The hotties of science

Over the past few days there has been a bit of discussion about the place of women in science. Part of it revolves around this ill-advised post which clearly objectifies women. Creepily, in my not so humble opinion. Sheril Kirshenbaum of the Intersection responded in a very calm and rational manner, and some other bloggers have weighed in as well. I found the discussion particularly interesting given the fact that Newsweek just had an article discussing the "Beauty Advantage" and how looks do matter, more than we'd like to admit actually, and that women do have it worse. So it goes without saying, but needs to be said despite some people's objections, that everyone really should use a more critical eye towards their own verbal regurgitation's ... before they spew them into the workplace, cyberspace, the street, or wherever they happen to be at the time.

Remember, it's better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

With that said, one thing that was unfortunately lost in the entire discussion is that we can talk about the hotties of science without objectifying anyone. Yes, there are many good looking men and women in science -- myself included -- but it still overlooks another important facet ... the science itself.

So with that, I would now like to present the true hotties of science, or at least the ones I can pull from the top of my head.

1. Pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is a process by which organic material is exposed to extremely high temperatures and often pressure, in the absence of oxygen. This material is broken down into several components for the generation of energy. It is a player in the emerging biofuel discussion and has the benefit of being able to use multiple feedstocks. A common utilizable energy product from pyrolysis is methane which can then be used for natural gas in homes, vehicles, workplaces, you name it. It can also be used to generate bio-oils (PDF, 42 pages) for liquid fuels. As mentioned, people have looked at a number of feedstocks including cellulose and other plant materials, such as rice husks and even coconut shells. Oh, and people have looked at cooking swine manure as well (PDF, 8 pages) with excellent results.

2. Gasification. Gasification is the dizygotic twin sister of pyrolysis. Like pyrolysis, gasification is playing a visible role in the bioenergy discussion. Pretty much anything that contains carbon can be gasified, and fossil fuels such as coal are often gasified to produce electricity. Since the process typically occurs at over 700 degrees Celsius, this is a very hot science topic indeed. There are several approaches to gasification, as well as feedstocks. Gasification of biomass (PDF, 23 pages) has been studied to a great degree (PDF, 64 pages).

3. Thermo-tolerant bacteria. Now we get into my own wheelhouse! The blood always gets pumping when talk turns to the extremophiles, groups of organisms which live in the most inhospitable of environments. From the extremes in pH and temperature, to salinity and arid environments ... places we would never expect life on earth, seemingly harbors entire communities. These organisms have been used as models for exobiology, and been used in applied science the world over. Heck, one can easily argue that if it were not for the thermophile Thermus aquaticus (from which we got Taq polymerase), we would never have experienced the genomic revolution.

4. Lasers. I blurbed about this already today, but man weaponized lasers are pretty cool/hot/awesome/no longer the stuff of science fiction alone. Maybe the end-product isn't science itself, but to get it to that point some serious applied science needed to be performed, and these systems are the end result. These directed-energy weapons (DEWs) literally evaporate their targets. That's some serious heat!

5. The Hubble Telescope and Astronomy. Ok, so the telescope itself isn't hot per se, but what it typically views generates some pretty serious heat. The core of our own star, Sol, tips the thermometer at a mere 15,000,000°C, which by all estimates is pretty hot. Launched in 1990, the Hubble Telescope continues to produce amazing pictures of our universe today. Recently, astronomers detected a "monster star" which outweighs our own sun by ~300 fold.

6. Climate Change. So, is the world really getting warmer? It's a debate that has certainly generated a lot of heat, which in and of itself warrants it's placement on this list. I wish I could say that there are things that both sides could agree on, but I'm not so sure that there are. There is plenty of research being conducted on greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide, methane, and carbon dioxide. Scientists continue to look into how these gases are generated, how to reduce/sequester them, and the impacts they play on the environment. From my own vantage point, these gases are all part of two important nutrient cycles, nitrogen and carbon (PDF, 33 pages). Life goes on, and one thing is for sure ... marmots are getting bigger.

7. Heat shock proteins. There is a reason life can tolerate extremes in temperatures. Some cannot handle the extremes as well as others, but we all have a way of dealing with increases and decreases. The heat shock proteins regulate the responses of cells when exposed to elevated temperatures. There are a variety of proteins which handle this chore, and they are found in a range of organisms as well, from bacteria, to insects, to mammals. In addition, some of these proteins have been manipulated to serve a biotech purpose. You have to love applied science sometimes.

So, that's but a small primer on the hotties of science. As I think of some more, I'll definitely add them to the list. If commenters wish to add to the list, provide them in the comments or send me a link to your own posts. Perhaps the most important imparted lesson from this entire mess is that if we can find it in ourselves to look beyond things such as the gender of coworkers, collaborators and peers, and instead focus on the areas of science which really matter ... we'll wind up opening doors to bigger and better things. One can always hope.

ETA: Updated on 07/22/2010 to expand the list.

Pragmatic Me

I was reading RPG's blog, and his latest entry is one which ultimately deals with why he is a scientist. It boils down to, as he states ...

I don’t do science because it’s useful, or important. I do science because I find it beautiful.

I have no problem with that, but that is certainly not how I found myself in the world of science.

For me, it started in high school. We took that awful preliminary SAT test ... called, oddly enough, the PSATs. When you take that test, it comes back to you with a list of careers you might be ideally suited for. At the top of the list for me: Medical Technologist. A career I had zero information about. So, I started looking around (this was a time before that series of tubes called "the internets") and got literature from a number of universities. They all painted a nice picture about their Med Tech programs. I always did better in my english, history, and political science classes as a student, but I just couldn't see myself in a career within those fields. Exactly what would I do? is something I constantly asked myself. Be a librarian? was the response that my mind often came up with.

I wanted no part of being a librarian.

A medical technology position wasn't "high profile", though it could be a good start towards getting into a med school. What med tech provided however was an almost guaranteed source of employment from the minute I was given my diploma. As a child who grew up solidly middle class, this was a big deal. I saw how my parents struggled with keeping food on the table and a roof overhead, I saw the intense work ethics of my dad and grandpa, I knew I'd have to eventually do the same ... and being a librarian didn't seem like a very good source of income. I don't say this to degrade librarians, because pay may be really good ... but no one ever gave me any information as a teenager on what it was like to be a librarian. When found in such a vacuum, you fill it the only way you know how *shrug*.

At any rate, so based on the results of that PSAT test, and the information I found on Med Tech (not to mention those PSAT's seem to be serve as a recruitment tool for colleges because every Med Tech program in the land started sending me brochures on their particular program), I figured I'd look at colleges that offered the program. I looked at several, and each one of them spoke to the point of a low number of Med Tech's but a high demand for them. Base pay was good $16/hour (at the time) and bound to increase every year, so I figured I'd give it a try. It certainly seemed more challenging than any other subject I'd considered majoring in.

Beauty alas, never factored into the equation.

Now, as I've progressed in my career, I've been excited by several aspects of my work ... most notably, I find it cool that if I do an experiment ... I may very well be the first person EVAR to do that particular experiment to answer that specific question on that specific organism. But that isn't what keeps me going. What keeps me going is that paycheck I receive. Now, it helps that I love what I do. I most certainly do, but my particular job affords me many benefits which allow me to love it, and want to persist in doing it.

I guess there are those who will persist in doing something because they find it beautiful. I'm happy for them. For me, that simply isn't the case. I think what I do is important AND useful, both for the environment, my field, and more importantly myself ... and all for different reasons. I'm afraid beauty simply doesn't fit into the equation, or if it does it's not a factor which is weighted very heavily.

Anecdotal != Objective

Anecdotal evidence can undermine scientific inquiry.

The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition—thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not.

On the one side are scientists who have been unable to find any causal link between the symptoms of autism and the vaccine preservative thimerosal, which in the body breaks down into ethylmercury, the culprit du jour for autism’s cause. On the other side are parents who noticed that shortly after having their children vaccinated autistic symptoms began to appear. These anecdotal associations are so powerful that they cause people to ignore contrary evidence: ethylmercury is expelled from the body quickly (unlike its chemical cousin methylmercury) and therefore cannot accumulate in the brain long enough to cause damage. And in any case, autism continues to be diagnosed in children born after thimerosal was removed from most vaccines in 1999; today trace amounts exist in only a few.

The reason for this cognitive disconnect is that we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool. Our brains are belief engines that employ association learning to seek and find patterns. Superstition and belief in magic are millions of years old, whereas science, with its methods of controlling for intervening variables to circumvent false positives, is only a few hundred years old. So it is that any medical huckster promising that A will cure B has only to advertise a handful of successful anecdotes in the form of testimonials.