Mrs Hot Stuff brought the following to my attention yesterday. This is a survey from change.org on 30 major issues (although I only count 29). A previous completed survey was done to obtain ideas for these issues and the top 3 ideas for each issue was carried forward to this survey. So now you can go vote for your favorite idea for each of these issues....The results of the survey will be given to President-Elect Obama on Friday (thus, voting ends tomorrow!).
Regardless, of the 29 issues (see below), education came in at #18. 9 spots after Other! Now I did not see how the order was determined, but I expect it was based on the amount of interest from the original survey. Why I think this is odd (regardless of why) is that educated individuals and an educated society is essential to address the issues in italics (and I am being conservative in my choices of issues). There's easily 12 issues that required well educated people. I would argue that 28 actually do, Ill leave Other on the shelf. You want to combat genocide, educate people into the similarities between people not the cultural differences, educate people in history, educate people about themselves.
1 Genocide
2 Gay Rights
3 Global Warming
4 Domestic Poverty
5 Immigration
6 Humanitarian Relief
7 Government Reform
8 Energy
9 Other
10 Environmental Conservation
11 Women's Rights
12 Animal Rights
13 Economy
14 Fair Trade
15 Agricultural Policy
16 Health Care
17 Social Entrepreneurship
18 Education
19 Global Health
20 Criminal Justice
21 Foreign Relations
22 Technology Policy
23 Homelessness
24 Human Trafficking
25 Peace in the Middle East
26 Race
27 Global Poverty
28 Iraq War
29 Civic Engagement
I know dealing with and solving problems associated with these issues is not that easy. However lack of a social emphasis in and on education is a serious problem just look at our country. How much time and effort was spent on Barrack Hussein Obama? How often did we hear about a million dollar projector? What time spent dealing with issues was devoted to winks and flag pins? The media is culpable, but more so are the people of this society. When most people get their policy information from The View then "Houston we have a problem." I have some other post ideas on this for another time.
However, I did touch on the choices for the Education issue:
A. Introduce Esperanto as a foreign language subject in schools to help American kids succeed
I am not sure what "succeed" means here. If it is to aid in learning a second or third language, then this is valid. But is this a major problem that needs to be solved this way? To work, Esperanto needs to be introduced early as a stepping stone to foreign language development. Should all US children learns Esperanto? Should all children have a second language? I can say that a yes here would not be a bad thing. However, how many schools are set up to teach anything other than French (mostly worthless - speaking as someone who took it for 4 years) and Spanish (definitely helpful). What about Indian, Chinese, etc. Does Esperanto help here? Will requiring a second language actually lead to more US adults speaking Chinese?
B. Mobilize Mentors, Tutors, and Citizen Teachers to Help Kids Succeed
I like this idea.
C. "The Autism Reform Act of 2009"
Is this an education issue or a societal health issue? I tend to lean towards the latter, although in no way am I down playing the educational burden parents, teachers, and the individual students have.
Personally, I would have preferred a "Teach the best science and engineering to our K-12 students so we don't waste tons of resources fighting creationists all the fucking time and have critically thinking citizens." But whatever...go vote for your top 10!
Field of Science
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Change of address9 months ago in Variety of Life
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Change of address9 months ago in Catalogue of Organisms
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Earth Day: Pogo and our responsibility1 year ago in Doc Madhattan
Hey authors send me your books
Late last December, I bought my first Terry Pratchett book, Making Money. I have wanted to read one of the Discworld series for several years, but am always distracted by other things. Well after completing my teaching duties I picked up Making Money, in part because I had a Barnes and Noble coupon, but mostly because I thought it was the first book in the series. Nope #36! Thirty freaking six! Oh well, it doesn't seem necessary to have read the first 35, to understand this one, at least not that I've noticed.
Anyway back to the point of this post. Less than one week after buying this book, Terry Pratchett was chosen to be knighted by the Queen of freaking England! Now some doubters may suggest I had nothing to do with it. However, Terry Pratchett could have been chosen to be knighted any of the other 60 years of his life, but wasn't. Nope not knighted until after I bought his book. So any authors interested in being knighted next year, send a copy of your book sometime next December. However, to be completely upfront, you better not send any books if I have already read something by you (Im looking at you Tad Williams!) since it only seems to work for authors I haven't read previously.
Evolutionary extremist
I heard this phrase recently and it struck me as odd. This phrase was used in relation to a euphemistic "they" but based on the context I quickly came to the conclusion that this phrase could easily refer to me. So what the hell is an evolutionary extremist? Well, wiki (the resource of all wordly information) has nothing on evolutionary extremist or evolution extremist. Since I inferred the term to be derogatory I even checked conservapedia (the resource of all unwordly information™) and came up blank. However, a simple google search of "evolutionary extremist" gave a number of hits that about sums up my initial thoughts...
Based on context, I think an evolutionary extremist is a person who holds that the theory of evolution is a reasonable explanation to explain the diversity of life on the planet. I envision an evolutionary extremist as one of those ideologues that examines the world around them comes up with some plausible ideas, sees what works, revises their ideas, and repeats as necessary. At the end of the day, this person has a slightly more lucid understanding of themselves and the world with live in. The converse of this (based on the links that use the term) is a christian fundamentalist that believes the bible as explained to them by their pastor is the inerrant word ofsaid pastor god. I know, muslim fundamentalists believe similarly, but their links don't seem to be in the top few I saw.
So, I understand much about the theory of evolution, I also understand much of biblical creation. One works in my life on a day-to-day basis and one doesn't. Since the one that works contradicts the narrow viewpoint some people have regarding the bible, I am the extremist. See, confidence in a theory with explanative and predictive power over the ultra-specific interpretation in a collection of a subset of ancient stories with no explanative/predictive power makes one an extremist.
I know extremist is a word with significant negative connotations, but I think in this case I'll take on that mantle.
Oh and for all you keeping score at home only 57,826 more websites need to state "Hitler was an atheistic darwinian evolutionary extremist." before it will indeed become true. Oops. 57,825....way to go!
Based on context, I think an evolutionary extremist is a person who holds that the theory of evolution is a reasonable explanation to explain the diversity of life on the planet. I envision an evolutionary extremist as one of those ideologues that examines the world around them comes up with some plausible ideas, sees what works, revises their ideas, and repeats as necessary. At the end of the day, this person has a slightly more lucid understanding of themselves and the world with live in. The converse of this (based on the links that use the term) is a christian fundamentalist that believes the bible as explained to them by their pastor is the inerrant word of
So, I understand much about the theory of evolution, I also understand much of biblical creation. One works in my life on a day-to-day basis and one doesn't. Since the one that works contradicts the narrow viewpoint some people have regarding the bible, I am the extremist. See, confidence in a theory with explanative and predictive power over the ultra-specific interpretation in a collection of a subset of ancient stories with no explanative/predictive power makes one an extremist.
I know extremist is a word with significant negative connotations, but I think in this case I'll take on that mantle.
Oh and for all you keeping score at home only 57,826 more websites need to state "Hitler was an atheistic darwinian evolutionary extremist." before it will indeed become true. Oops. 57,825....way to go!
NAS looking for input
The National Academies of Science wants to know what matters most to you. As they say, "Based on your input, we will be developing a suite of informational products (booklets, audio podcasts, video podcasts, web sites, and more!) about the topics that matter most to you and other survey respondents." Please take a minute and complete the survey here. (The survey is essential one question and takes less than 5 minutes.) Also, think about what's important to you in the survey and try to avoid simply picking issues that get the most media attention at the moment.
pH: the weak are really strong
I sometimes get comments and usually these are of a nature that either require no response or a simple response. However, the other day I received a question/comment (quomment?) that I have decided to respond to by way of a post (which was started many months ago and completed today). In part, because this quomment allows me to expand on the issue of pH and biological systems.
First the comment, Hi, you mentioned that pH range for growth is 2-10. The growth of my Candida strain stops at about pH 4 - 5. I am not sure why this is the case, the media has a high content of glucose, though. Any suggestions? Does optimal pH for growth depend on the media? What is the best media for growth? Thanks so much for your help! posted by anonymous
What I think we are dealing with here is a "weak acid" versus "strong acid" issue. This came up in your basic chemistry classes, but if you are like me, you probably forgot about it as soon as the test came and went. So I apologize if this brings back painful memories, it actually turns out to be important.
Most organisms, including us live at or near pH 7. However, many organisms can survive and even grow at acidic pH, let's say pH < 6 and others like C. albicans can grow at pH 2! Now I can grow C. albicans at pH 2, but our commenter has trouble growing it at pH 4. This is only a difference in 2 pH units, but this is in fact a 100-fold difference. That's analogous to deciding between buying a $1000 used 1994 Ford Escort or a $100,000 BMW 7 series.
So, why would we be seeing a growth difference? I can think of 3 explanations: 1. Our strains are different, 2. Our growth media are different, 3. There's a technical issue that is the cause of this difference. I suspect that the difference is due to this 3rd issue. Now let's assume we are using the same strain and the same medium. We first need to adjust the pH of our medium and this is done by adding either acid or base depending on the starting and desired pH of the medium. Not surprisingly, since we are making media at pH 2 and pH 4, we will be adding acid. Ok, which acid? does it matter? and if so, why?
We routinely use hydrochloric acid (HCl) to make growth medium more acidic. However, another common acid used is acetic acid (CH3COOH, from here on out AcH). The differences are numerous, but 1M acetic acid has a pH of 2.4, whereas 1M HCl has a pH of 0. So both can be used to get growth medium to pH 4, but only HCl can be used to get to pH 2. These two chemicals also differ in their pKa (acid dissociation constant): AcH is 4.8 and HCl is -8.0 (remember that p in pKa is the mathematical symbol for -log, so the differences in the pKa's of AcH and HCl is ~10,000,000,000,000 (yep, that's 10 trillion!)). Now for those of you who do not want the gory chemical details pKa tells you how much acid is dissociated in an aqueous solution, like inside a cell or in a growth medium (see it will come back around). A pKa < -2 means that virtually all the acid is dissociated whereas higher pKas means that some of the acid is not disassociated and the higher the number the less that is dissociated. What does that mean? Well in general acids are acids because they yield H+ (pH is the measure of H+ in solution and acidic solutions have more H+s than basic solutions). So something like HCl in an aqueous solution does not exist as HCl but as dissociated H+ and Cl-. However, AcH in an aqueous solution exists as a mix of AcH, Ac-, and H+. HCl dissociates so readily that its pKa has only been determined theoretically! So regardless of pH, HCl is found as H+ and Cl-. However, depending on the pH, AcH can either be more or less dissociated. At acidic pHs, where there is an excess of H+ already, any AcH that dissociates to Ac- immediately finds another H+ to interact with reforming AcH. Conversely, at neutral or alkaline pHs, there are fewer H+s so when AcH dissociates to Ac- and H+, it stays that way. This then makes the solution more acidic. Ok, thats what you need to know: under the conditions we are working with HCl is always dissociated and AcH is a mixture, which depends on the pH.
One more thing you need to know. The plasma membrane of the cell does not allow charged molecules to cross into or out of the cell. A charged molecule is something with a + or -, like H+, Ac-, or Cl-. So, the plasma membrane keeps charged molecules in the environment out of the cell. However, small uncharged molecules, like AcH, can readily cross the membrane and get into the cell. See where this is going?
So lets go back to our standard growth medium, which we will assume has a neutral pH. If we add some AcH or HCl, the acid immediately dissociates to H+ and Ac- or Cl-, this lowers the pH a little, and if our organism can grow at that pH everything is cool. Let's add even more AcH or HCl to our growth medium to get the pH to 4. All the HCl is dissociated to H+ and Cl-, but these molecules cannot enter the cell, so as long as an organism is viable at pH 4, it should grow (as C. albicans does). However, not all of the AcH is dissociated to Ac- and H+. The remaining undissociated AcH, which is not charged, can cross the plasma membrane to enter the cell. The cytoplasm of the cell has a pH of ~7, so now the AcH dissociates to Ac- and H+! This acidifies the cytoplasm and kills the cell. Since dead C. albicans don't grow so well, no growth occurs. But realize that this is not due to an inability to grow at pH 4 in general (C. albicans grows in pH 4, and pH 2, medium using HCl), but an effect of weak acid stress.
I would highlight that this is not a trivial issue in microbiological labs. This is a common and historically important method of food preservation. Vinegar, which is mostly AcH, has long been used to preserve foods, like
First the comment, Hi, you mentioned that pH range for growth is 2-10. The growth of my Candida strain stops at about pH 4 - 5. I am not sure why this is the case, the media has a high content of glucose, though. Any suggestions? Does optimal pH for growth depend on the media? What is the best media for growth? Thanks so much for your help! posted by anonymous
What I think we are dealing with here is a "weak acid" versus "strong acid" issue. This came up in your basic chemistry classes, but if you are like me, you probably forgot about it as soon as the test came and went. So I apologize if this brings back painful memories, it actually turns out to be important.
Most organisms, including us live at or near pH 7. However, many organisms can survive and even grow at acidic pH, let's say pH < 6 and others like C. albicans can grow at pH 2! Now I can grow C. albicans at pH 2, but our commenter has trouble growing it at pH 4. This is only a difference in 2 pH units, but this is in fact a 100-fold difference. That's analogous to deciding between buying a $1000 used 1994 Ford Escort or a $100,000 BMW 7 series.
So, why would we be seeing a growth difference? I can think of 3 explanations: 1. Our strains are different, 2. Our growth media are different, 3. There's a technical issue that is the cause of this difference. I suspect that the difference is due to this 3rd issue. Now let's assume we are using the same strain and the same medium. We first need to adjust the pH of our medium and this is done by adding either acid or base depending on the starting and desired pH of the medium. Not surprisingly, since we are making media at pH 2 and pH 4, we will be adding acid. Ok, which acid? does it matter? and if so, why?
We routinely use hydrochloric acid (HCl) to make growth medium more acidic. However, another common acid used is acetic acid (CH3COOH, from here on out AcH). The differences are numerous, but 1M acetic acid has a pH of 2.4, whereas 1M HCl has a pH of 0. So both can be used to get growth medium to pH 4, but only HCl can be used to get to pH 2. These two chemicals also differ in their pKa (acid dissociation constant): AcH is 4.8 and HCl is -8.0 (remember that p in pKa is the mathematical symbol for -log, so the differences in the pKa's of AcH and HCl is ~10,000,000,000,000 (yep, that's 10 trillion!)). Now for those of you who do not want the gory chemical details pKa tells you how much acid is dissociated in an aqueous solution, like inside a cell or in a growth medium (see it will come back around). A pKa < -2 means that virtually all the acid is dissociated whereas higher pKas means that some of the acid is not disassociated and the higher the number the less that is dissociated. What does that mean? Well in general acids are acids because they yield H+ (pH is the measure of H+ in solution and acidic solutions have more H+s than basic solutions). So something like HCl in an aqueous solution does not exist as HCl but as dissociated H+ and Cl-. However, AcH in an aqueous solution exists as a mix of AcH, Ac-, and H+. HCl dissociates so readily that its pKa has only been determined theoretically! So regardless of pH, HCl is found as H+ and Cl-. However, depending on the pH, AcH can either be more or less dissociated. At acidic pHs, where there is an excess of H+ already, any AcH that dissociates to Ac- immediately finds another H+ to interact with reforming AcH. Conversely, at neutral or alkaline pHs, there are fewer H+s so when AcH dissociates to Ac- and H+, it stays that way. This then makes the solution more acidic. Ok, thats what you need to know: under the conditions we are working with HCl is always dissociated and AcH is a mixture, which depends on the pH.
One more thing you need to know. The plasma membrane of the cell does not allow charged molecules to cross into or out of the cell. A charged molecule is something with a + or -, like H+, Ac-, or Cl-. So, the plasma membrane keeps charged molecules in the environment out of the cell. However, small uncharged molecules, like AcH, can readily cross the membrane and get into the cell. See where this is going?
So lets go back to our standard growth medium, which we will assume has a neutral pH. If we add some AcH or HCl, the acid immediately dissociates to H+ and Ac- or Cl-, this lowers the pH a little, and if our organism can grow at that pH everything is cool. Let's add even more AcH or HCl to our growth medium to get the pH to 4. All the HCl is dissociated to H+ and Cl-, but these molecules cannot enter the cell, so as long as an organism is viable at pH 4, it should grow (as C. albicans does). However, not all of the AcH is dissociated to Ac- and H+. The remaining undissociated AcH, which is not charged, can cross the plasma membrane to enter the cell. The cytoplasm of the cell has a pH of ~7, so now the AcH dissociates to Ac- and H+! This acidifies the cytoplasm and kills the cell. Since dead C. albicans don't grow so well, no growth occurs. But realize that this is not due to an inability to grow at pH 4 in general (C. albicans grows in pH 4, and pH 2, medium using HCl), but an effect of weak acid stress.
I would highlight that this is not a trivial issue in microbiological labs. This is a common and historically important method of food preservation. Vinegar, which is mostly AcH, has long been used to preserve foods, like
What I Read (2008)
In reverse order
(Grade A-F, no E's) Title-Author Additional thoughts
B Inside Straight by George R.R. Martin Superhero reality show, go figure
C Spook Country by William Gibson I admit it, I didnt quite get it.
B Genesis of Shannara: The Gypsy Morph by Terry Brooks
A Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B. Carroll
C What Happened at Midnight by Franklin W. Wilson
B The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
A-C Wastelands: Stories of the apocalypse edited by John J. Adams
B Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
D Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem Interesting idea, but that's it.
A Evolution The Triumph of an Idea By Carl Zimmer Read it NOW
C the Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco Will always read the author of The Name of the Rose.
B The Great Book of Amber by Robert Zelany
C The Great Airport Mystery by Franklin W. Dixon
C A Wonderful Welcome to Oz (2/3 my boy wanted some Hardy Boys)
A Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennet Well written, thought provoking
B America the Book : A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by John Stewart
A+ I Am America (and So Can You) by Stephen Colbert Scored high in hopes of getting on the show
A The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
A The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs Childhood good memories pushed this up
B Misquoting Jesus : The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman
D Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker The idea was good, but only good enough for a short story.
B Inside Straight by George R.R. Martin Superhero reality show, go figure
C Spook Country by William Gibson I admit it, I didnt quite get it.
B Genesis of Shannara: The Gypsy Morph by Terry Brooks
A Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B. Carroll
C What Happened at Midnight by Franklin W. Wilson
B The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
A-C Wastelands: Stories of the apocalypse edited by John J. Adams
B Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
D Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem Interesting idea, but that's it.
A Evolution The Triumph of an Idea By Carl Zimmer Read it NOW
C the Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco Will always read the author of The Name of the Rose.
B The Great Book of Amber by Robert Zelany
C The Great Airport Mystery by Franklin W. Dixon
C A Wonderful Welcome to Oz (2/3 my boy wanted some Hardy Boys)
A Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennet Well written, thought provoking
B America the Book : A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by John Stewart
A+ I Am America (and So Can You) by Stephen Colbert Scored high in hopes of getting on the show
A The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
A The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs Childhood good memories pushed this up
B Misquoting Jesus : The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman
D Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker The idea was good, but only good enough for a short story.
Science , Policy, and the Economy
The Dec 5th issue of Science has an interesting editorial from Dr. Bruce Alberts, the current Editor-in-Chief. The editorial titled "A Scientific Approach to Policy" explores how science and engineering can lead to a stronger economy in the face of the world-wide financial meltdown. This is not new news, but it has been largely ignored over the last two decades. Since World War II, most of the US economic growth has come from technology (science and engineering). Think about that for a moment, over the last 60 years the US economy has grown through the activities of science and engineering, yet a vocal fraction of the US population is anti-science anti-intellectual anti-elitist anti-education. Not a big deal you say, well I rebut that one activist in this anti-science was almost a heartbeat away from the presidency.The point of Dr. Alberts' editorial was not to belabor this link but to point out the other often overlooked benefits to a society strongly couched in scientific thinking. He points out 3 benefits: optimism, a long-term focus, and determining what works without ideology.
I completely agree with "optimism." As cranky as I and my colleagues often are, we basically believe that our scientific pursuits will bear fruit, that our educational efforts will provide for the next generation, and that it's all worth it.
I mostly agree with a "long-term focus" as well. If you smoke today, you will likely get cancer/emphysema/etc in 30 years, that's science for you. If we say that smoking causes cancer or think about it, it will cost jobs and hurt the economy next quarter, that's politics for you. As a people, we have shifted the balance towards short-term gains and from long-term realities (I say this as fuel efficient car sales have dropped concomitant with gas prices). Why do I not completely agree with this? Well scientists are people too and can succumb to this as well, although I will concur that a scientific mind-set makes this less likely and more easily combatted with evidence.
I am completely mixed on the "determining what works without ideology" idea. In a perfect world that is true, but again scientists are people too. Some scientists are religious, how does this effect their research when dealing with embryonic stem cell research or the morning after pill? All the scientists that I know are moral and would not engage in Tuskegee-like research and that is an ideology (moral approach to human studies) I want to keep despite what might work. See this one can cut both ways. However, Dr. Alberts was addressing the policy issues of the Bush administration, such as abstinence-only sex education (to name one), which were promoted despite evidence that they were failed policies. In these cases the political ideology overrode reality, and I don't care who you are, that's a problem.
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