Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 449

Lingua Frankly: A Bevy of Italian Linguists Validate the Female Sexual Function Index

Teamwork pays off in this painstaking linguistic journey through a chunk of medical literature:

“The Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI): Linguistic Validation of the Italian Version,” Maria Teresa Filocamo MD1, Maurizio Serati MD2,*, Vincenzo Li Marzi MD3, Elisabetta Costantini MD4, Martina Milanesi MD3, Amelia Pietropaolo MD4, Patrizio Polledro MD1, Barbara Gentile MD5, Serena Maruccia MD6, Samanta Fornia MD7, Irene Lauri MD8, Rosanna Alei MD9, Paola Arcangeli MD10, Maria Chiara Sighinolfi MD11, Francesca Manassero MD12, Elena Andretta MD13, Anna Palazzetti MD14, Elena Bertelli MD15, Giulio Del Popolo MD16, Donata Villari MD3, Journal of Sexual Medicine, epub November 13, 2014. The authors explain:

“the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) remains the gold standard for screening and one of the most widely used questionnaires. The Italian translation of the FSFI has been used in several studies conducted in Italy, but a linguistic validation of the Italian version does not exist…. For the first time in the literature, our study has produced a validated and reliable Italian version of the FSFI questionnaire.”

(Thanks to investigator Ivan Oransky for bringing this to our attention.)

Applying bacteria to solve the Burnt Pancake Problem

The Burnt Pancake Problem — a mathematical problem whose history Simon Singh recently put in context, in an article in The Guardian — can be attacked by using bacteria. This paper explains how:

“Engineering bacteria to solve the Burnt Pancake Problem,” Karmella A. Haynes [pictured here], Marian L. Broderick, Adam D. Brown, Trevor L. Butner, James O. Dickson, W. Lance Harden, Lane H. Heard, et al., Journal of Biological Engineering, vol. 2, no. 8, 2008, pp. 1-12. (Thanks to investigator Patrick Boyle for bringing this to our attention.) The authors report:

“We investigated the possibility of executing DNA-based computation in living cells by engineering Escherichia coli to address a classic mathematical puzzle called the Burnt Pancake Problem (BPP). The BPP is solved by sorting a stack of distinct objects (pancakes) into proper order and orientation using the minimum number of manipulations. Each manipulation reverses the order and orientation of one or more adjacent objects in the stack. We have designed a system that uses site-specific DNA recombination to mediate inversions of genetic elements that represent pancakes within plasmid DNA.”

Here’s detail from the study:

 

The Candy-Fish Sustainability Experiment

Candy fish gain an additional and/or alternative kind of value in this study:

“Ecological and evolutionary effects of harvesting: lessons from the candy-fish experiment.” Beatriz Diaz Pauli [pictured here] and Mikko Heino, ICES Journal of Marine Science, vol. 70, no. 7, 2013, pp. 1281-1286. (Thanks to investigator Martin Aker for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the University of Bergen, Norway, report:

“We propose candy-fish experiments as a savoury approach to teaching and disseminating the key principles of applied ecology and evolution to students, practitioners and the general public. We performed a simple experiment where the resource was represented by fish-shaped candy of distinct colours and flavours (strawberry and liquorice). Typically, harvesting was neither ecologically sustainable (55% of the populations were extinct by the end of the experiment) nor evolutionarily sustainable (most surviving populations had liquorice fish only). This harvest-induced evolution went apparently unnoticed. Somewhat encouragingly, the harvest was most likely ecologically sustainable when a person spontaneously took the role of a stock manager.”

How to Kill People

“How to Kill People” is a TV documentary made in 1960. The underlying theme: how to design weapons that kill people, but — as the occasionally-coughing on-camera host George Nelson, himself an influential product designer, explains — does not murder them. The passing years have added blurr-blurr-blurrghiness to the sound track:

(HT Paola Antonelli)

BONUS (possibly unrelated): “Tea towel catches fire“. (HT Betsy Devine)

Jazzing up the Jabłoński diagram

Kenneth Janson reports, in the Chemistry Blog:

The Jablonski diagram, first introduced by Aleksander Jabłoński in 1933, is a graphical depiction of the electronic states of a molecule and the transitions between those states. The y axis of the graph is energy, which increases from the bottom (ground state or S0) to the top (singlet and triplet excited states or Sn and Tn). The transitions between the states—like excitation, internal conversion, fluorescence, intersystem crossing, etc—are depicted as arrows. Because of its simplicity, the Jablonski Diagram is a starting point for many discussions about the events that occur following electronic excitation of a molecule.

I decided to ask my students to rethink the Jablonski diagram. The exact wording of the assignment was to “draw a Jablonski diagram that includes singlet and triplet excited states.”

[MANY EXAMPLES, not shown here — SEE THEM ON THE BLOG]

… And, finally, is “Jablinko!” This Jablonski diagram is based on the Japanese arcade and/or gambling game known as Pachinko. This photophysics-based game begins by placing a small metal ball into the S0 hole just above the lever. Pulling the lever, or exciting the molecule, shoots a ball to the top of the board into the singlet excited state. The ball (excited state) can fall one of three possible directions, NRD (non-radiative decay), ISC (intersystem crossing) or fluorescence. If it undergoes ISC, the ball can then fall into a potential well representing either non-radiative decay or phosphorescence from the triplet excited state. To top it all off, when the ball falls in to the fluorescence or phosphorescence holes it closes an electrical circuit that turns on a blue or red LED below the potential well. Those colors are the emission wavelengths for fluorescence and phosphorescence from anthracene.

 

Why do people say where they are during mobile phone calls? (Laurier #1 of 4)

These clips by UK comedian / journalist Dominic John Romulus ‘Dom’ Joly might suggest, to some, the question : “Why do people say where they are during mobile phone calls?” For answers, or at least steps towards answers, see a key paper in Environment and Planning D: Society & Space, volume 19(4) pages 485-504, by Dr. Eric Laurier who is a Senior Lecturer in Geography & Interaction, Institute of Geography & the Lived Environment, University of Edinburgh, Scotland : ‘Why people say where they are during mobile phone calls’, Dr. Laurier sets the scene thus :

“You’re sitting on a train, you’re tired and irritable after a long journey. Someone else’s mobile phone rings. You hear it get louder as they fish it out of their bag. ‘Hi’ they say. There’s a pause. ‘I’m on the train. About half an hour away from London.’ Why, you sigh, why do they always do that?”

The author spent a week travelling with six people whose everyday business it was to organise their lives while being mobile, and who made frequent use of their phones. Various ethnomethodological conclusions were then drawn from the data collected. But ultimately the paper ends without firmly pinning down the “locational formulations“ of the phenomenon.

“Although I seemingly promised an explanation as to why people say where they are during mobile phone calls I hope it has become apparent that there is not one answer and there are good reasons for being wary of social and cultural theories that claim to provide themselves as an explanation.”

Further reading :

For more detailed thoughts on ‘answering the phone’ you can do no better that read professor Emanuel A. Schegloff’s 46 page essay in Conversation Analysis :Studies from the first generation 2004 (edited by Gene H. Lerner) entitled : Answering the phone*[Note: Improbable has not been able to determine the exact meaning of the asterisk.]

Or for a newer perspective, see a current paper from State and University Library, Denmark and Xerox Innovation Group, USA, in Mobile Media & Communication, September 2013, vol. 1, no. 3 pp. 314-334 ‘Where are you? Location talk in mobile phone conversations.’

“When referring to location, speakers predominately use two variations: inquiries (where are you), and reports of their whereabouts (I just got home).”

COMING SOON: More ethnomethodological explorations from Dr. Laurier

It’s a land fish, they say

The self-proclaimed first highlight of a new study is this:

The Pacific leaping blenny, Alticus arnoldorum, is a land fish.

The study is:

“Natural selection in novel environments: predation selects for background matching in the body colour of a land fish,” Courtney L. Morgans and Terry J. Ord, Animal Behaviour, epub October 23, 2013.

Here, in chart form, is that very land fish and some of its family, as grouped by the authors of the study:

 

BONUS: Land shark:

Infant Poo Bacteria for Starter for Probiotic Sausages

This study adds texture to Part 2 of the old saying “If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made”:

“Characterization of lactic acid bacteria isolated from infant faeces as potential probiotic starter cultures for fermented sausages,” Raquel Rubio, Anna Jofré [pictured here], Belén Martín, Teresa Aymerich, Margarita Garriga, Food Microbiology, epub August 14, 2013. (Thanks to investigators Paul Coxon and  Neil Withers for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at IRTA-Food Safety Programme, Girona, Spain, report:

•Lactobacillus gasseri and Enterococcus faecalis were the main species in infant faeces.

• RAPD-PCR discriminated 60 profiles out of 109 LAB isolates.

•Six of 109 LAB isolated from infants were qualified as potential probiotics.

•Selected lactobacilli were assayed as starter cultures in model sausages.

•Three of the selected strains were effective meat starter cultures.

Here’s sausage-making detail from the paper:

Joe Sommer’s miniature armoured quadricycle

built a toy, mechanized version of a historic vehicle. He describes the original:

Simms’ Armoured Quadricycle, built in 1899, is considered by many to be the first armored fighting vehicle (AFV). It was the first motor vehicle designed as a weapons carrier, and had a tiny front armor shield. Frederick Simms‘ invention carried a 7.62 mm Maxim machine gun, and was both pedal and motor powered

and the new, tiny version:

The 1/6 scale R/C Armored Quadricycle carries a servo fired 0.40 caliber Splatmatic XJ40 paint ball marker and has top speed of approximately 3 mph. The chassis and Fred Simms’ stunt double came from a Radio Shack R/C Road Rustler bought on sale for . Fred Simms’ head and hat were modified from a Wal-Mart fireman action figure. The seven inch diameter spoked wheels came from Herbach and Rademan.

The promiscuous use of promiscuous in zoology papers

Watch your language about promiscuity, suggest Elgar, Jones and McNamara — and watch out for other people’s language. Their study explains:

“Promiscuous Words,” Mark A Elgar [pictured here , above left], Therésa M Jones [pictured here below, right] and Kathryn B McNamara, Frontiers in Zoology, 2013, 10:66. (Thanks to Ed Yong for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the University of Melbourne and the University of Western Australia, report:

“Promiscuity is frequently used to describe animal mating behaviour, and especially to describe multiple mating by females. Yet this use of the term is incorrect, perhaps reflecting an erroneous adoption of common language to pique reader interest. We evaluated the patterns of use and misuse of the word ‘promiscuity’ in a representative journal of animal behaviour. This survey highlights how inappropriately the term is used, and how it can conceal critical features of animal mating strategies with intriguing evolutionary significance.”

One section of the paper bears the subheadline “Using promiscuity to titillate the reader?”

BONUS (unrelated): ”Specificity and promiscuity among naturally processed peptides bound to HLA-DR alleles“