a few weeks ago when my favorite artist and role model Dr. Greg Graffin was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism by the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy. It’s got him playing a few acoustic Bad Religion songs as well as talking about the award and why he prefers the label “naturalist” versus “atheist.” Wish I could have been there for this!

Congratulations, B! You’re going to the White House. Now please, please, please don’t pick Hillary Clinton for V.P.  What about Bill Richardson? He’d be great.

It’s a nice, cool day in Baltimore after some thunderstorms passed through the area. Here comes June! My birthday’s in two weeks… holy shit, I’m getting old faster and faster.

Anyway, the landing occurred at 23:53:44 UTC; that’s the Earth-received time.  That means the time that mission control received the first radio signals.  The landing really took place 15 minutes and 20 seconds before that, which is the amount of time it takes radio signals from Mars to reach Earth.  Forget what you know about relativity; Earth and Mars are too close together in space, and the relative speed between them is too tiny a fraction of the speed of light for relativity to matter in this case.  As far as we need be concerned, the Earth-received time minus 15m 20s is simultaneous to Mars time.  That’s one of the dilemmas that any future human Mars explorers would face: it would take over a half hour, at least, to receive any reply to a message radioed to Earth.  Keep in mind too that Mars’ and Earth’s orbits around the sun are not synchronous; the half hour delay is the best of scenarios!

A bit more info: Phoenix was launched on August 4, 2007 atop a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  It took nearly ten months to complete the 680 million kilometer journey to Mars.  How about a picture of the launch, you ask?  Why, I’ve got one for you right here:

And so, dear readers, space exploration marches on!  I know it’s perhaps just a little unlikely, but I’m still crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to land on the moon before I die.  I know that may seem to contradict what I said a moment ago about robotic exploration being the right track, but things may change for the better.  We may discover safer, less expensive ways to escape Earth’s gravity, and better portable protection from solar radiation.  I don’t even care if it’s not really all that safe.  If I’m 45 or older, and I’m offered a seat on a moon shuttle, you better believe I’m going.  Hell, I’d go to Mars, too.  Apart from the obvious atmospheric differences, the terrain doesn’t look too different from the Black Rock Desert where I’ve camped at Burning Man several times now

The first image of Mars’ horizon sent by Phoenix:

The Black Rock Desert, Black Rock City, NV:

Until next time, kiddies.  Keep watching the skis… I mean, keep watching the skies!

Deep sea exploration is one of the last and most exciting scientific frontiers on our planet. The 10-year long Census of Marine Life project has already made some pretty cool discoveries. Last month, scientists aboard the Research Vessel Tangaroa of New Zealand’s National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) discovered an seemingly unlikely colony of starfish-like echinoderms called brittlestars living at the summit of a huge seamount in the Macquarie Ridge, a large underwater mountain range between New Zealand and Antarctica (see map at the end of this post). These critters take advantage of the dramatic 4km/hr ocean current at the summit, capturing prey as it is blown over the seamount. 4km/hr may not sound like much, but you have to consider the immense breadth of the current. According to Dr. Mike Willams of NIWA, “This current is estimated to be 110 to 150 times larger than all the water flowing in all the rivers of the world.” Wow. The ridge where the colony was discovered was about 750 m above the ocean floor, and 90 m below the ocean surface.

While fishermen often catch rare organisms from these places (and toss them overboard), relatively little scientific exploration of the world’s approximately 100,000 seamounts that are taller than 1km above the sea floor has been done (less than 200 of them have been sampled in detail, by CoML’s count). Most have been dominated by corals and sponges, which is why the brittlestars were an unexpected discovery. It’ll certainly be exciting to see what else CoML finds. Check out the press release and the image gallery from the Tangaroa expedition to the Macquarie Ridge.

It sounds like the patient himself didn’t find this very funny at all. Gee, I wonder why? What’s not funny about involuntarily cuffing the carrot in front of your nurse?

¹ American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Volume 79, No. 4, July/August 2000, pp. 395-398. Involuntary Masturbation as a Manifestation of Stroke-Related Alien Hand Syndrome, by Benson G. Ong Hai and Ib R. Odderson

At the end of my last class with Aubrey (I’d taken two), he invited all of us to a barbecue at his home in Tacoma Park. That was definitely one of the most unique experiences I had in college: hobnobbing with my professor and my classmates over cocktails, while our final papers sat on his living room table, waiting to be graded. When we spoke that night he said he was leaving soon to consider a job offer as the curator of ethnography at the national museum of Bhutan, one of the most isolated countries in the world and one where few westerners have ever traveled. As I later learned, that position was not funded as planned and it didn’t work out, but Aubrey still got to enjoy a rare vacation in the Kingdom of Bhutan. A selected autobiography of Aubrey Williams’ work can be found here.

I’ll always remember him for his intelligence, his humility, his passion, and his dedication to his students and his treatment of them as peers. His was truly a life well spent. Rest in peace, Aubrey, and thank you for making a difference in my life.

Another important ethic at Burning Man is participation. It is not a spectator event - the subject/object dichotomy is constantly under attack, and this is generally agreed to be a good thing. However, in each of my past three attendances, I contributed relatively little to the overall interactive wacky-ness of Burning Man. This year I want to do something special to participate, and I have an idea of what it is. I want to perform (and invite onlookers to help me perform) science experiments. The point is to teach the value of skepticism and the scientific method, while having an entertaining time. I haven’t settled on any particular experiments, yet. So, dear readers, here’s where you come in. I need your input!

Please tell me your most memorable childhood experience involving a science experiment. Maybe it was something mom, dad, or a cool aunt or uncle showed you. Maybe it was a science teacher at school doing something wacky in the classroom. Maybe it was something you saw Mr. Wizard do on Nickelodeon. It doesn’t matter where you saw it. I’m looking for the most visual, most thought provoking, and most entertaining experiments you can recall. Once I get at least a short list together, I’ll start performing some of them to get a good idea of how practical they’d be to perform in the desert environment. If I can, I’ll record videos of them and post them here on Survival Machine. If you want to help me perform it (and even appear in the video) just let me know. I’d also gladly welcome video submissions of you performing the experiment yourself. If anyone actually does that, I’ll make a post just to feature your video!

So, brainstorm, and let me know what you remember from the exciting world of science experiments!

First, the astonishing. The Chaitén volcano in the Andes in southern Chile erupted on May 2 for the first time in about nine millenia! You can read about it in National Geographic News. The powerful eruption is dramatic enough by itself, but the next day a huge dirty thunderstorm gave us this show. Sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster, I wish I were there to witness it (click on the picture for a slightly larger version)!

Second, the bizzarre. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomy blogger, drew my attention to this article: Magic trick costs teacher job. If you aren’t going to read it, here’s the short version: a substitute middle school teacher at a Florida public school was fired for… wait for it… wizardry. The guy did a 30 second magic trick in front of his class, making a toothpick disappear and then reappear, and then was dismissed for wizardry. In an attempt to cover his ignorant ass, a school official tacked on a few other accusations (e.g. “not following lesson plans”), and then claimed, “it wasn’t just the wizardry” — I can’t make this stuff up, folks. Anyone from Land’O'Lakes, Florida should be sobbing with shame right now.

And third, I finished my astronomy class! Unfortunately, buying a telescope is on hold until I finish paying for the class itself, but I learned some really cool stuff and have reinvigorated interests in things like the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC is the world’s largest and highest-powered particle accelerator/collider. It was just completed and will begin operating this month to search for things like the Higgs boson, the only particle theorized by the Standard Model of physics that has not yet been observed. Confirmation of the Higgs boson and other new subatomic particles could lead toward the development of a Theory of Everything (also known as the Grand Unified Theory) of physics, incorporating the strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravitation forces. Creationists everywhere, hold your breath: will we discover proof of god? Literally, hold your breath.

Finally, tonight was a big one for Barack Obama. I don’t see how Clinton can continue her campaign beyond the next day or two without being ridiculed by the press. That’s pretty great news. I find it fishy that cable news (CNN, FOX, MSNBC) led in calling the race “too close to call” into early this morning when the Obama campaign had conceded earlier, and when CBS news (with no late-night cable news program ratings to worry about) had called it for Clinton earlier as well. I think the numbers were there to call the race, and they lied about it to keep viewers in suspense and thus glued to their tvs. Seems like a pretty simple scam for a news director to justify with mere plausible deniability about the race’s outcome.

That’s it for now, I’m sleepy. But I’ll say more, and say it more coherently, soon.

Side note (nothing to do with science): I’m listening to The Mars Volta’s album The Bedlam in Goliath at the recommendation of numerous people, and I’m blown away. Incredible stuff, really. I’ve really never listened to anything by them before that I can recall.

Tomorrow, however (this time I mean it), you’ll get to hear my thoughts about this. Having nearly lost a limb myself, I feel that you’ll all be required to give extra weight to my opinion. (Let’s politely ignore that getting hit by a car suggests stupidity rather than scientific insight). If I get it together in time, I’ll include gnarly x-ray images from my shattered arm. This also suggests a new tattoo idea: a salamander.

And maybe I’m still a 10 year old boy at heart, but there is no way in hell I’m going to miss this.

And, one last aside. This was just on TV a little while ago and made me laugh, so I had to include it. These commercials make me high.

There have also been some science topics I’ve wanted to ponder aloud in this blog, some of which were raised by the astronomy course I’m taking, which has proved to be very interesting so far. I effin love special relativity.

In other news, yesterday I became the proud new owner of a 2008 Toyota Prius. It has neat gadgets like bluetooth connectivity for hands-free phone calls with voice activated dialing. It is super-duper cool. You can expect a giddy post with pretty pictures soon. And all it cost me was five years of financial servitude to SunTrust bank!

For the record, I am adamantly opposed to any combat occurring in space. If you can shoot at a satellite, it won’t be long before the satellites can shoot back.

It’s also Darwin Day. If Charles Darwin were still alive, today he’d celebrate his 199th birthday. Scientists and free thinkers around the world today should take a moment to reflect on what an awesome contribution Darwin made to our understanding of life. As the author of Survival Machine, which is more or less a blog about cultural and biological evolution, I really like the idea of celebrating Darwin Day - would anyone like to go out for a drink with me tonight in honor of the late great naturalist? We wouldn’t be the only ones celebrating. Even an event in space today seems a fitting tribute, insofar as it’s another milestone in the advancement of human science culture:

The European Space Agency’s $2 billion Columbus lab was successfully attached to the International Space Station yesterday by crew members of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. This morning, crew members hooked up all the power, fluid, and data lines that link Columbus to the ISS. This thing has been virtually waiting on the launchpad for sixteen years.

The European Space Agency waited years to see Columbus fly. The lab was supposed to go up in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the sailing of Christopher Columbus, but space station and then shuttle problems delayed everything.

I’m glad this sort of thing still happens, albeit slowly. It would really be a sad story if humanity had reached the moon, and then gave up and succumbed to a new Dark Ages mentality. To some extent, we’re still in danger of that happening, but at least on this Darwin Day we can indulge in a little bit of hope.

Barack Obama wins Maine caucus, defeating rival Hillary Clinton in 4 out of 4 weekend contests.

That is a phenomenal performance.  And, Clinton’s campaign manager stepped down today.  Big ups, Barack.  Tomorrow I’m volunteering at his “Stand For Change” rally at the 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore.  The rally is free to the public, and the doors open at 2:45 PM.  With luck, I may get to have my picture taken with him.  Then a few years down the road, after he’s turned our country over to a North American Union police state, microchipped everyone, and invaded Iran, I can have something to be embarrassed by! Ha, ha, ha.  Anyway, keep an eye out for pictures and/or video from the rally tomorrow.

By the way,  my astronomy class has started.  It looks like it’ll be a lot of fun.  While browsing astronomy sites, I discovered that the Space Telescope Science Institute is practically in my backyard!  The STSI is, among other things, the public outreach program for the Hubble Space Telescope.  I will definitely pay them a visit sometime this semester.  I’m hoping they’ll have a really nice ’scope on site that I can peek through for free.