Ruud's homepage » Science: General

Blue blood

Ruud — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:58:39 +0000

Yesterday, I caught part of a television quiz between two kids of around 11 years old. One of the questions was on the topic of blue blood:

What is true about blue blood?
A. It does not exist.
B. It is blood containing no oxygen.
C. Only noble people have it.

The first kid answered A. Sounds about right, I’d say. But no, the quiz host said, that was the wrong answer. The turn then went to the other kid, who offered a hesitant B. “Correct!” the host said. “Blood containing oxygen is red, blood without oxygen is blue. You can see this from the blue colour of the veins in your hands and arms.” Well, yes, your veins do look more blue than red, but that’s because the true colour of the blood is masked by several layers of tissue. Also, the “oxygen-rich is red, oxygen-poor is blue” scheme is how it’s drawn in biology textbooks, but in reality all human blood really is quite red. Has this quiz master guy never had a wound, or what?

Life on Mars?

Ruud — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:36:54 +0000

NASA scientists have found strong evidence that microbes once lived on Mars, and may still do so right now, British tabloid The Sun reports. The evidence consists of a haze of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Professor Colin Pillinger, a Mars expert from the UK, says NASA will announce this discovery later today. The methane is believed to be a waste product from microbes living—or having lived—in large underground water reservoirs. No other features on Mars are known that would produce methane in the observed quantities.

If this story is confirmed, it would be a huge find: the first strong evidence that we are not alone in the universe. Even if our neighbours are just a bunch of methane-burping microscopic lifeforms, it would be one of the biggest discoveries in history. So, keep an eye out for any news coming from NASA today…

Update: NASA did indeed report on the discovery of Martian methane, but (quite expectedly) they don’t go as far as to say that this is strong evidence for life on the Red Planet. The methane might well have a geological origin, rather than a biological one. Nevertheless, it’s an important step in our ongoing quest of finding signs of life outside the Earth.

Applied

Ruud — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:46:21 +0000

… and math is just applied philosophy.

Scientific bloopers of 2007

Ruud — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:12:40 +0000

The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant had a lovely article a few days ago about the ten biggest scientific bloopers of 2007 (in Dutch). I’ll pick two:

9
A minor panic arose amongst astronomers in early November, when Richard Kowalski discovered a planetoid to be on an almost direct course for Earth. He estimated it to pass within 5700 km (3500 mi) of the Earth’s surface on November 13th. Some months earlier, the planetoid, designated 2007 VN84, had almost hit Mars.

Reading the announcement, Denis Denisenko of the Russian institute for space research was immediately reminded of the Rosetta spacecraft. Rosetta had done a fly-by of Mars on February 25th and would do a fly-by of Earth on November 13th to gain speed to reach its ultimate goal, the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. A brief discussion on the Minor Planet Mailing List confirmed that Rosetta and “planetoid” 2007 VN84 were one and the same object. The Minor Planet Center, which tracks planetoids near Earth, quickly erased 2007 VN84 from their records.

2
Annabelle Slingerland studied the relationship between retirement and physical exercise. She made the remarkable discovery that “retirement was associated with a significantly higher odds for a decline in physical activity from work-related transportation,” as she put it in the June 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology. If you stop working, your daily amount of work-related physical exercise goes down! Who would have thought?

Further on in her paper, Slingerland noted with some concern that retired people don’t compensate by picking up other physical activities, such as sports or working in the garden. However, her own numbers don’t seem to support this finding. In fact, they suggest the opposite: senior people become more physically active after their retirement.

Firstborns smarter than younger siblings

Ruud — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:59:59 +0000

Firstborn children are smarter than their younger brothers and sisters, according to a Norwegian study published in Science. In families with two or more children, the IQ of the oldest child is, on average, two points higher than that of the second child (103.2 versus 101.2). Children with two older siblings score an average of 100 points on an IQ test. The scientists who performed the study think that the elder children get an intelligence boost from helping and caring for their younger kin.

In other news, an American couple seems to have fallen off a roof while having sex. A taxi driver found them dead and naked, and a quick search revealed their clothes on the roof of a nearby building. They must both have had a lot of older brothers and sisters.

Dutch up, Americans down

Ruud — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 10:48:36 +0000

Dutch people are tall. On average, anyway, since there are also plenty short folks around here. On the whole, we’re now actually the tallest people in the world, according to researchers from Princeton and Munich in the latest issue of Annals Of Human Biology. We have overtaken the previous record-holders, the Americans, whose junkfood culture is believed to play a role in their decreased growth rate. (That is vertical growth, obviously. Americans might well be the world’s horizontally largest people.) The fact that health care is more easily available to poor people here than it is on the other side of the Big Pond also seems to boost our average height.

Who needs money laundering?

Ruud — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:36:20 +0000

Money isn’t dirty. In fact, coins and bills typically contain fewer bacteria than our own hands.

This follows from a recent study performed by food microbiologist Dr. Rijkelt Beumer of the Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He collected money from food markets and stores in Wageningen and looked for harmful bacteria. The dirtiest cash came from a cheese stand, but it was still a good deal cleaner than unwashed fruit and vegetables, and a good deal cleaner than most people’s hands. Does this mean money laundering will soon be a thing of the past?

Titel!

Ruud — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 15:34:00 +0000

Ik zocht in de universiteitsbibliotheekcatalogus naar een boek geschreven door ene P. Boissel en kwam daarbij een boek tegen van een 18e-eeuwse achternaamgenoot, F. Boissel, met de welluidende titel:

“Le cathéchisme du genre humain, dénoncé par le ci-devant Évêque de Clermont à la Séance du 5 Nov. 1789, de l’Assemblée Nationale; précédé d’un Discours sur les causes de la division, de l’esclavage et de la destruction des hommes les uns par les autres, et sur les moyens d’en garantir les générations futures; avec deux Adresses très-importantes à la Nation Franç̧oise, l’une en faveur de sa Constitution, l’autre contre les principales institutions de son nouveau régime ou gouvernement qui sont très-mauvaises, et avec quelques Opuscules relatifs au nouvel ordre de choses”

Dat is geen titel meer, dat is een samenvatting!

Pfizer alweer in het nieuws

Ruud — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 08:42:12 +0000

Het gaat wel lekker bij dat bedrijf waar Petra stage loopt… Vorige week was Pfizer in het nieuws vanwege het verzwijgen van de bijwerkingen van een of ander medicijn, nu maken ze weer reclame waar dat niet mag. Van de website van Trouw:

GOUDA – Pfizer, fabrikant van het erectiemiddel Viagra, moet direct stoppen met de website www.erectieplein.nl. Het bedrijf maakt op de site verboden publieksreclame, vindt de Codecommissie geneesmiddelenreclame (CGR).

Het is de tweede keer in enkele dagen dat Pfizer de wind van voren krijgt van het zelfreguleringsorgaan van de farmaceutische bedrijfstak. Gisteren werd bekend dat de pillenfabrikant een zeldzame, levensbedreigende bijwerking van cholesterolverlager Lipitor verzweeg in reclamefolders aan dokters.

SP-kamerlid Agnes Kant diende de klacht in tegen Pfizer. Volgens haar overtreedt de fabrikant de wet door in radiospotjes mannen met erectieproblemen te verwijzen naar de website, waarop buitensporig reclame wordt gemaakt voor Viagra. Fabrikanten mogen geen publieksreclame maken voor middelen die alleen op recept verkrijgbaar zijn.

Kant kreeg gisteren op alle punten gelijk van de codecommissie. De CGR is opnieuw stellig in de veroordeling van het bedrijf. Erectieplein.nl, waarop Pfizer zich prominent als sponsor presenteert, staat bol van verwijzingen naar Viagra.

Pfizer had betoogd dat er op de site alleen maar voorlichting over erectiemiddelen wordt bedreven en dat mag volgens de fabrikant. De CGR veegt dit argument van tafel. De vermeldingen zijn ‘niet neutraal en niet alleen maar informatief’, vindt de commissie. Zo meldt Pfizer op de site dat Viagra al door 22 miljoen mannen is gebruikt en dat het middel ‘aantoonbaar effectiever’ is dan andere middelen. ,,Dit kan bezwaarlijk anders worden opgevat dan als reclame”, aldus de uitspraak.

De commissie noemt het opvallend dat de bijwerkingen van Viagra op de site ‘in een neutrale opsomming zijn vervat’, terwijl de bijwerkingen van een concurrend middel van Eli Lilly (Cialis) meer gedetailleerd zijn weergegeven. Daarbij wordt ook gemeld hoeveel mannen de bijwerkingen van Cialis hebben en dat Viagra dat bij-effect niet zou hebben. ,,Dit levert een onevenwichtig beeld op”, vindt de commissie.

De tegenwerping van Pfizer dat de fabrikant geen enkele invloed heeft op de site, omdat die wordt geëxploiteerd door anderen, vindt de CGR ‘zo ongerijmd en ongeloofwaardig, dat dit verweer bezwaarlijk serieus te nemen is’. De exploitant van de website, Ludwig Benecke, is eigenaar van een bureau dat nascholingen organiseert voor de farmaceutische industrie, ook voor Pfizer. De Viagra-producent is naast Benecke de enige sponsor van de website.

De commissie vindt het ‘dringend geboden’ dat Pfizer de website onmiddellijk uit de lucht haalt. Een woordvoerder van het bedrijf meldt dat aan de beheerder is gevraagd gevolg te geven aan de uitspraak. ,,We willen onderzoeken of we de site in aangepaste vorm alsnog in de lucht kunnen houden.”