Hi Reddit! Today’s discussion is coming to us from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) and is a collaboration between r/science, LabX, and the Water, Science and Technology Board! We are panel of diverse water science professionals ready to answer your questions about all things related to drinking water. Water is a ubiquitous phenomenon! But its visual abundance—from its constant flow out of taps and fountains to the immensity of our oceans—can mask the fact that 1 in 7 people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water (that’s over 1 billion people!). Furthermore, in places like New Orleans or The Netherlands, water can seem like an impending threat without the proper means to safely contain it, or productively incorporate it into our daily lives. The broader water/society interface raises questions about drinking water’s vulnerability to climate change and society’s vulnerability to ageing infrastructure for adequate and safe sourcing, treatment, and distribution. Poor drinking water quality can result from pollution from sources such as industrial waste, agricultural runoff, corrosion of lead from distribution pipes, or treatment facility contamination by man-made materials such as polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Emerging innovations in grey/green infrastructure, stewardship programs to reduce man-made contaminants, desalination technology, and international efforts to increase access to safe water on a global scale might help preserve and increase Earth’s water supply and society’s value of it. All of these issues, and more, are on our collective radar and we look forward to discussing them with you. Ask us anything! Our discussion panel guests today are: Will Logan (u/Will_Logan_ICIWaRM) is currently the Director at the International Center for Integrated Water Resources Management (ICIWaRM), which is part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Previously, Will was the Science Attaché for the US Mission to UNESCO and he served for almost a decade on the Water, Science, and Technology Board at the National Academies of Sciences. Will holds a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences/Hydro-geology from Waterloo University and was an Assistant Professor of Hydro-geology at George Washington University. Ellen de Guzman (u/Ellen_de_Guzman) is currently the Senior Water Officer in the Middle East and North Africa Bureau at USAID. Ellen has managed projects spanning rural reconstruction, humanitarian and disaster response, alternative livelihoods, food security, agriculture, water and sanitation. Prior to USAID, Ellen worked for the National Academies of Sciences, where she provided policy research support to develop federal policies on managing subsurface water contamination, the Clean Water Act, sustainable water and environmental management in the California Bay-Delta, and invasive species in ballast water. Jin Shin (u/Jin_Shin_WSSC) is currently the Water Quality Division Manager at WSSC (Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission), where he has worked for nearly 15 years. The WSSC is one of the largest water and wastewater utilities in the nation, with a service area that spans nearly 1,000 square miles in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties in Maryland. Jin holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from John Hopkins University, where he was also a lecturer and visiting professor for 6 years. Teddi Ann Galligan (u/Teddi_Ann_Galligan) is a community science educator. She draws from firsthand experience living in conditions where safe drinking water was a daily issue, as well as substantial laboratory experience, which includes wastewater analysis for a sustainable sanitation digestion technology, water quality analysis, and clinical laboratory work in low-resource settings. Currently Director of Covalence Science Education, Ms. Galligan has designed and delivered hands-on programs in a wide variety of environments, ranging from classrooms in the United States to open-air community science workshops in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Teddi Ann was an educator and consultant at the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences for more than a decade, helping visitors use science to address real world community resilience issues associated with climate change. Our guests will be answering questions starting at 8:30 PM EST.
Hi reddit! This month the UN is holding its Climate Action Summit, it is New York City’s Climate Week next week, today is the Global Climate Strike, earlier this month was the Asia Pacific Climate Week, and there are many more local events happening. Since climate change is in the news a lot let’s talk about it! We’re a panel of experts who study and communicate about climate change’s causes, impacts, and solutions, and we’re here to answer your questions about it! Is there something about the science of climate change you never felt you fully understood? Questions about a claim you saw online or on the news? Want to better understand why you should care and how it will impact you? Or do you just need tips for talking to your family about climate change at Thanksgiving this year? We can help! Here are some general resources for you to explore and learn about the climate: AAAS just released a report with case studies and videos of how communities and companies (and individuals) in the US are working with scientists to respond to climate change called “How We Respond.” NASA: Vital Signs of the Planet National Academies of Sciences: Climate Change Evidence and Causes National Geographic: Seven things to know about Climate Change Today’s guests are: Emily Cloyd (u/BotanyAndDragons): I’m the director for the American Association for the Advancement of Science Center for Public Engagement with Science and Technology, where I oversee programs including How We Respond: Community Responses to Climate Change (just released!), the Leshner Leadership Institute, and the AAAS IF/THEN Ambassadors, and study best practices for science communication and policy engagement. Prior to joining AAAS, I led engagement and outreach for the Third National Climate Assessment, served as a Knauss Marine Policy Fellow at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and studied the use of ecological models in Great Lakes management. I hold a Master’s in Conservation Biology (SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry) and a Bachelor’s in Plant Biology (University of Michigan), am always up for a paddle (especially if it is in a dragon boat), and last year hiked the Tour du Mont Blanc. Jeff Dukes (u/Jeff_Dukes): My research generally examines how plants and ecosystems respond to a changing environment, focusing on topics from invasive species to climate change. Much of my experimental work seeks to inform and improve climate models. The center I direct has been leading the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment (INCCIA); that’s available at IndianaClimate.org. You can find more information about me at https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~jsdukes/lab/index.html, and more information about the Purdue Climate Change Research Center at http://purdue.edu/climate. Hussein R. Sayani (u/Hussein_Sayani): I’m a climate scientist at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Science at Georgia Institute of Technology. I develop records of past ocean temperature, salinity, and wind variability in the tropical Pacific by measuring changes in the chemistry of fossil corals. These past climate records allow us to understand past climate changes in the tropical Pacific, a region that profoundly influences temperature and rainfall patterns around the planet, so that we can improve future predictions of global and regional climate change. Jessica Moerman (u/Jessica_Moerman): Hi reddit! My name is Jessica Moerman and I study how climate changed in the past - before we had weather stations. How you might ask? I study the chemical fingerprints of geologic archives like cave stalagmites, lake sediments, and ancient soil deposits to discover how temperature and rainfall varied over the last several ice age cycles. I have a Ph.D. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from the Georgia Institute of Technology and have conducted research at Johns Hopkins University, University of Michigan, and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. I am now a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow working on climate and environmental issues. Our guests will be joining us throughout the day (primarily in the afternoon Eastern Time) to answer your questions and discuss!
Hello, Reddit! We are a team of conservationists and scientists here to discuss artisanal and small-scale mining, its surprising importance to some of our most beloved possessions, and its effects on biodiversity. Let’s discuss! Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM)—the mining of metals and minerals by hand, often using tools as simple as a hammer and a pick—-is an enormous part of our industrial supply chain. In fact, ASM is the main source of income for over 40 million people world wide, and is responsible for between 15–20% of all the world’s mineral and metal production. ASM produces huge percentages of the world’s gold, tin, and cobalt supplies, which, as you may know, are all absolutely crucial ingredients to one of our most important possessions- our smart phones. As things stand, there are some serious drawbacks to artisanal and small scale mining. Notably, ASM requires a lot of water to clean the mined materials before they’re ready for sale, and in some cases, numerous poisonous solvents must be used as well. What results is contaminated water, decreased biodiversity, and birth defects—and these are just some of the problems. For these reasons, we’ve been extremely interested lately in potential technological, logistical, and political solutions that could improve the lives of ASM workers and protect their environments. We’re here today with some ideas of our own, but certainly not all the answers. We hope that we can have a lively discussion about artisanal mining, really dig into the issues surrounding it, and maybe even unearth some possible solutions. Today’s discussion is in collaboration with Conservation X Labs, a D.C. based conservation non-profit that acts as an incubator to help innovators and organizations bring great conservation ideas to life and get them out into the world where they can make a difference for the people who need them. Conservation X Labs is putting up $750,000 dollars in prize money in hopes of finding solutions to improve lives of ASM workers and protect their environments. Our discussion-panel guests today are: Alex Dehgan (u/Alex_Dehgan): I am CEO and co-founder of Conservation X Labs. I recently served as the Chief Scientist at USAID, with rank of Assistant Administrator, and co-founded the Global Development Lab. I am also the Chanler Innovator at Duke University and served as Duke’s inaugural David Rubenstein Fellow. Prior to USAID, I worked in multiple positions within the Office of the Secretary, and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, at the Dept. of State, where I used science and conservation as a diplomatic tool for engagement with countries in the Islamic world, including Iran. I also hold a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings, and a B.S. from Duke University, and am the author of The Snow Leopard Project and Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation. Luis E. Fernandez (u/Luis_E_Fernandez): I am the Executive Director of the Amazon Scientific Innovation Center (CINCIA) and an Assistant Professor of Research in the Department of Biology at Wake Forest University. I am a tropical ecologist, as well as an expert in the dynamics and impact of environmental mercury in areas where artisanal mining is common. I have held positions at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford University, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Environmental Agency. Nicole M. Smith (u/Nicole_M_Smith): I am a cultural anthropologist with research interests in artisanal and small-scale mining; sustainability and social responsibility, as well as engineering education. I am an Assistant Professor in the Mining Engineering Department at the the Colorado School of Mines. I am currently the PI for a U.S. Department of State-funded project addressing mercury use among Peruvian artisanal and small-scale gold miners, as well as the Co-PI on a National Science Foundation-funded project that applies an interdisciplinary, community-centered approach to understanding ASM systems in Colombia and Peru. I am also a research fellow at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at the Sustainable Minerals Institute at the University of Queensland and a scholarly affiliate with the Gemstone and Sustainable Development Knowledge Hub. James McQuilken (u/James_McQuilken): I am a Program Officer in Pact’s Mines to Markets program, and the Project Manager and Technical Lead on DELVE, a global data initiative between the World Bank and Pact to develop an online platform on artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). Based in Kigali, Rwanda, I am also the ASM specialist on Sustainable Development of Mining in Rwanda (SDMR). Based on over a year of fieldwork in Ghana, my PhD thesis maps small-scale mining networks of gold and diamond production and develops policy recommendations to improve mineral certification and formalization initiatives in the region. We’ll be around ~1pm EST to answer your questions and discuss artisanal and small-scale mining with you!
, © Brown This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and redistribution in any medium, provided that the original author and source are credited. I volunteer teach 5th grade science and would like a protocol for monitoring the quality of air. How would it be done with foldscope? count particles? measure size? range of particle sizes? numbers with respect to time?
We published a paper yesterday in Science describing a family tree of 13 million people by crowd sourcing the hard work of millions of genealogists.This pedigree spans all habitable continents and over 500 hundred years.We used the pedigree to understand the genetics of human longevity and found that genetics explain a smaller role in longevity.Genes account for only 5% on average of the differences in life span between individuals.For comparison, previous studies showed that smoking reduces life expectancy by 10yrs.We also used the data to trace migration patterns in the Western world.We looked at historical patterns of marriages and analyzed how long people had to migrate to find the love of their life and who is the person was (hint: someone in your family).Our data suggests that technological advancements did not change consanguineous marriages but rather cultural changes such as social taboos.Ask me anything
I’m Duncan Pritchard, Chancellor’s Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. I work mainly in epistemology. In my first book, Epistemic Luck, (Oxford UP, 2005), I argued for a distinctive methodology that I call anti-luck epistemology, and along the way offered a modal account of luck. In my second book, The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations, (with A. Haddock & A. Millar), (Oxford UP, 2010), I expanded on anti-luck epistemology to offer a new theory of knowledge (anti-luck virtue epistemology), and also explained how knowledge relates to such cognate notions as understanding and cognitive achievement. I also discussed the topic of epistemic value. In my third book, Epistemological Disjunctivism, (Oxford UP, 2012), I defended a radical conception of perceptual knowledge, one that treats such knowledge as paradigmatically supported by reasons that are both rational and reflectively accessible. In my most recent book, Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, (Princeton UP, 2015), I offer an innovative response to the problem of radical scepticism. This argues that what looks like a single problem is in fact two logically distinct problems in disguise. Accordingly, I argue that we need a ‘biscopic’ resolution to scepticism that is suitably sensitive to each aspect of the sceptical difficulty. To this end I bring together two approaches to radical scepticism that have hitherto been thought to be competing, but which I argue are in fact complementary—viz., epistemological disjunctivism and a Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology. Right now I’m working on a new book on scepticism as part of Oxford UP’s ‘a very short introduction to’ series. I’m also developing my recent work on risk and luck, particularly with regard to epistemic risk, and I’m interested in ‘applied’ topics in epistemology, such as the epistemology of education, the epistemology of law, the epistemology of religious belief, and the epistemological implications of extended cognition. I’m the Editor-in-Chief of the online journal Oxford Bibliographies: Philosophy, and co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal International Journal for the Study of Skepticism. I am also the series editor of two book series, Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy and Brill Studies in Skepticism. I’ve edited a lot of volumes, and also written/edited several textbooks. On the latter front, see especially What is this Thing Called Philosophy?, (Routledge, 2015), Epistemology, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and What is this Thing Called Knowledge?, (Routledge, 4th ed. 2018). I’ve been involved with numerous MOOCs (= Massive Open Online Courses), including the ‘Introduction to Philosophy’ course which was for one time the world’s most popular MOOC. I’ve also been involved with a successful Philosophy in Prisons programme. I’ve led quite a few large externally funded projects, often of an interdisciplinary nature. Some highlights include a major AHRC-funded project (c. £510K) on Extended Knowledge, and two Templeton-funded projects, Philosophy, Science and Religion Online (c. £1.5M), and Intellectual Humility MOOC (c. £400K). In 2007 I was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize and in 2011 I was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2013 I delivered the annual Soochow Lectures in Philosophy in Taiwan. My Google Scholar Profile is here. If you want to know what will eventually cause my demise, click here. Links of Interest: I was recently interviewed by 3AM: Magazine Another recent interview, this time with the Italian online journal, APhEx (PDF) The Introduction to my latest monograph, Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing (Princeton UP, 2015) "Epistemological Disjunctivism: A First Pass", the opening chapter to Epistemological Disjunctivism (Oxford UP, 2012) A fairly recent video of a talk I gave at a conference in Bonn that gives an overview of my stance on radical scepticism A fairly recent video of a talk on 'Faith and Reason' that I gave to a conference (aimed at a general audience) organized by the Royal Institute of Philosophy A 'research in a nutshell' video that I recorded a few years ago A recent blog post on ‘Intellectual Humility and Conviction’, for the Open For Debate Blog A recent blog post on 'Farewell to Epistemic Angst', for the Imperfect Cognitions Blog "The Value of Knowledge", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article EDIT: Thanks everyone for your questions! I apologise to all those I didn't get to, and thanks to everyone for having me.
More than 20 years ago, I reported that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) improves aerobic and anaerobic energy releasing capacity in this research article.
Are you on a first-name basis with Siri, Cortana, or your Google Assistant?If so, you're both using AI and helping researchers like us make it better.Until recently, few people believed the field of artificial intelligence (AI) existed outside of science fiction.Today, AI-based technology pervades our work and personal lives, and companies large and small are pouring money into new AI research labs.The present success of AI did not, however, come out of nowhere.The applications we are seeing now are the direct outcome of 50 years of steady academic, government, and industry research.We are private industry leaders in AI research and development, and we want to discuss how AI has moved from the lab to the everyday world, whether the field has finally escaped its past boom and bust cycles, and what we can expect from AI in the coming years.
Hello Reddit, my name is David Linden and I’m a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In my lab, I study neural plasticity- the ability of the brain to be modified by experience- whether from learning, hibernation, hormonal fluctuations or injury. I have a long-standing interest in scientific communication and have served for years as the chief editor of The Journal of Neurophysiology. I’ve also written several books about neural function for a general audience including The Accidental Mind (2007), The Compass of Pleasure (2011) and Touch (2015). I find that scientists are trained to be meticulous when they speak about their work. That’s why I like getting my neuroscience colleagues tipsy. For years, after plying them with spirits, I’ve been asking brain researchers the same simple question: “What idea about brain function would you most like to explain to the world?” I’ve been delighted with their responses. They don’t delve into the minutiae of their latest experiments or lapse into nerd speak. They sit up a little straighter, open their eyes a little wider, and give clear, insightful, and often unpredictable or counterintuitive answers. A new book I’ve edited, called “Think Tank: 40 Neuroscientists Explore the Biological Roots of Human Experience” (Yale Press, 2018) is the result of those conversations. I’ve invited a group of the world’s leading neuroscientists, my dream team of thoughtful, erudite, and clear-thinking researchers, to answer that key question in the form of a short essay. I have encouraged each author to choose her or his own topic to tell the scientific story that she or he is burning to share in clear and compelling language. Lets’ talk brains, behavior and scientific communication. I look forward to having you #AskMeAnything on April 30th, 1 PM ET.
Hi, I’m Adam Becker, PhD, an astrophysicist and science writer. My new book, What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics, is about the scientists who bucked the establishment and looked for a better way to understand what quantum mechanics is telling us about the nature of reality. It’s a history of quantum foundations from the initial development of quantum mechanics to the present, focusing on some people who don’t often get the spotlight in most books on quantum history: David Bohm, Hugh Everett III, John Bell, and the people who came after them (e.g. Clauser, Shimony, Zeh, Aspect). I’m happy to talk about all of their work: the physics, the history, the philosophy, and more. FWIW, I don’t subscribe to any particular interpretation, but I’m not a fan of the “Copenhagen interpretation” (which isn’t even a single coherent position anyhow). Please don’t shy away if you disagree. Feel free to throw whatever you’ve got at me, and let’s have a fun, engaging, and respectful conversation on one of the most contentious subjects in physics. Or just ask whatever else you want to ask—after all, this is AMA. Edit, 2PM Eastern: Gotta step away for a bit. I’ll be back in an hour or so to answer more questions. Edit, 6:25PM Eastern: Looks like I’ve answered all of your questions so far, but I’d be happy to answer more. I’ll check back in another couple of hours. Edit, 11:15PM Eastern: OK, I’m out for the night, but I’ll check in again tomorrow morning for any final questions.
, © Singh This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and redistribution in any medium, provided that the original author and source are credited. Garlic belongs to the onion family and has several health benefits. A garlic bulb consists of about a dozen compactly arranged storage leaves known as cloves.
The United States is currently experiencing an opioid crisis. The CDC website has some chilling facts: The majority of drug overdose deaths (66%) involve an opioid. In 2016, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids was 5 times higher than in 1999. From 2000 to 2016, more than 600,000 people died from drug overdoses. On average, 115 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. Despite all this, opioids remain an effective treatment for post-operative pain. Surgeons struggle with adequately treating their patients’ pain needs while being mindful of the risks of opioids. Not enough is known about the risks of treating patients with longer durations and stronger doses of opioids. In our paper published in the BMJ, we quantified the association between the amount of opioids patients received directly after surgery and the rate of misusing opioids (including overdose, abuse, and dependence) in more than 500,000 surgery patients enrolled in commercial medical insurance who received opioids. We found that each additional refill a patient received was associated with a more than 40% increase in the rate of misuse and each additional week of opioids with a 20% increase. The dose of opioids had a much smaller impact and only seemed to become important among patients who used opioids for an extended period. Those numbers are based on statistical models that take into many factors about the patients, including their surgery type, age, sex, and certain diagnoses that they might have received before surgery like tobacco use disorder or depression. To give you a sense of some related unadjusted data, 0.18% of patients with no refills experienced a misuse event within one year after surgery. That number doubles to 0.37% among those who filled just one additional opioid prescription after surgery. And it jumps all the way to 1.1% among those with more than 5 refills. Our main analysis included all misuse events (not just those that happened within one year after surgery) and showed very similar results. AMA! We are: Gabriel Brat, instructor in surgery and in biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School and a trauma surgeon at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Denis Agniel, associate statistician at the RAND Corporation and part-time lecturer at Harvard Medical School Postsurgical prescriptions for opioid naive patients and association with overdose and misuse: retrospective cohort study BMJ 2018; 360 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j5790 Edit: Thanks everyone for all the questions. We are signing off now, but we will check in later to participate in further discussion.
, © avila This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and redistribution in any medium, provided that the original author and source are credited. I got in touch with the foldscope team last year, to develop some workshops within the program I was implementing for work. “Innovation with purpose”. The program consists on implementing an innovative technology “plasma water sanitation system” to guarantee access to secure and potable water for vulnerable people. Our vision is to connect advanced technology and science with poverty, social and environmental unrest. Have to say that it was fun to assemble the foldscope from scratch. The first time I used the foldscope, was a complete failure. We could not determine if we were seeing bacteria or dust in the lens. Even though I had some help (lab team), it was so hard to guess the size of the bacteria. (it would help if you could make examples of the sizes expected when you see some components, alive or dead). After a few attempts, we were able to see some e.coli (conjunto) in the samples. Or at least we thought so. We even dyed the sample with fuchsin.
Hi! I’m Tony Hey, the chief data scientist at the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK and a former vice president at Microsoft. I received a doctorate in particle physics from the University of Oxford before moving into computer science, where I studied parallel computing and Big Data for science. The folks at Physics Today magazine asked me to come chat about Richard Feynman, who would have turned 100 years old today. Feynman earned a share of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum electrodynamics and was famous for his accessible lectures and insatiable curiosity. I first met Feynman in 1970 when I began a postdoctoral research job in theoretical particle physics at Caltech. Years later I edited a book about Feynman’s lectures on computation; check out my TEDx talk on Feynman’s contributions to computing. I’m excited to talk about Feynman’s many accomplishments in particle physics and computing and to share stories about Feynman and the exciting atmosphere at Caltech in the early 1970s. Also feel free to ask me about my career path and computer science work! I’ll be online today at 1pm EDT to answer your questions. Edit: Thanks for all the great questions! I enjoyed answering them.
We are NASA Earth Scientists Susan Strahan and Anne Douglass and we recently published an article using satellite measurements to show that the Antarctic Ozone Hole is beginning to recover! An international treaty signed over 30 years ago banning CFCs – the Montreal Protocol – is the reason for today’s good news. We’re here to talk about the issues that affect the ozone layer and how NASA data and computer models are used to understand today’s ozone and how it will change in the future. You can see a NASA video on our recent paper or read about our work in a NASA Earth Observatory article.
, © Iyer This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and redistribution in any medium, provided that the original author and source are credited. There are fascinating stories in biological systems and here is one I recently learnt thanks to the ASSETT program. https://tetrahymenaasset.vet.cornell.edu/science-modules/by-name/cannibalismand-inter\nspecific-predation/ Tetrahymena vorax is much larger than Tetrahymena thermophila. It also looks very different, swims more like a fish and very interestingly shows a great degree of polymorphisms in shape. As the resources in a growth medium depletes, or when nutrition is low, and/or if other ciliates like Tetrahymena thermophila are present in the same surroundings, Tetrahymena vorax undergoes a remarkable change, where it transforms from a small-mouthed form (microstome), to about 10 times bigger with a large mouth (macrostome). These macrostomes now either eat the microstome forms and other species in the surroundings. Experiments show that in such a situation where Tetrahymena thermophila is also present in the surroundings, they prefer it to its own microstome kin. Interestingly, under these circumstances, some of the microstome forms grow long tails and these appear to be resistant to macrostome cannibalism. What a fascinating story!! First lets look at the three forms.
and co-host of the Philosophy Talk radio program.I grew up in the Bronx, and was the first of my family to go to college.From there, I graduated from City College of New York and received my PhD from M.I.T. where -after toying with the idea of writing on the philosophy of logic -I wrote a dissertation focusing on Marx's theory of social progress.Although I have traveled far from where I began, my experiences growing up in the Bronx continue to influence my work and thought.My philosophical work has been broadly concerned with the economic preconditions for a democratic society of equals.But rather than approaching this question at a very high level of abstraction, I have focused on the ethics behind the creation and operation of particular markets.Markets in the abstract are models of freedom and equality.Freedom because each has the choice to enter into, or refrain from entering, any particular exchange.Moreover, because each of us is linked through countless others, no one is under the thumb of any particular person.This latter point also underwrites our equality.In theory, neither is dependent on the other and each has the right to refuse a deal which we view as unfair.But, in reality, many markets depart very far from that theory.Some markets involve agents who are asymmetrically situated: One person desperately needs a good that only the other has (think of credit markets in the developing world); or, one person has relevant knowledge that another person lacks (think of the market for used cars).Moreover, some markets involve risks that fall on others besides the transacting agent (think of exchanges that generate pollution); or markets where others are transacting on our behalf (think of child labor markets where parents transact on behalf of their children, or governments where dictators transact debt on behalf of their populations).My book, Why Some Things Should Not be For Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets develops a theory that distinguishes between ordinary markets that resemble abstract markets and what I call noxious markets.Noxious markets are characterized along four parameters: weak agency, background vulnerability and inequality of the transacting agents, harms to individuals, and harms to society.
My research focuses on understanding the transmission of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum (P.falciparum) -that is, how malaria-infected humans are able to infect mosquitoes.I lived and worked for many years in Kenya, Tanzania and the United Kingdom before moving to Radboud University Medical Center.One of the unique achievements of my department is the development of a safe controlled human infection model for malaria.In our current publication in eLife, we utilized this model to study the biology and transmission potential of controlled P. falciparum infections in Dutch volunteers who were exposed to malaria-infected mosquitoes.Our volunteers received treatment that controlled the pathogenic forms of malaria (and thus kept them safe) but stimulated the production of non-pathogenic transmissible stages of malaria parasites -the so-called gametocytes.We successfully induced gametocytes in all volunteers in sex ratios that resemble those observed in natural infections, and found that parasites start producing gametocytes immediately upon appearing in the bloodstream.Our model provides a new way to investigate malaria infection, and could help to test the impact of drugs and vaccines on gametocytes in the future.I look forward to talking more about our findings and anything related to my area of expertise more broadly.Together with Isaie Reuling, a clinician researcher and first author on the
In 2016, Web of Science (WoS) was sold to private equity and incorporated into Clarivate Analytics. Our vision for WoS is both ambitious and long-term. When used responsibly scientometrics and bibliometrics offer vital measures of scientific and research output and impact. The Journal Impact Factor, derived from WoS data, is one metric that is particularly valued. But it is not, and should not, be the only measure. For years, these limitations have encouraged healthy debate among the academic community, which has spurred the development of additional ranking platforms that have varied in accuracy. I believe that our history, expertise, and—most importantly—publisher-neutral status perfectly positions WoS to advance the field of scientometrics. And that is exactly what we’re setting out to do. In February, we re-established the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), which will act as a think-tank, to identify gaps in and explore new ways to enhance scientometrics. Today, Clarivate Analytics announced the acquisition of Kopernio, the definitive publisher-neutral platform for research workflow and analysis for scientific researchers, publishers and institutions worldwide. Kopernio’s vision is to legally provide one-click access to millions of journal articles and academic research papers across the globe, dramatically improving and facilitating access to scientific knowledge. Not only will it revolutionize how academics access research papers, it will also provide unprecedented insights for institutions and publishers into how academics consume this research. These kind of data could feed into article-level scientometric analysis that could, one day, produce a novel way to measure research impact. The path of scientific discovery is long, and every now and then this path is punctuated by a eureka moment. A breakthrough. Today, I’m excited because I believe we are at a new dawn for scientometrics… I’ll be back at 1 pm EDT (6 pm GMT) to answer questions. UPDATE I think our time is nearly up! Thanks everyone for your questions, they’ve been great! I’m happy to come back later and respond to anything I’ve missed. Where has the time gone? You can find out more about our Kopernio acquisition here: https://clarivate.com/blog/news/clarivate-analytics-acquires-research-startup-kopernio-accelerate-pace-scientific-innovation/
