The sunny side of brain research

It seems some researchers attempting to investigate the regions of the brain activated when people think of emotional events ran into a bit of a road block.  People could recall both positive and negative events from their past, but when it came to imagining their future, the average person is almost incapable of imagining an unpleasant outcome.  It’s called the optimism bias, and the researchers instead decided to investigate the regions of the brain that are activated when humans imagine positive events in the future. 

The research showed that a brain region known as the anterior cingulate cortex was active when people thought about positive things happening in their futures.   That finding correlated nicely with other work showing that this area was not as active in people suffering from depression, who tend to view the world in a more pessimistic light.

Personally, I’d be interested to see if this could shed some light on the brain mechanisms of compulsive gamblers.  What other reason could someone possibly find to sit on their ass feeding a slot machine all day than an over-active anterior cingulate cortex helping them imagine a jackpot in their future?

Nobel PR Prize

An unfortunate consequence of my being busy tutoring second year organic chemistry students to prepare them for their upcoming exam is that I haven’t had much free time to do much blogging, lately.

One major happening since my last post is that Al Gore has been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  While it may be encouraging that the Nobel committee wants to reinforce the message Gore and the IPCC are trying to get out, it may also, in a sense, be a little premature to award them at this stage. 

The problem I see developing out of giving Gore the Nobel Prize is an even greater backlash towards Gore and his message than he already is receiving.  In most fields, receiving the Nobel prize increases the credibility and stature of the work of the recipients, but I’m not sure that holds for the peace prize.  More than any of the other Nobel awards, the peace prize is perceived as simply a political gesture.  And it’s hard to argue that bestowing the honour on Gore and the IPCC is anything but.  

More importantly, receiving the Nobel Peace prize doesn’t strengthen the scientific arguments behind the warnings issued by Gore and the IPCC.  I don’t know what it will take to make the doubters finally accept that climate change is occurring and it is exacerbated by man-made greenhouse gas emissions, but I’m pretty certain giving Gore the peace prize won’t help to change their minds.

In fact, one reason Gore and the IPCC may not be worthy of the award is that, despite their efforts, there still seems to be widespread skepticism about climate change.  Just last week, a man in Britain claimed a moral victory in his case to keep Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, out of highschool classrooms.  While schools will be allowed to show the film, the corresponding literature will have to make it perfectly clear that the film is presents a political point of view.

This brings me to an inconvenient admission:  I’ve never seen this film.  So, anyone reading this who has seen the film, let me know; is it hyperbolic propaganda for an environmentalist agenda or is it a rational discussion of the threat of climate change and what we can do to reduce its impact?  

Unions, politics and a wee, little bit of science

During the current election campaign here in Ontario, the Power Worker’s Union has placed advertisements in the paper saying they have a better plan for generating electricity in Ontario than the current government.

You see, the current government (who are likely to be our next government in a couple of days) wants to reduce electricity use and increase supply from other, cleaner sources so that by 2014 it can close our coal-fired generating stations.

Since that would mean a loss of jobs, the union has come out swinging, arguing Ontario should invest in clean coal technology.  Their argument in favour of coal can be found here.  I don’t mind that they want to look out for the best interest of their members, and I don’t doubt for a second there are ways to make the burning of coal a cleaner way to generate electricity, but isn’t that really just polishing a turd? 

Current clean coal technology may drastically reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions, but it doesn’t do much for the amount of carbon dioxide it produces.  And if it weren’t for the growing concern over global warming, there wouldn’t even be an issue about burning coal for electricity.

However, the real problem with the entire discussion is the fact that nobody wants to move beyond burning stuff to generate electricity.  It’s so primitive, there has to be a better way!  Setting something on fire, to generate heat, to generate steam, to turn a turbine is highly inefficient in energy terms.  It doesn’t matter what you burn, it wastes a lot of energy. 

I don’t care that coal is cheap and abundant, that shouldn’t prevent us from developing ways to generate electricity that are both cleaner and more efficient from the outset.  Our focus shouldn’t be on researching ways to make burning coal a more palatable option, it should be on developing technologies that don’t rely on burning whatever we decide is acceptable to burn, whether it’s coal, gas, garbage or wheat (shouldn’t we be eating that instead?).

What I’d really like to see is solar power being properly developed so it can take it’s rightful place among our electricity-generating options.  You have to wonder, if it didn’t compete with the interests of so many powerful organizations like the PWU and coal and gas producers, would it be a part of electricity generation now?   

Awash in baloney

I get a lot of my news from the stories highlighted on the Yahoo! Canada webpage, and this morning a particular headline caught my eye.  “Awash in toxic chemicals,” it read.  There’s a study recently published in Environmental Research that attributes 25,000 Canadian deaths per year to health issues associated with pollutants.  It sounds frightening, which is really its entire purpose.

The study was co-authored by environmental lawyer David Boyd, author of Unnatural Law and now a graduate student at UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (see the UBC press release here).  So, it’s written by an environmental crusader with a law degree, leaving it kind of lacking in scientific credibility.

But wait, the other author was Stephen Genuis of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta.  Dr. Genuis’ area of specialty – obstetrics and gynecology (go to the bottom).

This study is a joke; more an exercise in public relations than a determination of the real health costs associated with pollutants.  It’s beyond ridiculous to try and assess how many people are dying from respiratory illnesses, cancer and cardiovascular disease caused by exposure to environmental pollutants all in one fell swoop.  The fact that the actual study suggests the number lies between 10,000 and 25,000 tells you all you need to know (what would the error associated with that measurement be?).

There’s nothing to be learned from this study, and like I said in a previous post, it only generates skepticism or chemophobia.  On a lighter note, instances of chemophobia can make for an entertaining little news blurb. 

   

Of the smallest concern

The Project for Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars commissioned a poll that found the average American doesn’t really know what’s going on in the nanotechnology field.  It immediately occurred to me the best way to get the word out on these nano-advances was to write about some here.

First off, nano is just a metric prefix.  Most people are aware of kilo-, centi-, milli- in common measures of mass or distance.  Just like a millimetre is 1/1,000th of a metre, a nanometre is 1/1, 000, 000, 000th of a metre–very short.  A bond between two atoms is on the order of 0.1 – 0.3 nm.  So, when you are working on the nano-scale you are working with individual molecules or small assemblies of molecules that range from a few to several hundred nanometres in size.

Now, the big thing many people working in the field like to talk about is the potential for nanocomputers, where individual molecules are used to carry out the computing functions instead of the currently microscopic components of your computer today.  I think that’s kind of lame.

Personally, I think the potential for nanoparticles to deliver drugs is much more exciting.  For instance, in a recent report, researchers at the University of Texas write that by attaching insulin-containing liposomes (it’s like a small bag made of fat carrying insulin) to a blood sugar-sensing protein called concanavalin, this nanostructure can mimic the function of the pancreas.  They call it a smart particle, and it works because when it encounters glucose in the blood, the liposomes are replaced on the protein by the glucose and the insulin inside the liposomes is then released.  So, the more glucose there is in the blood, the more insulin gets released.

This study demonstrates that such a system works in rats, although they haven’t developed a version that could be put into clinical trials on humans as of yet.  Still, the potential benefits for diabetics would be enormous, inhaling a dose of these nanostructures daily replacing the multiple pricks and needles of blood testing and insulin injections.

And medically engineered nanoparticles can be used to do more than regulate doses of pharmaceuticals.  Earlier this year, researchers at enGene Inc. presented results from their studies aimed at using nanoparticles to introduce the insulin gene to patients with juvenile diabetes.  Using this technology, the gene is incoporated into specific cells in the stomach that would then take over the insulin production.  This treatment would eliminate the need for injections and would be more responsive to the spikes in blood sugar levels that occur after eating a meal.

So, now if some polling agency phones up and asks if you know of any applications of nanotechnology, you can say that you most certainly do!

Follow the money

The most instructive part of my time in journalism school was the first six weeks of print training.  During this time, the instructor who probably taught me the most about journalism and writing was Paul Benedetti.  One thing he didn’t teach me, however, was how to make money as a writer.  Apparently, a good way to do this is to write an “article” for a “magazine” published by the gas company; at least that’s what Paul did.

In the Fall/Winter 2007 edition of Besthings magazine, Paul writes about Ontario’s 20 year energy plan and the critical role natural gas will play in that process.  However, I was a little skeptical after reading the following line:

“And natural gas burns much cleaner, releases far less carbon dioxide and produces significantly less nitrogen oxide emissions and polluting elements than its counterparts, coal and oil.”

Now, the problem isn’t that this is necessarily untrue, but is it the whole truth?  They are blanket statements without any numbers to give you a frame of reference.  For instance, burning natural gas releases less carbon dioxide; does that mean that if you burn an equal mass of coal and natural gas you will get less CO2 from the natural gas? 

Fortunately, the Union of Concerned Scientists has an informative website where I turned to get some answers.  Turns out, natural gas produces 43 percent less carbon dioxide emissions per unit of electricity generated than does coal.  This statement leaves no room for questions or skepticism because they specifically relate the amount of carbon dioxide produced to the amount of electricity generated.

Since replacing a coal-fired electricity generation facility with one fueled by natural gas would actually result in a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, some may suggest my skepticism was misplaced.  Hogwash, I say!

Whenever you are faced with such generalized statements it is important to know exactly what is being claimed.  Take ethanol, for example.  One molecule of ethanol, when burned, produces two molecules of CO2.  Octane, when burned, produces eight molecules of CO2 — 4 times as much.  Someone might take that information and state that burning ethanol produces less carbon dioxide than octane.

However, on a per molecule basis, octane produces about 4 times the heat than does ethanol.  Clearly, simply burning ethanol in place of octane for the same purpose is not going to be as advantageous from a CO2 emissions perspective as the information in the preceding paragraph implies.  

Of course, I simply used the heats of combustion in my calculations and gasoline is also comprised of more components than just octane (a lot more!).  To really compare the CO2 emissions from ethanol to those from gasoline, it’s best to measure the carbon dioxide released per unit of energy produced.  It demonstrates how very specific the information needs to be before you really learn anything from it. 

I remember Paul lecturing our class on the importance of keeping your B.S. detector on when a source is presenting you with scientific facts.  That’s good advice for everyone, especially considering how many competing interests are trying to spin scientific data in their favour.

An Ice-Free Arctic?

The earth is warming, and the arctic is really feeling it.  Some would say it’s a bad thing.  Others would say, well, it’s still a bad thing but not as bad as previously thought, at least temporarily.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, we have already reached a new low for sea-ice extent in the arctic breaking the previous record set in 2005.  The actual area of ice in the arctic has also reached a new low, according to researchers out of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign while German researchers say the ice thickness is decreasing as well.

Alternatively, it seems the warming of the arctic is providing increasing area for vegetation to grow as the permafrost retreats.  While it was predicted thawing peatlands found in Canada and Siberia would lead to massive amounts of methane being generated by soil bacteria, new research suggests the increase in carbon consumption by the new vegetation would more than offset the amount of methane released.  However, it’s clearly too good to last.  Once the ground starts to dry up, the mosses and other water-loving plants of the peatlands will be replaced by plants better adapted to the drier climate, and these plants won’t consume nearly as much carbon.  

All in all, the future of the arctic is looking pretty bleak, especially from the perspective of the polar bear.  Or the Canadian taxpayer; if the Northwest Passage wasn’t opening up, we wouldn’t be wasting $7 billion on armed ice-breakers and a deep water military port to defend our claim. 

And all to grow bananas…

Some people, upon reading my previous post taking Environmental Defence to task for what I consider to be a lousy campaign to promote their cause, may believe that I am an apologist for polluters.  To remedy this potential misconception, I bring to you a story of the dangers of uncontrolled pesticide use.

In short, the use of pesticide chlordecone was banned on the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1993.  Banana producers continued to use it illegally until 2002.  Now, cancer specialist, Professor Dominique Belpomme, is to deliver a report to the National Assembly that says cancer and infertility are widespread on the islands as a result.  Belpomme calls it a ‘health disaster.’  Not surprisingly, the head of the Martinique and Guadeloupe Banana Producers Association dismisses the report calling it unscientific.

I haven’t seen Belpomme’s report, so I can’t comment on how ’scientific’ it may be.  However, a draft report for the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee on chlordecone suggests banning its use globally, noting economically viable alternatives exist.  Also, in a report published by the International Programme for Chemical Safety in 1984, it was noted that chlordecone was carcinogenic and interferes with reproduction in animals.  That doesn’t necessarily mean Belpomme’s assertions about the link between chlordecone use and cancer and infertility are correct, but it does lend some support to them.

What’s really troubling about this story is the fact they have to ban chlordecone, meaning it was produced and used on a large scale without our knowing what the impacts may be.  The scientific data in both the POPRC and IPCS reports don’t conclusively demonstrate chlordecone is a hazard, but the available data does raise a number of red flags, leaving one to wonder how this stuff was approved in the first place.  

I don’t know how rigourous the pesticide review process is here in Canada, but I certainly hope we’ve moved on from the ‘approve it now, ask questions later’ approach that once gave a green light to chlordecone. 

It stinks so sweet

One of the more controversial concepts in behavioural science is that attraction between two people may be chemical.  It may be hard for people to admit that they do not have complete conscious control over who they are attracted to.  Well, a recent study links a person’s genes to their perception of the smell of androstenone, making it a little harder for people to deny that the sense of smell plays a role in attraction. 

Androstenone is known to be a key mating pheromone for pigs, but whether it serves the same functions in humans is still up for debate.  What the current research demonstrates is that depending which variant of the androstenone receptor gene you have determines whether androstenone smells pungent, sweet or if you can even smell it at all.  It would certainly seem there would need to be a good reason (like determining attraction) for there to be such variations in how we perceive the scent of a single compound.  However, no matter how it may seem, there’s still research to be done to establish androstenone as a sex pheromone in humans.

In the end, any of the commentary I could provide about where these findings could lead pheromone research, I couldn’t think of anything better than the simple yet profound words of the single, 45-year-old neurobiologist Jeffry Isaacson:

“They’ve sure got to beat online dating.”

Amen to that, brother.

Environmentally Offensive

It’s election season here in Ontario, and apparently the rhetoric isn’t limited to politicians.  Environmental Defence, a group out of Toronto, released a study to raise awareness about pollution.  In the study, they screened blood, serum and urine samples from the leaders of the three major political parties in the province for 70 different environmental pollutants.  The major finding, as reported in the news, is that each leader had over 40 of these pollutants in their systems, which is higher than average.

The results show that if you inhale or ingest a chemical that is present in the air you breath or in the food you eat it, it can then be detected in your blood or urine.  For someone reading a typical news story about this study, there’s no other information given for them to consider.  You, and the politicians you elect, are loaded with toxic chemicals and you should be outraged, or afraid, or both.

However, outside of the fact that you have been exposed to these substances, what does finding pollutants in your system really mean?

“Most of us have some level of many environmental chemicals in our blood, so the critical question is whether the levels are sufficiently high to constitute a potential hazard,” Peter Wells, professor in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto said via e-mail.  

“There is an old saying in toxicology that “the dose makes the poison”,” he said.

While their report lists the concentrations for groups of chemicals found in each man’s sample, it doesn’t indicate whether they’re present at a high enough concentration to pose a significant health risk or even state at what concentration there would be a risk.  That’s the information necessary to add any real meaning to the results.

And for 28 of the 70 compounds, the tests were run on urine samples.  In an e-mail providing his personal opinion, Dr. Jack Bend of the Department of Pathology at the University of Western Ontario said if more than trace amounts (parts per billion) of the substance are found in the urine, it’s an indication the body has successfully dealt with that substance.

“It’s a process termed detoxication, and humans (and other animals) are well protected from chemical exposures,” said Dr. Bend.  

The results tell us that the three party leaders are full of toxins, yet all are relatively healthy men.  Are they effectively eliminating the pollutants they’re exposed to through their urine?  Or is it that the level of pollutants in their bodies hasn’t reached a sufficient concentration to create a health risk?  The report doesn’t give us that information and the message Environmental Defence is trying to send could be muddied by the fact these results don’t actually indicate there’s a reason to be concerned. 

Alternatively, Dr. Bend suggests that the lack of information the study provides leaves a void that can be filled only too readily by people’s imaginations.

“A potential problem is the anxiety such reports unnecessarily inflict on citizens who do not understand that trace amounts of toxic chemicals, while a concern, do not normally constitute a high risk.  In this way, such reports can fuel ”chemophobia”,” he said. 

Reducing our exposure to potentially toxic environmental contaminants is a laudable goal.  And the more public support you can generate, the better.  But, the best way to get the public on your side is to give them concrete examples.  It’s easy to get behind a ban on lawn pesticides when there’s credible evidence their use is associated with leukemia in children.  Releasing studies with meaningless numbers and ambiguous results is only good for generating fear or skepticism.