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2019 Week 29: Front Page News

Short version: I summarise and share thoughts on articles from the covers of current editions of high impact journals. I ran late at night and it was serene.

Long version:

Front Page Science

Human knowledge is vast, and discovering is more difficult than learning from others what was discovered before. This explanation of what a PhD is visualises that point. Scientists need to communicate with each other about their results, and do so by publishing articles collected and edited by journals. Today with journals available online it is rare to open a physical periodical rather than read individual articles digitally (or printed one by one). Those hard copy collections still exist, and necessarily they have a front cover. This week I looked up the covers of some high impact journals (see below), read the related article, and wrote down my thoughts.

Snooze Report
On the cover of Nature.
This paper studies sleep in Zebrafish. While we all sleep, it is a complicated process with many aspects still not understood. Zebrafish are a model organism, that is they can be used as a substitute for understanding processes in humans, and have been studied extensively. Zebrafish are known to sleep based on behavioural criteria (essentially they stop moving for a while for regular periods), but it is hard to compare Zebrafish sleep to humans (or mammals in general) in a more detailed way. This is because sleep is studied in humans by looking at electrical signals from the brain (via electroencephalograms or EEG), but fish do not have a similar part of the brain (the neocortex) where human sleep signals are recorded. The team behind this paper, mostly from Stanford, used a light microscope based method to look at Zebrafish brains while they slept, and discovered two sleep signatures that they call “slow bursting sleep” and “propagating wave sleep” that they claim to be similar to our “slow-wave sleep” and “rapid eye movement sleep“.

Artificial Muscles
On the cover of Science
Much of science and engineering aims to replicate nature, be it materials (the first plastics replaced natural materials like silk and ivory), phenomena (electric lighting replacing flames), or biological feats (aircraft allowing human flight). Being able to artificially produce the mechanical properties of muscle (fibres that can contract) is important for robotics and prosthetics that more accurately mimic what natural creatures can do. This group, mostly from MIT, have created fibres that can lift 650 times their weight, and withstand thousands of cycles.

African Killifishes
On the cover of Cell
The advances made in DNA sequencing accelerated rapidly, and whole genome sequencing is now routinely available to researchers. This research team studied the genetic code of 45 killifish species to better understand the relationship between genes and life span. Killifishes have a range of life spans due to species diversifying and adapting to different environments. Killifish with shorter lives tended to have more genetic code, including both more redundant code and more detrimental mutations.

Controlled patterning of stem cell cultures
On the cover of Nature Methods
Three key concepts underpin this paper: Stem cells are cells that can become other types of cells. Morphogens are chemicals that, through their distribution, influence how cells develop, and eventually leads to the organisation of different types of cells in complex organisms. Microfluidics is the process of handling very small amounts of liquid. Those three come together in this method that explains how using a microfluidic device to introduce morphogens in a gradient over stem cells alters the patterns that they develop.

Atomistic Simulations of Membrane Ion Channel Conduction, Gating, and Modulation
On the cover of ACS Chemical Reviews
Reviews are an intermediate type of publication between cutting edge research and established science found in textbooks. This paper covers computer simulations of membrane ion channels, and is a comprehensive 72 pages (excluding the 923 references). Membrane ion channels are important for electrical activity in biological systems, i.e. the nervous system. Computer simulations have become increasingly important in chemistry, made particularly famous in 2013.

A one-dimensional individual-based mechanical model of cell movement in heterogeneous tissues and its coarse-grained approximation
On the cover of Proceedings of the Royal Society A
My mathematical understanding is far from the frontiers of mathematical research, and so I don’t often read papers from mathematicians. This paper presents a model, that is a mathematical representation, for cell movement in tissue. The power of mathematics, and of models, is to be able to generalise from limited information. In this case the hope is a generalised model might inform a better understanding of disease.

Guiding spin waves in artificial antiferromagnets
On the cover of Nature nanotechnology
Spin is a fundamental property of subatomic particles, such as electrons. Magnetism is a directly observable consequence of spin, in a similar way to static electricity being a directly observable consequence of charge. We manipulate charge in conventional electronic devices, and spintronics aims to manipulate spin in a similar way. This paper describes spin-waves being controlled, and is a step towards more complex applications of spin.

Rapid Plant DNA Extraction
On the cover of ACS Nano
The paper describes a method for extracting the DNA from plants using a patch covered in hundreds of sub-millimeter needles. This reduces a multi hour chemical extraction to a few minutes work.

Nanopore metagenomics enables rapid clinical diagnosis of bacterial lower respiratory infection
On the cover of Nature biotechnology
Oxford Nanopore, like ONI, is a spin out of Oxford University. They develop a device for rapid and portable DNA sequencing. In this paper they apply that technology to diagnosing bacteria in respiratory infections. Conventional identification by growing the bacteria taken from a patient sample takes 2-3 days, whereas the Nanopore method could give results in a few hours.

Night Runs

Early this week I wanted a long run, but only had time to start at midnight. I decided to go for it, and found I really enjoyed the quiet streets. Particularly the lack of vehicle traffic meant I could run on the road. Even having the whole footpath to myself the alternating sloping driveways and flat footpath required attention, while the smooth asphalt gave me space to get lost in my thoughts. I had decided to run unplugged, without music or a podcast, and even turned off the backlight on my watch, setting the pace purely on feel. After the first few kilometres I found a rhythm and just listened to my foot fall, soaking in the serenity. An additional fun moment was running through some road works barricades, which gave me the impression of being on the course of a race.

Photos from the Week

  • Oxford Canal
  • River Avon
  • Bradford upon Avon
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2019 Week 28: Notes, Hours, Kids

Short version: This week I returned to studying, worked some long hours, and had my usual running routes blocked by some very wealthy children.

Long version:

Taking Notes on Laptop vs Paper

I started a molecular biology MOOC. The beginning of the course suggested note taking on paper is more effective, and cited this study. It was persuasive, but I will continue to mostly work digitally. I justify this by the ease of carrying, organising, and searching digital notes being more convenient than paper systems. This reminds me of the observation that smart-phone-toting-always-online-humans are effectively cyborgs, with tremendous capabilities for memory, problem solving, and long distance communication. That said, I do find scrap paper to sketch diagrams very helpful in the initial learning.

Working Long Hours

There are many professions that are associated with working long hours; truck drivers, doctors, bankers, and the whole culture of Japanese salarymen. Of scientists, organic chemists seem to work particularly long hours, and anecdotally there is life in the Chemistry Research Laboratory no matter when I pass by. Working in an ambitious startup can involve challenging schedules; Elon Musk suggested in a tweet 80-100 hours are needed to “change the world”.

This week I performed some long experiments, and was complimented by colleagues on being able to sustain energy and remain positive throughout. On reflection I think maintaining good physical health (via exercise and diet) plays a significant part. Avoiding insulin spikes from binging sugar helps, even though appetite will increase during the small hours from sleep deprivation. Knowing how long you need to keep going and spacing caffeinated drinks across that time helps too. Importantly I have learned that some sleep is better than none. To prevent a heavy workload from becoming impossible; minimise unnecessary tasks and focus on completing only what is needed, then recovering (sleeping). Finally it is important to account for a diminished capacity when planning. As you tire speed of work decreases and rate of mistakes increases. Thankfully I am part of a very dedicated and supportive team, and so we are able to work together to ensure the experiments run to plan.

Flood of Children

The University of Oxford has prestige which, beyond the university itself, is used by businesses to create demand and profit. Tutoring school aged students is such a business. Summer programs run by groups unaffiliated with the university (but often using holiday vacated undergraduate accommodation) bring hundreds of teenagers to Oxford for courses costing thousands of pounds. The associated walking tours lead to pedestrian congestion as the children are shepherded around the city center (pictured below).

Photos from the Week

  • A beautiful run 1
  • A beautiful run 2
  • Poppy
  • River Thames
  • Flood of Children
  • Cygnets
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2019 Week 27: Socratic method

Short version: This week I had a couple of students in the lab for work experience, and it reminded me how much I enjoy teaching. Some thoughts.

Long version:

Socratic Method

One of the joys of my education was being repeatedly challenged to answer questions that I didn’t know the answer to. I found this an incredibly powerful way to learn both information and problem solving skills. It requires capable teachers with time to be able to explore each student’s individual thinking, as well as confident students.

Students are used to being tested on content they ought to have learned, being praised for preparing and chastised for a lack of practice. Thus it can be disquieting for them to be confronted with a question they have not prepared for. Post-education this is not very useful when working in science, where questions need to be answered that have not been answered before.

A wonderful example of taking relatively common experiences and following a path of questions and answers is “Fun to imagine“, an armchair conversation with Richard Feynman.

Science through fresh eyes

There is an XKCD comic for many situations, and one such specific situation is that there will always be many people who have yet to learn something you take for granted. In the lab, my team and I get to take for granted the understanding of many scientific concepts. However, through the eyes of inexperienced students the mundane becomes new. This is easily seen as a weakness of the students, but it is also joyful to see tools and ideas I take for granted be seen as exciting and new.

A good example of this is Pendulum Waves, which was demonstrated at the Cowley Carnival (see below).

Confidence

If you play these games of asking and attempting to answer questions, often your guesses will be wrong. In order to persist and learn you must enjoy the game, and therefore you must be able to enjoy being wrong. CGP Grey summaries it well: “if you want to always be right, you have to always be prepared to change your mind”.

Photos from the Week

  • Berries
  • Freight Train
  • Pendulum Waves
  • Joyful Street Dance
  • Crowds to the Spire
  • Drummers at Church
  • Cowley Road Carnival Car Sculpture
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2019 Week 24: Vitamins

Short version: Vitamins are important, but confusing. I am learning to row.

Long version:

Vital Amines

The discovery of chemicals needed to sustain animals (including humans) other than minerals (e.g. salt) and the three macro-nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fats) is described in this paper. The term vitamins itself was coined by Casimir Funk who formed the portmanteau from Vital Amines. Particularly interesting to me was learning that the advent of the highly useful germ theory of disease led to the assumption that conditions caused by vitamin deficits (e.g. scurvy) were also caused by unknown pathogens, resulting in debates around the existence of these other nutritional compounds. The Wikipedia list of vitamins gives some chemical and medical insight into vitamins. Historically it seems that improvements in chemical extraction, purification, and structural determination led to the intermediate letter based classification we still use today, despite a more precise chemical understanding of these compounds having been achieved.

Also, multivitamins probably don’t do anything useful. Although, in the UK Vitamin D supplementation is useful in certain circumstances, especially winter.

Learning to Row

I am learning to row with City of Oxford Rowing Club. This was the second week of the six week beginners program, and below are photos of our second outing.

Photos from the Week

  • Rowing 1
  • Rowing 2
  • Rowing 3
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2019 Week 14: Global Travel

Short version: I travelled from Oxford to Sydney and back within a week. That is incredible, but sadly places huge costs on the environment.

Long version:

Planetary Commute

Antipodes
This week I needed to be in Sydney for one day. To make the round trip in a week, about half the time is spent varyingly on flights and in airports. This left plenty of time to marvel at how trivial it now is to travel around the entire planet. Sydney is close to being on the opposite side of the planet (the antipode) to Oxford, so the total journey of 16,983 km is not far off the maximum distance two points can be from each other on the surface of the earth (approximately 20,000 km). Interestingly that antipodal distance is slightly less than half the 40,075 km equatorial circumference, due to the deformations in the shape of the earth. I was unable to easily find an exact calculation of the furthest two points on earth, due to errors in the data set, and the ever changing shape of the planet.

Kangaroo Route
When the British set out to colonise Australia, the trip took took 252 days. That trip can now be done commercially in less than 25 hours. (I had a longer layover that brought it closer to 30 hours). The magazine Air & Space recounts the history of this London to Sydney “Kangaroo route”.

Jet lag
Drastic changes in timezone leave an effect on the body. The NHS points out “There’s no treatment for jet lag“, but it does give helpful advice, such as attempting to move your sleep/wake cycle in sync earlier. While searching for papers on jet lag I found one on social jet lag and student performance that mines university logins. I found the charts classifying students based on chronotype interesting.

Fuel Efficiency and Carbon Impact
Passengers in a 747-400 have a fuel efficiency of about 3.1 L/100 km vs 10 L/100 km for cars. So a car with three people and a typical flight have the same carbon impact over the same distance. Thus my out and back journey consumed about 1000 L of fuel, producing 2500 kg of carbon dioxide. This is similar to the carbon emissions for a year of either eating a 75g hamburger per day, or heating a UK home.

Airborne Population (Fermi Problem)

With increasing demand and decreasing costs of air transport, at any point in time there is a proportion of the population on flights. Three ways of estimating this population:

Extrapolate from a single data point
If I assume everyone flies as frequently as I do (2 days per year, and multiply by the approximately 7 billion population on earth, that gives 14 billion flying days. Dividing this by the days in a year gives about 400,000,000 airborne people at any given time. Intuitively seems very high; it reflects my financial privilege that I fly much more than the average person.

Make a set of intuitive assumptions
Taking the following rough guesses: 1. all the flying is done by the wealthiest billion people 2. for every million of these people there is an airport where 3. a flight takes off every 15 minutes, 4. those flights last two hours, and 5. seat 500 people.
Calculations: (flight duration = 2 hours) ÷ (flight frequency = 0.25 hours) × (airports = 1000) × (passengers per flight = 500) = 4,000,000 airborne people at any time. This result seems more realistic, and fits intuitions that very large cities of many millions tend to have multiple airports, or large airports with multiple runways. Flights might run longer, but also less frequently over the night. Some large aircraft can carry more than 500, but are fewer and travel longer routes.

Use one highly relevant fact
Looking up a key fact, that there are 700,000,000,000 Revenue Passenger Kilometres flown per month, and knowing that the cruising speed for jets is about 900 km/h. Allows the simple calculations (distance travelled per month) ÷ (speed) ÷ (hours per month) gives an approximation of 1,000,000 airborne people at any time.

General Notes
Time of day and season would cause the actual number to vary significantly with time. Particularly peak travel periods around regional holidays (e.g. Thanksgiving, Diwali, Chinese New Year).

Photo from the Week

An Airbus A330-243 in Chengdu China, the layover on my journey to Sydney.
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2019 Week 13: Tech

Short version: Technology is amazing. Cycling can be dangerous.

Long version:

Scientific Tech

Technology is amazing, and as a scientist I am very lucky to work with some of the latest, most advanced, and highest tech machines that exist. Sharing that excitement can be difficult however, as being able to measure with very high precision is not a particularly visual phenomenon. Manipulating the protein and nucleic acid building blocks of life is challenging and rewarding, but ultimately happens in drops of water that, to the naked eye, are indistinguishable to those from a mundane context.

Occasionally I have given tours of laboratories, and often I feel the equipment and materials present must be underwhelming to the visitor. The reality of science, when compared with science fiction, requires the machines we use to be simple, robust, and compatible with the rest of the lab. For example, transparent equipment with bright flashing lights is great for setting up interesting shots in a movie, but when experimental conditions need to be carefully controlled, simple refrigerator-like boxes are often the better solution.

The prevalence of powerful modern technology means that what is captivating tends to be a common phenomenon presented in an unusual context. Glowing materials can be striking (and an inaccurate representation of nuclear radiation in cinema) since most objects do not naturally emit (visible) light (at standard temperatures), but emission of light is a pretty routine phenomenon (you’re reading this on a glowing screen). In the context of the lab, a fluorescent tube or a glow stick might seem to have some high tech implication, but in an office or a disco, they are common. Similarly it is often a climactic point in a characters mastery of magical powers to lift an object with their mind, but a forklift or crane is somehow much less the substance of fantasy.

A few particularly exciting instruments I’ve had the privilege to work with:

Consumer Tech

I enjoy consumer technology, and fondly recall walking the cavernous trade show floor at CES. The sheer volume of sales of consumer devices helps to dilute the cost of design work, both in physical hardware and in virtual interfaces. The result is that the aesthetic experience of using a consumer device is often significantly better than that of a technologically more advanced scientific device. Youtubers like Lisa Gade, Marques Brownlee, and Dave Lee share the experience of the latest consumer devices, but I often feel conflicted watching such video. While fun, such content feeds into unnecessary marketing driven consumption that I is a social and environmental blight. I also find sports gadgetry a compelling source of procrastination, e.g. DcRainmaker‘s blog.

Safe Cycling

In March while cycling I was involved in a collision on the way to work. Luckily I came away with only very minor injuries. It is a useful reminder that there are risks to using the roads, and that those risks can be minimised. Three thoughts:

Have your kit in order:
Wear a helmet. Large meta-studies say they help. Doctors in emergency departments have told me they help. Bicycle helmets have saved me from major head injuries at least three times. Making sure they fit is important. After damage replace them.
Check that your brakes are working and work well, and practise stopping hard, especially in difficult conditions like downhill or in the wet.
Wear visible clothing. You need to be seen.

Ride like you are invisible:
Even when wearing high visibility clothing and using lights, it should be assumed that cars cannot see you. Even in cities where cycling is less common, drivers might only be looking out for cars and miss cyclists, something that’s particularly common when waiting to turn across traffic. Cars have a physical structure that can create blind spots. Many drivers are distracted by phones or passengers, especially when travelling at lower speeds or through slow moving traffic. Ultimately, the risks you take by assuming you will be seen by other cars can be minimised, even if it ought to be the responsibility of the drivers.

Organ Donation:
If you lost your life in an accident today, I would be devastated. But a sad day is worse if someone else misses their chance to live because we didn’t submit a trivial form. Please sign up to be an organ donor: Australians UK USA

Photos from the Week

  • 1930s Sedan
  • Carnival games emulate video games
  • Maintenance in Oxford reveals road cross section
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2019 Week 10: Fitness in Science

Short version: I grew up thinking science-y people weren’t fit, but there is plenty of fitness in science, and scientific reasons to keep fit. I share some thoughts on anatomy, metrics, protein powder, and astronauts.

Long version:

Personal Observations

I remember thinking of exercise as inherently a waste of time; why would you ever want to run in circles and just end up at the same place? I’m sure this was in part informed by the media I consumed growing up; portraying the stereotypical nerd as being interested in mathematics, science, technology, along with a lack of physical fitness (also, in retrospect, portraying very fit people as not particularly bright). I identified with those archetypes and spurned exercise through much of school, as did many of my peers. It was later in life that I realised improving cardiovascular endurance was important to health. Starting to run I discovered the joy of Runner’s High. A competitive mindset and an internship in an anti-doping laboratory led me to build regular exercise into my routine, something I’ve enjoyed maintaining for the past few years.

Athletes’ Anatomy

Athletes setting world records are obviously different from the norm. Skill, dedication, talent, training, and genetics all contribute. I find conversations about athletes success tend to drift towards the genetic element, perhaps the intrigue is due to the allure of quantifying potential, or perhaps it provides a comforting fatalism for the undertrained. Most likely it is interesting simply because it is poorly understood compared with the simplicity of regular training or perceptible skill.

David Epstein gave a TED talk in 2014 where he shared a number of facts about the nature of athletes’ physicality. It particularly stood out to me that a transition in sport occurred (in parallel with the rise of broadcast media) from favouring a generalist body type of average proportions, to a plurality of extremes. One of the most memorable statistics is that Hicham El Guerrouj and Michael Phelps, who differ in height by 17 cm, have the same length legs (running advantages longer legs proportional to height, whereas swimming is the opposite). These characteristics are difficult to change: no amount of training will allow these two to exchange their body type. Training can however alter different aspects of the body to similar extremes.

Physiological adaptations from training can be as radical as the size difference between NBA basketball players and Olympic gymnasts. Specifically, athletes’ hearts really are significantly bigger than those of the untrained population (particularly endurance athletes). The body responds to stress, and the process of repeated exertion to influence adaptations that increase performance for a given activity is the basis of all training. When I worked in anti-doping an office legend described a cycling team that, in the days before blood doping was banned or effectively enforced, would need to sleep with heart rate monitors that would wake them if their heart rate got too low for fear of their hearts stopping altogether.

Marathon Times and Personal Metrics

I’m pretty motivated by quantifiable goals. Either arbitrary times (usually round numbers) or achieving a certain relative performance (e.g. placing in the top 1%). This paper examining marathon finishing times suggests I’m not alone. Times tend to bunch below “whole numbers” such as 3 hours and 4 hours, as well as smaller bunching observed across 5 minute increments, as people dig a little deeper to get below their goal times.

Links:
More statistics on half marathons and marathons. BAA Marathon and Half-Marathon results with the code shown. (I would like to be able to code informative charts like this.)

Protein Powder

The literature suggests that, when combined with training, protein supplementation increases gains in strength. I find that protein powder is a convenient way to add protein to my diet, particularly as a vegetarian. The NHS points out that the same benefits of protein powder can be achieved from other protein-rich foods, and that the lack of vitamins and nutrients of protein powder compare to a balanced meal make it a poor replacement for meals. It also recommends not exceeding intakes of 111 g per day for men or 90 g for women, which more or less concurs with the BMJ’s study suggesting the benefits of protein supplementation cease after 1.62 g/kg/day i.e. 120 g for a 75 kg person.

Importantly from an environmental perspective, looking at the World Resources Institute protein scorecard I wrote about in Week 4, dairy (from which whey protein is sourced) has the third highest impact, more than chicken and pork. Fortunately vegetable sources (i.e. pea protein) has a much lower footprint than conventional animal sources and pea protein is just as effective as whey protein in producing additional muscle growth.

That all said, there are good reasons to be skeptical of any benefit of supplementation at all beyond a healthy balanced diet. Trying to define a healthy balanced diet though could easily be several papers (or blog posts) by itself.

NASA Twin Study

I am eagerly awaiting the release of the integrated paper covering the NASA Twin Study. I suspect this will be the most intensive series of measurements made of any individual for some time. A brief summary by the Scientific American.

Photos from the Week: Solid water.

In the first photo, unusually clean ice traps dissolved gasses as they are forced out of solution. The second and third photos show Oxford’s spring weather variation.

  • Air in Ice
  • Sunny in the morning …
  • … snow in the afternoon
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2019 Week 8: 2018 Altmetric Top 100

Short version: I write about the top 21 highest impact papers of 2018 according to Altmetric, a rank based on mentions in academic publications, news media, and social media. They mostly relate to health or the environment.

Long version:

Metrics and Rankings

It is interesting and useful, but difficult, to be able to compare the quality and impact of publications. There are many methods to quantify this, one of which is Altmetrics. This scores publications based on mentions in the news, on Facebook, in patents, and other sources which are tallied and weighted. Since it takes less time to write a tweet than a citing publication, Altmetrics respond much more quickly and reflect a much wider potential audience than more conventional measures, but for the same reasons are less accurate measures of quality.

My brief thoughts on the top 21 papers ranked by Altmetrics from 2018:

1. Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria

The US centric nature of the metrics comes out clearly with the top ranked paper being about deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. President Donald Trump was not good to Puerto Rico. The study measured 4645 excess deaths from 20th September 2017 to 31st December 2017, 70 times higher than the official toll of 64. Deeply disturbing.

2. The spread of true and false news online

Fake News travels faster online than truth . Words like clickbait, chainmail, and memes matter a lot more when presidential elections and lynch mobs become an issue. I am reminded of this early Tom Scott video about flash mobs.

3. Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

I am disappointed to have missed this paper in Week 5. This article from The Lancet recommends the best level of alcohol to consume is none, finding alcohol causes deaths through tuberculosis, road injuries, self harm, and cancer. There are some clever methods used to look at measuring actual consumption by individuals, presented in maps on the third and fourth pages.

4. Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene

This is pretty grim. Describes the “Hothouse Earth” as “…a pathway that could not be reversed, steered, or substantially slowed”. Talk to people about climate change. Work out what you can do to minimise your impact. Katharine Hayhoe has a great facebook page that can help bridge the gap for climate change skeptics.

5. Association between physical exercise and mental health in 1·2 million individuals in the USA between 2011 and 2015: a cross-sectional study

Exercise usually makes people feel better, and the biggest rewards occur going from none to some. While your brain does use a significant proportion of your daily energy expenditure, the rest of your body needs movement to function properly. This study quantifies that relationship with mental health, finding optimal benefits from sessions of about 45 minutes and 12 to 20 sessions per month.

6. Dietary carbohydrate intake and mortality: a prospective cohort study and meta-analysis

Studying nutrition is made difficult because the timescale of the effects you are trying to measure (over lifetimes) means that experiments are difficult to control. That said this study finds that ideally 50% of your energy intake should come from carbohydrates, and if you cut carbs, you should not supplement them with animal fats and protein, but go for plant based options.

7. Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic

Just because information is painful or disappointing, doesn’t mean it should be ignored. This paper described the exponential growth of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This SMBC comic is highly relevant.

8. Complementary Medicine, Refusal of Conventional Cancer Therapy, and Survival Among Patients With Curable Cancers

The death of Steve Jobs is a famous case of “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” demonstrating that brilliance in one area is not mutually exclusive with stupidity in another. This paper points out that cancer patients who opt into these unsubstantiated treatments are more likely to refuse more established medicine, and therefore are twice as likely to die. Relevant Tim Minchin beat poem.

9. Global warming transforms coral reef assemblages

The Great Barrier Reef is undergoing a series of bleaching events. While bleaching does not guarantee death, the longer the bleaching the harder it is for corals to recover. This study quantifies that relationship, and finds a nonlinear relationship where prolonged or intense heat results in rapidly increasing losses. More recently a million tonnes of sludge is to be dumped on the reef. The SMBC comic is still highly relevant.

10. The biomass distribution on Earth

The biomass of humans is approximately 10x that of all wild mammals, and half that of livestock. Plants rule the world.

11. Radar evidence of subglacial liquid water on Mars

Reminds me that NASA has a sense of humor too. Useful to know if you believe in Terraforming Mars.

12. Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Depression can be treated medicinally, but I have an (uninformed) suspicion the diversity in response to treatments reflects a diversity in the underlying illness. This study compares antidepressants.

13. The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration

Discussed in The Economist, this paper from Harvard Business School finds open plan offices seem to counterintuitively decrease face to face interactions and increase online communication. Having worked in a few different office layouts, I would suggest that the staff themselves make a bigger difference to communication than the layout. Also sociometric badges are a thing.

14. Structure and Distribution of an Unrecognized Interstitium in Human Tissues

Exciting to see a microscopy paper in the top 20. Highlights the importance of checking assumptions and going back to the fundamental structure, rather than abstracting.

15. Risk thresholds for alcohol consumption: combined analysis of individual-participant data for 599 912 current drinkers in 83 prospective studies

Although being slightly more positive on drinking than the alcohol study above, particularly noting “increased alcohol consumption was log-linearly associated with a lower risk of myocardial infarction”, overall the study found a decreased life expectancy overall for alcohol consumers. It goes on to suggest lowering the recommended limits for alcohol consumption to less than 100 g per week.

16. Death or Debt? National Estimates of Financial Toxicity in Persons with Newly-Diagnosed Cancer

The US continues to confuse the rest of the world with its views on health care. Specifically this study reveals that of US cancer patients, 42.4 % will have used up their entire life savings within 2 years.

17. Effect of Low-Fat vs Low-Carbohydrate Diet on 12-Month Weight Loss in Overweight Adults and the Association With Genotype Pattern or Insulin Secretion

It doesn’t seem to matter if you cut down on calories via lowering fat or lowering carbohydrate consumption, so long as you’re consuming less you will lose weight. Particularly interesting is the undermining of genotype evidence.

18. Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate

It’s interesting to question the causation here: are Russian Trolls trying to lower vaccine acceptance to weaken health in the US, or are they trying to build rapport with people prone to unfounded conspiracy theories, such as being anti-vaccine, to then promote other (political) falsehoods. Also: how vaccines work.

19. Decreases in global beer supply due to extreme drought and heat

While climate change is bad for both natural and agricultural plants, if the previous two alcohol papers are considered perhaps less beer in the world is not a bad thing.

20. Primary care-led weight management for remission of type 2 diabetes (DiRECT): an open-label, cluster-randomised trial

I’ve had several friends in medicine mention their direct observations of this in individual patients, but here it is presented as the aggregated results of 306 individuals. Weight loss results in remission of type 2 diabetes.

21. Association of Coffee Drinking With Mortality by Genetic Variation in Caffeine Metabolism

Coffee (maybe) is good for you! But the study suffers from “a ‘healthy volunteer’ selection bias”. Interestingly “Participants drinking 4 or more cups per day … were more likely to drink instant coffee and be current smokers, whereas participants drinking 1 to 3 cups per day were older, more likely to have a university degree, and more likely to report “excellent” health.” So the causation question remains: does coffee make you healthy, or do healthy well educated people drink coffee?

Extra Thoughts

It’s a little unsatisfying to be able to spend so little time on such interesting questions, but the nature of inquiry is a trade off between breadth and depth. This week I opted for breadth, and it serves as a reminder for how much interesting content there is being generated in the world.

Photos from the Week

It’s warming up in Oxford, and Toxic Daffodils are blooming. I managed to fit in watching a Cuppers game at the historic Sir Roger Bannister athletics track. Port Meadow is flooded, and the reflection in the sun is stunning.

  • Daffodils Blooming
  • Cuppers Football
  • Port Meadow Flooded

Writing from home.

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2019 Week 6: Happy Chinese New Year

Short version: Writing accurately about science takes time, but a few bits to push in that direction. 新年快乐!

Long version:

Writing About Science

I’ve noticed a lack of scientific content in my blog. Usually the week’s post is in the back of my mind throughout the week with a few notes in Google Keep. This week I started out early with a list of topics I’d like touch on, or even expand into, but by Sunday with relatively little progress and wanting to cover them in reasonable depth I’ve culled back significantly. At the moment my main motivation week to week in writing is to practice writing publicly, building confidence and prompting coherency in my thoughts. I would like to share insight, but presenting summaries of scientific work on interesting topics can very quickly grow into a lengthy task (e.g. Review Articles). Also, working full time in scientific research, often my weekend reading drifts into other fields, which then leads to less scientific blog writing.

Chinese New Year

新年快乐！(Happy Chinese New Year!) It is the year of the pig.

Some Hopefully Useful Scientific Content

Stuff I read this week

There is an annual report into happiness. Nature celebrates women behind the periodic table. Google is developing a timber high rise in Toronto. Economic downturn improves health (particularly smoking and obesity). NHS has some simple to follow gym-free workouts particularly neck, back, and knee. Drones being used to poison rats on the Galapagos, possibly targeting Possums in New Zealand next.

A thought on Consumerism

My current context is filled with incentives to buy more stuff. One of the photos from the week is of a particularly expensive sports car that I passed on a run, and I feel that in sharing it I am participating in a culture that causes us to covet impractical luxuries. After all, given speed limits and traffic exist, it’s unclear what the purpose of owning a super car is beyond conspicuous consumption. That said, there is an aesthetic pleasure to be taken from such things.

Photos from the Week

  • Foggy Mornings
  • Ferrari 458 speciale
  • Rainy Rad Cam
Posted on

2019 Week 5: Alcohol

Short version: I’m drinking a bit less, the media still likes skewing science to get page views, live music is wonderful, it snowed more in Oxford.

Long version:

Alcohol

Personal Experience:
Last week I wrote about having made the change to not eat meat. More recently I’ve been toying with cutting back on alcohol. Throughout January I observed a one drink per day maximum. This was most difficult socially, as I don’t have a single reason for cutting back, and there are many contexts where accepting drinks is the polite behaviour. Moreover it often felt more difficult to explain setting a threshold of one, than simply saying I didn’t drink, or was undertaking Dry January. I think in general this comes from a desire for principled consistency. While consuming alcohol is fun, I felt overall I was able to have just as good a time while consuming less, with benefits felt in sleep and recovery from training.

Guidelines:
The Australian Government Department of Health recommends no more than two standard drinks per day long term and no more than four standard drinks per day (where a standard drink is 10 g or 13 mL of ethanol). The British NHS has a similar 14 units per week, to be spread over 3 or more days , but using smaller units (8 g or 10 mL of ethanol). Of course the US is a little trickier to compare due to the lack of the metric system but the CDC recommends one drink for women and two for men, with much larger units (14 g being 0.6 ounces, or 18 mL).

Benefits of Alcohol:
In February of 2018 Dr Claudia Kawas presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas her work “The 90+ Study“. The quote from her talk “I have no explanation for it, but I do firmly believe that modest drinking improves longevity” led to headlines such as “Drinking Alcohol Better Than Exercise For Living Past 90“, “Study: Drinking Alcohol More Important Than Exercise to Living Past 90“, and “Drinking Small Amounts of Alcohol May Help You Live to over 90, Claims Study“. New Zealand joined the party almost a year later with “Drinking wine better than exercise if you want to live a long life“. YouTuber Doctor Mike did a comparison. After searching for a couple hours though I couldn’t actually find a peer-reviewed paper on these benefits. The study itself places less emphasis on the alcohol vs exercise question; “People who drank moderate amounts of alcohol or coffee lived longer than those who abstained.” (which is kind of funny since consuming alcohol and coffee seems to be pretty dangerous.) Notably the only mention of ‘alcohol’ or ‘exercise’ in the AAAS official news post was “Data show that the risk of developing dementia has declined slightly in the past decades, Kawas said, which she attributes to people improving their lifestyles: eating better, exercising more, trying to minimize stress.” I suspect omitting the alcohol point is deliberate.

Other Alcohol Stuff:
WHO Global status report on alcohol and health 2018. Dry January does not lead to increased drinking in February. People are drinking less in pubs (on-trade) and slightly more from supermarkets (off-trade).

Music: Soloists and Symphonies

I listened to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra perform Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges: Suite, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, and Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 4. I particularly enjoyed the drama of the final piece, and the incredible energy of the orchestra. The soloist Augustin Hadelich has a pretty incredible life story, and incredibly clean sound.

Stuff I read this week

The Australian Bureau of Statistics National Health Survey 2017-18 suggest some fairly grim things about the diets of Australians. AI is getting really good at video games.

Photos: 5 Things that made this week great

  • Radcliffe Camera
  • Physical Weightlifting
  • Mental Weightlifting

  • City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
  • Snowy Port Meadow

Writing from home.