SEM photos

A lot of work today. I've been looking threw the pictures that I took using the scanning electron microscope last week and trying to characterize the microfabrics of my various samples. I need to get the book out of the library that has the detailed pictures about microfabrics in order to do a really good job of though. Right now, I'm just looking at the types of particles and contacts that exist. My intact samples seem to be quite loose and the particles are only in edge to face contact, with the exception of clay microaggregate which form face to face contacts. Any way, here is an example photo. I think it pretty cool stuff. You can see a lot of clay particles in this picture. They are the things that look like a cross between a stack of books and a snake. This whole thing is pretty cool.

Colorado Ballot Issues - Amendments 46, 47, and 48

I've had a look at the Colorado Blue Book online, and I am rather intimidated by the shear number of ballot issues. Over the next week, I'm going to try to give my views on the various amendments and referendums on the Statewide ballot. For the purpose of this blog, I'll be quoting the measures as they will appear on the Adams County ballot.

Amendment 46
Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution concerning a prohibition against discrimination by the state, and, in connection therewith, prohibiting the state from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting; allowing exceptions to the prohibition when bona fide qualifications based on sex are reasonably necessary or when action is necessary to establish or maintain eligibility for federal funds; preserving the validity of court orders or consent decrees in effect at the time the measure becomes effective; defining "state" to include the state of Colorado, agencies or departments of the state, public institutions of higher education, political subdivisions, or governmental instrumentalities of or within the state; and making portions of the measure found invalid severable from the remainder of the measure?

Proponents of Amendment 46 claim that it removes affirmative action. Opponents say that it would cripple many outreach programs (especially those sponsored by universities) from targeting minorities and women. This would also include scholarships and similar programs. Propenents say that we have reached a point in our society where race, ethnicity, and gender are no longer the relevent deciders about economic status. They claim that instead, economic class should be used as the primary determinative factor in the allocation of scholarships and outreach programs.

My opinion will have to be limited to gender issues because it is the one I am most familiar with due to my field of study. Women are underrepresented in the maths and sciences. This is a fact.
This chart from the WISEM program at Mines.

CSM Female Students Percent of Total Enrollment Fall 1992 - Fall 2004
Year	% of Total Undergrad Students	% of Total Grad Students	% of Total Females
1992	22.4	20.3	21.7
1993	23.4	20.3	22.3
1994	24.6	19	23
1995	24.3	20.4	23.2
1996	23.7	19.9	22.7
1997	24	20.1	23.3
1998	23.8	21.4	23.2
1999	24.2	23	23.9
2000	25	25.1	25
2001	24.7	29.6	25.7
2002	24.2	31	25.8
2003	23.4	29.1	24.6
2004	22.7	27.5	23.7

Source: Fall 1992-2004 CSM Registrar’s Reports

In terms of anecdotes, most of the girls that I went to school with would have been perfectly qualified to pursue careers in science and technology. There is a fairly well reported phenomenon of girls losing their interest in science and math during middle school, primarily due to pressure to not be perceived as "too smart". This is generally a group that should be targeted and that is distinctly not related to their socio-ecomonic status. This effect is seen in all women regardless of their family's income.

For reasons such as these, I must oppose this amendment. Certainly, economic status should be taken into account in recruitment programs etc., but we should not remove gender and race from the equation either.

Amendment 47
Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution concerning participation in a labor organization as a condition of employment, and, in connection therewith, prohibiting an employer from requiring that a person be a member and pay any moneys to a labor organization or to any other third party in lieu of payment to a labor organization and creating a misdemeanor criminal penalty for a person who violates the provisions of the section?

I've had a bit more difficulty in my thinking about this one, and I still have not made a solid decision either way. On one hand, I feel that participation in any organization should be voluntary. If you work at a place, you should not be required to participate in the company picnic or what not. On the other hand, Unions do a lot of work to advocate for their members, not limited to collective bargaining for wages. If Union enrollement at traditionally Unionized trades is not required, enrollment may drop, and the ability of the Union to help the workers could be lessened. My other inclination is to say that things are working as they are. Another thought is that this is an amendment and if it passes is very hard to remove or change. Things which I might not be opposed to becoming some sort or law (ie referendum or bill brough forth through the general assembly), I am against they idea of them being a part of the State constitution. With all of those qualifiers, my current inclination is No for this amendment. I will be looking in more detail at the arguments for and against before I make a final decision on this, and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same.

Amendment 48
Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term “person” to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as “person” is used in those provivions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law?

This amendment is primarily designed to challenge abortion rights as designated in Roe v. Wade. One problem with the amendment is that it is scientifically absurd. There is no medical or scientific way to know the moment of conception or fertilization. Further, a recent study on in vitro fertilization has shown that roughly 40% of fertilized embryoes created have genetic issues, ussual missing or extra chromosomes, and would likely not become implanted in the womb. In other words, 40% of fertilized eggs are likely to result in miscarriage. This makes the law very difficult to enforce. This amendment gets a No.

Conclusion
So far, three amendments and three "no" votes for me. For those who are looking at this through Facebook, please come to forscience.blogger.com, so that you can have a look at the various links contained throughout this post. Comments are welcome, especially in regards to 47.

The Science Debate 08

One of the reporters at Wired Magazine's blog site is being criticized by the internet masses for reporting on Obama's answers to the science debate question. I would say critisizm would be due for biased journalism if the story wasn't already so biased. Obama's campaign is the only one that has issued a clear science and technology platform. McCain has refused to respond to Science Debate 08 and has tended to change his position on a number of issues. I'm somewhat skeptical that Obama will be able to deliver all the funding he has promised, while cutting taxes, the fact that he has a clear platform speaks volumes.

So far, the McCain campaign seems to be for drilling and continued use of fossil fuels, and denies global warming. Not very good there.

Obama seems to have changed his mind about NASA funding, which is good.

In terms of money for all the funding that Obama proposes, most that is supposed to go towards clean energy would be derived from a Carbon Cap and Trade system. Urging companies to clean up and using money generated from that the invest in energy technologies is a pretty clever plan.

HPV vaccine

I was just reminded of the outrage response to an attempted mandate of the Human Papaloma Virus vaccination for pre-teen girls. This is a vaccine that has been shown to have a huge success rate in reducing the instance of cervical cancer in women and it is most effective when adminstered before a woman is sexually active. Some right-wing people have claimed that it promotes promescuity in women. These people have a fundamentally different view of the purpose of government I think. I see the separation of church and state as an important thing. I'm certainly a Christian and have my beliefs, but I do not feel that it is the responsibility of the government to create laws that force everyone to follow these beliefs. I ussually try to avoid double posting like this, but I thought this was important enough to bring up.

I think part of the reason that this has been coming up is because of the forthcoming election. I have a gut reaction that decided my initial feelings about the election, and sense that point in time I have been slowly unravelling my feelings and beliefs to figure out why that reaction occured. The fact is, the Republican party no longer fights for the things that I believe in: small government, fiscal responsibility, and less interference in citizens' lives. This comes back to my belief on legislating morality. I do not share the view on many social issues with the Democratic party platform, but their general tendancy to provide equal protection for all citizens is important to me. Their stance on investment in alternative energy technologies is also important. Drilling any of the US oil reserves is only a stop-gap measure and will not provide the consumers with any real relief. It also doesn't help any with concerns of global warming. I used to take the view that there have been huge swings in temperature in the ancient past of the earth. More recently I saw the comparison between ancient and present day CO2 levels, and that was enough to convince me that something is going to happen.

Vaccinations

I just listened to a woman on NPR state that she does not trust the numerous studies funded by pharmeceutical companies related to possible side effects of the standard infant vaccination schedule. I really can't understand people like this. There is a very strange anti-science faction developing in the US and it worries me. These are people who feel that the results published by scientists are simply opinions within a cloud of many opinions. This simply is not the case. Scientists are ussually very good at self-regulation, meaning that, if someone publishes results that are BS, they will quickly get called on it. We ought to listen to the experts because they are exactly that. Experts. Most of them have spent their entire lives studying the topics on which the publish, so they really do know what they are talking about.

The other part of this argument that worries me, is that measles cases are on the rise. I remember getting some of my last booster shots when I was in elementary school. I'm sure that as an infant I did not find them comfortable. However, I'm glad that I have been vaccinated against these diseases. Some people argue that some of the vaccines increase the risk of autism in children, but there is no scientific evidence for an increased risk of any disorder associated with the vaccines that most children receive. There is also a very small contingent of people who espouse a religious belief that prohibits vaccines. I cannot fathom this argument. Holding oneself to the tenants of their faith is one thing, but forcing that faith onto an infant is quite another.

I'm not sure what else I can say about this. I just wish that scientists got the respect that they once did. I don't think people should blindly follow them, but they shouldn't refuse their advice as "elitist" or anything of that sort.

More cool science stuff

Originally from Science Friday

In recent years, the use of ethanol as a biofuel to help deal with the ongoing energy crisis has received a good deal of attention from Washington. But can we produce both food and fuel -- and can ethanol truly replace oil and gas?

In this segment, Ira talks with ethanol biofuel advocate David Blume about common misconceptions about the use of ethanol for fuel, and about Blume's vision for decentralized, community supported ethanol production in the US. Could a neighborhood ethanol distillery be in your future? Teachers, find more information about using Science Friday as a classroom resource in the Kids' Connection.

Guests
David Blume
Executive Director of the International Institute for Ecological Agriculture
Author, "Alcohol Can Be A Gas" (International Institute for Ecological Agriculture, 2007)
Santa Cruz, California

Related Links
Permaculture.com
Segment produced by:Charles Bergquist

This is some pretty cool stuff. A former farmer talking about ideas to make ethanol useful. Similar to subsriber farms, where a group of local people pay a fee to the farmer to receive a portion of the harvest. Farmers could do a similar thing with ethanol. A small distillary at the farm would allow production of the alcohol for consumption by local people. I haven't previously had too much faith in ethanol as a viable alternative energy. This would make it nearly as useful as oil. The difficulties of carbon emmisions and alcohol tending to corrode engine parts still remains however.

Friday, I'm in Love

I seem to make a lot of posts on Friday, usually about that fact that it is Friday. Well, I guess this is another of those. This week has not been terrible, though I was really busy at the beginning of the week. I was running back and forth between engineering and geology trying to get a lot of work done. I've put 12 more samples through the X-Ray Diffractometer. That's a special device that use Bragg's law of refraction to determine the spacing of atoms in the crystal latice of minerals. Because various minerals have distinct crystal spacing, I can determine what minerals are present in a given sample that I use. The 12 samples that I ran this week are whole rock samples, meaning that I crush the entire sample and put it in the machine. Later, I'll be working on clay mounts, where I purposefully try to concentrate and allign the clay minerals in the sample. This is done because many clays have similar signals, and concentrating them makes the signal stronger. It also allows me to do some clever things that manipulate the signature crystal spacing of the clays, like adding ethylene glycol and baking them at 500 °C.

After a long break from the campeign, I am planning to bring my Pirate themed world back to active play with my RPG friends. I'm planning to give the world a significant rewrite though, because there was a lot of stuff that I was never completely happy with. Some parts of the history didn't quite make sense. And I feel that the game plot itself had become rather confused and tangled. I think we'll restart at first level in a small town. I'm going to make a bit of a series out of crafting the starting town for the players. Keep tuned for that.

In other news, I may be moving this blog over to the Gameslave. Chris and I are looking into it now, so it won't happen for at least a week or more.

Research

I arrived in my office at 9 this morning and plunked down in front of one of the departments computers. For the next two hours to now, I've been digging through the GeoRef databases and Google scholar in attempts to find more information about the weathering of volcanic ash and pumice beds and the formation of halloysite. So, bascially, I'm not having a lot of fun. Personally I feel like I should be able to go home now. But I have to keep working to try and find more stuff. I'll have to make a trip to the library at some point.

I've tried to not make my blog overly political, but sometimes certain issues just make some vocalization necessary. My opinion of Bush continues to sink lower and lower. His lack of a real energy policy in his State of the Union address is truly disappointing. The lack of understanding that most politicians have for science is astonding. This fact is one of the things that makes me really want to run for some office, even if its just city council or something. I feel like a scientist (not necessarily me) has much to offer our US political system that has so long been dominated by lawyers and economists. I don't think that a science-ocracy is the solution, but I do believe that a better understanding of science as it relates to policy and current issues is important. The last 6 years have been marked by a retardation in the understanding of science in the House and Sentate. I hope that the legislature will recreate an organization to advise them on scientific and technical issues.

So yeah, I'm not sure when or where I'll start trying to run for a political office, but it will happen. Eventually. Right now, I'm a little ways away from home, but I'll be back in a few years. Hopefully things haven't gone to hell before I get a chance to help.

P.S. The term "carbon footprint" is stupid. Just say "carbon emmisions". Its a lot more accurate.