Sex and the Human Nose

Seems like an unusual combination, but does the nose know how to sense love?

Researchers in Salt Lake City may have discovered an organ within the nose the can sense chemical signals called pheromones. Pheromones are chemical messengers sent by one member of a species to another and capable of changing the behavior or internal state of the receiver. Although pheromones are found mostly in insects and animals, humans may possess them also.

Dr. David Berliner, a pheromone researcher, discovered human pheromones over 50 years ago from dead skin cells. Dr. Larry Stensaas, anatomist at the University of Utah School of Medicine, found a pheromone sensing organ called the vomeronasal organ, according to a Sept. 7, 1993 article in the New York Times. This organ exists in reptiles and mammals, but its believed to be a vestigial organ in humans, said former San Antonio College anatomy professor David Smith. Smith said the smell sense is the most ancient of the senses and is tied into the brain’s limbic system, which controls emotions and behavior. So, those who find themselves inexplicably attracted to someone may literally find the answer right under his or her nose.

©2016 Martin Malacara

North American Jaguar

According to LiveScience.com, the once common jaguar has since become a rare sight due to hunting and habitat fragmentation. Jaguars (Panthera onca) once ranged from southern South America to the southern United States. By the late 1900s, none were thought to exist north of Mexico, but two independent sightings in 1996 confirmed jaguars still reached as far north as Arizona and New Mexico. The species has been protected outside of the United States under the Endangered Species Act since 1973. That protection was extended to jaguars in the United States in 1997, the year after their presence here was confirmed. A most recent sighting occurred in 2012 when University of Arizona research cameras snapped photos of one in Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

Jaguar at the San Antonio Zoo (Malacara photo)

Earthquakes—Nature's Faults

The chances of a major earthquake hitting South Central Texas are the same as the Dallas Cowboys facing the New England Patriots in this year's Super Bowl.
It's not gonna happen.

Natural fracture caused by erosion in outcropping
of Balcones Fault System. Colloquially known as "caliche,"
its scientific name is calcium carbonate. (Malacara photo)

Despite recent earthquakes in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, probably caused by man-made activity like hydraulic fracking, Texans may be relieved to know the state is one of the most geologically safest spots in North America. Texas shares that distinction with Florida and Alabama.
Abdul Qudus, a former San Antonio College (SAC) geology professor, said San Antonio is stable because it's located far away from plate margins and volcanoes.
Plate margins are the edges of the Earth's crust which move against each other creating fault lines along the boundaries.
Qudus said 20 plates exist throughout the world and move at a rate of 1 inch per year.
The plates responsible for quakes in California are the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate.
When the plates move, they create fractures or faults in the Earth's crust.
Both side of the fault move in opposite directions, sometimes getting stuck along the way.
When a fault line gets stuck, it builds up energy or stress which when released causes the violent shock waves or quakes to travel through the Earth, destroying things along its path.
About 1 million quakes occur in a year, Qudus said.
He added that San Antonio sits on top of an inactive fault system.
The Balcones Fault System divides the Edwards Plateau from the Texas Coastal Plain. Qudus said this fault line formed around 30 million years ago when most of Texas existed under water.

The Balcones Fault System visible from street level
beneath McAllister Fine Arts Center. (Malacara photo)

The formation of this fault is responsible for the creation of the Edwards Aquifer. This fault system, he said, is also responsible for the creation of San Pedro Springs, which made San Pedro Park a perfect camping ground for early Texas settlers.
Evidence of this fault line, Qudus said, can be seen along West Dewey Street where SAC's McAllister Fine Arts Center on the north sits higher than McCreless Hall on the south.

***

The KSYM radio tower atop the McAllister Fine Arts Center.
The building sits atop the Balcones Fault System. (Malacara photo)

When continents collide

The Earth's surface is made of about 20 wide sections called tectonic plates. The plates can move with—or against—each other in one of three ways.
Convergent movement: when two plates move toward on another. The Himalayan Mountains were formed when two plates collided.
Divergent movement: when the plates move away from each other. The Great Rift Valley in Africa and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge are divergent faults.
Transform movement: when two plates collide and grind against each other sideways. The San Andreas Fault was caused by a transform fault movement.

Examples of different fault movement within the Earth.
(Archived image courtesy oocities.org)

Transform Faults

When this type of movement occurs, two types of faults can form.
Strike-slip: Sometimes two plates sliding past each other horizontally get caught, building tension. When the energy is released, an earthquake occurs. The San Andreas Fault System is a strike-slip fault.
Dip-slip: are inclined fractures where the blocks have mostly shifted vertically. If the rock mass above an inclined fault moves down, the fault is termed "normal," whereas if the rock above the fault moves up, the fault is termed "reverse." A thrust fault is a reverse fault with a dip of 45 degrees or less. Oblique-slip faults have significant components of different slip styles.

—source: U.S. Geological Survey

©2015 Martin Malacara

The Mightiest Molecule of All?

There’s a new ball game in town, but you can’t play it in the gym or on a field.

It’s played in the chemistry lab.

Buckminsterfullerene C60 (Mstroeck graphic)

Buckminsterfullerenes, or buckyballs for short, are a curious plaything in chemical engineering. And while their interest to scientists is high, their usefulness eludes researchers. Buckyballs are molecules of pure carbon, containing 60 or 70 carbon atoms, shaped much like a soccer ball. They are the third form of pure carbon on the planet along with diamonds and graphite, said William Haley, former chairman of chemistry and earth sciences at San Antonio College.

They get their name from architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes closely resemble this versatile molecule’s structure.

Richard Smalley, a physics and chemistry professor at Rice University in Houston, discovered buckyballs in 1985.

Haley said the expensive cost of producing buckyballs impedes research and development. He said buckyballs cost $100 to $200 per gram to make. For wide use of buckyballs in future products, he said, cheaper production methods must be found.

Buckminster Fuller (Dan Lindsay photo)

What makes buckyballs so special, Haley said, is their ability to bond easily with other molecules since they are entirely made from carbon, the base element for life on Earth.

The double bonds found in buckyballs make them sturdy molecules, and they could act as containers for metals used in superconductors, such as lanthanum.

Superconductors alls the transfer of electric current without resistance when cooled to low temperatures.

Haley said buckyballs have been used for such purposes but have been unsuccessful because they buckyball/metal combination quickly breaks down when exposed to air.

Haley said scientists are even considering using buckyballs in copier toner, but this currently costs too much.

On the biomedical front, researchers have looked into using buckyballs as an HIV inhibitor and also using its carbon cage for transporting radioactive elements such as radon to treat cancer.

Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta reported in August 1993 that buckyballs could bond to HIV protease, a key enzyme, paralyzing it and rendering it noninfectious to human cells grown in the laboratory.

The researchers stressed, however, that buckyballs are not the cure for AIDS, only the first practical biological application of buckyballs. Haley said this application would need further study.

“We need to find out how effective the bonding will be to the virus and how effective it will be to humans,” he said.

“We also need to find out how to get it inside the blood stream.”

Haley also said researchers need to learn how buckyballs will interfere with the rest of the organ systems within the body.

Rice University's Andrew Barron, a chemistry and materials science professor, along with his group and researchers in Greece, Italy, and Germany, have collaborated to investigate the possibility of using fullerenes to inhibit a strain of the virus, HIV-1 PR.

Haley said he sees buckyballs being used as catalysts to purify other compounds the way carbon black is used to purify sugar and in hydrogenation, the process that turns vegetable oil into margarine.

He sees this as a practical commercial use for fullerenes in the future.

With a little patience and persistence, scientists will be playing with buckyballs throughout the 21st century.

Sidebar

The Amazing Buckminsterfullerene

Buckminsterfullerenes are named after architect Buckminster Fuller. They were first discovered in a soccer ball-pattern shape. One of its unique traits allows it to contain almost any other atom. Another is its ability to join to other buckyballs and form nanotubes.

Discovery

Richard Smalley and Harold Kroto created the first known samples of buckminsterfullerenes by accident in 1985. Their discovery was unexpected because the only other known forms of naturally pure carbon molecules are diamonds and graphite. Smalley and Kroto, along with Robert Curl, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996.

Atomics

Buckyballs come in several varieties, but all are made of about 60 carbon molecules that form a stable, spherical shape.

Carbon nanotube

Versatility:

Scientists believe these unusual molecules’ shapes and sizes may be used for many purposes:

• Their cage-like shape allows them to both hold and block other molecules.

• They may be arranged in tube-shaped formations to conduct electricity.

• When combined with some metal atoms, they become unstable superconductors.

• Sheet of buckyballs may serve to filter other chemicals, depending on their atomic size.

• Their size also regulates the amount of light that passes through them, acting as a natural light filter in goggles and tinted glass.

• Because they are mad of carbon, buckyballs also may have unpredicted biochemical properties.

© 2014 Martin Malacara

A Predator In Shallow Water

Beachcombers heading for the Texas coast for last-minute summer fun need not panic. They’re more likely to strike it rich in the Texas Lottery than strike out with a shark, according to a Sea World shark expert.

Gary Violetta (Sea World photo)

Gary Violetta, a curator of fishes at Sea World of Orlando, said 100 million sharks were killed in 1993 compared to the 100 reported shark bites and the 25 shark-related deaths the same year. Also in 1993, 250 people were killed by elephants and 1,250 people sided from bee stings, he said.

Sharks are relatively harmless and stay clear of divers if alone, Violetta said.

“Most shark bites are provoked,” he said. “They are not after anyone.”

Violetta, who previously worked at Sea Word San Antonio, said most people will try and grab a shark’s tail as it swims by, causing it to defend itself. Also, spear fishermen are prone to shark attacks by leaving their caught fish dangling by their side on a stringer. The sharks are attracted to the oil and blood streaming off the dead fish, he said. Most shark attacks occur in 5 to 6 feet of water. People should be more consented with getting stung by a Portuguese man-of-war, he said.

Hamerhead shark (Barry Peters photo)

Sharks indigenous to the Texas Gulf Coast are hammerheads, Atlantic sharp nose sharks, black tip sharks and bonnetheads.

Sharks are the top predator in the ocean, Violetta said, because they’re well adapted to their environment and they have existed for more than 350 million years constantly evolving ever since.

Their bodies are equipped with special sensing cells congaing fluid which help sense low-level vibrations in the water. These cells are located in an area called the lateral line on the shark’s back. More sensing cells up front around the shark’s snout, called the ampullae of Lorenzini, pick up electromagnetic impulses from a potential meal. 

Atlantic sharp nose shark (NOAA photo)

The 350 species of sharks which exist on the planet have keen eyesight, Violetta said, with some species able to see color.

The shark population has been declining because of over fishing and the senseless slaughter of sharks, he said, but Violetta believes the shark population will recover.

Violetta believes the movie “Jaws” did more to decrease the shark population.

“It gave them a bad rep,” he said.

The movie, based on the Peter Benchley novel of the same name, featured a so-called rogue great white shark terrorizing the waters off Long Island, New York.

Blacktip shark (Albert Kok photo)

Female sharks produce two to 50 pups once or twice a year, he said, taking seven to 10 years to mature. Sharks in general live about 30 to 35 years. Sea World Currently concentrates their efforts on education rather than research, Violetta said, adding education is the key to keeping sharks off the endangered species list. 

He said, however, researchers in Sarasota, Fla., have used sharks in cancer research because they believe the shark’s cartilage prevents them from developing cancer.

Bonnethead shark (Matt Howry photo)

Researchers have not proved the cartilage prevents cancer, and Violetta fears more sharks will die from the false hope they provide a cure.

Forty years ago, little was known about sharks, he said, adding he believes more needs to be learned from both laboratory and field study.

***

Sidebar—The Shark Lady

When I was a mere pup, about eight years old, the movie “Jaws” had just come out. My mom, being overly mindful of what I saw on TV and at the movies, forbade me from watching it. Come to think of it, I actually didn’t get to see “Jaws” until a couple years later with a friend who had cable TV at his house. Either way, it made an impression.

I had to settle on the occasional Jacques Cousteau television special (no Discovery Channel back then) or book or filmstrip at the library at Colonial Hills Elementary school to learn anything about sharks. So began my foray into marine biology. My school had a book fair one day. I got lucky and discovered a book about a woman who swam with sharks in order to learn more about them.

The name of that book—“Shark Lady: True Adventures of Eugenie Clark.” I relished reading that book and imagined myself swimming along side, sharing in her adventures. Dr. Clark, 92, an ichthyologist (one who studies fish) became inspired by her trips to the then Battery Park Aquarium, now known as the New York Aquarium. She would grow up to conduct extensive underwater research with fish and sharks, and even pioneered scuba diving for research purposes. 

Dr. Eugenie Clark (2011 U.S. Dept. of Labor photo)

One particular chapter of the book described her research in the Red Sea. She learned a certain fish that swims there, scientific name Pardachirus, known there locally as the Moses sole, secreted a milky substance that made her hand feel numb and tingly. 

She observed when sea urchins, starfish, and reef fish were exposed to small doses of this milky substance, it killed these creatures quickly. She wondered how it might work on sharks. So, she experimented on three reef whitetip sharks she had access to at the lab where she worked. She placed the moses sole inside the tank with the sharks. The hungry sharks swam in for dinner time, but when they got close to the fish they suddenly turned away, shaking their heads as if trying to get a bad taste out of their mouths.

Moses sole (Victor Cebollada photo)

Dr. Clark repeated the experiment and observed the sharks would avoid the Moses sole each time. Since then, researchers have tried to create an effective shark repellant based on the Moses sole secretion, which has a compound now known as paradaxin, a neurotoxic peptide. This compound is very difficult to handle and loses its effectiveness after a time when frozen or exposed to room temperature. Nevertheless, researchers continue work to create an effective shark repellant, all because a woman scientist took the time to explore the possibility.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it didn’t matter to me that she’s a woman. I knew girls could do things better than me ever since kindergarten, and I didn’t have a problem with that. I just knew I wanted to do something as cool as swimming with sharks. But first, I had to learn how to swim (a story for another time).

If only we could do more to eliminate the gender boundaries and not automatically think “man” or “woman”—just think “human.”

©2014 Martin Malacara

Supercollision of Science—Discovery vs. Practicality

Two years ago, science stood still as physicists working at CERN, home of the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, announced the discovery of the elusive “god” particle. This particle is the nickname for the Higgs boson, the last sub-atomic particle to comprise the Standard Model of physics. The Standard Model helps explain how the universe works. 

Higgs particle detected inside
the ATLAS detector at CERN.

The Higgs boson, called the “god” particle because its everywhere but never seen, gives other sub-atomic particles their mass. The man it’s named after, Peter Higgs, won the Nobel Prize in 2013 for his work in predicting its existence. But oddly enough, physicists could have discovered it much sooner. And in Texas of all places.

That’s right—in the big red, “fundamentalist,” Lone Star State.

Abandoned SSC building circa 2008.

Twenty one years ago, October 21, 1993, Congress put science on its chopping block. Potentially the biggest atom smasher this side of the Atlantic, the Superconducting Supercollider, had its funding cancelled. It was supposed to be much larger than the one at CERN, but apparently, no one could comprehend the use for the 14.7-mile gopher hole just outside Waxahachie, Texas, dug to contain it. The SSC could have given a new understanding of particle physics, propelling science into the 21st century. Instead, scientific knowledge took a back seat to American economics, and would have to wait 19 years. More than 15,000 jobs and 45,000 contracts worth $850 million were lost in a 282-143 vote in the House of Representatives back then in order to save money for more important things like the second Gulf War, the war on terror, and a consequence of that war, this country’s side project, PRISM. 

The shape of the future and a possibility for profound knowledge of the universe were a loss to American science, as well as the prestige to go along with it. Most people in this country are too concerned, however, about the cost and quality of living than better understanding the universe by smashing atoms. In fact, science has already improved the quality of life by atom smashing done in the 1940s. Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg and his research group at the University of California at Berkeley are famous for creating plutonium, the main ingredient in atomic bombs. While developing plutonium, Seaborg’s group also created the element americium.

Americium inside a household smoke detector. 

It had no practical use at the time, but many years later this element became the main component in ordinary household smoke detectors, a device which certainly improved the quality of life, as a result from research done around 70 years ago.

Work currently performed in the genetics field is possible because of the rediscovery of DNA. Richard Roberts and Phillip Sharp won the Nobel Prize for their 1977 discovery of “junk” DNA. They found that genes are not made up of single sections of DNA but discrete chunks broken up by stretches of other DNA which have no function.

This discovery created a foundation for current genetic work to correct genetic disorders.

Discoveries like this are possible because someone cared enough to do the research and realized its future benefits. This country lacks an appreciation of science and scientific research because it suffers from a profound case of science illiteracy. This can only be remedied with more emphasis on science education starting in grade school. Once people understand basic science they can understand and appreciate the benefits of scientific research.

Back in 1993, I attended San Antonio College, a two-year community college, to learn and hone my journalistic chops. While there, I learned 25 students received scholarships from the National Science Foundation’s Alliance for Minority Participation program that year. These scholarships provide minority students a rare opportunity to improve their basic science knowledge to prepare them for a bright future. A continued lack of appreciation for research, however, might send that future right down the same 14.7-mile gopher hole.

So what eventually happened to that hole? 

In 2012, Magnablend, a company that specializes in custom chemical manufacturing, blending, and packaging for the oil and gas industry, along with other industries, bought the old site and finished building and expanding its plant there a year later. The area bounced back economically, but what happens when the oil, gas, and possibly the water, run out in the next 40 or 50 years?

I guess that’s for another blog.

Further reading:

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/how-texas-lost-worlds-largest-super-collider

http://businessfacilities.com/magnablend-reopens-former-superconducting-super-collider-facility-in-waxahachie-tx/

http://science.howstuffworks.com/higgs-boson1.htm

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hidden-treasures-in-junk-dna/

Thinking Machines: Bringing Sci-fi Ideas to Life

"I think therefore I am."
Rene Descarte postulated this statement to sum up the complexities of human though and existence. During that time, humans could only dream of creating something that could mirror human intelligence and ponder its own self-worth. Only in the realms of science fiction can one find such machines, created from wires and circuits, endowed by their creators with self-awareness.

ITM headquarters in Schertz, Texas. 

But in the real world, most people will settle for machines that can choose lottery numbers, assemble other machines, or provide faster Internet access. Klaus Weiswurm, president of Instruments Technology Machinery, understands this fact. Weiswurm's company, located in Schertz, Texas, uses robotic technology to make other machines that could qualify as having "artificial intelligence."
"Yes, they make decisions—is the part in correctly, is the right part in correctly. If it's not—retry, if it fails—you can't continue," Weiswurm said. "That's when the red light comes on and a person comes out to replace something," he added.
Weiswurm said certain computer programs could also be considered artificial intelligence (A.I.). One program that engineers at the company use to design machinery, called a solid works program, can qualify under the category. "It can be A.I. if the computer is good enough and the program is good enough," he said. But the program cannot run itself and still needs a human brain operating the computer keyboard.

Scene from "A.I." featuring Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law.

Artificial intelligence is a term coined in the 1950s by a group of scientists to describe their research into computer programming. It's also the title to Steven Spielberg's 2001 film with the late Stanley Kubrick, who had been working on the screenplay for more than 20 years. The film explores the definition of reality, the potential problems with a society dependent on technology and what it means to be human. Oddly enough, Kubrick's groundbreaking sci-fi film "2001: A Space Odyssey," which came out 33 years earlier, featured the super computer HAL 9000 endowed with A.I., running amok in orbit above Jupiter.

Inside the memory core of HAL 9000.

At Weiswurm's company, engineers focus more on potential problems that arise when their machines leave the workshop and get put to work at someone else's company. "We have to outguess Murphy (of Murphy's Law)—overcome anything he can throw at you," he said. Weiswurm views robots and other machinery from a practical point of view. He said machines are more capable of performing repetitive tasks more consistently and actually give their human operators more time to perform many other jobs.
Weiswurm conceded, however, there are some jobs a human is more suited for. "You cannot make a machine to do what a human does. The human tactile ability is so good, it's difficult to get that feedback from it," he said.
Weiswurm also admitted NASA has made strides into bridging the gap between robotic technology and human motion, but added the relationship is more a collaborative effort than individual machine or human achievement. "Humans provide the motion, machines provide the strength," he said. Weiswurm said he believes machines are a long way off from totally replacing humans.

NASA and GM teamed up to create a "robonaut."

"I don't see the day. Everything from airplanes to zippers is designed by engineers. I don't think machines can design and control themselves. Machines just take the manual process away," he said.
Weiswurm added humans will always have an edge over any mechanized counterpart because "there are no elastic limits on the brain." But, he added, people should not get too wrapped up in machinery. "Automation is good and right if you don't over complicate it just to over complicate it," he said.