12 year old leaps solar tech forward

Wow. Ok, this is not exactly breaking news, as it was first reported via Treehugger.com on the 18th, but it is amazing. A 12 year old kid developed a 3D solar cell that collects 500 times the energy as commercially available solar cells and 9 times the best 3d solar cells that have been developed (and not available outside prototypes in labs). It does this by not only collecting visible light, but UV as well and by using carbon nanotubes in a 3D array to better absorb more light and reduce the inevitable dissipation of energy during the conversion and distribution of the energy. Now if only he can get it developed for commercial use.

Getting Hotter

Here's a shocker: global warming is going to increase, according to the perspective in Science by Peter Cox and Chris Jones ("CLIMATE CHANGE:Illuminating the Modern Dance of Climate and CO2," Science 19 September 2008:Vol. 321. no. 5896, pp. 1642 - 1644DOI: 10.1126/science.1158907). According to their data, in which they incorporate paleoclimatic data from the Little Ice Age from 1500-1750, the models that best reproduce the link between climate and carbon dioxide levels shown during the LIA and 20th century correlations are the most severe, i.e. the ones predicting the largest increases. So we can expect that temperatures will be increasing faster as time goes on. This means that if you live within 20 feet of sea level or are planning on buying land that close to sea level, you might want to reconsider your living arrangements or plan on spending a lot on water sealants.

Leonardo the hadrosaur

Congratulations to my old lab mate Justin Tweet and advisor Dr. Karen Chin on their article "Probable Gut Contents Within A Specimen Of Brachylophosaurus Canadensis (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) From the Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation Of Montana" published in the latest Palaios (September 2008; v. 23; no. 9; p. 624-635; DOI: 10.2110/palo.2007.p07-044r). It is a nice article demonstrating the last dinner of the hadrosaur nicknamed "Leonardo". Glad to see that Justin got his thesis published.

Superstruct: Play for the Future

Ok, I know, I'm behind. Hopefully, I'll catch up:) But I ran across a game that everyone should play. It is a six-week experiment beginning September 22 called Superstruct, billed as the first massively multiplayer forecasting game. The game is based around major disasters that strike in 2019. While the game goal is to figure out how to survive and keep some form of civilization going, the idea behind the game is to use everyone's intellect in a massive simulation to inspire ideas on potential problems facing our planet so we can better prepare ourselves for handling crises. There is even a subset of the game that is specialized for museum workers. I think it's a great idea and I encourage everyone to play. The more people that play, the more information we get on how to survive major threats to our world.
The game is being run by The Institute for the Future (IFTF) and the Center for the Future of Museums (an initiative of the American Association of Museums). To play or just to find out more about it, go to
http://www.iftf.org/node/2098. Do it! Do it now!

The Taphonomy of Oil

Jere Lipps wrote a wonderful article in the latest Palaontologica Electronica on how oil is formed, the processes of developing our oil resources, and why it can't last forever. While I may quibble with his decay under oxic vs. anoxic conditions, the article is a great explanation of the oil problem in terms everyone can understand and should be required reading for everyone, and to help that, here is the link to the article: http://palaeo-electronica.org/2008_2/commentary/oil.htm.

Hadrosaur 3D chewing computer animation

An article in the latest Palaeontologica Electronica (http://palaeo-electronica.org/2008_2/132/index.html) shows a 3D computer model of an Edmontosaurus skull showing how the skull moves during chewing. One of my labmates, Casey Holiday, is a co-author on this paper. This I find rather interesting, because Casey does not believe what the paper says. The paper does a great job of illustrating how all the synovial joints move during chewing ala the classic pleurokinetic hadrosaur skull. The problem is that in Casey's dissertation, one of the things he showed was that just because one has a synovial joint doesn't mean it moves. Lizards all have wonderfully fragmented skulls with synovial joints all over the place, but are not generally thought to be pleurokinetic, for instance. As Casey demonstrated in his dis, to have a pleurokinetic skull that moves like they show requires a chain of movments that all have to occur. If any one of them are locked into position, the whole thing is stuck, sort of like throwing a wrench into a gear. This happens to be the case with hadrosaurs. What Casey really thinks is going on is that these synovial joints allow the skull to grow quickly, keeping it mobile enough to allow growth, but not so mobile as to move during chewing. Actually, I should say here that this is an overly-simplistic representation of his views and that it is a bit more complex than that, including a certain amount of evolutionary baggage, but you get the point, that being the skulls were actually most likely rather akinetic, i.e. they didn't change their shape every time they bit down on something. So why does his name appear in this paper? He worked out the chewing mechanisms for the group, but the others put together the computer modelling and they went with the classic view rather than what Casey had worked out. My opinion is that Casey is right and will be vindicated later on.

Early dinosaur evolution

In today's issue of Science, Stephen Brusatte et al. published an interesting article called "Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs," in which they state that the early dinosaurs did not out compete the early crurotarsans, which were the crocodile ancestors that were dominating the scenery then. All well and good and they add a new analysis to the mix. I'm all for that and like the publication of the article.
However, unlike what they claim and what Science News claims (http://www.sciencenews.org/), this is not exactly a new claim. As the Science News article mentions Irmis et al. said essentially the same thing last year in the same journal. Brusatte et al. claim their study is superior because they view it as a "two-step" process, i.e. the rise of the herbivorous sauropodomorphs followed by the theropods and others, whereas the other studies viewed it as a single event. Fine, while I might disagree that the timing data we have for that time period is sufficient to make such a claim, I won't argue about that. What I do argue with is their suggestion that the competition model is the currently accepted hypothesis for the rise of the dinosaurs, which is not true at all. It has been pretty apparent to anyone who has kept up with the literature that few people accept that view anymore and the dinosaurs have been seen more commonly as oppurtunistic, that filled the void created by the decline of the terrestrial crurotarsans.
Moreover, Irmis et al. were not exactly the first to say this, they more than anything else put the nail in the coffin of the competition hypothesis by supplying good data. People had been saying this for decades. William Sill in particular published the oppurtunistic model for early dinosaurian radiation back in the sixties and early seventies. While I can forgive Brusatte for not knowing about Sill's papers, I can not believe that Benton, one of the co-authors, didn't know about them. So I find it curious that Sill was not even cited in their paper.
So all in all, if I had been reviewing it, I would first off had said this paper is not Science journal material and would have recommended sending it to another journal for publication with a few alterations. I am very curious how this got into Science, considering the high level of competition for publication there.

Facebook evolves

I am not exactly the first person to support social networking sites, i generally try to avoid them. But Facebook has recently come out with a new game called "Evarium". It is an evolution based game in which you control the destinies of spirograph critters. You set the mutation rates, breeding rates, and a number of other parameters, along with the look of the beginning critters and then watch them go. You see them grow, reproduce, grow old and die. Clicking on any individual provides information such as, sex, what it's doing at the moment, and what sort of partner it is looking for. It's like a little dating profile for your imaginary creatures. You can also introduce traumatic events, such as introducing new types or killing off all of a certain type. Watching what happens to the look and distributions of the creatures is pretty cool and is an innovative way of teaching about evolutionary concepts. The ads that go along with the game are for evolution-based books, so even the ads are cool. This is pretty much the only online game like this that I whole-heartedly recommend checking out. If anyone knows of other games like this, drop me a line.

Molecular clocks take another hit

Here's an interesting article in Revista di Biologia / Biology Forum. I have always had doubts about the molecular clock hypothesis, which is the idea that we can estimate divergence rates between organisms based on rates of change in their DNA. Admittedly, some the DNA and protein sequences Huang uses in his paper are hotly debated as to their validity, but the paper is intriguing nonetheless.

Huang, S. “Ancient Fossil Specimens of Extinct Species Are Genetically More Distant to an Outgroup than Extant Sister Species Are.” Biology Forum / Rivista di Biologia, v. 101, 2008, p. 93-108.

Abstract. There exists a remarkable correlation between genetic distance as
measured by protein or DNA dissimilarity and time of species divergence as
inferred from fossil records. This observation has provoked the molecular
clock hypothesis. However, data inconsistent with the hypothesis have steadily
accumulated in recent years from studies of extant organisms. Here the published
DNA and protein sequences from ancient fossil specimens were examined
to see if they would support the molecular clock hypothesis. The hypothesis
predicts that ancient specimens cannot be genetically more distant to an
outgroup than extant sister species are. Also, two distinct ancient specimens
cannot be genetically more distant than their extant sister species are. The
findings here do not conform to these predictions. Neanderthals are more
distant to chimpanzees and gorillas than modern humans are. Dinosaurs are
more distant to frogs than extant birds are. Mastodons are more distant to
opossums than other placental mammals are. The genetic distance between
dinosaurs and mastodons is greater than that between extant birds and
mammals. Therefore, while the molecular clock hypothesis is consistent with
some data from extant organisms, it has yet to find support from ancient
fossils. Far more damaging to the hypothesis than data from extant organisms,
which merely question the constancy of mutation rate, the study of
ancient fossil organisms here challenges for the first time the fundamental
premise of modern evolution theory that genetic distances had always increased
with time in the past history of life on Earth.

Tardigrades: Toughest Animal Ever

Space.com reported today fascinating new work on tardigrades in space. Tardigrades, aka water bears, are microscopic invertebrates that can survive almost anything, desiccation, heat, cold, you name it. Now they have reached new heights, literally. The European Space Agency shot them into space last year and recently retrieved them. They not only survived vacuum, extreme cold, cosmic radiation and UV radiation from the sun 1000 times what reaches the surface, but were able to reproduce just fine afterwards. They are the gold medalists of eukaryote (multicellular) survivalists. They rank right up there with my favorite unicellular organism, Deinococcus radiodurans (although I think they are now called Micrococcus), which can withstand enough radiation to melt Pyrex glass. Their DNA can be shredded and they just put it back together and keep on ticking. Timex must be supremely jealous. What keeps these bacteria in check, you may ask? Because they grow incredibly slowly and are thus outcompeted for resources by pretty much everything else, so they only live in the fringes where nothing else can. Still, they are awesomely cool.

Blogs and Academia

There was recently an international science bloggers convention in London (yes, everything has its own convention these days, I am sure there will be a convention for CEOs who wear pink bunny slippers to work any day now). Pretty much all the attendants agreed that science communication from academics to the public is in general pretty abyssmal. But one thing in particular struck me as interesting and which made me change this blog a bit. It was pointed out that many academics run their blogs anonymously because many senior academics (aka department chairs and the like) view blogging as a waste of time and letting it be known to one's superiors that one blogs can negatively impact your career if you are a young academic. While I see definite value in this (otherwise I wouldn't be doing it, see the greetings post), I would one day like to have a real job. Therefore, I have made this blog anonymous until I can sort out what this means to my own career. If you have any comments, suggestions, or other views on the matter, please comment as I would like to know other people's opinions on the matter.

Bizarre hyoids

Just got a look at howler monkey hyoids and they are truly strange. For those that don't know, hyoids are the little floater bones in the front of the throat that serve as attachment points for some tongue and throat muscles. Most are shaped like little Us or Ys with two sets of "horns". The howler monkey's hyoid is a pouch, which apparently they use as a resonator to help them scream really loud. Ranks right up there in strangeness with flickers and hummingbirds that can have their hyoids wrap around their heads to let them stick their tongues WAY out.

Glad I'm short

Luisa Zuccolo et al. in the September issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention report that taller men are at greater risk of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer risk increased on average almost 1.5%/inch of height over the shortest person in the study. Course, the statistical support was "weak" and not as influential as other factors such as age, ethnicity, and family history, but I'll take what I can get.

Lack of evidence is not evidence of absence, NOT!

I'll start this blog off with a bit of scientific philosophy.

“Lack of evidence is not evidence of absence.” This is one of the most commonly stated axioms in science that is obviously a fallacy yet taken as gospel in many circles. Virtually all scientists work under the assumption of its very antithesis. Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, and many other things relegated to “fringe science” and fantasy are dismissed precisely because there is a lack of sufficient evidence for most scientists to deem them credible. Scientists in typical practice do not accept hypotheses without having some evidence to lend them credence. Therefore, it follows that a lack of evidence does indeed constitute sufficient evidence of absence for most scientists to withhold support for a hypothesis. Secondly, if absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence, what then would qualify? If one looks for evidence to support a hypothesis and finds none, it is usually taken to mean the hypothesis is not true, until such a time that evidence turns up.
Therein lies the essential qualifier for the axiom that is commonly forgotten. Many people remember Sagan stating “lack of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Yet what is commonly neglected is the context in which the statement was made. His statement referred to the fact that until someone looked for evidence, one could not say a priori that it did not exist. However, once that task was completed, lack of evidence does indeed mean evidence of absence. Thus, more correctly, we should be saying that IF no one has looked, lack of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, IF after a thorough search and still no evidence appears, THEN we can conclude absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence. This does not mean that at some later date evidence will not be found. It simply means that as of this point, no evidence exists to support the claim, so it is considered unfounded. It is then incumbent on those who continue to believe the hypothesis to find evidence that will convince their peers. But to simply regurgitate “lack of evidence is not evidence of absence” is intellectually disingenuous and scientifically without merit; in short, a cheat to avoid accepting the logical alternative until evidence can be found.

Greetings

Greetings to one and all.

The purpose of this blog is mainly as a crutch for me, but hopefully it will be of use to others as well. To begin with, I am a terribly unmotivated writer, so by forcing myself to write frequently, I hope to spur myself to be more productive in the writing that comes with being a scientist.

Secondly, there is a lot of research that says that passing information repeatedly through one's brain (i.e. repetition) is the best way to remember something, so if I write about science that I find interesting, the more likely I am to remember it later, as opposed to saying, "Oh, that's interesting," and then tossing the paper on the mountain of other papers to be forgotten.

Thirdly, it is easy to get caught up in the daily grind of research and classes and the daily living of life and forget to read as much as one should. So, by having a forum that is impatiently waiting for me to say something, I will thereby shame myself into searching out information to talk about. This actually isn't that hard as there is ample cool science stuff coming out all the time and this gives me a place to say, "Wow, this is so cool, look at this!"

Be warned that my science interests are hardly limited to my own research (which only a very few other people besides myself would be particularly interested in, most people just think "gross" and walk quickly the other way), so topics here will cover a wide range of topics. There will be lots of paleontology stuff, but I will be ranging rather far afield. Think of it as an opportunity to broaden your horizons.