ScienceBlog.ie

We here at ScienceBlog love the Science Gallery. For a number of reasons. Anything that popularises science and encourages people to discover more is a great thing. It is a quite unique proposition worldwide, an interesting concept which is simply somebody thinking outside the box. And it works. Recent exhibitions showing fashion (Technothreads), Lightwave, and upcoming exhibitions including Population Control and a Human Performance Sports Lab are brilliant ideas. I’ll be attending the Cycle Studio to see how I measure up again Lance and the boys, if there is a better way to sWherelse could you bring your other half to see a screening of Wall-E or the original Metropolis by Fritz Lang?? I’ll be trying out my cycling skills against Lance and the boys in the Cycling Studio

Science Gallery on Pearse St, Dublin 1

All in all it’s a cool space to spend an hour or two in the middle of the city. The coffee comes highly recommended too.

Hell, even my Mother enjoys it!

-Brian

Great news last night from the provosts in TCD and UCD – this should create a whole bunch of new jobs (albeit years from now) and is really the type of development in Science we’ve been looking for. Expect many new (or expanded) innovation centres to start popping up around the campuses.

Full story here

I was fortunate to get a free ticket to a gig a couple of weeks ago from a buddy. Dan le sac vs Scroobius Pip, I had only heard of them from an ex-colleague who was hooked on the meaning to their 2006 anti-hit: “Thou Shalt Always Kill.” So I was mildly inquisitive to see what was on offer. Turned out to be an excellent affair. When an act comes on stage to a remixed version of the theme tune to the Antiques Roadshow, you know it’s going to be a good one! And here is the Sciencey bit – the rapper (Scroobius Pip, who looks frighteningly like Osama bin Laden , granted with better lyrics!) fashions a Periodic Table and starts rapping through the first few elements!
See lyrics below, excellent stuff!

Dan le sac vs Scroobius Pip: “Development” Lyrics:

“Underground intelligent hip hop development
Progression is our intent, ladies and gentlemen”

They say possession is nine tenths
Well we possess mind vents
To filter the rhymes sent
From deep down inside
Hence the precision and timing
Essential to rhyming
If you wish to pierce the cerebral lining
You see image is nothing
Imagination is everything
Is there anything you wear that’s more important than what you think?
I think not… as I bump Aesop
Cruise to Herbie Hancock and f£$%in’ rock out with Snot
You wanna look for me?
I’ll be in charity shops
I ain’t buyin’ my shirts
I’m buyin’ my damn pants and socks
Bitch-what?
This $hit’s inside of me
I ain’t riding the beat
It’s the beat that is riding me

I ain’t an alcoholic
I just drink a lot
And maybe I’m a genius
Or maybe I just think a lot
My intellect in retrospect compared to some…

“Ay yo Pip you know that second verse was all straight garbage?”
What you talkin’ ‘bout man it’s not that bad… it was alright.
“I know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. Give these f£$%ers something new!”
What am I supposed to do? What…?
“Come on man”
Alright man, how about this?

I remember hearing Mos Def rhyme the alphabet
I just sat there in silence
As a sign of respect
I knew what I had to do
And that’s what happened next
I rhymed the periodic table
Hydrogen is number one
Cause hydrogen is what puts the shine in the sun
Through nuclear fusion and when it’s done
It leaves element number two
Helium… helium is the second lightest gas that there is
So we use it in balloons we give to little kids
Then there’s lithium often used to treat mental problems
Beryllium don’t conduct electric currents, it stops them
Boron can be used to make things harden
And that smoke that’s coming out of your exhaust, carbon
Carbon is arguably the most important element
And nitrogen in the air is almost eighty percent
The rest of the air is mainly oxygen
And fluorine is the lightest of the halogens
OK that’s enough teaching
I ain’t trying to bore ya
I’m just trying to be a positive role model for ya
Cause in my town I’m blessed with many role models
So many that sometimes the mind just boggles
See KRS is my teacher
Slick Rick’s my ruler
Chuck D’s my preach’
I’m just a preschooler
I’ve still got growing to do though
I ain’t trying to fool ya
But compared to all the other kids in my class
I’m much taller
I’m much taller

Stimulating Science: Funding for Research Included in Stimulus Package

In the hopes of fending of the current economic down turn, President Barack Obama signed in to law on February 17th the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), more commonly referred to as the “Stimulus Package”. Along with tax relief and investments in infrastructure, healthcare, and education, the law includes funding for scientific research. Within the $787 billion dollar package is $111B designated for infrastructure and science. While much of that will go toward rebuilding a national infrastructure that has been largely neglected since the Eisenhower administration, $10.4B is being provided directly to the National Institute of Health (NIH), the government bureaucracy largely responsible for administrating government support for biomedical research across the country.

The additional NIH funding was reportedly added to the bill at the behest of senator Alan Specter R-PA, as reported by Gardiner Harris in the February 13th edition of the New York Times. Specter, who as a ranking member of the Senate’s Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations sub-committee, and a cancer survivor, has long acted as a ardent supporter of the NIH. Specter’s vote was crucial as one of only 3 Republican senators, along with Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, who voted for the ARRA, this despite rigorous cajoling by the administration to garner bi-partisan support for the bill to lend legitimacy to the monumental legislation.

This renewed support of the sciences by the new administration is in line with the overtures the president has been making to the field in recent speeches. Notably during the inaugural address, Obama pledge to “restore science to its rightful place”. This was followed by his address to the joint session of Congress on Feb 24th where he proposed “seeking a cure for cancer in our time”. Now while such an ambition will be no less difficult to achieve and less easy to define than the moon shot challenge of JFK in 1961, it is good to once again see lofty goals being set by a government willing to support them.

This stands in dark contract to the policies of the Bush administration whose anti-science stances should not be news to any being with awareness greater than that of an insect. Although even that might not get you off the hook since there is a slime-mold eating beetle discovered by Dr. Quentin Wheeler named for the former executive, Agathidium Bushi. Whether it was stem-cell research or climate change, the previous 8 years were hardly a renaissance for science policy in the American government. While NIH funding has increased incrementally over that time from $17.8B in FY 2000 to $29B FY 2007 according to the institute’s website, this pales when compared to defense spending which reached $678B in the final year of the Bush administration as reported by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Of course, the question still remains as to what will the NIH spend the money on, and how will that affect those of us working in the field? According to a statement released by NIH director Raynard Kington, $8.2B will go to directly support scientific research priorities. Meanwhile, $1.8B will go toward shared instrumentation and capitol equipment, as well as construction and renovation of NIH funded centers. The remaining $400M will go toward Comparative Effectiveness Research; a much-touted program aimed at identifying best practices in the clinic with the hope of increasing the efficiency of treatments and alleviating some of the ballooning healthcare costs that are weighing down the U.S. economy. When this and the other money allocated in the stimulus package is spent, the public at large will be able to track the funded projects here, the website set up by the administration in the hope of keeping the process transparent and in the eye of public scrutiny.

What major achievements science will make as a result of this renewed investment into research by the American government are yet to be seen. However, there is an overwhelming in the scientific community that we have entered a new age of enlightenment and progress seems inevitable as impediments are lifted away. The sentiment is best expressed by the words of singer Nina Simone, “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day”.

Joseph Negri is a graduate of Trinity College, and is currently involved in drug discovery research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He can be reached for comment at jnegri at broad.mit.edu

I read most of this book while on a train from Siberia to Moscow, so be warned that it’s a long one!

This book begins in 1860, the year after Darwin wrote “The Evolution of Species”, and this sets up the novel very well in terms of period and subject matter. A huge, sprawling book which examines the evolution of psychiatry through our 2 doctors, who have entered the profession for vastly different reasons and broach their subject matter from different viewpoints. The evolution of modern psychiatry is examined by utilizing real life historical documents and Prof. Charcot’s lectures are particularly enthralling, making us imagine we are actually in Paris at the time of this great time of discovery. Various locations add to the grandeur of this book, Austria, England, France and California. You can see that the author has meticulously researched the subject, reading on after the ending proves this. Overall it gives a great insight into the beginnings of psychiatric study. Although the ending initially seems is slightly unfulfilling, somehow not living up to the epic nature of the preceding 800+ pages; it is one of those books you think about while you’re not reading it. This somehow makes it a lot more rewarding in the end. Highly recommended.

-Brian