Author Archives: curiouscat

Engineering Quiet, Efficient Planes

Fly Silent, Fly Cheap by Jeffrey Winters, Mechanical Engineering magazine:

In all, the design changes would amount to a startling reduction in the amount of sound produced on takeoff and landing. The Cambridge-MIT team estimates that a landing SAX-40 would create less than 65 decibels of noise at the perimeter of the airport—about the same level as background noise. Transformed in this way, airplanes would be relatively neutral parts of the urban environment, rather than nuisances.

But there’s a side benefit: fuel efficiency. The same design elements that cut back on noise also reduce fuel consumption. With less energy lost to creating turbulence, more power would be devoted to moving passengers.

NSF Cafe Scientifique: Arlington, Virgina

Cafe Scientifique NSF. Where: The Front Page, 4201 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, Virginia (Ballston Metro stop). 6:30PM-8:00PM presentation, followed by Q&A: The “Shocking” Science Behind Electric Cars:

Science makes many things possible, including alternative fuels and modes of personal transportation… Goldstein and Garlow are the President and VP of the DC area Electric Vehicle Association. They will discuss the science behind electric cars, such as fuel cells and battery technology, and some of the issues surrounding their use and acceptance. And, they will bring actual cars to touch and explore, including the MIT entry into the 1994 Tour de Sol, an electric car that is solar-powered, and an all-electric Toyota RAV4.
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Cafe Scientifique flourished first in the U.K. as a way for the public and scientists to mingle and discuss science issues in an informal setting. At least 35 cafÃ©s now exist in the U.S.

I hope to make it this month.

Engineering Activities: for 9-12 Year Olds

Design Squad Activity page:

Unleash your kids’ ingenuity and get them thinking like engineers with these 10 DESIGN SQUAD challenges. Designed for 9-12 year olds, each challenge has step-by-step instructions and age-appropriate explanations of the main idea.

FDA May Make Decision That Will Speed Antibiotic Drug Resistance

FDA Rules Override Warnings About Drug:

The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency’s own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people. The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine’s last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals.

This is why it is so important for government decisions that require scientific knowledge be made by knowledgeable scientists.

But Sundlof said that under FDA rules, those decisions must be left up to veterinarians unless there is clear evidence that wider use is causing harm.

“That is our policy” is not a good excuse for endangering public health. The dangers of anti-biotic resistance are obvious, well known, we see the results of bad decisions in the past creating havoc today and still government wants to act as though the inevitable consequences of their actions are somehow out of their hands. A policy that will lead to the deaths of many people should be fought. If you want to claim this policy will not do that, then make that argument. Don’t claim some policy prohibits you from saving lives.

Democratic/Republican forms of government give politicians oversight over bureaucracy to guide decisions for the public good. When politicians don’t understand basic science (in this day and age – when decisions require that understanding) that can lead to very dangerous policies. You would think that adults would be able to understand that just because consequences will be delayed a few years that doesn’t mean you should allow special interests to get what they want today. But the deficit (nearly $8,800,000,000,000 for the federal government now) provides a visible sign how much they care about future consequences of their actions. Combine that with little scientific understanding and that is not a prescription for good decisions.
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Basic Concepts: List of Posts

Basic Concepts in Science: A list collects posts on basic science concepts. This is a great collection of posts, including:

Force, Energy and Fields
Genes and Prions
Correlation, Algorithm and Sets

Take some time to look through this interesting, educational and growing list of concepts explained by science bloggers.

Related: Science and Engineering Blogs

European Innovation Scoreboard

European Innovation Scoreboard (pdf)

The US and Japan are still ahead of the EU25 in terms of innovation performance, but the innovation gap between the EU25 and Japan, and in particular with the US is decreasing (see Figure II). The EU25 has improved its relative performance compared to the US in S&E graduates, tertiary education, business R&D, early-stage venture capital, medium-high and high-tech manufacturing employment, EPO patents, USPTO patents and community trademarks. The EU has improved its relative performance compared to Japan mostly in S&E graduates and broadband penetration rate.
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Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Japan and Germany are the innovation leaders, with SII scores well above that of the EU25 and the other countries…
The US, UK, Iceland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Ireland are the innovation followers, with SII scores below those of the innovation leaders but above that of the EU25 and the other countries.

How to Deal with False Research Findings

The Science of Getting It Wrong: How to Deal with False Research Findings by JR Minkel adds to our recent spate of posts on drawing faulty conclutions from data (such as: Correlation is Not Causation, Cancer Deaths – Declining Trend?, Seeing Patterns Where None Exists, Karl Popper Webcast).

In his widely read 2005 PLoS Medicine paper, Ioannidis, a clinical and molecular epidemiologist, attempted to explain why medical researchers must frequently repeal past claims. In the past few years alone, researchers have had to backtrack on the health benefits of low-fat, high-fiber diets and the value and safety of hormone replacement therapy as well as the arthritis drug Vioxx, which was pulled from the market after being found to cause heart attacks and strokes in high-risk patients.

Using simple statistics, without data about published research, Ioannidis argued that the results of large, randomized clinical trials—the gold standard of human research—were likely to be wrong 15 percent of the time and smaller, less rigorous studies are likely to fare even worse.

Among the most likely reasons for mistakes, he says: a lack of coordination by researchers and biases such as tending to only publish results that mesh with what they expected or hoped to find. Interestingly, Ioannidis predicted that more researchers in the field are not necessarily better—especially if they are overly competitive and furtive, like the fractured U.S. intelligence community, which failed to share information that might have prevented the September 11, 2001, terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But Ioannidis left out one twist: The odds that a finding is correct increase every time new research replicates the same result, according to a study published in the current PLoS Medicine.

$60 Million in Grants for Universities

HHMI Invites Colleges to Compete for Grants to Strengthen Undergraduate Research, Mentoring, Computational Skills:

Institutions are invited to compete based on their proven records in preparing undergraduates for graduate education in science and for careers in scientific research and medicine. In the past, the top 200 colleges were invited to apply. This year, to increase the pool of applicants, the Institute invited the 226 colleges with the highest percentage of graduates, including underrepresented minorities, who go on to graduate or medical school. For the first time, invited institutions include a Native American tribal college.

A panel of leading scientists and educators will review the applications and make recommendations to the HHMI undergraduate science education grants staff. Awards will be announced in May 2008.

Through its Undergraduate Science Education Program, HHMI has awarded $235.8 million in grants to 126 colleges throughout the United States and Puerto Rico since 1988, part of $693 million in grants for undergraduate science education that the Institute has awarded to institutions of higher education, including research and doctoral universities. HHMI is the largest private supporter of science education in the United States.

This is a huge amount of money that can do a great deal of good.

Editorial: Engineers of the Future

Engineers of the future:

Technology education programs at all grade levels seek to afford students opportunities to tinker, to discover how things work, and to explore the designed world. At the elementary school level, students may learn about simple machines designed for specific tasks or about the basics of electricity by actually building simple circuits. In middle school, students may explore concepts in more detail, perhaps by designing and building a model of a bridge or a gliding aircraft. In high school, students may have opportunities to design an affordable home, take something apart to see how it works, or design and build a robot that would be used for a rescue mission or some other specific purpose. All of these experiences are related to the processes of engineering.

This is the type of learning that can enhance a future engineer’s experience, but also the type that cannot be included in the typical upper grade level math or science classroom for one main reason: math and science teachers generally do not have the time and may not have the interest or expertise needed for in-depth study of technology.

The editorial makes a good point. As import and primary science and math education are they are not enough. Effort to create an environment where students can experiment and use their hands and minds to solve problems is incredibly valuable. Teaching in this way is not as simple as it might seem, see example below for some ideas and resources that can help create these type of learning institutions.

Examples: Middle School Engineers – k-12 Engineering Education – Engineering is Elementary – Colorado Science Teacher of the Year – Building minds by building robots – Leadership Initiatives for Teaching and Technology – Engineering Education Program for k-12 – Project Lead The Way – k-12 science and engineering posts

Medical Study: Antioxidant Supplements Don’t Extend Life

Antioxidant Supplements Don’t Extend Life Span, Study Finds

Representatives of the vitamin industry, as well as some other researchers, disputed the findings, criticizing the study for, among other things, including people who were already sick. People tend to take vitamins to stay healthy, they said.

“There’s a large body of data that shows that antioxidant supplementation is beneficial,” said Andrew Shao of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, an industry group. “The message to the average consumer is: Don’t pay attention to this. This doesn’t apply to you. You can go ahead and continue taking your antioxidant supplements in addition to the other things you do in your life to stay healthy.”

But Gluud and his colleagues defended the findings, saying that the study used careful methods developed by the internationally respected Cochrane Collaboration, an independent nonprofit effort to methodically assess medical claims. The analysis included many large studies involving healthy people, and the increased risk was clear after accounting for factors that could confuse the findings, Gluud said.