wshaffer

There's a phrase that I've been hearing a lot lately in corporate contexts that's becoming a bit of a pet peeve of mine. It's "[Insert positive quality here] is in our DNA," as an attempt to convey, "[Positive quality] is part of the essence of who we are." I've been thinking about why it bugs me so much. It reinforces a kind of casual biological determinism that I'm not really fond of in general, but I think the real thing is that the metaphor gets weird if you actually have more than a casual understanding of how DNA works.

The thing about DNA is that it doesn't, by itself, do anything. DNA has to be expressed and translated into RNA or protein in order to have an effect. And a huge amount of our DNA (up to 90% by some estimates) is never translated. Excellence may be in my DNA, but so are the mangled bits of feline retroviruses that generations of my ancestors picked up from their pet cats.

Even bits of DNA that could be translated can have their expression regulated up or down or switched off entirely by environmental factors. And genes rarely work like the simple dominant/recessive Mendelian pairs from your high school biology homework where you had to figure out how many of a given couple's offspring would have blue eyes. You've got traits controlled by dozens of genes, working together in complicated ways. So a trait may be in your DNA, but whether it's in you is the result of a messy process influenced by other things in your DNA, your environment, and your own behavior.

Hmmm...maybe it's actually a better metaphor than I thought.

I've seen The Trouble with Barbie Science linked and discussed in several places lately. To briefly summarize, the article talks about research showing that presenting "glamorous" female scientists to girls as potential role models actually decreases their interest in pursuing science and technology careers.

The article has prompted a lot of interesting discussion about what makes a good role model, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if we're just putting too much emphasis on the idea of role models. How crucial is having a role model to your choice of career?

Trying to analyze where my own interest in science and technology came from is tricky. The most obvious thing that occurs to me is that math and chemistry and computers were fun, but let's presume just for the sake of argument that both boys and girls have the same intrinsic capacities to find science and technology fun.

The next most obvious thing is parental encouragement. Not only did my parents tell me that science, math, and computers were great things to study, but they also gave me very free reign to pursue those interests. (And I'm sure there must have been times when they'd have wished they didn't have a daughter who was constantly on the computer, or collecting samples to stick under the microscope, or soldering bits of wire together in the garage.)

Next up would probably be mentoring - specific people who took notice of my interest in science and technology and provided guidance and support. I owe a lot to my high school science teachers in this regard, and I owe a tremendous amount to C. David Stout at the Scripps Research Institute, for whom I worked as a scientific intern straight out of high school and during summers through my college years. (In some ways, Dave spoiled me - I never found a scientific lab that was as much fun to work in after that.)

Role models were probably next in importance, although the role models who were most important to me were mostly other women that I worked with, not so much women scientists or technologists who were portrayed in the media. (Though, I do remember the distinct pang I felt when I finally realized that no matter what I did, I'd never grow up to be Liz Shaw. I think I was 27 at the time. Childhood dreams die hard.) Many of my role models were also mentors.

I'm sure that if we want lots of girls to go into science and technology, we need to create a culture where it's normal for girls to go into science and technology. And having lots of images of female scientists and technologists helps with that. But I wonder if we focus too much on providing "role model" imagery because it's easier to make a three-minute commercial proclaiming that science is a girl thing than it is to make sure that girls who are interested in science have real tangible support and opportunities.

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear what other people think. I'm generalizing wildly here from my own perception of my own experience, which might not be at all representative. Do you think role models were important to you in choosing your career (be it science-y or not)?

A few links related to some of my favorite things: kissing, food, goth rock, Stonehenge, and acoustics.

Same-sex couple share first kiss at Navy homecoming. I just keep looking at that picture and thinking what a short time ago it was that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," was still in effect. It's nice to have a reminder that progress happens.

Fuck Calories (And Other Dietary Heresies)! Krista Scott-Dixon of Stumptuous has written a short e-book about nutrition and eating. From my quick skimming of it, I suppose I'd describe it as being like Michael Pollan's Food Rules only funnier, more foul-mouthed, and with a bit of a Paleo-diet slant. (I remain skeptical of the "grains are evil!" stance taken by this book, although I'd probably agree that they're overabundant in the typical American diet.) Anyway, the book is free (in exchange for your email address), and certainly an entertaining read.

A very Nephilim Christmas? I thought bandfic was a relatively recent phenomenon, but it turns out that Melody Maker was turning out satiric portrayals of the antics of Fields of the Nephilim back in the late 80's. In this early installment (which I'd love to see someone illustrate in the style of Torchwood Babiez), the young Neffs put on a school nativity play. (Warning, link contains crude and infantile humor, mild blasphemy, and disturbing imagery involving Carl McCoy and mashed potato.) While this is a complete fiction, I'm pretty certain that McCoy's lyrics occasionally inspired conversations like this when the Neffs were in the studio:

NOD: I bring you glad tidings - 'ere, Carl, what are "tidings"?

CARL: Never mind. I fink its something to do with the sea.

PAUL: Wot, you mean like seaweed or something? Behold, Mary, I bring you seaweed!

TONY: Yeah, and while we're at it Carl, wots a "manger"? Or "myrrh?" We ain't got none of that down our end!

OTHERS: Yeah! Tell us, Carl!

CARL: Look, I dunno - I mean, its a mystery, right? In olden days, people just said these fings but nobody asked wot they meant cos they were religious mysteries...

Hearing the Past. This Radio 4 documentary looks at (er, listens to?) researchers who are combining archaeology and acoustics to reconstruct what the past would have sounded like. It's all very cool, but my favorite bit is the discovery that Stonehenge has a resonant frequency of about 47Hz, which most likely would have caused it to emit a deep bass hum under appropriate conditions. You can hear a reconstruction in the documentary. (The presenter, bless him, compares it to listening to Depeche Mode. Another goth rock fan!)

Anyway, I'm off to Florida in a little while, so I'd better get back to the serious business of deciding what to load onto my iPod and Kindle for the trip. Wishing you all very happy holidays!

If you do any amount of reading about weightlifting, you'll find people singing the praises of whey protein, usually consumed in the form of protein shakes, for post-workout recovery, muscle growth, and so on. Initially, I was skeptical. First, because I had a hard time believing that I wasn't already getting more than adequate protein from my diet. Second, because whey protein powder is a by-product of cheese manufacturing, and barely qualifies as a food in my eyes.
( How much protein do we need, anyway? )
( I am my own lab rat )
So, then we come to the second question: does this stuff qualify as food? I went to Whole Foods, and bought one each of every brand of whey protein that they made available in a single-serving sample pack. (Plus a vegan protein for comparison.) Because my source was Whole Foods, all of these powders were sweetened with stevia, which unfortunately I found to have a bit of an unpleasant aftertaste. Basically, none of the whey protein powders are things that I would consume merely for pleasure, but a few qualify as almost tasty. Some are frankly disgusting. This is one area where you should definitely try before you invest in a 5 lb. tub of the stuff.

In case anybody's interested, here are the protein powders I tried with my evaluations of them.
( Whey hey hey )

Just came across an intriguing abstract from the current American Diabetes Association's currently ongoing scientific conference. Basically, researchers took two groups of mice (from a mouse strain genetically predisposed towards diabetes), and fed one group rat chow supplemented with corn oil, and the other group rat chow supplemented with corn oil and aspartame. After 18 months, the group fed aspartame has significantly higher fasting glucose than the controls: 144 mg/dL versus 105 mg/dL. (Just for perspective, that difference is the difference between a diagnosis of diabetes and a diagnosis of prediabetes, although most people with diabetes have much higher fasting blood sugars at time of diagnosis.)

The usual caveats apply: it's mice, not humans, and not a huge group of mice (40 total, and 17 of them died before the study was complete.) However, two additional points seem worthy of note:

• The mice fed aspartame had lower body weights and "more favorable lipid data" (presumably cholesterol and triglycerides) than the control group. Which means that if these mice had been people whose doctors were trying to decide whether to screen them for diabetes, they would have seemed to be at lower risk than the controls.


• The amount of aspartame fed to the mice was 6 mg/kg/day. According to Wikipedia, a can of diet soda contains 180 mg of aspartame. For me to get 6 mg/kg/day would take about 2.5 cans of diet soda a day. Do I drink 2.5 cans of diet soda a day? No, but back in my soda-guzzling days, I did easily. As a person with a genetic predisposition towards diabetes, I am not amused.

I don't actually drink much diet soda these days. It wasn't even a conscious health decision - about the same time I started running, plain water just started to seem more appealing as a way of quenching my thirst. I wouldn't necessarily make a major dietary shift based on just one study, but this study does make me feel good about the shift I've already made.

I've been boggling at this article since I read it, as it's some kind of amazing example of how to wrap a halfway decent point in a bizarre miasma of nostalgic pastoralism and weird ideas about masculinity.

You should really read the article, because it is well-written after a fashion, and also contains a number of striking details, but to summarize: The author has worked as a surgeon in Afghanistan and in Canada, and has observed that lots of people in Canada are fat, while hardly anyone in Afghanistan is. He has also been to Polynesia, and has observed that islanders who have hewed to traditional diet and lifeways are manly paragons of tattooed hotness who can navigate canoes with their balls, while the islanders who have taken to Western things like SPAM and the internets are jiggly and have high rates of diabetes. This is all the fault of urbanization making us unmanly.

So, okay, I basically agree with the premise that the Standard Western Diet is really bad for a lot of people. I'm certainly happier and healthier now that I eat differently. I would like to note that this did not require my learning to go out and kill my own dinner. Nor did it require reclaiming my lost manliness, which is good, because, being a woman, I haven't got much.

Oh, yeah, women. Our author does pause to note that diabetes often makes women infertile, but doesn't really seem to be interested in women beyond their reproductive capacity. He certainly never stops to ask whether the pre-urban lives he is idealizing were particularly fulfilling for women, who presumably were doing things like cooking, raising kids, and hauling water, rather than going out and hunting caribou or making long ocean voyages.

No, what really gets me about this article, besides the literally visceral horror of fat, is the sense that the author is really lacking a sense of proportion. It's like he's all, "Guys! Lay off the Cheetos! Or the world will suffer an epidemic lack of tattooed hotness! Oh, yeah, and kidney failure." (Never mind that I don't think I'd have to go very far in my social circle to locate a type 2 diabetic who is possessed of tattoed hotness.)

Or, I dunno, maybe that angle just stands out to me because I've read about a million articles about how the Western lifestyle is going to kill us, but this is the first article I've read about how it is depriving men of important manly capacities like being able to steer a canoe with your nuts.

KQED's Forum had a good segment on the rise in diagnoses of diabetes this morning - I caught some of it as I was driving to work this morning. (I think there will eventually be audio available at that link, but it's not there now.)

The show generally did a good job of covering a complicated and contentious topic. But I winced a bit when they opened the lines for calls, because there was a particular subject that I just knew was going to come up. And it did: multiple calls from people who have, or whose children have, type I diabetes, pleading with the presenters to carefully distinguish between type I and type II diabetes, because they're tired of people assuming that they (or their children) are fat, or lazy, or ate too much sugar.

Now, I genuinely have all the sympathy in the world for type I diabetics, who have a crummy condition that isn't their fault.

But I can't help but wonder why it never seems to occur to anyone that rather than asking the general public to learn to distinguish between a biochemical breakdown in which the body stops producing insulin and a biochemical breakdown in which the body fails to efficiently use insulin, we could just stop being nasty and judgmental towards people about their biochemical breakdowns. Which would help people with type I diabetes, and type II diabetes, and mental illness, and all sorts of conditions, and no one would have to learn any endocrinology. Sounds like win/win to me.