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Scientific Illiteracy Leaves Many at Risk in Making Health Care Judgements

Posted on September 8, 2009  Comments (5)

Scientific literacy is important for many reasons and that importance has increased greatly over the last century. Medical research is often difficult to interpret. Often various studies seem to contradict each other. Often the conclusions that are drawn are far too broad (especially as the research conclusions are passed on and people hear of them overly simplified ways).

Many health care options are not obviously all good, or all bad, but instead a mix of benefits and risks, both of which include interactions with the individuals makeup. So we often see contradictory (and seemingly contradictory) advice. Without a level of scientific literacy it is very difficult for people to know how to react to medical advice.

We have numerous posts on the scientific inquiry process showing that acquiring scientific knowledge is complex and can be quite confusing in many instances. While understanding things are often less clear cut than they are presented it is still true that most often strategies for healthy living have far better practices that will provide far better results than alternatives.

The scientific illiteracy that has some think because their are risks no matter what is done that means there is no evidence some alternatives are far superior is very dangerous. As you can see in action now with those that risk their and others lives and health by doing things like not vaccinating their children, or driving when drunk, or driving when talking on a cell phone.

Without a scientifically literate society even completely obvious measures like not using antibiotics on viral infections are ignored.

Related: Long Term ADHD Drug Benefits Questioned – How Prozac Sent Science Inquiry Off Track – Lifestyle Drugs and Risk – Correlation is Not Causation: “Fat is Catching” Theory Exposed
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Historical Engineering: Hanging Flume

Posted on May 12, 2009  Comments (6)

Hanging flumephoto of hanging flume overlook in Colorado, by John Hunter, Creative Commons Attribution.

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While driving from Dinosaur National Monument to Mesa Verde National Park last year I passed the sight above with the remnants of a hanging flume. The Montrose Placer Mining Company built a 13 mile canal and flume to deliver water from the San Miguel River for gold mining operations. The last 5 miles of the flume clung to the wall of the canyon itself, running along the cliff face in the photo above (see more photos).

Constructed between 1888 and 1891, the 4 foot deep 5 foot 4 inch wide hanging flume carried 23,640,000 gallons of water in a 24 hour period. The mining operations used water and sluice boxes to separate the gold from lighter materials (dirt and gravel).

The technology was not yet available to pump the water directly from the river at the necessary volume and pressure to wash the gold from the gravel, therefore they constructed the flume to transport the water.

Related: Mount Saint Helens Photos – photos of Manhattan (Rockefeller Center, Empire State Building…) – C&O Towpath – Monocacy Aqueduct to Calico Rocks
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Rat Brain Cells, in a Dish, Flying a Plane

Posted on November 26, 2008  Comments (2)

Adaptive Flight Control With Living Neuronal Networks on Microelectrode Arrays (open access paper) by Thomas B. DeMarse and Karl P. Dockendorf Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida

investigating the ability of living neurons to act as a set of neuronal weights which were used to control the flight of a simulated aircraft. These weights were manipulated via high frequency stimulation inputs to produce a system in which a living neuronal network would “learn” to control an aircraft for straight and level flight.

A system was created in which a network of living rat cortical neurons were slowly adapted to control an aircraft’s flight trajectory. This was accomplished by using high frequency stimulation pulses delivered to two independent channels, one for pitch, and one for roll. This relatively simple system was able to control the pitch and roll of a simulated aircraft.

When Dr. Thomas DeMarse first puts the neurons in the dish, they look like little more than grains of sand sprinkled in water. However, individual neurons soon begin to extend microscopic lines toward each other, making connections that represent neural processes. “You see one extend a process, pull it back, extend it out — and it may do that a couple of times, just sampling who’s next to it, until over time the connectivity starts to establish itself,” he said. “(The brain is) getting its network to the point where it’s a live computation device.”

To control the simulated aircraft, the neurons first receive information from the computer about flight conditions: whether the plane is flying straight and level or is tilted to the left or to the right. The neurons then analyze the data and respond by sending signals to the plane’s controls. Those signals alter the flight path and new information is sent to the neurons, creating a feedback system.

“Initially when we hook up this brain to a flight simulator, it doesn’t know how to control the aircraft,” DeMarse said. “So you hook it up and the aircraft simply drifts randomly. And as the data come in, it slowly modifies the (neural) network so over time, the network gradually learns to fly the aircraft.”

Although the brain currently is able to control the pitch and roll of the simulated aircraft in weather conditions ranging from blue skies to stormy, hurricane-force winds, the underlying goal is a more fundamental understanding of how neurons interact as a network, DeMarse said.

Related: Neural & Hybrid Computing Laboratory @ University of Florida – UF Scientist: “Brain” In A Dish Acts As Autopilot, Living Computer – Roachbot: Cockroach Controlled Robot – New Neurons in Old Brains – posts on brain research – Viruses and What is Life – Great Self Portrait of Astronaut Engineer

Waste from Gut Bacteria Helps Host Control Weight

Posted on October 20, 2008  Comments (3)

A single molecule in the intestinal wall, activated by the waste products from gut bacteria, plays a large role in controlling whether the host animals are lean or fatty, a research team, including scientists from UT Southwestern Medical Center, has found in a mouse study.

When activated, the molecule slows the movement of food through the intestine, allowing the animal to absorb more nutrients and thus gain weight. Without this signal, the animals weigh less.

The study shows that the host can use bacterial byproducts not only as a source of nutrients, but also as chemical signals to regulate body functions. It also points the way to a potential method of controlling weight, the researchers said.

“It’s quite possible that blocking this receptor molecule in the intestine might fight a certain kind of obesity by blocking absorption of energy from the gut,” said Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa, professor of molecular genetics at UT Southwestern and a senior co-author of the study, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, open access: Effects of the gut microbiota on host adiposity are modulated by the short-chain fatty-acid binding G protein-coupled receptor, Gpr41.

Humans, like other animals, have a large and varied population of beneficial bacteria that live in the intestines. The bacteria break up large molecules that the host cannot digest. The host in turn absorbs many of the resulting small molecules for energy and nutrients.

In the Big Fat Lie I mentioned some related ideas:

It also makes perfect sense that our bodies evolved to store energy for worse times (and some of us have bodies better at doing that). Now we are in a new environment where (at least for many people alive today) finding enough calories is not going to be a problem so it would be nice if we could tell our bodies to get less efficient at storing fat

This research seems to be looking for a similar way to attack the obesity epidemic: reduce the efficiency of our bodies converting potential energy in the food we eat to energy we use or store. If we can make that part of the solution that will be nice. So far the reduction in our activity and increase in food intake have not been getting good results. And efforts to increase (from our current low levels) activity and reduce food intake have not been very effective.
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Science Postercasts

Posted on October 12, 2008  Comments (2)

I wrote about SciVee, over a year ago, saying I thought they could become a valuable resource. It has been taking longer to really get going than I thought it would but this new feature, Postercasts, is great. I am glad to see SciVee living up to my high expectation. Keep up the great work SciVee. The experience can still use improvement but this is a great start.

They have provided a tutorial on: How to Synchronize my Poster to my Video. I hope some of our readers try this out.

via: Interactive Virtual Posters

Related: Engineering TV – Science Webcasts – Magnetic Movie

Wind Power Provided Over 1% of Global Electricity in 2007

Posted on September 30, 2008  Comments (11)

graph of global installed wind power capacity

Data from World Wind Energy Association, for installed Mega Watts of global wind power capacity in 2007. 19,696 MW of capacity were added in 2007, bringing the total to 93,849 MW. Europe accounts for 61% of installed capacity, Germany accounts for 24% and the USA 18%.

The graph shows the top 10 producers (with the exceptions of Denmark and Portugal) and includes Japan (which is 13th).

Related: USA Wind Power Installed Capacity 1981 to 2005 – Wind Power has the Potential to Produce 20% of Electricity by 2030 – Top 12 Manufacturing Countries in 2007 – Sails for Modern Cargo Ships – MIT’s Energy ‘Manhattan Project’

More Mysterious Space Phenomenon

Posted on September 26, 2008  Comments (1)

One of the things I really hope this blog helps accomplish is to show how science progresses (which explains why I use that tag so often, 3rd most, other popular tags: animals (most used), engineers 2nd, fun and webcasts tied for 4th).

Science is a process of continual learning as curiosity leads us to seek better understanding. On a small scale this can mean a person learning more about knowledge already understood by others. But it also means the scientific community facing new questions and coming up with new explanations for the new questions raised by observations (and testing those new explanations…). Mysterious New ‘Dark Flow’ Discovered in Space

Patches of matter in the universe seem to be moving at very high speeds and in a uniform direction that can’t be explained by any of the known gravitational forces in the observable universe. Astronomers are calling the phenomenon “dark flow.” The stuff that’s pulling this matter must be outside the observable universe, researchers conclude.
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They discovered that the clusters were moving nearly 2 million mph (3.2 million kph) toward a region in the sky between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela. This motion is different from the outward expansion of the universe (which is accelerated by the force called dark energy).

“We found a very significant velocity, and furthermore, this velocity does not decrease with distance, as far as we can measure,” Kashlinsky told SPACE.com. “The matter in the observable universe just cannot produce the flow we measure.”

Related: Laws of Physics May Need a Revision – Great Physics Webcast Lectures – Challenging the Science Status Quo – Parasite Rex

Goldbergian Flash Fits Rube Goldberg Web Site

Posted on September 20, 2008  Comments (1)

Intentionally, I hope, the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest web site illustrates how to use needlessly complex engineering to design a tool that fails to follow sensible engineering guidelines. Rather than aiming for well designed usable products, the desire is to produce a machine that sort-of complies with the requirements but in a extremely foolish, convoluted way. Obviously it would be much more sensible to design that web site with html and it would just work simply, easily and quickly for everyone. But flash is the perfect tool to use if you want to promote Goldbergian thinking.

The web site, for example, does display content to a web browser. If that web browser has a flash plugin installed and it is the proper type. And sure the conventions of the web don’t work in this crippled environment but who cares about that when designing Goldbergian web sites. Of course if you actually want to design a good web site such choices would be – lets see, oh yeah, lame. I could link to the contest information – but in good Flash Goldbergian fashion that is not possible with the non-website website they have.

Related: Rube Goldberg Machine Contest – Rube Goldberg Devices from Japan – NASA You Have a Problem – 340 Years of Royal Society Journals Online – NSF Engineering Division is Reorganization – How to Design for the Web

Science Policy Research Virtual Intern

Posted on July 28, 2008  Comments (1)

externs.com is another curiouscat.com web site that lists internship opportunities. I am surprised that virtual internships and externships have not grown much more popular in the last 5 years. Scientists and Engineers for America do have such a virtual internship:

Members of the first Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA) virtual intern class can be located anywhere in the world and will work remotely on specific SEA projects. Intern will research the positions elected officials and candidates for office take on science policy issues.

The internship is for between 10 to 20 hours per week and can be done anywhere, as long as you have a computer, internet connection, and telephone. The dates of the internship are flexible accepted on a rolling basis.

Also see the externs.com science internships and engineering internships. If you have an internship you would like included, please add it (there is not cost for the site, listing or using).

Related: Summer Jobs for Smart Young Minds – Preparing Computer Science Students for Jobs – Science and Engineering Scholarships and Fellowships – Scientists and Engineers in Congress

500 Year Floods

Posted on July 13, 2008  Comments (2)

Why you can get ’500 year floods’ two years in a row by Anne Jefferson:

Flood probabilities are based on historical records of stream discharge. Let’s use the Iowa River at Marengo, Iowa as an example. It reached a record discharge of 46,600 cubic feet per second* (1320 m3/s) on 12 June. That flow was estimated to have a 500 year recurrence interval, based on 51 years of peak flow records
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When you are extrapolating beyond your data by an order of magnitude, the highest points in the dataset start to have a lot of leverage. Let’s imagine that there’s another big flood on the Iowa River next year and we do the same analysis. Now our dataset has 52 points, with the highest being the flood of 2008. When that point is included in the analysis, a discharge of 46,600 cubic feet per second* (1320 m3/s) has a recurrence interval of <150 years (>0.6%). It’s still a darn big flow, but it doesn’t sound quite so biblical anymore.
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Urbanization and the adding of impervious surface is one cause of increasing flood peaks, but in Iowa, a more likely culprit is agricultural.

This post is a good explanation that the 500 year flood idea is just way of saying .2% probability (that some people confuse as meaning it can only happen every 500 years). But I actually am more interested in the other factor which is how much estimation is in “500 year prediction.” We don’t have 500 years of data. And the conditions today (I believe) are much more likely to create extreme conditions. So taking comfort in 500 year (.2%), or even 100 year (1% probability) flood “predictions” is dangerous.

It would seem to me, in fact, actually having a 500 year flood actually increases the odds for it happening again (because the data now includes that case which had not been included before). It doesn’t actually increase the likelihood of it happening but the predictions we make are based on the data we have (so given that it happens our previous 500 year prediction is questionable). With a coin toss we know the odds are 50%, getting 3 heads in a row doesn’t convince us that our prediction was bad. And therefore the previous record of heads or tails in the coin toss have no predictive value.

I can’t see why we would think that for floods. With the new data showing a flood, (it seems to me) most any model is likely to show an increased risk (and pretty substantial I would think) of it happening again in the next 100 years (especially in any area with substantial human construction – where conditions could well be very different than it was for our data that is 20, 40… years old). And if we are entering a period of more extreme weather then that will likely be a factor too…

The comments on the original blog post make some interesting points too – don’t miss those.

Related: Two 500-Year Floods Within 15 Years: What are the Odds? USGS – All Models Are Wrong But Some Are Useful by George Box – Cancer Deaths – Declining Trend? – Megaflood Created the English Channel – Seeing Patterns Where None Exists – Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature of Data – Understanding Data

Protecting the Food Supply

Posted on July 1, 2008  Comments (5)

A few weeks ago we posted about Tracking Down Tomato Troubles as another example of the challenges of scientific inquiry. Too often, in the rare instances that science is even discussed in the news, the presentation provides the illusion of simple obvious answers. Instead it is often a very confusing path until the answers are finally found (posts on scientific investigations in action). At which time it often seems obvious what was going on. But to get to the solutions we need dedicated and talented scientists to search for answers.

Now the CDC is saying tomatoes might not be the source of the salmonella after all: CDC investigates possible non-tomato salmonella sources.

Federal investigators retraced their steps Monday as suspicions mount that fresh unprocessed tomatoes aren’t necessarily causing the salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds across the USA.

Three weeks after the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers to avoid certain types of tomatoes linked to the salmonella outbreak, people are still falling ill, says Robert Tauxe with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest numbers as of Monday afternoon were 851 cases, some of whom fell ill as recently as June 20, says Tauxe, deputy director of the CDC’s division of foodborne diseases.

The CDC launched a new round of interviews over the weekend. “We’re broadening the investigation to be sure it encompasses food items that are commonly consumed with tomatoes,” Tauxe says. If another food is found to be the culprit after tomatoes were recalled nationwide and the produce industry sustained losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, food safety experts say the public’s trust in the government’s ability to track foodborne illnesses will be shattered.

“It’s going to fundamentally rewrite how we do outbreak investigations in this country,” says Michael Osterholm of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “We can’t let this investigation, however it might turn out, end with just the answer of ‘What caused it?’ We need to take a very in-depth look at foodborne disease investigation as we do it today.”

I am inclined to believe the FDA is not enough focused on food safety. Perhaps we are not funding it enough, but we sure are spending tons of money on something so I can’t believe more money needs to be spent. Maybe just fewer bills passed (that the politicians don’t even bother to read) with favors to special interests instead of funding to support science and food safety. Or perhaps we are funding enough (though I am skeptical of this contention) and we just are not allowing food safety to get in the way of what special interests want (so we fund plenty for FDA to have managed this much better, to have systems in place that would provide better evidence but they are either prevented from doing so or failed to do so). I am inclined to believe special interests have more sway in agencies like (NASA, EPA, FDA…) than the public good and scientific openness – which is very sad. And, it seems to me, politicians have overwhelmingly chosen not to support more science in places like FDA, CDC, NIH… while increasing federal spending in other areas dramatically.

Related: USDA’s failure to protect the food supply – FDA May Make Decision That Will Speed Antibiotic Drug Resistance – Food safety proposal: throw the bums out – The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science

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