Tag Archive for 'science'

Great Jobs #5372

Published by Dead Badger on 16th April, 2007.

I was just reading the Economist*. Specifically, I was reading a hugely self-improving article about how bacteria make you happy. I think I was, anyway; I may just be recalling one of those yoghurt drink adverts infesting late night television. Anyway, a particular bit leapt off the page, and I share it with you now:

Dr Lowry and his team injected their mice with M. vaccae and examined them to find out what was going on. First, they looked for a rise in the level of cytokines, which are molecules produced by the immune system that trigger responses in the brain. As expected, cytokine levels rose. They then looked directly in their animals’ brains for the effect of those cytokines. Cytokines actually act on sensory nerves that run to the brain from organs such as the heart and the lungs. That action stimulates a brain structure called the dorsal raphe nucleus. It was this nucleus that Dr Lowry focused on. He found a group of cells within it that connect directly to the limbic system, the brain’s emotion-generating area. These cells release serotonin into the limbic system in response to sensory-nerve stimulation. The consequence of that release is stress-free mice. Dr Lowry was able to measure their stress by dropping them into a tiny swimming pool.

I’m sure several of you will already have spotted the bit that appealed to me. Here it is again:

Dr Lowry was able to measure their stress by dropping them into a tiny swimming pool.

I can’t help feeling that these scientists are missing the wood for the trees. Here they are, trying to determine the root causes of human happiness. I salute them for this: great work, no doubt, and vital to our continued wellbeing. But to focus on bacteria levels, when such an immense source of happiness is right under their noses? No wonder the narrow-minded and obsessive stereotype of boffins persists in the media. You keep swilling your pro-vita-biotic yoghurt drinks, Mr so-called Scientist. I shall be dropping mice into tiny swimming pools once a morning. We’ll see who ends up happier.

* actually their website; I used to read the magazine on the tube, but became self-conscious about subtly advertising myself as a shameless free marketeer hell-bent on the repression of the urban poor. Now I wear an Adam Smith face mask and shouldercharge the less competent buskers, then run away burning fivers. Subtlety is overrated, I think.

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Scientists detect fat people

Published by Dead Badger on 27th March, 2007.

Many of you will be aware of recent research performed by top scientists that allows them to detect fat people (bottom scientists, of course, have a much easier time of it). It involves 3D scanners, hospitals and men in white coats standing around saying, “indeed.” You, like me, will be gladdened by this remarkable breakthrough, but will want to know how you yourself can take advantage of this development. Fortunately, I am here to help. I have developed a low-cost version of the fattie detector, or “FATScan”, and I share it with you now, unpatented for the greater good:

FATScan

“How does this work?” I hear you cry. Simple: print the above picture at A4 size, and cut where indicated by the dotted lines. Discard the central section (environmentalists may want to recycle it, or use it for the concealment of endangered ferrets). Once you have constructed your FATScan, its use is simple. Here it is in action, demonstrating that my colleague is not fat:

Not fat

As shown, the idea is to locate your suspected fat person, and convince them to remain stationary (the ease or otherwise of this task provides an early indicator of fatness). Hold up your FATScan at arm’s length, and observe the subject through the hole. A normal person, viewed through a FATScan, will have a roughly even gap all around him, as shown. A fat person will come dangerously close to the latitudinal margins of the viewport, causing clipping. Secondary symptoms may also be apparent; the fat person may be clutching a chocolate eclair, being unwarrantedly jolly, or even visibly sweating. A word of warning: make sure your subject is fully upright. Early FATScan practitioners were forced to recall a number of patients after it was suggested that they were not in fact fat, but merely lying down.

Scientist detector

Clown detector

The glory of the FATScan is not only its affordability and portability, but its eminent adaptability. The accompanying prototypes, for example (shown left, right), are believed to reliably detect scientists and clowns respectively (the latter doubles as a handy screening device for genital deformity).

The government is being petitioned to provide the scientist detector to all fat people, so that they can determine whether the person scanning them is in fact a scientist, or merely a nutter with some paper.

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In which stupidity disrupts my Chi

Published by Dead Badger on 30th January, 2007.

I always like a good bit of stupidity, as long as I’m participating in it, and not having it inflicted upon me. Unfortunately this episode is an example of the latter, but I can look back and laugh.

Aged about 6 or so I used to suffer from continuous and excruciating ear infections. For a while it was attributed to my mother’s penchant for listening to Chris de Burgh on long car journeys, but altruistic thieves eventually stole the offending tapes from our Cavalier, demonstrating diagnostic powers in marked contrast to their woeful musical tastes. Not the eyebrowed wonder’s fault, then.

Electro cap

As a last-ditch effort to avoid having holes poked in my ears (all the better to hear Lady in Red), allergy diagnosis was given a shot. The unfortunate thing about allergy diagnosis, however, is that it’s slow and boring and there aren’t any sensible shortcuts. About the only way to do it properly is a blind elimination diet, in which blind people are cooked and eaten to pacify the ear gods.

Ah ha, I slay me. No, it involves removing each suspected allergen from the diet for a period of time without the subject knowing what the change is, then reintroducing it and waiting for emesis. If you’ve ever tried to get an already-picky 6-year-old to eat anything foreign, you can surely imagine the challenge of not only repeatedly altering their diet, but getting them to eat it without telling them what it is, then expecting to reliably observe a difference in the speed with which it is returned to sender. Hardly surprising, then, that I got shopped around some more exotic “specialists”, who promised far more rapid results.

There are lots of hilariously stupid means of “testing” for allergies. First (and slightly dull in its conception) comes electrodermal skin testing, in which a vial of the suspected allergen is connected in series with the patient (in my case by having my toes poked by electrodes) and some ludicrous Heath Robinson contraption with lots of impressive-looking dials, meters (analogue, of course) and pointless external capacitors (it’s a lot like high-end hi-fi in this regard). Twiddling ensues, readings are taken, and a pronouncement is made.

“Hmm,” says the alleged doctor. “You appear to be allergic to the two most common childhood allergens.”

“Goodness,” one replies, “how clever of you,” handing over one’s cash in awe at the still-oscillating hoojamajigger attached to your toe.

Applied Kinesiology

Far more fun, and infinitely more woo, is Applied Kinesiology. The idea here is that the subject holds a vial of an allergen in one hand, and extends their other arm parallel to the ground. The “doctor” presses down on the extended hand. Should the subject be allergic to the vial’s contents, his energy will be disrupted and he will find himself unable to resist the downward pressure applied by the idiot poking his hand.

So far, so stupid, but it gets better. Aged six I was clearly in no position to resist the strength of a fully-grown moron, whether my cosmic flow was being altered by desiccated celery or not. Not letting this minor detail get between himself and a full consultancy fee, however, the moron in question suggested that I sit on my mother’s lap. I would hold the vial, my mother would hold out her arm, and the moron would press down on that. Genius! Only a hidebound cynic would question the transitive property of celery disturbance. Hug ye not a hayfever sufferer, for he will drain you of your very life force! Anyway. This is what we did.

“Hmm,” said the alleged doctor. “You appear to be allergic to the two most common childhood allergens.”

“Goodness,” we replied, “however did you work that out, having only probability and observable classic symptoms on your side?”

Only we didn’t, of course; we believed him. And that’s how a complete idiot doomed me to years of Ryvita sandwiches and rice cakes by being only half right. For years I wasn’t allowed wheat. Wheat. No bread, no biscuits, no pancakes; I had Ryvita sandwiches, for crying out loud. I don’t imagine you’ve had a Ryvita sandwich. They have the flavour of carpet underlay and the alluring texture of plastic forks. The most satisfaction that can be gained from them is finding the ones where the dimples don’t quite tesselate properly and mailing them to the manufacturer to demand a refund. I hid them behind the toilets until the stack got so large they fell out one day, concussing the janitor. That’s when the rice cakes started. Lighter, you see; less dangerous.

I appear to be rambling now, so I’m going to stop. That’s craft for you.

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Walk like an echinosaur

Published by Dead Badger on 11th June, 2006.

Intelligent Design

I’m not one to mock the beliefs of others. Well, okay, I plainly am, but sometimes people’s beliefs mock themselves, and the anonymous proponent of the Reverse Theory (which I came across while working as a messageboard moderator at the BBC) is one such. An unusual take on Biblical inerrancy combined with some evolution-bashing for extra points, the Theory (for so I shall charitably refer to it) runs thus:

Thousands of years ago, when dinosaurs and Egyptians roamed the earth [don't ask], all the limestone was floppy. This is obvious because limestone, as any fule kno, is made of sea creatures, and sea creatures are nothing if not wet. Clearly limestone is dry, therefore at some intermediate point in its history, it was floppy. [At this point we know we are wriggling in the grasp of a rhetorical genius.] Further evidence for this floppiness is, um, evident from the existence of the pyramids at Giza – for how, after all, could mere Egyptians be expected to construct such edifices from something hard? It is to laugh.

One imagines teams of dedicated limestone-twangers, carefully selected for their skill at flicking jelly at their classmates in Egyptian kindergarten, lining up the latest block in some bizarre crustacean siege engine, ready to be flipped into place with millimetre precision. Or maybe vast pharaonic refrigerators were used, with runny limestone being poured into a carefully greased pyramid mould and stored on the bottom shelf next to some bendy celery and some beef jerky. It’d explain the mummies and jars of organs, assuming the ancient Egyptians took my approach to refrigerator hygiene (i.e. operating on the assumption that eventually, anything that’s going off will eventually putrefy and drip out the bottom, obviating the need for removal).

Anyway, I digress. The dinosaurs, when not maurauding and causing havoc amongst the jelly artificers, survived on a diet of the floppy limestone, which of course in its transitional stage was still fishy and nutritious. And thus a bizarre equilibrium was reached, with the dinosaurs only taking the occasional nibble from Cheops’ tomb, and the Egyptians trying not to get stuck in the dinosaurs’ teeth.

But then disaster! Baked continually in the barbaric pre-Christian sunlight, the limestone hardened! The Egyptians (having invested so much effort in the preparation of their tasty, pointy chilled snacks) became so disheartened that they allowed themselves to be outwitted by a hydrophobe with a big beard, showing such lamentable culinary invention that they failed to realise the possibilities presented by an endless supply of frogs and locusts. For the dinosaurs, meanwhile, with their useless forearms, the hardening of the limestone was a catastrophic event from which they never recovered. Unable to harvest their favourite foodstuff, they died out, thus conclusively proving that God created the Earth in 6 days, and apes descended from man.

Wait, what?

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