Category: Science History

Synchrotron: The End of an Era?

Grad School, Guest Lecture, Research Funding, Science History,

I’ve said before that being back on a college campus offers so many unique opportunities. This week was no exception with the visit of Bill Blakemore, ABC News climate change correspondent, AND a trip to UW’s Synchrotron Radiation Center. I got several opportunities to talk to Blakemore, and I highly suggest checking out his show Nature’s Edge – but rather than delve into climate communication (a topic on which I could spew my opinions for hours) I want to focus on the SRC.

Today, my internal dialogue was triggered by the trip I took with my colleagues from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, through the cows and the nothing, to tour the SRC. Located about 30 minutes from campus, the SRC is a particle accelerator that is used by hundreds of researchers each year. Now, I make no bones about the fact that I am scared of physics – but even I was able to understand and enjoy learning about what the SRC does.Whenever I leave downtown Madison, I go through the same internal dialogue: “There are cows. Where am I? I don’t belong here. There are cows. And nothing. As far as I can see. Cows and nothing. What am I doing in Wisconsin?” I hate to admit it, but I do still suffer from re-locaters remorse. I don’t dislike Madison, but seeing prairie or open fields for miles so close to town still shocks me every time.

The “radiation’ part of the name Synchrotron Radiation Center has nothing to do with nuclear radiation, what we have all been worrying about with the Japanese earthquake. Rather, radiation refers simply to the center’s main purpose – to create light for scientific experiments. If you think back to what you know about the electromagnetic spectrum, you’ll remember that there are different forms of light – visible light, microwaves, radiowaves, uv rays, x-rays, etc.

The SRC conducts a variety of experiments using the different forms of light (infrared to x-ray range) that are generated by accelerating electrons around the Aladdin storage ring. I am not going to do a better job of explaining how the ring works than the SRC does on their website, but I will say that the wave of light created by winging the electrons around needs to be contained/controlled and that is essentially what Aladdin does. It is the mechanism that harnesses the light so it can be used in experiments.

The center was opened in 1981, and has a special role as far as SRC’s go because the UW center gives visiting researchers 2-3 weeks to work on their projects, unlike the 3-4 days they might get to conduct research at another facility. Because the SRC is funded by the National Science Foundation, researchers don’t have to pay to use it – it is free. Free resources, that invest significant time in research projects, are rare these days.

They are about to become even rarer. The SRC at UW has not made it into the NSF’s new budget, which means that funding (the approximately $5 million it takes to run the center) will be cut off in August 2011. I appreciate that the SRC isn’t cutting edge. It isn’t shiny and flashy, but it still has scientific merit. The idea of the resource going dark seems like such an utter waste.

My colleague Eric, who works in outreach at the SRC and organized the JSchool’s visit, has a terrific post on his blog about the closing of the SRC and the closing of Chicago’s Fermilab – which will leave a hole in the scientific research community in the Midwest. I encourage those of you in Madison to take the time to check out the SRC before the last electron goes shooting through the Aladdin ring, and for those of you not in Madison take a look at the federal science foundation budgets – is there a resource near you that will be lost in 2011?

The reason I chose to focus this post on the SRC rather than Blakemore’s visit, is because the SRC is such a uniquely Madison, WI experience. It reminds me of why, in spite of the cows and the nothing, I came to Madison. This is the site of some extraordinary scientific research – discoveries that I find fascinating, that ignite the sense of awe and wonder about the world that I have tried so hard to cling to as I have transitioned into adulthood. Seeing the SRC’s inquiries end, while sad, makes me appreciate that I was in Madison in time to experience it for myself.

History Remains a Mystery: DNA Can’t Confirm Remains Are Amelia Earhart

Genetics, Grad School, New Research, Past Articles, Science History

I use Science Decoded for class and have assignments that require me to post in certain ways. This week I’m ATTEMPTING to write in a diamond structure (writers will know it but that means really specific- big issue- really specific.) I’m going to try to do so by tackling Amelia Earhart and the role of DNA analysis in identifying her possible remains, a subject I previously mentioned in the post What Happened to Amelia Earhart?

Today she is the topic of book reports, the namesake of streets, schools and scholarships, and even the subject of a major motion picture starring actress Hilary Swank. But in 1937 when she decided to fly around the world, Amelia Earhart – famous though she was – was also something unheard of at the time. She was a woman shattering convention – simply because she wanted to.
Amelia Earhart broke her first world record at the age of 24 on October 22, 1922 when she flew her airplane to an altitude of 14,000ft. The highest altitude then recorded for a female pilot. By April 8, 1931 she would beat her own record soaring to 18,415ft. She set four records for speed from 1930-1933, and in 1932 she was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, five years to the day after Charles Lindberg first accomplished the feat. She wrote a book about the trip called “For the Fun of It.”
Earhart became a champion for women’s rights by being an outspoken female figure in a male dominated field. In 1932 she helped form, and was elected president of the Ninety Nines a club for women aviators.

According to the website operated by the estate of the famous aviator, Amelia Earhart is quoted as having said, “One of my favorite phobias is that girls, especially those whose tastes aren’t routine, often don’t get a fair break. It has come down through the generations, an inheritance of age-old customs which produced the corollary that women are bred to timidity.”

Source: Wikimedia Commons
Earhart was the first person to fly solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City, the first person to fly from Mexico City to Newark nonstop, and the first person to fly across the Red Sea to India. Not just the first woman. She was the first PERSON to complete these milestone trips.

Having accomplished all of this it is no surprise that on June 1, 1937 when she was 39-years-old Earhart set out to become the first woman to fly around the world. She almost succeeded. On June 29th, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan arrived in Lae, New Guinea with only 7,000 miles of the trip left. On July 2nd Earhart and Noonan took off for their next checkpoint at Howland Island. 
It is here that the story of a strong female aviator, a role model for men and women alike becomes a mystery. She was sucked into the vortex of the Bermuda triangle. She flew to Rio to live a life of secrecy. She was abducted by aliens. Although the theories about why Earhart never arrived at Howland Island are many, truly no one knows what happened to her, Noonan, or their twin engine Lockheed Electra airplane. Although the most likely scenario is that Earhart and Noonan were unable to find Howland Island and then ran out of fuel.

With clouds obscuring the stars, Noonan’s ability to navigate would have been heavily compromised. The failure of their radio transmissions would have left Earhart and Noonan unable to ask for help. Landing in the ocean or on one of the South Pacific’s islands may or may not have killed the aviator. She was declared dead, but some say she could have survived the landing and lived for awhile as a castaway. This theory was buoyed in 2010 by the discovery of three bone fragments that might be a human finger on Nikumaroro (formerly known as Gardner Island) in the Republic of Kiribati.

It was on Nikumaroro in 1940 that a British Naval officer found 13 bones including a skull believed to belong to a castaway. The bones were sent to Fiji for analysis where they were later misplaced. A connection was never made to Earhart because at the time the bones were analyzed and believed to belong to a man. American officials were never officially notified of the discovery.


The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) took up the mystery of what happened to Earhart and Noonan and the possibility that the 1940 Nikumaroro bones were either the aviator or her navigator in 1988. An analysis of records from Fiji conducted by TIGHAR forensic anthropologists based on new computerized technology indicate that the initial analysis was wrong and the remains belonged to a white female.
TIGHAR conducted new searches of the island in 2001, 2007 and 2010. The search in 2010 turned up the three bone fragments, reportedly in the same area that the original 13 misplaced bones were found. TIGHAR recruited the help of Cecil Lewis of the University of Oklahoma’s Molecular Anthropology Laboratories to analyze the bone fragments. Last week TIGHAR announced that Lewis’ findings were inconclusive. It is possible that the bones are a human finger bone, but bones could also belong to a sea turtle. Other organisms like birds and fish have been ruled out due to the structure of the bone.
Nikumaroro Map. Source: Flickr.

The initial test for the presence of human mitochondrial DNA conducted by Lewis was positive, but subsequent tests did not replicate that result. Because the process of extracting DNA damages the bone, further attempts to determine the bone’s origin would use up the rest of the sample. Doing so would make independent replication – a crucial part of the scientific process in which other scientists conduct the same experiment to make sure that the results are valid – an impossibility.

A mitochondrial DNA profile on Earhart has been compiled from a female relative. Mitochondria are an organelle – a small part of a cell. Mitochondria are involved in creating energy to power the cell. Unlike the rest of the cell, mitochondria contain DNA that is directly passed between mother and child, meaning that it is the same for all individuals on the maternal side of the family lineage.
TIGHAR has decided to shelve the DNA testing of the 2010 Nikumaroro bone fragments to ensure that in the future when DNA analysis technology improves to the point where less material is needed to discover if the bones are human (and if they are Earhart’s) there will still be enough of the bones left to test. But, when the bone is able to be tested for human DNA, the mitochondrial DNA profile of Earhart will be used to confirm if the bones are hers.
Other artifacts recovered from the Nikumaroro site (including what may be fecal matter, a freckle cream jar, and evidence of meals being cooked) are still being analyzed for direct evidence of Earhart or Noonan. Another expedition to Nikumaroro is scheduled for the summer of 2012 – to mark the 75th anniversary of Earhart’s flight and disappearance. The new expedition will focus on finding the remains of her Lockheed Electra, believed to be deep down on the slope of the reef on the Island’s west end.
The identification of Earhart’s remains (if they are hers) would be a triumph of scientific technology. As her story becomes intertwined with science, it becomes ever more ironic that Earhart didn’t view the information gathered from her flights as science. “I lay no claim to advancing scientific data other than advancing flying knowledge,” she said. “I can only say that I do it because I want to.”
If Earhart has a scientific legacy it is not to be found in her bones. Earhart believed women should never stop trying to excel in fields dominated by men. She busted the boys club of aviation, and paved the way for women to do the same in other fields. Female scientists who have broken into their own boys club, and penetrated the historically male dominated research fields embody Earhart’s determination to succeed.
Whether or not science will one day be able to tell if Earhart met her end on Nikumaroro Island, her legacy to science, and all of society, is in encouraging women to break with convention.
“Now and then women should do for themselves what men have already done – occasionally what men have not done – thereby establishing themselves as persons, and perhaps encouraging other women toward greater independence of through and action. Some such consideration was a contributing reason for my wanting to do what I so much wanted to do.”

Discover Raises The Dead

Good Writing, Science History

I want to draw attention to a great info-graphic spread in Discover Magazine’s photo gallery. Dead People Science Won’t Let R.I.P. is a really interesting and fun way to do an article about all the different old deaths that modern technology has been able to shed light on.

From King Tut to Copernicus the graphic gives really good, concise descriptions of how certain historical figures died, why their deaths were controversial (or at least their cause of death disputed), and how modern technology helped clear up the details. Its definitely worth checking out, not only to learn a few things about science and history, but also to check out how Discover is doing their gallery articles.

From Novelist to Lepidopterist

New Research, Public Perceptions, Science History, Science Policy

My first encounter with Vladimir Nabokov was in my high school AP English class. My teacher Mr. Kaplow (author of Me and Orson Welles, which fun fact: is a movie starring High School Musical’s Zac Efron) kept a movie poster of Lolita (based on Nabokov’s most well known novel) hanging on the classroom wall.

I next encountered Nabokov while working through my undergraduate English major. Due to his Russian roots, Nabokov fit nicely into the course materials for my international literature class. I read his memoir Speak, Memory which talks a lot about Nabokov’s interest in lepidoptery, the study of butterflies.

Karner Blue Butterfly. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

I bring up Nabokov and his butterfly hobby because I just read an article on Nabokov’s scientific theories in the New York Times.  Nabokov’s theories were dismissed by lepidopterists during his lifetime,  but genetic analysis has shown that he was exactly right about the origin of a group of butterflies known as the Polyommatus blues. Nabokov theorized that the butterflies had originated in Asia and come to the United States in waves, but in the 1960’s and 1970’s no one took him seriously.

Researchers at Harvard University (where Nabokov was curator of lepidoptera at the Museum of Comparative Zoology) decided to do a genetic analysis on the butterflies to test Nabokov’s 30-year-old theory. The results showed that Nabokov was right all along, Polyommatus blues are genetically linked to butterflies in Asia. Genetic analysis has also been used to validate Nabokov’s hypothesis that Karner Blue Butterflies are a distinct species.

By this point you might be wondering why it matters that this long dead Russian novelist has been vindicated as a legitimate scientist by new technological advances, so I’ll get to my point. Nabokov is an example of how members of the scientific community can be quick to dismiss the work of anyone who isn’t an expert.

If we hold anyone who does scientific research to the same standard of peer review (analysis by other scientists, and the ability to replicate a study or experiment and get the same results as the original researcher) then even people who don’t have their doctorate in a specific science can still contribute new knowledge.

Please note that I’m not advocating that any quack with a theory should be taken seriously by the scientific community. But if promising research or theories are developed by people who might not call science their profession, their value should still be evaluated.

Revising Taxonomy

Conservation, Genetics, New Research, Public Perceptions, Science History

Very few people in the United States give a damn about the Egyptian Jackal. While I have nothing to offer as proof of this, I stand by my hunch that this specific canid isn’t high on the list of most popular animals, because really, who has even heard of it before? (I hadn’t until today…)

Golden Jackal. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Why then should people care that genomic analysis has revealed that the Egyptian Jackal is actually a wolf, not a jackal at all? Well, because even if you don’t find the power of genomic analysis fascinating (like I do) this revision of current taxonomy (the classification of species based on how they are related to each other) is a great example of how science is a fluid thing that continually changes as new things are discovered. I think that understanding how even accepted scientific information can change is a hurdle that many people have to clear before they can really start to follow science in the news.

For years, the Egyptian Jackal (Canis aureus lupaster) was believed to be a subspecies of the Golden Jackal (both species that call parts of Africa home.) Researchers from the University of Oslo (Norway) noticed physiological differences (ie: differences in the way it looked) between Egyptian Jackals and other Golden Jackals, which led them to pursue a genetic analysis.

Sequencing the Egyptian Jackal’s genome has shown that it is a closer evolutionary relative to wolves found in India and the Himalayas (even to the United States’ Grey Wolf) than to Golden Jackals. Revising the taxonomy could have important impacts on conservation efforts. If Canis aureus lupaster (now renamed the African Wolf — and the only wolf now known to live in Africa) is a distinct species, an evaluation needs to be done to see how many members of this species there are, to determine if it is endangered.

I like this story because its a great example of how scientists are constantly revising accepted information the more they learn. However, I think when you tell people that science is constantly changing it is important to distinguish between making a revision and being flat out wrong. Scientists weren’t just wrong in their taxonomy. The Egyptian Jackal/African Wolf is a canid, so that part of the taxonomy was and still is correct. The genetic analysis enabled research to put the species into an even more specific category.

So when we say that science changes, we mean that it gets more specific and thus more accurate. But that doesn’t mean that the scientists who came before had everything all wrong. Often when scientists revise information their predecessors/colleagues were close, but didn’t have the necessary tools to learn enough to get things exactly right. There is always more that scientists can learn, and as they do, they fine tune, which is the case with the Jackal/Wolf taxonomy.

For more on the Jackal/Wolf revision, the research paper was published in PLoS One.