Okay, science Sunday happened for what, three weeks? Yeah, then I figured out I was pregnant (love that morning sickness) and basically gave myself permission to do nothing except eat and wallow in my misery until the bad part of pregnancy passed.
Guess what! I feel better now! And it only took 'till about halfway through the pregnancy. Wahoo! So, since I now feel more like myself, I'm going to go back to blogging a little bit of science and how it intersects (or could intersect writing) every week. Even if I'm the only one reading this blog, hey, at least it makes me feel productive. Who knows, I might even throw in a flash fiction piece once in a while to turn this into a REAL writing blog.
Anyway.
This week's easy. This article reviews recent advances in reprogramming cell lines, specifically looking at neural cells. Cell types do what they do because of the genes that are turned on and off. During development cells go from what's called a pleuripotent state, in which daughter cells can become any cell type (stem cells) to a differentiated state, where all daughter cells have the same function as the parent cell. A couple of years ago, the Nobel Prize was awarded to John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for demonstrating that cell lines can be returned to a pleuripotent state using the right signals, and from there turned into any cell type.
The review above specifically talks about turning non-neurons into neurons. Shades of "Flowers for Algernon" anyone? As cool as the science is I got shivers thinking about how eerily prescient "Flowers for Algernon" might just be.
Showing posts with label Science Sunday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science Sunday. Show all posts
Monday, February 3, 2014
Sunday, October 13, 2013
It's in his kiss
What is in a kiss? Consciously, it's a method of showing affection or getting a partner sexually aroused. Subconsciously it's a lot more. Sure, kissing helps build a more stable, fulfilling relationship, but before you even commit to the guy it guides you to mates who are genetically compatible. Lots of stuff from a relatively simple, if close, encounter.
Why do I mention this on my writing blog? 'Cause a lot of books have kissing in them. While kissing is often included as a sexy, romantic start of the relationship, how often do characters think about the smell of the man/woman they're kissing? How often does a kiss suddenly confer intimate knowledge of the health of the prospective partner? I submit kissing, as often as it's included in fiction, is underutilized as an information conveying tool.
Speaking of evolutionary(ish) science and mating, it turns out that, at least for a group of hunter-gatherers in Africa (who you can see here), women who have extramarital affairs resulting in children have better reproductive success than similar women who don't. A caveat--the women in question are all in arranged marriages, so the extramarital affairs are likely helping them in substantive ways that wouldn't be the case in a love match. Still, kinda cool that there may be a subconscious reason for women to look around even while in a stable relationship. Usually we assume only men have a reason. Guess again!
Other cool science I've read this week:
Unintended consequences of controlling phosphorus pollution: nitrogen pollution. Okay, totally including this one because it's something I want to work into my own writing. Here's the background--we all know that phosphates are environmentally unfriendly. That's why we're encouraged to be frugal with our soap use and why soaps are being reformulated to not have phosphates in them (much to the chagrin of clean freaks everywhere since phosphate containing soaps are so much more effective than non-phosphate soaps). Anyway, we've done such a good job controlling phosphate pollution that we've also seen a marked decrease in the number of oxygen-stealing, fish-killing algal blooms. Unfortunately, we've also seen more nitrate pollution, which has its own nasty impacts on water quality, apparently because the phosphate-induced algal blooms were cleaning out the nitrates that otherwise accumulate in the water. Yeah.
Any fascinating conflicts jump out of this week's melange for you?
Why do I mention this on my writing blog? 'Cause a lot of books have kissing in them. While kissing is often included as a sexy, romantic start of the relationship, how often do characters think about the smell of the man/woman they're kissing? How often does a kiss suddenly confer intimate knowledge of the health of the prospective partner? I submit kissing, as often as it's included in fiction, is underutilized as an information conveying tool.
Speaking of evolutionary(ish) science and mating, it turns out that, at least for a group of hunter-gatherers in Africa (who you can see here), women who have extramarital affairs resulting in children have better reproductive success than similar women who don't. A caveat--the women in question are all in arranged marriages, so the extramarital affairs are likely helping them in substantive ways that wouldn't be the case in a love match. Still, kinda cool that there may be a subconscious reason for women to look around even while in a stable relationship. Usually we assume only men have a reason. Guess again!
Other cool science I've read this week:
Unintended consequences of controlling phosphorus pollution: nitrogen pollution. Okay, totally including this one because it's something I want to work into my own writing. Here's the background--we all know that phosphates are environmentally unfriendly. That's why we're encouraged to be frugal with our soap use and why soaps are being reformulated to not have phosphates in them (much to the chagrin of clean freaks everywhere since phosphate containing soaps are so much more effective than non-phosphate soaps). Anyway, we've done such a good job controlling phosphate pollution that we've also seen a marked decrease in the number of oxygen-stealing, fish-killing algal blooms. Unfortunately, we've also seen more nitrate pollution, which has its own nasty impacts on water quality, apparently because the phosphate-induced algal blooms were cleaning out the nitrates that otherwise accumulate in the water. Yeah.
Any fascinating conflicts jump out of this week's melange for you?
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Science and fiction
I love science fiction. I love the tropes and the exploration of the what if scenario. I love hard sci-fi, where the physics of the world create the drama and I love space opera, even thought it might as well be fantasy.
I don't write science fiction, though. At least not often. I'm far more likely to create a fantasy setting than a science fiction one for the simple reason that I like science too much. I get far too wrapped up in the world building and forget about the human drama, which makes for pretty boring stories.
I have definite world-builder's disease.
It's a shame, too, because there's so much human drama still to be explored. To pick on my own science, climate change has a huge impact on populations, yet it's not something that's very often a feature of books. Part of that is scale, I'm sure. It's easy to tackle a single event--a flood or drought, hurricane, tornado, or tsunami--but the human lifetime is too short to really register climate change. Historically, climate change has more often been the driver of extinction, yet apocalyptic fiction tends to utilize things like plagues, nuclear winters, and meteorites to kill off the majority of the human species. Again, the scale is the issue here. Climate change is slow and a relatively slow famine isn't sexy.
There's also nothing to be done about one.
My plan over the next who knows how long is to post a weekly feature talking about something I've seen in the science world that I think would create interesting drama, or at least flesh out the world of a story. At worst, it's an excuse for me to spend some time talking about cool science ideas I think are underutilized or too poorly known.
Cheers!
I don't write science fiction, though. At least not often. I'm far more likely to create a fantasy setting than a science fiction one for the simple reason that I like science too much. I get far too wrapped up in the world building and forget about the human drama, which makes for pretty boring stories.
I have definite world-builder's disease.
It's a shame, too, because there's so much human drama still to be explored. To pick on my own science, climate change has a huge impact on populations, yet it's not something that's very often a feature of books. Part of that is scale, I'm sure. It's easy to tackle a single event--a flood or drought, hurricane, tornado, or tsunami--but the human lifetime is too short to really register climate change. Historically, climate change has more often been the driver of extinction, yet apocalyptic fiction tends to utilize things like plagues, nuclear winters, and meteorites to kill off the majority of the human species. Again, the scale is the issue here. Climate change is slow and a relatively slow famine isn't sexy.
There's also nothing to be done about one.
My plan over the next who knows how long is to post a weekly feature talking about something I've seen in the science world that I think would create interesting drama, or at least flesh out the world of a story. At worst, it's an excuse for me to spend some time talking about cool science ideas I think are underutilized or too poorly known.
Cheers!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)