Why no woman in science?

Recently some baybs have complained that the bayblab is too male-centric, and doesn't devote enough exposure to woman scientist. Part of the problem is that there isn't many of them out there. Now I'm not saying they lack the capacity for a successful career in science, in fact judging from my experience, it's just the opposite. Many assume that woman choose to get out of science because it is incompatible with family life. In fact, I think it's deeper than that. I think they avoid science as a career because they are smarter, better planners, and more likely to admit mistakes, and less likely to become obsessed about their career than man. I'm not saying saying science isn't a viable career, I'm simply saying it's not a very rational choice. Not just on an economic sense, but also in a quality of life sense.

I suggest you read this essay. Here is a sample question that explains the male-female dichotomy in science:

"From Geoff B: Perhaps men have a greater buffer of time to recover from career mistakes. I actually know a couple of guys who got PhD's, then went to MBA or JD degrees. While they may have enjoyed their PhD programs (heh), from an earning standpoint they probably wasted a good 5-7 years. But they can just pretend that those 5-7 years never existed. A 40 year old man can get married to a 31-year-old woman, and just pretend he's 31. Happens all the time. It's harder for women to pull this off. So maybe math and science PhD's are just another incarnation of the recklessness of youth - something men have historically been able to indulge in, without the consequences women would experience.

From me (responding to someone who asked how I would change the incentives so that more women would be attracted to science): What's my idea for changing the incentives? I don't have any. I'm not one of the people who complains that there aren't enough women working as professors, janitors, or whatever. For whatever reason we've decided that science in America should be done by low-paid immigrants. They seem to be doing a good job. They are cheap. They are mostly guys, like other immigrant populations. If smart American women choose to go to medical, business, and law school instead of doing science, and have fabulous careers, I certainly am not going to discourage them. Imagine if one of those kind souls that Summers was speaking to had taken Condoleezza Rice aside and told her not to waste time with political science because physics was so much more challenging. Just think how far she might have gone..."

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

I was just informed about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, on the always good Informationaddiction. I can't believe I've never heard of this Texas sized landfill that floats in the currents in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Unreal. Just thought I'd post it so you have to know about it now too.

Halloween Grant Application

Abstract:

The pumpkin is clearly the most frightening fruit. Large and orange are distinctive features of the pumpkin. Since other large fruit such as squash, pineapple and watermelon are not nearly as scary, the terror of the pumpkin must be a result of its pigment. In the tradition of scientific biological reductionism, we attempt here, instead of merely trying to bring forth pumpkin fueled fear using crude carving, to isolate the pigment of pumpkin panic. This work is the first step towards purification of a fear inducing pigment and in the future, in conjunction with the pumpkin genome project, will aid in producing Jack O’Lanterns of unparalleled horror.

Results:

Figure 1: Acetone soluble horror inducing pigments separated by TLC. Lane one contains pigments prepared from whole pumpkin homogenate. (Whole pumpkin homogenate required the sacrifice of the pumpkin given to the Bell lab for carving). Lane two contains acetone soluble pigments from far less frightening fruit. Pigments were separated by 100% methanol. A sense of dread emanates from the indicated band that is clearly more abundant and less masked by other pigments in the acetone soluble pigments of the pumpkin.

Figure 2: Florescent compounds that may contribute to the pumpkins spookyness under blacklight are visible on the chromatogram from Fig 1.

Conclusions:

While a uniquely terrifying pigment was not isolated with this method it is clear that a particularly abundant band of horror (Band Of hOrror) BOO is evident in the acetone soluble whole pumpkin extract. More sophisticated techniques will be required to identify BOO in order to create super terrifying Jack O’Lanterns. Also human aversion to pumpkin based products due to the fear they induce could be alleviated using BOO knockout pumpkins.

James Dewey Watson's Scientific Wisdom of the Week

Jim Watson has been taking a lot of flak lately for talking beyond his expertise. So this feature will convey his wisdom on being a molecular biologist, a topic he should know a thing or two about.

"1. Two obsessions are one too many
Experiments, like many speculative enterprises, are likely to require at least five times more effort than you initially guess. Being a really good anything - be it university president, violinist, securities lawyer, or a scientist - requires a virtually obsessive devotion to ones' objective. Dividing one's attention will give the edge to competitors who have the same talent but greater focus. For this reason, highly successful bankers who also claim to be accomplished cellists are often neither. Their banking reputation likely rests on the labors of talented associates working day and night, and their cello playing as likely suffers from the time lost to even the pretense of being a banker."

- James D. Watson, Avoid Boring (Other) People - Manners Required for Academic Civility

Is science really broken?

Have you ever noticed how when you put PIs together over diner, the conversation inevitably turns to complaining about how hard and unrewarding their careers are. People like to complain: undergrads gripe about courses valuing mindless memorization over understanding, graduate students complain about being poor, post-docs about having no job prospects. But PIs really take the cake when it comes to bitterness. They complain about the incredibly poor success rates of grants, the demands of academia such as teaching and committees, the poor salaries. But worse still, they often feel like they don't get to do the very thing they so long trained for: science. Too many times have I heard an investigator say they write a grant to get it funded rather than to elucidate a particular question they think is interesting. Risk taking and real curiosity-driven research has been relegated to side-projects, when there is leftover money and spare time...
This reminds me of an opinion piece by Lee Smolin (from the perimeter institute in Waterloo) entitled "why no new Einstein?". In it Lee argues that the funding structure discourages risk taking, innovation and creativity:

"It is easy to write many papers when you continue to apply well-understood techniques. People who develop their own ideas have to work harder for each result, because they are simultaneously developing new ideas and the techniques to explore them. Hence they often publish fewer papers, and their papers are cited less frequently than those that contribute to something hundreds of people are doing."

Have things gotten worse with time? Was it really better when Einstein was around? Is it that we do not make new Einsteins, or are they not able to do their work?

This letter in response to Lee Smolin's OpEd paints a pretty bleak picture:

"Then there was DP. Not as bright as SJ, he made up in diligence and creativity what he lacked in brilliance. He gained admittance to a master's and then a doctoral program at a less prominent, large, research-oriented university. Despite having to support himself with part-time jobs, DP excelled in his doctorate, enjoyed the graduate experience, and produced six papers, most as a first author. He then became a postdoc in a well-funded laboratory associated with a famous research site. There he turned out five more papers in just three years—again, most as a first author. DP then looked for employment in physics, and received a single tentative offer, whose financing fell through. Disgusted, he left physics never to return."

This letter sums it even more colorfully:

"Today's scientists are jet-setting, grant-swinging, favor-trading hustlers looking for civil servants who will provide them with a pipeline into the US Treasury. Not only do they get peer pressure to behave this way, they also get arm-twisting from the academic bureaucracy that wants to get its 50% to pay for its bloated overhead. You can't be a used-car salesman and have deep thoughts about the structure of the universe at the same time. You've got to move product—in the case of scientists it's reports and journal publications—and keep moving it even after tenure removes some of the pressure. As for the assorted Beltway Bandits (private industries fulfilling government contract work), some of whom are quite talented, there is no tenure, only the next contract."

If creative young scientists do not get a chance to get a research job, if even established scientists are not given the support to pursue creative ideas, surely that will stifle innovation!

Perhaps innovation will come from unexpected places such as China. I was recently talking to a Chinese grad student. If you think you've got it bad here, think again. He told me of labs where 25-100 students is not uncommon and competition is fierce, where grads work everyday from 8am to midnight, and every weekend. Where he gets paid so little he can only afford the cafeteria meals and shares a room with 4 other students with a rent of $200/year. Yet they have huge modern science institute with top of the line equipment. Which means if we cannot compete in quality, we've already lost in quantity.

Off the deep end: Great scientists with not-so-great ideas

Scientists have an esteemed place in our society. I say this with an obvious degree of bias. Scientists are also human, and as such they aren't infallable. They can have biases and prejudices and crazy ideas like anybody else. They can make mistakes. Galileo didn't believe that the moon was responsible for the tides and concocted his own (incorrect) theory. Thomas Edison, in his later years, subscribed to a fad diet - consuming a pint of milk every 3 hours as his only liquid intake - to improve his health. Mendeleev believed in an aether, consisting of 2 lighter-than-hydrogen elements, permeating all matter.

Some beliefs are merely a product of the times, or big ideas that didn't pan out, others are not, but the bottom line is that scientists are not all-knowing. Expertise in one area doesn't mean expertise in all others. Here are some other examples of scientists gone astray (and all but one of them has won the Nobel prize) - and why we shouldn't take every word as truth without some critical thinking.

James Watson - The inspiration for this post requires little description, as his recent comments about African intelligence have been discussed both on this blog and throughout the blogosphere. This isn't the first time Watson has stirred controversy with his remarks. He has come under fire for comments about homosexuality, women in science, eugenics and previous racially charged remarks.

William Shockley - Another Nobel prize winner, this time for physics (1956). Shockley was concerned about a 'dysgenic' effect in the population and, like Watson, made several comments about the intelligence of people of other races. His thoughts about eugenics - he once proposed that people with below average intelligence should be paid to undergo voluntary sterilizaion - and his racist views left him ostracized by his friends and family, and his scientific accomplishments tarnished.

Sir Isaac Newton - Inventor of calculus. Father of classical mechanics. Alchemist? In between his theory of gravity and the publication of Principia Mathematica, Newton sought the fabled Philosopher's Stone despite the heavy penalties for practicing alchemy at the time. His quest to turn lead into gold was never published, but was rediscovered when John Maynard Keyes bought many of Newton's unpublished works at auction and, after learning their contents, proclaimed that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians." Newton's study of alchemy might be explained as an offshoot of his scientific study at a time when science and alchemy were intertwined, but his odd pursuits also extended to bibilical prophecy - including predictions about the end of the world.

Kary Mullis - The acid-dropping, surfing, Nobel prize winner, unsurprisingly, has his own share of controversial ideas. The inventor of PCR has been associated with Peter Duesberg in the past and has been highly skeptical of the HIV-AIDS link - making him a poster child for the HIV denialist movement. Mullis is also skeptical of man-made global warming and disagrees with the idea that CFCs cause ozone depletion. All of these views go against mainstream scientific consensus. On top of that, he's a firm believer in astrology and even devotes a chunk of his autobiography, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, to its validity. Oh, and he's had a possible alien encounter with a speaking, glowing, raccoon-like creature.

Linus Pauling - Pauling has the distinction of being the only person to win 2 unshared Nobel Prizes as a brilliant scientist (Chemistry, 1954) and an anti-war advocate (Peace, 1962). Pauling is also responsible, in part, for the widespread belief that megadoses of vitamin C is an effective cold remedy - a claim that hasn't stood up to scientific scrutiny (doses up to 250mg may reduce symptom severity, but beyond that no benefits were observed). Pauling's views on 'orthomolecular medicine', as he dubbed it, is reminiscent of the quackery we discuss on the Bayblab from time to time: any noticeable changes were attributed to Vitamin C, while ineffectiveness was chalked up to 'too low a dose'. And the illness cured by his high vitamin doses also expanded - from curing the common cold, then curing cancer and finally to "improve your general health . . . to increase your enjoyment of life and can help in controlling heart disease, cancer, and other diseases and in slowing down the process of aging."

The point here isn't to downplay the accomplishments of otherwise brilliant men or run some sort of smear campaign. We need to remember that nobody is an expert on everything and anyone can make mistakes - we need to think and evaluate for ourselves. Quackery or racism shouldn't be tolerated from anyone but if Watson wants to chat with me about DNA structure or Mullis about PCR I'm willing to listen.

Monotreme penis in action

Judging by the amount of traffic we get from google by people looking for animal penises, we would say that comparative reproductive physiology is a hot topic on the internet. To make sure we maintain our authoritative dominance over the subject I bring you this exclusive video, coming from new scientist, of a rather playful anteater...

Watson Steps Down

Statement of Dr. James D. Watson

This morning I have conveyed to the Trustees of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory my desire to retire immediately from my position as its Chancellor, as well as from my position on its Board, on which I have served for the past 43 years. Closer now to 80 than 79, the passing on of my remaining vestiges of leadership is more than overdue. The circumstances in which this transfer is occurring, however, are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired.

That the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is now one of the world's premier sites for biological research and education has long warmed my heart. So I am grateful that its Board now will allow me to remain along my beloved Bungtown Road. Forty-nine years ago, as a newly appointed young Assistant Professor at Harvard, I gave my first course on this pernicious collection of diseases of uncontrolled cell growth and division. Cancer, then an intellectual black box, now, in part because of research at the Laboratory, is almost full lit. Though important facts remain undiscovered, there is no reason why they should not soon be found. Final victory is within our grasp. Strong in spirit and intensely focused, I wish to be among those at the victory line.

The ever quickening advances of science made possible by the success of the Human Genome Project will also soon let us see the essences of mental disease. Only after we understand them at the genetic level can we rationally seek out appropriate therapies for such illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar disease. For the children of my sister and me, this moment can not come a moment too soon. Hell does not come close to describing the impact of psychotic disorders on human life.

This week's events focus me ever more intensely on the moral values passed on to me by my father, whose Watson surname marks his long ago Scots-Irish Appalachian heritage; and by my mother, whose father, Lauchlin Mitchell, came from Glasgow and whose mother, Lizzie Gleason, had parents from Tipperary. To my great advantage, their lives were guided by a faith in reason; an honest application of its messages; and for social justice, especially the need for those on top to help care for the less fortunate. As an educator, I have always striven to see that the fruits of the American Dream are available to all.

I have been much blessed.

James D. Watson One Bungtown Road Cold Spring Harbor, New York October 2007

Too bad JW's obstinate belief in genetic determinism has tarnished the occasion with controversy and overshadowed a fitting tribute to the man's incredible contributions to science.

Human Pheromones

Luring women into our bay in the lab is pretty easy. However between coats of axe body spray I would consider preying on the more basal instincts of female labmates by using human pheromones. The question is: Are human pheromones functional?
What is almost for sure is that humans are not like many other mammals that demonstrate behavioral responses to pheromones. Especially since adult humans lack a functional vomeronasal organ and many known pheromone receptor genes in other mammals are pseudogenes in humans.
Human pheromones are commercially available but unregulated, so you don't know really what you are purchasing.
The first discovered human pheromone is androstenone and its effects on human behavior are questionable. However there are some indications that these compounds might be able to attract some females to my messy lab bench. A short, sweet and recent article in SciAm details how different human genotypes respond very differently to this compound. And brain responses measured by PET scan to a related compound correlate with sexual orientation, validated in both homosexual males and females.
Human behavior is very complex and it is kind of strange to think that smells could have powerful effects on us. To add to the complexity it has been shown some species prefer mates with dissimilar genes at the MHC locus since polymorphism of this locus may have a selective advantage. These genes are also thought to influence body odour. Suggestively, responses to body odour in humans demonstrates differing brain activity based on the similarity of the MHC locus in humans (HLA) between odour donor and smeller. Therefore genotype compatibility may influence the choice of mates through body odour as opposed to simply the volume of stink of a potential mate choice. Baiting our bay with pheromones may require a very sophisticated approach.

Words of Wisdom From John Gurdon

Developmental biologist John Gurdon was the first to clone a normal adult organism through somatic cell nuclear transfer. I randomly came across an entertaining Q & A with Gurdon in Current Biology. Here's some of the real gems:

What do you think about scientific publishing? Surely what we all want is the efficient handling of submitted papers, and there are some journals and editors that excel in this respect. I regret that many major journals in biology are owned by commercial companies: scientists do the work, referee the papers and buy the journals – but the profits go to non-scientific organizations. A good counter example is the Company of Biologists, which owns three highly regarded journals, and all of the profits go back into science as contributions to scientific societies, meetings, student travel, and so on.

On Teaching: "I have always found teaching painful, but have no doubt that, in moderation, it can be very beneficial, even for those in full-time research appointments."

Advice to Scientists: "Luckily I was rejected for nearly all administrative roles for which my name was put forward. If someone wants to make a rewarding career in which they have contributed something truly innovative that wouldn't have happened without them, my suggestion is to keep active at the bench. It's much more satisfying to do something innovative yourself, than be told about it by a colleague."

What do you regard as the greatest hindrances for science? Home Office rules and laboratory inspectors. I believe that, generally speaking, these have no interest whatever in the perceived hazard (risk), which is usually non-existent. For example, laboratory amounts of radioactivity are far below any clinically effective level (patients are given 10¹⁰ dpm of I₁₃₁ for hyperthyroidism). The number of air changes per day in a mouse room, or the humidity of the air in a frog room housing completely aquatic Xenopus, are wholly unrelated to the natural conditions in which animals live. There is not the slightest possibility that anyone could obtain a laboratory licence to go fishing; and what about garden centres that sell children animals that will almost always die of starvation or neglect a few days later? Filling out forms and keeping records doesn't do any good for animal welfare or human health.

How did you come to have a career in science? Not easily. After one term of biology at school, the teacher wrote “For Gurdon to continue in biology would be a complete waste of time both for him and for those who would have to teach him”.

Knowing your left from right.

The recent couple of posts on left-handedness being superior has rekindled my interest in the origins of left-right symmetry in organisms. A really interesting question is “how does an embryo figure out where top, bottom, front, back, and left and right are?”.
The problem is actually a critical one. Externally, humans are pretty symmetrical. Internally, things are much more complicated. Your left-lung has two lobes, your right has three. Your heart nestles gently in between the middle, but slightly towards the left (which is why the left side is missing a lobe – it’s to fit the heart). Your liver sits to the right, while the other organs are packed around in a non-symmetric way.

There is a group of the population which have this all confused.

Situs invertus is a disorder affecting some 1:8500 people, and which results in (internally) left-being-right and vice versa. Their heart sits to the right, and their right lung has two lobes; their left lung has three. Then there are the unfortunate people who are born with no left-right dissymmetry at all. Swapping left and right seems like an easy thing, when you think about it. Everything would pack normally. If the embryo doesn’t know where to put things, however, then vasculature tends to just connect to whatever is closest – and isomerism results in babies having emergency surgery within hours of birth in order to re-plumb pretty much everything inside.

So how do you figure all this out? Top-bottom and front-back are all formed by the interactions involving Hox genes. Basically, a cluster of cells known as the ‘node’ produces some chemicals which act as transcription factors, and then, as the chemicals get diluted, form a gradient which enables a ‘top’ and a ‘bottom’.

Left and right is much cooler.

It turns out that sitting on the node is a clump of cilia swirling in a counter-clockwise direction. Nobutaka Hirokawa at the University of Tokyo showed that these cilia produce a leftward flow of fluid over the embryo which is therefore able to give you a left-to-right gradient. The node produces another gradient of factors which flows left to right, giving you a difference in sides. If you culture some mouse embryos, stick a stirrer inside and artificially make the flow go the opposite direction, as Hiroshi Hamada from Osaka University did, you end up with mice suffering from situs invertus.

So, regardless if you're left or right handed... be glad that you can tell left from right.

Get ready for the Cancer Carnival!

If you want to submit a post regarding cancer research, including therapeutics, diagnostic, standard care, cancer survivor stories, basic science etc... The deadline is November 2nd, and you can submit a link either in the comments here or preferably on this site... Looking forward to the third edition!

Simplest universal Turing machine discovered

Turing is perhaps the grandfather of modern computing. In 1936-1937 he imagined a machine which could read binary (1,0) on a single tape either on the left or the right of the tape with a moving head and was capable of changing the state of each bit of information. It was known as a turing machine. In 1947 he said: "It can be shown that a single special machine of that type can be made to do the work of all. It could in fact be made to work as a model of any other machine. The special machine may be called the universal machine.". Essentially a computer capable of performing any function can be constructed, the question is how simple can you make it....

Well Stephen Wolfram, author of the crazy book, "a new kind of science", offered $25K to anyone who could prove that a machine with 2 "states" and 3 "colours" is the simplest universal turing machine. Well Alex Smith, an undergrad from the UK just won the prize. What does this mean to biology? Well here is Wolfram's take on it...

"Early definitions of universality assumed that programs for a Turing machine must involve only a finite number of "nonzero bits"--and that the Turing machine must "halt".

But the 2,3 Turing machine--like modern computers (or systems in nature)--doesn't "halt". And in Alex Smith's construction the Turing machine "tape" (i.e., memory) must be filled with an infinite pattern of bits. [...]

Perhaps one day there'll even be practical molecular computers built from this very 2,3 Turing machine.

With tapes a bit like RNA strands, and heads moving up and down like ribosomes.

When we think of nanoscale computers, we usually imagine carefully engineering them to mimic the architecture of the computers we know today.

But one of the lessons of NKS--brought home again by Alex Smith's proof--is that there's a completely different way to operate.

We don't have to carefully build things up with engineering. We can just go out and search in the computational universe, and find things like universal computers--that are simple enough that we can imagine making them out of molecules."

I'm not too sure what it means, but it sounds cool. Perhaps life is already "designed" like a universal turing machine, running software on cells which all date back to a comon ancestor turing machine and linked through a series of unbroken cellular divisions as Kim Nasmyth so eloquently pointed out...

Cells Are Beautiful

Yesterday's Gairdner award lecturer Kim Nasmyth gave a great talk, during which he showed this classic video of chromsomal segregation during cell division. I found it on youtube, so I don't know who filmed it, but according to youtube it's a blood lily cell. Awesome!


Also, another random youtube video of mitosis, showing multiple cells dividing in synchrony. I really wish I knew what type of tissue this is:

The Superiority of Left-Handedness Pt. 2: Lessons from the Snail

I don't know why I even bother. The superiority of left-handedness is not even open to scientific debate. It has been a settled matter for millions of years, ever since the L-amino acids won the out over the D-amino acids and went on to become the building blocks of life and dominate the planet. But for those who need even further evidence that evolution drives multi-cellular organisms toward the ideal of left-handedness, one need only look to the example of the snail.

Yes indeed, for this ancient and highly evolved organism, left-handed shell coiling provides a clear survival advantage, rendering these highly fit individuals immune to attacks from inferior right-handed crabs. As the authors of this excellent study point out, the physical superiority of lefty snails parallels the well-established superiority of left-handed humans in physical competitions:

"This advantage parallels some social interactions in human cultures that result when right and left-handed individuals compete, especially in sports or fights involving dual confrontations (interactive contests such as boxing, tennis, fencing and baseball), where left-handers occasionally enjoy an advantage over their right-handed opponents."

Clearly then, left-handedness confers not only intellectual, but also physical superiority to a diverse range of multi-cellular organisms across phylogenetic taxa.

Further reading on the superiority of left-handedness in the human:

• Do left-handed competitors have an innate superiority in sports? Grouios et al., Percept Motor Skills, 2000.
• Handedness, homicide and negative frequency-dependent selection. Faurie and Raymond, Proceeding of the Royal Society B, 2005.
  

Cell Biology Confirms that Lefties are Superior

Well I've already mentioned the piles of evidence suggesting that left-handed people are more highly evolved and just plain better than right-handers. Now, new evidence has confirmed this fact at the cellular level. Cell biologist Palazzo has a great post on a PNAS paper showing that cells are left-handed. Obviously this is the best way to be.

Bears, Sharks and Strippers

Brick Tamland [opposing women in the newsroom]: I read somewhere their periods attract bears. Bears can smell the menstruation.
Brian Fantana: Well, that's just great. You hear that, Ed? Bears. Now you're putting the whole station in jeopardy.

That little nugget of wisdom comes from the movie Anchorman, but that's not its source. It's often repeated, and likely stems from a bear attack in 1967 that left two women dead and many people speculating that the bears were attracted by menstrual odors. Is there any truth to that claim?

Research has been done on the subject. In 1991, a study was done showing that black bears are uninterested in human menstrual odors. This was done with a series of experiments involving either used tampons or menstruating women in close proximity to the bears. The results showed no preference of the bears for tampons over garbage or feed. There was no preference for used tampons over unused tampons or those soaked with non-menstrual human blood, and no difference in interest with the lower torso of menstruating versus non-menstruating women. In all cases menstrual odors were virtually ignored. For grizzly bears, no scientific studies have been done, but a retrospective analysis of grizzly bear attacks on humans showed that there was no evidence linking menstruation to the attacks.

One place where an attraction to human menstruation may be true is in the polar bear population. In a 1983 study, polar bears both in captivity and in the wild showed a preference for food scent samples or used tampons over unused tampons or non-menstrual blood suggesting that polar bears are attracted to menstrual odors. A brief summary of these studies has been published by the bear management office of Yellowstone National park and can be read here (pdf).

Overall, the evidence indicates that unless you're heading pretty far north you don't have to worry about menstruation attracting bears. The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health backs up that claim. What if you're into SCUBA-diving instead of hiking? Sharks are notorious for their attraction to blood in the water. The Museum of Menstruation has something to say about that as well: "many women fear that this discharge may attract sharks. The truth is that women divers are attacked by sharks less often than men are." However, there could be a number of reasons for this difference, and whether sharks are attracted to menstrual bleeding remains inconclusive as no controlled studies have been done. There are arguments to be made for both sides, as discussed here, but the consensus among divers, at least, is not to worry about it.

So bears are indifferent to menstruation and we're unsure about sharks, but what about people? There are behavioural cues, but no solid data regarding pheromones. Other phases of the menstrual cycle are better studied, including the time of maximum fertility just before ovulation. Many studies have shown that women at this point in their cycle, 'hidden-estrus', appear more attractive to men by a number of different metrics. (Some studies were mixed-sex and women found them more attractive as well!) This can be accompanied by other behaviours, such as men being more attentive or protective of their partners. The effects of 'hidden-estrus' signals on male behaviour is highlighted in this recent paper in Evolution and Human Behavior. In this study, 18 strippers reported their tips and menstrual cycle over a period of 60 days. It was found that among normally cycling strippers, peak tip earnings occurred during 'estrus' compared to the luteal phase which, in turn, were higher than during menstruation. This difference disappeared among strippers taking birth control pills. A deeper discussion of the paper can be found over at Pure Pedantry. For people who may not be familiar about the inner workings of a strip club (or, as the authors put it, "Because academics may be unfamiliar with the gentlemen's club subculture...") the paper even includes some background on the US stripping industry that alone is worth the read. Despite it's inherent humour value, this study could be a jumping off point for some interesting discussions about human evolution and behaviour. Have humans actually lost the 'estrus' phase, or is it just better hidden than in animals? What are the evolutionary advantages? Or it could just be an excuse to do more science in a strip club.

Stick to Base Pairing and Helices Jim

I'm too upset by James Watson's most recent media fiasco to rant about it. But ah, for the good old days, when Watson earned his keep in the lab and no one was interested in listening to what he had to say about anything. I'm still interested in reading his scientific memoirs but I might have to find a good place to hide the book when people visit.

10 simple rules of SciVee

We have posted before about scivee, a sort of youtube for science. I haven't run into anything directly in my field, however it looks pretty decent now that they have much more content.
Some of their popular stuff is a few pubcasts on 10 simple rules. There is the ten rules of publishing, the 10 rules of getting grants and 10 rules of good oral presentations. I have only checked out the ten simple rules of publishing. Its not too bad and has some good tips. Certainly the host has more experience that I do.
One that I found strange though.
Rule 7: Start writing the paper the day you have the idea of what questions to pursue.
I should have about 30 papers started, sitting around as the experiments/ideas did not pan out. Also this rule might lead to making conclusions before doing the experiments.

Tannin-rich foods pt. 2: Wine

Wine, particularly red wines, can be tannin-rich. The tannins in wine are often blamed for red wine headache, and impart a dry bitterness and distinctive taste. The tannins come mainly from skin, seeds and stems present during the fermentation process (which is why red wines tend to be more tannin heavy) but can also be imparted from oak barrels that are often used for storage. Anti-oxidant tannins also play an important role in the aging process - as a wine ages, the tannins precipitate out reducing the harshness of the wine. Because of this, tannin-rich wines benefit more from the aging process than those with a lower tannin content.

Now, I don't have time to wait around several years for my wine to age properly. That's why I drink beer. But if you love wine and are impatient here is the product for you. The Perfect Sommelier is essentially a powerful magnet. Place a bottle on the magnetic coaster, and replace the cork with the magnetic cap - wait 15-30 minutes and presto! your wine tastes as though it's been aged for years. (This is not unlike the wine clip which claims to do the same thing, only faster!) Both products have 'scientific'" explanations for how they work - something about using the magnets to align polar tannin molecules - and oodles of testimonials. I'm not ready to cry 'quack' yet since the nuances of wine taste are a difficult to measure and any such test would be subjective, but I don't think I buy it. Of course, my unrefined palate and I are skeptical of Sideways-esque wine tasting and wines with "the faintest soupçon of asparagus and just a flutter of a nutty Edam cheese." Still, one independent test showed that tasters were unable to tell the difference between treated and untreated wine, or identfied a difference but were wrong half the time (the writer of that critique also has "a background in Electromagentic fields from MIT" and claims there "really is no scientific explanation as to why a little magnet would change the tannic structure or acidic content of a wine").

So, rather than try to make a bad wine good with an overpriced magnet, save your money and invest in learning about real good wines, like with Sommelier for the Nintendo DS. Or just buy a few bottles, do your own tasting, and find ones you like. I'll even help you pick them, but I am NOT drinking any fucking merlot!