inspirational diatoms

Diatoms are among my favourite examples of "Nature's nanotechnology" from which we still have so much to learn. I wrote quite a few pieces about them in the late 90s / early 00s, but then lost track of them a bit. Now I've caught up with the field and have written a feature article which is out in this week's issue of Chemistry & Industry (issue 14, page 21-23).

It appears to be freely accessible here - you just have to click on the sub-headings to get the next part of the text.




Photo: Wipeter, Wikimedia Commons

nature's value

At the end of June, I had the opportunity to take part in this year’s “World Forum for Enterprise and the Environment” at Merton College, organised by Oxford’s Smith School.

It was all about how we may still be able to avoid blowing up our planet if we get businesses to recognise the value of the natural resources they are using, polluting, or destroying with their activities.

Personally, I would prefer if people could just do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, and wouldn’t need price tags and bribes to steer them in the right direction. But as we do live in a society where money talks, and which isn’t going to change any time soon, I guess the ecosystem services idea may well be our best chance for saving what's left of our natural environment.

As this is all very topical and important, I wrote a feature about what I learned at the Forum, which is out in Current Biology today:

Valuing Nature
Current Biology, Volume 21, Issue 14, R525-R527, 26 July 2011
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.07.003
FREE access to full text and pdf file

Oh, and I especially enjoyed Sandra Bessudo's talk (in Spanish) on the natural wealth of Colombia, and what should be done to protect it, so here's a picture of her:



This is my own photo, but there are lots of official photos from the event at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment's photostream.

Common Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium)?

As I'm not much of a botanist, I am struggling to identify this plant which grows in abundance along the river Cherwell in Oxford:



Young leaves look like this:



I now think it's Common Hogweed - also see the German Wikipedia entry which has better pictures - according to those, all details seem to match. But all expert botanist advice welcome.

Oh, and I'm also clueless about the insects that often crawl around on it, as in the photo above, but the plant is more important as my son is obsessed with it and I was worried that it might be poisonous (I found half a dozen similar looking plants that are poisonous, in fact).

sustainable chemistry

My short essay review of the book

Chemistry for sustainable technologies: A foundation
by Neil Winterton

is out in this week's Chemistry & Industry, i.e. issue 13, page 28.

Here's a snippet:

Winterton developed an optional module course covering the chemical foundations of sustainable development, out of which this book evolved. The somewhat unconnected chapters still feel a bit like coming into a lecture theatre and hearing: “This week we’re going to…” And the over-used parentheses sound like professorial asides.

Each lecture / chapter covers a significant aspect of sustainable development, up to and including the importance of science for society. Each comes with full scientific detail and an extensive bibliography. This book clearly means business. It wants to be worked with and doesn’t take kindly to being read for pleasure.

we're all Africa

It doesn't happen that often that I get the chance to use a quote from Shakira in my writing, so I jumped at the opportunity to open my article about African genomics with a reference to last year's Fifa World Cup and its official tune, which includes the spoken words at the end: "We're all Africa."

Because, you see, considering the facts that we all came from Africa at one point, sooner or later, that most of human genetic diversity is found between African populations, not between "races", and that a large part of the global disease load weighs down on Africa, it really is quite weird that the new investigation of personal genomes so blatantly followed the money rather than the scientific interest in sequencing lots of males of European descent before even beginning to include some token people of different origin (or even gender).

Obviously, I have phrased this sentiment much more diplomatically in my feature and I also report on several initiatives which aim to empower Africans to take part in the genome revolution and also to reap the medical and economic benefits from it.

My feature is out today in Current Biology:

African genomes
Current Biology, Volume 21, Issue 13, R481-R484, 12 July 2011
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.06.047

Summary and limited access to PDF file



Shakira performing "Waka waka: This time for Africa" at the closing ceremony of the 2010 World Cup.

not the end of the world

I'm loving the front pages of the UK newspapers today, after the coyote had to bite off its paw to get out of the trap ... Loving them so much I made a little collage:



(I tried a couple of news agents to see whether I could get a proper photo of the papers nicely arranged, but they all had them in very unphotogenic places and arrangements.)

I have to disagree with the headline writers who seemed relish the idea that the NOTW is "the world." I think the world at large will be a lot better off without that paper, thank you very much, and rather than the end, it is hopefully going to be the beginning of a new, better world. I think this is a historic opportunity for the UK to rebuild a democracy where elections are decided by the electorate, not by Rupert M.

PS I'm also blogging and reblogging on tumblr these days - more pics, less text than here, check it out.

astrobiology - second edition

Back in 2006, Johns Hopkins University Press published Astrobiology: a brief introduction, which I had co-authored with Kevin Plaxco. Since then, the field has become quite popular. (I would love to take credit for it, but maybe it’s just dumb luck.) The quest for life or at least habitable planets in the rest of the Universe is now a universally supported endeavour to the extent that NASA now justifies much of its research and exploration work with that goal.

The discovery of extremophiles in the most unlikely locations here on Earth has played a large part in propping up our hopes that life may also exist elsewhere. Add to that the discovery of more than 500 extrasolar planets in just 16 years since the first one was reported, and you get a proper scientific gold rush.

Thus, our 2006 book was beginning to look out of date and there was a strong case for a new, revised and expanded edition, which we prepared over the last year or so. We have revised the entire text, added a glossary and lots of new illustrations. New discoveries are included up to and including last December’s arsenic eating bacteria. With all this, the book will be around 90 pages thicker than the first edition, but hopefully just as readable.

The cover design, which we all love, has been kept. Only the colour of the title will now be green instead of orange, so you can easily tell the second from the first edition. The new version should be available by September in the US, maybe a few weeks later in the rest of the world.




In preparation for the release, I’m also updating the astrobiology web pages, but that’s work in progress still. (At the moment the ISBN numbers and the cover are there, but the exact page number and amazon links are still missing.)

hidden treasures

After the most-viewed flickr pix, here now a selection of the least-viewed and underappreciated. There are quite a few flowers, such as this tulip with dew drops:



water fountains, like this one at Barcelona:



pedestrian bridges, like this one in Amiens:



and our local bumblebees, such as this one:



Some of the other bumblebee pictures are in double figure views only because I posted specific links on twitter - this adds 10-15 views in a minute.

But maybe I just haven't found the right flickr groups yet to promote these types of photos ? Some of the highly specific groups I'm in, specialising on windows, pedestrian bridges, fountains, etc. seem to have little effect.


Anyhow, a set of my hidden treasures is here.

suerte

Spanish/English mixed version of Jason Mraz' song Lucky, featuring the Mexican singer/songwriter Ximena Sariñana:




As luck would have it, I just found out that Ximena has an English album in the pipeline, due to be released in August. There is already a video for the first single, Different, and I love both the song and the video (and the cuddly yellow monster, too), so even though I only meant to post the Suerte video, here comes another one ,enjoy:



so, mucha suerte to Ximena, at least in the UK she will need it.

flickr winner

So, after one year on flickr, I'll now reveal what is by far and away the most-viewed of my pictures. Strangely, it's not one of my wonderful bumblebees, even though they are nice and fluffy, very colourful, and have six legs. Instead, it turns out to be a Homo sapiens female with only two legs and very short shorts. Who would have thunk.



I do like the picture, of course, partially because of the composition with the female figure cutting across the white table cloth, also because I have managed to disguise the face quite cleverly. But I wouldn't have picked it for the top spot. Oh well. Some of the underappreciated gems from my photostream to follow soon.

For the complete chart countdown, click the "flickr" tag below. Alternatively, visit my flickr set more than 100 views.

neuroscience in China

In a rare departure from my comfort zone, I wrote a big feature article about neuroscience in China, which (like much of Chinese science) has seen a massive boost in the last 12 years, to the extent that new institutes can now attract both Chinese researchers returning from the US and international experts willing to try a new experience.

From the epic list of addresses at the top of my thank-you email I gather that it took at least 12 kind and helpful people to help me find my way in this big topic, and during the four weeks when I kicked this around, I certainly learned a lot.

So, the result of all this is out today:

Boom time for neuroscience in China
Current Biology, Volume 21, Issue 12, R441-R444, 21 June 2011
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.06.001

and as it is part of some bigger event across the Cell Press journals, it is on open access here:

summary page / PDF file.

It is accompanied by a Q&A piece featuring Fang Fang (not mine, this interview was set up by the editors separately), which is also on open access.

I'm blue

The silver medal in my flickr countdown goes to an abstract architecture photo. This is a bit odd, as these pix, much as I love them myself, normally don't get more than the median number of views. My guess is that the group "Photography is not a crime" is mainly responsible for this. I mentioned in the caption that I got told off by a security guard, and people responded to that, so I guess some people will have clicked on the photo to read the story, rather than to appreciate the photo. But it's all good, they get a nice photo as a bonus:



This is in London, between Paddington station and Little Venice.