Scientific Notation

If you can’t help but sing your heart out with your best friend when you hear Aladdin's A Whole New World or Johnny Cash and June Carter’s Jackson, maybe you can learn a thing or two about duets from birds.

Vocal duets in the animal kingdom have long been known to occur in animals like birds, primates, and whales. But despite much research, the answer to why animals duet has been elusive and controversial. Research by Dr. Daniel Mennill, an Associate Professor at the University of Windsor in Ontario, is helping to change that with some pretty technical equipment, one duet at a time.

Daniel Mennill studying duetting wrens in the humid Santa Rosa forests of Costa Rica. Photo Credit: Dale Morris.

In a commentary released today in the September 3rd issue of the medical journal JAMA, Dr. Arnold Relman, Professor of Medicine Emeritus at Harvard and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, takes on the issue of industry support of medical education once again, and offers his suggestions for ending the medical profession's dependence on industry support.

Should pharmaceutical companies be allowed to fund medical education? Should they be allowed to give doctors gifts? Should they even be allowed to pick up the tab for lunch?

No, no, and no, says Dr. Relman, adding that if “busy physicians believe that detailing visits by industry representatives are worth their time and want them to continue, let them at least not accept the gifts, food, and other favors from industry, which make it appear as if physicians’ interest and brand loyalty are being purchased.”

If you use Q-Tips to clean your ears, you may want to read this. And if you use a water pick to clean your ears, you may want to read this too (yes, some people actually use a dental water pick to clean their ears).

The guidelines, which will appear as a supplement to the September 2008 issue of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, are the first comprehensive clinical guidelines to help health care practitioners identify patients with cerumen impaction.

Who knew earwax could be so interesting? But it's still gross.

It’s been known for quite some time that Fido and Spot can lower levels of stress in their owners. Studies by Karen Allen, a professor in neurology at the University of Buffalo, have shown that “the presence of a pet dog can diminish stress responses to real-life daily stress over which caregivers have no control.”

Owning a pet dog can lower blood pressure, can play a therapeutic role in confronting disability or injury, and can actually lower stress even more than your BFF—unless, of course, that BFF is also a dog.

Now, research that will be presented in Tokyo on August 30th at the International Congress of Behavioral Medicine shows that chewing gum may also help to reduce stress.

"If gum is good, and dogs are good...what if I let my DOG chew GUM!"

It has long been a dream of developmental biologists to easily reprogram one type of fully formed adult cell into another type of adult cell without using stem cells. By reprogramming cells, you might be able to treat many diseases where certain cells are lost or damaged, like diabetes or Parkinson's. Now, a truly exciting new study from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) is making that dream become reality.

In a brand new study published in the journal Nature, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) co-director Doug Melton and post doctoral fellow Qiao "Joe" Zhou report having taken one type of fully differentiated cell, called an exocrine cell (it makes gut enzymes and is involved in digesting food), and converting it into an entirely different cell using certain kinds of genes called transcription factors (a gene that encodes proteins that turn 'on' or 'off' other sets of genes). In many ways, their different kind cell is a much more useful kind of cell. The amazing thing? They didn't use stem cells.

Muscles are capable of providing an amazing amount of stability to the spine; a normal human spine can experience compressive loads of up to about 1,350 pounds during more demanding everyday tasks (9), and almost 4,000 pounds during something like Olympic weightlifting (2).

So why can you hurt your back just by bending down to pick up a pencil or pen?

The simple answer is that spinal stability is not a simple function of muscular force.

One way to think about spinal stability is that it is made up of three different components: the spine itself, the muscles surrounding the spine, and the circuitry that is in charge of firing these muscles (11).

The neural control unit is the circuitry that coordinates the muscle activity to respond to both expected and unexpected forces. For appropriate spinal stability, this system must fire the right muscles, at the right time, by the right amount, to protect the spine from injury while still allowing the desired movement (1). The muscles surrounding the spine are like the "rigging on a ship's mast," and as such an inappropriate magnitude from just one of them could perturb the fine balance of the mast (10).

STOP! Don't pick up that pen!

ScientificBlogger Matthew Brown had the chance to sit down with Dr. Judy Evans, a Consultant Plastic Surgeon in the UK, to talk about her award-winning Women In Medicine documentary on the BBC, her sex discrimination and victimization court case, and her life since returning to work after the trial.

At the height of her career, she was suspended from her work in the UK's public health system when some of her male colleagues raised concerns about the integrity of her work. This suspension came within ten days after she gave her support to a Nigerian trainee—a black woman—who told Dr. Evans that she was the subject of racist remark from another surgeon. The lawsuit was finally settled in 2001, and since then Dr. Evans has been enjoying work in a private practice.

"One of the surgeons said to me, 'you would have to demonstrate that you would be prepared to be sterilized if you are serious about doing surgery..."

Dr. Judy Evans, performing surgery in Plymouth, UK. She talks about her BBC documentary, her sex discrimination case, and her life since then.

ScientificBlogger Matthew Brown had the chance to sit down with Dr. Kathryn Flanagan, the head of the Mission Office for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to talk about her NASA missions, her public service, and why it’s normal even for an astrophysicist to have self-doubt.

"When the moment comes when you’re absolutely desperate, and you’re pretty sure you’re never going to be able to do what you’ve always wanted to do, don't worry—you’re right on schedule."

The MIT-educated astrophysicist is helping to explore some of science’s deepest wonders: how the universe came into being, whether there is life on other planets, and the origins of humankind. She’s doing it with technology that's challenging even the previous limits of explorations into space and time, and she’s doing it all with a tangible excitement, a genuine humility, and an altruistic spirit.

Dr. Kathy Flanagan, head of the Mission Office for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The JWST, scheduled for launch in 2013, will study everything from the first galaxies formed by the Big Bang, to the formation of other solar systems capable of supporting life.

As I was sitting patiently in Long Beach waiting to exit the plane and listening to that weird sawing sound that I hear every time I fly on an Airbus A320, I was wondering two things: 1) Why does it sound like Paul Bunyon is attacking my plane with a drywall saw, and 2) Who is going to be the first person to make some stupid joke, like “Oh no, Paul Bunyon is attacking our plane with a drywall saw!”

Would it be the young woman to my right in 20D — we’ll call her “Cathy” — with whom I was fiercely trying not to make eye contact for the duration of the flight, for fear that I would be not only subjected to the inordinate flow of words streaming from her mouth, but also socially obliged to smile and nod at the relevant pauses in her soliloquy?

Have you ever looked at someone and known immediately not to trust them? Have you ever seen someone's earrings and thought to yourself, 'they've probably had way more sexual partners than I could count on two hands?' More importantly, do you trust these sort of split-second judgments?

From implications in politics and economics, to simply testing your own split-second judgments of peoples' characteristics on WhatsMyImage.com, the study of our judgments and first-impressions offers a relevant and sometimes surprisingly fun look into the complexity of the brain.

Alexander Todorov, an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, heads the Social Cognition Lab that seeks to explore these topics. Their lab asks, “How do we form first impressions?”

Remind you of your high school gym teacher? Click to play a video of how Todorov’s lab alters “face space” to vary the expressions characteristic of a dominant person.

Schwarzkopf, makers of the gÖt2b line of hair care products, have introduced a hair gel called “gÖt2b Magnetik, With Phermones.”

This hair gel contains a substance banned for use in international competition both inside and outside of the competitive season and could result in an athlete failing a drug test. In the worst case, use of this product could result in an athlete losing an Olympic gold medal.

Why? The product contains androstadienone, a precursor of testosterone that is listed as a banned substance by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

ScientificBlogger Matthew Brown had the chance to sit down with Professor Meg Urry, the Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Yale University. She gives readers a special understanding of the issues affecting women in science; she offers her opinion on why so few women have gone into physics, and gives advice for aspiring women physicists. These views have been colored by her own personal experiences as a student, a mother, and as a physicist successful at the highest level:
Before coming to Yale in 2001, she held a tenured position on the senior scientific staff at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which runs the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA. In 2007, she was elected the first woman Chair of the Department of Physics at Yale.