Philosophers and religious leaders have been arguing about this for millennia, but neither philosophical schema nor church scripture offered a definitive answer. Over time, scientists and physicians joined the debate. They applied the methods of science, developing techniques for examining and measuring fetal development with ever greater precision. But still, pinning down a specific point at which the fetus transforms itself from a collection of cells into an actual human being continued to elude them. Perhaps it’s time to turn the question around. Maybe the best way to find a definition of when life begins is to ask, “When does life end?”

At one time, death was pronounced when someone’s heart stopped beating, but as medicine advanced, and we learned to resuscitate hearts, the need for a new definition became apparent.  Nowadays, someone is declared legally dead, not when the heart stops but when his or her brain stops functioning.  That cessation of brain function has 3 primary components:

A)    The patient has an electroencephalograph (EEG) showing that there isn’t any brain activity, what’s commonly referred to as a flat line EEG

B)     The patient is unable to respond to stimuli like bright lights, loud noises or pain

C)      The patient is incapable of voluntary movement

If all three of those criteria are met doctors may legally declare the person dead.

The problem is that cells and tissues continue to live long after the brain has stopped functioning.  If they didn’t, organ transplants would be impossible.  The reason they’re possible is that organs such as the heart and kidneys, among others, continue to live, and if placed in a new body, have the potential to keep living.  Is it immoral to remove these tissues from a dead body and use them to save a life?

Most people would argue it isn’t. Even though the organs of the deceased are alive, even though each of the cells of the formerly living contain human DNA, we are willing to say that removing a kidney or a heart isn’t murder. We recognize that there is a difference between a patient and a cadaver. For legal and ethical purposes the difference is that a patient has a functioning brain with measurable brain waves and a corpse, zombie movies notwithstanding, doesn’t.

EEG

If death can be defined by the absence of brain activity, then we can use the same criteria, i.e. presence of brain waves, response to stimuli and voluntary movement, to determine when an embryo or fetus should be considered a human life.  Contrary to the claims of much of the anti-abortion literature and web sites, embryos do not have “brain waves” as early as 6 weeks from fertilization.  They may have some electrical impulses.  However, the term brain waves refers to specific types of electrical patterns produced by the region of the brain called the cerebrum.  This is the largest region of the brain. It gives us our higher brain function, our personality, our memories.  In short, it is the cerebrum that gives us the qualities that we consider human.  But this region doesn’t develop in the fetus until well into the second half of pregnancy.  The fetal brain isn’t developed enough to produce anything resembling brain waves until at least 20 weeks.

In 2008, census data showed the number of abortions performed in this country was 1,212,000, down from 1,313,000 in 2000. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), typically 58% of abortions are performed before 8 weeks of pregnancy. 88% were performed before 13 weeks. At that stage of development the fetus has nothing resembling a brain capable of detectable brain waves. Put simply, if it were possible to perform an EEG on a fetus at this stage, it would be a flat line.

Then where do anti-abortion activists get the frequently cited idea that brain waves start at 6 weeks? Although sources are rarely given for this claim, an extensive search of their literature shows that it is based upon two sources. One is a speech presented at a 1964 American Medical Association (AMA) convention, subsequently printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The second is a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published in 1982. Neither the speech nor the letter was given any sort of peer review or cite any sources for their assertions. In the absence of that, they are simply unsubstantiated claims that should not be given any weight, no matter where they are printed.

Contrast that to a 2005 peer reviewed article in JAMA, Fetal Pain: A Systematic Multidisciplinary Review of the Evidence by Susan J. Lee, et al. The authors conducted an exhaustive search through the available scientific literature on pain perception in fetuses and concluded that it was highly unlikely that any fetus could perceive pain prior to the the third trimester.

Another article, Fetal Brain & Cognitive Developmentby Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D. published in 1999 in the journal Developmental Review states that a fetus doesn’t have a voluntarily response to stimuli until sometime between the

Normal fetus and fetus with anacephaly

20th and 25th week of

pregnancy. Similarly, a 2006 article in Seminars in Fetal & Neonatal Medicineby Dr. Ivica Kostovic, MD, Ph.D. and Dr. Natasa Jovanov-

Milosevic concluded that a fetus in incapable of voluntary

movement before this age. Any movements seen prior to this are the

result of involuntary reflexes and are seen in normal fetuses as well as those suffering from anacephaly, a condition in which the fetal brain never forms.

According to census data, very few abortions are performed after that 20 week point, to be precise, less than 1.4%. That means that 98.6% of all abortions are performed before the fetus has any measurable brain waves, before it is capable of voluntary movements, before it is able to respond to outside stimuli of any kind. If you were doctor with a patient who presented like that, you could reasonably declare the patient dead.

It is, therefore, not unreasonable to conclude that a fetus that meets these same criteria should probably not be considered alive. Aborting a 1st or 2nd trimester fetus is no more the destruction of a human life than performing an autopsy. That may seem unduly cold and clinical, but it’s important to remember that an abortion is a serious matter, considered long and hard by the woman undergoing the medical procedure, and the health-care providers performing it. To demean them or use anti-scientific hysteria to deny them the right to choose an abortion is to deny them the respect they deserve.

Brasstown Bald, Georgia

Georgia’s tallest mountain, uncovered structures of Mayan origin while excavating a site called Kenimer Mound. The Mound appears to be a simple hill, but is actually a five-sided pyramid built over a thousand years ago, approximately 900 CE (Common Era).

Mark Williams of the University of Georgia, the leader of the team, reported finding 154 stone masonry buildings and walls for agricultural terraces. They also found evidence for a sophisticated irrigation system. Based on the similarities between the five-side pyramid in Georgia and strikingly similar structures built by the Mayans, as well as similarities in the terraces and other buildings, Thornton concluded that this ancient city must have been built by the Mayans. He further buttressed his claim by noting the many similarities between the language of the Mayans and that of the Native Americans of the Southeastern U.S.

Stone mound discovered in Georgia.

The idea of a lost city, built by the legendary Mayans, and rediscovered in Georgia is an intriguing one. It appeals to the inner Indiana Jones in all of us. The problem is that it runs smack up against one of the most important concepts in science, Occam’s razor. Named after the Franciscan friar, Father William of Ockham, this principle states when looking at competing hypotheses, the simplest one is the most likely to be correct. It’s possible that a colony of Mayans emigrated en mass thousands of miles to the Southern United States, but it’s a distant possibility, at best. It would be a bit like an archeologist 1,000 years from now unearthing an ancient building with Greco-Roman columns and declaring it proof that America had been invaded by ancient Greeks. Even if he backed up his claim by noting all the English words with Greek roots, it would still be a long shot. There is a much simpler explanation for the ruins in Georgia, yet one no less fantastic, and it involves an equally wondrous lost civilization much closer to home, the Mississippians.

The Mississippians, sometimes known as Mound Builders, were a Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the South, Midwest and Eastern U.S from around 800 CE to 1500 CE. They had a sophisticated political and social system, highly developed agriculture and extensive trade networks stretching from the Atlantic to the Rockies. Their most distinctive feature was their large earthwork structures, the mounds that gave them their common name.

Mound typical of Mississippian culture

Their largest city, and no other term adequately describes it, was Cahokia. Located in what is now Collinsville, Illinois, near St. Louis, it featured multiple stepped pyramids, temples, plazas and canals. It was the largest city north of the Rio Grande. Cahokia boasted, at its height, a population of 15,000 people, comparable in size to London at the time. It was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The largest and most impressive structure in Cahokia is Monk’s Mound. It is a large stepped pyramid, standing 104 feet tall and covering over 14 acres.

Reconstruction of Cahokia.

In addition to Cahokia, the Mississippians had many settlements including Angel Mounds in Indiana, Emerald Mounds in Mississippi, the Parkin Site in Arkansas, Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma and Etowah in Georgia. As magnificent as the civilization was, it underwent a sudden decline around 1500. A combination of drought and over forestation caused their maize based agricultural system to collapse. The final nail was driven into the Mississippian culture by the arrival of the Europeans. Spanish explorers, including Hernando do Soto, made contact with the native civilizations, and brought with them devastating diseases the Native Americans had no defense against, including small pox and measles.

Even under the twin pressures of famine and epidemic disease, the Mississippians didn’t disappear completely. They fled their disintegrating city states. Their descendants survived all that and went on to become the ancestors of many of today’s Native American cultures. These include the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Natchez, Osage and Seminole Nations, to name just a few. While there may have been some Mayan influence in the form of trade or occasional travelers, Mark Williams, who helped unearth the Georgia ruins, is quick to point out there is no substantial evidence for Mayan colonization as far north as the U.S..

So, if there was a sophisticated Native American civilization known for building  enormous stepped pyramids, and it was documented to have had settlements in Georgia, why are people so quick to attribute a stepped pyramid uncovered in the same region to the Mayans? Part of it may be our inherent love of mystery. We’re easily titillated by images of brave archeologists uncovering enigmatic lost cities. It may also be that it makes a better headline. After all, Mayans do seem to be the topic on everyone’s lips these days. Maybe though, it’s something less benign. We have more distance from the tragic loss of the Mayans, thousands of miles in fact. The idea that a magnificent civilization was lost in our own back yard, hits much closer to home. Combine that with the knowledge that the civilization arose, not from some mysterious distant group, but from Native Americans, people we have portrayed for centuries, not as architects of mighty civilizations, but as uncivilized savages, and we start becoming uncomfortable. It’s not easy for many of us to look upon what was lost in our part of the Americas and think of the role that our European ancestors played in it. It’s easier to link it to a group that declined before the conquistadors ever got here.

On the other hand, maybe Thompson is right. Maybe the Mayans did migrate all the way to the Peach State and start building pyramids, but that’s a fairly complex explanation for what lies in the ruins. If we are to be true to Occam’s razor, it will require a lot more evidence before we can start giving that hypothesis any credence.

In Feynman, Ottaviani joins forces with artist Leland Merick to recount the great scientist’s life. Merick’s simple, stripped down artistic style provides a nice compliment to Ottaviani’s straight forward story telling. The combination works and nicely accentuates Feynman’s own gift for capturing some of the universe’s most complex questions with candor and sparkling clarity.

The graphic novel (Is it still a graphic novel if it’s a non-fiction biography?) starts out with Feynman where he is at his absolute best, in front of an audience of adoring physics students, explaining nature’s mysteries. From there, it bounces back and forth between the various high points and low points of his life like some ephemeral quantum particle. What could be more appropriate. Along the way, we are treated to Feynman’s early life, exploring his childhood fascination with science and math, and his education where he struggles and ultimately masters the complexities of quantum physics and human interactions.

Readers are also given an intimate view of Feynman’s personal life, including his passionate, but all too brief love affair with his first wife, Arline. The tenderness and complexity of their relationship was a high point for me. Another high point was the recollection of Feynman’s years as wunderkind and clown prince of the Manhattan Project. This includes his tireless work on the world’s first atomic bomb, and his incorrigible antics and practical jokes, notably his self-taught talent for cracking the base’s most secure safes. This was only the beginning of a lifelong career earning the admiration of his peers and the ire of his superiors.

Ottaviani and Myrick also illustrate the science behind the man. Using Feynman’s own word they explore his life’s work, including the groundbreaking development of what came to be known as the Feynman diagrams and his work on the creation of Quantum Electro-Dynamics ((QED) that earned him the Nobel Prize. At first, some of these explorations might seem daunting to the uninitiated, but with a little patience, the reader will be rewarded with a better understanding of some truly wonderful physics. As Feynman himself put it when asked to give a 2 minute simplified explanation of his theory, “If I could explain it in 2 minutes, it wouldn’t be worth winning the Nobel Prize for.”

My only disappointment with the graphic novel is that there is very little new here. As amusing and insightful as the episodes are, they can be found in James Gleick’s biography of Feynman, Genius. Better yet, curious readers can find many of them written by Feynman himself in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman and Six Easy Pieces. Ultimately, though, the graphic novel isn’t intended to be the authoritative work on such a complex figure. Rather, it serves as an introduction. It wets the appetite of those who may not be familiar with Feynman and his world of quantum physics. If it inspires them to further explore his life and work by reading further, then it has accomplished much and paid worthy tribute to one of the most remarkable, most infuriating, most inspiring scientist of the 20^th century.

Stem cell

“I know one day I will get out of this chair and pick up my son

and hold him right. I promised my family that I would walk again, and I will make that dream come true.”

Roman Reed, paralyzed from the waist down, speaking about the lifting of the stem cell research ban in 2009.

It is a dream held by virtually every victim of crippling spinal cord injuries and their care-givers, a treatment that could bring back feeling and restore the use of disabled limbs. Stem cells have offered hope that the dream will soon come true. They are wondrous cells, able to transform themselves into any type of cell in the body, muscle, cardiac, even the mysterious neurons that make up our nervous system. Specifically, embryonic stem cells, typically derived from embryos produced for fertility treatments, had shown the greatest promise in the treatment of both injuries and disease.

Geron, a Menlo Park biotechnology company, was the undisputed pioneer in the field. They were the ones who funded much of the research by the University of Wisconsin that led to the discovery of embryonic stem cells in 1998. Geron helped fund the 2005 research, that found when rats paralyzed by spinal cord damage were injected with stem cells, transformed in the laboratory into nerve cells, they could actually regain the use of their paralyzed limbs. It was also Geron which in 2009 gained government approval to begin the first clinical study on humans of this promising therapy. This initial study was only designed to test whether the injection of modified stem cells was safe, but two years into the study, researchers had not found any significant adverse effects. George Q. Daley, a leading stem cell researcher at Harvard Medical School was recently quoted as saying, “A safe first trial would have paved the way for many others to follow.”

Notice the use of the words “would have.” On November 14^th of this year, Geron announced that it was halting its stem cell research. It wasn’t because the treatment was dangerous. All four of the patients tested so far were fine. It wasn’t because the stem cells had proved ineffective. Their initial study was only on safety not efficacy. It wasn’t that they were concerned by bad publicity or protests by anti-abortion activists who objected to the use of embryonic cells. The company had successfully weathered that uproar for years. No, the sole reason given for cancelling this miraculous treatment, which had given hope to thousands, paralyzed by spinal cord injuries that they would one day be able to walk again, was financial.

John A. Scarlett, Geron CEO

John A. Scarlett, Geron’s chief executive officer said in a company news release, “In the current environment of capital scarcity and uncertain economic conditions, we intend to focus our resources on advancing our…two novel and promising oncology drug candidates.” Stem cells did offer tremendous profit for the company, but not fast enough. Because of the nature of the treatments and the requirements of the FDA regulatory process, stem cell therapy was not expected to show a profit for five to ten years. By shifting resources to the two cancer drugs the company executives expected to show a significant profit within 20 months. Scarlett went on to explain, “By narrowing our focus to the oncology therapeutic area, we anticipate having sufficient financial resources to reach these important near-term value inflection points for shareholders without the necessity of raising additional capital.” In order to achieve these goals, they will phase out all stem cell research, not just for spinal cord injuries, but other promising treatments as well to help heart patients, diabetics, people with autoimmune disorders and those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. The company will also lay off 66 people, 38% of their workforce.

Christopher Reeve

Forget the dreams. Forget the hope. Even if other companies take up stem cell mantle, and at least one is doing just that, the Geron funded research was the first and only one approved for human testing. Geron’s abdication of the field will set back stem cell therapy for years. Daniel Heumann is a board member of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. The foundation was named for the Superman actor, paralyzed from the neck down in an accident ,who died waiting for a treatment like this. In response to the Geron decision Heumann expressed the anger of many when he said, “I’m disgusted. It makes me sick, to get peoples hopes up and then do this for financial reasons is despicable. They’re treating us like lab rats.”

While I suppose they have the right to do that, Federal authorities became alarmed after a report on WSMV-TV in Nashville about a woman who was offering to ship items like Q-tips and lollipops that had been licked or spit on by her chickenpox infected children. For this service she was charging $50, payable through PayPal. In a separate report, KPHO-TV in Pheonix found a number of similar ads on a Find A Chickenpox Party Facebook page.
There are a couple of things to consider here. First, chickenpox, caused by the varicella-zoster virus, is usually fairly benign, but not always. According to the Medscape website, in some cases the virus can lead to varicella induced pneumonia or encephalitis. Prior to the introduction of the vaccine, chickenpox caused on average 100 deaths per year.

Second, it’s a waste of money. Chickenpox is highly contagious, but mainly because it is airborne. You catch the disease by breathing in particles from an infected person, not licking a lollipop covered in their saliva. It’s also very unlikely that the virus would survive being shipped through the mail. According to Isaac Thomsen, a specialist in pediatric infectious disease at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, “If there’s a very high load on the virus and shipped very quickly, it’s theoretically possible, but it’s probably not an effective way to transmit it. It typically has to be inhaled.” Thomsen went on, however, to warn that the shipped items could contain more dangerous viruses like hepatitis.

Third, it’s illegal. Jerry Martin, U.S. attorney for the middle District of Tennessee said that it is a federal crime to send diseases or viruses across state lines. It doesn’t matter whether it’s through the U.S. Postal Service or private carriers like FedEx or UPS. The law that bans the shipment of chickenpox is the same one that bans the shipment of things like anthrax and ebola. The Feds are likely to take it very seriously, and it’s punishable by a prison sentence of up to 20 years. That’s a whole different kind of party.

Finally, if you want to give your child a stronger immune system get him or her vaccinated. That’s how vaccines work. A vaccine is a non-infectious fragment of the disease it is intended to prevent. When it is introduced to the body, either orally or through injection, it essentially tricks the body into thinking it has actually been infected with the disease. The immune systems kicks in and the vaccine gives it all the information about the virus it needs to mount an attack. The body then retains the information about the virus the same way it retains the information from an actual infection. That’s why most people never have to worry about getting chickenpox twice. This allows your own immune system to fight off the disease if you ever encounter it again. It does all this without your having to suffer through any actual symptoms or complications. That’s a pretty neat trick, and it’s much less risky than deliberately going into a home full of infected people or licking someone else’s lollipop.

“A new scientific truth does not as a rule prevail because its opponents declare themselves persuaded or convinced, but because the opponents gradually die out and the younger generation is made familiar with the truth from the start.”

                                                                -Max Planck

Almost daily the scientific evidence for human induced global climate change gets stronger and stronger, and almost daily the climate change deniers or skeptics as they call themselves come up with a new fallacy to throw in the way of progress. First, they tried to deny the existence of climate change completely. “Temperatures aren’t going up. You have no proof,” they cried. “It’s all nonsense!”

Scientists responded to that by providing incontrovertible evidence of the warming. Year after year, with ever increasing accuracy, the data rolled in relentlessly, like a rising tide. The warmest year on record was followed by another warmest year, and another, which became the warmest decade on record. Glaciers retreated and ice sheets crumbled, all of it documented in excruciating detail. Grudgingly, most of the deniers had to abandon that argument, but they weren’t beaten yet.

“OK,” some of them reluctantly conceded. “Maybe temperatures are increasing, but it has nothing to do with humans. It’s all part of a natural cycle that we have nothing to do with.” Again, the scientists responded. They demonstrated over and over again the simple physics of how increasing carbon dioxide levels warm the atmosphere. They documented the historic rise in CO² levels going back to the birth of the Industrial Revolution. Researchers delved deep into the fossil record and the most ancient of ice cores to show that both these rapid increases in global temperatures and CO² levels were linked and unprecedented in the history of the planet. Still the deniers tenaciously held on.

Their latest fallacious rampart against reality is, “Yes, yes, we know that climate change is real. OK, OK humans have contributed to it, but there’s nothing we can do now. Any changes we make to reduce CO² output will doom the economy and put our country at a competitive disadvantage. We can’t do anything!”

It would be easy to laugh at them, to dismiss their dogmatic denial of evidence and refusal to accept facts as aberrations to be refuted, mental deficiencies to be cured, if the consequences weren’t so dire, and if we weren’t suffering from our own fallacies. Those of us who pride ourselves on recognizing the threat that global climate change plays are operating under our own delusions. Despite mounting evidence and years of accumulated experience, we continue to cling desperately to the illusion that we can convince the deniers.

With childlike naiveté, we continue to hope against hope that if we can just do one more study, if we can find one more data point, if we can make one last convincing argument then magically the deniers will see the light. They will at long last accept the facts, admit that we were right all along and join with us as we unite to save the planet. Again, it would be easy to laugh if the consequences weren’t so dire.

It is time for us to face facts. The deniers will never stop denying. No matter what we say or do, they will always find some reason to doubt. Galileo never convinced the Pope that the Earth wasn’t the center of the universe. Most of the doctors who argued against Pasteur and Semmelweis went to their graves denying the germ theory of disease. Creationists continue to argue against evolution, unbowed by the dictates of observable facts. In short, progress is not made by convincing the deniers. It is made in spite of them.

It is high time we stopped wasting time and waiting for the deniers to see the error of their ways. That’s never going to happen. We can’t afford the luxury of building a consensus. We need to let go of the illusion that this is a legitimate debate. The debate is over. We need to take action now. Stop allowing politicians to use the naysayers as an excuse for inaction. Hold the corporations that lobby for the status quo and fund the anti-climate change shills accountable. It is time to stop arguing. Go to the ballot box. Vote with our wallets. Take to the streets if necessary, and it is necessary, but make changes now.

Ada Lovelace

A happy belated Ada Lovelace Day to everyone. For those unfamiliar with the remarkable Lady Lovelace, she was one of the most intriguing women of the nineteenth century, and along with her mentor and confidant, Charles Babbage, she formed one of the most fascinating partnerships in the history of science and offered the world a chance to experience the computer revolution 100 years early.

She was born Augusta Ada Byron, on December 10, 1815, the only legitimate child of the legendary Lord Byron and Annabella Milbank. Shortly after her birth, her parent’s marriage disintegrated in a spectacular divorce that scandalized English society and came to influence much of Ada’s young life. In the aftermath, Lord Byron left England for the Continent, never to return. Ada’s mother forbade the child to ever speak of him, and had Ada tutored extensively in mathematics as a means of countering any poetical influences or her father.

By the time she entered London society at the age of seventeen, Ada had matured into a young woman possessing charm, beauty and wealth. To her mother’s dismay she was a creature of fierce intellect and consuming passions, every bit the heir to her “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” sire. While making the rounds of balls and parties along with the other young women in her social milieu, Ada happened to attend a soiree held by the famous mathematician

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage. He offered his guests a demonstration of his newest invention, a thinking machine.

A hush fell over the room as Babbage turned the crank handle of what he called his difference engine for the crème de la crème of London intelligentsia and high society. The device’s myriad brass and steel gears gleamed in the reflected gas light, and as they turned it began to perform calculations faster and with greater accuracy than any human could. The audience was fascinated and delighted, but most concluded the wondrous machine was simply an amusing plaything with no practical applications. Not so Ada.

Almost immediately she, unlike the other party goers, grasped the revolutionary significance of such a machine and spent many hours asking Mr. Babbage about its inner workings. For his part, Babbage was flattered by the attention of such a curious and intellectually gifted young woman. Within a few short months, he was helping her obtain the finest of mathematical tutors so that she could fully appreciate the elegance of the engine’s design.

It wasn’t long, however, before Babbage was setting out upon the next step in the evolution of thinking machines. He began working on plans for a much more sophisticated device he called the analytical engine. This was much more than simply a calculator. It could process and store information, even print out the results. It was in every modern sense of the word a computer.

When Ada found out she enthusiastically joined the effort, using her wealth and social connections to become the analytical engine’s most ardent advocate and spokesperson. She continued her mathematical studies, and showed such an affinity for it that Babbage began referring to her as, “The Enchantress of Numbers.” It was also during this period that Ada accepted an offer of marriage from a handsome young member of the nobility, William King, and formally became the Countess of Lovelace.

Word of Babbage’s new machine spread widely, and he was invited to deliver a lecture about it in Italy to that nation’s top scientists, mathematicians and engineers. He readily accepted, and so impressed them that one of the engineers, L. F. Menabrea, who would later go on to become Italian Prime Minster, wrote a detailed and quite complimentary paper on Babbage and the analytical engine. Unfortunately, the paper initially had little impact in England because as was customary for scientific papers from the Continent at the time, it was published in French.

Babbage needed someone to translate the work for the English public to help him obtain the funding he so desperately needed to complete his project, but he needed someone who was familiar enough with his machine to do it real justice and fully convey some of the finer technological points. He naturally called upon his closest ally, Ada. She quickly accepted, but that was not enough. Babbage took the unprecedented step of asking her to not only translate Menabrea’s work, but to add her own notes so as to show the machine and its potential to its best advantage.

This was in 1842. Writing and offering her scientific opinions was a far cry from the duties expected of a young married woman, let alone a countess, but Ada unhesitatingly took on the challenge. Her notes were in fact so extensive by the time she was done that they exceeded the length of Menabrea’s original paper. She fully expounded upon the intricacies of the analytical engine and significance on society of its completion. She even included a method for using the engine to calculate Bernoulli numbers. Many later writers have credited this as being the first published computer program.

Some writers have tried to downplay the significance of Ada’s contributions or suggested that the work was simply supplied to her by Babbage. The best evidence against this conclusion is the writings of Babbage himself. In his autobiography, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, he wrote:

I then suggested that she add some notes to Menabrea’s memoir, an idea which was immediately adopted. We discussed together the various illustrations that might be introduced: I suggested several but the selection was entirely her own. So also was the algebraic working out of the different problems, except, indeed, that relating to the numbers of Bernoulli, which I had offered to do to save Lady Lovelace the trouble. This she sent back to me for an amendment, having detected a grave mistake which I had made in the process.

Alas, despite the best efforts of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, their dream of a nineteenth century computer revolution was not to be. Ada fell victim to ovarian cancer and died at the tragically early age of 37. In her absence, Babbage, for a number of political, economic and personal reasons, was never able to get enough funding to complete a working model of his analytical engine. After years of designing and drawing up extensive plans for his device and numerous unsuccessful attempts to obtain funding, Babbage died in 1871 with his analytical engine unbuilt.

Working model of the Analytical Engine

It would have been easy to forget about the scientific efforts of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, to let their memories slip into the ignoble history of fool’s errands and unrealized schemes, but in 1991, to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of Babbage’s birth the London Science Museum undertook a project to actually construct the analytical engine based upon the original plans. Working meticulously from Babbage’s notes and using materials and methods that he would have had access to in the nineteenth century, they built the machine. To their credit and the delight of fans of science, it worked. The mechanical computer that Babbage and Lovelace had struggled for so many years for had actually become a reality. So today, we can celebrate the genius of these two extraordinary individuals who persevered despite political opposition, economic difficulties and societal constraints. We can take a moment every year on October 7^th,Ada Lovelace Day, to thank them for their efforts and to imagine what if.

Neutrino detector, Gran Sasso, Italy.

This week the scientists at CERN, the European Organization of Nuclear Research, announced that they had found neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. Since this flies in the face of much of what we know about Einstein’s theory of special relativity, it begs a number of questions. First, what are neutrinos? Second, what does this mean for physics and our scientific theories, and third and perhaps most importantly, what does this say about science and the way that it deals with our constantly evolving understanding of the universe?

First things first. Neutrinos are tiny, almost massless subatomic particles similar to electrons but without an electrical charge. Their existence was first proposed in 1930 by Wolfgang Pauli to explain where some of the energy and momentum went when protons decayed. Since his hypothetical particles didn’t have an electrical charge he called them neutrons, meaning “neutral ones”. A problem ensued in 1932 when James Chadwickdiscovered a much more massive neutral particle in the nuclei of atoms and called them neutrons.

Enrico Fermi 1901-1954

In 1934 the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi solved the problem by dubbing Pauli’s particles neutrinos, Italian for “little neutral ones”. It wasn’t until 1956 that neutrinos were actually detected by a team led by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines, for which they won a Nobel prize.

Neutrinos, because they lack an electrical charge and have very small mass, don’t interact much with other particles. That means they can go zipping through space or even entire planets without slowing down. They are produced in nuclear reactions like those in the sun or in nuclear reactors. To give some idea of how common they are look at the tip of your little finger. That’s approximately a cubic centimeter. Every second of every minute of every day approximately 65 billion (6.5 x 10¹⁰) neutrinos from our sun pass through that cubic centimeter on the tip of your finger and every other cubic centimeter on Earth.

The scientists at CERN weren’t trying to see if neutrinos could go faster than light. They were looking at other aspects of their behavior, and to do that they produced a beam of neutrinos at the Super Proton Synchrotron near Geneva Switzerland and fired them at a set of detectors in Gran Sasso, Itally, 730 kilometers, a little over 450 miles, away. The reason the detectors had to be so far away is that the synchrotron produces lots of different types of particles, not just neutrinos. The idea is that nothing other than a neutrino could make it through that much rock and dirt without being blocked, deflected or annihilated.

It worked. The detectors in Gran Sasso picked up the Geneva neutrinos just as predicted, well almost as predicted. They actually got there a bit early. Specifically, they made the trip 60 nanoseconds faster than they should have if they were traveling at the speed of light. While 60 billionths of a second might not sound that significant, in particle physics it is very significant. According to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, nothing should be able to go faster than light, not even a little bit, not even 60 nanoseconds.

If this result is correct it throws the theory of special relativity and the 106 years of physics based upon it into question. It throws a wrench into our entire understanding of causality, the idea that a cause is followed by an effect, not the other way around. Subir Sakar, head of particle theory at Oxford University put it this way in the Guardian, “Cause cannot come after effect and that is absolutely fundamental to our construction of the physical universe. If we do not have causality, we are buggered.”

So, what do we do?

Exactly what scientists all over the world are already doing. First they check to see if there was some sort of problem with their instruments. There wasn’t. Next they check their calculations. Ordinarily physicists consider something statistically significant if it meets what’s called the 5-sigma threshold. That’s statistician short-hand for five standard deviations, or in other words one chance in 1,744,278 that it’s a fluke. In this case, with so much at stake, they actually found that their results were the equivalent of 6-sigma, one chance in 506,797,346 that something was wrong.

Next they try to duplicate their results and ask other scientists at labs all over the world to do the same. Other labs are going to be seeing if they can get the same results, if they can detect these faster-than-light neutrinos. Coincidently, one of the those labs is the Fermi National Laboratory in this country, named after the scientists who gave neutrinos their name.

If those other scientists fail to duplicate the CERN results then Einstein’s theory is safe for now. At this point that’s where the smart money seems to be. On the other hand, if they can duplicate the results and do find that neutrinos are capable of breaking the universe’s speed limit then we have some major rethinking to do. In either case though, it’s important to remember that scientists are doing exactly what they are supposed to do, remaining skeptical, neither accepting nor dismissing evidence that contradicts current theories, and double checking their math. That’s the way that science works.

Large Hadron Collider.

“Why should we be wasting our money researching that when we could be using the money to cure cancer?”

How often have you heard that argument? Maybe you’ve even said it yourself the last time you heard about some big, multibillion dollar science project like a super collider or a space telescope. With the economy the way it is and the deficit rising, it’s hard not to make that argument about basic research when people are suffering, but then I think about my Dad. He was diagnosed  a few months ago with prostate cancer.

Proton therapy.

He’s going down to Florida for something called proton therapy. I was familiar with the use of radiation to treat cancer, but I didn’t know much about proton therapy, so I did a little research. Instead of the X-rays used in most radiation therapy, the cancerous tissue is bombarded with a beam of large subatomic particles called protons. Protons, because of their much higher mass, don’t penetrate human tissue as well as X-ray, but in this case, that’s a good thing. It means that the beam can be targeted more precisely at the tumor and it does less damage to the healthy tissues surrounding it. It turns out that it has lower side effects than traditional radiation therapy, and we have big science to thank for it.

Robert R. Wilson 1984.

Specifically, we can thank Robert R. Wilson, the scientists most often credited as the Father of Proton Therapy. He was a brilliant physicist who got his start doing research on particle accelerators at the University of California Berkley, and went on to be one of the group leaders on the Manhattan Project, the Mother of All Big Science.

After World War II, Wilson continued his research. While working on the design of the Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory, he published a paper in 1946 titled “Radiological Use of Fast Protons.” It was a radical idea, to take a particle accelerator, like the ones he and others had been using to explore subatomic matter and produce nuclear weapons, and instead use it to create a beam of protons that could be used to save people from the ravages of cancer.

The first treatments of patients took place not in a hospital, but at the Berkley Radiation Laboratory in 1954. They used particle accelerators originally built for basic physics research to generate the proton beam. The treatment showed promise, and within a few years the Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory that Wilson had helped design entered into a partnership with the Massachusetts General Hospital to offer the treatments there. Proton Therapy received formal approval from the FDA in 1988, and the first proton therapy center based at an actual hospital opened to patients in 1990 at the Loma Linda University Medical Center.

Today, there are proton therapy centers in the North America, Europe and Asia. To date approximately 70,000 patients have received the benefits of the treatment, including lower side effects, better quality of life and reduced incidence of secondary tumors. But no one could have envisioned all that in the 1930’s when Wilson began his work on subatomic particles. That’s the nature of basic research. It’s not a linear process that starts with a practical goal in mind. It is a process of asking questions and pursuing answers. Along the way, more questions are asked and new discoveries, some practical others not, are opened. The reason we need to invest in big and small science is in order carry out that process, to explore those questions. There’s no way to predict the practical benefits and spin off technologies, but we can safely predict that none of them will be made unless we take a chance and make the investments.

People seem to enjoy reading it nearly as much as I enjoyed writing it.

 One of the criticisms that I’ve gotten about it, however, is that the book doesn’t include a suggested reading list. I must apologize. It was clearly an oversight. One of the great joys I had researching the book was reading so many wonderful books about the scientists who contributed to the legend of the mad scientists. I never intended my book to be the final word on the topic, merely as a starting point for readers who wished to learn more about the dynamic world of science and the fascinating, passionate, and should we say, unique, individuals, who pursue it.

 To remedy the situation, I’d like to recommend a sampling of the books I used in my research:

 1)      Alexandria: City of the Western Mind by Theodore Vrettos

2)      American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

3)      The Devil’s Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science by Philip Ball

4)      Dignifying Science: Stories About Women Scientists by Jim Ottaviani et al

5)      Dr. Space: The Life of Wernher von Braun by Bob Ward

6)      Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

7)      The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America by Steven Johnson

8)      The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery by Wendy Moore

9)      Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie by Barbara Goldsmith

10)   Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla by Marc J. Seifer

 This isn’t meant to be an all inclusive list. Think of it as an intriguing appetizer, something to whet your appetite for science.