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Unpredictable beauty at Princeton University

Friday, May 17th, 2013

Princeton University recently held an ‘Art of Science’ exhibition, which has now been made available online and here’s the one I liked best of the ones I’ve seen so far,

People's Second Place: Bridging the gap. Credit: Jason Wexler (graduate student) and Howard A. Stone (faculty) Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering When drops of liquid are trapped in a thin gap between two solids, a strong negative pressure develops inside the drops. If the solids are flexible, this pressure deforms the solids to close the gap. In our experiment the solids are transparent, which allows us to image the drops from above. Alternating dark and light lines represent lines of constant gap height, much like the lines on a topological map. Â These lines are caused by light interference, which is the phenomenon responsible for the beautiful rainbow pattern in an oil slick. The blue areas denote the extent of the drops. Since the drops pull the gap closed, the areas of minimum gap height (i.e. maximum deformation) are inside the drops, at the center of the concentric rings.

People’s Second Place: Bridging the gap. Credit: Jason Wexler (graduate student) and Howard A. Stone (faculty)
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
When drops of liquid are trapped in a thin gap between two solids, a strong negative pressure develops inside the drops. If the solids are flexible, this pressure deforms the solids to close the gap. In our experiment the solids are transparent, which allows us to image the drops from above. Alternating dark and light lines represent lines of constant gap height, much like the lines on a topological map. These lines are caused by light interference, which is the phenomenon responsible for the beautiful rainbow pattern in an oil slick. The blue areas denote the extent of the drops. Since the drops pull the gap closed, the areas of minimum gap height (i.e. maximum deformation) are inside the drops, at the center of the concentric rings.

There’s more about the real life and online exhibition in the May 16, 2013 Princeton University news release on EurekAlert,

The Princeton University Art of Science 2013 exhibit can now be viewed in a new online gallery. The exhibit consists of 43 images of artistic merit created during the course of scientific research:

http://www.princeton.edu/artofscience/gallery2013/

The gallery features the top three awards in a juried competition as well as the top three “People’s Choice” images.

The physical Art of Science 2013 gallery opened May 10 with a reception attended by about 200 people in the Friend Center on the Princeton University campus. The works were chosen from 170 images submitted from 24 different departments across campus.

“Like art, science and engineering are deeply creative activities,” said Pablo Debenedetti, the recently appointed Dean for Research at Princeton who served as master of ceremonies at the opening reception. “Also like art, science and engineering at their very best are highly unpredictable in their outcomes. The Art of Science exhibit celebrates the beauty of unpredictability and the unpredictability of beauty.” [emphasis mine]

Adam Finkelstein, professor of computer science and one of the exhibit organizers, said that Art of Science spurs debate among artists about the nature of art while opening scientists to new ways of “seeing” their own research. “At the same time,” Finkelstein said, “this striking imagery serves as a democratic window through which non-experts can appreciate the thrill of scientific discovery.”

The top three entrants as chosen by a distinguished jury received cash prizes in amounts calculated by the golden ratio (whose proportions have since antiquity been considered to be aesthetically pleasing): first prize, $250; second prize, $154.51; and third prize, $95.49. [emphasis mine]

…

The physical exhibit is located in the Friend Center on the Princeton University campus in Princeton, N.J.. The exhibit is free and open to the public, Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

There are three pages of viewing delight at Princeton’s Art of Science 2013 online gallery. Have a lovely weekend picking your favourites.

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“Spring is like a perhaps hand,” E. E. Cummings, Harvard, and nano flowers

Friday, May 17th, 2013

It’s always a treat to read a news/press/media release that starts with poetry. From the May 16, 2013 Harvard University press release,

“Spring is like a perhaps hand,” wrote the poet E. E. Cummings: “carefully / moving a perhaps / fraction of flower here placing / an inch of air there… / without breaking anything.”

This was written to celebrate the publication of a paper by Wim L. Noorduin and others, from the press release (Note: Links have been removed),

By simply manipulating chemical gradients in a beaker of fluid, Wim L. Noorduin, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and lead author of a paper appearing on the cover of the May 17 issue of Science, has found that he can control the growth behavior of these crystals to create precisely tailored structures.

“For at least 200 years, people have been intrigued by how complex shapes could have evolved in nature. This work helps to demonstrate what’s possible just through environmental, chemical changes,” says Noorduin.

The precipitation of the crystals depends on a reaction of compounds that are diffusing through a liquid solution. The crystals grow toward or away from certain chemical gradients as the pH of the reaction shifts back and forth. The conditions of the reaction dictate whether the structure resembles broad, radiating leaves, a thin stem, or a rosette of petals.

…

Replicating this type of effect in the laboratory was a matter of identifying a suitable chemical reaction and testing, again and again, how variables like the pH, temperature, and exposure to air might affect the nanoscale structures.

The project fits right in with the work of Joanna Aizenberg, an expert in biologically inspired materials science, biomineralization, and self-assembly, and principal investigator for this research.

Aizenberg is the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at Harvard SEAS, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the Harvard Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.

Here are some details about how the scientists created their ‘flowers, from the press release,

To create the flower structures, Noorduin and his colleagues dissolve barium chloride (a salt) and sodium silicate (also known as waterglass) into a beaker of water. Carbon dioxide from air naturally dissolves in the water, setting off a reaction which precipitates barium carbonate crystals. As a byproduct, it also lowers the pH of the solution immediately surrounding the crystals, which then triggers a reaction with the dissolved waterglass. This second reaction adds a layer of silica to the growing structures, uses up the acid from the solution, and allows the formation of barium carbonate crystals to continue.

“You can really collaborate with the self-assembly process,” says Noorduin. “The precipitation happens spontaneously, but if you want to change something then you can just manipulate the conditions of the reaction and sculpt the forms while they’re growing.”

Increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide, for instance, helps to create ‘broad-leafed’ structures. Reversing the pH gradient at the right moment can create curved, ruffled structures.

Noorduin and his colleagues have grown the crystals on glass slides and metal blades; they’ve even grown a field of flowers in front of President Lincoln’s seat on a one-cent coin.

“When you look through the electron microscope, it really feels a bit like you’re diving in the ocean, seeing huge fields of coral and sponges,” describes Noorduin. “Sometimes I forget to take images because it’s so nice to explore.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Rationally Designed Complex, Hierarchical Microarchitectures by Wim L. Noorduin, Alison Grinthal, L. Mahadevan, and Joanna Aizenberg. Science 17 May 2013: Vol. 340 no. 6134 pp. 832-837 DOI: 10.1126/science.1234621

H/T to the May 17, 2013 news item on Azonano.

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Posted in biomimcry, science | No Comments »

What kind of science do we want? A few thoughts on the National Research Council of Canada and its new dedication to business

Monday, May 13th, 2013

Last week in its May 7, 2013 news release, the National Research Council of Canada flung open the doors of its closet and declared itself ‘open for business’,

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has transformed into an industry-focused research and technology organization. The refocused NRC will work with Canadian industries to bridge technology gaps, helping build a more innovative Canadian economy.

“NRC plays a pivotal role at the heart of Canada’s innovation system,” said the Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology). “The refocused NRC will provide Canadian industries with access to strategic research and development, technical services and specialized scientific infrastructure they need to succeed.”

“The Government’s top priority is jobs, growth and long-term prosperity for all Canadians,” said the Honourable Claude Carignan, Deputy Leader of the Government at the Senate. “By refocusing the NRC into a research and technology organization, our Government is ensuring that Canadian firms have the instruments and tools they need to become even more successful on the global stage.”

The refocused NRC will support Canadian industries by investing in large-scale research projects that are directed by and for Canadian business. It will also develop international networks to ensure timely access to primary research and will open the doors to world class scientific infrastructure, technical expertise and people.

“We are very excited about this change. Our organization is now easier for business to understand and access,” said John R. McDougall, President of the National Research Council. “We are committed to being a strong partner for innovation, and focused on achieving the concrete outcomes that will contribute to a stronger and more prosperous Canada. We will measure our success by the success of our clients.”

Research and technology organizations are mission-oriented providers of innovation services to firms and governments, dedicated to building economic competitiveness and, in doing so, improving quality of life. The refocused NRC will strengthen Canadian industry by encouraging more business investment to develop innovative products and services.

Response has ranged from mild interest to apoplexy and heartbreak.

Phil Plait, a US astronomer and creator of the Bad Astronomy blog/book/website, has opined in a May 13, 2013 posting at Slate.com (Note: A link has been removed),

This is not a joke. I wish it were.

John MacDougal [sic], President of the NRC, literally said, “Scientific discovery is not valuable unless it has commercial value”. Gary Goodyear, the Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology, also stated “There is [sic] only two reasons why we do science and technology. First is to create knowledge … second is to use that knowledge for social and economic benefit. Unfortunately, all too often the knowledge gained is opportunity lost.”

…

This is monumentally backwards thinking. That is not the reason we do science. Economic benefits are results of doing research, but should not be the reason we do it. Basic scientific research is a vast endeavor, and some of it will pay off economically, and some won’t. In almost every case, you cannot know in advance which will do which.

…

… If proposed and immediate economic benefits are the prime factors in choosing what science to fund, then the freedom of this human endeavor will be critically curtailed. It’s draining the passion and heart out of one of the best things we humans do.

This intensity suggests that Plait is unaware that the changeover has been taking place over a number of years. Hannah Hoag in an April 19, 2011 piece for Nature magazine noted this about the changeover which was even then taking place,

Canada’s largest research entity has a new focus — and some disaffected scientists. On 1 April [2011], the National Research Council (NRC), made up of more than 20 institutes and programmes with a total annual budget larger than Can$1 billion (US$1 billion), switched to a funding strategy that downplays basic research in favour of programmes designed to attract industry partners and generate revenue. [emphasis mine] Some researchers suggest that the shift is politically driven, because it brings the agency into philosophical alignment with the governing Conservative Party of Canada, which is in the middle of an election campaign.

The change was announced in a memo from NRC president John McDougall on 2 March [2011], and involves the transfer of authority over 20% of the agency’s research funds and the entire Can$60-million budget for large equipment and building costs to the NRC’s senior executive committee, which will direct it towards research with a focus on economic development, rather than pure science. Until now, individual institutes have had authority over research spending. McDougall wrote that in future, 80% of the research budget will be centralized, with “curiosity and exploratory activities” to be funded by the remaining 20%.

In Canada, most funding for academic researchers flows through agencies other than the NRC. [emphasis mine] However, with 4,700 scientists, guest researchers, technologists and support staff pursuing specialities from astrophysics to plant biotechnology at its institutes, the NRC plays a vital part in the nation’s scientific community, as a generator of original research and a service provider to government and industry.

While I’m no friend of the current Canadian government or John McDougall for that matter, this is an attempt to dealt with a longstanding issue, Canada’s failure with industrial research. From the Feb. 27, 2013 article, which prefigures the current discussion by a little over two months, by Tom Spears  in the Ottawa Citizen,

In October [2012], members of the House of Commons Industry Committee challenged McDougall to justify the changes.

Now McDougall has responded that Canada’s economy can’t wait for slow advances.

As science investment has grown in Canada, “our productivity and competitiveness, as measured by various organizations in the world, has been going in exactly the opposite direction,” he said in an interview.

“The primary reason for that is entirely speculative … But it would appear that Canada’s balance is quite different from other countries.”

That means we’re good at academic research, he says. We’re not so good at putting new knowledge to work.

“We’re not doing the things that take technology and ‘productize’ it.” (He makes exceptions to that: We’re strong in informational technology and in space-related industries such as robotics and building satellites.)

And he argues the answer lies in involving industry with the research from the start “rather than shoving it down their throat and hoping they’ll take it.”

For example, one new “flagship program” at NRC is to develop wheat that will resist cold and drought better than today’s, require less fertilizer, and produce greater yields.

“The timeline for this kind of thing is in the order of seven or eight years, which left to normal — I’ll call it traditional approaches — would typically be 20,” he said.

A similar ‘Canada is poor at commercializing research’ theme is mentioned in a May 7, 2013 article by Barrie McKenna and Ivan Semeniuk for the Globe and Mail,

The National Research Council, which gave the country canola and the atomic clock, will now be taking its scientific cues from Canadian industry as part of a makeover of the country’s flagship research labs.

The overhaul, quietly begun two years ago and formally unveiled Tuesday, means the 97-year-old NRC will focus on a clutch of large-scale, business-driven research projects at the expense of the basic science that was once at its core. The Conservative government says it wants to leverage the NRC’s world-class resources – everything from wind tunnels and ice tanks to high-powered microscopes – to help reverse the country’s chronically lagging innovation performance.

“Our businesses are not doing the research that they need to do,” Gary Goodyear, the minister of state for science and technology, told reporters in Ottawa. “So something had to be done.”

The move is in keeping with the Conservative government’s emphasis on a business model for public policy, such as tying foreign aid to economic development. It is also another significant foray into the science file, with critics saying the new approach is shortsighted and may shut the door on vast areas of promising fundamental research.

Mr. Goodyear insisted the government isn’t abandoning basic science, just shifting its focus to commercializing discoveries. “The day is past when a researcher could hit a home run simply by publishing a paper on some new discovery,” he said. “The home run is when somebody utilizes the knowledge that was discovered for social or economic gain.”

As part of the overhaul, the NRC is consolidating its disparate operations into a dozen business units and will focus on just five core areas of research: health costs, manufacturing, community infrastructure, security, and natural resources and the environment. Companies, or industries, will be able to tap the NRC’s expertise and labs, while sharing the cost of projects – as well as the intellectual property that results.

“Our job is to change innovation performance,” NRC president John McDougall explained in an interview. “So we have to do the things that will make that happen. Discovery science is necessary, but it’s not sufficient.”

Kennedy Stewart, the NDP (New Democratic Party; the official opposition) Member of Parliament expresses his opinion in his May 7, 2013 news release,

“Conservative incompetence meets Conservative narrow-mindedness,” said NDP Science and Technology critic Kennedy Stewart (Burnaby–Douglas). “They don’t want research driven by researchers themselves or public funding for science going towards actual scientific advancement. Their short-sighted approach will in fact hurt economic growth in the long run because it shuts the door on the long-view fundamental research that truly leads to scientific breakthroughs.”

Widespread dissatisfaction among the over 4,000 NRC employees and the change of focus away from basic research, patents and publications will increase the drain of Canada’s best and brightest minds to other OECD countries that are investing in scientific research heavily. Under the Conservatives, Canada just can’t compete.

“The government has been handing pink slips to scores of NRC scientists and researchers, lowering the organization’s research capacity and devastating internal morale,” said Stewart.  “It is hard to see how business will get scientific advice from the NRC if they fire all the scientists. Who they keep will spend their time trying to get off this runaway train.”

As best as I can unravel, there are several issues in the material I have excerpted:

  • what is the right mix of science, basic to applied/industrial?
  • it’s widely acknowledged that Canadians have done more poorly in the area of industrial science than colleagues in other OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries
  • how do we address the issue?

The solution that the current Canadian government has arrived *at is impossible to assess at this point (although I have a guess as to the outcome) and something needed to be done with the National Research Council of Canada as noted in an April 7, 2010 posting on the Don’t leave Canada behind; Researcher Forum blog (I believe the writer was Rob Annan),

The NRC is a mess.

And the mess of the NRC neatly encapsulates much that’s wrong with Canadian science policy. No direction, no cohesion, multiple conflicting purposes.

Rob goes on to discuss the NRC’s mandate (Note: A link has been removed),

Well, the NRC is mandated, by the original NRC Act of 1916, “to undertaking, assisting or promoting scientific and industrial research in different fields of importance to Canada”. It did this very successfully into the 1960s, at which point, its greatest successes were carved out and handed to new organizations.

So what’s left? Well the NRC Act has a few specific mandates that the NRC fulfills: standards of measurement, manage observatories, investigate and standardize industrial materials, perform agricultural research, and maintain a national science library (which is under major financial stress, but let’s save that for another time). But the general mandate to “undertake, assist, or promote” scientific and industrial research is open to interpretation, and is a source of conflict.

I’m not sure if the NRC Act has been amended since 2010 to allow for these latest changes but Rob goes on to make, what is for me, a more interesting point (Note: A link has been removed),

But since the 1980s, the NRC has been without a strong sense of self. Is it a basic research organization or an applied research organization? Does it exist to perform independent, government-sponsored research, or does it provide research services in support of the private sector? Does it perform early-stage research and then partner with industry, or is it a fee-for-service research organization? The answer is yes.

The NRC is being pulled in too many directions.

What does our Minister of Industry [at the time, Tony Clement] have to say about the NRC?

NRC‘s aim is to bring timely solutions to market in areas of national importance: clean energy, health and wellness, and the environment. NRC will continue to partner with Canadian firms to deliver tangible, market-oriented results in high-impact and emerging industry sectors, such as the automotive sector.

But the NRC isn’t designed to do this – this is a different mandate than what is laid out in the Act. Which would be fine – maybe it’s time for a change – except that the NRC institutes have been, not surprisingly, built according to the mandate outlined in the NRC Act – as research laboratories, not product development laboratories or partnership incubators. And the people recruited to run these labs are scientists, not business-people. They want to do science, not chase down industrial partnerships in the automotive sector or take their clean energy products to market. They’ve been recruited for their scientific abilities; it’s a bit of a stretch to expect them also to be market innovators.

Furthermore, because the government does not fund the full cost of research at the institutes, these labs are dependent on research funding from external sources. If the funding was coming from Canadian business, then the vision of our Industry minister would be fulfilled. Unfortunately, Canadian business is notoriously averse to investing in academic or government research. So these labs are dependent on CIHR, NSERC, or private funding – mostly basic science funding. So, the government builds a system of research laboratories, forces them into dependence on basic science funding, and then complains that there isn’t enough market-driven research going on? [all emphases mine]

I realize that CIHR and NSERC funding programs have changed but the issue with Canadian business paying for research has not. It is, as I have noted in other pieces, a cultural issue with the key question being, How do you inculcate a business culture that innovates? What we have now is a ‘start-up’ culture where people found businesses based on exciting research and plan on growing those businesses to a point where they can be sold to larger companies from the US or Britain or elsewhere. Based on these comments, my guess is that the current changes to the NRC will not result in the ‘innovation’ the government has repeatedly stated is its primary goal since our basic business culture will remain untouched. One last thing, I think people are going to figure out how to game this new NRC.

*at added on May 22, 2013

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US multicenter (Nano GO Consortium) study of engineered nanomaterial toxicology

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013

Nano Go Consortium is the name they gave a multicenter toxicology study of engineered nanomaterials which has pioneered a new approach  in the US to toxicology research. From the May 6, 2013 news item on Azonano,

For the first time, researchers from institutions around the country have conducted an identical series of toxicology tests evaluating lung-related health impacts associated with widely used engineered nanomaterials (ENMs).

The study [on rodents] provides comparable health risk data from multiple labs, which should help regulators develop policies to protect workers and consumers who come into contact with ENMs.

The May 6, 2013 North Carolina State University news release, which originated the news item, describes the results from one of two studies that were recently published by the Nano GO Consortium in Environmental Health Perspectives,

The researchers found that carbon nanotubes, which are used in everything from bicycle frames to high performance electronics, produced inflammation and inflammatory lesions in the lower portions of the lung. However, the researchers found that the nanotubes could be made less hazardous if treated to remove excess metal catalysts used in the manufacturing process or modified by adding carboxyl groups to the outer shell of the tubes to make them more easily dispersed in biological fluids.

The researchers also found that titanium dioxide nanoparticles also caused inflammation in the lower regions of the lung. Belt-shaped titanium nanoparticles caused more cellular damage in the lungs, and more pronounced lesions, than spherical nanoparticles.

Here’s a link to and a citation for this study on rodents,

Interlaboratory Evaluation of Rodent Pulmonary Responses to Engineered Nanomaterials: The NIEHS NanoGo Consortium by James C. Bonner, Rona M. Silva, Alexia J. Taylor, Jared M. Brown, Susana C. Hilderbrand, Vincent Castranova, Dale Porter, Alison Elder, Günter Oberdörster, Jack R. Harkema, Lori A. Bramble, Terrance J. Kavanagh, Dianne Botta, Andre Nel, and Kent E. Pinkerton. Environ Health Perspect (): .doi:10.1289/ehp.1205693  Published: May 06, 2013

And the information for the other study which this consortium has published,

Interlaboratory Evaluation of in Vitro Cytotoxicity and Inflammatory Responses to Engineered Nanomaterials: The NIEHS NanoGo Consortium by Tian Xia, Raymond F. Hamilton Jr, James C. Bonner, Edward D. Crandall, Alison Elder, Farnoosh Fazlollahi, Teri A. Girtsman, Kwang Kim, Somenath Mitra, Susana A. Ntim, Galya Orr, Mani Tagmount8, Alexia J. Taylor, Donatello Telesca, Ana Tolic, Christopher D. Vulpe, Andrea J. Walker, Xiang Wang, Frank A. Witzmann, Nianqiang Wu, Yumei Xie, Jeffery I. Zink, Andre Nel, and Andrij Holian. Environ Health Perspect (): .doi:10.1289/ehp.1306561 Published: May 06, 2013

Environmental Health Perspectives is an open access journal and the two studies are being offered as ‘early’ publication efforts and will be updated with the full studies at a later date.

Most interesting for me is the editorial offered by four of the researchers involved in the Nano GO Consortium, from the editorial,

Determining the health effects of ENMs presents some unique challenges. The thousands of ENMs in use today are made from an enormous range of substances, vary considerably in size, and take a diversity of shapes, including spheres, cubes, cones, tubes, and other forms. They are also produced in different laboratories across the world using a variety of methods. In the scientific literature, findings on the properties and toxicity of these materials are mixed and often difficult to compare across studies. To improve the reliability and reproducibility of data in this area, there is a need for uniform research protocols and methods, handling guidelines, procurement systems, and models.

…

Although there is still much to learn about the toxicity of ENMs, we are fortunate to start with a clean slate: There are as yet no documented incidences of human disease due to ENM exposure (Xia et al. 2009). Because ENMs are manmade rather than natural substances, we have an opportunity to design, manufacture, and use these materials in ways that allow us to reap the maximum benefits—and minimal risk—to humans.

With $13 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) awarded 13 2-year grants to advance research on the health impacts of ENMs (NIEHS 2013). [emphasis mine] Ten grants were awarded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grand Opportunities program and three were funded through the NIH Challenge Grants program. One goal of this investment was to develop reliable, reproducible methods to assess exposure and biological response to nanomaterials.

…

Within the framework of the consortium, grantees designed and conducted a series of “round-robin” experiments in which similar or identical methods were used to perform in vitro and in vivo tests on the toxicity of selected nanomaterials concurrently at 13 different laboratories.

…

Conducting experiments in a round-robin format within a consortium structure is an unfamiliar approach for most researchers. Although some researchers acknowledged that working collaboratively with such a large and diverse group at times stretched the limits of their comfort zones, the consortium ultimately proved to be “greater than the sum of its parts,” resulting in reliable, standardized protocols that would have been difficult for researchers to achieve by working independently. Indeed, many participants reflected that participating in the consortium not only benefitted their shared goals but also enhanced their individual research efforts. The round-robin approach and the overall consortium structure may be valuable models for other emerging areas of science.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the Consortium’s editorial, which is available in full,

Nano GO Consortium—A Team Science Approach to Assess Engineered Nanomaterials: Reliable Assays and Methods by Thaddeus T. Schug, Srikanth S. Nadadur, and Anne F. Johnson. Environ Health Perspect 121(2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1306866 [online 06 May 2013]

I like the idea of researchers working together across institutional and geographical boundaries as that can be a very powerful approach. I hope that won’t devolve into a form of institutionalized oppression where individual researchers are forced out or ignored. In general, it’s the outlier research that often proves to be truly groundbreaking, which often generates extraordinary and informal (and sometimes formal) resistance. For an example of groundbreaking work that was rejected by other researchers who banded together informally, there’s Dan Shechtman, 2011 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, famously faced hostility from his colleagues for years over his discovery of quasicrystals.

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The importance of science fiction for the future

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

I started this post in March (2013) but haven’t had time till now (May 7, 2013) to flesh it out. It was a Mar. 28, 2013 posting by Jessica Bland and Lydia Nicholas for the UK Guardian science blogs which inspired me (Note: Links have been removed),

Science fiction and real-world innovation have always fed off each other. The history of the electronic book shows us things are more complicated than fiction predicting fact [.]

…

Imagine a new future. No, not that tired old vision of hoverboards and robot butlers: something really new and truly strange. It’s hard. It’s harder still to invent the new things that will fill this entirely new world. New ideas that do not fit or that come from unfamiliar places are often ignored. Hedy Lemarr [a major movie sex symbol in her day] and George Antheil’s [musician] frequency-hopping patent was ignored for 20 years because the US Navy could not believe that Hollywood artists could invent a method of secure communication. Many of Nikola Tesla’s inventions and his passionate belief in the importance of renewable energy were ignored by a world that could not imagine a need for them.

Stories open our eyes to the opportunities and hazards of new technologies. By articulating our fears and desires for the future, stories help shape what is to come – informing public debate, influencing regulation and inspiring inventors. And this makes it important that we do not just listen to the loudest voices.

Of course it isn’t as simple as mining mountains of pulp sci-fi for the schematics of the next rocket or the algorithms of the next Google. Arthur C. Clarke, often attributed with the invention of the communication satellite, firmly believed that these satellites would require crews. The pervasive connectivity that defines our world today would never have existed if every satellite needed to be manned.

The Guardian posting was occasioned by the publication of two research papers produced for NESTA. It’s an organization which is not similar to any in Canada or the US (as far as I know). Here’s a little more about NESTA from their FAQs page,

Nesta is an independent charity with a mission to help people and organisations bring great ideas to life. We do this by providing investments and grants and mobilising research, networks and skills.

Nesta backs innovation to help bring great ideas to life. We do this by providing investments and grants and mobilising research, networks and skills.

Nesta receives funds from The Nesta Trust, which received the National Lottery endowment from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.

The interest from this endowment is used to fund our activities. These activities must be used to promote the charitable objects of both the Nesta Trust and the Nesta charity. We also use the returns from Nesta investments, and income from working in partnership with others, to fund our work.

We don’t receive any ongoing general government funds to support our work.

On 1st April 2012 Nesta ceased being a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) and became a charity (charity number 1144091).

We maintain our mission to carry out research into innovation and to further education, science, technology, the arts, public services, the voluntary sector and enterprise in various areas by encouraging and supporting innovation.

Nesta’s objectives are now set out in our ‘charitable objects’ which can be viewed here.

Nesta continues to operate at no cost to the Government or the taxpayer using return from the Nesta Trust.

In any event, NESTA commissioned two papers:

Imagining technology
Jon Turney
Nesta Working Paper 13/06
Issued: March 2013

Better Made Up: The Mutual Influence of Science fiction and Innovation
Caroline Bassett, Ed Steinmueller, Georgina Voss
Nesta Working Paper 13/07
Issued: March 2013

For anyone who does not have time to read the NESTA papers, the Guardian’s post by Bland and Nicholas provides a good overview of the thinking which links science fiction with real innovation.

Around the same time I stumbled across the Bland/Nicholas post I also stumbled on a science fiction conference that is regularly held at the University of California Riverside.

The Eaton Science Fiction Conference was held Apr. 11 – 14, 2013 and the theme was “Science Fiction Media. It’s a little late for this year but perhaps you want to start planning for next year.  Here’s the Eaton Science Fiction Conference website. For those who’d like to get a feel for this conference, here’s a little more from the Mar. 27, 2013 news release by Bettye Miller,

… the 2013 conference will be largest in the 34-year history of the conference, said Melissa Conway, head of Special Collections and Archives of the UCR Libraries and conference co-organizer. It also is the first time the UCR Libraries and College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences have partnered with the Science Fiction Research Association, the largest and most prestigious scholarly organization in the field, to present the event.

…

Among the science fiction writers who will be presenting on different panels are: Larry Niven, author of “Ringworld” and a five-time winner of the Hugo Award and a Nebula; Gregory Benford, astrophysicist and winner of a Nebula Award and a United Nations Medal in Literature; David Brin, astrophysicist and two-time winner of the Hugo Award; Audre Bormanis, writer/producer for “Star Trek: Enterprise,” “Threshold,” “Eleventh Hour,” “Legend of the Seeker” and “Tron: Uprising”; Kevin Grazier, science adviser for “Battlestar Galactica,” “Defiance,” “Eureka” and “Falling Skies”; and James Gunn, winner of a Hugo Award and the 2007 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, presented for lifetime achievement as a writer of science fiction and/or fantasy by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

As for the impetus for this conference in Riverside, California, from the news release,

UCR is the home of the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, the largest publicly accessible collection of its kind in the world. The collection embraces every branch of science fiction, fantasy, horror and utopian/dystopian fiction.

The collection, which attracts scholars from around the world, holds more than 300,000 items including English-language science fiction, fantasy and horror published in the 20th century and a wide range of works in Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German, and a dozen other languages; fanzines; comic books; anime; manga; science fiction films and television series; shooting scripts; archives of science fiction writers; and science fiction collectibles and memorabilia.

In one of those odd coincidences we all experience from time to time, Ray Harryhausen, creator of a type of stop-motion model animation known as Dynamation and well loved for his work in special effects and who was recognized with a life time achievement at the 2013 conference, died today (May 7, 2013; Wikipedia essay).

The item which moved me to publish today (May 7, 2013), Can Science Fiction Writers Inspire The World To Save Itself?, by Ariel Schwartz concerns the Hieroglyph project at Arizona State University,

Humanity’s lack of a positive vision for the future can be blamed in part on an engineering culture that’s more focused on incrementalism (and VC funding) than big ideas. But maybe science fiction writers should share some of the blame. That’s the idea that came out of a conversation in 2011 between science fiction author Neal Stephenson and Michael Crow, the president of Arizona State University.

…

If science fiction inspires scientists and engineers to create new things–Stephenson believes it can–then more visionary, realistic sci-fi stories can help create a better future. Hence the Hieroglyph experiment, launched this month as a collaborative website for researchers and writers. Many of the stories created on the platform will go into a HarperCollins anthology of fiction and non-fiction, set to be published in 2014.

Here’s more about the Hieroglyph project from the About page,

Inspiration is a small but essential part of innovation, and science fiction stories have been a seminal source of inspiration for innovators over many decades. In his article entitled “Innovation Starvation,” Neal Stephenson calls for a return to inspiration in contemporary science fiction. That call resonated with so many and so deeply that Project Hieroglyph was born shortly thereafter.

The name of Project Hieroglyph comes from the notion that certain iconic inventions in science fiction stories serve as modern “hieroglyphs” – Arthur Clarke’s communications satellite, Robert Heinlein’s rocket ship that lands on its fins, Issac Asimov’s robot, and so on. Jim Karkanias of Microsoft Research described hieroglyphs as simple, recognizable symbols on whose significance everyone agrees.

…

While the mission of Project Hieroglyph begins with creative inspiration, our hope is that many of us will be genuinely inspired towards realization.

This project is an initiative of Arizona State University’s Center for Science and Imagination.

It’s great seeing this confluence of thinking about science fiction, innovation, and science. I’m pretty sure we knew this in the 19th century (and probably before that too) and I just hope we don’t forget it again.

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Café Scientifique Vancouver (Canada) takes centre stage with Michael Kobor

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

Moving out of the back room to the centre stage at The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. at Seymour St., Vancouver, Canada), the next Café Scientifique Vancouver talk will be given by Michael Kobor on Tuesday, Apr. 30, 2013 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the talk description, from the announcement,

A Dialogue in Epigenetics: How Does the Environment Get Under Our Skin?

The scientific community has known for some time that both genetics and the environment influence our health and well-being. While extensive research has focused on how our genes affect health outcomes, environmental factors have had less attention. Now a new area of research, known as epigenetics, is expanding upon our knowledge of the human genome. Epigeneticists study how our environment can have a long-term impact on the activity of our genes. Of particular concern to health researchers are the effects of socioeconomic conditions on children, and how early life stress may impact individuals and their genes down the road. Dr. Michael Kobor and his research team make use of recent advances in technology to study this interface between genetics and environment. And it is becoming clearer that what’s written in our DNA is only part of the story. Neither ‘nature,’ nor ‘nurture’ alone, is entirely one’s fate.

Kobor has his own lab (Kobor Lab) at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, here’s more from his bio page,

Genes can be influenced by the environment, which means our lifestyle can impact the expression of our genes. Epigenetics is the field that studies the relationship between our environment and our genes.

“Epigenetics is a very important component for studying human health,” says Dr. Kobor. “There is increasing evidence that epigenetic modifications are altered in a variety of diseases, such as cancer, and neurodegenerative disease.”

….

MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS & PUBLICATIONS

UBC Faculty of Medicine, Distinguished Achievement Award for Excellence in Basic Science Research – 2012

Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Early Career UBC Scholar – 2012

Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar Award – 2005

Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Scholar Award – 2006

Kobor MS, Archambault J, Lester W, Holstege FC, Gileadi O, Jansma DB, Jennings EG, Kouyoumd- jian F, Davidson AR, Young RA, Greenblatt J. An unusual eukaryotic protein phosphatase required for transcription by RNA polymerase II and CTD dephosphorylation in S. cerevisiae. Molecular Cell. 1999 Jul;4(1):55–62.

Kobor MS, Venkatasubrahmanyam S, Meneghini MD, Gin JW, Jennings JL, Link AJ, Madhani HD, and Rine J. A Protein Complex Containing the Conserved Swi2/Snf2-Related ATPase Swr1p Deposits Histone Variant H2A.Z into Euchromatin. PLoS Biology. 2004 May; 2(5):E131.

Given the description for the talk is free of jargon (unless you consider “DNA” and “epigenetics” to be jargon), I would expect the talk itself to follow suit.

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Canada’s National Film Board launches Space School for 11 – 15 year olds and TRIUMF celebrates award-winning photo

Monday, April 22nd, 2013

Exciting news from the National Film Board of Canada arrived in my mailbox this morning (Monday, Apr. 22, 2013),

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) have teamed up to create NFB Space School, a free and fun interactive learning experience for families and classes alike that engages young Canadians in the wonders of space exploration by giving them their own front-row seat to CSA Astronaut Chris Hadfield’s historic mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Designed for youth between the ages of 11 and 15, NFB Space School helps kids discover more about space, science, technology and leadership, reigniting a wonder about our universe through cutting-edge interactive features.

The out-of-this-world new website will blast off with an online launch from Halifax’s Discovery Centre, featuring a 20-minute Q&A with Commander Hadfield, the first Canadian to command the ISS, via a live downlink from 12:10 p.m. to 12:30 p.m., Atlantic Time [8:10 - 8:30 am PDT]. Commander Hadfield will answer questions from Halifax-area school children and media while he orbits the Earth aboard the ISS. [This event has occurred.]

NFB Space School is launching with two modules, Mission and Leadership, featuring exclusive footage of Hadfield training for his historic mission, along with interactive videos and quizzes. The site will be updated with new modules on such subjects as astronomy, history and astrobiology.

Available in both English and French, NFB Space School is also ideal for classroom use, with additional educational resources available through the NFB’s subscription-based educational portal, CAMPUS, in September 2013.

NFB Space School is a unique partnership between the NFB, one of the world’s leading digital content hubs and Canadian pioneer in online streaming for educators, and the CSA, committed to leading the development and application of space knowledge for the benefit of Canadians and humanity. Paul McNeill is the creative lead and producer of NFB Space School. Graham MacDougall is the interactive strategist, with interactive design, development and programming by Halifax-based web developers theREDspace. Ravida Din is the executive producer for the NFB. NFB Space School was developed and produced by the NFB’s Atlantic Centre in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

To learn more about the Expedition 34/35 mission and the CSA’s activities, visit Chris Hadfield’s Astronaut Mission page. For up-to-the-minute updates, follow the Canadian Space Agency and Chris Hadfield on social media.

I was a little disappointed I didn’t receive the announcement a little sooner as I would have liked to view the livestream interview with Hadfield. It’s easy to forget just how big Canada is and that four hour time difference really has an impact when you’re on the ‘wrong’ end of the country.

It was a great idea to launch the school with a live event with Hadfield communicating from the space station. Unfortunately, there’s no follow through on the rest of the website.  For two suggestions/examples. (a) An ‘explorer’  doesn’t get to amass enough points answering the quizzes to perhaps get a special session with Hadfield or someone else on the space station. (b) There aren’t any projects where a student could create their own space film and submit it for a contest. In all, this interactive site is curiously unidirectional. Information is pumped out and the participant/student answers quizzes, very much like school.  In the end, the Space School seems to be designed more for teachers than explorers of all ages (but especially those from the ages of  11 to 15). Anyway, it’s early days yet for the school and hopefully there are already some changes being planned.

Now, here’s a bit of news from the pacific end of the country. TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for nuclear and particle physics, has been recognized with a second place standing in an international photography exhibition, the second Global Particle Physics Photowalk. From the TRIUMF Apr. 19, 2013 news release,

TRIUMF is pleased to announce and congratulate local contestant Andy White, a 3rd year Visual Arts student at UBC from North Vancouver, who was awarded 2nd place in the juried competition for his winning photo of TIGRESS.
…
Along with studying art and photography at school, Andy is also a competitive Javelin thrower on the varsity track & field team. His spirited nature served him well in this competition. “I come from quite an Arts-based background and really don’t have much involvement with science, yet I have always been fascinated by technology so I was eager to get involved. This would be my first time visiting TRIUMF and I had no idea what to expect,” explained Andy.

What he found during his visit to TRIUMF was TIGRESS, a nuclear physics spectrometer, in the ISAC-II building. This equipment allows researchers to study the structure of the nucleus and the forces that hold it together by analyzing rare nuclear reactions.

“What drew me to TIGRESS was its element of fine craftsmanship, colour and shape. I chose to photograph it symmetrically and end-on to reveal these features as they were best presented,” said Andy.

Greg Hackman, research scientist at TRIUMF, is responsible for the operation and maintenance of TIGRESS. “This is a gamma-ray detector designed for nuclear structure experiments and specifically to make optimal use of ISAC,” says Greg. “The function entirely drove the form.”

Andy muses, “It was great connecting the arts with science, and this photowalk offered me a unique challenge to present technology in a creative way. What is most fascinating is our human capability to create such instruments, and this is what I intended to bring forward in my images.”

To decipher the science behind TIGRESS, as displayed in Andy’s photo, Science Division Head Reiner Kruecken explains, “Instruments like TIGRESS allow us to peak into the femto-world of the atomic nucleus and deduce what is happening in this otherwise invisible world which is only the size of one millionth of a millionth of a millimeter. What you see in the photo from inside to outside are Germanium crystals and two layers of so-called BGO shield detectors. These shield detectors look toward the center of the array where we induce nuclear reactions and show us something about the structure and dynamics in atomic nuclei.”

Just as physicists are enticed by symmetries in nature as they unleash mysteries of the universe, photographers are drawn to symmetries in their subjects as they create alluring images to captivate their audience.

Here’s White’s award-winning photograph,

Credit: Andy White

Credit: Andy White

Interactions.org, one of the event organizers, has provided more detail about this international event in an Apr. 18, 2013 news release,

In September 2012, hundreds of amateur and professional photographers had the rare opportunity to explore and photograph accelerators and detectors at particle physics laboratories around the world.

…

In the InterActions Physics Photowalk, ten of the world’s leading particle physics laboratories offered special behind-the-scenes access to their scientific facilities:

Brookhaven National Laboratory
 (New York, USA)
Catania National Laboratory
 (Catania, Italy)
Chilbolton Observatory
 (Hampshire, UK)
Daresbury Laboratory
 (Cheshire, UK)
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
 (Illinois, USA)
Frascati National Laboratory
 (Frascati, Italy)
Gran Sasso National Laboratory
 (Gran Sasso, Italy)
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
 (Oxfordshire, UK)
TRIUMF
 (Vancouver, Canada)
United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre
 (Edinburgh, UK)

Participating photographers submitted thousands of photos for local competitions. Each laboratory selected local winners, and advanced these top photographs to two global competitions. [emphasis mine]

More than 1,250 photography enthusiasts voted online to name the global people’s choice winners. [emphasis mine] Nino Bruno’s photograph of a tunnel connecting the underground halls of INFN’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory garnered the most votes, followed closely by Enrique Diaz’s side view of the STAR detector at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Steve Zimic’s photograph of the tunnel that houses Brookhaven’s RHIC accelerator.

…

A panel of international judges also selected three winners. [emphasis mine] The judges—photographers Stanley Greenberg from the United States, Roy Robertson from the United Kingdom, Andrew Haw from Canada and Luca Casonato from Italy—awarded the top prize to Joseph Paul Boccio’s detailed photograph of the KLOE detector at INFN’s Frascati National Laboratory, second prize to Andy White’s photo capturing the color and symmetry of the TIGRESS detector at the Canadian laboratory TRIUMF, and third prize to Helen Trist’s photograph of data storage at the UK’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. [emphasis mine]

There are prizes for the winners,

The winning photographs will be featured in upcoming issues of the particle physics publications the CERN Courier and symmetry and the Italian popular science magazine Le Scienze. The participating laboratories will also feature the global winners and their local Photowalk selections in temporary exhibits.

I wonder if White and other local contestants will be have their photos displayed not just in Vancouver (Canada) where TRIUMF is located but perhaps also at some of the member institutions across the country.

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Chemistry of opera

Friday, April 19th, 2013

Kate Yandell has written a thoroughly fascinating article about opera and chemistry (Atoms and Arias) for the Mar. 23, 2013 issue of The Scientist,

In a paper published earlier this year (January 14) in the Journal of Chemical Education, André [João Paulo André], who is now a professor at the University of Minho in Portugal, described his strategy for exploring the links between chemistry and opera for educational purposes.

According to André, the pairing is a natural one, as opera actually chronicled the heady, early days of chemical discovery. Joseph Haydn’s Der Apotheker (also known as Lo Speziale) and Gaetano Donizetti’s one-act opera, Il Campanello, for example, both featured pharmacists as main characters. In 1768, as Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier, and Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who would eventually discover oxygen, were immersed in their chemical labors, Haydn debuted Der Apotheker, a story about competition and love that plays out in the pharmacy. “There was something in the air. Chemistry was coming to be called a modern science,” Andé says. Il Campanello was first performed publicly in 1836, a time when many natural compounds were being isolated. It includes songs about long, complicated prescriptions. These “apothecary operas” illustrate the cultural pull chemistry used to have.

The researcher’s paper, published in the Journal of Chemical Education, has received worldwide interest. Meanwhile, Yandell’s article inspired this Mar. 24, 2013 posting on Les Vérités Scientifiques,

La constatation que nous livre l’auteur constitue-t-elle une surprise ? Non, car il en est de l’Opéra comme il en est de toute d’autre production artistique, littérature, peinture, musique : la mise en évidence d’une interpénétration entre l’actualité de  la science et l’art. Chaque époque de la société se reflète dans ce que choisissent d’exprimer ses différents acteurs ce qui permet de regarder efficacement derrière soi (cf l’exposition L’ange du bizarre. Le romantisme noir de Goya à Max Ernst au musée d’Orsay).

This is going to be a rough (very) translation and any errors are entirely mine,

The relationship between opera and chemistry should not be a surprise since opera like all the other artistic enterprises such as literature, painting, music always reflect the social and scientific interests of their own epochs as we can see in various venues, e.g. L’ange du bizarre: the dark romanticism of artists ranging from Goya to Max Ernst at the musée d’Orsay [in Paris].

As Yandell’s article notes others have observed a relationship between opera and chemistry (Links have been removed),

Jorge Calado, a retired Portuguese chemistry professor and an opera critic for the Portuguese newspaper Expresso, saw André’s talk and helped edit the Journal of Chemical Education paper. …

Calado published a book in Portuguese in 2011 whose title translates to Let There be Light! A History of Chemistry Through Everything, in which he tells the story of chemistry’s early roots through the lens of the arts and humanities, including opera.

He says that André’s paper made him want to write his own follow-up paper, and that he could think of even more examples of operas with connections to chemistry—from Jacques Offenbach’s Le Docteur Ox (1877), based on a story by science fiction writer Jules Verne, to John Adams’ Doctor Atomic (2005), which chronicles the creation of the atom bomb in Los Alamos.

Aside from the fact that it’s well worth reading, Yandell’s article is studded with opera videos that enhance the opera/chemistry relationships being described.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the research article,

Opera and Poison: A Secret and Enjoyable Approach To Teaching and Learning Chemistry by João Paulo André. J. Chem. Educ., 2013, 90 (3), pp 352–357 DOI: 10.1021/ed300445b
Publication Date (Web): January 14, 2013
Copyright © 2013 The American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

This article is behind a paywall.

The Feb. 14, 2013 posting on the Smithsonian blog offers a little more information about the project,

Any good opera needs a dramatic twist, and death by poison and potions fits the bill. When a team of chemists took a closer look at the formulas behind these concoctions in 20 operas, they found 25 different natural and synthetic chemical materials featured. The researchers suggest that teachers use these poison plots to engage students with chemistry, and while opera isn’t exactly an easy sell with most teenagers, learning about death by deadly nightshade probably ranks higher for most than memorizing yet another chemical formula.

The Smithsonian posting also offers a few tidbits from beyond the article’s paywall.

I believe this is a case where a few people independently had similar ideas as there is a professor in Germany who has also combined chemistry and opera although he has turned to performance. Professor Dr. Gerald Linti, at Heidelberg University has been staging musical chemistry experiments since 2004 if I’ve properly understood the German on his Special Events webpage,

  • Lange Nacht im Schloss (März 2004)

  “Chemie und Oper für Jedermann: Tannhäuser”

More recently (2009), Linti produced a Puccini night as part of his ongoing Chemistry and Opera series,

Under the title “Turandot’s Three Chemical Riddles” Gerald Linti, professor at Heidelberg University’s Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, and his students will be giving another demonstration of their legendary skill in the musical staging of chemical experiments at 6 p.m. on 26 June 2009.

He seems to have followed that up with a 2011 opera night at a conference titled, Modeling Molecular Properties, according to an Oct. 11, 2011 article by Sarah Miller for Chemistry Views,

The first day concluded with the spectacular “Chemistry and Opera” arranged by Professor Gerald Linti, University of Heidelberg. This demonstrated the beauty and fun of chemistry as Linti told the story of a Chinese Princess while his assistants performed chemistry experiments in time to live opera.

This sounds like a restaging of ‘Turandot’s Three Chemical Riddles’ from 2009. Here’s one of the images which illustrates Miller’s article,

[Downloaded from: http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/1371029/Modeling_Molecular_Properties_and_Opera.html]

[Downloaded from: http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/1371029/Modeling_Molecular_Properties_and_Opera.html]

Maybe it’s time for a new ‘chemistry’ opera. Any takers?

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The best atomic movie ever from the University of Toronto (Canada)

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

To date, the real-time video, recorded by scientists from the University of Toronto, of atoms undergoing a transformation to become a new structure offers the best resolution yet, according to an Apr. 18, 2013 news item on Azonano,

“It’s the first look at how chemistry and biology involve just a few key motions for even the most complex systems,” says U of T [University of Toronto] chemistry and physics professor R. J. Dwayne Miller, principal investigator of the study. “There is an enormous reduction in complexity at the defining point, the transition state region, which makes chemical processes transferrable from one type of molecule to another. This is how new drugs or materials are made.”

Miller, who holds a joint appointment as director of the Max Planck Research Group for Structural Dynamics at the Centre for Free Electron Laser Science, conducted the research with colleagues from institutions in Germany and Japan. He says nature uses this reduction principle at transition states to breathe life into otherwise inanimate matter.

…

“The first atomic movies were very grainy, much like the first motion pictures,” says Miller. “The new movies are so clear one could dare say they are becoming beautiful to behold, especially when you remember you are looking at atoms moving on the fly. We’ve captured them at an incredibly fast rate of less than 1 millionth of a millionth of a second per frame.”

In the Apr. 17, 2013 University of Toronto news release, which originated the news item, Miller provides a description of the complexity,

To help illuminate what’s going on here,  Miller explains that with two atoms there is only one possible coordinate or dimension for following the chemical pathway. With three atoms, two dimensions are now needed. However, with a complex molecule, it would be expected that hundreds or even thousands of dimensions would be required to map all possible trajectories of the atoms.

“In this case, chemistry would be a completely new problem for every molecule,” says Miller. “But somehow there is an enormous reduction in dimensions to just a few motions, and we are now able to see exactly how this works at the atomic level of detail.”

Mapping molecular motions -- the "magic" of Chemistry revealed. Despite the enormous number of possible arrangements of atoms during a structural transition, such as occurs with changes in charge distribution or chemical processes, the interconversion from one structure to another reduces to a few key types of motions. This enormous reduction in dimensionality is what makes chemical concepts transferable from one molecule to another and has enabled chemists to synthesize nearly any molecule desired, for new drugs to infusing new material properties. This movie gives a direct atomic level view of this enormous reduction in complexity. The specific trajectories along 3 different coordinates, as highlighted in the movie, are shown as projections (right view) on a cube. The key atomic motions can be mapped on to 3 highly simplified coordinates -- the magic of chemistry in its full atomic splendour. Credit: Lai Chung Liu, University of Toronto

Mapping molecular motions — the “magic” of Chemistry revealed. Despite the enormous number of possible arrangements of atoms during a structural transition, such as occurs with changes in charge distribution or chemical processes, the interconversion from one structure to another reduces to a few key types of motions. This enormous reduction in dimensionality is what makes chemical concepts transferable from one molecule to another and has enabled chemists to synthesize nearly any molecule desired, for new drugs to infusing new material properties. This movie gives a direct atomic level view of this enormous reduction in complexity. The specific trajectories along 3 different coordinates, as highlighted in the movie, are shown as projections (right view) on a cube. The key atomic motions can be mapped on to 3 highly simplified coordinates — the magic of chemistry in its full atomic splendour.
Credit: Lai Chung Liu, University of Toronto

Unfortunately, I was not able to successfully bring over the movie but you can try accessing it from here.

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Three Canadian subatomic physics powerhouses invite graduate students to apply for summer 2013 TRISEP in Vancouver (Canada)

Friday, April 12th, 2013

It’s not the first time I’ve been puzzled by a TRIUMF (Canada’s National Particle and Nuclear Physics Laboratory) news release but now I have to break my silence: please, please hire me or someone else or anyone else to help you write these things. Putting the reason (or call to action) for the news release in its last line at the very end is not good practice.

Particle physics graduate students from anywhere in the world are invited to apply for an opportunity to attend the Tri-Institute Summer School on Elementary Particles (TRISEP) sponsored by Canada’s big three subatomic physics research institutions, TRIUMF, Perimeter Institute (PI), and SNOLAB.

From TRIUMF’s Apr. 12, 2013 news release,

… master the pioneering topics of collider physics, neutrino physics, dark matter, Monte-Carlo simulation, and physics beyond the Standard Model.

The new international summer school is convened by Canada’s three subatomic physics powerhouses: TRIUMF in experimental particle physics, Perimeter Institute in theoretical physics, and SNOLAB in deep underground physics. Taken together, these three institutions not only give Canada a competitive advantage on the world stage, but they also give international students an opportunity to learn about and then pursue the hottest science topics with
some of the leaders.

One of the incentives for attending, according to the news release, is this,

A recent independent analysis by the Council of Canadian Academies showed that Canada is one of the world’s top six national performers in terms of physics and astronomy (driven by particle and nuclear physics) as measured by bibliometric analysis and surveys of international scientists.

I’m not quite as impressed by that assessment as the folks at the ‘big three’ since there are problems with bibliometric analysis in general which I noted in part of two of my commentary on the report (The State of Science and Technology in Canada, 2012 report—examined (part 2: the rest of the report).

I find this bit from the TRISEP home page (Note: Some links have been removed) a little more exciting,

TRISEP will feature lectures by leading experts in the field of particle physics and is designed to be very interactive with ample time for questions, discussions and interaction with the speakers. Students will also have the opportunity to present a poster describing their research topic. The summer school can also be taken for graduate course credit, more details are available here

The key note speaker will be Hitoshi Murayama, UC Berkeley/Kavli IPMU

Lecturers at the summer school include:
Richard Baartman, TRIUMF
André de Gouvêa, NorthWestern University
Ashutosh Kotwal, Duke University
Heather Logan, Carleton University
Tsuyoshi Nakaya, Kyoto University
Scott Oser, University of British Columbia
Torbjörn Sjöstrand, Lund University
Tim Tait, University of California, Irvine
Viktor Zacek, Université de Montréal

The deadline for applications as listed on the TRISEP home is Friday, June 1, 2013, which is a little confusing since June 1, 2013 is on a Saturday. Presumably you should have your application submitted by Friday, May 31, 2013.

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