Cool Science

So the Mars rover Spirit discovered silica (a.k.a. sand) on Mars, and apparently this is a big deal, but I'm lost. I love the Spirit and Opportunity missions and they are a breath-taking inspiration. They represent the very best in human exploration. But what else would Mars be made of? Spirit and Opportunity have been making tracks in the sand from day 1. I can't figure out why this is (pardon the pun) groundbreaking. To be clear, even though this is not in my opinion (pardon the pun again) rocket science - it's incredibly crucial to make direct observations of everything, especially the things you might assume or take for granted - like sand on Mars. You don't want to get that one wrong... So I applaud the science - I just don't follow why it's supposed to be some sort of upheaval. But I'm no astronomer so maybe I have much to learn.

CNN's science portal as usual is going on about dinosaurs, but science news reported on some odd work out of Tulane that suggests that theobromine, a famous consituent of chocolate that is chemically very similar to caffeine, may be helpful in protecting teeth in laboratory experiments. Will this hold up in real world situations - will it be the next additive in toothpaste? Also in the realm of food science (otherwise known as : chemistry), why do Rice Krispies go snap, crackle and pop? Perhaps this story holds the explanation which suggests that the unique cooking process creates tiny rigid cavities in the puffs that collapse under capillary action when milk is added. Not unreasonable, but they don't tell us how they came up with this theory, which I found a little unsatisfying.

Posted by Dave at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I saw today that a group of researchers based out of New York recently developed a route to vaccinate mice against prion diseases, like the infamous mad cow disease. It holds promise as a major step against these diseases since it makes it possible to vaccinate at risk animals and reduce the spread among animals. It's really tempting to suggest that this would be useful in humans as well, but that's not usually straightforward. Researchers have cured cancer in lab mice several times over - pretty exciting stuff to be sure - but the results have not been transferrable to humans yet. But that's OK in my book - the mouse is a higher eukaryote and is an extremely impressive stepping stone to learning about how humans work.

Posted by Dave at 08:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While I'm trying not to be too offended that CNN never wrote me back, I'll get over it with a little reading. One of my favorite books to flip through when I only have a few minutes and I want a fast brain-candy fix is Pappas' Joy of Mathematics and the equally good sequel. The page on perfect numbers (from the second book) explains that a perfect number is equal to the sum of all of its divisors. The first three perfect numbers are 6, 28 and 496. Pappas notes at that time that no odd perfect numbers had been identified, and that the question of their existence was a prominent unsolved problem.

That was fifteen years ago and I immediately jumped online to see what the current status is. A great authoritative source for math on the web is Eric Weissteins MathWorld and here's their page on perfect numbers. But in true form, he also has a page on the odd perfect number quest which is a really great page, and clearly this problem is still unsolved although mathematicians are chipping away at it from many angles. It has even inspired one person to try to organize an online site for it www.oddperfect.org. Would be fun to see somebody crack this one in either direction.

Posted by Dave at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

I felt inspired and I emailed this to cnn.com today. If you're so moved, you can email them too

Dear CNN.COM,

I am a regular visitor to cnn.com. I often find interesting articles, although to be honest I would like to see fewer ambulence-chasing and entertainment headlines. But I decided to write today to suggest that you re-examine the content of your 'Science and Space' portal.

Its heavy emphasis on dinosaurs, space shuttles, and oddities could lead the general public to think that all scientists do is idly study mummies, dinosaurs, stars and why bells ring. And the recent astronaut affair, while compelling gossip, seems like a stretch for a science portal.

Certainly there is interesting science in paleontology and astronomy, but I do not believe that the American public has the opportunity to see how much scientists are working for them. I believe if you were to poll researchers today you would see that a major motivation for all scientists is their desire and hope to discover new knowledge that may help to improve the human condition.

Venues that I enjoy reading which I think do a good job of communicating science include Science News, American Scientist, and New Scientist. I have the opinion that these are not just for scientists, and that the American public would respond well to a more diverse, relevant and deeper selection of scientific news items.

An encouraging trend in science reporting is the increased attention to climate research, but I encourage you to take the scope to the next level and to have faith in the broader public and their appetite for knowledge.

Posted by Dave at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My parents took me every where as a kid. And so it's likely I have actually seen a glacier. In fact, knowing them, we probably camped out on one once, roasted marshmallows, sang songs and I can't even remember it. So the travel channel has an annoying show on (that I've only watched once) where they take a lucky couple around the world on an all-expense paid trip to 1000 places to go before you die . Since I'm extremely jealous, I'll criticize it. While the lucky couple were visiting Spencer glacier in Alaska, the topic of the very blue ice came up, which the voice-over awkwardly and incorrectly explained was due to the ice absorbing blue light. Awkwardly, to the point that it was clear some one had once told them the correct explanation and then they bungled it when writing the script. So, FWIW here's my two cents. It's two effects. First, when white light enters the ice, sources claim that red and green are more strongly absorbed by ice than blue, although I have not been successful in locating a visible spectrum of ice (reason for delay of this post). But this is reasonable so I'll parrot it back. So inside of the ice, reds and greens are starting to get absorbed, so you have a bias for blue light. By itself this is not enough - after all, how does the blue light get back out so that we can see it? This is the second part, which is a process called scattering. Light scatters in a medium randomly in all directions so that some of this blue light makes it out. Also, the scattering is likely to greatly increase the path length of the light in the ice since it will keep light bouncing around in the ice longer, ensuring more absorption of the longer wavelengths (reds, etc). A further wrinkle on this which is probably also important is that scattering favors blue light slightly, so that reds are less likely to escape out and instead will be more likely to pass through the ice and terminate on an absorptive surface (dust, dirt, rock, whatever...). These combined effects add up to give a very brilliant blue that I would love to see in person one day. I invite the travel channel to give me a free ride.

Posted by Dave at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)