Penny Bailey on science writing: ‘You need to know how to tell a good story’ gu.com/p/3eeeh/tf

— Guardian Science (@guardianscience) March 27, 2013

How a bee might see a flower – except, not really, because they *smell shapes* (kind of).

I’m brewing a project – a series  of workshops and performances – around BEES (I always feel I have to capitalise it) for this summer, called BUZZ WORDS (I credit thanks to Mr Ian Billings for assistance with the title).

So, with that in mind I’ve been looking out for bee-related stories, inspiration and reading – and tweeting bee-related excerpts from poems too. (They should show up on my Twitter-widget, bottom right).

One such story was this - the amazing symbiosis and (literally) electrical relationship between flowers and bees: plants can ‘communicate’ with bees how much pollen they have ‘in stock’, by changing their electrical field (excuse my usual mangling of scientific language). But the weird thing is that, from other reading I’m doing, bees don’t see in the same way we do at all – and nor can we really understand their ‘plastic sense of smell’, where – get this - shapes have fragrances. All very synaesthetic, which lends itself hugely to poetry, I reckon…

There’s an inherent impossibility trying to perceive as another animal might – but for me, that’s part of poetry’s job. To enjoy the plasticity of language and our imaginative faculties – which are, to a large extent, uniquely human. So this poem was trying to point towards what ‘being a bee’ might be like, but on human terms. (We don’t have any others, do we?)

The title takes its name from a terribly courtly and gorgeous song by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (the acoustic version) – so do have a listen (after reading). Just as flowers and bees have a symbiotic relationship, so do bees and humans – but who ends up the ‘shadow’ is still unclear. Hence the conclusion of the poem, perhaps: certainty is always plastic, being is always relative.

Little Shadows

Imagine that montage moment in the film

noir, where the PI  ranges the city streets,

neon lights lurid and rain-streaked and longing:

thinking thinking thinking about

what it is he doesn’t

yet know.  See it?

Imagine that, but now see it POV

and at nine-thousand times multiplicity

and instead of a He, you’re a She and you’re

flying flying flying about

at roof height, just knowing

knowing. OK?

Imagine that cutaway shot of a sign

which in the film says

GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS

all luminous-pink curving

tonguelike, now says:

ASTER X FRIKARTII.

That louche flashing purple

PRIVATE SHOW, now reads: SALVIA

NEMEROSA CARADONNA. Yeah?

And that raunchy Latin text becomes

a shape that bypasses your eyes

nine-thousand times and becomes the aroma

of everything – literally everything -

you have every wanted

or known. Right?

Imagine those nine-thousand

cutaway shots above a bar

of endlessly-pouring holy beer

have become a pendulum, pulling

your entire being with the breeze

of its transcendental scent,

the gravity of its colour. Yes.

And imagine that there’s no mystery,

only endless little shadows of yourself shining,

weaving through every single city street,

drinking drinking drinking in

the plastic certainty

of being.

Ada King, Countess of Lovelace – AKA Proto-Computer Queen

So Friday was International Women’s Day – and Sunday Mother’s Day. Hurrah for women!

(I realise I’ve rather missed the boat for both, but sometimes having time to sit down and write topical poetry doesn’t quite happen, alas.)

Anyway – this week’s piece is inspired by an exhibition at Newcastle’s Discover Museum, which presents portraits of eminent women scientists. Thinking about the act of portraiture and its power, I wrote a piece which – as the title of the post suggests – is very archaic advice for the artist on how to present a lady-scientist.

And yes, that’s why I’ve used that irritating little -hyphen- in there, for these are not just ‘scientists’, they are ‘lady-scientists’. The hyphen attaches them to their gender and all its holographic-accoutrements throughout the poem and, sadly, still throughout some of the scientific world. So the poem’s about the surface notion/image (much like a portrait) of women and women-in-science which used to abound but which is hopefully – slowly – being eroded.

I used the odd word ‘unbecoming’ as the alternative title to convey the idea that a woman’s work (indeed, anyone depicted in a portrait) can be curiously undermined, undone, by how they are presented. What does it mean: ‘unbecoming’? Un-becoming what? Not-becoming who? It is only ever used in relation to women, isn’t it?

My dear friend Emma – another amazing woman – is writing a blog post every day during women’s history month to celebrate women’s achievements in many different fields (including some ‘Lady-scientists’). You should check them out: there are many amazing women to read and learn about there.

And, as it was Mother’s Day on Sunday, I’m dedicating my very tongue-in-cheek poem (I italicise for extra emphasis) to my Mum. A memory came back to me which was part of the thinking behind this: we once went to buy a family car and visited a second-hand showroom.

The salesman (yes, I know Used Car Salesmen are not usually the most progressive of beings) attempted to sell Mum a car solely on the merit of the fact that it had very shiny rings at the front. As in, “Well madam, if it’s you that’ll be driving it, have you seen these bright, shiny rings at the front? Like the ones all little girls crave to receive when being proposed to by Prince Charming? Hmm? Shiny shiny, madam?”

No, he didn’t really say that: but his insistence that the cosmetic, surface element of the car was what she’d be interested in was quite enough. We didn’t stay long and certainly didn’t buy from there. So the poem’s in his voice, but projected from last century – and dedicated to women who, like my Mum, do not suffer such fools gladly (or, indeed, at all).

I think it took a slight lead from a great poem by Sylvia Plath called ‘The Applicant’ – which uses direct address and questioning to the reader, implicating them (you decide in what – I think it’s marriage, or some sinister pact). You can hear her read it – and be chilled and delighted – here.

And so here’s my poem for this week:

Advice for the Artist When Depicting a Lady-Scientist

or, Unbecoming

Firstly, how is the subject sat? Be careful

the angle does not make her

appear too confrontational.

A slight turn, a light smile and the proper

amount of space before her

should serve to diminish any

unbecoming competitiveness

in her stance.

Is the subject a geologist? Unfortunate.

Try not to make any instruments she holds

appear too…hard. A petite

hammer, perhaps, or dainty brush

for indoor artefacts.  Do not depict granite.

After all, there are types of rock more becoming

for a Lady-scientist.  Softer, more sedimentary layers

must surely declare her to be dainty.

When painting a biologist, flowers

may seem demure – but really, is

reproduction something a

Lady-scientist should be associated with

in public?

That elusive creature, the Lady-physicist,

must be gently regarded with

the relevant relativity.

Above all, avoid anything which proves

unbecoming to the Lady-scientist: for

great strides have been made for the

fairer sex to grace laboratory floors.

And even the slightest lapse in

judgement could undo progress

to their cause.

An artist’s impression of the European Extremely Large Telescope, to be built high up in the Andes – placed next to the London Eye, for some perspective…

Well, I’ve oscillated back from animals (Whales, T-Rexes) to SPACE again: so here’s something comic about telescopes. Earlier, I read this story on the UK’s financial commitment to the European Extremely Large Telescope (from the Guardian) – and was reminded how funny I always find the naming of telescopes. I’m pretty sure the last one was called the European Very Large Telescope. So it also begs the question of where they’ll go after ‘Extremely’…?

So that’s the starting point for this – the act of naming telescopes (and, perhaps, the difficult act of naming in something like astronomy) – and it takes the form of a conversation between two (antagonistic) astronomer-colleagues, perhaps in another telescope. The main thing is: it’s hopefully a bit of (if not Very, or Extremely) fun:

Very Extremely Very,

A Gazillibazoolian-Squillion

“BREATHTAKINGLY!” he gasped, before even a greeting, crashing the door against the wall. “That’s got to be it.”

“It’s hardly very objective,” the reply sighed. “We’re scientists, Dave – not advertisers. And good morning to you, too.”

“But that’s what I mean. ‘Extremely’, compared to what? Compared to the things we’re going to be looking at it’s not ‘extremely’ large at all.”

“We’re not comparing it to the things we’re looking at, Dave – we’re comparing it to the other telescopes. Compared to them, this one is extremely large.”

A silence as both men make notes, turn dials, type furiously –   front for figuring out their next line of attack.

“By your rationale,” Simon quickly established a new angle, “each measuring instrument would then be relative to that which it measures. What would have become of the Large Hadron Collider then? The Super-Massive Underground Mega-Hoop Measurer of Ultra-Tiny But Super-Important Things?”

“Actually, that’s not a bad -

“ – oh for Heaven’s Sake.”

An impasse – the almost-daily ritual.

“I just think that ‘Extremely Large’ doesn’t do it justice. Although I guess it makes sense as part of a kind or product range, or something.” He assumes a sales-voice in the vein of QVC or similar: “If you enjoyed the features of the ‘Very Large Telescope’, you’ll just love the new features of the ‘Extremely Large Telescope’: now able to blend the distribution of dark matter and finely slice the evolution of black-holes and galaxies!”

From the other desk, he can almost hear Simon’s smile being suppressed:

“I’m not sure anyone’s going to call in and pay for it: the cost would barely fit on a TV screen.”

There is a pleasant spaciousness, both enjoying a rare intersection of humours.

“Well today,” Dave takes back up his hyperbolic cudgel, “I’m backing ‘Breathtaking’ – what else could it be described as? It’s as big as all the other ones put together. If you did that with a cake, people would be impressed. And cakes can’t see into the origins of Time itself, not that I know of.”

“That might depend on the cake. And anyway: isn’t that a compound word, ‘Breath-taking’? You’re like a kid, making up numbers to win a competition.” He assumes the manner of an eight-year-old Dave: “A squillion, a gazillibazoolian-squillion!”

A brief silence as Dave decides whether to be offended, or flattered, at the impression. Then:

“How many zeros would that have?”

“A bloobazoolian zeros, OK?”

“I see.”

The tapping of keyboards. This had become the tacit sign now that they had wasted enough time and should get on with some proper work – nebulae were on the menu today, as they had been for the last four years.

“I just think we’re not going to give the public a real sense of the scale of this thing unless the name truly reflects it. It just sounds so mid-range – like a family car: ‘extremely spacious’. We may as well call it the ‘Pretty Gosh Darn Big Telescope’”.

Now the silence of someone studiedly ignoring someone else. Then, the final barrage, the day’s last attempt:

“The Almighty Telescope?”

“Oh the Churches will love that.”

“The Strikingly Large Telescope?”

“We don’t want it striking anything or anyone except light, Dave…”

“The UNCOMMONLY-”

“Dave: get off Thesarus.com – NOW.”

Researchers recruited a cohort of 7447 older aged people with high risk of developing cardiovascular diseases: they smoked, already had diabetes, obesity, hypertension, etc. For the study, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: MedDiet + Olive oil, MedDiet + nuts and a control group (low fat group).

Hazard ratios

In terms of hazard ratios, the authors report 0,7 for both MedDiets compared to the control group, which is statistically significant. According to the authors, eating a MedDiet leads to a relative risk reduction of 30% per 1000 person-years:

In this trial, an energy-unrestricted Mediterranean diet supplemented with either extra-virgin olive oil or nuts resulted in an absolute risk reduction of approximately 3 major cardiovascular events per 1000 person-years, for a relative risk reduction of approximately 30%, among high-risk persons who were initially free of cardiovascular disease.

So far so good. Or bad. According to this leaflet on the website of the University of Oxford, hazard ratios should not be treated as relative risk reductions.

However, I would like to address some other weird facts of the study.

Base rates

Out of 7447 people, 288 suffered from a “primary event” (cardiovascular disease or stroke):

A total of 288 primary-outcome events occurred: 96 in the group assigned to a Mediterranean diet with extra-virgin olive oil (3.8%), 83 in the group assigned to a Mediterranean diet with nuts (3.4%), and 109 in the control group (4.4%).

These percentages refer to the number of people in each group. Surprisingly, the authors did not test these ratios on statistical difference. At least they don’t report it. Thankfully, you can do that yourself with the use of statistical programs like SPSS or R.

It is true, in terms of absolute numbers, diseases seem to be slightly higher in the control group. BUT: If you take base rates into account, it becomes questionable if a MedDiet really does save you from cardiovascular diseases if you are at high risk of getting it:

33% (96/288) and 28% (83/288) of all primary events occurred in MedDiet groups (combined 61%).

Statistical excursion and Chi-square tests

Today, hazard ratios are increasingly used in survival/trial studies. But instead of calculating hazard ratios, you could as well apply the old-school-Chi-square-test-approach, which measures associations between categorial datasets. It is used in in situations in which you have measured the number of times that something (e.g. a primary event) occurred. I was curious, so I did it:

The first table shows the frequencies of primary events in relation to the three groups of the study. “Expected count” means: If the number of primary events is equally distributed among the groups, this number should be observed. Generally, you want to know if the real count differs from the expected count.

The second table shows the Chi-square significance test. In science, you have to test observed differences in your groups on statistical significance. If they do not differ significantly, it is likely that the differences between the groups is due to chance. In our case, the Chi-square test is not significant: p = .147. Basically this tells you: There is no significant association between the type of group and whether participants suffered a primary event or not.

You can dig deeper here, if you want to. At the bottom of Figure 2, you can see number of participants with primary end points/events in relation to the total number of people who participated in each group. The ratios for both MedDiet groups are:

81/4997 = 1,6 % for stroke

68/4997 = 1,3% for myocardial infarction

57/4997 = 1,1 % for cardiovascular causes

and for the control group:

58/2450 = 2,3 %  for stroke

38/2450 = 1,5 % for myocardial infarction

30/2450 = 1,2 % for cardiovascular causes

I did not test for statistical significance here, but the researches did not do it either. At least they do not report it. Why? I’m guessing that by doing so you would see that there is no difference between the groups either. I might be wrong on stroke, though.

Social desirability and impression management

Next up: There was no control for social desirability[1] or impression management[2]. What does that mean?

Assume you participate in this study. “Researchers” educate you in terms of diet and from time to time you are asked, whether you applied the guidelines. If you tell them you did not apply the guidelines, you will be excluded from study. It could also be, that you want to “please” the researches by telling them that you applied the guidelines. Let’s say you want to be seen as a “good participant” by the researchers. What would you answer? There are many reasons why you would lie on the questionnaires.

My point is: If you do not control for these effects, chances are high that the answers are unreliable, irrespective of what people answer. If you do not control what your participants really consume, you don’t know what they consume.

Biomarkers?

However, they still report different biomarkers in the supplementary appendix. In fact, there are differences between the groups in terms of biomarkers for olive oil and for nuts compared to control. That does not mean that the experimental manipulation worked.

These biomarkers—according to the study—only tell you if the groups ate more oilve oil or more nuts:

Biomarkers of compliance, including urinary hydroxytyrosol levels (to confirm compliance in the group receiving extra-virgin olive oil) and plasma alpha-linolenic acid levels (to confirm compliance in the group receiving mixed nuts), were measured in random subsamples of participants at 1, 3, and 5 years.

The biomarkers do not tell you if participants sticked to MedDiets. Differences in biomarkers are more likely to occur because of the olive oil and the nuts. Just imagine the scenario: How easy is it generally to eat nuts and oilive oil, compared to changing your diet?

Other issues

1. They treated the control group differently than the intervention groups. Not in terms of manipulation, that would be fine: The control group has to be different. The control group differs in terms of diet education. While MedDiet groups received training, personal interaction, etc., the control group only received leaflets once every year. As a researcher, I would be concerned about placebo effects in the intervention groups. Thankfully, the authors changed this education procedure later on in the study. Still: it is a flaw.

2. The few statistical significant results they report are probably just statistically significant, because of group sizes. That’s how statistics work. Because of large groups, even small differences between the groups will be significant:

Participants in the two Mediterranean-diet groups significantly increased weekly servings of fish (by 0.3 servings) and legumes (by 0.4 servings) in comparison with those in the control group.

Despite the fact that this information is based on memory and influenced by social desirability and impression management (see above): 0.4 servings of legumes (or 0.3 servings of fish) weekly have any protective influence on people? That is less than half a serving per week. I would like to know the effect sizes here. In addition: These are aggregated numbers. That means some people reported that they ate no fish/legumes at all and some reported that they ate more of it.

Conclusion

I am not stating that MedDiets are bad or that they are unhealthy. If you want to eat it, eat it: Nothing wrong with that and. Who knows? Perhaps you get some benefits from it. Instead, I am just saying that the claim of the paper is not supported by the evidence the authors provide. And here is the real problem I have with the study:

Claims like: “MedDiets protect you from getting cardiovascular diseases!” can lead to wrong conclusions. People who smoke and drink alcohol could think they just have to eat some fish and legumes and can continue smoking and drinking, because they will reduce their risk of getting a disease. In my opinion, studies like these can raise false hopes in people who are already at risk of developing diseases, which is a severe ethical issue in my opinion.

References

[1]Furnham, A. (1986). Response bias, social desirability and dissimulation. Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 7(3), 385-400.

[2]Leary, Kowalski (1990). Impression management: A literature review and two-component model. Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 107(1), 34-47.

A chomping Tyrranosauridae

Running a little behind after being struck down with a lurgy last week, but here is my latest sci-po – no wait! It’s a story.

I won’t say too much about the news story which inspired this, apart from the classic disclaimer: any likeness to persons living or fossilised genuinely is purely coincidental! So if Dr Dave Hone should read this – the curious narrator in this story is not you, it’s just inspired by the work you do (there’s the link to Project Daspletosaurus) and where it could take someone a lot less balanced than your good self (and their diet).

It’s a piece about the feeding habits – which may have been sporadically-cannibalistic in nature – of Tyrranosauridae (those terrible lizards of ‘Jurassic Park’ fame). The research is looking at how the T Rex’s scary cousins – such as the Daspletosaurus – ate, and supposes that they ate with a great variety of bites (not just swallowings-whole, as in ‘Jurassic Park’ – the science of which may, of course, be secondary to the story – and the merchandise).

No matter what fine-diners they were, it’s one family reunion I’m glad that evolution, meteors and the like has put pay to (nothing personal, I just think I’d get stuck in their teeth).

Here’s my story:

Canteenosarus-Rex or,

The Numbering of Teeth

The bones are the hardest part. As in, the most difficult. But – like all good researchers – he knows that 3-D computer models will only take him so far. He just wants to know – to really feel – what it would be like to have one as a guest at the dinner table; to witness their repertoire, the one he is sure they had, of chomps and nibbles.

At the start of the week, it was subtle – a basic attempt to avoid that simian lateral-chewing motion. An action, he muttered, evolved for plants. And that meant missing a whole link in the food-chain: those plentiful yet elusive herbivores, the duck-bill Hadrosaurs and horned Ceratopsians. The pelvis of one such creature – a Triceratops – was situated directly opposite the Daspletorsarus skull. His prime exhibit. He sat between them, fossil-eyed; glancing back and forth from the punctured pelvis to the sharp-toothed skull.

Small arrow-shaped marks were placed at each and every one of the impacts on the pelvis, like it was the scene of some 70-million-year-old crime. This was the analogy he used at public lectures, invoking CSI television-forensics cool: he needed, he said, to establish the Daspletosauruses ‘M.O.’.

Before this week, he had something of a routine: Monday was often a salad, pricked with cherry-tomatoes; Wednesday, leftover Mexican day – long enchilada tubes, dripping in cheese; Friday tended towards something hearty – a pie, perhaps, or a lasagne, layered like rock rich to be dug into. But salad had become too, well – brontosaurus, for the venture. Redundant. Hefty. Out of date. Now, many other foods just seemed so inauthentic to him.

By mid-week, his needs had outgrown the habitat of the laboratory canteen – there was just too much chicken. He would never learn anything from chicken – too splintery, too avian. He needed something chunkier, a larger leaf-eater. Beef was OK, or perhaps…giraffe, rhinoceros? Unlikely. He had to be reasonable. Perhaps this was what happened to the Tyrranosauridae, he thinks – to make them turn. Outgrowing their food supplies; that’s when they started to become cannibals.

So the packed-lunches began. Whatever protestations he made about being a feminist, his wife wore the trousers where it came to food. So, gingerly, as he stepped from the Friday front doorstep:

‘Leave the bones in,’ he said, maintaining earnest eye-contact. ‘And cook it quite rare. Really rare.’

She scanned his face for some sign of the joke that was to follow, but it did not come.

‘But what’s the point in a lamb-chop sandwich, when you have to remove the bones anyway?’ she entreated.

‘Rare,’ he repeated. ‘Please? I’m just feeling red-blooded this week.’

‘Lamb-chop sandwiches. Rare.’ She confirms. ‘Really rare.’ A sigh.

So this lunchtime, he sits above the white expanse of table and leers in the way he imagines his subject would: salivating at the feast to come, spreading out across the ceramic plain, the prey’s bills and horns scattering away from his mighty incisors. Nobody has sat with him for the last couple of days, but why would he mind? He is, after all, a top predator – and they hunt alone. He looks at the sandwich and considers which type of bite to deploy – something bone-shattering and bold, or something delicate and tendon-stripping.

Back in the lab, he gazes admiringly at the skull atop its plinth, numbering its teeth; as he tries to remove some lamb gristle with his tongue, he counts the incisors and molars his own skeleton sprouts. Insufficient, he thinks, as he reaches the end of the row and meets gummy nothingness.

Several tonnes, not 13 stone; over 60 razor-teeth, not his piffling set of 32 – nay, 31 after today’s lunch – blunt instruments. He wasn’t even a Daspletosaurus drumstick, barely a rump steak.

In the company of his skull and his other, he sits quietly, contemplatively, numbering his teeth – he doesn’t want to end up anywhere, you know, weird, with all this. So he imagines – just imagines – his own, as twice as numerous and twice as sharp as they really are.

Imagination, he thinks. Empathy. That’s what separates us, from the cannibals.