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Google Doodle shines light on photosynthesis 

Jan Ingenhousz is a Dutch scientist from the 18th century. Born on this day in Breda in 1730, he is responsible for discovering photosynthesis.

A Microbiome Monday question: should I be using hand sanitizer?

As with many health questions, this is a complicated one. Hand sanitizers, along with antibacterial soaps, are incredibly effective at killing microbial populations. However, they are not specialized to target only harmful microbes, so when you use these cleansers, you are also killing many of the beneficial microbes on your hands. In the long run, killing off  benign bacteria in this way can give rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria and impair your body’s ability to fend off disease.

There are circumstances where it is appropriate to use hand sanitizer. In hospitals, for instance, the risk for disease transfer is high, and people with compromised or suppressed immune systems abound. This can sometimes make the benefits of hand sanitizer outweigh the negative repercussions. But most of the time, using hand sanitizer provides more cleaning than is actually healthy, and washing with normal soap and water is a much better option.

Read two more Frequently Asked Questions from the exhibition, The Secret World Inside You, now open.

The ego is strong.

Why Men Don’t Believe the Data on Gender Bias in Science

Given the enormous amount of data to support these findings, and given the field in question, one might think male scientists would use these outcomes to create a more level playing field. But a recent paper showed that in fact, male STEM faculty assessed the quality of real research that demonstrated bias against women in STEM as being low; instead the male faculty favored fake research, designed for the purposes of the study in question, which purported to demonstrate that no such bias exists.

Why do men in science devalue such research and the data it produces? If anyone should be willing to accept what the peer-reviewed research consistently shows and use it to correct the underlying assumptions, it should be scientists.

But it is in large part because they are scientists that they do not want to believe these studies. Scientists are supposed to be objective, able to evaluate data and results without being swayed by emotions or biases. This is a fundamental tenet of science. What this extensive literature shows is, in fact, scientists are people, subject to the same cultural norms and beliefs as the rest of society. The systemic sexism and racism on display every day in this country also exist within the confines of science. Scientists are not as objective as they think they are. It is an extremely destabilizing realization for someone whose entire career has been rooted in the belief in human objectivity.

Even more pernicious, however, is the understanding that results from reading these studies, the realization that those who have succeeded in science (and in many fields—the implications reach far beyond science) have not done so entirely due to their own innate brilliance. Statistically speaking, just being male will automatically give you a leg up. And no one wants to believe that they achieved their success, even in some small part, based on their gender or ethnicity. We all want to feel that we deserve the success and accolades that we have received based on our own merit.

These are two illustrations I did for the “Alex and Sylvia” short I got to work on produced by BRC Imagination Arts for the Milan Expo 2015. They weren’t shown one after another like this but I always thought they’d make a great before and after when you cultivate a child’s curiosity in something they’re interested in.

The Ravenmaster at the Tower of London whistles a special tune to call the ravens to bed each night. (Image: Colin) via Quite Interesting

Scientists Just Discovered There Are 'Bees' in the Oceans

Huh...

For the first time, researchers have found evidence that underwater ecosystems have pollinators that perform the same task as bees on land.

Just like their terrestrial cousins, grasses under the sea shed pollen to sexually reproduce. Until now, biologists assumed the marine plants relied on water alone to spread their genes far and wide. But the discovery of pollen-carrying ‘bees of the sea’ has changed all of that.

Over several years from 2009 to 2012, researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico filmed the spring nocturnal wanderings of crustaceans among beds of turtle seagrass, Thalassia testudinum.

Looking through the videos, they spotted more invertebrates visiting male pollen-bearing flowers than those that lacked pollen – just like bees hovering around pollen-producing plants on land.

“We saw all of these animals coming in, and then we saw some of them carrying pollen,” lead researcher Brigitta van Tussenbroek told New Scientist.

The concept was so new, they invented a new term to describe it: zoobenthophilous pollination. Before that, researchers had never predicted that animals were involved in pollinating marine plants.

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Too good not to share!!! psychstudyspo

The frog leap was captured on camera.

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