The Long Hello

By: | April 28, 2011

On April 4, the physics department at Columbia University held an unblinding party. For 100.9 days between January 13 and June 8, 2010, a detector 4,500 feet underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, in central Italy, had been collecting data. Following the protocol of a “blind” analysis, the data had instantly disappeared into a “box”—a Pandora-esque hard drive—so as not to prejudice the human analysis. Now some of the collaborators on the experiment had gathered in a laboratory at Columbia to watch as a software program lifted the lid on the box and allowed them all a first peek at whatever there was to see.

What they saw on the computer screen were six red dots. Six: a number statistically significant enough to allow them to claim a detection…and for the leader of the team, Elena Aprile, to cop a Nobel Prize.

Cheers! Hugs! Kisses!

Also (straighten tie; smooth skirt), analysis. Over the next few days they discovered that they had to attribute three events to electronic noise. Which still left them with three events. But they had known in advance that no matter how many or how few “detections” they found, they would have to discount two—or, more accurately, 1.8 ± 0.6, the number they had calculated that in a sample of this particular size would be due to radioactive interference. Which left them with one, a statistically insignificant number. On April 13—nine days after the unblinding party had turned into a party party—the collaboration posted their paper online, including this conclusion in the abstract: “no evidence for dark matter.”

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Faust, My Grandfather, & the Laser Guide Star

By: | April 27, 2011

My grandfather was interested in the Faust legend and I inherited the interest, though for the life of me I don’t know why it’s interesting and he died before I could ask him.   Whatever it is, it has to do with trading your soul for certain bad kinds of knowledge, or with excessive curiosity leading to nothing good.  As legends go,  Faust is not ancient – it first showed up in the 16th century – but it is persistent.  One of its modern incarnations is scientists who work on weapons for the military.  If this particular incarnation had interested my grandfather — and it probably would have —  I would have argued with him.   My argument would have been, it’s not as simple as bad and good. Continue reading →

Pound for Pound

By: | April 25, 2011

Tomorrow I will travel more than 3,000 kilometers, as the crow flies, to witness a little piece of combat sports history at the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debut Toronto event (Happy 32nd birthday to me!). Roughly 55,000 mixed martial arts fans will pack the Roger’s Center, and maybe a million more will tune in to pay-per-view to watch UFC Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre (affectionately known as GSP) defend his belt – most likely successfully – for the last time.

A two-time Rogers Sportsnet Canadian Athlete of the Year, GSP is not retiring; rather, he’s so good that he’s cleaned out the welterweight (156-170 pound) division and needs to move up a weight class to find another fighter who can give him a run for his money. His background is in karate, his wrestling is world class, his jiu-jitsu is strategically sound and he follows carefully orchestrated game plans for each match-up, capitalizing on the specific weaknesses of his opponent. GSP is known for being a gentleman’s fighter and a highly intelligent and principled person.

The middleweight (171-185 pound) division, to which GSP will be rising, is currently dominated by a lightening-fast, creative and playful fighter from Brazil named Anderson Silva. This guy pulls off moves that look like they’re from The Matrix and in most of his fights he is visibly bored, filling the time with showy capoeira dancing and general mockery of his opponents. His striking is spookily accurate and he regularly embarrasses even elite fighters. In the GSP-Silva fight, the odds are on Silva.

There is no set formula for fight match-ups in UFC. They tend to arise both from the art of matchmaker Joe Silva (no relation to Anderson) and from political will among the fan base. The projected superfight is being held partly in the service of an abstract question dear to the hearts of combat sports fans: Who is the best Pound-for-Pound fighter in the world? That is, if all questions of natural physique are held constant, who wins the contest of skill?

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One Cup of Tea, Two Cups of Bull Honkey

By: | April 22, 2011
The beautiful view from Kikijana, Bolivia.

*Warning: This post starts with a story, ends with a rant, and has little to do with science. Read at your own risk.

In 2001, I joined the Peace Corps and moved to a tiny village in the middle of Bolivia called Chuqui Chuqui. My job description was vague. I taught some English. I gave talks on nutrition and hygiene. I showed the kids how to make recycled paper. Mostly, I just kind of coasted, not really knowing what to do. My Bolivian “counterpart” — a guy named Walter who was supposed to keep me occupied — didn’t live in my village and only visited every other week. His job was to help the teachers develop their curricula, and he had many schools to oversee.

A later trip to Qullpana. Walter is on the right.

One day, Walter asked me if I wanted to accompany him on a trip to visit some nearby schools. The schools he planned to call on were up in the mountains. The rains had washed much of the road away, and we didn’t have a car. So this would be a three-day walking tour. To avoid the heat, we set off at an ungodly hour — five or six in the morning. Walter picked his way through the rocky ravine like a goat with the instincts of homing pigeon. Five long hours and many switchbacks later, we arrived at Qullpana — our first stop. And that afternoon, we made our way to Kikijana.

Construction of the greenhouse in Kikijana.

These towns, with their smattering of ramshackle adobe sheds and lack of electricity, made Chuqui Chuqui, my small village, look modern and well equipped. I immediately fell in love with the region and decided I wanted to work there. Because of the altitude and the cold, not many vegetables grow in Qullpana and Kikijana. So after several meetings, the residents and I decided to build two school greenhouses — one in each town. It took many months. Even though my dad had volunteered to donate the money — $400 — I had to draft a project proposal. Members of the community had to make adobe bricks. And we had to haul the other supplies up on donkeys. I wouldn’t call the greenhouses an unmitigated success, because I have no idea if they’re still in operation. I tell you these things because they are the facts. And this blog is nonfiction. So I would never say that I had built 11 greenhouses. Nor would I tell you that I was once held at gunpoint on the road between Kikijana and Qullpana. If I did, I would be lying.

See? It’s easy to sort out fact from fiction. I don’t understand why Greg Mortenson is having such a hard time.

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Meth and Milkshakes

By: | April 21, 2011

Pam is a former methamphetamine user. On a website for recovering addicts, she posted an entry from a journal she kept at the height of her problem, when she was 19 years old. It’s an engrossing story about how meth — snorted throughout the day, but always at lunch time, in a parking lot — has ravaged her body and personal relationships. Here’s the part I want to talk about:

…I stopped and got a milkshake to try to make myself feel better. The guy in line was flirting with me. I couldn’t smile at him, it was too hard. I answered all of his questions in between grinding my teeth. I sat in my car and forced the disgusting milkshake down my throat. I didn’t feel better until I did another one. I couldn’t get the whole Chick-fil-A biscuit down this morning, but I managed to eat the hash browns. The bad part is, I drove 30 minutes out of my way to go to Chick-fil-A house because I was craving a sweet tea. So, I was late to work… I’m just here killing time until my lunch break. The lunch break I take daily. When I say I’m going to Brittany’s to eat. Then I drive to the Wal-Mart and park.

From television, books and the popular press, I thought I’d already heard about all of the nasty effects of crank: paranoia, stroke, heart problems, acne, loss of appetite, loss of teeth. But what about these carb cravings?

Meth support websites are littered with stories of addicts hankering for sweets but, as far as I can tell, the topic gets little attention in the scientific literature. (I did find one report, conducted by dentists, showing that meth users are more likely to drink soda than are non-users.) A fruit fly study published yesterday provides a possible molecular explanation for the meth-induced sweet tooth.

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From Brazil, a surprising breath of good forest news

By: | April 20, 2011

Being an environment reporter during the sixth great extinction can be a bit of a drag. Sure, there are tons of important, dramatic stories to cover, but they’re all so darned depressing. Oil spills, nuclear accidents, pillaged seas, the whole climate mess? Ugh. A decade or two of that every week can really start to get a person down.

So you can imagine that when I opened an email from a sometime source with the subject line “news from Brazil,” I wasn’t exactly expecting to be buoyed.

What I found instead was such a pleasant surprise that I’m pledging to avoid being grim for this entire post.

Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa is one of those researchers whose work is easier to describe than it is to label: he uses satellite imaging to study forests in Latin America, to see what happens when people cut them down, and to try to figure out ways to get them, once in a while, to stop. He’s also one of those sources who seem to have done something else remarkable every time you turn around. His latest news involves not just trees, local communities and agricultural expansion, but politicians, a supreme court, and possibly the best evidence yet that pure scientists and social scientists can get a heck of a lot more done when they work together.

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Telling the whole story on stem cells

By: | April 19, 2011

Every day, it seems, new research “raises hopes” that stem cells will cure a new disease. I myself have written about the enormous potential of stem cells more times than I can count. Since stem cells can transform into any type of cell in the body, they might become a source of replacement cells for diseases in which sick cells malfunction or die.

And yet, earlier this month, there was a piece of stem cell news that nobody seemed to care about: one of the few companies that is actually trying to develop stem cells into therapies announced that it was abandoning a clinical trial. The news came in a press release issued on a Friday, as bad news often is; that tends to dampen the bad publicity. And indeed, no major newspaper or magazine covered the story.

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