Cutting science again

So, the Con-Dems are not only cutting back on science funding but also trying to cut back on regulation.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100804/full/466674a.html

Health secretary Andrew Lansley announced that the number of health agencies will be reduced from 18 to “between eight and ten”, to reduce overlap between the bodies and save £180 million

Part of this is to ‘rationalise’ the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the agency that regulates fertility treatment and embryo research, provides ethical advice and licenses centres.

Part of my problem with the loss of the HFEA is that they are going to split the responsibilities to two different agencies, one will be responsible for the clinical side and another for the research side.  These overlap at the moment.

It’s not even a Con-Dem idea, Labour proposed it in 2004, researchers and clinicians cried against it and in 2007 a cross party inquiry decided that the case against a merger was “overwhelming and convincing”.  Apparently, in 2007 it would have undermined public confidence, still have required the same resources and was not really compatible with other agencies.

The Human Tissue Authority will also be absorbed into another agency. This body regulates the use of human tissues in research and overseas organ donation.

Also the Health Protection Agency which advices on infectious diseases and environmental hazards, but this will be taken in by a government department, and not even kept semi-independent. No problems there then.

I guess, if we scientists have no money for research, then we don’t need regulation, but these bodies are also regulating peoples health.

We all must make sacrifices in ‘the current economic climate’ (which is not as bad as the Con-Dems would have you believe, at least, not yet), but can we really afford to cut back on health regulations? By forcing people in these agencies to move to different offices and take on more work, we will be pushing them to the limit, and these bodies are made up of people. People make mistakes, and the harder you push them the more prone they are to do it, and the less likely they are to pick up on the mistakes of others.

What has changed in the last 3 years that means that what was a bad idea is now a good idea? Con-Dem.

You are what they say you can eat.

I heard this morning that NICE are advising that pregnant and breast feeding women should only eat 200 more calories a day and not twice as much. Fair enough. But is this an extension of the nanny culture?

Firstly, most people should know that eating for two, does not mean twice as much. Eating for two means that you are not the only person using what you eat.You do need more, you are making a lot of cells and that requires energy, and vitamins and minerals etc etc, but what you are building is very small, you wouldn’t expect a new born to eat the same amount as you so you shouldn’t expect it to before it’s born.

I was informed when I was pregnant that I need to only increase my calorific intake by 10%, so 200 calories. Fine, except I have no idea how much I ate before I was pregnant.

Now I am going to upset everyone, I’m thin. I eat pretty much what I want when I want and don’t put on much. Partly because I quite often don’t want to eat much, partly because I’ve got a fast metabolism.

I tend not to eat breakfast, because I’m not hungry when I get up, only getting peckish about 11 o’clock, and then I’ve only got an hour ’til lunch. Quite often I don’t have a big dinner, and never have pudding. Not because I’m dieting but because I can’t be bothered, I don’t NEED it so what’s the point. I don’t comfort eat. I have tons of chocolate in my cupboard, because I DON’T scoff it. To be fair it’s not self control, because it’s not denial. My body seems to only want to eat what it needs and so, whilst I have no idea how many calories I eat in a day, I guess it’s less than the RDA 2000 calories.

Except when I was pregnant. I was HUNGRY. I HAD to have breakfast, even with the morning sickness, in fact eating was one of the things that made the sickness better. I had to have big dinners. I even had to snack.

After years of listening to my body and only eating when I was genuinely hungry, I continued to do so and I feasted. I am pretty sure I was eating half as much again, not just the 10%. But where did it go? I didn’t put that much on. Four months after giving birth and whilst breast feeding (and still eating three square plus snacks), I was back in my old clothes, yes I weighed a couple of pounds more, but that only meant I had a BMI of 20 rather than 19. And I think that was my (oh how I miss it) cleavage.

Recommendations are well and good, and in an growing (waistline) population it is good to remind everyone once in a while not to kill themselves with food. But not blanket rules. Everyone is different, and people have different metabolisms, and differing levels of morning sickness. If they had told me to only eat 200 calories more then normal, I think I (and my child) would’ve been in trouble.

And talking of obesity and what the powers that be say we we should eat. A friend has a very underweight child (both her and her partner are thin) and so she included high energy snacks in his pack lunch. I’m talking things like cheese, not crisps or anything unhealthy. She got told off, because too many children are overweight they do not allow high energy snacks. So basically this kid was seriously wilting from hunger by the end of the day and she was getting warnings about him losing weight when he was already underweight. This is what happens when you generalise a rule, some people do suffer.

The people issuing these general rules may assume that common sense is applied, but quite often jobsworths and toe the liners will not deviate from ‘official government advise’. It is written. We are fat. We must diet. Even the thin people, because we are fat.

Brain Drain

Here I am, trying to write a fellowship application so I can have a job next year. Things already look bad, science funding was already cut (or maintained with zero inflation, so in fact reduced in real terms) about the same time the revised costing of the Olympics were found out. Now we have vague threats that science funding is going to be cut up to 20%. Well, fair enough, everyone has to make sacrifices, but at what cost?

I would argue that scientific research, especially environmental and medical research, is essential to maintaining a first world country. Think of some of the great advances we have had in Britain, the science behind Dolly the Sheep for example, has allowed for a huge advances in stem cell and cloning research. Watson, Crick and Franklin allowed for a huge expansion in DNA research. These scar healing things, pioneered by a British research group. I could go on, and should include non-biological stuff but as that’s what I do that’s what I know.

Anyway, for years the Labour government increased funding in science in a bid to reduce the Brain Drain, which is where the best and brightest (in scientific research) get so fed up at hitting their heads against brick walls to get funding to actually get something done, leave the country in droves and then support other countries scientific backbone.

Yes, science is international, and the scientific community is international, but when it comes to patents and such stuff, doesn’t the UK want the money and the kudos?

Lets face it, we don’t really have any economic base in this country anymore, we are no longer the great cotton / steel / boat / coal / car / silk / wool / etc etc producers, even call centres are disappearing abroad. It’s all very well having a strong service industry, but who is left for us to service?

We need to look forwards, and we need to PRODUCE. I’d like to think that it was OK if the money saved from not funding science was going to go towards useful economic things like keeping Sheffield steelworks open, but that’s not going to happen. So if the last of our manufacturers and ship builders close, and scientists can no longer work, what will Britain MAKE, what will we actually contribrute to the world.

Apart from the sporty summer 2012 I mean.

Radio telescopes before diving boards, Environmental monitoring ships before bombs, and working laboratories before elitist schools I say.

To learn a language….first learn the language

Ok, it’s well into the 21st century, computers are not going anywhere, so I am learning perl.

Which would be easier to do if the instructions were in English

‘This exercise is to rewrite the Hello world program so that (a) the string is assigned to a variable and (b) this variable is then printed with a newline character. Use the double quotes and don’t use the concatenation operator.’

And that’s the first exercise!

String = ???? Apparently ‘Scalar variables hold both strings and numbers, and are remarkable in that strings and numbers are completely interchangable.’

so String = a thing you type?

Variable = ???? the name of the thing?

Printed = put on the screen, No paper comes out of my printer.

newline = I guess a new line?

Concatenation Operator = urm…. using more than one command rather than squishing them together?

Yikes, pass me a geek. Why can’t computer programmers teach computer languages without me getting mired!

I mean, I learned British sign language from a Deaf teacher that was mute but was very clear about what she ‘said’. I actually learned a new language from her. She never spoke English, and yet I UNDERSTOOD what she was teaching me.  I’m sure geeks used to speak English, (at least the English ones) otherwise how did they get through school? So they have an advantage over her. \n

What to wear?

The immigration minister said yesterday that it would be ‘rather un-British’ to bring in a French style burka ban. Good on him.

Women (and men) should be free to wear what they want, with a little common sense. Obviously, I don’t think you should wear a Nazi uniform in Germany, or a bikini in Antarctica, that would be silly. But what about a burka in France?

If we ban women from making the choice what to wear here (or in France), how can we (or the French) condemn another country from doing the same thing, but in reverse? What right do we have to say ‘you can’t punish a woman for wearing trousers’ if we punish them for covering their faces?

Forcing women to not wear something, surely is as oppressive as forcing them to wear something.

I’m not saying a agree with burkas, I’m not wearing one, so on a personal level I guess I don’t. I probably have stronger feelings about women wearing PJs and dressing gowns to the local corner shop. I mean…. most of the time they are wearing tons of make-up and have their hair up in a Croydon facelift, it must take longer to to that than it takes to whip on a pink track suit….. (Yes, I live in a very classy part of town).

Bans on parents dropping of kids at school in nightwear seems sensible to me If you can’t take 10 seconds to whip on some clothes, then your morning routine needs looking at, it’s not a good example to set.  Another ban I approve is people going into food shops topless on hot sweaty days. But that’s just common sense isn’t it? Who would want to pick up an apple that a hairy sweaty guy was just dripping all over. Yuck.

So yes, some clothing bans I approve, for health reasons, or for common sense, but for modesty? OK, going to a funeral in lycra shorts and a bikini top is not on, but we don’t need to be told that, we know it’s wrong.

Different people have different ideas of modesty, fair enough, personally I like showing my legs (good calfs) but not my stomach (scar). If I had cleavage, I’m not sure if I’d show it or not. But I don’t think it’s for anyone else to say. I think I’ve got good legs, but if 2/3rds of the population think they are ugly, should I be banned from showing them? Or, if 2/3rd of them agree, should I be forced to show them?

It’s not up to them, or the politicians to say whether or not I show my legs, or if another woman shows her face or not. It’s my choice and they should respect that, just as I hope that will try to ensure that other countries allow women make that choice too.

This is what they call fun?

It’s not often Science makes me laugh out loud, but this week I got very strange looks from my co-workers, until they read the article too.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/329/5989/266 read it if you can.

In this weeks news, there is a review of the conference Culture Evolves, 28–30 June, London, sponsored by the Royal Society and the British Academy. Talking about….. well, how culture evolves I guess. I was going very well until I got to this passage.

‘In one group of capuchins, the team’s long-term observations have allowed them to witness a rare event: the emergence of a new tradition. In what Perry calls a “bizarre” and “high-risk” ritual, the monkeys poke each other’s eyeballs. One monkey will insert his or her long, sharp, dirty fingernail deep into the eye socket of another animal, between the eyelid and the eyeball, up to the first knuckle. In videos Perry played for the meeting, the monkeys on the receiving end of the fingernail, typically social allies, could be seen to grimace and bat their eyelids furiously (as did many members of the audience) but did not attempt to remove the finger or otherwise object to the treatment. Indeed, during these eye-poking sessions, which last up to an hour, monkeys insisted on the finger being reinserted if it popped out of the eye socket.’

I mean……… why? Obviously, this is a scientific journal, so it goes on to explain that this may be to ‘test the strength of their social bonds’. But really? I may be getting old, but this is not my idea of bonding, what’s wrong with picking each others fleas? It was good enough in my day!

It’s a really interesting review, that goes on to explain that children ‘overimitate’ (or are a bit OCD about copying adults, even when they make no sense). So read it if you can. But be careful in case people think you are goofing off.

The end of the world!

Imagine the scene, after a long day you get home and are going to have pasta for dinner, but then it ends up all over the floor, you clean it up and go to the fridge, see a yoghurt and think, I want that. Only to open it and find out it’s the kind with a fruit layer, rather than the fruit flavoured kind. Well wouldn’t you be inconsolable, Crying so hard that you can’t get a breath, for at least half an hour……. no? me either. I just don’t get toddlers.

Honestly, crying is good for you occasionally, releases pent up emotions, but the last time I was that upset was when my husband tried to kill himself. I know that my child cannot really understand the complexities of life and death as she is not yet even two, but surely worse things must have happened than getting the wrong yoghurt……… not getting yoghurt at all for example.

So what do I do. It’s not a tantrum, she not throwing things and shouting, it’s pure despair. Utter hopelessness that not even a mummy, teddy and dummy can relieve. So no, I don’t leave the room and let her get over it, I try to make it better, and when she calms down enough to breathe, what do I do? Offer the yoghurt again! And I being evil on purpose? Will I never understand? Off we go again, only this with refusal of the dummy too (probably because it’s hard to breathe).

When will perspective kick in? Parenting is not fun, and now I can’t tag team….. don’t be a single mum. Or at least, if you do, buy the right yoghurt.

Metro juncstaposition. LOL.

I always like to go through the metro of a lunch time. News lite with easy quizzes. But one of my favourite parts is laughing at the way the position headlines and photos.

Take today (14/7/10) page 21. Headline ‘ Nazi jibe shock DJ loses ‘free speech’ jibe. And underneath, half is the article, the other half a picture of Prince Harry.

Now it could be a genuine error, but it happens so often….. and aren’t we over Harry’s silly costume now?

Can we see it?

I’ve been a bit behind with my Nature reading so only just picked this up.

If you can access this article then try http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100707/full/466174a.html?success=true

The abstract:- A once-threatened population of African fish is now providing a view of evolution in action. Laura Spinney asks what Lake Victoria cichlids have revealed about speciation.

Basically, the cichlids are a group of fish that live in Lake Victoria, during the 60′s Nile Perch were introduced to the lake, and along with de-oxygenation, caused the populations to crash.

However, in the last two decades the fish have been coming back with a vengeance (I mean really quickly, not hiding round corners and doing in the perch). Including a load of new types. Now, most of these are hybrids (probably because the females can’t see well enough in the murky polluted water and get off with the wrong guy). But there is plenty of evidence of adaptation (larger gills, changing behaviour). So adaptation, and speciation….. EVOLUTION.

a quote from the review

‘Genetic analyses and simple observation show that the cichlid population structure has changed markedly. Of the 20 species in the average catch, says Seehausen, two or three are species that seem to have survived the population crash unchanged. Another two or three look like new species, and are probably hybrids of old ones. But most fall in-between: they may have different colours or shapes, occupy different habitats or eat different foods, but genetically they aren’t different enough from their predecessors to be termed new species. Crucially, old, new and in-between remain close enough to interbreed.’ (bold my emphasis).

So…. yes, we can see speciation, sort of.

Darwinian evolution is partly based on the premise that advantageous genetic changes are passed on more successfully than the old genetics, resulting in it spreading in the population and thus changing the population, enough genetic changes resulting in speciation. Whilst this is mostly caused by spontaneous genetic mutation in nature, genetic modification can happen other ways. Bread wheat is an example to two different grasses from different sides of town getting it on and having much better endowed children. So hybridisation could be a pathway to speciation.

Can we see speciation in animals? Yes we can. If you squint a bit.

Change happens.

Adaptation, evolution and speciation. These are different things, that’s they they have different words.  How many times must I hear/see people say that you can not see evolution happening, only adaptation, therefore Darwin was wrong.

The following definitions are taken from http://dictionary.oed.com/

Adaptation 5. Biol. Organic modification by which an organism or species becomes adapted to its environment.

Evolution 8. a. Biol. The transformation of animals, plants, and other living organisms into different forms by the accumulation of changes over successive generations; the transmutation of species; the origination or transformation of an organism, organ, physiological process, biological molecule, etc., by such a series of changes.

Speciation. The formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution.

So yes, we don’t see a lot of speciation happening, and we can see adaptation, but where we see adaptation over many generations changing an organism (say, making tuberculosis antibiotic resistant, or African elephants have smaller tusks) that is evolution.

And anyway, what is a species? With animals it’s easier to define, viable offspring and all that (and don’t forget, dogs are now a sub species of wolves not distinct). But what about asexual organisms? How do you test speciation in bacteria and viruses?

All I know is, things change, things adapt to their environment, we can actually see this adaptation happening, we can track these genetic changes. We can see chance mutations that have popped up in the past that are beneficial sweep through populations and become the norm in 10s of generations, and we know they happened because in different populations, where it’s not beneficial, they haven’t taken over.  Anybody like drinking milk? Lactose tolerant? That mutation, that’s adaptation, and that’s part of evolution. Northern Europeans and other pastoralists evolved to drink milk beyond childhood. Native Americans and other non-pastoralists didn’t.

Just because we haven’t become X-men doesn’t mean we are not still evolving. Evolution is a gradual process of adaptation that may result in speciation.

Please, just understand, I know it’s hard, and a lot of people fear it, but change happens. Live with it.