I'm really not having a great day.

My day started off fantastic when I went to bed. That was at 5 30. Why 5 30? Because I'm an idiot, at least that's the short answer. The long answer is that the damned mouse made me so mad I couldn't get tired.

And for the record: Go with the old-classic.

My wife is driving to OKC today to meet a friend. So she left at 9 30 or so, and I couldn't fall back asleep.

I just bought a new guitar tuner, so I decided to tune my electric guitar (I'm terrible at tuning). First, I couldn't figure out how to make the tuner work, then it sounded terrible (so I figured it out wrong), and finally I topped all that off with breaking a string. Fantastic.

So now I decided to just play some video games for awhile, and after about five minutes I realize: A) the new controller I just got doesn't work that well, and B) my TV's audio is severely damaged, so that extremely loud pops and other sounds are now randomly blasting out.

Did I mention a MOUSE crawled out of my TOASTER last night?

On the plus side...um. On the plus side...yeah. Ok Ok. On the PLUS side: Today will be over in about 12 hours.

Build a better moustrap

Guess who needs one of these again?

Not actually that effective for catching mice.

I can't believe how angry mice in the house make me. I probably inherited this from my mother, who hates mice with an astounding fury. She's been known to stand on a couch screaming until someone convinces her that the mouse is, at least, no longer in her immediate vicinity. When I say "she's been known" I mean, I've seen this happen...multiple times.

Did I mention I saw this one crawl out of my toaster?

Still the classic.

I'm going with an array of mouse-capturing devices. I've got the classic depicted above, a
'sticky' trap, and a 'humane' mousetrap.

Do I really want to be humane?

I'm not sure why I included the 'humane' option at all. I considered just covering the kitchen floor with the classic traps and leaving it at that. I haven't really ruled that out. There's no reason to be human with rodents: They are our only real mammalian competition for rulers of the world. I know everyone talks about cockroaches, but I'm pretty sure mice would be right there.

If this mouse scourge continues, I'm going to push hard to re-introduce the greatest mousetrap of them all.

Hello mouse.

What I’ve been listening to lately:

-Well, aside from the complete collection of Modest Mouse available on YouTube and Roy Zimmerman, I’ve been listening to way too much ‘high school angst’ rock. Why is it that I still like this stuff? I don’t think this music has changed AT ALL in the past ten years: Stroke 9, All-American Rejects, Our Lady Peace, Third Eye Blind, Matchbox 20, Better than Ezra, Fountains of Wayne, Sum 41, Blink 182. All these bands are the same right? Right? I mean, each album has like 1 or 2 songs that are really pretty good. The songs are catchy. You can usually sing along to them pretty well. But ultimately you feel kinda cheap about listening to them (maybe now Our Lady Peace), right?

Yet, somehow very similar bands (OK GO, Cracker, Cake, Counting Crows, Modest Mouse, Weezer, Soul Coughing) are essentially the same thing, yet they feel totally different. Somehow Weezer seems legit.

I’m not really sure what kind of point I’m making here. I guess I feel like I’ve been listening to crap music, and I’m enjoying it. Maybe cherry picking 10 years of ‘high school angst’ songs results in quite a few pretty good songs.

Maybe I should just stop using YouTube as my musical source.

- Picture of southern Oklahoma:

For the record, yeah, those are ancient, worn-down mountains in the background. I swear, Oklahoma is at least a million times more beautiful than I thought it was.

- I spent 13 hours on the road yesterday, visiting farm ponds and city reservoirs that have had Golden Algae blooms over the past few years. I’m not sure there’s anything we can do to stop this stuff.

- Yeah, KU lost. Last I check YOUR stupid team didn’t even make the tournament. Or if they did they didn’t get very far. Hey, at least I don’t really care!

- I really have nothing else to say tonight.

Too tired to think

But I thought I'd throw you guys a little something from the "Wow, look at this" files:

Damnit!

Good lord. I can't believe KU lost to UCLA.

The key stat: 14/32 on layups.

Frankly I think that's being generous.

Can't blame this one on the officials, UCLA played smart defense, KU played stupid offense.

I just hope they all decide to come back next year.

My wish list, if they do:

Brandon Rush will learn how to dribble.
Chalmers will learn when not to shoot.
Wright will learn when to shoot.

Russell Robinson? He can stay just the way he is.

My wife asked if we were now rooting for UCLA to win so that KU would have lost to the eventual champion (and therefore can claim to be the 2nd best team).

You know, KU fans are getting a little sick of that: North Carolina (twice), Arizona, Duke, Syracuse, Maryland won it all after beating KU.

Yeah, we've been down that road before.

Damnit.

Our Lady Peace recently released a song entitled “Will the Future Blame us?” (you can listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3E6WvCMYY0)

I’m not sure what the artists are trying to say. The chorus of the song is “And I don’t ask why anymore”. Another commonly repeated refrain is “I don’t wanna know”. You can look at the complete lyrics here: http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=3530822107858553074.

I hear these lyrics and I think of how people give up. I see it ever day. People deciding “I can’t do anything. I can’t solve this problem. I can’t achieve my dreams. I can’t save the world.” In a sense there is a John Nash game theory issue at play here, in that everyone’s more likely to be happy if there’s some careful consideration of what goals you choose and what goals you are likely to be capable of achieving. Yes, you’d probably like to run a Fortune 500 company, but the odds are low, so just focus on getting a good job with a nice benefits package.

This is a very mature outlook on life. At least, that’s what people would have you believe. ‘You’ve got to accept your limitations.’ ‘You’ve got to pick your battles.’ Blah blah blah.

I’m not even saying these ideas are universally bullshit.

They are universally bullshit when you’re deciding what you want to be. What you want to do. What you want to become. How you’re going to do your part to save the world.

I don’t know if anyone noticed, but most people get around 75 years on the planet Earth. Whatever you think happens after you die, you’ve only got a limited amount of time here. This is your only chance to make a difference.

Yet too many times I think people ‘grow up.’ People start taking the easy road, just because it is easy. They start worrying about how the clothes, the car they drive, the next raise, the basketball team, the haircut. Being a grown-up in America means caring more about your 401k than the plight of starving people in Africa (or even starving people downtown). For that matter, being a grown-up in America means getting worked up about issues like abortion, gay marriage, taxes, and whether or not reverse-racism is occurring.

Hello? We’re poisoning our own drinking water, the air we breath, the food we eat and nobody even mentions this? We’re in foreign countries kidnapping, torturing and killing innocent people, yet we’re having protests about whether or not gay people can have a legal marriage. And this is the grown up world? Really?

People who care are often tempted to just give up. While I was in graduate school I kinda gave up. I decided: I can’t care enough right now without destroying my ability to finish this degree.

Well, that was a bullshit decision. I can see now that short-term justifications like that are exactly what makes ‘adults’ quit caring altogether.

Will the future blame us?

Probably. I know I blame the past.

But I'm going to make damned sure I've done all I can.

Watching Basketball (semi-live blogging)

I'm in the library, watching the NCAA tournament on a satellite feed. I've got beer, a book on invasive species, and a rooting interest (Kansas).

- I mentioned earlier that I was afraid of Southern Illinois. The MVC isn't a mid-major anymore, not in basketball. They've got the same number of teams left as the ACC and the Big Ten. Frankly, I'd take So. Ill over OSU or ANY of the ousted ACC teams. Looks like I was right to be afraid, as they are standing up to KU admirably.

- Halftime (where did the time go?). KU looks good. Like, really good. If they can keep this team together (if nobody jumps to the NBA) there's no way this team doesn't win it all next year.

- My friend DC says that Acie Law of A&M is a legit NBA prospect. I'm watching him now. He's fast. I haven't seen him do much beyond drive by his man to score or create. Sorry, but I don't see him as being fast enough to do that in the pros (I mean, if Jacque Vaughn can barely survive with his speed...well). He does seem like a really smart player, if he can shoot, I could see him doing well. (EDIT: Uh, ok, he can shoot. Wow. Plus he can back a guy down in the post. Double wow. This is the guy Boston should be trying to get.)

- Kevin Durant would be an idiot to not come out this year. There's a very good chance he could go 1 or 2, and there's an easy 50-60 million in endorsment deals waiting for him. Having said this: Kevin Durant will never be that good. I don't know what the hell everyone is smoking. I see him as ( on the high end) Chris Bosh and (on the low end) Darius Miles without the attitude (he seems like a pretty good guy).

- In that same vein. Oden...obviously he should come out. That guy is a lock. A lock to have a max deal on his first non-rookie contract. Even if he semi-busts, he's a HUGE 7-foot monster. Those guys are always overpaid. And if Boston somehow ends up with the top overall pick and doesn't pick Oden...well, let's just say that they will regret that decision..the Jefferson-Oden frontcourt would be the most frightening front line since Duncan and Robinson were both among the top 20 bigs in the league.

- I just swirled my Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat beer. Oh yeah, that's unfiltered all right! YEAH!

- Severe weather report! What? I don't care!

- These commercials suck.

- What? TNT isn't showing NBA games tonight? I was hoping to watch Kobe try to become the first guy ever to score 50 in 3 straight games. And while we're on the subject of Kobe:
Does anyone else think this guy is considered great only because of his scoring ability. I mean really, does he do anything else above average?

- Oh hey...thank you NBA League Pass. I guess I will get to watch Kobe fall flat on his face.

-2nd half!

- How good would Lamar Odum be if he was on a team without Kobe Bryant? I can't imagine him averaging less than 25, 8 and 8.

- Rush needs to improve his ball-handling. Wright needs to improve his shooting. These are 2 things that will get cleaned up in the NBA.

- Ok Jay Bilas. We know SI has a good defense. You know what? Screw you. If it was SI playing an ACC team, those would be fouls.

- Good lord. Can we guard anyone right now?

- "Clearly this is the package that you were drawn to, and then you want to put the top down?" The convertible commercial by Pontiac. Does this sound funny to anyone else?

- Let me fearlessly predict that KU will start playing better once they get Julian Wright more involved. The problem right now is that KU isn't allowing the SI defenders' overplaying to work in their advantage. They keep looking for the obvious passes, those aren't there. They need to use the cut backs to open things up. Wright can see those angles instinctively. He's the key right now.

- That and punching that Young guy in the face...grrr.

- Bryant with 13 so far in the 1st. That puts him almost on pace for 50. He has completely abandoned his teammates.

- Oh no, the beer is gone!

- Must get closer to the TV!

- This game is a war. That's fine. I don't need to see KU dominate. I just need to see them win.

- How do I know I'm in Oklahoma. From the storm update the game was interrupted by: "These storms are moving at 30 mpg. The major risks are lightning, hail, and 70 mph winds."

- These SI guys are brutal. I swear the Hawks are getting called for a lot less on D than SI is, just because that's how all the SI guys are playing. Am I crazy?

- I think that 5 second rule is only enforced when non-stars have the ball.

- Russell Robinson is good.

- The weatherman has a program called ESP. Great.

- The thing that scared me about SI: They've got seniors. KU= none! KU's top 6 guys are freshmen or sophmores. That's a little scary.

- Why is KU double-teaming? What?

- KU's best strategy right now seems to be: Screw passing the ball, let's just drive the lane. I like it.

- Tied at 45!!

- Weather breakin!
"Don't worry, we're not going to miss any basketball. There's 70 mph winds. These are the kinds of winds that can lift a 300 pound man off the ground and smash him into a tree 35 feet off the ground. DON'T WORRY...you won't miss a second of this game between two non-Oklahoman teams. We're getting the hit by 52 lightning strikes a second, but we won't miss a second of the game."
Since the storm isn't where I'm at...those are good priorities.

- Tony Dungy = Jackass.

- That ball grazed the rim. That means the SI team has been on the bad end of at least 3 obvious calls. You know how many stupid fouls KU has been called for? Do you think SI would be better off with those 6 points or with Darrel Jackson, Juilan Wright, Rush not sitting on the bench for the last 5 minutes of the 1st half?

- You know, Bill Self hasn't figured out how to beat this SI team. Wright, Chalmers, Rush and Russell have figured it out themselves. Just keep driving towards the hoop.

- Memphis is terrible. How are they leading Texas A&M?

- The steal, the run the other way, and SI couldn't convert. I'm starting to think that Kansas is going to pull this thing out.

- MAKE FREE THROWS!!!

-Thank goodness.

- SI could beat 90% of the teams I've watched play in the past week.

- By the way, Kobe got 24 in the first half. Did I mention he's being guarded by Mike Miller and the Lakers are only up by 6 to Memphis at the half.

- Julian Wright = Teh Awesomz

- How was that not a charge? And of course Tatum nails the three. He's been waiting for that one. I see this one coming down to the last possession (if only because KU can't put it away with free throws).

- 2 point game, Hawks ball, 1 08 left. Let's go Jayhawks.

- "You're not going to miss any of the basketball game here. Quick update on the weather. We've got a group of fifteen tornadoes moving across Oklahoma City. We've got 70 mph gusts and football sized hail. Ok, back to the game!"

- Go Rush! Go Wright! Go Robinson! Ice it Wright!

- Did it look to anyone else like Wright intentionally missed it? That was weird. Did he really miss it that badly? Now I'm out. Good night everybody.

Why is the sky blue Daddy?

One of the many things that terrify me about having a child is being asked that question and suddenly forgetting the answer. I know the answer. I understand it. I can even demonstrated interesting aspects of it with a pair of polarized shades.

Yet I am terrified that I'll forget everything when a tiny person points at the sky and asks me that.

I've been reviewing the answer on a daily basis for the last month or so. I figure I've got quite a while to get ready, but when I hear that question, I'm going to have the answer ready.

I hope.

Some title

- I just ate dinner. Apparently the largest chicken in the western world died so that I could eat tonight. Seriously, I just ate a chicken breast that was easily 15 lbs. I am full!

- I went with beer and coke.

- Allow me to rant a little about Oklahoma. I like OK a lot, the air is so much cleaner than anything in Indiana, the temperatures are warm. We’ve got hawks, owls, bats, and bald eagles gracing our skies. I’ve got the best fishing spot in 300 miles on my doorstep.

But seriously, can we get people to pick up their damned trash?

On every road in the area (on the OK side) the ditches are littered with garbage. Everywhere! There are cans, bottles, scraps of paper, trash sacks, magazines, paper plates, and every other kind of random trash you might imagine some idiot throwing out the window. I can’t even believe it! The scale of the problem is enormous, and I’m sure that’s why nobody has done anything about it. You could get those convict crews out in the ditches for 15 hours a day and you might never finish a twenty mile stretch. I can’t even imagine where to begin.

And then there’s the scene down by the bridge we sampled at today:

Fantastic, I’m sure that’s where we should be dumping our old furniture.

- I met a guy today named Buck Ray. Yeah, I live in Oklahoma. I couldn’t make that up if I tried. In fact, we spent a good 15 minutes trying to come up with a better ‘western’ name and couldn’t. Tex Oklahoma? Jim Bob Joe? I got nothing. (That isn’t to diminish the guy. He seems articulate and educated, he’s got a MS. I just think that’s a crazy name.)

- Yeah, this is the beast I drove around today. I miss Daisy (the van I drove through Chicago and the north woods 20-odd times a summer for two years).

- While we were out sampling for benthic invertebrates we came across these ‘nests’ of caterpillars in the trees along the side of the road. Anyone know what these are called? Kind of freaky looking.

- Guess who’s happy that Texas is out of the tournament? This guy! Maybe when KU plays next week I’ll actually be able to watch a game!

- So, Kobe Bryant scored 115 points over the weekend. Meh.

I need to drink something while I watch the KU game

Beer, coke, beer, coke, beer, coke...

Unfiltered Boulevard Wheat,

Pepsi,

Guiness,

Coke,

Beer, coke, beer, coke...

Decisions, decisions....

Let’s look at some truth here:

So I’m drunk. Enjoy the random thoughts:

- I just watched a commercial from the University of Phoenix. The gist of the commercial was “We know everyone wants to achieve their goals, we can help.” And they showed this guy walking down from a cubicle to an office with a window and putting his stuff in there. The implication being that this was that guy’s goal, and that U. of Phoenix helped him to achieve it.

I’m just going come out and say it: This makes me sad. Our goals, as Americans, shouldn’t be to ‘get ahead’ or to ‘move up to middle management’. Our goals should be to save the world, to stop hunger, to stop suffering, to end tyranny. I know that’s cheesy and naïve, but we (Americans) are destroying the world by creating a lifestyle and technology base that is probably unsustainable. The only real justification we can possibly offer for our over-the-top existence is that we will save the world using our technology and bring the majority of humans up to our standard of living.

Middle management? If you’re not trying to save the world (in some fashion), then you need to think beyond the corner office. That’s just how it is.

- My goal this morning was to get up, take care of my work, and then sit in front of the TV watching basketball and drinking beer all day long. Unfortunately I felt really full when I sat down to watch TV, and so I road the exercise bike for 3 hours. THEN I started drinking. Oh man, Saturday has been ok. And yes, this was part of my plan to save the world...duh.

- I watched an older Third Eye Blind video. Oh man, I forgot how full of himself that guy was. Ha! “I don’t wanna go to London.” Go to London loser!

- My morning routine: Yahoo! Fantasy Basketball, then gmail, then Fark, then Reddit, then I go to work. I don’t think I could get out the door without this whole routine.

- I am drinking the last of our Tabor Hill wine. I’m not a big Tabor Hill fan, but it was the first wine I drank and liked. Good bye Tabor Hill.

- There are several places that give away land for free if you build a house there. Mostly these are small towns in the middle of nowhere (read: rural Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas). However, as reported by CNN, Anderson, Alaska is doing this as well.
What? Really? I would love to do this. Who’s with me? All you have to do is build a 1,000 ft house on the land within two years. Of course the deadline is freaking Monday! So I guess I’m too late. Wouldn’t it be cool to own a vacation home in Alaska with a group of your friends? I think it would.

- I drink wine out of a coffee mug. Yeah, so?

- Of the group of friends I have from Kansas, I and JJ are the only ones remaining who don’t have a kid. That’s right, that means that MH is now a dad. Remember the kid next door who you played with as a kid? This was MH. We went to grade school, church, middle school, high school, and college together. For four years I slept in the same room as this guy. Kinda hard for me to believe that he’s actually a dad. Think about your friends who have kids, remember them when they were kids. Isn’t that weird? And in <6 style="">

- Some NCAA tournament notes:

Kevin Durant -- Everyone says he’s a cross between T-Mac and KG. Um, no, how about Marcus Camby with shooting range.

Point guards -- I don’t think I’ve seen a single point guard in all the 6+ games I’ve watch who could play at the NBA level. Maybe Texas’s point (D.J. Augustin?). Seriously, these guys are good, but when guys like Steve Blake and Dan Dickau can barely hang on in the league, and Sebastian Telfair is a washout...well, VCU’s Maynor better have a backup plan.

Tyler Hansborough – People keep comparing him to Mark Madsen, and he’s certainly got the look. Am I missing something here? There’s no way he can be successful at the NBA level with his style of play. In college he can overcome his lack of size, muscle and skill with hustle and heart. Yeah, in the pro’s that won’t work.

BC’s Dudley – I love watching that guy play. I don’t think he can make it in the pros, because he doesn’t seem to have any 1 skill that is pro-calibur, but damn, he knows how to play.

Michigan State – One sign of a good coach is being able to keep games close and win games with inferior talent. That Tom Izzo guy...he’s pretty good. I don’t think Michigan State has a single player who would get 10 minutes for North Carolina, and yet MSU was in the game until the 5 minute mark.

Texas Schools -- Hey, guess who is watching a Texas CBS affiliate? Did you realize there are 1500 Texas schools? At this point I’m just rooting against Texas schools so that I can watch ANYTHING ELSE. Like say:

Kansas – This has to be the year, right? OSU sucks, UNC is weak. The only good team I see in the tournament is Florida. Of course KU is on the same side of the Final Four as Florida. As far as I can see, these are the only two teams with a shot (unless Brandan Wright wakes up for North Carolina).

A day in the life

(Notes: Don't forget to read Part 1 of my 3 part series on scientific misconduct.)

(Also, all the pictures below can be viewed much larger if you click on them.)

Many people have asked me, in the last few weeks, what I do down here on the Oklahoma-Texas border. Well, I’m going to tell you. Using pictures (so maybe people can read past the first paragraph!!).

I’m working on algae that cause fish kills. On Thursday, just down the road from us, some people started reporting dead fish on the lake behind their houses. So JE (the other postdoc), AE (his wife and the lab tech), and DH (the professor on this project) went down to investigate. Here are some pictures:

Notice that the water has a very murky appearance. This is probably due to the presence of a mixotrophic algal called Golden Algae. Mixotrophic just means that the algae acts like a plant and like a predator, using sunlight to produce energy, and eating bacteria and protists to get nutrients.

Usually, Golden Algae kill fish by causing hemorrhaging (bleeding) around the gills. This gizzard shad doesn’t seem to show any hemorrhaging, the gills look pretty normal. The fish had probably been dead for awhile, so this might not mean anything. The hemorrhaging isn’t as obvious if the fish has been dead awhile.

We checked several fish for bleeding around the gills, but none seemed to have it.

This white bass might have had some hemorrhaging, but it isn’t dead yet either.

You can see from this picture that the fish kill didn’t seem to be very species specific. We saw largemouth bass (shown here), green sunfish, bluegill, threadfin shad, gizzard shad, drum, bighead carp, and white bass. These are fish that feed on lots of different food sources and in different places in the lake.

This is a little hard to see, but this is a pool along the shore that had little fish (I can’t remember what they are called). As we stood here watching the fish in this little pool we realized they were dying as we watched. We decided to take some of the water from the lake back with us to see if it was still toxic. The number of Golden Algae in the water was really pretty low, so we wondered if the fish kill was being caused by low oxygen levels the previous night.

The next day we came back to measure oxygen again and to see if there were more dead fish. This is JE with an oxygen probe.

When fish kills happen, pelicans show up. There were some pelicans out this morning.

There were also lots of turkey vultures. These guys appeared to be eating stuff along the shore.

The day before we had brought water back into the lab. We then added fathead minnows to that water to see if it was still toxic. The bottom right tub is just plain water. The bottom left tub is ½ lake water and ½ regular water. And the top middle tub is all 100% lake water. As you can see, the lake water killed all the fish. That water definitely appeared to be toxic.

My wife and I decided to visit the part of the lake that has been having major fish kills three of the past four years. This is what we saw there:

This is a stretch of beach in Lebanon Pool. You can see here several dead gar and carp.

This gar was probably 5 feet long. The fish must have been amazingly beautiful when it was alive. Last year every single fish in Lebanon Pool was killed by the Golden Algae. Nobody could find a single fish in the entire pool in March of 2006. These are all fish that repopulated the area after last year’s wipeout.

We got pretty depressed looking at all the dead fish.

You can see that the pelicans were out in force. The Golden Algae toxins are broken down quickly by acid, so saliva or stomach acids in mammals, birds and most reptiles make them able to consume the dead and dying fish.

Pelicans are surprisingly beautiful birds.

This made us immensely sad. How did this turtle die, I wondered. The toxin needs a way to get into the body, and most turtles have an impermeable skin (soft-shelled turtles are an exception). Then we found this, still living turtle (this is a little disturbing):

This is difficult to see, but it is clear what’s happening. The Golden Algae toxin has gotten in through the turtle’s eyes. This turtle was alive, barely, but did not respond when we picked him up. He didn’t respond to sounds or visual cues. The poor animal was clearly on the verge of death. We didn’t think there was anything we could do to help him. JE later suggested that we might have been able to douse him in clean, pure, freshwater. I’m not sure that would have done any good.

This is what worries a lot of people. This is a striper, a cross between a white bass and a striped bass. The economic basis of recreational fishing in Lake Texoma is stripers. We didn’t see many of them dead along the shore, but they are definitely at risk when the Golden Algae is blooming.

We’re trying to learn more about how the Golden Algae kills fish, so we’re doing simple (and complex) experiments in the lab. Here we’re raising Golden Algae in flow-through containers known as chemostats:

We can then use that Golden Algae to conduct toxicity tests on fathead minnows.

On the right hand side of this picture you can just barely see a small fathead minnow baby.

We set up a lot of these babies in all different concentrations of Golden Algae.

Then we count to see how many Golden Algae cells it took to kill the fish.

There are lots of complications that I’m glossing over, but this is basically what’s driving my research. I hope you enjoyed my photoessay!

Scientific Misconduct (Part I)

Ok everyone. As I'm sure many of you are aware, I like to write. I write a LOT. As in, I write this blog, another blog, dozens of poems, short stories, and little snippets of randomness every day. This is in addition to the grants, papers, and proposals that I write in my work. I'm trying to channel this writing into somewhat productive outlets that incorporate both learning and teaching. I'd like to make a career out of writing.

Towards those ends I present my first ever Popular Science article. I decided upon the topic of scientific misconduct because I find it a fascinating subject (I can go into that more later). However, I'm not just publishing this here for fun, I want feedback. Ok? Seriously. I feedback. I have little way of knowing whether my writing style here is good, bad, ugly. Whether non-scientists will find it interesting and whether scientists will find it appropriate. I really need to know if this is any good. If it isn't any good, I need to know that too (and why). So please, please, let me know what you think. This is part 1 of a 3 part series. Feedback please!

--------------------

The use of the scientific method has, to put it succinctly, completely revolutionized the modern human experience. However, the underdiscussed backbone of this method is its dependence upon two critical components: A larger scientific community and a generally honest set of scientists. The larger community is necessary to provide critical review and to duplicate results. The honest individuals are necessary to prevent tremendous amounts of time and effort from being wasted running down dead ends.

These two critical components have, on occasion, broken down. The primary question is: What can we learn from these cases of scientific misconduct?

Scientific Misconduct by Individuals

In 2001, Jan Hendrik Schön (along with Hong Meng and Zhenan Bao) published a paper demonstrating that a thin layer of organic dye could be used as a transistor at the molecular scale. In this paper Schön claims “The fabrication of monolayer transistors and inverters might represent an important step towards molecular-scale electronics.” The paper is compelling, offering demonstrations of molecular structure and transistor characteristics of the materials he used.

Unfortunately, the results were a complete fabrication. In an editorial published along with the retraction of this paper, Nature questions what was going through Schön’s mind when he decided to fabricate his results.

“Was he trapped in a spiral of expectations that could only be fulfilled by deception?” (“Reflections on scientific fraud”, Nature, 2002, Vol. 319, p 417)

In the case of Schön’s work, the first hint that something was suspect came when someone noticed that the figures from several of his papers were identical. Following a lengthy investigation by Bell Labs (Schön’s employer), Schön’s was fired, his co-authors were exonerated, and journals were informed of the results. At the end of the 127 page report detailing these findings (which is no longer available through Bell Labs website), Schön responds to these findings:

“Although I have made mistakes, I never wanted to mislead anybody or misuse anybody’s trust. I realize that there is a lack of credibility in light of these mistakes, nevertheless, I truly believe that the reported scientific effects are real, exciting, and worth working for.”

The case of Jan Hendrik Schön is probably the most extreme form of scientific misconduct available to an individual, but it is certainly not the only form. Scientific misconduct generally falls into one of three larger categories: Fabrication, plagiarism, or ethical misconduct.

Fabrication such as that practiced by Schön has been rarely reported. Data on misconduct is scarce, but of 30 cases of scientific dishonesty reported by Denmark, just 2 were labeled ‘fabrication’ (Riis, 2001, J. of Clin. Pathology). A survey of just over 3,200 scientists being funded by the National Institutes of Health found that 0.3% had falsified data and 6.0% had failed to present data that contradicted one’s previous research. Even within the category of fabrication, often the kind of fabrication taking place is not as severe as that seen in the Schön case. Take, for example, the case of Dr. Robert Millikan.

Dr. Millikan was a physicist born in 1868 and prominent throughout the turn of the century. His greatest claim to fame is the oil drop experiment he did that established, once and for all, the charge on an electron. The experiment consists of balancing a small droplet of oil between a manually adjusted electrical field and the gravity of the earth. Since the gravitational field is known, and the electrical is known, the charge of the oil droplet can be calculated. What Millikan found was that the charge of the droplets was always a multiple of a single value: The charge of an electron.

When Dr. Millikan originally published his results, another scientist, Felix Ehrenhaft, published contradictory results suggesting a charge smaller than the electron charge existed. Millikan returned to the lab to obtain more precise results, and that is exactly what he got.

As it turns out, those precise results were partially the result of subtle data manipulation. Millikan measured close to 175 drops over the course of several months, but he reported the data of only 58 and claimed they were measured over 60 consecutive days. Some of the 175 could be legitimately removed due to obvious malfunctions in the machine used to conduct the experiments, others seemed to be removed solely to reduce the error in his final measurement. That these drops had gone unreported was not discovered until years after his death and upon closer examination of his lab notebooks. Millikan’s motivations were clear: He wanted to establish his reputation as a premier scientist. By selectively choosing the data he presented, he reduced his error by an order of magnitude and dismissed the objections of other scientists. In this case, his theories and results have proven accurate.

Another example of scientific misconduct demonstrates just how difficult it is to ascertain whether or not anything inappropriate has occurred. Gregor Mendel is commonly called the father of modern genetics. He lived in the latter half of the 19^th century and raised pea pods in a garden in his monastery. Mendel’s primary contribution to science is the description of how traits are inherited. In 1865 Mendel published “Experiments on Plant Hybridization” in the Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brunn, a minor journal in Moravia. For the next 35 years it was almost completely ignored, then in 1900 Carl Correns rediscovered the work and forced other scientists to acknowledge its significance. Gregor Mendel’s place in history was firmly establish over a decade after his death.

Almost immediately the scientific community noticed that the results Mendel got were too good to be true. W.R.F. Weldon, in a 1902 paper, noted using the newly developed χ² test revealed Mendel’s results to be astonishingly close to the predicted values. In 1936 R.A. Fisher (in Annals of Science), showed rather convincingly that Mendel’s data must have been altered in some way. For the past 70+ years the debate has continued. Various explanations both plausible and apologetic have been put forth, from an eager-to-please assistant to selective acquisition of data to random chance. A review by Fairbanks and Rytting in the American Journal of Botany (2001) noted:

“There is substantial disagreement about his objectives, the accuracy of his presentation, the statistical validity of his data, and the relationship of his work to evolutionary theories of the day.” (p. 737)

Fairbanks and Rytting conclude that no real evidence that Mendel conducted misconduct exists, but this is far from a universally accepted interpretation. Other recent cases of fabrication can be similarly difficult to uncover. As authors Montgomerie and Birkhead lament in their 2005 article entitled “A Beginner’s Guide to Scientific Misconduct”:

“Indeed it should be possible for a clever scientist in our field [behavioral ecology] to fabricate all of their data without raising even the slightest suspicion...” (p. 21, Bulletin of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology)

Clearly, data fabrication is a problem of unknown extent upon which the scientific community can find little agreement. However, fabrication is hardly the only form of scientific misconduct that has been uncovered.

(Stay tuned for part II “Plagiarism” in the near future)

So the weekend...

Straight up brilliant people.
1st annual convention.
2007, Ha Ha Tonka, MO.

Ahh, brief recaps:

Thursday Night:
For some reason the weekend revolved around playing games designed to let everyone know that the other people in the room think they are:
-a scary driver
-not from earth
-bad smelling
-‘modest’

There was drinking as well.

Friday Night:

Well we went to the world famous Bridal Cave. The east wall of the cave (east? West? Who cares..) had a ‘drapery’ with over half a billion square inches of surface area. Oh, and we had the world’s most boring and unresponsive tour guide. Imagine someone constantly rambling on about the ‘mysteries’ of the cave, the ‘symbolism’ and doing it all with a dreary, uninformed monotone. Yeah, good times.

Way at the back of the cave was a naturally occurring pool. The cave had been isolated until the 1980s, except for a little passageway that you could barely fit a person through. Yet at the bottom of the pool was a bunch of lumber and a wooden ladder. The pool was called the mystery pool, and the mystery is: How the hell did that ladder get there?

My explanation: The some employee building the cave’s lighting or something dropped a ladder in there and then came up with the bull-shit explanation that ‘it was there when I got there!’ Right guy.

After we got out of the cave we went to the top of the nearby hill and climbed up to the top of a forest-fire watchtower. Amazing view. Very beautiful despite the rain.

Then we grabbed some groceries, ate a fantastic dinner of baked rigatoni, guacamole, Caesar salad, other stuff, and drank. We drank a lot. I went to bed at 11 because if I had stayed up any longer I would have kept drinking.

I lost at Scrabble but by the time the game was over I couldn’t remember how to play. I drank a lot.

Saturday:

Finally, sun! An unbelievable breakfast casserole, then off to the Ha Ha Tonka state park. We saw a snake, we saw skinks, we saw 1 crayfish fighting another crayfish. The trip reached its high point as we sat skipping stones along the shores of the Lake of the Ozarks. Ahh...happiness.

Then that night we cooked burgers (mine was bison) and played what can only be described as an incredibly tense series of games.

First off we played 4 rounds of Catchphrase. The teams were girls versus boys. Let me begin by pointing out that the guys went 4-0. Let me continue by pointing out that everyone became increasingly competitive as the guys were racking up the wins, to the point that in game #4 we had one cheating ‘incident’, multiple ‘discussions’ about the rules, and after the game the women didn’t want the guys to have any of the strawberry shortcake. I’ll also point out that the guys would have been even better if I hadn’t cost them 5 FREAKING points by being an idiot (said the word 3 times, couldn’t figure out what I was reading once, couldn’t figure out how to convey the concept once).
I can’t remember all of escalating comments that ensued, but I remember laughing so hard I started to cry. There were comments about the guys being lucky, about the guys not likely to get lucky in the future, about whether or not the guys were going to get to walk home. Seriously, it was a good time.

Then we played Pictionary. Of course it was guys versus girls. The girls started off with a tremendous run, crossing half the board with 4 straight successful attempts and 3 straight 6’s. Whoa. The guys started mentioning that ‘lucky’ comment from earlier. Then the guys came roaring back. The guys ran to all the way to the finish spot while the girls were still 15 or so places back. Of course, the girls then responded by taking control and answering a ton of correct answers and both teams were on the finish spot.

At which point the guys won.

From the girls, dead silence.

From the guys: “Hey man! High five!”

Oh man!

Then I won at Scrabble (2^nd time in my life).

There was some other fun stuff that happened as well:

-We stopped by Bass Pro Shop on our way. Got some shirts. On the way back we stopped and ate at Hemmingways, which was largely forgettable except for a tomato bisque that I could have eaten all day. Sooo good.

- On the way up we also stopped at the Springfield Brewery. That place was fantastic. I had their Santa Fe pasta. So delicious. A Tex-mex-italian thing. Man it was good.

- There was a place by the side of the road selling bison, so we picked up a bunch of bison as well. Including bison brats. Now I need to get myself some good beer to simmer them.

- We also stopped at a Wendy’s for dinner. I kinda like Wendy’s. How lame is that?

Yeah, well...

All of you awaiting some cool pics and a brief recap of my weekend will just have to wait. Or no, you'll have to head over to a blog that actually has had time (apparently) to update since the weekend.

And in case you're wondering: Yes, of course I caused a minor disaster when I left town. That's only happened every single time I've ever left to go anywhere over the past 5 years. I seriously don't know why I ever go anywhere and I really just don't want to do science anymore. I wonder if Barnes and Nobel is hiring?

Oh what the hell, I'm going to vent a bit:

I can't believe nobody noticed this, but I'm not a plankton ecologist. Prior to moving to Oklahoma I've never, in my life, worked with phytoplankton. I had never done a secci depth or identified zooplankton under a scope. Hell, I'd never had to identify anything microscopic under a scope. I've never maintained algal batch cultures or chemostats. I don't know shit about fish.

So why is it that 2 weeks into my job here I 'sat in' on a 15-minute spiel about chemostats that I missed half of (doctor's appointment), and then a week later I got tagged with taking over all the chemostats.

I'm not an idiot, and this isn't rocket science, but there's a reason why people have written entire books about algal culturing: It isn't all chocolate cake and icing. There's some expertise involved and I haven't got it. So for the last 3-4 months I've been running these things thinking they were doing fine. Then I find out that most people start a chemostat and it runs for like 4 months. Mine were running between 4-6 weeks! I didn't even realize this was a problem.

So now I'm trying to figure out what has been going wrong, and conversations with 'experts' have left me thinking this is all just a bunch of voodoo magic. I've never heard such great advice in my life:

"Sterilize the surface you're working on with ethanol."
"Why? I don't put anything on that surface do I?"
"No, but every little bit helps."
"Well, do I need to build a box to keep the reservoirs in?"
"You could."
"Would it help?"
"Maybe."
"Ok, what do I need to do to keep the bubblers from exploding in the autoclave."
"Uh, that's never happened to me."
"Ok. Great. What about the tubing, it keeps melting together."
"Really? Wow, that sucks. That's never happened to me."
"Should I autoclave for less time?"
"No, you can't."
"Uh...ok. Well, how should I replace the reservoirs up top? With new flasks or just by refilling them?"
Expert 1: "Definitely replace those flasks. They get dirt and stuff in them otherwise.
Expert 2: "Don't ever remove the tube from a flask, just refill it or else you'll get dirt and stuff in there."

You guys are really helpful.

I can personally guarantee anyone who asks that I could get better results using batch cultures, but of course, nobody asks me.

Yes...well...

For the next 4 days I will be traveling the world. Experiencing the sights and sounds of inanity. The highs, the lows, the absolute drunken 'mediums'.

In the meantime I expect you, my audience, to take a fully in-depth look at the webcomic xkcd. I'll be expecting full length reports on the meaning of our existence in this new context.

Start here, work your way backwards, and experience each work with an open mind and heart.

And yes, the closer I am to a cat, the more inane my comments become. I hate not being around my cat.

Oh, and did anyone notice I misspelled 'inspiration' on my 'tag' a while back? I'm leaving it that way. Sorta demonstrates my level of intellectual achievement.

The Sense of Smell

I am becoming increasingly aware that my sense of smell is not as keen as those around me.
For instance, yesterday as we were walking back to the apartment my wife mentioned the smell of pesticide. Apparently it was obvious.

Uh, nothing.

I’m not saying my sense of smell is completely absent, that’s not the case. However, unless the smell is overpowering, really bad, or garlic I probably don’t notice.

I’m beginning to wondering when this happened. I can remember being able to detect subtle scents. I just can’t remember when I quit being able to detect the same. I have spent a few too many days breathing in noxious fumes in various labs, and I can remember one memorable Christmas Eve spent running a phenol-based analysis of ammonia. Plus there was that time when I added so much garlic to my potatoes that everyone in my apartment left the building (I stand by my position that the potatoes need more and that the container of garlic powder was at least half-empty when I started!).

Sometimes I wonder what I’m missing by having lost (mostly) my sense of smell. In order to ‘stop and smell the roses’ I basically need to buy a dozen and shove them into my face. I’ve stopped doing that (did anyone know roses have thorns?), but the point is...ok I forgot again.

Right. The point is my sense of smell is shot. I guess I’m just going to have to rely on my keen eyesight and impeccable hearing to get by—

I am totally screwed.

Whew!

- Ok, so I don’t like animals in my home. Ok, that’s not totally true. I would love to have my cat in the house, and I love things in aquariums. So this hatred extends to spiders, flies (especially flies), centipedes, mountain lions, elephants, rabbits, snakes, lady bugs, mosquitoes, aphids, those fucking mealy-bugs that seem to get into flour occasionally, roaches, and, most relevantly mice.

Oh yeah most relevantly. I don’t even have to explain do I? I heard a rustling in our trash can, I saw a mouse run out, it went into our kitchen.

At this point I remembered my childhood. There was this great book I read entitled I, Houdini: The Amazing Story of the Escape Artist Hamster. I loved this book. I probably read it eight times. I’m looking online right now and I kinda want to order it. My little child will need to read it. Apparently I liked everything by Lynne Reid Banks (Indian in the Cupboard anyone?).

Where was I? Oh yes.

So in the book they catch the hamster by putting out metal trashcans. Nothing to grip onto to scramble up the side, hence trapped hamster.

This little mouse was going to get the same treatment!

In less than a minute I had figured out the details. We had a tin of Christmas popcorn that we were unlikely to eat due to the trans-fat. Great! Simultaneous bait and trap! I dumped out most of the popcorn, set the can next to space around the washing machine where the little bastard had darted, and set up a cardboard ramp to the top of the tin. I figured when I woke up in the morning I’d have trapped mouse.

Well, the mouse didn’t wait around till morning. As soon as I left our kitchen alcove I heard a scrambling around, then a metallic plop, then a lot more scrabbling around.

Here’s were I made my mistake: I couldn’t find the lid. As it turns out the mouse could jump back out of the tin. Not easily, but given a little bit of terror and andrenaline, he made it.

Ok then. We’re upping the ante. I filled the tin 4 inches deep with water.

“I ought to be filling this with vodka.” I said to my wife. Did I mention that I don’t like animals in the house.

This time, I decide to watch what happens. Again, it takes like 2 minutes for the mouse to come back out. I watch him run around the floor a little and I contemplated going after him with my shoe (where is a rugby bat when I need one? Or a shotgun?). My wife was in the bedroom (completely disinterested) and shouted to me about not hurting it.

“I’m not going to hurt it. I’m going to kill it and put it’s head on a tiny little stake in the front yard as a warning to other mice. Oh, I guess I am going to have to hurt it.”

Eventually I watched the mouse climb up my little ramp and peer into the floating popcorn. He actually ran around the ledge of the tin several times trying (I imagine) to decide if it was worth going in for the food. I was standing there with a piece of cardboard ready to dart in and slam something over the top. And then with a little splash he jumped.

I can’t believe that worked.

Of course, my wife (there should be a tone here that I can’t express in text) immediately began to express an extreme concern for the little guy.

“Don’t let him drown!”

“Why not?”
“Don’t you love animals?”

“Yes. Just not in the house.”

“Just let him go.”
“Oh, I’ll let him go allright.”

“What does that mean?”
“It means he gonna learn to fly and then learn to swim.”

“What! You better not.”

What ended up happening? Well. I let the damn thing go on the far edge of the ‘lawn.’ My wife even insisted on going out and watching. Let me tell you, nothing looks more pathetic than a tiny wet mouse in a bunch of popcorn. The damn mouse must have been starving because despite the freezing temperatures it just went straight for the food.

This morning all the popcorn was gone, as was the mouse. My wife hopes that it didn’t freeze to death. I hope it did and then got eaten by a crow or something.

Now every time I heard a weird noise in the house my eyes dart to the floor.

I hate fucking mice.

- Have I told anyone how sick I am of ESPN? Is there anyone at that network who isn’t a jackass? ABC/Disney/ESPN sucks! Please, nobody get us anything Disney related for our offspring. We’re going to try and raise him/her in a positive atmosphere.

- A music note: So I had a ‘throwback night’ on Sunday for music. That’s where I listen to old stuff (I do that periodically). The thing was, I didn’t realize it was a throwback night. Take a look at this array of albums from 1997 or before: Weezer’s Blue Album and Pinkerton; Third Eye Blind’s debut; Matchbox 20’s debut (I know at least one person out there hates these guys, but you’re just wrong!!); practically the entire relevant musical catalogue of Presidents of the United States; Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy, Ten, and Vs.; Green Day’s Dookie; the first two Counting Crows albums; most of Less than Jake, Blink 182’s dude ranch, the first Goldfinger album, No Doubt when they were still playing ska, and obviously everything done by Nirvana. In fact, the whole grunge music phenomenon is now over 10 years old. For that matter, does anyone still skank anymore...I haven’t heard a main-stream ska song in years. I won’t say that this makes me feel old, but I’m kinda stunned that the formative years of my musical appreciation have now faded into ‘classic rock’. I mean, Art Alexakis is forty-freaking-five! (and did anyone realize he’s now broke and Everclear is essentially dead? Now I’m a little sad.)

I have a hard time getting too sad though. These music gaps are being filled by A) new material from these bands (Third Eye Blind’s unsupported release was good; Green Day’s obviously gotten better; Weezer still seems ok), B) new artists like the Decembrists, the Killers, Deathcab for Cutie, Modest Mouse (see below), the Drive-By Truckers, the Mountain Goats, Ok Go, Butch Walker, and KT Tunstall, and C) entirely different musical genres. I mean, what am I supposed to call bands like Eyeball Skeleton or The Go Team. What about Nerd Core?

I like music.

- I suppose everyone knows about Modest Mouse. I felt all cool and special back when I first heard trailer trash. I knew then, and still believe now, that these guys were the musical descendants of Nirvana. Just earth-shatteringly good, I just assumed they would immediately explode onto the ‘scene’ and soon every frat-boy on the planet would be screaming “Positively Negative” into the air after every beer.

Clearly I am a prophet (note the use of irony here).

Despite the fact that my expectations haven’t come to pass, or maybe because of that, the band is continuing to put out fantastically amazing stupendous music. I know “Float On” got overplayed, I’ll be happy if I never hear it again.

Without any further ado (hasn’t this been enough?) I present the latest effort from Modest Mouse entitled “Dashboard.” Before I heard this yesterday I didn’t realize my life was incomplete, but now I know it isn’t.

The weather (all temperatures F)

A lot of people have been telling me that all my joyous celebration about how wonderful the weather is will come back to bite me during the summer.

I don’t think this is the case.

For one, I worked in Kansas and South Carolina in the summers. We’re not talking about ‘sitting around the lab half the day’ work or ‘retail’ work. I worked on a farm in Kansas for 3 summers and spent a summer in South Carolina in and out of heat all the time. I mean, it was hot. 95 degrees was a cool day in Kansas during July and August. 95 was a hot day in S. Carolina, but the humidity was unbelievable. So I’m not real worried about going back to the kind of climate I was accustomed to before I moved to Indiana.

But also: The difference between ‘hot’ and really hot isn’t that big a deal. If it is a sunny day, you’re not going to notice the difference between 95 and 105. There’s both going to be ‘damn hot.’ For that matter, you’re going to feel a lot worse when it is 90 and humid (like NW Indiana) than when it is 100 and dry (Kansas). That isn’t to say that you’re not going to get some physiological effects occurring more at those higher temperatures, but you’re not going to ‘feel’ them. That’s why they hand out little cards with a thermometer in S. Carolina that tell you how long you should be working outside at different temperatures (with 5 degree increments). You’d never be able to tell the difference between 90 and 95 degrees F, but if you notice you’re at 95 you better get some more time in the shade than if it is 90.

For those of you who are skeptical, the same thing is true on the other end of the scale. -10 and -20 are really not that different. The only thing you’re going to feel is ‘shit, it’s cold!’ You’re not going to walk from a room with -10 and into a room of -20 and think ‘did it get colder?’

The most important temperatures are those closer to our preferred range: 70 degrees. When I was living in NW Indiana and desperately trying to control heating costs, I realized there’s a HUGE difference between 60 and 65. At 60 I was permanently cold unless I was under blankets. At 65 I just needed to dress normally and wear socks. Similarly, when it is 75 I feel pretty comfortable in basically any clothing, but when it gets up to 80 I start to get hot unless I’m in shorts.

So what’s the point here? Well shit, the point is that it will be hot, but when it was hot and humid in Indiana I was hot. I figure that in Indiana I enjoyed the weather for maybe three months every year (late-Aug – September and late-April-May). In summer it was usually hot and humid, and in winter it was cold and miserable. Hell, most of the spring was miserable because of the lack of sun. (And for those of you wondering: yes, the North Woods are great in the summer. Unfortunately summer doesn’t show up until the end of June and lasts a whole month.)

Down here? I’ve already experienced 4 months of absolute fantastic bliss. My wife and I talk all the time about how relieved we are that we don’t have to endure NW Indiana’s weather anymore. On almost a daily basis I find myself stopping, looking around, and giggling with the thought that I live here. So even if it gets hot in April and stays that way through October...well damn, that’s just 6 months of ‘misery’ and I’ll at least get to see the sun.