Film Consulting

I'm sure they do good work, can we please have more of this stuff?


http://www.hollywoodmath.com/index.htm

How hard would it be for almost every film to have a bona-fide science consultant? Even "low-budget" films have a pretty high sticker price. Not that they should be underpaid, but I'm sure a fair number of scientists would be willing to help out for far less than their market value as a consultant (a different sort of mini-sabbatical, for sure!). Bottom line, having a science consultant shouldn't affect the budget too much - why wouldn't you?

And for your extremely high budget pictures, don't skimp and just get one consultant. You don't skip on cameramen or costume designers. Far too many good movies, even movies with a heaping serving of science, are riddled with errors.

Protein Folding

I'm currently in the process of going through a monstrous stack of periodicals I've accumulated, including the magazine Physics Today, which comes with my APS membership.

This article by Ashley Smart is simply a research summary on experiments on proteins.

But Smart evoked a lot of thoughts about proteins. We need them to be folded correctly to work, but how are they folded? How is this the minimum energy state.

Smart's description of various denatured (unfolded) proteins reminded me a lot of the language used in the glass/jamming community. A fried egg consists of proteins denatured by heat. A similar transition happens for
"glassy" systems: raise the temperature and the material will flow.

Mechanical stress can cause also cause the protein in egg white to denature, resulting in a foamy, stiff, meringue. In jammed systems, like mayonnaise, mechanical stress (i.e. using a butter knife) causes the material to unjam (i.e. deform and spread on the sandwich).

The third variable discussed in the jamming community is volume fraction, which I won't delve into here. The third variable for the egg example is acidity, mixing egg whites with lime juice will also cause the proteins to denature. Completely different, can't win 'em all.

What also drew me into this simple piece was the description of the experiments. (Smart does a commendable job of trying to explain the math in words.) There are two processes that contribute to the overall signal the researchers measure, only one of which relates to protein folding. But if you change the temperature, each process responds on a vastly different timescale.Taking measurements at the right frequency and using a trick of derivatives, they can isolate the process of interest. An experiment like this would be a great lab in a biophysics class.

Hurricane Science

A good article about physics and hurricanes! I am also reminded of my article which emphasized the effects of storm surge rather than category (though the editors wanted to emphasize the forecast more that anything else). And indeed, surge was the issue with Sandy.

Dad can affect baby's health

I saw this blog post referencing an article I wrote for the Raleigh News & Observer.

 I really just wanted to make 3 comments on it:

1) The blog post really goes where I never ever expected it to go, which is why I had to share it.

2) The author uses my first name. It appears only women are prone to this infantilizing treatment. Yay.

3) It would have been really cool to have made this one research paper part of a longer story explaining epigenetics. I think a good percentage of newspaper readers (sadly not 100...) get genetics, and epigenetics would blow many of their socks off. If they are above a certain age (not very old!) they certainly wouldn't have learned it in high school and perhaps not even in college.

On a darker note

This is a refreshingly honest piece about adulthood and a scientific career.

 I think it points to a reason a lot of women leave academia. If you never felt welcomed in the first place, had to make more effort to network, and so on, leaving does not seem to be a weird proposition. It might easier for some women to throw their hands up and be done with it, just as its harder for them to stay in the game.

Writing the Great American....Textbook or Nonfiction book

I am extremely excited about the possibility of one day writing a book, so this post struck a chord, especially since it's specific to academics.

Rupert Murdoch is a Socialist?

Well, compared to academic publishers, according to this story from the Guardian. (Fuller version here. )

"Everyone claims to agree that people should be encouraged to understand science and other academic research. Without current knowledge, we cannot make coherent democratic decisions. But the publishers have slapped a padlock and a Keep Out sign on the gates.