Oh Great, now my lightbulbs are giving me cancer and we are all going to get incurable gonorrhea

Sarcastic thanks, NPR, for putting me on high alert about two disparate but equally distressing issues (in the sense that--knock on wood--neither is likely to affect me much, but they could): UV exposure from compact flourescent light bulbs (CFLs), and antibiotic-resistant Gonorrhea.

Let's take each of these issues in turn.

1. CFLs = Cancer?

A study has just been published in the journal Photochemistry and Photobiology (scintillatingly entitled "The Effects of UV Emission from Compact Fluorescent Light Exposure on Human Dermal Fibroblasts and Keratinocytes In Vitro") that's been taken up by the popular press a bit, mostly because the science translates immediately and obviously into FEAR AND CONCERN (enter: me).  In the study, researchers from SUNY Stony Brook used in vitro skin cells and a variety of CFL bulbs they picked up at the store to demonstrate that many of the CFLs, despite claims of safety, emit the the type of UV light that can lead to skin cancer (or at least skin cell damage). I'll let the researchers themselves describe the study (or go read it yourself in the open-access (!) article):

In this study, we studied the effects of exposure to CFL illumination on healthy human skin tissue cells (fibroblasts and keratinocytes). Cells exposed to CFLs exhibited a decrease in the proliferation rate, a significant increase in the production of reactive oxygen species, and a decrease in their ability to contract collagen. Measurements of UV emissions from these bulbs found significant levels of UVC and UVA (mercury [Hg] emission lines), which appeared to originate from cracks in the phosphor coatings, present in all bulbs studied. The response of the cells to the CFLs was consistent with damage from UV radiation...No effect on cells...was observed when they were exposed to incandescent light of the same intensity. [From the abstract]

Despite claims (not having the UV emission), our measurements of emissions spectra from CFL bulbs, indicated significant levels of UVA and UVC. The amount of emissions varied randomly between different bulbs and different manufacturers. CFL bulbs work primarily through the excitation of Hg vapor that has fluorescence with the characteristic wavelength of 184 and 253 nm (UVC) and 365 nm (UVA;12). The enclosure of the bulbs is coated with different types of phosphors, which absorb the X-ray emissions and fluoresce within the visible range. CFLs consist of tightly coiled small diameter tubes; this introduces larger stresses in the fluorescent coating, and causes cracks or uncoated areas, whose location and number varied greatly. Closer examination of some of these commercially available bulbs showed multiple defects in their coating, thus allowing UV-light emission.

...Taken together, our results confirm that UV radiation emanating from CFL bulbs (randomly selected from different suppliers) as a result of defects or damage in the phosphorus coating is potentially harmful to human skin. [Both paragraphs above from the conclusion, bold emphasis added by me]

You can read more here, in an informative and slightly hilarious article (mostly for its final sentence) from some news outlet on Long Island. Or bask in the probably brain-cancer-causing glow of fox news (GOODBYE, EPIDERMIS!).

On the less dire side, I should probably mention that I heard on the radio that staying several feet away from open CFL bulbs and/or using lamp shades, can pretty much mitigate your UV exposure.

2. And now for something completely different. Gonorrhea...that you can't cure.

Your skin is not the only organ you should be worrying about. Just when I was looking for an excuse to use the following animated GIF, NPR gave me one in the form of this article about antibiotic resistant gonorrhea. Apparently, the CDC has recently issued new guidelines about the treatment of gonorrhea, to try to stall the (probably inevitable) resistance of the disease to all antibiotics we know about.

Yeah, that's right. We are well on our way to having a strain of gonorrhea going around that is resistant to all known antibiotics. They've already seen it in Japan, and in Europe to some extent, and things are not looking very good in the US at the moment. You may or may not know this, but back in the 1970's you could pop a little penicillin and get rid of your gonorrhea, no problem. That is far from true any more.

As NPR reports:

"Gonorrhea used to be susceptible to penicillin, ampicillin, tetracycline and doxycycline — very commonly used drugs," said Jonathan Zenilman, who studies infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins.

But one by one, each of those antibiotics — and almost every new one that has come along since — eventually stopped working. One reason is that the bacterium that causes gonorrhea can mutate quickly to defend itself, Zenilman said.

"If this was a person, this person would be incredibly creative," he said. "The bug has an incredible ability to adapt and just develop new mechanisms of resisting the impact of these drugs."

Another reason is that antibiotics are used way too frequently, giving gonorrhea and many other nasty germs too many chances to learn how to survive.

"A lot of this is occurring not because of treatment for gonorrhea but overuse for other infections, such as urinary tract infections, upper respiratory tract infections and so forth," Zenilman said.

It got to the point recently where doctors had only two antibiotics left that still worked well against gonorrhea — cefixime and ceftriaxone.

But on Thursday, federal health officials announced that one of their worst fears had come true: Evidence had emerged that gonorrhea had started to become resistant to cefixime in the United States.

"We're basically down to one drug, you know, as the most effective treatment for gonorrhea," Bolan said.

Cefixime and ceftriaxone are in the same class of antibiotics. That means it's only a matter of time before ceftriaxon goes, too, she says.

"The big worry is that we potentially could have untreatable gonorrhea in the United States," Bolan said.

That's already happened in other countries. Totally untreatable gonorrhea is popping up in Asia and Europe.

So the CDC declared that doctors should immediately stop using the cefixime.

"We feel we need to a take a critical step to preserve the last remaining drug we know is effective to treat gonorrhea," Bolan said.

About 700,000 Americans get gonorrhea every year. If untreated, gonorrhea can cause serious complications, including infertility and life-threatening ectopic pregnancies.

"I think it should be a real clarion call to every American that we've got a looming public health crisis on our hands and potentially hundreds of thousands of cases of untreatable gonorrhea in this country every year," said William Smith, who heads the National Coalition of STD Directors.

Let this be your PSA for the day: Try to avoid the clap if at all possible, or you may have it FOR LIFE.^*

Ladies aged 19 to 24, or anyone in the middle/southern middle of the country, I'm looking at you.^**

---

^{* I had to Google "nicknames for gonorrhea" to make sure the clap wasn't a nickname for some other STD, and stupidly, I did so on my work computer, so now I'm mildly worried I'm going to get a visit from HR or health services one of these days asking about my recent Googling activity.
**When "researching" antibiotic resistant gonorrhea for this blog post, I came upon the CDC's census of diseases in the US (aka "Summary of Notifiable Diseases") and I find myself morbidly fascinated. I may make a visualization of these data one day when I have some free time.***
*** I started this blog entry in the middle of last week and am only now finishing it. And there's very little writing in the damn thing--mostly cutting and pasting. How do i have so much less free time than I used to have? I'm going to need to quit my job to get back to blogging.}

Pack your things - We're moving to Qatar!

Well, hello blogworld. 117 days since we've seen each other! What's up?  Not much new with me except oh, I went to Ireland, I conferenced in New Orleans, my nephew turned 1, my best friend from high school got married, I finished my dissertation--so please call me Dr. Jessicool from now on (aside: my advisor is short), I've been trying to eat no grains and no sugar with moderate success...shall I go on?

I shall not. I shall simply say that, based on feedback from former blog fans at the wedding I was just at ("What happened to your blog?"; "Your blog reads like it should be the rantings of a crazy person, but....[long pause]...it's kind of not"), I'm going to start blogging again. I thought I'd get back into the swing of things by posting this graph I found months and months ago and never got around to doing anything with.

Thus I present to you: Pack your things - We're moving to Qatar! Where misery is low, and unemployment is lower.

Bonus: They've got soccer and tennis! On top of water!

But...oh, Hamas and no booze.

Backup plan: Switzerland!

The many ways everything is going to pot

Things are heating up on the dissertation front, and I am a big ball of stress. What better way to let out some steam than to direct y'all to a bunch of links covering various areas in which we are doomed?

1. The cost of creativity?
2. Mysterious infectious disease is WIND-BORNE, oh god.
3. Remember the arsenic in our apple juice? Well, add chicken to the list of arsenic-contaminated food items.
4. Sitting is really not good for you. Makes me so sad that my job is to sit in one place all day long.
5. Ever wonder what's in your cosmetics and other personal care products? No? Maybe you should.
6. The government fails me yet again, provides fuel to my desire to move to the prairie and live as a farmer.
7. Fast Food makes you depressed?
8. Turns out cola is bad for you for more reasons than sugar/fake sugar (depending on your preferred level of diet-ness). It's full of cancer, too!
9. Is Google turning evil? Maybe.
10. And now for some good news: Booze is good for problem-solving.

Happy Passover and Easter and whatnot.

If you don't stop with your damn party balloons, science will be RUINED FOREVER.

So says this article sent to me by the ever-vigilant Tiffani.

I did not know this before last week, but we (as a planet) are apparently running out of helium gas. Yes, that's right: We're running out of helium, the second most abundant element in the universe. As I learned while "researching" this story, helium is not very easy to extract and collect (here on Earth), and there are only a few methods of gathering the gas that are economically viable. One would think, then, that helium would be fairly expensive to obtain, but at the moment it is not. It is rather cheap, in fact, and people are using it willy-nilly as a consequence. And wouldn't you know it, all of this is the fault of some meddling by the United States government. For the past ten or so years, the U.S. government has been keeping the price of helium artificially low by selling off its vast helium stockpiles at "fire sale prices."* If it keeps this up, the U.S. is going to have to start importing helium within the next ten to fifteen years.

You might think this isn't a very big deal (isn't helium just used for making balloons float?) but you'd be as misguided as I was before I cursorily looked into the matter. Helium is apparently necessary for sciencey things like MRIs and "probing the structure of matter." It was a surprise to me too, but less than 7% of helium use in the U.S. is for "lifting." The main use of helium in the U.S., in fact, is to cool things down, both for industrial purposes (welding) and non-industrial purposes like "fundamental science" and magnetic resonance imagining.

If we run out of helium, then, we won't be able to have MRIs, and we won't be able to "probe the structure of matter" (we will be able to weld, we'll just have to do it like the Europeans and use argon). One can debate the relative problems the lack of MRIs and basic research would cause, but I think we can all agree it wouldn't be good to lose the ability to see inside our bodies or figure out how the universe works. We'll probably all die as a result.

The Guardian recently reported on the impending helium shortage, explaining the problem as follows:

[Helium gas is] used to cool atoms to around -270C to reduce their vibrations and make them easier to study. ...[It] is now becoming worryingly scarce...[and] research facilities probing the structure of matter, medical scanners and other advanced devices that use the gas may soon have to reduce operations or close because we are frittering away the world's limited supplies of helium on party balloons.

According to the Guardian, scientist Oleg Kirichek is pretty upset about the whole thing. He's the leader of a research team at the Isis neutron beam facility at the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory...and also a giant buzzkill.

"It costs £30,000 a day to operate our neutron beams, but for three days we had no helium to run our experiments on those beams," said Kirichek. "In other words we wasted £90,000 because we couldn't get any helium. Yet we put the stuff into party balloons and let them float off into the upper atmosphere, or we use it to make our voices go squeaky for a laugh. It is very, very stupid. It makes me really angry."

I might dismiss Mr. Kirichek as a dude justifiably angry over not being able to do his fancy science for a few days were it not for the fact that his concerns have been echoed by other scientists, including at least one who won the Nobel prize (Robert Richardson) AND works at Cornell (holla Ithaca) and who therefore has a good deal of credibility (in my eyes, anyway). Richardson, who co-chaired an NRC committee on the helium scarcity problem has been quoted as saying that existing helium supplies are currently being "squandered." The report issued by his committee says that the world might run out of helium in 40 years if it continues to be used as it is today.

How on earth (no pun intended) are we running out of helium? Despite what I one may think (and what the Guardian clearly wishes to imply), it's not all party balloons and funny voice-making. The real culprit is the current price of helium, which has been kept artificially low over the past 10+ years and is thus being used unnecessarily in large quantities for things like welding. The price is low due to a 1996 act of Congress that dictated that a certain amount of surplus U.S. helium must be sold every year, to deplete the federal helium reserves and pay off the debt associated with said reserves with interest. Or something like that. Here's how Science explains the matter.

In 1960, Congress told the now-defunct Bureau of Mines to stockpile helium piped from gas fields in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas in a rock formation called the Bush Dome Reservoir near Amarillo, Texas. By 1973, the dome held 1 billion cubic meters of gas. But the bureau’s helium sales were weaker than expected, and the reserve was losing money. So 13 years ago, Congress told the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which had taken control of the helium, to sell almost all of it by 2015. Congress required BLM to sell the gas for enough money to pay off the reserve’s debt—$1.66 per cubic meter with increases for inflation. At the time, BLM’s price for crude helium was above the market price for refined helium. Since 1995, however, global demand for helium has increased by nearly 70%, and BLM’s current price of $2.29 per cubic meter is below the price from private sources. The 60 million cubic meters pumped from the reserve each year make up half the crude helium brought to market in the United States and a third of the total worldwide. So, the report says, the low price, which BLM sticks to as a matter of policy, drives the market and spurs needless consumption, such as the 15 million cubic meters used annually by welders in the United States. (Europeans use argon.)

...

In 1996, the U.S. Congress decided to sell the1 billion cubic meters of gaseous helium—specifically the heavier isotope, helium-4—that the country had stockpiled. But conditions it imposed on the sales are keeping the price of helium artificially low and encouraging waste of a substance indispensable for numerous scientific and technological applications, says a National Research Council report released last week. “Helium is being sold at fire-sale prices, and low prices are not going to encourage the recycling, conservation, and substitution that might prolong the existing supply,” says Charles Groat, a geologist at the University of Texas, Austin, and co-chair of the committee that wrote the report. Produced in radioactive decay, helium collects in the same rock formations that trap other gases and is primarily a byproduct of the natural gas industry. It is the only element that remains a liquid at absolute zero, making it an unparalleled cooling agent, or “cryogen.” Without helium, the superconducting magnets in MRI machines won’t work and myriad lines of physics research would grind to a halt. Helium is also essential to purge the tanks and lines in rockets that burn liquid hydrogen

The situation is really not good. We're running out of helium! Egad! (If you are interested in this issue, the NRC report is really quite readable (or at least skimmable). Check it out.)

So there you have it. It's probably time to write your congressperson and tell them that if they don't stop with their damn party balloons, science will be RUINED FOREVER. And then you can come over and help me eat these cupcakes; there are too many for just one person.

---

*Obviously I cannot get away without embedding this video:

Not dead, just restin'

Oh, hai. Has it really been over a month since I last blogged?  That's crazypants. Does it mean we're all not gonna die? Heavens no; evidence still abounds that the world is collapsing all around us.  I mean, you need look no further than this disgusting concoction which I had the (dis)pleasure of tasting this weekend:

(Incidentally, those fries were also pretty disgusting, some of the worst things I've eaten in a long long time. I can't believe people eat that sort of stuff regularly.)

Speaking of fast food, there is also this. Never let it be said there is no truth in advertising.

Well, I think i know what my next bedtime reading will be...

I think I'm a little too excited to read the latest Global Risks report from the World Economic Forum.

***

P.S. Isn't this neat?:

Click to enlarge.

Long time no blog

Oh, hai. It's been a while since I blogged, huh? My bad! I've been home moping about this eventuality:

Big huge thank you to Jessie for sending me a link to this.

Okay, so not really...I've just been busy with work and life, and sick to boot.*

To make up for my absence, here are some links to interesting things that aren't at all on topic with the theme of this blog, but which I liked nonetheless:

1. Can someone be swallowed by a whale, alive? (SPOILER ALERT: Nope.)
2. How does Trader Joe's do what it does--whatever that is? Find out here. (SPOILER ALERT: The article does not address the uniformly abhorrent parking lots found connected to every Trader Joe's location. Note to journalists: I think the world is begging for an exposé of the TJ's parking lot planning process.)
3. Believe it or not, but there could be a secret to winning the lottery. (SPOILER ALERT: The dude who discovered this actually told the lottery people about it, so who knows if it'll still work.)
4. Twins, conjoined at the head, might have their minds connected via a thalamic bridge. (SPOILER ALERT: It's a really fascinating article.)

Now, I should probably work on my dissertation, na?

---

*In order, I've been convinced¹ that I have meningitis, tuberculosis, strep throat, and consumption.^2
1 Not really convinced, just mildly worried.
² Probably I have none of those things. But who knows! The doctor sure doesn't; she says what I have is "probably a virus that is going around." To alleviate the symptoms, she prescribed Mucinex³ and cough syrup with codeine for the nighttime,⁴ neither of which are particularly helpful to me in ruling out any of my self-diagnoses.
³ Of course, now I can't stop thinking I have little green men inside my lungs. Also: I haven't actually taken any Mucinex yet, as I'm kind of scared what will happen. The doctor says I should anticipate "expectorating" a lot. That doesn't sound fun!^5
4 This stuff is awesome.
⁵ Also, the Mucinex directions say adults should take "1 or 2 tablets," but provide no means of deciding whether 1 or 2 should be taken. Cue paralyzing indecision!

Friday the 13th Fun Fact: A mouse in Dew turns to Goo!

By now I'm sure you've heard about the mouse-in-the-mountain-dew thing (if not, don't worry, I'll explain), and you're probably wondering to yourself: why haven't I seen anything about it on this here blog? It seems right up Jessica's alley! Well, wonder no more, because here comes my two cents on the issue. Or, more accurately, here comes my probably too long introduction to an amazing court affidavit.

Here's the backstory:

In November of 2008, some guy, let's call him Beezow just for fun (though that is not his real name), bought a can of Mountain Dew from the vending machine at his work. He opened it up expecting a sweet, refreshing, dye-laden sip of flame retardant, but was instead met with--well, was instead allegedly met with--a rodent. This not unsurprisingly did not please Beezow; indeed, the ratty surprise was so displeasing that it (allegedly) caused him "permanent pain and mental anguish" (source), which (allegedly) lead to "medical bills, sustained disability, [and] lost wages" (source). So what did Beezee do? He sued Pepsi, of course.

According to the Madison Record, which first reported on this case, these are the pertinent facts:

"After purchasing said can of Mountain Dew [ed note: On November 10, 2008], [Beezow] opened the can and immediately became violently ill such that he began to vomit."

Immediately, [Beezow] poured the Mountain Dew into a Styrofoam cup. Along with the liquid, a dead mouse plopped out of the can.

Before [Beezow] purchased the can, it was sealed and had not been punctured or tampered with. [Ed note: The can was filled and sealed on August 28, 2008]

After finding the mouse in his soda, [Beezow] called the number on the side of the Mountain Dew can and made a formal complaint, he says.

An adjuster investigating [Beezow's] complaint called him back to ask if [Beezow] could send the mouse to the company as evidence of his claims, according to the complaint. Following the company's request, [Beezow] sent the dead mouse to the company in a mason jar filled with the leftover Mountain Dew from the can. [Ed note: This happened on November 11, 2008]

However, when [Beezow] requested the mouse be returned to him for use as evidence in the civil action and for independent testing, he was denied for a number of months, he says.

When [Beezow] finally did receive the mouse back, it was destroyed, according to the complaint.

So far, so good: A guy finds a mouse in his soda and sues the company that made the soda (Pepsi), and this company supposedly ruins the only evidence proving that he's telling the truth--it has all the makings of a true American fairy tale! It is also where the story gets interesting (to me, at least).

Pepsi apparently sent the mouse to a Utah-based veterinarian who specializes in necropsies (animal autopsies), and asked him to examine the mouse Beezow found in his drink--a mouse that, notably, was intact and identifiable as a rodent, with bones and all. The vet obliged immediately, and wrote up a report detailing his examination of the mouse. Based on this report, Pepsi agreed to go to court with Beezow, because, it turns out, it was impossible for Beezow to have found that specific mouse in his specific can of Dew. Why? Simply because the soda had left the factory (where the mouse would have had to have found its way into the drink) some 74 days before it was opened, and in those 74 days submerged in the Dew, there is no possible way the mouse could have remained intact--it would have turned into a "jelly-like" substance (as oft quoted).*

Crazy, right? Mountain Dew? More like Mountain Doom!

So I was all hyped up on this story--I love a good delusional court case, especially when it involves corrosive beverages--until I started doing more research. Although the media is widely implying otherwise, it isn't Mountain Dew per se that would have dissolved the rodent, but rather the acid in Mountain Dew, a fact that makes the story distinctly less exciting. I thus decided I would not blog about this after all...until I found this--the affidavit of the veterinary expert who testified on Pepsi's behalf, and I knew I had to share.

The affidavit is...awesome. And hilarious. And I have so many questions for the guy who wrote it--I would love to invite him to a dinner party. I highly recommend you read the document (it's short, and if nothing else, it will be an excellent distraction from your more important tasks), but just in case you're too lazy, I really want to excerpt some of my favorite parts. I bolded my most favoritest bits.

On the vet's qualifications to be writing the affidavit:

7. I have dedicated my entire career to veterinary pathology and have performed necropsies (autopsies) on thousands of animals.

8. I have performed at least several hundred necropsies on animals commonly referred to as rodents, such as mice and rats.

9. I have studied and am familiar with the effects an acidic fluid, such as common soda drinks including Mountain Dew, will have on mice and other animals. In particular, I have participated in necropsies of such creatures and have examined microscopically and histologically the tissues from such creatures that had been purposefully placed inside cans containing such fluids.

On his predictions of what will happen to a mouse submerged in an acidic fluid such as Mountain Dew:

10. If a mouse is submerged in a fluid with the acidity of Mountain Dew, the following will occur due to the normal acidity of the fluid:

a. Between four days to at most seven days in the fluid, the mouse will have no calcium in its bones and bony structures.

b. Within four to seven days in the fluid, the mouse's abdominal structure will rupture. Its cranial cavity (head) is also likely to rupture within that time period.

c. By 30 days of exposure to the fluid, all of the mouse's structures will have disintegrated to the point the structures (excepting possibly a portion of the tail) will not be recognizable, and, therefore, the animal itself will not be recognizable. Instead, after 30 days in the fluid, the mouse will have been transformed into a "jelly-like" substance.

On his examination of the mouse from Beezow's soda:

16. On gross examination of the animal, I was unable to open the eyelids. This indicates the animal was a young (at most 2 to 4 weeks old) mouse at the time of its death. (There is an outside possibility the animal was a very young rat.)

17. There was some autolysis and autolytic bacteria found in and around the mouse. This indicates the mouse was dead and exposed to air before entering the fluid.

18. On both gross and microscopic examination, the mouse's bones were present, identifiable, and contained calcium. This establishes that, from a medical and scientific standpoint, the mouse could not have been and was not in the Mountain Dew fluid for more than 7 days (at most) and, therefore, could not have been and was not in the Mountain Dew fluid at the time the can was produced (filled and sealed) on August 28, 2008.

19. After my gross examination of the mouse, I opened the mouse's abdominal cavity. The abdominal cavity had not ruptured, and I observed and was able to identify the internal organs. These findings also establish the mouse had not been in the fluid for more than 7 days at most and most certainly was not in the fluid on and since the date of production, August 28, 2008.

His conclusions:

22. Based upon findings from my examination of the mouse, my educational and professional education, training, and experience, my background with such matters as summarized above, and upon a reasonable degree of scientific, veterinary medical, and veterinary pathological certainty, I have (without limitation) the following opinions:

a. The animal claimed to have been found in the subject can of Mountain Dew was a young mouse at the time of its death, at most 2 to 4 weeks old, though I cannot completely rule out the possibility the animal was a very young rat of approximately the same age.

b. The mouse was dead when it entered the Mountain dew fluid and had been exposed to air after it had died.

c. This mouse had not been born when the can of Mountain Dew was produced (filled and sealed) on August 28, 2008.

d. Because of the condition of the mouse, its internal organs, and cartilaginous and bony structures, namely that none of them had disintegrated or been decalcified, this mouse was not in the Mountain Dew for more than 7 days and could not have been and was not introduced into the can of Mountain Dew when the can was produced (filled and sealed) on August 28, 2008, seventy-four days before it was allegedly found in the can. From a medical, pathological and scientific view, that simply would not have been possible.

And finally, his opinion of Beezow's claim that the mouse was ruined during this examination (this is my most favorite part of all):

25. I disagree with the statements in the above paragraphs...and find them not to be true.

I'm going to start saying that to people. "I disagree with the statements you have made, and find them not to be true." Won't it be fun to argue with me!

In case you're wondering, the pH of the Mountain Dew was 3.43, "within the normal range for Mountain Dew." 3.43 is actually less acidic than a lot of things you might be drinking.

Also: Of course, YouTube has begun posting videos of Mouses in Mountain Dew. I want to get Mythbusters in on that action!

*Insert pun involving "No bones about it!" here.

Year-end ruminations

Oh--hello, blog. I'm feeling a bit melancholy as 2011 wraps up*, and I'm not in much of a blogging mood. Nevertheless, I thought I should do something to mark the end of what was quite a momentous year for me...and the planet. So I thought: How about an old-school Jessicool year in review, but with a new-school doomsday twist? Sounds fun, let's try it out.

January, 2011

In my life: Hot off of a month-long vacation at my childhood home, armed with half of a literature review for my dissertation (!), I decided to get off my fat ass and move a little more. So I did a bunch of hiking, where by "hiking" I mean "walking up mild-to-moderate inclines on dusty hills within or very close to the Los Angeles city limits." The views were mostly smoggy, but it was good to get out.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: On just the second of the year, there was a giant earthquake in Chile. This was followed almost immediately by awful flooding in Australia. Oh yeah - and then there was that rash of mass animal deaths. Apocalypse-believers doubtlessly went crazy.

February, 2011

In my life: February, 2011 saw me cultivating my love for a new (to me) game called Dominion, learned over break from my brother-in-law. This cultivation mostly took the form of me teaching the game to everyone I know and making them play with me whenever possible. I know it looks suspiciously like Magic (see right), but don't let that fool you: It is a sweet game that's not nerdy at all.**

**Lies. Totally nerdy. But also totally sweet.

In less awesome but quite related news, on the way to one of my many February Dominion nights I walked out to my car to discover a GIANT DENT in the rear bumper. Woe is me, it appears somebody ran into my car--hard--and drove away. My crime-scene sleuthing revealed it was a blue vehicle (based on the blue paint found on my bumper), and that it must have been a truck (based on the height of the dent), but that information never lead to the apprehension of the dent maker (surprising, I know). I thought I might get the dent fixed, but my insurance informed me I had a $1000 collision deductible...so I settled for driving a sloppy jalopy.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: I would be remiss if I did not mention that this here blog was begun in February, 2011, to the delight of doomsday prophesiers everywhere. Also to the delight of said prophesiers (but certainly not most other people), there was a giant earthquake in New Zealand, which caused many deaths. And let's not forget that Borders declared bankruptcy in February 2011, a move that proved the beginning of the end for what was, in my opinion, the best of the big-box bookstores.

March, 2011

In my life: In March, 2011, I drove up to the Bay Area to celebrate the 30th birthday of one of my oldest and closest friends. We had a grand old evening celebrating Jessie's entrée into her 30's, an evening so grand that it may or may not have ended up with me waking up on the floor in the middle of the night...and not Jessie's floor, either. But I can neither confirm nor deny that story.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: A simply enormous earthquake hit Japan in March 2011, followed closely by an equally enormous tsunami. Then, to add insult to widespread injury, a Japanese nuclear power plant damaged in the quake was found to be leaking radiation all over the place...radiation even got into the food! Bad, bad news all around.

April, 2011

In my life: April was an exciting month for my whole family, because my sister pushed a baby out her lady hole. It was like, one day I'm just a generic person, and then BAM, next day I'm an aunt! And Lo, was my new nephew ever cute. I met him on FaceTime when he was just hours old!

In we're-all-gonna-die news: April, 2011 saw a "tornado outbreak" in the US, with a record-smashing 753 tornadoes observed, mostly in the southeastern states. 369 people were killed, and thousands more injured. The media debated whether the slew of tornadoes could be linked to global warming. I decided to just go ahead and believe they can be.

May, 2011

In my life: In May, 2011 I got to meet my nephew! He was so excited to see me that he fell asleep right on his face (see below). In May I also went to a conference where I gave five presentations, including one based on my dissertation research (the first public discussion of my results!), but really, meeting my nephew was by far the highlight of the month.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: How could I not mention that in May 2011, the official math-and-bible-proved Judgment Day failed to happen? Or rather, that it might have happened, but if so, it was "invisible"? May was not a good month for the believers in Harold Camping's apocalypse, let's just say that.

June, 2011

In my life: June, 2011 was a month of big changes for me. I "graduated" (read: marched in graduation ceremonies but received no diploma), and I moved clear across the country. My dad and spent a lovely week driving my car back east, and then I spent my last week of no-full-time-job-freedom playing with my nephew and just in general being a layabout. It was glorious...I read a lot of books.

Oh yeah: Also in June, my dad's car guy popped out the dent in my car's bumper--for just $150! I was thrilled. Still am.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: June 2011 saw E. Coli attacking Germany and other European countries, via bean sprouts. Over here in America, "natural" disaster reigned supreme, with disastrous flooding along the Missouri river and humongous forest fires in New Mexico and Arizona.

July, 2011

In my life: July 2011 was once again a month of upheavals for me, as I officially moved (back) to Boston and started my first full-time job since 2005. But in way funner news, after moving back to Beantown I reconnected with my good friend Christine, her husband, and her new and adorable baby, and I spent many a July weekend at their house. During this time, Christine and I jointly discovered a love of jam-making, and we did quite a bit of it, preserving the summer's bounty--much of which we picked ourselves!

I'll just mention in passing (because I really don't want to get into it) that also in July, I discovered that the person I was subletting a room from (for two months only, thank goodness) was batshit crazy, a discovery that meant I spent a lot of time in places that were not my apartment...like the mall, where, lucky for me (but not my wallet), Border's had a several month-long going out of business sale. I purchased more than 20 books at Borders before summer's end. Sadly I did not read the books at quite such a rate, but what can you do.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: July wasn't a good month for the world, all considered. The month started with flooding along the Yellowstone river, and a concurrent and likely related oil spill in said river in Montana (Oh, Exxon, you did it again!). Meanwhile, Texas and other central/southeastern states experienced an extreme drought (29% of the country was affected!). The drought eventually dried up entire lakes in TX, killed 20+ people in the central and southern states, and decimated poultry farms, among many other deleterious effects. Part of the extremeness of the drought was due to the July heat wave that spread from the midwest to the east coast, a heat wave I can personally confirm was no fun at all. Meanwhile, in wet weather news, the first tropical storm of the 2011 season (Arlene) hit Mexico and killed 11 people, Chile got inundated with snow to the tune of four month's worth in four days, and China experienced insane amounts of rain. All in all, I think July proved that the planet's weather is as crazy as my summer 'landlord'!

August, 2011

In my life: The rash of extreme weather collided with my life in late August, 2011, when I buckled down and bravely weathered hurricane Irene, which mostly meant spending the day inside and occasionally peeking outside to determine if anything exciting was happening (it was not).

In August Christine and I also continued our canning frenzy, picking upwards of 50 pounds of tomatoes in one day, and spending the next 8 hours peeling, chopping, stewing, and canning said tomatoes. The best thing we made was ketchup, which was so delicious that I ate all of mine almost immediately. Thankfully, Christine went and made more on her own, and she's been generous enough to share the summer bounty with me, a bit at a time, over the past few months. My taste buds thank her profusely.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: Setting aside the devastation wrecked by Hurricane Irene, August was mostly notable for its demonstration of American stupidity. Amid much hullabaloo (whyy); Kim Kardashian got married in an umpteen-billion dollar wedding ceremony (slight exaggeration); the United States government dicked around so long on the debt ceiling thing that our credit rating got downgraded; bona-fide bonehead Rick Perry announced he thinks he's fit to lead the country (upside: this happened); Jersey Shore season 4 aired on TV and the first episode got a record-breaking 8.8 million viewers (among whom I am included, shamefully)...Gosh. Need I go on?

September, 2011

In my life: I finally moved into an apartment of my own in September, and although I had to live for over a week with pretty much no furniture and very little light, it was glorious to be out of the summer hellhole. Equally momentous, a few days after moving in to my abode I traveled to Chicago (where I somehow got stuck with an enormous rental car that I almost ran into so many things, but that's a story for a different day), to celebrate the marriage of my college friend Bill. The wedding was beautiful, I don't believe I made too much of an ass of myself dancing, and I would have declared the weekend a smashing success if I hadn't maybe-broken my finger in a pre-wedding softball game (slight exaggeration, but the damn thing still hurts).

In we're-all-gonna-die news: September 2011 was the month of the Lysteria-laced cantaloupes, as I have reported previously. By the end of the month, thirteen people were dead and 72 were sick from the bug, and those numbers continued to rise over the course of October.

October, 2011

In my life: In October of 2011, I turned 30 and did not even come close to having the breakdown I thought I would. All in all it was a really nice birthday...and month: I finished the fourth chapter of my dissertation!

In we're-all-gonna-die news: While October saw me celebrating 30 years of life on the planet, it also saw the planet's population hit 7 billion (give or take). The media (and my brain) went crazy thinking about the implications of 7 billion people and counting...and I don't want to spoil the surprise, but they're not good. Oh, and then there was that freak snowstorm in the Northeast that basically cancelled Halloween. There were trees down everywhere...I almost got trapped at some friends' house. Good thing they had a saw we could use to dismember the tree blocking the driveway. Bad thing they didn't have a generator, as they lost power for quite a length of time.

November, 2011

In my life: Two exciting things happened in November, the first of which is that I finally got a couch for my apartment! I'd ordered the couch--my first grown-up non-Craigslist piece of living room furniture--at the beginning of September, but it didn't arrive for months and months (during which time I used lawn chairs as my living room furniture). I was beyond thrilled when the couch showed up; it's comfy, the exact color I wanted, AND it fit in my house (though just barely). Man, I wish I were sitting on it right now (dreamy sigh).

The other (arguably more exciting) thing that happened in November was that my good friend Tiffani got married. I'm going to go ahead and take credit for her happiness, because it was me, after all, who goaded her into joining OkCupid, where she met the man of her dreams on pretty much her first day on the site. Eight months later (or something ridiculous like that), they were married. I was really happy to be there to help them celebrate!

In we're-all-gonna-die news: Gosh, am I only on November? I am getting tired of searching for terrible news from 2011. You can go here for a wrap up of extreme weather in November, 2011, which included a lot of heatwaves and floods (did you see that crap in Italy?) and even a snowstorm in Iran. Oh...and then there was this.

December, 2011

In my life: December just finished, and nothing seems particularly momentous about the month except that my nephew learned how to crawl (aka, make extra trouble for mommy). Oh, and I finally paid off my credit card debt. No more absurd interest rates for me! Hooray!

In we're-all-gonna-die news: December was much more momentous for the world than it was for me: there were forest fires in Patagonia, a deadly tropical storm in the Philippines, a "scary" volcanic eruption in Ecuador, flash floods in Indonesia, a devastating cyclone in India, a big volcanic eruption in Alaska, an earthquake in New Zealand...I think I'll stop now, I'm depressing myself.

Want more doom? This is worth checking out.

Aaaand...that's all, folks. Well, that's all the news that's fit to print, anyway. I've omitted several significant news stories from my life because they concern areas I do not, as a rule, blog about, and I've doubtlessly left out many terrible global news stories. In fact, I'm sure I've left out many pertinent news items, given the non-systematic, non-comprehensive, and just generally shoddy "research" I did for this post. But let's be honest, isn't this entry long enough? It's time to quit.

************

BONUS! More about me:

The year in numbers (Idea stolen from K)

Professionally:

Conferences attended: 4
Papers presented: 5
Papers presented at a single conference: 4 (plus a pre-conference workshop)
Papers published: 1

Dissertation proposals finished: 1
Dissertations finished: 0
Dissertation pages written by end of October, 2011: 310
Dissertation pages written in November & December, 2011: 0

Jobs applied for: 1
Jobs offered: 1
Jobs taken: 1

Personally:

States visited: 16 (California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Massachusetts, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Connecticut (for a knitting convention, no joke), Maine, Illinois)
Car ferries ridden on: 1
National parks visited: 5 (Petrified forest, Arches, Channel Islands, Badlands, Acadia)
National Monuments visited: 1 (Mt Rushmore)
Round trip flights: 5
Road trips to destinations 6 or more hours away: 7
Foreign countries visited: 1 (Canada, twice, once by plane and once by car)

Weddings attended: 2
Engagements of close friends announced: 3
Babies born to close friends & family: 3

Microwaves ruined by marshmallows: 1
Beers brewed: 1
Jams made: 5 (blueberry, raspberry, cherry, plum (aka "cardamom explosion"), cranberry pomegranate)
Pounds of tomatoes picked: ~50
Shoes ruined picking tomatoes: 2
Jars of homemade ketchup made: Not enough
Hurricanes weathered: 1 (Irene)
Trebuchets built: 1

Books read or listened to: 44, 34 fiction and 10 nonfiction (Favorite of all: this one.)
Books read on paper: 10
Books read on Kindle: 18
Books listened to: 16

Knitted items finished: 10 (by far the best)
Knitted items started but not finished: 2
Finished knitted items made for babies: 7
Finished knitted items made for me: 2

Computers ruined by spilled water: 1
Computers purchased with proceeds from insurance policy on computer ruined by spilled water: 1

Times "your mom" came out of my mouth: WAY TOO MANY

Posts made to this here blog: 78

And with that, I shall cease writing. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

*My god, it took me forever to finish this. Finding all those disasters to chronicle was hard work!

On the first third* night of Hanukkah, my doomsday soothsayer gave to me...

Happy Hannukah, everybody! In honor of the yearly festival of lights, I have decided to enlighten you (pun intended! Yuk yuk!) about 8 things you're probably better off not knowing. You can thank me later!

1. Laptops and sperm and DNA fragmentation, oh my!

Hey, wanna know what happens to sperm after it sits in a petri dish under a laptop with an active WiFi connection? Good news: some scientists have just published a study on that very topic! Bad news: the sperm do not fare so well; after 4 hours in a Petri dish under a WiFi-connected laptop, they suffer from decreased motility and increased DNA fragmentation. Better news: The study includes an awesome diagram:

If you don't have access to the article as referenced above, you can go here for a snarky review of it.

2. Hot news (pun intended!) from the American Geophysical Union annual meeting.

Oh dear, the permafrost is melting, and methane is pouring out. This is NOT GOOD.

3. How about a nice relaxing cruise...to your doom?

You know how sometimes you read news stories about people going missing on cruises? Well, I've found a website with everything you ever wanted to know about people disappearing on cruise ships. Spoiler alert: In the past 11 years, something like 172 people have disappeared from the giant boats. That's no Titanic, but still: wow.

Quasi-related.

4. Arsenic in your apple juice?

Oh dear, are we sending our kids the way of Napoleon**? Consumer Reports says maybe!

Yep. In the January 2012 issue, Consumer Reports describes a series of tests measuring arsenic levels in commercially available apple and grape juices. Alarmingly, CR found surprisingly high levels of arsenic in many of the juice brands--levels that push the limits of or exceed federal drinking-water standards.  That much arsenic is really not good for your health...and it's even worse for your children's.

Although the CR piece does not mention Napoleon or his possible arsenic poisoning** (sorry for the false hope on that one), I think it's worth a read--though be warned it's a bit long. If you're too lazy to read the whole article, perhaps you'll like this bulleted summary that Consumer Reports provides:

• Roughly 10 percent of our juice samples, from five brands, had total arsenic levels that exceeded federal drinking-water standards. Most of that arsenic was inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen.
• One in four samples had lead levels higher than the FDA’s bottled-water limit of 5 ppb. As with arsenic, no federal limit exists for lead in juice.
• Apple and grape juice constitute a significant source of dietary exposure to arsenic, according to our analysis of federal health data from 2003 through 2008.
• Children drink a lot of juice. Thirty-five percent of children 5 and younger drink juice in quantities exceeding pediatricians’ recommendations, our poll of parents shows.
• Mounting scientific evidence suggests that chronic exposure to arsenic and lead even at levels below water standards can result in serious health problems.
• Inorganic arsenic has been detected at disturbing levels in other foods, too, which suggests that more must be done to reduce overall dietary exposure.

More about arsenic here!

**Oh. Looks like my 10th grade global studies teacher was wrong about that...bummer.

5. Guys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses: Confirmed by science.

This isn't really end-of-the-world news, but it is somewhat interesting: Some scientists in Austria have demonstrated that wearing glasses makes people appear less attractive--but more intelligent.  Or, to be more accurate, the scientists have determined that wearing any kind of glasses makes you look smarter, but traditional (not rimless) glasses make you less attractive.  Rimless glasses apparently mitigate this effect.  Guess I'll be wearing my contacts more often!

Sadly, I don't have access to the full article, but a nice summary can be found here.

6. Athiests are worse than rapists?

More social science-y news: People apparently mistrust atheists about the same amount that than they mistrust rapists. In fact, according to this recent study, the reason atheists are disliked in general is because people deem them untrustworthy. The article's reasoning supporting this conclusion is a little convoluted and social science-y and will take too long to describe here, but I do want to talk about one piece of the puzzle, specifically study 2 of 6. This study involved using the 'conjunction fallacy' as a roundabout way of getting at people's underlying prejudices, something i'm not entirely sure I'm on board with, though I'm definitely interested in the rather alarming results.

Study 2 of 6 went as follows: 105 undergraduates at the University of British Columbia read the following scenario, and were then asked to characterize the person described therein.

Richard is 31 years old. On his way to work one day, he accidentally backed his car into a parked van. Because pedestrians were watching, he got out of his car. He pretended to write down his insurance information. He then tucked the blank note into the van’s window before getting back into his car and driving away.

Later the same day, Richard found a wallet on the sidewalk. Nobody was looking, so he took all of the money out of the wallet. He then threw the wallet in a trash can.

Specifically, after reading the above description, students were asked which of the following was more likely of Richard, A or B; the Answer Options that were presented varied randomly across students.

Richard is...

	Answer Option 1	Answer Option 2	Answer Option 3	Answer Option 4
A	A teacher	A teacher	A teacher	A teacher
B	A teacher and a Christian	A teacher and a Muslim	A teacher and a Rapist	A teacher and an Athiest

Logically, the answer is (A) every time: It is impossible that any of the (B) options would be more probable than answer (A), which necessarily includes all of the options laid out in (B) (hence the name 'conjunction fallacy'). In any case, check out the proportion of times that students selected B in the different conditions:

What. The. Crap.

I'd write more, but I'm only #6 of 8 in this post and it is getting long. You can find more about this article here, and can read the whole thing here.

7. Cigarettes are the true gateway drug

Remember how in DARE, they told us that marijuana was the gateway drug?  How if we tried it we would doubtlessly devolve into cocaine addicts within the week?  Turns out they were wrong; the true gateway drug is nicotine.  Why?  Well, I don't understand all the science (Check out all the jargon in the article (makes me wish I had continued taking science after 11th grade)), but the gist is that nicotine primes your body to really feel the effects of cocaine.  This lady has a nice summary of how and why that happens.

And finally, the pièce de résistance...

8. Naegleria-laced Neti Nettles Neurons

A nod to Manjula for the tip on the following news story, which is a perfect follow-up to my previous posts on tap water and waterborne brain-eating amoebas:

Brain-Eating Amoeba Fatalities Linked to Common Cold Remedy

Evidently, two people in Louisiana have died after using nasal irrigation devices filled with tap water.  How?  Glad you asked. You see, the water employed in the nasal irrigation procedure was from the tap, and contained our old friend Naegleria fowleri, which if you'll recall is an amoeba that, when introduced to your nose, can swim up to your brain and cause trouble.  In two recent and unfortunate cases down south, this seems to be precisely what has happened.

Setting aside the issue of why on earth anyone would want to pour water up one nostril and out the other, the alarming thing about this news story is that Naelgeria fowleri has now been confirmed to be in tap water...meaning it can and does survive the water treatment process, at least in Louisiana. Fortunately for us all, the CDC says it's unlikely you'll contract brain-eating amoebas from your drinking water if you keep it out of your nasal cavity.  Or, to more funnily quote Raoult Ratard, state epidemiologist for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals:

"Drinking water is good to drink, very safe to drink, but not to push up your nose".

Sage advice for dangerous times.

Never heard of a Neti pot?  Let me let Drew from Toothpaste for Dinner demonstrate how it works:

And, finally, that's it. HAPPY HANUKKAH!

*Meant to post this two days ago, but man, work and life and eating BBQ keeps me too damn busy.

America's mantra

Money, money, money makes the world go 'round*

Is capitalism sustainable in the long term? That's a question I find myself thinking about every now and again, much to the chagrin of several of my friends who have been treated to my half-baked ideas on the issue. Thankfully for you guys, before I could write an ill-informed tirade of my own, I came across some smarty-pants economist's two cents on the issue in the form of an understandable, short, and readable essay. Readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that many of the issues I blog about are seen by the author of this piece to be challenges to the future of capitalism as we know it, essentially because what's good for making money now is often not what's good for quality of life later. I'll let the author explain a little further:

...even the leading capitalist economies have failed to price public goods such as clean air and water effectively. The failure of efforts to conclude a new global climate-change agreement is symptomatic of the paralysis. [Ed. note: RELATED, JEEZ.]
...
It is ironic that modern capitalist societies engage in public campaigns to urge individuals to be more attentive to their health, while fostering an economic ecosystem that seduces many consumers into an extremely unhealthy diet. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control, 34% of Americans are obese. Clearly, conventionally measured economic growth – which implies higher consumption – cannot be an end in itself.
...
...today’s capitalist systems vastly undervalue the welfare of unborn generations. For most of the era since the Industrial Revolution, this has not mattered, as the continuing boon of technological advance has trumped short-sighted policies. By and large, each generation has found itself significantly better off than the last. But, with the world’s population surging above seven billion, and harbingers of resource constraints becoming ever more apparent, there is no guarantee that this trajectory can be maintained.

Anywho, I thought the essay provides some good food for thought. Go read!

*Surprisingly disturbing, yet awesome.