Author Archives: Peter

Algae for Biofuels

Another article crossed my desk that was all about algae for biofuels. This one quoted a figure: Algae absorbed roughly 20% of all venture capital invested in biofuels last year. I think that’s pretty impressive. That’s about $180 million. Also impressive: an article over at Green Car Congress talks about a 91 octane gasoline derived from algal a biocrude.

Here are a few of the companies looking into algae biofuels:

Sapphire Energy

Petrosun [edit 3/9/14, defunct]

Imperium Renewables

GreenFuel Technologies [defunct]

AXI, LLC – this one is was cooperating with my Alma Mater [defunct]

-Peter

Geoengineering – is it possible to really engineer our ecosystem?

Today is the start date for a program in which iron based fertilizer will be seeded into a swath of the southern ocean. That will cause a massive algae bloom, and (in principle) soak up carbon dioxide. The notion is that, I suppose, it will stay in the ocean end up as sediment.

The Science short news article is not heavy on the details, but I at least wonder about the possibility of harvesting that algae. But it’s a secondary interest. The bigger issue is: we can certainly inadvertently cause unintended effects on the climate; can we really hope to create intended consequences as well?

I saw a TED talk on that a while back, and thought it was great.

Hope you enjoy.

-Peter

Breaking News: Cellist disease a hoax

Cello Scrotum is a hoax! Hypochondriac male musicians inclined toward large stringed instruments will have to find a new problem with which to afflict themselves. Guitar nipple, however, is all too real.

Alert reader Jason brought this L.A. Times article to our attention. It seems that in or around 1975, a mated pair of physicians cooked up the idea of Cello Scrotum despite the fact that a properly operated cello does not, in fact, come in contact with the genetalia. The paper got published anyway. It’s an early example of a parody in the scientific literature being taken literally.

It reminds me of a more recent iteration of this phenomenon: Alan Sokal published a computer generated gibberish paper in Social Text. He tells why he did so in his book, Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture.  Another instance occurred more recently: an MIT student got a conference paper accepted that was pure gibberish. To be fair, conference papers are not held to the same review standards as journal papers. Nonetheless, The Register sums up thusly:

Perhaps because of the atomization of the disciplines in both arts and science, the quality of published academic papers appears to be at rock bottom.

And these days, simply being published means you’re an authority. The MIT pranks illustrates all it takes to be published, is to submit a paper.

Maybe that’s true for Social Text, but it’s another matter for, say, Analytical Chemistry.

-Peter

We will restore science to its rightful place

I’m “reporting” from Ukraine today. I’m not as well-connected to the ‘net and to the doings of Science, so I don’t have much in the way of news for you.

I said before at some point that I wanted to avoid politics in this project. But I think I will skirt that line again today.

The New York Times wrote up a little thing headlined “Scientists Welcome Obama’s Words.” I think the article quite decently summarized the attitude of the scientific world, at least as I’m familiar with it.

Party loyalty and the scientific world’s liberal lean aside, I think it’s fair to say that the Bush administration was pretty hard on the scientific community. Back a few years ago, when the U.S. had money, they did some good things for the science budget. But when push came to shove, those were not fleshed out, and programs that got a good start had to struggle for the last few years.

It’s a funny thing: when the NIH budget doubles, more then twice as many people show up to ask for money. And even more strange: if they get it, they are hoping for more next year, too!

Obama said in his in his Inaugural Address: “We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.”

Well, that might be rhetoric, but it’s refreshing, anyway.

-Peter

Caffeine and Hallucinations

According to this little Science Blog post, caffeine has been linked to hallucinations. This was corroborated by (badly spelled) anecdotal evicence at the Lycaeum (only when dealing with “drug culture” does poor spelling adds to authenticity and credibility).  The original article (subscription required):

Abstract

In diathesis–stress models of psychosis, cortisol released in response to stressors is proposed to play a role in the development of psychotic experiences. Individual differences in cortisol response to stressors are therefore likely to play a role in proneness to psychotic experiences. As caffeine has been found to increase cortisol response to a given stressor, we proposed that, when levels of stress were controlled for, caffeine intake would be related to hallucination-proneness and persecutory ideation. Caffeine intake, stress, hallucination-proneness and persecutory ideation were assessed by self-report questionnaires in a non-clinical sample (N = 219). Caffeine intake was positively related to stress levels and hallucination-proneness, but not persecutory ideation. When stress levels were controlled for, caffeine intake predicted levels of hallucination-proneness but not persecutory ideation. Implications of these findings are discussed and avenues for future research suggested.

Translation: There are chemicals that seem to be related to craziness and also to caffeine. It turns out that, among 200 people, the crazy ones drink a lot more coffee… we don’t think it’s a coincidence.

I took their questionnaire. At the end it referred me to intervoiceonline.org, The International Community for Hearing Voices.

-Peter