Biosensor with your iPhone

My first thought was that it is indeed a Brave New World when I read about this new app and attachment that can turn an iPhone into a spectrophotometer.  That thought was quickly replaced by how cool this will be for Citizen Scientists, for me in the classroom, and for really tough field conditions (like my work in Peru last summer where I would have loved to use this).

Work by female scientists gets judged more harshly

Disturbing.  Another challenge women in scientific careers face.  I am just reading this summary of the actual study, but it seems to be well designed.  

http://www.health24.com/Lifestyle/Woman/News/Work-by-female-scientists-gets-judged-more-harshly-20130422

"Did I mention Americans are heavily armed? Do my Second Amendment rights outweigh someone else’s LNT mythology?"

I have a new favorite blog.  Dr. James Conca, who we visited last week in Richland, is a scientist who is able to take a complicated issue like nuclear power and nuclear waste, which also has complicated regulatory and policy components and an added layer of public fear and mistrust, and distill it down into the important components.

He has compelling arguments for why the linear no threshold (LNT - something my ESCI 333 students should know about) is an inaccurate and overly burdensome approach to limiting risk from radioactive materials.  The implications sometimes of being overly protective can be beneficial, but in the case of radioactive materials, the fear can be more damaging.  Complicated issues, for sure, but important ones for all of us to understand...

Another blog to follow

My grad student Stephanie Eckard has a great scientific blog called tiny matters.  It is definitely worth checking out...

https://tinymatters.jux.com/

"I am a scientist. I'm not in a position to answer that question but I'd be happy to refer you to an appropriate spokesperson."

Oh boy. Now the oil sands.  It isn't surprising that this is a source of contamination, so I'm not sure why this needs to be hushed up. Not letting scientists talk about the results of their work is suspicious - I can see if they talk about policy, but not letting them talk about science????

PAH contamination from the Oil Sands

Snow contamination from the Oil Sands

Today, on Thanksgiving, I have new hope for becoming a better cook.  Cooking is chemistry!  (Thanks Marcia for cluing me into this :)  )

New Science Adventure

I am headed out of the country for a bit.  I've been invited to participate in the American Alpine Club sponsored Climber/Scientist program.  We'll be in the Cordillera Blanco mountain range in central Peru doing science.  I'll be collecting water samples to later analyze for metal contamination.  With some of the world's largest metal mines near these mountains, there is a fairly unique situation for non-volatile metals of anthropogenic origin being transported to high altitude systems.  This year is pilot scale and we hope to continue the work over the next few years.

I'll post periodic updates on my blog.  The American Alpine Club has some information at this page.

If you are on Facebook, you can like The American Climber Science Program and see updates from everyone.

Cheers,  Ruth

Field trip to Hanford and PNNL

We had a great field trip this week with several of the students from the Science and Management of Contaminated Sites (SMoCS) class.  It was ten hours round trip, 2 vans, and 1 night with tours of the PNNL labs and Hanford.  We saw Dr. Nik Qafoku's labs where different waste forms are investigated.  The waste forms are the different ways that waste can be stored.  Vitrification, for example, essentially turns the waste into glass - that is one waste form. We also saw the 300 Area IFRC Field Test Site.  This is a site with uranium contamination in the ground water that PNNL scientists are studying.  On the second day, we toured Hanford and saw Reactor B, the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility (another name for the landfill where all of the low level radioactive waste is going), the vitrification plant, and a pump and treat plant. Really neat to see the science behind all of this! 

Student Contributions to Wikipedia

This year, the final project in my Aquatic Toxicology class was a Wikipedia article.  The students wrote on many topics, listed below.  Feel free to go in and help improve them, but I think they turned out very nice and I am happy they were able to contribute!

Aquatic Toxicology
Bioconcentration Factor
Biotic Ligand Model
Effects Range Low and Effects Range Median
Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic Substances
Pollution Induced Community Tolerance

What is happening in Canada?

Wow.  I am still in shock by the extent of damage from the Harper administration.   I am finding the news on this spotty and hard to find, but the best source of recent events is Peter Ross's Opinion piece in Environmental Health News called Silent Summer.  The short of it is that Canada has fired all of their scientists in the Contaminants Research Program at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and is dismantling this program.  This is the program that investigates accumulated contaminants in marine mammals.  Odds are good that any scientific reports you've heard about flame retardants, PCBs, dioxins, etc. in the whales of British Columbia and Puget Sound came from Peter Ross's work. 

The loss of this scientific program and world class researchers is an enormous loss to the scientific community; their work was well designed and provided essential knowledge for protection of our marine mammals.  Perhaps as bad, this is only the tip of the iceberg for the Canadian and US environment (effects to the US are because we are downstream of Canada so we'll be affected by pollution crossing the international boundary).  Indications are that Harper's government is changing the Fisheries Act so that regulations on polluters into Canadian waters will be more "lax" (non-existent is a better description in what looks like many cases). 

Are our memories so short that we don't remember river's on fire?  Massive fish kills?  Water that people wouldn't swim in?  All of this because of unregulated pollution and not that long ago (early 1970's).  The environmental regulations like the Clean Water Act in the US and the Fisheries Act in Canada have been largely responsible for what we all take for granted now - clean water.  I haven't even started on what we know about humans eating fish from polluted waters... that is if they survive this war on the Canadian environment.

As a nation who is benefiting from this?  This is bad bad bad Canada.

Unbelievable.

Time-Lapse of Ocean Currents Looks Like a Living Van Gogh Painting

 One of my current students sent this - it is pretty neat...

The Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center created this beautiful animation called Perpetual Ocean which visualizes the ocean's surface currents over a 30-month period between June 2005 and December 2007.


Watch here:
http://gizmodo.com/5896376/time+lapse-of-ocean-currents-looks-like-a-living-van-gogh-painting

Great Video -

This video (Caught in a Bad Project) made the rounds at Eawag several months ago, and I dare say the song still gets stuck in my head on occasion. Anyone who has done a scientific research based graduate degree will find parts of this spot on. I particularly love what they used for the costumes - 10 ml pipette tips make up the bodice of one outfit with biohazard bags completing the skirt. The other is lovely compliment of absorbent lab bench pads... brilliant!