There’s a cute video montage currently doing the rounds in which a re-working of the Billy Joel song “We didn’t start the fire” reminisces about growing up in the 1970s and the 1980s and cites the countless games, toys, TV shows and other cultural references we had during that time years before anyone had an iPad, mobile phone or other essential gadget. Featured is the Rayleigh Chopper bicycle, Atari video games, Tiswas, and Swap Shop (it’s very British, did I already say?). Most of the references are positive but a few things are missing the ever-present mutually assured destruction and the threat of nuclear war and in those pre-climate change times when were knew about greenhouse gases but were worried about the coming Ice Age, there was acid rain.

Researchers in India point out that acid rain was certainly a major environmental concern for North America and Western Europe during 1970s, but mitigation efforts such as the addition of sulfur scrubbers to coal-fired power stations and catalytic converters to remove acidic nitrogen oxides from vehicle exhausts, reduced significantly the amount of sulfur compounds entering the atmosphere to create the corrosive rain. Today, the chattering classes are more likely to be concerned about the sulfites in their cheap wine than sulfuric and nitric acid destroying the trees in their gardens. But, while the “West” has all but forgotten acid rain and the majority presumably assume it is no longer an issue, in the developing world acid rain is, unfortunately, alive and well and wreaking havoc year on year.

S.A. Abbasi of the Centre for Pollution Control and Environmental Engineering at Pondicherry University, India and colleagues have reviewed current understanding of the evolution of acid rain, its eradication in some parts of the world and how its emergence in the developing world, particularly the so-called BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will inevitably have a detrimental effect on the whole world.

Their review leads to three important conclusions concerning acid rain:

1. Acid rain is a slow-acting scourge – its impacts are not dramatically evident over a short timespan unless, in exceptional cases, the acidification of the rain has taken place suddenly and sharply.
2. Some regions feel the impact of acid rain more readily than others and this essentially depends on the availability, or the lack of, acid-neutralising dust/soil/water in the region.
3. It is simplistic to believe that if in a particular region acidification of rain is not presently causing proportional acidification of receiving water and soil, this shall continue to be so indefinitely. If not checked, acid rain would gradually wear down the acid-assimilative capacity of the receiving environments.

“Acid rain and its effects will not go away overnight. Increasing public awareness of the problem is the first step towards finding some of the solutions. The cost of control versus the cost of damage must be considered while evaluating the merit of any management alternative. Given the fact that past studies has indicated that the benefits of acid rain control easily outweigh the costs, it is a problem not without hope,” the team concludes.

Abbasi T. (2013). Acid rain: past, present, and future, International Journal of Environmental Engineering, 5 (3) 229-272. DOI:

Oh and that nostalgic video?

Whatever happened to acid rain? is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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Philip Ball, writing on the BBC Future site discusses the carcinogens and poisons pumped into the Roman air every time the cardinals vote on a new Pope…

But, he also reckons the The Vatican is missing a trick by being unimaginatively monochrome.

“Why stop at a mere two-colour signalling system? The lurid rainbow smokes used in aerial displays like those of the Red Arrows are simply tinted with bright pigments and dyes such as indigo and rhodamine. Couldn’t we have beige smoke to denote a coffee break, amber to signal an impending decision, and burgundy to show that they’re celebrating it afterwards?”

BBC – Future.

By the way, why is their a papal statue in The Vatican playing air guitar on the roof?

Ante-papal smoke signals is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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Some of the world’s oldest engravings of the human form – prehistoric rock art from the Italian Alps – have been brought to life. PITOTI is an innovative research project that applies insights from the new technologies of computer graphics to prehistoric pictures, specifically the rock art of Valcamonica, Italy, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It brings to life some of the earliest human figures in European rock art — some made from as early as 7,000 BC — with interactive graphics, 3D printing and video games, exploring the potential links between the world of archaeology and the world of film, digital humanities and computer vision.

A multimedia digital rock art exhibition with video projections, an ambient cinema and an interactive touch screen table is on display at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, 7-23 March 2013.

Animated rock art is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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It hadn’t occurred to me that there might be more than one World Book Day. Apparently (thanks Bob O’Hara) we Brits celebrate and promote literacy on 7th March to get around school holidays, which is why yesterday all the kids trotting up to school were dressed as characters from their favourite books. Apparently, the UNESCO WBD is on 23rd April (St George’s Day and the date Cervantes died) and seems to be more about enforcing copyright laws than anything else. Anyway, our World Book Day will end soon from the perspective of West Coast USA, but I will leave the offer open for another 4 hours to allow anyone on Howland Island (I think that’s the place with the most Westerly timezone and the last to see in the New Year each time) to grab a copy at the knockdown price of $1.50. Offer has now expired, back to standard price, I’m afraid.

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Apologies for any confusion, but lots of readers took advantage of the offer nevertheless…

WBD Confusion image via Shutterstock

More about the UNESCO WBD here and about the British WBD here.

World Book Day Confusion is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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I first wrote about the pioneering work of Prasanna de Silva – AP to his friends and colleagues – back in the early 1990s in publications such as New Scientist, Science and others. It really was pioneering, he and his team at Queen’s University Belfast were starting to find ways to build molecules, that could substitute for the logic functions usually the preserve of silicon chips. They created molecular logic units for the Boolean operators – the AND, OR, NAND, NOR, XOR, INHIBIT etc etc.

From the book description: “We all learn – in schools, factories, bars and streets. We gather, store, process and transmit information in society. Molecular systems involved in our senses and within our brains allow all this to happen and molecular systems allow living things of all kinds to handle information for the purpose of survival and growth. Nevertheless, the vital link between molecules and computation was not generally appreciated until a few decades ago.”

The field of molecular logic and computation has not yet reached the age of majority but it is growing fast and strong. There is no other book around that can provide the comprehensive background and insights AP offers in this monograph from the RSC.

“This book is an authoritative, state of the art, reference and a ‘one-stop-shop’ concerning the current state of the field for scientists, academics and postgraduate students.”

Molecular Logic-based Computation Monographs in Supramolecular Chemistry: A. Prasanna de Silva.

Molecular Logic is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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UPDATE: Offer has now expired, but still offering the e-version of my book at a great discounted price, just £4.99

World Book Day Offer: To celebrate WBD – 2013-03-06, I’ve made the e-version of Deceived Wisdom just 99p (about $1.50) for the day. You can buy it in PDF, mobi or ePub format for your computer, device or other e-reader from my publisher E&T through the Sciencebase site.

Click the Paypal button below to buy a copy of Deceived Wisdom right now in a choice of formats compatible with iPad, Kindle, Nook, PC, Mac and Linux computers. Delivery is via a one-time link sent to your PayPal email  address for security, please use the download link as soon as you receive it, email me if problems.

• Deceived Wisdom ePub, for Nook, PlayBook, Android, iPad etc Please wait...
• Deceived Wisdom PDF, for any device with a PDF reader Please wait...
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Kris Dyer, narrator of the Audible version: “I LOVED your book, it’s brilliant. Funny, insightful, entertaining, readable – everything a book should be.”

Deceived Wisdom officially launched 2012-11-08 and Sciencebase readers can download a specially priced electronic version (DRM free) in ePub, PDF or mobi format for their iPad, PC, Mac, or other system right now.

The book, reached #1 in Amazon Top 100 science publications and positive reviews from TV physicist Jim Al-Khalili and well-known journalist Francis Wheen saying: “Judging by the sampler, it’s my dream book. I may well have to order multiple copies as Christmas presents.” Science author and chemist John Emsley had this to say: “I really enjoyed the book and indeed read it all within a day. It really was unputtabledown as they say.” Brian Clegg calls it an “excellent collection of science surprises“, “a top notch box of chocolates“.
David Bradley has worked as a science journalist and writer for more than 20 years, he has co-authored and edited books with John Gribbin, Ian Stewart, Joel Levy, Robert Slinn, Richard Dawkins, Adam Hart-Davis and others.

Deceived Wisdom World Book Day Offer is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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World Book Day Offer: To celebrate WBD – 2013-03-06, I’ve made the e-version of Deceived Wisdom just 99p (about $1.50) for the day. You can buy it in PDF, mobi or ePub format for your computer, device or other e-reader from my publisher E&T through the Sciencebase site.

Click the Paypal button below to buy a copy of Deceived Wisdom right now in a choice of formats compatible with iPad, Kindle, Nook, PC, Mac and Linux computers. Delivery is via a one-time link sent to your PayPal email  address for security, please use the download link as soon as you receive it, email me if problems.

• Deceived Wisdom ePub, for Nook, PlayBook, Android, iPad etc Please wait...
• Deceived Wisdom PDF, for any device with a PDF reader Please wait...
• Deceived Wisdom mobi, for mobipocket devices and software Please wait...

Kris Dyer, narrator of the Audible version: “I LOVED your book, it’s brilliant. Funny, insightful, entertaining, readable – everything a book should be.”

Deceived Wisdom officially launched 2012-11-08 and Sciencebase readers can download a specially priced electronic version (DRM free) in ePub, PDF or mobi format for their iPad, PC, Mac, or other system right now.

The book, reached #1 in Amazon Top 100 science publications and positive reviews from TV physicist Jim Al-Khalili and well-known journalist Francis Wheen saying: “Judging by the sampler, it’s my dream book. I may well have to order multiple copies as Christmas presents.” Science author and chemist John Emsley had this to say: “I really enjoyed the book and indeed read it all within a day. It really was unputtabledown as they say.” Brian Clegg calls it an “excellent collection of science surprises“, “a top notch box of chocolates“.
David Bradley has worked as a science journalist and writer for more than 20 years, he has co-authored and edited books with John Gribbin, Ian Stewart, Joel Levy, Robert Slinn, Richard Dawkins, Adam Hart-Davis and others.

Here’s the link for Amazon UK orders.

Deceived Wisdom World Book Day Offer is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom

Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan and Arthur C Clarke were brought together (Sagan via satellite link) in conversation to discuss life, the universe and everything back in 1988.

Hawking, Sagan and Arthur C Clarke – “together” is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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These are my missing links for March 5th through March 6th:

• Banksy’s Street Art Gets ‘Branded’ With Corporate Logos – DesignTAXI.com – via TAXI Daily News http://www.designtaxi.com/news.rss
• Minimalistic Posters Pay Tribute To Scientists And Their Discoveries – DesignTAXI.com – via TAXI Daily News http://www.designtaxi.com/news.rss
• Volvo Cars Now Detect & Automatically Brake For Cyclists, Pedestrians – DesignTAXI.com – via TAXI Daily News http://www.designtaxi.com/news.rss
• Researchers Create A ‘Google Map’ Of The Human Metabolism | Popular Science – via Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now http://www.popsci.com
• Study finds what Twitter majority says doesn’t reflect popular opinion | Digital Trends – via (title unknown) http://www.digitaltrends.com
• Microbial mobilisation may offer arsenic solution | Chemistry World – via Chemistry World RSS http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/
• Easing the Pressure on Gas Storage :: ChemViews Magazine :: ChemistryViews – via ChemViews Magazine Home RSS http://www.chemistryviews.org

Missing Links for March 5th through March 6th is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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Now, that almost anyone can download an archive of all their twitter activity, there are a few neat things you can do with the data once you’ve got it. For instance, you could upload it all to your Google Drive, set the folder as public and let anyone trawl through all your old tweets.

So, here’s almost six years of sciencebase on Twitter dating back to my first tweet in June 2007, archived and available for your delectation. A mere 21,246 tweets at the time of writing. By using using the unconverted root file “index.html” from your archive and the attendant CSS files etc you effectively get a browsable web site of your Twitter archive.

Once you’ve upload all the files and checked it’s working you might like to learn that by copying and hooking up a special Google Docs spreadsheet and following its instructions you can make the archive folder active so that it stays up to date with all your new tweets. Thanks to this site for the spreadsheet and instructions. The how-to for using your Google Drive as a web hosting platform not just for your twitter archive is described here.

Sciencebase Twitter archive is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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As is obvious within a few seconds of having tweeted the map purportedly showing “every meteorite that has hit Earth since 2300 BC”, the map actually just shows where the people are and where people have recorded meteorite impacts.

The first comment on the Gizmodo item puts this quite succinctly”. It’s all the recorded meteorites. Not every meteorite. There’s a big difference. The data would skew very heavily to places where there was been human habitation, followed by exploration and cartography, and filtered for places like the Sahara and the ocean, where shifting terrain masks any prior impact site. In all, this would be a tiny sample of all the meteorites from the past 4312 years.”

In fact, statistically a meteorite is almost as likely to hit any spot on the Earth’s surface as any other, including the oceans and so the map would really look more like this:

Presumably, the original map was generated to highlight the risk we face from incoming solar system shrapnel, especially in the wake of the recent Russian impact on the same day as an asteroid made a rather worryingly close flyby.  One might even go so far as to say that it was somewhat sensationalist, scaremongering, even. It seems that humanity has a fixation on doomsday prophecies from the ancient god-given plagues, pestilence and thunderbolts from the blue, hell, devils, demons and ghosts and more recently alien invasions and nuclear war (that perhaps is a real threat) and even the Y2K bug (remember that?) and cyber war. Given that all of those those have generally turned out to be nothing but fantasy (with the exception of actual plagues) perhaps a cosmic collision is just the latest in a long line of unwarranted worries.

I can say that at least until a rather bigger chunk of rock hits a major city and triggers an unsupernatural armageddon. There are, after all, an estimated 100,000 to 1,000,000 chunks of rock flying around the sun that cross Earth’s orbit right now that we have never observed, but many more are flung in from the far-reaching corners of the solar system by the enormous gravitational fields of the gas giants Jupiter and (to a lesser extent) Saturn. Conversely, it may be that Jupiter actually protects us from debris. We might stand a chance of spotting an incoming asteroid with maybe three weeks to spare…would that be sufficient time for us to make a contingency plan, to hide under the bed or blast the rock apart?

Meteorite map malarkey is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom

There was a strike at the BBC yesterday, so the usual “You and Yours” on Radio 4 was replaced with an annotated compilation of recent in-depth reports by Michael Moseley from past episodes (I believe). It made for an interesting alternative podcast listen on my dog-walk today. He discussed the high-intensity exercise regime he tried for Horizon last year, the ambiguity about alcohol units and whether smoothies and fruit juice count towards your “5-a-day”.

In summary, it seems most of us don’t get enough exercise, and if we do we’re sitting at our desks too long, most of us are not eating enough veggies, but too many people are slurping down processed fruit juice and fruit smoothies, which one nutrition expert described as “bottled obesity”. In general, it seems fruit is fine but veggies are better (not such accessible sugar and more chewing and roughage/fibre).

Jogging couple image via Shutterstock

As for alcohol, it would be best all round if we didn’t drink it at all. But, a quarter of a unit (2 grams, a medicinal, not quite homeopathic quantity) every day would be beneficial to the cardiovascular system (possibly) for some people without causing harm to the liver. Speaking of which one expert alluded to the 21 units for men each week as being an upper safe limit, 40 units and you really are going to cause damage and increase your risk of cirrhosis and liver cancer. For women drinking a bottle of wine each week (that’s about 9-10 units) significantly raises the risk of breast cancer: If 100 women drink a bottle each a week, then one of them will get breast cancer as a result, two bottles, the risk is 2 in 100…and so on.

The simple, bottom line on these various in-depth reports were Moseley’s tips. “20+” – 20 minutes or more of exercise each day (including domestic chores), don’t sit for more than 20 minutes and squeeze in a high-intensity burst of 20 seconds on a bike each day. For veggies, one third of your plate should be covered with vegetables (fresh, frozen or canned, but not pureed) and you should avoid processed fruit juices and smoothies. For alcohol: “2+2″ – two glasses of your favourite tipple and then two days off (although a couple of days off after a binge is not enough to allow the liver to “recover” from the toxic onslaught of the organic solvent we know as alcohol). He also suggests using smaller glasses.

The You and Yours items are available on iPlayer.

Exercise, alcohol, fruit and veg is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom

Growing population and an increasing poverty gap are major challenges for global food security especially when the issue of biofuels produced from crops is introduced. According to Tahereh Alavi Hojjat of DeSales University, in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, USA, governments around the world must address five major challenges if we are not to see an enormous increase in human suffering, disease and starvation:

1 Energy security – This directly affects food prices through fertiliser costs, farm energy use and transportation costs, as well as the use of land for growing biofuel crops, which is meant to circumvent our reliance on putatively dwindling fossil fuel supplies and mitigate against challenge #2, climate change.

2 Climate change – Will increase by tens, perhaps hundreds of millions, the number of undernourished people worldwide as higher average temperatures negatively impact on food crop yields.

3 Water security: is already becoming a major problem as the population grows and consumption rises. Half a billion people live in countries chronically short of water. By 2050, this number could be closer to four billion as a result of climate change and loss of fresh water resources.

4 Competition for land – A growing problem that will likely increase the incidence of civil unrest and international conflict as fertile land area dwindles and urbanisation predominates.

5 Demand for food – This will inevitably rise as the population increases toward 10 billion and a greater percentage of people demand meat.

Driven by these various factors, Hojjat suggests that we are heading for a “food crunch”, which will inevitably hit the poorest hardest. The international community must move quickly and effectively Hojjat urges. Hunger is not caused by scarcity in terms of production capacity, there is plenty of food being produced globally but it doesn’t reach those in most need while obesity levels continue to grow in certain parts of the world. “To solve the world hunger crisis, it is necessary to do more than send emergency food aid to countries facing famine. Leaders must address the globalised system of agricultural production and trade that favours large corporate agriculture and export-oriented crops while discriminating against small-scale farmers and agriculture oriented to local needs,” Hojjat says.

Hojjat T.A. (2012). Global poverty and biofuel production: food vs. fuel, International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy, 8 (3/4/5/6) 209. DOI: 10.1504/IJETP.2012.052109

Five major challenges to avoid food crunch is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom

UPDATE: 2012-02-13 It’s on again and this year I can offer a little advice on how to get a popular science book published if any students are interested in hearing my thoughts on that. Also, I’ve dropped the price for students on the PDF version of Deceived Wisdom for the next couple of days.

Once again, I’ll be attending the annual media careers event at Cambridge University, where students and alumni get a chance to chat with members of the media about careers in journalism, broadcasting, film, publishing, science communication, media law and media management.

The previous event attracted around 328 students (from first-year undergraduates to final-year PhDs and alumni) and there were 50 employers/professional bodies/course providers/individuals (including yours truly) who talked about opportunities and experiences and answered specific questions (one-to-one) from students and alumni.

If you’re up in Cambridge on 13th February (18:00 to 20:30), come along and have a chat; I should be there for the whole evening. I’ve been in science communication for almost 25 years, initially as a technical editor at the Royal Society of Chemistry, and have written as a freelance science journalist for New Scientist, Science, Nature, The Telegraph, Guardian, Economist, Focus, BBC, Channel 4, Discovery Channel, Popular Science, American Scientist and many other publications and organisations. Hopefully can offer a few words of, if not wisdom, then at least how not to do it!

You can register for the event and get more details here: Cambridge Careers Media Event and here. Cambridge students/alumni only.

If you’re attending, or even if you’re not, I have a list of links useful to science writers and others.

Please wait... Deceived Wisdom, DRM-free PDF version now just £3 as part of this event.

Sciencebase grilled by students is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom

What happens when a ping pong ball moving at supersonic speed hits a bat? This video, which is dripping college degrees, explains the physics and shows a few test shots. NO amount of wrist action can defeat supersonic…

Do not try this at home. I’m talking to you “King Julian”

Supersonic ping pong ball is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom

Evernote has made its hand-writing app for iPad free as of now. Always keen to grab any worthwhile freebies, I took a look and was quite surprised and pleased to see what they are using as a demonstration screenshot:

Evernote Penultimate now free is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom

UPDATE: 2013-01-31 Amazon UK has the Kindle version of my book – Deceived Wisdom – at a knock-down price of just 99p today. Remember there are Kindle apps for most mobile devices and computers, so you don’t need an actual Kindle to take advantage of the offer.

You don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle books, you just need to link your amazon Kindle account to a Kindle app on almost any device you happen to use: Android phone or tablet, iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows PC or tablet, BlackBerry, or Windows Phone 7. Kindle Cloud Reader lets you read any Kindle book in your web browswer, on your smart phone, tablet.

Grab the most apt app for your setup here and then check out the Kindle version of my book.

End-of-January Kindle Sale is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom

2-Cyanoguanidine, also known as DCD (dicyandiamide) is a nitrile derived from guanidine used as a curative agent for epoxy resins in packaging.

Since 2004, it has been used in New Zealand by farmers hoping to lower the environmental impact of livestock by reducing the rate at which soil microbes convert ammonia from animal urine into nitrates and nitrous oxide, thus slowing nitrate leaching from pasture.

DCD recently hit the headlines when traces were found in milk. Although the authorities said of the Westland Milk Products example that it did not represent a health risk to consumers, there are echoes of the melamine debacle I first discussed on Sciencebase back in September 2008; manufacturers have withdrawn DCD products from the agricultural market.

Direct exposure to DCD powder may cause irritation to the eyes, skin, and respiratory tract. However, toxicity level is rather low, certainly well below trace levels found in milk products. “Experiments with mice indicate that the lethal dose (LD50) for table salt (sodium chloride) is 4 grams per kilogram of body weight. For DCD it is more than 2.5 times that at over 10 grams per kilogram.

2-Cyanoguanidine.

DCD, dicyandiamide, 2-cyanoguanidine is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom

According to Henry Scowcroft of Cancer Research UK writing in The Guardian: “Large studies have repeatedly shown that, with the possible exception of vitamin D, antioxidant supplements have negligible positive effect on healthy people, at least in terms of important things such as preventing people getting cancer or dying prematurely. And some supplements – notably vitamins A, E and beta-carotene – even seem to slightly raise the risk of disease and early death.”
The antioxidant myth is too easy to swallow.

I’ve been saying as much for years, and was quoted from a short blog post here in Newsweek a couple of years ago in an article about the antioxidant backlash. It caused quite a shtstorm at the time with all sorts of CAM quacks crawling out of the woodwork to slag me off. Quite bizarre really given that the quote was a throwaway remark in a very short blog post and not a full critique of the state of research into antioxidants at all.

Antioxidant supplements are big business, but they promise an elixir of life that is, it seems, really not supported by scientific evidence and repeatedly advertisers come unstuck when they make overblown and hyperbolic claims about the benefits of this or that product.

Scowcroft points out that we seem to cling to the idea of panaceas and elixirs because the alternative is a bitter pill to swallow. If any life changes can overcome genetics and environmental factors then they are: Don’t smoke. Stay in shape. Eat a balanced diet. Limit alcohol intake. Keep active.

Now, who wants to do that instead of just popping a few daily pills?

A new spectroscopic method has been developed for the determination of the drug furosemide used to treat congestive heart failure and other conditions. The drug is alsosed illegally by some athletes as a stimulant and rapid weight-loss agent.Yali Liu, Huijuan Wang, Jian Wang and Yuanfang Li of Southwest University, in Chongqing, China, explain how furosemide 4-chloro-N-furfuryl-5-sulfamoyl-anthranillic acid, FUR is a potent diuretic. It is widely used in the treatment of chronic kidney failure, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure and cirrhosis of the liver. Its effects are correlated directly with administered dose as too are its side-effects. Testing for FUR.