Does six + six degrees equal twelve degrees?

Most of us are at least vaguely familiar with the concept of six degrees of separation: the idea that each individual on the planet is connected to all other individuals by no more than five intermediates. While it was actually proposed by a Hungarian writer in the 1920's, there have been some scientific tests of this principle with mixed results; it appears that the average connectivity (rather than the maximum) might be six intermediates (which would actually be seven degrees of separation).

A bit over ten years ago, fans of actor Kevin Bacon, observing that he'd been in lots of movies with lots of different actors, turned this into a game whereby you could calculate the "Bacon Number" or the distance between any other actor and Kevin Bacon, linked by appearing in the same movie. Thus anyone who has appeared in a movie with Kevin Bacon has a Bacon Number of 1, anyone who has appeared in a movie with someone who has appeared in a movie has a Bacon Number of 2, etc. If you want to know the Bacon Number for a specific actor, you can find it at The Oracle of Bacon, which uses the Internet Movie Database as the data for determining connectivity.

Not to be left out, mathematicians have their own version of this called the Erdös Number, named in honor of mathematician Paul Erdös, famous for his numerous collaborations (about 1500 published papers...he averaged nearly two papers per month from birth until death). One's Erdös number is based on collaboration: co-authors of Erdös have a number equal to 1, co-authors of co-authors have a number equal to 2, etc. Mathematicians, being what they are, have performed all sorts of interesting analyses of the connectivity of this network (general information on Erdös numbers can be found at The Erdös Number Project). To calculate your own Erdös number, you can go to MathSciNet (subscription by your institution required), search for yourself or co-authors under the author tab, then choose the connectivity option and the Erdös default button (remember, if you find a co-author's number, your own number is one larger). The papers indexed in this database are mathematical so connections that extend into other scientific disciplines won't be included, but if you do find a connection you at least know that your number is no larger than that (it could be smaller if there is a missing, but more direct, connection).

The most exciting figure (for real connectivity geeks, anyway) is of course the combined Erdös-Bacon number. This is the sum of both of these numbers for an individual and is much harder to achieve. It only applies to people who have both appeared in movies and written scientific publications (although there are some who calculate it based on looser criteria) and thus have potential connectivity to both Kevin Bacon and Paul Erdös (merely meeting those criteria doesn't guarantee a defined number, it just opens the possibility). Mathematicians and scientists are most likely to have the combined figure if they've appeared as extras or had bit roles in a movie; few professional actors have written scientific papers (although there are some, e.g., Natalie Portman has an Erdös-Bacon number of 9, and Danica McKellar has an Erdös-Bacon number of 6, both having co-authored scientific papers as undergraduates).

There aren't a lot of people with verified Erdös-Bacon numbers, but to my surprise, I'm one of them! I appeared as an extra in a movie (both visible and identifiable) while in college that gives me a Bacon Number of 2, and, despite not being a mathematician, I've been able to confirm an Erdös number of no more than 5, giving me a Erdös-Bacon value of 7. Beat that!

I wonder if I can put this on my CV?

It's The End Of The Whale As We Know It...

Iceland has decided to ignore a 20 year ban and has officially started
commerical whaling again. They'd already resumed scientific whaling a few years ago and the decision to start commerical whaling was only a matter of time. Expect Japan and Norway to quickly follow suit, since they have both been at the forefront to overturn the ban. Last summer Japan was almost openly bribing other countries to vote to overturn it at the International Whaling Commision meeting (the end result was a symbolic majority vote to overturn the ban; 75% would have been needed to officially overturn it).

One question you have to wonder is why do they want to restart whaling so badly? What is the justification? The proponents of whaling generally claim that "whales aren't as endangered as we think, so why not let us hunt them?" but what is the reason for wanting to hunt them in the first place? What is the real economic value of a whale on today's market? I doubt that many people are clamoring for oil lamps, scrimshaw, and whalebone corsets (plastics and metals seem to work quite fine). I'm sure there is a huge market for whale parts in "traditional" medicine in the far East, but what about Scandanavia? Is whale meat considered a delicacy? Is it simply a push to preserve traditional values? (Let's seem them bring back other traditional viking values, like pillaging villages and losing the Superbowl). Is it a case of "I'm going to do it because you told me not to!"? Are fisherman interseted in removing the whales in order to increase fish stock? Given that they appear to be primarily interested in hunting baleen whales, this last one seems unlikely.

Can anything be done about this? Probably not. A stern talking to isn't going to change anyones mind. Economic sanctions are very unlikely and wouldn't likely work even if they were put into place (you see the US putting economic sanctions on Japan? I don't think so). Besides, if the world can't be bothered to try and stop genocide in Darfur, what makes anyone think another species deserves our attention?

I've got it: we leak to the white house that Iceland is formenting terrorists (a.k.a. vikings) with WMDs (Weapons of Mysticeti Destruction - a.k.a. harpoons) and that they are currently attempting to corner the market on a major oil supply (for old fashioned lamps, anyway).

Now You See It...

One of the catchier articles just published online at Science this week is about the first practical realization of a cloak of invisiblity (Schurig et al.). Of course, the reported "cloak" is actually only a ring and is only invisible to a narrow band of microwaves, but that's really just nitpicking. They succeeded in creating a device that bends incoming waves in such a way that they transmit as if unimpeeded on the opposite side of the device. It is a very impressive accomplishment.

Assuming someone eventually expands this principle to create a cloak that works in the visual spectrum, the entire concept still contains a major flaw: while someone inside the cloak would be invisible to those on the outside, the outside would also be invisible to them! By bending light around the object to prevent external viewers from seeing it, it simultaneously is preventing someone on the inside from perceiving that light and therefore they would be blind to the outside world. Either someone needs to think of an alternate solution or we need to be very clever to come up with ways to make such a device truly useful.

ScienceNews has a very amusing (unintentionally, I assume) caption/figure as part of their story about this discovery:


“NOW YOU SEE IT. Microwaves bent by the concentric walls of this 1-centimeter-tall invisibility device circumvent the center area and emerge on their original paths as if nothing had been in the way. The copper hoop that was cloaked in the tests isn't pictured.” (Emphasis mine)

Well, duh! It's invisible!

Your Own...Personal...Genome

The X Prize Foundation has offered a new competition: $10 million to the first group to sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days. The goal is to help stimulate rapid and cheaper sequencing technologies for personalized medicine. What strikes me as most interesting about this is not the money (which while nice will almost certainly not recoup the cost of the actual succesful project, just as the original X Prize award for space flight did not come close to covering the cost to the winner), but rather the speed. NIH is already sponsoring a big push to bring the cost of sequencing down: the $1000 genome is the current projected goal. But to sequence 10 human genomes/day would be a remarkably fast effort by current standards.

For comparison, the original human genome project cost $2.7 billion and took approximately 10 years. Now, sequencing technology has improved exponentially in the last few years and entire genomes on a similar scale of the human genome can be completed for a fraction of that cost in a much shorter time (1-2 years would be my guess). A new human genome would be a bit quicker because having finished one gives us a more solid framework to build from. Even so, reaching 10 genomes/day will be an incredibly impressive feat.

I can't wait until the day when you can generate a full genome sequence from anything you want from a little hand held tricorder-like device. Sort of the iGenome (I better copyright that before Apple thinks of it). Biology will never be the same...and neither will computer science since the computational power and methodologies necessary to make use of data on that scale will be enormous and unprecedented (we can barely keep up with what we have now).

Just don't expect a winner too soon...the original X Prize took years to generate a winner, and while a lot more people are interested in genome sequencing than space flight, the challenges may be even more daunting.

P.S.--Another X Prize is currently being developed: the goal to create an efficient (gas/oil usage, super low emissions) and desirable automobile.

Human Evolution?

A number of newspapers in Britain are reporting about a new report about the direction humanity is going to evolve in the future (including, for example, The Telegraph, BBC, and The Sun). It's a complete shame that such as load of overwhelming nonsense (to be polite) is getting this much press.

The predictions include males with heights between 6 and 7 feet, square jaws, deep voices, and large penises. Women will have lighter skin, large clear eyes, firm perky breasts, glossy hair, and smooth, hairless skin. Both sexes will become very symmetrical and human skin tone will become a more uniform brown. Given enough time, however, humans are going to speciate into fortunate and less fortunate species, with the fortunate apparently being statesque and godly and the less fortunate being grotesque and goblinesque. There are too many additional details to list them all here, but we can be confidant that they are equally absurd.

So who would make such stunning predictions? No other than a Dr. Oliver Curry, generally described as an "evolutionary theorist" working for the "Darwin@LSE research centre at the London School of Economics." The training which had led to his expertise in evolutionary theory? Political science and economics. Even a simple glance through his predictions shows a complete lack of understanding of evolutionary theory, genetics (population or otherwise), sexual selection, environmental interaction, and, apparently, human history. On the other hand, he seems to have a more than passing familiarity with science fiction, including H. G. Wells The Time Machine and Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven.

The legitimate scientific community is already slamming this report (e.g., see ScienceBlogs), but in some ways the damage is already done. Not because many people will believe it: those who believe in evolution will mostly discount it and those who don't will use it as fodder for more anti-evolution arguments, which is where the real shame of the story lies.

Welcome

Welcome. I hope to use this forum as a place where I can generally discuss issues involving life and science. I am an assistant professor of evolutionary biology, with broad background and interests in science in general. I hope to post something at least on a daily basis, but it will obvious depend a bit on discipline. Again, welcome and I hope my posts will be enjoyable and/or thought-provoking.