Sciencelens

Page 29 of 41

September 5, 2012

On beards, taxes and the laws of attraction

It’s 5 September, the day back in 1698 when the good Tsar Peter the Great of Russia, in all his wisdom, decided the macho, fully bearded look sported by most of his fellow countrymen, was simply too out of touch with the times, and that Russian men really ought to follow the example of their European counterparts and cut their beards.

Rumour has it that, after returning from a trip to Europe where he was most impressed by the forward-thinking, clean-shaven Europeans, he personally cut off the beards of the men in his court. He obviously couldn’t take it upon himself to clear all the bearded Russians of their facial hair, so to make them take his request a little more seriously, he imposed a ‘beard tax’, announced on 5 September 1698, which meant that any man who opted to keep his beard would incur a hefty tax penalty. Luckily for the more rustic farmer-types, the tax was only imposed in the cities, so they could keep their beards while on the farm. If and when they needed to go to the city, however, they also had to shave, or pay a fine to keep their beards.

Bearded blokes actually had to carry with them a token showing that they had paid their beard tax. To further remind them of the silliness of their facial hair, the token was inscripted with the message “A beard is a useless burden”, or something to that effect.

beard_man — Paying taxes to keep your beard is enough reason to be a bit depressed. And now it turns out the ladies don’t like ’em either…
(© All Rights Reserved)

Turning to modern times, I recently came across the results of a study conducted by a team from Canada and New Zealand, investigating the reactions of men and women to bearded and beardless men. Nineteen men from New Zealand and Samoa were first photographed with 6-week old beards, in two sets of photographs – one where they looked serious, and another where they were asked to make an angry face. Their beards were then shaved off, and they were again photographed in the same poses. According to the feedback from respondents, women were more drawn to the beardless men, while men considered the bearded men to appear more important and imposing. So, it seems you have a choice – do you want to impress the guys, or charm the ladies?

Further in the same article, however, there’s mention of a study where the reactions of women to bearded men was extended to also include chaps with 5 o’clock stubble. It appears that this may be the magic option from the attraction point of view – as the article notes, it seems women like men who can grow beards, but don’t quite do. Perhaps these men are seen as suitably masculine, yet not quite out of touch with their feminine sides.

I have also found a report on a recent survey of more than 2,000 men and women conducted by Lynx, which gives some rather conclusive anti-beard statistics – while 63% of the men surveyed believed their facial hair improved their manliness and attractiveness, no less than 92% of the women preferred a clean-shaven man. In fact, 86% went so far as to say they found beards unattractive.

Perhaps that can be taken as some modern form of Peter the Great’s beard tax. In Tsar Peter’s case, men were allowed to keep their beards as long as they were willing to part with their money; nowadays you can keep your money, but you may well have to say goodbye to any romantic possibilities!

September 4, 2012September 5, 2012

Celebrating World Chocolate Day (while we still can!)

We all love chocolate, don’t we? So much so, that there’s a whole host of chocolate-y celebrations out there – National Chocolate Day, International Chocolate Day, days for different flavours chocolate… Forced to pick one date, I’ve decided to dedicate a post to this particular chocolate day – today, 4 September, we celebrate World Chocolate Day.

Looking at some of the latest chocolate-related science news that I’ve come across, however, the chocoholics among us may in future have less and less reason for celebration, as the future of chocolate looks ominously bleak.

Firstly, it appears that worldwide chocolate consumption is exceeding production, which means that chocolate will increasingly become a luxury commodity, fetching higher and higher prices. Apparently cacao trees can only be grown naturally in a narrow band within 10 degrees around the equator, and more and more farmers in this band are turning to more lucrative alternative crops such as genetically modified maize, soybeans and palm oil. Geneticists are trying to develop better yielding cacao crops, but there are no guarantees yet that this will remedy the situation.

If that is not enough, there is a fear that diseases may devastate what is left of the global cocoa supply. Fungal diseases such as witch’s broom and frosty pod have already destroyed most cacao crops in Central America, and the concern is that if these diseases spread to Africa, the majority of the global cocoa production may be at risk. Again, the best defense lies in bioscience – if scientists can succeed in sequencing the cacao tree genome, it will help them developing genetically modified plants that are resistant to infection.

If you think the above challenges make the future of chocolate look a bit suspect, here’s the cherry on top – apparently, climate change may result in West Africa (the source of most of the world’s chocolate supply) becoming too hot to sustain cacao growing in the region.

According to a report in Scientific American, it is estimated that by 2060, more than 50% of the West Afican cocoa-producing countries may be too hot to continue growing the crop, which will also contribute to chocolate prices spiraling out of control. The slack in the market may be picked up by regions that were previously too cool for growing cacao, but that would require these regions to switch from other crops that may be considered more lucrative. Thus there’s yet another challenge to the genetic scientists – developing a drought-resistant cacao tree capable of handling the effects of global warming.

So, in a nutshell, to save chocolate from becoming an unaffordable luxury commodity, scientists are in a mad race to develop new, genetically modified strains of cacao tree that are higher yielding, infection resistant and able to withstand heat and drought.

Sorry to leave you with such a depressing message on World Chocolate Day – I guess we can only hope that science will step up to the plate and save the day, enabling us to continue enjoying the wonderful product of the cacao tree for many years to come!

September 3, 2012

John Macarthur and the birth of the Australian wool industry (not just another Aussie sheep joke!)

Today we celebrate the birthday of John Macarthur (3 Sep 1767 – 11 Apr 1834) the English-born Aussie who is recognised as the pioneer of the wool industry that boomed in Australia in the early 19th century, and has since been one of the country’s agricultural trademarks.

lotsa_sheep — Sheep – serious business Down Under.
(© All Rights Reserved)

Macarthur was born in Plymouth, Devon in the UK. He began his career in the army, and after various assignments and activities became part of the New South Wales corps in 1789 and was posted to faraway Sydney, Australia. A fiery character, his life story reads like a historical romance novel, with way too many saucy details (battles with authorities, involvement in a military coup, land battles and much more) to get into on this forum.

Suffice to say, after settling in Australia, Macarthur got involved in rearing sheep for mutton, purchasing his first flock in 1795. He also purchased a small flock of Spanish Merino, imported from the Cape Colony (part of the later South Africa) in 1797. The merino is an excellent wool breed, and it didn’t take long for Macarthur to recognise the economic potential of wool production for export, as opposed to simply rearing sheep for the local meat-market. What made wool a potential export hit was the fact that it was a non-perishable commodity (a necessary feature, given Australia’s distance from the markets of the UK and Europe) and offered a high value per unit of weight.

On a trip back to London he lobbied for more land, and succeeded in being granted 5000 acres of the best pasture land in New South Wales. He became the largest sheep rearer in the colony, and made a fortune exporting merino wool to the UK, who were at the time cut off from their traditional wool supplier, Spain, as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. He also gained recognition for producing wool of the finest quality, which further upped the prices at which he was able to sell his produce.

Macarthur’s ventures opened the door for others to follow, and Australia’s wool export market started to boom in the early 19th century. It remains a key export commodity, with Australia remaining the world’s largest producer of the wool, mainly from merino sheep. New Zealand is in second place, and China in third. The wool produced in Australia and New Zealand is considered to be of the finest international quality – the best Aussie and Kiwi merino wool is known as grade 1PP, and is the industry benchmark of excellence for merino wool.

Natural wool is one of nature’s super-products. It is technically superior to synthetic materials in various ways – it has better heat insulation and superior hydryphilic properties, it is naturally flame-retardant, resistant to static electricity, and hypoallergenic. Researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology have developed a material blending wool and kevlar (the material often used in body armour) and it was found that the blend was lighter and cheaper, and outperformed kevlar in damp conditions.

What’s more, wool is also environmentally preferable to materials like nylon or polypropylene. According to the latest research on the role of wool in the natural carbon cycle, it has been suggested that under the correct circumstances, wool production can potentially be carbon neutral.

So while the Aussies and Kiwis may suffer endless jokes relating to their sheep, the product being produced is something very special. And John Macarthur deserves a tip of the hat as the bloke who kicked it all off more than 200 years ago.

September 2, 2012

Coconut in the spotlight

Today, would you believe, is World Coconut Day – one of those facts which is usually greeted by a response of “Say what?”. It does feel like a bit of an arbitrary thing to have its own special day, doesn’t it?

But when you start thinking about it, the coconut is one pretty impressive drupe. Yes, that is, botanically speaking, what a coconut is – an “indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin; and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a shell (the pit, stone, or pyrene) of hardened endocarp with a seed (kernel) inside”, also known as a drupe. The coconut we usually buy in the shops is not how it hangs on the tree – its just the hardened endocarp shell, with the greenish brown exocarp and fibrous mesocarp already removed.

The coconut, it turns out, is an amazingly useful drupe. So much so that the coconut tree has been called the ‘Tree of Life’:

the water inside the coconut is a refreshing drink, and is used extensively in cooking and a range of medicinal purposes
its white flesh can be eaten raw, or desiccated (dried) and grated, and used for culinary or medicinal purposes
it’s kernel can be processed to produce coconut oil
the coconut oil, water and flesh are also used extensively in soaps and cosmetics
the water inside the coconut is sterile until opened, and mixes easily with blood – as such it can be used as an emergency intravenous hydration fluid
its shell can be made into charcoal, or made into household items like bowls and other handicrafts
coconut shells are also used as the bodies of musical instruments, or banged together for percussion
it’s fibrous husk can be used to produce coir, which is used in rope, door mats, brushes, mattress stuffing etc
the nectar derived from incising the flower clusters of the coconut can be drunk as is, fermented to make palm wine, or boiled to create a sweet, syrupy candy
the husks and leaves of the coconut tree is used to make furnishings and decorations
fresh coconut husks can be used as a body sponge
the leaves are also used in cooking, to wrap rice, for example
coconut fronds are tied together to make brooms
the trunk of the coconut tree can be used in construction, or hollowed to make drums and small canoes
coconut roots are used in dyes and processed for medicinal purposes.

And so the list goes on…

Given the amazing value that can be gained from the coconut and the coconut tree, it is hardly surprising that it is treated with such immense respect in its main growing regions (including Indonesia, Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam). It is commonly used in cultural and religious activities, and plays an essential role in Hindu weddings and other rituals.

Still wondering why the coconut got its own World Day? Neither am I!

September 1, 2012September 1, 2012

Getting fired up on Redhead Day

The 1st of September is generally considered the first day of Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. However, dedicating the day to celebrating the coming of spring and the end of winter seems a little cruel to all the Northernites out there who are just entering their long cold winter (especially considering that I’ve already pretty much done exactly that a couple of days ago).

So, rather than discussing the seasons again, lets consider another special reason to celebrate this day – today is International Redhead Day!

red_haired_kid — Legend has it that blondes have more fun, but I’m not convinced!
(© All Rights Reserved)

People born with red-hair are, in a way, similar to those born left-handed – a genetic minority group with a fierce pride in that unique feature that makes them special and part of an exclusive ‘club’. In fact, the ‘natural redhead club’ is even more exclusive than the lefthanders club, with less than 1% of the world population having naturally red hair. Except for Scotland and Ireland, where more than 1 in 10 people have red hair. Former colonies of the UK are also blessed with a significantly higher than average sprinkling of redheads.

Quite a few redheads may count themselves as part of the super-exclusive intersection of the redhead club and the lefthanders club – apparently, since red hair is a recessive trait, and recessive traits often come in pairs, redheads are more likely than others to be lefthanded!

Redhead Day started in the Netherlands, as a festival called Roodharigendag, that takes place every first weekend in September in the city of Breda. Taking its cue from this event, the celebration of red hair has spread around the world with the 1st Saturday of September becoming an international celebration of the fiery top.

The Dutch Roodharigendag festival is itself a pretty global affair, attracting attendance from over 50 countries. In addition to being a gathering of thousands of people with natural red hair, the festival also celebrates art featuring the colour red, and includes lectures, workshops and demonstrations aimed at red-haired people. And of course many, many photo shoots.

It’s quite interesting that the festival is held in the Netherlands, where less than 2% of the population have red hair. However, it is exactly this fact that resulted in the festival happening in the first place. It was started in 2005 when the Dutch painter Bart Rouwenhorst decided to do 15 paintings of redheads. Knowing how hard it is to find redheads in the Netherlands, he placed an advert in the newspaper, and to his surprise 150 people volunteered. Rather than turning most away, he chose 14 and then organised a group photo of the others and used a chance lottery to select the 15th and final model. This get-together of 150 redhead would-be-models became the first redhead festival. It made headline news in the Dutch national press, and the rest, as they say, is history, with the numbers of attendees increasing exponentially each year.

It is known that red hair is caused by gene mutation – it is a variant of MC1R, or the melacortin-1 receptor. This mutative gene is what’s known as a recessive gene, which means that, for a child to have red hair (s)he has to inherit a copy of the mutated MC1R from each parent. While a reasonable number of people carry a copy of the mutated gene, the chances of two people who carry the same gene, having kids, is quite rare. However, the claim that redheads may become extinct due to this is unfounded. While recessive genes can become rare, they are unlikely to disappear completely, unless some natural disaster causes everyone carrying the gene to die. So even if they may become rarer, there should always be people around who carry the gene, and so redheads should continue to pop up from time to time. As stated in the National Geographic, “while redheads may decline, the potential for red isn’t going away”.

Which I think is a good thing – the world would definitely be a worse place without redheads around to spice things up.

Perhaps we should leave the last word to Mark Twain (himself a redhead), who famously quipped that “while the rest of the human race are descended from monkeys, redheads derive from cats”.

Happy Redhead Day, everyone!

August 31, 2012

Daffodil Day and the ongoing fight against cancer

It’s Daffodil Day today, August 31st. Well, it’s Daffodil Day in New Zealand, to be exact – Australian Daffodil Day happened on the 24th of this month already. The US, bless them, seem to have a whole bunch of different Daffodil Days across different states. (With Daffodils being a spring flower, it obviously makes sense that most US Daffodil Days happen earlier in the year, around February, and not August/September, as it does down here in the South.)

Daffodil Day is all about cancer – raising awareness of the disease, raising funds for cancer related research, and creating a support network for individuals suffering from the disease.

Cancer is an incredibly pervasive, prevalent disease – here in New Zealand it is the leading cause of death in the country – and I’m sure there are very few people who are not in some way fairly directly affected by it. My dad died of cancer in his liver and colon; my mother in law is a breast-cancer survivor; just about everyone I know has someone close to them who has either died from, or is living with, the disease.

In a nutshell, cancer occurs when cells in the body accumulate genetic changes (due to various factors), resulting in a loss of growth control. Normal cells grow, divide and die in an orderly manner, in response to signals from the body and the environment. When cells become cancerous, however, they fail to respond to the normal signals, and start growing and dividing in an uncontrolled manner. These out-of-control cells can spread through the body via the bloodstream or lymph vessels (a process called metastasis) and continue to grow and replace normal tissue. It is the fact that it’s the body’s own cells that go crazy and effectively turn against their host, that makes it such a complex disease to treat.

As mentioned, one of the critical focus areas of Daffodil Day is raising money to support research into finding cures for the disease.

Over the years, literally billions of dollars have been spent on cancer research, and it’s quite a sobering thought when you realise that, in spite of all this, the death rate from the disease has changed little over the past 50 or so years. As new therapies are developed, cancer also adapts and evolves, finding new ways to kill.

Now this does not mean all is in vain – millions of people have been saved from the therapies that have been developed. All it means is that there is no room for complacency, and new and more effective cancer therapies are continually needed to stay ahead of, or at least keep up with, the disease.

In my job as a science photographer, I interact with a wide range of research and technology organisations, and one of the most inspiring of these is the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research – New Zealand’s leading medical research institute, and a registered charity based in Wellington, NZ. The reason I mention this fact is that one of their main fields of research is cancer (they also research cures for asthma, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and infectious diseases) and they are one of the organisations supported through the proceeds of fundraising events like Daffodil Day.

One of the main fields of cancer research that the Malaghan Institute focuses on is Immunotherapy, which basically involves using the immune system and it’s unique properties to complement existing cancer treatments. As they explain, “Immune cells are specific and have the capacity to discriminate between normal and cancer cells, they have powerful effector capacity and can recruit inflammatory cells to destroy neoplastic tissue, and they can migrate to different tissues and eliminate residual metastatic disease.” So, similar techniques to those used in helping the immune system recognise and fight contagious diseases (such as vaccination, etc), can also be used to help the immune system recognise cancer cells and to strengthen their ability to destroy them.

Another more recent research subject at the Institute is cancer stem cell research. Cancer stem cells are cancer’s evil root – these tumor initiating cells are highly resistant to drug and radiation treatment – and the focus of the research is on finding safe and effective ways to eradicate them.

Organisations like the Malaghan Institute, and many others like them across the world, are doing incredible work to address the continually evolving threat of cancer, and really need all the support they can get. It’s a scary, scary topic, and it’s good to know there are talented, committed scientists and researchers out there facing the challenge head on.

August 30, 2012

Celebrating Ernest Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics

Today we celebrate the life and work of New Zealand’s greatest scientist, Lord Ernest Rutherford – the father of nuclear physics. In the words of the author John Campbell, “He is to the atom what Darwin is to evolution, Newton to mechanics, Faraday to electricity and Einstein to relativity.”

Rutherford was responsible for three fundamental contributions to the field: (1) he explained radioactivity as the spontaneous disintegration of the atom; (2) he determined the structure of the atom; and (3) he was the first to split the atom.

rutherford bank note — One of New Zealand’s proudest sons, ‘Lord Rutherford of Nelson’, graces the front of the country’s highest value bank note, the $100 note. Appearing with him is his Nobel Prize medal and a graph plotting the results from his investigations into naturally occurring radioactivity.
(© All Rights Reserved)

Ernest Rutherford was born on 30 August 1871 in the South Island town of Nelson, New Zealand. His father James Rutherford, the son of a Scottish immigrant, came to New Zealand at the age of four, while his mother, Martha Rutherford (née Thompson) emigrated with her widowed mother from England when she was thirteen. The Rutherfords, in the words of dad James, wanted “to raise a little flax and a lot of children”. Not sure how they managed on the flax, but they certainly lived up to their aspirations in the children department – young Ernest was the second son, and fourth child, of no less than twelve Rutherford children.

Rutherford excelled academically, winning a scholarship to the Canterbury College of the University of New Zealand. After completing his basic university studies through the University of New Zealand, he successfully applied for another scholarship, which enabled bim to go to the UK to complete his postgraduate studies at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge.

While working with Professor JJ Thompson, Rutherford discovered that radioactive uranium gave off two separate types of emissions – he named these alpha and beta rays. Beta rays were subsequently identified as high speed electrons.

Radioactivity and the spontaneous disintegration of the atom

In 1898 Rutherford accepted a professorship at McGlll University in Montreal, Canada. It was here, with the help of a young chemist, Frederick Soddy, that he conducted the research that gained him the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, investigating “the disintegration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances”. (Soddy himself later received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.)

Determining the structure of the atom

A subsequent move to Manchester, England, to be nearer to what he considered the main centres of science, saw Rutherford taking on a professorship at the Manchester University. With his research assistant, Ernest Marsden, he investigated the scattering of alpha rays (something he first noticed while still at McGill). They noticed some alpha rays would ‘bounce back’ when hitting even a thin gold film – this was a most surprising result, with Rutherford likening it to firing a large naval shell at a tissue paper, and seeing it bounce back. This led to him developing his concept of the ‘nucleus’, his greatest contribution to physics. According to this concept the whole mass of the atom, and all its positive charge, is concentrated in a miniscule point at its centre, which he termed the nucleus.

The Danish physicist Niels Bohr began working with Rutherford, and he adapted Rutherford’s nuclear structure to include electrons in stable formation around the nucleus. The Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom, with some improvements from Heisenberg, remains valid to this day.

Splitting the atom

In 1919, during his last year at Manchester, Rutherford noted that the nuclei of certain light elements, like nitrogen, would disintegrate when bombarded by alpha particles coming from a radioactive source, and that during this process fast protons were emitted. By doing this, Rutherford became the first person to split the atom. Patrick Blackett (winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physics) later proved that splitting the nitrogen atom actually transformed it into an oxygen isotope, so Rutherford effectively became the first to deliberately transmute one element into another.

Rutherford received the knighthood in 1914; he was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1925, and in 1931 he was raised to the peerage as Lord Rutherford of Nelson. A proud New Zealander despite living and working abroad for most of his academic career, he chose to include in his coat of arms a Kiwi, a Maori Warrior and Hermes Trismegistus, the patron saint of knowledge and alchemists.

He died in Cambridge on October 19, 1937, leaving his wife Mary Newton, and only child Eileen.

A great scientist, Rutherford’s contribution is perhaps best summarised in his eulogy in the New York Times:
“It is given to but few men to achieve immortality, still less to achieve Olympian rank, during their own lifetime. Lord Rutherford achieved both. In a generation that witnessed one of the greatest revolutions in the entire history of science he was universally acknowledged as the leading explorer of the vast infinitely complex universe within the atom, a universe that he was first to penetrate.”

August 29, 2012

It’s ‘More Herbs, Less Salt’ Day – time to give your heart a breather

Today, according to those in the know, is ‘More Herbs, Less Salt’ Day. Another of those days that has been thought up to try and nudge us towards a slightly healthier lifestyle (much like ‘Independence from Meat’ Day, that I blogged about earlier).

Indeed, leaning towards herbs, rather than heaps of salt, to season your food is not a bad idea at all. I’m sure anyone who has opened a general lifestyle magazine in the last 10 years will know that salt isn’t all that great for our overly stressed 21st century bodies – our poor hearts already have enough to deal with. Giving the heart a further knock by subjecting it to a high salt diet really isn’t a winning idea.

There’s a significant body of research linking high sodium diets to high blood pressure, which in turn is linked to heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease and other nasties. Proving that a decrease in salt actually reduces the risk of heart disease has been more difficult, but a long-term research project conducted a few years ago, aimed to do exactly that. In an article entitled “Long term effects of dietary sodium reduction on cardiovascular disease outcomes: observational follow-up of the trials of hypertension prevention (TOHP)”, the research team from Harvard Medical School presents their results from a long-term follow-up assessment related to a sodium-reduction, hypertension prevention study done 15 years earlier. In the original intervention, a group of adults followed a sodium reduced diet for between 18 and 48 months. From the long-term follow-up research it was found that, compared to the general population, “Risk of a cardiovascular event was 25% lower among those in the intervention group (relative risk 0.75, 95% confidence interval 0.57 to 0.99, P=0.04), adjusted for trial, clinic, age, race, and sex, and 30% lower after further adjustment for baseline sodium excretion and weight (0.70, 0.53 to 0.94), with similar results in each trial.”

This led them to the conclusion that “Sodium reduction, previously shown to lower blood pressure, may also reduce long term risk of cardiovascular events.”

To really put you off a high salt diet, a visit to World Action on Salt and Health, a website dedicated to “improve the health of populations throughout the world by achieving a gradual reduction in salt intake”, should do the trick. Just note, however, that this day (and most scientific research) calls for ‘less salt’, not ‘no salt’. As one of the primary electrolytes in the body, salt is essential for the body to function – just not at the levels that we’re consuming it.

Herbs on the other hand don’t just taste good – they’re like a veritable medicine cabinet in your garden (or pantry, if you don’t grow your own). Besides often being rich in vitamins and trace elements the body needs, specific herbs have long been known for their medicinal effects.

Herbs like chamomile and lavender is known to have a calming effect, parsley, oregano and echinacea can boost the immune system, garlic contains selenium, which can help reduce blood pressure (now there’s a good one to fight the effects of a high sodium diet!), mint and feverfew have been reported to reduce headaches, basil and bergemot fights colds and flu, lemon balm and rosemary is good for concentration and memory… The list goes on.

Of course, as with everything in life, the key is moderation – ‘more herbs’ should not be seen as a license to go overboard on every herb you can lay your hands on. Reckless and injudicious use of herbal supplements can be very detrimental to your health, to say the least. Colodaro State University hosts a nice site, Herbals for Health?, which is worth a read – it gives a balanced overview of the pro’s and cons of a few popular herbal supplements.

Despite the cautionary notes above, culinary herbs, especially freshly home-grown, generally speaking should not cause health risks when used in moderation as an alternative to salt in daily cooking, and that, after all, is what this day is all about. Using herbs in cooking can be a very exciting way to improve your health and well-being, so have fun experimenting with all those new tastes and flavours!

August 28, 2012August 29, 2012

Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban

When I think ‘urban’, I think ‘people’. Which leads my thoughts to what those people do in their urban environment, which immediately screams ‘shopping!’ And then of course, one starts thinking about ‘the people who serve the people – the shopkeepers’.

So here, in response to the ‘urban’ theme, some local shopkeepers. 🙂

shopkeeper 1 — Shopkeeper series 1: Barista
(© All Rights Reserved)

shopkeeper 2 — Shopkeeper series 2: Antiques dealer
(© All Rights Reserved)

shopkeeper 3 — Shopkeeper series 3: Collectables dealer in the week; viking over the weekend
(© All Rights Reserved)

shopkeeper 4 — Shopkeeper series 4: Streetside green-grocer
(© All Rights Reserved)

August 28, 2012August 28, 2012

Celebrating sound science communication with Scientific American

Today we celebrate a veritable institution in the international popular science communication landscape – the magazine Scientific American today celebrates its incredible 167th birthday, making it the oldest continuously published monthly in the US.

The first issue of the magazine, then a four page weekly newspaper, appeared on this day back in 1845. It was published by Rufus Porter, a very interesting character who, besides being a magazine publisher, was also a painter, inventor, schoolmaster and editor. In line with Porter’s personal interests, the magazine reported on happenings in the US Patent Office, as well as having popular articles on inventions of the time.

Porter’s interest in the magazine didn’t last long – after 10 months he sold it to Alfred Beach and Orson Munn I (for a whopping $800). It remained under ownership of Munn & Company, who, in the century between 1846 and 1948, grew it from its humble beginnings to a large and influencial periodical. In the late 40’s it was put up for sale again, and this time the magazine was sold to three partners, Gerard Piel, Dennis Flanagan, and Donald Miller Jr. They reportedly planned on starting their own new science magazine, but finding that Scientific American was for sale, they opted to rather buy that and work their ideas into the existing title. They made significant changes to the magazine, updating and broadening its appeal. Ownership remained stable from 1948 to 1986, when it was sold to the German Holtzbrinck group, who has owned it since. The current Editor in Chief is Mariette DiChristina – an experienced science journalist and the first woman in the magazine’s history to hold the position.

What has kept the magazine alive and relevant for so many years, is the fact that it has consistently focused on an educated, but not necessarily scientific public, clearly explaining the scientific concepts it reported on and maintaining strong editorial quality control. It has also, since its inception, focused on clear, explanatory visual illustrations to accompany its articles. In its long lifetime, the magazine has published contributions from many famous scientists, including more than 140 Nobel laureates. Albert Einstein contributed an article called “On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation” in 1950.

In 1996, the Scientific American website was launched. A mobile site, as well as the Scientific American Blog Network, followed in 2011. For the past 10 years since 2002, the magazine has been hosting its own annual awards, the Scientific American 50, recognising important science and technology contributions of the previous year, across a wide range of categories from agriculture to defence to medicine.

Here’s looking forward to many more years of quality science communication, and a big double-century celebration in 2045!