I'm a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here!

Why do mirages form? Why can birds sit on powerlines and not be electrocuted? What is string theory?

These are just some of the burning questions Australian high school students had during June on “I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here!”

“I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here!” is an online science event targeting high school students in Years 7 to 9. Successfully orchestrated in the UK since 2008, a pilot of the program was run recently in Australia from June 14 to 24. I was one of fifteen scientists selected to take part in the event.

Up for a challenge? Try explaining string theory to a class of teenagers in an online chat session!

The program is an opportunity for high school students to chat online to real-life scientists about science research and careers in science. The hope is that students learn more about what it means to do science, while the scientists learn to explain and communicate complex science simply, concisely and in an entertaining way.

We created online profiles so that the students could get to know us a little – we explained the sorts of things we do each day as scientists, our research interests, and what we like to do in our spare time.

Students then posted questions on the site for the scientists to answer. These often required creative answers to pique students’ interest, since other competing scientists (Full credit to them!) had usually provided an answer before I’d read the question. Some of these questions were really insightful, while others were hilarious. My favourites would have to include “If I stand next to gamma radiation, will I turn into the Hulk?”, and “Do miniature dachshunds get nipple rash when pregnant?”

Teachers also booked their classes in for live MSN-style chat sessions, during which students fired questions at us scientists and waited for our answers during the chat. It was frantic but strangely exhilarating typing like a maniac to give two or three line answers to questions like “How did the big bang happen?”, “Why do we dream?”, “What subjects should I pick for year 11 to get into veterinary science?” and “Do you like Justin Bieber?”

Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein had to compete with Justin Bieber for students' attention during some chat sessions

After a week of online questions and chats, the students must decide which scientist they like the best and which one gave the best answers. The fifteen scientists were split up into three zones, each containing five scientists, and the scientist judged the best in each zone won $1000 to put towards a science communication project of their choice.

But the judging process was brutal! Like the reality TV shows, “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!” and “Big Brother”, scientists were dumped from the competition one by one during daily evictions. Our future in the competition hung in the balance as fickle teenagers decided our fate. What makes a scientist “better” than another in the eyes of a thirteen year old?

I asked myself – did I answer enough questions? I had answered over one hundred questions online, but there was another fifty I hadn’t had time to get to. Was my profile picture cool enough or was it just corny? Were my answers to the questions interesting enough? In the end, I was the second of the five scientists in my zone to be evicted. A big “EVICTED” banner was posted across my profile picture and I watched the remaining three scientists fight it out, answering question after question, offering really insightful answers for the students.

The final eviction was down to the wire – Aimee, a bubbly honours student from Monash University, was voted the favourite scientist, narrowly beating Mat, a chemistry lecturer from Sydney University. Aimee plans to use the $1000 in prize money to set up a science writing prize for high school students.

Phew! I was relieved that my two frantic weeks of being an online science guru was over, but I’d do it again in a flash and I encourage other scientists to get involved next time round. I found getting immediate feedback from the students during the online chat sessions really rewarding, even addictive – while I might wait weeks or months for results and feedback from my lab work, I could see what the students thought of my answers within a few seconds. I really think online events such as this are an important complement to face-to-face methods of science communication for kids, and I will definitely be tuning in to the next “I’m a Scientist” event.

The perfect beer for getting high

With an enthusiastic home brewer for a boyfriend, I often find myself in small brew pubs listening to other brewers talk about the science behind their craft. Like any good scientists, these brewers invest large amounts of time thoroughly repeating all their experiments, analysing the results and generally spending too much time at the bar.

But some brewers just aren’t satisfied with the challenge of brewing beer for consumption on earth. An unlikely collaboration between a Sydney microbrewery and a space engineering company has lead to an even more unlikely mission: to design and brew a beer that tastes good in space.

The beer, designed to take advantage of the emerging space tourism market, is named “Vostok”, a tribute to the first human spaceflight in history. “Floating in space thousands of kilometres above the earth, looking down at the view – of course you’d want a beer,” explained Jaron Mitchell, Vostok collaborator and owner of the 4-Pines Brewing Company, on ABC radio earlier this month.

The concept has received its share of media attention, complete with corny headlines like “How does Australian space beer taste? It’s out of this world!" and “Beam me up Shhhcotty”, but Mitchell denies Vostok is a novelty beer.

Australia's contribution to the space race may be the world's first space beer

“This is a craft beer. It is meant first for people who love beer so it must taste superb on Earth. It will support the growing space economy by being equally superb in microgravity,” Mitchell says of the beer on his website.

I’m not usually one to get excited by beer. In fact, I don’t even drink it. But there is actually some pretty amusing science that makes the process of brewing and testing a space beer quite impressive.

The baseline recipe for Vostok is a stout, a full-flavoured style of beer that often has a roasted and malty taste. Choosing a flavourful beer was necessary in order to compensate for people’s reduced sense of taste in space. Microgravity conditions in space cause body fluids to be redistributed away from the extremities, leading to facial swelling and nasal congestion. Just as you might feel when you have a cold or allergies, facial swelling in microgravity impairs astronauts’ sense of smell and taste. Swelling of the tongue during space flight may also desensitise the taste buds and astronauts consistently report a craving for flavourful spicy food while on tours of duty on the International Space Station.

Vostok and other stout-style beers are low in carbonation because bubbles cause problems in space. Carbon dioxide bubbles weigh less than the surrounding liquid and rise to the top of your beer or soft drink due to buoyancy. In space, microgravity means that bubbles of carbon dioxide have no appreciable buoyancy in your drink and stay dispensed throughout the drink, making a foamy mess.


Low carbonation will also help to combat what Mitchell describes as “wet burps", a rather inconvenient and embarrassing part of space travel. On earth, gravity and buoyancy causes gas to rise to the top of the stomach so that burps just release air. In space, gravity is insufficient to separate the gas and liquid in the stomach, resulting in burps that release little suspended balls of reflux floating around the spacecraft.

To observe the effects of carbonation on the body in low gravity conditions, the creators of Vostok have tested their beer in parabolic flight trials. Normally used to train astronauts, parabolic flights subject passengers to conditions ranging from almost twice the gravity experienced on earth (1.8 g) to zero gravity (weightlessness). The test subject, who consumed samples of Vostok both during the weightless portions of the parabolic flight as well as back on solid ground, reported minimal effects of carbonation in zero gravity conditions. Further experiments are being planned to test how microgravity may affect how fast alcohol is absorbed by the body in space.

The creators of Vostok will be racing against the clock to have their space beer fully tested and approved before the first suborbital flights in 2012. If you have a spare $200,000, you may be lucky enough to have a tipple of Vostok while looking back at the world below. Meanwhile, the rest of us landlubbers will have to be content to taste space beer with both feet firmly on the ground.

Genetic rescue of pedigree dogs

Cavalier king charles spaniels can suffer syringomyelia, a painful condition in which their brain is too big for their skull. Photo credit: www.takeapaws.com.au

Some of you might remember "Pedigree Dogs Exposed", a BBC documentary that aired on the ABC in late 2009.

The documentary sparked a huge public reaction in both the UK and Australia, as it revealed the serious welfare issues of breeding for certain characteristics in dogs. Perhaps the most chilling example from the doco was that of a cavalier king charles spaniel in agony due to syringomyelia, a condition caused by the dog's skull being too small as a result of deliberate inbreeding.

Scientists are investigating the underlying genetic causes of serious disorders in pedigree dogs with the aim of improving the health and welfare of these animals. The Australian National Kennel Council has promised to adjust breeding standards to improve animal welfare if scientific evidence suggests a link between a disorder and a characteristic that is standard for the breed.

The same gene that causes the characteristic wrinkles of Shar-Pei dogs also predisposes them to familial Shar-Pei fever. Photo credit: www.lasharpei.com

In 2007, geneticists discovered that the genes responsible for the hair ridge in Ridgeback dogs also predisposes these dogs to dermoid sinus.

Just last week, an international team of researchers found that a mutation that causes the characteristic wrinkly skin of Shar-Pei dogs also increases their risk of a life-threatening inflammatory condition called familial Shar-Pei fever (read the whole article in COSMOS here).

Knowledge of the genetic causes of pedigree disorders and diseases will allow the development of screening tests for the defective genes. Those dogs that carry the disease genes can then be removed from the breeding stock, reducing the frequency of the disease gene for future generations.

However, when the disease gene is also responsible for a "desired look" in a breed, as is the case in Ridgebacks and Shar-Pei, dog breeding standards need to be changed to discourage breeding for extreme physical characteristics. Thankfully, there is a strong commitment by the pedigree dog community to breed healthier dogs and many breed standards have been adjusted.

What are your thoughts on pedigree dog breeding? Does your pet dog suffer a condition specific to his or her breed?

So your lab partner is a klutz

I was at the pub last night with a two friends of mine from undergraduate years gone by; we all did a bachelor of science, and while I’ve been doing a PhD in biology, they both started dentistry degrees. While the prospect of looking into someone’s mouth and picking at teeth for a living does not appeal to me, the financial security of dentistry is pretty attractive to a PhD student facing a career as an overqualified dole bludger.

While I listened to my friends talk about probing gum lines, drilling teeth and making moulds for toothless old men, I began to appreciate the degree of manual dexterity needed for a profession such as dentistry. In fact, until only recently, one of the entrance tests for graduate dentistry involved bending a wire into a predetermined shape using pliers. This might seem like a strange benchmark to set for prospective dentists, but if given the choice, I would definitely prefer to visit a dentist who could control a pair of pliers over one who couldn’t.

It got me thinking about the types of hand-eye coordination I need for my research. Fine dissection skills, pipetting into small tubes, handling dangerous chemicals without spilling them. Sure, there are a thousand and one (often annoying) OH&S precautions for preventing accidents in the lab, but the main thing stopping you from dropping that large vial of carcinogenic liquid you’re carrying is your own dexterity and care.

Of course, not everyone is blessed with the fine motor skills necessary to be a dentist or a surgeon. There are probably few who would object to excluding the coordination-challenged from holding sharp pointy things near people’s faces or performing organ transplants. People’s welfare and lives are in the hands of these health professionals.

By the same logic, perhaps there should be a “no klutzes allowed” screening process before scientists be allowed to work in a laboratory. I’m not saying that I’ve never had an accident in the lab, everyone makes mistakes, but there is potentially nothing worse than working in the lab with someone pathologically clumsy.


Observing severe lab klutzes at work can be like watching the proverbial bull in a china shop. Lab partners of serious klutzes may become adept at stopping accidents before they occur, using simple phrases such as “hey, that’s okay, I can carry that huge bottle of sulphuric acid. By the way, how did your dent exam go?”

While working with a lab klutz can also be a serious risk to one’s mental health, it may also be a “character building” experience. Repeating experiments after someone dropped a week’s worth of your samples can only make you a stronger person, right?

Do you work in the lab with an extreme klutz? Was your chemistry lab partner in undergrad a complete liability? Alternatively, for those who suspect they might be the culprit of more than their fair share of lab accidents, you can meet like-minded people on Facebook.

Decoding a rampant disease

Photo credit: Barbara Howlett

The discovery of a unique genome organisation in the blackleg fungus, which infects and damages canola crops worldwide, will help farmers to better protect their harvest from the disease.

Read the full article here.

A colony of solutions

Photo credit: Malcolm Ricketts

The blog entries have been rather thin on the ground as of late. I've been writing manuscripts, reviews and now grant applications, and as PhD deadlines start looming, the blog will have to take a back seat for now.

In the meantime, check out this article I wrote for COSMOS magazine, which explains some of the amazing ways ants and slime moulds can solve complex problems.

NASA discovery slips through the cracks

Felisa Wolfe-Simon explains her discovery at a news conference at NASA headquarters. Photo: AFP

The recent discovery of bacteria that can live on arsenic, and even incorporate the toxic chemical into the structure of its DNA, last week sent the global media into a frenzy (see here for an example). According to NASA, the research was a breakthrough for astrobiology, the search for extra-terrestrial life, because it suggests that there are alternative chemical pathways through which life can exist, broadening the possibilities for detecting life elsewhere in the universe. The research was published in the very prestigious journal Science.

Since the news broke a little more a week ago, many scientists have voiced their concerns about the validity of the research (see here and here for extensive critiques of the research by expert biochemists). The story quickly turned from triumphant discovery to an embarrassing case of research that slipped through the cracks of the peer review process.

Peer review is the system of quality control in science that ensures research is robust. Despite what some people may think, scientists cannot publish whatever they want. Potential articles are read and critiqued by other experts in the field, who advise the editor of a journal about whether the article is scientifically sound and whether it is of sufficient quality for publication.

While peer review is an effective form of quality control, it is system that relies heavily on people’s honesty and good will. Reviewing articles is an unpaid, time-consuming and rather thankless job that comes with the territory of being an academic. The integrity of published research depends on reviewers taking the time to properly check and question scientific claims. I am no expert in biochemistry, so I will not speculate about why or how the arsenic research was allowed to be published, but it is a pertinent example of how the peer review system springs the occasional leak.

Bacteria from Mono Lake in California can survive and grow in high concentrations of arsenic, but do they really incorporate arsenic into their DNA backbone? Photo: Felisa Wolfe-Simon

The reverse situation can also occur. Last year, a group of 14 stem cell researchers wrote an open letter about reviewers they thought were blocking quality research in an attempt to promote their own instead. While the vast majority of scientists would never deliberately reject someone else’s research for their own benefit, the cutthroat nature of academia may be driving some researchers to engage in unethical reviewing practices.

Instances such as these have prompted some to suggest that the system of peer review be changed. I recently attended a seminar by Cameron Neylon, an academic and a prolific blogger who dedicates much of his time to questioning the current ways that we publish our results in science. Among other things, Neylon champions the idea of open publishing and post-publication review. His view is that the current system of peer review is archaic and is a relic of an era in which journals were printed in hardcopy, leaving limited space for articles in each edition. Now, almost all journals publish their articles online in electronic form, which means there is no longer the issue of limited space. He suggests that the current system of pre-publication review is too slow, delaying the release of important research discoveries, and also acts as an unnecessary filter that blocks the publication of many research projects funded by tax-payers’ money.

Neylon proposes that articles be peer reviewed after they are published (post-publication review). In essence, this means any research, regardless of its quality and integrity, can be published online. The research is then publically scrutinised by other scientists in online forums that are linked to the online version of the article.

I certainly agree that post-publication review is an invaluable tool that can only enhance the quality of published research. Comments from biochemists in online forums and blogs about the supposed arsenic-based bacteria are a perfect example of how useful post-publication review can be. However, I support the idea of post-publication review as a supplement rather than as a substitute for pre-publication review.

The current peer review system encourages scientists to write the best possible articles prior to submission, and the process of addressing reviewer comments often significantly improves the quality of the finished product. It is my opinion that articles published online without prior scrutiny are likely to be more sloppily-written than those currently reviewed pre-publication. Furthermore, while it is nice to think that science research is a perfectly cost-effective and efficient endeavour, not all research is worthy of publication. Simply publishing everything regardless of its quality means that scientists must spend a lot more time searching online databases to sort good research from the rubbish.

Nevertheless, healthy debate about the value of current system of peer review continues with gusto. Many scientists discuss this issue in online forums and while support for post-publication review is increasing, the form it would take is hotly contested. I strongly encourage all scientists to think about this issue and engage in the debate, since any changes in the peer review process will have major consequences for the way we conduct and publish science in the future.