The Lighter Side of Science

Rats Avatars: A New Twist On Virtual Reality

Posted on by Kelly Grooms

Imagine playing a simple game in a virtual-reality setting. You move an avatar around a room trying to entice your opponent’s avatar to move closer to you when you are in certain spot. Meanwhile, 12 km away, cameras track your opponent’s movements around an arena that also contains a robotic representation of you. The cameras are telling your opponent’s avatar where to move in your virtual reality setting based on where they move in their actual setting.

Your goal is to score the most points by moving the virtual you into proximity with your opponent’s avatar while you are both at a certain location within the virtual room. If you succeed, you score a point. If you and your opponent get too close anywhere else in the room, your opponent scores a point. Your opponent, however, is not terribly interested in points; your opponent wants to get close to the robotic you because it has snacks. Your opponent is a rat, Continue reading “Rats Avatars: A New Twist On Virtual Reality”

Having Fun at Work

Posted on by Promega

Last week we had a celebration honoring employees who have reached milestone 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and even 30 years here at Promega. As part of the festivities we made a fun “Lip Dub” video that involved many of our coworkers based here in Madison and around the world. We’d like to share the video here. Enjoy!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7dgsThYVyU&w=560&h=315]

How to Make Plastic Out of Milk

Posted on by Sara Klink

As the daughter of a (former) dairy farmer, I love milk and all its derived dairy products (e.g., cheese and butter). However, it wasn’t until my colleague Michele highlighted a kid science app that I realized milk is a great science medium as well. In fact, I recently discovered mixing vinegar with milk will create moldable plastic. Not only is this milk-derived product fun for kids and adults, but it also offers a history lesson: the resulting substance was used before petroleum-based plastic was available. Watch the video to learn about a fun kitchen experiment and potential handmade gift opportunity all in one package.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFvik_THcNQ]

It’s the crunchy bits I like the best

Posted on by admin

I was supremely lucky this past fall to get six delicious fresh figs. It’s a rare treat for me since figs have such a short season and an even shorter shelf life. This year, I nearly had to leg wrestle my way to the bin at the store to score some of these fresh beauties. I had commented to another patron at the store that I couldn’t wait to get these little fellas home, stuff them with some goat cheese, wrap them in a bit of bacon, give them a quick balsamic and honey glaze, and pop them into the oven. Now, tender, sweet figs stuffed with rich, herbed goat cheese and wrapped with what is, quite possibly, the world’s most perfect meat makes me weak in the knees. The bacon, of course, is sublime, but the sweetness of the figs with the delicate crunch of those seeds really sells it.

My fellow shopper replied with “Well, good for you. I couldn’t possibly eat any of that. I’m vegan.”  Fair enough. In a past life, I worked as a personal chef and did a tremendous amount of work with vegetarians and vegans alike. Although I may never personally understand a life without cheese, I can respect it and I can certainly cook in that fashion.

One portion of that exchange, however, didn’t quite seem right. I actually followed Mr. Vegan (I didn’t ask his name) into the next aisle and asked for some clarification. “I’m sorry,” I continued, “but what did you mean by you couldn’t eat any of it? Cheese and bacon are out, but who could ever turn down a looker like this?” I asked, tapping my fresh figs ever so gently.

He just smiled and told me to look it up. Harrumph. Continue reading “It’s the crunchy bits I like the best”

For the Love of Squash

Posted on by Becca McKnight

The weather is getting colder, and the leaves are changing color; fall is upon us. It’s time to pull out your sweaters and scarves and cozy up under a blanket. It’s time to pick apples, carve pumpkins and eat one of my favorite comfort foods—winter squash.

Here at Promega our culinary team tends a garden onsite, filling our menus and plates with amazingly fresh and local produce. Our constantly changing breakfast and lunch menus are just as good of an indicator of the season as the calendar. This time of year dishes with tomatoes, beans and eggplant are disappearing and are being replaced winter squash, potatoes and root veggie dishes. Winter Squash Soup is starting to show up on the menu and Nate Herndon, our head chef, has been kind enough to share one of his favorite recipes with us. Continue reading “For the Love of Squash”

Happy Birthday to You: Are Your Hands Clean?

Posted on by Kelly Grooms

My daughter has been actively planning her birthday for about three weeks now (and she still has almost two months to wait). At the top of her wish list this year? Hand sanitizer. As my kids headed back to school this week, I noticed that one of the most popular pieces of backpack “bling” among her little friends was little bottles of: you guessed it, hand sanitizer. In bright colored silicone covers, with yummy sounding scents, little bottles of hand sanitizer bounced along on the backpacks of a lot of the youngsters walking into the school.

The first thought that might come into your head is “Wow. Those kids are going to be so healthy. All those nasty germs might as well look elsewhere for victims.” And you would be at least partially right. Proper hand hygiene can decrease the transmission of cold viruses as well as other germs, and hand sanitizer can play a part in good hand hygiene when it is used properly and in the right quantity.

What hand sanitizer can not do is take the place of washing hands. It does not, for instance, remove dirt or other contaminants. (Although it can help smear the dirt around so that it forms a more evenly dispersed layer, prompting your child to claim their hands have been cleaned). Hand sanitizers also will not effectively eliminate nonenveloped viruses such as the norovirus. These are the nasty little things that are responsible for the majority of acute gastrointestinal illnesses. (1,2,3). In fact, using hand sanitizers may actually increase the spread of these viruses if it results in a decrease of hand washing with soap and water.

Hand sanitizers that are most effective contain ethyl alcohol (62% to 95% concentration), benzalkonium chloride, salicylic acid, pyroglutamic acid, and triclosan. These ingredients, while making the sanitizers effective against some germs, also dry out the skin and destroy some to the naturally existing fauna on the skin, which gives other germs a chance to take hold. An example is Clostridium difficile. This gram-positive, spore-forming bacteria can cause severe intestinal upset and diarrhea when competing bacteria in the digestive track have been wiped out by antibiotics. A 2010 study found that some people who were over reliant on sanitizers had C. difficile spores colonizing on their hands (4).

C. difficile infections are probably not a big risk for the average school-age child, but the example highlights the fact that hand sanitizers are not the silver bullet of hand hygiene that they are sometimes portrayed to be. The center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. lists the following guidelines for hand washing:

  • Wet your hands with clean running water (warm or cold) and apply soap.
  • Rub your hands together to make a lather and scrub them well; be sure to scrub the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails.
  • Continue rubbing your hands for at least 20 seconds. Need a timer? Hum the “Happy Birthday” song from beginning to end twice.
  • Rinse your hands well under running water.
  • Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry.

Washing hands with soap and water is the best way to reduce the number of germs on them. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol. Alcohol-based hand sanitizers can quickly reduce the number of germs on hands in some situations, but sanitizers do not eliminate all types of germs. (5).

My daughter’s birthday is still two months away, but I am going to suggest to her that she start practicing for it now. I am going to suggest she sing “Happy Birthday” to herself twice while washing her hands, and leave the hand sanitizer on her backpack for those times when soap and water are not available.

References

  1. Liu P, Yuen Y, Hsiao HM, Jaykus LA, Moe C. (2010) Appl Environ Microbiol. 76, :394–9.
  2. Hand sanitizers may actually cause outbreaks of norovirus. Medical New Today website. ww.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232708.php. Accessed August 29, 2012.
  3. Hall AJ, Vinjé J, Lopman B, et al. Updated norovirus outbreak management and disease prevention guidelines. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr6003a1.htm. Accessed August 29, 2012.
  4. Jabbar, U., Leischner, J., Kasper, D., et al. (2010) Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 31, 56–70.
  5. CDC website http://www.cdc.gov/features/handwashing/ Accessed August 29, 2012.

Nanotechnology Goes Green

Posted on by admin

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a renewable, inexpensive replacement for metals, non-organic plastics, and electrical components?  Less mining, less petrochemicals, less environmental stress— it’s not a far fetched, pie-in-the-sky idea anymore.  And the source for a super-substitute material is right in your back yard.

Nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), a product of wood pulp, have been touted as a “wonder material” whose tensile strength—214 megapascals—is eight times that of stainless steel, almost twice as strong as cast iron, and nearly equal the strength of structural steel.  NCC is produced by gently removing hemicellulose and lignin from the wood which, incidentally, can be scrap wood such as twigs and sawdust.  The purified wood is milled and hydrolyzed to remove impurities.  What’s left is cellulose fibers suspended in water.  When the water is removed, the resulting paste of fibers that can be molded or spread into sheets and freeze dried.  As they dry, the approximately 200 nanometer long fibers join together by hydrogen bonds and create a super strong material that has also is very conductive.  These properties make NCC very attractive to the electronics and computing industries as well as defense.  The United States army is using NCC to make lightweight body armor and has tested it in applications such as ballistics.

Given the abundance of starting material and the incredibly physical properties of NCC, the interest in further developing the manufacturing base is huge.  On July 26th, the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory opened a $1.7 million dollar nanocrystalline cellulose production facility right here in Madison, Wisconsin.  The intent of the facility is ramp up production quickly and, hopefully in a few years, be able to sell NCC for a few dollars a kilogram.

Music and the Brain: A Fun Friday Find

Posted on by Michele Arduengo

Notes and Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus is a great discussion from World Science Fair 2009. Have you ever been driving along listening to the radio and suddenly a song plays and transports you to a different time or place? Have you ever wondered at the way music stirs your memories and emotion? Or have you ever stopped to think about how music, in its admittedly different forms, has been an integral part human of culture for as far back as we can study? Does music speak a particular primordial language that we all understand?

In this presentation Bobby McFerrin and three neuroscientists discuss the way the brain gets involved in music–the listening, physicality, participation and emotion. Essentially, music is a “whole nervous system activity”, involving many parts of the central nervous system that function nearly simultaneously. At one point in the talk pitch, tambre and rhythm defined and demonstrated. The researchers point out that certain intervals in music such as the minor third are prevalent in speech associated with negative emotions, but that no positive emotions are associated universally with a particular pitch.

The link to the full length presentation is here:Notes and Neurons.

But for fun today, get your whole brain involved and join Bobby McFerrin in this demonstration of the universality of the pentatonic scale.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk&w=560&h=315]

Up, Up, and Away…..

Posted on by admin

Who doesn’t love a good party? One thing that surely signals a party is that telltale cluster of balloons, tugging cheerfully from the mailbox at the end of the driveway, almost chanting “Party over here!”. Think twice, however, before making that next helium balloon purchase.

Helium, that lighter than air element which is responsible for giving helium balloons their gravity-defying loft, is the second most common element in the universe, is non-reactive, and turns into a liquid at very cold temperatures without freezing solid. All of these properties have made helium a useful tool in medicine, space exploration, electronics, and manufacturing. The supplies of helium are dwindling and experts estimate that reserves of this  natural resource could be gone within the next 25-50 years or so. There are ways to reclaim helium from the atmosphere, but they are very expensive and will certainly drive up the cost of products and services that require helium, such as MRIs and LCD televisions.

It may seem like a small contribution, but choosing air filled balloons for your next festivity can help.  Try air inflated balloons hung or draped from the ceiling or arranged as centerpieces. Or skip those balloons all together and spend your money on something your guests will really appreciate…like a bigger cake!