Doctor Punkscience, at your service.

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My viva voce lasted 3 hours and I've got only minor corrections to make. Ergo, I rule. On with the world saving.

viva voce

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I've got my PhD viva tomorrow. I'm going through my thesis and feel really sorry for the examiners because I can't write concisely or clearly for toffee. Regular visitors to punkscience will be aware of this and I apologise for it. Its just not something I've ever really aspired to and it really shows in my work. That's not to say I'm not a good scientist. I am. I'm fucking awesome! I can communicate my work very eloquently and clearly- just not in the formal written style that all science is documented in.

This is a problem I need to address because being a good scientist these days is simply not going to get you a job. You have to be a self-publicist and prolifically so in all sorts of media- not just peer-reviewed journals. I don't approve of this. There are so many examples of boundaries being smashed apart as a result of people ignoring this paradigm and concentrating on research instead of wanking their egos that I can't begin to motivate myself to 'play the game.'

Anyway, instead of wasting time writing badly here I'm going to go back to pondering the bad writing in my thesis. I will leave you with some relevant ponderings from Dr Jim. Who is awesome.

state of the planet

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Here is a powerful article from Nature to kick-start a decade of science-led world-saving. The diagram reproduced below shows nine planetary systems: climate change; rate of biodiversity loss (terrestrial and marine); interference with the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles; stratospheric ozone depletion; ocean acidification; global freshwater use; change in land use; chemical pollution; and atmospheric aerosol loading. Safe thresholds for each system are indicated by the green ring and the current state of each system is illustrated by the size of the red wedge. As you can see, we have already exceeded the safe thresholds for biodiversity loss, the nitrogen cycle and climate change.


So there you have it: A concise and heavily evidenced review of the state of the planet in one of the most prestigious journals. Everyone should have to read this. Ignorance is a crime.

raging for christmas

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We did it! And raised at least £65,000 for the charity Shelter in direct donations alone. Awesome!

Now, if someone could just come up with an equally appealing motive for regaining democratic control of the country . . .

Catholic crocodile tears

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The Vatican said 'the Holy Father was deeply disturbed and distressed.' Well poor baby, but why was he not deeply disturbed and distressed before? Why did he not give a rat's ass while the report was in progress and the Vatican ignored all its questions? To say nothing of while the abuse and the cover-up of the abuse and the perpetuation of the abuse via refusal to do anything about it, were going on? Why is his distress so god damn late? Why is he bothering to do a Bernie Madoff, pretending to be all sorry and repentant after it is no longer possible to conceal and deny and hide?

''He wishes once more to express his profound regret at the actions of some members of the clergy who have betrayed their solemn promises to God, as well as the trust placed in them by the victims and their families, and by society at large.'' The Vatican said the Holy Father shared the outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland, and that he was united with them in prayer at this difficult time in the life of the Church.

No he doesn't! [jumps up and down in fury until the windows rattle] He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't! It's all soothing oil, it's all sleazy self-exculpation. He does not share the outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland because he and his Vatican are what the outrage, betrayal and shame are all about. He doesn't get to make himself another subject; he's the object. He's not one of the victims, he's the top perpetrator. He has an unbelievable gall claiming to feel all this sorrowful emotion when he is the head of an institution that did everything it could to protect itself and did nothing to protect children who were assaulted by its priests. He shouldn't be talking eyewash about his emotions, he should be saying the Vatican behaved like a criminal organization. He should resign. They should all resign. They should fold up their tents and go do something useful.

And knock off the 'Holy Father' crap, too. With a father like that, who needs enemies?

Word to Ophelia.

weapons grade squeee

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Can't resist . . . too . . . cute . . .

surreal science moment

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I just happened upon a friend of mine carrying a tray of my sperm across campus. We found it rather amusing.

Here they are, BTW:


The sex chromosome in each nucleus has been FISH stained. Red means its a girl and greens are boys.

global opinion strongly against free-market capitalism

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"In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well. . . . . . Almost a quarter - 23% of those who responded - feel it is fatally flawed."

excellent blog

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Its called Information Is Beautiful.

Check it out.

rapid population growth undermines development efforts

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"the priority given to population issues has diminished compared with concerns about development. If population growth continues unabated, we fear the problems of development will be "solved" by rises in death rates. For this reason, efforts to slow population growth should be treated as a human rights issue."

Word.

Plymsoul

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This is some fierce local talent in the shape of Kat Marsh:



Kat is awesome.

it always amuses me how "thesis" sounds so similar to "faeces"

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Here it is, kids. The whole chibang:

the essence of manliness

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Its testosterone, of course. A paper covered in New Scientist found reduced levels in fathers and in older Senegalese men and higher levels in men with multiple wives. The conclusion was that fatherhood lowers levels. There's an interesting circle of casue and effect here that they might have got the wrong way round. Testosterone is associated with dominance in men (pdf), as anyone who has been threatened with a slap by a two metre wide bouncer knows. Could it be that the domestic servitude of diligent and conscientious fatherhood stifles our inherent manliness in a manner akin to the subordinate life of an omega-male and quenching release of the man-essence? (No sperm-related puns, please).


Addition 02-09-09:

Female gorillas imitate oestrus and engage in copulation when pregnant in order to obstruct fertile competitors mating with them.

manifest awesomeness

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Q: What happens when the state fails to regulate polluters?

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A: Anarchy.


There is a lesson here for all governments.

The Yes Men

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Never heard of these guys either either? Well, let New Scientist educate you. They have a film out which I am going to pay money to watch. If it comes to my town, that is.

The moral of this story?

"we need to change the rules that allow the market to reward bad behaviour"

Word.

this is awesome

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From a list of "Products of The Year" on the New Scientist site comes this- your own personal cycle lane:

Cycle lanes are a good way of keeping bikes away from cars and minimising accidents, but they aren't available on every road.

Evan Gant at the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and Alex Tee of Altitude Inc in Somerville, Massachusetts, have designed a portable cycle "Light Lane" that straps to the back of a bike.

A laser projects an image of a cycle lane onto the road directly behind the cyclist to remind approaching cars to leave room.

UK body endorses Christian fundamentalist curriculum as equivalent to A-Level

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"Have you heard of the 'Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? 'Nessie,' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.

"Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all."

There are schools in the UK who teach this shit as fact and will get you an A-Level for your pains. When was lying to children in a manner which strongly influences their world view and social interactions (by making them look like a fucktard to the rest of society) not child abuse?

punkscience is busy . . .

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Going to festivals, getting a new job and trying to finish his thesis. I fear you must look elsewhere for ranting hyperbole for now.

Word.

As an interesting closing comment, a friend nearly killed Karen O in a moshpit at the Secret Garden Party this weekend. I spent the rest of the festival looking for her to marry her but never found her again. He's a credible, upstanding sort of scoundrel so I believe his very word. Poor Karen. She will probably never get another opportunity to feel the punkscience power. Weak.

animal experimentation - do crabs have rights?

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"No" says Peter Fraser of the University of Aberdeen. So do I and would also like people who say they do to not be so fucking stupid. This sort of "rights creep" is a direct threat to much high quality research that makes use of the lack of authoritarian oversight of invertebrate experiments to do good and interesting science.

Put it this way: If I wanted to manipulate an organism's environment in the lab to test its responses to some stressor (eg. ocean acidification) I could do so with invertebrates (eg. crabs, mussels) without any bureaucratic oversight. The same experiment with vertebrate fish would require a home office licensed facility; a separate licence to be approved for the specific experiment; qualified and registered staff to conduct husbandry, sacrifice the animals and take biological sample and piles more bureaucratic fiff-faff. Now, I'm not saying that animal welfare is not a concern for scientists. I'm saying that some of the legislation designed to produce it is unnecessary and obstructive, costs an enormous amount of money and does not necessarily improve the welfare of the animals as no-one can explain in cold, hard terms exactly what this term means. Animals in the wild are typically perpetually hunted, starved and otherwise stressed to fuck. Putting fish in sterile tanks with no natural features whatsoever is kind of like locking your average human indefinitely in a single room with nice, soft, padded walls and providing them with regular meals but nothing else. And about as humane. Scientifically its absolute bollocks.

Unfortunately the alternative- called mesocosm experiments, where you try to replicate natural communites of organisms in a recreation of their natural habitat- is incredibly complicated and generally produces very complicated results that are difficult to interpret. Also, such experiments are an order of magnitude more space-, resource- and labour-intensive due to the need to study all of the different components of the community in sufficient detail to observe statistically robust differences. I fail to see how this is anything more than a challenge to scientists, however, as the underlying rationale for such experiments and the potential for real insight to be gained from them is clear. Resort to single species tests in sterile, unrealistic conditions is defeatist and cowardly. Unfortuantely the regulations for conducting such tests with vertebrates make mesocosm studies including them almost impossible to conduct robustly.