Three years after the first reports of a mysterious phenomenon of bee colonies disappearing without any apparent reason, termed colony collapse disorder (CCD), the causes are still as mysterious as ever. New research from the US, using DNA arrays and the known genome sequence of the honeybee has thrown up more questions than it answers. Meanwhile, UK beekeepers report unacceptably high losses for last winter, even though percentages are a bit less catastrophic than the year before.
Read my news focus in today's issue of Current Biology:
Bee mystery continues
Current Biology, Volume 19, Issue 17, R718, 15 September 2009
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.08.036
Abstract and restricted access to PDF file
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
save the nanokosmos
PS -- panic over, an administrator has now removed the deletion notice ! --
I've posted a new entry for "Nanokosmos" on the German edition of Wikipedia, and it took all of 3 minutes until somebody kindly suggested it for deletion. Now it's on death row for 7 days, and then an administrator will decide whether to delete it or whether to remove the deletion notice.
German speaking readers can help to save the nanokosmos by contributing to the discussion or, indeed, by improving the article and making it less deletion-worthy.
I note that the english equivalent, nanoworld, although now widely used, is also lacking a wikipedia entry.
I've posted a new entry for "Nanokosmos" on the German edition of Wikipedia, and it took all of 3 minutes until somebody kindly suggested it for deletion. Now it's on death row for 7 days, and then an administrator will decide whether to delete it or whether to remove the deletion notice.
German speaking readers can help to save the nanokosmos by contributing to the discussion or, indeed, by improving the article and making it less deletion-worthy.
I note that the english equivalent, nanoworld, although now widely used, is also lacking a wikipedia entry.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
a very old hand-axe
[ -- > deutsche Version ]
Back in 2003, my daughter and I took part in a palaeo-anthropological dig at Sima de las Palomas, in Southern Spain (as described in Birds/Bees/Platypuses, page 77), as volunteers to support the research efforts of Michael Walker, who runs excavations at two sites in the area. Just ahead of our arrival, a team at the other site, Cueva Negra de Estrecho del Rio Quipar (which we also visited on our day off), had discovered an ancient stone tool, a hand-axe, which we duly admired. I think it was the first stone tool from that site, and there was a great deal of excitement about it.
Imagine my surprise now to read in last week’s issue of Nature that researchers using magnetic field measurements have re-assessed the dating of the geological layers in Cueva Negra, and come to the conclusion that this hand-axe we admired 6 years ago, together with another tool found at the same site, must be by far the oldest bi-facial stone tools discovered in Europe so far. (I think “bi-facial” implies that bits were chipped off from both sides of a flat natural stone to produce a relatively sharp edge.)
Cueva Negra was previously estimated to be 200,000 years old. The new date is 900,000 years, moving these two tools into the Early Pleistocene. (Technically, the magnetic measurements would also fit an even older date, but that appears unlikely considering the finds at the site.) Bi-facial stone tools from that era had so far only been known from Africa. The only European stone tools that are even older are uni-facial Oldowan tools from around 1.2 million years ago. Not sure what the precise scientific classification of the original owners of those tools is. While at Sima de las Palomas we were digging for Neanderthal remains, the Cueva Negra inhabitants must have been Homo heidelbergensis or something like that.
Will have to check up the literature about our site, maybe there have been exciting developments there as well and I missed them.
References:
G. R. Scott, L. Gibert, Nature 2009, 461, 82.
M. J. Walker et al. Eurasian Prehistory 2006, 4, 3.
PS Bi-facial hand-axes look like this example from the excellent article in the Spanish version of Wikipedia:
Back in 2003, my daughter and I took part in a palaeo-anthropological dig at Sima de las Palomas, in Southern Spain (as described in Birds/Bees/Platypuses, page 77), as volunteers to support the research efforts of Michael Walker, who runs excavations at two sites in the area. Just ahead of our arrival, a team at the other site, Cueva Negra de Estrecho del Rio Quipar (which we also visited on our day off), had discovered an ancient stone tool, a hand-axe, which we duly admired. I think it was the first stone tool from that site, and there was a great deal of excitement about it.
Imagine my surprise now to read in last week’s issue of Nature that researchers using magnetic field measurements have re-assessed the dating of the geological layers in Cueva Negra, and come to the conclusion that this hand-axe we admired 6 years ago, together with another tool found at the same site, must be by far the oldest bi-facial stone tools discovered in Europe so far. (I think “bi-facial” implies that bits were chipped off from both sides of a flat natural stone to produce a relatively sharp edge.)
Cueva Negra was previously estimated to be 200,000 years old. The new date is 900,000 years, moving these two tools into the Early Pleistocene. (Technically, the magnetic measurements would also fit an even older date, but that appears unlikely considering the finds at the site.) Bi-facial stone tools from that era had so far only been known from Africa. The only European stone tools that are even older are uni-facial Oldowan tools from around 1.2 million years ago. Not sure what the precise scientific classification of the original owners of those tools is. While at Sima de las Palomas we were digging for Neanderthal remains, the Cueva Negra inhabitants must have been Homo heidelbergensis or something like that.
Will have to check up the literature about our site, maybe there have been exciting developments there as well and I missed them.
References:
G. R. Scott, L. Gibert, Nature 2009, 461, 82.
M. J. Walker et al. Eurasian Prehistory 2006, 4, 3.
PS Bi-facial hand-axes look like this example from the excellent article in the Spanish version of Wikipedia:
Friday, September 11, 2009
measuring single nanotubes
gradually coming back to the nanoworld after some time spent getting excited about other things, I really liked a paper from this week's Angewandte Early View release. The authors measure the electrochemical potentials and other parameters of individual carbon nanotubes with known chirality parameters, which wasn't possible so far. For applications in electronics, the differences between nanotubes wrapped in different directions are extremely important, and sorting them apart has been a challenge (but see here how it can be done with DNA). Understanding the single-molecule electronic properties, apart from being important for the fundamental understanding of these differences, may also be useful as a diagnostic or for the development of new ways of picking them apart, I reckon.
Reference:
Experimentally Determined Redox Potentials of Individual (n,m) Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
Yasuhiko Tanaka, Yasuhiko Hirana, Yasuro Niidome, Koichiro Kato, Susumu Saito, Naotoshi Nakashima
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009
Published Online: Sep 8 2009 12:17PM
DOI: 10.1002/anie.200902468
PDF
Reference:
Experimentally Determined Redox Potentials of Individual (n,m) Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
Yasuhiko Tanaka, Yasuhiko Hirana, Yasuro Niidome, Koichiro Kato, Susumu Saito, Naotoshi Nakashima
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009
Published Online: Sep 8 2009 12:17PM
DOI: 10.1002/anie.200902468
Thursday, September 10, 2009
broken glass
Seeing the funny side of failure
Review of Verre Cassé by Alain Mabanckou
Although officially labelled a novel, Verre Cassé is essentially an amalgam of the life stories of the people washed up in the bar “Le Crédit a voyagé”, somewhere in Congo (Brazzaville) as told by the most faithful customer, nick-named Verre Cassé (Broken Glass). Mimicking the unbridled speech flow of someone who had a few glasses and frustrations too many, Mabanckou writes without using a single full stop. Each chapter is a single rambling sentence, starting with a lower case and ending without any punctuation mark. This makes it a tad difficult to follow initially (as it would be difficult to follow the life story of a drunkard as told by himself down the pub past midnight), but I got used to it over time. I just had to adjust my attention span to the length of these uninterrupted rambles. (Note that I heroically resisted the temptation to write this review in the same style!)
While the book has its sad and depressing moments, on account of all the miscellaneous failures that led the characters to end up in this dump (and which they, to the last man, blame on the women in their lives), it can also be very funny a lot of the time. Early on, the scene where a committee of government officials searches for a catch-phrase for their boss, going through a whole dictionary of (unsuitable) citations, is quite hilarious, as are some of the events in and around the bar.
Citations occur not only in that scene, but throughout the book as a hallmark of our narrator. They come so thick and fast that I am wondering how on earth the translator of the English edition (which appeared a few months ago) got out of this problem. There are allusions to francophone literature en masse, both from France and from French-speaking Africa, but also to French chanson, from Brassens to modern times. You don’t have to have an education in French literature and culture to enjoy this book, but it would help enormously. Failing that, one can always read it for the drunken antics including a pissing contest.
Review of Verre Cassé by Alain Mabanckou
Although officially labelled a novel, Verre Cassé is essentially an amalgam of the life stories of the people washed up in the bar “Le Crédit a voyagé”, somewhere in Congo (Brazzaville) as told by the most faithful customer, nick-named Verre Cassé (Broken Glass). Mimicking the unbridled speech flow of someone who had a few glasses and frustrations too many, Mabanckou writes without using a single full stop. Each chapter is a single rambling sentence, starting with a lower case and ending without any punctuation mark. This makes it a tad difficult to follow initially (as it would be difficult to follow the life story of a drunkard as told by himself down the pub past midnight), but I got used to it over time. I just had to adjust my attention span to the length of these uninterrupted rambles. (Note that I heroically resisted the temptation to write this review in the same style!)
While the book has its sad and depressing moments, on account of all the miscellaneous failures that led the characters to end up in this dump (and which they, to the last man, blame on the women in their lives), it can also be very funny a lot of the time. Early on, the scene where a committee of government officials searches for a catch-phrase for their boss, going through a whole dictionary of (unsuitable) citations, is quite hilarious, as are some of the events in and around the bar.
Citations occur not only in that scene, but throughout the book as a hallmark of our narrator. They come so thick and fast that I am wondering how on earth the translator of the English edition (which appeared a few months ago) got out of this problem. There are allusions to francophone literature en masse, both from France and from French-speaking Africa, but also to French chanson, from Brassens to modern times. You don’t have to have an education in French literature and culture to enjoy this book, but it would help enormously. Failing that, one can always read it for the drunken antics including a pissing contest.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Kuss des Schnabeltiers
From today, the German edition of "The birds, the bees, and the platypuses" should be in the shops, even though amazon.de haven't updated the relevant page yet. As a taster for German readers, here's the manuscript version of the preface to the book:
Vorwort
Wissenschaft macht Spaß! Sieben Jahre lang habe ich als Hobbyreporter über naturwissenschaftliche Neuigkeiten berichtet, und seit Mai 2000 dann als hauptberuflicher Wissenschaftsautor. In diesen 15 Jahren haben sich Dutzende von Geschichten angesammelt, an die ich mich immer wieder gerne erinnere, weil sie mir beim Schreiben (und dem einen oder der anderen hoffentlich auch beim Lesen) so viel Freude bereitet haben.
Dies sind die Geschichten, die mich immer wieder in Versuchung führen, wenn ich sie beim Blättern in meinen Archiven sehe, sie zum x-ten Mal wieder zu lesen und damit meine Zeit zu vergeuden. Viele von diesen Geschichten habe ich mehrfach in verschiedenen Formaten und Sprachen verwendet, als Beispiele zitiert, oder an meinen Lebenslauf angehängt. Sie zeigen, zumindest meiner Ansicht nach, dass Naturwissenschaften ein Teil unserer Kultur sind, der ebenso bunt und vielfältig sein kann wie etwa Literatur oder Musik, und intellektuell ebenso bereichernd.
Was zeichnet diese meine “Lieblingsgeschichten” gegenüber den knapp 1000 anderen aus, die ich in all den Jahren verfasst habe? Ich habe drei wichtige Kriterien gefunden, von denen jede der Geschichten eines oder sogar mehrere erfüllt. In Anlehnung an den Titel eines Albums der Gruppe TLC habe ich meine Kategorien crazy, sexy, und cool genannt.
Die erste Kategorie stellt gleichzeitig den Nukleationskeim dar, um den sich dieses Buch kristallisierte. Die Idee, eine Sammlung verrückter Geschichten zusammenzustellen, trage ich schon seit etlichen Jahren mit mir herum. Die erste “verrückte” Geschichte war die mit den Kamelen, siehe Seite XXX. Unter “crazy” finden sich überraschende, außergewöhnliche, und oft ganz und gar verrückte Entdeckungen und Launen der Natur, die sich dann aber oftmals als nützlich erweisen, wie eben die verrückten Antikörper der Kamele. In dieser Abteilung finden sich auch Forschungsprojekte, die anfangs so aussichtslos erschienen, dass schon ein gewisses Maß an Verrücktheit dazugehörte, sie überhaupt erst in Angriff zu nehmen. Die Sequenzierung des Neandertaler-Genoms, beruhend auf weniger als einem Milligramm hochgradig kontaminierter DNA, zählt zweifellos dazu.
Sexy Geschichten handeln manchmal von Lust und Liebe, manchmal aber auch von anderen Obsessionen unserer Species, vom glitzernden Gold bis zum süffigen Wein. In meinem Gesamtwerk sind „menschelnde“ Geschichten eher die Ausnahme, doch aufgrund ihrer besseren Zugänglichkeit sind sie hier gleichberechtigt mit jenen über Bakterien oder Moleküle vertreten.
Coole Geschichten erzählen oft von pfiffigen Erfindungen, Werkzeugen, und Gimmicks. Viele davon wurden in den vergangenen Jahren von WissenschaftlerInnen erfunden, doch manche stammen auch aus dem Werkzeugkasten der Natur.
Beim Zusammenstellen dieser Texte ging ich jeweils von einem Manuskript für einen Zeitungs- oder Zeitschriftenbeitrag aus, überarbeitete dieses, und fügte eine Einführung hinzu, um zu erklären, was diese Geschichte interessant macht. Den älteren Texten habe ich zusätzlich auch ein Nachwort mit einer Zusammenfassung nachfolgender Entwicklungen angehängt. Innerhalb der drei Teile des Buchs sind die Kapitel grob chronologisch geordnet, so dass sie auch einen Eindruck davon vermitteln, wie sich die Wissenschaft in diesen 15 Jahren weiterentwickelt hat. Die Jahreszahl der Originalveröffentlichung ist am Ende jeder Geschichte in Klammern angegeben.
Die Mehrzahl dieser Geschichten erschien entweder in Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Nachrichten aus der Chemie, Chemie in unserer Zeit, oder Biologie in unserer Zeit. Einige lagen bisher nur in englischer Sprache vor (als Artikel in Chemistry World oder Chemistry in Britain, sowie in der englischen Fassung dieses Buchs. Zwei Geschichten sind nach der Zeitschriftenveröffentlichung auch in meinen inzwischen vergriffenen Büchern Expeditionen in den Nanokosmos bzw. Exzentriker des Lebens erschienen.
Mein Dank gilt all den Redakteurinnen und Redakteuren, die mir in all den Jahren Aufträge erteilt und meine Artikel in ihre Zeitungen und Zeitschriften aufgenommen haben. Einige von ihnen haben mit der Zeit die Fähigkeit erworben, meine Gedanken zu lesen, was meine Arbeit vereinfacht und beschleunigt. Doch auch dann, wenn sie kritische oder scheinbar dumme Fragen stellen, helfen sie mir, meine Begeisterung mit den LeserInnen zu teilen.
Fünfzehn Jahre sind eine außerordentlich lange Zeit in der modernen Wissenschaft – das fiel mir besonders auf, als ich die Artikel aus den 1990er Jahren überarbeitete. Einige von diesen muteten bereits historisch an, Erinnerungen an die längst verflossene Vor-Genom-Zeit, als man mit Untersuchungen an einzelnen Genen oder einzelnen Proteinen noch Lorbeeren erringen konnte. Einige der Themen, die ich damals spannend fand scheinen aus der Mode gekommen zu sein, während andere geradezu spektakulär erblüht sind und teilweise bereits nützliche Früchte tragen. Einige der erwähnten ForscherInnen haben inzwischen einen Nobelpreis erhalten, andere scheinen vom Radar verschwunden zu sein. So ist das Leben, auch in der Wissenschaft.
Vor allem aber hoffe ich, dass die ausgewählten Geschichten einen Eindruck von der Lebendigkeit der Wissenschaft der letzten eineinhalb Jahrzehnte vermitteln und dabei deutlich machen, dass jede Frage, welche die Forschung beantwortet, gleich mehrere neue, ebenso spannende Fragen aufwirft, und damit für einen unendlichen Strom von verrückten, sexy, und coolen Entdeckungen sorgt.
Oxford, Dezember 2008
Michael Groß
Vorwort
Wissenschaft macht Spaß! Sieben Jahre lang habe ich als Hobbyreporter über naturwissenschaftliche Neuigkeiten berichtet, und seit Mai 2000 dann als hauptberuflicher Wissenschaftsautor. In diesen 15 Jahren haben sich Dutzende von Geschichten angesammelt, an die ich mich immer wieder gerne erinnere, weil sie mir beim Schreiben (und dem einen oder der anderen hoffentlich auch beim Lesen) so viel Freude bereitet haben.
Dies sind die Geschichten, die mich immer wieder in Versuchung führen, wenn ich sie beim Blättern in meinen Archiven sehe, sie zum x-ten Mal wieder zu lesen und damit meine Zeit zu vergeuden. Viele von diesen Geschichten habe ich mehrfach in verschiedenen Formaten und Sprachen verwendet, als Beispiele zitiert, oder an meinen Lebenslauf angehängt. Sie zeigen, zumindest meiner Ansicht nach, dass Naturwissenschaften ein Teil unserer Kultur sind, der ebenso bunt und vielfältig sein kann wie etwa Literatur oder Musik, und intellektuell ebenso bereichernd.
Was zeichnet diese meine “Lieblingsgeschichten” gegenüber den knapp 1000 anderen aus, die ich in all den Jahren verfasst habe? Ich habe drei wichtige Kriterien gefunden, von denen jede der Geschichten eines oder sogar mehrere erfüllt. In Anlehnung an den Titel eines Albums der Gruppe TLC habe ich meine Kategorien crazy, sexy, und cool genannt.
Die erste Kategorie stellt gleichzeitig den Nukleationskeim dar, um den sich dieses Buch kristallisierte. Die Idee, eine Sammlung verrückter Geschichten zusammenzustellen, trage ich schon seit etlichen Jahren mit mir herum. Die erste “verrückte” Geschichte war die mit den Kamelen, siehe Seite XXX. Unter “crazy” finden sich überraschende, außergewöhnliche, und oft ganz und gar verrückte Entdeckungen und Launen der Natur, die sich dann aber oftmals als nützlich erweisen, wie eben die verrückten Antikörper der Kamele. In dieser Abteilung finden sich auch Forschungsprojekte, die anfangs so aussichtslos erschienen, dass schon ein gewisses Maß an Verrücktheit dazugehörte, sie überhaupt erst in Angriff zu nehmen. Die Sequenzierung des Neandertaler-Genoms, beruhend auf weniger als einem Milligramm hochgradig kontaminierter DNA, zählt zweifellos dazu.
Sexy Geschichten handeln manchmal von Lust und Liebe, manchmal aber auch von anderen Obsessionen unserer Species, vom glitzernden Gold bis zum süffigen Wein. In meinem Gesamtwerk sind „menschelnde“ Geschichten eher die Ausnahme, doch aufgrund ihrer besseren Zugänglichkeit sind sie hier gleichberechtigt mit jenen über Bakterien oder Moleküle vertreten.
Coole Geschichten erzählen oft von pfiffigen Erfindungen, Werkzeugen, und Gimmicks. Viele davon wurden in den vergangenen Jahren von WissenschaftlerInnen erfunden, doch manche stammen auch aus dem Werkzeugkasten der Natur.
Beim Zusammenstellen dieser Texte ging ich jeweils von einem Manuskript für einen Zeitungs- oder Zeitschriftenbeitrag aus, überarbeitete dieses, und fügte eine Einführung hinzu, um zu erklären, was diese Geschichte interessant macht. Den älteren Texten habe ich zusätzlich auch ein Nachwort mit einer Zusammenfassung nachfolgender Entwicklungen angehängt. Innerhalb der drei Teile des Buchs sind die Kapitel grob chronologisch geordnet, so dass sie auch einen Eindruck davon vermitteln, wie sich die Wissenschaft in diesen 15 Jahren weiterentwickelt hat. Die Jahreszahl der Originalveröffentlichung ist am Ende jeder Geschichte in Klammern angegeben.
Die Mehrzahl dieser Geschichten erschien entweder in Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Nachrichten aus der Chemie, Chemie in unserer Zeit, oder Biologie in unserer Zeit. Einige lagen bisher nur in englischer Sprache vor (als Artikel in Chemistry World oder Chemistry in Britain, sowie in der englischen Fassung dieses Buchs. Zwei Geschichten sind nach der Zeitschriftenveröffentlichung auch in meinen inzwischen vergriffenen Büchern Expeditionen in den Nanokosmos bzw. Exzentriker des Lebens erschienen.
Mein Dank gilt all den Redakteurinnen und Redakteuren, die mir in all den Jahren Aufträge erteilt und meine Artikel in ihre Zeitungen und Zeitschriften aufgenommen haben. Einige von ihnen haben mit der Zeit die Fähigkeit erworben, meine Gedanken zu lesen, was meine Arbeit vereinfacht und beschleunigt. Doch auch dann, wenn sie kritische oder scheinbar dumme Fragen stellen, helfen sie mir, meine Begeisterung mit den LeserInnen zu teilen.
Fünfzehn Jahre sind eine außerordentlich lange Zeit in der modernen Wissenschaft – das fiel mir besonders auf, als ich die Artikel aus den 1990er Jahren überarbeitete. Einige von diesen muteten bereits historisch an, Erinnerungen an die längst verflossene Vor-Genom-Zeit, als man mit Untersuchungen an einzelnen Genen oder einzelnen Proteinen noch Lorbeeren erringen konnte. Einige der Themen, die ich damals spannend fand scheinen aus der Mode gekommen zu sein, während andere geradezu spektakulär erblüht sind und teilweise bereits nützliche Früchte tragen. Einige der erwähnten ForscherInnen haben inzwischen einen Nobelpreis erhalten, andere scheinen vom Radar verschwunden zu sein. So ist das Leben, auch in der Wissenschaft.
Vor allem aber hoffe ich, dass die ausgewählten Geschichten einen Eindruck von der Lebendigkeit der Wissenschaft der letzten eineinhalb Jahrzehnte vermitteln und dabei deutlich machen, dass jede Frage, welche die Forschung beantwortet, gleich mehrere neue, ebenso spannende Fragen aufwirft, und damit für einen unendlichen Strom von verrückten, sexy, und coolen Entdeckungen sorgt.
Oxford, Dezember 2008
Michael Groß
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
story of an old cello
(last updated 10.8.2021)
The young cellist in my family has recently moved up from the 3/4 size instrument to the full size one that my great-grandfather used to play many decades ago, so I’ll take this exciting coming-of-age moment as an excuse to write up the story of this instrument.
In fact, we don’t know when and how it came into the family. The violinmaker who restored it to its former glory, Helmut Pöser at Regensburg, Germany, said it is from Saxony, and was built at the beginning of the 20th century.
Max Heinrich Groß was born in 1882 and served as a military musician until 1918. His official job title was hoboist, but this doesn't mean that he played the oboe - in the infantry all musicians were classed as hoboists. In 1919 he took up a civilian job in the local council administration of Elberfeld (then a city of 157,000 inhabitants, which in 1929 became part of Wuppertal). So I reckon that at this point, missing the professional music-making, he may have started playing the string quartet, of which we know that it was an established habit in the 1920s and 30s (see photo below, dated 1927). He may have bought the cello second hand, as it probably dates from before WW1, and it is a nice instrument which he may not have been able to afford brand new.
Legend -- as I remembered it -- has it that one of the members of his string quartet was a Jew and was deported in 1939 or shortly after, and that our cellist wrapped up his instrument and never touched it again. Older family members tell me, though, that Max Heinrich's boss at the city administration admonished him in the mid-1930s already not to spend his free time with Jews, whereupon he sulked and said "If I can't play music with whom I want to play, I won't play at all." So we don't really know what happened to the Jewish musician. Max Heinrich put the cello on top of the cupboard in the living room at Wuppertal, where it remained until 1961, when his widow died (he had died three years earlier).
It ended up in the attic in my grandparents’ house, where we retrieved it in the summer of 1980 in a sorry state. There were gut strings on it (you can see two of them here), but the bridge was missing, there were two ugly cracks in the front of the body and one in the side, and part of the inlay around the edges was missing. For some reason the inside was stuffed with old newspapers. The bow didn’t have a single hair left.
At that point I felt inspired to learn the cello (not just because of the battered old instrument, I also was and still am a great fan of Dvorak's cello concerto), but during a visit to the local council music school, they persuaded us that at 16 I was too old to start such a difficult instrument, and that I should learn the double bass instead. (I later realised that this advice may also have been based on the fact that they had too many applicants for cello and not enough for double bass.)
But anyhow, I did learn the bass for a few years, although it soon became obvious that I couldn’t do much with it, as the bass normally serves the rhythm section (especially in jazz), and my timekeeping isn’t all that good. Starting at Marburg University in 1984, with a student room that was only marginally larger than a double bass, my musical career petered out.
Meanwhile, the cello had pride of place in my bedroom back home (with a bass, cello, and several guitars in the room, you couldn’t cough in this room without getting a resonance from some corner!) . Fast forward to 1991, when a new generation of my family made its arrival, and thus the hope for new musicians. At that point, we lived in the heart of the historic centre of Regensburg, and there was a violinmaker’s workshop on the opposite side of the square, so I took the cello over and asked whether it was worth restoring it, and Mr Pöser said yes, so with generous financial support from my father we had the instrument restored to perfect health.
Matching children to instruments requires some thought (think of how many unhappy pianists there are in this world!), and after some consideration we worked out that our firstborn didn’t have the temperament suited to a cello (as you can put quite some energy in and can get a big sound out, you want an assertive kind of person to play it). Being very attracted to all things that glitter, she was easily persuaded to learn the flute, though. Number two didn’t qualify due to his disability and associated problems, leaving number three who luckily did bring the temperament to match the instrument.
Using the beautifully restored old instrument as the carrot dangling before her nose, we enticed her to start learning the cello, even though she had to go through a sequence of “fractional” cellos, from the eighth up to the three-quarter size one. Apart from the temperament-matching, and the carrot-dangling, the fact that she really enjoys ensemble playing and that her services were much in demand in school orchestras has helped to keep the motivation going.
And now she really does get to bite that carrot that’s been dangling for over 7 years. In celebration, I have had the hairless old bow re-haired, which has a wonderful deep groove where Max Heinrich’s index finger used to go, wearing the wood down over decades. Although she may end up using a different bow, it is nice to see the old pair reunited. And it sounds just great.
Talking bows with her teacher, I was reminded of Harry Potter’s experience buying his wand. “The wand chooses the wizard, Mr Potter,” the shopkeeper said, if I remember correctly. Probably true for bows and cellists as well. And more generally for instruments and children. It’s just magic.
PS I haven't got a clue who the other musicians in the quartet were, so if anybody recognises any of them in the pictures, I'd be grateful for a hint! The complete set of three photos we have of the quartet is reunited here.
The young cellist in my family has recently moved up from the 3/4 size instrument to the full size one that my great-grandfather used to play many decades ago, so I’ll take this exciting coming-of-age moment as an excuse to write up the story of this instrument.
In fact, we don’t know when and how it came into the family. The violinmaker who restored it to its former glory, Helmut Pöser at Regensburg, Germany, said it is from Saxony, and was built at the beginning of the 20th century.
Max Heinrich Groß was born in 1882 and served as a military musician until 1918. His official job title was hoboist, but this doesn't mean that he played the oboe - in the infantry all musicians were classed as hoboists. In 1919 he took up a civilian job in the local council administration of Elberfeld (then a city of 157,000 inhabitants, which in 1929 became part of Wuppertal). So I reckon that at this point, missing the professional music-making, he may have started playing the string quartet, of which we know that it was an established habit in the 1920s and 30s (see photo below, dated 1927). He may have bought the cello second hand, as it probably dates from before WW1, and it is a nice instrument which he may not have been able to afford brand new.
Legend -- as I remembered it -- has it that one of the members of his string quartet was a Jew and was deported in 1939 or shortly after, and that our cellist wrapped up his instrument and never touched it again. Older family members tell me, though, that Max Heinrich's boss at the city administration admonished him in the mid-1930s already not to spend his free time with Jews, whereupon he sulked and said "If I can't play music with whom I want to play, I won't play at all." So we don't really know what happened to the Jewish musician. Max Heinrich put the cello on top of the cupboard in the living room at Wuppertal, where it remained until 1961, when his widow died (he had died three years earlier).
It ended up in the attic in my grandparents’ house, where we retrieved it in the summer of 1980 in a sorry state. There were gut strings on it (you can see two of them here), but the bridge was missing, there were two ugly cracks in the front of the body and one in the side, and part of the inlay around the edges was missing. For some reason the inside was stuffed with old newspapers. The bow didn’t have a single hair left.
At that point I felt inspired to learn the cello (not just because of the battered old instrument, I also was and still am a great fan of Dvorak's cello concerto), but during a visit to the local council music school, they persuaded us that at 16 I was too old to start such a difficult instrument, and that I should learn the double bass instead. (I later realised that this advice may also have been based on the fact that they had too many applicants for cello and not enough for double bass.)
But anyhow, I did learn the bass for a few years, although it soon became obvious that I couldn’t do much with it, as the bass normally serves the rhythm section (especially in jazz), and my timekeeping isn’t all that good. Starting at Marburg University in 1984, with a student room that was only marginally larger than a double bass, my musical career petered out.
Meanwhile, the cello had pride of place in my bedroom back home (with a bass, cello, and several guitars in the room, you couldn’t cough in this room without getting a resonance from some corner!) . Fast forward to 1991, when a new generation of my family made its arrival, and thus the hope for new musicians. At that point, we lived in the heart of the historic centre of Regensburg, and there was a violinmaker’s workshop on the opposite side of the square, so I took the cello over and asked whether it was worth restoring it, and Mr Pöser said yes, so with generous financial support from my father we had the instrument restored to perfect health.
Matching children to instruments requires some thought (think of how many unhappy pianists there are in this world!), and after some consideration we worked out that our firstborn didn’t have the temperament suited to a cello (as you can put quite some energy in and can get a big sound out, you want an assertive kind of person to play it). Being very attracted to all things that glitter, she was easily persuaded to learn the flute, though. Number two didn’t qualify due to his disability and associated problems, leaving number three who luckily did bring the temperament to match the instrument.
Using the beautifully restored old instrument as the carrot dangling before her nose, we enticed her to start learning the cello, even though she had to go through a sequence of “fractional” cellos, from the eighth up to the three-quarter size one. Apart from the temperament-matching, and the carrot-dangling, the fact that she really enjoys ensemble playing and that her services were much in demand in school orchestras has helped to keep the motivation going.
And now she really does get to bite that carrot that’s been dangling for over 7 years. In celebration, I have had the hairless old bow re-haired, which has a wonderful deep groove where Max Heinrich’s index finger used to go, wearing the wood down over decades. Although she may end up using a different bow, it is nice to see the old pair reunited. And it sounds just great.
Talking bows with her teacher, I was reminded of Harry Potter’s experience buying his wand. “The wand chooses the wizard, Mr Potter,” the shopkeeper said, if I remember correctly. Probably true for bows and cellists as well. And more generally for instruments and children. It’s just magic.
PS I haven't got a clue who the other musicians in the quartet were, so if anybody recognises any of them in the pictures, I'd be grateful for a hint! The complete set of three photos we have of the quartet is reunited here.
Update 2021: A book-length version of this story is taking shape here, and an appreciation of the city of Elberfeld, where Heinrich's quartet played, is here.
Monday, September 07, 2009
methanol fuel cells revisited
Back in February 2008, I wrote a news item about nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes coated with platinum nanoparticles as electrodes in methanol fuel cells. Now the lead author, Zheng Hu, tells me that in the follow-up work, due to be published in Advanced Materials this week, the team at Nanjing University has made significant progress in three aspects:
* Instead of using pure platinum as the coating, the researchers can now work with Pt-Co alloys, which reduces the cost of the device.
* They can now also apply their electrocatalysts to the cathode reaction, so they could run an entire fuel cell based on this technology.
* They have developed a simple preparation process for the catalysts.
The authors hope that their material will be useful not just in fuel cells but also in other electrochemical applications.
PS the original research communication appears to have been delayed somewhat, but is now out:
Published Online: Sep 15 2009 8:49AM
DOI: 10.1002/adma.200900677
[PDF]
* Instead of using pure platinum as the coating, the researchers can now work with Pt-Co alloys, which reduces the cost of the device.
* They can now also apply their electrocatalysts to the cathode reaction, so they could run an entire fuel cell based on this technology.
* They have developed a simple preparation process for the catalysts.
The authors hope that their material will be useful not just in fuel cells but also in other electrochemical applications.
PS the original research communication appears to have been delayed somewhat, but is now out:
Published Online: Sep 15 2009 8:49AM
DOI: 10.1002/adma.200900677
[PDF]
Saturday, September 05, 2009
how to make pharma proteins
If you want to start a business producing protein pharmaceuticals and haven't got a clue where to start, the book I reviewed for Chemistry & Industry is just perfect, it tells you everything you'll ever need to know about how that particular industry works. For all other readers, the book may come across as a tad boring, but hey, that's life. My not quite glowing review appears on page 28 of issue 16 (24.8.), and the book in question is called "Manufacturing of Pharmaceutical Proteins".
Friday, September 04, 2009
rising from the rubble
I'm pleased to learn from the Oxford Times that the University's plans for redeveloping the site of the former Radcliffe Infirmary are likely to get the go ahead very soon.
This is a major development in the heart of the city, and it was relief to see that the University has a master plan for this, which looks really good -- I attended a consultation meeting when it was first released. There is also a similar master plan for improvements of the adjacent Science Area.
Previously, a lot of the building work in both areas has followed the logic of tumour growth rather than any large scale planning. The Radcliffe Infirmary site (where I occasionally worked in the course of a collaborative project with biomedical researchers) was a textbook example to demonstrate what happens if you allow people to build whatever they feel like. I have a traumatic memory of a rickety first floor extension towering on stilts above an equally ramshackle (but apparently unrelated) shed. Whatever space was left between the extensions to extensions was crammed with pipes and looked more like a derelict chemical factory than like a hospital and research site.
So, well, most of it had to be knocked down, only two or three listed buildings survived, and the site now looks like this:
but we are promised a whole new university quarter, which will be open to the public as well, with through roads. And with buildings designed by real architects, not cobbled together by cowboys. Can't wait. Lots of modern architecture to take photos of ...
This is a major development in the heart of the city, and it was relief to see that the University has a master plan for this, which looks really good -- I attended a consultation meeting when it was first released. There is also a similar master plan for improvements of the adjacent Science Area.
Previously, a lot of the building work in both areas has followed the logic of tumour growth rather than any large scale planning. The Radcliffe Infirmary site (where I occasionally worked in the course of a collaborative project with biomedical researchers) was a textbook example to demonstrate what happens if you allow people to build whatever they feel like. I have a traumatic memory of a rickety first floor extension towering on stilts above an equally ramshackle (but apparently unrelated) shed. Whatever space was left between the extensions to extensions was crammed with pipes and looked more like a derelict chemical factory than like a hospital and research site.
So, well, most of it had to be knocked down, only two or three listed buildings survived, and the site now looks like this:
but we are promised a whole new university quarter, which will be open to the public as well, with through roads. And with buildings designed by real architects, not cobbled together by cowboys. Can't wait. Lots of modern architecture to take photos of ...
Thursday, September 03, 2009
spektrum september
... just one German piece out in September, investigating why people would want to catalogue millions of RNA fragments from flatworms:
Schnipseljagd beim Strudelwurm
Spektrum der Wissenschaft 09/09, p. 22
Beginning of the article and restricted access to PDF file
Schnipseljagd beim Strudelwurm
Spektrum der Wissenschaft 09/09, p. 22
Beginning of the article and restricted access to PDF file
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
San Pedro
I saw the new Almodovar movie, Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces), last weekend, and it struck me that the director has reached a status resembling sainthood -- no matter what he does, we love it, well at least those of us who prefer hand-made movies to the stuff that's made in hollywood.
In abrazos rotos, Almodovar mainly talks about himself, even cites a mock version of his classic Mujeres al borde ... (now 20 years old, would you believe it). Note the contrast between the 2008 colour scheme (red and other primary colours) and the orange-infested one of 1988! As the movie is mainly about himself, it is a bit more bloke-ish than Volver (which is probably my all-time favourite Pedro movie -- I remember coming out of the cinema and being tempted to join the queue to watch it again straight away), but as I say, he's a saint, so he can get away with anything. Doesn't harm to have Penelope Cruz in the movie, as she is pretty close to sainthood herself.
anyhow, it's been an amazing 2 decades since Mujeres al borde. Just one of San Pedro's movies from this era that I haven't seen yet (Kika), and I just ordered the dvd ...
PS oh, and IMDB tells me it's Salma Hayek's birthday today -- I think I have yet to see a recent Mexican movie that doesn't reference her :)
In abrazos rotos, Almodovar mainly talks about himself, even cites a mock version of his classic Mujeres al borde ... (now 20 years old, would you believe it). Note the contrast between the 2008 colour scheme (red and other primary colours) and the orange-infested one of 1988! As the movie is mainly about himself, it is a bit more bloke-ish than Volver (which is probably my all-time favourite Pedro movie -- I remember coming out of the cinema and being tempted to join the queue to watch it again straight away), but as I say, he's a saint, so he can get away with anything. Doesn't harm to have Penelope Cruz in the movie, as she is pretty close to sainthood herself.
anyhow, it's been an amazing 2 decades since Mujeres al borde. Just one of San Pedro's movies from this era that I haven't seen yet (Kika), and I just ordered the dvd ...
PS oh, and IMDB tells me it's Salma Hayek's birthday today -- I think I have yet to see a recent Mexican movie that doesn't reference her :)
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