Your life on Earth

I found this cool feature on the BBC today. Plug in your date of birth and height and you'll get a ton of interesting facts from how much a redwood has grown to how far you've travelled through the Galaxy during your life. There's also some interesting/scary statistics regarding population (which ticks up as you read) and use of resources that really made me think - as well as selfishly worry that it's something that could easily be an issue in my lifetime.
Anyway, I won't spoil it all and let you discover the nuggets of information for yourself.

Personality test for Biologists!

Cell Signalling Technology recently came up with a crafty form of targeted social media advertising in the form of "what kind of protein are you?" If my workplace is anything to go by it has prove quite successful.

I got "Chaperone" - "You are a nurturer, your calm and efficient manner brings organization to an otherwise chaotic situation. People look to you for help with projects and advice."

I think many would differ on that description!

I noticed there weren't that many outcomes so I think the following could be included.

p53 - it's all about you, you're the centre of the universe and love all the attention people give you although deep down you know you don't quite live up to it.

Protease - You have a profound effect on everyone you meet - for better or worse. You can release people's true potential or destroy them.

Prion - you hang around in the background feeling like no-one notices you. You'll get the last laugh though as you slowly work you way up to the top, causing others to bend to your will.

Haemoglobin - you are the life of the party, a breath of fresh air. A good motivator of others and able to take a lot of crap off people.

I'm sure there are others feel free to suggest some!

BBC Horizon - Is your brain male or female?

It's one of the classic nature vs nurture questions -  are men and women different due to societal pressures or are there genetic/hormonal factors that allow differences to be observed? The documentary does a good job of presenting evidence from both sides and rather than give us an answer leaves us to judge. The fact the show can't decide whether there's such a thing as a male or female brain renders the title question a bit moot. So you'll be disappointed if you are hoping to get an answer to that. The rest of the show is very interesting though and the parts that stood out for me were;

Showing that monkeys have a gender bias to toys that is the same as in humans. Not sure monkey parents could introduce that bias (although not completely impossible).

Showing that research suggests a correlation between testosterone levels in the womb and the severity of autism. It was also interesting that autism could be seen as extreme "male" behaviour. Women are also exposed to testosterone so can still be autistic but this result also fits the observation that autism is more common in males.

That some of the observed differences in spatial awareness disappear when tested in a way that the subject doesn't see it as a spatial awareness test. This raises two important issues - the tests may have a bias towards a gender and that being told "women can't do X and men can't do Y" can be a self fulfilling prophecy.

That medical treatments may become gender specific. I suspect this one may be skipped over by personalised medicine which is already on the horizon. I guess gender specific medicine could still be a useful stepping stone though.

The one aspect of the show I didn't really enjoy was the male and female presenter format, I can see why there was the temptation to go for that angle but it felt a bit forced having them fall on different sides of the fence. Was that supposed to be a male vs female bias? I also felt one of the presenters was cherry picking the evidence eg refused to accept genetic components for things the other gender is apparently better at but apparently being ok with it when it was their own gender with an advantage. Or maybe that's my gender bias? My sample number of 2 suggests it wasn't.

Usually the answer with these polar explanations is the obvious "a bit of both" and I definitely think that's the case here. With regards to nature we'd be foolish to think the X and Y chromosomes are solely responsible for behaviour, For example if having a Y chromosome is " - 5" for having empathy, there's probably at least "+ 10" for empathy floating around on the other 22  chromosome pairs. this would explain the variety within a gender as well as the fact there are crossovers. Just as personalised medicine will supercede gender-specific medicine, so too will the genome overcome the X and Y chromosomes with regard to behaviour.
In terms of nature; I do think society needs to make a concerted effort to iron out gender stereotypes as the evidence presented in this episode shows how it can make the brain behave accordingly. Far better to convince both genders that they can be ambitious, capable in any discipline and have the full range of emotions than to put either one at a needless disadvantage.

BBC4's "the wonder of Animals"

Chris Packham is back with another science-skewed focus on natural history with his new show "the wonder of animals". Each episode focuses on a species of animal and then looks at the science of how it has become so successful.
The first episode was about Penguins and how their feathers are masters of insulation but can also be used to aid acceleration under water via the release of air bubbles. Another episode claims Foxes can sense magnetic fields for hunting and the science behind bear hibernation is truly fascinating. All of these things have me thinking "how can we use this technology for ourselves?". The muscle-wasting defence in hibernation sounds very useful for incapacitated patients and astronauts. for example.

I think there's still a few episodes left but for those with access to BBC iplayer and like their shows in 30 minute chunks, "the wonder of animals" is well worth a look. Just don't think too much about how this knowledge was obtained - the show neatly avoids that.

Here's a taster

Science Songs

Since getting back from holiday I've been having a nightmare getting a certain type of PCR to work. The most recent head scratching moment was to get a round of PCR that worked perfectly. I immediately ran the same PCR with the same reagents and settings but with the DNA samples I wanted to check. Nothing worked - not even the positive controls that had worked 3 hours earlier.
When an experiment can't be repeated with the same conditions there's only a few explanations;
a) there's something you aren't accounting for so it isn't the "same"
b) you are the variable
c) you are switching universes in between experiments
d) there are science goblins messing with your mind

All of these options reminded me of this song

The chorus is

"There are monsters here
And as you scream it makes no sense
It makes no sense
It makes no sense at all "

That pretty much sums up the last 2 weeks of work for me.

Science Meme/Quote

Straight and to-the-point and worth picturing whenever some non-sensical "science" article turns up online. Good old Carl Sagan.

Happigenetics

Here's a link to a promo for the "happigenetics" project. Can't say I have a clue what it's about but it seems curious never-the-less. There's some more info here for those who are curious though.

Besides the great name and the fact I know some of the people involved, I think it's great that scientists are trying to show off their creative sides. To a scientist it's pretty obvious we're creative or we'd never come up with new techniques, find ways around problems or save money/time on experiments. I can see how the rest of the world may think scientists are the antithesis of creativity with regards to artistic endeavours. As this clip shows, that's really not the case and creativity can be applied to various things be it science or art. I'm sure there're a lot of artists out there who could probably come up with some great experiments too.