The End of Movember

It's now the final day of November and, as I'm sure my wife will be happy about, that means Movember is coming to an end.  I did a half-assed job of participating in Movember.  You see, as November approached, I knew that the month was dedicated to the growing and grooming of a moustache to raise awareness for mens' health issues - particularly prostate cancer.  At that time, I had a well-trimmed full beard.  I had some important business meetings on November 3rd, and I cut my beard short so as to look somewhat professional on that day.  Then on the morning of November 4th, I groomed my facial hair into a tight moustache with the accompanying jazz spot (known more commonly as the soul patch):

Unbeknownst to me at the time, the rules of Movember state that participants must begin the month with a clean-shaven face and subsequently grow and groom the moustache throughout November.  When I learned of this rule - by which time it was nearly a week into November - it seemed futile to start anew.  So I just went with it, meaning that I broke the Movember rules and basically cheated.

Now that Movember is coming to an end, I guess the next step is to shave the 'stache and start growing the traditional winter beard.  And on that note, I thought I'd share some interesting things that I've come across recently regarding beard-growth, bearded men, and beards in general.  First off:  the beard-second.  I first discovered this extraordinary unit of length at The Evolving Scientist.  Wikipedia defines the beard-second thusly, "the beard-second is a unit of length inspired by the light-year, but used for extremely short distances such as those in nuclear physics."  It appears as though the most widely accepted conversion to SI units is 1 beard-second is equal to 5 nanometers.  I deal with lengths at this scale quite often in my work and I'm looking forward to sneaking in a 'beard-second' reference in a future conference presentation.

Less fun is a study described in the journal Heart, Lung and Circulation in 2008.  The article is titled 'Sternotomy and the Beard,' and it describes the difficulties associated with performing a sternotomy on patients with beards.  As it turns out, beards can cause issues with mask ventilation, sterility, and effective skin preparation.  The authors recommend folding the beard over the jaw, toward the patients' face, then securing it in that position using a surgical mask.  This sounds pretty reasonable considering the alternative is to shave the beard off.  I'd hate to wake up from surgery to find my beard gone.  Then again, I don't allow my beard to grow so long that it would interfere with chest surgery.  Yet.

And finally, a research group in Wisconsin examined the effect of beards on high altitude oxygen processing.  The results showed that at a height of 7.5 km, bearded mountain climbers had a 7.3% increase in oxygen respiratory index (ORI).  At 8.0 km, the increase in ORI grew to 10.7%.  And at the summit - approximately 8.8 km - the gap widened to nearly 15%.  That's a pretty significant difference, and good news for mountaineers who are unopposed to beard growth.  Personally, I'll plan on using this little bit of information as further justification for my winter facial growth, even though I don't do much mountain climbing.  Not that I really need any further justification.  Keeping my face warm in the cold Missouri winter is reason enough.

I Promise I'll Do Better

Lately I've been keeping an eye on the stats for this blog.  I noticed that my readership has increased notably over the last couple of months and I'm starting to get some steady traffic.  Of course it stands to reason that this would be happening when I'm extraordinarily bogged down with proposal writing, heavy amounts of lab time, and on top of it all, holiday season.

So to all of you - yes, all three of you - who have been checking in regularly, I apologize for neglecting to update recently.

How about a little update on what I've been so busy with?  Well, the main reason I've been mind-fryingly busy is that I'm working on getting an SBIR proposal submitted while simultaneously getting another one started.  These proposals are company-related and we're trying to get some funding to pursue proof-of-concept studies for one of Emergent Sensor Technologies' core projects.  My colleagues and I are beginning to realize that it may be foolish to depend on SBIR support to initially fund the company, so I'm also working on two proposals for contract-based research for large companies.  In other proposal-writing news, I've been working on getting two proposals that were not funded revised and resubmitted.  These proposals are university-related and are for projects that we are starting at Lincoln University.

Along with cranking out endless grant proposals, I've also been busy in the lab at Mizzou.  Things have started progressing quickly with the MU research team and I'm in the midst of gathering data at a semi-furious pace.  Toss the rapidly approaching holiday season into the mix, and you can get a good idea of why this blog has taken a backseat to my other responsibilities.

Having said all that, I feel a bit despondent about my obvious delinquency.  I'll try to have another update (one with actual science-ish content) by the end of the week.  In the meantime, have a drink to celebrate the successful launch of Curiosity.  It's got a long journey ahead of it and I'm hoping for its safe arrival on the Red Planet.

No Sugar for This Bad Medicine

This sucks.  Wired Science is reporting that cuts to NASA's budget are leaving the agency's planetary science program in a state of limbo.  Questions are being raised about a number of slated missions and NASA's ability to carry out these missions without substantial help from the European Space Agency.  These questions are the result of a drop in NASA's budget of nearly 5% from last year.  And all of this comes on the heels of NASA scrapping their shuttle program, leaving our astronauts to rely on the Russian space program to travel to and from the International Space Station.  It's worth noting that this is a program that has recently seen some notable setbacks, with a Soyuz rocket - the same rocket that launches manned missions into low-earth orbit - crashing shortly after launch in August and the failed launch of a Mars moon probe earlier this month.

I guess this doesn't come as much of a surprise, since I've already discussed the cuts that were anticipated for the budgets of NASA and the NSF.  It's still disappointing, though.  NASA provides us with a wealth of information and new technologies.  They have been analyzing climate change for a number of years, tracking hurricanes, and leading the way in discovering alternative sources of energy.  And now it seems as though our lawmakers are methodically and quietly strangling the agency until there's nothing of substance left.  It's sad to imagine living in a country that has the means but lacks the will to explore the universe, visit other worlds, and discover the wonders that exist right here on our quaint little planet.

A Little More On Energy

I've been hard at work bashing the fossil fuels industry lately.  See previous posts here and here.  I'm beginning to wonder why I didn't get my degree in a field related to energy production.  But I know why; it's because I really enjoy my work in chemical and biological sensor development.  And being an advocate for alternative energy while working in the energy sector has got to be one of the most frustrating situations ever.  Besides, I can always apply my current expertise to the energy production industry to try to help aid the development of alternative energy sources in a more indirect way.

Since I've been on a tear about fossil fuels, I thought I'd better share Paul Krugman's latest column, which is also devoted to the energy production industry.  It's a great glimpse into the present and future state of solar energy from the viewpoint of a Nobel prize-winning economist, whose opinion I deeply respect.  He also addresses some of the major issues with fossil fuel extraction, with a particular emphasis on the burgeoning and highly destructive fracking technique.  I should note that he also has a brief follow-up blog post in which he clarifies a couple of ideas that he didn't have space to address effectively.

I also thought I'd share a few thoughts while I'm on this subject.  First of all, I would like to reiterate that I am not an expert in the field of energy production.  I don't do a very good job of keeping up with the latest research or technology in this area, mainly because I have no vested interest in it beyond wanting mankind to be more responsible citizens of our planet.  On the other hand, I'm a relatively intelligent person.  I'm also pretty good at reading data.  So what I've done in previous posts - such as this one and this one - is look at the actual data in the references that the authors cite and make sure that the studies were sound and that the data matches the authors' claims.  After all, I don't have to be an expert to spot bullshit.

As of right now, I'm not sure if I'll continue to take the hatchet to the ACCCE's ridiculously idiotic website or not.  But either way, there will definitely be more on these issues to come.

Keep That Middle Finger in the Air

I happened to catch one of the clean coal television commercials that I mentioned in a previous post.  The advertisement - I wasn't able to find it on YouTube, otherwise there would be a link here - along with the corresponding website, are hosted by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).  One quick thought before I briefly discuss what I found on their website:  I think an advocacy group that tries to help make coal-based energy cleaner is a good thing.  Coal-fired power isn't going anywhere for a while, and if we can make it less destructive in the meantime by utilizing technology that decreases harmful emissions from power plants, I'm all for it.  But that's not what the ACCCE is.

The ACCCE website claims that "the environmental performance of coal-based generation for traditional emissions such as SO2, NOx and particulate matter has been significantly improved."  On the original page, this sentence is a link, presumably to a cited reference for this claim.  When you click on this link, however, it takes you to another page on the americaspower.org site.  So now at this new page, I have to click on yet another link to see the reference that they've cited.  This next link takes me to an EPA air pollution trends database.  From here, in order to see the data that the ACCCE cited, I have to open an Excel file that contains the data.

So that's what I did.  And I learned a few things.

The ACCCE's claim that SO2 and NOx emission have been reduced is true.  In fact, these reductions have been fairly dramatic.  Although I would hasten to add that these reductions are probably largely due to the EPA regulations that the ACCCE is so vehemently against.  This is an odd stance:  touting results as your own victory when you are opposed to the causes behind those results.  And what about the claim that particulate matter emissions have been significantly improved?  Not so much.  Since 1970, the amount of particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5-10 microns produced from electrical utilities has been reduced; that much is true.  But particular matter with a diameter of 2.5 or smaller has increased, and done so by nearly four-fold.  Other emissions that have seen increases over the years include carbon monoxide and volatile organics.  And ammonia emissions, which were non-existent in the power production industry through 1995, have increased steadily, reaching 37,000 tons in 2011.

So exactly how clean is coal?  Not really all that clean.