Books Update

Trip to the Museum of Natural History on Friday revealed indeed an extensive selection of children's science books. Unfortunately, again, quite dissatisfying. Shelf after shelf of "core dumping" titles on dinosaurs, plants, mammals, frogs, snakes, human body, technology, etc. I want stories! I don't mean fictional stories, I mean stories in the sense of the books produced by best science writers for adults - Carl Zimmer's books tell stories about how scientists work and along the way reveal a great deal of information about the products of science in addition to the process. They have a central focus - usually a mystery or a problem to be solved - around which all the details coalesce. One would think that the story format would be all the more appealing to children, raised on a diet of fiction most of their lives, and yet they are the rarest of science books. In the stores there is often a "Young Adult" section for upper-middle school to high school aged students, and there's a rather large selection of titles - all fiction.

It's also my hunch that many of the non-fiction titles that may be more interesting are geared almost exclusively toward libraries. Few are available in paperback and fewer still are available in bookstores - what do I know, maybe they just don't sell. So I'll be talking to our librarian about getting some new material into the school library. In addition to the NSTA recommendations I mentioned earlier, I also stumbled on the Young Adult Library Association's recommendations. They have a quite extensive list including a list for college bound older students. All lists are broken down by category (fiction/nonfiction or science, history, etc.) and many are annotated.

core dump
n.

A recapitulation of knowledge (compare bits, sense 1). Hence, spewing all one knows about a topic (syn. brain dump), esp. in a lecture or answer to an exam question. “Short, concise answers are better than core dumps” (from the instructions to an exam at Columbia).

Originally: A copy of the data stored in the core memory of a computer, usually used for debugging purposes.


Answers.com

This Is "Fit To Print?"

I started writing this earlier today but had to leave before finishing it.

Ghosts in the machine. What is this rot? Scientists discovered (more or less accidentally) a part of the brain that, when electrically stimulated, induces phantom visions. The obvious logical conclusion to be drawn is that all those reports of people seeing ghosts and other supernatural apparitions are nothing more than the result of chemical/electrical disturbances in the brain. In other words, illusions. Most reasonable, rational people long ago accepted that these phenomena are merely tricks of the brain, but here comes a study - hard evidence really -that demonstrates the possibility of inducing exactly the kind of visions people sometimes report as paranormal. Case closed.

Unless, of course, your life's work is based on peddling this supernatural nonsense. Don't get me wrong. I don't really have a problem with kids believing in Santa or superman or space aliens or otherwise engaging in fantasies of ghosts or demons or the Avatar. But when these beliefs persist into adulthood in a literal way, you've got to wonder about the sanity of the people holding onto them.

Deborah Blum won a Pulitzer prize for “Ghost Hunters: William James and the Scientific Search for Life After Death.” I haven't read it, but I assume it's a pretty objective account of a turn of the century thinker who holds onto some romantic notions of spirituality and tries to bring science to bear on his beliefs. Sounds not much different from the "Creation Science" movement a few decades ago or the intelligent design fraud that is waning today. But apparently the author isn't just interested in this stuff for historical reasons but actually holds onto this desperate need for some form of supernatural world out there beyond the limited imaginations of the stale scientists who dismiss it. Nineteenth century indeed. Her conclusion says it all:

I suspect that we’ll dwell forever in the haunted landscape of our beliefs. To many people it’s a world more interesting — bigger, stranger, more mysterious — than the one offered by science. Why choose instead to be creatures of chemical impulse and electrical twitch? We would rather gamble on even a tiny, electrical spark of a chance that we are something more.

I suspect that my 8 year old twins have a similar rationalization somewhere deep in the recesses of their brains regarding Santa Claus. On one level, they must know that it just doesn't make sense and I can see the beginnings of doubt and realization on their faces and in the questions they ask. On the other hand, to disbelieve outright is to lose something warm & comforting and to risk not getting presents anymore. But eventually they will have to face the facts and appreciate the reality behind the fantasy - that Santa, in his purest form, is a mythical figure who represents something real but abstract, the spirit of giving and of generosity and good will and yes, even love. That is part of the "something more" that we are and it's enough for me, cynical "scientist" that I am.

I Started a Blog...

...which nobody read.

Sprites 2006 album Modern Gameplay

AKA Friday Random 10 + 1

I was about to post my random 10 for today when this song started playing on my Yahoo radio station. Seriously, not making this up. Must be a message from the BlogGods.

But since I don't pay much attention to the gods anyway, here goes.

Artist - Title

1. Yo La Tengo - Sugarcube
2. Phoenix - North
3. Dismemberment Plan - Time Bomb
4. Franklin Bruno - Bulk Removal Truck
5. Cat Power - Say
6. Muse - Starlight
7. Placebo - Running Up That Hill
8. Joesf K - Endless Soul
9. Patty Griffin - One Big Love
10. Bloc Party - Plans
    

Naked Roach

Sounds like it ought to be a euphemism for something, but no...

Until they reach adult size the Madagascan hissing cockroaches molt every few weeks. This was one of the few and probably the first that I ever observed in this state. I actually took this picture back in September, and just now got around to uploading to my computer from the camera. Since then I've seen a few more, and even one that was in the process of emerging from its exoskeleton. Just to add to the ick factor, they usually eat the molted shell.

Nowhere to Browse

I spent about an hour in a bookstore looking for reading recommendations for my students. I wanted some titles that were written with young readers in mind, but the science section is hopeless - it is filled with books that are written, in principle, for the lay-reader, but they are mostly pretty heavy reading even for me, and certainly beyond the reading level of most of my students. Even the advanced readers would have a hard time with the science content of almost all of the books, including the Cartoon Guide to Genetics that I finally purchased.

So off I trudged to the children/young adult section. Waste of time. Their nonfiction selection is an abomination, and especially so for science. Most of the offerings are those Eyewitness or similar type books, which are almost mini-encyclopedias more than anything else - not exactly what I have in mind. Hardly any scientist biographies (Einstein, not much else), and no titles comparable to any of the selections in the adult section. I've been to a couple of the major bookstores in the city and they all look the same in this regard. I haven't tried Bank Street yet, maybe they will have a better variety. Then there's the Museum of Natural History gift shop that has a rather large book section as well. I'll check them out after the holiday.

I came home from my book hunt and remembered that the NSTA publishes an annual list of recommended trade books (non-textbooks with science content). I selected a few examples and searched Barnes & Noble online. Turns out they do in fact carry most of the books online. But online browsing just isn't the same. I want to see the book and flip through the pages and read a little to get a feel for it. Looks like that's a luxury I won't have.

Happy Holidays

This has been one of the nicest pre-holiday weeks I've ever experienced as a teacher. There's been warm feelings all around, our "office party" was well done, students have been excited, albeit reluctant to get much work done. I think I timed it so that this wasn't a problem and factored in some down-time this week to tie up some lose ends, such as finishing the (PBS) Evolution video and working on some extra credit assignments and the like.

My 8th graders had the luxury today of having laptops in the classroom so I had everyone set up their google account and post something on the class reading blog. I let them go a little crazy and post whatever they wanted (within reason) with the caveat that all would be deleted soon except for serious reading logs. I did have one student post her pre-reading entry on the book she chose, which was nice - otherwise it's a free-for-all, instant messaging, chat-room kinda atmosphere. Maybe I'll copy everything to a single post and leave it there- they can get pretty attached to their postings.

The English teacher (humanities in our school) approached me about the assignment and offered some much-appreciated ideas on modifying or augmenting the assignment somewhat to take into account the huge range of abilities and access to resources among our students. Some students have no problem getting to a public library or bookstore to find books, and no trouble picking a book that appeals to them, is at an appropriate reading level, and satisfies the requirements of the assignment. Others will be both unable to get the necessary materials and unwilling to ask for help. I will be at a bookstore this weekend looking for 5-10 titles at a range of reading levels to recommend and we will be offering to order copies for them from Barnes & Noble for a discounted price. Also the 200 page requirement may be a bit much for the 10 weeks I've given them to complete the assignment. So I'll probably reduce that to a 100-150 range for the book, and 10-15 for the articles.

In other news, I'm totally unprepared for the holidays. I am going to try to buy all gifts for next year during the after-Christmas sales this year in an effort to avoid this madness next year - although I think a lot of the after-Christmas sales are fraudulent and will have to be careful in terms of comparing prices. I'm going downtown early tomorrow morning for last-minute items, but there may not be an "early" in terms of beating the crowds.

Now the Good News

At the risk of being pre-mature, I've been informed that my student blogs got the nod from the "elves" at the DOE. That means I may be able to demonstrate how to post tomorrow and a few of the intrepid may even get started over the break or sooner with their book reviews or article summaries.

In other good news, and in a completely different vein, Pitchfork has posted their annual Top *** lists. I'll post the links here, but Pitchfork has a habit of moving things around so I'll try to keep checking to make sure they work. If they break, you can find the links pretty easily from Pitchfork's homepage. First, there's the Top 100 Tracks. Up from last years "Top 50 Singles" because they've expanded the field a bit to include any track, released as a single or not, including remakes and covers - basically anything released in 2006. Then there's the Top 50 Albums, which always take a while to wade through.

Finally, the one I have browsed a little already is the Guest List - a collection of recommendations from some of the bands/artists themselves. I already fell in with Juana Molina's Son, an "alternative Latin" sound that's mesmerizing - and I thought I didn't like Latin music.

So that'll more than fill any free moments I have over the break to sit back and record some new music.

Good Mood Dashed

A series of cold viruses had left me in a pretty dark mood these last 4 weeks or so, but today I felt well enough to bike in to work (the weather was unseasonably warm), and by the time I got set up for the day at school the endorphins were kicking in and I felt pretty good, excited even, about presenting the blog to my students this morning.

Turns out the DOE found something objectionable on my blogs and blocked them from the school's server - I don't know if it's the link to a NY Times article on !BREAST! cancer, or the article on whale !VOMIT! (ambergris, actually), or the reference to Eli Lily's !DRUG! problems, or Chile's policy on the morning after !PILL! Or maybe they just don't like blogspot because it might have !BLOGS!

Who knows. All I know is they need to get a clue. If the security filters are this lame, or if they are stupid enough to think blogs are bad, they may as well get rid of the whole idea of internet access in the schools as more and more content, commentary, and meaningful interactions are being conducted on blogs.

So there went my great day. I did speak to our tech person about getting the blogs allowed, we'll see what happens. Worst case scenario, I may have to host the blogs on my own website (like this one) for the time being.

A Tear for Baiji

(Cross posted to my student blogs)

"I consider myself a strong man," he said. "But when I saw that footage I cried for several minutes. It's just so terribly sad."

That was August Pfluger's response to watching a video of Qi Qi (pronounced "chee-chee"), the last known member of the now apparently extinct Chinese River Dolphin, or baiji. Qi Qi died in 2002 after over 20 years living in captivity. She was rescued after being caught in fish hooks and brought to the aquarium.

Pfluger lead a team along China's Yangtze river (the dolphin's only habitat) in a 6-week search for any remaining dolphins that might still be alive but their quest was fruitless and they have essentially declared the species extinct. Official recognition of the extinct status takes a lot longer to reach.

There are now only 5 remaining species of freshwater dolphins, and 4 of them are "critically endangered."

As usual, the culprit is human exploitation of the rivers. In the case of the baiji, industrial needs led to the dredging and deepening of the river, boats propellers may confuse the dolphin's sonar, and pollution reduces the dolphin's food supply, which consists of smaller fishes in the river.

Baiji is the first large species of (aquatic) mammal to become extinct since the Caribbean monk seal was driven to extinction by over hunting in the 1950s.

National Geographic Article

Hello yeah it's been a while...

..not much, how `bout you?

Ahh, the 70s. I couldn't resist. I'm guessing England Dan & John Ford Coley - let me look it up. Hold on a second, wait for it... Yes! I was right. Kind of embarassing, really. I don't listen to radio and even if I did I doubt you'd hear that stuff anymore except on the cheesiest soft rock/easy listening stations. And another pet-peeve - I don't know when stations decided we don't really want to know who performs the music anyway, but when I do have the displeasure of listening to radio (my wife sometimes channel surfs when we are driving somwhere) they NEVER announce the artists. Drives me batty when I hear an old song and then we rack our brains for an hour trying to remember who did it, waiting patiently for the voice break and hoping this will be that one time in a thousand where the DJ will put our suffering to an end with the old, "and you just heard..."

So what brings me back to the blog. I decided last week to strike up the student blogging idea again. I got some nice tradebooks from the parents of my students at an annual Barnes & Noble fundraising event and wanted to get the students to start reading science that is way more interesting than what gets covered in the textbook and doesn't require me to copy newspaper articles every week. So the reading blog seemed a perfect fit.

I've created a basic assignment consisting of a choice between a heavy reading requirement ( a 200 page book, e.g.) with a limited written requirement (3 blog entries) or a limited reading requirement (25 newspaper/magazine articles) with a heavier written component (one blog entry per article). Students also have the option of turning in their logs in the traditional pen/paper fashion. I've posted links below, but the blog is just starting and no student entries yet. One separate blog per class. Only students and I will be allowed to post or comment.

The other nice thing I discovered is that Blogger has made it significantly easier to add outside content to the blog. So I've posted some site feeds from a number of science & health news providers to the sidebar, offering a source of reading selections to those students who want to take the articles path, right there on the blog itself. Check it out.

Science Readers (Blog)

Assignment

That Didn't Take Long

Do teachers ever stop complaining about getting sick? End of the second week in school and already I have my first cold, along with several colleagues and a good number of students in a pretty small school. Fortunately it is not serious, a relatively minor version (as of now, it could get worse) and if I really wanted to I could even do some exercise in spite of it, but I've been good lately so I can take a few days off without much guilt or worry.

What has me particularly annoyed, though, is what I've discovered about those gel-type hand "sanitizers" along the way. In August I bought a big economy bottle of the stuff hoping that using it liberally might cut down on some of the colds I get every year - I still average 5-6 per school year, some of them lingering for 2 or more weeks - "Kills 99.99% of germs and bacteria..." Sure. Umm, could you define "germ?"

Turns out that 0.01% of germs that don't have to worry about hand sanitizers includes the cold viruses, which are the number one problem among most people in the civilized world when it comes to pathogens that make us sick on a regular basis. I would give up just about any pleasureable, non-essential activity you can think of for freedom from these dreaded almost-living particles that exist for no other reason that to make me misreable.

So, when a colleague mentioned that those products don't work on viruses, I argued that they were all alcohol based and I thought alcohol killed everything? Not exactly. I came home and did a little research, and it turns out that alcohol is not effective against nonenveloped viruses, and wouldn't you know it, most of the viruses that cause the common cold are nonenveloped viruses - both the rhinoviruses and adenoviruses.

The other important point about hand sanitizers is that the jury seems to still be out as to whether cold viruses are more likely spread in the first place through hand-to-nose contact or through the air, in which case no hand sanitizer will help anyway, even one that might be effective at killing these viruses.

Bottom line, I'll still use it when I get off the subways and buses - no telling WHAT nasty bugs I might get on my hands there and better safe than sorry. But at school, I don't see much use in the products.

Sophmore Year

Wow, if I thought this second year was going to be a little easier, it isn't looking that way at the moment. I've not had time to post at all, so I'll skip the kwetching and go straight to the instruction.

I'm pretty happy with the way things are going at the moment. We just got into some nature of science stuff this week and will finish up the introductory material next week. I budgeted 2 full weeks (not counting this past one) and I may just meet the schedule for a change. This week we talked a little about magic - I did the "Science Never Sucks" (Word Doc) trick with the test tubes, penny, and soapy water. Worked in 2 classes but not a third. The penny is just a hair too big or doesn't sit just right on the lip of the test tube so it's a little inconsistent. Then I showed them a "gory" Crisangel video and we talked a little about the importance of observation and skepticism.

We spent a little time on the "Tracks" activity that I can't link to for copyright issues. E-mail me and I'll send you the copy that I scanned. It's actually from BSCS (or that's where I got it) and involves exposing a "fossil bed" (picture) of animal tracks, one section at a time, and making observations/inferences, then revising those inferences as more information accumulates. I'm sure there are other versions of the activity, but a google search turned up nothing. It was interesting to me that students at the end wanted to know the "real" story. That lack of certainty is obviously a problem in science for a lot of people. We seem to crave an author, an authority, or an authoritarian to give us a definitive answer.

Next week we will be playing with the hissing cockroaches. They will begin a long term observation of the critters and I will start by asking them to compare the cockroaches to themselves in as much detail as possible. I don't have a formal lab write-up. Instead, they will be taking notes and keeping a log in their journals. For lab minutes I will have to supply some sort of worksheet to keep on file for them, but that will have to wait a few weeks. I also have the mealworms that I will work in at some point. I found an idea to conduct a controlled experiment on the effect of temperature on their development from pupa to adult. It's the only transition where there's a certain degree of control for the age variable, since you can actually know within a few hours when a mealworm turns into a pupa, then measure how long it takes to turn into a beetle. Unfortunately I think my adult beetles are engaging in a little cannibalism, and I may have to start a separate cage for the adults to keep this from continuing. Gotta get those student monitors lined up next week to help with some of the lab set up and live critter upkeep.

Sunscreens Cause Skin Cancer

Sunscreens Can Damage Skin, Researchers Find

Science Daily

This is straight out of Woody Allen's "Sleeper."

Researchers discovered that the active ingredients in sunscreen can penetrate the skin where they themselves do damage when exposed to UV radiation. The effect is negated if fresh sunscreen is applied (where it will remain for a period of time on the surface of the skin) to stop the UV rays from penetrating the lower layers of the skin. In other words, on the surface of the skin, the sunscreeen prevents UV rays from causing damage to your skin cells. However, when the chemicals in sunscreen penetrate to the lower layers of the skin they actually magnify the damaging effects of the sun's rays. This is, in a weird way, great news for the sunscreen industry, since the solution to the problem is to reapply sunscreen often. Long term, the solution is to find ways to keep the uv filters from being absorbed into the skin.

Tacks Along the Hudson

I was hoping this post would be about that warm fuzzy feeling that comes from doing good deeds to help your fellow human being, but it will quickly turn into a rant about ugly behavior. I've been thinking about this post for a while, ever since I saw an ad on TV for some insurance company that depicts a series of linked events where a person steps in/up to help someone else - perfect strangers. The recipient of that random act of kindness is depicted in the next scene helping another, and so on and so on. (I'll update when I see it again and record the details). I normally hate television in general and particularly commercials, but this one strikes a cord with the goody-goody in me, which I like to think all of have inside us on some level.
First the warm fuzzy. I got a flat tire on my bike yesterday and found a tack in my tire. I had one patch left, fixed the flat, started pumping it up and realized the tack had gone through both sides of the tube, so there were TWO holes in the tire and I had no more patches left. I only had the one patch left because I just got a flat tire two days earlier going the other direction on the same path, caused by - a tack. It was early evening on a cloudy day that looked like rain, so not a lot of traffic on the bike path. Nevertheless, I flagged down a couple of guys on bikes. Both stopped to chat briefly but neither had any patches with them. I was about to give up and start walking when a pair of cyclists rode by before I could even see them coming, and without waiting for me to ask, one called out, "Everything OK?" I called back "Got any patches?,", to which the guy stopped, turned around, came back and shuffled through his sack, pulled out a patch, gave me a second one just in case. Saved me from a long walk home. I'm eternally grateful to someone I'll most likely never see again.
Time to repay the debt. Today I went running along the same path. I got caught in the heavy rain that lasted over an hour. The rain began shortly after I started running, and of course, stopped shortly after I finished running. I just can't catch break these days. I was so distracted by the rain that when I saw a guy fixing a flat tire on his bike under an overpass, I didn't even make the connection with my own troubles. A little further on, however, I looked down and saw a whole cluster of those sharp tacks that are used for furniture upholstery.

So I actually stood there (or stooped to be precise) and picked up all those tacks. Now, there's an element of self-interest here, in that I ride this path all the time and I'm tired of patching tires, but I also patted myself on the back for saving a good number of other cyclists from getting flat tires. So, start running again and get about 10 yards when I see another cluster of tacks. OK, stop & pick them up. Start running again expecting to see another cluster, but it looks clean - for about 100 yards, then another cluster of shorter tacks. Yes, I stopped and picked them up. Then another. Yup, picked them up. Suddenly a few yards away a huge cluster of tack, just too many for me to pick up. I tried sweeping them aside with my foot, but they stuck in my shoe. I had to admit defeat.

All the clusters I described above were along the newly-constructed pathway that runs along and below the Riverbank State Park between 135th and 145th streets (approximately). On the way back, I found more clusters north of the Park, and in the rain and scattered amongst the debris, who knows how many other clusters there are that I didn't spot? So it looks like I will have to find an alternative path temporarily.

OK, I'll skip the rant. I have to constantly remind myself of all the foolish things I did as a kid, and I hate to admit that this isn't that far different from some pranks that I did in fact pull when I was young & oblivious to the effects of my actions on others. I vented to a neighbor and I followed his advice to contact the parks department. Awaiting a response. In the meantime, if you're a cyclist, be very careful along the bike path from about 158th street to 133rd(?) street where the path ends - and always carry extra patches!

UPDATE (9-9-06)

The problem continues and is growing. I didn't ride along the path for a few days, both because of the beginning of the school year and because there were a couple of days where it rained. So when I finally rode to work on Friday I took a detour on the way in (no time for flats on the way to work) and then the usual route, slowly, on the way back. That's when I started passing by people again pushing their bikes with flat tires. I thought I had missed them, since I went slowly and didn't see any tacks, but a short distance from my home I noticed the tire getting a little flat, slowly, so I pulled over and sure enough there was another tack in the tire. I talked to a couple of other "riders" (pushers by now) and we cursed and speculated on what was going on. It's fresh tacks every day it seems. These are little steel nails that rust quickly and the ones we pull out of our tires are needle sharp and shiny. I'm slowly coming around to the idea of camera surveillance in the parks!

UPDATE II (1/14/07)

I meant to post this a few months ago but didn't have the time. Below is the text of an e-mail from the Parks Department and a contact e-mail for future problems. This is dated 10/27/06:

Mr. G -

Thank you for your note regarding the tacks strewn along the pathways in Riverside and Ft. Washington Park. We appreciate that you brought this matter to our attention. Your comments along with many others were quite helpful in identifying the problematic locations.

We've swept the entire length of the pathway and believe we've solved the problem though it remains a mystery why someone would do this.

If you should have any other questions regarding this or any other matter in Riverside Park, please feel free to reach out to me directly at kc.sahl@parks.nyc.gov or 212.408.0264.

Thank you,

KC

Haven't been out in a while but I expect the problem to be minimal in the winter months anyway.

Labs 2006

Lab List 2006-2007 - Part 1



This is taking a lot longer than I expected - Part 2 will follow...

I've divided them by topic according to my sequence for the year. A hodge-podge of labs from various sources, which I've linked to where possible. I hope to some day standardize the formats and customize them, but good lord that takes time and focus. Some labs are not available electronically. I've offered alternatives that are available or explanations of the labs that you can use as a starting point. I found all these labs by 1) creating my own from scratch or adapting existing labs, 2) browsing other science teachers' sites (click on the links in the sidebar), 3) browsing back issues of sciene teacher journals like American Biology Teacher or NSTA's Science Teacher, 4) googling key terms and seeing what comes up, 5) following leads that come in through various listservs.

Nature Of Science/Evolution

1. Black Box - Mental Models Lab

2. Natural Selection Game

3. Variation in Sunflower Seeds Worksheet. Adapted from Monaco Education Service

Organizations & Patterns

4. Chemical Reactions ( No write-up yet. I used my Experimental Design Worksheet and talked them through it. Students manipulate baking soda amount, measure magnitude of the reaction via balloon diameter. I'll try to write up something more substantial later on).

5. Mello Jello. Jello, detergents, enzymes. Controlled experiment on Enzyme Action. I have students fill out Experimental Design Worksheet in addition to answering the concept questions that come with the activity.

6. Making Cheese (Protein Denaturation) Just add sugar - yummy.

7. Egg 0smosis. Try the Exploratorium version of the "Naked Egg."

8. Diffusion Through a Membrane (Part 1) State Lab - No elecronic version available. Description: Red Onion Cells

9. Comparing Plant & Animal Cells (Mike Comet)

Homeostasis

10. Making Connections (Part 1) New York State - (Alternative)

11. Lung Capacity (Mike Comet)

12. Frog Dissection (Optional) - Here's an HTML version. Mine are not in electronic form.

Reproduction

13. Mealworm Life Cycle (Long Term Study, no write-up yet)

14. Zebra Fish Embryos Study (Still looking into this)

15. Flower Dissection. Mine is not available electronically. Try Access Excellence Version.

That's about half of the labs I have on tap. Next up - Genetics, Modern Evolution, Ecology Labs and a few additions to Homeostasis.

Curriculum Resources at NIH

Just found this site from a recommendation on the NSTA listserv. The National Institutes of Health Office of Science Education has an incredible catalog of curriculum resources for health-related human biology - fitness, nutrition, body systems, disease, genetics, etc. I haven't explored the resources in detail yet, but I'll probably be downloading a lot. I have some previous experience with their materials on drugs and the brain, which I found to be a little too advanced for direct use in the classroom, more AP level, so I may jump down and look at their middle school materials for Regents (mostly 9th graders in my school). It's always easier for me to "smarten up" than to "dumb down" if necessary.

(Thanks Elaine, if you stumble across this post!)

Are We Not Pansies?

We Are Pansies.*

10 lovely songs that I only listen to with the headphones lest my too-soft interior be exposed! (OK, I'm not really that paranoid.)

Artist - Title

1. Architecture in Helsinki - City Calm Down

2. Stars - This Charming Man

3. Nick Drake – Northern Sky

4. Cat Power – The Greatest

5. Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars

6. French Kicks – Trial of The Century

7. Cairo Gang - Warning

8. Velvet Underground- Stephanie Says

9. Microphones – I Want Wind To Blow

10. New Pornographers – Streets of Fire

*Pansy: Name origin and significance

The pansy gets its name from the French word pensée meaning "thought". It was so named because the flower resembles a human face and in August it nods forward as if deep in thought. (Wikipedia)

(Updated)

Science & Politics

Several recent items worth noting again are at the intersection of science & politics. First, the Pluto saga that I've already mentioned several times. This story represents politics in the broadest sense of the word, where cultural tradition and public pressure (politics in essence) almost led a scientific body (IAU) to define a planet based not on logical categories but on a historically based desire to keep a paradigm intact. It's not that the terminology is really all that important or that the current definition doesn't have problems (See again Bad Astronomy Blog or any of the Times articles on the issue), but that the definition that included Pluto as a planet was perhaps the worst, most inelegant, of the possible definitions, stitched together to satisfy a constituency's sentimental desires to maintain Pluto as a planet. Chalk one up for science.

Second item. The FDA finally approved over-the-counter sales of Plan B, a hormonal emergency contraceptive that has long been deemed safe for over the counter sale by the professionals at FDA who study these matters but held up by the *bush administration (directly or indirectly - it's all the same to me) for obvious political reasons. As PZ Myers points out in a fabulous summary of the physiology of it all, Plan B is not an "abortion pill" - it works by blocking ovulation or fertilization. In rare cases it may stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus, but that's pretty much true of traditional birth control pills as well. Chalk this one up as a political victory. Why? Because the decision was reached not because the politicos at the FDA came to their senses, but because the Democrats in congress applied the necessary political pressure in holding up the nomination of bush's appointee, Andrew C. Von Eschenbach, until after a decision about Plan B was reached. Gotta play hardball with this crowd - will Democrats ever really learn?

Last item. DarkSyde over at DailyKos has a "Science Friday" piece on a somewhat related topic, stem cell research. August is the anniversary of bush's speech (2001) limiting stem cell research to such an extent as to be a virtual ban as regards government funding. DarkSyde discusses the consequences and the politics. Includes a powerful juxtaposition of two pictures, a human embryonic stem cell and young Iraqi girl. Go read the caption (and the rest of the article), if you can't figure out already what the point is. A sad victory for politics. DarkSyde's post draws heavily from Chris Mooney's recent book "The Republican War on Science," which is out in paperback. I'm getting a copy today.

*When bush stops calling the Democratic Party the "Democrat Party" I'll start capitalizing his name.

Slow Going

I've been going in to work for a couple of hours each day this week. First, I can't tell you what a luxury it is to be able to go in before school starts and get a little work done. At my old school this just wasn't allowed - in a school where we all boxed up our possessions in June knowing that we would ALL be assigned to different rooms in September. You can imagine the madness in those two days we had to prepare for the return of the students, with at least half of the first day spent standing around waiting to get keys, sitting in faculty meetings and/or attending some so-called "PD."

Now I get to leisurely re-arrange my room, make sure all my technology is hooked up and working, organize supplies, and take care of those house-keeping chores that there never seems to be time for during the year. All the drawers in my room (all 54 of them!) had loose handles that had to be tightened, two screws per handle. I had to find all the keys (again, all 54 sets) and re-label them in a more user-friendly way. I've had to clear all the textbooks out of my supply cabinet where they were locked all summer, to make way again for my supplies, which were in boxes. I still need to clean some grafitti and gum from the tables, to the extent possible, before school starts. That should be enough boring detail to give you a sense of what's been going on, a part of the tedious and decidedly un-academic aspect of teaching that is underappreciated by the general public - it's not considered "work" in the contractual sense and no one seems to want to actually pay us do do it, but it doesn't get done if I don't do it myself, at least not in a timely mannner. It's also time consuming and sometimes back-aching - those biology textbooks weigh a ton.

I still don't know what to do with all those drawers. I'd like to put materials in there that students need, but I can't figure out a practical way to do it so that the materials are both secure and accessible. The only model I have is my old chem lab, where we bought our own padlocks and had our own individual assigned drawers. That won't work for me. I may end up simply using most of them as my own storage spaces and keeping them locked up throughout the day. I certainly need the space.

...Just Served Us Nuts. Period.

Pluto Is Demoted to ‘Dwarf Planet’


(NY Times)

It's official. The IAU voted on a new set of definitions that separates the 8 major planets from Pluto and the other objects out there that never got around to clearing their orbital "neighborhoods."

I refer you once again to Bad Astronomy Blog for insightful commentary.

(If the title of this post has you scratching your head, read this one.

The Music Drug

A while back I bought an MP3 player and re-entered the world of alternative music that I left behind after moving to NY (1990) & no longer having access to good college radio stations to keep me up to date. Wow, that's 15 years to catch up on. On the inaugural run with my new player I noted the distinct high I felt from the music coursing through my veins combined with the endorphins from the running.

I revisit the topic today in response to this link (via Smooth Pebbles) to an interview with Daniel Levitin, a former record producer turned neuroscientist specializing in, you guessed it, music and the brain. Quote:

Music activates the same parts of the brain and causes the same neurochemical cocktail as a lot of other pleasurable activities like orgasms or eating chocolate -- or if you're a gambler winning a bet or using drugs if you're a drug user. Serotonin and dopamine are both involved.

Furthermore, different types of music can be used for different effects, as we probably already know. There are particular kinds of music I look for when I'm exercising, and even within that subgroup of musical styles, I scan the folders for even more specific songs at the end of my run when I really need a kick to keep it going to the end. Another interesting phenomenon I've noticed is that the range of music I enjoy while biking is much greater than the range I listen to while running.

I first heard about Levitin's work on NPR a few weeks ago. You can listen to him here, along with links to a series of other NPR stories about music & the brain.

Another Blow To Charter Schools

Study of test scores finds charter schools lagging

(NY Times)

I'll be the first to say that test scores do not tell the whole story. I'm sure most parents who send their children to charter schools will continue to do so in spite of theses studies that show academic performance in charter schools is no better or even lags performance in comparable public schools as measured on standardized tests. A lot of intangibles make a school desirable, such as small size, low discipline problems and/or crime, special programs, feelings of community, and a willingness to keep parents informed and involved. As reported a while back, charter schools tend to have a young, energized, idealistic staff that work ungodly hours. Parents and students tend to respond positively to this Herculean effort but it is ultimately unsustainable before the eventual family demands, burnout, and turnover. This alone may account for some of the discrepancy in test scores. Few people have the instinctive talent to walk into a school the first year and be highly effective. Teaching has its own learning curve, regardless of how smart, energetic, or idealistic you are. A high turnover rate means a school on average has a high percentage of new teachers, meaning a high percentage of students are getting less than optimal instruction.

So why should it matter if their scores on standardized assessments are slightly lower? That seems to be the question on the mind of Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform:

Why do we need to have the government give us data when the most important data is what we get locally, looking at the school and how it does in meeting the state standards to which they have to be held under No Child Left Behind?

It's because standardized test scores are the only criteria that really matter in terms of NCLB. Individual states have radically different standards. Attendance, crime, graduation rates and any other peripheral items tend to correlate with test scores. It's the test scores that lead schools to be labeled as "failing." It is test scores that merit pay enthusiasts want to use as criteria for differential salaries. And the key point to remember when considering this study is that test scores are used by advocates of charter schools and other privatization schemes to discredit public schools and advance their cause.

Keep in mind that the two obvious groups who have an interest in a particular outcome for studies comparing charter/private schools and regular public schools are the alternative schools themselves, and the Bush administration, including his Department of Education, which funded this study. The irony, then, of this statement is hard to ignore:

This is one of the most contentious issues with regard to the charter school research debate, Mr. Schneider (federal commissioner of statistics) said. He said the department should not put its stamp on research comparing public and charter schools but should leave individual researchers to use the data to compete in the "marketplace of ideas."

Well sure. It's hard to sit back and throw stones at your own study - better to let private groups do the studies, then sit back and blast away at the ones you don't like while citing the ones you do like to support your ideological agenda. How transparently disingenuous can they get? "Marketplace of ideas?" What the heck does that mean?

A legitimate response to undesirable data is to try to explain it, not explain it away. I've speculated above on a possible reason why charter school scores lag (on average high percentage of new teachers due to teacher turnover), but I don't have the tools, resources, or time to actually test that hypothesis. I would think charter school advocates would in fact want to find out. I suspect they know what many of us have been saying for a long time, that test scores are neither the only nor necessarily the most important criterion in determining how well a school (or teacher for that matter) is performing. But they aren't willing just yet to give up on standardized tests as a weapon against public schools.

Not So Fast There Pluto!

It looks like Neil deGrasse Tyson and the American Museum of Natural History may yet be vindicated. The New York Times is reporting that a firestorm over the proposed changes last week at the International Astronomical Union's meeting in Prague has led to reconsidering the definition of a "planet." The latest proposal would require that a planet "must also be massive enough to clear other objects out of its orbital zone," which rules out Pluto (and Ceres and Xena & Charon and any other other potential additions from the previous definition). I should probably hold my tongue (er, keyboard) until an official announcement is made, but I've aelready stuck my neck out there and reported on the first news, so it can't hurt to respond now to the current state of affairs, even if they change again - I will follow up on the final announcement, which I believe is scheduled for Thursday. I hope Dr. Tyson gets another crack at Colbert after eating the proverbial humble pie last week:

Hat Tip: Bad Astronomy Blog for the YouTube link.

Back In The City

Short trip to the shore. I have to start planning my vacations in July. Once August rolls around all I can think of is getting ready for the new school year. Vacation should be a relaxing week or two to unwind from the previous school year, then back to work. Maybe in a few years when my program is in better shape I can think differently, but for now I need to think of August as the unofficial back to work month. I also need some time to leave the computer at home and disengage from the obsessive busy-ness of my routine - which is not necessarily productive activity, but just a constant need to be "doing" something.

SO here's a single picture of the kids at the beach. Deceptively strong waves, small and breaking very close to shore. I had difficulty wading out past the breakers to the calmer waters, and it was only about 10-15 feet from shore. There is a steep incline where water meets shore that probably explains the violence of those little waves. Kids got knocked around pretty badly and swallowed lots of saltwater. I won't even talk about my own little accident.

Final Days

I hate to utter those words, but here we are, 19 days away from the first day back with the kiddies. I'm off to the shore for the weekend, maybe a little longer. I will be taking work with me, since I've spent so much time procrastinating this summer and vegging out in July. I should probably call it "recuperating," from a stressful (if extremely satisfying on many levels) school year. Funny thing is, I was not particularly anxious for the school year to end, but after it ended, I immediately began having anxiety over the new year beginning. A strange phenmomenon, I think.

I have got some things done this summer, if far less than my over-abmitious plans at the beginning. I'll be posting a few things in the next week or so - my lab list is practically finished and I have a folder full of more than I can possibly implement for next year, meaning I will have to prioritize. I have balance issues in that I have a lot of labs on cellular pocesses and deficiencies in a couple of other areas, but not majorly so. Still, I will not be scrambling for labs as I did last year. I am still working on the links before I post.

I've also made decisions on sequencing, which I posted here and I will begin revising my course packet. I have collected a lot of newspaper and magazine articles on various topics, which I will compile into a booklet. I won't be able to post those for copyright reasons. I do recommend purchasing a pdf maker. I use Adobe. It allows me to make pdf versions of articles I find before they disappear. Yeah, you could just print them, but I'm not a good paper organizer, and prefer electronic copies. That also allows me to post the material on my school's website and make available to students only, avoiding the copyright problem.

Finally, I need to get my student website updated, then back to school to organize everything and re-arrange and decorate the classroom. A few other odds & ends not worth listing at the moment, but I will bring them in as I get around to them. So off I go. Pictures from the coast are sure to follow.

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dragonfire.exe

My Very inElegant Mother, Carol,...

OK. So now we will have 12 or more planets, and one of them insinuated itself WITHIN the existing 8/9. Ceres, the largest asteroid in the the asteroid belt between Mars & Jupiter is now a planet.

I won't spend a lot of time here discussing it, the NY Times and Bad Astronomy Blog for starters have weighed in on the good, the bad, and the who cares arguments.

Another Vote for Coffee

It's nice to find that something you are addicted to is actually healthy. Not just neutral, as in "not harmful," but actually providing a positive boost to your health.

That's the latest in a string of reports on the subject backing up the argument for coffee from a review of the research at the Journal of American Medicine as reported in the NY Times:

Coffee as a Health Drink? Studies Find Some Benefits

Coffee is not usually thought of as health food, but a number of recent studies suggest that it can be a highly beneficial drink. Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.

This is good news for me. I tried several times to break the habit, making the assumption that because it contains a drug, it's addictive, it stains the teeth, it costs a lot of money (I'm a diehard Starbucks loyalist), it causes occasional heart palpitations, so it must be bad for me. But I've been drinking it for so long I don't think it's possible to quit.

Last time I tried the headaches lasted for weeks. I started the cold turkey during the summer and it lasted most of those two months, and I never felt "normal" in all that time. My exercise routine went out the window - I had incredible fatigue and irritability among other things. Turns out I really tortured myself for nothing.

I may be an extreme case. I remember drinking coffee for breakfast at a pretty early age, in fact I don't remember ever not drinking coffee, so I started young enough that I have no memory of that first cup or taste. In addition, I grew up in North Carolina and Mountain Dew (loaded with caffeine) was my beverage of choice when it wasn't sweet southern iced tea by the pitcher. My brain is probably physically incapable of recovering. Here's a quick summary of caffeine's effect on the functioning of the brain.

Adenosine is a neuromodulator. When it binds with adenosine receptors on pre-synaptic neurons, it inhibits neuron activity by inhibiting the release of excitatory neurotransmitters. The effect is generally to shut down neural activity giving the neurons a "break." This down time is believed to be an important part of normal brain functioning. So caffeine comes along and binds antagonistically to adenosine receptors (it binds to the receptor without triggering the normal action of the native substance). The presynaptic neurons therefore continue releasing excitatory neurotransmitter and the neurons remain in an active state. The stimulant effect of caffeine lies in its ability to inhibit inhibition. The neurons respond by adding more adenosine receptors (tolerance increases), which means that when the caffeine is removed from the system, an increase level of inhibition of neural activity will occur due to the increase in adenosine receptors - that's the fatigue and other symptoms of withdrawal that lead to craving another cup. Caffeine addiction lies almost entirely in the drive to overcome the negative effects of withdrawal. There are many other effects of caffeine on the functions of the brain (many of them secondary effects of binding to adenosine receptors) and other parts of the body.

There are a few caveats in the studies. There is some evidence that in certain circumstances coffee can decrease blood flow to the heart (during exercise at high altitudes) and in some individuals increase blood pressure. Still, the conclusion:

"I wouldn't advise people to increase their consumption of coffee in order to lower their risk of disease," Dr. van Dam said, "but the evidence is that for most people without specific conditions, coffee is not detrimental to health. If people enjoy drinking it, it's comforting to know that they don't have to be afraid of negative health effects."

References:

Caffeine & Its Physiological Effects

My Money-Grubbing Son

(Actual coins found on the street or in pay phones in one afternoon)
One is obsessed with frogs, the other with money. Whenever we go out his eyes are peeled for coins lying on the street. Pay phone coin returns are his slot machines (except it doesn't cost anything to play). Today he hit the jackpot as about $3.00 worth of quarters came spewing from a phone. Yesterday he hauled in about $0.75 in pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, mostly off the street - only one lucky phone quarter. (I didn't tell him about the dollar bill I found under a park bench earlier or he would have nagged me out of it!) And you should see the tortured soul when we go to the toy store - he doesn't want to spend his money but he wants toys. He usually leaves empty-handed. If only I had such self-control.

Ick!

I always assumed it was just barnyard, redneck-bashing humor:

Confronting Sexual Abuse of Animals

(New Scientist)

On the other hand, the article mentions only one anecdote of an obviously deranged man and little else in the way of evidence. Maybe there's more in the original report, but it's not available on the web.

Medical Images

Via Smooth Pebbles via Daily Kos

Biomedical Image Awards

Human Embryonic Stem Cell, Annie Cavanagh & Dave McCarthy

Check their links page for past years' winners and links to other image collections.

Sequence 2006

On to more practical affairs. I’ve outlined my basic sequence for the year below. I begin again with an introduction to the nature of science and evolution that will be revisited and reinforced throughout the year. I can see arguments for doing it differently, but I felt frustrated last year by holding the topic of evolution until late in the year as the NY City Scope & Sequence has it. I have a follow up unit later in the year to go into more details after the genetics unit. Depending on how well I handle it, I may be able to fold it in with the genetics unit rather than treating it separately, but I want to block out that time just in case. Likewise, much of the fossil record and maybe even human evolution could be part of the ecology unit if I can figure it all out. It’s not a huge chunk of time anyway.

This year I’ll be relying primarily on the AMSCO review book by Rick Hallman as the “anchor” text. It’s not overwhelming on content, it’s organized around major themes that align reasonably well with the core, and it’s well written as textbooks go. Lastly, some of my students need to carry a textbook back and forth because of their schedules. The Amsco is not so heavy or big that they can’t keep it in their backpacks.

So here goes. Comments or suggestions welcome. None of this is carved in stone.

Introduction


- Nature of Science

- Inquiry-Methods

- Biology – What is Life?

Evolution by Natural Selection


- Origin of Life

- Morphology

- Darwin

- Evolution by Natural Selection

Organizations & Patterns


- Cell Structure

- Chemistry

- Cellular Processes

-----respiration

-----photosynthesis

-----diffusion & osmosis

-----mitosis

Homeostasis


-Organismic:

-----respiration

-----nutrition

-----circulation

- Regulation

- Immune response

- Break -

Reproduction & Development


- Meiosis

- Reproductive Systems

- Fertilization

- Development

Genetics & Biotechnology


- Mendel

- DNA Structure & Replication

- Protein Synthesis

- Mutations

- Genetic Disorders

- Biotechnology

Modern Evolution Theory


- Modern Synthesis

- Molecular Evidence

- Fossil Record

- Human Evolution

(Much of this may be “folded in” at appropriate points in other units.)

The Environment


- Ecosystems

- Human Impact

Review

Just Getting Around to Today's Paper

I'm actually a little bit pleasantly surprised with the Times editorial today unequivocally lambasting the republicans and Joe Lieberman for nakedly exploiting the news on terror to score political points.

The London Plot

It comes like a punch to the gut, at times like these, when our leaders blatantly use the nation's trauma for political gain. We never get used to this. It never feels like business as usual.

Way to go Times. Keep it up.

Ed Koch (former "democratic" NY City Mayor for you non New-Yorkers) was despicable on CNN today, stating explicitly that democratic leaders who support the candidate of choice among voters in Connecticut (Ned Lamont) are "turncoats?" What drug is this guy on? The party should brush aside the results of an election? No wonder we can't spread democracy abroad, we don't understand it at home. There's another one who's in bed with republicans. Remember this guy at the convention denouncing Kerry and supporting Bush? I guess he'll never forgive New Yorkers for voting him out of office.

Not So Random 10

I’m browsing my library and selecting the 1st 10 new songs that strike my fancy. By new I mean songs I haven’t really listened to before.

1. Manitoba – Kid You’ll Move Mountains
2. My Bloody Valentine – I Only Said
3. The National – Karen
4. Rainer Maria – CT Catholic
5. Shearwater – Seventy-Four, Seventy-Five
6. Cat Power – Living Proof
7. Mogwai – Folk Death 95
8. Bloc Party – Compliments
9. British Sea Power – Childhood Memories
10. Film School – Sick of Shame

Now We Know

In case you were wondering:

Independent Democrat = Republican Pawn

In the immediate aftermath of the announcement of the arrests of suspects allegedly planning a major airline hijacking in the coming weeks, Joe Lieberman, "Independent Democrat" issued this statement (NY Times):

If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England...It will strengthen them, and they will strike again.

A coordinated assault yesterday by the republican party - against the democrats. And there's Joe leading the charge. The administration had prior knowledge that the British were about to make a major arrest, and the republicans are nothing if not ruthless on the attack and unflinching in the exploitation of terrorism for their political gain.It explains the unusual Tony Snow press conference to comment on the primary in Connecticut on Wednesday morning. It explains several republicans giving press conferences or issuing statements in recent days that dovetail perfectly with the news. And they have no fear that the public will catch on to them. Why should they? It's worked in the past.

Fundamental Laws of Biology

We generally think of laws in terms of physics (Newton's laws, e.g.) or chemistry (gas laws, e.g.) but we have our laws in biology too, sometimes expressed mathematically but often not. On a biology teacher's listserv, I followed a recommendation to watch a video of E.O. Wilson and James Watson interviewed by Charlie Rose (December, 2005). The occasion was that both had recently published anthologies on the life and work of Charles Darwin. Worth a watch, and raises many of the interesting social/philosophical question that I tend to be drawn to, sometimes overly so.

I particularly liked Wilson's enunciation of two fundamental concepts in modern biology, and in light of the recent discussion of terminology, I was delighted that he applied the term "laws" to these statements:

Two Fundamental Laws of Modern Biology

1. All living processes are ultimately obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry.

2. All living systems and processes evolved by natural selection.

The work of Watson & Crick in discovering the secrets of DNA was seminal (DNA, seminal - get it? Oh never mind!) in providing proof of the first law and of course Charles Darwin gave us the second one.

So how exactly are they laws? Well, they postulate a general description of how certain things "behave under stated circumstances." Living things obey the laws of physics - there is no special "life force" distinct from other laws of physics that apply to non-living systems. Anything that appears to be beyond the laws of physics, the "miracle of life" for example, only appears miraculous because the physical processes happen at the microscopic level or inside a black box, so to speak (the womb), or because we haven’t yet worked out all the specific pathways. The statement is beyond a mere fact because it is generalized to ALL situations involving any living process at any time.

But aren't laws supposed to be proven to be true, kind of like facts in that sense? And if so, how do we know that all biological processes can be explained by physical laws when there are still biological processes that we can't fully explain, like how the mind works, or consciousness? Well, actually no. Laws are not "proven" in the sense that they have been tested in every possible circumstance in every possible location at every point in time - that would be impossible. Instead, laws (and hypotheses and theories, for that matter) are arrived at in science inductively: We make observations about how the things behave and if a pattern emerges we generate rules, or "laws." Further observation can strengthen our confidence in the law or force the law to be revised or discarded.

In that way the process of arriving at laws is not unlike the process of arriving at theories, but theories are generally broader and more explanatory than descriptive, although sometimes the distinction is rather blurry. Another reason not to get too hung up on terminology. Still, the first statement stands as a "law" and no known exceptions to the law exist and every new discovery of how a particular process works has supported the law. Any argument against the law must therefore show positively some process that disobeys the laws of physics - it isn't enough to simply point to processes that haven't yet been explained and say, "Aha! Your law is invalid because you can't explain human consciousness!"

I think that last point is particularly important when we start talking about the second law. Opponents of evolution are fond of saying things like "well, no one was around to see the beginning of life or the appearance of disnosaurs/mammals/humans/whatever, so you can't know that these things evolved." Well, no one was around to see the formation of the planets in our solar system but invoking the laws of gravity to explain it is noncontroversial. We do know for a fact that evolution happens now. We see it in the field, we observe it in the laboratories, our entire agricultural way of life is built around it. We know for a fact that species change over time. We know for a fact that the flora and fauna of earth today are different from the flora and fauna of past periods of earth's history. We know how evolution happens. I could go on. Every piece of evidence in biology points to common descent.

In the absence of conflicting evidence, it’s fair to generalize that all living things, all living processes, evolved. The law is not invalidated by pointing to specific cases that we do not yet fully understand. Find evidence of an alternative mechanism for generating new species, or find a species that does not use the universal genetic code, or a dog that is genetically closer to a snake than a cat, and you might have a starting point for a case against evolution. Argue that no one was around to see it happen or that it cannot explain “X” (blood clotting, bacterial flagellum, etc.) and you have no place at the table – that’s not an argument, it’s covering your ears and saying “blah blah blah blah.”

Finally, this statement (paraphrased) would probably raise a lot of eyebrows, to say the least, if anyone actually watched Charlie Rose:

Charles Darwin was the most important individual to have lived on Earth. Ever.

Watson said it, Wilson agreed. I'll leave it at that.

Out of Touch

While I'm finally getting over this summer cold that I optimistically hoped would only last a day or two (5 days later...), I can't stop myself from commenting on the Lieberman race in Connecticut. I sat up last night hitting the refresh button every couple of minutes to watch the results come in until about 11:00 when Lieberman "conceded" defeat. When your constituency and your party tell you it's over, it's time to go home. All too tellingly, one of the claims against him in Connecticut is that in his pursuit of national stature, he has largely ignored his constituents back home. So here he is again, ignoring his own people and making good on his threat to run as an independent, despite a clear vote against his continued service as a senator. Quote:

This morning, Mr. Lieberman said on NBC’s “Today” program that no one could persuade him to drop his bid, saying his mind was “made up.”

Apparently "no one" includes the voters of Connecticut. I can only hope that his numbers poll dramatically lower in the coming weeks as the selfishness of this act turns more and more people away from him in disgust.

Nature of Science

I had a devil of a time finding this information today using typical search terms, so I thought I would post it here. I searched for: NAS definition of fact law hypothesis theory: and nothing ever led me directly to what I wanted. I had to go through several layers and follow some links and ultimately I just stumbled on the right page.

I think it's important for science teachers to be consistent in the use of terminology, especially in today's world where a war of rhetoric is being waged against science and where the common everyday conception of terms like law, theory, and hypothesis provides a source of confusion that opponents of science like to exploit.

So here is the National Academy of Sciences' definitions of fact, law, hypothesis, theory:

Glossary of Terms Used in Teaching About the Nature of Science

Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed.

Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances.

Hypothesis: A testable statement about the natural world that can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations.

Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

These definitions often conflict with the definitions presented in H.S. textbooks, but I don't recommend using H.S. textbooks to find authoritative answers to science questions. I also think that it makes sense to distinguish between established theories and proposed theories that are sometimes in conflict with established theories. I think the main point is that theories are explanations of how some aspect of nature works, and not just descriptions of nature. They are also the end of the road in a sense. Theories are the ultimate goal of science, and not a pit stop on the way to some other concept like "laws" or "facts."

A final point. It always bears repeating that evolution is an established theory and that there is no other theory* out there to explain the progression of life on earth over time. No one has even proposed an alternative theory to evolution. Can anyone even imagine a serious alternative to evolution? It is that well established.

*Creationism is not a theory. Creation "science" is not a theory. ID is not a theory.

Summer Colds Suck

I don't even know if this truly qualifies as a cold. My son had it a few days ago, almost exclusively fever (with chills) and some serious body aches - no sneezing, no sore throat, no cough, no sinus problems. I got it a couple days after he got over it. Tossing and turning all night for 2 nights in a row with aches & chills followed by profuse sweating when the acetaminophen finally kicked in.

I can only hope that my infection follows my son's progression - on the third day he woke up bragging that he felt completely better. I've missed three days of exercise, working on next year's plans, the frogs' cage needs cleaning, my kids wanted to go to the zoo, and I'm really pissed - I missed one of the nicest days of summer yesterday with low humidity and lots of sunshine.

New Experiences Heighten Learning

New experiences heighten learning (Science Daily News)

This could have some implications for the classroom. Researchers were a little surprised to find, in one study, that learning (or memory at least) is actually enhanced when new information is packaged with more familiar information. But before you say, “duh,” let me clarify. The addition of new information enhances the memory of old information, which is rather counterintuitive. You might hypothesize that new information would supplant or otherwise "compete" with older information in the brain, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. Instead, the novelty of the new information stimulates the reward centers of the brain, which seems hard-wired to "seek out" new information about the world (excuse the teleology).

A region in the midbrain (substantia nigra/ventral tegmental), which is responsible for regulating our motivation and reward-processing, responds better to novelty than to the familiar. This system also regulates levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain, and could aid learning. This link between memory, novelty, motivation and reward could help patients with memory problems.

And here’s the important finding for our test-driven world:

Separate behavioural experiments were also conducted without the use of a scanner to test the subjects’ memory. Their memory of the novel, familiar and very familiar images they had studied was tested after 20 minutes and then a day later. Subjects performed best in these tests when new information was combined with familiar information during learning. After a 20 minute delay, subjects’ memory for slightly familiar information was boosted by 19 per cent if it had been mixed with new facts during learning sessions.

The immediate strategy that comes to mind is finding new examples to illustrate a concept, instead of constantly reviewing the same examples. I know I’ve always thought that by repeating these familiar examples the students would learn better and that too many examples would confuse them. Obviously one study doesn’t prove anything, still it’s something to consider and I plan to give it a try this year.

New Photoshop Toy

The New York Times tipped me off to a technique in photoshop that lets you "cheat" in capturing the dynamic range of a scene in a photograph. The technique is mostly automated in the full professional version of photoshop CS2 and is called HDR, which stands for high dynamic range.

In a nutshell, dynamic range is the difference between the light and dark areas of a scene. The human eye has a pretty impressive dynamic range in that we can be in bright sunlight and make out details in the sky while simultaneously being able to see things in the shadows reasonably well. Camera film has something on the order of, if I remember correctly, only about a 10th the dynamic range of the human eye and slide film fares worse in this department than negative film (what most of us shoot to get prints back from the processor). This should be obvious to anyone who has ever taken a photo of someone against a bright sky, only to find that either the person's face is a silhouette against a nicely exposed sky or the face is nicely exposed against a washed out (white) sky. Film just can't cope with the contrast. Digital cameras have even less dynamic range which is quite obvious if you've ever used film, especially good quality negative film that is lower in contrast than the typical drug-store variety.

So HDR offers a partial solution. It takes three or more of your photographs of the same image, exposed at different levels, and combines them to simulate a higher dynamic range, approximating human vision. One picture "underexposed" (or rather properly exposed for the highlights), one "overexposed" (properly exposed for shadows), and one "properly exposed" (captures midtones). It is, at least in my trial run, a fairly painless (aside from the $650.00 for photoshop!) procedure that gave me the following image with little fuss:

Of course, I read the manual after taking the pictures. I did not expose the images properly. The sky in the upper right (where the sun had just set) is still overexposed and the shadows in the lower left and trees along the Palisades are still underexposed. Still a reasonable image, exposure-wise, compared to the originals. Also pretty realistic looking compared to some of the images in the Times article. Originals:

Overexposed

"Properly" exposed

Underexposed

One of the obvious limitations is that the scene in the three pictures must be virtually identical in content - no movement. A tripod is a virtual necessity. So it's great for still life's and landscapes, but not much use for sports or kids running around playing in the park. If your camera has auto-exposure bracketing it may be helpful but it may not give you enough range by itself - still a nice way to fire off three quick shots in succession without fiddling with knobs or buttons between shots and risking that the camera will be bumped or the scene will change. So get your school to purchase a copy of photoshop (or try one of the less expensive software programs specialized for HDR rendering mentioned in the Times article) and have some fun with it. Check out some of the fun stuff by Kris Kros, also mentioned in the Times article.

Friday Random 10

From my total collection:

Artist - Title

1. Pas/Cal - Marion/Miriam

2. TV On The Radio - Don't Love You

3. Band of Horses - The Funeral

4. Les Savy Fav - Reprobate's Resume

5. Architecture in Helsinki - Kindling

6. The Walkmen - Little House Of Savages

7. Gnarls Barkley - The Boogie Monster

8. I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - According To Plan

9. Robyn Hitchcock - This Is How It Feels

10. Velvet Underground - Foggy Notion

Chihuly

Went to members night at the Chihuly exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden. The predicted severe thunderstorms never materialized, but a really hot hazy humid summer evening. I was a little disappointed when the advertised "hors d'oeuvres" were no where to be found and I had pretty much planned that to be my dinner. Turned out the garden cafe was open with the regular menu, which doesn't include anything that I'd call hors d'oeuvres. A silly complaint, I know, but if they had simply stated that the cafe would be open, I'd have been OK with that.

Not the most kid-friendly exhibit. My 7-year olds are at the age where this kind of eye candy just isn't that appealing. A little younger or a lot older would work. Then they complained because we had to leave the children's garden (where the frogs are!) when the sky started dropping rain. We were a long way from the conservatory (and our car) without umbrellas, and it looked like the thunderstorms were actually about to begin.

Still, a nice exhibit. We got there too early in a way. We reached our limits at about 7:30, just as it was getting darker outside and the glass was lit up to a quite nice effect, especially the neon sculpture at the rear entrance to the conservatory. Here's an earlier detail shot that doesn't do much to capture the piece, but again, by the time the neon light really impressed we were headed to our car.

For Sebastian

One of my sons is obsessed with frogs. We were upstate today and they were easy to find hiding in the grass. Wonder if it has anything to with the swarms of crickets also found in the grass? Anyway, kinda neat how these guys (Northern Leopard Frogs) blend into the background without actually completely mimicking the background patterns. Who knows, though, maybe the spots are more similar to pebbles in a stream and the actual adaptation is for that environment. Still, it works pretty well in the brown decaying grass/leaves/twigs under the weeds.

Links

Old Regents Exams for Practice (With Answer Keys)

Regents Prep (Oswego City Schools)

SUNY Regents Prep Live (Video Review Sessions)

This post is mainly for people searching the web for resources to prepare for the regents exams. There are also commercial outfits, such as Barrons Regents Prep that charge a fee for their review services, but I don't think they are worth the expense when you have the above referenced free resources. I would recommend a review book in addition, and personally I like the AMSCO version by Rick Hallman. I have found traditional biology textbooks by the national publishers (Holt, Prentice Hall, Glencoe, etc.) to be almost entirely useless for the regents course. Still thinking about how/whether to use them in the coming school year. Some of the diagrams and illustrations are helpful, so I may devise some assignments that involve students in analyzing those diagrams. I'm definitely through with "read the chapter and answer the questions!" (Yeah, shoulda known better...)

SOS* Watch

*Supression of Science

I ranted a few days ago about NASA's Mission statement revision to exclude specific reference to studying planet earth. At the end I posted a link to a related story on censorship at NOAA. Now comes a survey from the Union of Concerned Scientists on discontent at the FDA. I'll quote from the SEED magazine analysis of the report, The FDA Is A Cauldron of Discontent:

The researchers' answers portray a culture of discontent where scientists report not having enough resources to properly evaluate products, having scientific results ignored, being pressured by political appointees to approve drugs and--most criminal, considering the FDA's mission--providing misleading information to the public.

I already know way too many people who are irrationally skeptical of modern medicine, now they are being handed a rational reason.

---Via Bad Astronomy Blog

Along The Hudson.

An algae "pond" formed in a puddle dug by the wheels of a truck that delivers materials to the base of the George Washington Bridge where they are doing who-knows-what in addition to lead paint removal. I would post pictures of the construction site but photography of the bridge is now basically, officially, verboten.Yesterday there were pigeons dunking their heads into the puddle, which would have made an interesting shot if I could have caught them at it. If school were in session I would take a sample to the classroom for a closer look.

I decided to start carrying the camera with me on bike rides and looking for interesting things to shoot. I'll post a photo or two now & then if anything remotely interesting turns up. One of my biggest obstacles in taking decent pictures is overcoming the self-consciousness and the discomfort of imagined or real eyes on me long enough to actually experiment and learn what works and doesn't work. The ears inside my head hear people saying things like, "What the hell's he taking pictures of that for?" "In this light?" "At that angle?" "With that camera?" It's probably my father's voice. Although I don't remember him being particularly mean in that way, he had a certain skepticism toward the value of anything he didn't consider "work." I was rushing a bit today since I didn't get out early enough and had to get back to move the car for those dreaded NYC alternate-side parking regulations.

Friday Random 10

From my mp3 player.

1. Tullycraft - Twee

2. Animal Collective - Grass

3. Green Day - Prosthetic Head

4. The Strokes - Is This It?

5. Deathcab For Cutie - Your Heart Is An Empty Room

6. The Rakes - Retreat

7. Joy Division - Decades

8. Silver Jews - Blue Arrangements

9. Mountain Goats - Idylls Of The King

10. Yo La Tengo - Stockholm Syndrome

No Comment

Male Praying Mantids Prefer Not To Be Victims of Sexual Cannibalism

Consolidation

I've made a modest change to the name of my blog in the interest of consolidating the various projects I've had at one time or another. It's an attempt at re-integration, so to speak, of the various aspects of my life that I had chopped up and placed in different blogs. My original desire was to keep the Regents Living Environment Blog as much a possible strictly professional and I had attempted to maintain a separate blog for more personal items. I never publicized them here and pretty much kept them for myself thinking that one day they would be revealed to my children who would then have a window into understanding why their old man is so looney. The whole idea probably reflects some twisted psychological turmoil I'm trying to suppress. Anyway, out with that idea. I'll henceforth allow myself to post personal stuff and random rants as well as maintaining the professional material related to teaching science as before.

This is hardly a new paradigm. In fact, the original blogger that inspired me to start, Ms. Frizzle, has been doing this all along. Likewise, the incomparable P.Z. Myers doesn't hesitate to throw in pictures of his family in one post and a tutorial on hox genes in the next followed by some comic political relief. I still don't expect to be anywhere near as prolific nor pretend to be anywhere near as interesting as these guys, but I do this as much for my own personal needs as anything else - I'm not looking for recognition or awards here. I do get occasional e-mails from folks who have stumbled upon the blog and who say they enjoy reading it - I do appreciate the feedback and I will continue to try to post useful information for fellow science teachers or the occasional student looking for answers to old regents exams!

Black & White Film Processing, Anyone?

Is anyone still shooting black & white film? I know that when I got my digital camera, I stopped shooting film altogether. I like the convenience and price of shooting digital. For the youngsters out there who never had to deal with film at all, it used to cost me $15.00 or more to get processing, prints, and CD burns of my film. That's 36 pictures for $15.00. It's also hard to beat the instant gratification of digital, instantly checking the shot on the little LCD, and if I really want to know how the picture turned out I can upload immediately to my computer and see in large format how the picture looks. With film you send your pictures to a lab and wait a week or two before you see anything. You could go to a local 1-hour lab and get marginal quality prints and (usually) severely scratched negatives, which often show up on the prints themselves.

There are drawbacks to digital as well. Laziness. My digital camera is a "point & shoot" and that's often what I do - point and shoot. With the luxury of almost unlimited pictures at virtually zero cost (I use rechargeable batteries), I take lots of pictures but I don't concentrate as much on getting good shots, just hoping that some of them turn out OK. Then there are the prints, which used to come automatically with film processing, regardless of the quality of the image. Now that I can pick and choose which pictures are good enough to print, I usually decide that NONE of them are worth printing. As a result, I have a lot of framed pictures around the house of my kids, all taken from birth to about 3 years of age, at which point I got the digital camera and stopped making prints, so no framed pictures of the 4-7 year old range.

Which brings me around to the topic of this post. I've grown a bit tired of the digital camera. One of the interesting aspects of film photography is the different qualities of color, contrast, saturation, etc. offered by different films. That's all gone, for the most part, with digital. Then there's black & white. It is certainly possible to remove the color from a color picture and have a B&W picture. My camera even has a setting for B&W so you can take B&W straight from the camera. I haven't been impressed with the results and the quality of the digital prints is pretty low. So I pulled out the old film camera yesterday and dusted it off went out and shot some B&W film. Today I was looking for the website of the lab where I used to send my B&W film, San Miguel Photo Labs, and it looks like hard times for the industry, to say the least. They've gone from a staff of about 9 to a staff of 2 - the owner and a part-time assistant. Some of their machines are obsolete and they can no longer get parts for repair, so they no longer offer proofs. Then there's the warning signs about B&W papers:

Kodak has stopped making B&W papers. Agfa is gone from the face of the earth. Ilford just announced that it will not be selling its own B&W materials in the USA, but rather, has turned that function over to a third party. It is scary times for all of us in the B&W photo world. So I am here to tell you: THE SHIP IS NOT SINKING. We did, however, take those little canvas covers off of the life boats....

How much longer will they be able to stay in business at all? I can process film myself - it's a wonderfully "magical" process that I learned in high school while working on the yearbook staff. I loved the darkroom and even set one up in my old school a few years ago, developed films there and even made some prints from an enlarger we got for a good price back then. I've got materials here at home for developing just the film, but it's a time consuming process and unless you do it on a regular basis it's hard to keep the chemicals fresh, so I don't really want to go there again until I decide to teach the kids how to do it. Who knows if film itself will even be available at a reasonable cost by then?