Outraged by TV! Finally!

I am so excited. As a geologist, I rarely get to be professionally outraged by anything on tv. Biologists, forensic scientists, doctors, mathmeticians. But not us lowly geologists. Well...except for that one time where Ross on Friends made a derogatory comment regarding geologists' social skills. But that isn't a "professional" outrage moment, really.

So anyway. House. Last night. Kid has something weird, nobody can figure it out (I KNOW! Can you believe it??). House realizes kid has calcium carbonate in his stool sample, and the medical team thinks it could be from overdoing tummy meds (tums is basically CaCO3). Turns out the kid is eating his sandbox sand. This is only sort of a spoiler.

Wait. What?

Most "beach" sand is made up of tiny grains of quartz, with minor amounts of other minerals that are resistant to weathering. Sand gets to beaches by being eroded via weathering from other places. Some very specialized environments have other kinds of sands -- the black sands in Hawaii are made up of dark minerals from weathering of nearby volcanoes, for example.

The only places where limestone makes up a significant proportion of beach sand are subtropical coastal settings, where the bright white sand is primarily teeny little particles of limestone deposited by algae and forams (erosion of coral reefs by parrot fish also make up a small portion).

I did some googling on play sand, and found that most play sands are primarily quartz based, with very minor proportions (5% or less) of CaCO3, probably to prevent caking in the bag. So....the kid was eating enough sand that the CaCO3 was showing up in his stool, and not being adequately buffered by his digestive acids, but somehow the quartz grains didn't show up in his stool sample?? How is that possible? Quartz is much, much more resistant to chemical weathering (for example, stomach acid, I guess..) than limestone! That's why most sand is quartz! WTF, yo?

Here's the classic picture showing the difference in resistance to weathering, for those of you who want a visual representation. The headstone on the right is limestone, and the headstone on the left is granite (large proportion of minerals resistant to the effects of wind and rain).

How could they not have noticed many many leeetle grains of sand in this kids poo?

I should totally be a geologic consultant for House.

Yes, I'm still here...

Well, we managed to get the Big Thing printed and sent off to the powers that be, so now I can sleep properly once more. That's pretty much all I've been doing lately. Sorry it wasn't more interesting, folks.

Couple interesting things floating around lately, though.

First, there is fossil child, found in Ethiopia, which is the "most complete and important skeleton of an immature Pliocene hominin ever found..." Finding out who our ancestors were and how the lived is pretty darned cool.

Second, there's this interesting tidbit in New Scientist. It's got everything! Evolution in Action! Fly larvae devouring their host alive! Wow!

Thirdly, if any of you folks are interested in following the Floyd Landis story further, go here. News and research roundups, and general commentary on the issue.

Fourth, lots and lots of great articles on TruthDig this week. Sam Harris, Molly Ivins, Gore Vidal, even. Check them out here.

Science stuff!

Ok, first of all, a very rare mid-plate earthquake was felt by Florida residents yesterday. Weird! No damage was reported, but this is the strongest quake in recent times in the Gulf region. Mid-plate quakes are very rare, and result from built up stresses originating far away.

Secondly, the Union of Concerned Scientists is sponsoring a cartoon competition that is worth checking out.

In somewhat related news, the National Geographic journalist held in a Sudanese jail has been released.

Floyd and the damned French

I don't know if any of you have noticed, but I've definitely kept quiet regarding the disgraceful 2006 Tour de France. I personally have a gut feeling that Floyd Landis is relatively innocent (the whole of cycling if fucked up, IMO...). As far I can tell from reading up on this, stuff just doesn't seem to add up. Aparently, his lawyers have dredged up some more inconsistencies. I'm slightly more convinced that Floyd might actually have a case after reading the lawyer's summary. I will say that some of the arguments presented are inadequate, for example:

The only testosterone metabolite that can even be argued as positive under the WADA Positivity Criteria resulted from an unknown laboratory error and is not the result of testosterone usage.

But this:

The one metabolite that has been identified by WADA-accredited laboratories as the best, and longest-term indicator, of exogenous testosterone usage was reported as negative in Landis’ urine samples.

Is a little more alarming.

Worse still:

These errors include markedly inconsistent testosterone and epitestosterone levels from testing on the ‘A’ sample as well as multiple mismatched sample code numbers that do not belong to Landis.

I deal a lot with laboratories and lab results, and I can tell you that screwing up the labeling is a serious No No, really should never even happen. There are (or should be) strict and well-documented regulations in place governing laboratory procedures; these regulations in the US include everything from handling a sample's chain of custody to how, exactly, analyses are carried out. If protocols exist that this lab should have been following, it seems obvious that, innocent or not, Floyd's test results will be disregarded. Mind you, I am not an expert in these matters, I'm just speaking from my experience with environmental laboratories, but I assume that the general principles are relevant...

This is really freaking cool!

Seriously ill heart failure patients expected to live only a month and ineligible for transplant can get an implant of a permanent artificial heart, U.S. health officials ruled on Tuesday.

...

Agency officials said its approval for limited use was a major step forward in a 40-year quest but they hoped the device could be improved to extend survival.

"We see this as an important milestone .... Hopefully down the road it will be better technology and more affordable technology," said Dr. Daniel Schultz, director of the FDA's Center for Device Evaluation and Research.

According to the article, the only other artificial heart on the market keeps you in the hospital attached to a computer. This version, apparently, runs on batteries implanted in the abdomen that charge across the skin -- with no wires.

An artificial heart! How freaking COOL is that?!

Crikey! (I just want to fit in, I guess...)

As you all know, the Crocodile Hunter died in a freak stingray incident. Weird. I mean, I had no real love for the guy, but....weird. Also, he was an enthusiastic conservationist, and that kind of person is OK by me. Still. Weird way to go. You'd have thought it would've been a crocodile or snake, right? Huh. It just goes to show...

The Flaming Lips love me!

Ok, to everyone who decided they couldn't make it to Syracuse to see Sonic Youth and the Flaming Lips, I point and say "ha, ha!"

That was the most fun live show I've been to in a long while. I mean, Tool puts on a great show, don't get me wrong, but they definitely don't see it as their mission to delight me and make me feel warm and fuzzy.

Also, Tool generally has a severe lack of confetti, giant balloons, or dancing people dressed up like aliens, Santa Claus, or random superheroes. We just had the best time. ~sigh~

Ooh, and I got deep-fried oreos after all! Yum!

Our nifty planet

Ok, you guys totally have to check this out! Never mind the stupid alien tie in, what's really impressive is the video and the whole concept of a weird lake of liquid CO2 on the bottom of the ocean, where lil' critters are making a living! You can see the CO2 bubbling out of the sediment in the video! Neat! Also, there are lots of creepy albinoy crab thingys. Check it out!