http://www.ksat.com/news/texas/muslim-boy-14-arrested-for-making-clock-mistaken-for-bomb_

Sorta transcript:

A 14-year old Muslim boy was arrested in Texas this week for making his own clock and bringing it to school. As we all know, clocks are a necessary feature of all the bombs we see on television. If it weren’t for the clock part, we would have no idea how much time we have left to run away, or cut the green wire, or hacksaw our arm off.

The good news is that the boy, Ahmed Mohamed, is getting a huge outpouring of support from the Internet, including from President Obama who invited him to bring his clock to the White House. That’s probably not going to ease the minds of the Texas high school administrators, of course, since they probably think Obama is a Muslim, too, and so he probably just wants to examine the death clock to find out how to put them into large-scale production and use them to take away Texans’ guns. Somehow.

This is all reminiscent of Kiera Wilmot, the 16-year old black Florida girl who was arrested and expelled from school two years ago for creating an unapproved small chemical reaction in a science lab. The reaction caused a “pop” and a bit of smoke, for which the girl faced felony charges.

I know it’s a bit of a done trope to say “in my day,” but seriously. When I was in high school, a chemistry teacher let my friends write their names in a flammable liquid on their tables and then set it on fire. And as I mentioned in a previous video, just prior to my day, when kids could drink at 18, my biology teacher would let seniors brew beer for their final project.

Of course, we also had jarts, aka lawn darts, aka deadly projectiles that you were encouraged to hurl at your siblings for a fun summertime activity. And when I say “deadly” I’m not kidding. Children were murdered by them. Even our “girliest” toys were lethal: Easy Bake Ovens may as well have come with a recipe for baked children fingers, and they were especially deadly when combined with flammable Rainbow Brite sleeping bags. Oh, and of course there were those Snack Time Cabbage Patch Kids that looked like they were eating little plastic snacks, which was super cute until they turned on our very children and began trying to consume their tiny fingers and strands of hair.

Chuckie was a documentary, you guys.

I guess what I’m saying is that things weren’t necessarily better before we had safety regulations, and we shouldn’t be fooled into false nostalgia. But we do have to strive to maintain a really difficult balance, between keeping kids alive and giving them room to make mistakes. Or for Christ’s sake, at least room to make something that looks like a pipe bomb but absolutely obviously is not.

I mean, I’m a person who travels with the Quizotron machine, which looks as close to a bomb as you can get without having a clock attached. If I were a Muslim man, I’d never get through security.

And that brings me to the other bit of bad news in Ahmed’s story: the school followed up with a letter to all the district’s parents in which they didn’t apologize, but instead advised them to make sure their kids say something if they see something. Way to make the racial profiling worse, assholes! How about this: if you see something, ask what it is. Maybe you’ll learn something, like how to make a clock and how to not overreact and end up nearly ruining a kid’s life.

Links:

http://trowelblazers.com/rising-star-trowelblazers/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/09/10/a-new-human-ancestor-arises-from-the-depth-of-a-south-african-cave/

Sorta transcript:

If you’re anything like me, last week you woke up to the astonishing news that scientists discovered a new species of human in a cave in South Africa, and you thought Holy Christ, how did those people survive so long in that cave, how did no one realize they were in there, and most importantly, even though they’re a different species would it still be considered bestiality if we have sex with them?

And then, again, if you’re anything like me, you woke up a bit and read the article and realized that all the members of this new species have been dead for quite some time, so having sex with them would I guess be necrophilia. Or maybe osteophilia because they’re just bones.

Realizing they were dead was a bit of a downer, but then as I read more, the story got amazing again thanks to how these bones were discovered. The lead researcher, Lee Berger, was heavily criticized by others for staffing his Rising Star Expedition team with young and inexperienced researchers, and for finding the perfect team members by advertising on social media.

It made sense that he would cast a wide net, though, considering that the bones he needed to get were located deep inside a cave that required you to squeeze through a 7-inch diameter passageway and then another longer and more terrifying vertical and horizontal passageway that was about a foot in diameter, all 100 feet underground. So Berger needed a crew of archaeologists and paleontologists who were trained spelunkers and excavators who were tiny enough to fit through those passageways even while dragging their enormous metaphorical testicles. And as chance should have it, that entire team was made up of six truly badass women: Lindsay Eaves, Marina Elliott, Elen Feuerriegel, Alia Gurtov, Hannah Morris, and Becca Peixotto.

The huge number of bones brought back by these researchers are incredibly fascinating, because they show a species that complicates our evolutionary history, which is the most fun sort of scientific discovery you can make. The species is a mix of modern and ancient traits: it probably walked upright but also spent a lot of time in trees. It has front teeth like ours and back molars like our ancestors. It has a globular skull but a tiny little brain, which I will leave for you to make your own jokes, probably relating to presidential candidates or something.

And all this tells researchers that they need to be more careful at extrapolating from incomplete bones, because when you have the full set you may see that your specimen is very different from what you expected.

In other words, this expedition is some next level science, and so it’s particularly awesome that so many women will go down in history as having played an integral role in it. I know that if I had seen a story like this when I was a little girl, I would have been thrilled to know that my dream of being a mountain climbing ballerina scientist wasn’t as crazy as I was told. It’s too late for me, of course, but not for all the future mountain climbing ballerina scientists out there today.

My painting on the scent of roses is complete! The painting is 18"x24" and is acrylic on canvas.

Chemist, Dr Ray Burks was my science advisor on this project and one of the main points she expressed to me is that the volatile aroma chemicals in flowers, the stuff that we smell, is very complex. Something that we think of as a simple scent, such as rose is actually made up of multiple compounds that are often layered upon one another that then give us the familiar experience of what we recognize as "rose."

Some of these aroma chemicals are present in very small amounts and some in large amounts but it is almost never one single chemical that gives us that recognizable scent in flowers.

Another interesting fact about roses is that they have been cultivated by humans and have evolved in the wild in such a way that one rose will smell very, very different from another. And some roses will have no discernible scent at all! So the the famous quote by Shakespeare, "...a rose by any other name will smell as sweet." is not even remotely true from a scientific view. Depending on how many, and what aroma compounds are present, will make a rose smell very sweet, or maybe more like citrus or maybe more musky or maybe it just won't smell at all.

This new knowledge of the scent of roses can open you up to a greater appreciation of all the wonderful varieties of roses out there. Some roses have been bred for qualities such as color and some more for their scent. When you find one that smells in a way that pleases you, take note of the type of rose that is. The next rose you encounter may indeed be very, very different.

For this project I referenced the website Compound  Interest and used the aroma chemicals in my painting that they represented in this beautiful chart linked here to hopefully hint at the complexity of volatile aroma compounds in my piece of art.

The most notable being (-)-cis-rose oxide which has 4 isomers and is most recognizable (in extremely small amounts) to our nose as "rose."

The other aroma chemicals I included in the painting by the petals are beta-damascenone and beta-ionone but as I mentioned there are many other compounds that can be present and that can vary widely amongst different rose species. 

My science advisor made a wonderful 4 minute video that explains the way the scent of roses works and explains how many roses evolved, often with the help of humans, from the traditional Damask rose. I highly recommend you watch it to learn more! Here is that link.

Thanks to all my patrons who have supported this project. Next up is going to be some microbiology drawings that focus on viruses and bacteria! Yay science and art!

Link:

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/court-forces-non-religious-mom-to-get-therapy-from-bible-thumping-counselor-or-lose-custody-of-sons/

Sorta transcript:

A woman in Albuquerque was ordered by a court to get therapy from a religious nutcase, and when she refused to go the court took her children away.

First of all, kudos to New Mexico. Usually we see shit like this from Florida, maybe Texas...New Mexico tends to keep its head down and remain safely hidden in the middle of the pack when it comes to states doing shitty things.

Second of all, the good news is that the woman in question got her kids back, but only after gritting her teeth and returning to the religious nutcase therapist. Luckily for all of us, she didn’t give up so easily, and when she went back she took a tape recorder and got solid evidence that the therapist was saying things like “If you want to explore how God was in your past, how God was in your life and not in your life… I know you don’t believe in God which is fine but I know at some points he was in your life in some way.”

If a Christian was forced by a court to attend a therapy session where the therapist said “I know you don’t believe in Ganesh but I know at some points he was in your life in some way,” all of Albuquerque would be on fire right now. If the therapist was Muslim, Bill O’Reilly would have ejaculated live on Fox News.

It’s sad but true how easy it is to point out violations of separation of church and state using “the Muslim test.” I hate to play upon the fears many Christians have of Muslims, but it’s really the fastest and easiest way to convince them that they don’t want the government meddling in religious affairs.

This Albuquerque case reminds me of the huge problem we have in the US with Alcoholics Anonymous. I know a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts, and some of them have been helped by AA. But the fact of the matter is that AA is fundamentally religious in nature, requiring a belief in some higher power. Many people, atheist AA members included, apologize for this by claiming the higher power can be anything, not necessarily the Christian god. This bullshit is on the same level as those who try to justify government-sponsored public prayers by saying that all the nonbelievers can just sit quietly and have a moment of silence. AA is a fundamentally spiritual movement, which is totally fine for them.

The problem is that AA is often court-ordered punishment for people who commit crimes under the influence, and it’s often the only option available regardless of the alcoholic’s religious beliefs.

People shouldn’t have to dig into the history and tactics of the therapists they’re forced by a court of law to see. That should go without saying, but obviously the US needs to institute some serious quality control in the way we certify counselors who treat people. Rule #1: your religion has nothing to do with my recovery.

http://www.techinsider.io/global-warming-denier-studies-not-replicable-2015-9

Sorta transcript:

Remember how 97% of all climate scientists agree that climate change is real and is caused primarily by human activity? Have you ever wondered what’s up with the other 3%? What alternative hypothesis do they agree on?

It turns out, they don’t agree on much of anything, except for that they should do terrible experiments that can’t be replicated.

Seven scientists set out to replicate the most popular studies cited by people who don’t believe anthropogenic climate change is happening, and in a paper published recently in Theoretical and Applied Climatology, they revealed that the contrarian studies were rife with cherry picking and statistical flaws, and in some cases outright physical impossibilities, like the paper that sought to blame global warming on the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. That hypothesis is basically one step away from claiming that global warming is caused by Virgos.

Then there was the paper blaming global warming on the sun and moon, which used a statistical analysis that worked for the 4,000 years they chose to focus on, but not for the 6,000 years they chose to throw in the trash bin because it didn’t work at all.

So not only do those contrarian studies not hold up to scrutiny, but they don’t even have any internal consistency. It’s not as if 97% of climate scientists agree that climate change is caused by humans and the other 3% agree that climate change is caused by solar cycles. It’s that 97% agree that climate change is caused by humans, 1% believe it’s caused by Jupiter, .5% believe it’s not happening at all, 1.25% believe it’s caused by dogs and cats living together, and .25% blamed the Jews and then took a nap.

Personally, I wish more researchers were rewarded for trying to replicate published studies, even if they’re studies that support the consensus. Scientific publishing is rife with problems, and 99% of those problems could be cleared up if more research was replicated. The issue is that there is little incentive for anyone to replicate. Scientists are rewarded with jobs and grants and titles for publishing original research with positive results, which leads to a glut of research that never gets looked at a second time.

If we turn a critical eye toward the other 97% of climate research, I suspect we’d weed out some inaccuracies and end up with a better picture of the problem. Unfortunately, I’m sure the American GOP will continue to plug their ears and kowtow to corporate interests until half of Florida is underwater, but at least as future generations look back at why they’re about to go extinct, they’ll appreciate the minority’s scientific rigor.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/ex-hedge-funder-buys-rights-aids-drug-and-raises-price-from-13-50-to-750-per-pill/

https://np.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2g43kw/a_generic_drug_company_retrophin_buys_up_the/ckg473h?context=5

Sorta transcript:

Martin Shkrelli is a hedge fund manager who has recently come under fire for being the world’s biggest piece of shit after it was revealed he raised the price of the drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill. Daraprim is used by both pregnant women and AIDS patients to literally save their lives.

The funny thing is that this isn’t the first time Shkrelli has done this. Also I’m going to try to stop saying “Shkrelli” because it makes my mouth do disgusting things. “Shkrelli.” Ugh. I’ll just call him “Shithead.”

Shithead did this last year, too, raising the cost of the drug Retrophin, used for treating a kidney disorder, by about 20 times.

Amusingly, he went on Reddit to defend himself for that, and he promised Redditors that he’d personally come up with solutions to make sure that people who needed the drug would still be able to access it. Instead, he just moved on and did it again to another group of sick people. Shithead.

After all the recent bad publicity, he agreed to lower the price of Daraprim again. But obviously, he’s a giant piece of shit and as soon as no one is looking, he’ll just do it again to a different life-saving medication.

That’s why this entire thing isn’t about Shithead at all. I fully endorse the public bollocking he’s received for his actions, but in the end, shaming one shithead isn’t enough. The US allows the pharmaceutical industry far too much power over the cost of their products, and it’s ridiculous that companies are allowed to charge inflated prices here while claiming it’s to fund research while spending all their money on marketing and leaving it to the National Institutes of Health to do the bulk of new drug research.

I say this as someone who is constantly accused of being in the pocket of Big Pharma, because I point out that homeopathy is bullshit and most chiropractors are dangerous loons. Unfortunately, Big Pharma is all we’ve got when it comes to science-based medicine, and so it’s incredibly important that we recognize that they do have a powerful lobby and sometimes the people who make up Big Pharma are in fact going to be some sociopathic douchebags who are more concerned with their bottom line than with saving lives.

So before you assume that the issue is solved because Shkrelli lowered the cost of Daraprim, remember that he’s done nothing about the other life-saving drugs he’s made into unobtainable luxury items and you probably didn’t hear anything about it. The only way to stop this from happening is governmental oversight, and the only way to do that is to elect politicians who aren’t in the pocket of major corporations.

Shit, this just turned into a Bernie Sanders video, didn’t it?

Remember that time lapse drawing of an ammonite I did? Well I combined it with a few more of my drawings and made a beautiful poster size print for you to color in! You can purchase the design on 11x17 poster paper with free markers in my Etsy shop via this link. But my patrons will get a private link to download the design and print at home for free! Thank you so much for your support and happy science+art coloring! 

Look for the patron only post coming next!