Saturday, June 28, 2014

Chemistry Champions semifinalists named

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported my video in the Chemistry Champions contest. What an exciting way to share my journey and tell my chemical story! The 10 semifinalists and their video titles are:

Jennifer Apell, graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “An Environmental Benefit of Plastic”
Geoff Dubrow, graduate student at the University of Minnesota, “Understanding Whisky Chemistry”
Tien Nguyen, Ph.D., recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Finding Better Ways to Build Chemical Bonds”
Jennifer Novotney, graduate student at Cornell University, “Frameworks for the Future”
Tierra Range, undergraduate student at Centenary College of Louisiana, “Solar Cell Research”
Ashlee Robison, undergraduate student at Fort Lewis College, “Preventing Honeybee Decline”
Alexis Shusterman, graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, “CO2Monitoring in HD”
Shane Stone, undergraduate student at Syracuse University, “Biofuel Catalyst Research”
Krista Wilson, Ph.D., assistant professor at Wingate University, “Chemistry of Frogs to Develop New Methods of Pain Relief”
Shannon Woodruff, graduate student at Southern Methodist University, “Chemistry to Better Deliver Medicine Inside Cells”

Congratulations to the ACS members selected to present during a private workshop on August 9th. Even though I was not named a semifinalist, as an ACS Chemistry Ambassador, I can attend the following events during the 248th ACS National Meeting & Exposition.

How to be a Better Communicator: the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science will present Improvisation Training for Chemists. Sign up for a three-hour session, either 9 am—to noon or 1:30—4:30 pm, Sunday, Aug. 10, at the Hilton. Tickets are $10 and are available here.
San Francisco symposium--Communicating Science to the Public: Moscone Center South Building, Room 104, 1-5 pm. Tuesday, Aug. 12
San Francisco Reception for all Chemistry Ambassadors: Tuesday, Aug. 12, 5-6 pm, Moscone Center South Building, Esplanade Ballroom 306.

I don't feel bad about not winning. As I posted on this blog, it was an experiment in social media. Every experiment is a chance to learn. I kind of knew that I would be out-classed by those with newer devices. My video camera is woefully out of date compared with the new phones and tablets that make video capture extremely easy. Heck, I don't even know how to record video directly from the integrated webcam on my eee PC. I don't think my phone even has video. I recorded the audio using a Sansa Clip.

I do have an older video camera (circa 2007) that still uses casette tapes. And getting the video to a PC for editing requires FireWire 400 alpha which requires my old Gateway 450SX4 laptop (circa 2002). Amazingly enough this setup still functions, but for some reason it felt like too much work to make a ChemChamps video where I was actually addressing the camera directly. Also I have no tripod. Also I have no lab. In other words, I don't work in a lab at the moment. My classroom is my lab and the best documentation I have of my work is in 10-second timer photos of myself at the chalk or whiteboard.

The time I tried to install a heat shield... unsuccessfully!

My attempts to edit video using the HP Pavilion TX1000 in 2009 were unsuccessful since it caused the computer to overheat. My advisor had let me borrow an HP Flip HD camera to record video of myself in the lab, working with my undergraduate student researcher. The data was so large that it was impossible to deal with on the computer I had. I took the thing apart and tried to see where the problem was, and ended up ruining the mother board. Thanks to a repair by Riverside Computer Center, I had a new mother board but as of today, the PC won't turn on. It's a shame since I had Minitab installed on there and have not been doing any multivariate statistics since that PC died.

I always thought I would end up as an old nutter in a garage full of old electronics, and I'm getting pretty close already although I have a storage unit instead of a garage. I kind of like old technology. Some of the photos in my video were taken with a Olympus Stylus film camera. I love new technology too. I scanned the images printed from 35mm film using an HP Office Jet 4500. I love that document feeder! The video was edited using Windows Movie Maker on a Dell Inspiron 660 with 8 GB of RAM and 1.8 TB of memory (of which 1 TB of memory is still free).

Other photos were taken with a 3.3-Megapixel digital camera HP Photosmart 720 (2003-2005) which sadly died in an accident involving a decomposed jack-o-lantern. My next digital camera was a 4.1-Megapixel Sony DSC-S60 (2005-2007) which died in a collision with a concrete patio at the hands of my nephews during our engagement party. Then, I got a 7.2-Megapixel Sony DSC-T10 (2007-2010) which died swimming in a pool of pickle juice. My current camera is a Kodak 12-Megapixel Easyshare M530.

Plotting this data results in a fit according to Kryder's Law where taking the log of megapixels and plotting it versus the year yields a linear relationship. Using this fit to extrapolate to 2014, the data suggests I should have a 27-Megapixel camera by now. It looks like the budget compact cameras now have 16-Megapixels while compact megazoom cameras go as high as 18-Megapixel. Sony has a high-end camera 24.3-Megapixels (HD) which sells for upwards of $500. So I guess we're not quite to 27-Megapixels yet. And do we really have the digital storage for images that large? It's certainly more common to see HD televisions, so I guess it makes sense that we can capture high-resolution images, too.

I guess what I'm doing is making excuses and reminiscing about outdated electronics instead of talking candidly about my contest video entry. What I realized through making and sharing my Chemistry Champions video is that I am afraid to address the camera. You can see me doing this in the video below. I was nervous while talking to the camera even though you can see I am standing in the CMC Student Garden next to my Syngenta corn. It was a place I felt connected to and I was speaking about a topic for which I have a passion, also knowing the cameraman was an expert, still I was uncomfortable.

The W. M. Keck Science Department Presents The Nano Fashion Show from Claremont McKenna College on Vimeo.

This is why I'm excited to still have the opportunity to engage with the events planned for Chemistry Ambassadors at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco. I feel I can improve my confidence and further distill my message to make engaging outreach a success. One professor recently suggested I imagine I am 7 feet tall. I'm still struggling with that, but I'm a work in progress.

I do appreciate the Chemistry Champions contest because it got me writing more on this blog. I amped up my twitter posts as well. I got some new followers and followed some new tweeps. I expressed some views about social media, diversity, and big data that are near and dear to my heart. I started this blog waaay back thinking that when I got 10,000 views I would submit a book proposal. Now we are in the era of eBooks and self-publishing. A colleague recently asked me if I know anything about creating an iBook. I doubt it could be done on a PC. Obviously books are still relevant if there are still bookstores, but it seems as our attention span is getting smaller and electronic storage is growing, people want eBooks and 3 minute HD video clips.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

What does 200 calories look like?

I had a revalation about why fad diets don't work the other day and then it was gone. For the life of me, I can't remember what happened in that moment of clarity. I have been thinking a lot about this article my friend posted about obesity and economic environments. We have all increased in BMI over the past 26 years. That means all genders, all races, all ages. If you take a look at the graph here, it may be easy to see why. We are simply intaking more calories.

I've written before about my own personal adventures in big data and fitness analytics. From my own study on myself I found that 200 calories out (fitness) per day makes me maintain my current weight. NOT burning 200 calories per day makes me gain weight. So I asked myself if I really know what 200 calories looks like. From the graph above, it looks more like we're eating something like 600 calories too many. So what does that look like? I've also been thinking about dog food. Why do we need our food to taste good? I mean, it's ridiculous to think we would only eat a big pile of broccoli, but dogs eat a homogenized pile of kibbles and they seem to survive. Do we really need cupcakes, doughnuts, french fries, hamburgers and burritos?

So that's only half the story (energy in). The other half is what we do (energy out). All guidelines suggest 150 minutes of aerobic exercise per week. Benefits include lower risk of premature death, coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and depression. Additional benefits are gained by 300 and 450 minutes per week. A person who does 300 minutes a week has an even lower risk of heart disease or diabetes than a person who does 150 minutes a week. A person who does 420 minutes (7 hours) a week has an even lower risk of premature death than a person who does 150 to 300 minutes a week.

At some point I read an article that 10 minutes twice per day is sufficient to maintain weight, which is how I got so psyched about bicycle commuting. It's an unavoidable way to get your cardio. This summer, I've been driving to work every day to teach my 8am class and it's eliminated that part of my routine. I haven't filled in the gap with other exercise like I thought I would. I'm in the process of looking at my fitness data since 2009 and I wish there was a good application for data analysis of this type. Personalized medicine involves getting people to look at their habits and see trends (both good and bad).

I recently met with a woman who made me laugh at how "science people" are convinced with numbers, graphs and trends while "humanities people" are convinced with thoughts and feelings articulated. So I wonder if there would be a fitness app for touchy-feely types that would be less quantitative and more qualitative. Emoticons! I wonder if you can sort your workouts on MapMyRide by those which you felt the best...

MapMyRide used to have a feature where you could export your workout data in a spreadsheet (or at least a table containing links and calories. I cut and pasted them here. At some point (June 2012) you could no longer highlight your list of workouts. I had to settle for screenshots after that. So it's taking me a long time to transfer the data to a spreadsheet. I just found a way to cut & paste it but you have to put your cursor in a weird place! So that will be the topic of a new post. I read that Big Data is defined as data so large that traditional spreadsheet software is ineffective at dealing with its size. Right now I have a separate sheet devoted to each year but I plan to collate the data into one big sheet, catergorize the workouts and do some multivariate analysis. More on that later.

References

http://www.tbd.com/pictures/2012/01/the-calories-in-a-cupcake-photos-/14517-1020.html January 06, 2012.

Sturm and An. Obesity and economic environments. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 22 May (2014) Early View (Online Version of Record published before inclusion in an issue)

http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2014/05/27/think-know-obesity-rates-rising-youre-probably-wrong/ via Samantha C. Lewis, Ph.D.

Janssen, et al. Years of Life Gained Due to Leisure-Time Physical Activity in the U.S. Am J Prev Med 2013; 44(1):23–29. http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(12)00734-9/abstract

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

The Importance of Being Diverse

I hate stereotypes, but they are a part of our culture. For example, when people hear that I am from Nebraska they assume I was not educated in a diverse environment. Fortunately for me, I won a lottery and was part of a magnet program. The categories in the graph labeled wash. and harr. were my neighborhood schools. Instead of those schools attended by my sisters, I attended Franklin Learning Center and Martin Luther King Science Center for first-second and fifth-eighth grade, respectively. From the graphic you can see that my younger years were spent in a diverse environment, at least one that contained a majority of African-American students. My high school, Omaha North, was about evenly split between African-American students and Caucasians, which is why we called our dance team "salt 'n' pepa."

Attending University of Nebraska at Kearney was a culture shock for me, coming from an urban environment (Omaha) to a rural one. Thanks to Dr. Jerry Fox, retired Director of International Education, our campus had a large percentage of international students. Dr. Fox was our guest speaker for the 39th annual Southern California Alumni Luncheon (2014) which was a great event. I made it a point to seek out and cultivate relationships with our international students and had the experience of studying in Bonn, Germany for a month one summer. This experience gave me a sense of what international students experience here including homesickness and the yearning to hear one's own native language again.

My graduate school experience, starting at Arizona State University, started a journey further West and into a more diverse territory in terms of Hispanic and Latino students. Not until I started teaching at Estrella Mountain Community College did I experience learning in a truly Hispanic-serving institution (at least a 25% Hispanic undergraduate full-time-equivalent student enrollment). EMCC had a fantastic NASA Center for Success in Math & Science where I spent time tutoring students who were willing to work hard to achieve a firm understanding on the content in their STEM courses.

University of California, Riverside has claimed in the past that it is "the most diverse in the University of California system" but a recent ranking by US News and World Reports has UCLA and UCR tied for the 5th most diverse universities in the USA with a rank of 0.70 out of 1.0. Other schools in the UC system are not far behind at 0.68 (Davis, Santa Cruz), 0.67 (Berkeley, Santa Barbara), 0.66 (Irvine), and 0.64 (San Diego). The other UC schools not mentioned in the report include San Francisco and Merced. This was my first immersion in a predominantly Asian and Pacific Islander culture. I learned about the Society for Advancement of Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) as a support network for increasing diversity in STEM.

After finishing my Ph.D. I taught at the the W. M. Keck Science Department of Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges. Scripps College in Claremont, CA has a diversity score of 0.54 (#18 out of 215 ranked liberal arts colleges). I didn't represent this two year period in my life on the graph because I am focused now only on public institutions.

By attending the ACS 44th Western Regional Meeting after moving to California State University, Northridge, I learned about National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). It's great that there are organizations out there for seeding and nurturing talent in underrepresented groups. Teaching at CSUN for the past year has been an amazing experience. Among CSU's, the most diverse are 0.75 (East Bay), 0.72 (Long Beach), 0.70 (Fullerton, Sacramento), and 0.68 (Fresno, Northridge). Other schools in the CSU system are not far behind at 0.66 (Stanislaus), 0.65 (Dominguez Hills, Monterey Bay), 0.62 (San Bernardino), 0.59 (Los Angeles), and 0.51 (Chico). In total there are 23 campuses in the CSU system. Not mentioned in this post are CSU San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Humboldt, Maritime, Pomona, Sonoma, Bakersfield, San Marcos, and Channel Islands.

Diversity imparts an advantage to any population

The point of this post is to emphasize that inclusion of people or things that are different from each other affords the population as a whole an advantage in a changing world. Take for example UCR's citrus variety collection. This unique resource of 1800 living trees, of 900 different types of citrus (2 trees each variety). This collection and others like it for different species can be used to study virus attack and identify which species may have innate resistance. Maintaining a diverse collection allows the industry to have access to a wealth of genetic variation that can help trees be saved when an invasive insect arrives. The figure shown here profiles some of the citrus contained within the diversity collection. Our modern fruits are crosses between the ancestral citrus (citron, mandarin, kumquat, pummelo, and trifolate).

Fruits with a primarily citron genotype (#14, 19, 20 and 21) were compared with fruits of a predominant mandarin traits (#145, 171, 180, 195, 207 and 212) and those of mainly pumello character (#239, 282). For fun a few mixed genotype fruits (#303 and #316) were also sampled which were pumello/mandarin and mandarin/citron hybrids. We found the mandarin rind contained geraniol while the citron rind contained terpine-4-ol. The citron rind had many metabolites in common with the pummelo but did not contain menthatriene, terpine-4-ol or carene. These terpenes were recorded by GC-MS after extraction into DCM. These metabolites impart qualities to the fruits including such tasting notes as “fragrantly aromatic” and “exquisite form and aroma.” We even had the chance to work with the "Buddha's hand" which is more rind than juice and can be used to perfume rooms or prepare candied rind. Diversity is defined as showing a great deal of variety; very different. The array of tastes and smells found in the Citrus Diversity Collection is a microcosm of California's population. We each contribute common and unique traits to make the whole state a more interesting place to work or study.

In my home garden, I support diversity in the plants I cultivate. Some plants, such as basil and rosemary, serve to enrich others. Tomatoes are said to be more flavorful if grown near herbs. Other plants, such as radish, are planted as trap crops. Trap crops attract harmful pests away from your more prized plants, such as Japanese Pumpkin. Dill attracts tomato hornworm, and is a good companion for fennel. Oregano attracts predators, thereby reducing aphid populations. Parsley attracts helpful pollenators, including wasps, flies, and butterflies. Sage attracts honeybees and repels parasites. Seeds are collected and replanted to keep the whole enterprise going. I reject the notion of a monoculture being more advantageous, it is certainly less sustainable. I sow these plants in harmony which makes the garden overall more biodiverse and more successful.

In chemistry, we find incoming freshmen (out of high school) of all ethnicities are bright, talented, motivated, and interested. But usually more than half are lost in the first semester. They tend to move away from science, toward business or some other field. It becomes important to track students' progress and cultivate mentoring relationships. What has also worked is making introductory courses 5 days per week instead of 3 days per week with time for problem-solving during class. This helps students succeed in "gatekeeper" courses and minimizes the leaky pipeline. Other ideas for transitioning underrepresented minority students include:

focus on learning instead of teaching
set high expectations
be positive, emphasize skill-building
assess early and often, provide feedback
refer students to support services (counseling, tutoring, advising) early
nurture departmental clubs, create social integration
keep students focused on the goals of the class
be sensitive of first-generation college student culture
discuss careers in chemistry

Please watch my Chemistry Champions video. There are 3 more days until the contest ends. I am grateful for this opportunity to focus on my passions. I will leave you with a quote from former American Chemical Society president Joseph Francisco, “I am here to do research, first and foremost. I reserve the right to pick and choose the ways I take action to recruit and retain minority students.”

References

Francisco, Joseph. "Achieving Diversity in the Sciences for the University of the 21st Century." Part of A Series of Conversations about Increasing Diversity in STEM Fields. UCR October 8, 2008.

Linton, Marigold. "Systemic Collaborations to Promote Diversity" Part of A Series of Conversations about Increasing Diversity in STEM Fields. UCR November 6, 2008.

Scharberg, Maureen. "Strategies for successfully transitioning underrepresented minority students from two-year to four-year colleges" http://www.wrm2013.org/files/WRMProgram.pdf October 4, 2013.

Monday, June 16, 2014

My first tattoo

This weekend I had my first experience with henna. As I chemist, I felt I should know more about this fascinating tradition. I am a believer in the power of symbols, and I chose a peacock for my design. A friend painted it on my ankle using a pre-mixed paste. I use the word "paint" loosely here, the henna paste was more like frosting that was carefully squeezed out of a tube. The paste was thick and very dark in color. I let it sit uncovered for about 2 hours. Then I doused a paper towel with lemon juice and sprinkled copious amounts of granulated sugar on the moist paper towel. I gently covered the tattoo with the paper towel and wrapped it in saran.

After I got home, I looked up more about henna tattooing and read that the color transfer is enhanced by heat so I microwaved a wet bandanna and wrapped it around the saran wrap. I also read that the dry paste should be allowed to remain in contact with the skin for 4 hours but the longer it stays the darker your tattoo will result. Therefore, I didn't scrape the paste off until morning. I also read that the tattoo color develops (darkens) gradually so if it isn't as dark as you would like right away, you must be patient.

I wonder if the active dye in henna, Lawsone (2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone or hennotannic acid), has ever been used for cell staining in microscopy. The molecule (CAS No. 83-72-7) has 1,965 citations in SciFinder and can be purchased at 93 commercial sources. Searching for reactions where Lawsone is a reactant yields 3,617 reactions. Considering this molecule, isolated from the Henna plant (Lawsonia inermis), has been used in body art for the past 5,000 years it makes sense that Lawsone has been well-studied.

From a quick search, it appears that Lawsone readily attaches to free amino acids and proteins in the skin and hair. It has been used for fingerprint staining on paper as well as protein quantitation by spectrophotometry. I will have to look into the chemistry more deeply at a later date. I keep reading that the Lawsone molecule reacts with free amines via Michael addition, resulting in a strong permanent stain, but I can't picture the mechanism myself.

The peacock symbolizes integrity, guidance, protection and watchfulness. It is said to breathe life into your faith and rejuvenate self-esteem. Since the peacock replaces his feathers annually, it is a symbol of renewal. Due to its similarity to the phoenix, it also represents resurrection or rebirth. The "eyes" in its feathers were thought in Egyptian, Greek, and Roman mythology to be all-seeing. I chose a side-view (modest) image of the bird, rather than a forward-facing display of plumage. I think the demure, yet proud, image better suits me. I like the way its posture connotes alertness.

Oh, and if you haven't seen my ChemChamps video yet, please watch! I only have 4 more days to peacock my way into the top 10 for a chance to get special training in science communication at the American Chemical Society national meeting in San Francisco (August 2014).

References

Pradhan, et al. From Body Art to Cancer Activities: Perspectives on Medicinal Properties of Henna. Current Drug Targets, 2012, 13, 1777-1798.

Jelly, et al. Lawsone: A Novel Reagent for the Detection of Latent Fingermarks on Paper Surfaces. Chemical Communications, 2008, 30, 3513–3515.

Giri Dev, et al. Dyeing and Antimicrobial Characteristics of Chitosan Treated Wool Fabrics with Henna Dye. Carbohydrate Polymers, 2009, 75, 646-650.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Leading the Herd Astray: My Experiment in Social Media

I got turned on to herd behavior experiments by a radio broadcast in Late January / Early February 2014. There is a group of scientists who studies Influence. One approach is to create parallel worlds containing the same 48 songs. In some worlds, a few (or one) song(s) begin with an advantage. In other worlds, songs all begin with the same rating and receive an artificial "boost" partway through the experiment. In one "control" world, all songs begin with the same rating and the 12,207 participants are allowed to choose at will without any outside influence. The popularity of songs were determined in part by a “cumulative advantage” process where early success led to future success. The popularity ordering of the songs was measured by (free) download counts. This study simulates something like the scenario below:

Say Lady Gaga has better quality music then her competitors, therefore her popularity was earned through sheer recognition of her quality
(or)
Lady Gaga would have just sounded like any other pop-star if not that she signed with the right record label at the right time in the right place, thus getting lucky and the popularity followed those beneficial setting.

The results of the study by Salganik and Watts showed that promoted songs became the winners in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. I am happy to be learning about this phenomenon by immersion in such a social media experiment now, the Chemistry Champions contest. Unfortunately I have dropped from #16 to #19, and based on herd mentality, I believe that means my ship is sinking. If you have 3 minutes to spare, please watch the following video. Help boost me back into the top 10 for a chance to travel to a national meeting and receive special training in science communication!

References

Stopezynski, et al. Measuring large-scale social networks with high resolution. PLOS ONE (2014). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0095978 http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0095978

Muchnik, et al.Social Influence Bias: A Randomized Experiment. Science 341, 647 (2013). DOI: 10.1126/science.1240466 http://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/muchnik13bias.pdf

Salganik and Watts. Leading the Herd Astray: An Experimental Study of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in an Artificial Cultural Market. (2013) Soc Psychol Q. 2008 ; 74(4): 338–. DOI: 10.1177/019027250807100404. www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_watts08.pdf

https://americasos.wordpress.com/tag/social-experiment/

http://freakonomics.com/2012/06/21/riding-the-herd-mentality-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Corona del Mar Scenic 5k ~ Race Report

We've done the CdM5k in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, and now 2014! Why do we keep returning to Orange County for this event? Because of Restaurant Row, of course~!

What is Restaurant Row you may ask... it's a group of businesses that offer post-race gnosh for approximately 1500 Race Participants. This year was the 33rd annual event. Vendors included
Albertson’s
Avila’s El Ranchito
Bamboo Bistro
California Pizza Kitchen
Champagne French Bakery & Cafe
Dr. Soy
Five Crowns
Gina’s Pizza
Islands Fine Burgers & Drinks
Jamba Juice
Nekter Juice Bar
Newport Beach Plaza & Retirement Community
Pita Jungle
Restaurants on the Run
Rose Bakery Cafe
Rudy's Pub & Grill
Summer House
The Quiet Woman (offers the famous crème brûlée)
The Place
Trader Joe’s
Zinc Cafe & Market

So for us, the goal is not to "win" the race but to finish and enjoy the course together. This year's trip down to Costa Mesa was really neat because we took the Metrolink train from Glendale -- LA Union Station --Irvine. We rode along the San Diego Creek Trail to our hotel. It was (mostly) downhill for 11.6 miles and we arrived in about 1 hour 15 minutes. We only took one wrong turn which landed us at the Trinity Broadcasting Network International Headquarters where we realized we had better turn around.

On the day after the race, we went for a ride around Upper Newport Bay Nature Preserve. All in all, it was a great weekend! We had our panniers and rode home to Glendale from Union Station via the LA River trail (~13 miles). Exhilarating!

Friday, June 13, 2014

#ChemChamps Transcript

Kayla A. Kaiser, CSUN #ChemChamps