There is a communications in science course that I would like to share. This past summer, I heard about a Japanese researcher named Dr. Gensei Ishimura, and I found through his website that he is one of the leading members of a program for training effective science communicators. This program is called CoSTEP, or Communicators in Science and Technology Education Program. This effort started out in Hokkaido University in northern Japan. It also received international attention through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held in Boston in 2008.
In an interview, Dr. Ishimura shared some methods of getting people involved in science communication.
Sapporo Kanko Science Map (Sapporo Tourism Science Map)—This project explored how to use the web to communicate information, a similar aim to this SCIE300 course blog assignment. The CoSTEP teaching team preferred blogs as a blog format offers a simple method of updating information on the web. Dr. Ishimura reasoned that since there is so much information on the web, he must make his blog stand out by emphasizing the aspects unique to CoSTEP. Students enrolled in CoSTEP are mostly residents of Sapporo city with a science background, so they were asked to write feature articles on aspects of science found in various locations around Sapporo and to organize them into a map. As a final assessment, they compiled a manual for creating the science map and made it accessible to the public.
This shows that the content of the blogs as well as the method of creating it is important to learn about communication.
Newspaper publication—In this component of the CoSTEP course, students learned how to write and publish newspaper articles. There were four workshops in total to understand and expand on the publishers’ ability to communicate to readers through newspapers. An example of the questions explored was “where do people pay attention to on a newspaper?” This type of data turned out to be a novel finding even for the publishers. Students also modeled a grocery store management group and presented on the advantages of posting an advertisement in a high school newspaper. This aimed to connect high school students and the publishers.
Newspapers are another popular mode of communication. This activity seems to address important ideas such as layout and targeting a specific audience.
Dr. Ishimura himself is a science communicator. His previous experience in the management of science museum exhibits shows a career where science communication skills directly apply to the aims of the institution.
While most of us don’t remember much of anything about our 9 months in the uterus, you would probably be just a little freaked out if you found out that those 9 months weren’t spent in a uterus at all… but in a man-made artificial uterus with several scientists devoted to bringing you to full term.
This is exactly what happened to 6 lucky grey nurse sharks.
The grey nurse shark or sand tiger shark, as it is also known, is one of Australia’s most endangered marine species and is considered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to be under threat of endangerment on a worldwide basis. How could this be? Weighing in at over 200 pounds and reaching over 11 feet, the grey nurse shark is a powerful beast, one you wouldn’t expect of being vulnerable to predators.
Grey Nurse Shark. Photo by Richard Ling
However, they are… and that predator is man. Despite their rather intimidating appearance, they are completely harmless to humans unless provoked; yet humans have been killing the sharks for decades. Most of the time the deaths are accidents as the sharks are caught in commercial and recreational fishing equipment. But several of the deaths are intentional as the sharks are considered a delicacy in Japan.
To make matters even worse for the shark, they are only capable of producing two pups per year. The mother shark actually starts her pregnancy with about forty fertilized embryos separated in two separate uteri, but as they mature, the embryos undergo adelphophagy where they attack and eat one another. Eventually, only the two toughest embryos are left to mature. Talk about sibling rivalry!
Scientists Nick Otway and Megan Ellis think they have found a way to prevent this.
In a lab at the Port Stephens Fisheries Institute, in New South Wales of Australia, these scientists have made an artificial uterus, which is basically a very complex aquarium.
From a euthanized pregnant female, 6 embryos were extracted and all six were brought to full-term in this artificial uterus. The pups were born to a length of about three feet, an average size for a grey nurse shark pup. After only three months, they were released into the wild.
Whether or not they will suffer a mommy complex has yet to be seen but already, we can conclude these results are amazing.
If we can figure out a way to keep the mother alive, we have the potential to save an endangered species by literally tripling its birthing capacity. Furthermore, if we can extract the embryos even earlier on, we could do a lot more than just tripling it.
Pregnancy, Image from Microsoft Word 2000
Now, this brings up an interesting thought for the future of the human race…
Will the exhausting task of carrying a baby for nine months become an event of the past? Will you and your partner simply drop off your eggs and sperm at a lab and a few months later, pick up our baby without ever gaining a pound?
Certainly, this won’t be happening any time soon but it is definitely interesting to think about in a society where convenience is king.
Otway, N. & Ellis, M. (2011). Construction and test of an artificial uterus for ex situ development of shark embryos. Zoo Biology. doi: 10.1002/zoo.20422
Pollard, D. & Smith, A. (2005). Carcharias taurus. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Version 2011.1. Retrieved from www.iucnredlist.org.
Cross-section of the CNGS experiment through the Earth.
On the 23rd of September 160 scientists from the OPERA experiment published a paper online suggesting they have found evidence of neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light. This announcement has thrown neutrinos and the potential implications of the finding with relation to Einsteins Theory of Relativity into the scientific spotlight.
First of all to provide a little background to the study, neutrinos are tiny subatomic particles each with a “mass of less than a millionth the mass of an electron”. They are uncharged, hence the name neutrino coming from the word neutral, and hardly react with other matter which allows them to pass right through the Earth. Most neutrinos we know of are radiated by our Sun, with 65 billion neutrinos passing through every square centimeter of the Earth perpendicular to the Suns rays every second. They are also hit the Earth from other cosmic rays and are produced as a product of radioactive decay. Scientists can create neutrinos in particle accelerators like the one at the CERN research facility in Geneva, Switzerland (home of the Large Hadron Collider) shown below.
Artistic view of the underground layout of CERN and the SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron)
The CNGS (CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso) experiment’s main focus is to investigate the phenomenon of how neutrinos ‘oscillate’ (change between the 3 types or flavours of neutrinos (electron, muon and tau neutrinos)) as they travel long distances through matter. Determining the velocity of neutrinos is a secondary aim of the experiment (however after these findings I’m sure it moved up the list of priorities). Muon neutrinos are created in the Super Proton Syncrotron (SPS) particle accelerator at CERN and fired 732km through the Earth to the OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) detector in Gran Sasso, Italy. The speed of these neutrinos is calculated using the same basic physics of Speed = Distance / Time that you learned in high school, however with more precision than ever before. The distance between the SPS in Switzerland and the OPERA detector in Italy is known to within 20cm and the timing is measured using GPS timing signals and a cesium atomic clock with the sensitivity of this experiment “roughly an order of magnitude better than previous experiments.” This experimental design is shown below.
Cross Section of the CNGS Experiment through the Earth
Neutrinos are notoriously hard to detect due to their neglible mass but after 3 years the OPERA experiment has managed to collect 16,000 neutrinos (only 10^-14 % of the neutrinos created!) with some very interesting findings. When comparing the time it took the neutrinos to make the trip to Gran Sasso to how long it would take light, they were shocked to find the neutrinos “arrived at Gran Sasso sixty billionths of a second earlier, with an error margin of plus or minus 10 billionths of a second”. This has led them to publish their findings for the wider scientific community to scrutinise.
This paper has pushed physics into the media spotlight due to the implications this finding could have if it is replicated. If it is proven that the neutrinos are in fact travelling faster than the speed of light (rather than this being the result of some experimental error or statistical miscalculation) then they are breaking one of the fundamental laws of modern physics – that nothing can exceed the speed that light travels at in a vacuum (effectively the speed limit of the universe). This is the foundation of Einsteins Theory of Relativity and a cornerstone of the maths we use to understand and model the universe. Brian Cox, a professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester said, “If you’ve got something travelling faster than light, then it’s the most profound discovery of the last 100 years or more in physics. It’s a very, very big deal. It requires a complete rewriting of our understanding of the universe.”
If neutrinos do in fact travel faster than light then this “raises the troubling possibility of a way to send information back in time, blurring the line between past and present and wreaking havoc with the fundamental principle of cause and effect.” Another explanation being proposed is that the neutrinos are skipping through another dimension on their way to Gran Sasso which also raises a lot of fascinating questions.
However the media should be prepared to wait a long time before this is proven/disproven because theres an important paragraph in the paper published by the OPERA team that hasn’t recieved as much attention (or the media has chosen to ignore).
“Despite the large significance of the measurement reported here and the stability of the analysis, the potential great impact of the results motivates the continuation of our studies in order to investigate possible still unknown systematic effects that could explain the observed anomaly. We deliberately do not attempt any theoretical or phenomenological interpretation of the results.”
I find this very interesting because it shows how the team of scientists are not reading too much into their own results, at least for now and are cautious of making a revelationary claim that could be disproven. “They do not claim that the neutrinos are actually exceeding the speed of light, only that the measurements to date show something unexpected [and they] are reaching out to the high-energy physics community to improve the experiment and data analysis.” Therefore despite the enthusiasm of the world’s media, the scientists lack of belief suggests we shouldn’t rush to get too excited or too worried about the consequences of this finding until other scientists such as those working on the T2K experiment in Japan have replicated their results.
However, one thing’s for sure, it’s definitely an intriguing time for the physics community.
The Winter 2011 Term is well underway at our University now and many of us return after, what is always at best, a well deserved break ending too soon; summer of course. Returning to our classes in various disciplines even just in the Faculty of Science we always seem to develop a sense of doom when the expectation of having to recall previous year’s material is stressed upon in almost every introductory lecture of our courses. Not the most comforting feeling when starting a new year but there it lies filling us with dread.
The problem lies in not our being forgetful but rather in the methods which we adopt in order to retain and commit to our memories the different pieces of information which we work so hard throughout our academic careers to engrave into our minds. Reading articles I came across an interesting one suggesting a potential answer to this problem.
Temporal Spacing
Numerous studies going centuries back have asserted that spacing learning episodes across time sometimes enhances memory. This so-called spacing effect can aid learning and effective retention of information. However, whether in classrooms, instructional design texts, or language learning software, there is little sign that people are paying attention to temporal spacing of learning.
Optimal Spacing Intervals
In a recent study, the researchers gave 161 subjects two learning sessions (separated by an inter-study interval, or ISI, from minutes to 3 months). Each session involved learning a set of obscure facts. Six months after the second session, subjects were brought back for a final test. Performance was best when the ISI was 10 to 20 percent of the retention interval (Cepeda et al., 2006). Furthermore, similar results were found when the same subjects learned names of unusual objects depicted in photographs.
In a study currently under way using the Web, more than 2,000 subjects are being trained at inter-study intervals from minutes out to one year, with a final test taking place after an additional year. While still underway, results accumulated so far suggest similar results as above. Furthermore, the benefits of spacing seem to grow ever larger as retention intervals are lengthened; thus, for one-year retention, a one-month spacing produces a three-fold or greater increase in memory as compared to a day or even a week of spacing. While increasing spacing too much always produces some decline, as earlier short-duration studies had implied, the decline is invariably quite modest. Therefore, to facilitate retention over years, it seems critical to space training over several months at least, but avoiding overly long spacing seems like a relatively minor concern.
Mathematics Learning
To move beyond these somewhat “rote” learning tasks, another study focused on teaching students abstract mathematics skills (Rohrer & Taylor, 2006). Students learned to solve a type of permutation problem, and then worked two sets of practice problems. One-week spacing separating the practice sets drastically improved final test performance (which involved problems not previously encountered). In fact, when the two practice sets were back-to-back, final performance was scarcely better than if the second study session was deleted altogether.
While there is still much to be learnt as far as temporal spacing and learning are concerned, the results I found and shared above do reflect the potential of spaced practice to reduce forgetting as enormous. Perhaps finding the right spacing varies from student to student but being aware of such techniques and fine tuning these to optimize our learning is more of an individual task rather than a collective one!
References
Cepeda, N. J., Mozer, M. C., Coburn, N., Rohrer, D., Wixted, J. T., & Pashler, H. (2006). Optimizing distributed practice: Theoretical analysis and practical implications. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (in press). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin.
Rohrer, D., & Taylor, K. (2006). The effects of overlearning and distributed practice on the retention of mathematics knowledge. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Rohrer, D., Taylor, K., Pashler, H., Cepeda, N. J., & Wixted, J. T. (2005). The effect of overlearning on long-term retention. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 361-374.
He was the man that explained the world and the universe around us. He was the one who provided us with the fundamental laws of physics that helped us make immeasurable strides in science and technology. He was the scientist who proposed that nothing in the universe could travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But would it be possible that one century later, Albert Einstein’s fundamental laws would be disproved?
E = mc2 is the equation describing the conservation of mass and energy, where energy (E) is equal to the mass of an object (m) multiplied by the speed of light (c) in a vacuum. Einstein proposed that the speed of light was an unbreakable barrier: no object could travel faster than 299 792 km/s. But in September 2011 at the Gran Sasso research facility outside of Rome, scientists recorded neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light.
This discovery began as an experiment timing 16 000 neutrinos as they travelled from CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland) to the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA): a 1300 metric tonne particle detector located 1400m underground at Gran Sasso, Italy. Scientists recorded the speed of light travelling from CERN to OPERA and compared it to the travelling time of neutrinos. Surprisingly, the neutrinos arrived 60 nanoseconds faster than their counterparts. That is more than a lifetime in particle physics! It seems Einstein’s unbreakable barrier is in fact breakable – with the help of a neutrino.
How has the scientific community reacted to this turn of events?
Although this is a monumental development, it is hard to believe that a majority of the scientific community will accept these results until they can be reproduced several times over with the same accuracy. After all, the fundamental laws of physics have withheld the test of time for a century! To this end, the experimental design and entire research project have been up for scrutiny by world experts and CERN scientists have specifically asked American and Japanese researchers to validate their results. This method of peer review is indispensible in the scientific process and it should be noted that each discovery (regardless of the magnitude or implications of the results) undergoes the same procedure in any scientific field.
Doesn’t it feel good knowing that the scientific method and publication processes we’ve learned during our undergraduate degrees correspond to the orderliness and structure of science used in the broader scientific community?
Whether you sincerely care about the environment or not you have probably heard about the Toyota Prius. As the icon of ‘green cars,’ the Prius provides spectacular fuel economy and most importantly, outputs less environmentally harmful carbon emissions. The Prius is able to achieve these feats because of its innovative hybrid drive-train, which combines a small gasoline engine with an electric motor. The electric motor generally powers the vehicle using a large battery pack at slow speeds, while the gasoline engine kicks in at higher speeds or whenever power is needed.
Photo by: Robert Scoble
Sure, as test figures reveal, the Prius indeed uses less gasoline when being driven, but do the Prius and similar hybrid electric vehicles really reduce the negative impact on our environment? Delving into the manufacturing process of hybrid vehicles will surely make you think otherwise.
Research suggests that the manufacturing process of a Prius contributes more negatively to the environment than driving several gas guzzling sport-utility vehicles, for a distance triple its lifetime mileage ever could. The culprit which taints the Prius’ beloved reputation is its main component, the battery. The amount of effort required to make this Nickel-based battery is absolutely staggering.
A hybrid car’s battery production starts with mining and smelting nickel. The factories which carry out this process are dangerously damaging to the environment. They let out copious amounts of Sulphur Dioxide, the major cause of acid rain. Energy coordinator David Martin of Canadian Greenpeace spoke about the impact of such a factory on its city saying, “The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside”.
‘each container ship is as polluting as fifty million cars combined’
The next process required to create the battery is refining of the nickel, which is done in a select few specialized places across the globe. As a result the nickel must be transported to this specialized location. Ensuing refinement, the nickel must then be transported again to another place for further modifications to be able to incorporate it into the battery. Finally, it must be shipped back to the manufacturer for assembly. In the Prius’ case, the nickel must be shipped from Canada, to Europe, China, and back to Japan. All this shipping is no simple task. It requires the use of massive container ships. Regarding these container ships, a study by the Danish government’s environmental agency revealed that each container ship is as polluting as fifty million cars combined.
The issues discussed so far are only about 75% of the problem. As with other batteries, the batteries used in hybrid cars have the inherent flaw of a limited lifetime. After this lifetime, the cars will become impractical to use. At this stage, the batteries will require special attention for disposal, as they contain environmentally harmful electrolytes.
It can be attracting for consumers to buy into hybrid electric vehicles, given they are at the pinnacle of fuel efficiency. However, consumers need to ask themselves whether the environmental impact of manufacturing and disposing of the batteries in hybrid cars is outweighed by the lower lifetime carbon emissions produced by driving the vehicle itself.
Until science figures out eco-friendly manufacturing processes, we should probably focus on carpooling, using public transport, and other alternatives to hybrid vehicles!
As summer comes to an end and we’re back to school, some of us are still on vacation time. Assignments just keep coming, due dates are approaching and, surprisingly, nothing gets done. Where did the excitement for the new school year go? Procrastination is the answer.
Are we the only victims of procrastination? Definitely not. Ancient Greeks used to represent procrastination as a “state of acting against one’s better judgment”, or akrasia. Akratic behaviour is documented in discussion between Socrates and Protagoras. Socrates claimed “No one goes willingly toward the bad”. This makes sense from a biological prospective of natural goals of an individual. Aristotel, however, took this idea and examined it deeper. From his prospective, akrasia occurs as a result of opinion. An opinion is mentally developed form of reality or truth.
So when we think another 30min nap before writing a paper might help, we are sincere in our intentions to write the paper. However it does not necessarily mean we are right that we need a nap.
Did modern scientists figure out something more useful than ancient Greeks’ theory? Yes.
According to physiologists, procrastination arises in the front part of our brain, or prefrontal cortex. Earlier studies agreed upon the impulsive nature of procrastination. Prefrontal cortex is responsible for such brain functions as planning, attention, motivation and impulse control. When impulse control does not function in its maximum ability, the overall function of planning, attention and motivation decreases. This causes procrastination.
Is a procrastination purely physiological phenomenon or are the psychological aspects? Needless to say there are numerous psychological theories trying to explain procrastination. One of the most common theories is the lack of self-confidence. Also anxiety levels of procrastinators are especially high near exam period, and these individuals feel the most relief right after exams are done or papers are turned in. Tice and Baumeister (1997) reported a study where they show a number of college students, procrastinators and non-procrastinators. Research found that procrastinators get lower grades than non-procrastinators, as opposed to a belief that best work is done under pressure.
Procrastination is a problem for scientists publishing a paper. As we know, whoever publishes his work first gets the acknowledgments. That is why it is so important to concentrate on true long term benefits and produce a great piece of work that will contribute to humankind, whether is it is just another paper or a finished experiment. Procrastination should neither affect the quality of our work not stay in our way of enjoying what we do.
Further reading:
Evans, James R. (8 August 2007). Handbook of Neurofeedback: Dynamics
Adler, J.E. (July 2002). “Akratic Believing?”. Philosophical Studies 110 (1): 1–27
Ferrari, J.R.(2001). Procrastination and attention: Factor analysis of attention deficit, boredomness, intelligence, self-esteem, and task delay frequencies. Journal of Social Behaviour and Personality, 16, 185-196
Over the course of Earth’s history there have been many mass extinctions. After each one there is the devastation of a world rid of many forms of life. Barren and bleak, it must be a hard place to live. Nevertheless, each mass extinction allows space for new life to grow and develop, such as dinosaurs and humans. The uprisings, life spans and demises of several creatures have been well documented by scientists throughout history.
It is well known that mass extinctions do occur, but their exact mechanism is often unknown, or speculated at best. For example, one of history’s greatest mysteries is what caused the massive Permian-Triassic extinction. Caused by a large volcano eruption or a meteor strike resulting in a severe lack of oxygen in the atmosphere and ocean, this extinction is estimated to have killed 85% of all living organisms on the planet. However, a recent Vancouver Sun article cites rising ocean acidity levels as the culprit for the P-T extinction, not a lack of oxygen.
A large meteor strike is one of the possible causes of the Permian-Triassic extinction.
While this article raises interesting points, there is a complete lack of evidence for the ocean acidity hypothesis. As scientists it is important to remember that we haven’t found out everything there is to know about the world, and that new discoveries are being made on a daily basis. However, each new discovery needs to have accompanying evidence to confirm the finding. While most scientists are aware of this, and are wary of research presented without evidence, members of the public may not be so cognizant. Thus, when new information is presented without evidence it can be misleading to people outside the scientific community. It is therefore important that as scholars we communicate clearly with both the public and the media who will be translating our information. This will ensure that there is no room for misinterpretation or deceptive statements. By keeping the language we use to communicate science clear and simple, it will make it easier to convey our ideas to the general public and thereby bolster an interest in the field.
There is a communications in science course that I would like to share. This past summer, I heard about a Japanese researcher named Dr. Gensei Ishimura, and I found through his website that he is one of the leading members of a program for training effective science communicators. This program is called CoSTEP, or Communicators in Science and Technology Education Program. This effort started out in Hokkaido University in northern Japan. It also received international attention through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held in Boston in 2008.
