One of the first things that a newborn experiences is not necessarily the warmth and scent of the mother’s embrace, but rather a series of pokes and pricks to ascertain health and mental alertness. It therefore seems to me that a natural progression of this trend is to incorporate the highest medical predictive technology into an infant’s normal surroundings. In other words, it seems obvious to me that sooner or later everyone will have their own molecular genetics lab in their household – most likely adjoining the kitchen.

But, of course, with this new standard of living, steps must be taken to ensure the safety of the child. As a result, I’d like to take a moment and share some of the babyproofing tips that have worked in my household.

- – -

1. Glassware
Thankfully, most of the up to date laboratories rely mostly on sterile plastic ware, so danger due to broken glassware is generally not an issue. As a bonus, your child will likely learn the word “centrifuge” at a remarkably early age.

2. Chemicals
Preferably, all chemicals should be stored in a place that is safely out of reach to prying hands. However, if this is not possible, there should be active steps to label the chemicals according to their hazard level. Color-coding does not work unless the child is at least 2 years of age and capable of identifying colors. In fact, we found that the most effective way of labeling is to adhere Disney characters correlating scariness to relative toxicity. For instance, a picture of Thumper would work well with Sodium Bicarbonate, whereas a picture of scary ass Ursula (from the Little Mermaid) would work well with Arsenic compounds. WARNING: do not use pictures of Goofy as infant responses vary greatly.

3. Flammable Reagents
Playing with fire is dangerous at any age, but especially more so in the presence of highly flammable liquids like ethanol and methanol. Although normally kept safely behind the doors of special non-flammable metal cabinets, this is still a problem area since most of your child’s fridge magnets will reside here as well. What worked well for us was to take our child’s favorite stuffed toy at their earliest impressionable age (about 4 to 6 months), douse it in one of these solutions, and set flame to it. A bit hardcore, but it worked.

4. Radioactive Area
The radioactive area is tricky since it usually incorporates two common pieces of equipment that are extremely attractive to youngsters. These are, of course, the Geiger counter (has a handle, buttons, makes a loud beeping noise, and has a detector that looks remarkably like a microphone), and various sheets of radioactive shielding (great for forts!). My advice is to provide duplicates so that the child can play happily with the non-contaminated versions. EXTRA TIP: get a Geiger counter with a mute option – trust me, you will thank me later.

5. Biohazard Area and Disposal
Really now. If you’ve read the definition of “biohazard” carefully, you’d have already realized that your child’s front and back end are part of this category. It’s almost as if the whole lab can be your diaper changing area, which in my opinion is wonderfully convenient. Score one for technology.

Charles admits that this is a crass ripoff of Yeat’s “Against Unworthy Praise.” He was compelled to write this, after reading “Peas in Space.“

In space, eat no peas, because
Your ventilators break
And oh two surely pause
Being for a pea-freak’s sake.
Enough the pea-paste seemed,
Which did your strength renew,
But dream J. Cohen dreamed
Till the astronauts cried aloud,
A secret of menu new,
For eating above the clouds.

What, still you would have their peas!
And floats a nastier mess,
Persists in the air for days
Subjecting the crew to stress;
And how what his dreaming gave,
Earned clamor and comments rude,
From self-same spacers brave;
Aye, and worse wrong than these.
Yet he, in his Earthly abode,
With butter and onions, eats peas.

We started a new unit in my grade 12 biology class yesterday, on the mechanisms of inheritance. I wanted to impress on my students how the recognition of DNA as the code for life pervaded and altered the public consciousness. In a century that had already seen (and would later see) more history-changing events in science than perhaps the previous two or three centuries put together, DNA still stands out. I even suggested that the DNA double-helix might be the most recognizable scientific icon of all time [1].

So, I started out the lesson by telling them about my favourite artist: Salvador Dali.

Dali was a Spanish artist who lived from 1904-1989. He was a surrealist, which, to me, is essentially realistic representations of unrealistic subject matter. The subject matter itself is representative of something, but that depends on the painting and the artist. Another interesting definition says that surrealism is a mistranslation of the French surréalisme. In fact, surr- in French is not the same as surr- in English (where it is similar to the sub- prefix, from the Latin “below”, or to put it another way, “less than”). Surréalisme really corresponds to superrealism (as in “more than”) [2].

Dali’s catalogue is comprised of over 1500 paintings. Besides this, he also did a lot of work in photography, dabbled in sculpture, and even film (he even worked with Walt Disney on an animated short that was finally released in 2003, called Destino). I’ve always enjoyed his work, purely for aesthetic reasons. But I’ve since come to appreciate him as an individual of voracious intellectual appetite, and sublime insight. He was interested not only in individual lives, but in politics and society, and even our relationship to the universe.

I sometimes think that our modern lives, so highly dependent on high technology, and plagued by so many modern crises only solvable through scientific insight and analysis, are yet significantly more divorced from science than the world of 30 years ago. It seems like people don’t care anymore about understanding anything, least of all science. Our society’s scientific underpinnings have become so taken for granted that many people are now entirely blasé. This could be simple cynicism on my part, but when’s the last time someone besides science geeks like myself got truly excited about a recent development in science? [3]

Well, the 20th century has seen some major conceptual changes in our understanding of some of the most basic things we took for granted, and further, some of the applications of science have fundamentally altered the world as we know it from that point forward.

When Einstein published on special relativity in 1905, he showed that time (as well as space) was not an absolute, universal quantity, but was dependent on the observer, specifically, it was relative to one’s frame of reference, or the speed at which one was travelling relative to another frame of reference. In 1915, with the publication of general relativity, he further showed that gravity is a curvature of spacetime, and that in higher gravity, time also slows down. This has since been confirmed experimentally countless times, to increasingly astounding precision.

Although Einstein achieved an unprecedented degree of recognizability amongst the general public for a scientist, I don’t believe his theories became instantly well-known to the average, non-technically-trained individual, but at least among the intelligentsia, including the art set, his ideas made some major waves. Still his most well-known work, Dali’s Persistence of Memory documents the warping of one of the fundamental pillars of reality, time itself.

Einstein’s theories on space and time are not only interesting but necessary to many fields of theoretical, experimental, and even cutting-edge applied physics, but for most people, at least until we’re all travelling to other planets at near-light speed, or living in major gravity wells, time dilation, and other relativistic effects, don’t seem to be a part of our everyday experience.

But one of those effects, relativistic mass, turned out to be very relevant to the everyday citizen. In an addendum later in the year to his 1905 relativity paper, Einstein showed that, since mass is relative to one’s velocity, but simultaneously, velocity is also related to one’s kinetic energy, there is something called mass-energy equivalence. In fact, Einstein even came up with the world’s most famous equation to show exactly what this equivalence was. E=mc²

40 years later, the top Allied physicists saw the fruits of their labours. They figured out how to tear apart matter at its roots, and inside the atom, just as Einstein said they would, they found energy. Practically boundless energy. And in Hiroshima, then Nagasaki, over 100,000 people died in two separate, short moments. Dali made a painting of it.

Called The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, it shows us relativity with a vengeance. While hearkening back to his earlier Einsteinian ode, Dali’s new painting simultaneously depicts the end of the world as we know it. If even the atom itself, whose name means “indivisible”, is not safe, what is left to us? The apparent fragmentation of our image of reality, where all absolutes seem to crumble, parallels the loss of security and permanence in everyday life in the post-war era. Imagine the sense of vertigo after two cities are wiped off the map with a weapon of god-like power.

Notice also the imagery that I interpret as shattered pieces of previous laws of science morphing into purposeful bullets. Here, at the advent of the Cold War, a weapon is poised that could annihilate its target, but only while irrevocably altering the world and the future. For another 40-odd years after this, the world will live in a constant hair-trigger stand-off, waiting for nuclear armageddon. No hope from humanity, no hope from science. This wouldn’t be the last piece by Dali to feature the horrors of nuclear war as a subject.

But even as physics was radically changing the world, so was biology. By the late 1940s, it was determined that the chemical ingredient in the chromosomes that carried an individual’s genetic information, the so-called code of life, was a particular kind of molecule called deoxyribonucleic acid. In 1953, scientists were finally able to figure out what it looked like. And the discovery captured the public imagination, both the elegance of the thing itself, and the significance it had. An article in Nature calls it “the Mona Lisa of modern science”.

Butterfly Landscape (The Great Masturbator in Surrealist Landscape with DNA) shows Dali’s take. Though this was the first, created only a few years after Watson and Crick’s announcement of the double-helix, DNA would show up in many of Dali’s future works. As the agent of creation, it is perhaps easy to see why butterflies spring from the iconic structure in this painting. But it also seems that Dali used DNA to symbolize not only creation, but the greater idea of God, and this may be why some of the molecular structure is visibly jutting from the clouds.

Just as physics dominated the public imagination for more than the first half of the century (through radio, the discovery of the atom, nuclear weapons, spaceflight), biology also fought for attention, and eventually took centre stage. The elimination of smallpox in the 1950s seemed to suggest an eventual defeat of all disease, and genetics also opened up a whole new world of wonder, as flights of fancy suggested all manner of exciting (and sometimes frightening) possibilities. Dali was as entranced as anyone.

Salvador Dali created a large body of work, and certainly took inspiration from a myriad of different topics, only some of which were in the realm of science. But I’d like to emphasize that these representations of major 20th-century events discussed here aren’t isolated forays into the world of spacetime and molecules either. He had something to say on any number of subjects: history, politics, science, art, and even the future, and you were as likely to find scientific iconography in his works as religious symbolism, political figures, or any combination of the above.

This piece, The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, depicts a young, saint-like version of the Spaniard, almost floating onto shore on the light of heaven, depicting his delivery of the true faith to the New World. But notice also a rocky, almost alien shell-like creature, seemingly out-of-place in the picture, sitting at the forefront, which Dali later agreed was representative of future planets that America would colonize, in the same spirit as Columbus himself. This painting was done in 1958, one year after the launch of Sputnik, the first man-made satellite.

Dali drew on such diverse inspirations as quantum mechanics, catastrophe theory, calculus, genetics, and certainly many more scientific subjects that I simply haven’t come across in his works yet. He saw an eloquence and an aesthetic appeal in scientific theories just as he might in poetry or philosophical tenets. He didn’t discriminate. He also saw the relevance and importance of science in our everyday lives, and held it up to criticism as he might any other field.

Our world might be a better and more enlightened place if all of us dropped the whole supposed left-brain/right-brain dichotomy and opened our whole minds to the full realm of human imagination as he did. The art world, the humanities world, the science world — ultimately we all live in one world, and it’s worth trying to understand each of the perspectives in it [4].

Footnotes

1. Thinking on it now, the Bohr model of the atom would probably beat it out. An image of the Solar System would probably also be a contender.

2. I should also note that surrealism was an all-encompassing artistic and philosophical movement, much like post-modernism, and not limited only to painting.

3. Maybe Dolly the sheep, but that’s basically it since the first moon landing.

4. If you’re interested in exploring some more of Dali’s perspective, a good place to start would be Virtual Dali, which has some several hundred selected works of decent viewing quality. Other, more complete collections may serve better as a reference, but not for browsing.

1

Dr. Andrew Fober, geologist, is putting his trash on the curb when a black cat crosses his path. It belongs to the Hennessy girl down the street. He thinks its name might be Pickles.

Not ten minutes later, Dr. Fober stumbles down his cellar steps and breaks his collarbone. Twenty minutes after that, Pickles is flattened by a passing Buick.

Winner: Science.

- – -

2

During their sophomore year at Harvard Medical School, sweethearts Jack Beecher and Wendy Arnold decide they can wait no longer. They make plans for a spring wedding. On the morning of the big day, Jack chances to see Wendy in her dress (and a bridesmaid out of her dress). Neither bride nor groom imagines for even a moment there’s anything to worry about.

However, six months later Wendy flunks out of school and Jack gets expelled for copying off someone else’s cadaver. With such an inauspicious start, their marriage could easily have disintegrated. But no. They go on to raise a large family and eventually open a miniature golf course, complete with soft serve stand and batting cages.

Winner: Superstition, because even though things turned out well for the Beechers, and their business is making a decent profit, it’s nothing close to the doctor money they could have been pulling down.

- – -

3

Laura Kendall, high school chemistry teacher, spills some salt at the local diner and doesn’t bother to toss it over her left shoulder, or leave a tip. The moment she steps outside, she’s walloped by a crackling bolt of lightning. Although her recuperation is lengthy, she finds that her IQ has soared seventy points. She becomes one of the world’s leading minds, and within ten years has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and numerous Boggle tournaments.

Winner: It’s a tie. Each opponent gets in a good shot and each takes it on the chin, literally in Ms. Kendall’s case.

- – -

4

Ray McCurdy has thrown a perfect game through eight innings for Boston College. Technically, he doesn’t represent science in any way, but he’s passing all of his science courses and would probably recognize a picture of Stephen Hawking if someone showed one to him.

For several innings none of his teammates have mentioned the words “no-hitter,” or sat next to him in the dugout, or made eye contact with him, or offered to co-sign a loan for him. McCurdy thinks they’re overreacting. On his way back to the pitcher’s mound to start the ninth, he purposely steps on the first base line, eliciting gasps from everyone in the stadium. McCurdy grins, confidently goes into his windup, and proceeds to give up six straight hits and four runs. Also, he can feel the beginnings of a blister. And syphilis.

Winner: Georgia Tech, 4 – 3.

- – -

5.

Dr. James Kowalski, astronomer, has been called boring once too often. Impulsively, he vows to go skydiving. The day of the jump falls on Friday the 13th. Dr. Kowalski doesn’t care. He’s a man of science, after all. A shallow crater on the surface of Mars has been named after him. Like Dr. Kowalski, it is wholly unremarkable.

Although eager to dispel his humdrum image, he suddenly has misgivings as he’s about to board the plane. He considers postponing the jump until another day. Next summer might be good. Or the summer after that. Is this genuine intuition, he wonders, or is he just using superstition as an excuse to chicken out?

Gathering himself, he squares his shoulders and gets in the plane. His chute opens with no problem. However, gusting winds carry him miles from the drop zone and force him to land in the middle of a freeway, where he’s flattened by a passing Buick.

Winner: Superstition, with a lesser victory for Mrs. Edith Turnbuckle, motorist, who’s questioned extensively by both the authorities and her insurance company but is ultimately not held liable.

What Terry was supposed to be doing was researching the anti-bacterial properties of squid eggs. That’s what his master’s thesis was about, and it was also the reason he had received a $25,000 grant from the Teuthis Foundation. But Terry had a side project. He was running the Circus Minimus in his little lab in the BioSci Building at the University of British Columbia.

His lab was stuffed with vats full of squid in various stages of their life cycles. Eggs, larvae, and egg-laying adults. Mostly of the California squid, Loligo opalescens, but a couple of other species as well. Getting access to other marine invertebrates was relatively easy, too- he was popular amongst the grad students in his department. On Friday nights they would gather for a spectacle of Roman proportions. Squid, crab and lobsters would square off in gladiatorial contests while cheering students bet on the outcomes. Sometimes even fish were brought in.

Terry found that older animals tended to be wary of confrontations, and that the larval forms, if stuck in a small enough container, would be more aggressive. And hungry. There were still times when nothing happened but in a satisfying number of fights only one animal remained in a tank. To change things up, Terry occasionally cut off a tentacle or a claw from one of the combatants. Terry made a fair bit of money keeping books on the bets before each bout.

On this particular Friday night before Reading Week there was a full house as someone had invited his fraternity brothers along. Terry knew that secrecy was important, but he didn’t mind the extra income from bets and selling a little weed. Who knew marine biology could be so profitable?

For the undercard, a free-swimming larval lobster was placed into a tank with a spiny young Alaskan king crab. Heavy betting was on the crab, even though a fair number of the spectators would have been hard pressed to tell the difference between the crustaceans. Or care if they could. As long as one killed the other, preferably in a gruesome and hilarious manner, they would leave satisfied. Winning a bet would be a bonus.

The googly-eyed crab spotted the lobster swimming above, looking like Superman with its claws held out in front, and swam towards it. But Superlobster had the aerial advantage and swooped down on its prey, slicing off an eye before gobbling the king. The crowd went wild, not minding how short the fight was at all. Terry considered posting videos of the fights on the internet to see if he could somehow make money that way, but decided that it would be better to not risk attracting the attention of PETA or some other stupid animal rights group.

The second fight promised to be even better than the first, but turned out to be a dud. One of Terry’s buddies brought in a lingcod and was placed in a tank with a squid hatchling. The lingcod completely ignored the squid and then went belly-up for some reason. Since lingcods are notoriously hard to kill there was some grumbling about a fix, but the frat boys were appeased when Terry fed the carcass to a lobster.

Before the Battle Royale of the evening could commence, between Superlobster and the squid, the laboratory doors burst open and campus security rushed in. Shining their flashlights in everyone’s face, they confiscated beer cans and caused a ruckus completely out of proportion to their number. The chaos had the desired effect of stupefying everyone in the lab, except for Terry. He very smoothly apologized for having open alcohol in a university lab, promised never to do it again, thereby deftly taking attention away from the illegal bloodfights. The campus cops were satisfied with confiscating the booze, and let everyone go so they could resume the party at The Pit. On his way out, Terry hurriedly poured the container with the lobster and the squid into one of the vats of eggs.

The lab was quiet now, and dark. In the egg vat the squid larva tentatively tried out its chromatophores. The eery iridescence attracted the superlobster, who swam towards the light. The squid warily backed away, but the lobster emitted special chemicals from its nephropores- which is to say it peed from a hole near its antennae. These chemicals carried an aroma of submission-with-threat-if-attacked. You might render such a chemical message in English thusly: “I won’t hurt you if you won’t hurt me.”

The squid answered this unusual pheromone with a squirt of murky ink, embedded in which was a chemical of acquiescence. In this manner an uneasy and wholly unprecedented truce was established between Homarus americanus and Loligo opalescens.

If that was the only amazing thing that had happened in that darkened laboratory, it would have passed without notice. But another process was set in motion that would take generations of grad students more diligent than Terry to fully decipher. This soupy mixture of chemicals interacted with the reagents Terry had previously spilled. The bacteria coating the squid eggs that Terry was supposed to be studying absorbed the whole mess and digested them into amino acids and exotic proteins. These waste products were in turn reabsorbed by our two invertebrate friends, altering their RNA. They changed.

The still-developing bodies of the larvae merged together, fusing into a symbiotic organism. Never before had evolution happened so quickly, so serendipitously, so furiously. The new amalgam animal molted and grew, cannibalizing eggs to fuel the metabolic maelstrom. For a full ten days it matured in the dark, and it waited.

After Reading Week, during which Terry engaged in many acts of random debauchery and committed some minor crimes, the BioSci Building at UBC once more bustled with activity. Terry decided it was time to check on his squiddies, wondering idly how many of the suckers had died while he was at Whistler. Maybe he could hit up the Teuthis Foundation for more money to get new eggs. He unlocked the door to his lab, cursing his hangover-induced headache as he entered and turned on the lights.

The squobster at first retreated from this unfamiliar stimulus. It sidled its armoured mantle to the bottom of the vat, its body changing color at the same time. Terry was too preoccupied to notice. Emboldened, it sent out its two tentacles into the alien environment outside its tank. Seeing motion from the corner of his eye, Terry whirled and saw a nightmare. He had just enough time to wonder if he had smoked some bad weed. Then the tentacles grabbed him and pulled, and Terry was quickly submerged and constricted by eight arms. Being too big for the tank, however, it fell to the squobster’s serrated cutting claws to render him into more manageable pieces- bite-sized chunks, as it were. If Terry screamed or died instantly with a minimum of suffering, no one can now say.

The salt water of the tanks and vats in the lab was soon saturated with a molecule emitting an odor of pleasure-and-relief-at-averted-threat, which we might translate as, “Take that you sumbitch!”

The Science Creative Quarterly is happy to present a growing list of scientific eponyms as first initiated by the efforts of Samuel Arbesman and The World’s Fair. Please feel free to email us if you wish to add to this list (tscq@interchange.ubc.ca).

- A -

Arbesman Limit (keywords: science, eponym, immortality)

… the maximum number of concepts or ideas that can be named after a single person

link

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- D -

Drugmonkey Scale (keywords: drugs, reaction to blog post, neuropsychology)

link

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- F -

Fox Paradox (keywords: genomics, ethics)

Just because we’ve sequenced your genome, we don’t necessarily know your name.

Some notable exceptions:
Craig, James, Susie, Cinnamon, Twilight, Glennie, and RJF#256
link

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- G -

Gorton’s Measure (keywords: marine life, edibility)

link

- – -

Gorton’s Constant (gamma) (keywords: marine life, edibility, lemon, butter)

link

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- H -

Higgins-Levinthal Dictum (keywords: blog post, obnoxious content, comments)

link

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- J -

Justapie’s Constant (keywords: computers, script, sign mistakes)

J = maximum number of lines of computation that can be done without sign mistakes

link

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- N -

Ng’s Score (keywords: cup holders, transportation, social value)

link

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- O -

Orzel Teammate Desirability Factor (TDF) (keywords: basketball, player assessment)

link

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- R -

Redfield Factor (keyword: DNA, mass)

The number of kilobase pairs in a gram of DNA: 10¹⁸

link

- – -

Rowan Sarchasmic Index (keywords: sarcasm, irony, the British)

And accompanying ironic susceptibility value:

link

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- S -
Sack’s Baby-Pants Index (keywords: infant wear, comfort, cost, futility)

link

- – -

Sciencewoman’s Law (keywords: post frequency, work, kids, life)

link

- – -

Semeniuk-Bjorge-Colby Score (keywords: sex, hairyness, pity)

link

- – -

Stemwedel Index of Luddite Nature (keywords: luddite, technology)

link

“Take one tablet once a day.” The prescription reads like a verdict sentencing me to a life of pharmacy. Tucked away in the top of my backpack hides a tiny pillbox of shame needed to keep me healthy.

“Stop being so melodramatic. Lots of people are hypothyroid; it’s one of the most common hormonal imbalances.” My friend Julia brings me back to reality. In the wake of successful chemotherapy and radiation treatments, my thyroid (a gland in the neck responsible for producing hormones that regulate metabolism) became underactive. It happened so gradually it was hard to perceive a change. Probing questions from my doctor about energy levels or concentration ability were confounded by my erratic student habits (caffeine, all-nighters). However, staring at my irregular blood test results made me question how ‘normal’ I really felt. With an impending Physics Honours thesis deadline, I loathed the idea that my body and mind were not running on all cylinders. Finally I resolved to follow my doctor’s recommendation and begin a daily regiment of thyroid supplements.

Three weeks after beginning the thyroid medication I felt more like ‘myself’ than I had in months. Fearing a return to sloth upon disuse, I religiously take the pill every morning. Am I happy about it? No. Of course I am happy to have my energy back, but I despise my pharmaceutical dependency. According to my oncologist, the radiation damage is likely permanent, and my prescription has infinite refills. Perhaps I should quit my whining and count myself lucky, but I keep hoping to find some way of being healthy without popping pills. Chalk it up to arrogance, or embarrassment.

“If you don’t want to take the thyroid medication, then don’t.” Julia is a beacon of hope. Eventually diagnosed with Candidiasis (an imbalance of flora in the gut), her story is packed with hasty prescriptions for antibiotics and antidepressants that only aggravated her situation. Frustrated with callous doctors, Julia found alternative treatment from a Naturopath who recommended a strict antifungal diet. Two years after beginning this diet, Julia describes herself as “not the same person. I used to get sick 10 times a year. Now I am only ill twice a year at most.” Julia tells me not to blindly accept my doctor’s prognosis, and tempts me with the promise of alternative medicines.

Here lies the crux of my debate: Should I trust my health to Canada’s pharmacy oriented medical system, or seek alternative treatments that promise a drug-free solution? My bias is obvious from the question. But remember, I am the product of over two decades of western education, and my physics degree will not let me abandon the scientific method. The Canadian health-care system is grounded in Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), a term used to describe the “the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients” [1]. This approach is juxtaposed with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a range of practices developed over several thousand years that include herbal medicine, acupuncture, and massage. Although I am highly skeptical of medical theories that operate outside of a scientific paradigm, the dissatisfaction with my current prescription compels me to examine these two systems in search for something better.

Evidence Based Medicine

The term “evidence-based medicine” first appeared in medical literature in 1992 [2], and describes explicit methodologies for determining treatment efficacy. The gold standard of EBM is the systematic review of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials involving a homogeneous patient population and medical condition. Randomized control trials aim to eliminate bias by allocating treatments to subjects at random, and to establish average efficacy by sampling a large population. Considering the complexity and variety of biological organisms (such as humans), large populations are required for statistical confidence, as well as gauging the most frequent side-effects. EBM places little value on patient testimonials, case reports, and ‘expert’ opinion.

The practice of EBM takes the form of evidence-based guidelines and policies, as well as evidence-based individual decision making by the health care provider. Although evidence-based individual decision making has not been shown to improve health-care [3], increasing evidence supports the efficacy of EBM at the organizational level [4].

Therapeutic strategies derived from EBM are constantly evolving and benefit from the wealth of discoveries made by an army of tireless molecular biologists. These advances typically take the form of a new pharmaceutical agent. For example, elucidation of the role of the bcr-abl tyrosine kinase in Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia led to the development of a new drug called Gleevec (Imatnib) that specifically inhibits this tyrosine kinase. Randomized controlled trials have demonstrated this pharmaceutical to be more effective than previous treatments which non-specifically inhibit rapidly dividing cells. The scientific and cutting-edge nature of EBM gives the patient confidence in their treatment.

Critics of EBM tend to place emphasis on clinical experience and argue that pooled and aggregated population data sets are hard to compare to individual patients [5]. EBM can be subject to publication bias (the tendency to report positive results), as well as conflicts of interest. The expense of large, randomized, controlled trials makes EBM heavily influenced by funding sources. Pharmaceutical companies, wielding millions of dollars in venture capital, have been accused of disease mongering in the pursuit of blockbuster drugs (a drug that can generate more than $1 billion revenue per year) [6].

Pharmaceutical companies also attempt to influence doctors with ‘gifts’ to bias them towards prescribing certain brand medications [6]. Furthermore, the time-frame of randomized controlled trials is often not long enough to determine long-term side-effects of a pharmaceutical agent. This was demonstrated in 2004, when Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market due to concerns of increased risk of heart attack and stroke associated with long-term use. (Note: Over 80 million people have been prescribed Vioxx at some point, and Merck has reserved US $970 million to pay for Vioxx-related legal expenses through 2007. The 2006 sales revenue from Vioxx was US $2.5 billion [7]). The role of the pharmaceutical industry in the practice of EBM is clear from the emphasis on drug prescriptions (e.g. overuse of antibiotics and antidepressants), as opposed to preventative medicine.

Traditional Chinese Medicine

In contrast to EBM, TCM is founded on philosophical theories such as Yin-yang, the Five Elements, body Meridians, and Zang Fu organ theory [8]. One of the key principles is that the human body is in balance (good health) through a constant process of change. Illness results from loss of balance due to stagnation (no change) or too much change. This concept is not dissimilar to western views of homeostasis. TCM uses a holistic (or system-wide) approach to address imbalances.

Diagnosis in TCM tends to be symptom based (as opposed to molecular lab tests), and often involves listening to a patient’s pulse in different positions, physical observation, and talking to the patient about their problem [8]. Treatment commonly takes the form of herbal medicine, acupuncture, and/or food therapy. Although many patients swear by TCM, the efficacy of these treatments continues to be a topic of much debate. Scientific studies have focused on acupuncture, with results suggesting efficacy in recovery from surgery, chemotherapy, and migraines, however a lack of well-conducted clinical trials continues to dog the credibility of this technique [9].

Even less scientific research has been done on Chinese herbal remedies. Proponents of TCM argue that the crucible of time provides evidence for the medicinal properties of these herbs, as only those deemed effective would remain in use. Chinese herbal medicines could provide an excellent starting point when looking for a ‘novel’ pharmaceutical agent. For example, investigation of the Chinese wormwood (qinghao) used in TCM to treat malaria, lead to the discovery of artemisinin [10]. Artemisinin (an isolated compound from qinghao) is now used extensively in Africa and Asia to treat mult-drug resistant strains of malaria [10]. Systematic validation (and elucidation) or debunking of TCM methods by scientific studies could have broad benefits for patients and practitioners of both medical camps. Historically, this pursuit may have been inhibited by antagonizing attitudes of ‘Western’ doctors and scientists towards a TCM system they deemed as ‘quackery’ [11]. However, with increasing interest in TCM within western culture, rigorous studies are required to measure the safety, effectiveness, and regulatory status of TCM methods in order to ensure proper patient care.

Medicine For Me

Now, having familiarized myself with EBM and TCM, it is time to decide upon my next course of action (before I see Julia again). Although I subscribe to the principles of EBM, I am uncomfortable with the level of toxicity and adverse side-effects that are considered acceptable (or remain unknown) when a new pharmaceutical treatment is approved. Fear of unknown complications runs equally (if not more) rampant when I consider the scientific void of TCM. Although my doctor’s prescription for thyroid medication is evidence-based (and the evidence suggests that I will live a happy, thyroid-compensated life), I still feel that prescription drugs are a last resort, and that I have not exhausted my options. I want a treatment that will address the root of my problem—my thyroid gland—not only compensate downstream with supplemental thyroid hormones. I am now the individual: the thorn in the side of the generalized guidelines of EBM. The holistic approach of TCM, and the emphasis on the individual seem increasingly suitable. Indeed, it is with grave trepidation that I decide to foray outside the realm of EBM. In particular, I am hopeful that TCM methods of detoxification (diet and herbal therapy), and physical stimulation (acupuncture, exercises) will rouse my thyroid from its slumber, and return it to normal function. Can I have my cake (health) and eat it (without drugs) too? I am skeptical, but I will try. There is not enough evidence to convince me otherwise.

References

1. Sackett DL, Rosenberg WM, Gray JA, Haynes RB, Richardson WS (1996). “Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn’t”. BMJ 312 (7023): 71-2.

2. Guyatt G, Cairns J, Churchill D, et al. (1992). “Evidence-based medicine. A new approach to teaching the practice of medicine.” JAMA 268: 2420-5.

3. Coomarasamy A, Khan KS (2004). “What is the evidence that postgraduate teaching in evidence based medicine changes anything? A systematic review”. BMJ 329 (7473): 1017.

4. Yealy DM, Auble TE, Stone RA, et al (2005). “Effect of increasing the intensity of implementing pneumonia guidelines: a randomized, controlled trial”. Ann. Intern. Med. 143 (12): 881-94.

5. Tonelli, MR (2001). “The limits of evidence-based medicine.” Respir Care 46(12): 1435-40.

6. Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels (2005). Selling Sickness: How Drug Companies are Turning Us All Into Patients. Allen & Unwin. New York.

7. Reuters. “Merck Sees Slightly Higher 2007 Earnings”, New York Times, 2006-12-07, p. A1.

8. Porkert, Manfred (1974). The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine MIT Press. Massachusetts.

9. Melchart, D, Linde, K, and Fischer, P et al. (1999). “Acupuncture for recurrent headaches: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.” Cephalalgia 19(9):779-86.

10. Cumming, JN, Ploypradith, P, Posner, GH (1997). “Antimalarial activity of artemisinin (qinghaosu) and related trioxanes: mechanism(s) of action.” Advances in Pharmacology (San Diego) 37: 253-297.

11. Johnson, T (1999). “MDs skeptical as BC gives stamp of approval to traditional Chinese medicine.” CMAJ 161(11): 1435-1436.

* Please note; paper previously rejected by “The Royal Victorian Journal Of Contemporary Science” on grounds of questionable style and insufficient use of the semicolon.

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Samwise S.K. Darius & Colleague

Dear Sirs

In this preliminary study, conducted after Friday afternoon tea, my esteemed Colleague and myself resolved to investigate whether a stem cell, of origin I am not at liberty to disclose, but which needless to say had undergone a transfer of proteinous nature from a cell of the hairus folliculum variety, would respond to shear stress caused by gravity-mediated lateral flow of extracellular buffer in an easterly direction. The central theme of our hypothesis, such that it was, being that this procedure would persuade the hitherto shy and elusive receptro mechanum transducio, which has so thoroughly evaded the collective efforts of ourselves and others to determine its kind, would reveal itself to our electrophysiological recording apparati.

Much to our chagrin, this was not to be.

Deprived of both a Picospritzer^TM and wave stimulator, which were not expected to arrive until the following Monday, we adapted our protocol and switched from the aforementioned gravity-mediated flow method to a ‘Jam – the – ruddy – plunger – into – the – buffer – syringe – cylinder – and – apply – about – 15lb – of – pressure!’-based technique; which, for the purposes of conciseness will be from hence forth and onwards referred to by the less confounding, laborious and spatially demanding term of, Brute Force.

Fortuitously, we observed that Brute Force evoked a fast inward current that rapidly desensitised in the continued presence of Brute Force (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Current trace recorded at holding potential of -40 mV. Brute Force was applied for the duration represented by the black bar.

Considerably enthused by this radical development, we proceeded to conduct control experiments on cells that had not, hitherto, been subjugated to the protein transfer paradigm. The joviality of our mood was, however, short lived; for it transpired that the control cells replied to our vigorous thrusting with a rapidious and transientatory increase in leak current, which was of similar amplitude and candid personality as presented by our experimentally altered corpusculi. Inspection of both the control and molested cells, après stimulation, revealed that they neither were particularly thrilled by their obstreperous treatment with Brute Farce.

To conclude, these data present irrefutable evidence of a new and novel artefact, the mechanism of which, although arguably unlikely to enhance our understanding of anything in particular, may nevertheless provide a potentially intriguing avenue of research in the treatment of consumptive dropsy.

This work was supported by the laboratory swear jar, for which we thank Dr. Darius for his bountiful contributions.

The country around was beset by a frightful monster, the Sphinx, a creature shaped like a winged lion, but with the breast and face of a woman. She lay in wait for the wayfarers along the roads to the city and whomever she seized she put a riddle to, telling him if he could answer it, she would let him go. No one could, and the horrible creature devoured man after man until the city was in a state of siege.

– Edith Hamilton, from her book Mythology

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This “frightful monster” appeared in the famous Greek tale of Oedipus, an unfortunate fellow who was accursed with the fate of murdering his father and marrying his mother. The Sphinx, outsmarted by Oedipus, kills herself and thus Oedipus rescues the city of Thebes. This narrative stands out because the monster here did not possess merely the savageness of beast, but also had the intelligence of man – a deadly combination.

The Chimera was another famous creature in Greek mythology that had parts of various creatures: it had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the backside of a serpent. Because of that, other creatures similarly made from parts of different beings were called chimeras as well, and they appear in ancient Egypt, Persian, Japanese, Chinese and Hindu artifacts.

The ancients’ fantasies that the strengths of individual creatures may somehow be fused into one entity is intriguing, especially those of hybrid creatures with human and animal features, such as merpeople, centaurs, and the aforementioned sphinxes. With the advent of modern scientific technology, however, they may not remain just fantasies.

To understand how modern genetic engineering can produce chimeras, we must understand the genetic basis of such entities. Chimeras, from a geneticist’s point of view, are living creatures that contain two or more genetically distinct lines of cells that originated from two or more different zygotes. (This is different from another genetic phenomenon called mosaicism, where different cell lines may emerge from one single zygote.) In essence, chimeras are complexes of two genetically different animals.

Scientists have noted long ago the existence of natural chimeras, and these usually occur within the same species. An example is the extremely rare fertile male tortoiseshell cat that carries both male and female chromosomes as a result of fusion between the brother and sister embryos during fetal development. Another example is the parasitic chimerism that occurs naturally in the lifecycle of the leftvent fish. The immature male leftvent attaches itself to a female fish, and fuses its body to that of the female, and a chimera is thus formed. The male then loses most of its organs and focuses on the development of the testes instead, thereby reaching sexual maturity. The female nourishes the male via their interconnected circulatory systems.

Chimerism in the human species has already popped up in the form of popular culture. Some examples are the novel Next, written by Michael Crichton (of Jurassic Park), and popular TV shows such as CSI and House that featured plots with chimerism. The public adores such intense “scientific” plotlines, but how realistic are they? The truth is, even though human chimerism is quite rare, there have already been thirty to forty cases of human chimerism documented as of 2003.

There are two specific types of chimerism that can occur in humans. The first type is microchimerism, where only a small portion of the body has a distinct cell line from the rest of the body. This typically arises when foreign cells have stabilized inside a host. These foreign cells may originate from the maternal-fetal exchange during pregnancy. The fetus may pass on its stem and progenitor cells to the mother via the placenta, and these cells, because they are undifferentiated, may be able to survive and proliferate in the maternal system. Maternal stem cells may also be transferred to the fetus in the same way. A related type of microchimerism may occur between twins as well. Indirect transfer of cell material (for example, blood transfusions and transplants) between two individuals may also produce microchimerism in the recipient.

The second type is called tetragametic chimerism. This occurs when two separate ova are fertilized by two sperm and produce two zygotes. When these zygotes fuse, it forms an organism that has two distinct cell lines, and the resulting fetus may be male, female or hermaphroditic. It usually occurs with fraternal (or dizygotic) twins, and often forms from zygotes produced from artificial in vitro insemination. As a result, the individual may have “populations” of cells: one set of DNA may appear in his or her liver and another set may appear in his or her lung.

Even though there are two or more different sets of DNA in human chimeras, it may or may not be manifested as physical abnormalities. It may appear as phenotypic differences in eye colours, differential hair growth and colouring, “checkerboard” skin patterns, or missing or extraneous sexual organs. In 1998, at the University of Edinburgh, doctors examined a man who had complaints about an undescended left testicle. When they examined him, they were shocked to find an ovary and a fallopian tube in the male patient!

Most human chimeras, however, are not even aware of their conditions, because many of them appear completely normal. The most famous cases of chimerism to date are the linked cases of Lydia Fairchild and Karen Keegan. Fairchild was pregnant with her third child when she separated with her partner, James Townsend. In order to obtain state welfare, she had to prove that she was the biological mother of her two born children. It was discovered, through DNA testing, that it was impossible that she was the biological mother of her two children because she bore no genetic similarity to them whatsoever. A case of welfare fraud ensued because the prosecutors believed the DNA results to be irrefutable. Even the testimony of Dr. Leonard Dreisbach, the obstetrician who had helped Fairchild give birth, did little to persuade the court in Fairchild’s favor. The judge, perplexed by seemingly conflicting evidence, ordered that the third child, when born, to be tested as well. Surprisingly, the third child also showed no genetic similarities as well.

Fortunately for Fairchild, Karen Keegan also had similar experiences. Keegan needed a kidney transplant, and DNA testing for a compatible match with her two eldest sons showed that she had no genetic similarities to them at all. However, the doctors who worked with Keegan were familiar with the concept of chimerism and suggested that Keegan undergo further testing. Testing of her brothers and husband proved that her sons were related to them. Subsequent sampling of her skin and hair proved to be futile, but eventually matching DNA was found in her thyroid gland. It was the publication of this case, in the New England Journal of Medicine, which offered new insight on the case of Lydia Fairchild. Fairchild was found later on to be a chimera, with the second set of DNA found from her cervical smear. It was concluded that both Keegan and Fairchild were tetragametic chimeras.

These cases challenge the blind faith which the scientific community places on the irrefutability of DNA testing. Forensic science cannot rely on DNA testing as the sole source of evidence, as it has done previously, as the criminal or victim may be a chimera. From the previous cases mentioned, current maternity and paternity testing methods will have to be re-evaluated. The greatest impact of chimerism, however, was made on the scientific-medical field, because it asks two leading questions: how does chimerism affect individuals, and what can be accomplished through chimerism?

Current research indicates two opposing views of chimerism in humans. One hypothesis is that the presence of foreign cells in the body during development (as in microchimerism) creates an abnormal environment that causes growth of various types of autoimmune diseases, such as Type 1 diabetes, scleroderma, and lupus. The other hypothesis is that these foreign cells actually facilitate the body’s ability to self-repair. Since chimeras are able to receive organs from individuals with either sets of DNA, some research studies are looking into using chimeras as a basis for improving the existing organ transplant process that has lower risks of organ rejection. Chimeras have a great immunological tolerance to at least two different cell lines. All these theories have great potential for improving medicine drastically in the future.

Most promise of future chimera studies, however, lies in the area of genetic engineering of cells. Chimeras can be artificially produced by physically mixing two zygotes together. Animal chimeras have already been produced – a “geep” chimera comprised of goat and sheep cells, and a rat-mouse chimera. While true genomic chimeras of human and animal origin have yet to be produced, some surprising studies to date are those that have succeeded in producing hybrid embryos, or cybrids.

In 2003, Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University were successful in their attempts to produce stem cells through the merging of rabbit eggs and human skin cells. This human-animal hybrid was supposedly the first of its kind to be produced. They were promptly destroyed after a few days to allow for the extraction of the live stem cells. The overall process can be simplified into the following: the genetic material is removed from an animal ovum, and then human DNA is inserted, thus producing a single zygote that has animal-human origins. This process could potentially be the cheapest way to produce human stem cells for research purposes.

Yet another controversial study had been conducted by Stanford University of California. A group of scientists from the Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology have already successfully created mice with brains that have one percent human cells. Their next goal is to create mice with one hundred percent human brains. Their goal is to study Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases through analysis of the pattern of brain growth. Opponents of such projects note that problems may arise if the human cells were ever able to migrate and create human reproductive organs. Imagine the horrors if two such mice were able to procreate – it would result in a human embryo, not an animal one. The mice would become parents of a human being!

Fortunately, the only existing projects to date are much less controversial since the cybrids are still mostly human. Do scientists cross the fine line that distinguishes the difference between animals and humans if they produce chimeras that will have a substantial percentage of both human and animal DNA? Does it breach any ethical or moral boundaries? Who will define the boundaries within which these studies are to be conducted? Should a true human-animal chimera ever be created?

Some of those questions can already be answered. The Canadian government has issued the Assisted Human Reproduction Act that prohibits specifically the production of a chimera, as stated in Section 5: “No person shall knowingly . . . create a chimera, or transplant a chimera into either a human being or a non-human life form” or “…create a hybrid for the purpose of reproduction, or transplant a hybrid into either a human being or a non-human life form.” However, the US and the UK have yet to issue any strict regulations regarding chimera research. Even with restrictions, it would be difficult to monitor whether regulations are kept if research is being conducted illegally.

Just how far can this type of research go? Heart transplants already use porcine valves; researchers have already produced pigs with human blood and sheep with partially human organs. With the lack of regulation on chimera production, the possibilities are endless. Like any other technology of the past, chimera technology proves to be a double-edged sword that can offer great benefit and also pose great harm to humanity. How far it advances depends on society. Perhaps one day we may encounter an animal that functions and thinks like a human …Animal Farm, anyone?

Fear of Commitment (FoC) is a normal relationship-induced phenomenon that has plagued scientists for years. FoC is characterized by intense avoidance of, and discomfort caused by, all activities which imply commitment within a relationship, such as the co-carrying of shopping bags (usually coupled with the co-pushing of shopping carts) at grocery stores, the unsolicited giving of flowers and chocolates, the lending and borrowing of car keys, the leaving of toothbrushes in the other party’s living quarters, and most significantly, the request to move in with the other party and/or to relocate with the other party.

These commitment-implying activities, broadly categorized as Systematic-but-Understated Creepy Klingers (SUCK) and Psychotically-Inane-Stalker-Suffocators (PISS), have been observed to lead to intense phobia associated with the prospect of commitment, typically matrimony. Although previously thought of as being more prevalent in men than in women, Fear of Commitment is found in all humans regardless of gender, culture, age, and sexual orientation; prior assumptions of higher FoC in men are propagated by self-report biases due to significantly higher bragging rates in men, especially while engaging in football-watching and beer-drinking behaviors.

In this paper we review the significant body of self-report, skin conductance, and penile arousal physiological studies, as well as recent intra-cranial data obtained from yelling marriage proposals to epileptic patients while their brain activity was recorded. Results from converging methods in the FoC literature are highly consistent with a neural theory of Fear of Commitment. We propose that an innate and modular region in the brain codes specifically for the Fear of Commitment. The FoC brain region (preliminary studies implicate the right temporal-parietal junction) responds selectively to stimuli which induce the FoC, and firing rate increases exponentially with the degree of commitment feared. Activity in the FoC region is normal and robust in all subjects, but is uniquely attenuated by a negative feedback system triggered by a temporally-specific lock-and-key mechanism generally known as The RIght guy/chiCK (TRICK). The Right guy/chICK is thus able to eliminate Fear of Commitment and result in the common significant trend, as dating time approaches infinity, towards Love And Matrimony Everlasting (LAME).