Lode Code

Update: MLB just pointed out that I omitted one of the words in the mystery phrase. I've added it; did you notice?

OK, here's a quiz. If I was to say to you, "Camels often sit down carefully; perhaps their joints creak," what would I really be telling you, aside from some obscure and overly-general zoological observation?

Leave your answer/guess in the comments, but if you haven't a clue, the actual response can be found by selecting the following lines of text with your cursor.

This phrase is a mnemonic for remembering the proper sequence of geologic eras: Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous. Source: The April, 2008 issue of Seed Magazine

Ten Worst Jobs in Science

Popular Science has published its annual list of the Ten Worst Jobs In Science. It's not surprising that many of the jobs on the list involve interaction with the detritus, debris, garbage and other disgusting deposits of nature, including Whale-Feces Researcher (#10), Olympic Drug Tester (#8), Coursework Carcass Preparer (#5), Garbologist (#4), and HazMat Diver (#1). Oh, and Microsoft Security Analyst (#6).

I think the fact that the PopSci editors consider swimming in sewage only slightly more odious than working with Windows is, well, hilarious. Others may take a somewhat different view. ;-)

Twins Wed Twins: Mystifying Marital Math

My wife called my attention to the wedding photos page in yesterday's Lifestyle section, where the pictures of two lovely – and apparently identical – young women posed in (non-identical) wedding gowns. The twin sisters had gotten married on Saturday, one at 5:00 p.m. and the other at 5:30 (wonder how they decided the times?), in the same church.

As if this wasn't unusual enough, further reading of the accounts of the weddings revealed that the girls' new husbands are also twins. And that raises all sorts of interesting questions.

According to this article, there are only about 250 documented instances where identical twins married identical twins (for the record, we don't know if the people described above are identical twins; the girls certainly look that way, but we weren't given photos of the guys). I'm sure this combination has practitioners of various disciplines – including psychologists, geneticists, and, um, crime lab scientists – salivating at the prospect of doing research.

The primary question that came to mind was whether any of the children born to these couples would be identical (and would they be cousins...or siblings?). There seems to be a difference of opinion regarding this issue (just google "twins marrying twins" and start reading; I can't do all of your research for you!), but the most compelling scientific arguments give the answer of "highly unlikely."

But, still, as I dimly recall some of the basics from my college genetics course, there is at least a statistical possibility that the offspring of these couples could be genetically identical. In any event, I'm sure these folks will be a hoot at family reunions. I hope name tags are provided.

We get mail...

• This link comes courtesy of my aunt who lives in the greater metropolitan area of Muenster, Texas. It's a Flash-based quiz called "The Senses Challenge" and I hope you do better on it than I did. People have been telling me for years that I have no sense, and this quiz seems to confirm that judgment.


• A blogger from just down the street in the Gazette Neighborhood, Deb Thompson, sends a link to Gliffy.com, a service that allows you to create flowcharts, floorplans, and other simple diagrams online, and save and share them via the web. It's in beta form at this point but it's an interesting concept. Be forewarned, however; it doesn't play well with versions of Firefox earlier than 1.5, as it gave me the following warning as soon as it sniffed my browser. I assume that one of the perfromance (sic) issues is loss of spelling ability.

Technorati tag: Gliffy

How Napoleon Dynamite will help us get to the moon

Like a deceptively shallow pool of water, Napoleon Dynamite appears to be simply displaying his awesome tetherball skills, while actually providing the more perceptive with a demonstration of how mankind will eventually be able to routinely travel to the moon and beyond. I'm speaking, of course, about space elevators.

The concept of a space elevator has been around for half more than a century. It's progressed from a proposal in 1960 by a Russian scientist to the subject of science fiction, and now forms the current business model for a real live working for-profit corporation with a goal of building one within the next fifteen years.

The working of a space elevator is described on the How Stuff Works website:

In other words, the space vehicle would be slung outward along the "rope" until it escapes the earth's gravitational pull and is then released like a rock from a slinghot aimed -- accurately, one would hope -- at the moon or even Mars. Setting aside the immense cost of building the thing to begin with, the anticipated cost per pound of launching stuff into space via this method is predicted to be significantly smaller than with our current rocket technology.

The technology already exists to build a space elevator...in theory, anyway. The basic building block is the carbon nanotube. Nanotubes are much more than shipping containers for the new iPods. (That's a little engineering humor, there.) Here's the definition, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The diameter of a nanotube is 50,000 times smaller than a human hair, but is incredibly strong...100 times and more stronger than steel. The carbon atoms are connected by bonds which are stronger than those which bond the atoms in a diamond. These properties, along with the relative ease of connecting nanotubes to one another, yield the theoretical possibility of creating almost unbreakable ribbons or ropes or cables of unlimited length...such as the 62,000 mile long ribbon needed to build a functioning space elevator. And, incidentally, this ribbon is also amazingly lightweight; the LiftPort Group estimates it will weigh just 7.5kg/km, and that's for a ribbon built to twice the strength spec actually required for the job.

Incidentally, if you want to help the LiftPort Group get off the ground (ha!), it's accepting donations...via PayPal. Napoleon would be proud.

Tip o'the propeller beanie to the Responsible Nanotechnology blog. And, if you want to learn more about nanotubes, this site is the recommended starting point.

Technorati tags: Carbon Nanotube | Space Elevator | LiftPort Group

Truth: Faith or Fact

120 "third culture scientists and science-minded thinkers" have answered the question "what do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?" over at The World Question Center.

This is an excerpt from one of my favorites:

This is the most representative:

But this is the one I hang my hat on:

Needless to say, David doesn't have a lot of company in this group. More's the pity.

Tip o'the hat (real or otherwise) to Keith Devens.

First Vioxx...now Celebrex?

The manufacturer of the immensely popular painkiller Celebrex has found that it may contribute to an increased risk of heart attacks. Pfizer Inc. says, however, that it has no plans to pull the drug from pharmacy shelves, pointing to a second study that shows no such effect.

As you no doubt remember, it was the recall of Vioxx by Merck & Co. in September that sent that company's financial outlook down the drain.

Celebrex is the world's most widely prescribed drug for treatment of pain related to arthritis, and this finding could be a severe blow to those who depend on it. While the conflicting study results don't allow any firm conclusions, I suspect that most physicians will err on the side of caution and remove the drug from the treatment protocol for at least those patients with existing heart problems.

Celebrex is not without its problematic side effects, current concerns aside. If you're treating the pain associated with something like a stress fracture, you need to be aware that Celebrex can inhibit the new bone growth that provides the healing of such injuries. If you find that your injury isn't healing as fast as you think it should, be sure to discuss this issue with your doctor, as the solution may be as simple as switching to a different type of pain medication.

Curiosity Piqued about Peak Oil?

A quick scan of my referer log tonight revealed a solitary hit from a site named Dry Dipstick. This is proof positive that there's now a website devoted to every conceivable topic, as this site bills itself as "a metadirectory of peak oil."

The visit in question went to my post on Tuesday which gave brief consideration to the conflicting theories regarding the source and supply of petroleum, namely: (1) oil is non-renewable and rapidly depleting vs. (2) oil can be created naturally from non-organic sources and thus is renewable.

I presume that Dry Dipstick had a link to that post under its Breaking News and Commentary section, although the moderators apparently came to their senses and now link to something else by someone who knows what they're talking about. Nevertheless, if you want to know more about the facts and theories of the world's supply of crude oil and natural gas, albeit mostly from a "peak oil theory" perspective, Dry Dipstick seems to be a pretty good place to start.

We're running out of oil! No, wait! We're making more!

Ran across another recent juxtaposition of opinons, this time relating to the state of the world's hydrocarbon supplies.

An article in today's Wall Street Journal documents the ecstatic reaction of members of the "peak-oil movement" who see the recent run-up in crude oil prices as vindication for their theory that we're approaching the end of the world's finite recoverable petroleum supply. (Assigning them a title like "peak-oil movement" makes them sound organized and cultish. The former is incorrect, but the latter is probably not too far offbase.) Their theory is based on the ironclad belief that petroleum is a non-renewable resource, and unless we have the creativity to engineer a bunch of dinosaurs and the patience to wait a few hundred million years for them to metamorphize into oil and natural gas, then we're just up the creek.

On the other hand, there's this little gem, appearing in last Sunday's Oil & Gas Report. It reports on renewed interest in the theory of deceased scientist Thomas Gold which holds that the earth itself is continually creating petroleum via naturally occuring inorganic sources.

It seems that some scientists have been able to demonstrate that when you squeeze and heat plain old water sufficiently, you can force it to turn into methane, the most common component of natural gas. The temperatures and pressures necessary for this transformation equate to those found 12 miles below the surface of the earth... about twice as far as the deepest gas well ever drilled.

I don't believe that any of us will live to see hydrocarbon-generating plants at work, but that may be because none of us will live to see the end of the supply of relatively cheap crude oil and natural gas. My personal opinion is that the peak-oil theorists will get their 15 minutes of fame and then disappear for another century or so. Never underestimate the creativity, tenacity and skill of the oil industry.

Healthy Kids...Healthy Adults

I skimmed over this article about an increase in whooping cough in Midland and didn't attribute any special significance to it. After all, even though pertussis has become relatively rare, the phenomenon of increased communicable infections around the time school restarts each year is not a new one. The classroom is a veritable bacterial frappé (to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld). Then I read this article in the Wall Street Journal, and noted an eerie coincidence that the two would appear on the same day.

The WSJ story reports on some research showing a direct link between infant and childhood infections and serious illness later in adulthood. Here's an excerpt (insertions in square brackets are mine)...

This is, indeed, fascinating research that transcends the theoretical and puts a new perspective on the perennial issue of whether the state-required childhood immunizations are a good thing or a bad thing. I've heard some parents argue that the risks of the immunizations themselves are greater than the potential benefit. I wonder if those parents would re-think that perception in light of this ongoing research.

It should also be a wake-up call to those of us who experienced some fairly serious childhood infections (in my case, at age 9, mumps that led to a bout of encephalitis). Even if all other factors indicate low risks for certain diseases, perhaps it's wise to err on the side of caution in terms of annual check-ups and other preventative measures.