Washing Warning

"From the penthouse to the outhouse":
metaphorically, but not literally

In our house bathroom-sink soap bars have been replaced by dispensers filled with antibacterial soap, but that move is not only costly but also could be physically harmful:

Scientists at the Food and Drug Administration announced Monday [December 16] that they are revisiting the safety of triclosan and other sanitizing agents found in soap in countless kitchens and bathrooms. Recent studies suggest triclosan and similar substances can interfere with hormone levels in lab animals and spur the growth of drug-resistant bacteria.

Until the science becomes conclusive, we'll finish the bottles in inventory, then go back to washing with plain old soap and hot water. [Note that hand sanitizers, which have ethyl alcohol as the active ingredient, are currently judged safe.]

Steamed with Good Intentions

(Image from Culicurious)

We've been increasing the mix of brown rice over white rice in our diet because of the former's high fiber content. We've also been eating more rice of whatever color because of the suspicion that the gluten found in wheat is a contributor to a family member's digestive difficulties. It now turns out that the cure is potentially worse than the disease.

In September the Food and Drug Administration released the results of a study that analyzed the arsenic content of rice. Rice--especially brown rice--contains significantly more arsenic than wheat and other cereals. These findings confirm the results in a 2012 Consumer Reports study [bold added]:

No federal limit exists for arsenic in most foods, but the standard for drinking water is 10 parts per billion (ppb). Keep in mind: That level is twice the 5 ppb that the EPA originally proposed and that New Jersey actually established. Using the 5-ppb standard in our study, we found that a single serving of some rices could give an average adult almost one and a half times the inorganic arsenic he or she would get from a whole day’s consumption of water, about 1 liter.

The reason? "Rice absorbs arsenic from soil or water much more effectively than most plants."

Disappointing....brown rice seemed to be a "good" carbohydrate, or at least one that was not as harmful as others. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

O, the Humanity

An e-mail from the Yale Club [bold added]:

We regret to inform you that the event at NASA Ames Center featuring astrobiologist Dr. Lynn Rothschild has been indefinitely postponed due to the federal government shutdown. We'll keep you posted if the event gets re-scheduled.

Don't those Congressional extremists know the pain they're causing?

Somewhere Euclid is Smiling

Image and article from Quanta magazine

"[P]article interactions, the most basic events in nature, may be consequences of geometry ....Interactions that were previously calculated with mathematical formulas thousands of terms long can now be described by computing the volume of the corresponding jewel-like “amplituhedron,” which yields an equivalent one-term expression."

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

At the Top of the Academy

Everyone we know does something for (not to) the environment in varying degrees, but the Living Roof at the California Academy of Sciences does seem a little, er, over the top.

The living roof

keeps the building's interior an average of 10 degrees cooler than a standard roof would.

The plants are drought-resistant and live off trapped rainwater, not the City water supply. Lightweight construction materials kept the weight down to about twice a normal load.

Living roofs may be fine for European cities and San Francisco, but definitely not in our suburban community, which approves colors such as "granite gray" but not "slate" for roof construction. Going green is fine....for grass and trees only. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Diagnostic Tests: Disruption's a-Coming

29-year-old Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes "could upend the industry of laboratory testing and might change the way we detect and treat disease." Her company, Palo Alto-based Theranos, creates

devices that automate and miniaturize more than 1,000 laboratory tests, from routine blood work to advanced genetic analyses. Theranos's processes are faster, cheaper and more accurate than the conventional methods and require only microscopic blood volumes, not vial after vial of the stuff.

We have commented on the project triangle before. The very rare innovations that are faster, cheaper, and better have been known to trigger disruption across broad swaths of the economy.

By extracting a few drops, not vials, of blood, instantly analyzing them, and charging much less for its service than a standard lab, Ms. Holmes' company threatens a vast industry that performs "6.8 billion lab tests annually in the U.S."

1) It does seem too good to be true.

2) Nevertheless, I wish Theranos were a public company; it would be perfect for the small speculative portion of my investment portfolio.

We Don't Need No Stinking Badges

....or diplomas. When a product (college) costs more and delivers less value (jobs), young people may well become discouraged about their prospects of achieving the American dream. Fortunately, in the recovering tech economy college is not the only path to a good job. Employers are hiring workers with aptitude in science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics (STEM). [bold added].

A new report, "The Hidden STEM Economy," reveals that a university degree is not required for 27.5 percent of all jobs in the San Jose area in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. The number is even higher -- 36 percent -- in San Francisco and the East Bay. [snip]

Drawing from high schools, vocational schools and community colleges, these jobs pay annual salaries averaging $73,000 [note: the national average is $53,000]-- less than positions requiring a university degree, but $30,000 a year more than those in fields outside science, technology, engineering and math.

It won't be easy, one may have to defer one's "real" calling, and one may have to swallow some pride initially because of lower pay and status, but after a few months on the job most co-workers won't care about where or even if one went to college. In the pay-for-performance economy it's remarkable how many people succeed once they get in the door.

Cheering Him On

University of Arizona graphic

When an outsider comes up with a "breakthrough" in a specialized area, the natural reaction of the experts is to pooh-pooh the discovery. Why haven't we heard of this guy, what are his credentials, what did he publish, etc. are all questions commonly leveled at the interloper, usually with good reason; rarely do these so-called breakthroughs pan out.

Nevertheless, there's great appeal in the someone-who-comes-out-of-nowhere story. It gives hope to all of us that it is possible to master knowledge or skill in a new area (for us), and we enjoy watching the discomfiture of the proud lions in the field. This phenomenon may be happening in the rarefied air of theoretical physics.

Eric Weinstein gave a lecture at Oxford in which he outlined a theory that he has apparently been working on for a number of years. [It] is an attempt at a Theory of Everything — specifically, a theory that would unify the standard model of particle physics with general relativity, explain dark matter and dark energy, and basically provide a synthesis that would resolve many of the big questions facing physics today.

This sort of thing is always exciting. But this proposal gained particular attention for the fact that Eric Weinstein is not a Physics professor. Yes, he has a PhD in math from Harvard, but he has been out of academia for twenty years, and his day job is at a hedge fund in New York.

The greatest minds from Einstein to Hawking have been struggling to construct the Theory of Everything, and it's very unlikely that a non-physicist has come up with major new insights, much less The Answer. Of course, it was more unlikely that, just over a hundred years ago, a Swiss patent-office clerk would revolutionize the way we look at the universe.

Very few can follow what Eric Weinstein is doing, but many are cheering him on. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

News from New Haven - 1

Appetite suppressants are a popular diet aid, but suppressing hunger could promote autoimmune disease (e.g, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis), say Yale University scientists. The researchers performed tests on mice to analyze the relationship between hunger neurons and T cells, which cause inflammation that can fight infection but can also lead to autoimmune disease.

“We’ve found that if appetite-promoting AgRP neurons are chronically suppressed, leading to decreased appetite and a leaner body weight, T cells are more likely to promote inflammation-like processes enabling autoimmune responses that could lead to diseases like multiple sclerosis,” said lead author Tamas Horvath, the Jean and David W. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Research and chair of comparative medicine at Yale School of Medicine.

The majority of people we know (including us) are trying to lose weight for the familiar reasons. The Yale study suggests that using drugs to relieve hunger pangs may cause more harm than good.

Related note: during Lent, not a coincidence because of our unworldly focus, we read and tried out the FastDiet, during which the dieter "fasts" (daily consumption is capped at 500 calories for women and 600 calories for men) for any two days a week. It's easy to live with because there are no restrictions on the other five days. (Your humble observer stops reading as soon as he sees the phrase "permanent lifestyle change.")

Besides the obvious benefit of dropping 1-2 pounds per week, there does seem to be a bit more mental alertness, though admittedly we're starting from a pretty low base. I'm agnostic about some of the other benefits cited in the book, for example, the body's improved cancer-fighting ability, but there's little downside in trying it. A recommended, quick read. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Progress

The Headline: Chip Heals Self After Blast From Frickin’ Laser (H/T Glenn Reynolds)

The Details: Caltech researchers have [bold added]

built a new kind of "self-healing" processor. Basically, it can reorganize itself when confronted with something like the Apple death grip, or worse.

To test their chips, the Caltech researchers blasted out components in specially built chips, similar to the kind of power amplifier chips you'd find in your mobile phone. They found that their their chips could fix themselves and keep on working even after being blasted by lasers. When they are first disrupted, the test chips waste a lot of power, but as they heal themselves, they automatically figure out the best state to change into, in order to keep working as efficiently as possible.

The Question: is this really a good idea?

Health Breakthrough

A potential health breakthrough [bold added]:

UC San Francisco researchers have discovered a new type of cell in women's breast tissue that might one day be used to heal a variety of wounds and damaged organs, without having to destroy embryos to acquire stem cells.

The newly discovered cells act similarly to embryonic stem cells in that they can be placed in mice or in a Petri dish and "instructed" to produce many different cell types.

Compared to induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from skin tissue,

the newly discovered cells are more genetically stable than the iPS cells and are limited in how often they can reproduce, making them less likely to form cancers.

Women's breasts may soon save lives. I think guys always knew that instinctively, and that's why we worship them.

Albino Alligator

We visit the California Academy of Sciences a couple of times each year and always spend a few minutes watching Claude. The albino alligator can sit motionless for hours. We first thought he was a marble representation of a live animal, as artificial as the examples of the taxidermist's art in the Natural History section. Then he moved, and our interest was piqued.

17-year-old Claude can live till 80. Captivity suits albinos, most of whom don't make it to adulthood in the wild.

Initially, Claude had a green tank mate named Bonnie.

That relationship ended badly on a Saturday night in early 2009 when Bonnie bit Claude on his right front foot.

"Because he is albino, he has reduced vision. Claude would go into the water and bump into things, and Bonnie would snap at him," said his handler [Brian] Freiermuth, standing next to the swamp where Claude was in the 78-degree water with his head against the glass.

The Jan. 3 chomping of Claude's foot was apparently the final straw. On March 24, Bonnie was returned to a farm in Florida.

"Claude has been more active since Bonnie left," Freiermuth said. "He is better by himself, as he was stressed out with her there. He has interactions with his turtles. He is eating well. He knows his name and responds to whistle commands."

Having a tank mate has its benefits, but not if she snaps and bites. There are more unpleasant ways to live than lying on a rock by oneself, eating, and interacting with turtles. Good for Claude, may he live long and prosper. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

The Universe Reminds Us

Meteor over Chelyabinsk (LA Times photo)

...of our place in it.

A 10-metric-ton (11 U.S. standard tons) meteorite exploded 18-30 miles above Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring 1,000 people and damaging 3,000 buildings. The meteor fragments struck unpopulated areas and left craters 20 to 30 feet in diameter. The Chelyabinsk rock was smaller than the meteor (the "Tunguska incident") that struck 1,500 miles to the East in 1908 and flattened a 2,000 sq-km forest. The Tunguska meteor in turn was less than 1% the diameter of the Yucatan object that is thought to have ended the age of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

WSJ Graphic

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking

says the colonization of outer space is key to the survival of humankind, predicting it will be difficult for the world's inhabitants "to avoid disaster in the next hundred years."

Professor Hawking, as well as others, think that human extinction will more likely be caused by humanity itself (war, bioengineered viruses, environmental catastrophe) than by an external event like an asteroid strike. Whatever the source of mankind's ultimate calamity, it behooves us all to follow Stephen Hawking's advice and lift our eyes to the skies, which may be both the origin of our doom and hope for our salvation. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Hypochondriacs Know Best

The WSJ reports on two promising developments in brain science:

1) Some children with autism appear to grow out of their symptoms and recover fully.

researchers last week reported that they had identified 34 people who had all been diagnosed with autism by age 5 but years later were indistinguishable from peers on language, socialization and communication skills.

2) Animal studies show that neurons can be turned off and on by using beams of light, possibly leading to cures for psychiatric disorders like depression and drug addiction.

researchers have found they can instantly modify animals' behavior, suppress memories and lay bare the biological underpinnings of psychiatric disorders—all by illuminating neurons primed with light-sensitive proteins...."You can play the brain like a piano."

There are obvious privacy and philosophical concerns about free will and the manipulation of an individual's actions by other human beings, but to the many who must contend with mental illness and diseases like Parkinson's, development of such drug-free treatments seems like a godsend.

Advances in medical science are proceeding at such an astounding pace that one can't be blamed for being hypochondriacally vigilant about one's health. We should all try to stay alive as long as we can; conditions that portended an unhappy future a few years ago have much better prognoses today. Truer than ever: if one has life, one has hope.

No Imagination

The Economist's recent Intelligent Life special issue examined the familiar question, What's the Worst That Can Happen? Positing the worst outcome often helps us make important individual decisions, such as whether to take a new job, buy a house, get married, or have children.

But here the Economist is taking the big picture, i.e., what is the worst that can happen from humanity's point of view? Six writers answered the challenge with essays on

Famine

War Between U.S. and China

Erosion (of values and connection with the real world)

Fear

Africa Unfulfilled, and

Imagining the Worst (a cheap meta-answer, in my humble opinion).

The above scenarios lack imagination in that "worse" events can indeed happen. In none of these is humanity's very existence threatened (although life would be far more miserable).

Personally, I am worried about and would have listed an extinction-level event such as a collision between Earth and a large asteroid. At this time in history we would be defenseless, even if we had months of advance warning. There is no nuclear-missile shield, nor do we have the capability of launching enough escape vehicles into space to ensure mankind's survival.

No organizations of any significance are planning to start building either of these solutions, which would cost trillions of dollars. Let's hope that they won't be needed anytime during our lives and those of our children and grandchildren.

Not Feeling the Burn

Science continues to answer the important questions: an Illinois physicist explains why tomatoes in chicken soup burn the tongue, while other vegetables* do not:

Tomato chunks have a thick outer wall of plant material around a watery interior....the tomato insulates its interior water, keeping it hot. It's a tiny edible thermos.

But wait, that's not all. When bitten, the tomato's liquid bursts through all at once, magnifying the sensation of heat.

Most vegetables are inefficient heat-delivery systems. They're mostly solid all the way through, which means you have to mash them up to spread that inner heat around your mouth. But a tomato's liquid interior doesn't need slow chewing and mashing. As soon as a tooth punctures it, it explodes its insides all over the interior of your mouth, flame-thrower style.

Ready in 30 min with a pressure cooker.

I like tomatoes, but not in chicken soup.

(*Tomatoes are technically fruits, and there's something fundamentally wrong about putting fruits in soup.)

My favorite recipe calls for leeks, onions, carrots, celery, salt, and, of course, chicken. A big pot of soup provides a nutritious, low-calorie meal for two or more days Accompanied by pasta, rice, or bread, chicken soup sans tamates is plenty filling.

And you don't have to worry about burning your tongue.

Farewell Flyover

Foster City at 10:40 a.m.

Joining thousands of other Bay Area residents this morning, I spent a few moments gazing upward. The Shuttle Endeavour circled over the Golden Gate and headed south on its final voyage to the LA Science Center.

Like other farewell tours, the flyover was a tribute to past glory, not the promise of future greatness. What we said about the passing of Neil Armstrong last month applies equally to the cessation of American manned space travel:

The accomplishments of Neal Armstrong and the other Apollo astronauts grow more astonishing as their deeds fade in time, and sometimes I wonder what happened to the civilization that produced them. R.I.P.

Chronicle photo