Science Tuesday - Geology, Sexism in Science, HPV Vaccine, and Chocolate

[brdgt]

Findings: Mysterious Steps, Explained at Last
By KENNETH CHANG, The New York Times, July 18, 2006

At Mammoth Hot Springs, in Yellowstone National Park, the mineral-rich waters flow over a surreal landscape of stepped terraces and ponds.

Geologists have long been at a loss to explain the rocks’ unusual shapes, but physicists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say they have figured out the answer.

Unlike most water-washed surfaces, the primary geological process shaping the Mammoth Hot Springs landscape is not erosion. The rocks there are actually growing — at the rate of one to five millimeters a day — as calcium carbonate in the water precipitates to form the mineral travertine.

The key to understanding the process, the physicists say, is ignoring the details of mineralogy and geochemistry.

“You don’t really need to know things,” said Nigel Goldenfeld, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois. “We approached the problem as condensed matter physicists, as a problem in pattern formation.”

Just as the branching patterns of trees and rivers are similar because of the underlying mathematics, the shapes at Mammoth Hot Springs, Dr. Goldenfeld and his collaborators suspected, could be explained by general equations, not geology.

The main factors are the flow of water and the material it deposits. The minerals grow into a bump and then a dam, which alters the flow. “You get this dynamic interplay,” Dr. Goldenfeld said.

When the scientists wrote down the equations and ran computer programs mimicking the process, the result was artificial landscapes that looked remarkably like Mammoth Hot Springs. Similar fractal structures form in caves, where the mineralogy is different but the general dynamics the same. Dr. Goldenfeld and two graduate students, Pak Yuen Chan and John Veysey, described the findings in the June 27 issue of Physical Review Letters.





A Conversation with Ben A. Barres: Dismissing ‘Sexist Opinions’ About Women’s Place in Science
By CORNELIA DEAN, The New York Times, July 18, 2006

Perhaps it is inevitable that Ben A. Barres would have strong opinions on the debate over the place of women in science. Dr. Barres has a degree in biology from M.I.T., a medical degree from Dartmouth and a doctorate in neurobiology from Harvard. He is a professor of neurobiology at Stanford. And until his surgery a decade ago, his name was Barbara, and he was a woman.

Now he has taken his unusual perspective to the current issue of the journal Nature, in a commentary titled “Does Gender Matter?”

Dr. Barres (pronounced BARE-ess), 51, who grew up in West Orange, N.J., said he had been thinking about the gender issue for over a year, since Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard, gave a talk in which he suggested that one explanation for women’s relative absence at the upper ranks of science might be innate intellectual deficiencies. Assertions of innate differences by other researchers — “sexist opinions,” Dr. Barres calls them — fueled his anger, especially because they came from scientists.

Dr. Barres discussed his commentary, his career and sexism in science in a telephone interview from his home in Stanford, Calif.

Q. What’s your response to people who say you rely too much on your own experience and should take scientific hypotheses less personally?

A. They should learn that scientific hypotheses require evidence. The bulk of my commentary discusses the actual peer-reviewed data.

Q. Why do some people attribute differences in professional achievement to innate ability?

A. One of the reasons is the belief by highly successful people that they are successful because of their own innate abilities. I think as a professor at Stanford I am lucky to be here. But I think Larry Summers thinks he is successful because of his innate inner stuff.

Q. What about the idea that men and women differ in ways that give men an advantage in science?

A. People are still arguing over whether there are cognitive differences between men and women. If they exist, it’s not clear they are innate, and if they are innate, it’s not clear they are relevant. They are subtle, and they may even benefit women.

But when you tell people about the studies documenting bias, if they are prejudiced, they just discount the evidence.

Q. How does this bias manifest itself?

A. It is very much harder for women to be successful, to get jobs, to get grants, especially big grants. And then, and this is a huge part of the problem, they don’t get the resources they need to be successful. Right now, what’s fundamentally missing and absolutely vital is that women get better child care support. This is such an obvious no-brainer. If you just do this with a small amount of resources, you could explode the number of women scientists.

Q. Why isn’t there more support for scientists who have children?

A. The male leadership is not doing it, but women are not demanding it. I think if women would just start demanding fairness, they might get it. But they might buy in a little bit to all this brainwashing. They are less self-confident. And when women speak out, men just see them as asking for undeserved benefits.

Q. Why are you a scientist?

A. I knew from a very young age — 5 or 6 — that I wanted to be a scientist, that there was something fun about it and I would enjoy doing it. I decided I would go to M.I.T. when I was 12 or 13.

Q. As a girl, were you pressured not to try for M.I.T.?

A. Of course. I was a very good math and science student, maybe the best in my high school. And despite all that, when it came time to talk to my guidance counselor, he did not encourage me. But I said, I want to go to M.I.T.; I don’t want to go anywhere else. So I just ignored him. Fortunately, my parents did not try to dissuade me.

Q. Were there girls at M.I.T. then?

A. Very few, but M.I.T. from its very start took women. I loved it. I am not saying it is perfect, but it was a great place to go to school.

Q. Why did you decide to specialize in neuroscience? Did the fact that you were a transgendered person spark your interest in the brain?

A. I think all transgendered people and gay people are aware from childhood that something is going on. But I thought I would be a chemist or an engineer. It was when I took a course from a fabulous neuroscientist that I just got interested in understanding the brain and how disease affected the brain.

Q. When you were a woman did you experience bias?

A. An M.I.T. professor accused me of cheating on this test. I was the only one in the class who solved a particular problem, and he said my boyfriend must have solved it for me. One, I did not have a boyfriend. And two, I solved it myself, goddamn it! But it did not occur to me to think of sexism. I was just indignant that I would be accused of cheating.

Then later I was in a prestigious competition. I was doing my Ph.D. at Harvard, which would nominate one person. It came down to me and one other graduate student, and a dean pulled me aside and said, “I have read both applications, and it’s going to be you; your application is so much better.” Not only did I not win, the guy got it, but he dropped out of science a year later.

But even then I did not think of sexism.

Q. Why didn’t you see these episodes as sexism?

A. Women who are really highly successful, they are just as bad as the men. They think if they can do it, anyone can do it. They don’t see that for every woman who makes it to the top there are 10 more who are passed over. And I am not making this up, that’s what the data show.

And it may be that some women — and African-Americans, too — identify less strongly with their particular group. From the time I was a child, from the littlest, littlest age, I did not identify as a girl. It never occurred to me that I could not be a scientist because I was a woman. It just rolled off my back.

Now I wonder, maybe I just didn’t take these stereotypes so seriously because I did not identify myself as a woman.

Q. As a transgendered person, are you viewed as having an unusually valuable perspective?

A. I think because I am transgendered some people view anything I say with suspicion. I am very different from the average person. But I have experienced life both as a woman and as a man. I have some experience of how both sexes are treated.

Q. What about the idea that male scientists are more competitive?

A. I think that’s just utter nonsense. Men just make this stuff up. But when women are made to feel less confident, they are less likely to enter the competition. I think a lot of this is just the way men and women are treated from the time they are very young.

Take my experience with M.I.T. If I had been a guy who had been the only one in the class to solve that problem, I am sure I would have been pointed out and given a pat on the back. I was not only not given positive feedback, I was given negative feedback. This is the kind of thing that undermines women’s self-confidence.

Q. What about the idea that women are too emotional to be hard-headed scientists?

A. It is just patently absurd to say women are more emotional than men. Men commit 25 times the murders; it’s shocking what the numbers are. And if anyone ever sees a woman with road rage, they should write it up and send it to a medical journal.

Q. Are men more careerist?

A. I think people do what they are rewarded for doing, and I think women realize, whether it’s conscious or unconscious, they are not going to get the rewards. So they put the hours into their families or whatever. That’s just a guess.

Science is like art, it’s just something you have to do. It’s a passion. When I go into a lab, I’ll go without sleep, I’ll go hours and hours, day after day. And I think women would do that if they weren’t given so much negative feedback.

Q. You write that as a man, you can complete a sentence without being interrupted. Are you treated differently in other ways?

A. It’s when people don’t know that I was a woman that I can really see the difference. Even in just stupid things. You go into a department store and people are more likely to wait on you.

Q. As a woman and then as a man, you have been a scientist for about three decades. Do you see things improving for women in science?

A. Slowly, but not nearly at the rate one would expect. In biology, something like 50 percent of the best postdocs are women. It’s still very bad in physics and engineering and chemistry, but even in biology you don’t see women making the leap to tenure. And this disturbs me greatly. These women have worked very hard. They have fulfilled their side of the social contract. I think what we’ve got is just a lot more highly trained, frustrated women.





Essay: A New Vaccine for Girls, but Should It Be Compulsory?
By RONI RABIN, The New York Times, July 18, 2006

Around the time report cards came home this spring, federal health officials approved another new vaccine to add to the ever-growing list of recommended childhood shots — this one for girls and women only, from 9 to 26, to protect them from genital warts and cervical cancer.

One of my own daughters, who just turned 9, would be a candidate for this vaccine, so I’ve been mulling this over. A shot that protects against cancer sounds like a great idea, at first. States may choose to make it mandatory, though the cost for them to do so would be prohibitive.

But let’s think carefully before requiring young girls to get this vaccine, which protects against a sexually transmitted virus, in order to go to school. This isn’t polio or measles, diseases that are easily transmitted through casual contact. Infection with this virus requires intimate contact, of the kind that doesn’t occur in classrooms.

Besides, we already know how to prevent cervical cancer in this country, and we’ve done a darn good job of it. In the war against cancer, the battle against cervical cancer has been a success story.

Why, then, did federal health officials recommend the inoculation of about 30 million American girls and young women against the human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that in rare cases leads to cervical cancer?

Vaccine supporters say that some 3,700 American women die of cervical cancer each year, and close to 10,000 cases are diagnosed. Cervical cancer has a relatively high survival rate, but every death is tragic and treatment can rob women of their fertility.

Still, you have to see the numbers in context. Cervical cancer deaths have been dropping consistently in the United States — and have been for decades.

Cervical cancer has gone from being one of the top killers of American women to not even being on the top 10 list. This year cervical cancer will represent just 1 percent of the 679,510 new cancer cases and 1 percent of the 273,560 anticipated cancer deaths among American women. By contrast, some 40,970 women will die of breast cancer and 72,130 will die of lung cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society Web site, “Between 1955 and 1992, the number of cervical cancer deaths in the United States dropped by 74 percent.” Think about it: 74 percent.

The number of cases diagnosed each year and the number of deaths per year have continued to drop, even though the population is growing.

From 1997 to 2003, the number of cervical cancers in the United States dropped by 4.5 percent each year, while the number of deaths dropped by 3.8 percent each year, according to a government Web site that tracks cancer trends, called SEER or Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/cervix.html). This, while many other cancers are on the rise.

If current trends continue, by the time my 9-year-old daughter is 48, the median age when cervical cancer is diagnosed, there will be only a few thousand cases of the cancer in women, and about 1,000 deaths or fewer each year, even without the vaccine.

The secret weapon? Not so secret. It’s the Pap smear. A simple, quick, relatively noninvasive test that’s part and parcel of routine preventive health care for women. It provides early warnings of cellular changes in the cervix that are precursors for cancer and can be treated.

An American Cancer Society spokeswoman said that most American women who get cervical cancer these days are women who either had never had a Pap smear or had not followed the follow-up and frequency guidelines. So perhaps we could redirect the public money that would be spent on this vaccine — one of the most expensive ever, priced at $360 for the series of three shots — to make sure all women in the United States get preventive health care.

Because even if you have the new vaccine, which protects against only some of the viral strains that may bring on cervical cancer, you still need to continue getting Pap smears.

To be clear, I’m talking only about American women. Sadly, hundreds of thousands of women worldwide die of cervical cancer each year because they don’t have access to Pap smears and the follow-up care required. For them, and for American women at high risk, the vaccine should be an option.

Black, Hispanic and some foreign-born women are at higher risk, though rates have dropped precipitously among blacks. Certain behavior — smoking, eating poorly, having multiple sexual partners and long-term use of the pill, for example — are also associated with an increased risk. But most people infected with the human papillomavirus clear it on their own.

Vaccine supporters, including the American Cancer Society, say the immunization will reduce abnormal Pap test results, and the stress, discomfort and cost of follow-up procedures and painful treatments. That’s a strong argument for the vaccine.

But vaccines carry risks. In recent years, children have been bombarded with new immunizations, and we still don’t know the full long-term implications. One vaccine, RotaShield, was removed from the market in 1999, just a year after being approved for infants.

Merck has tested the cervical cancer vaccine in clinical trials of more than 20,000 women (about half of them got the shot). The health of the subjects was followed for about three and a half years on average. But fewer than 1,200 girls under 16 got the shots, among them only about 100 9-year-olds, Merck officials said, and the younger girls have been followed for only 18 months.

Public health officials want to vaccinate girls early, before they become sexually active, even though it is not known how long the immunity will last.

But girls can also protect themselves from the human papillomavirus by using condoms; a recent study found that condoms cut infections by more than half. Condoms also protect against a far more insidious sexually transmitted virus, H.I.V.

So yes, by all means, let’s keep stamping out cervical cancer. Let’s make sure women and girls get Pap smears.





Really? The Claim: Chocolate Is an Aphrodisiac
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR, The New York Times, July 18, 2006

THE FACTS The Aztecs may have been the first on record to draw a link between the cocoa bean and sexual desire: the emperor Montezuma was said to consume the bean in copious amounts to fuel his romantic trysts.

Nowadays, scientists ascribe the aphrodisiac qualities of chocolate, if any, to two chemicals it contains. One, tryptophan, is a building block of serotonin, a brain chemical involved in sexual arousal. The other, phenylethylamine, a stimulant related to amphetamine, is released in the brain when people fall in love.

But most researchers believe that the amounts of these substances in chocolate are too small to have any measurable effect on desire. Studies that have looked for a direct link between chocolate consumption and heightened sexual arousal have found none.

The most recent study, published in May in the journal Sexual Medicine, looked specifically at women, who are thought to be more sensitive to the effects of chocolate. The researchers, from Italy, studied a random sample of 163 adult women with an average age of 35 and found no significant differences between reported rates of sexual arousal or distress among those who regularly consumed one serving of chocolate a day, those who consumed three or more servings or those who generally consumed none.

The study relied on self-reports. But it reflected what many researchers believe: if chocolate has any aphrodisiac qualities, they are probably psychological, not physiological.

THE BOTTOM LINE Research suggests that chocolate’s aphrodisiac properties, if any, are limited.

Comments

[bloominglotus.livejournal.com]

What are your thoughts on the HPV vaccine? My doctor tried to give me the whole "your daughter is almost 13 and OMG one-third of 15-year-olds are sexually active so be scared, be REALLY SCARED and spend $150.00 you don't have on a vaccine that she may not need" routine at her last check-up.

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

I'm absolutely for it, but I think the history of public health shows that there is no way they can make it mandatory. If I had a daughter I would certainly get it and as early as possible.

[bloominglotus.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong - I take Ashleigh's reproductive health seriously, as does she (she plans to be childfree so she is very concerned about pregnancy and protection when the time comes, and we have had MANY discussions re: condoms and diseases). I'm just hoping against hope that insurance begins to cover it.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Even if she's not sexually active yet she'll still benefit in the long term. I wouldn't be scared, but it's a great thing and I would definitely give it to my daughters. I like to err on the side of caution. I do agree that it would be great if health insurance covered it. You should contact Planned Parenthood and see if they've offering it- they do a sliding scale payment plan based on your income.

[bloominglotus.livejournal.com]

Good idea!

I don't have a problem with her having it. I just was really taken aback from the intensely dramatic hardsell. It was as if the doctor had a quota or something, because you would have thought that I was condemning my child to horrific disease if I didn't yank that cash out of my ass right that minute. I wasn't even all that familiar with the vaccine (sad, I know) so I didn't know what to make of it.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

You know, now that you mention it, the doctor might have a quota of sorts. It's a brand new vaccine, and maybe if enough people get it it will help with the insurance aspect, by showing the demand? There was a lot of political opposition to it (conservatives said it would give kids a mandate to have premarital sex, like a) having sex after marriage means you won't get an STI and b) kids who up until now didn't even know you could get HPV for the most part will have sex without thinking about HIV and other STI's).

[ickstickrickbic.livejournal.com]

This article is quite idealistic. Yeah, it would be great if all women got pap smears but it's definitely not how it is in the real world. While I don't agree with every woman of childbearing age receiving the vaccine, it needs to be a serious consideration for risky groups. The author does not take into account that one of the groups of people with skyrocketing new diagnoses of HIV are young heterosexual minority woman, who will, if transmitted strains 16 and 18, progress to cervical cancer in less than half the time that an HIV negative woman would.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Are you a female who may some day have sex? Then you're in a risk group. HPV is the most ubiquitous sexually transmitted infection, and it's actually unusual for someone NOT to have it in one strain or another. Considering the fact that men almost never show symptoms (unless it's the genital warts variety) and can't be tested for it, there's no way to know if a guy has it or not. In other words, just being sexually active puts you in a "risky group" for HPV.

I've had a pap smear every year, and this last January I found out I have the strain of HPV that causes cervical cancer. I've had a colposcopy and two follow-up paps this year since then, and it's still pre-cancerous. I've had very few partners and have always been monogamous - I am white, middle class, and have a college degree.

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

I don't think that you and ickstickrickbic are disagreeing..

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Hm. I was under the impression that ickstickrickbic doesn't think most girls are at risk for HPV, when they are. Of course, this is obviously something close to my heart, so I'm bound to be a bit passionate about it. :)

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

I don't want to put words in her mouth, but I doubt that's what she's saying.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

My mistake!

[ickstickrickbic.livejournal.com]

Men can actually be tested for HPV using an anal pap, it's just that many clinicians do not typically test for this. I was saying in my post that it's naive to think that every one will catch HPV related abnormalities on a pap since in reality, many women are outside of the health care system and do not routinely get paps therefore they would have a much higher risk of developing cervical cancer because these changes are not detected. I understand that HPV is the most common STD, I'm simply saying that the people that are likely to progress to cervical CA are people not frequently touching base with the health care community and that vaccinating these people when they do make contact is beneficial. I agree with you that having sex puts you in the risk group for HPV, I was commenting more on the group of women that will progress to cancer.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

It also depends on the strain itself- I have the very virulent strain, so even though I'm a non-smoking vegetarian who exercises and eats well, and avoids alcohol generally, and drinks green tea like it's going out of style (plus the socieoeconomic factors I've mentioned) I've still got it. I do agree that high-risk people should be targeted most heavily.

I'm not sure that the anal pap can tell about a genital infection in men- I've read on the CDC website and heard from my two gynocologists that they can't detect it in men without warts.

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

You're right, the editorial has a rosy view of access to yearly exams. I see her point about promoting general health over a "magic bullet" but why can't we have both? It reminds me of earlier debates about birth control and how different groups are for and against over-the-counter access because the simple fact is that many women would never see a doctor if they didn't have to have an exam to get birth control.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

This is one of the reasons I really applaud Planned Parenthood- even when I didn't have health insurance, I was always able to get (often free) exams and birth control. Personally, I believe making reproductive health free for all citizens would be a great start, especially since a lot of it isn't covered by some health insurance companies. Of course, I think all health care should be free, but this would be a good start.

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

PP is such a tricky topic in women's health because they are essentially a population control program, not a women's health program. Don't get me wrong - they do good things for women's health, but reliance on them to fill in health gaps in problematic. For example, I wasn't surprised when the Sioux impeached their chief for proposing a PP on the reservation. With a long history of forced sterilization of Native men and women, the idea of easy access to population control centered on a reservation carries the baggage of eugenics with it.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

That geological article is really cool- it shows how often we're so set in our minds about a particular paradigm that we can't think outside the box. How simple it seems when it's explained; the rock formations are precipitations, not erosions! And a gorgeous photograph, too.

[ilovepolaroids.livejournal.com]

If current trends continue, by the time my 9-year-old daughter is 48, the median age when cervical cancer is diagnosed, there will be only a few thousand cases of the cancer in women, and about 1,000 deaths or fewer each year, even without the vaccine.>/i>

my doctor was telling me just last week about how much HPV has evolved and how 10 years ago she used to see lots of women in their thirties getting it and now it's women in their mid-twenties. i wish there was a vaccine available years ago! i would have been up for getting it, but then again, no one really talks about HPV (i don't remember being told how common it is when i was in high school health classes or even in college).