Science Feeds

Images of the sun as the planet Venus crosses in between us and the sun! Taken with my Canon Powershot digital camera and sun-gazing filter, as I sat atop a levee overlooking the Mississippi river in Baton Rouge, LA. Venus can be seen as a dark dot in the upper right corner of the sun. The other dark spots on the sun, I learned from an LSU Physics and Astronomy student who sat next to me during the event, are sun spots, where the sun is ultra-active! Yes, the sun has spots and blemishes too! TweetMe and my dog Mojo watching the transit! Photo compliments of an LSU Biological Engineering student sitting next to us!

Fairbanks, Alaska, June , 2012—- “So our job is to get it out there, get exposure to the technology, get people to understand it’s benefits and its limitations. And see how it can solve their problems.” said Greg Walker, Unmanned Aircraft Program Manager at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.Impressively the Aeryon Scout has proven it’s got the “right stuff” to fly in the Aleutian Islands. Or is it the operators who have figured out how to make it work? You be the judge. Watch Fly Scout Fly, the first video about Walker’s testing of practical applications for unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAV’s) in Alaska. Keep in mind, the Aleutian islands are noted for their winds—25 knots is a normal wind speed, high seas—think over 10 foot sea waves like in the “Deadliest Catch”, and unpredictability—their vessel the Norseman waited 2 days in a cove as hurricanes blew through. Since the April 2011 web launch, Frontier Scientists continues to share first person accounts and real time insights from leading archaeologists, grizzly bear biologists, volcano researchers, climate change specialists and other scientists.The research covers these categories:GrizzliesPetroglyphsPaleo-Eskimo HistoryCook Inlet VolcanoesComputational ScienceAlutiiq WeaversClimate Change WatchArctic Winter Cruisethe Arctic’s Amazing BirdsRaven Bluff & Archaeology*Alaska’s Unmanned Aircraft ResearchFascinating video of current scientific discoveries in some of the Arctic’s most remote and dramatic landscapes are chronicled in short videos, Twitter feeds, blogs and web reports. “We want to let travelers, teachers, students, aspiring scientists, and anyone else interested in science feel as if they are with scientists as they track grizzlies or take the temperature of permafrost in a borehole,” explained Liz O’Connell, video director for Frontier Scientists. Visitors to Frontier Scientists can ask questions to our scientists directly; follow some of them on Twitter and Facebook, and converse with scientists on their blogs.Frontier Scientists is funded by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from the National Park Service and 360 Degrees North. Follow us! View Alaska videos at www.FrontierScientists.com.

Soap bubbles…They are a childhood delight. Big and billowy, small and ephemeral… all bubbles are magical.TweetBut the properties of bubbles are more important to life than we can fathom as toddlers chasing magical floating circles around the yard at dusk. Bubbles are a form of self-assembled monolayers… the thin soap-water-soap layer that forms the bubble assembles by itself (given the proper puff of air from our lips into the soap-covered bubble stick, of course).bq. “I do not suppose that there is any one in this room who has not occasionally blown a common soap-bubble, and while admiring the perfection of its form, and the marvelous brilliancy of its colours, wondered how it is that such a magnificent object can be so easily produced.” – Soap Bubbles and the Forces Which Mould Them, 1959 Soap bubbles self-assemble because of the properties of the soap molecules themselves. Soap molecules are amphiphilic, from the Greek ‘amphis’ meaning both and ‘philia’ meaning love. Each soap molecule has one side that is attracted to water, or water-loving, and one side that is repelled by water, or water-hating. This dual-sided nature of soap molecules causes them to arrange themselves into structures such that all the water-loving ends face water – in other words, they face the water layer inside the thin film that surrounds the air at the center of a bubble. On the other hand, the water-hating ends – also called hydrocarbon chains – face the air outside the bubble or the air inside the bubble… but not the water inside the bubble’s film. Because of their amphiphilic nature, soap molecules automatically form circular structures – a core of air surrounded by a soap-water-soap film in which the water-hating ends of soap molecules crowd to either the inner or outer surface of the bubble – that minimize the energy inherent in the system. Think of lazy bubbles.This energy-minimization effort on the part of soap molecules and bubbles also gives rise to the typically spherical shape of bubbles. Surface tension tends to mould bubbles into perfectly spherical shapes to minimize the area of the bubble that is surface for a given bubble volume_, because energy is highest at the surface of the bubble. Beautifully for our childhood imaginations, the structure with the smallest surface area to volume ratio is the perfect sphere (there is a mathematical proof to show that this is true… trust me).All the pretty colors…One of the more beautiful traits of bubbles are the brilliant ‘rainbow’ colors that can be seen at their surfaces. Bubbles shine with bands of color because of the interference of light wavesinterference being reflected and refracted (as in a prism) from both the outer soap interface (air-soap-water) and the inner soap interface (water-soap-air). Remember that a bubble has three layers: soap, water, soap. This interference of light waves depends on the thickness of the soap bubble. Thin bubbles that are about to pop may appear dark (with no color) because the light waves reflected from the inner and outer soap interfaces cancel each other out. Thicker bubbles display vibrant colors separated out of white light because the light waves reflected from the inner and outer soap interfaces combine together. Because different colors of light have different wavelengths (length from the crest of the wave to the trough of the wave, just like in an ocean wave), different colors of light waves cancel out or add together as they are reflected from bubbles of different film thicknesses: bubbles can appear to be different colors dependent on the thickness of their films! Over time, a bubble loses its inner water layer (due to evaporation of the water), meaning that the bubble’s thickness decreases over time as it floats across your yard. This means (magically indeed) that the color of a bubble can change over time as its thickness decreases until the bubble pops!I didn’t mean to burst your bubble…So if a soap bubble forms so easily through of self-assembly, why doesn’t the bubble stay around longer? Why does it eventually have to burst?The answer to this question is that it’s all about pressure. Starting out, the pressure on the inside of the bubble is greater than the pressure on the outside. As the bubble floats around your kitchen or around your yard, especially if you are blowing bubbles in the sunlight, the water inside the thin film of the bubble will start to evaporate. Eventually the pressure difference from inside to outside the bubble becomes too great for the thinning bubble film to withstand, and thus the bubble bursts!A bubble can also burst when it comes into contact with a dry surface, because the dry surface sucks the water out from within your bubble’s thin film! So here is a tip: keep your hands wet when trying to catch a bubble!What is the big deal about bubbles?So I said that the properties of bubbles are important to life itself. This isn’t just because bubbles make us happy, thus improving our quality of life! This is because the self-assembling soap-water-soap layer of a bubble is very similar to the self-assembling lipid bilayer that forms the membrane around each and every single one of the cells in your body. The cell membrane lipid bilayer is composed of amphiphilic molecules similar to soap molecules. The water-loving ends of these molecules face the outside and inside of your cells, as both the outside and inside environment of the cells in our bodies are composed largely of water! The water-hating ends of these molecules, however, crowd together inside the film that composes a cell membrane. This lipid bilayer structure surrounds the entire cell, and serves as a barrier to intruders (like bacteria) and keeps the cell in a defined shape. So, what do you see when you look at a bubble now? More than a billowy colorful childhood delight?Images:1. By Paige Brown. Not for reproduction.2. Wiki

Eat your greens & grains! It’s not just the macromolecular nutrients in them that are good for you (the natural carbs & proteins), but the genes too. Yup, plant genes can change the expression of our genes, and we just have to eat them.Relatively recently, Zhang et. al. suggested that rice miR168 can regulate fat metabolism in animals and humans after eating rice. They were able to detect the plant miR168 in the sera/blood of multiple animals. It was also found in multiple organs. If you follow the time course experiment (at the bottom), they also observed that miR168 levels went up in the sera of rice fed mice. Moreover, miR168 levels were higher in mice that were on rice diets v.s. control mice that were on non-rice diets (chow). (credit: stevendepolo )It’s pretty ground breaking, as it is unprecedented. The question had arisen before, can the genetic material from one organism in another kingdom affect the gene regulation of another? Or more specifically, can potent genetic regulators in one species affect another? (and..how different are we from other living things are we anyways? if viruses and bacteria can invade our cells and alter our genetic expression patterns,…why not plants?)Initially I thought it was too far fetched…But now there’s in vivo and in vitro evidence by Zhang et al in Cell research". The article’s also summarized by Vaucheret et al. who characterized the function of miR168 in plants, Ingested plant miRNAs regulate gene expression in animals, published online last October 2011 in Cell Research. And a pop sci/easily read/short article is available on Science DailyA few interesting findings of the report:mature miRNAs are highly stable *(hell, they got through the human’s highly toxic digestive system that likes to break things down into bits at different pH levels and temperatures with multiple different chemicals and enzymes. And it somehow passed through the equally diligent liver & biliary and renal systems that like to eliminate biomolecules). The authors of the paper found traces of a particular plant miRNA (rice miR168a) in human sera (type of blood fluid), time course experiments have suggested that miR168 levels go up in sera with time after initial ingestion. This means that potentially in the future, RNAi therapeutic drugs can be given orally. Also, if RNAi drugs can be cloned into plant miRNA genes, it may be possible to produce vegan friendly oral medication. sequence of miRNAs in humans showed that 5% of them corresponded to plant miRNAs they later showed they are bona fide plant miRNAs through sequencing (refer to link to paper below). miRNAs and possibly other small RNAs may also be considered important essential nutrients, particularly in controlling fat The role of plant miR168a in humans is thought to limit the expression level of a low density lipoprotein receptor adapter protein in the liver, which removes lipoproteins from blood & stops their circulation to other organs in your body. Typically, lipoproteins function in shuttling fat and cholesterol to your fat cells in the rest of your body. (yea it makes you fat if you have too much, otherwise it’s important to have fat as they help make up the membranes in your cells). Removing lipoproteins from your blood, reduces fat in your cells. Rough conclusion, miR168 appears to be good for you. in the study, rice miR168 was the one found in the blood of Chinese men and women. Additionally, levels of miR168 was high in mice fed on a rice diet, compared to control mice who were not. plant miRNAs regulate animal genes like other animal miRNAs In other words, in plants, miRNAs have one particular role. In animals, they do something else entirely. In this case, it was generally believed that plant miRNA mainly silence other genes by degrading their mRNA and animal ones inhibit protein synthesis (this opinion is changing). No one was previously sure what would happen if plant miRNAs were introduced into animals, would they follow the same pattern of silencing? Apparently not, they go with the flow of other animal miRNAs. It also suggests that sequences in miRNAs themselves are read differently by different proteins. Truly, there’s unresolved complexity in how the sequences determine the mechanism for silencing other genes (there are so many different mechanisms, including mRNA degradation, DNA methylation etc.). In this case, plant miR168 controls AGO1 levels. AGO1 being the main protein in plants that interacts with miRNAs to silence other genes. Thus it has an important regulatory role of endogenous miRNA pathways. It’s a genetic regulator of other similar genetic regulators. Of course in humans, it has another role entirely, it controls liver protein levels responsible in regulating the amount of fat in your body :PNerd.Mind.Blown.

<!-- Place this tag where you want the +1 button to render --> <!-- Place this tag where you want the StumbleUpon badge to render --> ')What’s in a name? What sort of self-awareness does it take to call yourself something? What if you didn’t have one? In Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth, Wang Lung’s oldest daughter remains unnamed throughout her life. Would you experience the world differently if you had no name?

Take an idea, any idea. If you have a word for it, you can pin it down. You can refer to it efficiently. That concept can now be used as a reference point. Your name is a reference point for self-contemplation and interaction with others. It can help you find your place in the world.

Many other animals treat each other as individuals, exhibiting long-term memories of who has done each of them favors or harm, but do any of them have names? Scientists look for animals which create sounds that appear to be unique to each individual. One such animal is the squirrel monkey.

When alone, the squirrel monkey will often make a sound that is unique to each individual. Scientists call this sound an isolation peep [Animal Behaviour]. Does this constitute a name? Is it just a unique sound that carries identity information. Is there even a difference?

Consider another intelligent animal, the bottlenose dolphin. For years, scientists have debated whether the bottlenose dolphin has a so-called signature whistle. Unlike the squirrel monkey, the bottlenose has not been observed making this noise in isolation (at least according to McCowan and Reiss). However, they have been recorded using their signature whistles in a much more interesting way — meetings and introductions.

When bottlenose dolphins meet at sea they exchange signature whistles. The dolphins of one group speak their signature whistles to the other group [MORE]. Often it is one dolphin making the whistles of other dolphins in his group [PRS]. It really seems like these are names. It doesn’t even matter who says them. In another study it was found that dolphins recognized the names of their family members even if they were computer generated [PNAS].

Names are a sign of intelligence, but there are many other signs which indicate that these dolphins are extraordinarily intelligent.

Bottlenoses are renowned for the complexity of their long-term relationships. It’s hard to guess which came first, complex relationships or names. They do favors for each other and are able to remember those favors, but not just on an individual basis. Groups and groups of groups can remember what favors were done for them by others. It has been observed that such relationships can last decades [PRS]. The main driver of these relationships is mating, of course. The common favor that one male does for another is to fend of others while his friend is attempting to mate [PLOS]. That’s what I call a wingman.

Dolphins play. Their sounds sometimes indicate play [MORE]. Bottlenoses have an inquisitive playfulness which to me looks very human. Watch this video of a dolphin playing with bubbles [VIDEO]

Bottlenose dolphins use tools. They can learn and they can train others. One group of dolphins was observed to use sponges as tools. We have reason to believe the behavior was learned. Each generation trains the next [PNAS]

Theory of Mind is something we humans have. It means we can put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. We can draw conclusions about the mental state of another being based purely on external observations. Dolphins may have theory of mind, and they might be altruistic to boot. On a continuing basis, the bottlenose dolphins of Laguna, Brazil, cooperate with humans to help them fish [DailyMail]. Regularly, the fishermen gather in the shallows of the bay, each with a net. The dolphins can be seen herding the fish toward the humans. When the moment is right, the dolphins send the signal by slapping their tails repeatedly on the surface. The fishermen end up hauling in a great deal of fish.

It is not clear that the dolphins get much out of this interation. It is clear that the dolphins that participate are the same ones that act more cooperatively toward other dolphins. These dolphins are beloved by the fishermen, who have names for each dolphin and can recognize them on sight [VIDEO].

I leave you with this final note: Don’t let the dolphins drown. Dolphins are continually getting caught in nets. They die if not freed within 15 minutes [MORE]. We’ve got to protect these creatures. We should develop our relationship with them. It’s amazing that dolphins can be so intelligent and astounding that they may even have names. Our increasing knowledge of biology tends to find new ways in which we humans are not unique. If we care about humans, we should care about the bottlenose dolphin. The way they think about themselves and experience the world is so much like us. They may be the most similar to us of any species we know of.

“A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” -Andrew Carnegie



LINKS:

Dolphins Name Themselves With Whistles, Study Says

Dolphins’ Unique Whistles Say, ‘Hey! Come Play!’

Signature whistle shape conveys identity information to bottlenose dolphins

Why Are Male Social Relationships Complex in the Doubtful Sound Bottlenose Dolphin Population?

Donate Today to Save Dolphins from Nets

Bottlenose dolphins exchange signature whistles when meeting at sea

Vincent Janik

Dolphins at sea greet each other

Cultural transmission of tool use in bottlenose dolphins

Individuality and stability of isolation peeps in squirrel monkeys

The fallacy of ‘signature whistles’ in bottlenose dolphins

Use of signature whistles during separations and reunions by wild bottlenose dolphin mothers and infants

Context-specific use suggests that bottlenose dolphin signaturewhistles are cohesion calls

from: Dropping The Science total fail sometimes? always gotta have that precedence to every trend. no matter how unusual or unexpected.

Since the recent Queen’s Speech, and its welcome inclusion of ‘A B I L L TO Amend the law of defamation’, I confess, despite welcoming such a positive development, that I’ve been scratching my head somewhat. I wonder that I’m missing something. I’m no lawyer (and my clarification-seeking e-mails to relevant bodies with obvious heavy workloads are apparently of insufficient priority), so am happy to be put right on anything here. But I don’t see the justification (yet) for some of the congratulatory back-slapping. I mean, hang on a minute, are we satisfied that this Defamation Bill goes far enough? Or that it sufficiently clarifies pertinent matters?Nature_’s responding editorialid=NATURE-20120517 seemingly delights in the Bill’s benefits to science. Which, being a scientific journal, is understandable. It cites the ongoing libel case brought against it by Mohamed El Naschie. But, as far as I can make out, this was an information/opinion article, not a peer-reviewed research paper. (Although I’m not sure, because we can’t read the thing. Why has it been pulled when verdict as to its libellous content still awaits?) Peer-reviewed publications were never the issue, were they? Or is it such, assuming the Bill gets through, that any opinion article in a peer-reviewed science journal must now also have those opinion(s) peer-reviewed? Doesn’t scientific discourse, by its impersonal, evidential, dispassionate nature, already cater for this? Nothing goes in without an editor’s assent anyhow. I’m not sure whether this is a potential recipe for (self-)censorship, or for abuse of free licence.So, all good for scientists, then – providing they stick to peer-reviewed journals which, in case it need be stated, most of the public does not read. But what of the interested citizen (scientist/journalist) who seeks to venture an informed honest opinion outside the academic cocoon?As Simon Singh vs British Chiropractic Association demonstrated, (one of) the reason(s) why our libel laws needed reforming was to protect the individual expressing informed opinion on matters of public interest, from organisations or corporations making unsubstantiated claims as to the efficacy of some product/treatment, etc. Anyone with half a quizzical brain must have frowned at the BCA’s refusal to accept the offered right-of-reply opportunity to cite the evidence in substantiation of its claims, thereby knocking Singh’s article off the pages for good. It didn’t because it couldn’t. The BCA bit off more than it could intellectually chew. And Singh, by his own admission, was financially able to stand his ground; plus he had a public profile, which is advantageous to garnering support. He is one of the heroic catalysts for the libel reform progress made. Yet, as I read him, he too is still concerned by the limitations of this Bill. I wonder what would have become of (a similar article by) someone less capable. And will they be any better protected if the Bill gets passed as it is? Are we to understand that, if something akin to Singh’s article was in future published in, say, Nature, it would automatically be untouchable? But if published by an informed public opinion holder operating outside academe, say in a national newspaper, or in a blog, would he/she remain vulnerable? As I read Section 5 of the Bill, the blogger is afforded little, if any, protection by his/her platform provider:bq. 5 Operators of websitesbq. ’(2) It is a defence for the operator [of a website] to show that it was not the operator who posted the statement on the website.’All reputation (where the ‘reputation’ that corporations pay their ‘reputation managers’ and lawyers to bleat on about often really means profits ) should be honestly challengeable. Remember, this country’s libel laws have been ripe for abuse because they allow for corporations and organisations to bring libel actions, not because they necessarily want to fleece the defendant for damages, but because they seek to bring about retraction and stifle open debate – ie, censorship (by threatening to fleece the defendant). I am not convinced that this Bill provides better protection for the honest individual from such bullies. Nature_’s ‘Honest opinions’ editorialid=NATURE-20120517 of 16/17 May 2012 states:bq. ‘And would-be claimants will have to show that their reputation has suffered serious harm.’No they won’t. Section 1 of the Bill states:bq. 1 Serious harmbq. ‘A statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant.’ (My emphasis in bold.)This is explicated in the Bill’s accompanying EXPLANATORY NOTES document; specifically:bq. COMMENTARY ON CLAUSESbq. Clause 1: Serious harmbq. ‘This clause provides that a statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant. The provision extends to situations where publication is likely to cause serious harm in order to cover situations where the harm has not yet occurred at the time the action for defamation is commenced.’ (My emphasis in bold.)So the plaintiff does not have to demonstrate any actual overt harm; they can bring a case based merely on their prediction that it is likely to, and the onus remains on the defendant, even though there is no harm being ‘suffered’. And something else concerns:bq. 4 Responsible publication on matter of public interestbq. ’(2) … in determining… whether a defendant acted responsibly in publishing a statement the matters to which the court may have regard include (amongst other matters)—bq. (i) the tone of the statement.’ (My emphasis in bold.)Whence, then, satire?If this Bill privileges scientists’ opinions in academic journals, whilst limiting them (and anybody else’s) in other public fora, it does not go far enough. And as it is (although I might be stretching my logic here), I am not entirely unconvinced that the ‘privileged statement’ defence might potentially be detrimental to public perception and trust of scientists, arrogantly sheltered in the academic peer-review bunker, wary of wider public pronouncement on controversial issues. Which would be regressive.So, now I’ve exposed my over-hysterical lack of legal nous, feel free to put me right. I promise I won’t sue.

I was alarmed yesterday to see a news report about a man ‘eating another man’s face’. Assuming it to be the beginning of a zombie apocalypse I grabbed my axe and started packing up to head to the safe house, but luckily I decided to read the rest of the article before hermetically sealing myself in.Apparently, the ‘new LSD’ is to blame, a drug called ‘bath salts’ (by the media, not by users). Interesting, so what is it? Well, one problem with legal highs is that in most cases they are unregulated white powders. So, it could be anything. However, most often, ‘bath salts’ is a name used in the USA by online retailers selling mephedrone. In the UK it was sold as ‘plant food’ (to get around medicines and trading standards laws, it could only be sold as ‘not for human consumption), but was occasionally marketed as ’bath salts’ too. You might recognise the name, as in the UK in 2009 and 2010, the drug got a lot of coverage (as miaow miaow – again not called that by users). It was hailed as ‘the new ecstacy’, and was blamed for incidents such as a man ripping off his own scrotum, to the deaths of two young men in Scunthorpe. The Government acted fast and duly made the drug illegal, yet both of these cases turned out to be unrelated to mephedrone (see here* and here). So could this drug turn a man into a ‘flesh eating zombie’, who, when ordered to stop by the police, turns, blood dripping from his face, and growls? Well, maybe. But so could any number of things. At present, there is no evidence that he took anything, let alone mephedrone. One policeman at the scene and one emergency-room doctor have speculated that this was the case, but toxicology tests are ongoing. As an aside, I have not found a single report that interviews someone other than Dr Paul Adams as a medical expert, which strikes me as a little peculiar, but maybe he’s simply the designated press contact for that hospital.Severe psychosis can sometimes bring about extremely violent behaviour, which could result in scenes like those in Miami. Sometimes psychotic episodes can occur while intoxicated on drugs, but this isn’t specific to mephedrone, or other legal highs. Intoxication psychoses have been reported for amphetamines and cannabis, but psychosis often occurs without any drug use. I don’t have a lot of information to go on (mainly the Daily Mail and CBS), and have no evidence for its accuracy, but reports about the man suggest he may have suffered from paranoia in the past, and had shown violent behaviour towards his girlfriends. Of course, this doesn’t mean he was psychotic, and equally it doesn’t mean that all psychotic people will be violent. Psychosis is a very complicated disorder, which can result from many different causes, and can manifest itself in a variety of ways.Until toxicology reports come back and more is known about what, if anything, this man took, speculation is really unhelpful, and sensationalising drug use could potentially make more people try an unregulated white powder, which could be anything.* I’m awaiting confirmation from an author of a paper that I can’t access that this is the case, it’s linked to on wiki as the citation for the story being a hoax…will update as and when.

If you haven’t heard or seen this site, you absolutely-have-to-check-it out sometime. (Although I get the feeling someone’s probably already posted about it….lemme know if someone haz ^^)It’s called What Should We Call Grad School over on Tumblr.So far, it’s one of the most creative forms of blogging I’ve seen (not that I go around blogs that much :/, so what do I know really?). Best of all, it’s a FANtastic way to waste time & procrastinate. All entries are gifs with one or two phrases that have a research/science twist, expressing the irony of what the author of the post feels. (gif = graphics interchange format = few seconds short animation). Grads around the web contribute by submitting their potentially funny gifs to the blogger who posts up a selection. Just a taste:Taken from the Site~Right when my research starts to go smoothly, WHAM!: Bycolorandnumber)There’s also an equally cheeky sister site called What should we call Med School here’s what they think about grads:For our Ph.D Friends out there“When I realized I should have gone to med school.”“It’s not too late!”

What is more entertaining that watching milk fall into coffee? The milk always forms such beautiful spiraling formations within the cup of coffee… and there are some real physics behind the mixing going on right there in your morning joe!TweetI enjoyed my own view of coffee mixing this morning… through the slow motion eyes of my camera! Check it out. Differences in temperature and density may contribute to the way my organic creamer mixes into my glass of chilled expresso.Did you know that it is very difficult to mix fluids together in very small volumes, like at the nanoscale (10^-9 liter volumes)? This is because at very small scales, for example in micro- or nano-sized fluid channels built into microfluidic chips, fluids tend to demonstrate laminar as opposed to turbulent flows. This means that when two fluids enter a channel from two inlet channels, they tend to stay side-by-side as they flow into the merged channel, mixing mostly only by diffusion of molecules from one fluid stream into the other.Laminar (left) vs. turbulent (right) flow. Microfluidic researchers have put much effort into designing structures that can help fluids mix together on the nanoscale, like serpentine channels, step-like grooves on channel bottoms, and votex-like structures. Schematic 3D diagrams of the three representative types of microfluidic mixers investigated in this study: Y channel mixer (A), 3D serpentine mixer (B), and vortex mixer ©. 2004 PNAS, the National Academy of Sciences.Fluids behave very differently indeed on the nanoscale! It would take you quite a while to mix milk into your coffee on the nanoscale!

by Ned RozellA flock of bar tailed godwits departs Alaska in September from Nelson Lagoon on the Alaska Peninsula.Photo by Bob Gill After flying northward from Chile, a whimbrel landed in late March in an alfalfa field near Mexicali, Mexico. The handsome shorebird with a long curved beak left its wintering ground in South America one week earlier and flew more than 5,000 miles. Nonstop. In one of the great migrations happening all over the world right now, the bird is heading to northern Alaska. Once there, it should touch down on tundra along the Colville River, about 25 miles inland from the Beaufort Sea coast. Bob Gill knows the location of the bird because he got a text message of its whereabouts on the same day he gave a presentation in Fairbanks. The bird biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Science Center in Anchorage reported on how changing conditions in the weather factory known as the atmosphere might affect whimbrels, godwits, curlews and other birds that make amazing, wind-aided journeys twice each year. For years Gill has traveled in autumn to estuaries along the Alaska Peninsula. While there, he has squinted into the wind and spitting rain of magnificent storms. Early in his studies of bar tailed godwits, Gill would be surprised to crawl from his tent and find his birds had disappeared. Now he knows the birds use the big storms to slingshot themselves out of Alaska. From here, the birds fly to New Zealand. They spend a week in the air without stopping, eating or drinking, losing half their body weight on the way. They might even snooze on the fly. Researchers have looked at weather patterns for the godwits’ departure from southwest Alaska and have found that the birds often begin their migration when a big low-pressure system is spinning counterclockwise into the Gulf of Alaska. The birds sit tight when the low sits in the Bering Sea, producing headwinds on a journey to the North Pacific. The birds’ ability to choose the right winds seems further supported by the work of the USGS’s Dave Douglas, who looked at the flight paths of 37 godwits the team had fitted with transmitters during the past six years. He found that a vast majority of the birds had tailwinds for the majority of their great migration route encircling the Pacific — from Alaska to New Zealand in fall, from New Zealand to the Yellow Sea in early spring, and from the Yellow Sea back to Alaska later in May.A pair of Arctic Terns.Photo by Dave DunfordIn another study, a researcher with the Max Plank Institute of Ornithology used weather data and a computer model to predict the fastest possible routes bristle-thighed curlews should take when migrating from Alaska’s Seward Peninsula to the South Pacific. “All but two curlews followed the optimum route to their destination,” Douglas said. How do birds manage to take off at the front end of weather systems and somehow ride the best conditions for thousands of miles? Scientists are not sure, Gill said, but the birds seem to be able to integrate changing local weather, such as wind direction and atmospheric pressure, into an excellent flight plan. At Gill’s presentation, National Weather Service meteorologist Gary Hufford said he wished he could recruit godwits to forecast the weather. Though the birds have an excellent track record, Douglas showed a few examples of godwits that faced severe headwinds on their journeys. One got caught in a fast-developing high-pressure system on its journey back from the Yellow Sea to Alaska. The bird got almost within sight of St. Paul Island when it gave up, turned around and flew back to Kamchatka. There, it rested a week before trying again and making it to Alaska (though the added time seemed to have prevented the female from raising a brood). Another godwit ran into a bit of bad luck in its transit from Alaska to New Zealand one fall. An “explosive cyclone” of high winds entrapped the bird, reducing its speed by half. The bird landed short of New Zealand, in New Caledonia, and was dead within a week. Gill and Douglas are now teaming with meteorologists and other scientists to see how large-scale changes in climate, such as more rogue storms, might affect these flyers. Gill wonders if the birds can change as fast as the climate seems to be, but he’s impressed by their resilience. “It’s intriguing to see these guys out there charging into those storms that we’re so afraid of,” Gill said. “These birds have been doing this for tens of thousands of years . . . I don’t think they’re truly as fragile as our anthropomorphic thinking might suggest.”.Find more on the Arctic’s Amazing Birds at Frontier ScientistsOriginally published in the Alaska Science Forum April 5, 2012 Article #2109 Wind-aided birds on their way north by Ned Rozell http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AlaskaScienceForum/article/wind-aided-birds-their-way-north"This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute."

I’m an avid eater of sandwiches – some might say I’m a connoisseur. If you blindfold me and give me a tuna mayo on white and a ham on brown, and I’ll tell you the difference straight away. If only You Bet was still on television. So, you’ll believe me when I say that I was absolutely ecstatic, chuffed, relieved, verb, when I found out that scientists – sorry, ‘boffins’ – have found the formula for making a perfect sandwich:“It just looks like a mathematics nightmare to us, but we are assured this set of squiggles is the holy grail to making the perfect sandwich.In principle, this formula will also describe the butter seeping into the bread, particularly as it warms up because D can depend upon temperature.{(∂v(x,t))/∂t+ v(x,t)∇.v(x,t)}= ∇p(x,t)+ μ∇^2 v(x,t)+ gAt the interfaces we have a physical and chemical reaction of absorption. The reaction rates depends upon the concentration in the air and the activation energy, Ea, and the area exposed to the air.”How cool is that? Now, that equation looks a little complicated, so in the interests of science, I felt compelled to test it out. That, and I really wanted to know what the perfect sandwich is.STEP 1:{(∂v(x,t))/∂t+ v(x,t)∇.v(x,t)}= ∇p(x,t)+ μ∇^2 v(x,t)+ gHmm. Er, okay, I think I need to start with bread – I guess one of those terms must mean ‘get bread’. Maybe the ‘g’. I don’t know.STEP 2: Okay, I’m lost. Thankfully, the press release has an outline of the process in a much easier-to-understand way.“Pressure: Don’t apply unnecessary pressure (the p(x,t) term) it squeezes out the water.”Got it. No pressure.No exams for you this summer, Mr Sammich! But the coursework deadlines still apply. Firm but fair, I think.STEP 3:Back to the boffins on this one: “Freshness: The equations describe the deterioration with time due to slow diffusion of the moisture, so eat your sandwich while it is fresh.”But I’ve not made it yet! Okay, I guess I’ll leave this until the end. Note to self: eat sandwich as soon as it is made.STEP 4: “Butter: Use a thick layer of butter, it is hydrophobic and keeps moisture away from the bread.”Now we’re getting somewhere.Thick layer of butter, tick. Next!STEP 5:“Moisture: Control the loss, or uptake, of moisture from the air into the bread:1. Butter protects the top.”More butter? Well, okay…“2. Crusts are good; they stop the edges drying out (φair < φbread) or going soggy (φbread < φair).”Well, I do like crusts. This seems to be getting silly now though…“3. Wrap the sandwich tightly to keep air away from the underneath – but don’t squeeze it of course.”Okay, I tried my best on this one, but if you’ve ever got a present from me, you know what I’m like with wrapping things, so I apologise if it’s not very good. Anyway, wrapped tightly, check. I didn’t know what the equation meant, so I went with wrapping paper, is that right?STEP 6:“Temperature: Most equations are temperature dependent particularly viscosity and absorption rates, keep it cool to reduce the reaction rates.”Keep it cool, got it.STEP 7:“Bread: Use the right bread, a thicker slice has a greater resistance to dampness and can’t dry out so quickly either.”Why wasn’t this step 1?! I’ve used completely the wrong bread! So close, yet so far. Oh well, it may not be the perfect sandwich, but I guess it’s pretty close:So there you have it, the formula for a perfect sandwich, in 7 easy steps. I must admit, my hopes are slightly dashed – I had hoped for some sort of filling, like tuna mayo with popping candy, or unicorn spam, or something. But I’m not an expert in these matters, so what do I know?No, I’ve not actually lost my mind. I intended to write a thoughtful post about how this type of churnalism makes us all look bad – scientists and journalists alike. I just didn’t know where to start. For a less silly commentary on the ridiculousness of “Scientists find a perfect formula for X”-type articles, see my old blog here, or Ben Goldacre’s column about Blue Monday here. In the meantime, scientists, next time someone asks you to be a boffin for a seasonal formula, try and maintain some self-respect and say no, ok?

Every year Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hold a conference to present scientific research carried out by their teams from different parts of the world. This year’s conference highlighted some of the strategic challenges facing MSF, and challenged some of our conceptions of medical humanitarian aid, and international development in light of groundbreaking digital technologies. We are as Paul Conneally passionately articulated in his keynote speech – Digital Humanitarian – ‘on the cusp of a global health revolution’. Some of the groundbreaking technologies touched upon included crisis mapping, a technology that is still in its infancy, and the era of big data. The possibilities of how healthcare and humanitarian aid will be transformed by the convergence of ideas and technologies were evident in the poster session; humanitarian technology applications showed refugee camps in Kenya being monitored using satellite imagery and a humanitarian field software kit called joekit. Of the talks demonstrating real world examples, a talk by Isabella Panunzi on teleradiology proved to be immensely inspiring. Isabella’s talk on her experience of applying teleradiology to improve diagnosis of tuberculosis in Thyolo District Hospital, Malawi showcased humanitarian innovation at its best. X-rays are taken at the Malawi hospital and the images are then sent to radiologists in the USA to interpret the images. As a result teleradiology has reduced critical delays and missed diagnosis of TB. This example of digital humanitarianism symbolises a small fraction of what can be potentially achieved in transforming our world. It opens up new possibilities in the transfer of technology and knowledge to the developing world. It also highlights the need for a different approach to modelling the strategic challenges of medical humanitarian aid and international development, and this is where complexity thinking and science can bring together different parts of problems and solutions to construct true holistic solutions. A talk by Jonathan Smith, lecturer in Global Health and Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale University, brought together the disciplines of the arts and sciences as he gave an inventive take on using research in the digital age. Visually documenting disease and connecting the ‘emotional component to epidemiological data’ is extremely powerful to create change in global health observed Jonathon, as he showed part of a documentary film he is directing, ‘They Go to Die’, a film about,bq. four former migrant gold minework­ers in South Africa and Swazi­land who have contracted drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) and HIV while working at the gold mine. When the miners fail to improve their TB status at the mining hospital, they are sent home to rural areas of South Africa often with no continuation of care or means for treatment. This practice is often referred to as “sending them home to die” by leading health officials. The film raises concerns of disease and human rights violations uniquely though the context of life, love, and family; unlike traditional health films, it focuses on relationships and bonding, not death and disease. It is a film of uniting across cultures and paints a portrait of common humanity. Jonathon is spearheading the Visual Epidemiology Project, a really exciting project ‘that will integrate sensory engagement (film, artistry) with academic discourse’ and ‘produce future academically valid documentaries on other global health issues.’ I feel like picking up a film camera.

Hey there! Just to let you know, I’ve copied all my posts (and their comments) to my own domain, easternblot.net, where I also added all the posts from my science/music blog, and some other content. It was time to get some of my dispersed blogginess back on the same site, so I’m back on my own domain, where I started. (Okay, that’s not entirely true. I started on a university website and then on Geocities just like everyone else did in the nineties. And every day we had to hand-crank the server, uphill, in the snow. And then we had to chisel our html into stone tablets, and then carry them on horseback.)There is a separate tab on easternblot.net where all the Expression Patterns posts are. Any new posts will appear on easternblot on the main site, with the science/music posts, and with some other, entirely non-scientific, content. Hope to see you there! P.S. I am amusing myself by selecting the “leaving the lab” and “travel” categories for this post.

The office that I worked in a few years ago had a window that opened onto the main University of Sheffield concourse. Every so often, lunchtimes would be enlivened by a student protest (typically over fees), during which someone with a megaphone would shout a lot. I remember clearly being struck with the thought, “I wonder if anyone has ever changed their mind about anything as a result of something they heard through a megaphone?”It certainly doesn’t work on me. Even if I broadly agree with the shouty person, the louder they shout the more inclined I am to pick holes in their argument. It is a character trait of mine, I’m not sure if you would call it a flaw or a virtue, that I hate being told what to do and, especially, what to think.All of this explains, perhaps, my ambivalence towards Open Access (OA) publishing. I don’t like being told where I can and can’t publish. I distrust zealots, including well-resourced single-issue campaign groups which will hear no alternative views, which present shades of grey as simple black/white dichotomies, and which (a pet hate) bandy around variants on that tabloid favourite ‘tax-payers’ money’ (when they mean ‘public money’). I worry about people being pressurised into publishing in inappropriate journals, or – if they decide to stick with a non-AO journal, for whatever reason – not receiving the quality of review they deserve because of misguided boycotts. I don’t appreciate non-scientists in the media wading in with their ’aren’t you silly, you’ve been doing this all wrong for decades’ line. And I’m wary of the creeping sense – by no means restricted to science – that content should always be free, regardless of the costs involved in producing it. I’m not comfortable with the big publishers making huge profits from the outputs of science, but I also recognise that good publishers (and their employees) have done, and continue to do a terrific job to ensure the effective communication of science.Of course, there is a more nuanced debate going on underneath the bluster. From what I see on Twitter, today’s debate at Imperial seems to be a good example (#OAdebate). Some very clever and thoughtful people have weighed things up and come down on the side of OA. And I’m not even sure that I don’t agree with them. Certainly, I am all in favour of the broader Open Science agenda – opening up the data we produce, and the tools we use to access and analyse it. But I remain to be convinced that access to primary research papers is such a big issue that it should be pushed above all else (partly because, with a bit of effort or an email or two, it’s usually possible to access most recent papers), and that all of this energy should be focused on it (whilst overlooking the interesting and potentially profound financial and sociological implications for scientists and their institutions).My beef is not at all with OA, but rather in the way that the debate has been framed in terms of good and evil, right and wrong (not a million miles from the ongoing GM debate). Subscription-based (reader pays) publication of publicly-funded research costs public money, and has pros and cons. OA (author pays) publication of publicly funded-research costs public money, and has pros and cons. A shift to OA will not (I’m pretty certain) be accompanied by an injection of new cash, but will rather see a shift from funding infrastructure (especially libraries) to funding individuals (e.g. through research grants). And the debate should be on how best we spend limited public money to communicate the outputs of research in the most effective way. It could be that making all primary research available to everyone is the way to do this (although I don’t think accessing papers is quite so difficult as some would have us believe; and in any case, the readership for the vast majority of papers is tiny). It could be that we’d be better advised to concentrate on more effective communication of key results in other formats, or in making other products of our research (especially data) more widely available. Even if we hold OA as something to aspire to, I feel that blindly pushing it as a top priority risks sidelining more important debates about opening up science.So thanks, but I won’t be signing any petitions just now.

SUMMARY: Just how small are atoms? And what’s inside them? Just how small are atoms? And what’s inside them? The answers turn out to be astounding, even for those who think they know. This fast-paced video animation uses spectacular metaphors (imagine a blueberry the size of a football stadium!) to give a visceral sense of the building blocks that make our world.

SUMMARY: How do sea creatures get their start in life? This wonderful video explores that theme, bringing you stunning looks at these gorgeous animalsScreengrab. “Don’t let my calmadult exterior fool you;I was a rocket shipI was a wild child.”Where do squid, jellyfish and other sea creatures begin life? The story of a sea urchin reveals a stunningly beautiful saga of fertilization, development and growth in the ocean depths. This video combines lovely imagery with science and poetic narration to tell you about the early life of a sea urchin:

Laura Nielsen for Frontier ScientistsDeep under a frozen lake in Siberia, Russia, lies a researcher’s gold: an astounding record of past climates preserved in untouched layers of lake bed sediment. In 2009 an international team of scientists headed to Lake El’gygytgyn (pronounced El’geegitgin). They perched specialized drilling equipment atop the icy lake surface and drilled down. At the bottom of the lake as much as a quarter mile (1,312 feet) of sediment awaited them atop the site of a monster meteorite impact. That sediment, withdrawn in cores and shipped to labs in Germany for close scrutiny, represents a continuous record of past Arctic conditions going back 3.6 million years. The more complete picture of paleoclimate it forms will help scientists understand how and why Earth’s climate changed in the past, and give them better tools for predicting the future.An international team of scientists from the United States, Russia, Germany and Austria undertook this geological drilling project as part of the International Continental Drilling Program. The U.S. research team was led by Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and included doctoral student Kenna Wilkie and PolarTREC teacher Tim Martin. The diverse team of scientists faced no easy task- six months of hard work in Northeast Siberia during winter. The team hired converted tanks to pull drilling platforms to the extremely remote lake (62 miles north of the Arctic Circle), chartered temperature-controlled cargo planes to safely move the sediment core samples back to specialized labs, and lived in temporary housing atop ice. It was all so they could collect excellent samples: the longest sediment core samples retrieved from the Arctic region. Their successful expedition showcased international scientific cooperation and provided one-of-a-kind data for the scientific community. The project was funded in part by the National Science Foundation: the NSF Division of Earth Sciences and also the NSF Office of Polar Programs. It is said that location is everything, and that is certainly true for Lake El’gygytgyn (El’geegitgin). The lake, 7.5 miles wide and 558 feet deep, rests in the middle of a large impact crater formed 3.6 million years ago when a meteor slammed into the Earth. The region in present-day Russia it struck was part of Beringia, the great land bridge which spanned the ocean between Asia and North America. The area was never glaciated. Accordingly, it wasn’t scoured or covered over by crawling ice. Ever since the meteorite struck, the basin where Lake El’gygytgyn rests has accumulated sediment: drifts of pollen, decomposing plant matter, ash from fires or volcanic activity, and other debris. With these samples, the scientists can measure radioactivity, magnetic and sonic properties, electrical resistance, and much more. Like vertical timelines, the striated sediment cores withdrawn from the lake-bed are capable of telling stories about the world. Lake El’gygytgyn is a gem, holding an undisturbed, continuous uninterrupted sediment sequence which has accumulated for the past 3.6 million years.“Earth’s warm and cold cycles over the past one million years varied every 100,000 years at times. Before that, however, climate change, especially in high latitudes, varied over 41,000- and 23,000-year cycles. The record from Lake E will show the ramp up to that type of change in the Earth’s climate.” ~ Julie Brigham-Grette*Today Siberia and the Arctic are notoriously cold. The meteorite struck during the warmer Pliocene era, when mammoths, giant ground sloths, and early hominins still roamed the earth. During the Pliocene the area supported a heavily forested ecosystem. Hopefully through research we can fully understand the causes of Arctic climate shift toward a cold permafrost ecosystem some 2 two 3 million years ago. What influences forced such a dramatic change? Understanding that, and comparing past Arctic climate change to paleoclimate records of change that occurred in the rest of the world, will help form more complete climate models. Sediment cores, marine sediment cores, and ice cores all contribute data to an increasingly complex climate map. Climate modeling can help us systematically analyze the past, and predict what will happen as the present-day global climate continues to shift.Our ability to inform policy makers about global/regional climate and related environmental change and its uncertainties depends on our capacity to understand the role of the Arctic region in modulating past periods of change under different climate forcing conditions. ~ Julie Brigham-Grette**While ice cores collected from the Greenland Ice Sheet are long enough to detail about 110,000 years, the sediment cores from Lake El’gygytgyn (El’geegitgin) map 30x more… nearly 3,600,000 years. The undivided core is nearly 1165 feet long (similar to the Empire State Building’s top floor at 1250 feet). It is an unprecedented time-continuous terrestrial record of Arctic conditions. I31 feet of core is from the warm middle Pliocene era- when there was no permanent sea ice in the Arctic Ocean- which may represent an analog for the climate not-too-distant humans will face..While most of the core samples were drilled from the lake bed, an additional borehole was cored at the western edge of Lake El’gygytgyn. The borehole was fitted with instruments to monitor ground temperatures and will continue to contribute to the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost.Read more on Permafrost & Arctic Climate Change Watch at Frontier Scientists.References:* El’gygytgyn press release NSF** Lake El’gygytgyn’s emerging IPY record of Pliocene to recent Arctic change Julie Brigham-GretteLake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project DOSECC Drilling, Observation and Sampling of the Earths Continental CrustThe Thrill to Drill in the Chill IPY International Polar YearGeologic Climate Research in Siberia Tim Martin with PolarTRECTeam led by UMass Amherst Scientists Drills Deep into the Arctic for Climate Change Insights UMassAmherstDrilling success summary May 2009 UMassAmherst

For an economics student, understanding the difference between real and nominal interest rates is pretty important.Nominal interest rates are the headline rate given in on a loan or debt. For example, a mortgage might charge a fixed nominal interest rate of 3.5%.However, over time inflation, a rise in the general price level erodes the value of the pound. A year ago £1 would buy more goods than it does today. In the year to April, the Office of National Statistics estimated that the average increase in the consumer price index was 3%. So in terms of goods and services a pound in 2012 was worth 3% less than a pound in 2011. This matters for debts and investments.Real interest rates refer to the interest rates on debt after taking into account the effects of inflation. So if inflation is 5% and the interest on a debt is 4% then the real interest rate is -1%. This means that after a year the lender’s investment would buy 1% fewer goods and services.Currently the government can borrow at very low interest rates. The nominal interest rate on government debt due in 30 years is 3.2%. But, this ignores the effect of inflation, which each year erodes the value of the debt. The government also issues debt which is indexed to inflation. These bonds are traded, and provide an indication of the real interest rates at which the UK government can borrow. The Debt Management Office reports that for debt due in 2062, the real interest rate is -0.008%. This means investors are willing to lend to the UK government at negative real interest rates over 50 years. In terms of goods and services, investors in these bonds are guaranteed to get less in 2062 than they lent today.These low interest rates are not simply due to quantitative easing. Real interest rates have steadily declined for the last 20 years: Source: The Bank of England.Why does this matter? The real interest is used to make investment decisions. The Treasury evaluates its investment decisions using a real interest rate of 3.5%.This over estimates the cost of investment. For instance, if the government was evaluating an investment of £6bn over 30 years, and they assumed a 3.5% real interest rate, and they paid back £200m in real terms of the capital each year. The total costs of the borrowing would be £9.25bn, £6bn in capital and £3.25bn in interest payments. However, if they used the real interest rate that the government can actually borrow at, -0.016%, the total costs would only be £5.99bn. By using the wrong discount rate the treasury over estimates the costs of investment by over 50%.This reduces the number of public sector investments which will be cost effective, so public sector investment will be lower. Indeed, the Government has dramatically lowered public sector investment from £52bn in 2009/10 to £29bn in 2011/12 in 2012 prices. Is this sensible when the government can borrow at negative real interest rates?Unfortunately, this distinction between nominal and real interest rates is not always well understood, even by the economics editor of The Sunday Times, David Smith. He argued that nominal interest rates should be used to evaluate investments. Economist Jonathan Portes was rather scathing:"he genuinely doesn’t understand the government’s intertemporal budget constraint – a standard identity, taught in any decent graduate macro or public finance course "It’s hard to escape the conclusion that reading The Times will actually make you less informed about the functioning of the economy.Be careful who you read, not all economics commentators are created equal.

I am provoked into re-addressing the defensive decrying of secularist critique of what the prominent faithful hold dear (ie relevance through political influence), as promulgated by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor who last week visited my hometown to speak ‘on the threats facing Christianity in modern Britain.’Having read the text of his address, I wrote to the Leicester Mercury to inquire: ‘Can I ask… has, or will, the Leicester Mercury ran/be running an item on Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s address at Leicester Cathedral last Tuesday evening?’ Unsurprisingly, I heard nothing back. So I don’t know. And can only assume they would not welcome a piece criticising the Cardinal – no matter how warranted.Well, let’s have a look, shall we?It’s a long speech, so I won’t waste your time scoffing at his introductory comments on the Enlightenment. Rather, further to my recent dissing of Baroness Warsi egregious, Vatican-fawning, mis-representation of secularism and secularists, what chiefly concerns is the derogatory public portrayal of those who (justifiably) object to the undue clout he and his ilk retain, as sanctioned by our childish ‘constitution’. Having already assumed the moral high ground, Murphy-O’Connor claims:bq. ‘No one is forced to be a Christian. But no one should be forced to live according to the new secular religion as if it alone were definitive and obligatory for all humankind.’Nevermind the questionability of the first part of that statement, this just drips with paranoid hypocrisy. Definitive and obligatory? From a pillar of the Catholic Church, that is quite breath-taking in its shamelessness. The figurative labelling of secularism as a religion, reducing the argument then to merely an inter-faith bickering contest, wherefrom he can continue the theme:bq. ‘The propaganda of secularism and its high priests wants us to believe that religion is dangerous for our health. It suits them to have no opposition to their vision of a brave new world, the world which they see as somehow governed only by people like themselves.’Propaganda? What, like this? And isn’t the association with the science-fiction dystopia of ‘brave new world’ interesting, following his Enlightenment-resenting pre-amble? Science without the moral underpinning of faith: dangerous, eh? How trite; how bereft of answers from someone who is supposedly ordained to provide the way to them…bq. ‘Indeed, in the last century, most violence is perpetrated by secular states upon their own people. It was secular and totalitarian authorities of the last century that exercised horrific violence and tried to subject their citizens to their own destructive philosophies.’Here we go again. Why do these fanatics keep doing this? An educated man, able to draw upon all those smartly inserted theological and philosophical quotations, wilfully misrepresenting the definition of secular, which he deliberately conflates with the atheism he considers “the greatest of evils.” The implication that secularists and/or atheists are unavoidably of a Maoist/Nazi/Stalinist mindset. Why is no-one in authority slapping him down for uttering this tosh and having him charged under (hopefully soon to be revoked) Section 5 of the Public Order Act? (I’m being ironic here, in case you don’t read me so.) Because ‘His Eminence’ is… eminent, and is thus, with our PM’s endorsement, free to abuse his sacerdotal position to denigrate both secularists and atheists as " not fully human."bq. ‘What such people don’t realise is that true freedom only exists within constraints; and far from expanding freedom, unconstrained liberalism leads straight to abuses of power. We can see this from the logical false faiths that are filling the vacuum.’Abuses of power? Let’s not open that file. Christianity being the only true faith, right? (And Catholicism presumably the only true denomination, but best not mention that when speaking as guest in an Anglican cathedral.) I would be interested to learn from the Cardinal of his criteria for labelling a faith as ‘logically false’ when his tactic employs more logical fallacies than a Vulcan following a bang on the head.bq. ‘I have tried to say what ways we should stand up against the encroaching militant secularism and the consequences of its creed. It requires much more than solving our economic problems because it requires us to discover again who we are and to unmask the god or gods we follow.’He affects to speak on behalf of all faiths (including the ‘false’ polytheistic ones, although not ‘the new secular religion’ ), but he isn’t really. This, it strikes me, is all an obfuscating ploy to maintain establishment significance, and to detract from certain other issues which it is hoped have gone quiet. The stock mantra of assertions (now) implicating secularism (previously atheism) for… pretty much anything ‘sinful.’Despite the grudging token acknowledgement that ‘No one could deny and should deny the great advances that the Enlightenment has made from which we still benefit today’, it is the Enlightenment he considers sowed the seeds of secularism: ’One objective of the Enlightenment was, however, to relegate religion to the private sector.’ ‘Objective’?! So it failed, then? Forgive my confusion.