Research

Eureka Moments

Brianne Bilyeu, , 660 Comments

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka” but “That’s funny…” —Isaac Asimov (1920–1992).

I had a “Eureka!” moment today. An honest-to-goodness real-all-growed-up-scientist Eureka moment. In my case the particular exclamation wasn’t “that’s funny”, but “NOOOOOOO! What the @%$&*# is that!?” which is a slightly less literary turn of phrase than Asimov gave us, but I think probably more common in the real world.

I saw the weirdness, got my swearing out of the way and then spent about twenty minutes organizing and re-organizing data, then turning my computer upside down to get yet another view. Next I had to go over my methods and try to figure out where I might have screwed something up. And in a moment of absolutely stunning clarity, I found the pattern. And it was a pattern. Everything fit! I actually pulled a passing coworker over to my desk saying “Do you see this?”

I won’t describe it here because it’s boringly specialized and to try to explain it would dull the awesomeness of the moment. But there is a good chance that the finding may help my group further our understanding of the science that’s driving our project.

The thing that I learned today ain’t gonna get me a paper or a patent – some scientist somewhere would undoubtedly look at my announcement and go “Ummm…yeah? We knew that.” But no one in OUR group knew it. This is a special interaction that is (might be) affecting one tiny part of the greater whole of what we’re working on. It wouldn’t be new science, but it would be a new understanding of why we’re seeing the weird things we’ve occasionally been seeing. And hey, it may help us build in controls that will make the final product just a bit better.

Not every Eureka moment leads to the Theory of Special Relativity or Post-It glue, but I think a lot of people – including scientists – feel like if they’re not Einstein or Dr. Gregory House they’re never going to have that moment when a bus drives by and an advert for polka dot bikinis catches your eye and makes you think of the spots that the patient reported seeing, and all sound fades out and you get a stupid blank look on your face and then you shout “SARCCOIDOSIS!”

Nah…For most of us, Eureka moments usually have to be earned with laborious, dull effort. But that means they can be earned with hard work – not just be had by those with innate genius or mad observational and deductive skills.

Annoyingly, Eureka moments also have to be verified. So wish me luck – the results that will support (not prove, mind you) my hypothesis should come off the instrument any moment now!

Eureka Moments
{advertisement}

Ada Lovelace Day: Mary B.

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , , 785 Comments

This article is written for Ada Lovelace Day:

Ada Lovelace Day is about sharing stories of women — whether engineers, scientists, technologists or mathematicians — who have inspired you to become who you are today. The aim is to create new role models for girls and women in these male-dominated fields by raising the profile of other women in STEM.

You can learn more about Ada Lovelace, the Enchantress of Numbers, at FindingAda.com 

Today, October 16th, 2012 is a day to celebrate women in science, technology, engineering and math, and bloggers, vloggers and other content producers from all over the world are writing and talking about the accomplishments of their female STEM heros and and inspirations. At the website you can add your own story about a woman in STEM who has had a positive impact on your life.

I wanted to write about a contemporary female scientist, so I asked around to my circle of friends and found Mary B. Mary agreed to let me share her story here, but because she wants to maintain a modicum of privacy, I will refer to her just as Mary.

Mary is a senior scientist for a Twin Cities biotechnology company. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Chemistry, as well as an AAS in Marine Science. She’s been fascinated with science since she was a little girl. She recently turned 57 years young, and has been employed in various scientific fields for most of her life.

Continue reading “Ada Lovelace Day: Mary B.” →

Ada Lovelace Day: Mary B.

New Research in Prenatal DNA Sequencing

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , 545 Comments

I didn’t build in quite enough buffer time to get started on my next reader-initiated travel blog (it’s a secret – I’m not telling until I get there). I’m going to shoot out of the door in this next break. There may be a cat picture for my 3:30pm post. Just to warn you.

If you want to send me somewhere in the Minneapolis area, simply donate $10 to SSA and in the Topic Suggestion box write “Visit” and a place in Minneapolis.

Send MOAR money to the SSA! Put my name in the Blogger spot of the form, and request one of my reader challenges or suggest a topic that you’d like me to write about. Please? I’ll beg. On video. In song if need be. It only gets wackier around here the later we get into this.

We haven’t had any science yet. How about this cool story?

Invasive fetal (or prenatal) testing is serious business. Chorionic villus testing and amniocentesis can be used to help detect chromosomal abnormalities or disorders, but there is a small but noted risk of miscarriage with these procedures. On June 6th the Los Angeles Times reported on research being performed that would allow much less risky sequencing of fetal DNA:

To set about their task, Shendure’s team started by sequencing the genome of an anonymous pregnant woman, using a complete sample of her DNA obtained from her blood cells. They also sequenced free-floating DNA fragments extracted from her blood plasma, repeating their work until they had decoded every part of the human genome 80 times.

That plasma contained a mix of 10% fetal DNA and 90% maternal DNA, all in tiny fragments. The scientists needed to be able to tell which pieces were from the mother and which belonged to the fetus.

To solve that problem, the scientists relied on the fact that genetic material is inherited in long strands of DNA, called chromosomes — and that tiny genetic variations on the same chromosome are usually inherited together, in blocks known as haplotypes. If a given haplotype was present in the fetus as well as in the mother, it would be detected in the plasma in extra amounts.

The scientists also sequenced the father’s DNA, which was extracted from saliva. This allowed the team to figure out whether genetic variations in the fetus that didn’t match the mother were inherited from the father or were new mutations. On average, about 50 new mutations show up in a fetus.

The scientists checked their results against a blood sample taken from the baby’s umbilical cord after birth. Their calculations were more than 98% correct, they found, and they had detected 39 out of the 44 new mutations. None of those mutations had known medical consequences, the researchers said.

This approach could be used to devise a single test to screen for the 3,000 known disorders that are caused by mistakes in single genes. Individually, they are rare, but together they affect about 1% of births.

This is post 19 of 49 in the SSAweek Biodork Blogathon. Donate to the SSA today! Read more about my reader challenges here.

New Research in Prenatal DNA Sequencing

Lyme Disease – Always Learning.

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , , , , 793 Comments

If you’ve ever been camping or hiking or hunting or had an outdoor pet or gone anywhere near a tree or have a TV or know anyone who fits any of these situations, you’ve probably heard of Lyme Disease. I live in Minnesota, land of forests and lakes, big-ass mosquitos and lots and lots of ticks. I think it’s only natural and healthy for me to have an interest in the subject.

Disclaimers: I am not a doctor, nor an infectious disease researcher, nor a specialist on Lyme Disease or post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PLDS). I do have experience with serological testing, immunoassays and laboratory science. This blog post was inspired by a press release about antibodies linked to long-term Lyme symptoms. I welcome and appreciate any comments, corrections or conversation that are expressed with respect, and in the case of claims, with references. Also, I hold up the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as the gold standard for dissemination of accurate and reliable public information on infectious disease. If you think that the CDC or “western medicine” is misguided or intentionally evil, or that all American physicians are controlled by the mob (hat tip to an earlier commenter), you should probably stop reading here.

Continue Reading

Lyme Disease – Always Learning.

Social Science and Stuff

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , , , 936 Comments

Omigosh, I’m so excited to be going tonight to Party with the Pharaohs, the Science Museum of Minnesota’s first Social Science event for adults. I set up a page on Eventbrite to organize all of my fabulous science-minded friends for this evening, and some of y’all even accepted! I’m giddy. It’s going to be a blast, what with the mummies and the movies and the food and the cash bar and the live animal exhibition and the omnitheater and wheee!

So until tomorrow when I can tell you about how all of that went, here are some articles that caught my interest today:

  • Verbal and physical attacks on students are encourged by extremist animal rights group, Negotiation is Over. Reported on by Pharyngula, Respectful Insolence and Speaking of Research.
  • SlutWalk – A Toronto event that is speaking out against the idea that women who dress like “sluts” get what is coming to them. Covered by Almost Diamonds.
  • Abortion Crackers – What happened when a pro-choice store owner in a small town encountered an anti-choice consumer. Written by Liberal House on the Prairie.
Social Science and Stuff

Secret Powers of Time

Brianne Bilyeu, 228 Comments

Last night I was reintroduced to the name of Professor Philip Zimbardo.  I remember discussing his Stanford Prison Experiment in college, but I couldn’t have told you that he was the one involved with it.

I saw this video of one of his lectures yesterday.  It was remarkably engaging!  The lecture is fast-paced – he jumps from topic to topic, and along the way manages to hit on differences in world and regional cultures, teaching theory, business, multi-tasking, family values, and many more.  The visuals are unique and kept me rooted to my seat.  After it was over, I couldn’t believe that I had been watching this video for 10 minutes.

A cursory google search tells me that Dr. Philip Zimbardo has only worked on about a gazillion and a half projects, including a couple dozen books and articles.  A youtube search for “Philip Zimbardo” brings up 237 videos about the man.  So I know what I’ll be doing tonight!*

Thanks to Aaron M. for posting the Secret Powers of Time video on Facebook.

*Well, tomorrow night, maybe.  Tonight I’m going to see Michael Shermer at the University of Minnesota!

Secret Powers of Time

Would you like some powdered water with that?

Brianne Bilyeu, , 729 Comments

Dry Water!

Military Intelligence!

Honest Politicians!

Amateur Expert!

Living Dead!

You get the idea. 

How the heck does one make dry water?  Well, they cheat, sort of.  The powdered water is one drop of “wet” water surrounded by modified silica.  So the water itself isn’t powdered, but it’s stored in a way that keeps the water droplets from coalescing.

Did I mention that the headlines about this story are pun-ishingly horrible?  “Dry water making waves!” “Dry water could make a splash commercially”  *shudder*

I heard about this story on Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe (SGU – episode #267) in the Science or Fiction segment.  Several news sources have done a decent job of summarizing the American Chemical Society (ACS) presentation by Dr. Ben Carter (a researcher for study lead, Dr. Andrew Cooper) .  

According to Science 2.0 silica-encapsulated water was first discovered in 1968 by the cosmetic industry.  An article in Scientific American describes the “discovery” of a process to create dry water by coating water in a “hydrophobic powder” in 2001.  It sounds like the technology has been here for a while, but we haven’t yet figured out what to do with it. 

The current focus is on developing dry water technology for use in commercial applications and perhaps in carbon dioxide absorption, which could be useful for that little global warming problem we’re not dealing with.

From an ACS news release:

BOSTON, Aug. 25, 2010 — An unusual substance known as “dry water,” which resembles powdered sugar, could provide a new way to absorb and store carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, scientists reported here today at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

The powder shows bright promise for a number of other uses, they said. It may, for instance, be a greener, more energy-efficient way of jump-starting the chemical reactions used to make hundreds of consumer products. Dry water also could provide a safer way to store and transport potentially harmful industrial materials.

and later in the article:

Dry water was discovered in 1968 and got attention for its potential use in cosmetics. Scientists at the University of Hull, U.K. rediscovered it in 2006 in order to study its structure, and Cooper’s group at the University of Liverpool has since expanded its range of potential applications.

One of the most recent involves using dry water as a storage material for gases, including carbon dioxide. In laboratory-scale research, Cooper and co-workers found that dry water absorbed over three times as much carbon dioxide as ordinary, uncombined water and silica in the same space of time. This ability to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide gas as a hydrate could make it useful in helping to reduce global warming, the scientists suggested.

Cooper and colleagues demonstrated in previous studies that dry water is also useful for storing methane, a component of natural gas, and may help expand its use as a future energy source. In particular, they hope that engineers can use the powder to collect and transport stranded deposits of natural gas.

It sounds like things are proceeding along…

…swimmingly!

Would you like some powdered water with that?

Never have I ever had sex in…

Brianne Bilyeu, 1,079 Comments

Nerdiness and sex…

Would you ever volunteer to have sex for the betterment of science?  And no, it’s not just scientific research because you’re playing doctor; I’m talking about real sexual research conducted by real doctors.  My hat is off to the couple that managed to perform with this third partner in the room.  Or maybe third and fourth…where there’s an ultrasound there must be an ultrasound technician…

NCBI ROFL: And the most awkward sex of all time award goes to…

Coitus as Revealed by Ultrasound in One Volunteer Couple.

“The anatomy and function of the G-spot remain highly controversial. Ultrasound studies of the clitoral complex during intercourse have been conducted to gain insight into the role of the clitoris and its relation to vagina and urethra during arousal and penetration. Aim. Our task was to visualize the anterior vaginal wall and its relationship to the clitoris during intercourse. Methods. The ultrasound was performed during coitus of a volunteer couple with the Voluson(R) General Electric(R) Sonography system (Zipf, Austria) and a 12-MHz flat probe.”

Read on for the rest of the summary by the NCBI ROFL Discover Blog and the link to the actual paper published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Never have I ever had sex in…