You don’t need to be a scientist, you don’t even need to have a college education. Anyone can do it. Just follow these 10 simple rules:

1) Select the Social Sciences discipline of your choice: History, Anthropology, or Linguistics, whatever makes you tick.

2) Make up an outrageous hypothesis. Whatever crosses your mind – no matter how stupid it sounds – will be fine. For instance, you can argue that Man never set foot on the moon, that Eskimos have millions of words for snow, or that the real author of special relativity is Einstein’s wife. These are the kind of hip ideas that could later become a PBS series and make you a pop science star.

3) Design an unintelligible title. Don’t be cheap with words, and avoid making any sense. Write something like “Towards A Complete And Comprehensive Hermeneutics Of The Historical Origins Of General Relativity: Einstein’s Thought-Processes Revised”.

4) Start writing the paper in the same incoherent way but following a standard structure that includes the following sections in order: Abstract, Introduction, Study, Methodology, Results, Conclusions and References. Editors have very strict rules for making no sense.

5) In order to “validate” whatever you’re saying, produce some evidence and use real scientific terminology. Choose from a field that is currently fashionable like genetics or information technology. For example, say you used “genetic algorithms” to make a computer model of Einstein’s brain which proves he could never have came up with such a brilliant idea.

6) Feel free to use statistics or algebraic notations. The fact that you know nothing about mathematics shouldn’t be a problem. Numbers rule in the academic world. Here’s an example:

7/x(2+3)° /y=4

Where:
x= number of love letters Einstein sent to his wife
y= frequency of bad hair days

See? Easy.

7) Include as many references as you can and choose preferably French postmodern authors such as Foucault or Derrida. Social scientists love them and their theories are so obscure that you can twist them to support almost anything.

Add in expressions in French or German like enfant terrible or unheimlich, arguing that they communicate better the “meaning you want to convey.” Editors will be very impressed with your sophistication. Of course, remember to put them in italics.

9) Don’t forget the acknowledgments (as many as you need to complete the number of words required by the editors) and a small paragraph accepting that your study is “just a little step towards discovering the whole truth.” Natural scientists have a bad reputation for being arrogant, so a bit of humility could buy you more points with the editorial committee of any Humanities publication.

10) Finally, choose the right magazine and submit your work. Remember, it doesn’t matter what you say as long as you flatter the editor’s ideological preconceptions. For example, the Einstein’s wife paper should be sent to the Journal of Feminist Studies or The Deconstructivist Historian.

Now enjoy seeing your work published and if you come across any typos don’t worry. You’ll probably be your only reader.

Are you doomed? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to consult a colour-coded chart. Take, for example, the Torino Scale, which astronomers use to express the likelihood of an asteroid hitting the Earth. Asteroid impacts are believed to be responsible for several mass extinctions – just ask the dinosaurs (oh wait, you can’t) – and it’s only a matter of time until another killer rock gets lucky. So check the Torino Scale regularly and act accordingly.

Threat Level: Green
No likelihood of collision with Earth.

Threat Level: Yellow
Collision with Earth is possible, but unlikely.

There’s really no cause for concern at this point. The designation of an asteroid as a Yellow Threat will result in several CGI-filled specials on the Discovery Channel, sequels to lame killer asteroid movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact, and heavy airplay of R.E.M.’s It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), but that’s about it. Attention will shift away as soon as some washed-up celebrity drops dead.

Threat Level: Orange
Collision with Earth is likely, but uncertain.

Now things are getting interesting. The designation of an asteroid as an Orange Threat will cause widespread panic. Frightened mobs will attack astronomers in the streets and burn observatories to the ground. When that doesn’t work, they’ll arm themselves and fire wildly into the sky, killing scores of innocent hot air balloonists. Whether the asteroid hits us or not, the world will lose much of its joie de vivre.

Threat Level: Red
Collision with Earth is certain. Destruction is likely to be local. Loss of life: 0-100,000.

The effects will vary, but at their worst, they’ll resemble the effects of a large nuclear explosion. On land, impact will flatten several square kilometres. At sea, impact will cause a minor tsunami.

Once the impact point is identified, there’ll be a mad scramble as people flee. In the United States, FEMA will try to coordinate an orderly evacuation, but will accidentally bus thousands of innocent black people into the danger zone rather than out of it, then fine them for entering a restricted area. The price of gas along the evacuation route will shoot up to $30 per litre and stay there.

Afterwards, emergency response will be able to assist survivors.

Threat Level: Double Red
Collision with Earth is certain. Destruction is likely to be widespread. Loss of life: 100,000-100,000,000.

The effects will be catastrophic. On land, impact will flatten several hundred square kilometres and send enough dust into the atmosphere to affect global weather patterns for years to come. At sea, impact will cause a major tsunami.

Local governments, unable to cope, will collapse. Fundamentalist Christians, raised on a steady diet of Left Behind books and direct-to-DVD movies, will arm themselves and take to the streets, determined to cleanse the world of unbelievers. In all likelihood, canned goods will replace paper money as the only acceptable currency.

Afterwards, emergency response will be overwhelmed, and many survivors will have to wait for a large, Live Aid-like charity event for meaningful assistance.

Threat Level: Triple Red
Collision with Earth is certain. Destruction is likely to threaten the future of civilization. Loss of life: 100,000,000+.

The effects will be apocalyptic, like something out of a submission to Asimov’s Science Fiction written by an angry, lovelorn video store clerk who goes to Star Trek conventions dressed as a Borg. On land, impact will flatten several thousand square kilometres and send enough dust into the atmosphere to affect global weather patterns for generations to come. At sea, impact will cause a tsunami of unprecedented proportions. In either case, large areas will be unrecognizable afterwards.

National governments, unable to cope, will collapse. People will be left without food, medicine, or fuel, and will quickly be reduced to bare survival. Many will resort to cannibalism, and those who don’t will be too weak to resist those who do. Places where cannibalism is already widely-practiced – New Guinea, parts of Africa, and the Netherlands, to name a few – will fare best. Big hair and shoulder pads will make an unexpected comeback.

Emergency response will be incapacitated for the foreseeable future.

Threat Level: Brown
A critical hit. Destruction is likely to be total. Anyone who survives the initial impact will die soon thereafter.

Scenarios vary, but leading scientists believe that the most likely outcome of such an impact is a bank shot that knocks the Earth into the moon, which cracks open and releases millions of blood-sucking space bats that envelop the Earth and feed on the living and the dead alike, until the Earth careens into the sun, catches fire, and finally explodes.

In all likelihood, the last trace of our species will be radio waves, disappearing into the vastness of deep space, carrying humanity’s final message to the universe in Michael Stipe’s irritating nasal drone: “…and I feel fi-i-i-i-ine…”.

Sir Francis Bacon, British philosopher, essayist, and scientific revolution advocate (1561 – 1626):
Quite a few of them are dead.

B.L.T., sandwich:
A lot depends on whether the lettuce and tomato count as one degree.

Bacon County, Georgia:
Geographically speaking, could get you as far as Florida or South Carolina

Canadian Bacon, meat cut:
Network probably not as good as Kevin Bacon’s, unless of course you’re referring to pigs.

Roger Bacon, Franciscan friar, English philosopher, and one of the earliest advocates of the scientific method (1214 – 1294):
Sadly, all dead.

Traditionally, physics has been a male-dominated occupation. However, throughout history there have been exceptional women who have risen above society’s restrictions and contributed greatly to the advancement of physics. Women have played an important role in the creation, advancement and application of medical physics. As a frontier science, medical physics is less likely to be bound by society’s norms and less subject to the inherent glass ceiling limiting female participation. Women such as Marie Curie, Harriet Brooks, and Rosalind Franklin helped break through that ceiling, and their contributions are worth observing.

In the early 1900’s, medical physics was a young and vibrant science. With Roentgen’s discovery of X-rays in 1895, scientists began exploring the exciting field of radiation physics. His work won him the first Noble prize in physics, in an area of physics that would become no stranger to Noble prizes.[1] From the very beginning, a female perspective was left on the science, with Roentgen’s wife’s hand immortalized in an early X-ray picture. In a more important way, female scientists left their mark on the fledging science, and continue to contribute today.

Marie Curie is possibly the most well known female pioneer in this new field of science. Born as Manya Sklodowska in Poland in 1867, she grew up in a poor family in a country under the yoke of Russian oppression. Marie and her older sister Bronia had dreams of making their mark on the world from a young age; Marie as a scientist and Bronia as a doctor. Despites the odds, they would both reach their goals (Rayner-Canham, 1997).

While her elder sister studied in France, Marie worked as a governess for a wealthy Polish family, teaching and training their children in their school studies. Eventually Marie fell in love with Casimir, the eldest son who was attending university. They planned to marry, and Marie would have known a life of relative luxury, but it would have probably been the end of her scientific ambitions (McClafferty 2006).

However, his parents objected to a marriage with a poor woman from a lower class, and Marie was heartbroken. She eventually left Poland and joined her sister in France, studying at the University of Paris, known as the Sarbonne. She would finish master’s degrees in physics and mathematics, and eventually become the first woman to teach there. She would also become the first woman to earn a doctorate degree in France (McClafferty 2006). During her studies she met Pierre Currie, a fellow physicist who had already done some important work in piezoelectricity. Together they would form both a marital and scientific partnership. Pierre was a very supportive spouse, and despite the contemporary social expectations for a married woman, Marie continued her scientific work. When the couple began having children, they hired nurses and had the aid of Pierre’s father in taking care of the children, freeing Marie from the expected housewife role and motherly duties (Rayner-Canham, 1997). As a result, Marie was able to overcome two common hurdles that still exist in a lesser form today, and focus on experimental physics in the laboratory.

Marie worked with uranium and thorium using a piezoelectric quartz electrometer invented by her husband. Together they also worked on a multi-compound ore called pitchblende. They were able to isolate and discover two new elements, polonium, named after Poland, and the element radium. Pierre, Marie, and Becquerel were given the Noble prize in physics for their work in spontaneous radioactivity. [2] Keeping with the norms of the age, the Noble Prize committee had originally planned to give the prize only to the two men. However, Pierre wrote to them when he heard he was being considered and explained and reinforced Marie’s important role in their discoveries (McClafferty 2006).

Marie and Pierre refused to patent their discovery of radium and its extraction process. Instead, they encouraged the free use of radium by the scientific community. Radium treatments were used successfully to treat cancers, especially skin cancers which were easy to expose to radium. There were also some successes in treating internal cancers. However, there were many foolish and unfounded claims for the use of radium. There was also no knowledge of the potential dangers of radium. The Currie’s themselves were unwittingly sick and fatigued from their constant radiation exposure (McClafferty 2006).

Marie continued her scientific work after her husband died in tragic street accident in 1906. There was some doubt regarding the element status of radium by various scientists, including the famous Lord Kelvin. Marie perfected the extraction process of radium, produced its pure metallic form, and was able to finally prove that radium was indeed an element (Rayner-Canham, 1997). For her work on radium and polonium she was awarded the 1911 Noble prize in chemistry, and became the first person to receive two Noble Prizes. [3] While she received the award, Marie was facing scandal in France. The press believed she was having an affair with another physicist, Paul Langevin. Around the same time, Marie’s application to join the French Academy of Sciences was rejected by a single vote, and the academy remained a male only institute (McClafferty 2006).

During World War I, Marie helped create mobile X-ray units that were used to treat soldiers at the trenches. X-rays were ideal for finding bullets in wounded soldiers and the machines were called “little Curies’. Marie continued to contribute to scientific research and education until her death, which was caused by her long term exposure to radiation. She was eventually reburied in the Pantheon, a famous French burial place, and was the first woman to be laid to rest there (McClafferty 2006).

Harriet Brooks was a Canadian physicist who was deemed by Ernest Rutherford to be second only to Marie Curie, as a female scientist in the field of radioactivity (Rayner-Canham, 1997). She was born in Ontario, to a lower class family. She entered McGill University in 1894 with the aid of several scholarships. After graduating in 1898, she became Rutherford’s first graduate student. She completed her master’s degree in electromagnetism in 1901, becoming one of the first women at McGill to receive a master’s degree. At the same time, Brooks worked as a mathematics tutor in the Royal Victoria woman’s college at McGill. She worked for over six years with Rutherford, and she helped discover radon gas and provide support for Rutherford and Soddy’s discovery that elements can decay into other elements.[4] Rutherford would eventually win the Noble Prize for chemistry in 1908.

The contributions made by Brooks while she was a graduate student are often overlooked (Rayner-Canham, 1997). However, Rutherford himself was an excellent mentor and supportive friend for Brooks. He had accepted several female graduate students at McGill, and often praised Brooks’ work. He helped her attain a position working at Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. While Brooks took good advantage of this great opportunity, she found it hard to work with her supervisor J.J. Thomson, winner of the 1906 Nobel Prize in physics. While Thompson was not prejudiced against female scientists, she still felt the dual handicap of being a woman and not a well known scientist, so it was difficult for her to present experimental results that might challenge his opinions. Brooks returned to McGill and continued her work at the women’s college and in Rutherford’s group. She “observed that a non-radioactive plate placed inside a radioactive container itself became radioactive” (Rayner-Canham, 1997). Rutherford presented her results, but later disagreed with her correct interpretation. Brooks did not receive credit for the discovery of radioactive recoil, which was given to another group. Rutherford continued to present her continuing work on radioactive decay, making sure to give proper credit (Rayner-Canham, 1997).

Brooks became a teacher at Barnard College, Columbia University’s women’s college. She fell in love with Bergen Davis, a Columbia physics professor. When they became engaged, the college notified her that she should resign from her academic duties once she married, as that was the social norm of the time. Brooks delayed her marriage and appealed the decision with help from influential members of the college. The college responded that they couldn’t “afford to have women on the staff to whom the college work is secondary… [and] the college is not willing to stamp with approval a woman to whom self-elected home duties can be secondary.” Brooks commented, “”I think it is a duty I owe to my profession and to my sex to show that a woman has a right to the practice of her profession and cannot be condemned to abandon it merely because she marries. “ Brooks broke the engagement due to personal reasons, but she resigned from the college because of the embarrassing social situation at work (Rayner-Canham, 1997).

Brooks visited France and worked for a short time with Marie Curie. Curie offered her a position to stay with her, but Brooks declined and applied for the John Harling Fellowship at Manchester. Rutherford was returning to Manchester, and wanted her as part of his research group again. While she was still waiting for the decision, Brooks married Frank Pitcher, and retired from physics research (Rayner-Canham, 1997). There are several reasons why she might have married without a fight to continue her scientific work. She was in her thirties, and facing the contemporary societal pressure to marry and the stigma attached to a single woman that still exists today. The state of radioactivity research at McGill had collapsed after Rutherford’s departure, and starting again in a new position would have been very difficult. There simply weren’t many opportunities for a female physicist at that time. She returned to Montreal, but devoted herself to the life of a housewife. Brooks’ contributions are often overlooked and forgotten, and her premature exit from the scientific arena is a regrettable historical footnote.

The early pioneers in the field of radioactivity also opened up many potential experimental and practical applications. Rosalind Franklin is one of the better known female experimental scientists, as a physical chemist and X-ray crystallography specialist. She was born to a moderately wealthy Jewish family in England in 1920. She entered studies at Newnham women’s college at Cambridge in 1938. Cambridge did not consider women as official members of the university, and would only give them nominal degrees known as “degrees titular.” There was a quota set so that women would not exceed 10% of the undergraduate body. Franklin focused on taking chemistry, physics and mathematics courses. After graduating with a titular degree in 1941, she worked with several British companies that were involved in the World War II effort (Maddox 2002).

She studied coal porosity and structure, and began work on a PHD. She had her father’s support throughout her studies, and she refused to be condemned to the restrictive role of a housewife as she “[couldn’t] see how it can be anything but dull.” She earned her doctorate in 1945 and with the help and contacts of Adrienne Weill, another female physicist, she obtained an opportunity to work in Paris and learn X-ray diffraction techniques (Maddox 2002).

Franklin returned to England, and began work as a research associate at King’s College in London. The director of the biophysics unit, John Randall, was very fair with female scientists, and eight of his thirty one staff members were women. Working with her graduate student Raymond Gosling, they discovered the A (dry) and B (wet) forms of DNA. Franklin had a tumultuous and unstable work relationship with fellow researcher Maurice Wilkins. Randall had to intervene on occasion and set them on independent research paths (Maddox 2002).

Franklin would go on to present some of her findings in November 1951. In the audience was James Watson, who was working with Francis Crick on trying to model DNA structure. The two men proposed a failed model of DNA that year, but continued work on building new models. In 1953, Maurice Wilkins, still on adversarial terms with Franklin, showed Watson one of Franklin’s unpublished X-ray photographs. It was enough, along with some of Franklin’s unpublished data, to help Watson and Crick finalize their DNA model. Watson and Crick offered Wilkins the possibility of joint authorship with them (Sayre 1975).

Wilkins denied the offer, and did not involve Franklin in the decision, despite the fact that they had used her unpublished X-ray image and data. When Watson and Crick published their results, Wilkins agreed to publish an accompanying note, which gave no credit to Franklin (Maddox 2002). Franklin did publish her work as well as a supporting article for the new DNA model, and Watson and Crick mentioned some help that they received from Franklin. However, Franklin’s days at King’s College were over, as she was asked to leave and even recommended to “cease to work on the nucleic acid problem, and take up something else” (Maddox 2002).

Franklin worked at Birkbeck College from 1953 to 1956, focusing her skills on various plant viruses, the most famous being the Tobacco mosaic virus. Franklin enjoying working there, but she still did not receive the full wage a woman was entitled to at the time (Maddox 2002). In 1956 Franklin was diagnosed with cancer, and after a long struggle, died in 1958. The cancer may have been caused by radiation exposure during her work (Sayre 1975). She had published or co-published thirty seven scientific papers and provided a lot of useful information for applied medical physics (Maddox 2002). Her help in discovering the structure of DNA was crucial, and that discovery sparked a revolution in molecular biology that continues to this day.

Bernal, her lab supervisor at Birkbeck wrote positively of her in her obituary, and mentioned that “her photographs are among the most beautiful X-ray photographs of any substance ever taken” (Maddox 2002). Watson, Crick and Wilkins were awarded a Noble Prize in 1962 for their work on discovering DNA’s structure. [5] Franklin could not be considered for the award because she had died in 1958. Watson published The Double Helix, a reflecting book about his experiences in life and science in which he wrote unflatteringly about Franklin’s character (Maddox 2002). Watson later apologized for his writings, but there still remains some stigma and doubt cast about the events at King’s College around the time of Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA structure.

Marie Curie is one of the most famous female scientists, and her legacy along with her husband’s is honoured today with the curie unit of activity, and the very word radioactivity, which the couple invented during their work. Harriet Brooks is not well documented in the annals of history, but definitely deserves to be recognized for her work. Rosalind Franklin has received acknowledgement for her work in recent years. When looking at the grievous discrimination and challenges they all faced, it is sometimes easy to forget that there were many male scientists and nonscientists that supported their right to pursue a scientific career. Pierre Curie was a very supportive colleague and husband, and ensured his wife’s rightful receiving of her first Noble prize. Rutherford was ever the staunch supporter of Brooks, and helped her find opportunities throughout her career. While Franklin faced trouble working at King’s College, Randall was relatively fair in his views towards female scientists, and had no qualms about hiring a staff that involved a substantial amount of women for the time. Aaron Klug, a coworker and friend of Franklin from her time at Birkbeck college, mentioned her various research achievements and scientific career when he won a Noble Prize in chemistry in 1982 (Maddox 2002). Klug defended Franklin’s character and also mused that “Rosalind was not a feminist in the ordinary sense…., [but] was determine[d] to be treated equally just like anybody else” (Maddox 2002).

Physics has often lagged behind other fields in terms of female enrollment. This is both embarrassing and harmful, because physics is a science where multiple view points and ways of seeing the world are needed. Indeed, “women represent a largely untapped source of talent and innovation.” [6] To truly explore the mysteries of nature, the participation of both men and women is required. To be fair, conditions for women in physics have improved greatly in recent years. Medical physics, one of the forefronts of current physics research and application, is also on the forefront of increased female enrollment. [7] It is certain that if Curie, Brooks, and Franklin were reborn today, they would have a somewhat easier time in pursuing their scientific research and careers in a modern arena of balanced social support and relative gender equality.

References

Maddox Brenda. Rosalind Franklin; The Dark Lady of DNA. New York, United States: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002.

McClafferty, Carla K. Something Out of Nothing; Marie Curie and Radium. New York, United States: Douglas and McIntyre Ltd, 2006

Rayner-Canham, Marelene. Pioneer Women of Radioactivity. Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997

Sayre, Anne. Rosalind Franklin and DNA. Toronto, Canada: George J. McLeod Limited, 1975

Endnotes

1 – The Noble Foundation. 2006 link

2-5 – Ibid

6 – Hartline, Beverly K; Li Dongqi. Women In Physics : The IUPAP International Conference on Women in Physics. New York, United States: American Institute of Physics, 2002

7 – Ibid

Genus Papillomaviridae
Species Human Papillomavirus

Spurting viruses from your crotch
I’ll start by saying warts irk me out. Perhaps not as much as jellyfish, but they’re up there. It really sucked researching and looking up pictures for this topic; I hope you all appreciate it. In fact, appreciate it even more that I didn’t include any pictures of any warts in this article.

Nevertheless, science is not about personal preference or being irked out; it’s about the truth, even if it makes you mildly nauseated. You must accept it warts and all, one might say. Not me though, I would never stoop to such a base level of humour.

Warts in general are mostly (good scientists shy away from declaring ultimatums (unless, of course, they’re talking about definitions) and therefore use terms such as “in most cases” or “generally”. The reason for this is acknowledging that there may be exceptions to rules in some circumstances. In short, it’s to cover our arse.) caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV). However, different types of warts are caused by different strains. Hand warts are caused by different strains from flat warts from genital warts. I could discuss the differences between the terms “strains”, “species” and “genera”, but in the end they’re completely arbitrary ways of splitting up things into groups and I’m not getting my fingers dirty with taxonomy (mostly because it’s fucking boring).

According to the World Health Organisation, around 440 million people are spurting HPV from their crotches (the majority are women, due to anatomical differences). This amounts to approximately 15% of the world’s population. Most (~66%) of these people however experience no symptoms and happily go around spreading it (so to speak). The rest get some sort of symptoms in the form of ugly protrusions on their ugly protrusions. A minority of these people (and the major point of this article) have enough bad luck to have contracted a high risk strain (usually HPV 16 or 18, if you were wondering) and get cervical or penile cancer. To understand why, we have to examine the skin and warts in more detail.

Death through immortality
Skin can be very basically divided into two layers: living layer and dead layer. As you might expect, the dead layer is on top and the living layer is at the bottom, close to the muscle. This dead cell layer (the epidermis) is great at stopping bacteria and viruses from getting inside us and reproducing like China on Viagra. Viruses require living cells to replicate and bacteria need all the nutrients that living cells are filled with to grow; both being very absent from the top layer of skin. The epidermis is made by the living cells in the lower layer (the dermis) replicating, pushing upwards and (due to getting further away from the nutrients in the blood) changing into special extra-durable dead cells called keratinocytes.

HPV gets into cells of the dermis and stops them from changing into keratinocytes. The dermal cell not only stays alive, but the proteins for stopping replication are degraded: its “brake lines” for replication are effectively cut. Not only that, but also the protein that promotes replication is continually freed in the cell, producing a “stuck accelerator” effect. This means you have a population of cells that won’t stop reproducing.

Normally cells notice something wrong with themselves and commit suicide in a process called “apoptosis”. This is good for the organism (a person, in this case) because “something wrong” sometimes means virus infection. If the cell kills itself, the virus can’t reproduce inside it and the organism survives as a result. The human papillomavirus has evolved to take this into account by disabling host cell suicide proteins.

Also, cells of complex multicellular organisms have an intrinsic defence against rapidly dividing cells that can’t undergo apoptosis: when a cell copies its chromosome, it gets a little shorter. Not a whole lot, but there are bits down the end that can’t be copied for complicated reasons. It’s a bit like why you can’t write to the very edge of a notepad because of the opposing page gets in the way of the writing. But not really. Suffice to say, there is a reason, which has a low interesting index, so I won’t talk about it anymore. To combat this, there are buffer regions on the ends of the chromosomes that don’t code for anything, but they tend to run out after an average of fifty replications (this may sound like a very small number, but it allows a single cell to replicate into 250 or 1 125 899 906 842 624 cells) until certain useful bits get lopped off and (since something looks wrong to them) the cells undergo apoptosis. However, some cells have to be able to replicate indefinitely, e.g. stem cells in the bone marrow. They are able to do this because they express large amounts of the enzyme telomerase, which simply adds bits of non-coding DNA to the end of the chromosomes. Since (almost) all the cells in your body are genetically identical, all cells have the capacity to make this protein; it’s just that they don’t because the gene for it is not activated in normal tissues. HPV activates the gene for this protein. This means the infected cell doesn’t have an upper limit to how many times it can reproduce. Biologists term this property “immortality”.

So now you have a bunch of cells that are replicating out of control and are not stopping. This leads us to the conclusion that warts are essentially tumours. If this process is strongly promoted, starts early in the lower layers, and becomes invasive (as is what happens with some infections with high risk strains of HPV), these tumours can become malignant. This means cancer and sometimes death.

Immortality through death
This is what happened to Henrietta Lacks in 1951. She was a black Baltimore woman, who came into hospital complaining of vaginal discharge. After a biopsy, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer (as a result of infection of HPV type 18) and died eight months later. Having some bright idea for some experiments, her doctor kept and cultivated the cells scraped from the tumour, producing one of medical science’s most useful tools. He named the strain “HeLa” using the first two letters of the woman’s names to protect his source’s identity at the time. These cells could be cultivated indefinitely in human tissue medium (a soup containing goodies that human tissue will grow and replicate in), due to their cancerous nature. They could be (have been and continue to be) used for some experiments that require only human cells and not an entire organism. This means that, for example, you don’t have to inject poison into rats and subject them to pain and suffering. Instead, you pour it onto a batch of HeLa cells and see if they die. This clears up many ethical problems with using test animals and also allows more accurate information (since you’re working with human cells not rat cells).

HeLa cells are now used in pretty much all medical labs around the world and have been key tools in the relieving of human suffering, in the form of vaccines, antibiotics, drugs and pathogen research. The mass of HeLa cells that have been produced is probably many times the mass of Henrietta Lacks herself. She has, in effect, been immortalised by science.

However, there has been some controversy over this usage of her tissue. This mass production of her cell lineage has all been done without the consent of her or her family. Being an African-American woman, a traditionally disempowered group, Henrietta Lacks has found some followers that have voiced their outrage to this exploitation. But, this has all been done legally. Precedence has been set that patients do not own any of their discarded tissues (such as biopsies or amputations) and that they may be commercialised (for more information, google “John Moore v. The Regents of the University of California”). Although I’m biased as a scientist and a materialist, I agree with the law. You’re not using it anyway, so why should you stop others from using or profit off of bits of you?

Treatment and prevention
Like most viral infections, there is no cure for HPV infections. Instead, most treatment is aimed at cutting or burning off the offending wart. Interferon alpha can be prescribed to reduce the size or eradicate altogether tumours, both benign and malignant. However, as with many diseases, prevention is the most effective measure against HPV infection.

The most significant prevention technique currently in place is simply reducing contact with other people’s genitals, via condoms, abstinence and decreasing number of sexual partners (Super sex hint: Just because you can’t see any warts doesn’t mean they don’t have genital warts. Asymptomatic carriers can still spread it and there’s a chance that it won’t be asymptomatic in you). Clinical trials for a vaccine against the high-risk types of HPV are underway and seem to be successful so far. These have also recently been released on the market, so you should be able to touch all the genitals you want, (theoretically).

Sources
Chuang, TY. (2005). Warts, Genital. eMedicine.com. (Website accessed here).

Dirasian, G. (2001) Who Owns Your Genetic Information? Institute for Health Freedom (Website accessed here).

Higgins, G. (2006). Human Papillomaviruses. Infection and Immunity IIIA (University of Adelaide) lecture notes.

Kazzi, AA. (2004). Warts, Genital. eMedicine.com. (Website accessed here)

World Health Organisation. (2006). Viral Cancers: Human Papillomavirus. WHO.int. (Website accessed here).

{flow}

There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number —
living things both large and small.

There the ships go to and fro,
and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
(Psalm 104:25-26)

Ironically, they met with a long, romantic walk on the beach, where the air, water, and earth all met. This sounds cliché, but real life is cliché sometimes. She was wearing a lei and he, a wide grin; a dance was scheduled that lasted the night. They got married three months later; an outdoor wedding on the lush, green grass, and a honeymoon to Hawaii. She was confirmed pregnant two weeks later. Thirty-six days after, the couple went on a cruise to Alaska, safe above the churning waters and the unknown, because their future was in a sac of water inside her.

Catastrophe. It’s a boy. A hydrocephalic boy. A boy with water, cerebral fluid, in his brain where white matter should be. He will never walk, the doctors tell them. Communication will be difficult and slurred speech should be expected. Hydrocephalics often only live until they are twenty. Twenty hard years. He will be living behind windows, never running or swimming, for that matter, because he has already had his share of water.

He leaves; a man defeated by mere water. In the note, he writes –

My love for you is deeper than the deepest oceans
And higher than the highest mountains
And my love proves it is greater than anything I will be
For I am a weak man
Sorry

When she reads the note, a tear rolls down her cheek and splashes onto the white page; from her eyes flow all the bottomless oceans of the world.

Science has brought us to where we are now: Here. It’s fairly nice here; the air smells vaguely of jasmine, the curtains are delightful – yellow was a good choice – and our lives aren’t nearly as nasty, brutish and short as they once were. That tomato with the face is menacing and it seems a tad warm, but on the whole Here is very pleasant. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Here is the best here there is. Could science have, in a slightly altered environment, ushered us down another path? What would Here be like if humans had evolved underwater as a super-intelligent breed of fish? Or if Chinese emperors during the Ming Dynasty had not enforced a ban on all maritime activities leading to a period of isolationism? Most interestingly of all, what would Here be like if the climate of Ancient Greece had been different? How would this seemingly small change have altered the future progression of mankind? In a slightly cooler Greece would Aristotle, founder of logic, biology and psychology, still have had the same insights just in a more complicated wardrobe? Possibly. More likely, a colder Mediterranean could have allowed the wolverine to expand from its traditional northern ranges and colonize the Balkans. Imagine it: an abundance of wolverines in Ancient Greece. With all this wolverinishness in the air, Aristotle could not have helped but adopt them, with their mandibles of death, luxuriant coat and extremely unpleasant odor, as the natural instrument with which to perform his experiments. The almost certain intertwining of the destinies of modern science and the wolverine could then have led to a Here completely distinct from the one that we see around us today.

By insinuating themselves into the work of Aristotle, wolverines would have influenced all that came after, including Archimedes, who, as he was sitting in his bathtub that fateful day pondering buoyancy, would have, instead of tossing in the suspect headgear of a monarch, tossed in a wolverine. And as he sat frolicking with a wet, and therefore irate, wolverine in his bathtub, Archimedes would have most likely been too preoccupied with his chewed-off face to discover his eponymous principle of hydrostatics. Aqua-science would have then been set back a couple hundred years. However, science is one tough cookie and would have, unlike a hideously deformed Archimedes, eventually overcome this early setback and carried on.

Centuries after Archimedes, the tower of Pisa, that great testament to the sheer ineptitude of man, was constructed, from which, it is said, Galileo dropped two cannonballs in the name of science. Actually, this anecdote is a complete fabrication; the true story being that Giambattista Benedetti proved objects were accelerated independently of their weight in 1553 in a series of experiments performed a long way from Pisa. However, because I am a hopeless romantic who loves the idea of performing science at odd angles, let us assume Giambattista carried out his experiment atop the leaning tower of Pisa. And since he was disproving a premise of Aristotle’s, old Giambattista would have, for the sake of tradition, performed his test with a wolverine and a dead chicken. This experiment would have likely failed when, midway through the descent, the wolverine, after recovering from the initial shock of being dropped from a really high and oddly tilting tower, caught scent of the chicken carcass and promptly devoured it. So crestfallen would poor Giami have been that it never would have occurred to him to repeat the experiment with a slightly less voracious animal – maybe a bunny – and science would once again have been hamstrung by the utter ferocity of the wolverine.

With a wolverine-inspired renaissance metastisizing into a more modern era, it would have been unimaginable for Volta to refute his contemporary Galvani’s claim that electricity was purely a biological phenomenon. A wolverine’s sheer vitality would have made a denial of Galvani’s “animal electric field” theory unassailable and so Volta’s prototypal battery would have consisted of two oppositely charged wolverines connected by a short length of wire instead of zinc and copper electrodes. This discovery, in turn, would have completely altered the burgeoning field of electromagnetism, leading, one would imagine, to some pretty impressive advances that would, perhaps, have even obviated the need for the internal combustion engine.

By the 20th century wolverines would have become so embedded in science that it would have seemed unthinkable to perform any experiments without them. And so when Rutherford set about testing the plum pudding model of the atom, instead of bombarding gold foil with alpha particles, he would have immediately visited his local wolverinery and catapult manufacturer and set about the business of flinging wolverines at some tin foil. As we know from modern experience, not one of the wolverines would have deflected straight back at him thereby supporting, instead of contradicting, the plum pudding model of the atom and leaving a rather unpleasant mess to clean up from the brick wall behind the foil. Consequently, Bohr would have never proposed his own atomic model, Fermi would not have split the atom and the Manhattan project would have never produced the atomic bomb. Instead, mankind would be living under the threat of unimaginable mass devastation wrought by the deployment of the fearsome “Wolverine Bomb” and Rutherford would have quit science and started an apartment cleaning service in suburban Manchester.

Occasionally the best experiments are the ones that are never carried out. Perhaps the most well-known thought experiment is Schrodinger’s cat wherein the state (i.e dead or alive) of a cat, sealed in a box with slowly decaying radioactive material, is unknowable; the cat is said to occupy both states and thus to be both dead and alive. As great as thought experiments are, they’d be even better if put into action and so, inspired by the great tradition of wolverines in science, I have gotten myself a box, some radioactive material and a wolverine. It’s been over an hour now and frankly I’m too terrified to open the box. There’s a wolverine in there that is both alive and dead: a zombie wolverine. I’ve made a huge mistake.

And so it would be quite easy to, starting from a slightly tweaked version of Ancient Greece’s climate, arrive at a completely different Here. A Here where boats are kept afloat by magic, light things fall slower than heavy ones, your iPod is powered by two wolverines taped to your back and the insides of all matter resemble a seasonal confection of dubious quality. But does any of that really mean anything as long as the curtains are nice and the air has a pleasant smell? Yes. A thousand times yes! Because, if you hadn’t noticed, there is a box over there with a freaking undead wolverine in it. You can’t kill what’s already dead.

When I would see her thin chart full of medical fluff perched upon the door I’d take a deep breath and relax before heading in. Hers were easy visits. Colds, allergies, acne. Sometimes we’d end her appointment talking about her college. Had she picked a major yet? Did she lead the soccer team in goals this year? But as I opened the door to the examining room that day I could smell the bottled air within was tainted with misery. Tears, snot, and even her cold sweat drifted in the small space, and as I sat down there was really nothing else to say. “What happened? Are you okay?”

The young woman was trying not to sob. It hurt her too much. She grasped at her ribs to keep them from inflating as she tried to calm her heaving diaphragm. “Oh God,” she said. “Look what’s happened to me.”

I pulled my small stool from under the counter and wheeled it over to where she was sitting crumpled and broken. Her face had cuts all over it. There were purple bruises on her forehead, shoulders and legs. Brown hair ran down her face and stuck like muddy straw to her wet cheeks. A thick cast had been molded around her left arm. Another immobilized her right leg. Every muscle in her body seemed to be firing at once, holding her rigid and motionless to prevent the obvious pain of movement. “Ow, ow, ow . . . damn it!” she said while choking back another sob.

She told me the story of what had happened to her. She was driving alone, seatbelt fastened in broad daylight. Jack Johnson was probably in her CD player as she drove with the windows rolled down. It was summer. The air was hot, but it felt good pouring across her black skin. She was young and alive. Maybe she looked in the rear view mirror and caught a glimpse of her chestnut eyes. Perhaps she smiled confidently, a young woman in her most radiant days before the drunk driver plowed into her and the glass and the smashing and the ripping and . . .

She woke up two days later. The ceiling was not one she recognized. Why was her father’s face looking so desperately at her? It felt like something had been jammed down her throat and she couldn’t swallow. The moment she realized she was in the intensive care unit of a hospital was one of the most sickening of her life.

“I was bleeding internally,” she finally began to explain to me. “The helicopter took me to the hospital. I was in surgery for six hours.”

“Oh my God,” I said. She looked gray. I wondered how much blood she had lost, and whether it was the anemia or the emotional distress that had drained the living color from her skin.

Without saying another word she delicately pulled up her shirt. She began to whimper. A blade had filleted her open from pelvis to breastbone, and her once unscarred belly was now held together by a hundred metallic staples. She looked up at me with horror. “Look at me!”

I once had a dream that I was being disemboweled by a wolf. I can remember it vividly, even though it was 14 years ago. It was as real as the waking world. I felt the clawing and thrashing in my brain, heard the tearing of my flesh, smelled the predator’s breath, and tasted my own blood as the animal fed upon me. And in those seconds, about to die in my dream, my thoughts somehow centered upon one thought – that I was being disfigured. Something was turning me into a scarred monster.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “It must hurt so badly.”

She nodded her head. It was worth the pain to do so.

In medical school a pregnant classmate of mine had a terrible delivery. The baby was born, but afterwards she had continued hemorrhaging. Nothing could stop her bleeding. In order to save her life the doctors, our teachers, had to open her abdomen and remove her bleeding uterus completely. It was sad that she could never have another baby, but she was still alive and a mother to her first and only child. When the shocking tragedy of the event had passed some people mundanely remarked that she would never be able to wear a bikini again because of the scar that now marred her belly. Although I nodded my head, I actually hoped she would still wear a bikini. Her scar would be a tattoo of significance, courage, and regeneration.

Several weeks passed. I saw the young woman almost weekly. I monitored her healing, tended to her pain, made sure her bloating and constipation and bloody urine weren’t signs of decline. With each visit I could sense her getting stronger. She would have to go back to college soon. Initially she had refused to even consider it. She would not even go out with friends, instead preferring the sanctity and shelter of her childhood home. The purple turned to green, then yellow, and then healthy brown once more. She could smile without crying, giggle without holding her ribs, and breathe without agony.

“So are you feeling better,” I asked her one day.

She grinned pleasantly.

“Of course you know you’re lucky to still be here,” I said. “How does your wound feel?”

With the same delicate movement that she had performed on her first visit after the accident the young woman lifted her shirt to reveal her stomach. Her scar was still heinous upon first reaction, cutting through her otherwise young and trim abdominal wall. But it was the kind of scar that can expose the illusion of beauty, the imperfection of perfection. For once I felt ashamed for going along with the airbrushed magazine covers, the five story billboards of svelte flesh, and the soft core images of perfect curves projecting out nightly from my television. “It looks like it’s healing well.” I told her. I didn’t know if it would be appropriate or not, but I decided to say it anyway. “Your scar is a story. I hope you can own it. Don’t ever be ashamed by it. It’s a testament to your strength, a mark of your courage.”

She nodded silently.

The word scar was derived from the Greek word eschara, meaning fireplace. Traditionally the fireplace was in the heart of the house, and around it most domestic activities took place. It was the center of family life and an area where children gathered to be with family. It was a common setting for injuries, many of which resulted in wounds. Eventually these scars became so associated with the hearth that the language used to describe the end result of healing became indistinguishable from its cause.

Scars have always been irreversible brandings seared by the fiery hearth. They are tattoos of story etched into our fragile physical being, personal emblems chosen by terrible circumstance. Rape, surgery, assault, suicide, war. Some careless being who drinks too much and plows his rolling tank of steel into a young woman’s carefree bubble.

Scars are knots that hold the entire world together.

(This piece originally appeared at the author’s blog, The Examining Room of Dr. Charles.

The latest scientific reports on climate change trot out all the familiar devastating consequences of global warming: Melting ice caps, rising sea levels, shifting weather patterns, super-hurricanes, species extinctions, droughts, drowning polar bears.

Now I’m going to tell you something really scary–the single most terrifying threat that global warming poses to mankind, and one you’ve probably never considered. It is so spine-tinglingly dreadful, so blood-curdingly awful, so bone-chillingly horrible that no one on either side of the issue will speak of it. Why? Because it scares the living bejeebers out of them, that’s why.

Global warming will bring back the Blob.

Yes, that Blob. The Blob.

The Blob has been dormant for half a century, but it’s out there and the only thing preventing it from squishing through the streets of our cities right now, leaving a slimy trail of death in its wake, is the biting cold of the polar ice cap. Remember? That’s where the Air Force marooned it after a bunch of teenagers neutralized the thing by freezing it with CO₂ fire extinguishers. Steve McQueen himself assured us that we were safe “as long as the Arctic stays cold.”

As long as the Arctic stays cold. . .

Global warming is shrinking the polar ice cap at the rate of 9% each decade. By the end of this century it will be ice-free for several months of the year. Long before that happens the Blob will thaw, morphing from an inert mound of frozen protoplasm into a malevolent suppurating gelatinous goo. It will begin to feed. First a few seals and walruses. Maybe a narwhal. Then perhaps an Inuit village. Before long, it will be blurbling down the main street of your town, driven by one mindless overpowering insatiable instinct: To suck you up the way a paper towel sucks up green liquid in those TV commercials.

Don’t think you can protect yourself with CO₂ fire extinguishers like those teenagers did. Sure, they’re effective against the Blob, but a CO₂ fire extinguisher has one major drawback: It sprays CO₂. Carbon dioxide is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and a primary cause of global warming. Start spreading that stuff around and you’ll only compound the conditions that invigorate the Blob. That’s right: in trying to stop it, you’ll actually be abetting the Blob in its blubbery rampage of death–a catch-22 of pure horror.

But go ahead, Mr. and Ms. Complacent. Keep burning fossil fuels and spewing out greenhouse gasses. Leave your carbon footprints at the scene of your crimes against nature. Because sooner or later the Blob is going to reach for you with an enormous gloppy pseudopod and envelop you in its oozing colloidal embrace. When that repulsive pectin from hell closes over your face and starts to digest you, dissolving your flesh, consuming your organs, absorbing your very essence–when that happens, you should have just enough time to regret not buying the hybrid instead of the SUV.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. You could turn off a light now and then or take public transportation instead of driving. That wouldn’t kill you, right? But the Blob will kill you for sure.

The Blob must become the central issue in the global warming debate. The longer we refuse to talk about it, the greater the danger to our world. Silence = Blob. Unfortunately, the Blobal threat has been dangerously underplayed. It is a truth too inconvenient even for Al Gore–he never makes a single public reference to the Blob. Nor is the Blob specifically mentioned in the Kyoto protocol (surprising when you consider that Japan is a country that knows how to deal with an environmental crisis. They are still the only nation on earth to successfully take on the Smog Monster).

Until we face up to the threat posed by the Blob, no one is safe. Yet our leaders lack the vision, the will, and the resolve to confront this menace. So I conclude this warning not with the false but comforting sense of closure that the words “the end” might engender, but rather with an indeterminate feeling of dread and a panicky anticipation of an uncertain future that is best expressed as:

In today’s experiment, we are going to isolate chemical A, purify chemical B, quantify chemical C, and characterize chemical D. Then we will somehow combine A, B, C, and D in a Dr. Frankensteinesque attempt to synthesize chemical E. Chemicals A, B, C, and D are probably interchangeable, and there is no particular sequence in which the reactions need to take place. No lab manuals, and no rules. Experiment ad lib! We should expect a small explosion which will consist of a bang, a crack, and a flash of light. Scary, perhaps, but it is not at all dangerous…. Or is it?

Just as a laboratory experiment needs organized and clearly written experimental procedures, information processing by the brain requires logical sequence and an understanding of the information presented to the brain. If the information is not understood, the logical brain will not be able to associate the information with prior knowledge and memory to make it meaningful. Conversely, without logic and critical thinking, intelligible information will not be given context, and will not elicit meaningful response or be useful for decision-making. Clearly, many pieces of the puzzle need to be in place before information can be effectively processed. Fortunately, we are equipped with two built-in computers—namely, the two halves of the brain—to process information.

As early as the 4th century BC, dissimilarities between the two sides of the brain have been documented [1]. Diocles of Carystus, a celebrated Greek physician from that period, wrote:

“There are two brains in the head, one which gives understanding, and another which provides sense-perception. That is to say, the one which is lying on the right side is the one that perceives: with the left one, however we understand.” (as cited by Bruce Morton [1])

Differences between the two sides (or hemispheres) of the brain, known as “hemispheric dominance” or “lateralization” has long been a fascinating area of research [2,3]. Language laterality was one measurable feature, first observed in individuals who had left-sided brain lesions back in 1836 [1]. Because these individuals were not able to speak, the left hemisphere was thought to be the language-dominant side. By the 1960s and early 1970s, many researchers still believed that the left hemisphere was the language or verbal specialist and the right side the nonverbal specialist [4]. These distinctions sparked much publicity and led to a substantial body of research, especially in the area of information processing.

Language is but one of many types of information processed by the brain. Another area of particular research interest concerns visual-spatial processing which was thought to be dominant in the right hemisphere. Over time, the left hemisphere gained reputation as the linguistics centre, whereas the right side the processor of visual images and spatial relationships.

These distinctive thinking and learning styles led to the development of educational programs geared towards stimulating one specific side of the brain. Many have even taken the “left brain, right brain” concept and applied it to career selection. However, this practice is not entirely without basis. Interesting observations have indeed been made in small samples of individuals from different walks of life. In one study, 86% of microbiologists and 83% of biochemists were found to be left brain-oriented [5]. This came as no surprise because the left side is thought to contribute to critical and analytical thinking skills essential for these professions. On the other hand, 71% of astronomers and 67% of architects were deemed right brain-oriented [5]. The right hemisphere is, of course, considered the more holistic or abstract faculty important for these professions. As such, hemispheric dominance appeared to play a role in determining our individual talents and inclinations towards certain career choices.

To understand the inner workings of the human brain, we must first examine the structure of this very complex organ. Within the confines of the rigid skull, the two mushy hemispheres are not only close neighbours of each other, but are in fact joined in the middle by a band of nerve fibres called the corpus callosum. This connection allows transfer of information between the two sides of the brain. Just how much communication occurs, such that the two sides may share their specialties, was difficult to elucidate until “split-brain” experiments were performed. In the 1940s, several researchers suggested that epileptic seizure signals could travel across the corpus callosum and spread from one hemisphere to the other [3]. It was thought that cutting the corpus callosum could be a treatment option. Individuals who received this operation were referred to as split-brain patients.

After 6 to 12 months of post-surgical recovery time, most split-brain patients were able to carry out ordinary daily activities [6]. Because it was assumed that the two hemispheres no longer communicated with each other, experiments in these patients sometimes revealed functional dissimilarities between the two hemispheres. These dissimilarities lent support to the notion that the left hemisphere processes language and thinks in logical categories, while the right side handles mental imagery and spatial awareness [7]. However, many factors need to be considered before these observations could be generalized to normal individuals. First, the test subjects had severe and longstanding epilepsy such that their neurological condition might have caused some disturbance in the function of their brains, even before surgery [8]. Secondly, the surgical procedure could produce functional disturbances that might affect subsequent performance [2,8]. Also, laboratory conditions in which the patients were tested were highly unnatural and did not represent real-life situations [8].

Dominance of the left hemisphere in language processing is largely supported by observations of language difficulties experienced by patients who suffered left-sided injury or stroke [9]. But such deficits were observed only in some patients. The most likely explanation is that language is largely but not exclusively handled by the left side [10]. Using brain scanning technology, recent studies suggest that the left hemisphere handles words, word sequences and grammar, while the right side processes the intonation and emphasis aspects of language as well as the context and meaning of the words or sentences [7].

Similarly, functions that have long been attributed to the right hemisphere are not exclusively so. There is, in fact, an area in the right brain that “reads” people’s facial expressions [9]. However, reading facial expressions is only one of many functions that require visual perception and imagery processing. In one test, for example, patients who suffered strokes were asked to reassemble an object that had been taken apart [9]. Patients who had right-sided brain damage were only about twice as likely to have impaired visual-spatial performance compared to those with left-sided lesions [9]. Therefore, visual-spatial thinking is not exclusively right-sided. While both sides of the brain “sees” an object, the left hemisphere identifies the structural features of that object, and the right hemisphere determines its relative location and puts isolated elements together [11,12].

It has now become quite clear that the two hemispheres complement each other as far as language and visual-spatial information processing are concerned. Differences do exist crediting the left side with slightly greater linguistic ability and the right side efficiency in visual-spatial processing. But the differences are likely much smaller than they were originally described. Some researchers now believe that a truly meaningful difference exists not in the information that are presented to both sides of the brain but in the processing style of the two hemispheres. A widely accepted view is that the left side specializes in analytical processing, the right in holistic or abstract processing; but this is difficult to substantiate in the laboratory [13]. The main problem is that researchers often disagree on whether a task designed to test processing style requires analytical or holistic processing [13]. Indeed, there is hardly any task in our daily living that requires only one type of processing. The complexity of the brain is such that both hemispheres likely participate in every aspect to optimize survival and intellectual development.

Recognizing that the two sides of the brain complements and collaborates with each other is a step towards the understanding of the brain’s full potential. Clearly, intellectual development requires active participation of a variety of brain functions, and teaching-learning approaches should encourage “whole-brain participation.” It is becoming more and more important for scientists to have strong communication skills. Today’s scientists spend a great deal of time writing grant applications, giving seminars, meeting with collaborators, and teaching students. These roles require that scientists be very effective communicators. In every instance, the message communicated by the scientist involves some degree of teaching. The scientist who is able to integrate such skills as language, logic, critical thinking, visual-spatial awareness, creativity, and memory in her teaching is one whom I will refer to as a “whole-brain scientist.”

It has been said through the ages, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” An illustration or a three-dimensional model of double-stranded DNA likely communicates its structure more effectively than a thousand-word essay. Therefore, the whole-brain scientist is one who adds diagrams, schematics, animation, and three-dimensional models to her verbal or written teaching material to help learners generate mental images. Visual-spatial thinking is now widely promoted as an effective teaching tool [11,14]. A recent paper in the British Medical Journal entitled “Understanding sensitivity and specificity with the right side of the brain” illustrated how statistical concepts that were initially difficult for students to grasp could be effectively communicated using diagrams [15].

Whole-brain learning is also thought to have self-propagating properties; that is, the more we use both sides of the brain together, the more the use of each side benefits the other [16]. For example, it was observed that the study of music helped the study of mathematics, and vice versa [16]. As such, whole-brain development may have important implications for scientists whose jobs are traditionally more left brain-oriented. In fact, visual-spatial thinking has made an impact in the careers of some famous scientists. It was reported that Albert Einstein used “highly visual thought experiments” to explore ideas, and Friedrich August Kekulé came up with the ring structure of benzene while daydreaming [11]!

I hope that reading this article has, in some way, involved your whole brain. While you read, your left hemisphere processed words and word sequences, and your right hemisphere supplied context and meaning [7]. It is important that scientists recognize the potential of the two hemispheres to complement each other and provide opportunities for them to exercise collaboration. Although this article is not accompanied by photographs or schematics, the explosion mentioned in the opening paragraph, with such descriptors as “a bang, a crack, and a flash of light” might have invoked in your mind a picture of the disaster that would ensue if a no-brain scientist were in charge.

References

1. Morton BE. (2003). Two-hand line-bisection task outcomes correlate with several measures of hemisphericity. Brain Cogn 51, 305-16.

2. Gazzaniga MS. (1970). The bisected brain. New York: Meredith Corporation

3. Iaccino JF. (1993). Left brain-right brain differences: inquiries, evidence, and new approaches. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

4. Hines T. (1987) Left brain/right brain mythology and implications for management and training. The Academy of Management Review 12, 600-6.

5. Morton BE. (2003). Line bisection-based hemisphericity estimates of university students and professionals: evidence of sorting during higher education and career selection. Brain Cogn 52, 319-25.

6. Sperry RW. (1981). Some effects of disconnecting the cerebral hemispheres. Retrieved February 5, 2007, link

7. McCrone J. (2000). ‘Right brain’ or ‘left brain’ – myth or reality? Retrieved February 5, 2007, link

8. Rao HR, Jacob VS, Lin F. (1992). Hemispheric specialization, cognitive differences, and their implications for the design of decision support systems. MIS Quarterly 16, 145-51.

9. Calvin WH. (1991). Left brain, right brain: science or the new phrenology? Retrieved February 5, 2007, link.

10. Mariotti P, Iuvone L, Torrioli MG, Silveri MC. (1998). Linguistic and non-linguistic abilities in a patient with early left hemispherectomy. Neuropsychologia 36, 1303-12.

11. Mathewson JH. (1999). Visual-spatial thinking: an aspect of science overlooked by educators. Sci Ed 83, 33-54.

12. Carlson NR, Buskist W, Enzle ME, Heth CD. (2002). Psychology: the science of behaviour. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada Inc.

13. Hellige JB. (1990). Hemispheric asymmetry. Annu Rev Psychol 41, 55-80.

14. Wu HK, Krajcik JS, Soloway E. (2001). Promoting understanding of chemical representations: students’ use of a visualization tool in the classroom. J Res Sci Teach 38, 821-42.

15. Loong TW. (2003). Understanding sensitivity and specificity with the right side of the brain. BMJ 327, 716-9.

16. Buzan T. (2003). Use your memory. London: BBC Worldwide Ltd.