Assorted Science Links (Jan 2020)

Pretty cool: instead of the usual Femtochemistry approach of trying to speed up equipment to study intermediate stages in chemical reactions, this team cooled it down to almost absolute zero to allow observation of the transient molecules:

"Using ionization spectroscopy and velocity-map imaging of a trapped gas of potassium-rubidium (KRb) molecules at a temperature of 500 nanokelvin, we directly observed reactants, intermediates, and products of the reaction ⁴⁰K⁸⁷Rb + ⁴⁰K⁸⁷Rb → K₂Rb₂ * → K₂ + Rb₂. "

Back in the 80s instead of getting science advice from celebrities we listened to scientists. When they said the ozone hole was a problem we all decided to make the necessary changes to fix it.

We are still feeling the benefits of this, from reduced UV causing less skin cancer to a partial mitigation of global warming.

On the other hand, some countries have started to ignore the CFC ban which fixed the ozone hole; northeast China is responsible for half of the global increase in CFC-11 emissions.

"The increase in CFC-11 emissions from eastern mainland China is likely to be the result of new production and use, which is inconsistent with the Montreal Protocol agreement to phase out global chlorofluorocarbon production by 2010."

Review of studies where participants had diets with rye vs without rye finds that the inclusion of rye had various minor health improvements (cholesterol, GI, weight loss, inflammatory markers).

As discussed, there is varying control for the effect of fibre or wholegrains in general - given that rye is higher in fibre than whole wheat - does the amount fully account for the increase, or are there specific beneficial components to rye fibre?

Depressing but exemplary case study of the risk of assuming "organic" is safer and better for you than "inorganic". A 47 year old Mexican-American woman used a skin-lightening cream containing (organic) methylmercury iodide on her face, eventually causing likely-permanent nerve damage.

"Two weeks into the hospitalization, screening blood and urine tests detected mercury concentrations exceeding the upper limit (UL) of quantification... [Over 500x normal] ... Despite prolonged chelation therapy, the patient remains unable to verbalize or care for herself, requiring ongoing tube feeding for nutritional support."

Another one with Cox and Goldacre, this could alternatively be "Science 101" or "Science vs Parascience". This should be compulsory reading/listening for anyone interested in science, engineering, sociology/economics or other parasciences.

Goldacre: "I think something interesting and important and dangeous happens when you try to use the tools of science to explore an area where your results are often different depending on the methodological approach that you take or simply because of the noise in the data... That acts as a cloak that protects people engaged in bad behaviour"

An old blog post/book chapter by Michael Shermer - does a good job of explaining how confirmation bias contributes to pseudoscientific beliefs; how teaching science as a database of facts (e.g. "Oxygen has 8 electrons") doesn't help students detect pseudoscience, and teaching how science works as a process is more important:

"To attenuate these paranormal belief statistics, we need to teach that science is not a database of unconnected factoids but a set of methods designed to describe and interpret phenomena, past or present, aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation."