Aldo Explains it All

By: | February 12, 2015

2651918042_6cc45b2a99_bYou may have heard that conservation biologists are arguing with each other. Some say nature should be protected for humans; others say it should be protected from humans; others say it’s possible to do both. This may sound like an academic debate—and in many ways it is—but it has become a very nasty one, and over the past couple of years it has severely taxed an important field that has far too few resources to begin with.

I’ve written about the argument’s gory details elsewhere, but here I’d like to take a longer view. For this fight was, in its broadest sense, settled more than a half-century ago, and the referee is still relevant. His name was Aldo Leopold. Continue reading →

Behind the Steel Door

By: | February 11, 2015

Flu_Lab_tour15_7070In 2011, Yoshihiro Kawaoka reported that his team had engineered a pandemic form of the bird flu virus. Bird flu, also known as H5N1, has infected infected nearly 700 people worldwide and killed more than 400. But it hasn’t yet gained the ability to jump easily from human to human. Kawaoka’s research suggested that capability might be closer than anyone had imagined. His team showed that their virus could successfully hop from ferret to ferret via airborne droplets. In addition to scaring the bejesus out of many, Kawaoka’s controversial study, and a similar study by Ron Fouchier in the Netherlands, also sparked a debate about the wisdom of engineering novel and potentially deadly pathogens in the lab. 

It’s easy to see why people would be skeptical of research that aims to make pathogens that are deadlier or more transmissible than those found in nature. Marc Lipsitch and Alison Galvani outline many of the criticisms in an editorial published last year. Such experiments “impose a risk of accidental and deliberate release that, if it led to extensive spread of the new agent, could cost many lives. While such a release is unlikely in a specific laboratory conducting research under strict biosafety procedures, even a low likelihood should be taken seriously, given the scale of destruction if such an unlikely event were to occur. Furthermore, the likelihood of risk is multiplied as the number of laboratories conducting such research increases around the globe.”

But Kawaoka makes a decent counterargument. “H5N1 viruses circulating in nature already pose a threat, because influenza viruses mutate constantly and can cause pandemics with great losses of life. Within the past century, ‘Spanish’ influenza, which stemmed from a virus of avian origin, killed between 20 million and 50 million people. Because H5N1 mutations that confer transmissibility in mammals may emerge in nature, I believe that it would be irresponsible not to study the underlying mechanisms,” he wrote in a 2012 editorial.  Continue reading →

Of Cops and Shots

By: | February 10, 2015

shutterstock_229115143The room is plain and cloaked in shadow, save the single pool of light draped over a hardened criminal. Facing the her is a meaty lug of a detective with a ketchup-stained tie and hairy knuckles.

“This doesn’t have to go bad for you, Jenny,” the larger man growls. “You work with us and I can put in a good word with the D.A. Get you a deal.” Jenny stares hard at the wall-size mirror across from him.

“Look, Jenny,” says a skinnier cop sitting near the door, “if you don’t flip on your cousins, your kid’s looking at a life sentence of autism. That’s hard time. Jenny’s hand flinches almost imperceptibly at the word “autism” but she kept her stare fixed.

The fat man jumps in, as if on cue. “But you implicate your cousin Tony and his gang, you’re looking at – worst case scenario – a little measles for the kid. Hell, chances are, he walks outta here free and clear.”

“So what do you say?” the other one says. “Better yet, what do you think Tony will say? Hey, we got him in the next room. Maybe we offer him the same deal, see where it gets us. I bet he turns on you before I even finish asking.”

The detective lumbers to the door and without turning says, “When your little boy’s got autism, don’t say we never gave you a choice.” As he pulls the door, a voice behind him squeaks.

“Wait. Wait, don’t. Come back. My kid can’t do autism. Let’s talk.” Continue reading →

I Did It Dad! I LOVE This!

By: | February 9, 2015

401TrailSept
I’d been pondering the consequences of modern self-chronicling when Facebook sent me its rendering of my life in 2014. If Facebook’s Year End Review is any indication, my life boils down to this: adorable dogs, skiing, trail running and mountain biking. Lots of mountain biking. Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | February 6, 2015

February 2 – 6

Ann gave us a posthumous profile of Charles Hard Townes, whom you can thank for astronomers being able to peer inside the centre of the Milky Way, and for conscientious physicists advising the US Defense Department without being muzzled.

Fancy a moth in maroon velvet? Grotesque ripple-lines? Giddy exclamation points and mindblown italics? Check out Roberta’s tour down the rabbit hole of hundred-year-old scientific papers.

Abstruse Goose advances a bold idea about how to organise your bookshelf (n.b. baby sleep books go next to VHS Repair)

Richard wants to know if the workings of general relativity are part of the mainstream of your thoughts. Does it blow your mind or is it just meh, gravity curves the spacetime around an object. Sure.

Do birds have tongues? You bet they do. Cameron surveys a few shocking varieties.

 

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image: shutterstock

 

 

Charles Hard Townes Made Things Happen

By: | February 6, 2015

298358437_bf04e7f85f_oCharles Hard Townes died a week ago, aged 99.  He was a physicist at Berkeley who came up with the principle of the laser; at age 98, he’d stopped coming into the office every day. His obituaries are thorough and their praise is justified.  I’d met him for reasons the obituaries don’t mention.  He helped set up the Jasons, a group of well-regarded physicists who give the government advice, such that the advice they gave would have no conceivable benefit to them.  And he helped get a classified technology declassified so the astronomers could use it to change astronomy.  Both these things were important, with wide and deep effects, and Townes gets little notice for what he did; nor did he ask for it.  He seemed just as happy to make things happen. Continue reading →

Ye Olde Scientific Writing

By: | February 5, 2015

Quill penA few weeks ago, biologist Stephen Heard blogged about beauty in scientific writing. Among his examples, he cited an elegant explanation of quantum mechanics research and a playful description of a snake surveying a “disconsolate line” of frogs. More details can be found in Heard’s paper on the subject, which calls for scientists to strive not only for beauty, but whimsy and humour.

I’ve often found that the most enjoyable scientific papers are those written more than a century ago. Sometimes I come across them while researching an article that demands historical backstory, and sometimes I just go down a rabbit hole and find myself downloading half a dozen smudged-looking PDFs on early dental prosthetics. Reading these fusty manuscripts nearly always yields some amusement, whether because the authors use a quaint word, a pleasing turn of phase, or writing conventions that strike me as funny today. Continue reading →

Tongue in Beak

By: | February 4, 2015

4658390366_11d14832d1_zThe other day while we were playing at a nearby park, a woman got out of her car and swooped over to where my sons and their friends were trying to flip over small boulders. She had these awesome knee high boots, and bright red lipstick. Seeing her reminded me what happens to everyman hero Emmet in The Lego Movie’s everyman when he first sees master-builder WyldStyle—the world goes fuzzy, and the screen is filled with her smile, her stiffly swooshing hair and an angel choir soundtrack.

Now, in the park, the woman pulled out a pair of binoculars and peered up at the sycamores. Continue reading →