jill of all tirades

An interesting and depressing article was brought to my attention by Jack.  Americans See Science Lagging Here posted on cnet describes the disparity between how scientists see their work compared to the American public. 

Personally, being a scientist, I found this article astounding.  I sincerely thought that the public had a much better knowledge of basic science and more faith in the progress American scientists were making in their fields.  Apparently I was mistaken.  Jack says that this is because I rarely talk with anyone who is not a scientist or engineer of some sort, but I still cannot shake my sense of impending doom if this is the level of public knowledge.

I was not surprised by 91% of people knowing that aspirin is used to prevent heart attacks; there are commercials for that every time you turn on the TV.  I was slightly concerned by the only 72% of people that knew continents were moving.  These and a few others, I expected most of the population to get correct.  On the other hand, only 54% of people knowing that antibiotics will NOT kill viruses and the 47% knowing that lasers do NOT work by focusing sound waves was disheartening to say the least.  Isn’t this basic knowledge?  I wonder what the results on these questions would have been if they surveyed children as another group.  I have a feeling that children would have done better than the adults.

In addition to surveying science knowledge, the study also asked about the religious beliefs and political associations of scientists, the perception of American scientific discoveries, and the media portrayal of science.  I found the differences in religion and politics between the public and scientist very interesting.

I think that it goes without saying that there is a large difference in the way scientists and the public think about science.  Does being a scientist lead to the differences in belief from the public or do those differing beliefs predispose one to becoming a scientist?

The Pew Research Center conducted a survey of 2,001 members of the general public by phone and 2,533 members of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) online.  Read the full study HERE.  (All images credited to the Pew Research Center)

There have been a recent rash of child pornography cases hitting the newsstands recently, and they all have one unique thing in common.  The people being accused of distributing or possessing the porn are under the age of 18.  The recent case of 3 girls “sexting” pictures of themselves to 3 guys and being charged with child pornography are just one example of this new trend.  Let me clarify, I do not think that taking nude pictures and giving them to someone special is a new thing that teenagers have just discovered (I am not that dense!); but the ubiquitous nature of cell phones, et cetera, make it possible to send these pictures without that day of thinking about whether it is a good idea while you wait for the pictures to get developed.  As a recent CiscoFatty reminded me, the availability of the internet to today’s youth (and not so youth) is one less barrier between the stupid things that they say and do and the rest of the world.

OK, other than the fact that teen do stupid things; I do not think that these girls and guys should be labeled as sex-offenders for life because of this.  I think that the title of sex-offender is in excess of the crime that was committed by the sexters.  I also find it ironic that another 17 year old girl that was found to be sending pictures of herself to her boyfriend might be tried as an adult.  If she is tried as an adult, doesn’t this mean that she is not a child, and therefore it is not child porn?  Hmmmm, logic strikes again! I think that these cases are something to watch because they will set the precedent for future court cases.

[polldaddy poll=1519973]

I recently came across a website called Flowing Data, check it out when you have time.  I first saw the visualization of the growth of Walmart.  If you watch the video, it looks like a bioterrorism attack that was orgininated in Arkansas.  It actually looks rather scary.  After that video became popular, a growth of Target video was created.  The Target video does not look like a plague crossing the nation; hence, it is less exciting.  I found it interesting that California had a huge number of Target dots and fewer Walmart, and conversely Arkansas had many Walmart but few Target.  Everywhere else on the map seemed to have a mixture of the two.  Is it just CA and AK that have extreme loyalty to the store that they shop at?

Now that I have put that picture up, I will tell you what it is!  It is a word cloud . . . ta-dah!  If you click on the picture, it will take you to the full sized one, and the site that makes them.  I used a term paper that I wrote on malaria vaccine development for this cloud.  You can choose the color scheme, the fonts, and the general shape and direction of the words.  Neat, huh?

I think that this is a very cool way to visualize data.  I first saw this method in National Geographic Magazine; an article showing which authors have been translated to and from English the most.  If you get a chance to pick up an issue and check it out, notice how big J. K. Rowling is compared to some of the “classic” authors.  It suggests that the Harry Potter series will soon become a “classic” to be read in schools.

Image of the vasopressin molecule

Recently, scientists have been studying the hormone vasopressin in prarie voles.  The male prarie vole is known for being a hang around kind of husband, and vasopressin has much to do with it.  This hormone is a prepheremone that causes the kidneys to retain water, vasoconstricion, and pair bonding.  This linkage between hormone and pair bonding has been proven in prarie voles, and now is being examined in humans.

The study I read examined the ammount of marital strife in 500 couples, that had been together at least 5 years, by survey.  Then the vasopressin gene was examined for mutations.  They found that a mutation in allel 334 was associated with lower scores in the partner bonding survey.  The interesting part of the study was that with no or one copy of the mutation, 16 percent of men reported marital crisis in the past year.  With two copies of the mutation, that percentage doubled.  Hmmmm . . .

Now, I will be the first one to say that this has not been proven.  These are just preliminary results in humans.  However, it does make you wonder what mutations or lack thereof that your partner might have.  Will there soon be genetic tests for probabliity of fidelity?

If anyone wants to read the full study, here is the citation:

Walum, H., et al. In press. Genetic variation in the vasopressin receptor 1a gene (AVPR1A) associates with pair-bonding behavior in humans. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences