God willing, I am not planning to retire from science. Sure, there may be a time when I may not be physically able to go and actually DO experiments, but barring any cruel neurological conditions that may hinder my ability to think (full discosure – my personal terrors in these sense are Alzheimer’s Disease and stroke, in that order) I should still be able to wonder, to think, and as I have discovered relatively recently, to write about this incredible, yet understandable universe of ours.

I will then become that purest of thinkers, the amateur.

In those same lines, another type of thinkers that I believe share the advantage of not having to “retire” are writers (this is hardly an original thought of mine; look here).

Again, in a way similar to how I define a true scientist, I choose to define a true writer as someone who has “something to say” and itches to say it in writing so others can read about it. The beauty about being a writer is that pretty soon there’s something else to say and a true writer goes at it with gusto.

Then there’s the best of both worlds, at least from my perspective. A scientist that can also write. I hope to be able to call myself that one day. It is a great responsibility (see here and here). That said, my admiration and awe go to that relatively rare breed of writers, Science Fiction writers. I can honestly say that I do not think I’ll ever be able to write anything like that, and in a future post, I plan to tell you why I think SF writers are the best, bar none.

So guys, what do you think? Do you want to retire? I don’t.

(:-)

Picture credit: http://www.agweb.com

A few minutes ago Dr. Toomey kindly informed me in an email that the copy I read was in fact an unproofed copy. I was not aware of that at the time and I apologize for my “nitpicking”.

That said, when you read the original review you will see that I loved the book despite the misperceived mistakes in it, so you can only imagine how much I will like it when I read the final product!

(:-)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

And search for “Pagan OR” including the quotation marks… (:-)

Some disciplines require an advanced degree to truly make an original contribution to the field. In my own field of science for example, if you want to consistently pursue your own ideas, almost invariably you will need a doctoral degree in an appropriate discipline, and even then, sometimes that is not enough, because nowadays the natural sciences are truly interdisciplinary. Long gone are the days when a single person could learn pretty much all what was known about the natural world. Nowadays, you will need to cooperate with people with different / complementary expertise.

Incidentally, about the interdisciplinary nature of the natural sciences, a couple of years ago an academic advisee came to see me at my office. Basically, the student wanted to study towards an undergraduate degree in biology without taking any chemistry.

(!)

I can hear the loud laughter of my fellow biologists as they read this. Not because they are laughing at my student, but because they know that modern science is essentially an integration of bodies of knowledge that used to be separate. That is what allow us to understand the universe a little better. We just cannot understand biology, any kind of biology without some working knowledge of chemistry. In turn (you know where this is going) chemistry requires a working understanding of physics and physics requires a work… Who am I kidding? Physics requires quite a bit of mathematics…

In this context, while I am sure that what I am about to say is true of other academic disciplines, I can only speak from my own experience; science, as wonderful as it is, is really hard. Moreover, if you decide to go for an advanced degree, it only becomes harder. Maybe it does not look like that from an outside observer, but it certainly is; trust me on this one.

But then again, as the saying kind of goes, worthy things tend to be hard. There is no free lunch, and there is no way around it. Of course, there are the rare, exceptional people who thrive without formal education. They are not successful because of that; rather, they are so smart that they are successful despite not having formal education. That said, whom do these people hire to help run their companies? Yep, people like us, mere mortals who are nonetheless trainable in relatively esoteric areas of knowledge.

As you go from an undergraduate degree to a Master’s and finally the coveted Doctor of Philosophy degree you need to build upon what you learn from courses and other readings and try to come up with an original contribution to your chosen field, something that has never been thought about before in exactly the same way. By the way, you will never forget who calls you “Doctor” for the first time after earning your degree. For me, it was Dr. R. Harris-Warrick, a member of my committee and at the time Chair of the department of Neurobiology at Cornell. And it was an AWESOME feeling!

But I digress…

Amusingly, the usual quip about graduate work being knowing more and more of less and less is truer than you can imagine. If you want to see a representation of this fact, look here.

That said, an often overlooked aspect of this matter is that graduate school, if done properly and guided by a good mentor, it is not as much about knowledge in itself as it is about learning how to think about these matters and figure out ways to pry nature’s secrets from her selfish hands. In other words, learning how to become an expert on something is more than learning bare facts; it is also to acquire the ability of using that knowledge to infer previously hidden aspects of nature.

The word “expert” sometimes carries a negative connotation, as if an expert were a pompous high priest that looks down at the uninitiated. True enough, many scientists are like that. I vividly remember a postdoc at the lab where I did my PhD who acted as if he was superior to everyone and was really rude, especially to women (he was quite the coward) and overall he was a raging as… Well, I don’t want to go in a tangent right now…

(:-)

Just remember that we will see people with this type of attitude in virtually any profession or trade, it is not a exclusive trait of scientists.

Anyway, experts. Learning how to become an expert can be taught; this is ostensibly the purpose of graduate school. However, just in the same way that you can teach someone to play football (European or American), that someone needs to have some minimal abilities to suceed.

Then again, sometimes certain people do not even need to be taught; they are naturals, as the people we talked about before; some of these really good naturals are called amateurs.

Amateur literally means “lover”, and to truly be one, you need to have that exact frame of mind. You need to l-o-v-e what you do. I think that’s the distinction between being an amateur and to have a mere hobby is the same distinction between working out only during weekends and being a bodybuilder.

The history of science and technology is full of tales of great practicioners who were genuine amateurs. People with very little or even no formal education that went on to make great discoveries or invent great technologies. You will have no difficulty finding many examples, so I will not go over them here.

But at any rate, as I said right at the beginning of this post, we need all kinds of people. In fact, true amateurs accept and even seek the advice of experts in their particular area of interest. This is true because a real amateur is not happy until she or he gets it right, and there is no way around it, an expert is oftentimes needed to make sure. Also, it is important to realize that not everyone that calls himself an amateur is necessarily a good one. This can be rather dangerous, as this blogpost shows.

I guess that my point is that there is no reason whatsoever why the amateurs and experts cannot work side by side, as equals (yes, you heard me). Let me give you a concrete example.

The science of astronomy is without a doubt the hard science that most interacts with and also benefits the most from the efforts of amateurs. Actually, there exist way more amateur astronomers than professional astronomers; furthermore, many important discoveries in astronomy have been given to us by amateurs. They work hard and not only they work hard, they also get things right. None of the other sciences comes close in this respect.

In a delightful book titled “Seeing in the dark: How Amateur Astronomers Are Discovering the Wonders of the Universe” science writer Timothy Ferris narrates several stories of amateur astronomers that are making discoveres that are “the envy of professional astronomers”.

As the previous example illustrates, it can be done, things are changing.

There is a recent trend with the collective name of “Citizen Science” that aims to develop these kind of relationships. Check this link out to learn more about it. In all honesty, when I heard about it for the first time I was reluctant, almost suspicious, to give it a break. There are many areas like biotechnology that can have the potential of very dangerous outcomes when in the wrong hands.

However, I have changed my mind about Citizen Scientists, not in small part because whether we like it or not, the future is coming at the constant speed of 24 hours per day; there’s no stopping it, we may as well ride the wave…

We have talked about amateurs an experts, as if those were mutually exclusive. I am happy to report that there are some of us who are fortunate enough to get paid for doing what we love, and I would not have it any other way.

(:-)

Here’s some illustrations of planarians published in the 1800 by Dr. R.J. johnson, a physician by training and amateur naturalist (Public Domain).

Picture credit: Johnson RJ (1822) Observations on the Genus Planaria. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1776-1886). 1822-01-01. 112:437–447.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE

http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

http://ideasillustrated.com/blog/2013/01/13/2012-the-year-of-the-amateur/

http://thinkingscifi.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/science-needs-you/

This is a rather interesting book but, what’s not to like about astrobiology? If you know me, you know that astrobiology is one of my favorite science topics, and that’s saying a lot! Anyway, Dr. Murdin’s professional affiliation is Cambridge University’s institute of Astronomy. He has published at least 10 other books and A LOT of other material, including scientific papers. He certainly knows what he is talking about. Normally, I would expect an author with such expertise to excel at her/his own area, while being so-so in others.

I was pleasantly surprised that was not the case for “Are we being watched?”

The book is very well-researched and lucidly written, yet a little (very, very little) dry in some parts. The physical science aspects related to the search for like elsewhere was pretty much pristine and thorough while the “life” part of the search for life elsewhere was somewhat lighter. In all fairness, there is not much to say about that at this point of the game. We just don’t have any information whatsoever about life elsewhere; all we have are guesses with various degrees of education.

That said, I wouldn’t have minded a little more shameless speculation, as per the title. Actually, the word “watched” and derived words appear only 4 or 5 times besides the title. I suppose that the idea for the title came from the editors for marketing purposes.

My favorite chapter was the chapter on Mars. I believe that this is one of the most complete, best-written chapters in any book on the topic that I have seen. With the wealth of information about other potential life-bearing worlds in our solar system, the story of the search for life in poor Mars is oftentimes treated rather hurriedly. Not in this book.
The book has some delightful stories in the endnotes that would not have been too much out of place in the text itself, but the “Further readings” section was kind of brief. Also the book ended a tad abruptly and in a rather pessimistic / sad note, but I have to say that the topic lends itself to that naturally, so I don’t blame the author for that.

You know that the nitpicks are coming.

I was only able to find three. Please note that I usually include the page of my “nits”, but in this case, I will only be able to tell you the chapter because I read this one as an ebook.

**Chapter 9: “All atoms of the same element have the same number of electrons…”

This is incorrect. Atoms of the same element can differ in their number of electrons. When this happens, we talk about “ions”. What actually defines an atom is the number of protons.

**Chapter 11. When referring to antifreeze proteins, the text states that they do not exist in fish.

Not so, antifreeze proteins in fish have been known for more than 20 years. For example see:
Davies PL, Hew CL. Biochemistry of fish antifreeze proteins. FASEB J. 1990 May;4(8):2460-8. Review.

**In Chapter 13, the author states that in the Viking labeled release experiment a Geiger counter was used to detect Carbon-14.

This is a tougher one. Most Geiger counters are unable to detect Carbon 14. I was unable to find information about the specific type of counter used in the Viking missions, so I reserve my judgment here.

I still like Weird Life better, but Are we being watched? is a solid second.

Picture credit: Thames and Hudson

I cannot say it enough; biology is fascinating.

Picture credit: eol.org

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/salamander-is-worlds-first-photosynthetic-vertebrate

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100730/full/news.2010.384.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Plantimals

For reasons that we are not getting into right now (if you are curious, is because of the second law of thermodynamics), all living organisms need energy, no exceptions. This energy is used in all the multiple processes essential to life. As the Red Queen said in Carroll’s famous story Through the Looking-Glass (you may know it as “Alice in Wonderland”):

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”

Even when you are still, your body is doing a lot of things! Many of those things have to do precisely with self-maintenance, effectively running as fast as it can to keep the status quo.

Depending on the specific kind of life, we will find various strategies that life uses to harvest that energy from the environment. Entities like plants and certain microorganisms are called autotrophs, which usually means that they use a process called photosynthesis, through which they capture radiant energy (light) and convert it into chemical energy. There are other types of autotrophs that gather energy from sources other than light, but we will talk about them at some other time. Then there are the heterotrophs, which must consume other organisms for survival; we humans belong in this category. Heterotrophs collect chemical energy directly from other organisms.

Green plants collect light energy through special organelles (little organs) in their cells called chloroplasts (sometimes called plastids), which have their own interesting story. Chloroplasts and a related organelle, the mitochondria, seem to be the descendants of ancient bacteria that associated themselves with other cells billions of years ago. This idea is called the Endosymbiont Theory, and again, we can talk about it some other time.

Now, in all fairness you may be getting inpatient and think, “well, what does this guy want to talk about… now?”

Well, what if I told you that there are forms of life that are both autotrophs and heterotrophs?

I like telling my students that biology is a science of exceptions. You see, besides us, no other organism has ever taken a biology class, so they do not really care about what a professor like me says about what life is, what life is not, how do we classify life or even how organisms should behave.

There are several types of critters that engage in the rather dishonest practice of kleptoplasty, which is exactly what it sounds like. These guys steal chloroplasts from other organisms that they eat (talk about adding insult to injury). One of the most beautiful is the sea slug Elysia chlorotica. Yes, I called a sea slug “beautiful”, and here’s why:

Picture credit: eol.org

These slugs manage to spare the chloroplasts in the algae that they eat from digestion. Further, they incorporate those chloroplasts within their system, effectively turning into a “solar-powered slug”. E. chlorotica is not born a photosynthetic animal; when the little slugs hatch from the egg, they are brownish with red spots. They only acquire their characteristic green color when they eat certain types of green algae.

On the other hand, there is a recently discovered organism, an aphid (essentially a bug) which is a photosynthesizing guy in its own right. Now, this is a true plantimal. I did not invent the term “plantimal”, but I am not sure where I heard it from…

Anyway, photosynthesizing bugs; I know, not as beautiful as Elysia, but pretty cool nonetheless…

(:-)

Picture credit: eol.org

If you want to know more:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/green-sea-slug/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/green-aphid-photosynthesis/

Last night we were watching Gabriel (Fluffy) Iglesias’ latest special.  Fluffy is a comedian, and a hilarious one too.  He is also (relatively) clean, which is a plus.  I am no prude, but a comic that uses profanity and/or crude behavior continuously just turns me off.

But this is not a post about comedy.

In last night’s special, Fluffy talked a little bit about his personal history, in terms of his struggles to establish himself as a performer. He spoke of his frustration as being recognized as a Latino comic rather than as a good comedian, period.  I get it; I really do.  Let me say right away that he is obviously proud of his heritage while at the same way acknowledging that it has very little to do with his talent.

So, again, I get him; I truly get him because I feel exactly the same way about being a scientist.

First, dear reader, I want to tell you that I am very proud of where I come from.  I was born and raised in the tropical island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory since 1898, but with close to 400 years of Spanish colonization before that.  Even today, the political reality of Puerto Rico is strange to say the least but this is a topic for another day.

The main point is that culturally, I am Hispanic or Latino, however you wish to label me.  This includes aspects like habits and customs, food (Puerto Rican food is the best, bar none) and language.  For example, even though I am completely fluent in English, my first language is Spanish.  By the way, how can you tell what is your true first language?

Easy; there are two main ways of knowing.  You just need to ask yourself two questions: First, in what language do you count (especially in a hurry)?  Second, in what language do you pray?

Anyway, I love my culture, but my culture of origin is not enough to define me.  You see, I am a husband, a father, a son, a brother… (You get the picture)…, a pretty good professor and scientist, etc… who happens to be Puerto Rican.

The point that Fluffy tried to make in his brief monologue spoke to me because sometimes I get irritated when I hear people identifying themselves as “a Puerto Rican Scientist” or something in those lines and I get even more irritated (starting with the letter “p”) when I am described as a “Puerto Rican Scientist” myself.

Now, my dear fellow Puerto Rican scient…. Darn it, I did it myself!

The point that I am trying to make is that I am a good scientist because I worked for it; I am a scientist because I was fortunate enough to have a pretty decent mind, the support of a loving family, the means (through a MARC predoctoral fellowship -full disclosure- and student loans) and tenacity (the kind of tenacity that you absolutely need to get a PhD) that allowed me to go to graduate school and eventually get my dream job.

I suspect that the path that led you to your science career is very similar to mine.

We are not good scientists because we’re Puerto Rican.  We are good scientist because we took full advantage of the opportunities and abilities given to us.   By allowing yourself and others to define you as a Puerto Rican scientist, you are implicitly accepting that “I am a good scientist… for a Puerto Rican”.

Now, please tell me, is that the way to gain respect?

Let me point out that as a good friend of mine told me, this does not precludes the possibility that good scientists, who happen to be Puerto Rican, African American (sometimes both, yes, it’s true!), any other ethnic / cultural group or even Martians for that matter can serve as role models and good examples for younger minds.

P.S. If you disagree with me and want to yell at me, fine.  Just note that “Doña Lucy Ojeda” (mi madrecita) had nothing to do with this blogpost… (:-)

Picture credit: http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos

I thank my wife, Liza and my good friend, Dr. Mónica Feliú-Mójer for useful comments.

If you are one of my wonderful, loyal and highly discriminating readers, you know that I love anything science, but “my thing” is mainly the biological sciences.

In my previous post I talked a little bit about connections. Science and especially biology are full of those, really interesting ones too! One of the most fascinating things about these connections is that some of them are really unexpected; just look at the title of this post. The “degrees of separation” between nicotine, cobras, electric fish, Greek philosophers and physical therapy are fewer than you’d think.

Let’s start with nicotine. I would be very surprised if you have never heard of it. Nicotine is one of the most abused (legal) drugs and it is for sure one of the most addictive drugs known. Now, addiction is a rather complicated subject with ramifications that go from the biology of human nervous systems to sociological factors. Here, of course we’ll just talk about the biology.

Nicotine is a compound found in several types of plants, especially tobacco plants. In a previous post, I explored the concept of plants as producers of psychopharmacological agents. In terms of nicotine’s usefulness to the tobacco plant, most scientists think that nicotine acts as a natural insecticide that protects the plant against pests.

However, humans are not insects (ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands do not count); why do many humans like nicotine so much? If we want to understand that, we need to understand a little biochemical pharmacology (don’t be scared by the “chemical” part; trust me, it is very interesting!).

If you want to move, your nervous system must send a highly coordinated message to the appropriate muscle groups to initiate motion. Once the message is received by muscle cells, muscle will contract. There is a specific protein on muscle cells whose main job is to receive this signal from the nervous system and start a series of events that result in muscle contraction. This protein is called the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR or nicotinic receptors for short).

The compound that naturally activates this receptor is called acetylcholine and is the first and best-known example of a class of molecules called neurotransmitters. A wide variety of neurotransmitters control many aspects of nerve and muscular physiology, including aspects of brain function. In the same way that acetylcholine is the best-known neurotransmitter, the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor is the best known neurotransmitter receptor.

I am sure that at this point you may have noticed the “nicotinic” as the “first name” of this receptor. This is because nicotine is an activator of this receptor, just as acetylcholine, only more potent. In addition to muscle, there are versions of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors that are found in the human brain, where they seem to be related to learning and memory, as well as diseases such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease among others. Part of the reason why nicotine is so addictive is that it selectively activates nicotinic receptors in the brain, producing pleasurable sensations. This activation of the receptor population oftentimes lead to an increased production of the receptor in the brain, requiring more nicotine to induce the pleasant sensations and it kind of snowballs from there.

How do we know so much about this receptor? I’m glad you asked… (:-)…

We have all heard about cobras. It is possible that the first time you heard about them was by reading Kipling’s Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1894). This is the story of a brave young mongoose, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, who defends his adopted human family from two evil cobras, Nag and Nagaina. We all know that cobras have venom; what not everybody knows is that one of the main components of cobra venom targets nicotinic receptors. When a cobra bites a mouse, its venom paralyzes the mouse by blocking the receptor’s activation, preventing the prey’s escape while at the same time killing it by inactivating the muscles required for breathing.

So, we now have the first link that relates nicotine and cobras; they share a common target, our good friends the nicotinic receptors.

Have you ever heard of electric fish? I am sure you have. There are various types of fish that produce electricity for various purposes. The best known ones are electric rays that live in the ocean and the electric eels of the Amazon river. The electric rays and electric eels are able to generate voltages in the range of 200 and about 400 Volts respectively. How do they do that? Well, they have specialized organs called electric organs. These are modified muscles that display cells organized in a battery-like arrangement. In addition to that, they have a really high concentration of nicotinic receptors! These properties have been fully taken advantage of by biochemical pharmacologists. You see, the high amount of the receptor in electric organ allows for the chemical purification of the protein and therefore biochemists can do all kind of tests with them. In fact, the original isolation of the receptor was achieved by biochemically combining a preparation of electric organ with a purified cobra venom component!

All right, so far we have connected nicotine, cobra venom and electric fish.
What about Greek philosophers and physical therapy?

One of the techniques that physical therapists use to treat patients with muscle spasms or pinched nerves is to apply an electrical current to the affected area in a series of treatments. If properly given, these treatments are very effective to alleviate pain.

There are very few topics in the history of science where Greek philosophers are not involved in one way or another. These guys are everywhere! Two of the most famous ones, Plato and Aristotle, talked about the use of bioelectricity to treat pain and other maladies. Of course, they did not explain it in terms of bioelectricity, since the concept of biology as a topic of study did not exist yet. Also, they knew nothing about electricity. However, they wrote on the use of marine rays of the Torpedo genus, which we know today that they are electric fish, to treat headaches and pain caused by arthritis and gout.

How did they do it? Easy, they just stepped on the fish.

And there you have it; we have connected nicotine, cobra venom, electric fish, Greek philosophers and physical therapy, and we did it in less than the proverbial six degrees!

These connections are more than mere curiosities. As fascinating as they are by themselves, they help illustrate why research, any research is important and potentially useful.

Also, you have to admit that it is really, really fun to think about these things.

(:-)

Picture credits:

Dr. O.R. Pagán

http://kidspast.com/world-history/0072B-plato.php

http://eol.org

http://bostonsportsmed.com/electric-stimulation-physical-therapy/

I am hardly an unbiased commenter, of course. You see, I love science. I love its deep complexity yet totally understandable character while at the same time recognizing that there are people in all walks of life who may not have been exposed to science or have the wrong idea of what science is about. Part of the reason why I blog is that I want to help, and so does the Inspiring Science blog, check out its “About” page!

It also helps that it is very well written of course…

I was reading it a couple of days ago and it posted a very interesting question, framed on “…the questions that people search for before landing on (a) blog”. He got the idea from another blog, Do you speak science?

That post somehow reminded me of (what else?) biological connections. In nature, everything is connected and nowhere is this more evident that in a biological system. It also reminded me a little of what that many of us felt last century (:-) when we started “surfing the web” (do they still say that?) and were like “wow!”, when we clicked here and there and oftentimes we forgot where we started browsing.

Anyway, what brought you here? How did you find the “Baldscientist” blog? Tell me your story!

Picture credit: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/15743/title/Validating-the-Interactome/