CKUT Radio Show

This morning I spent a wonderful half hour discussing science reporting on CKUT's Free Radicals show in Montreal. Link to the .mp3 is below, for anyone interested. It's rough, not sound bites, and discussion-rich, which are just some of the reasons I'm falling a bit in love with community radio.

https://secure.ckut.ca//cgi-bin/ckut-grid.pl?action=showaudio&show=monday,11:30

Many thanks to Robyn Fadden for having me on her show, and to Dr. Eduardo Franco for taking the time to talk to me about epidemiology reporting and vaccines, the latter a topic which is large enough that I am hoping it gets its own show in the near future.

The Woz

A few weeks ago I received notification of an event taking place at Concordia University. I immediately thought, "sweet!" and then promptly forgot to register for it. And so, after standing in the 'hopeful but unregistered' line for an hour while they let the responsible people in, I managed to get into the first half of a talk given by Steve Wozniak in Montreal this morning. He spoke for an hour or so about business, computers, and his own experiences with the genesis of Apple.

He responded to general audience questions about start ups, computers, and venture capital with general answers, but one in particular was interesting. He was asked how he, having been one of the original "architects" of the relationship between humans and computers, saw or hoped to see that same relationship evolving.
"I would ask we take a few steps back in the past and see that the human relationships get copied very well," said Wozniak. He stressed that we needed to make sure that technology works the way humans do, and not to force humans to work the way technology does.

I found this interesting because it led me to ask, to what extent have we started out, with computers, with that relationship in mind, and to what extent should we? And considering how the computer has changed just about everything about how we go about life, to what extent is the relationship reciprocal?
Tangentially, I also thought about Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux et al., and how the proponents (and engineers) of each would value the relative weight of user-friendly ease. But that's a whole other debate.

Elsewhere in his talk, Wozniak spoke against the myth that computers make kids antisocial, saying that the computer led the early-adopting kids to social interaction, news and information, not extreme isolation as was often the perception. He also advised young entrepreneurs to have as much of a prototype as possible before involving venture capitalists, to ensure greater share and control in the future. He said, "Don't try to raise money with just an idea."

The Boy Who Cried Cure

(Note: The below is not meant to work through the details of cancer research today, but more with how the public views cancer. Nor is any impunity meant to the writers of the articles I reference.

I'm currently working on a project to elucidate how the public views health journalism, particularly with regard to cancer. My findings so far have been that the public a) doesn't go out of their way to read about cancer unless they or a close relative actually have cancer, because b) every day a new cancer breakthrough or etiological link is publicized, and yet people still keep getting and dying of cancer.

One would almost advocate just shutting up until we actually have a cure, if not for the fact that breakthroughs drive funding, and group that doesn't trumpet its findings may find itself out of a grant; and the public, although it may be sick of knowing, does have a right to know. Also, the idea of a "cure" may not even be clear, with words like prevention, early detection, remission, etc. If we can cure 95% of one type of cancer, can we say we have a cure for that cancer, if it involves catching it early instead of an administered drug?

We also need to break down some of the "cancer link" headlines, another sub-area of cancer research that is starting to set the public head spinning. Take the various links between breast cancer, hormone replacement therapy, the Pill, babies, etc. A woman setting out to not get breast cancer has a remarkable amount of sleuthing to do to discover how best to hedge her bets over the 30 reproductively active years of her life.

There have been remarkable breakthroughs that have changed the course of the disease. The survival rate for some cancers (like non-Hodgkins Lymphomas) is very good, if found early; people are starting to focus on early detection; we've finally got across the knowledge that smoking does, in fact, cause lung cancer; and various industries are realizing it's cheaper to protect workers and public from toxins than it is to pay health benefits. We've also made chemotherapy a slightly less horrible experience, with anti-nausea drugs and the like. And slowly, these breakthroughs do add up to a slow, steady progress towards fending off cancer. And research progress like this (http://dalnews.dal.ca/2009/04/08/cancer.html) is announced regularly. But take a look at some of the public comments at the bottom of the above article.

In my perception, the public is starting to notice how much money has been spent since the War on Cancer was declared by Nixon, and seeing very little to show. They don't want life made easier for chemotherapy patients in lieu of a cure. The bar has been raised by the sheer amount of money and effort put in versus the output. I don't think the public will fully lose its cancer cynicism until we have an honest-to-goodness cure. And while there is much to be said for better science journalism to soften some of the cynicism through understanding of the complexity and tenacity of the disease, we have to remember that a lot of funding comes from non-profit and government organizations that do come back to public funds, and the goodwill of the public both through giving and policy making may begin to run dry if the trumpeting of every "breakthrough" continues to fall short of their bar.

We also have to remember that reporting at the lab stage is a far cry from reporting at the patient-ready stage, and that using the umbrella term "cancer" is setting ourselves up for a fall. Someone who expects "cancer" to be cured is going to have to wait a lot longer than, say, someone who expects to have leukemia cured.

Some good reads relating to the above:
http://www.openmedicine.ca/ (an open-source medical journal by researchers trying to make medical research more publicly accessible)
http://dalnews.dal.ca/2009/04/08/cancer.html
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-01/ff_cancer
The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis

Science Blogging

Hello,

Perhaps I should clarify the scope and target of this little blog. I'm a biologist who is moving into science writing, and having just started out in that sphere, I decided to start writing this to stretch my legs, try to get a feel for how to write about science, and learn about some broader scientific areas than my current expertise is. I'm writing about things I take the time to research a bit, that (unlike, say, molecular biology or microbiology) I don't know much about from an academic standpoint. It's maybe more of a journal of things I try to learn more about, so those looking for academic-level expertise will almost certainly be disappointed, and those looking for intense journalistic skill, five or six posts in, will probably also find themselves disappointed. My hope is to present more of a "hey, this is the cool thing I'm thinking about right now" perspective, and any constructive criticism of the specific thing I'm talking about is welcome, since I'm at the learning stage as well. (I.e., if you invented the silicon solar panel, and I completely misunderstood how it works, please let me know how).
If you're looking for hard, accredited journalism or academic understanding of all the things I'm writing about, you'll probably do better elsewhere.

Fall experiments

The alternative energy series continues with wind power, as soon as I slake my curiosity about it enough to stop devouring source articles like James Woods devours candy ("Ooh, piece of candy. Ooh, piece of candy.") and coalesce my chicken scrawl notes. In the meantime, I'm reminded of a fun little home experiment you can do while the leaves are changing.

The colour change of deciduous leaves is related to changing levels of various substances in the leaf, which increase proportionally as chlorophyll (green) decreases. To measure the change in the levels of these funky colours, all you need is some watercolour paper and some ethyl alcohol, and a tree whose leaves are still green.

1. Take some green leaves and crush them in a bowl. Mortar and pestle work best but if not, spoon back and plate can also work. You want to get at least a small amount of paste.
2. Cut a strip of watercolour paper about 4 inches long and 1 inch wide. Using a toothpick, draw a line of green leaf paste across it about half an inch from one end.
3. pour some of the alcohol (regular rubbing, not expensive and drinkable) into a coffee mug, filling it about half a centimetre. You want to have enough so that when you do step 4, the bottom of the paper just touches the bottom of the cup but the alcohol doesn't reach the paste line.
4. Suspend the paper over the cup by taping it to a spoon or toothpick and let the end with the green paste line fall just into the alcohol.
5. cover it so the alcohol doesn't evaporate. Saran wrap works. Make sure the paper's still touching the alcohol.
6. Let sit for a few hours at least, preferably overnight.
7. examine the paper. If you're lucky, you'll see several lines of distinct colour, from the original green upwards that can be pure yellow, or even pure red or orange.

This happens because the various pigments have different solubilities in alcohol (an organic solvent - you can do the same experiment with acetone (nail polish remover but results vary)). They will thus come out of solubility at various stages of the wicking process. The really cool part, though, is that if you're a real egghead and you repeat this maybe twice a week for the next few weeks with leaves from the same tree (and the same part of the tree, preferably) you'll see the bands actually shift, change colour, and grow from mostly green to the various other colours that make up the new pigments.
Tip: If you pick a tree that usually goes orange, you should see some yellow bands and some red bands.

The specs on the colours, their interactions and their solubilities is a fun field for study. Be warned - you'll look at fall colours from now on and annoy friends with expulsions like, "oh, ethylene!"

Alternate Energy 1 - Solar Power

Welcome to the first in a series that looks at various alternative energies, their scientific basis, and their potential for future application.

Solar Power

Technically speaking, solar energy has under its umbrella (...ella...ella) wind and wave power as well, since these two phenomena are indirect products of the sun's rays. Solar power in the sense that is usually meant refers to photovolataics, or photocells, used in assemblies or arrays to use the sun's incoming light to convert photons to electricity.

There is another form of solar energy, passive solar energy, which is a fascinating branch of science and architecture involving utilizing exposure, materials, and other solar properties to better control the heating and cooling of houses, or offset HVAC costs.

Solar power relies on the photoelectric effect. This effect occurs when light strikes a metal surface. It was discovered that if an anode was placed a small distance from a metal plate and light shone on the plate, electricity would flow through the system. Further investigation revealed that light causes some materials to emit electrons. When an incident photon adds its energy to an electron orbiting the molecules, the energy, when high enough, causes the electron to jump up, or escape from the atom. These free electrons can form a current when external load is applied.

Semiconductors

Solar cells are made using semiconductors. Semiconductors are a special breed of material which can be explained if a closer look is taken at what makes an insulator or a conductor. A conductor is usually a metal wherein the outer electron shell is half full. This allows the electrons to move to a SSolar Powerolar Powerhigher level more freely, and requires less energy to move them. An insulator, on the other hand, has a full valence shell and moving electrons to form a current is difficult because of the large amount of external energy needed to excite the electrons all the way to the next shell. The shells in question here can be around an atom, or in compounds, around whole molecules.

*Sometimes the properties of the individual valence shells can shift or redistribute when combined in a molecule – bonding must be taken into account. If you're interested, research band gaps and molecular bonding.

A semiconductor is a material with a full valence shell, but a very small energy gap between the valence shell and the next shell. This means that a small amount of energy is required to start a current. They also have extremely low resistivity, but one of their mot important characteristics is that their conductivity can be controlled. For example, as the heat in the semiconductor is increased, the electron energy increases and they can more easily jump to the next energy level and therefore make a current possible. (Many interesting applications of semiconductors are made in space, where heating is an issue).

The properties of a semiconductor are also able to be closely tuned by a process called doping, or adding a very small amount of impurities to it. Since a semiconductor consists of atoms with full valence shells, adding a few atoms with full-plus-one shells or full-minus-one shells adds or subtracts a few extra electrons. This allows precise control of how much current can flow. For example, adding arsenic to silicon allows one extra electron per molecule of arsenic. When current is induced, the extra electron can add to the current. When doping introduces extra electrons, it is called an n-type (or negative type) semiconductor. When an atom is added that subtracts an atom, it is called a p-type (or positive) semiconductor. (The positive is because as the charge migrates through the metal, the missing electrons are always being filled by others and so current appears to move with positive charges).

First-generation solar cells use silicon doped with various materials, involving a solid crystal of silicon. While peaking at a functional efficiency of about 24% and a potential efficiency of about 33% (units of energy out over units of energy in), they are relatively expensive to manufacture and require high-temperature processing, further adding to their overall inefficiency. After all, if they take more energy to make than they will ever produce, it doesn't matter how efficiently they do their job of processing solar energy – in the closed system of the planet, the net energy used will not be worth it.

Second-generation photovoltaic cells are composed of, as opposed to silicon, two different semiconducting crystals plated on top of each other. Semiconductors like this are called p-n heterojunctions, because the two semiconductors usually comprise a p-type and n-type.

The heterojunctions have some interesting properties. For one, the two are usually materials with staggered band gaps. This means that is is energetically economic for charge to flow from one to another when the electrons are excited by the photoelectric effect.

Second, where they interface, the inherent extra charge on either side causes some electrons to jump from the p to the n-type and build up a voltage.

The outcome of this is that when photons strike the metal, electrons are constantly being shifted to higher energy levels, feeding the supply of charge that can move and increasing the potential difference across the band gaps.

Compared to a semiconductor like silicon, the heterojunctions have one major advantage; they are much more cost effective to produce. They do not require high temperatures to make but can be plated in thin layers. They also do not require large crystals but can be plated onto glass or clay, reducing the amount of material required. So far, though, their peak efficiency is about 19-20%.

Solar power's greatest application is in off-grid areas and is only slowly gaining presence on grid. The great appeal of solar power is its inexhaustibility - the sun isn't going to stop shining when we use up reserves.

However, its limitations are that it isn't particularly power-ful - the efficiency leaves something to be desired, and it's only ever sunny half the time, if you're lucky. (Issues with storage of naturally-derived power generation will be covered in subsequent posts). Also, the costs will need to come down and manufacturing made more efficient for it to be a truly competitive alternative to coal and gas.

Wired; wireless

I've been reading Wired pretty heavy for the past six months, and if one dominant trend in technology is emerging more clearly than any other, it's the rampant growth of the cell phone industry, technology, and associated structures. It's interesting to watch the symbiotic relationship between the technology and the carriers, (although its become almost parasitic at this point), as well as the way video games are being adapted for cell phones. All you kids of the 80's and 90's who liked Shareware and the early Super Mario games, that's where cell phone game technology is now. We can only wait and anticipate 3-d graphics and first person shooters (some more than others...I've never been a first person shooter kinda girl).
I was riding the bus home last night and got into a long conversation with the driver about the way the carriers put a plug on technology. The capabilities of phones is growing exponentially and the rate limiting factor between the existence and the use of the technology is the carrier plans. (Witness; Apple's compromise with Rogers thanks to their Canadian monopoly of GSM phones, or the fact that I can't afford to pay for full use of my BlackBerry technology). I do think, however, that eventually one of the carriers will realize that there is more money to be made by being the first carrier to offer the use of phones with all their capabilities - and i think specifically internet capabilities, though others too - than there is in choking the potential of the technology by charging for Megabytes of internet usage.
Exactly how far behind the world Canada is was driven home to me when I was in Italy recently. With my trusty Eee PC I would search for WiFi networks at each hostel i stayed at. Every one that didn't have an Internet room free for guest's use had at least 1 free WiFi network, and when I was on trains, at airports, or at cafes and searched, there would almost invariably be some WiFi hotspot nearby. The list was sometimes long enough to require scrolling. The world is already starting to offer free internet - the carriers need to reciprocate by lifting their chokehold on users and allow the technology to meet us halfway.
My personal opinions about internet access aside, one of the also very interesting things read between Wired's glossy, neon-barred pages is that there is a company called Better Place trying to apply the carrier/customer model currently in place to the idea of electric cars. Person buys a car, charges the battery at various points, with the car as the "phone" and the ability to charge as the monthly plan. Given the incredibly unsustainable state of the wireless industy model it would be unfortunate if the idea choked because of the same inherant problem - given access to technology a giant bottleneck controlled by carriers who limit what the general public can access/afford. However, if the carrier model is broken primarily because of technology outstripping the carrier's business plans, then it might be a good way to get the idea of the electric car off the ground, before the technology has gotten out of its infancy. But the feasability of the electric car technology itself is a whole other post...