The Why Files » Nature of science http://whyfiles.org The Science Behind The News Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:37:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 English is optional dep’t http://whyfiles.org/2011/english-is-optional-dept/ http://whyfiles.org/2011/english-is-optional-dept/#comments Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:58:28 +0000 admin http://whyfiles.org/?p=15635 Say what?

They are the ear-wrenching, jaw-jangling junk of the scientific world, the poly-syllabic, hexa-enjargonated children of the refereed journal. Cobbled higgledy-piggledy, these stacks of Greek and Latin roots are primed with prefixii and capped with suffixii.

Some of these mongrelized mutants say the uber-obvious: Does “biomedicine” not equal “medicine”?

More of them seem to say the obscure, redundant or ridiculous, like “biomolecular medicine.” Eh?

Old illustration of bull, ram, boar and man, depicting constellations

Did ancient civilizations follow astrolacism to find their way around? Photo: Gerard Mercator

You don’t need much experience reading science to adopt a love-hate relationship with the incessant onslaught of obscurity: Some of these terms, like “decadal mean,” (average temperature during a specific 10-year period) have real utility and no synonyms, and you’d best learn them and soldier on.

Others seem mainly designed to serve as scientific ownership flags staked by the first to discover a phenomenon — whether it’s actually new or not.

In honor of a great term

Don’t get us wrong: To science, jargon is no less essential than measurement or theory. It allows quick, precise communication. (Imagine having to say, “the addition of hydrogen” every time you meant “hydrogenation,” or “related to quick movements of chunks of Earth’s crust” instead of “seismic.”)

But we Why Filers are not the only scientific tourists who think the enjargonators have run amok. Not every new concept needs a new term — let alone several new terms that precipitate a scientific row over who got there first.

Very young baby lying on stomach on pillow staring at an iPad screen

Evidence of early-onset electrostatic compulsion? Photo: Steve Paine

And at a time when record numbers of people communicate in English, and that well-known tongue is the standard language for many scientific papers, why must every new hunk of jargon originate in Greek or Latin — or preferably both?

We could go on to decry the esthetic obnoxion of fabrications like “pharmacological,” which often could be replaced by the rather simpler “drug.”

Enough whining. We must move to today’s challenge:

Real, or really ridiculous?

Below, we’ve briefly defined some scientific jargon. Please tell us which are real, and which we concocted.

Positive “JargoPro” points are awarded for obscurity, over-reliance on Greek and Latin, length (measured in syllables), a grating quality on the ear, and esthetic points for excessive use of linguistic force.

Negative “JargoCon” points go to ease of pronunciation and a heightened chance that mere mortals may comprehend and even pronounce the term.

Pharmaco-optimalic: Real Or Fake? SelectShow
Pharmaco-optimalic (concerning the visual presentation of drugs)
JargoPro: Nice use of multiple obscure roots; ambiguity (does “optimalic” refer to a state of mind, or to optics)?
JargoCon: Rather straightforward pronunciation.
Phyto-viability: Real Or Fake? SelectShow
Phyto-viability (ability of soils to promote plant survival)
JargoPro: Incorporates the Greek “Ph” phoneme instead of the more familiar Anglo-Saxon “f”; also grating on the ear.
JargoCon: Use of hyphen fosters understanding; perilously comprehensible to the one percent who recognize “phyt” as the Greek root for “plant.”
dried, brown and wilted fern plant in black pot on wooden shelf

Did this plant succumb to poor phyto-viability or just neglect? Photo: pete_pick

Electrostatic compulsion: Real Or Fake? SelectShow
Electrostatic compulsion (gravitational pull between silicon-powered screens and human minds)
JargoPro: The adjective seems familiar, but is tantalizingly obscure.
JargoCon: Condition is so common that readers may jump to the correct conclusion about meaning, always a negative to a jargoneer!
Stoichiometry: Real Or Fake? SelectShow
Stoichiometry (related to the proportions of chemical elements in a chemical reaction)
JargoPro: Symmetrical, reverse-reiteration of “oi” as “io”; essentially unpronounceable.
JargoCon: Fundamental concept, so the term may be necessary.
Polymorphism: Real Or Fake? SelectShow
Polymorphism (taking several different shapes)
JargoPro: Elegant concatenation of the Greeks: “poly” (many) and “morph” (shape).
JargoCon: At four syllables, syllabically deficient, thus impairing incomprehensibility.
Two colorful birds sitting on tree branch, one with black face and one with orange face

Are the differently colored heads of these gouldian finches an example of polymorphism or did one just get into the hair dye? Nigel Jacques

Astrolacism: Real Or Fake? SelectShow
Astrolacism (use of stars as fixed points in geography)
JargoPro: Suffic-ates with the opaque “-ism”; exploits confusion between astronomy and astrology.
JargoCon: Some people will understand “astro” as related to astronomy, and therefore stars.
Longitudinal: Real Or Fake? SelectShow
Longitudinal (variations over time)
JargoPro: Easily dropped into an otherwise-comprehensible sentence; also may confuse geographers who think it refers to imaginary, north-south lines on maps.
JargoCon: Easy to pronounce, so long as you catch the soft “g”
Gastrophrenology: Real Or Fake? SelectShow
Gastrophrenology (study of the correlation between microstructures in the small intestine and surface of the cranium)
JargoPro: Strong reliance on dead languages for roots; induces guilt — is this something your doctor warned about last year?
JargoCon: Although “phren” is satisfyingly opaque, “gastro” may give away at least part of meaning.
Etiological: Real Or Fake? SelectShow
Etiological (related to causes)
JargoPro: Enviable compression of six syllables in 11 letters; tricky pronunciation leads with a long “E” where a short “e” is expected.
JargoCon: Basic meaning is accessible to all; streamlined American spelling avoids the “we’re Brits so we can add letters whenever we want” blighted spelling “aetiological.”

– David J. Tenenbaum

]]> http://whyfiles.org/2011/english-is-optional-dept/feed/ 0 The morning after http://whyfiles.org/2010/the-morning-after/ http://whyfiles.org/2010/the-morning-after/#comments Wed, 29 Dec 2010 22:47:57 +0000 svmedaristwf http://whyfiles.org/?p=13023 Crowd wears red hats in Times Square, huge electronic displays light the scene.

Photos of Times Square: Bill Larkin, and Hungover: Álvaro Canivell.
The night before: friendship, frivolity, froth in Times Square. Mouseover for the morning after : (

Hangover: Getting to the root of pain

You survived Christmas. Next up: the annual guzzl-a-thon — New Year’s Eve. Will you start the new year with a massive hangover?

Hangovers are an aftershock of acute alcohol intoxication, meaning you get them while recovering from a serious bout of drinking. The symptoms, including headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and noise, lethargy, diarrhea and thirst, often strike people who are already wallowing in self-pity.

Physiology offers explanations: Alcohol causes dehydration. Liver enzymes convert ethanol to the more toxic acetaldehyde. Less glucose reaches the brain, adding to lethargy.

A preventable condition

Short of abstinence, there are ways to reduce hangover. Food, especially fats, slow alcohol absorption, if the food enters the stomach first. James Garbutt, a professor of psychiatry and alcoholism specialist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, suggests eating a meal before your first drink, and then nibbling through the evening.

Drinking a glass of water between each drink can also cut consumption.

The next morning, Garbutt advises treating the headache with ibuprofen (not aspirin or acetaminophen), and drinking water or a sports drink to restore fluids and electrolytes.
Beyond that, you are on your own: According to a 2005 review1: “No compelling evidence exists to suggest that any conventional or complementary intervention is effective for preventing or treating alcohol hangover.”

Man wearing party hat and holding drink glass, his head resting on a table littered with bottles and party favors

Photo: As Heard From Mars
Think this bloke’s head will be on fire when he wakes from his stupor?

The science of the hangover

Still, The Why Files did track down some cool hangover science:

A good teaching tool? Because that morning of misery is a built-in disincentive to drink, hangovers seldom attract research funding. But a recent survey2 of 303 college students chilled the notion that hangover is a good preventative like ice in a shot glass: “The students significantly overestimated the number of drinks it would take to vomit, have unwanted sexual experiences, experience hangovers, and black out in comparison with the actual self-reported number of drinks consumed the last time identical consequences were experienced.” If you tossed your cookies after five drinks, but thought you could absorb 10 next time, what have you learned?

enlarge this imageImage shows distorted view of a road through goggles

Image from: Innocorp
Cops and health educators use these goggles to dissuade teens from drinking and driving.

Hangover scale: Filling a scientific gap, in 2007, researchers from Brown University3 crafted the “acute hangover scale” to measure the next-morning blues in American college students, recent graduates, and Swedish marine officers (all folks who know which way the bottle tilts). The researchers found that “Do you have a hangover?” was the best single question for identifying hangover, even better than questions about thirst and headache. Why bother? The new scale could help distinguish hangover from other addictive effects of alcohol, the authors explained.

Take the asparagus cure: In 2009, Korean scientists reported that components of asparagus can protect the liver against oxidative stress of alcohol. According to B.Y. Kim of Jeju National University, “These results provide evidence of how the biological functions of asparagus can help alleviate alcohol hangover and protect liver cells.” No word on whether asparagus has a drinking problem … and unfortunately, the leaves, not the shoots that we eat, offered the best protection.

breathalyzer being given to fly-headed man

You can’t detect a drunken fruitfly with a breathalyzer, but an inebriometer works just dandy.

Hangover is stupid! A large study4 from Scotland found that dumb kids — okay, 11-year-olds with a lower IQ — were more likely to have hangovers in middle age. So, you wonder? Because hangover is a good measure of binge drinking, “This finding may at least partially explain the link between early life IQ and adult risk of mortality ascribed to all causes, cardiovascular disease and, particularly, alcohol related morbidity,” the authors say.

Drunken fruitflies:

A recently discovered5 “hangover” gene in fruitflies increases their tolerance to alcohol (when measured, you can’t make this up, in the “inebriometer.”) Because alcohol tolerance is a risk factor for alcoholism, the gene may do something more than just cause headache. Do fruitflies feel queasy the morning after the night before?

The final word

If you drink, drink safe and drink smart. And never, ever overindulge and drive.

And happy New Year from The Why Files!

Urp.

– David J. Tenenbaum

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Terry Devitt, editor; S.V. Medaris, designer/illustrator; David J. Tenenbaum, feature writer; Amy Toburen, content development executive; Molly Simis, project assistant

Bibliography

  1. Interventions for preventing or treating alcohol hangover: systematic review of randomized controlled trials, Max H Pittle et al BMJ. 2005 December 24; 331(7531): 1515-1518. doi: 10.1136/bmj.331.7531.1515. ↩
  2. Do We Learn from Our Mistakes? An Examination of the Impact of Negative Alcohol-Related Consequences on College Students’ Drinking Patterns and Perceptions, Kimberly Mallett et al, J Stud Alcohol. 2006 March; 67(2): 269-276. ↩
  3. The Acute Hangover Scale: A New Measure of Immediate Hangover Symptoms, Damaris J. Rohsenow et al, Addict Behav. 2007 June; 32(6): 1314-1320. Published online 2006 November 13. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2006.10.001. ↩
  4. Childhood IQ and life course socioeconomic position in relation to alcohol induced hangovers in adulthood: the Aberdeen children of the 1950s study, G David Batty et al, J Epidemiol Community Health. 2006 October; 60(10): 872-874. ↩
  5. The hangover gene defines a stress pathway required for ethanol tolerance development, Henrike Scholz et al, Nature. 2005 August 11; 436(7052): 845-847. doi: 10.1038/nature03864. ↩
  6. Hangover basics. ↩
  7. What doesn’t work? ↩
  8. Hangover cures around the world. ↩
  9. A few too many. ↩
]]> http://whyfiles.org/2010/the-morning-after/feed/ 0 Bathed in poison! http://whyfiles.org/2010/bathed-in-poison/ http://whyfiles.org/2010/bathed-in-poison/#comments Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:40:15 +0000 svmedaristwf http://whyfiles.org/?p=12356 cropped periodic table showing arsenic, phosphorus, surrounding elements

Even people who can’t distinguish the periodic table from a dining table know arsenic is poisonous, although few realize why. Arsenic is chemically akin to phosphorus, one of life’s essential elements. But it’s not identical, and when arsenic substitutes for phosphorus, it produce a toxic compound instead of a protein or chunk of DNA.

Arsenic is just below phosphorus in the periodic table, which means they share many chemical similarities.

So we weren’t the only ones to be surprised by a study in today’s Science that identifies a bacterium that thrives on arsenic, at least in the lab, and incorporates this normally-poisonous element into proteins, fats and DNA.

Illustrations of man's face at top, woman kicking man in the rear, two old ladies standing at bottom

Image: Wikipedia

A more typical reaction to arsenic comes from the elderly poisoning victims in the macabre comedy “Arsenic and Old Lace.” In that play and movie, two dotty spinsters spiked elderberry wine with arsenic, strychnine and cyanide for a freelance euthanasia project.

The new study is the first to show that it is possible to substitute for one of the elite elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur) that were thought to be found in all life, says Ariel Anbar, a professor of earth and space exploration at Arizona State University. “No one has previously shown that arsenic can be substituted, and I am not aware that anyone has found a substitution for any of the six essential elements. And that’s why this is a big deal.”

Arsenic was poison in this zany comedy. In Mono Lake, it is food for microbes.

Arsenic: It’s what’s for dinner

Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a former post-doctoral fellow with Anbar, gathered sediment and water from salty, alkaline, arsenic-rich Mono Lake in California and placed them in cultures intended to replicate Mono Lake water.

Dozens of white, rice-like organisms clustered on porous surface

Images courtesy of Science/AAAS
These bacteria, viewed under an electron microscope, metabolized arsenic as if it were phosphorus. Mouseover to see the same strain of bacteria growing with phosphorus but without arsenic.

“Over time we made serial dilutions, one in 10, one in 10,” always including a strain of lake microbes, says Wolfe-Simon.

Wolfe-Simon, who is now at the NASA Astrobiology Institute and U.S. Geological Survey, says the dilutions removed “essentially all” of the phosphorus. In some samples, she jacked up the arsenic roughly 2,000 times above the concentration in Mono Lake, which gets its arsenic from rocks and is already about 20,000 times above the Environmental Protection Agency standard for arsenic in drinking water.

“This is a huge amount of arsenic,” Wolfe-Simon says. “It’s surprising that they could grow, even with phosphorus, in that condition.”

Although the bacteria died in the absence of phosphorus and arsenic, they survived if only arsenic was available. “The arsenic seems to be substituting for phosphorus,” says Wolfe-Simon. “We have identified arsenic in cellular structures that are consistent with where we would expect to see phosphorus.”

Lake shore with tall white rock columns, snow-speckled mountains in the distance. Location of mono lake in CA on inset map

Photo: ©2010 Henry Bortman
Mono Lake, California, is salty, alkaline conditions, and toxic to many organisms. The lake is ideal for the study of extremophiles, microbes that live under bizarre temperature or chemistry.

Stepping out of line

This elemental swaperoo could operate more broadly, since the elements in each column of the periodic table have chemical similarities. If one neighbor of phosphorus can sustain life without phosphorus, could the elements below carbon, nitrogen or oxygen do the same?

Young woman in sun hat sitting on ground in desert setting sticking syringe in rock-like mud samples

Photo: ©2010 Henry Bortman

“This is not just about arsenic or Mono Lake,” says Wolfe-Simon. Life on Earth and the rest of the universe will be limited if it always requires six elements, but “If microbes can use arsenic as they can use phosphorus, that opens the door. What else can life do that is not yet known?”

Felisa Wolfe-Simon takes samples from a sediment core at Mono Lake, California, in her search for microbes that can use arsenic as most microbes use phosphorus.

In searching for life in the universe, NASA has focused on liquid water, another prerequisite for known life, but Anbar asserts that a search for the chemistry of life should stay broad. “Felisa’s results say we should think harder about which elements we should follow. We don’t want to be too influenced by the particular example of life on Earth. We want to push the boundaries.”

Call it “Arsenic in a new place.” Roll cameras!

– David J. Tenenbaum
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Terry Devitt, editor; S.V. Medaris, designer/illustrator; David J. Tenenbaum, feature writer; Amy Toburen, content development executive; Molly Simis, project assistant

Bibliography

  1. Arsenic in drinking water. ↩
  2. Chemistry of arsenic. ↩
  3. More on arsenic-eating bacteria. ↩
  4. Rewriting evolutionary history. ↩
  5. Mono lake. ↩
  6. Arsenic and old lace. ↩
  7. A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus, Felisa Wolfe-Simon et al, Science, 3 December 2010.

    ↩

]]> http://whyfiles.org/2010/bathed-in-poison/feed/ 0 In the Gulf, a failure of BP’s fail-safe valve! http://whyfiles.org/2010/in-the-gulf-a-failure-of-bps-fail-safe-valve/ http://whyfiles.org/2010/in-the-gulf-a-failure-of-bps-fail-safe-valve/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:17:59 +0000 admin http://whyfiles.org/?p=8599 http://whyfiles.org/2010/in-the-gulf-a-failure-of-bps-fail-safe-valve/feed/ 0 Genetic tests go mainstream http://whyfiles.org/2009/genetic-tests-go-mainstream/ http://whyfiles.org/2009/genetic-tests-go-mainstream/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:47:34 +0000 admin http://whyfiles.org/?p=2383 http://whyfiles.org/2009/genetic-tests-go-mainstream/feed/ 0 Economic stimulus = just pouring concrete? http://whyfiles.org/2008/economic-stimulus-pouring-concrete/ http://whyfiles.org/2008/economic-stimulus-pouring-concrete/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:24:30 +0000 schulte http://whyfiles.org/?p=1078 http://whyfiles.org/2008/economic-stimulus-pouring-concrete/feed/ 0 Universe: Measured by New Yardstick http://whyfiles.org/2006/new-yardstick-for-the-universe/ http://whyfiles.org/2006/new-yardstick-for-the-universe/#comments Thu, 10 Aug 2006 17:00:35 +0000 schulte http://whyfiles.org/?p=909 Feeling cramped? New measurement says the universe is bigger than you thought. Meet the astronomers’ new yardstick.

]]> http://whyfiles.org/2006/new-yardstick-for-the-universe/feed/ 0 India’s Red Rain: Aliens or Hype? http://whyfiles.org/2006/indias-red-rain-aliens-or-plain-hype/ http://whyfiles.org/2006/indias-red-rain-aliens-or-plain-hype/#comments Thu, 22 Jun 2006 20:12:09 +0000 schulte http://whyfiles.org/?p=899 Did the red rain that fell in India contain alien bacteria? One Indian scientists says “yes.” Others say it was just spores of a common alga. Why does the “alien” side grab the headlines?

]]> http://whyfiles.org/2006/indias-red-rain-aliens-or-plain-hype/feed/ 0 MAD Science! Have a Laugh on Us… http://whyfiles.org/2000/mad-science/ http://whyfiles.org/2000/mad-science/#comments Thu, 30 Mar 2000 18:57:06 +0000 schulte http://whyfiles.org/?p=761 A MAD look at science. Science fair projects we’d like to see, weird wonk words, and creative uses for radioactive waste.

]]> http://whyfiles.org/2000/mad-science/feed/ 0 Genetically Engineered Food http://whyfiles.org/1999/genetically-engineered-food/ http://whyfiles.org/1999/genetically-engineered-food/#comments Thu, 28 Oct 1999 14:19:24 +0000 schulte http://whyfiles.org/?p=681 http://whyfiles.org/1999/genetically-engineered-food/feed/ 0