Bones, Rocks and Stars

How do we know how old things are? That’s a straightforward and very scientific question, and exactly the kind of thing students ought to ask; it’s also the kind of question that has been muddled up by lots of bad information (blame the creationists), and can be difficult for a teacher to answer. There are a great many dating methods, and you may need to be a specialist to understand many of them…and heck, I’m a biologist, not a geologist or physicist. I’ve sort of vaguely understood the principles of measuring isotope ratios, but try to pin me down on all the details and I’d have to scurry off and dig through a pile of books.

I understand it better now, though. I’ve been reading Bones, Rocks and Stars : The Science of When Things Happened(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) by Chris Turney.

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Anti-science ain’t just on the Right

Here’s a controversial topic to discuss, especially for a science blogger.

Science is overrated. This is my contention.

Last night in chat I evidently hit a nerve by (perhaps not so) casually suggesting that maybe it’s not the end of the world that fewer and fewer American students are going into the sciences.

I read that first bit, and you may be shocked to learn that I’m willing to agree. There are some really good arguments to support the position. Science is hard, and it’s true that the majority of people aren’t going to be able to grasp it. We’re oversubscribed and overextended right now, too: more students are going through the science mill than can ever acquire jobs doing science. If every PI is taking on one new graduate student and one new postdoc every year over a career spanning 30-40 years…well, that’s a situation that is rather ruthlessly Malthusian. It is definitely not a practical career, either—the excessively long training period and relatively low salaries mean that, in a purely economic sense, it would be more profitable to plunge into a blue-collar job straight out of high school. It’s also not as if science is the only rewarding career of value out there, and no other work can possibly be as satisfying or productive. My own kids are all going on into non-science careers, and I say, good for them.

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Wind!

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Jerome a Paris has a first-rate overview of wind power on Daily Kos. I’m in a windy part of the world where this form of energy has great potential, and there is much local enthusiasm for wind turbines. Our first one is up just north of town, where I can sometimes catch a peek of it from my neighborhood when the trees aren’t all covered with leaves and where we always see it as one of the landmarks as we’re driving into town. I think they’re beautiful. Coal plants may be less obtrusive when they can be kept distant, but I’d rather see a row of wind turbines on a ridge than a smokestack on the far horizon.

Beautiful birds?

Crap. Coturnix tagged me with this beautiful bird meme, and I am the wrong person to ask. I don’t get out much, preferring to sit in the lab or the library, so my favorite birds are all in pieces and dead. But OK, since he asked…

The Week in Review, and an open thread

Flitting about as I have lately means I’ve been missing this, that and the other thing. So here’s a quick summary.

  • Tuesday night I was at the Café Scientifique in Minneapolis, where UMM’s Timna Wyckoff gave a talk on antibiotic resistance. It was terrific! Lots of good questions throughout, and a mob of conversation afterwards. This is exactly how these events are supposed to go.
  • I missed Michael Ruse’s talk at the UM on Wednesday—I was somewhere in Wisconsin, with a dorm room packed into a car—but I have one email report that he was entertaining but extremely aggravating. Anyone else care to say more?
  • Paul Nelson gave a talk at UCI. It sounds like the usual thing we get from Nelson.
  • A new Skeptics’ Circle has crystallized.
  • There’s an I and the Bird sighting!
  • The liberals are having a carnival!

Now I’ve got a couple of finals to give, and man, I’m exhausted. Driving to Madison and back again in one day is too much for this tired old guy—we got back about midnight last night, and then I had to drag myself out of bed at 6 to finish writing one of my exams. And then tonight…more grading.

Devonian Blues

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Lots of people have sent me links to this—thanks, all!—and it’s the perfect thing to lift me out of the finals week blahs, and it’s also just in time for Mother’s Day on Sunday: The Devonian Blues.

Every single girl and every little boy
Was born from the clan of the wayward Dipnoi
Don’t let the preacher man spoil all the fun
Took a lot more than 6 days to get the job done
Amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and man
All belong to the fish tribe, doncha’ understand?

Your momma was a lobefinned fish
My momma was a lobefinned fish

Sing along, everyone!

Scurrying hither and thither

It’s another traveling day for me! I’m off to Minneapolis for a few meetings, and also this important event tonight:

Café Scientifique
Antibiotics in Agriculture
with Timna Wyckoff
Tuesday, May 9, 6-8 p.m.
Varsity Theater, Dinkytown
Free. Must be 18 or older to attend.

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that more than 70% of the antibiotics produced each year in the U.S. are used in livestock production. How exactly are antibiotics used in agriculture? Do those uses lead to bacterial resistance? Does this have an impact on human health? Timna Wyckoff, assistant professor of biology at University of Minnesota Morris, will discuss the questions and answers surrounding this controversial topic, and share her recent work involving bacterial antibiotic resistance at conventional and organic dairies. Sponsored in part by the University of Minnesota Morris through their Café Scientifique program.

Note that the speaker is UMM’s very own Timna Wyckoff. Yay, us!

Then, tomorrow I have to scoot on down to Madison, pick up #2 Son and a few tons of accumulated college stuff, and zip all the way back to Morris. I’m hoping to have a few oddments of time to post a few things—there’s some new stuff on diploblast Hox genes that I want to mention, that will fit in well with the reruns I ran yesterday—and I’m also going to squeeze in some more grading. This is a fun week, isn’t it?

A complex regulatory network in a diploblast

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The Wnt genes produce signalling proteins that play important roles in early development, regulating cell proliferation, differentiation and migration. It’s hugely important, used in everything from early axis specification in the embryo to fine-tuning axon pathfinding in the nervous system. The way they work is that the Wnt proteins are secreted by cells, and they then bind to receptors on other cells (one receptor is named Frizzled, and others are LRP-5 and 6), which then, by a chain of cytoplasmic signalling events, removes β-catenin from a degradation pathway and promotes its import into the nucleus, where it can modify patterns of gene expression. This cascade can also interact with the cytoskeleton and trigger changes in cell migration and cell adhesion. The diagram below illustrates the molecular aspects of its function.

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