Pushing barrows

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My issues with the good Professor Grayling seem to have created some confusion, here and on Facebook.

I do not feel the need to enter into a debate on vegetarianism, as such. It was not the point of the post.

I do feel strongly that a person in a position of influence and power should not lie, and continue to lie once he has been shown his information is blatantly false, to push a personal barrow.

On any issue.

I took issue with Dr Helen Caldicott many years ago when she was campaigning against the French nuclear testing in the Pacific. I was strongly against the tests as was Dr Caldicott but, full of passion, she talked rot. Easily disproved rot. And my campaigning was weakened by association.

I rail against any politician, usually but not always the Opposition, who abandons truth in an effort to instil fear in voters.

If you can't win your case with the truth, perhaps you don't have a case.

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Back to the Professor, briefly:

He claims meat is full of bacteria. And defecating bacteria to boot. Oh, poo!

But we humans are made of meat.

And if we get a cut that permits bacteria to enter our flesh it gets red, sore and pussy.

So, is our flesh, or any animal's flesh, full of bacteria? No, it is not. Our bodies react badly to the presence of bacteria.

I am not making a case for or against meat eating.

I am making a case for the use of truth.
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And they want me to pay for web access!

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You will have picked up on my absolute dismay at the moronic articles written in the media nowadays.

The above picture came with the heading:

"Teen's 'Solar Death Ray' can melt concrete".

This is just a bigger version of small boys tormenting ants with a magnifying glass.

Yes, if you use 5800 small mirrors to focus the sun, you will get a pretty hot spot at the focal point. But not a ray, as we know it Toto.

Here is a bigger version, build in France in 1970:



And here's a cute little cooker that you can take on your next camp:


It they expect me to pay for news on line, they will have to research things a little better than just calling a parabolic mirror a 'death-ray'.
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No, not in this belly button.

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From the fluffy edge of scientific research I can tell you that the belly button above will be fluff repellent. Consider the following research abstract:

"Hard facts on a soft matter! ... The hypothesis presented herein says that abdominal hair is mainly responsible for the accumulation of navel lint, which, therefore, this is a typically male phenomenon.

The abdominal hair collects fibers from cotton shirts and directs them into the navel where they are compacted to a felt-like matter. The most abundant individual mass of a piece of lint was found to be between 1.20 and 1.29 mg (n=503). However, due to several much larger pieces, the average mass was 1.82 mg in this three year study. When the abdominal hair is shaved, no more lint is collected. "

From the materials and methods: "The author first observed the accumulation of navel fluff in his early 20s. Despite thorough body hygiene including a daily morning shower, the navel filled with lint over the day. The author collected 503 pieces of navel fluff since approximately March 2005 with a total weight of almost 1 g... ...In order to investigate the role of the abdominal hair, the author also shaved his belly for this study."

Med Hypotheses. 2009 Jun;72(6):623-5. Epub 2009 Feb 23.
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On eels and wallets.

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And now for something different.

Reports that residual electric charge in the eel skin used to make eel skin wallets is demagnetising credit cards.

There it is men, the way to stop your wife spending - buy her a nice eel skin wallet or purse!
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No, I'll stick with "dodgey".

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Andy Green contacted me yesterday, via the comments to yesterday's post, and asked that I remove the dodgey designation to the Beat Blue Monday site.

While I am sure, or at least hope, the site means well, I do not think their 'beat the blues' equation is remotely scientific and promoting it as such is deceptive and, hence, dodgey.

The equation is described as "first defined by Cliff Arnall, formerly of Cardiff University". I hope this is not typical of his research methods. It calculates that Monday 19 January 2009 is the worst day of the year.

It is as follows:


The model was broken down using six immediately identifiable factors;

• weather (W),
• debt (d),
• time since Christmas (T),
• time since failing our new year’s resolutions (Q),
• low motivational levels (M) and
• the feeling of a need to take action (Na).

A few points, just a few, I don't want to bore you.

The D in the equation is undefined; presumably it is the day of the year.

There is no second half to the equation: like x = y+z. So what does the equation equal?

Units are undefined. How do you subtract debt from days and then subtract the difference from weather?

It is really quite bizarre.

Now if they said it was a joke, and made it a joke rather than a university endorsed 'equation', they could still pursue the cause of depression but without the fake authority of scientific endorsement.

The emperor's new labcoat.

So I thought it dodgey. Still do.
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Einstein was not the only one with theories!

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How about these for winning theories!

A contest was held for people to submit their theories on ANY subject. Here are the winners:

4th RUNNER-UP (Subject: Probability Theory)--If an infinite number of yobboes riding in an infinite number of four wheel drives fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all the world's great literary works in Braille.

3rd RUNNER-UP (Subject: Bio- Mechanics)--Why Yawning Is Contagious: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other people's ear pressures, so they then yawn to even it out.

2nd RUNNER-UP (Subject: Symbolic Logic)-- Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no alphabet and therefore cannot use acronyms to communicate technical ideas at a faster rate.

1st RUNNER-UP (Subject: Newtonian Mechanics)--The earth may spin faster on its axis due to deforestation. Just as a figure skater's rate of spin increases when the arms are brought in close to the body, the cutting of tall trees may cause our planet to spin dangerously fast.

HONORABLE MENTION (Subject: Linguistics)-- The quantity of consonants in the English language is constant. If omitted in one place, they turn up in another. When a Bostonian "pahks his cah," the lost R's migrate southwest, causing a Texan to "warsh" his car and invest in "erl" wells.

GRAND PRIZE WINNER (Subject: Perpetual Motion)--When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side down. It was proposed to strap giant slabs of hot buttered toast, butter-side-up, to the back of a hundred tethered cats; the two opposing forces will cause the cats to hover, spinning inches above the ground. Using the giant buttered toast/cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.
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2008 IgNobel Prizes

Archaeology:
For showing that armadillos can mix up the contents of an archaeological site

Biology:
For discovering that fleas that live on dogs jump higher than fleas that live on cats

Chemistry:
1. For discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and
2. To another research team for accidentally proving it is not.

Cognitive science:
For discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.

Economics:
For discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility.

Literature:
For the study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations".

Medicine:
For demonstrating that expensive placebos are more effective than inexpensive placebos.

Nutrition:
For demonstrating that food tastes better when it sounds more appealing.

Peace:
The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland, for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.

Physics:
For proving that heaps of string or hair will inevitably tangle.

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So?

Got a brochure from Nestle in the mail today. On the back cover it had this ad for their 'Greenblend', you-beaut coffee, that delivers 70% more antioxidants than green tea.

So?

What on earth is that supposed to mean?

What is it with the desire to find silver bullets in our food?

Why not just eat/drink it because it tastes good?

The little published fact is that every chemical (And everything is a chemical, don't fall for this 'chemical free' nonsense on packaging. If it is not a chemical, what is it?) will kill you if taken in excess. All of them. A woman died from drinking too much water last year. Vitamin A is especially toxic in large quantities. Sodium Chloride, common salt that is so essential in our diet, causes foetal abnormalities, developmental malfunction and death in laboratory animals when administered in high doses.

This marketing driven foolishness, that if a little of something is good for you then more must be even better, gives me the irrits.

Can you tell?
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Been out in the sun too long, perhaps.

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Australia, well most of it, went on to daylight saving last weekend. I have no drama with that at all, we could stay on daylight saving all year as far as I am concerned.

But I had to shake my head in disbelief when callers to a radio station started blaming our drought (Ten years and counting. When does a drought become a permanent climate change?) blaming our drought on the "extra hour of sunlight".

No doubt these were the same people who complained that their curtains would fade quicker and cats would be copulating on their front lawns in broad daylight if we adopted daylight saving.

Perhaps it's time to chlorinate the gene pool again.
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And in addition...

After my call for stronger, less hypochondriac, rats Phil asked if I am in favour of additives or not.

There is not an easy answer to that.

First a few ground rules. These are, naturally, from a chemist's perspective.

1. Don't whinge to me that your food is full of chemicals. My response is to ask you what part of your food is not made of chemicals? The term 'chemicals' has been stolen to be used for 'bad' chemicals - pesticides, preservatives etc. But it is misleading as everything is composed of chemicals. What else is there?

2. Similar for the term 'organic'. Excluding things like salt, all food is organic to a chemist. It is a term relating to compounds originating from plants and animals from long before pesticides came on the scene.

Now, to additives proper. These fall into two distinct categories.

1. New compounds that do not occur in nature.

For example, BHT and BHA are added to oils to prevent oxidation and delay rancidity. Are they harmful in small amounts? What are the health effects of the oxidised components of rancid oil? Which is worse?

Synthetic colours. Many are associated with hyperactivity in children but are invariably consumed in association with high sugar products. Which carries the baton for cause and effect? The colour? Or the sugar? Both? Neither?

Margarine is a totally synthetic compound; should it be permitted for human consumption?


2. Compounds that are present in nature.

But not all additives are synthetic. Vanilla, Ascorbic Acid and Benzoic acid all occur in nature but are mass produced cheaply by synthetic processes for addition to food as flavouring, antioxidant/vitamin (C) and preservative respectively. Should nature identical compounds be added to food? If they occur in nature anyway can they be bad? Note that cyanides, strychnine and cocaine are also naturally occurring compounds.

Sulphur dioxide is the most ubiquitous chemical added to our foods. Amongst many uses, it is the preservative present in sausages, dried fruits and wines. It is naturally present in volcanic gases and has been added to foods, by burning sulphur, since Roman times.

Many food additives are plant extracts - carrageenan, for example, is a seaweed extract often used to stabilize ice-cream.

My general view is that if the compounds are needed for the safety of the food, and if they are present at the minimum level for such safety, then they serve a useful function. They should not be present at excessive levels and should not be present if not serving a useful purpose. Sausages, for example, will not last 24hrs without sulphur dioxide.

While I am not convinced that colours at their normally used levels are a problem I do not generally see the need for them at all. Their addition is aesthetic, not functional.

Excessive levels of any compound (chemicals!) will kill you. Vitamin A is toxic. Salt will kill you. Excessive oxygen will kill you. Last year a lady died after drinking too much water. Apple pips contain cyanide. One apple core wont kill you but a guy died after eating a cup full of pips. Another man stir fried potato shoots. Dead.

Too much of anything is bad for you. Moderation is good.

But how much is too much? Good question.

So, my brief answer to the additive question is that in low amounts they are OK but be sensible about them. By and large they are there for a functional purpose.

If someone is complaining about excess 'chemicals' in their food, it is always interesting to ask them if they take vitamin or mineral supplements. It is bizarre how often people who fear small amounts of highly studied additives in their food will consume mega doses of some herbal, mineral or vitamin preparation and assume that it is safe.

On what evidence?
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The Year of the (stronger) Rat

A rat story for the Year of the Rat.

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It may surprise you that there are over 800 compounds present in coffee aroma.

Maybe not.

But it will surprise you that all of them are poisonous and probably carcinogens.

Before you switch to dandelion tea, let me put it to you that everything is a poison and a carcinogen.

Everything.

Cancer is not a result of a chemical, it is a result of your genetic processes 'stumbling' under pressure, often (though not always) from a chemical load.

Consider the grain of sand. If a single grain of sand falls on your shoulder, it will most probably bounce off. If not, you can brush it off. No harm done.

But what if a truckload falls on you? Bluntly put, the system can't cope.

So it is with chemicals. Your liver is taking small amounts of chemicals from your system every day, without a problem. That is part of the liver's job. But overload the system, and what happens?

Two things happen. If it is a massive overload, you get poisoning. If it is a persistent lower level load, then the likelihood of the system operating correctly will suffer. Have you ever had the situation when you knew you could do something, play the piano for example, but up on stage, under pressure, you made mistakes?

Cancers are your body making mistakes under pressure.

This brings us to the laboratory rat.

The scientists test chemicals on rats, specially bred weak, milksop rats, rats with a pre-existing disposition to develop cancers. They then feed the rat a diet of 5% of the chemical being investigated. Apart from water and sugar, no single compound makes up 5% of your diet. The rat, not surprisingly, will develop cancers.

You see, they can't wait 75 years to see if there is a problem with normal consumption levels so they increase the level administered to try to speed up the process. This makes as much sense as putting your pizza in a blast furnace to cook it quickly and then complaining that the pizza is prone to burning during the cooking process.

The scientists then draw a long bow and say that, because a weedy rat consuming five percent of its diet as compound x every day for a year developed cancer of the gonads, it follows that a human consuming 0.1 parts per million occasionally will also develop this cancer.

What we really need are stronger rats.

And smarter scientists.

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Note: I am not in favour with many of the various artificial compounds being introduced into our diet but, in this post at least, my issue is with the flawed testing regime; not the need, or otherwise, of the additive. That can be another post.

Have you ever seen that ad where the little girl asks her Mum:
"Mum? How do you make butter?" "Why, dear you take cream and churn it."
"And how do you make margarine?"
"I don't know dear, ask your father. He's the chemist."

Well, I'm that chemist. Look out!

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Hot under the collar. Apparently.

This is a wet and dry bulb thermometer.

The dry bulb is the normal thermometer while the wet bulb has a fabric sleeve over it that is kept wet. When air passes over the wet sleeve, it cools due to evaporation and you can determine the humidity in the air by the difference in the two temperatures.

A wind chill factor, if you like.

In a totally humid area, like the tropics, little water would evaporate and the temperatures would be the same. In a dry climate there would be high evaporation and there would be a large difference between the two temperatures.

Which brings me to the local weather. There is a widget I have on my desktop that displays real and apparent temperature. Like so:

What I can't figure out is why should the apparent temperature be warmer than the actual temperature?

Any meteorologists out there?
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The Ig Nobel Prizes - 2007

The 2007 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
For achievements that first make people LAUGH then make them THINK

MEDICINE: Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, USA, for their penetrating medical report "Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects."

PHYSICS: L. Mahadevan of Harvard University, USA, and Enrique Cerda Villablanca of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, for studying how sheets become wrinkled.

BIOLOGY: Prof. Dr. Johanna E.M.H. van Bronswijk of Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, for doing a census of all the mites, insects, spiders, pseudoscorpions, crustaceans, bacteria, algae, ferns and fungi with whom we share our beds each night.

CHEMISTRY: Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin -- vanilla fragrance and flavoring -- from cow dung.

LINGUISTICS: Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, of Universitat de Barcelona, for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards.

LITERATURE: Glenda Browne of Blaxland, Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of the word "the" -- and of the many ways it causes problems for anyone who tries to put things into alphabetical order.

PEACE: The Air Force Wright Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio, USA, for instigating research & development on a chemical weapon -- the so-called "gay bomb" -- that will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other.

NUTRITION: Brian Wansink of Cornell University, for exploring the seemingly boundless appetites of human beings, by feeding them with a self-refilling, bottomless bowl of soup.

ECONOMICS: Kuo Cheng Hsieh, of Taichung, Taiwan, for patenting a device, in the year 2001, that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them.

AVIATION: Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek of Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina, for their discovery that Viagra aids jetlag recovery in hamsters.
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A minor leakage problem.

A UFO, Unidentified Foaming Object
Captured in a deserted country paddock. (Aren't they always?)

[Scene One] A laboratory lunch room, late at night.

One of the signs of a scientist is curiosity.

Back in my early days of chemistry I was also interested in photography. My lab technician was a amiable lad called Tony; such was my interest in photography that I did the photographs at his wedding.

One of Tony's interests in life was shooting.

It is only a matter of time before a scientist with an interest with photography and an off-sider with an interest in shooting start wondering about how they may combine their interests. Especially when we were sitting around during the long and exceedingly dull night shifts.
What, we wondered (as one does), would happen if a can of shaving cream was hit by a shotgun? And could we capture a picture of it?

[Scene Two] A paddock.

A can of Palmolive Rapidshave is tied to a fence post. In one direction is Tony with his 12 gauge shot gun; the cartridges filled with large (BB) pellets. In another direction, at right angles to the first, is our curiosity filled scientist-photographer clutching his SLR camera.
In a third direction, roughly bisecting the first two and out of harms way, were a small group of cows, possibly puzzled but it is never easy to tell with a cow.

On the count of three ...

Bang! Snap! Moo!



For the technically minded: the shot gun had BB pellets (.22in diam) so that a small number of holes were made. Finer pellets would probably just demolished the can.

For those with a good memory: this post is resurrected from the wreckage of A Curate's Egg v1.
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Children, don't try this at home!

Well, that was exciting!

I had been charged with the job of getting old, melted candles out of a glass holder. The sort of holder where you take a coloured tea-light candle out of its aluminium cup and put the candle on its own in the glass container so you can see the coloured wax as it burns. The time had come to clean the glasses in preparation for some new candles.

My thought was if I sat the container in some hot water the candle may release from the glass and make cleaning easy. But the quality of the glass is unknown; what if the water was too hot and it cracked the glass? Yes, I know the candles make the glass hot but it is a gradual process.

OK, thinks me, I will stand the candle in a bowl of water and microwave it. That way the water will warm slowly and all will be fine.

Did you know that the wicks of tea-candles will ignite in a microwave?

I didn't.

I do now. Very pretty it was.

On reflection I should have guessed. Many moons ago, at work, we were testing candle wicks for their lead content. Apparently some manufactures would put a thin filament of lead in the candle wick and there was concern at the time about airborne lead from burning candles. Other manufacturers used zinc. The idea was that the metal gave the wick some rigidity so it would remain upright when all the wax in the container melted.

So, there you go. Children! Don't microwave your candles!

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