bumblebee biodiversity in the backyard

I've written quite a few pieces about colony losses in honey bees (Apis mellifera), but have to admit I didn't really know who's doing all the pollinating work in my own small garden. This weekend, after noticing one of the trees being visited by lots of insects, I took my camera and had a closer look. I think I have spotted four different species (not counting flies). All identifications below are tentative, so any helpful hints appreciated:


I think this could be a Bombus terrestris, or buff-tailed bumblebee ?


Love the orange neck-scarf on this one, think it might be Bombus hypnorum, which apparently only arrived in the UK in 2001 (according to Bumblebee Conservation Trust)?



Don't recall seeing its rear end, but if it's reddish, it might be a red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) ? I've definitely seen one of those elsewhere in Oxford.


I think this one is an ordinary European honey bee Apis mellifera - we may be in reach of the colony housed in the Oxford University Museum.

astrobiology news

Lots of news at the astrobiology front.

The CoRoT probe has reported half a dozen new planets (Oxford University press release). More on this later.

News from exoplanet Beta pictoris b (BBC news).

Martian ocean continues to make waves (although I'm not sure that 30 cubic miles justify the use of the word "ocean" - I think that's just over twice the size of Lake Constance, which has 55 cubic km). Anyhow - Guardian report

And there may be evidence for life on Titan!

Oh, and it is probably safe to reveal now that at some point next year there will be a second edition of "Astrobiology: a brief introduction" by Kevin Plaxco and myself. More details to follow in due course.

live the dream

a special birthday post for a faithful reader and blogging friend:



have a good one and may your wildest dreams come true ...

PS: I was going to post the original video, but within the last 3 days they have blocked the embedding, but you can watch it here.

one goal

there will be absolutely no football coverage on this blog, but here is one goal I can relate to:



You can join 1goal here or follow their tweets.

PS - I pinched the photo from Wendy's blog.

PPS: While I'm at it, I'll also throw in a video of Shakira's appearance at the opening ceremony:

copy number counts in autism

I recently wrote a news item for the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, about the genetic work done on autism:

Autism genes: combinations and copy numbers

This work is mainly about finding out which genetic variants are truly linked to autism and which not. While many such associations have been reported, there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding which of these are really important for a significant number of cases.

What I also learned during my research for this piece is that copy number variations, e.g. gene duplications or deletion of duplicate copies, are now regarded as an important factor in autism genetics. As it happens, the WTCHG has another paper out in Nature online today dealing with the impact of CNVs in autism:

Functional impact of global rare copy number variation in autism spectrum disorders
D. Pinto et al., Nature (2010) doi:10.1038/nature09146 Published online 09 June 2010

For my previous pieces on autism research, click here.



photo: NHG

bhopal - the disaster continues

Following on from my earlier rant re. the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, there is further depressing news about this in yesterday's Guardian. A trial has come to an end but the disaster continues.

Seven convicted over 1984 Bhopal gas disaster (news report re. the outcome of the trial)

Editorial including an enlightening comparison with the current BP disaster.

Comment by Indra Sinh who says: "The people most responsible for the disaster in Bhopal were not in the courtroom today when the verdict against eight Indian employees of Union Carbide India Limited was announced."

drug delivery

My review of the textbook

The physicochemical basis of pharmaceuticals
Humphrey Moynihan, Abina Crean
Oxford University Press 2009

is out in this week's issue of Chemistry & Industry (should turn up here very soon). Found the book very readable and interesting, so the review is broadly a recommendation.

Here's a snippet:

The authors focus on the well-established drugs and delivery routes, so they are mainly concerned with organic molecules, using classical drugs like aspirin, paracetamol, and ibuprofen as examples, and creams, pills, injections, etc. as the standard delivery methods. [...] the book is very good at delivering exactly what it says on the cover, namely giving students a physicochemical basis for understanding the formulation of pharmaceuticals.

blue river

The river Cherwell as it appeared after a late shift at the library:

 

 

PS I uploaded a larger version of the photo to fotocommunity.

german pieces in June

exoplanets, synthetic fuels, ESR spectroscopy, and the double life of Dicer, it's all in a month's output:

Astrochemie: Chemie ferner Planeten
Chemie in unserer Zeit vol 44, No. 3, p. 166-167

Biochemie: Häcksler bekommt Nebenjob
Chemie in unserer Zeit vol 44, No. 3, p. 171

Ausgeforscht Traumreisen in ferne Welten
Nachrichten aus der Chemie vol 58, No. 6, p.633

Kraftstoffe Fischer-Tropsch-Synthese: Wiederkehr im grünen Gewand
Nachrichten aus der Chemie vol 58, No. 6, p.653

Blickpunkt Biowissenschaften ESR-Spektroskopie: Was der Spin verrät
Nachrichten aus der Chemie vol 58, No. 6, p.659

lablit up and coming?

Jennifer Rohn writes in the current issue of Nature that lablit (i.e. realistic novels with scientists as central characters shown to engage in scientific research) appears to experience a boom, with an increasing number of lablit novels being published every year since around 1990.

Come to think of it, I haven't read all that many books that fit her definition. Off the cuff, I can remember:

Carl Djerassi: Cantor's Dilemma (which also got Rohn interested in this)
Carl Sagan: Contact
Daniel Kehlmann: Measuring the world


Missing from the LabLit list is German author Karl Aloys Schenzinger who is a pioneer of the genre:

Anilin. Roman eines Farbstoffes (1936)
Metall (1939)
Atom (1950)
Schnelldampfer (1951)
Bei I.G. Farben (1951)

but who is somewhat discredited by being also the author of Hitlerjunge Quex (1932), a novel glorifying the Nazi youth organisation.


An Austrian refugee working in Canada, Charles Wassermann (1924-78) novelised the discovery of insulin in the book:

Insulin (1966)

Also missing is Jules Verne. Looking up by topics, one can find loads of novels about scientists, eg about Kepler the German wikipedia entry lists:

Rosemarie Schuder: Der Sohn der Hexe – In der Mühle des Teufels. Berlin: Rütten & Loening 1968
Wilhelm und Helga Strube: Kepler und der General. Berlin: Neues Leben 1985
Johannes Tralow: Kepler und der Kaiser. Berlin: Verlag der Nation 1961

As for the reasons for the increase over the last 20 years, I reckon that Djerassi's success with Cantor's dilemma may have triggered something like a chain reaction.

On second thoughts, the graph shown in Nature would also be compatible with the interpretation that lablit novels decay with a half life of 10 years.

PS Many years ago I read a book that comprehensively analyses the image of scientists in literature - I vaguely remember I found it quite inspiring at the time (need to read it again at some point). That's "From Faust to Strangelove" by Roslynn Haynes, Johns Hopkins University Press 1994 (Paperback 1995)

parisian memories part 1

a la recherche du temps perdu ... collecting up some memories of various cities I have visited more than once, starting off with

PARIS

1. Just walking through

During the first 20 years of my life, I spent probably more than 10% of my time in northern France, but never got to see much of Paris. By age 20, I had seen all the “big six” gothic cathedrals of the north, except Notre Dame de Paris. Lille, where my aunt used to live, was the biggest city we went to, and even there my parents managed to get lost every time.

I think I once went to Paris as a child accompanying my cousin who had some business to attend there, but can’t remember seeing any of the city’s attractions (my only memory is of a side road with a door where my cousin rang to deliver something, maybe there was a postal strike).

At 17 I went hitchhiking / camping with a gang of 7 along the Atlantic coast, from Saint-Jean-de-Monts (near Nantes) down to Soulac-sur-Mer (near Bordeaux). Love the Atlantic coast, it’s the only place in France where you get a proper ocean with proper waves, the southern part of the coast is a popular destination for surfers. I travelled back alone to stop by at my aunt’s place at Lille. I spent a day hitchhiking back up from Soulac to Nantes, then took the night train from Nantes to Paris (Montparnasse, I guess). With my trademark unwarranted optimism, I assumed I would be able to sleep on the train, but ended up having just enough space to crouch down outside the toilet door, so I arrived in Paris in less than perfect condition at some ridiculous time like 5 am. As I was travelling on an extremely small budget and there wasn’t any particular hurry, I decided to walk across Paris to the Gare du Nord to catch a train to Lille from there.

After all these years I still remember some glimpses I had while walking across the city with 18kg of luggage including a tent on my back (I know this number for certain because I weighed it when I arrived!). It was great fun watching the city wake up and rub the sleep from its collective eyes, market traders setting up their stalls, bin men doing their rounds very early such as not to hold up the traffic too much. So on that occasion I saw more of Paris than in my lifetime before and in quite a few years after, and I enjoyed it greatly. What I also remember of that trip is that on the train to Lille (that being before the times of TGV, it would have taken three hours or so) the conductor had to shake me to wake me up when he wanted to see my ticket. Oh, and just for the heck of it, I walked the 4 km from Lille station to my aunt’s place as well (and, unlike some people I know, I didn’t lose my way).

... a suivre ...

elephants in london

On a trip to London this week I found out that lots of elephants are out and about in the capital, advertising the charity Elephant Family. Apparently, there are 258 of them, all different designs. Here are a few of the dozen or so that we saw:









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