Category Archives: Communication

It’s Not Melting, It’s Dissolving

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Time for another post where I get on my science grammar soapbox. Have you ever seen the movie The Wizard of Oz? Everyone has seen that movie, right? Recall the scene where Dorothy throws a bucket of water on the Witch, and the Witch dissolves into a puddle while screaming “I’m melting, I’m melting”? First, don’t ever watch that movie with me. Why? Because every time I see that scene, I scream “you’re not melting, you’re dissolving, get it right.” Ok, it is a movie, a movie that takes place where monkeys fly, there are witches, lions walk and talk like humans, and scarecrows come to life. No, I shouldn’t be looking for realistic science in it. However it drives me crazy that they can’t even get the simple difference between dissolution and melting correct.

In the exact same incorrect way, there is a saying that some people say when their children, dog, whatever, is hesitate to go outside in the rain. “You are not made of sugar, you won’t melt.” There are actually several things wrong with that statement. Sugar, as in table sugar, which is specifically sucrose (as opposed to all the other sugars that exist), does not actual melt at all. At 186°C (367°F), it decomposes to caramel. So even if that saying meant decomposes, if the temperature outside is high enough for sugar to decompose, you have much bigger problems then possibly getting wet. You would die of heat. However, if you were made of sugar, and you went out into the rain, you would not have to worry about melting, you would have to worry about dissolving.

Melting is a physical process where solid turns into a liquid due to heat applied to it. Stick ice into a glass at room temperature. Wait a while. You now have water in the glass. The ice melted into water. But you didn’t apply heat, you might argue. The melting point of ice, the temperature at which solid water, i.e. ice, becomes liquid water is 0°C (32°F). So by simply having ice at room temperature (around 22 °C (72 °F)), heat has been applied to it. The temperature is higher than what the ice needs to stay a solid. Similarly put solid chocolate in a pot and heat slowly to 30°C (86°F). You have liquid chocolate. It has melted. Now don’t waste that chocolate, go eat it with strawberries or cake. [Excuse me for a moment. . .]

Now take that glass of water you made by melting ice at room temperature, and pour just a little salt into it. The salt has dissolved into the water. The water, which is the solvent, has dissolved the salt, the solute, into a solution. When Dorothy throws water on the Witch, the Witch is the solute, the water is the solvent again, and now you have a witch solution in water. Based on the film, witch dissolves quite readily. [It would not matter if she threw boiling water on the Witch, it would still be dissolution because the water is mixing with the witch. The water was quite clearly not boiling anyway.] Other liquids can act as solvents to dissolve solutes, but water is the most common in everyday life. Wiping acetone on nails painted with nail polish removes the polish because acetone, a solvent, dissolves the hardened nail polish, the solute, into a solution. [It is a temporary solution in the sense that acetone readily evaporates, but it forms a solution with the polish long enough to transfer the polish to a cotton ball. The acetone then evaporates leaving behind the polish on the cotton.] An important distinction between melting and dissolving is that melting only involves one substance, water, chocolate, wax, etc. Dissolution involves two substances, water and salt, water and sugar, acetone and nail polish, etc. Dissolution can also involve applied heat, but it isn’t required. There is a much longer explanation for that, and it relates to the solute and solvent and numerous other factors.

To review, melting is one substance changing from a solid to a liquid, and one, and only substance is involved. It is a phase change that must involve a temperature (or pressure) change. Dissolution is one substance becoming part of a solution with a liquid, and two substances are involved. It is two substances becoming one, and temperature change is not necessary for it to happen.

I honestly don’t understand why some people don’t understand the difference. However ignorance of this appears to be wide spread. Evidently the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction does not know the difference. That Inspector General recently released a report concerning a half-million-dollar U.S.-built police training center in Afghanistan that was so badly constructed that it is literally “melting.” Nope, it is not. It is literally dissolving. If the center had been made of wax, then maybe it might melt. Based on the wording in this article and the accompanying photos, the building is quite clearly dissolving. That is still incredibly appalling construction. As an engineer, I would really like to see the design plans. However, if the Inspector General does not even know the difference between melting and dissolving, then perhaps the Inspector General would do well to have someone on staff who does. It would make for better and more accurate reports.

Conversations I have with my Mom

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Mom: Did that thing bloom again?

Me (looking confused): At my house?

Mom: No, the thing at the botanical garden. You know what I mean.

Me: The corpse flower?

Mom: Yes, but don’t call it that. I think it should be called by its botanical name.

Me: You prefer to call it giant misshapen penis?

Mom: No, call it by its Latin name.

Me: Its Latin botanical name, Amorphophallus titanum, means giant misshapen penis.

Mom: Oh, well yes, that is a better name to call it.

Me: Ok, well, no, it hasn’t bloomed that I know of. Last time it was in the news.

It’s Not Individualism or Bad Fashion, It’s Sexism

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I once hypothesized that male heterosexual scientists and engineers single-handily keep the Hawaiian shirt industry in business. Don’t ask me why, but as a group, they love those shirts. I make jokes about their lack of fashion and just plain dressing ability. I tease because I love. I love their individualism, and I love how they don’t know or care about fashion. I may be a female heterosexual scientist and engineer, but I am one of them when it comes to dress. The last time I remember being fashionable was when I was in fifth grade. I don’t understand or like many fashions. I have my own style, and I like to look nice, but I consider my ability to wear jeans to work and not even own a suit, a serious perk of my career (and employer).

And then there is this.

This is Rosetta Project Scientist Matt Taylor of the European Space Agency (ESA) in a shirt covered in scantily clad women in in sexually suggestive poses. That is the shirt he chose to wear on a day when ESA did the amazing feat of landing a probe on a comet. This is the shirt he chose to wear on a day when he would be interviewed by the media and featured on live webcasts of the events. Not only did he not see a problem with this shirt, but evidently no one else at ESA did either. This. Is. Not. Acceptable. This is not appropriate. This is offensive. This shirt should not exist period, but it most certainly should not exist in the workplace. This is not about how ugly the shirt is. This is not about how unprofessional a shirt like that is. This is not about Dr. Taylor being an individual and expressing his style. This is about a shirt that objectifies women. This is about a shirt that is sexual harassment without Dr. Taylor even opening his mouth or making any type of gesture or doing absolutely anything other than wearing it. This is about a complete and utter lack of respect of women on the part of Dr. Taylor and evidently everybody at ESA who works with him and would have been in a position to say something. This about no one over there seeming to care about whether or not women feel comfortable working there when someone can wear a shirt like that. This about telling women it doesn’t matter your intelligence, skills, education, or ideas, you are but sex objects. The STEM fields continue to have a problem with sexism and gender inequality. My alma mater, a technical college, still only has about a 25% female student body. Wearing shirts like that to workplace will not help. It will not tell women that they are welcome. I quite frankly don’t care if Dr. Taylor is actually a really nice guy who is actually very supportive of women in STEM. His shirt says otherwise. He and ESA owe all of us an apology. That shirt overshadowed what should have been the main headline that ESA did the absolutely spectacular task of landing a probe on a comet. That shirt and the attitude it expressed ruined it for me in fact.

Finally, I would like to give mad props to Dr. Paul Coxon for his absolutely awesome idea, that if you want to wear a shirt with women on it, wear one with these women on it.


These would be some of the women of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) celebrating after ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft successfully entered the Mars orbit. And they are awesome.

Twitter, Scientists, and Arbitrary Lists

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Fairly often some website produces a list of people you should follow on Twitter. Yesterday it was Science with their The top 50 science stars of Twitter. This list, like so many before, is arbitrary, lacks diversity, and is based on, in my opinion, stupid metrics. Many people on Twitter have noted that this list is overwhelmingly white and male. They based the star status on follower count and a completely ridiculous metric called the Kardashian Index,” or K-index, which is about as ridiculous as the people for which it is named. The list also lacks diversity from a field of study standpoint. Also, some people have noted that other “star” Twitter scientists were left off, which according to the article’s author was because they restricted the list to Ph.D.s. I think that is a stupid restriction, and I am a Ph.D. Furthermore, someone noted that one of the accounts on the list is a bot, and another one are simply tweets by the person’s PR person. 

I follow a few people on the list, so obviously I think some of them worth following. However, if you are trying to be more active on Twitter and interact with people, most (but not all) of these people are not the people to follow. The more followers you have, the more difficult it is to interact with them, assuming you are even trying. Don’t get me wrong, some of the people on this and other lists do tweet great information. However, if your goal on Twitter is to network, make friends, learn things, and sometimes get help or advice, then “stars” are not to the people to follow. I have made friends on Twitter, including friends I have later met in person. I have also networked and gotten great advice on work and personal projects. I see tweets on an almost daily basis of scientists helping each other out via tweets. Someone will tweet out asking for advice on some lab protocol or best manner to collect a certain type of sample, and others will reply with advice. Many people, including myself, tweet out a photo of something we are trying to identify. If I know people who know things in that field, I’ll tag them, and via crowdsourcing, we can normally identify the life form or object. That sort of fun learning experience is through interactions with us non Twitter stars.

If you want to use Twitter for things like that, you need to seek out people in your field or fields you are interested in, or just people who tweet out interesting things. Ignore the number of followers they have, and look at what they tweet. The less followers they have, the more likely they will follow you and interact with you. There are wonderful people with tons of followers that are worth following on Twitter, and some of them do a good job of interacting, and there are some worth following even if they don’t interact. I just mean that you can get a lot more out of Twitter if you interact with people. That leads to the obvious question, how do you find these people? Look for Twitter lists such Women Tweet Science Too which was created to in reaction to the lack of women on the above mentioned Nature list. Many people have already created tons of great public lists like this for people in various fields. Follow people on these, and then once you find people you really like on Twitter, see who they follow and with whom they interact.

Furthermore, if you want my personal opinion on how to get people to follow you, which you can take or leave, then see below.

1. Tweet. That may seem obvious, but it you don’t tweet, people are not going to follow you. Tweet links to articles you find interesting. Tweet things you find funny. Tweet about what you are working on, even if you think it is uninteresting or no one will understand what you are doing. Your fellow nerds and geeks will understand and be interested. Even if no one if following you, you have to get started somehow.

2. Have a avatar photo. Having one that represents something about you, even if it is not a photo of you. I rarely follow Twitter eggs.

3. Have a Twitter bio. When someone follows me, I look at their bio. Do they work in a field interesting to me? Do they say something funny? Do they have interests similar to me?

4. Interact with people. Even if a person doesn’t follow you, if they ask a question you can help with, reply to them. Give your input.

Photo Texting a Wrong Phone Number?

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This evening someone texted me a photo that caused me to contact the police. I didn’t recognize the phone number, but according to a quick internet search, it is a Richmond, Virginia phone number. I have an iPhone, and the text says iMessage, so I am fairly sure the sender had to have been using an iPhone. There was no message, only a photo. The photo appears to be a child, maybe age 10. I am not sure if it is girl or boy. The photo appears to have been taken at a slight angle and shows the child’s face laying sideways on a (possibly) bed. There is an adult’s hand pressing down on the top of the child’s head with the thumb between the eyebrows pressing down hard enough to cause the forehead skin to bunch down below the thumb. The child is not smiling. The child’s mouth is slightly open, and while the child doesn’t exactly appear to be in pain, the child doesn’t look comfortable. The photo appears to have been taken in a house as I can see a bookshelf with framed photos in the background.

I didn’t know what to do when I got it, other than to take to Twitter to ask for advice. I finally decided to call my local police’s non-emergency phone number. The woman I spoke to asked what I wanted to do. I learned they have no way to receive a text message, so if I wanted someone to look at it, then an officer would have to come to my house. After deliberating, I finally asked to have them send someone. A very nice officer came fairly quickly, remarkably fast actually considering this was a non-emergency call. I showed him the photo apologized for making him come if he disagreed that it was somewhat disturbing. While he never actually stated what he thought of the photo, I think he agreed the photo was at best weird. Also he never gave me an impression that he thought I was a lunatic for being concerned about this photo. Unfortunately I learned there was very little, in fact nothing he could do. He said since the photo was not pornographic and did not show a child in imminent danger, cell phone companies would give them very little information without a court order. He also stated what I knew, which is that even the phone number appears to be Richmond, Virginia, the phone could be anywhere. He said with Google voice numbers, it might not even be a cell phone exactly. [It was not until after he left, I realized the text said iMessage, hence must be an iPhone.] I told him that I didn’t contact the phone number at all, partially because I didn’t know if this was a weird scam or what the proper response was. He essentially said there was nothing they could do now, but if I keep getting photos from this number, and they get weirder, to contact them again. For now, I will keep the photo and hope I don’t get anymore, that the child is in no danger, and that it was just a weird joke or something perfectly reasonable that got sent to the wrong number.

The incident brings up so many questions though. First, I live in a fairly affluent municipality that is not exactly desperate for money. Also, as a suburb of Washington, DC, public safety is generally not skimped on fiscally. So how is it in 2014, my police department can’t receive a text? Forget about how much easier it would have been for me to forward this photo to them, what about if someone is in danger? It might be easier and safer to send a text than to have to possibly reveal themselves by speaking on the phone to a police operator. Is this some sort of technological issue or what?

Second, I’m curious what other people would have done in my place. What other options are there? The police don’t seem to have many options in this case. I don’t want to over blow this photo because again, it’s not pornographic, and the child doesn’t appear to be in imminent danger, but still, it would at least be nice to track down a name or something to allow the police or someone just to phone them. I don’t know what I would even like to occur if anything was possible. I am not a fan of Big Brother, but I don’t like this feeling of helplessness.

Advice, opinions, comments, ideas, want to tell me I worry too much (yes I know that)? Please leave a comment.

Edited to add: Someone informed me how to get location data out of a photo. According the metadata on photo, it was taken in outskirts of Richmond, Virginia. I can narrow it down to a couple of blocks based on the way it is mapping. I think I will start paying attention to news from that area for a bit or possibly look to see if there are missing child cases or anything like that. At least I will feel like I did something.

Formaldehyde in Baby Shampoo: Cancer or Sensitivity Issue?

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An article was recently published in Slate about Johnson & Johnson reformulating its baby shampoo to remove formaldehyde. The article discussed how some people’s somewhat misguided fears about a known carcinogen, formaldehyde, caused its removal from baby shampoo, when in reality if you are worried about carcinogenic exposure to formaldehyde, baby shampoo should be the least of your concern. As the article’s author, Tara Haelle, correctly points out, formaldehyde is a naturally occurring substance. It is produced in normal atmospheric reactions and when wood burns, both during natural forest fires and human caused fires. It is also produced during anthropogenic activity from numerous industrial processes and petroleum fueled combustion, i.e. cars, ships, airplanes (Salthammer et at. 2010).

I have a few issues with this article, however. First, it states “high enough doses of inhaled formaldehyde can cause cancer, leading OSHA and the EPA to set limits for safe exposures.” Second, it quotes two chemists who say in different ways that the toxicity of a chemical is related to its dose or the amount of exposure, and it essentially states that formaldehyde only causes cancer in high doses. Finally, it completely fails to mention another reason why formaldehyde may have been removed that has nothing to do with cancer.

The problem I have with the second point, is that formaldehyde is a carcinogen, and the toxicological theory with carcinogens, is that exposure to one molecule of a carcinogen can theoretically cause cancer, depending on the carcinogen’s mode of action. With non-carcinogens, it is appropriate and scientifically accurate to say that the dose makes the poison. There are substances that to be healthy you need in some dose, but exposure to too high of doses can lead to detrimental health effects, for example iron and a whole bunch of metals. There are others that you don’t need at all, but you can be exposed to a certain dosage with no ill effects. However, with carcinogens depending on the mode of action for the carcinogenicity, it is believed that there is no safe level of exposure. In theory, all it takes is one molecule to cause a cell to multiply out of control and cause cancer. This is where the carcinogenic mode of action is important. The carcinogenic mode of action refers to how a particular carcinogen actually causes cancer to be initiated. If, for example, a carcinogen’s mode of action is mutagenicity, like radiation, then exposure of any dose can potentially cause the effect that leads to cancer. Thus, there is considered to be absolutely no safe level of exposure to that carcinogen. Each additional exposure increases your risk of getting cancer. However, there are other carcinogenic modes of action, and carcinogens with certain other modes of action would be considered to have a exposure threshold below which no cancer would occur.

So what about formaldehyde? What is its mode of action for carcinogenicity? Is there a safe level of exposure below which there is no risk of cancer? In the US, that appears to be in debate. This brings me to my next point. It is misleading, and in my opinion just plain legally and scientifically incorrect, to state that OSHA and EPA set limits for safe levels of exposure. The EPA has calculated formaldehyde’s Inhalation Unit Risk (IUR) for cancer to be 1.3 x10-5 per µg/m3. “EPA estimates that, if an individual were to continuously breathe air containing formaldehyde at an average of 0.08 µg/m3 (8.0 x 10-5 mg/m3) over his or her entire lifetime, that person would theoretically have no more than a one-in-a-million increased chance of developing cancer as a direct result of breathing air containing this chemical.” The word “increased” is important. It means that it is already assumed that there will be a certain number of cancer cases, and this concentration would cause additional cases above background. Furthermore, EPA states that for calculation of cancer risk from formaldehyde exposure, a linear approach with a multistage procedure due to additional risk at higher concentrations should be used. A linear approach means that any exposure causes a cancer risk with each exposure increasing the risk, and the multistage procedure means that high concentration exposure causes risk to increase at a greater rate. A linear approach is the more conservative method with carcinogens and is normally used when there is not enough scientific evidence to devise a threshold or a different risk method. With that being said, EPA is currently reviewing its toxicity assessment for formaldehyde, and it is possible when that assessment if finalized, EPA will change it cancer risk approach. With respect to OSHA, they have set an permissible exposure limit (PEL) at 0.75 parts formaldehyde per million parts of air (ppm) as an 8-hour time weighted average. The reasoning behind this level is complex, but in part, they state “this PEL represents OSHA’s best judgment of the exposure limit, along with the ancillary provisions, necessary to eliminate a significant risk of harm to employees.” The phrase “significant risk” is in there because their calculations, like the EPA’s, involve uncertainty and probabilities. They are not stating that below the PEL there is no risk, it is just not as significant. Neither OSHA or EPA is stating that below some level of exposure, formaldehyde will not give you cancer. They are stating it unlikely or insignificant compared to a background cancer risk. Below the set levels, the risks are really low, but they still exist.

Back to the baby shampoo. I do, in fact, agree with the point of the article that formaldehyde in baby shampoo is not a concern for cancer. However, I would not state it will not cause cancer. I would state that possible formaldehyde exposure in baby shampoo is highly unlikely to cause cancer. An additional point, which is not in the article, is that formaldehyde is not readily absorbed through the skin, and the amount of volatilization of formaldehyde, which could then be inhaled, from baby shampoo is likely to negligible.

With all that being said, I don’t necessarily agree that removal of formaldehyde from baby shampoo is a case of chemophobia and an overblown reaction by a company. It is possible that Johnson & Johnson removed formaldehyde not because of cancer concerns but because formaldehyde is a known sensitizer and allergen. Many skin care products contain formaldehyde or formaldehyde-releasing preservatives, which include quaternium-15, diazolidinyl urea, DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, bronopol, and tris nitro. While only a small percentage of people have a sensitivity or allergy to formaldehyde, for those that do, it is safest to avoid any exposure. Whether or not baby shampoo containing formaldehyde could cause a person to actually develop a sensitivity or allergy is another subject.

I have no idea why Johnson & Johnson actually decided to remove formaldehyde from baby shampoo, other than that it was a business decision. However by removing formaldehyde, regardless of any cancer concerns, there is now a small but real percentage of potential consumers who can buy their baby shampoo without concern of skin reactions due to their formaldehyde sensitivity or allergy. Thus assuming there is another safer preservative that can be used in place of formaldehyde, its removal would seem, to me at least, to be a good business decision, as they have increased their customer base to people with certain skin sensitivity and allergies.

Book Review: “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”

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I finished reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot today. In 1951 when Henrietta Lacks was 30, she developed extremely aggressive cervical cancer. When she went in for surgery for cancer treatment, the doctor took a sample of the tumor. The cells from the tumor were cultured in a lab that had been trying unsuccessfully to find a way to keep human cells alive in culture. Ms. Lacks’s tumor cells, named HeLa by the lab, were the first cells they were able to keep alive in culture. Because they were able to keep them alive and growing, the cells would later become a vital tool for medical science. The scientist who first kept HeLa alive in culture gave the cells away for free to numerous other scientists who used them for various research. The cells helped in part to develop drugs for herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, and Parkinson’s. They helped develop the polio vaccine and in gene research, including most fittingly genes that cause and suppress cancer. Companies were created to use and produce the cells. Ms. Lacks’s family, however, did not know that the cells had been taken nor that they were being used for so much research. They did not know they existed until 20 years later and received no benefit from all this research. Sadly and ironically, they were so poor they couldn’t afford health insurance, and most were not educated enough to really understand how part of Ms. Lacks could still be alive or what it meant. To make matters worse, shortly after learning about the research on her cells, researchers asked family members to give a sample of their blood to them to aid them in their research. The researchers didn’t explain to the family what the samples would be used for, or at least they did not explain it in a way that the family members could understand.

Anyone who does research involving humans should read this book. Actually, everyone should read this book. It is incredibly interesting and well written. I loved learning some science from it, but it was also nice to learn about the people involved, both the Lacks family and the scientists involved with HaLa. The book gives recognition and a voice to Ms. Lacks and her family who for far too long had none. It is simply horrible how they had been treated in the past, and it is an important lesson to researchers on how not to treat research subjects and their loved ones. The book discusses a little bit of the history of human medical research and the ethics and techniques involved. The introduction of informed consent in medical research is discussed to a great degree. The concept of when a person loses ownership of their own tissue or fluid once the tissue or fluid is no longer a part of their body is discussed.

I, personally, am conflicted about the issue of ownership of body tissue once it it removed from the body. For my dissertation I did research that involved humans. Our research plan was reviewed by an Institutional Review Board as all human research studies are now. Our subjects gave informed consent. They willingly participated, allowed themselves to be outfitted with an air sampling device and to have medical tape placed on and then removed from their skin, and gave urine and blood samples. They knew the risks of participating, which really was only a possible reaction to the medical tape (which none had) and the prick of a needle if they gave blood. We explained what we were doing and why and hopefully they all understood in general what we were doing, even if they did not fully understand the details of the research. We took various steps to protect their identity and information. We made no money off of the research, but my advisor applied for grants based on it, and several of us obtained Master’s and Doctorate’s based on it.

Years ago I had two dental implants put in my mouth. The dentist who implanted them was a professor at the local school of dentistry, and because of certain characteristics of my dental history, I made an interesting case for her to operate on and later teach about. I was awake the whole time, and the surgery took much longer than it needed to because every 15 minutes or, she stopped what she was doing to take photos of the current status of my mouth. I get amused thinking about her students sitting in class viewing photos of my mouth while she discusses my case. However, I am confident my identity is protected, and furthermore I gave informed consent. I was awake. I knew full well she was taking photos and planning to use me as a case study, and I am rather pleased that I might be able to help some dentist and their dental patient in the future.

However as someone, who like the vast majority of people, who has ever given a sample of my body fluids analyzed for medical reasons, the idea that I don’t know what happens to the sample after it leaves me and who can run tests on it, makes me concerned. I once had an infected sebaceous cyst removed by a surgeon. I know it went to pathology to confirm the diagnosis that it was just a sebaceous cyst, but after that I have no idea. From what I have read in the book, it could have then gone on to an academic or commercial research lab. As a scientist, I certainly want scientists to have access to samples that can further science, but it bothers me a great deal that someone could potentially make money off of something found in my cells or fluids. If something unique is found in my tissue that can lead to the cure or treatment for a disease, I can support that, but the idea that a commercial research facility could use it to make money seems wrong to me. At the very least, I would like to know what ultimately happens to any of my tissue or fluid samples. Are they simply destroyed after analysis or are they stored somewhere or transferred somewhere? Who can analyze them and for what? I think that is another reason to read the book, so more people will talk about this subject.

Totes McGotes

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There is a series of Sprint commercials that have been running recently that I really enjoy. They star James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell, and they are essentially acting out completely ridiculous telephone or texting conversations or social media interactions. I think they are completely hilarious, partially due to the gravitas these two skilled actors bring to the goofiest of scripts. Then again, I would probably watch either of them, but in particular James Earl Jones, whom I adore, read my grocery list.

Anyway one of the commercial has them acting out the telephone conversation of what can only be teenage girls using language that probably only teenage girls can understand. I was once a teenage girl, but I honestly don’t think I ever talked like that, and I certainly don’t understand fully what the conversation means now that I am older. The conversation revolves around them talking about a particular boy and how hot he is. He being the “hottest hottie that ever hottied.” He evidently is that hot. It is not clear if they achieved statistical significance on verifying just how hot he is. They further agree that he is Totes McGotes, which is let’s be honest, a completely ridiculous but very fun to say phrase. Now while I have never been hip, I know that men are sometimes referred to as McDreamy, McSteamy, and such, all of which I think originated with the tv show Grey’s Anatomy. However what exactly is a McGotes? In Gaelic, the Mc or Mac prefix of a family name means “son of”, so McGotes would seem to mean that he is the son of a goat, with goat spelled incorrectly (although the only way I know that is how it is spelled is because that is the name of the commercial). This honestly doesn’t seem like much of a compliment to me, although I personally think goats are cute. I have never seen a goat that I would call hot. Now on a few occasion I have used the word totes in jest of sorts, and I think it is always used as a slang for totally. Thus it would seem that both of these girls agree that the “hottest hottie that ever hottied” is totally the son of a goat. Again, is that a compliment? They seem to believe it is. Is being Totes McGotes only a compliment if you are a teenager? Or do you simply have to be hip to know that being Totes McGotes is a compliment? I’m curious how far spread this phrase is.

The scientist in me now wants to flirt with a guy and call him Totes McGotes and see how he reacts. Call it a social science experiment of sorts. Is calling a girl Totes McGotes a compliment, or is it only for guys? Is it only appropriate to use the phrase if you are young? To any guys reading this, how would you react if a girl called you Totes McGotes? Ladies, would you call a guy Totes McGotes? If I find a guy to call Totes McGotes at a bar or wherever, I shall run my experiment and see what happens. We will have to see if he buys me a drink or throws a drink at me.

Let’s Talk Stats, WMATA

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The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has problems. Lots and lots of problems. They’ve had an ad campaign called “Metro Forward” for a while now trying to let people know how they are using the money that customers pay to improve the system and do much needed upgrades and renovations. The customers, including myself, want a reliable safe system, not a PR campaign though. Recently they have unveiled a few new ads that in most people’s opinions are sexist, stupid, and somewhat confusing. The ads consist of posters with either two men or two women talking. A few examples that I have been able to find:

Woman 1: “A Metrobus travels 8,260 miles between breakdowns. Didn’t know that, did you?” Woman 2: “Can we just talk about shoes?”

Man 1: “A Metrobus travels 8,260 miles between breakdowns. Didn’t know that, did you?” Man 2: “Can we just talk about sports?”

Man 1: “When we take Metrobus, do you think we’ll get to ride the new 32-foot Orion model, or the latest Xcelsior model?” Man 2: “Dude, it’s a bus.”

Woman 1: “I love the way the tamping process aligns and elevates the rails for Metro, don’t you?” Woman 2: “I have no idea what you just said.”

Man 1: “So Bobby, did you catch all those new rail fasteners on Metro today?” Man 2: “No Billy, not so much.”

So WMATA, I’d like to speak to you as a woman and as an engineer. First, the last two ads that I have listed, about the tamping process and rail fasteners, I don’t even understand these. I have a vague understanding what these mean, and if I bothered to spend time on the internet researching, I have no doubt I would understand it better. However the average customer is not going to know what this means, and quite frankly, nor should they be expected to know. Furthermore, these posters seem to insinuate that there is something wrong with them because they don’t know. If things work properly in engineering and technology, people never know how things work, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is only when people’s ignorance of how things work can mess up a system, that engineers really care that they are ignorant. [Example, people who pour grease down the drain and not understanding the problems in the wastewater pipes to which this can lead.]

As for the ad where Man 1 asks which type of bus they will be on, Man 1 is clearly a bus geek, and Man 2 clearly is not. I respect Man 1’s geekitude, even though I don’t share it about buses. Man 2 does not respect the geekitude. How are they friends?

Now, let’s address the ad that is causing the most trouble for you WMATA. The one about the average bus breakdown rate. Most women think this is sexist because Woman 2 just wants to talk about shoes. So let me be clear, it IS a sexist ad. However, in your defense, the male version makes Man 2 look shallow also, so I guess that’s a win-win at making both sexes look stupid. I mean I like shoes. Most women like shoes. I like sports, not as much as many men and women, but I can have a conversation about it. Here’s the thing though. Shoes are not my sole interest. I am I nerd, and I would love to talk about the breakdown rate of your buses. That’s what you say you want, to get people to talk about the system’s reliability. So let’s talk about it.

You claim that “a Metrobus travels 8,260 miles between breakdowns.” Is that the mean or the median? What is the standard deviation? Can you give me a plot of the data? Are the data normally distributed? What is the skewness and kurtosis of the data? I would be willing to bet that your bus breakdown data has some really nice skewness. I bet your new buses work rather nicely, and your old buses don’t. Hence, your new buses probably can go much longer than 8,260 miles between breakdowns, but your old buses probably can go much less. Is one or the other skewing the mean and by how much? How does this lovely statistic that you are presenting to us compare with other DC area buses like those of ART, CUE, DASH, etc.? How does it compare with the breakdown statistics of other large metropolitan bus systems like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, etc.? You are presenting a statistic in a vacuum, and it is almost meaningless.

To get past that breakdown statistic, what are your on-time statistics, you know those statistics your customers actually care about? Most WMATA riders really don’t care what kind of bus they are on. They just want a bus runs on time, and actually picks them up at their bus stop, instead of leaving them because either the bus is too full or for reasons the customer never finds out, the bus just doesn’t show or stop. [Yes, this has happened to me several times.]

Speaking as a customer, I don’t want a PR campaign at all. I most definitely don’t want a PR campaign that makes my fellow riders look like fools. I want a system that works. I want a transit authority that actually responds to customer complaints. I want a transit authority that does more than send a automatic form response when I submit a complaint about a driver running a red light. I want to know that things will actually change and improve, and right now WMATA, you just keep failing at that, and this PR campaign does nothing to improve things. In fact, it makes things worse.

Science Education with a Corpse Flower

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During my two weeks of daily visits to the US Botanical Garden (USBG) to see the corpse flower, I talked to many people about the corpse flower at the USBG, on Twitter, on Facebook, and face to face in many other places. My website got record traffic. The news media ran stories about the corpse flower. On July 22, the day it was in peak bloom, there was a mass of people waiting, including me, to get into USBG before it opened at 10 am. My post for that day is titled Corpse Flower: July 22 am because I intended to get a second set of photos that afternoon. However, when I went back that afternoon at 5 pm, there was a line three blocks long of people waiting to get in to see it. I decided I didn’t have time to wait in that line. People were clearly interested in this plant. It was a big thing. I and thousands of other people were watching this plant every day on a live cam. To be clear, while this plant did grow amazingly fast, it was not so fast that you could see it growing if you just stared at it. We were watching a plant sit there, and many of us were obsessed.

Even better than this obsession watching it, was people’s interest in knowing more about it. Everyone wanted to know when it would bloom and why does it smell. Many people also wanted to know where it was from, was it really the largest flower in the world, where is its leaves, and how does it reproduce. Many of the people I talked to were perfect strangers who did not have a science background or would normally be interested in science type topics, but they found this plant interesting. It was a perfect opportunity to educate people about science, nature, and conservation. While I was happy to see how some employees and volunteers at USBG responded to all the interest, I have to admit I was really disappointed at some very squandered opportunities of which USBG on the whole did not take advantage.

Part of my disappointment with USBG is that I am comparing it to what happened when a corpse flower named Lois bloomed at Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) in 2010. HMNS set up a live cam also and also set up a Twitter feed to run on the same webpage as the live cam where any tweets with a designated hashtag would show up, so people could discuss the corpse flower. Like many corpse flowers, Lois was unpredictable and seemed to be taking too long to bloom. So while everyone was waiting for Lois to finally bloom, someone not associated with HMNS, set up a parody Twitter account called @CorpzFlowrLois, and the first tweet was “Maybe I’ll bloom, maybe I won’t.” This pretty much summed up the plant. The tweets from @CorpzFlowrLois kept getting funnier and funnier as Lois was given a diva personality complete with a personal assistant who was constantly late bringing her her cappuccino, an ex-boyfriend back in Sumatra who wanted her back, and the real life HMNS horticulturist whom she thought touched her too often. HMNS had no idea who was behind @CorpzFlowrLois, but they just went with it and linked to the account on their website with a disclaimer because as @CorpzFlowrLois got more and more followers, HMNS got more and more admission-paying visitors to the museum as well as website visitors. HMNS hosted webinars and educated everyone about the corpse flower and the related science.

Thus, it is probably slightly unfair for me to compare USBG to HMNS because partially thanks to @CorpzFlowrLois, Houston and the internet went absolutely nuts over Lois. I saw two different parody Twitter accounts set up for USBG’s corpse flower, but neither of them were as prolific or as funny as @CorpzFlowrLois. Also, for whatever reason, USBG did not embrace social media at all. Even though they knew they were going to get more visitors and interest because of the corpse flower, they didn’t seem to know what to do with it. The fact that they don’t charge admission may have something to do with their response. However, they also didn’t do what I think would be incredibly easy things to help educate people and satisfy their curiosity. They had two small posters set on either side of the corpse flower with some information about and photos of corpse flowers. They passed out pamphlets with some information and also had some information and photos on their website. However the information was somewhat basic and did not answer many of the questions I constantly heard people ask them. They also did not have many photos, and to be blunt, I think my photos were much better. When I talked to people at USBG, I always referred them to my website to see more photos, especially if they wanted to be able to see the progression of it growing as you couldn’t do that on USBG’s website.

People, including myself, were asking them everyday if the corpse flower was still growing or how tall it was. The staff measured the height and width of the corpse flower daily if not more often, so generally the staff member who was near the corpse flower would know the latest information and could answer those questions. While I suppose I should have suggested it, I don’t know why they didn’t just set up a white board or post on the website the growth information so people wouldn’t have to find a staff member to ask. People wanted to know more about the reason for the smell and how the plant reproduced, but the information that USBG had was minimal.

However, my greatest annoyance with USBG was with a few of the staff members. To be clear, most of the ones to which I either talked or listened, were knowledgable and great, if somewhat exhausted from the nonstop questions. However I heard two different staff members not only not take advantage to educate but also just plain use wrong terminology. On one of my daily corpse flower visits, I heard a man tell some people it was the largest flower in the world. I turned around, smiled, and said it is actually the largest unbranched inflorescence. He said well yes, of course, that is actually a spathe, but he finds it best to avoid technical terms around non-technical people. I later realized he was actually a staff member, but he didn’t have his ID badge displayed prominently. He said he was plant educator and if you use technical terms, which evidently includes spathe and spadix, then people get disinterested and confused. I said I found the opposite to be true, if the subject is explained well, then people can not only understand technical terms but want to know more. For example, if you explain that what they are looking at is not actually a flower, then people want to know where the flowers are and why. Further, if you give a person the wrong information like calling the copse flower the largest flower in the world, then how exactly did you educate them?

This is not just my opinion though of people wanting to know the technical terms and full explanation, it is my experience. As I stated, I talked to complete strangers while at USBG. Many times our conversation would start off because someone would state to their friend or just out loud to whomever “I wonder when it is going to bloom” or “why does it smell.” When I could do so without seeming to be a know-it-all or intruding in their conversation, I would engage them in conversation and educate them when I could. If the question was about when it was going to bloom, I would often show them some of my photos on my iPhone and describe the changes. I would always state I am no expert, but here is how it has changed. I would also state what I heard from staff and what I could observe, such as there was one last sheath (green petal like structure) that needed to fall or the staff member said it grew another six inches yesterday, and it needs to stop growing before it will bloom. I had wonderful, sometimes long conversations with people, and I always used proper botanical words when I knew them, showing the people how the structure we were waiting to open was actually a spathe that was protecting the real flowers inside it. Never once did a person get disinterested or tell me they didn’t understand me. They just asked me more and more questions that I tried to answer if I could. Many times while talking with one or two people, I would essentially draw an audience, and 15 minutes later I was surrounded by people all wanting to know more about the plant. I would always be forced to give everyone a disclaimer that I am not a botanist, I am just obsessed with the corpse flower and spend too much time on the internet.

When talking about the copse flower, if you just call it a flower, then you can’t really explain why it smells or other topics people were so interested in knowing. Sometimes when talking to people I would use the word blossom initially instead of spathe. I did that so that I did not incorrectly call it a flower, but once I talked more about it, I could explain how it was really an inflorescence. When talking about the corpse flower to people, I think back to high school chemistry where students are originally taught the Bohr model of the atom. The teachers explain, this model is not correct. but it was a good way to initially describe the atom, and later students will be confused with the quantum model of the atom because no one really understands the quantum model of the atom. As the statistician George E.P. Box stated “essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.” Thus calling the corpse flower a flower is a wrong model, and it can be useful, if and only if, the true structure of it is later described.

I did not write this blog post to bash USBG. I really appreciate how they set up the live cam, had extended hours (although I wish they had extended their hours on the night it actually bloomed), and made their staff available to educate people who came to see this magnificent plant. I just wish they had taken more advantage of the amazing opportunity to educate people who would normally not come to a botanical garden about nature and science. It can be difficult to interest people in nature and science, and when something comes along that grabs people’s interest, you have to take advantage to educate. I took advantage of it to talk to and educate friends and complete strangers about the science of this fascinating plant and how amazing nature is, and it was a wonderful experience that I will never forget.