So, today - November 24 - is the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species."
I could rhapsodize about the awesomeness of Darwin's book, but instead I'll just point you here, to give you a little sense of how important Darwinism is to modern biology. Whatever the haters* tell you, Darwin's theories continue to provide the foundation for our understanding of life on Earth. So thanks, Mr. Darwin. We owe you one.
Oh, and while we're on the subject, here's your daily dose of irreverent (Darwinist) humor:
(H/T Sam)
*Oh, and as for the other kind of haters - not the Bible-beaters but the Alfred Russell Wallace Fan Club who insist that Darwin was a plagiarist - I say unto thee, "Pffffbbbbtt."
Showing posts with label History of Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History of Science. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
It appears to be Mahoney Time
This going to be a "cool things I learned in science class" post. You have been forewarned.
This morning in biochemistry class, our professor gave us the Willy Wonka factory tour of an enzyme known as ATP synthase*, which I will now recap even more briefly for your reading pleaure. Trust me, it will be quick and painless, and it's worth following the sci-talk to get to the coolness.
ATP synthase has two components, F1 and Fo.** F1 is a ring of three α-β subunit pairs, and the action happens right in between the two members of each couple. And what action is it? The conversion of ADP and free phosphate to ATP!
(If that doesn't mean anything to you, just think of it as the creation of high-energy fuel for the cell. Good news.)
Anyway, each α-β pair has three configurations - or moods, if you will: liking ADP, liking ATP, and liking nothing at all. They change mood based on the orientation of the γ stick. Don't worry about how it works. The γ stick spins around, pointing to each pair in turn, causing them to like ADP, then ATP, then nothing. This catalyzes the process of turning ADP to ATP and then letting it go.
But, in a Thomist vein (Lewis Thomas, that is, not Aquinas), we have to ask "What makes the γ stick spin?"
Well, that's where the Fo unit comes in. The Fo is a cylinder made up of α-helices, and the γ stick from the F1 sticks down into it like an axle into a gear. The actual dynamics of what happens were beyond the scope of our lecture, but suffice to say that there is a proton pump that that uses the proton gradient across the mitochondrial membrane to make the Fo unit spin. Think of it like a water wheel: because of pumps elsewhere in the membrane, there are a lot of protons outside, so when the Fo's channel opens, they all happily flow in. The Fo uses this current to power its spinning. As the Fo spins, it takes F1's γ crankshaft along with it, clacking the other end across the catalytic α-β pairs and driving the synthesis of ATP.
[/science]
If you don't see why this is cool at this point, I'm afraid you may not even see the coolness after I enthuse about it, but here goes:
ATP SYNTHASE IS LIKE A TINY MACHINE INSIDE YOUR CELLS!
Yes, an actual machine. With moving parts. How unbelievably cool is that? I'll tell you: it's very unbelievably cool.
As Julien Offray de La Mettrie wrote in his 1748 L'homme Machine, "The human body is a machine which winds its own springs." Though he was largely concerned with locating the soul in a mechanistic body, I think he would have been ecstatic to know about ATP synthase. Granted we would have had a lot of biology and chemistry to cover before he could even understand what was going on ("OK, so... humours? Right out. Now let's talk about cells...), but this little protein complex really is the perfect example of how mechanical our bodies really are. And because this is a machine involved in creating usable energy for the functioning of the rest of the cell, it's also a fantastic example of the body winding its own springs.
OK, that's enough swooning over science for now. The title of this post, in case you are wondering, is in tribute to the late Professor Mahoney of Princeton's history of science faculty. The man's enthusiasm for machines - and the reading thereof - left a fairly indelible mark on the minds of his pupils, and loomed large over all our explorations into the history of science.
Notes:
*"This is the machine that extracts the juice of the snozberries, and it's connected to the tubes full of luminiferous aether, but it's really rather complicated so don't worry about exactly how it all works. Just trust me, it works."
**That's "F one" and "F oh," not "F zero." The o stands for oligomycin, an antibiotic that poisons the Fo unit.
This morning in biochemistry class, our professor gave us the Willy Wonka factory tour of an enzyme known as ATP synthase*, which I will now recap even more briefly for your reading pleaure. Trust me, it will be quick and painless, and it's worth following the sci-talk to get to the coolness.
ATP synthase has two components, F1 and Fo.** F1 is a ring of three α-β subunit pairs, and the action happens right in between the two members of each couple. And what action is it? The conversion of ADP and free phosphate to ATP!
(If that doesn't mean anything to you, just think of it as the creation of high-energy fuel for the cell. Good news.)
Anyway, each α-β pair has three configurations - or moods, if you will: liking ADP, liking ATP, and liking nothing at all. They change mood based on the orientation of the γ stick. Don't worry about how it works. The γ stick spins around, pointing to each pair in turn, causing them to like ADP, then ATP, then nothing. This catalyzes the process of turning ADP to ATP and then letting it go.
But, in a Thomist vein (Lewis Thomas, that is, not Aquinas), we have to ask "What makes the γ stick spin?"
Well, that's where the Fo unit comes in. The Fo is a cylinder made up of α-helices, and the γ stick from the F1 sticks down into it like an axle into a gear. The actual dynamics of what happens were beyond the scope of our lecture, but suffice to say that there is a proton pump that that uses the proton gradient across the mitochondrial membrane to make the Fo unit spin. Think of it like a water wheel: because of pumps elsewhere in the membrane, there are a lot of protons outside, so when the Fo's channel opens, they all happily flow in. The Fo uses this current to power its spinning. As the Fo spins, it takes F1's γ crankshaft along with it, clacking the other end across the catalytic α-β pairs and driving the synthesis of ATP.
[/science]
If you don't see why this is cool at this point, I'm afraid you may not even see the coolness after I enthuse about it, but here goes:
ATP SYNTHASE IS LIKE A TINY MACHINE INSIDE YOUR CELLS!
Yes, an actual machine. With moving parts. How unbelievably cool is that? I'll tell you: it's very unbelievably cool.
As Julien Offray de La Mettrie wrote in his 1748 L'homme Machine, "The human body is a machine which winds its own springs." Though he was largely concerned with locating the soul in a mechanistic body, I think he would have been ecstatic to know about ATP synthase. Granted we would have had a lot of biology and chemistry to cover before he could even understand what was going on ("OK, so... humours? Right out. Now let's talk about cells...), but this little protein complex really is the perfect example of how mechanical our bodies really are. And because this is a machine involved in creating usable energy for the functioning of the rest of the cell, it's also a fantastic example of the body winding its own springs.
OK, that's enough swooning over science for now. The title of this post, in case you are wondering, is in tribute to the late Professor Mahoney of Princeton's history of science faculty. The man's enthusiasm for machines - and the reading thereof - left a fairly indelible mark on the minds of his pupils, and loomed large over all our explorations into the history of science.
Notes:
*"This is the machine that extracts the juice of the snozberries, and it's connected to the tubes full of luminiferous aether, but it's really rather complicated so don't worry about exactly how it all works. Just trust me, it works."
**That's "F one" and "F oh," not "F zero." The o stands for oligomycin, an antibiotic that poisons the Fo unit.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
A still more glorious dawn awaits
The further beyond our senses we venture, the greater will be our incredulity. We cannot see the teeming cauldron of reactions boiling in each of our trillion cells, and we cannot resolve the titanic grandeur of the galaxies, full of stars. Not from where we stand. In the past, our human universe was limited by our complete inability to see beyond our own "macro" link in the Great Chain of Being, but men like Galileo and van Leeuwenhoek gave us mechanical appendages, allowing a select few initiates to peer beyond, into the micro and the mega.
But the large majority of people do not have access to such tools, and many who read Nature's parables do not know how to interpret them, for "...seeing they may see, and not perceive." We are not actors on the micro and mega stages in everyday life, and we cannot perceive them with our unaugmented senses, so our brains have not yet caught up with our science, and we have a hard time conceiving of both the vast and the infinitesimal.
Science asks us to contemplate the nearly infinite, and religion blinds the man who would look on the face of God. In religion's circumscribed crystalline sphere, we are held comfortable in amniotic embrace (this is my body...) and fed by umbilical vein (this is my blood...) - directly into the gut, bypassing the head entirely. We do not smell, do not taste, do not analyze spiritual nourishment, but imbibe it intravenously. Please don't chew on the body of Christ while He's transubstantiating.
Richard Dawkins' latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, was written to make the case for evolution. Every previous book, he says, started from the presumption that evolution is fact; the latest, though, aims to present the evidence. I agree with this approach. I think the greatest buttress of prejudice is ignorance, and an anti-scientific viewpoint is rarely anything other than prejudgment.
Still, I don't know that a book will go far enough. I've bought into the scientific outlook to the greatest extent possible, and it is still incredibly difficult for me to wrap my head around things like the fact that the largest black holes in the galaxy could be the size of fifty billion suns. I don't even know how big a billion is, really, nor how big the sun is. How can I conceive of such a fact? I can't. This whole line of thought occurred to me in Biochemistry lecture because I made the mistake of thinking about how the glycolysis pathway we were studying is churning incessantly in my cells, and the minute concentrations of reactants and products and regulated by other pathways, and hormones, and gradients... and all in all, the whole system (which is, by definition, life itself) is far too complex to actually understand.
This is actually part of the reason I'm excited about augmented humanity, too. I think that if we can augment our senses, we'll be able to experience a larger slice of the universe's micro-macro-mega spectrum. With our everyday consciousness expanded, we'll be better equipped to confront a vast and complex reality that is daily growing in size and complexity. I guess I'm just saying that as we chew on tougher and more gristly questions, it wouldn't hurt to have sharper teeth and a detachable jaw.
Note: The post title is from that autotuned Carl Sagan music video I posted a little while ago. Really, do yourself a favor and check it out now if you didn't before. Or even if you did - it's worth a few viewings, at least.
But the large majority of people do not have access to such tools, and many who read Nature's parables do not know how to interpret them, for "...seeing they may see, and not perceive." We are not actors on the micro and mega stages in everyday life, and we cannot perceive them with our unaugmented senses, so our brains have not yet caught up with our science, and we have a hard time conceiving of both the vast and the infinitesimal.
Science asks us to contemplate the nearly infinite, and religion blinds the man who would look on the face of God. In religion's circumscribed crystalline sphere, we are held comfortable in amniotic embrace (this is my body...) and fed by umbilical vein (this is my blood...) - directly into the gut, bypassing the head entirely. We do not smell, do not taste, do not analyze spiritual nourishment, but imbibe it intravenously. Please don't chew on the body of Christ while He's transubstantiating.
Richard Dawkins' latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, was written to make the case for evolution. Every previous book, he says, started from the presumption that evolution is fact; the latest, though, aims to present the evidence. I agree with this approach. I think the greatest buttress of prejudice is ignorance, and an anti-scientific viewpoint is rarely anything other than prejudgment.
Still, I don't know that a book will go far enough. I've bought into the scientific outlook to the greatest extent possible, and it is still incredibly difficult for me to wrap my head around things like the fact that the largest black holes in the galaxy could be the size of fifty billion suns. I don't even know how big a billion is, really, nor how big the sun is. How can I conceive of such a fact? I can't. This whole line of thought occurred to me in Biochemistry lecture because I made the mistake of thinking about how the glycolysis pathway we were studying is churning incessantly in my cells, and the minute concentrations of reactants and products and regulated by other pathways, and hormones, and gradients... and all in all, the whole system (which is, by definition, life itself) is far too complex to actually understand.
This is actually part of the reason I'm excited about augmented humanity, too. I think that if we can augment our senses, we'll be able to experience a larger slice of the universe's micro-macro-mega spectrum. With our everyday consciousness expanded, we'll be better equipped to confront a vast and complex reality that is daily growing in size and complexity. I guess I'm just saying that as we chew on tougher and more gristly questions, it wouldn't hurt to have sharper teeth and a detachable jaw.
Note: The post title is from that autotuned Carl Sagan music video I posted a little while ago. Really, do yourself a favor and check it out now if you didn't before. Or even if you did - it's worth a few viewings, at least.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
And there is much to be learned
This is the kind of thing that makes me very happy, so I have to share:
[From The Symphony of Science, via Gizmodo]
A modern popularizers of science music video! This is sort of the equivalent of Gilbert and Sullivan writing an educational musical about Pepper's Ghost*, in that it entails the use of a popular medium to propagate the ideas of popularizers to a wider audience. It is not, of course, any kind of substitute for their actual work - nor does it pretend to be - but it reminds us of something that science often forgets. Namely, that one of the discipline's most powerful tools in securing its own future is the inspiration of wonder and enthusiasm among the public. Sometimes, setting a spark to the tinder means using somewhat silly autotuned jams, or grand pageants of ghostly visitors, but what may be lost of the content is made up for in fascination.
There is also, I think , no concern that such offerings dim the public esteem of science, and that is for two reasons. Firstly, and primarily in this instance, the silliness is being propagated by an outsider, and not by Sagan & Co. themselves. But secondly, and more importantly, I think even if the esteemed scientists themselves had been responsible for the video, it would only have served to show that they have a sense of humor and creativity. Science does not anyone's help in being perceived as an ivory-tower enterprise. A little humanization can go a long way.
And, come on, don't those videos just make you smile?
*Note: This is the article that launched a thousand ships, so to speak, by introducing me to John Henry Pepper and his marvelous, patented ghost-machine. One thesis later, I shake my fist at J.A. Secord as I continue to be consumed by popularizers of science and Victorian magic. So enjoy it, but beware.
[From The Symphony of Science, via Gizmodo]
A modern popularizers of science music video! This is sort of the equivalent of Gilbert and Sullivan writing an educational musical about Pepper's Ghost*, in that it entails the use of a popular medium to propagate the ideas of popularizers to a wider audience. It is not, of course, any kind of substitute for their actual work - nor does it pretend to be - but it reminds us of something that science often forgets. Namely, that one of the discipline's most powerful tools in securing its own future is the inspiration of wonder and enthusiasm among the public. Sometimes, setting a spark to the tinder means using somewhat silly autotuned jams, or grand pageants of ghostly visitors, but what may be lost of the content is made up for in fascination.
There is also, I think , no concern that such offerings dim the public esteem of science, and that is for two reasons. Firstly, and primarily in this instance, the silliness is being propagated by an outsider, and not by Sagan & Co. themselves. But secondly, and more importantly, I think even if the esteemed scientists themselves had been responsible for the video, it would only have served to show that they have a sense of humor and creativity. Science does not anyone's help in being perceived as an ivory-tower enterprise. A little humanization can go a long way.
And, come on, don't those videos just make you smile?
*Note: This is the article that launched a thousand ships, so to speak, by introducing me to John Henry Pepper and his marvelous, patented ghost-machine. One thesis later, I shake my fist at J.A. Secord as I continue to be consumed by popularizers of science and Victorian magic. So enjoy it, but beware.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Present Engagements
1. I'm building a ballista on a $10 budget.
Our physics department is hosting a Punkin' Chunkin' competition, which is both a concept and a phrase that fills my heart with joy. The idea is to see who can attain the greatest range with a homemade, jury-rigged gourd-flinger. Naturally, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to combine my love of ancient technology with the destruction of produce (cf. Halloween 2009, "De Motu Citrus Nitrensis"). As such, I've spent a number of hours rummaging through local dumpsters and junk piles for building materials. The ten dollars went towards a coil of rope, but if I can find any for free I'll use it instead. I'd share my design plan here, but I'm keeping it secret lest any rivals stumble across this blog. If everything works out, I'll try to post pictures or videos.
2. I'm interviewing for medical school.
Tomorrow. It's my first one. Still haven't really processed it. I mean, what? Me? Interviewing for med school? How did that happen? I'm just a humble punkin' chunker from a punkin' chunkin' clan - not doctor material. Don't be silly. (Can you tell I'm a little nervous?)
Granted, part of me is sure I'm going to blow the roof off this thing like a tornado in a trailer park, but that's the same part of me that also says things like "If this medicine thing doesn't work out, you could always be Supreme God-Emperor of the Galaxy," so I'm taking its advice with a grain of salt.
If this last bit seems especially prideful to you, you're right. It's part of my campaign to hit all seven deadlies in one day, because today is 3. International Blasphemy Day. So crowning myself king of the cosmos seems like a decent way to get in pride and offend the Invisible Sky-Beard all at once. Now, I'm off to find a lingerie-clad model baking a chocolate cake she won't let me have, and that should cover another 3 or 4 no problem.
Our physics department is hosting a Punkin' Chunkin' competition, which is both a concept and a phrase that fills my heart with joy. The idea is to see who can attain the greatest range with a homemade, jury-rigged gourd-flinger. Naturally, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to combine my love of ancient technology with the destruction of produce (cf. Halloween 2009, "De Motu Citrus Nitrensis"). As such, I've spent a number of hours rummaging through local dumpsters and junk piles for building materials. The ten dollars went towards a coil of rope, but if I can find any for free I'll use it instead. I'd share my design plan here, but I'm keeping it secret lest any rivals stumble across this blog. If everything works out, I'll try to post pictures or videos.
2. I'm interviewing for medical school.
Tomorrow. It's my first one. Still haven't really processed it. I mean, what? Me? Interviewing for med school? How did that happen? I'm just a humble punkin' chunker from a punkin' chunkin' clan - not doctor material. Don't be silly. (Can you tell I'm a little nervous?)
Granted, part of me is sure I'm going to blow the roof off this thing like a tornado in a trailer park, but that's the same part of me that also says things like "If this medicine thing doesn't work out, you could always be Supreme God-Emperor of the Galaxy," so I'm taking its advice with a grain of salt.
If this last bit seems especially prideful to you, you're right. It's part of my campaign to hit all seven deadlies in one day, because today is 3. International Blasphemy Day. So crowning myself king of the cosmos seems like a decent way to get in pride and offend the Invisible Sky-Beard all at once. Now, I'm off to find a lingerie-clad model baking a chocolate cake she won't let me have, and that should cover another 3 or 4 no problem.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
From the Motherland
Two tidbits that caught my eye, both from the land of Muscovy, both meriting skepticism:
1. Back in the 1920s, a Russian scientist by the name of Sergei Brukhonenko managed to keep a dog's severed head alive by hooking it up to the autojector device (a sort of rudimentary heart-lung machine, but with a more bad-ass name). At some Meeting of the People's Distinguished Physiological Laborers in '28, Comrade Brukhonenko managed to get the head to respond to stimuli and fed it a piece of cheese, which apparently popped right out the back end of its truncated esophagus.
So... an adept of Abdul Alhazred? Latter-day Vaucanson? Something else entirely?
2. In today's Russia, what's a listless petro-mogul, bored ex-KGB mafioso, or washed-up Olympic athlete who's been fraudulently elected to the Duma supposed to do for fun? I mean, you can only gamble at Red Square's swanky Kазино SoL so much, and the hookers on Nevski Prospekt all start to look the same after a while.
Enter Pirate Hunting. Yep, that's right. For a modest fee ($5970 a day), any Йосеф шесть-водок can go cruising along the coastline of Somalia, trawling for pirates. When the buccaneers arrive, it's open season: "AK-47 rental on the pirate cruises is apparently just $5 per day, with 100 rounds costing $12 and just in case things get out of control, a squad of ex special forces troops is on hand."
Just... wow. Many believe this to be a hoax, but if it's true... I'm really lost for words. I guess it's worth remembering that General Zaroff was Russian.
1. Back in the 1920s, a Russian scientist by the name of Sergei Brukhonenko managed to keep a dog's severed head alive by hooking it up to the autojector device (a sort of rudimentary heart-lung machine, but with a more bad-ass name). At some Meeting of the People's Distinguished Physiological Laborers in '28, Comrade Brukhonenko managed to get the head to respond to stimuli and fed it a piece of cheese, which apparently popped right out the back end of its truncated esophagus.
So... an adept of Abdul Alhazred? Latter-day Vaucanson? Something else entirely?
2. In today's Russia, what's a listless petro-mogul, bored ex-KGB mafioso, or washed-up Olympic athlete who's been fraudulently elected to the Duma supposed to do for fun? I mean, you can only gamble at Red Square's swanky Kазино SoL so much, and the hookers on Nevski Prospekt all start to look the same after a while.
Enter Pirate Hunting. Yep, that's right. For a modest fee ($5970 a day), any Йосеф шесть-водок can go cruising along the coastline of Somalia, trawling for pirates. When the buccaneers arrive, it's open season: "AK-47 rental on the pirate cruises is apparently just $5 per day, with 100 rounds costing $12 and just in case things get out of control, a squad of ex special forces troops is on hand."
Just... wow. Many believe this to be a hoax, but if it's true... I'm really lost for words. I guess it's worth remembering that General Zaroff was Russian.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Happy Birthday, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz!
In honor of his special day, do some calculus, science, philosophy, law, theology, philology... heck, do anything! After all, Leibniz could.Or, just go out and purchase some Leibniz Butterkeks from your local retailer of fine foods, and check out a former blog of mine, The Leibniz Projekt, in which a colleague and I attempted to photograph every member of the the Princeton History of Science department eating said cookies.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Trepanation for everyone!
A friend and colleague of mine just posted on her new blog, "silverware in the pancake drawer" (a Scrubs reference-- awesome!) about the woes of migraine headaches. The swiftly shifting season has afflicted her with agony, and she certainly has my sympathy.
But that is not the only purpose of this post, for she also idly commented that "On mornings like these, I wonder what the hell happened to trepanation." Ah, I'm so very glad you asked! I was intrigued by this question, and decided to waste a little time sniffing out trepanation (or trepanning) on the intertubes. There is, as usual, an embarrassment of riches when it comes to searching the world wide web, so I've only included some choice morsels, and links for further exploration below.
In 1978, a Briton named Amanda Fielding ran for Parliament in Chelsea and received 40 votes. Her platform promised that the National Health Service would offer free trepanation services to all and sundry. Yes, that's trepanation:
Most politicians assume their constituents have holes in their heads, but it is a true rara avis who promises to put one there for you. But it's only fair, I suppose, since Ms. Fielding had performed her own craniotomy with a dental drill and some local anesthetic. She decided to air out her cerebrum under the tutelage of Bart Huges, a Dutch almost-doctor who was denied his MD either for advocating marijuana use or for failing his obstetrics course. Or because he's a raving lunatic. Known as "the father of modern trepanation," Huges is the author of a number of works, including an eight-foot scroll articulating his view that people who drill holes in their skulls are representatives of the next stage in human evolution, or homo sapiens correctus. It should be unsurprising that most of his research seems to have involved dropping acid and drilling into his own skull. Trepanation is, for Huges and his followers, merely the next step in mind-expansion, following LSD and presumably preceding the injection of reindeer urine into your eyeballs. "Gravity," says Huges, "brings you down," so he used to stand on his head to try and defeat it.
Yeah.
So anyway, poking holes in your cranium has a long history, and was generally used to help shamans communicate with the spirit world, or to drive out the evil spirits that inhabited people's heads. Want to chat with the ancestors? Pop! Hallucinating? Pop! Headaches? Pop! Speaking against the priesthood? Pop!
Well, I suppose "pop" is not quite the correct onomatopoeia. Another acolyte of Huges' by the name of Joseph Mellen (whose cooperative acid trips and skull-drilling with Amanda Fielding would lead to their eventual marriage and spawning of offspring), described his own experience thus:
All of this is not to say that cranial aeration doesn't have its place in the realm of legitimate medical procedures. Often, to relieve intracranial pressure or hematoma, it is necessary to remove a piece of the skull. However, there's a vast gulf between a trained surgeon doing so in order to save a patient's life and a drug-addled guru helping his disciples grind holes in their foreheads in quest of "expanded consciousness."
So that, then, is what the hell happened to trepanation. Next time you're wishing you could release those migranous miasmas, remember that a vote for Fielding is a vote for a dental drill in every home.
(For more insight into the people who drill for gray matter, check out "Lunch With Heather Perry" at Neurophilosophy, "trepanation" at The Skeptic's Dictionary, and "Like a Hole in the Head" from Cabinet Magazine.)
But that is not the only purpose of this post, for she also idly commented that "On mornings like these, I wonder what the hell happened to trepanation." Ah, I'm so very glad you asked! I was intrigued by this question, and decided to waste a little time sniffing out trepanation (or trepanning) on the intertubes. There is, as usual, an embarrassment of riches when it comes to searching the world wide web, so I've only included some choice morsels, and links for further exploration below.
In 1978, a Briton named Amanda Fielding ran for Parliament in Chelsea and received 40 votes. Her platform promised that the National Health Service would offer free trepanation services to all and sundry. Yes, that's trepanation:
Most politicians assume their constituents have holes in their heads, but it is a true rara avis who promises to put one there for you. But it's only fair, I suppose, since Ms. Fielding had performed her own craniotomy with a dental drill and some local anesthetic. She decided to air out her cerebrum under the tutelage of Bart Huges, a Dutch almost-doctor who was denied his MD either for advocating marijuana use or for failing his obstetrics course. Or because he's a raving lunatic. Known as "the father of modern trepanation," Huges is the author of a number of works, including an eight-foot scroll articulating his view that people who drill holes in their skulls are representatives of the next stage in human evolution, or homo sapiens correctus. It should be unsurprising that most of his research seems to have involved dropping acid and drilling into his own skull. Trepanation is, for Huges and his followers, merely the next step in mind-expansion, following LSD and presumably preceding the injection of reindeer urine into your eyeballs. "Gravity," says Huges, "brings you down," so he used to stand on his head to try and defeat it.Yeah.
So anyway, poking holes in your cranium has a long history, and was generally used to help shamans communicate with the spirit world, or to drive out the evil spirits that inhabited people's heads. Want to chat with the ancestors? Pop! Hallucinating? Pop! Headaches? Pop! Speaking against the priesthood? Pop!
Well, I suppose "pop" is not quite the correct onomatopoeia. Another acolyte of Huges' by the name of Joseph Mellen (whose cooperative acid trips and skull-drilling with Amanda Fielding would lead to their eventual marriage and spawning of offspring), described his own experience thus:
"After some time there was an ominous-sounding shlurp and the sound of bubbling… It sounded like air bubbles running under the skull as they were pressed out."OK, if the idea of "an ominous-sounding schlurp" coming from inside your bloody skull isn't enough to make you question the wisdom of this procedure, then you're a stouter (and stupider) man than I, Gunga Din.
All of this is not to say that cranial aeration doesn't have its place in the realm of legitimate medical procedures. Often, to relieve intracranial pressure or hematoma, it is necessary to remove a piece of the skull. However, there's a vast gulf between a trained surgeon doing so in order to save a patient's life and a drug-addled guru helping his disciples grind holes in their foreheads in quest of "expanded consciousness."
So that, then, is what the hell happened to trepanation. Next time you're wishing you could release those migranous miasmas, remember that a vote for Fielding is a vote for a dental drill in every home.
(For more insight into the people who drill for gray matter, check out "Lunch With Heather Perry" at Neurophilosophy, "trepanation" at The Skeptic's Dictionary, and "Like a Hole in the Head" from Cabinet Magazine.)
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Fuckin' Awesome
Yes. That's all I have to say about these photographs (posted on Morbid Anatomy):
They come from a newly-released book, Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine 1880–1930. I think I need it.
They come from a newly-released book, Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine 1880–1930. I think I need it.
Friday, April 10, 2009
You can't make a theory without breaking a few eggs...
And just in time for Easter, too:
And the creamy fondant center of this Cadbury Genius Egg is the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. *Crunch* *Schlurp* Mmmmm! The Origin... of Delicious!
And the creamy fondant center of this Cadbury Genius Egg is the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. *Crunch* *Schlurp* Mmmmm! The Origin... of Delicious!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Motor Synapse
I've recently been giving a lot of thought to augmented humanity, and this short talk puts an interesting spin on it. Aimee Mullins discusses changing the dialogue on disability from one on compensation and disadvantage to one on enhancement and potential. It's really an intriguing talk that may make you prick up your ears, cock your head, raise an eyebrow, etc.
http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2009/03/how_my_legs_give_me_superpowers.html
Plus, if nothing else, this woman has got some awesome legs. I especially liked the hand-carved ash boot prosthetics:
She talks about the importance of "combining cutting-edge technology... with the age-old poetry," and I couldn't agree more. It's that very impulse that draws a person to Victorian science, to dabble in steampunk, and even to illuminate their organic lab notebook. There is a sense that in the 19th century, science and art were more tightly intertwined, and that aesthetics were an important part of progress. William Whewell*-- demagogue, prophet, and hype-man** of the industrial revolution-- discussed at great length the marriage of art and science. He's one of my absolute favorite Victorians, but I think I'll blather about him in a future post. For now, do watch the video, and think about disability and enhancement.
*Pronounced "Hue-ull" not "Wee-well."
**Think of him like James Watt's Flavor Flav, with a giant pocketwatch around his neck and horns on his top hat.
[Edit: the link was working incorrectly, by which I actually mean not working at all. Apologies all around.]
http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2009/03/how_my_legs_give_me_superpowers.html
Plus, if nothing else, this woman has got some awesome legs. I especially liked the hand-carved ash boot prosthetics:
She talks about the importance of "combining cutting-edge technology... with the age-old poetry," and I couldn't agree more. It's that very impulse that draws a person to Victorian science, to dabble in steampunk, and even to illuminate their organic lab notebook. There is a sense that in the 19th century, science and art were more tightly intertwined, and that aesthetics were an important part of progress. William Whewell*-- demagogue, prophet, and hype-man** of the industrial revolution-- discussed at great length the marriage of art and science. He's one of my absolute favorite Victorians, but I think I'll blather about him in a future post. For now, do watch the video, and think about disability and enhancement.*Pronounced "Hue-ull" not "Wee-well."
**Think of him like James Watt's Flavor Flav, with a giant pocketwatch around his neck and horns on his top hat.
[Edit: the link was working incorrectly, by which I actually mean not working at all. Apologies all around.]
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Recession to the Mean
In these times of economic woe, the blogosphere is abuzz* with chatter of “Going Galt.” Much cyber-ink has been spilled over the issue already, and often by wiser heads than my own, so I will refrain from actually entering the fray. If you are seeking after erudite insight into the idiocy of Randian creative denialism, or you want to find some helpful tips for living free of those barnacles on the hull of society who are known more conventionally as “the poor,” I suggest you seek elsewhere. If, alternatively, you are happy to stand back from the mêlée,** keeping your frock coat clean from nasty stains and pondering matters more speculative in nature, I would be honored if you’d stay a while. One lump or two?
As is my wont, I’ve decided to put a somewhat historical cast on the whole hullabaloo, and I ask myself what, in their titanic wisdom, would the great scientists of yesteryear do? Though sundry historians may disagree, there is perhaps some merit in gleaning from history examples we may follow—from the past, lessons for the present. I am driven, half by intellectual curiosity and half by sheer perversity, to consider the merits of “Going Galton.”
As you may (but probably do not) know,*** Francis Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin and one of the forebears of modern anthropology. He introduced the use of statistics into the field, developing the analytical technique of regression to the mean.**** Now, if you know any anthropologists (or, heaven forfend, are one yourself), you’ll know that anthropologists, as a rule, have enough chips on their shoulders to put Toll House out of business. Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that we folks who don’t spend our time compiling type indexes and acquiring cultural competency in the commodification of mimetic indigenous kin-group ritual/rite-patterns have some unsavory stereotypes of those who do.
But listen up, filthy acolytes of Malinowski: you should count your lucky shamanistic fetishes that the best we can come up with is the fact that your work is entirely without merit.***** Just be glad that Galton didn’t leave an even bigger, creepier stain on your discipline’s bed sheets. This man's many hobbies include using anthropometrics to explain why the white race was superior to all others and creating a "beauty map" of England, showing where there were statistically significant concentrations of foxy ladies.****** I kid you not.
So what might it mean to Go Galton in this recession? The ultimate goal, of course, would to make some sort of statement about President Obama’s economic policy and even legislative change. Ideally, that statement should be as obstreperous as possible and wreak a degree of havoc on the hearts and minds of the hogs who cluster greedily around the trunk of your intellectual tree, growing fat off of your creative windfall. So, we ask again the question, asked by the most discerning of racist bigot douchebags for generations: What Would Galton Do?
Galton's travels in Africa can give us some insight into how the great Asshole of Anthropometrics would proceed. As M.G. Bulmer writes in a curiously laudatory biography:
(Oh, and if you're worried about any racist undertones associated with comparing Obama to an African chieftain, just remember: it's mostly Republicans who are into this whole Galt thing. Do you think that the party of "Barack The Magic Negro" and "Obama Bucks" is really going to have a problem with that?)
To close, here is a sketch of Ceylon in Galton's own hand:
The caption states, as best as I can tell, "Ceylon ---- the best back in Africa." I'm probably just not racist enough to understand what must have been some kind of hilarious bon mot to Galton & Co. But, to be fair, I'm sure Ceylon did have a very strong back. After all, it must be hard work bearing the white man and his burden.
Footnotes
*Only two sorts of things may be properly “abuzz:” a hive of bees and the blogosphere. Perhaps it has something to do with the senseless repetition of inanity by hordes of mindless drones. This naturally raises comparisons between hyperlinks and the waggle dance, which subsequently evokes the image of a crowd gathered around Warren Ellis shaking his derriere and dancing in a figure-eight to demonstrate exactly how far and in which direction one must fly in order to find a picture of a man with his penis in a vice.
**Avec la circonflexe et l’aigu, bien sur. In the Francophone world, “mêlée” denotes both hand-to-hand and ranged combat, as, in a pinch, the accents may be used as a boomerang and a dart, respectively. Once used, however, the fight devolves into the much more English melee, which just involves lots of punching and the occasional broken bottle.
***Look, no offense. It’s just that in all likelihood, you have never heard of this guy. If you have, I probably know what you look like when you sleep. Yes, even you. Especially you.
****Yeah, I don’t know what that shit means either. I may be pre-med, but I’m a recidivist humanist, not a fallen mathematician. It’s a miracle I can even type the words “regression to the mean” without foaming at the mouth and falling into a brief catatonia.
*****Lucky you! You don’t have to go anywhere to Go Galt—you’re already there, you majestic Randian übermensch, you!
******He was also known to measure the proportions of women he found attractive from afar, using a sextant, presumably sighting off of Polaris and their cleavage.
*******Bulmer, M. G. Francis Galton: pioneer of heredity and biometry. 2003. Johns Hopkins University Press.
As is my wont, I’ve decided to put a somewhat historical cast on the whole hullabaloo, and I ask myself what, in their titanic wisdom, would the great scientists of yesteryear do? Though sundry historians may disagree, there is perhaps some merit in gleaning from history examples we may follow—from the past, lessons for the present. I am driven, half by intellectual curiosity and half by sheer perversity, to consider the merits of “Going Galton.”
As you may (but probably do not) know,*** Francis Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin and one of the forebears of modern anthropology. He introduced the use of statistics into the field, developing the analytical technique of regression to the mean.**** Now, if you know any anthropologists (or, heaven forfend, are one yourself), you’ll know that anthropologists, as a rule, have enough chips on their shoulders to put Toll House out of business. Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that we folks who don’t spend our time compiling type indexes and acquiring cultural competency in the commodification of mimetic indigenous kin-group ritual/rite-patterns have some unsavory stereotypes of those who do.
But listen up, filthy acolytes of Malinowski: you should count your lucky shamanistic fetishes that the best we can come up with is the fact that your work is entirely without merit.***** Just be glad that Galton didn’t leave an even bigger, creepier stain on your discipline’s bed sheets. This man's many hobbies include using anthropometrics to explain why the white race was superior to all others and creating a "beauty map" of England, showing where there were statistically significant concentrations of foxy ladies.****** I kid you not.
So what might it mean to Go Galton in this recession? The ultimate goal, of course, would to make some sort of statement about President Obama’s economic policy and even legislative change. Ideally, that statement should be as obstreperous as possible and wreak a degree of havoc on the hearts and minds of the hogs who cluster greedily around the trunk of your intellectual tree, growing fat off of your creative windfall. So, we ask again the question, asked by the most discerning of racist bigot douchebags for generations: What Would Galton Do?
Galton's travels in Africa can give us some insight into how the great Asshole of Anthropometrics would proceed. As M.G. Bulmer writes in a curiously laudatory biography:
“One problem had to be resolved before Galton could travel north into the land of the Damaras. The local Hottentot tribes under the above-mentioned Jonker were in constant conflict with the Damaras and wanted to prevent white men from traveling into Damaraland. Galton tried to negotiate with Jonker with little success and finally decided to intimidate him. He rode into Jonker’s village, dressed in hunting pink (red hunting-coat, jackboots, and hunting cap) and mounted on his favorite ox, Ceylon (the horses had all died of distemper), leaped a brook, trotted into Jonker’s hut, and berated him. Jonker was suitably impressed, and he and the other chiefs later agreed to make peace with the Damaras so that it would be safe for white men to pass through their territory. They also agreed to abide by a simple code of law drawn up by Galton.”*******Wow. Not only did he intimidate the chief into granting him safe-passage by charging a pack-animal into his living room and manage to negotiate a peace treaty between the two perpetually-warring tribes, but this Moses of the Muskox also brought enlightened European law to the benighted savages? Why hasn't anyone tried this yet? It would certainly be much more effective than impotently threatening to withdraw your creative efforts from society because you're being punished for being successful.
(Oh, and if you're worried about any racist undertones associated with comparing Obama to an African chieftain, just remember: it's mostly Republicans who are into this whole Galt thing. Do you think that the party of "Barack The Magic Negro" and "Obama Bucks" is really going to have a problem with that?)
To close, here is a sketch of Ceylon in Galton's own hand:
The caption states, as best as I can tell, "Ceylon ---- the best back in Africa." I'm probably just not racist enough to understand what must have been some kind of hilarious bon mot to Galton & Co. But, to be fair, I'm sure Ceylon did have a very strong back. After all, it must be hard work bearing the white man and his burden.Footnotes
*Only two sorts of things may be properly “abuzz:” a hive of bees and the blogosphere. Perhaps it has something to do with the senseless repetition of inanity by hordes of mindless drones. This naturally raises comparisons between hyperlinks and the waggle dance, which subsequently evokes the image of a crowd gathered around Warren Ellis shaking his derriere and dancing in a figure-eight to demonstrate exactly how far and in which direction one must fly in order to find a picture of a man with his penis in a vice.
**Avec la circonflexe et l’aigu, bien sur. In the Francophone world, “mêlée” denotes both hand-to-hand and ranged combat, as, in a pinch, the accents may be used as a boomerang and a dart, respectively. Once used, however, the fight devolves into the much more English melee, which just involves lots of punching and the occasional broken bottle.
***Look, no offense. It’s just that in all likelihood, you have never heard of this guy. If you have, I probably know what you look like when you sleep. Yes, even you. Especially you.
****Yeah, I don’t know what that shit means either. I may be pre-med, but I’m a recidivist humanist, not a fallen mathematician. It’s a miracle I can even type the words “regression to the mean” without foaming at the mouth and falling into a brief catatonia.
*****Lucky you! You don’t have to go anywhere to Go Galt—you’re already there, you majestic Randian übermensch, you!
******He was also known to measure the proportions of women he found attractive from afar, using a sextant, presumably sighting off of Polaris and their cleavage.
*******Bulmer, M. G. Francis Galton: pioneer of heredity and biometry. 2003. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas
The above piece is a wax vanitas, a sculpture created just to remind you that you're going to die one day, probably soon, so don't forget to get ready for that. Oh, and bugs will eat your face. So... er, have a nice day, eh?
Also be sure to check out the anti-masturbation devices and the fan made from a human stomach.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Serotonin Synapse
What makes me happy?
This Chinese rap about Ben Cao Gang Mu (or Materia Medica), an ancient text of herbal medicine -- complete with scantily-clad ladies and the invaluable advice not to cut the deer horn too thin when preparing... well, some unspecified herbal remedy, I guess.
What makes me happier?
That I discovered it on the awesome (and heretofore unknown to me) blog of an erstwhile colleague and friend from my alma mater, "String between Pearls." This bloggeuse is one of the most impressively yet unassumingly intelligent people I have had the honor of knowing, and her knowledge of eunuchs alone is devastating in its berth.
This Chinese rap about Ben Cao Gang Mu (or Materia Medica), an ancient text of herbal medicine -- complete with scantily-clad ladies and the invaluable advice not to cut the deer horn too thin when preparing... well, some unspecified herbal remedy, I guess.
What makes me happier?
That I discovered it on the awesome (and heretofore unknown to me) blog of an erstwhile colleague and friend from my alma mater, "String between Pearls." This bloggeuse is one of the most impressively yet unassumingly intelligent people I have had the honor of knowing, and her knowledge of eunuchs alone is devastating in its berth.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Synapses
Some links to things published by other people that that I found strange and wonderful:
I do love my anatomical drawings, so this item got me extremely excited:
Memento Mori, Part I, a short chronicle of illustrations in anatomy books. In the spirit of the last post, I thought I'd mention Charles Estienne's 1545 De dissectione partium corporis humani, which supposedly
Although I must say that the concept of genteel humanist erotica (or Porno della Mirandola, if you will) is really rather intriguing.
Good news, everybody! If the image of me slavering over some vivisected Venus was too much for your prim sensibilities, then pop some blood pressure pills. Why's that, you ask? Well, apparently, beta blockers can wipe your memory! That's right, the utopia traditionally reserved for the likes of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet is now available to the public at large. The BBC reports that these pills, typically used to treat cardiac arrhythmia and severe hypertension, can also "erase bad memories." Scary, right?
Well, kind of. Researchers
The next day, those who had been administered the beta blocker still showed less inclination to run screaming from the room: "Study leader Dr Merel Kindt explained that although the memories are still intact, the emotional intensity of the memory is dampened." Well, that makes sense, too. If you are exposed to a frightening stimulus while under the effects of an adrenergic suppressant, you will have a softened fear response. Naturally, your memories of that fright will be less potent than if you had not be suppressed during the experience.
Now, if they could just find a drug that worked retroactively on memories of trauma...
Actually, nevermind. That would be positively terrifying. Perhaps it is my personal bias against memory alteration, but I find the possibility of even dampening memories to be rather scary. Now, perhaps sufferers of PTSD would disagree here, and I must admit that there is some merit to helping them ease their pain. However, the larger-scale and longer-term implications of altering memory still don't sit well with me. Maybe I'm one of those luddites who will stand in the way of better living through chemistry. I'm not exactly going for my pitchfork, but I will echo the cautionary words that so often accompany scientific advance: tread carefully, and with copious forethought, because if we rush headlong into something like this, we could end up forgetting why we were worried in the first place, and those are memories we don't want to lose.
Well, how very hypocritical of me: I've just finished berating the BBC for being sensationalist about a relatively banal study, and here I am spouting dire prophecies of woe unto the wayward Children of Bacon.* I'll cease.
I hope my links have brightened your otherwise dreary existence.
*That's Francis Bacon (the father of empiricism), definitely not Roger Bacon (the alchemist who had a talking brass head), and most likely not crispy-fried strips of pig (which are delicious, but not very scientific).
I do love my anatomical drawings, so this item got me extremely excited:
Memento Mori, Part I, a short chronicle of illustrations in anatomy books. In the spirit of the last post, I thought I'd mention Charles Estienne's 1545 De dissectione partium corporis humani, which supposedly
"includes a number of woodcuts of nude women that were, according to Rifkin, originally intended as ‘genteel humanist erotica’, but were altered by partial dissection and the inclusion of anatomical information relating to reproductive anatomy. Included are Bathsheba being spied upon by David (below), as well as the goddesses Venus, Antiope, and Proserpina. A good example of the complex relationships between art, medicine, books, and sex during the early modern era."No, that is not what I meant by "extremely excited." Shame on you.
Although I must say that the concept of genteel humanist erotica (or Porno della Mirandola, if you will) is really rather intriguing.
Good news, everybody! If the image of me slavering over some vivisected Venus was too much for your prim sensibilities, then pop some blood pressure pills. Why's that, you ask? Well, apparently, beta blockers can wipe your memory! That's right, the utopia traditionally reserved for the likes of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet is now available to the public at large. The BBC reports that these pills, typically used to treat cardiac arrhythmia and severe hypertension, can also "erase bad memories." Scary, right?
Well, kind of. Researchers
"artificially created a fearful memory by associating pictures of spiders with a mild electric shock delivered to the wrists of the volunteers.... The researchers assessed how fearful of the pictures the volunteers were by playing sudden noises and measuring how strongly they blinked, something called the 'startle response.' The group that had taken beta blockers showed less fear than the group that had taken the placebo pill."So, the startle response was dampened, but that makes sense because beta blockers are beta-adrenergic antagonists, meaning they block the hormone adrenaline from reaching the receptors it uses to initiate a neurologic response. Adrenaline is the big "fight-or-flight" hormone, so it's really no surprise that blocking its action could in some way alter the startle response.
The next day, those who had been administered the beta blocker still showed less inclination to run screaming from the room: "Study leader Dr Merel Kindt explained that although the memories are still intact, the emotional intensity of the memory is dampened." Well, that makes sense, too. If you are exposed to a frightening stimulus while under the effects of an adrenergic suppressant, you will have a softened fear response. Naturally, your memories of that fright will be less potent than if you had not be suppressed during the experience.
Now, if they could just find a drug that worked retroactively on memories of trauma...
Actually, nevermind. That would be positively terrifying. Perhaps it is my personal bias against memory alteration, but I find the possibility of even dampening memories to be rather scary. Now, perhaps sufferers of PTSD would disagree here, and I must admit that there is some merit to helping them ease their pain. However, the larger-scale and longer-term implications of altering memory still don't sit well with me. Maybe I'm one of those luddites who will stand in the way of better living through chemistry. I'm not exactly going for my pitchfork, but I will echo the cautionary words that so often accompany scientific advance: tread carefully, and with copious forethought, because if we rush headlong into something like this, we could end up forgetting why we were worried in the first place, and those are memories we don't want to lose.
Well, how very hypocritical of me: I've just finished berating the BBC for being sensationalist about a relatively banal study, and here I am spouting dire prophecies of woe unto the wayward Children of Bacon.* I'll cease.
I hope my links have brightened your otherwise dreary existence.
*That's Francis Bacon (the father of empiricism), definitely not Roger Bacon (the alchemist who had a talking brass head), and most likely not crispy-fried strips of pig (which are delicious, but not very scientific).
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