Can you teach organic chemistry?

We’re hiring for a tenure-track position!

The University of Minnesota Morris seeks an individual committed to excellence in undergraduate education, to fill a tenure-track position in chemistry beginning August 14, 2023. Responsibilities include: Teaching a wide range of undergraduate chemistry courses including organic chemistry lectures and labs and an advanced elective; advising undergraduates; conducting research that could involve undergraduates; and sharing in the governance and advancement of the Chemistry program, the division, interdisciplinary programs, and the campus.

Applicants must hold or expect to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry or a related field by August 14, 2023. Evidence of excellence in teaching and mentoring undergraduate chemistry students is required. A minimum of one year experience teaching undergraduate organic chemistry is required; graduate TA experience is acceptable. Preference will be given to applicants with more than one year experience teaching undergraduate chemistry and with demonstrated research and/or teaching experience in sustainable/green or environmental chemistry.

(If you’re wondering why I, a mere biologist, am promoting a chemistry job search, it’s because a) we biologists depend on a strong chemistry program, and b) I’ve been roped into serving on the search committee.)

Being aware of others’ humanity has always been a good principle

One of the methods used to measure in-breeding in cheetahs was to to do skin grafts. Transplant a small patch of skin from one animal to another, and if there was no tissue rejection, then they were likely to be genetically similar. Those were routine experiments done on animals, where you don’t need to explain to the subject why you’re doing these bizarre experiments.

I guess some scientists in the 1970s thought Inuit were equivalent to experimental animals, because they were doing the same thing without getting informed consent.

Nearly 50 years ago, the hamlet of Igloolik was the site of a boom in scientific research, all part of a larger project called the International Biological Program. While the program was aimed at answering a wide array of scientific questions, much of the work in Igloolik focused on Inuit.

“We would do all these different kinds of things for a researcher,” said former Nunavut premier Paul Quassa, who grew up in Igloolik.

In the early ’70s he was a young man, spending his days going to school and hunting. He remembers researchers being in the community and doing experiments — he says some were merely inconvenient and annoying, but others were more invasive.

Quassa remembers being taken to a research building with his uncle and his cousin. There, they were told to roll up their sleeves.

“They took pieces of our skin, from another person, and then they put into ours,” said Quassa.

“They had a little circular knife or blade, and they would just start twisting it and then you could see the skin being cut in a circle.”

I don’t do experiments on people, but I would think a fundamental principle of basic bioethics is that you would explain what you were doing, why you were doing it, and you would share the results with your subjects. These researchers don’t seem to be aware of the concept.

“It was an earlier time,” I can hear the science advocates saying. It was only 50 years ago! Scientists were well aware of the controversy of the Tuskegee project — news of that horror broke in 1972. Anyone doing research on human subjects should have known about it.

It’s estimated that researchers did the skin grafting experiment on more than 30 Inuit from Igloolik, including Lazarie Uttak.

“I was grafted with part of the skin of my sister,” said Uttak. “I feel like we were being used.”

Uttak, 67, still lives in Igloolik and says at least 15 of the people who were experimented on are still alive in the hamlet today.

“We talk about this sometimes,” he said. “It was really unfair. We never got any information from them about why this was happening and the reason why they did it. I never found out.”

We know the name of one of the researchers, Dr John Dossetor.

Dossetor was a professor of medicine at the University of Alberta at the time. He went on to become an expert in medical ethics.

In his book, Dossetor writes that his research in Igloolik received “community consent,” which he said was granted by elders via a non-Inuk translator. At the time Dossetor felt that was sufficient.

What the hell is “community consent”? Does that mean that the mayor of Morris, Minnesota could tell a researcher that it’s OK to do experiments on me? I think the problems with that idea are obvious. They sure are obvious to the Inuit subjected to these experiments.

Quassa shot back at the doctor’s concept of “community consent.” He questions what details were actually shared with locals in Inuktitut, and dismissed the idea that elders could unilaterally grant consent for invasive medical procedures.

“I’ve heard of scientists doing experiments on monkeys — they use animals to do a lot of experiments for the betterment of humankind,” he said.

“We are not monkeys, we are not animals, we are another human being that deserves respect.”

Now I’m wondering what experiments are being done on isolated communities here in the ’20s that will be revealed in the 2070s that will horrify everyone, and whether they’ll try to defend themselves by saying that we didn’t know better in 2020.

You know, we do.

Imagine a Senator Herschel Walker…

If this were a soap opera, I’d call it unbelievable. Herschel Walker, senatorial candidate from Georgia, has been accused of paying for a woman’s abortion. He denies it.

“This is a flat-out lie – and I deny this in the strongest possible terms,” Walker said in a statement posted on his verified Twitter account in which he called the report a “repugnant hatchet job” and criticized what he described as the Daily Beast’s reporting tactics.

“Now, they’re using an anonymous source to further slander me,” Walker said. “They will do anything to hold onto power. It’s disgusting, gutter politics.”

How dare they. HE DOESN’T KNOW HER, he shrieks.

And now a new revelation:

A woman who said Herschel Walker paid for her 2009 abortion is the mother of one of his children, according to a new report Wednesday, undercutting the Georgia Republican Senate candidate’s claims that he didn’t know who she was.

The Daily Beast, which first reported Monday on the abortion, said it had agreed not to reveal details of the woman’s identity to protect her privacy. But Walker, who has expressed support for a national abortion ban without exceptions, vehemently denied the story, calling the abortion allegation a “flat-out lie,” threatening a lawsuit against the outlet he has yet to file and saying he had no idea who the woman might be.

So on Wednesday night, The Daily Beast revealed that the woman – who was not named – was so well known to Walker that, according to her, they conceived another child years after the abortion. She decided to continue on with the later pregnancy, though she noted that Walker, as he had during the earlier pregnancy, expressed that it wasn’t a convenient time for him, the outlet reported.

To be fair, it’s entirely possible that he has completely forgotten who the mothers of his children are — there are so many of them, and it’s not as if he has invested much time with his families, even his own children seem to dislike him, and he seems to be a remarkably stupid person. Which all makes him the perfect Republican candidate!

For all that, it’s more than conceivable that Walker wins his race against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. That remains Republicans’ hope — with faith placed in Walker to run the same game-plan that got him to this point.

Right. He’s a good representative for the party of conservative values and personal responsibility, which has somehow morphed into the theocratic party that loves a guy who, after every scandal, defends himself with the assertion that he’s a Christian.

So…you think all that legislation is aimed at protecting you from the transes?

I know, some people think having trans kids in school is a peril (it’s infectious, don’t you know) and states like Florida and Texas are freaking out with wild legislation “for the children”, but there’s a bigger worry you ought to have — much bigger, since the Trans Peril is nonexistent — and that is they’re coming for the cis women now. And after that, the cis men.

Florida now requires all student athletes to fill out a rather invasive questionnaire. Part of it is marked “optional”, but who knows how long that will last, and one wonders how much suspicion will be cast on those who refuse to answer.

Seizures. Fainting spells. Allergies.
Florida student athletes have to report all these medical conditions when they register to play for the season.
But all female athletes in the state also are asked to report their history of menstrual periods: When they got their first period, how many weeks pass between periods and when they had their last one, to name a few.
The information is reported on athletes’ annual physical form, which they are required to fill out with a physician and turn in to their school’s athletic director.

Yikes.

Let us ask the obvious question: why does the school need to know all that?

No, really. When I went to school, all that was kept quiet, nobody needed to know about it, let alone report it to the athletic director.

Why does the athletic director need to know how long your periods last, or how many periods you had in the last year? What will they do with that information?

Oh, I know. They’re going to upload it to a commercial database run by a for-profit company called Aktivate which will never ever sell that information or accidentally leak it or be hacked.

But I repeat: WHY? There are a few hints.

Abortion rights advocates who stress reproductive privacy in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade worry that women’s menstrual history may be used to prosecute them if they terminate a pregnancy.
And a vocal contingent of parents want forms to stay offline in the name of their parental rights over their children’s data — which they worry about being leaked or sold.
“I think we’re all on edge right now,” Haller said. He added that he has “very little reason to have faith in our state leadership” to keep data provided to educational institutions private.

It might also be useful if you want to categorize the population into menstruators and non-menstruators. I don’t know why anyone would want to do that, but certain people have a weird obsession with that kind of reductionist division.

“Dr” Oz, celebrity physician

He really is a Dr Nick.

And then there is this horrible report from Jezebel about his research activities. I’ve mentioned before that part of the way I worked through college was as an assistant in a med school animal surgery, where I’d help out with prep and cleanup and animal care for researchers doing experiments on dogs and cats and a few other kinds of animals, so this is familiar ground to me. I know what this stuff is like, and I also know that the majority of the experimenters were deeply concerned for the care and welfare of the animals (that’s why I was hired — despite not having a degree yet, people like me could work in the lab and advocate for the animals). Would you believe that about half my job was just hanging out in the animal room, playing with cats and dogs? That was nice. The other half was helping to stick recording instruments in their brains and hearts. Not so nice, and a reason why I’d rather work on fish and arthropods.

A warning about the Jezebel article, though: it doesn’t really say anything about the purpose or results of the animal experimentation, which means they’re ignoring a big part of the story. I mean, I assisted in the catheterization of the carotid artery in dogs, which wasn’t for their benefit at all, but was important for monitoring blood flow in the heart — you couldn’t do detailed analysis of circulatory responses without doing that. So I’m wondering what specific goal Oz’s experiments on dogs had, and this isn’t mentioned at all in the article.

Maybe he was actually doing good research? Ha ha ha. This was at the same time he was going on Oprah’s show and his own show to peddle green coffee bean extracts and other such quackery, so I’d be surprised. Another possibility is that this was part of medical training exercises. Some of the animal surgeries I monitored were done by medical students, who were basically practicing basic techniques before being turned loose to cut into humans.

There is no excuse, however, for neglect or abuse of animals under your care. Some of what is reported is simply bad animal care.

Dell’Orto testified that a dog experimented on by Oz’s team experienced lethargy, vomiting, paralysis, and kidney failure, but wasn’t euthanized for a full two days. She alleged other truly horrifying examples of gratuitously cruel treatment of dogs, including at least one dog who was kept alive for a month for continued experimentation despite her unstable, painful condition, despite how data from her continued experimentation was deemed unusable. According to Dell’Orto, one Oz-led study resulted in a litter of puppies being killed by intracardiac injection with syringes of expired drugs inserted in their hearts without any sedation.

That first dog: that’s a massive experimental failure. I want to know what was done for it in those two days; even from a cruelly utilitarian standpoint, that’s a huge expense, because you are obligated to give round-the-clock care to an animal you fucked up. Did they? Or did they just let it suffer for days?

That second dog is a similar failure. Why was it unstable and in pain? What possible information did they think they could get from a botched surgery?

The litter of puppies brought back more unpleasant memories. As the low level lab grunt, euthanizing animals post-experiment was one of my duties. The standard process was to take the animal in a back room, out of the general care area, calming it, and putting in a butterfly needle (I got quite good at that, and could almost stick a vein with the animal hardly noticing), and give it a general anesthetic to gently put it to sleep. Stabbing it in the heart and throwing it in a bag? No way.

Columbia University was fined $2000 for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. That’s a pittance, a mere token. It just tells us that there were definitely some sloppy procedures in that lab.

Oh, also significant is that the accusations are all against researchers and techs working with and for Oz. It’s not as if Oz himself was doing any of the actual dirty work himself, he had a quack business & entertainment empire to run. I tried looking up his research on PubMed, and he has quite a few publications, but most of them are clinical studies, nothing to do with animal experimentation. I did find this ironic gem of a paper, Impact of unauthorized celebrity endorsements on cardiovascular healthcare, which begins with an anecdote about Kim Kardashian recommending pills on her show, and ends by suggesting it is crucial that doctors work with celebrities.

In the future, it is crucial that the cardiologists and other healthcare professionals work with celebrities in order to counter the negative influences of fake celebrity healthcare endorsements. First, cardiologists should speak to their patients about the legitimacy of celebrity advice and the source of the health information. Comments by patients of recent celebrity endorsements should not be received with annoyance, but rather as a crucial opportunity to start educational conversations about cardiovascular health. Second, a certification/registration process or database by the FTC or equivalent regulatory body, should be formed to double-check whether a celebrity actually allowed a company or advertiser to use his or her persona, body or reputation to endorse a product or service related to cardiovascular health. Ultimately, there is an urgent need for large-scale studies to help researchers better understand where people receive false advertisements and what compels them to act on this false information.

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Yeah, the quack celebrity doctor has no interest in telling other doctors that they ought to work more with celebrities.

The AIs and the plants have formed an alliance!

Face it, we’re doomed.

This installation enables a live plant to control a machete. plant machete has a control system that reads and utilizes the electrical noises found in a live philodendron. The system uses an open source micro-controller connected to the plant to read varying resistance signals across the plant’s leaves. Using custom software, these signals are mapped in real-time to the movements of the joints of the industrial robot holding a machete. In this way, the movements of the machete are determined based on input from the plant. Essentially the plant is the brain of the robot controlling the machete determining how it swings, jabs, slices and interacts in space.

Those are some pretty aggressive machete moves, I notice.

Sad news

Passing along the obituary for my brother Jim.

James “Jim” Myers passed away at his home in Hoquiam September 23, 2022 surrounded by his children after battling Cancer for the last two years. Jim was born June 22, 1958 in Kent, Washington to James C. Myers, Sr. and Darlene (Westad) Myers. Jim graduated from Kent Meridian High School in 1976. After a brief enlistment in the Army, Jim married Karen (Church) Myers in 1978 in South Bend, Washington. The two lived and raised their children in the Willapa Harbor area most of the 27 years that they were married. Jim stood by Karen’s side and cared for her until she lost her battle with cancer in 2004. In May of 2008 Jim married Julie (Bjornsson) Myers in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Jim always told people that he was a lucky man because he not only found love with a wonderful woman once, but he was able to find it twice. Jim and Julie moved from Tacoma to Hoquiam in 2015 and happily lived together on their property until Julie passed away after a brief illness in 2021.

Jim worked fourteen years as a commercial fisherman before going to work for the Westport Shipyard for more than ten years. Jim also worked many years with Federal Marine & Defense Services, Quinault Beach Resort and Casino, and until having to take an early retirement due to his illness, he worked for The Grays Harbor Transit. Jim was well known for being a hard worker as well as having a quick wit and sarcastic humor. Jim was very stoic with his feelings but showed his love through kind hearted teasing. Jim enjoyed watching and collecting movies, the quirkier the better. Jim also was an avid reader who enjoyed reading about history and anything nautical. Jim had a deep interest in tractors and enjoyed using his tractors on his property, especially with his grandson. He was a talented artist who enjoyed drawing and painting. Jim also appreciated music and not only enjoyed listening to a wide variety of music, he was self-taught on the guitar and ukulele. In his spare time Jim enjoyed traveling, especially to Las Vegas and Zihuantanejo, Mexico. Jim loved to play in Poker and Black Jack tournaments and also teaching people how to play cards. Most of all Jim just loved being at home with his family.

Jim was preceded in death by his father, James C. Myers Sr; his wives, Karen (Church) Myers and Julie (Bjornsson) Myers; His son, Benjamin James Myers and his sister, Lisa (Myers) Clendening. Jim is survived by his mother, Darlene (Westad) Myers of Auburn, WA as well as his siblings Paul (Mary) Myers of Morris, MN, Caryn Clendening of Auburn, WA, Tomi Myers- Pierce of Kent, WA, and Michael (Wendy) Myers of Auburn, WA. Jim also leaves behind his children, Rachael (Ken) Hahn of McCleary, WA, Charles (Amelia) Myers of Bellingham, WA, Evan Myers of Hoquiam. Jim is also survived by his grandson, Alex Hahn of McCleary, numerous nieces and nephews as well as his “favorite child” his Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Nestle.

An informal Celebration of life for Jim is planned for October 15, 2022 at 1pm at the Hoquiam Grand Central Event Center, 427 7 th St. Hoquiam, WA 98550. In lieu of flowers, family asks that donations be made in Jim’s name to the North Beach Medical Equipment, PO BOX 2363, Ocean Shores, WA 98569.

I’ll be making a weekend trip to the West coast in a week and a half. I wish I had a better reason for it.

It isn’t hypocrisy at all

And it probably won’t cost him any votes. It has been discovered that Herschel Walker paid for a girlfriend to get an abortion, in spite of the fact that, on the campaign trail, he has been loudly opposed to abortion for any reason.

A woman who asked not to be identified out of privacy concerns told The Daily Beast that after she and Walker conceived a child while they were dating in 2009 he urged her to get an abortion. The woman said she had the procedure and that Walker reimbursed her for it.

She supported these claims with a $575 receipt from the abortion clinic, a “get well” card from Walker, and a bank deposit receipt that included an image of a signed $700 personal check from Walker.

The woman said there was a $125 difference because she “ball-parked” the cost of an abortion after Googling the procedure and added on expenses such as travel and recovery costs.

Additionally, The Daily Beast independently corroborated details of the woman’s claims with a close friend she told at the time and who, according to the woman and the friend, took care of her in the days after the procedure.

The woman said Walker, who was not married at the time, told her it would be more convenient to terminate the pregnancy, saying it was “not the right time” for him to have a child. It was a feeling she shared, but what she didn’t know was that Walker had an out-of-wedlock child with another woman earlier that same year.

This won’t even cause a hiccup in his campaign. The thing to realize is that anti-abortion advocates aren’t actually so much anti-abortion as they are anti-women’s autonomy. This abortion was OK because a man blessed it. What would get them outraged is if a woman aborted a man’s unborn child without his permission. Permission granted by a man? Stomp that fetus!

His potential Republican colleagues are probably ready to high-five him and call him a moral exemplar. Even his record of domestic violence doesn’t trouble the Republican base, because that’s simply a man exhibiting his dominion over his wife. Perfectly fine.

Like tiny little cats

We have a pet bold jumper in a terrarium in our kitchen, and it’s true — they are pleasant little animals, highly interactive, and not at all threatening.

Our bold jumper might be flattered by this video, except for the bit where he talks about the spider’s tiny little brain. I disagree, they’re very smart!