Citizen scientists are contributing more and more these days to exciting scientific projects, giving those who don’t practice it for a living but love it anyway a chance to satisfy their geeky cravings.  If this describes you, and if you like astronomy, head on over to The Galaxy Zoo and get started. The project needs volunteers to help them classify about a quarter of a million galaxies they have imaged during the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The galaxies are beautiful, your brain is the best instrument they can use, and you will be making a great contribution to science. What are you waiting for?

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CNN has a nice little article on backyard scientists, their growing ranks and their ability to contribute to science through the use of simple, modern devices such as a mobile phone with a camera and access to the internet.  Of particular note, is the mention of two projects which utilize willing citizen scientists, the Encyclopedia of Life (one of Zeitgeistland’s beloved projects) and Project Budburst. The first has the ‘humble’ goal of cataloging all life on Earth and giving each species its own webpage. It’s amazing, that’s all I can say, and not to be missed. They even have a flickr group page through which you may submit your own scientifically interesting photos, Encyclopedia of Life Flickr Group. The second is called Project BudBurst, and is a site devoted to encouraging citizen scientists to report their observations of a list of plant species across the continental United States.

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The Bush administration is now infamous for its efforts at suppressing and censoring science. This is bad for all of the obvious reasons, and we can only hope that this horrible trend can be stopped, and the damage inflicted be remedied. Information, data and scientific results must be free from political attack, or we in the United States will suffer greatly in this modern world. Hear this, President-to-be, it will be one of your most important mandates.

• Governmental Science Suppression

• The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney

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Well, when they said that the 21st century was going to be all about biology, they weren’t kidding. It seems that a team of 17 scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute have created the first synthetic bacterial genome. The largest to-date man-made DNA structure was created “by synthesizing and assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0″. This bacterium was chosen because it has the smallest genome that can be grown in a pure culture. Before Thursday’s press announcement, the largest synthesized DNA structure had 32,000 base pairs. The basic process they followed had several steps and began with resequencing the bacterium’s genome, just to make sure it was accurately known. They then designed fragments of chemically synthesized DNA “to build 101 “cassettes” of 5,000 to 7,000 base pairs of genetic code”. The synthetic fragments of the bacterium were distinguished from the real thing by watermarks inserted into the synthetic sequences. The processes thereafter involved stitching these fragments until all 582,920 base pairs were joined together. Their next goal is to incorporate the synthetic DNA sequence into a cell, and thereby create the first synthetic life form.

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As a scientist, I have of course followed the evolution of global warming‘, or now, ‘climate change’ for many years. Before it became politicized, not many people even knew about it, or took it seriously. These days, many people have an opinion, and I can say for certain, that and $5 will buy you a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, most don’t bother to actually read any actual scientific journal articles to really back up their opinion, one way or the other, and instead base it on politics. You know the drill, those who don’t like Al Gore, don’t ‘believe’ in climate change. Well, I for one am tired of people saying they don’t ‘believe’ in climate change. It’s not a religion to be believed in, it’s science, and the only way to arrive at a conclusion worth anything is if you do your homework. That means reading papers and thinking, and then you are entitled to your opinion, but that doesn’t guarantee that you are correct.

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Archaeologists have discovered the earliest evidence of human ritual, with events having taken place up to 100,000 years ago. That is about 60,000 years earlier than evidence for ancient European rituals.

• Evidence for Very Early Human Ritual

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As a scientist, I have always lamented the huge communication gap between scientists and the public. Even here in Columbus, Ohio, it is sometimes difficult to believe that there is a major research university in town. I think the local paper, ‘The Columbus Dispatch’, should have one article about the University every day. It wouldn’t be difficult, I’m sure the University would love to cooperate to get some good publicity, and once things got started, students and faculty would be contacting them to publicize their latest findings and projects. It would be great! The Ohio State University is, after all, the biggest employer in the city of Columbus, so, there should be no shortage of article opportunities for the paper. Anyway, some scientists have been thinking in a similar fashion, and have decided that one good way to get the science straight out to the public would be via an internet site similar to YouTube, only the material would be all science, all the time. Read on.

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Ok, this stuff is pretty far out there, but, why not think about it? And of course, a good handful of scientists do. This article relates, and very well I might add, the details of a paper concerning the observation of dark energy and its possible effect on cosmology, the fate of the Universe. The authors apparently try to extend the concept of power-law metastable quantum states, proven to be correct over exponential ones in the 1950s, to quantum field theory. The paper isn’t peer-reviewed, but a copy can be found on the following link

• arXiv.org

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I love garlic. I cook with it on a daily basis, but apparently I still have a few things to learn about the stuff. I’ve heard that it was supposed to be good for you, but I don’t think the scientific reasons have been definitively understood. Well, here is another study to add to the list. It claims that garlic boosts our body’s natural supply of hydrogen sulfide, which acts as an antioxidant and helps to relax blood vessels and therefore enhance blood flow. The study involved amounts of garlic that, if translated to your diet, would equal about two cloves. For me, that is the bare minimum for lots of my dishes. And actually, if cooked (say, with onions), before added to dishes, it greatly reduces or eliminates the heartburn that can occur when the garlic is raw. I don’t suffer any gastronomic challenges from garlic. Interestingly, in countries such as Italy, China and Korea, consumption can be as high as 12 cloves per individual. Wee. One more thing that I learned from this article was that, in order to enhance the benefits of garlic, it should be cut at room temperature and allowed to sit for about 15 minutes or so, in order for the enzymatic reactions to occur which produce the health-inducing compounds.

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The EPA has released a tool that shows pollution emissions using Google Maps. You can trace sources and amounts of carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide in your area. Examples of point sources that can be identified through the EPA maps are:

* Cement Facilities
* Chemical Manufacturing
* Electric Generating Units
* Natural Gas Pipelines
* Oil and Gas Production
* Petroleum Refineries
* Pulp & Paper Industries

Go and seek out your pollution nemeses.

• EPA Google Earth Emissions Tool

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