tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35521848528398620262024-03-12T22:17:55.751-05:00Blogus scientificusBlinding you with science, approximately once a week.alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-23576143256257103082019-03-31T22:21:00.000-05:002019-04-02T02:12:57.059-05:00A Little Hot Tea Never Hurt Anyone<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR9oqkkCWUI-ArBnz7KFq4ebxBODS07mWSawVEahAVBycebkCxwPAXTVDRE4QKtAD5vfu4bZ4wodcudD84QaZ94XkNrdP7iL3sB5XEAHVvr49vVgsCuzgIqJsPGGu-cqV6n6vPanO0swMi/s1600/tea+temp+Markus+Kniebes.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1311" data-original-width="1600" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR9oqkkCWUI-ArBnz7KFq4ebxBODS07mWSawVEahAVBycebkCxwPAXTVDRE4QKtAD5vfu4bZ4wodcudD84QaZ94XkNrdP7iL3sB5XEAHVvr49vVgsCuzgIqJsPGGu-cqV6n6vPanO0swMi/s400/tea+temp+Markus+Kniebes.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Or did it? (Btw, I’m hoping to build this into a series
about the relative dangers of random shit I hear about out in the world, but
I’m a busy person, so we’ll just have to see how it goes.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The inaugural threat comes courtesy of a coffee-drinking
friend who recently expressed concern that my tea habit* could lead to an early
demise because of some new study linking hot tea and esophageal cancer. The
warning was caveated with a recommendation that I check the specifics before
making lifestyle adjustments, so I did just that and will now answer all your
burning question on the subject.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Why is it just tea
and not coffee?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijc.32220" target="_blank">study</a> only looked at tea drinkers, specifically
people living in the Golestan Province in northeast Iran. The region’s high
incidence of esophageal cancer makes it a convenient place to conduct such a
study, but coffee drinking is not really a thing in Golestan, so tea was the focus. The
authors cite previous literature supporting that consumption of overheated
drinks of all stripes can mess with your esophageal tissue. So, while the
results of this study are about tea, it’s a proxy for throat-scalding liquids
in general. (It’s just that coffee drinkers easily gloss over the words “and
other hot beverages.” Similar to how I regularly ignore the “1-2 glasses” part
of articles about the potential health benefits of wine.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Does this study tell
us anything new?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That depends on your threshold for novelty. The authors
proudly proclaim that theirs is the first such study to both “prospectively and
objectively” measure tea-drinking temperature. “Prospectively” meaning they
started with cancer-free subjects and followed them over a period of time (10
years, not too shabby) to see if cancer developed rather than asking people already
diagnosed with cancer about their past tea drinking behavior (which is the quicker
and easier but also more bias-ridden approach). “Objective” meaning that, in
addition to gathering self-reported tea temperature preferences, researchers measured subjects’ tea with a thermometer.** Ultimately the goal is to
bump the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) ranking for drinking
beverages at or above 65 C from it’s current status of “probably carcinogenic”
to the more confident “carcinogenic.”<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What is the proper
temperature to drink my morning cup of tea/coffee/hot buttered rum?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf3uLps8rGRtO-N8k7XwGOlI8DIDqkM0STXfEPsOyW0GL2fABX47glYmUtLoCVS8Vo96yu5XgGr6e0m44154vIJFUnFaWaNYU1-f3e47j_eaBth9Z0o9e2dKu0GZ4gcE1av_hTXsmQQnFs/s1600/ice+tea+TheCulinaryGeek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="681" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf3uLps8rGRtO-N8k7XwGOlI8DIDqkM0STXfEPsOyW0GL2fABX47glYmUtLoCVS8Vo96yu5XgGr6e0m44154vIJFUnFaWaNYU1-f3e47j_eaBth9Z0o9e2dKu0GZ4gcE1av_hTXsmQQnFs/s400/ice+tea+TheCulinaryGeek.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Probably safe to drink. Image: TheCulinaryGeek</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The big finding in this study was that subjects who drank
700 ml or more of tea at temps of 60 C or hotter had a 90% increase in esophageal
squamous cell carcinoma risk. (In headline language that’s “Drinking hot tea
nearly doubles your risk of esophageal cancer!”). They didn’t break down the
less-than-60 C category any further, so let’s just go with 59 C as the maximum
allowable beverage temperature for anyone who cares about not dying.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
700 ml is roughly two soda cans volume wise; and 59 C is about
138 F, which is still meaningless because who the hell knows the numeric
temperature of their drinks? Well, thanks to the cheapest digital kitchen
thermometer sold on Amazon, I now do and will share my wisdom. (Though you’ll still
have to rely on my interpretation of the hopelessly subjective qualia of tea
temperature desirability.) Below are the highly scientific results:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
88.2 C – freshly poured (Really? The
water was at a rolling boil and I don’t live at some weird altitude, but okay five-dollar
thermometer.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
75.1 C – after five minutes of
steeping, will burn your tongue if you take too big a sip</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
66.4 C – I added some creamer,
drinkable but still a tad too warm<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
58.3 C – the perfect cup of tea<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
52.7 C – still decent<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
43.7 C – a bit cold, but not “I
forgot I still had half a cup of tea left” cold</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A 2008 <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18226454" target="_blank">paper</a>, which I can only imagine was the most exciting
and widely-covered research of its day, took a more mathematical approach to determining
the optimal serving temperature for hot beverages (paper title: “Calculating
the optimum temperature for serving hot <span style="font-size: 12pt;">beverages”). The authors’ goal was not to prevent cancer but
rather to reduce ER visits for the service industry employees who assemble and
deliver our hot beverages. Over the course of seven pages of formulas and
graphs they concluded that 136 F (57.8 C) was the best bet for balancing consumer
preference with the minimizing of third-degree burns.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Should I be concerned
about all those cups of ≥60 C tea/coffee/mulled wine I already drank?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m not, and I’m pretty committed to hypochondria. The main
reason is that esophageal cancer is relatively rare in the US, accounting for only <a href="https://www.cancer.org/cancer/esophagus-cancer/about/key-statistics.html" target="_blank">1% of cancer diagnoses</a> (though I might
feel differently if I lived in Iran, northern China, India, or southern Africa,
where it’s far more common). Doubling the risk of a something is less
impressive when the baseline risk is low. Moreover, things like tobacco and
alcohol consumption seem to be bigger risk factors. So don’t beat yourself up
about your misspent youth of hot tea drinking.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moving forward, sure, allowing tea to cool slightly is an
easy enough health intervention. But if drinking too hot beverages is the worst
of your potentially disease-causing habits, I’d say you’re living a pretty
wholesome life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Are you sure it’s not
just the tea itself that causes esophageal cancer?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nothing in this world is certain. Everything and everyone
has the capacity to deceive, disappoint and betray you. But in regards to this particular study, it’s
hard to say. While they did also look at how much tea subjects consumed, most
of the heavy tea drinkers were also the people who preferred their tea piping
hot, so those variables are difficult to untangle. And due to a combination of
my own laziness and the authors’ assurance that their study is methodologically
superior to its predecessors, I’m opting not to dig too far into the archives
on this one. There is mention of animal studies suggesting that certain compounds
in hot beverages could be a contributing issue rather than just the temperature. So maybe
plain hot water is the safest (and most affordable!) option. You’re welcome to
give it a shot, but I’m going to stick with tea.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">* I accidentally quit
drinking coffee a few years back and now start my days with English Breakfast
tea like some kind of commie weirdo pervert.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">** The method was to
make two cups of tea, one for the subject to sip and comment on and the other
to be used simultaneously to take temperature readings. Science!</i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i><br />
<o:p><br /></o:p>
<o:p>Title Image: </o:p>Markus Kniebes<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<br />alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-82897416982975576292012-06-08T13:44:00.000-05:002012-06-08T13:44:34.922-05:00We're moving! (Important links below)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4hul7UZ1qkWrGfc-4yjPPTlAPlhdhO_F4uy1_dn1jy8rmLBrTYw_a7c9o16eAXeDTzBaY-wLRHg4MtCDj8lGpUvlLI-d38v_6X8OreQPQhxoDfy_Wnx5DY6EtULm2MSOtqqfJ4G-LYmw_/s1600/moving_mava.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4hul7UZ1qkWrGfc-4yjPPTlAPlhdhO_F4uy1_dn1jy8rmLBrTYw_a7c9o16eAXeDTzBaY-wLRHg4MtCDj8lGpUvlLI-d38v_6X8OreQPQhxoDfy_Wnx5DY6EtULm2MSOtqqfJ4G-LYmw_/s400/moving_mava.jpeg" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These are not my kitties, but aren't they cute? Image: mava</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Big news! As of June 2012, <i>Blogus scientificus</i> has taken up residence at <a href="http://earthsky.org/" target="_blank">EarthSky</a>, already home to my "Lifeform of the Week" posts (formerly "Species of the Month" here at <i>B. scientificus</i>). Same great product, but now with 50% fewer typos (disclaimer: estimate not based on actual data).<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://earthsky.org/human-world/a-brief-history-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup" target="_blank">debut post</a> is already up, and you can see all my EarthSky posts whenever you like simply by clicking this <a href="http://earthsky.org/team/alexreshanov" target="_blank">LINK</a>. Isn't modern living easy? And, as if that weren't amazing enough, you can also <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/alexreshanov" target="_blank">follow me on Twitter</a> (allow a few days for me to figure out what exactly one does on Twitter.)<br />
<br />
Earlier posts will remain at this location, and you can always browse the archive if you're feeling lonely or bored. In case you're especially resistant to change, I've preemptively placated you with the above cat photo. Aww.alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-33568537521671250602012-05-24T12:58:00.000-05:002012-05-24T12:58:16.038-05:00Mycotoxicology smackdown: Death Cap Mushrooms vs. Milk Thistle<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Images: Archenzo (L), and demott9 (R)</td></tr>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the fall of 2011 four cases of death cap mushroom poisoning
were successfully treated at Georgetown University Hospital (GUH) using a
controversial remedy – an intravenously delivered chemical extracted from the
milk thistle plant. Manufactured by the German pharmaceutical company Madaus (and
sold under the somewhat ironic name Legalon), the drug has been available in
Europe since the mid 1980s, but lacks FDA approval in the United States. Why
are U.S. citizens being denied this wunder drug? Are we simply at the mercy of
mushrooms? Can nothing be done?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As the Georgetown story unfolds, a few particularly striking
points jump out. For one thing…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Poison control centers are very, very important.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the first of the fungus-addled patients turned up at
GUH – having eaten what he assumed were edible mushrooms picked from his yard –
physicians quickly diagnosed him with amanitin poisoning. Amanitin, the
principal toxin in the feared death cap mushroom, can be lethal. The ordeal
begins with your standard food poisoning gastrointestinal woes, but can progress
to organ failure, specifically in the liver and kidneys. In severe cases, organ
transplants are required to save a patient’s life. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Having identified the problem, the medical team’s next move
was <i>to phone poison control</i>. That’s right, the same people you would call if you found your child taking swigs from a bottle of laundry detergent. Poison
control put the doctors in touch with Santa Cruz physician Dr. Todd Mitchell, who
was conducting clinical trials of IV milk thistle (also called silibinin). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So if you’ve ever dismissed concerns about <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/22/poison.control.risk.closure/index.html" target="_blank">government funding cuts to poison control centers</a> with a glib, “Ppfff, we don’t need those things, we’ve got emergency rooms” then
you might want to rethink your stance. Poison control doesn’t just handle calls
from panicked civilians, they also advise health care professionals tasked with treating panicked civilians.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But let’s get back to the story. Contacting Dr. Mitchell was
far from the last step in the GUH patient’s road to recovery, because as it
turns out…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Using non-approved
drugs in the U.S. is NOT easy<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The FDA allows experimental drugs to be tested if there is
an established protocol and review board approval, such as in Dr. Mitchell’s
clinical trial. This doesn’t mean that every other hospital out there can also start
doling out these drugs. Luckily, the FDA does permit emergency one-time use of
an Investigational New Drug (IND), which allowed the Georgetown team to procure
and administer silibinin to their patient.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mitchell himself went through the emergency IND process
twice, first in 2007 and then again in 2009, to treat several mycotoxin-sickened
patients (the first case was an entire family of six), before finally managing
to set up his clinical trial, sponsored by Madaus. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It having been an unusually rainy season in the DC area, the
Georgetown doctors got to work immediately writing up their protocol for any
potential future poisonings. Still, an emergency meeting of the approval
committee had to be called when a second patient materialized before everything
was in place, soon to be followed by patients three and four. In the end, all
four received the coveted silibinin and recovered without major complications
(or liver transplants) and GUH is now an approved referral center for the drug.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So why isn’t every hospital in the country running silibinin
trials? What are we waiting for? Well, mushroom poisoning isn’t especially
common in U.S. While Europeans have a long tradition of strolling through the
woods patrolling for tasty fungi, most Americans are content to buy their
mushrooms at the store. According to the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v15/n3/full/nm0309-225a.html" target="_blank">Nature Medicine</a>,
only about 50 cases of amanitin poisoning crop up in the U.S. annually, which
isn’t enough to motivate hospitals to plan ahead on the off chance that one
these unfortunate victims walks into their ER. But while we’re on the subject
of clinical trials…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Does anyone know if
this stuff actually works?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With all the hustling for silibinin going on, there must be
some pretty strong evidence of its efficacy against amanitin poisoning, right?
Well… not entirely. The anecdotal tales are certainly impressive. Patients on
the brink of liver failure have reportedly perked up soon after the IV
treatment began. But in the world of science, anecdotes aren’t worth much (unless
they’re anecdotes about the insane lives of famous scientists, which, of course,
are pure gold). The small number of people turning up with these maladies
limits the scope of any trial, and denying available treatment to a control
group is, well, kinda unethical. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Additionally, even in the absence of IV milk thistle,
patients do receive some treatment for death cap poisoning – including intense
hydration, penicillin, and activated charcoal (don’t worry, silibinin patients can
get these too, it’s not an either/or deal.) and many of them survive. It’s thus
difficult to determine what portion of any success story can be attributed solely
to milk thistle. Silibinin supposedly works by blocking absorption of the poison
by liver cells. It has also been tested against non-mushroom-related liver issues,
but the data thus far are <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/silymarin/NS_patient-milkthistle/DSECTION=evidence" target="_blank">underwhelming</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps Mitchell’s trial will shed some light (it’s
scheduled to wrap in late 2012), but in the meantime we can at least acknowledge
that milk thistle doesn’t seem to be making anyone sicker (which is more than can
be said for penicillin, which gives me hives and triggers anaphylactic shock in
certain unluckier individuals.) And finally...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Are mushrooms a
recipe for disaster?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Given that wild mushrooms are so potentially lethal, it
seems reasonable to suggest that we leave their harvesting to the pros. But
what fun would that be? My mother (who grew up in Russia, so it may be
inaccurate to call her an amateur) has been picking and cooking mushrooms for
decades with no reported fatalities. I’ve had them, and they’re thoroughly delicious.
(Though I did spend a wee bit more time contemplating my mortality during that
meal than I normally I do.) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roughly 100 species of poisonous mushrooms reside in the
U.S. (out of a total of 5,000 species), so if you’re going to try your hand at
the art of mushroom hunting, please do some research first. And also note that taste and smell are not indicators of whether you’ve picked
an edible mushroom or a toxic toadstool. In fact, the death cap is said to be rather
tasty. As aptly summarized in this Croatian proverb, “All mushrooms are edible;
but some only once.”</div>
<!--EndFragment-->alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-90152376811105209222012-05-18T12:23:00.000-05:002012-05-18T13:15:17.011-05:00Sore muscles? Don’t blame lactic acid.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKUXZaV_f2Gnu8ZhyMHWhr0vDlozbvMnHV62JWqbh1Ni0GG8Q8S4RWN3PhYuewSW59hHBTxNctIt6EcBBSalo-ZkxglAbwVLABpUgNT06yn11e9CSNvw7-VNT6SCaICuEUa1jXOa5i3WbC/s1600/muscle_mrflip.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKUXZaV_f2Gnu8ZhyMHWhr0vDlozbvMnHV62JWqbh1Ni0GG8Q8S4RWN3PhYuewSW59hHBTxNctIt6EcBBSalo-ZkxglAbwVLABpUgNT06yn11e9CSNvw7-VNT6SCaICuEUa1jXOa5i3WbC/s400/muscle_mrflip.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Image Credit: mrflip</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">With Tim Burton’s film adaptation of Dark Shadows* currently
in theaters, it seems fitting to begin this post with a classic trope from
vampire comedy, “I just flew in from Transylvania…and boy are my arms tired!”
Get it? Arms? Oh, never mind. For me it’s presently more the legs anyway. And
it’s<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3552184852839862026" name="_GoBack"></a> not so much fatigue as an excruciating soreness and
stiffness of the muscles. An unsolicited preview of old age. Superficially, my
suffering was created by an activity called “yard work”, which I discovered
only recently and which resulted in several hours crawling around on the ground
obsessively uprooting every weed in the vicinity, all in a configuration to
which my limbs were apparently unaccustomed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But what is the actual physiological cause of such aches? If
you’d asked me this question a week ago, I would have answered that lactic acid
was the culprit, thus making myself look like an imbecile. In case you’re
laboring under similar misconceptions, let’s remedy this before any of us has
the opportunity to embarrass ourselves in public.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Somewhere along the line many of us learned that lactic acid
builds up in the muscles during strenuous exercise and that this causes muscle aches.
The basic idea is that lactate (the predecessor of lactic acid) is a byproduct
of anaerobic respiration, which is the kind of cellular metabolism that occurs
when you’re pushing yourself hard enough to run out of oxygen (on a cellular
level, that is, if you’re actually hyperventilating that’s a separate issue). But while lactic acid may be to blame for immediate pain, the proverbial “burn”
felt during an extreme workout, it’s long gone from your system by the time the
real muscle soreness sets in. This second wave pain typically shows up the next
day, reaching the apex of ouch somewhere between 24 and 72 hours after you
overdid it at the gym.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The phenomenon is well documented enough to be christened
with the badass acronym DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness), and it doles out
pain as efficiently as its leather-clad namesakes. Science is still working to
get a handle on what exactly is transpiring on a molecular level, but the most
popular explanation is that DOMS is caused by damage to muscle cells. Sort of
like when you sprain your ankle, except instead of one big injury you’re
incurring a slew of teeny tiny injuries. As with any other injury, this
triggers an inflammatory response, in which your body sends various repair-performing
metabolites to the site of the problem, creating a sea of swelling, stiffness
and soreness in the process.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">DOMS occurs when a person is using their muscles in a way
that somehow deviates from the normal routine, either by engaging muscles that typically
don’t see much action (as with painting a ceiling or moving a lot of unwieldy
boxes) or by ramping up the intensity of one’s existing exercise regimen (i.e.,
being a competitive jackass in the weight room). But you probably already
noticed this trend from personal experience. What you may not be aware of is
that some types of muscle movements are more likely to cause DOMS than others.
So-called “eccentric” muscle contractions make for the most aches. Eccentric
contractions are those in which an elongated muscle braces against an opposing
force. This is the converse of concentric contractions, in which shortening of
muscles does the work. Imagine that the arm protruding from that building in the
photograph suddenly came to life. If it continued curling that weight toward
the roof, its biceps muscle would shorten (concentric contraction), but if it
lowered the weight toward the sidewalk (in a controlled way, without dropping
it on pedestrians), its biceps would elongate (eccentric contraction).<sup>†</sup>
Running downhill is a form of exercise notably rife with eccentric
contractions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The amount of lactic acid produced during the activity does
not predict the severity of DOMS, so just because you aren’t in pain while in
the midst of novel physical exertion, don’t assume that you won’t feel crappy
the next day. The best way to avoid the late-blooming agony of DOMS is to make only
incremental increases in muscle usage, allowing your body to acclimate to new
demands before pushing onward. (Pretty useless advice if your main sources of
soreness are all-or-nothing activity binges that you’re unlikely to repeat…
weeding a lawn, for instance.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In any event, lactic acid is the least of your problems. In
fact, the human body can even use it as an energy source, at least according to
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/health/nutrition/16run.html" target="_blank">this New York Times article</a>,
which explains how certain methods of exercise condition the body to use lactic
acid more efficiently. Apparently, if you train like a professional athlete,
you can grow massive mitochondria that suck up lactic acid like it's Gatorade,
while other folks’ cells are just sitting there gasping for breath. You’ll be
the envy of the marathon. Though you might still want to avoid running
downhill.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">* I haven’t seen it. I probably won’t see it. And I don’t
need to know any additional details. Just let me have my fantasy that Tim
Burton actually managed to successfully adapt one of my favorite TV shows.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><sup>†</sup> A note on muscle motion: muscles only actively shorten,
the lengthening is passive. When the biceps elongates, it’s due to the shortening
of a complementary muscle (the triceps). So you always have both shortening and
elongation happening simultaneously. But the important factor is which of the
muscles is under tension. This may be one case where feeling beats thinking in
terms of comprehension. Grab something heavy, then raise and lower it a few
times and note which muscles feel most engaged. See what I mean?</span></i></div>
<br />
<br />alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-88951057699725375982012-05-05T14:36:00.000-05:002012-05-05T14:36:17.611-05:00There's more than one way to make a blond<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCHeqClLLXPuxzASIflFeA4H8lDdZEH_gLR1syX6Bhqx93KY2yrnVWuNEUshaSvrLz1xw3zKt1es0nNe0fvXox4foMK6Cu_ZcC_XhhR_UQZ44ENDvjAFH_sbRW8znGewmbwYV_OG-KcG0m/s1600/deanwissing2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCHeqClLLXPuxzASIflFeA4H8lDdZEH_gLR1syX6Bhqx93KY2yrnVWuNEUshaSvrLz1xw3zKt1es0nNe0fvXox4foMK6Cu_ZcC_XhhR_UQZ44ENDvjAFH_sbRW8znGewmbwYV_OG-KcG0m/s400/deanwissing2.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: deanwissing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Typically, if you want a look that combines dark skin with
light hair there are two options. Depending on your starting point, you can
either brighten your hair with chemicals like Beyoncé, or darken your skin with
UV radiation à la <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/01/patricia-krentcil-arrested-daughter-tanning-booth_n_1469392.html?ref=crime" target="_blank">New Jersey’s “tanning mom”</a>.
Yet on the South Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands, 5-10% of the population
is just born that way. And now, a group of researchers believe they have traced
the genetic cause of this unexpected blondness. And, well, big deal, because
we’ve known for ages that hair color was genetically determined. Eye color too.
It’s in our biology textbooks even. Nice going, science. But wait, it’s actually
more interesting than you might think. It turns out that the Solomon Island
blond results from a different, and simpler, genetic variation than the more
familiar European brand of blond. This means that fair hair evolved separately
at least two times in human history.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Prior to this recent study, which appeared in the latest
issue of <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6081/554" target="_blank">Science</a>, the golden-haired
inhabitants of the Pacific Islands had been the cause of much speculation.
Perhaps their blondness resulted from some environment factor, such as diet or
sun exposure. Or maybe fair hair was simply imported to the region by European
visitors. To solve the mystery, scientists from several universities (including
Stanford, located in blond-friendly California) scrutinized DNA samples from 43
blond and 42 dark haired Solomon Islanders. They found that the blonds did
indeed have something different in their genes – a single nucleotide missense*
mutation on an allele associated with pigmentation. Basically, there was a T
(Thymine) where normally there would be C (Cytosine). Further genotyping of 918
Solomon Islanders and 941 individuals from elsewhere around the globe revealed
that about 26% of the Solomon Islands population carried such an altered
allele, but that it was essentially absent outside of the South Pacific,
including European nations.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The findings suggest that South Pacific blondness is
produced by a discrete recessive gene. It’s classic Mendelian genetics: individual
carrying two mutated recessive alleles (TT) will be blond, whereas those with
two standard issue alleles (CC) or a mixed set (CT) will be dark haired.
European hair pigmentation, on the other hand, is determined by a bunch of
different genes, yielding a variety of shades like platinum blond, golden blond
and dirty blond. (Or “iced champagne”, “golden sunset” and the like, if you’re
browsing the hair dye aisle.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Globally, blond hair in adults is rare, and it tends to pair
with fair skin. The Solomon Islands study indicates that human evolution has
generated this hair pigmentation at least twice now, and seemingly under rather
different environmental conditions. Whether the flaxen-haired phenotype confers
any benefits on South Pacific individuals is unknown. It seems that light hair
might help keep one’s head cool in hot, sunny regions. But then you also have
to hear dumb blond jokes all day. Probably it just about evens out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>* DNA single
nucleotide mutations (aka point mutations) come in a few flavors. Missense
mutations result in a different amino acid being produced (think accidentally
typing “tap” when you meant “cap”, it’s still a word), whereas nonsense
mutations produce gibberish that shuts down the amino acid making process (more
like “ctp” instead of “cap”, spell check does not approve). There’s also
something called a silent mutation, which just results in the originally
scheduled amino acid, but you don’t need to worry about those for today.</i></div>
<!--EndFragment-->alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-28161809639335513692012-04-22T14:49:00.000-05:002012-04-22T14:49:29.387-05:00List-server: 5 reasons to go vegan for a year<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Yep, I’m doing lists
now. Why? Because it has come to my attention that humans find lists
irresistible. Actually, I noticed this phenomenon some time ago whilst
compulsively purchasing yet another periodical offering “The 20 Best British
Singles from 1974 with the word ‘blue’ in the chorus” (or something similarly
useful.) But it only recently occurred to me to incorporate the format into
this blog. Lists are fun, and they help us remember which items we need to
purchase at Home Depot. Trust me, you don’t want to have to go back there a
second time. So are you ready to discuss veganism with the aid of numeric
headers? Let’s do it then…</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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This past week’s New York Times Science section kicked off
with a <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/the-challenge-of-going-vegan/" target="_blank">front-page article</a> about the hardships of espousing a vegan diet. With the best intentions I’m
sure, the author sympathetically cataloged the “social, physical and economic
challenges” of veganism, exaggerating the difficulties while underemphasizing
the many benefits. Having myself spent a couple years living la vida vegan, I
can tell you that it’s not so damn hard. (And my stint sans animal products
occurred in the 1990’s, when products like coconut milk creamer had yet to be
invented. Nowadays, it should be an Almond Breeze by comparison.) While no
longer a vegan for reasons we’ll get to a bit later, I consider myself better
off for having tried it. Here are a few of the potential perks awaiting those
willing to temporarily part ways with cheese and eggs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>1) You’ll learn
what’s in your food<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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While meat is relatively easy to spot, other animal
products, like butter and eggs, can sneak into food unnoticed. Thus, being a
vegan means mastering the art of reading food labels. Ingredients lists,
particularly on processed foods, often read like chemistry lab manuals, so
their comprehension necessitates doing some research. You’ll ask important questions
like, “What the hell is casein?” (It’s a milk-derived protein used to make cheese,
including many soy cheeses. Not vegan.) And, “What the hell is xanthan gum?”
(It’s a polysaccharide used as a thickening agent. Vegan) Eventually, you may
even ask, “Why is there so much weird, unpronounceable crap in my food?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Along the way you’ll discover other interesting details. A
simple can of beans or jar of peanut butter can contain added sugar. Something
as seemingly benign as hummus can harbor flavor enhancers. Who knew? Reading
labels cultivates a healthy sense of outrage about the volume of superfluous
nonsense added to the things we eat daily. Ultimately, this might make you opt
for <a href="http://www.cspinet.org/nah/10foods_bad.html" target="_blank">less synthetic purchases</a>, leaving more room on your plate for real food.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>2) You’ll cook more
often, and more interesting dishes<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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When I began college I was a lousy cook. The most complex
meals I prepared involved boiling a box of pasta or rice and tearing open the
accompanying “seasoning packet.” On less ambitious days, I’d open a can of
soup, throw some grated cheese on it, and heat and serve. But once cheese was
off limits, canned soup tasted pretty bland and I was forced to learn to cook
for real.<o:p></o:p></div>
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With many restaurants offering lackluster vegan options and
processed foods often containing animal ingredients (“ugh, whey powder, I can’t
use this”), the logical reaction is to cook more from scratch, using easy to
manage items like vegetables, grains, beans and maybe even tofu once you pass
the beginner stage. In doing so, one quickly discovers that beans and tofu
don’t have a ton of flavor on their own. Thus the next step in vegan cooking is
learning how to use spices. As a vegan, I acquired cumin and coriander and
their ilk. I learned to make curries and peanut sauces. (Which, btw, are
excellent options even for those who re-incorporate animal products into their
diet.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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A lot of people approach veganism by trying to replicate
their favorite animal-based foods. But the best vegan foods are alternatives
rather than mere substitutes. They’re things that were vegan all along. Pseudo
meat-textured veggie burgers don’t taste like beef and vegan cheese doesn’t
melt. But falafel and tahini dressing are delicious and surprisingly easy to
make.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>3) You’ll save money<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The Science Times piece makes several mentions of the
financial strains imposed by a vegan diet. For instance, “…vegan specialty and
convenience foods can cost two to three times what their meat and dairy
equivalents do.” But “convenience foods”
are processed or pre-fab foods, which shouldn’t be the bulk of anyone’s diet.
Fresh produce is expensive only when compared to fast food burritos and Walmart
frozen pizza. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If you look at the raw ingredients used to make vegan and
non-vegan meals, the opposite pattern emerges. At my local grocery store, a 1
lb bag of a 100% vegan carrots sells for about a buck (give or take depending
on whether or not you opt for the organic ones). Meat and cheese, on the other
hand, can be pricey. And even the lower quality versions of animal products are
still more expensive than dried beans. I mean, check out this <a href="http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Red-Lentil-Dal-101019" target="_blank">recipe for dahl</a>. Main ingredient: lentils. It doesn’t get much cheaper than that.* Here’s
another one for <a href="http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/middle_eastern_chickpea_rice_stew.html" target="_blank">middle eastern chick pea stew</a> (pro tip: throw in some green vegetables and raisins for extra awesomeness.) You’re
welcome. Those hard-to-find “vegan specialties foods” are hardly essentially to
good vegan cooking. † But if you’re longing for the novelty of seitan (it is
great for stir-fries) but you live in the sticks, you can always <a href="http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/FAST-EASY-HOMEMADE-SEITAN-1220052" target="_blank">make it yourself</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If a switching to a vegan diet is driving you into debt,
it’s probably an indication that there’s too much junk food in your life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>4) You’ll be thinner
and healthier<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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In case you haven’t heard, America (along with much of the
developed world) has a colossal weight problem, and with it a slew of obesity-related
ailments. Also old news are the many studies finding correlations between plant
based diets and lower body mass index (BMI), as well as lower LDL cholesterol levels
(that’s the bad kind), lower risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and lower
overall cancer rates. If you don’t believe me, have a look at this American Dietetic Association (ADA) <a href="http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/2009_ADA_position_paper.pdf" target="_blank">paper about vegan and vegetarian diets</a>. In
addition to pointing out the above-mentioned benefits, they conclude that such
diets, when properly planned, “are appropriate for individuals during all
stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood,
and adolescence, and for athletes.” Yes, you read that correctly, even pregnant
women and athletes can be vegans without keeling over from anemia.<o:p></o:p></div>
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However, it’s important to note that the ADA also claims
that there is no sufficiently bioavailable plant source of vitamin B-12. So
total vegans need to obtain this nutrient through a supplement or in B-12
fortified foods (fortified cereals, for instance). There seems to be a bit of debate
over this, with some folks still insisting that dark green vegetables, or at
least seaweed can provide enough B-12. Personally, I would (and did) play it
safe by taking a B supplement. ‡<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>5) You’ll change the
way you think about food<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Despite nixing the strict vegan diet ages ago, I still eat mostly
plant-based foods. Having animal products off limits for a spell taught me to
view them more as garnishes than necessities. Remember, meat and cheese and the
like aren’t just rough on your body, they also require more resources to farm
than do plants. Given the environmental impact of animal products, using them
in moderation is advisable. This <a href="http://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/eat-smart/" target="_blank">handy graphic</a> from Environmental Working Group (EWG), which visualizes the
carbon footprint of various protein sources by comparing them to miles driven
in a car, may help put things in perspective. Note that cheese is even higher
up on the shit list than pork or chicken.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So if being a vegan is freaking fabulous, why did I ever
stop? Mostly, it was the “social” component of the Times’ triad of terrors.
It’s enough of a pain telling friends who invite you to dinner that you don’t eat
meat. Explaining that you also don’t eat eggs, butter, milk, cheese, sour
cream, yogurt, and pretty much everything else they were planning to serve can
easily disqualify you from future invites. It’s not ideal for travel either.
While I somehow successfully navigated both the Scottish Highlands and parts of
Eastern Europe as a vegan, it was rough going at times. Basically, humanity
eats a boat load of animal products, so unless you have a strong moral objection to their consumption, the “When in Rome” approach gives you a lot more
flexibility. Plus the occasional dash of feta cheese or fresh mozzarella is a fine, if non-essential, addition to the menu. Though I do sometimes wish I
still had an easy excuse to avoid queso. §<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps you’ve already five for five on the above qualities.
Not everyone needs a major dietary upheaval to learn to cook decent meals. I
always suspected that my readership was composed of an elite group of
health and environment conscious individuals with well-stocked spice racks. But
do realize that you’re in the minority, and consider suggesting an animal
product sabbatical for any of your less fortunate friends, relatives and
coworkers.</div>
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<i>* Some people will argue that all these spices are
expensive. But you don’t have to buy them every time you cook. Once you
assemble a starter set of seasonings, you’re good for a while. Also, if you do
live somewhere with a health food store or a well-stocked supermarket, check to
see if they sell spices in the bulk food section. Bulk spices are insanely
cheap.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>† One poor soul quoted in the Times, a resident in the tiny
town of Phoenix, Arizona (population 1.5 million), complained of having to
drive 20 miles to obtain such delicacies.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>‡ You, wise reader, are probably asking, “Wait, if there’s
no plant source of B-12, then where the hell do these vitamin pills come from?”
That occurred to me too. (Great minds think alike.) It turns out B-12 is made
through bacterial fermentation.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>§ For those unfamiliar with this item, queso – short for
chile con queso – is a Tex-Mex chip-dipping favorite consisting of melted
cheese and chile peppers. If you happen to express an aversion to the stuff,
someone will immediately argue that you just haven’t tried the “good queso” and
attempt to introduce you to this superior product at the next opportunity. From
what I’ve experienced, there is no good queso. It’s just a bad idea. Order the
salsa instead.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-29437673046996506802012-04-13T14:33:00.000-05:002012-04-13T14:33:09.911-05:00Climbing the ranks: social status changes gene expression in monkeys<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>669</o:Words> <o:Characters>3815</o:Characters> <o:Company>Department of Germanic Studies</o:Company> <o:Lines>31</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>7</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>4685</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe6YmO70nZOqOi6m1UYUp5rBzj9IL3juJJuEVoy-5PGzUVkmDlAlP7AnvzeO_zG23bt5scUM2kEM3ATf1r2Kez97iI0LbN5X7hIkhut476Euhnw1tifiY5xj_Oj-x3u6sKwf8fNeoBhCgF/s1600/chadmagiera.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe6YmO70nZOqOi6m1UYUp5rBzj9IL3juJJuEVoy-5PGzUVkmDlAlP7AnvzeO_zG23bt5scUM2kEM3ATf1r2Kez97iI0LbN5X7hIkhut476Euhnw1tifiY5xj_Oj-x3u6sKwf8fNeoBhCgF/s400/chadmagiera.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red carpet by chadmagiera.</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Having low social status may suck for reasons beyond not getting invited to the swankiest parties; it could also be making you ill. A correlation between socioeconomic status and health in humans is well established. Most famously, the Whitehall studies of British civil servants found that workers in low status positions had worse health and earlier deaths than their higher-ranking managers.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But the reasons behind this relationship are not clear. Are low status individuals sicklier because their jobs expose them to grueling physical labor and dangerous chemicals? Do low wages make preventative medical care and good nutrition harder to obtain? Does the demoralizing experience of being ordered around all day stress the mind and body? Or perhaps we’re looking at it backward? Maybe healthier, fitter individuals naturally rise to the rank of CEO while less robust workers languish in the mailroom. Such are the chicken and egg conundrums facing human correlation studies, even large cohort studies like Whitehall. Sometime, when things get too muddled, it's best to grab some monkeys and head to the laboratory.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s what a group of scientists did in a <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/04/03/1202734109.abstract">study recently published in the <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</i></a>.<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> Their monkey of choice was the rhesus macaque – a species whose lowest-ranking members, like humans, also exhibit poorer health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Working with 49 monkeys divided into 10 social groups, the researchers demonstrated that the animals’ social status affected gene expression, specifically in genes relating to immune function. The effect was so pronounced, in fact, that it could even be used to predict status. Gene expression data from blood samples indentified with 80% accuracy the relative rank of the individual from which they were taken. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In case your recollection of genetics is a bit hazy, this might be a good time to clarify what we mean by “gene expression”. With the exception of gametes, every nucleated cell in your body contains a full set of genes (46 chromosome worth, assuming you’re human), but not every inch of DNA in those cells is constantly expressed (that is, transcribed into RNA and eventually translated into the proteins that run our bodies).*</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> So while an individual’s genome is set in stone, gene expression varies between cell types and can also be impacted by environmental conditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">To sort out the connection between the environmental factor of social rank and gene expression, the authors of the study took medium-ranking female monkeys and assigned them to new hierarchical social groups comprised of five individuals. Rank in these experimental groups could be manipulated by the order in which each member was introduced – the first ones in generally ranked the highest, while latecomers were stuck with increasingly lower statuses.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span>†</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Looking at thousands of genes, the authors found greater gene expression related to rank in 987 of them. (535 genes were expressed more in high rankers, 452 in low rankers). Additionally, monkeys that switched ranks during the experiment experienced changes in their gene expression shortly thereafter. This suggests that not only is it rank that controls gene expression, rather than the other way around, but that negative effects of low status on health might be reversible through changes in the social environment.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How are we to interpret these results? Very carefully. Monkeys and humans differ genetically and socially, so we shouldn’t just assume the results apply to our own species and call it a day. Human civilization is a complicated affair, and status can’t easily be reduced to resource access and grooming privileges. What determines our status within society? Is it just economic? Does it extend to race and gender? To high school cliques and Hollywood A thru D lists? As they say in the science biz, more research is needed, but it’s an intriguing start.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* If that’s still too vague, or you’re just needing a break from your job, I found this <a href="http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/dna/transcribe/">website</a> that lets you build your own virtual protein. Weeee! Internet!</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>†</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span>In the wild, female rhesus macaques typically stay with the social group and rank they’re born into.</i></div><!--EndFragment-->alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-52896429825819304052012-03-29T13:46:00.000-05:002012-03-29T13:46:00.188-05:00Whales, trees wish you would shut up already<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>984</o:Words> <o:Characters>5612</o:Characters> <o:Company>Department of Germanic Studies</o:Company> <o:Lines>46</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>11</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>6891</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhDfPTAGNtJL0NLXDeZdmDsbTrwrfOqnYhsRdVUHUrU-ryx92ru4-Hiu7qJVrW5-4niPaHI2cxcw-9SHewnGhuUC9fzB-9QZpSeihBOjAuEJW_-ONCmKV_VjRO5uycCyThsHPm3P4hSiEf/s1600/Thing+Three.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhDfPTAGNtJL0NLXDeZdmDsbTrwrfOqnYhsRdVUHUrU-ryx92ru4-Hiu7qJVrW5-4niPaHI2cxcw-9SHewnGhuUC9fzB-9QZpSeihBOjAuEJW_-ONCmKV_VjRO5uycCyThsHPm3P4hSiEf/s400/Thing+Three.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Thing Three.</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">The noisiest place I ever lived was an apartment at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 15th Street in Manhattan. It was the nexus of several bustling neighborhoods and a hub of public transportation, with subway stops mere blocks in each cardinal direction and even a New Jersey PATH train station within easy walking distance. New York City’s endless stream of vehicles gushed down the avenue day and night, and an array of 24-hour fast food establishments and markets ensured a steady flow of both gregarious revelers and ranting vagrants. On weekends, street festivals awoke us with their blaring music and electric generators. On rainy nights, the din of hydroplaning taxis made watching a DVD with the windows open impossible. It was effing loud.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As a species, humans excel at making noise. Not content to stick with the howling and growling of other animals, we’ve created machines to augment our collective clamor. And, thanks to our ever-increasing transformation of the planet’s landscape, we’re sharing that noise with other organisms. Everywhere we go, we bring sirens and jets and jackhammers. How is the rest of nature faring with this parade of sound? Sometimes not too well. And a pair of recent studies, each published in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Proceedings of the Royal Society B</i>, highlights how the effects of our auditory intrusions are not limited to land-dwelling animals, or even animals.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Right place, right time</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">In the weeks following the September 11th, 2001 World Trade Center attacks, many New Yorkers were on edge. They jumped at the sound of car alarms, fretted over riding the subway, and had anxiety dreams filled with airplanes. Meanwhile, North Atlantic right whales (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eubalaena glacialis</i>) were finally able to relax a bit. Why? Because for once they could hear each other without yelling. Ship traffic in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, where whale studies were underway, dropped following the attacks, and with it so did underwater noise levels. Ships produce low frequency sounds that interfere with right whales’ communication vocalizations. So while life on land was newly terrifying and chaotic, underwater an invisible wave of tranquility was sweeping through.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As you can imagine, the <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/02/01/rspb.2011.2429.abstract">exact course of the research</a> wasn’t planned. In the weeks prior September 11th, scientists were plodding along measuring underwater noise levels and also collecting samples of whale crap, unaware of the tragedy-borne opportunity lurking on the horizon. The audio data were collected from August to September of 2001, but the fecal sample study would continue through 2005, from the months of late July to early October (the whales aren’t in town year round).*</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Consistent with the scientists’ empirical observations, underwater recordings made after September 11th showed a decrease in noise. But perhaps most interestingly, analysis of the fecal samples found that the post-911 poo had lower levels of glucocorticoid metabolites. Glucocorticoids are secreted in response to various kinds of stress, so the lower levels suggest that quieter waters resulted in calmer whales. Depressingly this might also indicate that, under normal, non-catastrophic circumstances, whales in the region are chronically stressed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Soothing sounds of the forest</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">While I myself have never attended a grade school science fair (my childhood was sparse on<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a> extracurricular activities) I’m told that a popular experiment for such things is testing whether plants grow better in the presence of soothing classical music versus abrasive rock ’n’ roll. If you’ve read this far hoping to learn about laboratory scientists subjecting potted ferns to daily doses of death metal, I’m sorry to disappoint you. The <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/03/15/rspb.2012.0230.abstract">study at hand</a> dealt with the indirect effects of noise on plant pollination and seed dispersal. Both of these services are sometimes provided by animals, so while the plants themselves may be indifferent to manmade noise, animal reactions to it can influence the plants’ reproductive success.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The authors conducted their research in New Mexico in the Bureau of Land Management's Rattlesnake Canyon Wildlife Area, which houses not just wildlife, but also natural gas wells and the noise-making compressors used for extraction and transportation of the resource. This provided an ideal setting for the study, as the location had both quiet control areas (without compressors) and loud experimental areas (with compressors) and yet none of the confounding variables typically found in noisy spots (i.e., the various urban indignities discussed back in the opening paragraph).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To examine the effect of noise on seed dispersal, the scientists focused on the piñon pine (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pinus edulis</i>), tracking the volume of seeds taken by different animals from both the loud and quiet spots. While some animals seemed to prefer snatching seeds in the noisy areas, the one most likely to help the seeds take root, the western scrub-jay (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aphelocoma californica</i>), carried away more seeds in quieter locales. † This suggests that pines residing in noise-polluted districts may have less luck producing offspring.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yet the effects of increased noise weren’t always negative. The pollination experiment looked at the auditory preferences of the black-chinned hummingbird (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Archilochus alexandri</i>). Unlike the scrub-jays, these birds visited flowers in the noisy sites more often, potentially conferring a reproductive advantage to hummingbird-pollinated plants in loud regions. However, the authors note that the cause of this was probably not the hummingbirds’ fondness for generator sounds, but their aversion to predators that stake out the quieter areas. Like humans choosing an inferior restaurant because it’s easier to get a table, hummingbirds likely hang out in less desirable neighborhoods to avoid the hassles of more popular ones.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So while the exact effect may be difficult to predict, noise pollution – like other more publicized forms of pollution – does have an impact on both flora and fauna, on land and in water. Repercussions of the increasing cacophony of daily life on our own species might also merit examination. Anecdotally, I can tell you that I felt less stressed out after vacating the Manhattan apartment. Though perhaps the toxic fumes emitted by the Cheesesteak Factory (yes, such an establishment exists) were the bigger problem.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* If you’re wondering how one goes about finding whale droppings, as with drugs and bombs, it’s done with the help of trained dogs.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>† The scrub-jay stores some of the seeds it swipes, and not all these are eaten later. Thus the unconsumed seeds have a shot at becoming new trees.</i></div><!--EndFragment-->alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-63029593748994330552012-03-11T16:43:00.002-05:002012-03-12T12:33:02.166-05:00Paint it White: How New York City is getting cooler<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtP7MKIvkfyRU5apwQoGUgSTruwd02lfhy1sKm0A_XHvebd0JmMxeRJ7Y6p03WtVwfeReGkvLwvZGX9zTfn2OdE6lQh4IUE8DtDfX36yU9HQk3wb2xU1mHDH1OOQ16PEteDnVeYyQjCfoa/s1600/Tim+Pearce2_white.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtP7MKIvkfyRU5apwQoGUgSTruwd02lfhy1sKm0A_XHvebd0JmMxeRJ7Y6p03WtVwfeReGkvLwvZGX9zTfn2OdE6lQh4IUE8DtDfX36yU9HQk3wb2xU1mHDH1OOQ16PEteDnVeYyQjCfoa/s400/Tim+Pearce2_white.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New York vista by Tim Pearce.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">It’s official: white roofs are cool. The declaration comes from the tastemakers at NASA, and, as always, New York City is at the vanguard of the new trend. In fact, the city’s recently brightened rooftops were found to be over 40 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than traditional dark roofs at the height of summer heat waves.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you’ve weathered a NYC summer and were lucky enough to escape to the country for a weekend, you probably noticed that it feels several degrees cooler once outside the city – and consequently several degrees insufferably hotter upon reluctant reentry. Having myself spent over a decade in the city, I’d assumed this temperature gradient was caused by the fact the New York summers were literally Hell and the months of July and August a period of non-eternal damnation, but it turns out there’s a simpler explanation. <o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">New York City is crowded, not just with people, but with buildings. Lots of buildings, built close together and typically topped with dark roofs that excel at absorbing the sun’s rays. Outside of the city, manmade structures are interspersed with these things called trees. The green of suburban and rural foliage reflects back some of that solar radiation, resulting in cooler ground temperatures. Meanwhile cities bake in their black asphalt casing. The phenomenon is called the “urban heat island” effect, and, scientifically speaking, it thoroughly and unequivocally sucks.<o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Higher temperatures not only make city dwellers miserable and irritable, they also result in greater energy usage and higher greenhouse gas emissions, which ultimately makes things even hotter. Hoping to reign in this unfortunate positive feedback loop, city planners have been working to replace traditional dark roofs – made of conveniently waterproof and durable asphalt and tar – with new fangled white materials (household staples like ethylene–propylene–diene monomer (EPDM) and a thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO)). Since not every building owner is willing and/or able to replace an otherwise functional black roof, the NYC CoolRoofs program is also promoting a less involved option – “retrofitting” existing dark roofs with old-fashioned white paint.<o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So is it working? A <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/ny-roofs.html">multi-year study</a> recently published online in the journal Environmental Research Letters examined how the high-tech versus DIY brightened roofs fared against each other and as well as compared to standard dark roofs. Initially, both the two professionally-installed membranes and the civilian-applied white paint performed admirably – with white surfaces measuring an average of 43 degrees Fahrenheit cooler on hot summer days than dark samples. (Those asphalt rooftops can reach a disheartening 170 degrees Fahrenheit.) However, while the fancy whites were resistant to the ravages of time, the humble white paint lost some of its luster (and, more measurably, its reflectance) by the second year… not unlike the interior paintjobs in Manhattan apartments. Still, even the two-year old paint was an improvement over the dark roofs, and you can’t beat the price (about 50 cents per square foot, whereas the pro roofs ran between $15 to $28 per square foot).<o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So that’s all pretty impressive, but I seem to recall that New York has not just one but <i>two</i> problem seasons, in terms of both human suffering and energy usage. What about winter? Is white after Labor Day as gauche on rooftops as it is in ensembles?* The EPA, whose standards for roof reflectivity these white materials are striving to meet, acknowledges that brightening roofs in colder climates may come with a “winter heat penalty”. That is, in reducing unwanted summer heat, the more welcome heat that would have been generated by sunlight-absorbing dark roofs in winter is also forfeited, and gas or electric heaters must work harder to make up the deficit. However, since fewer hours of sunlight are available during the coldest months, it’s not a major loss (relative to the improved efficiency in summer) unless you’re dealing with frigid locations where heaters run 9 months out of the year. †<o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Additionally, the authors of the current study found that at least one of their measured materials (our friend EPDM) seemed to avoid the winter heat penalty entirely. They attribute this to the material’s emissivity level. Here’s the deal (in as much detail as I’m willing to tackle), white roof initiatives are looking only at a material’s reflectivity. This is the amount of sunlight reflected back instead of absorbed. To qualify for the EPA’s “energy star” rating, a material must have a solar reflectance of 0.65 or greater upon initial installation, and 0.50 or greater after three years. (It’s a zero to one scale, with 0.0 absorbing all light, and 1.0 reflecting all light.) <o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But materials also have an emissivity factor. Emissivity is the amount of heat something emits after absorbing solar radiation. Since close to half of that sunlight is being absorbed by the white surfaces (still far better than black, which is typically around 0.05 in reflectivity) how much of it they emit will also affect a building’s surface temperature. The white materials tested were assumed to have a high emissivity in addition to their high reflectivity (i.e., whatever sunlight got in would quickly be booted back out), but the EPDM seemed to cling a bit harder to its absorbed heat, thus keeping its surface toastier in the winter. <o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The authors therefore suggest that materials with high reflectivity but middling emissivity may be the best fit for colder climates. Got all that? Don’t worry, I’m not sure I understand it either. Emissivity is a tricky concept to get a handle on. Apparently even the folks manufacturing the EPDM couldn’t figure out how much heat their product would emit.‡<o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In any event, it’s nice to see that New York City is getting its environmental act together. When I left the place in July of 2008, it was a sweltering cesspool with insufficient bike lanes and a surfeit of Sex in the City-spawned shopping zombies. Less than four years later and, well, at least <a href="http://www.nycbikemaps.com/maps/manhattan-bike-map/">two</a> out of those three problems are being addressed. While the world could do without some East Coast fads (I had to endure a second round of Brooklyn’s ironic mustaches when I moved to Austin), one can only hope that the trend of going green by way of white will soon fan out to other cities. Especially those in the south, where I currently reside. It's totally uncool here.<o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* Yes, I’m aware that no white after Labor Day is an outmoded fashion rule. Austin isn’t that behind the curve.<o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>† And if you’re living somewhere truly freezing, isn’t your roof covered with snow most of the time anyway? Now if we could just get it to snow in summer instead of winter, then all our problems would be solved.</i><br />
<br />
<i>‡ The product was rated as having an emissivity of 0.90 (high), but the authors estimated it to be closer to 0.48 (not so high).</i><o:p _moz-userdefined=""></o:p></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-67538467147002207742012-03-06T13:00:00.001-06:002012-03-06T22:48:27.834-06:00America's grossest invasive species<div class="MsoNormal">As if 12-foot pythons and lizards capable of biting off limbs weren’t enough for Americans (especially <a href="http://blogusscientificus.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-florida-should-stick-to-cats-and.html">Floridians</a>) to worry about, now comes a nonnative species that is not only harmful to indigenous flora and fauna, but also thoroughly disgusting. Meet the European earthworm (species of the genus <i>Lumbricus</i>) a grotesquely-long squirming squishy blob of an animal that is <a href="http://smithsonianscience.org/2012/02/earthworms-to-blame-for-decline-of-ovenbirds-in-northern-midwest-forests-study-reveals/">responsible for the decline in populations</a> of the completely non-revolting ovenbird (<i>Seiurus aurocapilla</i>). It’s a bit backward sounding, I know, as birds typically eat worms, but the problem is more complex than ordinary predation or resource competition.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AgH9BXE7GLnIwOXxxVTc358AJ_ibRfJ9KUZqyeeP10pY_OdZty5TewC8ZsDRZpxazfVCFLop_AKic79vsRKEYxHPvK1UiaIqpkNDW9HzqTc5Gh34X-MBh3b2v-7kSdfTK0ceoOVsg9Mq/s1600/Duane+Burdick.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AgH9BXE7GLnIwOXxxVTc358AJ_ibRfJ9KUZqyeeP10pY_OdZty5TewC8ZsDRZpxazfVCFLop_AKic79vsRKEYxHPvK1UiaIqpkNDW9HzqTc5Gh34X-MBh3b2v-7kSdfTK0ceoOVsg9Mq/s320/Duane+Burdick.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Happy, earthworm-free woods. Image: Duane Burdick.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">The worms aren’t attacking the birds (they’re not <i>that</i> big) or even nosing in on their food supply. You see, the issue is that ovenbirds – a migratory species that nests in North America and flies south during the colder months – build their nests on the ground, and they do so in what was previously earthworm-free hardwood forest, which normally has a thick layer of understory plants. The abundance of low plants helps conceal ovenbird nests from predators, but now these nauseating euro-worms are ruining the delicate environmental balance.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Personally, I feel a titch misled. Being none too keen on earthworms from day one, I’d been told many times that we must appreciate (or at least tolerate) the slimy bastards because of all the good they do for plants. You’ve surely heard the same spiel. Worms’ subterranean writhing tills the soil, distributes nutrients, and makes gardens flourish. But such pro-worm propaganda, while true, is only part of the story. And what’s good for the garden isn’t necessarily good for the forest. That important understory foliage grows from the slow decomposition of leaf litter on the forest floor. Earthworms, which happily eat all sorts of rotting vegetation, feed on this litter and hasten the decomposition process. As a result, there is less fertilizer for the understory plants and subsequently less protective cover for ovenbird nests.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How did these clammy wriggling beasts from abroad worm their way into American soil? Like pretty much every other invasive species, they were delivered here courtesy of human sloppiness and/or cluelessness. European earthworms have <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3552184852839862026&postID=6753846714700220774" name="_GoBack"></a>been in the country as long as European humans, (you know, pilgrims and founding fathers and the like), brought in accidently by boat or deliberately by ambitious gardeners. More recent activities, logging and the dumping of fishing bait, delivered the pests into hardwood forests, where they’re currently running amuck. Yuck.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t claim that earthworms have no place on our planet, or even in North America. Nor would I profess that any one animal was superior to another. I can only present to you the facts as I have uncovered them....<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQl-KJYQ5GJ2tsre7_BpkAcIPOuqdBCr42VIByuyK2KRcDv-MLUq4oOhqmTKoBLQibSbb-tQK3d7xJcX6bmblDRngul4Oul6cj0z4mF6nfjSaUkfZ0C42clFMO9hI6VWvt-trpGT3bStVo/s1600/U.S.+Fish+and+Wildlife+Service_Michael+Linnenbach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQl-KJYQ5GJ2tsre7_BpkAcIPOuqdBCr42VIByuyK2KRcDv-MLUq4oOhqmTKoBLQibSbb-tQK3d7xJcX6bmblDRngul4Oul6cj0z4mF6nfjSaUkfZ0C42clFMO9hI6VWvt-trpGT3bStVo/s400/U.S.+Fish+and+Wildlife+Service_Michael+Linnenbach.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Images: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (L) and Michael Linnenbach (R)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">I rest my case.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-24284704382854818262012-02-21T19:52:00.001-06:002012-02-21T20:24:59.783-06:00How to be a better liar<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKWVgM6f79FyhrElSpPUaRUqO2oqQ0S_Kubegj8bEv98JRjYzGVEpw9rhjHUpW3NiKCFehu2Fo_0R5UnsSuEQ5zgV_mc6AewJTNQkg-PR_bGwMJwxahHltlfD4Djx9GcvHUovxMo7JxOCw/s1600/LIE_babbagecabbage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKWVgM6f79FyhrElSpPUaRUqO2oqQ0S_Kubegj8bEv98JRjYzGVEpw9rhjHUpW3NiKCFehu2Fo_0R5UnsSuEQ5zgV_mc6AewJTNQkg-PR_bGwMJwxahHltlfD4Djx9GcvHUovxMo7JxOCw/s400/LIE_babbagecabbage.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rice by babbagecabbage, Photoshoppery by yours truly.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Listen up, liars. Society is onto you. Well, its machines are anyway. Computers can spot your <a href="http://www.geekosystem.com/fake-review-program/">fake online hotel reviews</a>, and they know when you’re shaving ten pounds off your weight on your Match.com profile. They’re sharpening their skills daily and, with their help, even the human brain (a device notoriously terrible at truth detection tasks) might get wise to your chicanery. So if you’re not going to change your wicked ways, you can at least try to improve your technique a bit.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But how? Researchers say the telltale signs of deception are difficult to hide. Even in written form – where the author has the opportunity to edit his or her appalling untruths – liars still leave behind linguistic clues. But I say, what kind of defeatist attitude is that? We can make our résumés more appealing to employers by replacing passive phrasing with exciting ACTION words. Why should lying about the rest of our lives be any different? Before we throw in the towel and resort to honesty, shouldn’t we at least try to apply what science has learned to our own deceitful endeavors? Of course we should. Let’s have a go at it.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Mind your language<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Certain outward signs can draw attention to a poorly executed lie: fidgeting, stammering, sweating, shaking, heartbeats audible from two rooms away. Humans took note of this and have concocted lie-detecting technologies that attempt to exploit such physiological cues. The earliest example usually given is China, circa 1000 B.C., where suspected criminals were asked to place rice powder (or rice, by some accounts) in their mouths and then spit it out during interrogations. The idea behind this test was that the stress of lying dried out one’s mouth. Thus those answering honestly should be able to spit out more than liars, whose mouths the starchy stuff would stick to like feathers on tar.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The modern polygraph, which measures pulse, blood pressure, and other indicators while suspects answer questions of varying stakes (“Is today Tuesday?” vs. “Did you kill your wife?”), is basically a twentieth century upgrade of the rice test.* Both rely on finding signs of nervousness exhibited by guilty liars. Problematically, both also risk merely capturing the anxiety of innocent people freaking out over being accused of a crime. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A more novel way of discerning between factual and fabricated statement involves not measuring the body, but analyzing the words used by the speaker (or writer). While not initially conceived as lie detectors, computer algorithms that examine linguistic patterns have been used experimentally to search for hallmarks of deception. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), software designed by James Pennebaker, Roger Booth, and Martha Francis is one such tool. It sifts through documents (written text or transcribed speech) and tallies the instance of various word categories, including significant but harder to control “function words” - pronouns, articles, and the like. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">LIWC was most recently unloosed in the jungle of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01619.x/full">online dating</a> and proved superior to human judges at assessing “trustworthiness” from the content of daters’ profiles.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Thinking cues and feeling cues<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Having spent some time tackling this idea of liars’ linguistic cues, scientists have come up with a few observations. The giveaways can be divided into two types: cognitive (thinking) and emotional (feeling). These distinctions are based on the proposed causes of the cues. The idea is that lying is 1) morally troubling and 2) intellectually difficult. Let’s tackle the second one first. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because liars have the challenge of creating and managing the details of a fictional tale, their accounts should theoretically reflect this by being shorter and simpler. Experimental analysis has found that false statements generally do have lower overall word counts. They also contain fewer exclusion words. These are words like “except” and “but”, which are used to make the kind of fine distinctions in stories that can be a headache to keep track of when they’re not actually true. For instance, when playing hooky from work, the cognitively-taxed liar might claim, “I have a cold.” or even, “I have a cough and a sore throat.” But you can improve upon this by throwing in an exclusion, “I have a cough and a sore throat, but I’m not feeling feverish.” Just make sure you have more symptoms than exclusions, else your employers will think you’re being lazy.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Due to ease of handling, motion verbs are also common in dishonest accounts. “I fell and sprained my ankle; I won’t be coming in today.” “The car ran over a nail and got a flat; I won’t be coming in today.” And so on. You may not want to lean too heavily on motion verbs. Try adding a little detail about what it was that caused you to fall in the first place, or the crummy pot-hole-strewn road you driving on. Be careful though. As a child, my instinct when lying was to construct elaborate narratives with well-developed characters and lengthy passages of dialogue designed to answer questions no reasonable person would think to ask. It was perhaps overkill, as I can report anecdotally that my results were not stellar.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Emotional cues stem from feelings of guilt and fear related to lying, rather than its cognitive demands. These are especially important in our modern computer-driven world, because they’re harder for the liar to filter out, even when given the chance to edit their work (the online dating profiles found more emotional than cognitive giveaways of deceit). Unhappy words and negations both crop up more frequently in the ramblings of the untruthful. Though you might have a hard time eliminating these entirely when you’re lying about a dour subject. I mean, is it better to say, “I feel <i>lousy</i>” or “ I <i>don’t</i> feel well”?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perhaps we should focus instead on paring down instances of “distancing”. Apparently, liars want to detach as much as possible from their ghastly falsehoods and often do so by avoiding first person pronouns. So make sure to use, “I” and “me” whenever possible. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course, as with physiological measures, none of the above pitfalls are likely to affect an evil genius (clinical definition: high functioning antisocial personality with IQ of 140 or greater). But, given that you’re sitting around reading this rather than out devising a kryptonite trap for Superman, you’re probably not in that category. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Man vs. machine<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Something else you might want to keep in mind in all this wordsmithing, is who or what you are trying to dupe. So far, everything we’ve discussed relates to outwitting computer algorithms. But humans and machines rely on different cues to decide whether or not to trust you. And even though humans suck at spotting a lie (we tend to fare at about the rate of chance), that shouldn’t stop you from peppering your fictions with the very elements we incorrectly perceive as signs of honesty.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The only linguistic trait that both evokes distrust in humans and actually correlates to lying is word count. Shorter stories are more likely to be false and more likely to be perceived as false by a human audience. † But from that point on, our poor species gets lost and gravitates toward linguistic patterns that have nothing to do with honesty. While we like long descriptions with plenty of details, we also want individual sentences to be on the short side. Got it? Use lots of words. Make short sentences. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Also popular is concrete language. Abstract or convoluted sentences inspire suspicion (not to mention boredom). And do try to use the word “we”. The plural first person pronoun “we” makes listeners feel included, whereas the second person “you” or third person “they” makes us feel like outsiders. To test this, I made a point of using “we” in describing human lie-catching ineptitude, so that you wouldn’t think me a snob accusing you of being a bumbling simpleton. Did it help? Were you filled with trust? Perhaps an urge to lend me money?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>And Now the Caveats<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">WARNING: Don’t try this in a language other than English. All the studies I looked at were conducted in English and, as anyone who has struggled to learn a new language knows, grammar varies considerably between languages. Culture likely has an effect too. Who knows if first person pronouns have the same appeal outside of the egocentric U.S.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Also, results may vary with the degree of the lie being told. A lie created to conceal a major transgression will likely leave more clues in its wake than one told to praise an unremarkable meal.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And while we’re on the subject, those big lies about where we were and who did or didn’t kill aren’t the most common type of dishonesty. The majority of our deceptions work to mask our socially unacceptable opinions and feelings, or to hide our perceived shortcomings. Given the banality of our lies and the effort required to tell them convincingly, it might be easiest to just fess up to those unpopular attitudes and lackluster achievements.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* Bonus trivia: The man who invented the blood pressure measuring component of the lie detector, William Moulton Marston, was also the creator of Lasso-of-Truth-wielding comic book heroine Wonder Woman (under the name Charles Moulton).<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>† This is not to say that any short sentence is false. It’s all relative. And, relative to a truthful account on a similar topic, an untruthful one is likely to be shorter.</i><o:p></o:p></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-71294143208448379752012-01-26T15:46:00.004-06:002012-09-30T12:02:12.184-05:00Eek-o-tourism: Belize’s diseases and other holiday hazards<div class="MsoNormal">
My Central American vacation is rapidly approaching, and I’m giddy with anticipation and light-headed from attempting to complete the many long-put-off tasks on my pre-departure checklist. The other day I spent an hour at the travel clinic getting vaccines and chatting with their awesome nurse, who seemed almost as obsessed with creepy microorganism as I am. Some of the pathogens we discussed were familiar favorites, others complete surprises. And germs aren’t the only things to worry about. Belize offers up a glorious buffet of perils for those prone to worrying (btw, avoid buffets, especially if you haven’t been vaccinated for hepatitis A). You might be wondering why such a polyphobic person would elect to vacation in the tropics in the first place. Well, like many a hapless traveler, I was lured by pretty pictures. The flora, the fauna. Belize’s biodiversity is hard to resist. Let’s have a look at some…</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip6ZhoH5PxV_eKoWyo8DrDuYnB3IorFI_VlaVgiDYX2GG-Rt19Lb2NcaaWYSCJ0lpRswQIrZFaYYQlkG2QHMY6vF1-w6fKPCUuD_CEODYcDiWHXhYhEKxK0TwrfUM_gd7hnyE5Zkl2uvQ5/s1600/Andrew+Coyle.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip6ZhoH5PxV_eKoWyo8DrDuYnB3IorFI_VlaVgiDYX2GG-Rt19Lb2NcaaWYSCJ0lpRswQIrZFaYYQlkG2QHMY6vF1-w6fKPCUuD_CEODYcDiWHXhYhEKxK0TwrfUM_gd7hnyE5Zkl2uvQ5/s400/Andrew+Coyle.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: Andrew Coyle</td></tr>
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<b>Large, carnivorous biodiversity</b></div>
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Jaguars are the largest wild cats in the Americas. Males can reach upwards of 300 lbs. They are stalk and ambush predators that can hunt day or night, sometimes going so far as to climb trees to get a jump on their prey. Also good swimmers, they can even kill things in the water – big things, like caimans. A jaguar’s bite is strong enough to pierce skulls and break turtle shells. They’re such impressive killing machines, that someone named a luxury car after them. Not to mention a Macintosh operating system.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGTL0Uzlq5-UR-9YAI8ddp-ZnEKMGph1Izbai2912WAu3d1HqOLGTjA_4xjrpXGT5mIWB6K0giMAXQnw5lSAEQToJNn12WiWG52ORW4id6oLLJARF4-Y-pDCyADjSHLZ82MBIQ4zUN9bO0/s1600/digicla.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="129" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGTL0Uzlq5-UR-9YAI8ddp-ZnEKMGph1Izbai2912WAu3d1HqOLGTjA_4xjrpXGT5mIWB6K0giMAXQnw5lSAEQToJNn12WiWG52ORW4id6oLLJARF4-Y-pDCyADjSHLZ82MBIQ4zUN9bO0/s200/digicla.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ROAR!!! Image: digiclad</td></tr>
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<i>Troubleshooting:</i> While Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary (the third stop on our itinerary) is touted as a “jaguar reserve” it’s not exactly overrun with the majestic cats. Seeing a jaguar in the wild is an uncommon event, and attacks on humans seldom occur. Being eaten by a jaguar is a rare privilege bestowed on precious few lucky tourists.</div>
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<b>Venomous biodiversity</b></div>
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Like many warm, rainforesty places, Belize has its share of snakes, some of which are capable of injecting lethal venom with their fangs. I could sit here and enumerate the various species of scary, slithering reptiles found in the region, but it would just upset us both. For me, perhaps the most disconcerting piece of information is that, once one leaves the herpetologically well-organized U.S., coral snakes sometimes fail to adhere to the rhyming rule of “Red on yellow, kills a fellow. Red on black, friend of Jack.” Head south, and everything you thought you knew about snakes is wrong. Even those with the should-be-harmless, red-touching-black striped pattern can kill you. Best to revise the pneumonic to, “Red, yellow, black in whatever configuration… you’re screwed”. </div>
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<i>Troubleshooting</i>: Coral snakes aren’t especially aggressive, so if they see you first, they’ll run for the hills. They’ve also got teeny little fangs. Leather boots are usually sufficient to thwart any defensive attacks that might be provoked by flailing and screaming instead of backing away slowly. I wish I could say the same about the fer-de-lance, a snake noted for being both grumpy and jumpy.</div>
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<b>Parasitic biodiversity</b></div>
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Christ, who knew there were so many insect-vector-spread diseases out there? I’ve <a href="http://blogusscientificus.blogspot.com/2010/09/fever-and-chill-pills.html">rambled at length about malaria</a> here before, so I won’t spend too much time on it now. Compared to sub-Sahara Africa, Belize is a malarial lightweight. But the disease does occur, and it has the extra bonus of being primarily caused by the <i>P. vivax</i> parasite. While less deadly than the more famous <i>P. falciparum</i> variety, this parasite can hang out in a latent form in the liver and cause relapses months after the initial fever has faded. Super.</div>
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Malaria is, of course, spread by mosquitos, but there are other blood-sucking insects to watch out for. Sand flies carry parasites of the genus <i>Leishmania</i>, which cause cutaneous leishmaniasis. There’s a more serious form of leishmaniasis in other parts of the world, but the Belizean version just causes skin ulcers. Still, not the ideal vacation souvenir.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8t_kLglZfjzWD-zh5ZbeQdRjKImDwqHSKzINBTI4J8E_TxIK2y08KvgDVlI9vcSSYseEQP55c9U3VlUZZiUOfBmAqKGjRIUq-f1Zgis__wja0-p6MBS2_Of5paw4Dg7yIJnYgvs534LZP/s1600/Dr.+Erwin+Huebner.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8t_kLglZfjzWD-zh5ZbeQdRjKImDwqHSKzINBTI4J8E_TxIK2y08KvgDVlI9vcSSYseEQP55c9U3VlUZZiUOfBmAqKGjRIUq-f1Zgis__wja0-p6MBS2_Of5paw4Dg7yIJnYgvs534LZP/s200/Dr.+Erwin+Huebner.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kissing bug. Image: Dr. Erwin Huebner</td></tr>
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But wait, there’s more… Chagas’ disease! The illness – named for its discoverer, Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas – is caused by the <i>Trypanosoma cruzi</i> parasite and spread by a comparatively cute vector, the triatomine bug. It’s also called the “kissing bug”. Quaint, no? If you see one, kill it.</div>
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<i>Troubleshooting:</i> Bug spray. Lots of bug spray. For whatever silly reason, I opted not to bother with malaria “chemoprophylaxis” (drugs that prevent the disease by rendering your body too harsh an environment for the parasite to survive). It wouldn’t protect against the other germ-toting insects anyway. I’ve wisely avoided reading anything about possible harmful effects of excessive DEET application. The information would only confuse me. I’ll worry about it when I come home.</div>
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Oh, and there’s also zoonotic hookworm. Ugh. I’d totally forgotten about this thing<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3552184852839862026&postID=7129414320844837975" name="_GoBack"></a> prior to my briefing at the travel clinic. A human-hosted form of hookworm exists too, but the one common to Belize shacks up in dogs and cats. The eggs are shed in the animals’ feces and can hatch and grow into larvae on a lovely, sandy beach where a canine or feline host did its business. The larva can enter the human body through the skin (i.e., walking barefoot on the above-mentioned lovely, sandy beach). And they don’t even need an open wound to gain entry, they just grab on and burrow their way in. What an organism! Once inside, though, they can’t mature and are stuck wandering aimlessly through the epidermis. This results in an itchy skin condition called “cutaneous larvae migrans”. It’s not remotely life-threatening, just uncomfortable and disgust inspiring. According to the CDC, the stranded larvae will die off even without medical intervention in 5-6 weeks. Five to six. Weeks. Gross.</div>
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<i>Troubleshooting:</i> Flip flops. Oh, the indignity.</div>
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<b>Bon Voyage</b></div>
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Even with all that in mind, I’m still psyched about leaving the country. After all, if the only priority was feeling safe and comfortable, we could have just booked an all-inclusive package trip to Disneyworld. Part of the excitement of foreign travel is getting away from one’s normal routine and being exposed to the unfamiliar (and sometimes also the anxiety-provoking). And there’s something fun and novel about staying in places where “24 hour electricity” is considered an amenity worth boasting about on the website. Now if I can just remember to call my aggressively paternalistic bank and let them know I’ll be accessing ATM machines in a foreign land. I’ll go do that now.</div>
alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-51735001748249372072012-01-11T20:49:00.000-06:002012-01-11T20:49:00.018-06:00Wall of Death: Why You Shouldn’t Put a Fountain in a Hospital<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrkGr0Q5xtrLPB6NVoLXJwP9QBFipWj2nOz4t3lfRAy867ipxDCD_at9YYYUJCU1BMyBsXJn_G336ZM2GnFqjnTtIuANTgw6XxhU2vqNiVLpXtOTKe_-2pUV8T9Vixmf9OGKvWq1q1zmvk/s1600/star5112.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrkGr0Q5xtrLPB6NVoLXJwP9QBFipWj2nOz4t3lfRAy867ipxDCD_at9YYYUJCU1BMyBsXJn_G336ZM2GnFqjnTtIuANTgw6XxhU2vqNiVLpXtOTKe_-2pUV8T9Vixmf9OGKvWq1q1zmvk/s400/star5112.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: star5112</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The dastardly duo of water and bacteria have teamed up again to assault our species. Not content to sicken and/or kill us when we drink water or <a href="http://blogusscientificus.blogspot.com/2011/12/terror-from-tap-how-deadly-amoeba-can.html">pour it up our noses</a>, the pair have now conspired to stage their ambush from a vector few would suspect - decorative “water wall” fountains. An investigation into a 2010 outbreak of Legionnaires disease in Wisconsin <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/663711">concluded</a> that the source of the deadly bacteria was the soothing, cascading water of a fountain situated in a hospital lobby.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In case you don’t spend as much time as I do reading about obscure illnesses, allow me to bring you up to speed. Legionnaires disease is an acute and potentially fatal respiratory ailment caused by <i>Legionella </i>bacteria (mostly the <i>Legionella pneumophila</i> species, if you like to keep your microorganisms straight). Both disease and pathogen got their names in 1976, when a particularly large and well-publicized outbreak occurred at the Philadelphia convention of the American Legion. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The disease causes pneumonia, along with other symptoms that usually accompany it, including high fever, chills, and a cough. According to the CDC, Legionnaires disease kills between 5% and 30% of those afflicted with it. A less severe form of infection – without the troublesome pneumonia – called Pontiac fever can also result from the same bacteria. Collectively the two maladies are known as Legionellosis.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A person contracts Legionellosis by breathing in tiny aerosolized droplets of water contaminated with <i>Legionella</i>. The bacteria thrive in warm water, so any poorly cleaned water system may harbor them. Swimming pools, hot tubs, and cooling towers for large air conditioning systems have all been culprits in previous outbreaks. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s uncertain just how much pathogenic mist one needs to breathe in to get Legionnaires disease. Of the eight individuals sickened by the Wisconsin hospital fountain (all recovered, by the way) most had only minimal contact with the bubbling bacterial menace, such as picking up prescriptions at the hospital pharmacy or delivering a package to the lobby. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The CDC reports that in the United States 8,000-18,000 people are hospitalized for Legionnaires disease annually. But given that the country’s population is estimated at over 310 million, even 18,000 is really nothing. This water wall fiasco is a fluke then, right? I mean it’s not like this has happened before or anything? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, actually, the Wisconsin incident is the second documented outbreak of its kind. In 2007, at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, two cancer patients contracted Legionnaires disease following exposure to a similar fountain. Notice a pattern yet? Sick people and those with weakened immune systems are more susceptible to this disease.† And where’s a good place to find sick people? Yep.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It seems like it might be a wise for decorative fountains to stay the hell away from hospitals, doctors’ offices and any other haunts of the under-the-weather set. The Wisconsin hospital that was the source of the 2010 outbreak ditched its fountain, and many others in the state have followed suit. Farewell water walls. You were a bit too Las Vegas for hospitals anyway.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* Named for a 1968 outbreak in Pontiac, Michigan.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
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</style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <div class="MsoNormal"><i>† All eight of the Wisconsin Legionnaires disease sufferers had some underlying condition that rendered them vulnerable to the bacteria.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Note: Due to phonetic similarities to the term “water wall”, I’ve had the song “Wonderwall” by Oasis going through my head the entire time I was writing this. It’s not a happy feeling. I will now use the power of suggestion to inflict the same curse on you – “Wonderwall” is going through your head (unless you’re unfamiliar with the song, in which case consider yourself lucky).</i><o:p></o:p></div><!--EndFragment-->alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-40542456039302014382011-12-31T18:28:00.001-06:002011-12-31T19:40:05.889-06:00Making the Most of Your Midnight Toast<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-06a_kA8Nuaw/Tv-e_A13w6I/AAAAAAAAAKo/fjRVWaPm41g/s1600/Alex+Brown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-06a_kA8Nuaw/Tv-e_A13w6I/AAAAAAAAAKo/fjRVWaPm41g/s400/Alex+Brown.jpeg" width="280" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Alex Brown.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">It’s been a slow news week for science. The days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve can be a wasteland of year-in-review lists and other fluff concocted to facilitate holiday vacations. But all it took was an <a href="http://www.bytesizescience.com/">animated short</a> on the science of sparkling wine from the American Chemical Society to stop my grumbling and get me on board with the lightness of the season. Forget real discoveries and real news and real whatever else. Let’s talk champagne.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What makes Champagne and other sparkling wines special is, of course, their bubbles. These are not only fun to observe, they also release aromas as they reach the liquid’s surface and burst, increasing the whole sensory experience thing. Dissolved carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) gives champagne its sparkle. Higher pressures and lower temperatures allow more CO<sub>2</sub> to be dissolved into wine than the liquid could hold in standard conditions. Your chilled bottle of champagne is under a good deal of pressure (thus the signature pop made when the cork is removed). Once uncorked, this pressure drops, and the amount of CO<sub>2</sub> that can be crammed into the liquid drops with it. CO<sub>2</sub> gas makes a break for it through the surface of the beverage and voila – festive bubbles. The trick to enjoying a glass of sparkling wine is too maximize the spectacle of bubbles without losing the molecule that makes them too quickly. Nobody likes flat Champagne.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Putting the Bubbles in the Bottle</b><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">The simplest way to get bubbles into liquid is just to inject CO<sub>2</sub> gas, which is how soda is made. But sparkling wines can take advantage of fermentation to form their fizz. Officially, Champagne is only Champagne if it comes from the Champagne region of France. But the “méthode traditionnelle” (aka méthode champenoise, when in France) by which it is made isn’t proprietary information. Spanish Cava for instance (my preferred bubble water) is also made using the Champagne method. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s how it works. All wines are made through fermentation, that process where yeast metabolizes sugar and turns it into ethanol (drinkin’ alcohol) and CO<sub>2</sub>.* This “primary fermentation” occurs in tanks and CO<sub>2</sub> generated is allowed to dissipate into the atmosphere. Champagne and its ilk, however, undergo a second fermentation once already tucked into their bottles.† Some other gunk also accumulates in the process (dead yeast cells and such) and must be ousted before the final corking. To collect and remove the “lees”, the bottles are stored at an angle, cork-side facing downward, and periodically prodded so that the stuff pools near the mouth of the bottle and can be removed with minimal wine loss. These are some of the bells and whistles that can make Champagne pricier than more crudely made sparkling beverages, even before the retail mark-up.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Ideal Glass Law</b><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">In late November I served my father, a wine enthusiast/wine snob, sparkling wine in a juice glass. For this transgression I was rewarded with an early Christmas gift – a set of champagne flutes. The most obvious reason why stemware is the best choice for sparkling wine is that the stem helps keep your sweaty hands off the bowl of the glass. Holding a glass from its stem prevents heat transfer to the liquid (recall that increasing heat speeds up CO<sub>2</sub> escape). <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But the shape of the glass matters too. The two dominant vessels for sparkling wine serving are the flute (the tall one) and the coupe (think Champagne fountain). <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf900804j">Scientists have done a lot of gas measuring</a> to help you choose your glass, and mostly the flute wins. Being taller and narrower, flutes not only keep beverages cooler, they also offer less surface area for CO<sub>2</sub> gas to launch. Coupes basically hemorrhage CO<sub>2</sub> for the first few minutes after being poured and then calm down, by which time the wine has lost a lot of its fizz. Flutes maintain a steadier movement of bubbles. Flutes are also better designed to showcase the bubbles. The entire vertical column is filled with bubbly movement, whereas coupes have a less effervescent “dead zone” at the portion of the bowl furthest from the center. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Less than half of the CO<sub>2</sub> exiting the liquid departs in the form of aesthetically pleasing bubble. Much of it disappears through unceremonious “invisible diffusion” into the air. This too is higher in the coupe, though less so than expected, given that glass’s abundant surface area. This finding can be attributed to the greater bubbling going on in the flute. The bubbles travel further and mix more vigorously, and thus more gas is lost per unit of surface area. But overall, unless you have your heart set on that champagne fountain, you’re better off with the flute.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Right Angles</b><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Now that you have the perfect glass, don’t ruin everything by pouring the wrong way. It turns out that the angle at which the glass is held during the pour also impacts how much CO<sub>2</sub> escapes before you even get the flute to your mouth. While champagne is normally poured like any other wine – into a glass standing straight up on a table – <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100811125945.htm">painstaking experimentation</a> has demonstrated that you’re better off holding the glass at an angle – as if you were pouring a beer. The pour is a turbulent time for newly uncorked Champagne, and an angled glass minimizes the CO<sub>2</sub> loss during this vulnerable stage, leaving more bubbles to bounce around once you’re finally drinking your drink.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well cheers then. And don’t forget to hold the glass from the stem. In addition to the temperature issues we discussed, you’ll also get a better clink that way. Clink!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* There are more steps, but just face it, if I started telling you about glycolysis, you would stop reading.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>† Another method, used for sparkling wines like Prosecco, does a second fermentation in tanks and then bottles the wine under pressure before it loses its pop.</i><o:p></o:p></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-50555360954226537522011-12-20T14:08:00.001-06:002011-12-20T14:10:12.511-06:00Terror from the Tap: How a deadly amoeba can sneak into your neti pot<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgntF9WgoY0quB6YC-GR7254oU3lw9_uQ-kSAf3Q4u1QjWoeq6q4fvAhSWyysNRSDPzBlZn21ydgbFu_jbw5OSyHYBUms7ix7ysNc9oXJSCg1TtLdxLBAMxxFaeyiXqg0JiJkutZxNGwpHs/s1600/Antonio+Foncubierta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgntF9WgoY0quB6YC-GR7254oU3lw9_uQ-kSAf3Q4u1QjWoeq6q4fvAhSWyysNRSDPzBlZn21ydgbFu_jbw5OSyHYBUms7ix7ysNc9oXJSCg1TtLdxLBAMxxFaeyiXqg0JiJkutZxNGwpHs/s400/Antonio+Foncubierta.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Antonio Foncubierta.</td></tr>
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Last summer, when a friend told me about a brain-eating parasite that lurks in warm freshwater swimming areas and can kill you in just one week, I thought, “Hmm, interesting, but a bit obscure even by my standards.” A quick check with the CDC website confirmed that such infections were absurdly rare – only 32 were reported in the United States in the entire decade from 2001 to 2010 – and so the topic was shelved in favor of more newsworthy science. But now, with two people in Louisiana dead at the (figurative) hands of the grisly microbe, and the state issuing a <a href="http://new.dhh.louisiana.gov/index.cfm/newsroom/detail/2332">warning</a> about the perils of improper neti pot usage, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Naegleria fowleri</i> is suddenly looking more relevant. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Louisiana cases are peculiar in that their victims didn’t have to dive into a warm lake or pond to encounter the parasite. Rather, it came to them, straight from the tap they used to fill a neti pot – a popular device for irrigating the sinuses.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">How does this happen?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">The microorganism responsible for all this trouble, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Naegleria fowleri</i>, is an amoeba that inhabits warm fresh water (a sustained 80˚F or above is its preferred aquatic climate). While content to live in water, it can also make its way into the human body via the mucosa in the nasal cavity, i.e., if you happen to get water up your nose. After gaining entry, it crawls along the olfactory nerves into the brain, where it chows down on vital central nervous system tissue. The ensuing illness is dubbed Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The standard way to contract PAM is swimming in warm, amoeba-friendly waters (the microbe is found through the world, though is most common in warmer areas). Activities that increase the chance of water getting into your nose – such as diving or jumping – also up the risk of being infected by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Naegleria fowleri</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLp9NBJmgwPLPOai2Mdd6-wkDg3ihRHarQDXZavdEvdOQKAqDeP0TiFUQKOzAeUR6L5p4eJJA1h3mev4jdKRyEsI9vR_T5IPiLjsJpeOkiHS1s3inJvXQG74eNprpQ4qXwdyAYt09trvi4/s1600/wiki_Kurt+Yoder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLp9NBJmgwPLPOai2Mdd6-wkDg3ihRHarQDXZavdEvdOQKAqDeP0TiFUQKOzAeUR6L5p4eJJA1h3mev4jdKRyEsI9vR_T5IPiLjsJpeOkiHS1s3inJvXQG74eNprpQ4qXwdyAYt09trvi4/s320/wiki_Kurt+Yoder.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Genie? No. Brain-eating amoebas? Maybe. Image: Kurt Yoder.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">The amoeba can live in lakes, rivers, ponds and hot springs. It occasionally even crops up in poorly maintained swimming pools. It isn’t considered common in tap water, which undergoes a purification process to render it potable. Yet apparently, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Naegleria fowleri</i> has turned up in Louisiana’s tap water at least twice this year* And the neti pot, which is used to pour water through the nostrils (with the head tilted sideways, not directly up the nose) provides an interaction with the tainted water similar to that experienced splashing around in lakes during the summer months. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Could it happen to me?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Counterintuitive though it may sound, tap water teeming with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Naegleria fowleri</i> is still safe to drink. That’s because the microbe needs to enter your nose rather than your mouth to cause PAM. And neti pots are okay too, just not for use with tap water. Additionally, the illness is not communicable from person to person and the amoeba doesn’t live in saltwater. Although pouring ocean water through your nose doesn’t sound like a great idea either.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">With so many other pathogens out there, how seriously should you take this one? Well, as with many splashy media maladies – such as mad cow disease – PAM is scary not for its prevalence (extremely low) but rather for its prognosis (extremely grim). The disease is usually fatal, and rapidly so at that. Initially symptoms are similar to those of bacterial meningitis – headache, fever, nausea, stiff neck – but these will soon progress to confusion, loss of balance, hallucinations, seizures and the like. By the time these second wave symptoms set in, there has already been significant destruction to brain tissue. So, yeah, you want to avoid getting this infection in the first place. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Its rareness means that the odds are already on your side. You can improve your chances even more by using a nose plug when swimming underwater, and by sticking to distilled (or thoroughly boiled) water when loading up your neti pot.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* The first case occurred in June of 2011, the second in October. Caveat alert: the cases are still under investigation.</i></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-70146175432657117022011-11-17T13:46:00.000-06:002011-11-17T13:46:06.743-06:00It came from outer space<!--StartFragment--> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1jRCnK-TqchLigZNQqZg-3kYWh_oOikdFD5lOFR9b2LOSdMLJqwTroviKmPnvC4sasw1KbaoKNrTGMmo8W1rhHC1pclfpc8r-4YcFcoTChWCJl_gASBSDUq2F6DPldNCclMPKRJfjtkus/s1600/Ed+Sweeney2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1jRCnK-TqchLigZNQqZg-3kYWh_oOikdFD5lOFR9b2LOSdMLJqwTroviKmPnvC4sasw1KbaoKNrTGMmo8W1rhHC1pclfpc8r-4YcFcoTChWCJl_gASBSDUq2F6DPldNCclMPKRJfjtkus/s400/Ed+Sweeney2.jpeg" width="307" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Ed Sweeney.</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Guess who’s coming home for the holidays? Russia’s broken 15-ton Mars probe. Well, probably. You know how unreliable malfunctioning probes can be. Early reports claimed the unmanned spacecraft would reenter the Earth’s atmosphere around November 26, just in time for Thanksgiving leftovers, but now it’s looking more like late December or early January (which could still qualify for Christmas if you go by the Russian Orthodox calendar).* All this, of course, is assuming that the prodigal probe doesn’t change its mind again and decide to complete its originally scheduled mission to Mars.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You might be interested to know that Russia has been aiming various contraptions at the Red Planet for about half a century without much luck (I know, kind of ironic during the Soviet years). Following a 1996 mission failure, the past 15 years have been silent of Mars attempts, but on November 8<sup>th</sup>, Russia got back on the horse and launched Phobos-Grunt into space. The space-bot’s goal was a lofty one: land on the surface of Phobos – Mars’s largest moon – collect soil samples, and then bring them back to Earth.<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">†</span> To achieve this, the probe needed to fire a second set of engines after its initial launch, which would direct it toward Mars. Everything went swimmingly for the launch, but the probe failed to activate those second phase engines. Now it’s stalled in Earth orbit, circling the planet as though it can’t find the on-ramp to the freeway.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Russian scientists are frantically working to reestablish communication with the probe. It’s seemingly intact and its fuel tanks are full and ready to complete the journey. Russia would like nothing more than to reboot the probe and send it on it way, but Phobos-Grunt is not taking their calls.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">With the window to set the wayward spacecraft back on track narrowing, what you should really be asking yourself is how and where Phobos-Grunt will land, should it fall back to Earth. Because it was suited up to go all the way to Mars and back, most of the probe’s 15-ton mass is composed of fuel, which would allegedly burn up upon reentry (probably generating an impressive fireball for anyone watching). But if any of the rocket fuel does reach the ground it’s not very reassuring to know that it’s composed of toxic hydrazine. Plus there’s still the possibility of probe shards to contend with. Early projections of likely landing sights included “most of the U.S., part of Europe, all of Africa and Australia and virtually all of South America and Asia”, which pretty much translates into “somewhere on Earth”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Before you start accusing Russia of imperiling us all, I should mention that Phobos-Grunt is poised to be the third uncontrolled spacecraft reentry this season. NASA’s UARS satellite crashed into (probably) the Pacific Ocean on September 24, and just a month later, Germany’s ROSAT came down somewhere in Southeast Asia on October 23.<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> ‡</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Coincidentally, Phobus-Grunt was launched on the same day our planet had its much-publicized near miss with the asteroid 2005 YU55. The 400-meter (1,300-foot) diameter asteroid got within about 200,000 miles of Earth (which is closer than our moon, FYI).<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> §</span> The last time a huge asteroid got uncomfortably close to us was in 1976, so this isn’t exactly a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. According to the Washington Post, NASA spends 5 million dollars annually keeping an eye out for asteroids capable of, you know, killing everything on the planet. (None scheduled for the near future, in case you’re wondering.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So are you more likely to get hit by a satellite or an asteroid? Ugh, that question has far too many variables. Any satellite or asteroid? A specific one? Any person on earth or just you? I can tell you this much, apparently your <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/13/death-by-meteorite/">odds of being killed by an asteroid</a> are greater than the odds of being struck by one. And, if it’s any consolation, in all the years our species has been lobbing metal into outer space, only one person has ever been hit by the stuff on its return. That person was Lottie Williams of Tusla, Oklahoma, who in 1997 was clocked on the shoulder by a chunk of the Delta II rocket. She was fine.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* Russia being my place of birth, I use this excuse annually when presenting cards and gifts well after the western version of “the holiday season” is over.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>† Hence the probe’s name. “Grunt” translates into soil. (It’s pronounced groont by the way.)</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>‡ ROSAT’s plunge was particularly threatening because it had primarily functioned as a telescope and, as such, was equipped with massive (over 1.5 tons total), and very heat-resistant mirrors – exactly the kind of thing you don’t want falling on your house… or your head.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>§ If 400 meters sounds like an abstract and unimpressive figure to you, then you might prefer Purdue University professor Jay Melosh’s description of its potential impact, “If a space rock the size of 2005 YU55 ever hit Earth, it would explode like 500 nuclear bombs, trigger a 7.0 magnitude earthquake and, if it splashed down in the ocean, generate a 70-foot tsunami.”</i></div><!--EndFragment-->alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-8638337391149821132011-11-04T14:15:00.000-05:002011-11-04T14:15:00.736-05:00Got a fever? Best to cool it on the pills.<!--StartFragment--> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX3wMGZQaJCZwlOS0SAqiu6B7__99n4mkGQcC2Q06AQq6INMV0c_tiP2TggUEusVKieKlI8biJ9e2WkHa_qLLDj22-5JMW7MjTq8sQmP8cc5GCPqGiMnQAHMMPehaYhEHmP9LBs-2bo2vN/s1600/Andres+Rueda_Tyler+Sparks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX3wMGZQaJCZwlOS0SAqiu6B7__99n4mkGQcC2Q06AQq6INMV0c_tiP2TggUEusVKieKlI8biJ9e2WkHa_qLLDj22-5JMW7MjTq8sQmP8cc5GCPqGiMnQAHMMPehaYhEHmP9LBs-2bo2vN/s400/Andres+Rueda_Tyler+Sparks.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thermometer by Andres Rueda, pills by Tyler Sparks, collaging by yours truly.</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s time to wake up and smell the cough syrup, people; cold and flu season is here.* Soon everyone you know will be hacking and sneezing and generally assaulting you with their horrible germs. Illness is inevitable. You <i>will</i> get sick. And what to do then? If you’re like me, you probably gave up on store bought cold remedies ages ago. What’s the point? They merely suppress symptoms in exchange for other side effects. All you need to battle a run-of-the-mill virus is rest, fluids and maybe some over-the-counter pain reliever (Advil or Tylenol or the like) to reduce the fever, which is really the bulk of what’s making you feel so crappy. Right? After all, blowing your nose is just inconvenient, while a fever is incapacitating.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, you may want to reconsider even such modest medicating, because fever does more than just make you miserable, it also restores your health. This isn’t exactly news. It’s well known that an increase in body temperature can slow down bacteria and other microscopic invaders while the immune system mobilizes against them. Fever can even help accelerate the clearing of the <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(97)02255-1/abstract">parasite that causes malaria</a>. In addition to thwarting cooties, fever can also improve the body’s pathogen fighting mechanisms. A <a href="http://www.jleukbio.org/content/90/5/951.abstract">recent study</a> in the <i>Journal of Leukocyte Biology</i> found that a 2 degree centigrade increase in body temperature in mice resulted in improved differentiation of the lymphocyte CD8+ T – one of the cells involved in the immune response to viruses. While it may be detrimental to your performance of normal daily tasks (like staying awake and sitting upright), a fever actually makes your immune system more efficient.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So why are we still so quick to swallow fever-reducing pills? Certainly part of it is comfort (nobody likes feeling awful), but another problem is the perception the fevers are dangerous. While fever can be a part of serious illness, many high fevers result from minor ailments (and conversely, serious illness may present with only a mild fever). 103<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">°</span></span>F is a figure frequently given as an appropriate panic point (i.e., when call a doctor). But haven’t you had a 104<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">°</span></span> fever at some point in your life and not sought medical attention? And you were fine, right? The fever didn’t keep rising exponentially until it broke the thermometer and literally cooked your brain? Same here. The reason for concern over high fevers has more to do with possible complications of elevated body temperature than the fever itself. Dehydration, seizures – these are issues that might benefit from the presence of health care professionals.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“But can’t a fever be life-threatening?” you ask, “I’m sure I saw it on television once.” You are perhaps confusing cold/flu-induced fevers with something like heatstroke. Heatstroke occurs when the body has been pushed by strenuous exercise and ridiculously hot weather (think football practice in August) to the point where standard mechanisms for thermoregulation (sweating, dilating blood vessels, etc.) aren’t doing the trick anymore. The individual’s temperature rises not as defensive response to pathogens, but because the body has lost control of its internal environment. It’s potentially fatal, and gives one a sense of what reptiles have to worry about daily.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And while we’re empathizing with snakes and lizards, it’s worth noting that ectothermic animals (often described as “cold-blooded”†) also respond to infection with fever. How? While they can’t regulate their body temperatures internally like we do, reptiles can raise or lower their temperature behaviorally – for instance, by choosing a sunnier or shadier rock to lounge on. Research has shown that reptiles injected with bacteria will aim for a slightly higher temperature than non-infected control animals. Basically, when lizards get the sniffles, they cope with a behaviorally-induced fever rather than a bottle of ibuprofen.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The fact that even reptiles exhibit a fever response tells us that it’s a pretty old strategy for fighting infection. It’s certainly been around longer than NyQuil, echinacea, and chicken soup. While nothing cures the common cold, toughing out one its more uncomfortable symptoms is more likely to speed the healing process than your favorite home remedy. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Does this mean you have to forgo the pills entirely? Hey, I’m not your mom. Do whatever you like. There are plenty of good reasons for attempting to pull yourself together for a few hours despite being sick (birthdays, rock concerts, possibly even jobs). You just need to accept that you’re in for a certain volume of misery regardless. The only real decision is whether to spread the suffering out over more days, or just get it over with already.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* Well, at least here on the northern side of the Equator. I’m guessing that might not be the case elsewhere. Feel free to tune this one out for now, Southern Hemisphere.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>† Their blood isn’t actually cold, they just have to stay warm behaviorally (by basking in the sun and that sort of thing) rather than with the fancy metabolic tricks of endotherms like ourselves.</i></div><!--EndFragment-->alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-51129643100387241862011-10-11T21:40:00.001-05:002011-10-12T10:58:22.605-05:00Get Your Fats Straight<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJqoMXsA9TYevxfs0Ys_6I0hC3-GKrzRwUCcatbfxo1u2nEaAyepitPg4ef9z2KxOws3Sezru3-2d2drJQ52oj30xKPAL43br9hxK9vSlXDUhjqTe1G1FV298QtOf6YS75FalfqNa3vZl3/s1600/Dawn+Huczek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJqoMXsA9TYevxfs0Ys_6I0hC3-GKrzRwUCcatbfxo1u2nEaAyepitPg4ef9z2KxOws3Sezru3-2d2drJQ52oj30xKPAL43br9hxK9vSlXDUhjqTe1G1FV298QtOf6YS75FalfqNa3vZl3/s400/Dawn+Huczek.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Dawn Huczek</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">Last week, in an attempt to curb obesity rates and their related health complications, Denmark rolled out what quickly became dubbed the “fat tax” – a price hike targeting foods specifically by saturated fat content. Critics of the tax – and there are many – are taking aim from several directions, including social inequity, the uncertain efficacy of sin taxes in general, and the singling out of saturated fats over other dietary dangers (processed foods, refined sugars etc.). But throughout the reports and editorials, terms like “saturated fats” and “fatty foods” have been used almost interchangeably, as though there were no other fats in existence besides saturated ones. Denmark’s new food rules aren’t the only sign of triglyceride confusion. In my workplace on the other side of the Atlantic, a jar of reduced fat peanut butter has been loitering in the break room for months. Part of a coworker’s good intentioned but misguided attempt to eat healthier, the odious product is another reminder that we could all use a refresher course on our metabolic macromolecules.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Some fats are better than others </b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifqhgfrSozWg85To4ug9eOKgV5Fs2v7bozhD8lPxM2y42CgFkK6BPouFirPhoXea0pPVvMlpBcxfCTykHNpBxClodftqZqIxA-LVbPblVPNEWP9gMmSIT-wh_fE_O5teWJlm2dWq7-7UUm/s1600/fats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifqhgfrSozWg85To4ug9eOKgV5Fs2v7bozhD8lPxM2y42CgFkK6BPouFirPhoXea0pPVvMlpBcxfCTykHNpBxClodftqZqIxA-LVbPblVPNEWP9gMmSIT-wh_fE_O5teWJlm2dWq7-7UUm/s200/fats.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s travel back in time (figuratively at least) to high school biology, where we learned that the structure of fats involves fatty acid chains, each composed of a long carbon skeleton decorated by a bunch of hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen to carbon ratio is what makes fats different both in physical form and nutritional function. If the carbons on the skeleton are all single-bonded to one another, this allows for the maximum number of hydrogens to be attached to the chain. The resulting fats are called saturated because the carbon chain is holding as much hydrogen as it can fit. Saturated fats (found mostly in foods from animal sources, such as butter) are solid at room temperature, which makes them desirable ingredient for sandwiches, baked goods, etc. Unfortunately, they have also been widely linked to cardiovascular problems like atherosclerosis. Unsaturated fats, on the other hand, are one or more hydrogens short of a full set. This occurs because at least one pair of carbons in the skeleton is double-bonded. These double bonds create fatty acid chains that have kinks in them. They can’t pack together as tightly as the straight chains of saturated fats and are thus usually liquid at room temperature. Rounding out the list of contrasts, unsaturated fats (found in foods like vegetable oils, nuts and fish) are linked to health benefits, such the lowering of bad (LDL) cholesterol.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This would be easy enough to keep straight if the food industry hadn’t come up with the idea of turning liquid vegetable oils into solid fats by “hydrogenation”, a process that breaks those carbon double bonds and sticks more hydrogens on there. In the best-case scenario, the fatty acid is fully hydrogenated and the consumer is rewarded with a product whose higher saturated fat content renders it solid enough to be applied to toast. But if unsaturated fats are only partially hydrogenated, the process can warp the stereochemistry on any remaining carbon double bonds and the dreaded trans fat is born.* In short, “unsaturated” means safe, whereas “saturated”, “hydrogenated” and “partially hydrogenated” means varying degrees of scary.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Reduced fat peanut butter: the devil’s lunch spread</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">So what’s so bad about reduced fat peanut butter? Given all the other unhealthy atrocities lurking in your local supermarket – chocolate-covered Oreos, frozen chicken pot pies, 2-liter jugs of soda the color of antifreeze – it may seem odd to single out reduced fat peanut butter for nutritional derision. But what is especially evil about this product is that it takes something that is initially healthy (peanuts are naturally low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fat) and defiles it with a host of questionable ingredients that render it less so, which is then advertised as an improvement.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj75WdM43qqef-_0KaIyTzH1coGyFkPpF8murkQEK8jv52eUT8Pn2SJxQsZTMm7ovBQ7vKEN4ejh6ljL3v1KMGZ8X0ABDD6jH1wWn6x-V4P0eio5osFkbxfI8NDAqpUOZlp1H2EGcjEM2rk/s1600/Dan+McKay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj75WdM43qqef-_0KaIyTzH1coGyFkPpF8murkQEK8jv52eUT8Pn2SJxQsZTMm7ovBQ7vKEN4ejh6ljL3v1KMGZ8X0ABDD6jH1wWn6x-V4P0eio5osFkbxfI8NDAqpUOZlp1H2EGcjEM2rk/s320/Dan+McKay.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And then there's portion size... Image Credit: Dan McKay</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Ideally everyone would wise up and purchase plain, unadulterated peanut butter such as the reasonably affordable Central Market store brand I’m using as a reference point. It contains a single ingredient: peanuts. Pulverized peanuts serve up 190 calories, and 16 grams of fat per 2 tablespoon serving (which is more than enough to make a sandwich). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because the oil in pure peanut butter tends to separate out after it’s packaged and apparently some people find stirring to be a task too daunting to undertake, many national brands add a dash of hydrogenated vegetable oil to keep things all homogenized. They also add sugar. Go figure.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sugared and hydrogenated peanut butter is already not great, but let’s have a look at the ingredients of reduced fat Skippy (they own the domain name “peanutbutter.com”, so it seems only fair to pick on their brand): roasted peanuts, corn syrup solids, sugar, soy protein, salt, hydrogenated vegetable oils (cottonseed, soybean and rapeseed), mono and diglycerides, minerals (magnesium oxide, zinc oxide, ferric orthophosphate, copper sulfate) vitamins (Niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid).<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Oh, peanut butter, what have they done to you? To break things down a bit, many of the additional names are vitamins and minerals (strangely absent from the original Skippy product and not touted on the reduced fat version label). The remainder are additional texturizers and emulsifiers (if you’re going to take out peanuts, you’ve got to fill out the space with something) and even more sweetener, this time in the form of corn syrup solids, the second ingredient, sandwiched between peanuts and sugar. The resulting mess weighs in at 180 calories and 12 grams of fat per serving.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So reduced fat peanut butter shaves of 4 grams of fat (an underwhelming 25%) and 10 calories (pfff) and replaces it with increased sweeteners and fillers. Oh, and they throw in a secret multivitamin pill for your trouble.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What brings this to the level of absurdity is that reduced fat peanut butter is marketed toward those trying to control their weight. However nuts, though high in fat, have been <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1014296?query=featured_home">linked to weight loss</a> rather than gain as well as an array of other health benefits.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Something rotten in the state of Denmark</b></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhImbvUX4-SH8MWzZ0Jvaq6Xh4uQYgawUZ4lN7YsICjWRP4dAp7QU_Ij_rj6Y7aS5J_lpWBUM1ecPezJOf4Gqbmie_SH8ILlsKezGOe-zFpvpkX0Bfd9eNknle62KO0InvxvTw1nqozyhd8/s1600/Bryan+Ochalla.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhImbvUX4-SH8MWzZ0Jvaq6Xh4uQYgawUZ4lN7YsICjWRP4dAp7QU_Ij_rj6Y7aS5J_lpWBUM1ecPezJOf4Gqbmie_SH8ILlsKezGOe-zFpvpkX0Bfd9eNknle62KO0InvxvTw1nqozyhd8/s400/Bryan+Ochalla.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Bryan Ochalla.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Now while replacing unsaturated fats with processed sweeteners is a terrible idea, lowering saturated fat consumption is, in theory, a good one. That’s why, when I first heard about Denmark’s tax on saturated fats, I was totally ready to be on board. Sure, I said, make such foods more expensive and they will be used only as luxury items. Daily staples like butter and cheese will be saved for special occasions and replaced with foods high in healthy fats like olive oil and nuts. But it turns out to be a bit more complicated. The specific form of the Danish tax, as reported in the press, is a price increase equivalent to just under $3 (16 Kroner to be exact) per kg of saturated fat, and affects those foods whose saturated fat content exceeds 2.3%. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That 2.3% struck me as a bit low. While vegetable source fats are generally much lower in saturated fats than their animal derived counterparts, they are not completely absent of such fats. And with something like cooking oil, the calorie content comes exclusively from fat (as opposed to proteins or carbohydrates). A trip to the kitchen and some basic math revealed that both my preferred oils – olive and sesame – were comprised of 15% saturated fat.† But these are not unhealthy foods. The remaining 85 percent of their caloric make-up comes from a mixture of mono and poly-unsaturated fats (remember, unsaturated fats are linked to health benefits). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Where did this 2.3% cut-off come from? It seems so precise and yet so arbitrary. I seriously considered that it might be a typo, the intended figure being 23%. But no, every article thorough enough to report a percentage stated it as 2.3%. If Denmark’s tax is rigidly enforced, many foods considered to be healthful would also be subject to the price increase. Nutritious foods like walnuts and avocados would be too high in saturated fat to make the cut. Yet the okay list would include Cracker Jacks (too few peanuts to tip the scales) pretzels, and gummy bears (as well as every other fat-free candy out there). Considering that a healthy diet should contain some fat (20-35 percent of total daily caloric intake is the usual recommendation) that 2.3% limit seems illogically restrictive – an attempt to cut out not just saturated fat, but all fat. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While obesity is, in part, a problem of too much energy in and not enough out (i.e. lots of calories and little exercise), diseases associated with it are also influenced by the kind of calories input. One would think that the idea behind a tax aimed at saturated fat would be to encourage replacing foods high in saturated fats with those containing mostly unsaturated fats. But if even “good fats” are included in the tax, people might reach for other options. Some may reach for fruits and vegetables (though not avocados, it seems) but others may just follow the example of Skippy’s reduced fat products and replace fat with sugar. Perhaps I’m missing something. Denmark is welcome to check my math <sup>‡</sup> but for now I’m just going to go ahead and declare this tax almost as stupid as reduced fat peanut butter, which, by the way, is still too high in saturated fat to escape Danish taxation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* You probably recall cis/trans isomers more from Chemistry class. It’s about the carbon-to-carbon double bond again and how atoms and molecules can end up on the same or opposite sides of that bond. In this example, both hydrogens on the same side yields a cis fatty acid, whereas hydrogens on opposite sides yields a trans fatty acid. The two isomers have different properties. Long story short, trans fat are bad for you. Very, very bad.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>† As butter contains over 60% saturate fat, 15% is relatively low.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>‡ Formula: (Grams of fat per serving)(9 [the calorie content of 1 gram of fat])/total calories per serving = percent fat, expressed as a decimal. </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>For instance olive oil: (2 grams saturated fat)(9 calories/gram)/120 calories = 0.15 = 15%</i></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-8229881630004058242011-09-29T21:16:00.001-05:002012-05-31T12:58:23.631-05:00What’s Listeria?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRD9qN97eZ2X6-jkLsJiRVzl25Yaj6Wmx4qEFdWB6qwdYcLAaoglz3B2nz83v_jzCZgHXJK8gUbpuuPKKV46VCK0Nra1GmNBMmzY9u_lflQWlOzaQgg277G1iv_hSYEk4ES1NFGssh-TVY/s1600/Clay+Irving.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRD9qN97eZ2X6-jkLsJiRVzl25Yaj6Wmx4qEFdWB6qwdYcLAaoglz3B2nz83v_jzCZgHXJK8gUbpuuPKKV46VCK0Nra1GmNBMmzY9u_lflQWlOzaQgg277G1iv_hSYEk4ES1NFGssh-TVY/s400/Clay+Irving.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Clay Irving.</td></tr>
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By now you’ve surely heard about the latest food-borne illness freak-out: cantaloupes contaminated by <i>Listeria monocytogenes</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Originating in Colorado’s Jensen Farms, the fruits have already caused 72 illnesses and 13 deaths in a total of 18 U.S. states. And those are just the numbers as of this writing, they’ll probably be higher by the time you read this. For reasons that I’ll explain momentarily, cases are expected to keep rising for some time. </span></div>
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<i>Listeria</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> doesn’t make headlines very often. Usually it’s the more familiar pathogens </span><i>E. Coli</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and </span><i>Salmonella</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> that are responsible for outbreaks of food poisoning. As with these more famous cooties, </span><i>Listeria</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is a bacterium with a propensity for turning up in animal feces (though it can also be found in soil), which then comes in contact with our food. But it has a few additional qualities that distinguish it from our friends </span><i>E. Coli</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and </span><i>Salmonella. </i><span style="font-style: normal;">For one thing, </span><i>Listeria</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> can reproduce in colder conditions, rendering it unfazed by all our fancy refrigeration technology. A dash of </span><i>Listeria</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> on a cantaloupe (or on the cheese or cold cuts that more typically serve as its intermediate home*) will gleefully multiply into a teeming hoard of bacteria without ever being improperly stored.</span></div>
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Another important difference is the <i>Listeria</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> bacterium’s lengthy incubation period in the gut of its human host. It can take several weeks for someone who ingested the microorganisms to manifest symptoms of Listeriosis – the actual illness caused by </span><i>Listeria</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. The good news is that most people who eat </span><i>Listeria</i><span style="font-style: normal;">-tainted food won’t get this malady; a healthy immune system generally destroys these pathogens before they have a chance to do any real damage. But in those with weaker internal defenses – older adults, pregnant women (and their newborn babies) and anyone with a compromised immune system – </span><i>Listeria </i><span style="font-style: normal;">can escape the intestinal tract and cause serious illness. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches and diarrhea, but life-threatening complications like meningitis can also occur.</span></div>
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Given that the initial symptoms of Listeriosis are best described as “flu like”, we’re ensured an extra special flu season this year, as every under-the-weather individual with recollections of cantaloupe consumption rushes to the ER. Not that they shouldn’t. <i>Listeria</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> may not account for many food-borne disease outbreaks, but when it does cause illness, the fatalities are high, even when treated with antibiotics. When dealing with </span><i>E. Coli</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and </span><i>Salmonella</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, we’re accustomed to hearing figures in which hundreds or thousands of people are sickened but only a handful die. Listeriosis, on the other hand, can be fatal in as many as 25% of cases. If I’m doing my math correctly, this current outbreak is at about 18%. Pretty scary.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUOSOr_rLdFoO-XVCBC5HXuVoSxGYTGRgmh0v3mtJKRE4sptuNwC1Qr74U3ELdyL-rUWB3iPzuJ5dEdejhuCHjlRp7yaN7Ty6_NV9vH471glHMaOB8TaJqY_OmadPPU7FIJW6UB5SfHNUT/s1600/Bruno+Girin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUOSOr_rLdFoO-XVCBC5HXuVoSxGYTGRgmh0v3mtJKRE4sptuNwC1Qr74U3ELdyL-rUWB3iPzuJ5dEdejhuCHjlRp7yaN7Ty6_NV9vH471glHMaOB8TaJqY_OmadPPU7FIJW6UB5SfHNUT/s320/Bruno+Girin.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The textured rind of a cantaloupe. Image Credit: Bruno Girin.</td></tr>
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And what can you do to protect yourself from killer cantaloupe? Clearly peeling it doesn’t do the trick. The trouble with produce of this sort is specifically that it does have a thick rind. People tend to view it as safe and forgo the more thorough washing they would give to something like lettuce. I’ve been scrubbing fruits with peels for ages (except bananas, one has to draw the line somewhere) and others in the kitchen act like I’m insane. But as I’ve explained again and again, the peel touches things that touch other things that end up in your mouth. It touches the knife that slices through the rind and right into the fruity center, it touches the plate onto which you place the sliced fruit, it touches your hands. Ugh, cooties everywhere! Just wash your fruit, okay. And if you fall into any of the high risk groups mentioned above, I’d recommend also having a look at the <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/listeria/prevention.html">CDC’s prevention page for Listeria</a><span style="font-style: normal;"> for a complete list of foodstuffs to avoid. It’s a pathogenic world out there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><i>* This is the first case of Listeria being found on cantaloupe. </i></span></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-89703061686794645382011-09-22T18:06:00.001-05:002011-09-22T18:08:12.729-05:00Why Florida should stick to cats and dogs<style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyhqVmvcp6Xhantb_BjqhxxiSPEifX0QG06IrFY6W-A-hF6cJ5G834POpS8BFaemidMrqjxO5HrHoKc3Dwsca4gwr6bgOrGwe_mXGvNe3ga-DfZ3K8qZfrV3SO5hiiX9Om0SbPhME2R0LB/s1600/florida2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyhqVmvcp6Xhantb_BjqhxxiSPEifX0QG06IrFY6W-A-hF6cJ5G834POpS8BFaemidMrqjxO5HrHoKc3Dwsca4gwr6bgOrGwe_mXGvNe3ga-DfZ3K8qZfrV3SO5hiiX9Om0SbPhME2R0LB/s320/florida2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As someone who spends a lot of time researching animals, I’ve read my share of articles on invasive species and I’ve noticed a certain pattern. In peer-reviewed journals and <i>Cracked</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> top-10 lists alike one word comes up again and again: Florida. I’ve been speculating as much for ages and now scientific research has confirmed that Florida does, in fact, have the worst invasive reptile and amphibian problem on the entire planet.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A <a href="http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/list/2011/3028.html">recent study published in the journal Zootaxa</a> after almost two decades of critter cataloging came up with a startling total of 137 introduced herpetofauna (a fancy, though also easier to type, word for retiles and amphibians) lurking in Florida’s great outdoors. An additional 3 species were intercepted before they could get too comfortable. Of the 137 outdoor dwelling herpetofauna, 56 are “established”, meaning they’re reproducing and, in many cases, pretty much taking over the place.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How did all these non-native beasties end up in the wild? The study examined animal introduction incidents in the Sunshine State from 1863 through 2010 and found that for the first half of the timeline, invasive species mostly trickled in as accidental stowaways on cargo ships, much like Guam’s infamous <a href="http://earthsky.org/biodiversity/lifeform-of-the-week-brown-tree-snakes-slithering-pariahs-of-the-pacific-islands">brown tree snake</a>. But once the exotic pet trade took off in the latter 20<sup>th</sup> century, things got a lot messier. Whether the animals got outside through stealth or by owner abandonment – some of these animals prove to be far higher maintenance than their owners anticipated – the pet trade ultimately accounted for 125 (about 84%) of the 137 species described in the study.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Part of the problem is Florida’s laws regarding such pets. While it is illegal in the state to release non-native animals into the wild without a permit, this is obviously not the easiest law to enforce. The authors of the study stress the importance of creating better legislation to prevent further species introduction. Personally, if I were running the show in Florida, I would just go ahead and immediately ban the acquisition of any new exotic pets. It’s just too accommodating of a climate for fugitive herpetofauna. The warm, humid weather, the luxurious tree coverage, the abundant insects… it’s ectotherm paradise. Ironically, some colder states like New York, where delicate exotic pets would freeze to death or get run over by a taxi within an hour of their escape into the world, have stricter laws about animal ownership.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Some of Florida’s more well-publicized invasive herpetofauna include the Burmese python, which grows to an average of 12 feet in length and can strangle prey as large as an alligator, and the Nile monitor – a muscular 6-foot long lizard with alarming sharp teeth and claws, not to mention its formidable swimming, climbing <i>and</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> running abilities. It is lizards that comprise most of the troublesome species plaguing Florida – 43 of 56 established invaders (and the state only has 16 native lizard species). While viewed by many people with less dread than snakes, lizards can be the more destructive of the two reptiles, devouring both plants and animals and compromising manmade structures with their incessant burrowing.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZg3tJETWRoVF_JSOF3VY0PIYSOCIRft8MZ9fDKmXNJunjgMX_JZnxVqnquGPhIhvUsbGZ7j4RqLwQ7MvGe2-LeA9upD2VVUS6-83EyV8d6G_oWMntBY2GCneeZJ5fJA01ERY6f2RXedl3/s1600/Chris+Eason.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZg3tJETWRoVF_JSOF3VY0PIYSOCIRft8MZ9fDKmXNJunjgMX_JZnxVqnquGPhIhvUsbGZ7j4RqLwQ7MvGe2-LeA9upD2VVUS6-83EyV8d6G_oWMntBY2GCneeZJ5fJA01ERY6f2RXedl3/s320/Chris+Eason.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The charming Nile monitor. Image Credit: Chris Eason</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The study’s authors begin by noting that, “Introduced species are second in negative effects only to human-mediated effects on native species, habitats, and whole ecosystems.” It’s a reminder that for all the accidental monsters visited upon the native flora and fauna of Florida, the biggest problems are ultimately created by the same invasive species that has caused widespread damage to so many other parts of the world – <i>Homo sapiens</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-68132432661907403522011-09-14T19:37:00.001-05:002011-09-15T12:44:01.531-05:00Advice from mice, trade in your weekend benders for moderate daily tippling<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM6aWGCVPC2fGiAPWRW9_3t7p1SR4j-olsW18lNOaPuSmF6Bq7z7gATggG8k8TtFgx_c1Ud_KKnGlmO9C6PVBxJECY2wWCwQbN1o02VZqJp0wg2TmJQKX5MctUecoJ2QE2hia9DPdc0pUq/s1600/Daniel+Farrell2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM6aWGCVPC2fGiAPWRW9_3t7p1SR4j-olsW18lNOaPuSmF6Bq7z7gATggG8k8TtFgx_c1Ud_KKnGlmO9C6PVBxJECY2wWCwQbN1o02VZqJp0wg2TmJQKX5MctUecoJ2QE2hia9DPdc0pUq/s400/Daniel+Farrell2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Daniel Farrell.</td></tr>
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Is consuming alcohol good for you or bad for you? The research often seems contradictory. Drinking is linked to health benefits one day and ghastly diseases the next. Amount of alcohol consumed seems to be one predictor of relative help or harm, but how much is too much? For example, is 14 drinks per week a lot or a little? Before you answer that question, you may want to ask about when (and how often) those drinks are being drunk, as patterns of drinking may play as large a role in determining how alcohol affects health as the actual amount consumed. To better understand the relationship between drinking and cardiovascular disease, University of Rochester scientists recently spent a month sousing up mice and found that different drinking schedules yielded very different health impacts.* <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The advantage of working with mice is that, unlike human subjects who tend to choose when and how much to drink, alcohol consumption of experimental rodents is determined solely by their lab-coated bartenders. The mice were thus divided into three groups. A “daily-moderate” group received the mousey equivalent of two drinks per day seven days a week, while a “weekend-binge” group were instead assigned seven rodent-sized cocktails in a sitting, but on only two days each week.† A control group of teetotalling mice received a non-alcoholic cornstarch mixture (in order to match the caloric intake of the boozers). Additionally, all three groups were subjected to an “atherogenic diet” a high calorie, high fat menu designed to induce atherosclerosis – a thickening or “hardening” of the walls of the arteries caused by fatty deposits, which impedes blood flow and potentially leads to heart attacks and strokes. Essentially, they ate like average Americans.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While the daily-moderate mice consumed the same total amount of alcohol per week as the weekend-binge group (and ate the same unhealthy meals), their bodies fared considerably better. Mice in the moderate group actually emerged with healthier blood vessels than those in the non-drinking control group on the same diet, with 40% <i>less</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> build-up of plaque on their arteries. Meanwhile, the binge group had pretty dismal numbers with a 60% </span><i>increase</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in arterial plaque build-up compared to the control mice.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The binge-drinking mice not only sustained more damage to their arteries, they also got the fattest. While all three groups were fed the same junk food diets, changes in body weight varied with different alcohol intake schedules. Over the course of 4 weeks, non-alcoholic control mice increased in mass by about 8.5%, while the moderate-daily-drinking mice only increased by about 5%, a modest improvement. The binge drinkers, however, gained double the weight of the control group and more than triple that of the moderate drinking mice, adding a mighty 17.5% to their initial body weight.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How can the same amount of alcohol protect the cardiovascular health (and figures) of the daily drinkers while doing so much damage to the bingers? While exact mechanisms of action are yet undetermined, part of the difference lies in how the two patterns affect cholesterol in the blood. While both groups of boozing mice experienced an increase in HDL (the “good cholesterol” associated with removing build-up from arterial walls) their drinking regimens produced opposite effects in LDL levels (“bad cholesterol” that can cause build-up). Relative to the control group, the daily-moderate group showed a 40% <i>decrease</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in LDL while the unfortunate binge group experienced a 20% </span><i>increase</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in LDL.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Alcohol metabolism itself differs in moderate versus binge drinking episodes. While much to-do has been made over demon alcohol, its metabolite acetaldehyde is the more damaging molecule. When alcohol is consumed, the body breaks it down so that it can be removed. It’s a two-step process, first to acetaldehyde and then to acetate (a nontoxic chemical similar to vinegar). This is all fine and well except that the supplies needed to do the second step (breaking down nasty acetaldehyde into benign acetate) run out after a few drinks worth of metabolizing. So with binge drinking, acetaldehyde hangs around causing problems until the materials required to deal with it can be replenished.‡<style>
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</div></div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course cardiovascular disease isn’t the only health concern out there. This study does not aim to address the overall effect of drinking patterns on all systems in the body. But it’s information worth noting for those who believe that abstaining from alcohol during the week is sufficient to balance out weekend bacchanalian excesses. That and it might be a good idea to lay off the cheese fries.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* The study will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Atherosclerosis<span style="font-style: normal;">.</span> If you’re too impatient to wait for it, you can download the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021915011008380">accepted manuscript</a> in all its unformatted, un-copyedited majesty.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>† The blood alcohol levels attained by moderate vs. binge drinking mice were roughly 0.07% and 0.23% respectively. This placed the moderate daily drinkers at a level where they could still legally drive in most U.S. states….if they weren’t mice, that is.</i><br />
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<i>‡ Lingering acetaldehyde is also a major contributor to hangovers.</i></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-38367792865043930282011-08-24T12:16:00.000-05:002011-08-24T12:16:40.849-05:00The Evil Genuis of Toxoplasma<!--StartFragment--> <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Rosa Pomar.</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">Just when you thought it was safe to clean the cat box, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma gondii</i> is back in the news. In the August 17<sup>th</sup> issue of the journal PLoS One, scientists reported the <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0023277">latest creepy details</a> about how the Machiavellian parasite tricks host organisms into doing its bidding.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For those unfamiliar with the brilliant and disgusting life cycle of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma gondii</i> – the microorganism that causes the disease toxoplasmosis – a brief review (feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you already know this)….</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma </i>is a single-celled protozoan with both sexual and asexual phases of reproduction. The sexual phase occurs in one place only – the small intestine of a cat. Here’s how it works: after the micro-sex act, the resulting oocysts make their way into the world in the form of cat feces. There they sporulate for a few days until they’re ready to infect the intermediate host (such as a rat). The rat eats the cat feces, which allows the parasite to complete its last phase of asexual development before lodging itself into the host’s brain or muscle tissue. Then it just hangs out there as a cyst until the host is eaten by a cat and ferried to the feline digestive tract, where a circle of life begins anew. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Getting rats to eat cat shit is no problem; they’ll eat anything. But convincing them to offer themselves up at cat treats is a bit more challenging. Healthy rats have an innate fear of cats, and typically run in the opposite direction the moment they detect catty smells. This is evolutionarily advantageous for rats since cats tend to view them as food. But rats infected with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma</i> lose their cat-avoidance instincts. Past experiments exposing normal and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma </i>-infected rats to cat urine found that the parasite-carrying rodents not only didn’t show a fear response, they actually seemed somewhat intrigued by the odor of cat pee. Somehow the parasite had tampered with these rats’ brains and was causing them to recklessly place themselves in harm's way, thus ensuring that the parasite-harboring rodents would find their way into a cat’s belly. Curiosity kills the rat.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Luke Hayfield.</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the latest study, researchers showed that infected rats had abnormal responses not just in their behavior, but in subregions of the amygdala – a part of the brain associated with emotions, including both fear and attraction. While healthy rats encountering the smell of cat urine showed more activity in the fear pathway of the amygdala, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma-</i>infected rats also had responses in the attraction pathway. Their brains lit up in pattern more like that of a rat confronted with a potential mate than a potential predator. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma </i>that make their way into neural tissue do often land in the amygdala, the method by which they confuse its emotional pathways is still unknown. But the behavioral results suggest that the seemingly dormant cysts are turning prudent fear into foolhardy interest. Also rather telling is the observation that infected rats display normal behavior in other situations, even those involving non-feline predators. It would seem that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma</i> has no interest in finding its way to the intestine of an eagle or a snake. Just cats please.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So what? Too bad for the rats, you may say, but humans too can harbor <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma</i>. While most of us don’t go out of our way to eat cat crap, our species can become infected with the parasite through ingesting undercooked meat (remember, the cysts can also end up in muscle tissue) or by just not washing our hands well enough after cleaning the cat box. Once the parasites enter our bodies, they linger just like they do in rodents. Infection rates vary considerably by region, but up to a third of the human population carries the parasite.* Toxoplasmosis is generally mild in otherwise healthy humans, causing little or no symptoms; you might get some flu-ish aches and pains, but that’s about it. However in it can be life-threatening for anyone with a weakened immune system. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But for the healthy, asymptomatic hosts of the parasite, is there anything to be concerned about? Humans have amygdalas too, which can house parasitic cysts just like those of rats. What might <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma</i> be up to in our brains? Researchers have been increasingly drawn to this question. Studies have linked <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma</i> in humans to a variety of behavioral changes, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2006/08/01/a_nation_of_cowards_blame_the.php">cultural differences</a> (since infection rates vary from one country to the next) and even <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol9no11/03-0143.htm">schizophrenia</a>. Such research is hardly at the point of being universally accepted, but it is suggestive of the possibility that toxoplasmosis may not be as asymptomatic as we’ve been led to believe. Perhaps the symptoms are just more psychological than physical. Perhaps <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxoplasma</i> is subtly affecting our behavior in ways that haven’t even occurred to science. I’m not saying that the parasite is causing people to live alone with upwards of ten cats so that it might one day be able to reproduce if, say, the cat owner dies and the pets start eating the body before anyone discovers it.† But we can’t rule it out.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* Before you lock yourself in the house with a box of sani-wipes, please recall that the parasite only reproduces in cats, so you can’t get it from ordinary human contact. However, the disease can be passed from a pregnant mother to her child, or (though this is quite rare) via organ transplants or blood transfusions.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>† For a more thorough exploration of “postmortem predation”, have a look at </i><a href="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1922/will-cats-eat-their-owners"><i>The Straight Dope</i></a><i>, where no question is too obscure or too gross to be answered.</i></div><!--EndFragment--> alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-5638382797881072592011-07-28T20:47:00.000-05:002011-07-28T20:47:30.807-05:00Crazy From The Heat: The Crime-Temperature Connection<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJw-p8aDS98vrcrOSOXQ_BagnRxeZPImwE6N9q2k-D8hrNgkV-BGraWeQP1NqD5rtgcRtXRLyFLM-Xrf1C2n8Qy3iBnpVf29TQJMcONQjzFMJNItr3jAdqQlq2yZstSVjZTu2F1gOdN8X9/s1600/Julius+Schorzman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJw-p8aDS98vrcrOSOXQ_BagnRxeZPImwE6N9q2k-D8hrNgkV-BGraWeQP1NqD5rtgcRtXRLyFLM-Xrf1C2n8Qy3iBnpVf29TQJMcONQjzFMJNItr3jAdqQlq2yZstSVjZTu2F1gOdN8X9/s400/Julius+Schorzman.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Julius Schorzman</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div dir="ltr"> </div><div dir="ltr">In just a few days I’ll be vacating my overpriced studio apartment in Austin’s tree-lined Hyde Park area and moving to the ‘hood (aka, the east, east side). </div><div dir="ltr"> </div><div dir="ltr">In the typical hailstorm of calamity that precedes a move, the house in which I’ll soon be hanging my hat was broken into a week ago and we’re currently in the process of, uh, upgrading security a bit. <div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">And then there’s the weather. The temperatures in Austin have been hitting record highs all summer and are intensifying this week in apparent anticipation of my impending move. We’ve opted to do most of the heavy lifting Saturday evening when the sun should be slightly less blazing. Still, it is guaranteed to suck.</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">This means two things for you the reader, 1) I don’t have time to write one of my longer, more researched pieces right now and 2) I’m currently obsessed with a the dual waves of heat and crime. So naturally <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/hot-weather-violence">this article in Wired</a> about the possible link between hot weather and violent crime caught my eye.</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Anecdotal evidence and much of Spike Lee’s oeuvre seems to bear out a connection between hot days and aggression. I mean, who among us hasn’t thrown a malfunctioning electric fan across the room at some point in their lives? But is there any data supporting such a correlation, or any reason to believe that thing one causes the other?</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">The <i>Wired</i> article discusses a study conducted by Ellen Cohn and James Rotton, psychologists at Florida State University, examining assault rates over a two-year period in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I’m guessing they were referring to <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1997-06343-006">this study</a>, yet for some reason they linked to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494499901573">this other study</a> by the same authors, which deals with property crime during the same period in the same city (also interesting, given my recent break-in issues, but let’s stick with assault for the moment).</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Cohn and Rotton reported several noteworthy observations.</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">1) Assault rates were higher in summer than in winter.</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">2) Assault rates were higher at night than during the day. (Remember this detail, as it will become important in a minute.)</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">3) Overall assault rates initially rose with temperature, but as the mercury neared 80F, such crimes leveled off and even decreased.</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">This last point runs contrary to our expectations that things continue to get worse as heat and heat-related frustrations rise. Perhaps people were just too exhausted from the heat to pick a fight?</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">But you don’t have accept Cohn and Rotton’s interpretation of their own data, because another group of psychologists – Brad Bushman, Morgan Wang, and Craig Anderson – <a href="http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2005-2009/05BWA_1.pdf">also had a go at it</a>. They concluded that the original study failed to properly consider time of day. The major issue is that both crime rate and temperature vary with time of day, but in opposite directions. Crime is higher at night, while temperature is higher during the day. So things seem to level off after 80F because it’s usually not that hot in Minneapolis by midnight (excluding July 2011, of course). When focusing on the data specifically between the angry hours of 9pm and 3am, there is no fall off and assault rates continue to rise as the nights get hotter.</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">And what about that study on property crime, (a reasonable concern for those of us about to relocated our earthly belongings to a part of town where folks kick in doors with some regularity)? Once again weather is a factor (more break-ins in summer, with rates rising according to temperature), but so is time of day (more break-ins at night).</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">It’s a lot of information to process with July temperatures melting one’s fragile brain. It has also been suggested that weather affects crime rates not as much by pissing people off, but by driving them outdoors in the first place, where they are more likely to encounter each other and the poorly lit back door of your house. It’s too cold for crime in January. Property crimes in particular are often opportunistic, which requires that the individuals committing them venture outside to find said opportunities.</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">As is often the case, more research on the subject would be needed to understand any psychological causes behind the correlations. For now, a freshly installed metal door will be welcoming me to the neighborhood.</div></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-41292302140070795932011-07-11T23:45:00.001-05:002011-07-12T19:10:32.569-05:00The Trouble With Sprouts<style>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Jessica Reeder</td></tr>
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</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Remember the carefree days when you thought you only had to worry about <i>E. coli</i> if you were eating hamburgers? Good times those were. The salad days. Well, after weeks of media speculation around the possible involvement of sprouts in Europe’s <i>E. coli</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> outbreak,* I’ve finally accepted what health officials have been saying for some time; sprouts – like raw fish and un-pasteurized milk – are a high-risk food. It’s been an unhappy realization. I love sprouts. They are awesome on everything; salads, sandwiches, breakfast tacos. But they are dangerous, more dangerous it turns out than other raw vegetables, such as the cucumbers that were originally blamed (but later exonerated) for this recent spell of food-borne illness.</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Some Numbers For You:</span></b></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">According to the FDA, at least 30 outbreaks of food poisoning in the U.S. since 1996 have been linked to sprouts.† And those are just outbreaks – large scale incidents in which enough people get sick from the same foodstuffs to have any chance of tracing the illness to its source. But only 5% of food poisoning cases are associated with outbreaks, while the remaining 95% fall under the heading of “sporadic” cases in which only one or two people develop symptoms severe enough to report and the cause is never isolated as anything more specific than “something I ate…”</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">One of the worst <i>E. coli</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> outbreaks in recent history occurred in Japan in 1996. At least 10,000 people fell ill. The culprit? Tainted radish sprouts.</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">How Good Food Goes Bad</span></b></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">We’re all familiar enough with stories in which raw meat, which usually gets the cooties cooked out of it, contaminates raw vegetables that don’t receive the same protective heat sterilization. It’s why we keep raw chicken far from the salad bowl and thoroughly wash any cutlery than comes into contact with it. Contamination, of course, isn’t isolated to kitchens; it can also occur during various stages of agricultural production. But why should sprouts be any different from the other components of a salad? </span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1vtKSwURBQhimzgwlgKKI0RUNN1SLlTYpG9iHwMleaj8F-tW6A-Vr2WpW4XVHhcrIS5jBeBWd9OHI5o-VCssm4l1_oQBf8X4YHM8duehdsecSBYRMTo6kuZljl36VZqTNyGE8ChW9Damh/s1600/little+blue+hen2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1vtKSwURBQhimzgwlgKKI0RUNN1SLlTYpG9iHwMleaj8F-tW6A-Vr2WpW4XVHhcrIS5jBeBWd9OHI5o-VCssm4l1_oQBf8X4YHM8duehdsecSBYRMTo6kuZljl36VZqTNyGE8ChW9Damh/s200/little+blue+hen2.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Little Blue Hen</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Part of the problem is in how they are grown. Sprouts start as seeds, like other vegetables. However, instead of being planted in the ground, these seed are soaked in water and grown indoors in a warm, humid space. These are coincidentally the same conditions that favor bacterial growth. Under such optimal circumstances, even a single <i>E. coli</i> bacterium on a single seed can multiply into millions of disease-causing microorganisms, infecting an entire batch of delicious sprouts.</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But how do the seeds get contaminated in the first place? Here we return to the same problem that causes the more familiar undercooked-hamburger-induced food poisoning – animals, namely cows. <i>E. coli</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> bacteria live in the intestinal tracts of these mammals and often find their way into food through the ubiquitous medium of cow crap. Cows are everywhere. Try as you might to keep the animals on one side of the farm and the plants on the other, run off from cattle is a constant threat to vegetable hygiene. </span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Making matters worse, cow manure is sometimes used as fertilizer. Call me an ignorant city person (you’d be right), but this does not sound like a good idea for growing any produce that might be consumed raw. Sprout seeds can also be contaminated by the water used to irrigate them (again, cow crap runoff). And, further down the line, they can pick up bacteria in the harvesting and shipping process. Remember, it only takes a teensy bit of bacteria tracked in areas containing meat or manure to multiply into an enormous problem once the sprouting commences.</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Can Anything Be Done?</span></b></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">There’s a lot working against the production of pathogen-free sprouts. Even if they are grown on a farm that houses no livestock and uses no animal-derived fertilizer, sprout seeds may already have picked up enough harmful microorganisms to doom a truckload of produce. Seeds can be treated with a germ-killing chlorine solution before sprouting, but this is a recommendation rather than a requirement. Additionally, not everyone wants their produce soaked in nasty chemicals. Spouts and other vegetables are also tested for pathogens (as is meat), but clearly this process doesn’t catch every instance of bacterial contamination.</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Further adding to the “you’re screwed” factor is the knowledge that the FDA currently only considers one strain of <i>E. coli</i> to be worthy of a recall – O157:H7, the bug responsible for the notorious 1993 Jack in the Box food poisoning fiasco.‡ This is not the same contaminant implicated in the current European outbreak. That honor goes to <i>E. coli</i> O104:H4, which is similarly deadly but rarer and hasn’t yet caused a high-profile poisoning in the U.S. Therefore the FDA does not mandate recalls if it should be found in U.S. food. No flaws in that perfect logic, right?</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Editorial Tangent</span></b></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So basically, sprouts are a scary biohazard but they’ve come to be this way largely as a result of our planet’s insistence on consuming enormous quantities of animal products. In my utopian society, in which livestock farming would account for a fraction of the food supply and be kept a good distance from plant-based agriculture, sprouts would be mostly safe (nothing in life is 100% safe, so you’ll have to live with some level of uncertainty).</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I was aiming to avoid a lot of editorializing here about the issue of meat consumption, but while doing my research I ran into a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-goldwyn/sprouts-e-coli-risk_b_875103.html">Huffington Post piece</a> ostensibly discussing the risks of eating sprouts and what might be done about them. The author writes, </span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Many people who love sprouts seem to be in denial, touting their taste and health benefits, and as I have learned in writing about the subject, they are having difficulty understanding the real risk.</span></i></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Fine, but then he goes on to say,</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But attacking the meat industry is not likely to solve the problem. We are not going to be able to ban meat or significantly reduce consumption. People love to eat meat and will not likely give it up in significant numbers. In fact, the trend is going the other way as meat consumption is rising around the world.</span></i></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Really? So consumers of vegetables should take a good, hard look at their eating habits and wake up to reality, but meat eaters should continue full steam ahead in denial of the negative impact over-consumption of animal products can have on their bodies and, more importantly, the planet? Because people like meat?</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m unmoved by this lazy, pessimistic reasoning. People have been fond of a lot of stupid and dangerous things over the years and we still try to dissuade them rather than throwing our hands up and saying, “What can we do? People like ______ (fill in the unhealthy habit of your choice).” And, yes, completely eliminating meat is unlikely and probably even unnecessarily rigid. But reducing consumption should be a priority.§</span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">This summer’s headline-grabbing story of high fatality food poisoning seems to be subsiding, but the threat of a replay lingers. If the cause of the illness was sprouts and if these sprouts were contaminated with E. coli as seeds (the prime suspect is currently fenugreek seeds grown in Egypt) then those seeds are still out there, waiting to be sprouted. And our modern system of agriculture is convoluted enough (additional rant about factory farming averted) to make tracking them down pretty impossible. The best guess as to when Europe will be safe from this particular batch of tainted seeds is around their expiration date – about three years from now. </span></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
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</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">* The going explanation for the outbreak is contaminated sprout seeds, but we may never know for sure. Evidence disappears quickly in cases against food-borne disease.</span></i></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">† This isn’t just E. coli. Salmonella and another animal-carried cooties account for a good chunk of food poisoning cases. But, for the sake of brevity, I’m focusing on E. coli here.</span></i></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">‡ And apparently even getting that strain listed as an “adulterant” was a major chore. The whole sordid story was recently chronicled in the book Poisoned, by Jeff Benedict. I’m itching to read this thing, if anyone has a copy they’d like to lend me.</span></i></div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxmsonormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">§ Sorry, meat enthusiasts, I do try to be tolerant of your choices and, like I said, I would never ask you to give up meat altogether. I just want to keep cow feces off of my vegetables. </span></i></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552184852839862026.post-28894836890876550592011-06-27T22:57:00.002-05:002011-12-18T11:36:54.961-06:00Shakes on a Plane: Can Turbulence Kill You?<style>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tP1C9eim0oZNUKj7hGSoRCyOMkOnrrCvOWBouUZ31fCtfVc1Br_Jwnsiu9m3g1b9I5b8UOXJHI6E_AS1ZMREEUu6FzPlzHV9qRWU90qiIJQw9qlyCwjVMtYC6Z4BImxYvWLxcAYYTMb7/s1600/Jason+Pratt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tP1C9eim0oZNUKj7hGSoRCyOMkOnrrCvOWBouUZ31fCtfVc1Br_Jwnsiu9m3g1b9I5b8UOXJHI6E_AS1ZMREEUu6FzPlzHV9qRWU90qiIJQw9qlyCwjVMtYC6Z4BImxYvWLxcAYYTMb7/s400/Jason+Pratt.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: Jason Pratt</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhngfcEczOPBgatWKIzM-iLz7ropH_rehQoaB3CAn7A_lTj5py5EWruhEE22TCjp1EkUSPoCK4dx1DKQt4uuTKuXMIsdXqoz1nQcF1n5fNiV2eU3rX9Aj_PDz5EwYjdPpJ6GDica7L68U24/s1600/14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhngfcEczOPBgatWKIzM-iLz7ropH_rehQoaB3CAn7A_lTj5py5EWruhEE22TCjp1EkUSPoCK4dx1DKQt4uuTKuXMIsdXqoz1nQcF1n5fNiV2eU3rX9Aj_PDz5EwYjdPpJ6GDica7L68U24/s200/14.jpg" width="131" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See that plane on the upper left?</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Airplanes are scary. This indisputable fact originally came to my attention somewhere during college, when my relationship with flying matured from irritated ambivalence to full-blown phobic terror. There is something profoundly disturbing about being suspended thousands of feet in the air in a metal tube piloted by someone you’ve never even met. When I explain this to people who aren’t bothered by air travel, they foolishly try to persuade me with statistics about how flying is safer than driving blah, blah, blah…as though irrational fears could be soothed by something as banal as data.* Really, the only way to take my mind off my impending death is to pretend I’m not in an airplane at all. Distractions like food and music and in-flight magazine crossword puzzles go a long way toward accomplishing this, but all their hard work is undone the instant the plane encounters even a little turbulence. Turbulence has a way of snapping you back into the present moment, its every lurch and bump an unwelcome reminder that you’re hurtling through the stratosphere at over 500 miles per hour.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...this is what I think of every time I look at it.</td></tr>
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>My spring vacation† involved a total of 7 flights and amounted to something like 25 hours of time in the scary skies. Mercifully, every flight was smooth and trouble free, except for the very last one – a short jaunt from Dallas to Austin. I could tell the final phase of the trip was going to be less compliant than the previous portions. Thick clouds hung over the airport while we waited to board the plane. As soon as we were in the air, the pilots announced that there would be no beverage service due to some rough weather ahead. Throughout the next terrifying 40 minutes or so, we received various ominous announcements from the cockpit as the plane shuddered in increasingly malevolent winds, “We’re going to fly low today and try to stay below this storm,” and “Okay, so still pretty bumpy even at this altitude, but we should hopefully be there soon” etc. After we were safely back on the ground, I apologized to my boyfriend for all my in-flight whimpering, calling upon the mantra I’d heard dozens of times, “I know it’s just turbulence and it can’t hurt the plane, but it really feels like you’re about to crash.” But instead of laughing at me for being such a sissy, he launched into a lengthy discussion of how severe turbulence <i>can</i> cause plane crashes, and how the turbulence we’d just experienced <i>had</i> been pretty rough, and something about “wind shear” being capable of tearing planes in half.‡ I was really glad he didn’t share any of this with me during the flight.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Say It Isn’t So</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Since anecdotal boyfriend babble is not always accepted as a reliable source, I’ve done some research on the question of whether turbulence can cause aviation disasters. The answer turns out to be a heavily-caveated yes. Turbulence can lead to plane crashes, but it is exceedingly rare. By some estimates, turbulence takes down about one plane per decade.§ This chaotic air movement - and its effects on the movement of the aircraft - is classified in degrees of light, moderate, severe and EXTREME (emphasis added by author). There’s also something called “chop” which is a more rhythmic bumpity-bumpity effect that comes in light and moderate flavors. Passenger perception of turbulence tends to be direr than that of experienced crew, so if you think you’ve been on the worst flight of your life, it’s likely you only witnessed moderate turbulence. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The good news is that airplanes are designed to withstand extreme turbulence (as well as lightning). The bad news is that, like all machines, airplanes age. Wear and tear that is no problem under normal circumstances can make aircraft less resilient to ridiculous levels of turbulence. Additionally, flying a plane that is being pummeled by rogue air masses isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Planes can be pretty much out of control during these episodes and, while temporary, the pressure is really on the pilot to react (but not overreact) in a way that keeps the aircraft from flying into the side of a mountain. If you think this all sounds melodramatic, consider a 1966 incident in which a BOAC (now British Airways) Boeing 707, flying near Mt Fuji, broke up in midair and crashed amidst harsh winds.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Your Wake, My Funeral</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">As frightening as that is, you should probably be more concerned about something called “wake turbulence”. Unlike turbulence created by naturally occurring differences in air flow (bad weather, pressure variations near mountains, jet streams, etc.), wake turbulence is caused by other airplanes, sort of like the wake created by a boat, except with air and much scarier. The worst part of wake turbulence is the creation of “wingtip vortices”, tornadoes of bumpy air generated by a plane’s wings that can take several minutes to dissipate. </div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHw6vTL96NElJhfPktSquUqmTXlSDHmvSoYjmDbKqSKiIY4OA9I3ZE_pwt36aKMKL0SXiIgEv5mP6zfZR4qeqOju8x8ZthtdnnrQMEUVw0saVU3xmq9A96JUDhysiBhe-Ucqdc9HzCIHB4/s1600/NASA+Langley+Research+Center.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHw6vTL96NElJhfPktSquUqmTXlSDHmvSoYjmDbKqSKiIY4OA9I3ZE_pwt36aKMKL0SXiIgEv5mP6zfZR4qeqOju8x8ZthtdnnrQMEUVw0saVU3xmq9A96JUDhysiBhe-Ucqdc9HzCIHB4/s320/NASA+Langley+Research+Center.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: NASA Langley Research Center</td></tr>
</tbody></table>As with boat wake, this form of turbulence is not a problem for the planes creating it, but rather for the planes near it. Airports enforce strict limits regarding how much time must pass in between take-offs and landings to prevent one plane from getting caught in another’s wake. However, airports are increasingly crowded places with limited runway resources. Since they are travelling at slower speeds and pitched at awkward angles, planes that are taking off or landing are more vulnerable to turbulence. And, unfortunately, take off and landing are exactly the times when planes fly closest to one another. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As with other forms of turbulence, wake turbulence is more of a threat to small planes (especially when caused by the significant wakes of large commercial jets). Probably the largest aircraft to crash as a result of the phenomenon was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 that got caught in the wake of a Lockheed L-1011 in 1972, prior to the implementation of the above-mentioned spacing regulations.** Wake turbulence allegedly also contributed to the 2001 demise of American Airlines Flight 587, though this crash is officially attributed to pilot error in response to the wake.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Reality Check</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">And now let me stress how very, very rare these occurrences are. Finding examples with which to freak you out was no easy task. Really, the biggest of your worries in the realm of bumpy air is encountering clear air turbulence (CAT) when you don’t have your seatbelt fastened. This is the surprise turbulence that occurs on a sunny day in seemingly smooth skies. The major impact of turbulence is not the causing of plane crashes, but rather bodily injury from all that jerking around. Every year, dozens of un-seatbelted passengers are seriously injured (and occasionally even killed) from being thrown around the cabins of twitchy planes. Your pilot isn’t just being an overbearing nag when he (or she) asks you to keep your seatbelt fastened when you aren’t walking around the cabin. CAT can come out of nowhere and knock the #%$ out of a plane. So buckle up, people.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>* By the way, I’m afraid of cars too, making such logic even more useless to me.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>† I went to Spain. It was lovely, thanks for asking.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>‡ Wind shear turns out to be variations in speed and direction of air movement, which often leads to turbulence. Possibly he was talking about wake turbulence rather than wind shear. Maybe he even said wake turbulence. I don’t know, I was still a bit rattled (pun not intended, but permitted) at the time.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>§ This was reported in the Guardian (via the aviation consultant Ascend) and they didn’t elaborate on what types of planes – or types of turbulence for that matter –were involved in these disasters.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>** The DC-9 is still relatively small compared to a wide-body behemoth like the Lockheed L-1011.</i></div>alexreshanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05031053995508725637noreply@blogger.com7