Update on Sperm Bank Product Liability Lawsuit

A belated update on a story from a year and a half ago concerning a lawsuit brought against a sperm bank under product liability laws after a child conceived with that sperm developed Fragile X syndrome.

Under the laws being tested, it seemed all that needed to be shown was that injury (in this case, genetic disease) occurred as a result of using the product (in this case, sperm), not that negligence or lack of testing was a factor. At the time, I wondered whether genetic disease even qualified as "injury" since the alternative to injury is not being born at all. It turns out the courts had the same consideration.

A few months after the initial ruling by a judge that the case could go forward, the judge reversed his decision - a reversal that was upheld by a federal appeals court, on the basis that the situation basically amounts to a "wrongful life" case:

"Simply put, a cause of action brought on behalf of an infant seeking recovery for wrongful life demands a calculation of damages dependant upon a comparison between the Hobson's choice of life in an impaired state and nonexistence," Barry wrote. "This comparison the law is not equipped to make."

Barry, who was joined by Judges Theodore A. McKee and Morton I. Greenberg, quoted from Becker v. Schwartz, a 1978 decision of New York's highest court, that said: "Whether it is better never to have been born at all than to have been born with even gross deficiencies is a mystery more properly to be left to the philosophers and the theologians."

In addition to "wrongful life" considerations, the decision also points out other ways that treating genetic disease as injury is problematic.

The difficulties that B.D. now faces and will face are surely tragic, but New York law, which controls here, states that she “like any other [child], does not have a protected right to be born free of genetic defects.” To find the contrary would invite litigation for any number of claimed injuries and, even more problematic, require courts to identify certain traits below some arbitrarily established marker of perfection as “injuries.”

So kids, it looks like you can't sue your parents after all.

The Cancer Carnival is Coming

The Cancer Research Blog Carnival is due to arrive this Friday, November 5. If you haven't already, email us your recent cancer related posts, or submit them using this form.

The case for public science

Bravo!

"Today, the union that represents federal government scientists launches a campaign to put the spotlight on science for the public good.

“Federal government scientists work hard to protect Canadians, preserve their environment and ensure our country’s prosperity but they face dwindling resources and confusing policy decisions,” says Gary Corbett, president of the Institute.

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada is a national union. Among its 59,000 federal and provincial members are 23,000 professionals who deliver, among other knowledge products, scientific research, testing and advice for sound policy-making.

The recent decision to end the mandatory long form census is the latest step in a worrying trend away from evidence-based policy making. Restrictive rules are curtailing media and public access to scientists, while cutbacks to research and monitoring limit Canada’s ability to deal with serious threats and potential opportunities.

A new online information and action centre launched today – PUBLICSCIENCE.ca – (http://publicscience.ca) features interviews with the professionals who do science for the public good, experts who understand the critical importance of this work, and Canadians whose lives have been touched by public science.

PUBLICSCIENCE.ca is part of a broader campaign to underline the importance of science for the public good and to mobilize scientists and the public to press politicians to make a clear commitment to policies that support public science.

“Our members are proud of the work that they do as independent and non-partisan scientists and we are going to work with them to tell their stories,” says Corbett. “Their work impacts on the daily lives of Canadians. It is science that is not and cannot be done by industry or by universities.”"

Alternative medicine flowchart

From this great skeptic blog...

What Should You Know About Cancer?

A recent paper published in Patient Education and Counseling tries to answer the question: What should a layperson know to be considered "cancer literate"? To do so, the authors assembled a panel of cancer experts (oncologists, GPs, nurses from oncology wards, social workers, public health experts) who refined the answer over a number of rounds. For their purposes, literacy was "the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions." Below is the table of their decisions (click to enlarge)

There are some key areas that are focused on: Aspects of cancer risk, aspects of information/detection, treatments, and coping with cancer/support. Some exclusions make sense, such as how tumours develop or rules for financing screenings, which are secondary to the average person being able to make appropriate health choices. Others are a bit more confusing. For example, knowing about behaviour or environmental factors that contribute to cancer are included in the concept of cancer literacy, but not knowledge about hereditary factors. Likewise, knowing about screening tests and their benefits is included, but not knowledge about groups for whom screening is advised. Cancer symptoms and warning signs also doesn't make the list, nor did limitations of screening, diagnostic procedures, or treatments

What do you think? Keeping in mind the goal is that a cancer literate person be able to recognize the need to consult an expert, but not to become an expert themselves, what should a person know to be considered "cancer literate"?

Deepak Chopra: The Video Game

Deepak Chopra is the author of over 50 books on spirituality and alternative medicine, liberally sprinkled with terms from quantum physics in an attempt to lend weight to what the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism at the Centre for Inquiry (Canada) has described as "new age psycho-babble" and what quantum physicist and Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann calls “quantum flapdoodle".

You may be familiar with Chopra from the recent flap when he was invited to speak at the Royal Ontario Museum, his issues with evolution, or his ongoing nonsense at the Huffington Post and his distaste for skepticism

Most of my stinging darts come from skeptics. Over the years I've found that ill-tempered guardians of scientific truth can't abide speculative thinking. [...] No skeptic, to my knowledge, ever made a major scientific discovery or advanced the welfare of others.

If you're not familiar with him, you'll soon have a chance to learn all about him on your Xbox or Playstation.

Game developer THQ, whose franchises include Saints Row and Red Faction, and licensing agreements with WWE and UFC, has bought the exclusive video game rights to Chopra's "teachings" for all the major gaming consoles.

It's unclear what the games might entail. I suppose dodging the darts of skeptics and scientists could be kinda fun.

Water Droplet Bouncing on a Superhydrophobic Carbon Nanotube Array

Coolest dad ever

Everybody's Working for the Weekend

It's Thanksgiving Weekend in Canada. Despite the holiday, many people will still make their way into the lab to get some work done, whether it's big experiments or simply maintaining cell cultures. The rest will be travelling to visit family or otherwise enjoying some well earned time off, right? Or maybe they just lack passion. That's what Dr. Scott Kern of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute thinks.

In a recent editorial in Cancer Biology and Therapy, Dr. Kern takes a swipe at cancer researchers' lack of passion. Their "country-club mentality". Their desire for a life outside the lab.

During the survey period, off-site laypersons offer comments on my observations. “Don’t the people with families have a right to a career in cancer research also?” I choose not to answer. How would I? Do the patients have a duty to provide this “right”, perhaps by entering suspended animation? [...] Should I note that productive scientists with adorable family lives may have “earned” their positions rather than acquiring them as a “right”? Which of the other professions can adopt a country-club mentality, restricting their activities largely to a 35–40 hour week?

Read the whole thing if you don't mind being irritated.

Or just skip that part and read one of the many great responses by the likes of Isis the Scientist, Mike the Mad Biologist (here also), Drugmonkey, Scicurious, and Janet Stemwedel (and here).

Or just skip it all, and just watch this video:

2010 IgNobels Announced!

It's that time of year again, leaves are changing colour, people are making their Nobel prize preditions and the IgNobels, awarded by the Improbable Research are announced. Here at the Bayblab, we have a decent track record of hitting these stories before the announcement. How did we do this year?

PEACE PRIZE: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain. (Bayblab link: F-ing Pain)

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Manuel Barbeito, Charles Mathews, and Larry Taylor of the Industrial Health and Safety Office, Fort Detrick, Maryland, USA, for determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists. (Bayblab link: A History of Beardism and the Science that Backs it)

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Libiao Zhang, Min Tan, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, and Shuyi Zhang of China, and Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol, UK, for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats. (Bayblab link: Fruit bat blowjobs)

Other highlights:
MEDICINE PRIZE: Simon Rietveld of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Ilja van Beest of Tilburg University, The Netherlands, for discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride.

PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.


See the full list of this year's winners.

Cancer Research Blog Carnival #38 - Breast Cancer Awareness Month

The latest edition of the Cancer Research Blog Carnival is up at Highlight HEALTH.

Welcome to the 38th edition of the Cancer Research Blog Carnival, the monthly blog carnival that discusses what’s new in cancer research. In recognition of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this edition’s focus is on breast cancer.

As usual, Walter has done a fantastic job hosting, with a carnival loaded quality posts. Go check it out.

Why squirrels masturbate

Since I mentioned in my last post that the amount of sperm produced by humans is literally astronomical, I've been thinking about which animals masturbate and why. For humans it seems to be a sexual outlet but is that the case for other mammals? How about non-mammals, do birds and bees masturbate? Well the motivating factor for male squirrels has been discovered, and it doesn't seem to be related to blue balls. Firstly, it appears that they are quite acrobatic:

“An oral masturbation was recorded when a male sat with head lowered and an erect penis in his mouth, being stimulated with both mouth (fellatio) and forepaws (masturbation), while the lower torso moved forward and backwards in thrusting motions, finally culminating in an apparent ejaculation, after which the male appeared to consume the ejaculate.”

Secondly, it seems to be motivated by cleanliness according to this paper:

"These results suggest that masturbation in this species was not a response to sperm competition nor a sexual outlet by subordinates that did not copulate. Instead masturbation could function as a form of genital grooming. Female Cape ground squirrels mate with up to 10 males in a 3-hr oestrus, and by masturbating after copulation males could reduce the chance of infection. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can profoundly affect fertility, and their consequences for mating strategies need to be examined more fully."

So who said masturbation was dirty?

Colbert to Congress: More Human-Fruit Hybrids!

sperm vs stars

Is there more sperm or more stars in the universe?

*World male population of "reproductive age" = 2.17 billion (Males aged 15-64)

*Average amount of sperm per ejaculate = 300 million

*Total sperm if everyone ejaculated= 6.5e17

*Total amount of stars in Milky Way = 1e11

AND

*total sperm produced in lifetime = 525 billion

*total male population = 3.3 billion

*total sperm for every male currently living during their lifetime = 1.73e21

*total stars in universe= 1e21

sources:
population (CIA)
sperm (wikipedia)
stars (nasa)

Fact or Fiction: Adam's Rib

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. Genesis 2:21-22 (King James Version)

I was asked recently whether it was true that women had a different number of ribs than men.

You may have heard this one before: Men have fewer ribs than women, either by a single rib or a pair. This notion follows from the biblical account of creation, whereby Eve was created from one of Adam's ribs and is used to support a literal interpretation of Genesis. But is it true?

The typical adult human skeleton has 206 bones and this number is the same for men and women. Of these, the ribs account for 24 (2 x 12). Seven of these pairs are connected to the sternum by cartilage, 3 are connected to the cartilage of the ribs above and 2 pairs, called floating ribs, are not attached to the sternum at all. These numbers are the same for men and women.

There are abnormalities that can alter the number of ribs. One such abnormality is a cervical rib which can cause thoracic outlet syndrome. A cervical rib is an extra rib arising from the seventh cervical vertebra, above the first rib ("normal" ribs are joined to the thoracic vertebrae). They are present in about 0.5% of the population. One large study of 10,000 radiographs looking at congenital rib abnormalities showed that women more often have cervical ribs, with a rate of about a 2.5 to 1 compared to males. This may be a reason for the propagation of the idea that females have more ribs than males, but in the typical, normal skeleton males and females have the same number of ribs.

How to make your data significant

Anyone who's been in science long enough to either get a grasp of statistics, or alternatively figure out empirically how to game it, knows that given enough parameters and data points you will inevitably reach statistical significance on something. So what's the difference between a p-value of 0.051 and 0.049? Well this guy sums it up with a good anecdote :

"About two years ago the Wall Street Journal (registration required) investigated the statistical practices of Boston Scientific, who had just introduced a new stent called the Taxsus Liberte.

Boston Scientific did the proper study to show the stent worked, but analyzed their data using an unfamiliar test, which gave them a p-value of 0.049, which is statistically significant.

The WSJ re-examined the data, but used different tests (they used the same model). Their tests gave p-values from 0.051 to about 0.054; which are, by custom, not statistically significant.

Real money is involved, because if “significance” isn’t reached, Boston Scientific can’t sell their stents. But what the WSJ is quibbling, because there is no real-life difference between 0.049 and 0.051. P-values do not answer the only question of interest: does the stent work?"

[...]

" Significance is vaguely meaningful only if both a model and the test used being are true and optimal. It gives no indication of the truth or falsity of any theory.

Statistical significance is easy to find in nearly any set of data. Remember that we can choose our model. If the first doesn’t give joy, pick another and it might. And we can keep going until one does."

Cancer Carnival #38 - Call for Submissions

The next edition of the Cancer Reseach Blog Carnival is coming up on Oct. 1 and will be hosted by Highlight HEALTH.

Highlight HEALTH will be hosting the next edition of the Cancer Research Blog Carnival, edition #38, on Friday, October 1st. As host, I invite you to send your submissions.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Accordingly, the theme for next month’s edition of the Cancer Research Blog Carnival is Breast Cancer.

Submissions can be made through the blog carnival submission form or by email.

The Simpsons - Comments about PhDs and Grad Students. [HQ]

Cool video of the week

I'm a huge fan of Feynman, and always admired his curiosity about stuff outside of physics. In his biography (if you haven't read it, you're not a proper nerd) there is a passage about experiments with ants:

"I found out the trail wasn't directional. If I'd pick up an ant on a piece of paper, turn him around and around, and then put him back onto the trail, he wouldn't know that he was going the wrong way until he met another ant. (Later, in Brazil, I noticed some leaf-cutting ants and tried the same experiment on them. They could tell, within a few steps, whether they were going toward the food or away from it—presumably from the trail, which might be a series of smells in a pattern: A, B, space, A, B, space, and so on.)"

"I tried at one point to make the ants go around in a circle, but I didn’t have enough patience to set it up. I could see no reason, other than lack of patience, why it couldn’t be done."

Well Mr Feyman, not only can it be done, but it happens in nature...

Dance Dance Evolution

Scientists have finally figured out why I fare so poorly at the clubs: my dance moves. A paper published in Biology Letters and reported in the Globe and Mail describes research determining what dance moves are most attractive to women. Close to 40 women watched video clips of 19 different males (none of whom were professional dancers) whose images were motion captured and transformed into genderless, featureless avatars to put emphasis on movement and not on looks, as well as to save them the embarrassment when the dancing videos inevitably hit Youtube (follow these links for video samples from the supplementary materials of good and bad dancing). Males danced to a core drumbeat to eliminate music likeability as a confounder, and women judged the dancing. The researchers determined what movements were correlated with what women rated as "good" dancing. From the Globe and Mail article:

The study found that female perceptions of good dance quality were influenced most greatly by large and varied movements involving the neck and trunk.The speed of the right knee movements were also important in signalling dance quality.

A “good” dancer thus displays larger and more variable movements in relation to bending and twisting movements of their head/neck and torso, and faster bending and twisting movements of their right knee,” the researchers said in a report published in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters.

So with that information in mind, it's time to design the perfect dance move - we just need to make sure we include some good head, torso and right knee movements. I'm imagining an exaggerated version of GOB's chicken dance:
(or maybe some moves from this pizza commercial)

The authors suggest that these movements signal "traits such as health, fitness, genetic quality and developmental history," likening them to courtship rituals in other animals. Dance being culturally influenced, I'd be curious to see if the elements of an attractive dance hold up across cultures. Likewise I'd be interested to see if their results are reflected by notable great dancers or if dance crazes of bygone eras are centred around these movements. In the meantime, I'll experiment with some of these motions, but I doubt they'll be winning hearts anytime soon.