Quotes from Chemistry...Part 9!

“We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or to describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work”. 
                   -Richard Feynman, in his 1965 Nobel speech

This is a matter that has plagued me throughout my whole time in academics as a researcher. In addition to that, I think it plagues science as a whole-- a problem where the actual story of scientific discoveries is lost amid the reporting of results.
Right now, science news report the results of some study that builds upon an earlier idea and the implications (far-reaching or near-sighted) for a greater audience. But there's a more exciting story to be told. To borrow from a fellow science communication colleague (and dashing gent in a bowler) Dr. Matthew Francis, "Science, is incremental. News, on the other hand, isn't."
News doesn't tell the full wandering story of how the discoveries are made. It doesn't tell about the failures, the frustrations, the late nights nor the moments where one is grasping at victory. You never hear in a news story-

 "Johnson was up until two in the morning running that analysis, because that machine is used so much it's the only time she could fit it in. The fumes of her 5pm coffee were just burning out and as the fuzziness of exhaustion began to close around her, the last scan completed sealing the confirmation of her hypothesis." HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE!?

"That's not an easy pipette, John. Jeez!"

Blind alleys, as Feynman calls them, are what drive scientists to keep asking new questions and probing new territory.

Granted, not all narratives are equally compelling. Many are downright dull without manufactured drama. But I think having added emphasis about the process of gathering results could add to the public perception about what scientists actually do. This could be beneficial in breaking down the caricature that has haunted popular perception for so long. It could paint scientists as the normal people we are, just doing our jobs too. Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything  is hands down, my favorite book ever. That's saying something for those that know my love of The Lord of the Rings and Redwall.
In the book, Bryson tells a number of anecdotes from many different disciplines of science from a really human perspective. These were people he was talking about. He painted the picture as such. He talked about where they were from, what piqued their curiosity, and about the context (most often accident) in which their big discovery was made.
That's a story I think is missing from a lot of science reporting. The "socially distant and awkward" researcher is (largely) a myth. The next time you read an article about a new scientific discovery, just take a moment to ponder how many ideas died on the chopping board, how many cups of coffee were consumed, and how many facepalms occurred in pursuit of that result.

Image (http://www.beyond.com/articles/top-schools-for-medical-lab-technicians-10959-article.html)

Quotes from Chemistry, Part 8!

“Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”


― Jules Verne, A Journey to the Center of the Earth

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

Ten-Hundred Words Challenge

Can you write about what it is you do, using only the thousand most common words in English? I bet you can. With a little bit of thought, even a topic so rife with jargon as nanotechnology [1] can be simplified down to use really, really common terms. The "Up-goer-Five" [2] text editor takes whatever you put into it and checks against the list. Here's mine:

I like to think about and make really small stuff. Right now computer insides are made kind of small but soon that won't work anymore. Really Small Things work sort of different than Bigger Things and computer insides are too big. I am thinking about ways to make things even smaller but still work like the stuff we already know.
I can think about and make a thing the way I want to by using building blocks to put smaller things together to make a bigger Small Thing. With these Small Things I want to see how power moves through, to help understand what power does at such a small area. By changing the blocks that I use, I can make the Small Things act different from each other slightly so that I can know what change had what end.
Using these Small Things together with other small things will let humans make cool new things to do more new work with.

XKCD had a comic [3] that explained the Saturn V rockets (hence "up-goer five") and since being featured in a Scientific American [4] blog last year, a Tumblr called Ten Hundred Words of Science [5] collects submissions so that you can read in simple terms, what people really do!

At the Science Online Together 2014 Conference I attended last week in Raleigh, NC afforded me the opportunity to meet a lot of new and interesting people.
From that I met a woman who had participated in this challenge and she posed it to me. Thanks to +Gretchen Goldman for the inspiration!

[1] http://tenhundredwordsofscience.tumblr.com/post/41281268006/my-work-is-about-studying-really-small-things-it
[2] http://splasho.com/upgoer5/
[3] http://xkcd.com/1133/
[4] http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/01/27/science-in-ten-hundred-words-the-up-goer-five-challenge/
[5] http://tenhundredwordsofscience.tumblr.com/

Dancing Dissertation Research

You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself about....
Image courtesy of Kacey Deamer (@KaceyDeamer)

This week's "Picturing Science" post comes fresh from Science Online's Together 2014 conference in Raleigh, NC. While out to dinner one evening with some of the other conference attendees, I was asked by those around me to talk about the differences between a couple of the main biological molecules. The particular attendee asked me about the chemical difference between proteins and carbohydrates.
While the audience in general was a fairly savvy one, the woman in particular who had asked the question hadn't had chemistry since high school and had said so. Instead of breaking out the pens and bar napkins like I would do with someone intimately familiar with organic chemistry structures, I made do with what tools I had available: my body and a momentary lack of dignity.

I had a feeling this might cause a riot or food fight.[1]

I mean come on. The difference is so totally obvious duh. [2]

I explained that, in large part, carbohydrates were long chains of carbon rings stretched out like a necklace connected by oxygen and that a protein is a more complicated globular form that all depends on the way that its individual sections (called amino acids) are connected. To demonstrate this, I waved my hands like a hula dancer representing the carbohydrate chain and the protein structure was wrapped around my head like I was dodging a firefight. This got a lot of laughs because my forms got physically stranger as I was trying to communicate ideas with elbows, shoulders, wrists and fingers.

The folks around me had enjoyed the performance so much that I was asked to talk about my research....of course using the same odd demonstrations. While performing, one of the attendees took a series of photos with her phone and using some post processing in the phone itself produced the image you see at the top. I had been pantomiming the synthesis of a chemical and then talked about the future direction of my work. It got a fair amount of laughs as well and while it didn't teach any overarching concepts of science we had a good time. 

[1] Myoglobin http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Myoglobin.png
[2] Carbohydrate http://html.rincondelvago.com/000280467.png

What do food, creationism, and language have in common?

The day after the Bill Nye- Ken Ham debate [1] was a lively one online for extremists in both camps. Scientists shook hands, patted each others' (virtual) backs, and congratulated each other on the clearly superior position of science. Young Earth Creationists (YEC's, the people that believe the Bible as interpreted literally) too, held hands and praised the power of God to act through the voice of Ken Ham against the "secular humanist" view of Nye.
All of the people I personally know came away from watching that debate (mostly live) saying that Nye had stomped all over Ham. "Ham had no answers, no evidence, no proof," went the chorus. And online blogs largely followed suit. American Atheists, Inc. took only hours to release this "summary" [2] of the debate which excerpted from the Q&A section at the end.

Click link above for full image. Source: American Atheists, Inc.

Buzzfeed, too, released a listcicle* shaming creationists' reactions to the debate. While not representative of the population at large, it is meant to suggest YEC's inability to grasp reality and evidence. Its voice is tailored to say that YEC's are simpletons that won't change their minds because it is incompatible with their faith. A follow up to that article showing doctored (sarcastic) translations of those questions can be found on the web.
But there are a few writers that were unsure if Nye's goals were even compatible with the horse and pony show that Ham was setting up. Nye was in the lions' den, since the debate actually took place in the auditorium of the Creationist Museum.
Sean McElwee and Abigail Salvatore of Huffington Post [4] write, "The solution is not anti-theism but better theological and scientific awareness...The irony of debates like the one between Bill Nye and Ken Ham is that they pit two fundamentalist readers against each other."
Some writers supposed [5, 6] that Nye meeting Ham as an "equal" gave undue authority [7] to the YEC viewpoint against that of science. Each man came to the debate with a main point to make.

Analysis after the debate doesn't exactly show a thoughtful discussion about the differences between each philosophy. Name-calling and hyperpolarization are replete within each side. YEC's claim a moral superiority while "the humanists/atheists/rationalists/etc." claim a realistic or logical victory.

Ham contends that Nye's "Naturalism" will undermine all that religion stands for.

But this debate is a flash in the pan. At the end of the day it is unlikely that any YEC was impressed by evidence to leave faith behind and I have heard no stories about anyone deciding that YEC worldviews make more sense to them than factual evidence.
This is, however an interesting illustration about something else that parallels in chemistry today. Companies over the years are responding to public pressure- generated by marketing companies- to remove "chemicals" from their products. Chemists are famous for their long-standing and typical approach to this situation of a)mutual back-scratching and asking "Why does the public believe all this nonsense?" and b) trying to "educate" the public through dry and emotionless fact-based lecturing. This isn't limited to chemists, of course.
When Ham asked Nye to provide evidence for his assertions- Nye was obviously prepared for it. He presented evidence in droves. Much of the message of why it all matters was lost in the sheer volume of the science given, and it was all given at a high enough level that unless you're fairly proficient at science the "so simple a child can understand" points asserted by Ham gain traction. His "historical vs observational science" [debunked in 8] point is a perfect example of all this. It's a subtle trick that doesn't hold water under scrutiny.
How does this relate to the battle over chemophobia? It's all a matter of attention fatigue. When we don't specialize in an area of study we can easily be fool into thinking that the simplest explanations are the most reasonable. A blogger that calls herself "Food Babe"* recently took on Subway because she asserts a chemical in their bread (azodicarbonamide) should not be there. Since the chemical is also used in the production of "yoga mats and running shoes" she fearmongered until the company gave way. Battling chemophobia in the ways I mentioned above has historically been mostly ineffective. Recently a post [9] about what other chemicals Food Babe should ban "because they're used in plastics" made it onto reddit.com [10] but a comment in the thread points out "Of course none of this will be heard outside the chemist's community..." [11]

We need a new tactic. Science communication is a vicious battle. It has become clear that fighting fire with water is ineffective. We, as the scientific community need to start fighting fire with fire. Flashy marketing in the modern age will not yield to dispassionate facts. It may be time to put our money where our mouth is and counter those who would spread misinformation with marketing strategies of our own. I know that I won't win everybody over to my line of thought overnight. I don't care. We are losing ground on a slippery slope but the fight isn't over yet. The enemy predicts how we act and plans for that. Changing that pattern could turn the tide, and we could really learn something in the process.
We need to sell ourselves better. We're trained to believe that facts will stand for themselves in the wild, but it simply isn't true. Marketing needs to become a part of our new strategy.

Antoine Lavoisier once said noted, "As ideas are preserved and communicated by means of words, it necessarily follows that we cannot improve the language of any science, without at the same time improving the science itself; neither can we, on the other hand, improve a science without improving the language or nomenclature which belongs to it." [12]

If we improve the way we talk about science, we can improve the science along with it.


[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI
[2] http://i.imgur.com/T7Zz0R2.jpg
[3] http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/messages-from-creationists-to-people-who-believe-in-evolutio
[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sean-mcelwee/bill-nye-ken-ham-debate_b_4723766.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion
[5] http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0205/Bill-Nye-versus-Ken-Ham-Who-won-video
[6] http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/01/02/i-think-bill-nye-is-great-but-i-think-hes-making-a-mistake/
[7] http://www.richarddawkins.net/foundation_articles/2014/1/16/why-bill-nye-shouldn-t-debate-ken-ham
[8] http://ncse.com/creationism/analysis/historical-science-vs-experimental-science
[9] http://www.rheothing.com/2014/02/what-else-do-we-need-to-ban-besides.html
[10] http://www.reddit.com/r/chemistry/comments/1xm6yb/a_partial_list_of_other_chemicals_used_in_both/
[11] http://www.reddit.com/r/chemistry/comments/1xm6yb/a_partial_list_of_other_chemicals_used_in_both/cfcu01n
[12] http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v1/n5/full/nchem.302.html

*Yes, that's right. I'll link to a Buzzfeed article over her drivel. That's how bad it is. Normally I feel free to link to others' work that I reference but what she presents is so repulsive and toxic that I simply refuse to feed her click-through rate.

From http://urbanchristiannews.com/ucn/ken-ham-vs-bill-nye-DEBATE.jpg

Three Minute Thesis- now live!!!

The above video is my final competition entry into The University of Alabama's first-ever Three-Minute Thesis competition. The competition took place on November 11, 2013.

Molecular electronics is working on the further miniaturization of circuits for new devices and materials beyond what silicon can already do. Here's my little contribution!

NY Times "Debate", and my reaction to it. (Part 4)

Continuing the series that I started before Christmas is part 4 of the round-up of posts from the NYT [1] "Debate" [2], this post actually comes off as a little different because it's the first post [3] where I take a little bit of an issue. Luckily I don't disagree with the message, merely with the language in it.

The author, Tara Chklovski, reminds readers that teachers are busy enough trying to teach the basics and that "ongoing individual feedback to 20-plus students with 20-plus unique projects" is an unsustainable goal. To help remedy that situation and inspire kids to be excited exploratory thinkers, she shifts focus back to the home front...albeit softly. She says that "Parents can pick up the baton and lead their children on a journey of true exploration and discovery." Her entire post is sprinkled with cans and shoulds as if what seems (to me) like attentive parenting has become optional. Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe what I take for granted as my upbringing where the walks with dad, the kitchen time with mom, and the family outings to libraries and museums are special, not the norm.
Mrs. Chklovski links to her own blog over at Iridescent [4] outlining in more detail ways for parents to be active and engaging in their childrens' lives. Her language is stronger in that post, with less of a suggestive tone and offering real solutions. I don't understand why this kind of engagement should "surprisingly" (as she says in her closing sentence) lead to more enthusiastic learners and prepare them to ask deeper, more meaningful questions as they grow up. I would absolutely like to think that when I have kids I would naturally want to actively engage them at a matter of just being a parent. Of course, I say this now without kids or any experience of being a parent- I know how positively tiring it is, in theory. I guess we'll see how it goes when I actually settle down.

"'Children spend much more time at home than at school. Their parents know them intimately, interact with them one-to-one, and do not expect to be paid to help their children succeed. The home environment offers 'teachable moments' that teachers can only dream about.' -David Peterson" [4]

But because of this, Mrs. Chklovski, it's not something parents simply can do. It's something they must!


[1] http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/12/10/math-and-science-for-more-than-just-geeks
[2] http://jsphmeany.blogspot.com/2013/12/ny-times-debate-and-my-reaction-to-it.html
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/12/10/math-and-science-for-more-than-just-geeks/parents-can-help-their-kids-scientific-educations-simply
[4] http://iridescentlearning.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-case-for-parents-as-best-science.html#more

NY Times "Debate", and my reaction to it. (Part 3)

Continuing coverage from Part 1 [1] of the series of my reactions to the NYT article on the future of STEM education in our country, Christopher Emdin [2] chimes in with a few cents to address his experiences with urban students from New York. His proposal, narrowly stated, wants to marry the pervasiveness of the hip hop culture in his area to the training of new scientific thinkers. In a video produced with NPR [3] he narrates the story of a group of young students writing and performing their own raps in a contest designed to promote multiple lines of thought and build confidence in the youth.

From [4]

"My father told me the program wasn't going to work and it was going to fail like every other program." says Victoria Richardson out of Bronx Compass High School [3]. She performed with two friends of hers on base pairing DNA and despite not winning the contest- they were still proud of what they were able to accomplish. Not only were they able to simply memorize rote base pairing schemes but they understood the material enough to create a work of art and communicate that knowledge enthusiastically.
Dr. Emdin says in the video, "Not every student a part of Science Genius will be a straight A student and go to college...and be the next Einstein. But you know what? We are definitely going to have more scientifically literate young people." [2]
That's a powerful point to note. In his article, he notes that the hip hop culture isn't completely general.
"I argue that the more teachers can consider the unique culture of their students, the more relevant and accessible their education will be." [2]
He basically says here that teachers should feel free to pull from whatever is popular in the kids' lives wherever they teach. Make it accessible and make it fun. Then, maybe a few, will ask those really probing questions that get them started down a really academic path. But no matter what field or endeavor these students choose- we will be all the better for a literate public.

[1] http://jsphmeany.blogspot.com/2013/12/ny-times-debate-and-my-reaction-to-it.html\
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/12/10/math-and-science-for-more-than-just-geeks/in-teaching-stem-use-hip-hop-as-a-bridge
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQrj4NPefd8
[4] http://www.tc.columbia.edu/i/media/9099_SciGenius-161_MarieCurieHighSchool.jpg

NY Times "Debate", and my reaction to it. (Part 2)

The first article in the lineup, as I briefly mentioned in Part 1 is by Miyaim Bilaik, who has her PhD in Neruoscience but is also now an actress most notably playing Amy Ferrah Fowler on the show "The Big Bang Theory ." (BBT)

I liked her thoughts on the matter, noting that "[t]he confines of a classroom, combined with teaching methods that are not engaging or inspiring..." [1] were not effective at getting young minds excited about the world around them but only fearful of what will be on the next exam. She posits the idea of using modern entertainment- television, movies, and games- to help supplement people in new and interesting ways to help people think about and grasp otherwise esoteric information. This is more than just bringing nerd culture into the limelight for shame [2]/ ridicule[3]. The battle over the net effect on "geek culture" by BBT is one that will wage like the battle at Helm's Deep outside of this discussion.

SOME PEOPLE ENJOY BBT DESPITE BOTH CHAMPIONING AND DEMEANING ITS CHARACTERS AND THEIR FLAWS!!!!

Science-literate producers and directors can wield incredible power in telling a story by not only the story elements it weaves, but the concepts it has the opportunity to explain. Think about it. If Glee or High School Musical could make singing in show choir cool again- what could we do with a show about kids making science interesting and approachable? Like Beau Lotto [5] and his "Blackawton Bees" [6] kids show us- ground breaking science can really be done.

I understand there will be limitations. Story will always take precedence. But breadcrumbs of learning are always better foundation than the black pits of despair that could be found on TV today.


Let's be real. Who would you rather your kid be watching?
[0] http://jsphmeany.blogspot.com/2013/12/ny-times-debate-and-my-reaction-to-it.html
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/12/10/math-and-science-for-more-than-just-geeks/use-hollywood-plots-and-characters-to-teach-stem
[2] http://butmyopinionisright.tumblr.com/post/31079561065/the-problem-with-the-big-bang-theory
[3] http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-2013-officially-marked-death-nerd/
[4] http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130117112538/lotr/images/b/b4/Theoden_leads_the_attack.png
[5] http://www.ted.com/talks/beau_lotto_amy_o_toole_science_is_for_everyone_kids_included.html
[6] http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/7/2/168.abstract

Investing Your Humanity

"There's something about investing your humanity, your eccentricity, your exuberance in the things you do. Why do people watch tightrope walkers? Not to see them get to the other side. Its because they might fall. Not everything you do is going to be successful, but that's part of the allure. It's also what makes the work valuable: that you're really present and invested in what you're doing."- Louis Rossetto, Wired Editor and cofounder.

Last month, Wired Magazine celebrated its first twenty years with a special edition of the magazine. Rossetto closed the article with the above quote and it really struck a chord with me, not because I want to start a magazine but because I understand his passion. Originally I started this blog as a part of a fellowship requirement. But since completing that project, this has taken on a life of its own. I never knew that a somewhat mature ecosystem of different chemistry blogs existed, not just as a part of the major publishers but coming from research groups, PhD students and interested hobbyists alike.
I got onto Twitter for the same reason. and in addition to using it to keep up with the latest literature, @CrimsonAlkemist has become a vehicle to interact with other professionals on a social level- presenting cool quirky things and sometimes lamenting about #phdlife. The cool thing about all this is that in addition to creating a non-traditional networking system, I have been able to create something on my own to be proud of. Biz Stone, cofounder of Twitter said once in an interview,

"By simply announcing himself as a genius on his business card, Wile E. Coyote epitomized the spirit of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur. When you're starting a company, you sometimes have nothing more than an idea. You have to begin somewhere so you declare yourself an entrepreneur just like Wile E. declared himself a genius. then you make a business card and give yourself the title 'Founder and CEO'."
Biz went on to create Genius Labs (which was later acquired by Google), and then Twitter.

I find that science isn't so different. We, as inquisitive minds, invest a little part of ourselves in each question we ask and are fulfilled by each question we answer. Experiments and observations, hypotheses and data. Even the failure of a reaction is an act of creation- albeit a minor one. To continue asking different questions until you find the right one is no short act of will. It's valuable. To me, that's what makes my work in the lab and on this blog alluring.

So to my readers I ask, how did you find your passion? How did you come to blogging about chemistry, about science? What about Twitter's ecosystem keeps you hunting down little tidbits of information to share with people you may or may not have met (yet)?

+Joseph Meany