Happy Fireplacing Holidays; Also: Prière de vous présenter!

In a spirit of great holiday something-or-other , we are off to the Scientist-In-Laws. Alas, Army Green's Chinese girlfriend will not be joining us. I am tragically disappointed; I shall console myself by leaving Mr. S behind and visiting my favorite aunt.

Actually, they used to be much worse. You should hear what they said before we were married.

I leave you with three four! things:

• Antacids. Lots of antacids. Pass the bottle!

• An invitation: O lurkers, o guests as yet unknown to me, leave me a word, do. I desire to know of your charming selves. I promise to return the good words upon my return. (I know you are there. The sitemeter, it does not lie.)

• My sister is pregnant!!

• This most excellent warning label, reminiscent of the classic government terror [sic] warnings in sheer incomprehensibility. Mocking and real captions for you later.
  

Best of cheer and new beginnings to everyone. See you next year!

More on Teaching Enthusiasm

My favorite cousin- let’s call her Jo- teaches in inner-city Philly. She’s on ‘special assignment’, so lately she’s been teaching remedial math. Except her kids don’t speak much English, so remedial English too. And they hit each other a lot, so remedial social skills. One of her sixth-graders is fifteen- but kids can’t be failed unless their parents sign off on it. Teachers can be forced to change schools every year. The privatization scheme is working very well indeed.

The last round of parent-teacher conferences, only one parent showed up. ‘I’m drunk,’ he confided, ‘and I came from the bar and, I won’t lie to you, I’m going back to the bar after this. But I said I’d be here, so I’m here!’ When Jo tells parents to help with homework, all they say is ‘Ayy! No se puede!!’. They don’t have the time, energy, or resources to be involved in their children’s educations.

The other side of teaching kids to love science is this: it’s easy to teach comfortable suburbanites whose parents will nag them to do their homework. What happens when you teach in a marginal environment?

Is there time for enrichment when half the students can’t read at grade level or add 5 + 17? In sixth grade? What do they need more: to love science or to read? If you only have a limited number of hours and a severely limited amount of resources, what do you prioritize?

These activities aren't necessarily incompatible. Maybe writing could play into the science lessons somehow- short essays, and grade on grammar and ideas. But I think what usually happens is, it's a lot of work; more than the Summer Vacation Essay. Teachers are overburdened with large classes; they don’t want to do innovative stuff. They don’t have time. They don't have money. They are tired. Jo is tired.

What’s the right answer? Is it legitimate to take an hour a week for fun, interesting science labs? I would like to believe in the long run, this will benefit kids more than memorizing spelling words. All the same, especially in the era of Every Child Left Behind, it becomes increasingly difficult to persuade already-struggling schools that a love of science is an essential ingredient for learning.

I believe that science ed is important because scientific critical thinking is more useful than the ability to play the recorder (though music programs are great! Not knocking music!). Still, the skills from critical reading, or history class, may be just as important. I want children to love science because I love science, but is it the most important thing?

When I take over the Department of Education, no school will have to choose. We will have it all: reading, science, music, history, and etiquette. The children will be perfect little darlings.

Until then, it is a difficult problem and a difficult trade-off.

Modern Fairy Tales of Misogyny and Good Ol’ Boys At Work

Once upon a time, there was a biology department in the Magical Land of Research. The pixies (professors) there liked physics and crystal structures and big expensive toadstool laboratories, but they also had medium-size toadstools, and even some pixies who taught little elves and fairies to fly. They were very proud of having some famous pixies, like Queen Titania!* Everyone loved each other, and hardly ever spoke harshly, at least not in public.

One year two young pixies, Silver and Blossom, were walking along a path when they met the Tenure Troll.

Neither pixie had been very terribly good the year before: Silver had a little elf** quit his lab in disgust, and the fairies, oh! how they yawned in his lectures, and (even worse) he had lost his funding. But he had written several little stories, and sent them to exciting lands like Biochimica Biophysica Acta. And, even better, he had been very good indeed about bringing King Oberon and his servant Puck a little cup of nectar or a nice juicy butterfly every now and then. So Oberon, who knew the troll was coming, had put candy along Silver's path.

Blossom had sent just a few stories off to other lands, but she had sent them places like Biochemistry, and we all know the shorter a place’s name the better! Her little elves were happy, and her little fairies learned to fly very well indeed and even liked to hear their lessons. Oberon didn’t care for her: she had never caught him so much as a cricket and besides, her wings weren't sparkly- so he didn’t set out any candy for her. Puck didn't like her because she reminded him of all the female pixies who had ever laughed at him. Because Blossom wasn’t an awfully good pixie, Titania kept all her candy for pixies who had worked harder, and my, but the Queen never let herself be swayed by nectar and flattery anyhow.

So when Blossom and Silver met the Tenure Troll, well, that troll stopped and ate all those candies instead of Silver. Silver walked right by that troll, and went back to his toadstool, and back to his research (or as much of it as he could do without any money!). But Blossom didn’t have a single candy to distract that mean beast, so he gobbled her all up, and the poor dear was never seen again in Research Land.

***

Nobody stood up for B, because Titania didn't think she had earned it; but T didn't think S had earned it either. B was more qualified than S, even if they were both weak candidates. B didn’t get tenure. S did. The good ol’ boys network leaned on the rest of the department for S even though he deserved it less it and HAD NO FUNDING.

It gets better. The department ran an open search to replace the woman. T advocated strongly for hiring another woman, and a phenomenally talented (female) researcher won the slot. A (male) postdoc of O's had also applied.

So O made the department hire his postdoc anyways. Under the table.

Plus ça change.

*Mr. S’s advisor. Married to Oberon.
**A grad student, that is.

Appearances Deceive

While out hunting for a reagent this week,* I ran into my only female committee member.**

-I heard you did an interesting paper for journal club.
-Errr… ?
-The NAS report.
-Ah. That. Yes. My lab stared at me like I was a lunatic.

So we talked for a while about the most egregious things still outstanding- which have been much blogged- including our respective shocks when we found out plus ça change, etc., and my personal favorite: the thing where a woman needs about 5 times more impact factor points to get tenure or funding. Will Snooty U will ever do anything about it? We say it's very Magic 8 Ball: Outlook not so good. Reply hazy, try again. Don't count on it.

She’s single, works eighty hours a week, and makes nice with the chair. I therefore assumed she had bought into the don't-rock-the-boat mentality and the status quo, to get ahead. Quite the opposite.

“I thought it would be better than in Germany,” she said, “because there are 4% women professors there. But it is not good. It is worse because people think it is all better here. It is terrible. It is ridiculous. It is a DISGRACE!”

Under that tall, quiet, mild-mannered exterior is one pissed-off scientist.

Tomorrow: Hiring and Firing and Old White Men, Oh My!

*Surprisingly similar to borrowing a cup of sugar.
**Because there are four. In the whole department.

Mistress of the Lab: All Shall Bow to Me!

I seem to have acquired a postdoc to help out; that is, I help him. I’m not sure why ME. Am I the closest human? Am I too nice? (Ha ha ha.) Do I know many answers? Sadly, I do have answers to most of his questions; but darn it, it takes a lot of time.

It’s necessary to have someone to show you where the plates are and how to order more antibody, and tell you how to make X, and what probably went wrong. When you come to actual experiments, it seems like there’s always some secret ingredient that’s not written down, like ‘until it’s this color brown.’ I suspect this is why most (or at least many) published protocols are virtually irreproducible. Some of it’s voodoo, of course- the moral equivalent of ‘Wave your pipette overhead three times, then oink’- but some of it’s really important, like ‘Exactly ten seconds here.’

Our newest grad student has yet to realize that other people have valuable experience. One of many reasons not to be arrogant: it will screw up your experiments.

It’s still a time drain to be helpful. I wish this postdoc would ask someone else!!

Friday Library: The Disagreeable Mr. Knox

Not being a particular student of the Christian religion, I had never encountered this until recently:

For who can deny that it is repugnant to nature that the blind shall be appointed to lead and conduct such as to see, that the weak, the sick and the impotent shall nourish and keep the whole and the strong, and, finally, that the foolish, mad, and frenetic shall govern the discrete and give counsel to such as be sober of mind? And such be all women compared to man in bearing of authority.

- John Knox, ‘The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women’

Alas, that I had encountered this text and sentiment, still thriving, and one of many many reasons why I left off praying with Orthodox minyanim:

There is no more proper woman than she who does the will of her master [husband] and tries not to be repulsive to her master. It is not fitting to a woman to be proud, and also she should not anger. The path of the woman is that she sits within her house, and also she is obligated to prevent that suspicion should grow. It is not fitting for her to have speech with all men, to laugh among young men; this causes much talk.

- Kitzur Shulchan Aruch

But I much prefer:

B 2:18-23: And God the Ruler of Hosts said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I shall make for him a helpmeet as an adversary… And the man said names to all the beasts, to the birds of the heavens, and to all that lived in the field, and the man did not bring forth a helpmeet as an adversary. And God the Ruler of Hosts made sleep to fall on the man and he slept. And the Creator took one of his ribs and closed flesh on it. God the Ruler of Hosts built the rib that he took from the man into a woman, and God took her to the man.

B 1:26-27 And God said ‘We shall make humans in Our image, like unto Our blood, and they shall rule… And the Eternal created humankind in God’s image, in the image of the Holy One God created the human: male and female God created them.

This is the textual root of religious equality for me. If all are created in the Divine image, then we all approach the Holy with equal humility. The arguments of male commentators throughout the centuries, that it would embarass the community were a woman to read Torah as well as the men- that the ability to pray in certain ways is a responsibility that women may not assume- I eventually began to find it creepily similar to working in the sciences. For me, it seemed a disturbing veneer of sophism covering deep well of privilege and exclusion.

Also, happy Hanukkah; may the Temple not be rebuilt. Ever.

I Have Joined the Dark Side

In my youth (that is, ten years ago, when I was but a wee mite) I ran three miles a day. Then there were injuries, and pain, and much limping. Upon the advice of friends, I gave it over in favor of being able to walk up stairs.

Mr. S, who is still robotically training for a marathon, used to go to the gym with me, but not so much now. Then I don’t go the gym, not least because I don’t want to be mugged, shot, or otherwise assaulted. Then I whine about being a huge, pallid slug.

You see where this is going, don’t you?

Yes, I have taken up running. At 6:30 in the morning (we are working up to 6). I get up before sunrise to go run around in painful little circles with my darling robot. Behold: what Zappos told me my new shoes would look like, and also my artistic rendering of what they look like FIRST THING IN THE BLOODY MORNING.

But heck, it's no more head-beating-against-wall-painful than dealing with my lab. And the endorphins do feel good.

Humor, Then Angst

Quiz: Which of these journal titles are fake? (Hint: 3; answer at bottom)

a. Journal of the Less Common Metals
b. Cretaceous Research
c. Journal of Veterinary Anesthesiology
d. Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology
e. Plasmid
f. Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems
g. Computers in Animal Behavior
h. Journal of Arid Environments
i. Jurassic Research
j. Parasitology International

***

Mr. S had a committee meeting last week: several professors get together to tut-tut over your data, ignore what you've said, and tell you when they were in grad school, they worked TWENTY hours a day. One nods her head in perfect zombielike unison with your advisor; one has overdosed on either caffeine or cocaine; and the senile one forgets to show up.

No, wait! That's my committee! His committee plays well with others.

Mr. Scientist has the Best Advisor Ever. She's famous, brilliant, makes grown scientists cry, and still truly cares about her people.* So at the end of the meeting, she announced, 'Well, I think he should defend in the spring! What do you think?'

Since she's quite hard to contradict, they all smiled and nodded.

On the one hand: HURRAH! Happy dance! With a postdoc's salary, we could even buy a TV with a remote!

On the other hand: WAAAAH! My desire to run away screaming (i.e. from Snooty U and the rest of my PhD) is increased by it becoming possible.

To add to the joy, the fellowship clock starts ticking the day he becomes Dr. Mr. Scientist. So after that day, I have exactly eight months to finish, or else a) we can stay here another four years, and get mugged again, or maybe even shot!** b) he can move without me, which is Not Okay, or c) we can starve on the street. Because, y’know, this wasn’t stressful enough! Just what I need! Total uncertainty combined with the threat of penury! High-stakes, divergent, complex plans based on things I utterly cannot predict! Careers hanging in the balance! Fun!

When poor Mr. S asked me when I thought I’d be done, I cried through two stores, a highway trip, dinner, and three cups of tea. Because I don’t know. How can we make plans together when my whole plan is ‘I will not quit yet’? How can I ask him to make decisions based on bad data?


*Speaking of things that make me want to cry. What I would give to go back and pick an advisor who's capable of supporting education and professional growth. Or even of advising.
**Mr. S was mugged in broad daylight, a year and a half ago. And three weeks ago, someone was shot across the street. Plus there were five murders in November!

***
(C, G and I, I made up. But the rest are real.)

Lesson of the Day

(From here: what lives on your hand.)

Don't stir sourdough starter with your finger.

Oops.

Excellent Buildings and Strange Experiments

The building where I work was designed by a Mr. Famous Architect Guy. As far as I can tell, he didn’t ask any scientists first. We hate it.

Aside from the usual problems (hot in winter, cold in summer, leaking basement, elevators programmed by monkeys), we’ve got a few special ones. For one, bats come roost in lab; screaming inevitably ensues. But my favorite ever is the fire alarm: it tells us weekly to WHIRR BEEP BEEP STAND BY FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS BEEP WHIRR. We shut the doors and ignore it, on the grounds that it’s an idiotic announcement. Safe, no? Speaking of, Safety gets very upset if we leave a single razor blade out, but not if we store nitric acid next to acetone. Er?

And this is at a rich school. My college chemistry building was even worse. My advisor sat in a lawn chair and watched for days, when they finally demolished it.

And, from the Annals of Strange Experiments: A distinguished professor (i.e., old) was telling Mr. Scientist that back in the day, someone did do bat experiments in the building. (Maybe that’s where they came from). They were studying how bats ‘see’ things. So they built a bat sensory deprivation chamber: a little room covered everywhere with long, luxurious, white fake fur. Like a really weird bat boudoir.

Bats freaked way the heck out, inside: it felt like they were in the middle of the biggest-ever Nothing.

Bonus: Check out this excellent picture of an exploded, burnt-out centrifuge (via here).

I once exploded a centrifuge, but it was less dramatic. Plus, it wasn't my fault.

Friday Library: The NSF (2)

Note that industry used to fund a huge proportion of all research in the U.S.
***
‘THEORY’ AND ‘PRACTICE’ invariably merge in the long run. Franklin engaged in ‘fundamental’ or ‘theoretical’ research when he established the identity of lightning and electricity, but he hardly lowered himself by inventing the lightning-rod. Lister conducted his fundamental study of antisepsis for the practical purpose of reducing the risk of infections in surgery. Many illustrations can be given showing that the great ‘practical’ discoveries have sprung from research that deals with fundamentals rather than with applications. Before we could have electron tubes and hence radio broadcasting and television, industrial laboratories had to conduct searching investigations (which deserve the name ‘fundamental’) on the flow of currents through tenuous gases or in a vacuum, of the emission of electrons from heated filaments, and of a hundred other problems…

Theory is the Father of Practice [sic]

All this does not mean that the distinction between ‘fundamental’ and ‘applied’ research is without significance. There is nothing so practical as a theory that works…. Out of a sound theory, many inventions flow. No technologist today would think of following the example of Goodyear, who performed hundreds of experiments before he at last hit upon the way to vulcanize rubber with sulphur… It is possible that a way of controlling cancer may be discovered by accident. But it is more likely to result from ‘theoretical’ studies of normal and abnormal growth. Hence the scientists are right in insisting that the government spend its money on what they call ‘theoretical’ research, rather than on inventions and processes that may be useful to industry.
***

One of my least favorite delusions is that fundamental research is unnecessary and we should just fund cancer research- as Teresa Nielsen Hayden so eloquently says about publishing: you can't only publish bestsellers.

Gleevec and AMN107 are the poster drugs for basic research making good. Chronic myelogenous leukemia is most often caused by a Bcr-Abl fusion protein that has uncontrolled kinase activity (also known as the Philadelphia Chromosome). A specific inhibitor was found for this specific mutation, which was discovered by basic research. Then another inhibitor (AMN107) was designed to work against resistant mutations.

Without the knowledge from other research, this would never have been possible. You can't fix the car if you don't know how the engine works.

Previously: Friday Library: The NSF (1)

Cheap Science Labs: Friction

When I was in elementary and middle school, we did a lot of really, really boring labs. They were so dull, I don’t even remember them. But the basic principles being taught- how plants grow, how gravity works, etc.- are fascinating stuff.

I’ve been trying to come up with easy, cheap labs that teachers could use anywhere, without training, to teach in interesting, relevant ways. The point of these labs is not to have the right answer. Mild inaccuracy can surely be corrected later by memorization. I want to design labs that are easy for kids to think about in familiar terms, but that make them really consider and analyze what they're seeing.

Today: Elementary Science: Friction.

Equipment: 3 clear cups, jars, or beakers (or 3x number of groups); 6+ pennies and/or ball bearings; toy car or something with wheels; small tray; sandpaper; dirt; aluminum foil; water; corn syrup; oil. Optional: something flat that can make a ramp, another small tray.

Wheels
-Set out aluminum foil, a small tray with dirt in it, and sandpaper.

-Get a kid to give the toy car a push at the left side of each of these materials. Have another kid recording about how fast they go.

-Ask them about their experiences with bikes or cars going through dirt or mud, or running across a beach, or sliding (like in sock feet). Ask them to tell you what’s different about the materials, that makes things move across them differently (whether they ‘stick’ or whether you can slide). Ask how a toy car would move across a board with a bunch of needles stuck through it.

-Now have the kids drag the car across these materials with a string attached to it. Is it harder? Easier? On which materials? Why do they think it’s that way? What’s different between rolling and sliding?

-Lesson on friction: rough materials are like a bunch of needles, or like soft dirt: they catch little rough bits on other things, and slow them down. Rolling friction is different from sliding friction because the contact is different: a large surface moving as one, or something that only contacts through a small and changing area.

Liquids
-Fill one jar each with water, corn syrup, and oil.

-Drop a penny into each jar, flat side down. Ask the kids to tell you how they’re moving. Why? Drop a penny edge-on. How is it different? Why?

-Try for the connection between solids and liquids: that sticky liquids have something like friction, too. If you’re feeling ambitious, pour a little water, then corn syrup down a little ramp (into a container) to show that corn syrup moves more slowly on its own, and things move through it slower.

-Ask why does it work like this? How is it like a car going over dirt? How is it different? What would happen if you tried to swim through corn syrup? To drive over it? What if it were on top of a slick surface? (More slippery, to a point, then drag cuts in.) On top of dirt? (Enhancement of friction.) If you don’t care about the car, let the kids pour corn syrup on the dirt and on the aluminum foil and check it out.

-If you feel like it, introduce viscosity as liquid friction: how much something doesn’t want to move (down a ramp) and so how much it doesn’t want things to move through it. You can discuss rolling friction vs. dragging friction in combination with viscosity to explain the sliding-on-corn-syrup but dragging-through-syrupy-dirt effect.

Next: Solubility!

Thrilling

After staring at moving lines for a week and a half, my brain is fried. For your enjoyment: an artistic representation of the squiggles I've been measuring.

Angels in the Rain (Or: observation fails under the relentless assault of illogic)

L 26:4 I will provide you with rain at the right time, so that the land will bear its crops and the trees of the field will provide fruit.

Conversation: Mr. Scientist and their Turkish technician

-Did you ever wonder how it rains?
-Oh, in Turkey they tell children that there’s a little angel in each raindrop.
-But didn’t you wonder how it really works?
-No, there is an angel in each raindrop.
-…What?
-Because each raindrop has a little gravitational pull and so if you have a cloud of raindrops they would all make one big rain blob because of gravity. So God sends angels to keep them raindrops…. What, don’t you believe that here?
-You do know that gravity falls off as the square of the distance.
-Of course.
-So gravity between raindrops is negligible and the gravity of the earth is much more important.
-No, they’d make a blob!
-If I took this ice bucket and threw it in the air would all the ice come down as a big blob?
-No, but--
-If I threw a glass of water at you would it hit you as a big blob?
-No, but raindrops are different. Because of the angels.
-[Aaaaaaauuggggh.]

Even more distressing: the woman in question is a scientist.

Friday Library: The NSF (1)

Should the Government Support Science?
By Waldemar Kaempffert
Public Affairs Committee 1946
Pamphlet No. 119




This pamphlet came to me courtesy of a bookshelf in the lobby with surplus libraries of dead or retired professors. It was published to support the soon-to-be National Science Foundation (NSF) in the Truman era. Please excuse the gender stereotyping and various phobias.

BONUS FACT: Did you know: The National Academies of Science were founded under...Lincoln!

----
WAR presents the scientist with a supreme opportunity. Resistance to innovation weakens. Years are telescoped into months, months into weeks. In a long global war*, civil and military technology move ahead at a pace that cannot be matched in twenty years of peace. Electronic devices control factory processes with a new precision. Television is brought to a new pitch of perfection. Radar makes it possible not only to detect far-off bombers but to fight naval battles in the blackest night; also to reflect signals from the moon, to prevent collisions at sea, and to make flying safer.... DDT powder strips typhus of its old terror and controls insect pests with ease. Fabrics are devised which are wrinkle-proof, mothproof, mildew-proof, and moisture-proof. Atomic energy, suddenly released by two bombs, blasts away two Japanese cities and promises to compete industrially with coal and oil.
...

[There were] thousands of scientists and engineers whom we card-catalogued and then assigned to specific research tasks were propelled by the momentum of the past. DDT, penicillin, plasma derivatives, synthetic rubber, radar, even atomic energy—all were known at least in principle before the war. What will happen if we are plunged into another war two or three decades hence—a war waged with atomic bombs hurled at us… There will be no time to organize our scientific and industrial resources, no time to raise, equip, and drill a huge army. And what of peace? Peace, as well as war, imposes scientific and technological obligations. To meet these, research is as necessary as it is in time of total war.
----
*Ah, like the one we're having now. Possibly the military is thinking up dreadful things, but they have yet to benefit me.