Cocktail Party Physics

burn, baby, burn

It's only a matter of time before C.S.I. and its various spinoffs warrant their own channel, along with the Law and Order franchise. Until then, one can always catch a few repeat episodes in the evenings on Spike TV, provided one can stomach the lowest-common-denominator commercials. (General theme: men are crude, slovenly pigs, and durned proud of it. Jen-Luc Piquant is offended on behalf of every intelligent, enlightened man of her acquaintance -- and she is acquainted with several.) On the plus side, the channel airs the Vegas-centric original C.S.I., which raises the level quite a bit, so perhaps there's hope yet for the programming folks at Spike TV. Sometimes I like to unwind after my gym workout with an episode or two, particularly if the Spousal Unit isn't home yet. One of my favorites is an episode with an intriguing subplot: a potential case of spontaneous human combustion (SHC).

An elderly woman is found burned almost to ashes in her living room, dressed in what is left of her nightgown, save for her ankles and feet, which remained unburnt -- along with the rest of the room. The investigating CSIs assume there was an ignition source of some kind, most likely a cigarette, but Sarah Sidle finds herself suspecting it might be SHC, in part because she can't quite believe that anything else could reduce the body to that level of ash without burning down the entire building. The human body isn't especially flammable, she reasons, and has high water content. Surely the fire would be doused rather quickly even if the body did manage to catch fire. That's why it takes flames of around 1600 degrees Fahrenheit over two hours or more to cremate human remains. A cigarette tip, in contrast, only burns at around 700 degrees Celsius. With the help of her colleague, Nick Stokes, she performs an experiment with a dead pig in their headquarters parking lot, wrapped in an identical nightgown, with a single lit cigarette placed in the nightgown. The nightgown catches, and begins a slow, steady burn. Hours later, the pig, too, has been reduced to ash, save for its hoof-y extremities.

Sarah bows to the science and abandons her SHC theory, just as Grissom stops by and informs then that the phenomenon is known as the wick effect. (Yes, he'd known all along it wasn't SHC; he just wanted Sarah to do the experiment and see for herself. Science in action!) The old woman's body fat served as a fuel source for the slow burn from the cigarette, with the nightgown serving as the wick. As the body burned, the melting fat seeped into the clothing, and the long chains of hydrocarbons that make up human fat provided the energy to consume the body -- locally, without damaging (much) the surroundings. Eventually the "candle" burns out.

Sarah and Nick's impromptu experiment mimics a 1998 experiment conducted by Dr. John de Haan of the California Criminalistic Institute for the BBC TV science program QED. De Haan took a dead pig, wrapped it in a blanket and placed it in a furnished room, then set fire to the blanket with nothing but a match and a bit of gasoline. (Pig flesh is the closest to human flesh, so pigs are frequently used in these sorts of experiments.)  It took awhile for the pig body to catch fire -- Sarah was correct that the body isn't highly flammable - but once it caught, it burned at a high temperature and low flame, burning for several hours until de Haan extinguished the fire. The flesh and bones in the burned part of the body were reduced to ashes, but there was almost no damage to the rest of the room -- except for a melted TV set. De Haan reported that the heat from the burning body collected at the top of the room, making it hot enough to melt the appliance.

There has never been a definitively proven case of SHC, although -- as with any such mysterious phenomenon -- there are a handful of "true believers" out there, along with the usual skeptics. There have been some odd occurrences which initially seemed to point to SHC. For instance, in 1965, there was a case of an 85-year-old woman who died of a heart attack in her home, landing head-first in the hearth of an open coal fire. Both arms and her left leg were burned to ashes, but her right foot was intact. Internally, there was far less damage, enough for the autopsy to reveal that she had died from a heart attack, not from the burns.

Perhaps the most famous case is that of Helen Conway, an elderly woman, overweight, and an inveterate smoker who burned while sitting in an upholstered chair in her bedroom. The fire chief who responded believed it only took 21 minutes for the body to burn, convinced it was SHC. The wick effect doesn't work that fast, of course, but others have speculated that the woman's body fat may have given rise to a much more intense fire, akin to a grease fire common to commercial kitchens. Apparently, while one of the firemen was searching for the victim's remains in the smoky bedroom, he stuck his hand in "something greasy" that turned out to be the remains. So who knows? The grease fire effect might be plausible.

De Haan himself encountered an interesting case in 1991, when two hikers near Medford, Oregon, found the still-burning body of a "well-nourished" (i.e., overweight) dead woman face down in the leaves. Cause of death was multiple stab wounds; apparently her killer had set fire to the body using barbecue starter fluid, hoping it would destroy the evidence. The woman's pelvis and spine were reduced to ash, as was most of the torso. Police caught the murderer, who confessed and said he'd set the body on fire 13 hours before the hikers discovered it. De Haan reasoned that the combination of "an immobile clothed body with a high fat-to-muscle ratio, accelerant, and artificial ignition" created perfect conditions for the wick effect -- hence the slow burn.

There's plenty of other documented cases of strangely burnt (or partially burnt) bodies, which is why belief in SHC prevails even today. Heck, Charles Dickens attributed the death of a heavy drinking character in Bleak House to SHC, because at the time, it was believed that heavy drinking could cause self-combustion. It was a moral thing, not founded in solid science, but Dickens drew on two actual cases he'd encountered in a collection of stories by Jonas Dupont published in 1763, under the title De Incendis Corporis Humani Spontaneis. The tales include one of a drunken German who supposedly self-ignited after drinking a great deal of brandy.

Alternative theories can sometimes be a bit, um, far-fetched, at least to those well-versed in the sciences. A man named John Heymer wrote a book called The Entrancing Flame in 1996, in which he advanced his hypothesis that SHC victims are loners who fall into a strange kind of trance that triggers a chain reaction of "mitochrondrial explosions" by "freeing hydrogen and oxygen within the body." That hypothesis might make sense if hydrogen and oxygen actually existed in gas form inside a mitochrondrial cell, but they don't -- and a good thing, too, otherwise the very act of inhaling could cause spontaneous ignition.

Even more far-fetched is the take of a man named Larry Arnold, who thinks that occasionally human cells get hit by a mysterious particle -- he calls it a "pyrotron" -- that causes a nuclear chain reaction inside the body. We give Arnold points for creativity and coming with a really cool moniker for his imaginary new particle. A "pyrotron" sounds really cool, much cooler than his alternative hypothesis that too much stress causes folks to burst into flame. Alas, it does not exist. At least Arnold doesn't try to attribute SHC to geomagnetism or kundalini yoga. Seriously. Yoga has many potential health benefits, but I doubt that even if it could (as some practitioners claim) heat the body -- which frankly happens with any kind of exercise (yoga is actually quite intense when practiced correctly) -- it wouldn't cause us to burst into flame.

A slightly more plausible alternative explanation is that clothing in these cases catches fire because of a discharge of a large amount of accumulated static electricity. This is the pet theory of Robin Beach, founder of a scientific detective agency in Brooklyn, New York. (We like the idea of a scientific detective agency, in principle -- talk about a great TV series concept!) One of Beach's early cases involved a young woman working at a factory plagued by as many as eight small fires every day -- caused by the fact that she retained more electric charge than the average person. Walking on carpets during dry winter weather can cause anyone to build up an electrostatic charge as high as 20,000 volts -- usually discharged the minute we touch a doorknob or other metal surface. Beach's take is that certain people retain even higher electrostatic charges and sometimes these cause give rise to small fires.

The problem with applying Beach's theory to SHC is that alleged SHC cases claim the victims are burned from within -- and no electrical discharge has been shown to cause anything remotely like that effect. Also, while the bodies are consumed, the surroundings are not in claimed SHC cases; a fire caused by electrostatic charge would cause damage to surrounding objects. So I'll stick with the Wick Effect for the time being as my preferred rational explanation, even though the jury's still out on some of the stranger cases, where the Wick Effect really doesn't apply. I'm willing to bet scientists will figure it out one day. They won't convince the diehard True Believers, but perhaps the answer will supply an interesting plot line for a TV show of the future.

anatomy of a white board

There's an exciting new addition to the decor chez Piquant: a shiny new white board, which the Spousal Unit picked up one day from Office Depot, after I repeatedly expressed my desire for just such an item to assist me in my calculus studies. He was skeptical at first, but now that we've got the thing set up, the added value it brings is indisputable. In fact, it might be the source of future domestic strife, since the Spousal Unit uses it more than I do at the moment for his own (far more advanced) mathematical scribblings. What will happen when I need equal time?

I learned to appreciate the educational benefits of a white board when I was still living in Washington, DC, and writing my first book. Occasionally I'd venture into the American Center of Physics with various questions about, say, special relativity, or whatever particular topic I was learning about that week. And my APS News editor, Alan Chodos, would patiently sit me down near the white board in his office -- or in the adjacent conference room, when others wanted to listen in -- and run through simple explanations, complete with diagrams and the odd equation. Yes, he knew of my distaste for mathematics, but kept insisting it wasn't "real" math: "It's just algebra." And gosh darn it if he wasn't right: I could follow his explanations just fine, and it really did help to see the equations for time dilation and length contraction firsthand -- concepts that can give the average non-scientist a major headache. Those mini-lessons with Alan are one of the things I miss most about my years in DC, but the Spousal Unit has vowed to make up for the loss by trying to fill that gap. Hence, our spiffy new white board!

Because I'm a big geek, I had to Google "white board" for some background on our new addition. And I was surprised to learn that white boards didn't really come onto the scene until the 1990s, eventually replacing the once-ubiquitous chalkboards. Chalkboards themselves were somewhat revolutionary. The earliest versions were small squares of slate framed with wood so they wouldn't crack, distributed to public school students so they could be marked on with other shards of slate. Paper was too expensive back then, and the students had to practice their sums, and spelling, or what have you. Wikipedia tells me that in the late 18th century, a geography teacher in Scotland came up with the idea of using a larger version of the slate tablet mounted on a wall. Teachers could now write problems or lessons on a single board that all the students could see, rather than on each individual slate. It also meant they could educate larger classes. By 1801, academic military schools like West Point were using full-sized chalkboards for lessons, and the practice soon spread to prairie schools popping up all over the developing US. And if this photo is to be believed, chalkboards also found favor at the fictional Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.

But chalkboards produce a lot of dust, which is problematic for those with allergies. It's also problematic for computers, another revolutionary element that is now an integral part of modern classroom instruction. Enter a British company called Magiboards, which introduced an enamel-on-steel magnetic white board (also called a dry erase board) in the 1990s. Corporations latched onto the concept immediately, and today, most new schools are equipped with white boards rather than chalkboards. The technology (if that's the term for it) has improved since that first prototype, the costs have come down, and so have the number of alternatives to choose from. There's three basic materials for white boards. The cheapest is melamine resin -- I suspect that's what ours is -- but white boards are also made with polyester-coated steel and the more expensive enameled steel, which are supposedly more durable than the cheaper versions.

The bad news is our melamine resin board will turn grayish over time because ink from the special non-permanent markers will seep into the pores of the material. (I seem to recall that the white board in Alan's office has some equations permanently stained into the background; no doubt ours will meet with a similar fate, at which point -- we'll buy a new one!) The pricier, enameled white boards apparently remain white. But all three versions exhibit a little effect called "ghosting": the board is actually cleaner where something has been written because of the alcohol solvents used in the dry markers, so one's equation (or grocery list) is still faintly visible for a bit after erasure. And some delicate souls aren't just allergic to chalk dust, but also to the strong order of the dry markers. (There are now reduced-odor markers for those users.)

It's the nature for a successful product to continue to evolve and improve, and the white board is no exception. Folks soon figured out that a white board could be used as a projecting medium for an overhead or video projector, so a presenter could write directly on the board while speaking. A company called Virtual Ink Corp. in Massachusetts sells the mimio Xi, which saves words and drawings on a white board stroke by stroke into a computer file, so teachers can create a digital movie of a lesson that students can later download and review.

We're in the Age of Power Point, so it's not surprising to find interactive white boards are on the rise: a high-tech version that turns a white board into an interactive, touch-sensitive computer screen, projecting images from, say, a desktop monitor onto the board's surface. Users can control the computer using a special pen, finger, mouse, or other stylus-type device. It's the Internet that makes this feasible for classroom use. An interactive white board connects to a computer via a USB port or a wireless connection, with attendant driver software loaded directly onto the computer. The driver converts contact or position with the interactive surface into mouse clicks or digital ink, either through a touch-sensitive surface or an infrared laser pointer type thing. You can pick a front- or rear-projection system, or even opt for the newer "short-throw projection" systems, which allow the projector to be much closer to the interactive white board surface.

Lots of companies offer this new white board technology, but the number one Google hit is a company based in Calgary, Alberta, called SMART Technologies. They sell the SMART Board, which looks much like a typical ho-hum white board, except it has a touch-sensitive surface that controls the attached computer. A digital projector beams images onto the board, which comes with four electronic "color sticks" instead of the usual dry markers. The idea is to enable teachers to create interactive, multi-page presentations with pictures, texts, and even hyper-links to the Internet, for a truly engaging classroom experience.

So, okay, those high-tech interactive white boards are pretty nifty, but when it comes to built-in entertainment for cocktail parties, nothing beats an old-fashioned white board and magic markers. That was our hypothesis, and we tested it experimentally a few weeks ago when we hosted the first annual Cocktail Party Physics cocktail party one Saturday night. Lots of scientists, science writers, and just plain science-minded folks from the greater metropolitan LA region showed up (plus a few out-of-towners who happened to be passing through La-La Land), and many took advantage of the offer to doodle something about their work on the white board. We like to think of it as improvisational performance art -- about SCIENCE! It ended up looking like this:

I sent this pic to my friend Diandra, a condensed matter physicist, who commented that white boards are a bit like a Rorschach test: "I can tell you hang out with cosmologists. The same white board would look very different if you had condensed matter physicists around." She has a point: white boards reflect the performers who happen to be present. But I think ours is actually fairly diverse, despite the cosmological bias. Certainly there are equations associated with general relativity and a quantum version of Boltzmann's equation, among other things, but if you look closely, you'll also see a diagram of stem cells, a schematic for a prototype space probe, and what I can only assume are astronomy or particle-physics related items. (I have no idea what the recurring spiral drawings are supposed to represent -- I was probably replenishing my cocktail glass during that part of the "performance" -- but they add a unifying element to an otherwise haphazard set of themes.) We're not just about the cosmology here, no sirree!

All of this has convinced me that every self-respecting science-minded home should have a resident white board. (Offices should, too, but I suspect most of them are already thus equipped.) I'm curious as to whether any regular readers of the cocktail party have had cause to examine their white boards after parties or inter-disciplinary gatherings. So I'm asking a general (two-part) question for folks to answer in the comments: What's the most interesting thing you've seen written on a white board? And what can we infer (if anything) about the sorts of things people doodle on the surface?

White boards: they're not just for scientific offices and labs anymore! Buy yours today!

hot capillary action

Most science history buffs are familiar with William Herschel, the famed astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus in the 18th century. His son, John, is less well known, perhaps because his scientific interests ranged more broadly than his father's. He loved the stars, it's true, but he also found wonder much closer to home. Evidence of that can be found in a January 12, 1833, letter printed in Philosophical Magazine, in which John Herschel describes going for an early morning walk (what folks today would consider a hike) several winters before and noticing "a remarkable deposition of ice around the decaying stems of vegetables." A few days later, he found a similar strange ice formation, this one seeming "to emanate in a kind of riband- or frill-shaped wavy excrescence."

Herschel's letter is one of the earliest recorded observations of the phenomenon of "frost flowers" (sometimes called ice flowers or ice ribbons), in which thin layers of ice curl out from long-stemmed plants in the wee morning hours of late autumn or early winter. Those ice layers often form intricate curling patterns, looking for all the world like flower petals. Herschel could only hypothesize about the cause of these formations, but he intuited that they correlated with specific atmospheric conditions and particular kinds of plants, although he couldn't explain why that might be the case, concluding, "It is for botanists to decide."

Well, botanists and physicists, perhaps; the demarcations between scientific disciplines weren't nearly so rigid in Herschel's day. Many others were inspired by Herschel's letter to relate their own discoveries of frost flowers. In 1850, a physician name John LeConte of the University of Georgia described his observed ice flowers thusly: "At a distance they present an appearance resembling locks of cotton-wool, varying from four to five inches in diameter, placed around the roots of plants, and when numerous the effect is striking and beautiful." Thirty years later, the Duke of Argyll described similar ice formations in the January 22 issue of Nature, requesting a scientific explanation, prompted a lively exchange offering various possibilities.

In March 1884, Nature reported that one Professor Schwalbe, at a meeting of the Physical Society in Berlin, had succeeded in producing his own ice flowers from withered and rotten twigs he'd brought with him to the conference from the Harz Mountains. He simply moistened the twig thoroughly so that no water dropped off, then let it cool slowly in what's described rather vaguely as "a cold preparation."

Schwalbe was the only one on record to systematically grow ice ribbons/frost flowers until 1914, when a physicist at the National Bureau of Standards named William Coblentz observed frost flowers while strolling in Washington, DC's Rock Creek Park. (He's actually buried in Rock Creek Cemetery; I once visited his tombstone during a bike ride through the park.) Coblentz was best known for his research on spectroscopy and infrared radiometry; for instance, he made measurements of the infrared radiation emitting from over 100 stars and the planets of Mars, Venus and Jupiter. But like Herschel, Coblentz's curiosity ranged further afield: he held a patent for an early solar cell, and also dabbled in bioluminescence and, um, parapsychology. So it's not surprising that when he observed his first frost flowers, he started experimenting to understand the physical mechanisms behind their formation.

He cut off stems, inserted them in moist soil and test tubes, recorded how quickly water moved up the dry stems, and figured out how to grow ice ribbons in the lab. Among other findings, he conclusively demonstrated that the roots of plants aren't necessary for frost flowers to form, and that the water that makes the ice comes from within the stem, rather than being deposited from moisture in the air. (For those sufficiently intrigued to want more comprehensive details about frost flowers -- including more history and where and when you're most likely to spot them -- James Carter, a professor emeritus of geography and geology at Illinois State University, has an entire Website devoted to the history and science and his own personal sightings of frost flowers and ice ribbons. A Google search will turn up many more sites by nature enthusiasts.)

We know much more today about frost flowers thanks to the efforts of men like Coblentz, although they're still a little mysterious. They tend to happen in early winter, when the ground is not already frozen; basically, the "first freeze." The ground temperature has to be warm enough so that the plants' root systems are still active, and the air temperature has to be cold enough to freeze water. Plants hold water in their stems, and water expands when frozen, so long thin cracks can form along the stem. Water is drawn through those cracks and freezes upon contact with the air. Water continues to flow out, past that first layer, freezing and forming a second layer, and so on, until the telltale thin "frozen petal" shape emerges. Intriguingly, this has only been observed in a few species of plants: the white crownbeard (Verbesina virginica, a.k.a., frostweed), yellow ironweed (Verbesina alterifolia) and Helianthemum canadense. If we're talking about woody plants and tree branches, the seeping water freezes into long strings of ice that look like strands of hair: "frost beard."

That's cool and all, but just what is causing the water to flow through those cracks in the stems? It's kinda flowing upward, you see, which doesn't seem like it should be possible. You'd think gravity would make it flow down. We can thank a little something called capillary action or capillary force for all those pretty floral ice arrangements. The technical definition isn't very illuminating: "the ability of a substance to draw another substance into it." Capillary action "occurs when the adhesive intermolecular forces between the liquid and a substance are stronger than the cohesive intermolecular forces inside the liquid. The effect causes a concave meniscus to form where the substance is touching a vertical surface."

Huh? I find it easier to opt for visualization. Basically, it's the same thing that causes a sponge (a porous material) to soak up liquids from a surface. You can witness capillary action for yourself with a simple vertical glass tube open at either end. Place the lower end in a glass of water, you'll notice that the water rises up to a certain point and then stops. Surface tension basically pulls the liquid column up until the mass of the liquid is large enough so that gravity can overcome the intramolecular forces. You know when a drop of water forms on the spigot of your tap and suspends there until you touch it? Capillary forces hold it there. Plants use this as a transport mechanism for water, nutrients, and so forth, so it's not surprising that this same capillary action also gives rise to the frost flower phenomenon. Similarly, the reason groundwater moves from wet areas of soil to dryer areas is capillary action: the water molecules are attracted to soil particles and naturally seek them out; if a patch of soil gets too wet, the water molecules will move to dryer patches where the dry soil particles are more plentiful.

Capillary action is behind a colorful bit of superstition known as the "Hindu Milk Miracle." Just before dawn on September 21, 1995, a Hindu worshiper at a temple in New Delhi made the traditional offering of milk to a statue of Ganesha. He held up a spoonful of milk from the bowl, and was astonished when the liquid disappeared, seemingly consumed by the statue. Apparently, Ganesha had a milk craving, perhaps to supplement a calcium or Vitamin D deficiency. As abruptly as it started, it stopped: by noon, Ganesha was no longer "drinking" the milk.

When other devout Hindu people heard, they offered milk to their own statues in other temples, all over the world, and lo and behold, many  of those also lapped it up. The World Hindu Council declared it a miracle, and sales of milk in areas with large Hindu communities skyrocketed. (I can see the dairy ads now: a statue of Ganesha with the telltale white mustache and the caption, "Got milk?") Finally, scientists from India's Ministry of Science and Technology came to New Delhi and determined that the "miracle" was actually due to capillary action: the surface tension of the milk pulled the liquid up and out of the spoon before gravity caused it to run down the front of the statue. Not that true believers cared about science: hordes of people still rushed to the temples with their offerings of milk in hopes that the statue would accept their offerings.

There's so much we couldn't do without capillary forces. In chemistry, for example, there's a common technique called thin layer chromatography, in which capillary action is exploited to move a solvent vertically up a plate, usually taking dissolved solutes with it. Bounty paper towels -- the "quicker picker upper" -- also utilize capillary action to absorb liquid; it's porous, like a sponge, and those pores act like small capillaries, much like the tube-like stems of plants, so that fluid on a surface is transferred to the paper towel. Much of my workout gear employ "wicking fabrics," which use capillary action to "wick" sweat away from the skin, thereby avoiding undue chafing during strenuous workouts. More importantly, our eyes wouldn't be able to drain away tear fluid efficiently without capillary action. (Our eyes produce tears constantly via the lacrymal ducts in the inner corner of the eyes.)

Capillary forces are equally important in microfabrication self-assembly, as I learned when perusing a press release last week about a new kind of contact lens with built-in circuitry that's being developed by scientists at the University of Washington. (It was announced at last week's meeting of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' international conference on Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMs). I didn't go, but Jen-Luc Piquant popped over to browse the virtual press room.) It's pretty cutting-edge stuff: the engineers have combined a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights (in the form of red light-emitting diodes), so the user would see whatever the "display" is generating superimposed on the world outside. They've tested prototype lenses on rabbits, who showed no ill effects after 20 minutes of wear.

Why haven't we seen this kind of thing before? Because it's a bitch to fabricate, if you'll pardon my French. Anything that goes inside the body -- or, in this case, on the outer part of the eye -- has to be made with chemically inert materials that won't trigger an attack response by the body's immune system. The lens uses flexible organic materials.

But the circuitry requires microfabrication, which is usually done with inorganic materials and involves scorching temperatures and often toxic chemicals. Self-assembly (and capillary forces) to the rescue! The UW researchers built layers of metal a few nanometers thick, and LEDs that were just one-third of a millimeter across. They end up with a kind of grayish powder that is actually hordes of electrical components. The powder is sprinkled onto a a flexible plastic substrate, and the shape of each component determines where it can attach. Capillary forces pull the components into their positions.

So there you have it. Thanks to all that hot capillary action, no longer will we need cumbersome head-mounted displays or special sunglasses to experience virtual reality, or to surf the Web and download the latest sports scores while pretending to listen to our boring dinner companion. We'll be able to use our "bionic eyes" to zoom in on a distant landscape -- a very attractive feature, given my worsening near-sightedness -- or hold a target in our virtual crosshairs... if we were professional hitmen, that is. The prototype doesn't even correct vision at this point; they're just trying to make sure it's safe and all. But it could be used for vision correction, and plans call for the addition of wireless capability to and from the lens in future prototypes, powered by teensy solar cells (also mounted on the lens). Even with all that added gadgetry, vision won't be obstructed.  Or so they say. Personally, I might find all that extra display imagery distracting.

Basically, reality need never intrude overmuch into our existence again, and any information that can be downloaded, can be accessed anywhere, anytime. Even better, no special surgery would be needed to have a bionic eye; we could just pop it in as easily as a contact lens. I bet the "Six Million Dollar Man" would have appreciated that option. Dude had to go and blow himself up [note much-needed correction] to get that nifty enhancement.

the root of all evil

Blogging can be a somewhat isolated activity. Sure, there's comments and linkages and fostering online conversations and such, but generally I just plug along, cranking out my two or three posts a week on whatever topic captures my whimsy that day. Honestly? Sometimes I forget that I'm not blogging in a void. Today was a nice reminder that I'm part of a large, vibrant community that is changing the face of science, science journalism, science education, and science communication in some very exciting ways. (And of course, it also changed my personal life in some very unexpected ways.)

I'm in snowy North Carolina, having spent the day schmoozing with all my fellow science bloggers at the Second NC Science Blogging Conference. It was tough to choose between all the excellent breakout sessions, but I was on hand for the discussion of science journalism (even though it meant missing my pal Janet Stemwedel's purportedly excellent session on science blogging ethics), and caught the tail end of "Teaching Science." Both discussions were lively, thought-provoking, and as one might expect from a roomful of bloggers, highly opinionated. A few of us got caught up in an animated discussion between sessions that ran far longer than the scheduled break -- always a sign of an excellent conference.

In addition to those I already knew (Tara, Bora!, Janet, Eric Roston...), I met Abel Pharmboy, Martin R. (who definitely traveled the farthest to attend, from Sweden), Evil Monkey (one of my Facebook buddies), James ("Buy a Vowel Already") Hrynyshyn, Tom Levenson (who has a great new blog called Inverse Square; check out this nifty post about John Locke's role as amateur meteorologist in the 17th century), Shelly Batts, Reed Cartwright, and a host of others. Those are just the folks I can recall off the top of my head as I type. Kudos to Anton and Bora! for putting together such a terrific event, and for the Sigma Xi Center for hosting it a second year (not to mention all the sponsors who donated goodies for the "swag bag"). Does anyone else think there should be a site called "Where's Bora!?", featuring photos of him taken wherever he appears in the world? Sort of combination of "Where's Waldo" and "Where in the World is Carmen Santiago?" It would require a very dedicated stalker outfitted with a camera and ultra-zoom lens. Volunteers? (Jen-Luc Piquant would do it, but she's too busy Cyber-stalking Phil Plait.)

There was also a panel discussion on framing science -- yes, the dreaded "F" word! -- featuring Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum of the Intersection and Jennifer Jacquet of Shifting Baselines. That one got very lively. This was the first time I've met my fellow Jennifer, and I really enjoyed her talk. (Jen-Luc urges Ms. Jacquet not to apologize in the future for being young and beautiful: these are fine qualities in a science blogger, and do not mean she isn't an exceptionally smart woman of substance, or doesn't have something valid to add to the discussion. Anyone who says otherwise can take it up with Jen-Luc. And mind you, Jen-Luc is ruthless.) My personal favorite moment was her unveiling of the true villain behind the almost non-existent coverage of science in the mainstream media:

Yeah, that's right: It's Britney, bitch! (Cue the opening strains of Brit's new single "Gimme More.") No, seriously. Jacquet's point, humorously made (I am totally stealing it for future use), was on target: a major announcement on global warming and climate change, at a press conference featuring Al Gore (almost-president, Oscar winner, Peace co-Nobelist), garnered almost zero media coverage because it had the misfortune to occur on the same day Britney lost custody of her kids to ex-hubby, Kevin Federline. This is what we're up against when we talk about bringing science to the attention of the general public. It's not necessarily the fault of reporters and producers, many of whom are just doing their jobs, and no doubt weep in private in frustration at the kinds of stories they're forced to cover. If you must assign fault somewhere, blame the media conglomerate owners, who are far more interested in profits than in substantive content. Britney boosts ratings, and that boosts bottom lines, advertising revenues, and so forth. And blame the public for boosting those ratings, thereby setting in motion a vicious cycle.

In the end, the Blame Game gets us nowhere. None of us condone this state of affairs, but when communicating science, there's definitely a need to balance idealism with pragmatism. The point Chris drove home is that, like it or not, you go about science communication with the media that you have, not some idealized media you would like to have. Our mainstream media is deeply flawed, but it's what we've got, and they're not going to turn into PBS or NPR overnight because they suddenly were hit with a spontaneous case of altruism. That's where framing comes in, although for people like me, packaging science stories in a user-friendly format is kinda what we do for a living (it's fun!). And you know what? I think we can totally make the media's/public's insatiable appetite for news of Brit's sad trainwreck of a life work to our advantage in communicating science. Even Britney doesn't exist in a vacuum.

For starters, one of the discussion participants (I didn't see who) pointed out that Britney wouldn't even have a career to trash were it not for, say, the invention of wireless microphones. There's a science and technology angle for you right there. How does wireless work? What are radio waves? Who invented the first wireless radio technology (a fine way to bring in the Tesla/Marconi debate)? It might even be fun to talk about microphone basics and how these two rather old technologies have been paired together and used in an exciting (and lucrative) new way -- I mean, there was a time when the Pepper's Ghost optical illusion wasn't feasible in the theater because the requisite mirrors blocked the sound waves of the unseen (apart from his reflection on Stage) actor speaking "behind the curtain." As for Brit's pancaked layers of makeup -- chemistry! (Also a certain degree of nanotechnology, since many high-end cosmetics now incorporate nanoparticles.)

For health/medicine: Nobody knows for sure what's ailing Britney, but rumors abound, and a few of them are even plausible. With the appropriate disclaimers, she certainly could serve as a useful jumping off point for a discussion of how to recognize classic bipolar behaviors, what causes it, how it's managed and/or treated, and so forth. There's probably some interesting materials physics involved in her hair extensions and skimpy outfits -- and how the heck does it all stay on during even moderately energetic gyrations? Plus, check out those spiky-heeled boots: there's some simple physics involved in how much pressure those kinds of shoes place on a woman's feet. How about the physics of how she and the other dancers manage not to slip and slide all over the stage? (Maybe they do, but it'd be an interesting side discussion, nonetheless.)

I'm sure there's other science-related aspects we can come up with. Should you doubt the power of celebrity to connect with "the masses," my post employing Paris Hilton to explicate particle-wave duality is easily the most viewed and most-linked item I've ever written. (Maybe it was because the fictional Paris' head exploded in frustration.) This probably smacks of pandering to some people, and certainly I'm not advocating that all science blogs start monitoring the antics of Lindsay Lohan for potential science tie-ins (we can't afford to take away precious time from stalking Bora!; that hypothetical blog won't update itself). It's just one example of ways we can make our science relevant to folks who would otherwise not be paying even passing attention to science.

The mainstream media trend towards integration -- coupling news outlets with relevant Websites, blogs, primary sources and other supplementary materials -- could play right into our hands on this. (Bwa-ha-ha-ha!) Representatives from Discovery News and PBS/Wired Science were on hand at the conference; these are media conglomerates that I think have the right idea about where the news and magazine media is going: a combination of print, TV, radio, original Web copy, and associated blogs, giving audiences access to a vast pool of collected relevant information to even a simple newswire story from AP or Reuters, in lots of different formats. Folks can choose just to skim the headlines, or, if they're intrigued, they can read a little "science behind the..." squib, or access the original data or federal report or scientific paper on which that story reports -- or head off to read the blog of whichever scientist is mentioned in the article. Personally, I'm tired of being spoon-fed my news; I want to see the raw footage or documentation and decide for myself. And I'm tired of being forced to endure endless hysterical stories about Britney and various manufactured political rivalries because without that, a presidential campaign is just so boring -- we might actually have to discuss the issues, and candidate qualifications. Quel horreur! I am not alone in my frustration.

In discussions of those "upstart bloggers," I occasionally hear laments from long-standing journalism professionals that their role as "gatekeepers" of news information is in jeopardy. Yes, it is. The difference in my viewpoint is that I think this might be a good thing in the long run -- painful, because change always hurts until things settle back into equilibrium. But a good thing, nonetheless. Modern journalism is a far cry from what it was in a revered heydey. The world has changed, and journalism has changed, too -- not always for the better (in both cases). People are cynical about media coverage, and rightly so; the enormous popularity of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are ample testament to that. We're sophisticated enough to know when the media is "selling" something (often!), and recognize that almost every outlet (save independent organizations not snapped up by huge conglomerates, i.e., public broadcasting) has some vested interest in sales of one kind or another -- even if they're just selling us sordid details about Ms. Spears. (Did anyone really need two full weeks of Anna Nicole Smith coverage after she died? It was painful enough hearing her described as "our Princess Diana.")

Inevitably, the naysayers bring up what I have dubbed "the Ostrich Effect": the tendency of people to choose only those blogs and online news sources that reflect their pre-existing biases and viewpoints. I certainly know people who get all their information from Fox News, the Drudge Report, 700 Club, Christianity Today, and Focus on the Family (just to name a few). These are the same people who approve of Bill O'Reilly's tendency to cut the microphones of people who disagree with him on his show, because god forbid an opposing viewpoint (or, in Billo's case, an actual established fact) should seep into their consciousness. I also know liberals who won't read anything except The New York Times, The New Yorker, or The Atlantic. (TV news? Don't make them laugh!) But the Ostrich Effect is not unique to blogs and online media. It's always been there. People have always been able to choose which magazines and newspapers to subscribe to, which TV shows to watch, or radio stations to program their car radios. Avoiding the cognitive dissonance that accompanies hearing something contrary to our opinion or beliefs is a fundamental aspect of human nature. Bloggers did not create this problem.

Let me be clear: I do not advocate doing away with our current media, or all vestiges of editorial oversight. Peer review can be a beautiful thing, and as a writer, I benefit tremendously from feedback from friends/colleagues and/or commenters. There will always be a special place for careful, fact-checked reporting and finely nuanced, well-researched features. I hope. And I don't think science writing needs "saving" so much as augmentation.

I've never viewed blogs as a threat to mainstream media. The two feed off each other; for all the contentious antagonism, it's a pretty symbiotic relationship. Among other benefits, science bloggers can hold each other and the science media accountable in ways that are kind of unprecedented in recent history, because now everyone who wants one, has a platform to express their ideas. Sure, it's loud, crowded and occasionally confusing -- and the same freedoms extend to utter crackpots -- but people find ways to sift through the noise to latch onto what they like and/or need. I'd like to see that natural synergism enhanced and developed in the coming years. James H. mentioned during the journalism session that perhaps blogs associated with major media outlets could benefit from a layer of light oversight and quality control. He's right. The trick is giving just enough oversight not to kill the very qualities that people love about blogs in the first place: personal, subjective, highly opinionated, with the opportunity for an interactive free-for-all with readers in the comment threads. Traditional letters to the editor are such a yawn-fest in comparison.

As blogs become more professional, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to be paid a reasonable wage/fee, depending on whether they're full-time staff or freelancers. Media outlets are already doing this: journalism school graduates of the future are definitely going to be doing some blogging in their future positions, in addition to straight reporting or feature writing (which is why, when asked, I advise instructors to start up class blogs for their students, or encourage students to start their own).

I said something along these lines during my wrap-up presentation, and someone in the audience expressed concern that if blogging becomes profitable or (god forbid) lucrative, people would start blogging for the "wrong reasons." I didn't realize there were "right" or "wrong" reasons; the concept strikes me as absurd. Peoples' motivations for blogging are as varied as the individuals themselves. And frankly, the comment smacks of a bizarre elitism, even a high school clique-ishness: "If EVERYONE starts blogging, we won't be as cool and special!" I think that rather misses the point of the source of blogging's power to effect change: giving a voice to everyone who wants one.

There's also the inference that blogging is this pure, noble selfless endeavor that should only be done for pleasure. Um, okay, it can definitely be that, but since when is it antithetical to love what you do and also make a living wage? I say that as an idealist myself, who definitely blogs for free, and for pleasure. The whole point of my talk is that blogging is moving out of the quirky little hobby category and into the professional sphere, and if someone wants to take their blogging to a professional level -- which would mean doubling (at least) the degree of effort, editing, fact-checking, etc. one would normally do with a blog post -- there should be a mechanism in place to ensure they can be adequately compensated. In no way do I think that everyone should be a professional blogger; it will just become another job option. There will always be a place for the idealistic amateur in the blogosphere.

Blogging has come a long way, baby, and I think the future is particularly bright for science blogging. What can I say? I'm an optimist at heart. But science blogging has reached a critical threshold: no longer do we need to "prove" that we can be a useful, valuable supplement to the "news" in any format and a treasure trove of accurate factual information. We can also just use our blogs as our personal, ranting soapbox; as a personal diary; to connect with folks who share our peculiar hobbies or interests; to educate and train our students in the classroom; to have intense, technical discussions with other scientists; etc. The possibilities for future re-invention and innovation are endless. I closed my own talk with a question: What will your blog look like in the future?

We've found our voice, both individually and collectively. Now what are we going to do with our newfound speech?

imagine that

Those of you who have a vested interest in the bipartisan efforts to stage a Science Debate 2008 among the presidential hopefuls might also be interested in perusing the new online "Campaign 2008" elections Website at Physics Today. Launched yesterday afternoon, it's described as "a comprehensive source of information about the positions of the presidential candidates on science, technology, and energy issues," and includes not just official position statements, but also news articles, media interviews and other relevant commentary. The plan is to update it continually throughout the year. As I've said before, it matters not whether you're Democrat, Republican, Independent, Libertarian, or a member of a special interest group like the Standing in the Back of the Room Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party (Blackadder fans will grok the reference). What's important is recognizing that it's vital for our next president to recognize the importance of science in shaping national (and international) policy, and to respect scientific expertise. Consider this most recent statement by Republican hopeful Mike Huckabee currently resounding through the blogosphere:

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabeee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change Gods standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

Fortunately for the country, Michigan voters didn't buy it -- or rather, only about 31% of them did. ("Thirty-one percent? Who are those people?" Jen-Luc Piquant marvels in disbelief.) Here's a radical thought for Mr. Huckabee: why not respect the American tradition of the separation of church and state and leave the Constitution the hell alone? Render under Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's. The Constitution was never intended as a means of legislating morality or a particular religious credo; anyone who claims otherwise is deluded, misinformed, or deliberately prevaricating. And anyone who thinks Huckabee wouldn't bring this same attitude to science -- "I think we should amend the science so it's in line with God's standards as outlined in the Holy Bible, rather than let science describe how the world actually works" -- isn't thinking very clearly on the matter either.

We've had nearly eight long years of abject contempt for science (and scientists) in the White House; we don't need more of the same. Look at all the altered reports attempting to deny the reality of global warming, in the face of a vast scientific consensus on the issue. Still not entirely convinced? How about the recently approved Omnibus spending bill that so decimates the budget for science in general (and physics in particular) that major physics facilities such as SLAC and Fermilab are cutting short operating runs and planning for massive layoffs? (The Quantum Pontiff urges us to take action on that.)

And then there's yesterday's breaking news that Bush, in his wisdom, has decided he knows better than the US judiciary system what course to take on sonar testing by the US Navy (the link is to my own post last week on this topic; James H. at the Island of Doubt has more). Since the courts were consistently ruling in favor of environmental groups, he simply went outside the courts and decided that the Navy doesn't have to comply with federal environmental regulations. "National security" has become his catch-all excuse for trampling all over the rule of law. No more, people! Let's pay attention to what really matters this election, instead of which candidate has the best hair. Or whatever. We're very much in danger of being left behind by the rest of the developed world in terms of cutting-edge science and technology. 

Okay, I'm off my ranting soapbox now. You can come back. Don't be afraid. Here's some good news. Yesterday the Spousal Unit and I attended a "conversation" with Alan Alda -- actor extraordinaire, and longtime friend of science -- hosted by K.C. Cole in the University of Southern California's Bing Auditorium, as part of the "Visions and Voices" series featured by the Annenberg School for Communication. Alda is a genial, highly intelligent man, the more so because he's smart enough to admit when he doesn't know something. Apparently this is self-knowledge hard-won: he told a very entertaining anecdote of an early taping as host for Scientific American Frontiers. He'd done exhaustive preparation in advance to avoid looking foolish, and after the interview (with Carl Sagan), he was feeling pretty chuffed at how well it had gone. Then the director sat down with him over coffee and asked, "So... why are you trying to act smart?" Alda quickly embraced my own personal motto as a science writer: Dare To Be Stupid! That is, don't be afraid to ask dumb, obvious questions. Let the scientists be smart.

There's a more practical reason for this approach, namely, that you get more accessible, more human answers out of scientists when you focus on the most simple, basic questions. It's so easy for someone with that much expertise to assume a level of background knowledge in his/her listeners that simply isn't there, and asking obvious questions is a useful reminder to keep the level simple enough for non-scientists to grasp the concepts. Another problem we're all too familiar with is the tendency of scientists to lapse into "lecture mode" rather than having an actual conversation with their listeners. It's that tendency that inspired this Walt Whitman poem (which Alda read aloud during the event):

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

A product of his era, Whitman clearly bought into the Romantic notion that scientists made the mysteries of Nature all dry and boring by reducing everything to a stultifying quantification. As Alda phrased it, the Romantics "liked daffodils, but they didn't want to know too much about how those daffodils actually worked." Anyone who's spent significant time around scientists, however, knows that their sense of wonder is very much intact: they're just not always effective at communicating the joy and enthusiasm they find in their work. Like his hero Richard Feynman (and also like me, for that matter), Alda knows that "scientific knowledge only adds to the beauty and mystery of nature." It doesn't lessen it. In fact, as K.C. observed, poetry shares some common ground with science in its emphasis on reductionism: distilling a complex situation (or metaphor) down to only what is most essential. (That said, Alda admitted that he'd rather cross a bridge designed and built by a structural engineer than a poet with a gift for metaphor -- although "an engineer who also had a gift for metaphor would build a really interesting bridge.")

But how to bring out the "true voices" of scientists so that they can "show the love" to a broader audience? Alda adopted a truly innovative approach: the day before yesterday's event, he visited  with the engineering students and had them in engage in various improvisational exercises commonly used in drama classes. The results (as described more fully here): their presentations showed a vast improvement in terms of bringing out their passion for their subjects.  Of course, as I mentioned to the Spousal Unit afterwards, while being open about one's enthusiasm is a terrific start, it's not automatically sufficient. I've heard more than one scientist speak who was clearly thrilled about the research in question, yet as far as the non-scientists listening were concerned, might as well have been speaking in tongues.

I especially liked Alda's description of science as a form of "play" -- not in the sense of not taking one's research seriously, but a sort of looseness in one's approach that enables the scientist to think outside the box, outside rigid boundaries, explore avenues that might seem silly or unpromising -- all part of the creative process of imagination that informs both brilliant scientists and brilliant artists, poets, actors, etc. By letting the avenues of inquiry unfold non-linearly (so to speak), you can find yourself discovering unexpected breakthrough insights. Everyone can benefit from a fresh perspective on an intractable problem. That's what writing this blog does for me: it enables me to "play" with scientific ideas, make odd connections, try out new analogies or metaphors or approaches for making science accessible, and also to sift through my own attitudes and opinions on various issues. Some of the posts might seem silly, many are overlong, and more than a little rambling, but it's all part of my process. And hopefully my readers get some benefits, too.

Feynman was the epitome of a physicist with a strong sense of play -- one of the reasons Alda admires him so much, and why Feynman remains one of the most-loved physicists in history. How could you not be just a little charmed by a guy who taught himself safe-cracking and picked the locks of top-security vaults while at Los Alamos in the 1940s, who dabbled in painting, nudism, and playing the bongo drums, and who sometimes worked on equations in strip clubs?

One of Alda's favorite stories is the anecdote of the plate. Feynman went through a period of depression after the successful Trinity Test and the death of his first wife, Arlene -- so much so that it affected his research as a young professor at Cornell. One day, he was in the Cornell cafeteria when a student prankishly tossed a plate in the air -- one decorated with the university's signature red medallion seal on the rim. As the plate went up, Feynman saw it wobble. He saw the red medallion spinning around. The wobble was faster than the spin! Intrigued, Feynman went home and calculated the exact ratio between the two, and found that when the plate is angled very slightly, its wobble will be twice as fast as its spin. He shared this "discovery" with one of his stuffier colleagues who asked what the point of the exercise had been. "It has no importance -- it's just for fun!' Feynman exclaimed. And much like writing the odd blog post or free write unclogs my writer's block, he found himself tackling his bona fide research with renewed enthusiasm and vigor.

We don't need more clones of Feynman, but we certainly need more physicists who openly embrace their sense of play. While I was writing The Physics of the Buffyverse, I benefited greatly from a handful of physicists who weren't too embarrassed to apply their expertise to the occasional silly premise from a TV show about vampires. For instance, I'd ask a pal to crunch some numbers to figure out how hard Angel would hit the pavement after being thrown out the window of an office high rise, or how many kilowatt hours of energy you'd need to create sufficient mass to turn Mayor Wilkins into a giant snake-demon. One materials scientist (and fellow Buffy fan) spent part of his Thanksgiving weekend determining whether the piezoelectric properties of certain varieties of wood might be sufficient to spark-cut a hole in an uber-vampire's breastplate armor, as well as investigating the viscoelastic properties of raw cookie dough with his wife's assistance. Silly? Yes. But also fun. Sometimes it helps to lighten up a little. We're very fortunate to have people like Alda working tirelessly to bridge the communication gap between scientists and the general public.

jen-luc versus the volcano

Things have been a bit subdued at the cocktail party in part because Jen-Luc Piquant is tres desolee at the passing of Sir Edmund Hillary last week. She considers him a fellow adventurer-in-arms, you see, even though he made history by becoming the first to summit Mount Everest, while Jen-Luc has yet to merit a footnote in history for her myriad Cyber-exploits. It's a lot easier to summit a virtual Everest, for starters, so such feats are less impressive. But we also admire Hillary for his characteristic modesty -- he never acted like a "celebrity" -- and for spending 40 years raising funds for the Himalayan Trust, a nonprofit organization to benefit the Sherpas native to Nepal. (It was a Sherpa named Tenzing Norgay who guided Hillary to the Everest Summit. Tenzing succumbed to a lung infection back in 1986.) The Trust has built some 27 schools, 13 village health clinics, even rebuilding bridges, setting up drinking water systems, and providing scholarships to village youth. So the world is suddenly slightly less richer for Hillary's absence.

In defense of her honor as an adventurer, Jen-Luc reminded me that Mauna Kea, a volcano on Hawaii's Big Island, is, in fact, taller than Everest if one follows its base all the way to the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Not that either of us have summited Mauna Kea either. During my brief visit to Kona last month, I did get back on the Queen Kaahumanu Highway and make a day trip to the island's Volcanoes National Park to check out Kilauea, which might not be on the summit of Mauna Kea, but is still pretty close. In Jen-Luc's twisted reality, this constitutes a rugged adventure, when in fact, I pretty much just drove round the crater's rim, stopping periodically at the usual tourist spots: the steam vents, the Jagger Museum, and so forth. Since the only observable lava flow at the moment is only accessible by helicopter, the biggest hardship was the atrocious, highly changeable weather: it was damp and chilly  with occasional burst of rain. 

But it could have been dangerous, yesiree: the park is rife with warning signs about volcanic fumes, unexpected eruptions, cracks in the earth and the heat from lava fields, not to mention admonishments to "Watch for Nenes." (Nenes, crossword puzzle aficionados will tell you, are Hawaii's native species of goose.) Had the weather been better, and had I not had to get back to the airport in Kona to catch my flight home, I  might have opted to hike along the 150 miles of trail; there's a short four-mile trek, or, if one is feeling particularly energetic (and outfitted with the proper gear), it's possible to hike 19.6 miles to the summit of nearby Mauna Loa.

Volcanoes hold a special place in Hawaiian cultural history and mythology, and rightly so: the chain owes its very existence to the many eruptions over millions of years; the islands are basically the accumulation of lava flows. And Hawaii is still growing new islands and expanding old ones, thanks in large part to Kilauea, one of the world's most active volcanoes. Kilauea is also the sacred home of Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire (or volcanoes -- the two seem to go hand in hand). Hawaiian mythology tells of how Pele's father exiled her from her homeland (Tahiti) because she had a nasty temper and was prone to outbreaks of violence; apparently she was a bit of a prima donna, with a fondness for temper tantrums. Jen-Luc likes her already. Anyway, she left Tahiti in a canoe and a sympathetic brother guided her to the Hawaiian islands. But she did something to royally piss off her sister, Na-maka-o-Kaha'i, who followed Pele and flooded out every volcanic home Pele tried to build. (There's several versions of this legend, needless to say , but all amount to a series of pitched battles between warring sisters.) Eventually Pele was torn apart by her sister near Maui and local legend holds that her bones form a small hill called Ka-iwi-o-Pele.

Pele was luckier in death than most: she became a deity, eventually settling in Kilauea. Another pitched battle against the fertility god/rain god Kamapua'a -- the lover's quarrel from hell, arising when the fickle Pele jilted him and he refused to go quietly --  is said to have led to the formation of the Kilauea summit's famed crater Halema'uma'u. It ended in a draw, with Pele keeping the Kona side and Kamapua taking the northeastern side. Pele can't get along with anyone, it seems, and the topology of Hawaii is all the richer for it.

I can't recall visiting any other place where the geology just seemed so dynamic; perhaps the presence of active volcanoes, constantly shifting the topology on much shorter time frames than one normally gets with geologic formations. For instance, about 90% of the surface of Kilauea is lava flows that are less than 1100 years old, and 70% of the surface is less than 600 years old. The most recent new formation in the Hawaiian Islands chain (well, relatively new) is Lo'ihi, a seamount and undersea volcano just off the southeast coast of the Big Island. It's already taller than Mount St. Helen's, even though its top is still 3200 feet below the surface; it last erupted in July 1996, forming several craters, including one called Pele's Pit. (That Pele, she has to have her name on everything.) Scientists are monitoring/studying the nascent volcano via manned submersibles and various recording instruments When Lo'ihi finally breaks through to the surface in, oh, a few tens of thousands of years, scientists will be able to witness the beginnings of life on its rocky surface firsthand.

Right now, the working theory is that a few million years ago, various spores, insects, seeds and spiders found their way to the nascent Hawaiian islands via wind and water currents. Only the hardiest survived. Frankly, I was surprised at how much vegetation seemed to thrive on the Big Island, considering it's entirely lava rock. It just so happens that lava is rich in minerals and nutrients that plants love, so a thin layer of soil can nonetheless support thriving crops of coffee beans, for example. (We stocked up on Kona coffee before heading home, oh yes.) The land proved just as nourishing for an astonishingly diverse range of species: apparently more than 90% of the flora and fauna in Hawaii can't be found any place else on earth. Sadly, many of them are now endangered; Hawaii has more endangered species per square mile than any other place on Earth. There's good news for its human inhabitants, though: the average projected life span of those born in Hawaii in 2000 is 79.8 years, longer than for residents of any other US state.

It's been said that Eskimos have many different words for "snow." Similarly, Hawaiians seem to have a different word for each type of lava. The main types are a'a (a favorite of Scrabble fans everywhere, and pictured below) and pahoehoe. Chemically, they're pretty similar, but pahoehoe is a smoother, ropy appearance, and is hotter and contains more gas, than a'a, which has a rougher surface made of broken lava blocks (clinker), and has a higher viscosity than pahoehoe.

Pahoehoe is also responsible for the creation of lava tubes, like the gigantic Thurston Lava Tube featured in the national park. (I gamely trudged along with the rest of the tourists to walk through the lava tube; it was eerie, and damp, but definitely worth the effort. Yeah, that's me, the intrepid adventurer. Celebrated rebel chef Anthony Bourdain suffered more during the taping of the new season of No Reservations for the Food Network.) Lava tubes form when flowing lava that's still pretty fluid cools on the upper surface and forms a crust, under which the rest of the lava continues to flow as a liquid (the crust serves as an excellent insulator). Over time, this forms a tunnel-like tube structure -- think of a giant sewage pipe, only cleaner, and entirely natural. Once no fresh lava is flowing through, the conduit drains, making it safe for hordes of tourists to traipse through trying to take pictures in the dim light.

But lava comes in other forms as well. For instance, occasionally the many fiery fountains on the volcanoes spew lava into the air where it forms small droplets -- poetically known as "Pele's tears" -- thin sheets of flakes of volcanic glass (limu o Pele), or long thin strands of glassy volcanic filaments ("Pele's hair"). I saw some samples of Pele's hair in the Jagger Museum: they don't look anything like black hardened lava; they're babyfine golden strands bunched together in clumps that really do resemble hair. There's also pillow lava: the type that forms when lava emerges from an underwater volcanic vent, or when it flows into the ocean. You get another crusting effect when this happens, and the crust than cracks, oozing large blobs (pillows) of flowing lava that in turn hardens/forms a crust.

Nor are all eruptions created equal. Most of us think of Hollywood volcanic eruptions, with fiery lava and ash and whatnot spewing from the mouth over a short time period, when in fact, the current Kilauea eruption technically "began" in January 1983, and is still going on, producing the odd bit of lava flow here and there -- in the 1980s, the lava fountains/flows could easily be seen from a car traveling along the highway, so it was known as the drive-by volcano. That's known as a non-explosive effusive eruption, according to Wikipedia. But there are also more short term explosive eruptions, and these are far more dangerous than the a'a and pahoehoe lava flows (which travel slowly enough to allow folks to get out of the way, although lava flows destroyed a couple of towns and a chunk of State Rte 130 in 1990). These explosive eruptions produce volcanic ash, hot gases, and hot dry rock fragments called tephra, rather than lava flows, ejected at very high speeds. It's basically a volcanic avalanche.

They're called pyroclastic flows, they're very hot, and very fast, and they are very, very nasty, usually destroying everything in their path, either from sheer size and force, or by their very hot temperatures, which tend to set any kind of combustible material aflame. People and animals are routinely killed by having the misfortune to be near a pyroelastic flow, often from burns or by inhaling the hot gas and ash. Apparently the stuff solidifies in one's chest after inhalation, so the victim slowly suffocates. If said victim gets really, really, lucky, perhaps s/he will be killed instantly by a large falling rock fragment before this happens. Mount St. Helen's gave rise to several pyroclastic flows during its May 18, 1980 eruption, and almost everyone has heard of the destruction of Pompeii in 79 AD. I always wondered why people didn't have time to get out of the way; clearly, I was thinking of the slower-moving lava flows, when in fact, Pompeii fell victim to a mother of a pyroclastic flow. The 1902 eruption of Mont Pelee in Martinique created a pyroclastic flow that killed almost 30,000 people and wiped out the village of St. Pierre.

Scientists seem to know quite a bit about volcanoes, but the mercurial Pele (to anthropomorphize a little) remains pretty fickle and unpredictable about just when she's going to blow her top. Which is where infrasound comes in. (Technically, I was in Hawaii visiting the University of Hawaii, Manoa's infrasound laboratory, headed up by Milton Garces.) Volcanoes generate lots of infrasonic rumblings, and those signals seem to get stronger just before an eruption -- eg, Japan's Sakurajima volcano generated lots of infrasound signals when it erupted in 1998. In fact, the first infrasound ever recorded occurred in 1883 with the eruption of Krakatoa; barometers around the world recoded wild fluctuations in the atmosphere, much like an earthquake in the air. Comparing the waveforms with the paper records allowed researchers to determine the magnitude of the explosion.

These signals, alas, are faint enough that it's tough to differentiate them from other noise sources. Fortunately, we have computers now, and don't have to make this analysis by hand. But interpreting the signals remains a challenge. Scientists are getting better and better at reading Pele's multitude of moods; hopefully one day soon, we can use infrasonic signals to make better predictions about when a volcano blows.

surfin' safari

Many people might not be aware that Mark Twain (a.k.a. Samuel Clemens), beloved author of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, was an admirer of surfing, or, as he called it in his essay, Roughing It, "surf-bathing." He admired it enough to try his own hand at it, with predictable results:

"I tried surf-bathing once, but made a failure of it. I got the board placed right, and at the right mo