MIT open courses

Nobody could have missed that I love to listen to audio and video lectures on my spare time. In particular when I am doing something where I do not have to concentrate (such as doing dishes or walking the dog). I recently wrote about The Teaching Company which is probably my favorite company in the world. I have also mentioned Berkeley webcast and in particular the lecture series called physics for future presidents taught by professor Richard A Muller.

When reading Lunkens blog I saw some really good news. MIT, one of the most prominent Universities in the world (particularly in physics, technology, and computer science), have been inspired by Berkeley and have now made a good deal of their courses available online for free, hurray for that! For example, here is a lecture series on introductory biology taught by Eric Lander (see picture above), a key figure in the human genome project.


So, make use of these fantastic resources. With a few clicks on your mouse you can enrich your life by learning about anything you wish from world leading experts, who are also in my experience fantastic teachers.

Irrational fear 1: Pesticides

About three months ago I wrote a post on natural foods and the highly exaggerated danger associated with pesticides. I cited research done by Bruce Ames (see picture), Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at UC Berkeley. In this very interesting interview, Bruce Ames gives his view on organic foods. In the following excerpt from this interview Ames explains that the reason why he is against spending more resources on natural foods is not that it contains more carcinogens but rather that the production and in consequence also the products is more expensive. More expensive fruits and vegetables means less consumption which will result in more cancers:

Ames: Yes. I'm much more interested in preventing cancer. Then we have to get out to the public what's important. If you tell them about trivia all the time, they get completely confused, and it's counterproductive. I just think all this business of organic food is nonsense basically. We should be eating more fruits and vegetables, so the main way to do that is to make them cheaper. Anything that makes fruits and vegetables more expensive may increase cancer.

When I cite this information people often ask where Bruce Ames gets his money from. Is he really trustworthy? This is a fair question when you take into account the fact that the food industry is a big industry, and if organic foods would suddenly become the public choice it would certainly be rather detrimental to many companies. What many people seem to forget though is that producers of organic foods also have money waiting for them, should they manage to sway the public opinion. Unless it is suggested that organic food producers have a superior morality, immune to economic incentives, this is not a valid argument, after all the economic incentive is there for both sides. Maybe those the people who tell us that organic is the way to go do so because they would get rich if people followed their advice?

I feel quite confident that Bruce Ames is not bought by the food industry. Why? Partially, I believe Ames is a good guy because of what my intuition tells me. When I read the interview (referenced above) with this scientist he just doesn't strike me as a man who has sold his soul to the devil, quite the contrary in fact. However, the main reason why I don't think Ames is bought by the food industry is that he is also the man who first proved that many synthetic pesticides are carcinogenic. For quite a while he was a hero to all the natural food proponents.

Bruce Ames showed that indeed many man made chemicals are carcinogenic, but what reason do we have to assume that natural pesticides aren't also carcinogenic? Ames did not make this assumption and when he tested natural pesticides, which are created by the plants themselves as a protection, he found that pretty much the same proportion of natural pesticides was carcinogenic. Furthermore, Ames discovered that plants which are not treated with synthetic pesticides (i.e. natural foods) contain more potent carcinogens than plants which have been treated with pesticides. (Things can be more or less carcinogenic; for example, even though mushrooms contain 50% carcinogens they are very weak and therefore doesn't do a lot of damage whereas coffee contains much stronger carcinogens.) Read my previous post if you want to understand why. Add to this that 99.9% of the pesticides that we ingest are natural pesticides and you will understand why this post is about irrational fear.

Here we are worrying about 0.1% of the pesticides we ingest which according to the data are, if anything, less mutagenic than the other 99.9%. That is what I would call irrational fear…

Equal opportunity design

Intelligent design proponents tell us that evolution lacks evidence and that the alternative, a creator God who designed all creatures as we see them today, is equally likely. Their favorite analogy is the clockmaker analogy which basically says that our intuition tells us that everything complex have a designer, therefore humans must have a designer. A little sidetrack: even though our intuition often leads us in the right direction it can sometimes be quite wrong to. Read here.

I have already dealt with the essentials of Intelligent design, and why I think that it is wrong in a previous post. Here I want to focus on a consequence of the intelligent design argument that only became apparent to me after reading an article in the latest issue of my favorite magazine "Skeptic". The article is called "Who designed that?" and is written by Tom McIver. The problem that ID proponents face is the following.

In order to avoid being deemed a religion, intelligent design cannot say that any particular God is the designer, after all there is no rational argument why it should be Yahweh or Allah rather than any other God who designed us and our planet. Now, ID proponents are eager to take their theory into the classrooms to be taught in the biology lessons as an alternative theory to the theory of evolution. In practice, what they really want (in the US at least) is to read from the Bible during biology sessions, and that is where the problem is. Since any designer God is equally unlikely, any religion could claim their time in the classroom and their chance to convert today's students. In essence, Christianity would have to be taught side by side with Islam, Gnosticism, and even the silly religion of Scientology (man I lost my respect for Tom Cruise and John Travolta when I learned that they belonged to this church). In their morning biology session students would be taught about how God created plants and then came the light (have you noticed the severe conflict with science in this?), and then later on came Adam, and from his rib came Eve. In their afternoon biology session the same student would be taught the following.

"The Gnostics taught that God was a mad scientist named Yaldabaoth who had been created by accident and built the earth as a prison for pre-existent human souls. He cloned Adam, raped Eve and kicked them both out of paradise when Christ came in the form of a serpent to liberate them" (excerpt from "Skeptic magazine" number 2, 2007, p.60).

The next fifty biology sessions would be spent going through everyone of these, all equally plausible, alternatives to the theory of evolution. Needless to say, this would be a preposterous scenario. Evolution does have loads of supporting evidence. If you don't believe me, read about an experiment here or about AIDS here. Intelligent design, on the other hand, merely bring up another problem, namely who designed the designer?

Americans’ belief in evolution

I would very much like to recommend Gallups daily briefings which presents, in video format, interesting data from Gallup polls on a daily basis. Today for example, Gallup presents the latest figures on the 2008 presidential election. They ask, "who would you vote for today, Clinton or Gulliani (the two front runners for either party).

In yesterdays briefing Gallup presented a survey probing about Americans' belief in the theory of evolution. Apparently, three of the republican presidential candidates claimed not to believe in evolution (none of the front runners thank God). I am almost hoping that they said so only because of their voters. An unbelievable 48% of the Americans' who were asked in this survey said that they did not believe in evolution. Why do some people not believe in the extremely well established theory of evolution? When you ask those who do not believe in evolution a large majority says that evolution contradicts their religious beliefs. In other words they chose to base their world view on faith rather than on evidence. These figures are an inspiration to me to keep writing on this blog.

Not surprisingly perhaps, the more educated you are, the higher the probability that you believe in the well established theory of evolution. Also not surprising republicans deny evolution more often than democrats (68% of republicans claim not to believe in evolution).

The Mating Act of a Ladybird

To describe the copulative behavior of a ladybird, or a coccinellidae as it is called among scientists, is actually quite hard due to the fact that the category contains at least 5000 different species (I wonder if they can tell the difference between us and say a gorilla). The account that I will give here will no doubt be oversimplified and perhaps only applies to a fraction of the 5000 different species, but it is nevertheless a fascinating type behavior.

So imagine that you are a female ladybird. Because you are already four days old you feel it is really about time that you get a hold of yourself and cease to live your life in an aimless fashion. You feel that it is time to get pregnant. While wandering about on your green plant reflecting on where your life has gone you suddenly look up and see an attractive male about 2 cm ahead (which is about how far a ladybird can see). You feel really flattered when this handsome stud mounts you, but then, when he is just about to insert his thing you instinctively start to run around, kicking forcefully backwards to get him off. This stud won't give up that easily though so in spite of the rather uncomfortable ride he hangs on. You therefore switch to a different strategy. Almost to your own amazement you throw yourself of the green plant and falls towards the ground. You make your handsome stud lands first thus making him absorb the long fall. For a second the male lets go of you and you try to escape, but luckily for the male he retains his consciousness before you have been able to run more than 2 cm away in which case he would not have been able to find you.

The stud mounts again and this time you don't fight. Instead you think to yourself, this guy can copulate right after falling down an equivalent of ten floors, now that is a trait I want my ladybird offspring to have. So the romance begins, and since you are ladybirds, and since ladybirds are fond of copulating you go on for a long time. (Here is a video of two ladybirds getting it on to the tunes of Donald Crawford's "You Know I Know".)

If both the male and the female have not mated recently they will keep going for about 275 minutes, or 4.5 hours. However, if both have had sex recently and thus feel a bit tired or drowsy or satisfied, then they will limit they will stop after only 176 minutes or 3 hours.

Following not so much cuddling you depart, exhausted but happy… However, for a ladybird sex is not just joy. Because ladybirds are really really promiscuous animals they are also very often the victims of sexually transmitted diseases, in fact the ladybird has more STDs than any other insect. According to one estimate that I found, up to 90% of some populations of ladybirds can be affected, so you better use the condom (or become a ladybird nun).

Most of what you have read here is my recollection of a lecture that was given to me by Professor Mike Majerus at Cambridge University, UK. In 2004 I attended a science summer school at Fitzwillam college and there I had the great privilege of taking a course called "sex and aggression in insects" taught by this extraordinarily entertaining ladybird world authority (I would vote for him to take over after David Attenborough if he ever quits). Though I have not read his books he has written several, so if you are interested in ladybirds and evolution I am sure that the following books are probably really good references.

Melanism: Evolution in Action: In this book majerus decribes the evolutionary forces that has given rise to melanism, or skin color. I'll bet that many of the examples are on the somewhat rare black ladybirds which he talked alot about during his course.

Guide to Ladybirds of the British Isles: As the title suggests this is a short (8 pages) guide to ladybirds.

Our debt to research animals...

If you google for "animal research" and then switch to the pictures section you will see many very upsetting pictures depicting animals that have been used in research. I first want to point out that these pictures are not representative of the way it looks in most laboratories. Secondly, the animals in the pictures may not have suffered to anywhere near the extent that people uploading these pictures want to make you believe.

I do not think that being a laboratory animal is a great life for an animal, however, nor do I think that it is the worst fate an animal can suffer. I would personally much rather be a laboratory rat than a cow or a chicken that is slaughtered to become food for us. There are a number of reasons why animal research is not as bad as some people want us to believe. First of all, only in a minority of all the conducted experiments do the animals experience any pain, and when they do they are nearly always given anesthetics (one exception to this is when pain is the research subject in which case it is a necessary evil). Secondly, researchers, in order to get good data, must make sure that their animals are feeling well. Data from sick laboratory animals is worthless. Of course, the well being of laboratory animals is also inspected by committees on a regular basis and labs which do not take proper care of the animals will be shut down. Thirdly, for me, personally, working with laboratory animals actually made me value animals more than before. Rats are, believe it or not, smart playful and social, and working with them have made me more concerned about animal welfare in general. I now buy ecological meat, eggs from free outdoor hens (free walking indoor is no good either!), and in general try to buy products that have not caused unnecessary pain for any animals. This brings me to my next point.

I often hear from different people that many animal experiment that are carried out are unnecessary. To some extent I agree, I think that animal experiments that are done to develop new cosmetics are definitely unnecessary, let us use what we have got and spare these animals. Nevertheless, to conduct an experiment involving animals at a university one have to argue, very convincingly, that the research can further our knowledge in some way, and one must justify any hypothetical pain that the animals must endure. It is also not true that there are other methods that we could use just as well as animal research. Sure, studies can be done in vitro (that is, in a dish), but today these methods cannot replace animal research.

In the end I guess it all comes down to what your values are. Is it worth it to sacrifice laboratory animals in order to develop medicines that can cure us as well as animals. My answer is yes, but I don't think it is entirely obvious, so think for yourself. Perhaps we should be content with just living 48 years instead of around 75 years, and perhaps we should just accept that some diseases will kill us (I am not being sarcastic here).

I want to end with a list of some of the discoveries that would not have been possible was it not for animal research, you can find a much longer list and more information about animal research here. Our dept to laboratory animals, as you can see from the list below (remember this is not a complete list), is indeed great. The laboratory animals have helped us alot, and for that they deserve our respect, but should we stop doing these types of experiments?

Vaccines: Anthrax, Smallpox, Polio, Yellow fever, Measles, Hapatitis, Whooping cough...

Drugs: Insulin, Antibiotics, Birth control pills, pain killers, anti malaria drugs, chemotherapy...

Treatable conditions: Anemia, PKU, Herpes, Allergies, Chlamydia...

Life prolonging treatments: Diabetes, Epilepsy, Leukemia...

Other major discoveries: DNA, Virus, Electron microscope, ECG, EEG, Pacemaker, Artificial hips, x-rays, monoclonal antibodies, ultrasound, MRI, Artificial limbs, Effects of smoking alcohol and drugs, How lifestyle affects health

Surgery: Blood transfusions, Coronary bypass, Organ transplants, Breast cancer

Should we use stem cells?

"Stem cells fend off lung cancer".

I just read a news article with this headline in the journal Science. Apparently, because stem cells are rather similar to cancer cells, the immune system adaptation that occur when you inject stem cells into the lung, will subsequently help the immune system kill cancer cells as well. That is, the immune system treats stem cells as invaders, why they develop a defense against these cells. If the same immune system, on a subsequent occasion, encounters a cancer cell it will, because of the strong resemblance, wrongly "assume" that it is another stem cell and therefore get rid of it. Out of 25 mice that were given stem cells, 20 were able to kill a subsequent cancer. A slightly altered compound increased the cancer survival rate to 100%!!! This should be compared to the 0% survival rate experienced by mice that did not get any compound.

Of course, this does not mean that we can cure cancer in humans, at least not yet. Mice for some reason tend to respond better to cancer therapies, but nevertheless, I think the figures above justifies some excitement. I think that stem cell research is one of the methods with the best potential. This research not only has the potential to cure cancer, but various other diseases and insults as well, including Parkinson disease, chronic pain, and strokes.

So what about the larger issue? Are stem cells individuals? I guess that if you believe that a cell with all the genes necessary to build a human being is an individual, then stem cell research is murder. However, if this is your belief then scratching your nose or stepping into a shower would be genocide. All the cells that die when you do one of these two things could produce an individual if you put it into an egg and allowed it to mature. So why should stem cells be protected as if they were full grown individuals? A fully conscious monkey, capable of feeling pain and stress, has barely any rights! That is puzzling to me. Furthermore I think not doing stem cell research is unethical, considering the huge potential. Not doing stem cell research is the same as saying to those who have Parkinson or those who are suffering from chronic pain, that "we care more about these few cells than we care about finding a cure for you".

A few interesting facts from "Molecular biology of the cell"

Here follows a few of the astonishing facts that you will learn if you read "Molecular Biology of the Cell" by Alberts et. al.

Did you know that
- During cell division your DNA is replicated at a speed of 1million nucleotide base pairs per second, and yet a mistake only occurs one time for every 1billion base pairs!
- Each nucleus in your body contains aproximately 2 meters of DNA in a nucleus that is six micrometers in diameter, this is equivalent to packing 40 kilometers of fine thread into a tennisball!
- All the ATP in our body (about one billion molecules) is used and recycled every 1-2 minutes. That means that we use and recycle 10000000 molecules of ATP per second!
- A extension of a grove in an enzyme by one nanometer can reduce its efficiency in carrying out its reaction by more than a thousand fold!