Hours worked vs. taxes paid

Sean at Cosmic Variance just put up a post on the Laffer Curve. Very interesting concept. But as Sean mentions, who knows whether the assumptions that come into the general Laffer Curve theory or those made by the study referred to in Sean's article are correct.

By reading the comments over at CV, I have a question. If you could keep more of the money you earn i.e. lower taxes, and assuming that you could chose how many hours a day you could work, would you work longer hours to increase your personal income, work the same hours which after all means more income anyways (though not as much as the first option)? or would you work less hours (enough to match your current income)?

Is it good for science?

As a TA I have taught labs and also some discussion sections for the courses. Most of them have been for engineers or science (including pre-med majors) but in one occasion I had to TA for a class designed for liberal arts majors. This was a whole new experience for me, it's not like engineers or science majors other than physics really enjoy taking a physics course (I'll leave my rant about why they should like and learn physics for a later time), but (these) liberal arts majors really, really came into the course hating physics. It didn't help that the professor that was teaching it taught it the exact same way that he teaches plasma physics to his graduate students: by showing lots of math and little explanations into the concepts.

As the semester moved on, my office hours started getting more and more students who looked for a different style and hopefully a chance at passing the course. I should mentioned here that I completely disagree with non-science/engineering majors having the requirement of taking science courses (at least in the traditional way). Don't get me wrong, as a scientist I definitely think the non-scientists also need to know about science, they play an important role in politics, economics and religion (just a few of the areas that heavily affect the funding and spreading of science) but do they really need to know how to solve boring textbook problems in order to appreciate science? I think not. I actually think by forcing non-science majors to take our courses we are doing science a disfavor: not only are they not learning science but they are hating it even more.

I mentioned that traditional science courses for non-majors do not stand very highly in my eyes, but every time I tried to explain my position to someone I ended up getting into many many details that, while true, were so specific many people didn't think they were as bad as I did. A few days ago I found a two-sentence answer that summarizes my view. It was Shinya Inoue who said it during an interview:

"I continue to worry about science being learned as a collection of facts and theories. One needs to have a certain body of knowledge -- but in addition, one needs to understand how the knowledge is acquired-- that really is at the heart of science."

I agree 100% percent. It is a simple phrase that contains important ideas. Just standing in front of a room reciting every equation or theory we can remember is a horrible way of teaching science. Science majors will (hopefully) eventually pick up the lost knowledge, but non-science majors will go through life thinking that science is just a bunch of non-sense stuff.

Is knowing that when we let go of something it will fall that complicated? Really? Can no one do better than integrating the acceleration twice on the board? I hope science professors and teachers soon catch up with the idea that not everyone is as passionate about science as they are and that science is more than just equations and theorems.

Nice prevention idea... maybe?

I don't know much (or anything) about regular gatherings of religions except for catholic masses but at least in these ones I see many weak points in terms of disease-spreading prevention. For example, before communion everyone recites Our Father while holding their neighbors' hands. Then they give the peace (shake hands with everyone around them) and a little later the go up for the communion. During communion, the priest puts the Host (sacramental bread) on the parishioners' hands, who then proceed to put it in their mouths. Afterwards, they drink the sacred wine from a common cup that is "cleaned" with a piece of cloth after each person that drinks from it. These are four actions that can spread diseases among the parishioners. With H1N1 flu looking like it is easily transmitted I wonder if churches can still provide the spiritual fulfillment to their people while being proactive as far as infection prevention goes. I am sure it is doable; when the "swine flu" first broke in Mexico, churches there encouraged their attendees not to shake hands and when things got worse they actually closed the churches (or any public gathering for that matter) for some time.

Just this past weekend I was talking to a family member about what churches (specifically in the US) will do to reduce the risk of H1n1 flu spreading among their members and now I find this article. Funny and maybe well intentioned (both because it makes an attempt to stop spreading disease and also because by offering "fortified" wine they might increase the number of people that attend, mmm maybe we should do that in science? ha) but will it actually work? Could they just stop doing that particular thing (drinking the wine from a common cup) for a while? At least while scientists figure out how to best combat H1N1?

I've actually been wanting to post about the real advantage (if any) of alcohol-based hand sanitizers (HS) in preventing getting the flu but I am definitely not an expert in virology or communicable diseases and finding good information on journals/books about this has proven more difficult than I thought so I've put it off. Health agencies, on the other hand, seem to be pretty convinced that using HS on a regular basis (if regular hand-washing is not available) is a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I think Health agencies are really trying their best to prevent any more spreading of diseases but I wonder if their suggestion of using HS is because it actually deactivates the virus or just to people are aware and think before putting their hand in their mouth or nose. You'd be surprised as to how effective not touching your face and covering your sneezes and coughs actually is. I will keep looking and will post about it if I do find out.

In the meantime, we should thank the Swedish for providing us with a great reason (excuse) to drink!

Stop the pain!!!!

Some time ago, Savage and I had a talk in which the concept of pain came up. I won't go into the details of the conversation but I will say that at the end we both sort of agreed that pain is a very important issue in human life. I don't think there are many people out there who like pain. And once you start thinking about pain, you start thinking about pain killers (e.g. acetaminophen, ibuprofen, acetylsalicylic acid). Many people are also sort of used to having these pills at hand, after all they are sold over the counter (OTC), but I have a feeling that just a very little number of them actually know how they work. This post is about that, about how they stop the pain.

OTC pain killers fall into a category called Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs or NSAIDs. Acetaminophen (better known as Tylenol) is usually (and unofficially) considered in this category even though it is not really an anti-inflammatory drug. The main reason is that although it doesn't prevent inflammation, the mechanism of action is somewhat similar to that of ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) or acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin), or at least that's the assumption. We'll talk about this later and you'll see how little it's known about acetaminophen.

So what is this mechanism? It is the inhibition of a class of enzymes called cyclooxygenase (COX for short). The COX enzymes are involved in the production of prostaglandin and thromboxane. Prostaglandin is the carrier of the message of damage (and the body's reaction is to let you know by creating pain) while thromboxane is involved in clot formation. So, by blocking the COX enzymes, the pain killers make it difficult for the body to know it's hurt and also prevent blood from clotting (this is why in many cases doctors cannot operate on you if you are taking aspirin until your body is free of it).

You can get into more detail and notice that there are several COX enzymes: COX-1, COX-2 and COX-3 and as you can imagine they have different roles. COX-1 is actually a regulator of many physiological processes and serves as a protector of the stomach lining. COX-2 is the one that raises the levels of prostaglandin when there is inflammation of tissue. This is the one that when blocked, produces the wanted effects of pain killers. COX-3 has just recently been discovered and the role is still unknown. Since NSAIDs block COX-1 too, you can now see why ibuprofen or aspirin can cause stomach ulcers, you are basically left without the protective element when you take those pills. Some attempts have been made at developing an specific COX-2 inhibitor and leaving the other ones unaffected but the results have been at least highly controversial, aside from the fact that lab tests show that although specific to COX-2 inhibition these drugs still cause stomach lining damage, the side effects of these new drugs seem to be very serious (think Celebrex or Vioxx).

Ibuprofen blocks both COX-1 and COX-2, while aspirin seems to have a larger effect on COX-1 than COX-2. That is why aspiring "thins" out the blood more than the others. What about acetaminophen?

Well, remember that at the beginning I said acetaminophen was considered an NSAID even though it didn't prevent inflammation? This in turn would indicate that it doesn't block COX-2 and since it doesn't affect blood clotting much then it should mean that COX-1 is also unaffected to a good extend by acetaminophen. So, why is it thrown together with NSAIDs and what the hell does it do to make pain go away? The reason it is put together with NSAIDs is because it seems that acetaminophen also blocks COX enzymes but the real mechanism of action is still debated. Some people argue it is actually COX-3 that is being blocked but the explanations as to how acetaminophen blocks pain without reducing inflammation are still speculative at best. For example, one idea is that acetaminophen cannot do its job in an environment where there is inflammation. This implies that acetaminophen actually in the central nervous system which seems to fit the observed effects. The bottom line is that very little is known about the most popular OTC pain medication.

Also, remember that while pain is awful and one would like to avoid it, overdosing (even just a single time) on NSAIDs or acetaminophen can cause acute liver damage. The chances of surviving this are rather slim so be conscious when consuming these medicines. Just because they work and are sold without much hassle doesn't mean that we understand them well nor that they come with no side effects.

Sir... you're gonna need to keep the noise down!!!!

As cities grow, their governments and citizens need to start worrying about their environmental effects. Everyone is familiar with air or water pollution and it is indisputable when it exists. There is however, a different but just as important pollution type, that not many people are aware of: noise pollution.

I started to think about this for two reasons, 1) the research group I work in can be loud, no I mean really loud and 2) I have an infant son who's woken up when the fucking neighbor and his motorcycle arrive or leave. It is amazing the possible negative health effects that noise pollution can have (from Wikipedia: annoyance and aggression, hypertension, high stress levels, tinnitus, hearing loss, sleep disturbances). Not fun at all. And that is only in humans. Animal environments suffer probably even more when noise is introduced into their area.

One big problem when it comes to regulating noise pollution is that a general agreement as to what sounds constitute pollution is not easy to be reached. I suspect my neighbor reeeeeeeeeeally likes his bike when it annoys me big time. Here's an area where scientists can really make an impact on society. By performing all kinds of studies and making those results available we could, maybe, change people's understanding of noise and its detrimental effect.

Thanks to Gabriel Iglesias for the title.

How can no one complain?

Well, it is because they probably aren't aware of the problem. I don't know about you, but I find a bit funny and at the same time confusing the rules for college grading the US.

First of all, how can anyone guarantee that translating a number into a letter grade will be done uniformly across disciplines and also professors. As much as people claim that Chemistry is harder than History, or that Physics is harder than anything else, :P , an A in one class should mean the same in another: that the student has learned everything (or most, since the A-grade represents a range) that was expected. For all I can tell, getting an A means being in the ~10% of your class, even if the top student only has a max numeric grade of 80-85. I don't think I will ever understand this idea of curving, but if everyone plays by the same rules then I can see not many people complaining and having a more or less fair process. Maybe not representative of the true learning done by the students but at least fair.

There is, however, another issue that only came to my attention after I was on the other side of the line, not as a student but as TA and that really, really troubles me: If my final letter grade will depend on how everyone else does in the class, I better fucking know how everyone else in the class did.

Case in point: One student, who didn't show up for class in a regular basis, gets a final numeric grade of 77. Another student, who religiously attended lecture gets a 74. According to the letter grade breaks, both of them got a B but since the professor knew the 74 student and thought this person put enough effort, he bumped the student's grade up to an A (which given that semester's distribution was a 79 and above).

This, unfair actions in my opinion, will continue to happen because students are not allowed to know the other students grades. The B student might just think he/she was too far away from an A and leave it at that. I know I would be bothered by the idea that someone else who did by the quantifiable standards worse than I did got a better grade because the professor thought better of them than he did of me. I'd like to complain, but if I can't see that someone who did worse than me got a better grade then I have no proof and will always lose the battle.

I really don't know how often this type of situation happens but I have the feeling that it occurs way more often than I think it should. Plus, it just doesn't make sense that in a highly subjective grading scheme showing all the data (in this case grades) is forbidden by law.

I get it that some people might feel bad if their peers find out they got a failing, or barely passing, grade and they need some sort of "protection". But I am sure no one intended having these privacy laws to abuse the system.

Why Science?

There is no one in my family nor high school friends that has studied any scientific major. Some friends are engineers yes, but not scientists. No one has gone to grad school to pursue a PhD degree either. As such, every time I go back home and meet with them I always get questions about what I do. I try to explain in layman terms my research and I think I do a good job at painting the big picture.

The last time I went home, I was asked a different question: Why do you (as in Charro, not any person) study science? I gave a standard answer: because it is really important for the future of the human race to keep make scientific discoveries and given that my research could have some relevance in the medical field I might (directly or indirectly) save a few lives, who knows. A few hours later I thought about the question again and I couldn't come up with an honest, awesome reason.

I could've say that it is because I can't see myself doing anything else, but that is a lie. Although I like doing science, I actually enjoy other activities to the point were I could've majored on those fields. So, ultimate passion is not the reason. I could say that I do it for the money, but anyone in science can tell you that average science salaries are not that high. You can definitely make more money in some of those other areas that I like. Money is out too. I kept thinking and came up with few other "potential" reasons but at the end they also didn't really make sense to me.

After several days of putting thought into it, I think I found the answer. It is not convincing for many people nor is it a cool answer but it seems to be the truth. I do science because I knew nothing else when I was growing up. No I was/am not a genius and knew science facts since I was a kid, on the contrary my "knowledge" was purely empirical but somehow discovery and experimentation were always present during my childhood. I owe this to my grandpa. As I mentioned already, no one in my family has any science, or engineering, education but my grandfather was a poor farm boy that had to learn how to fix whatever stuff broke at home. This taught him many tricks of course, but I think even more importantly it taught him not to be afraid about a problem, but to get your hands on it as soon as you can and look for the solution.

When I was a kid both of my parents worked and my grandparents took care of me during the day. I had the opportunity to learn from my grandpa how to fix stuff around the house. I am sure many people have opportunities like this, but what (probably) made the difference in my case was that whenever we had a "project" he would show me a way to go about fixing the problem but always ended by saying: This is not the best way to do it, why don't you think about it and try to come up with a better solution.

Thinking about how to fix things better somehow made me think about the factors that mattered the most: use a longer lever to unscrew a stuck screw, use the ground friction to loosen up a tire's screws before lifting it up, unplug the oven before touching the wires (just kidding), etc... you get the point. All of it was empirical, I couldn't explain that the reason why it was better was the torque increases with the lever arm for example. I guess when I had the opportunity to go to college there was only one thing I could do: Physics. It just made sense. Now I can explain all of those tricks I learned when I was a kid. I can even draw fancy diagrams and intimidating (for my family) equations explaining different phenomena.

That is why I do science. Although my grandpa is not with me anymore, I keep trying to come up with better ways to solve problems (I can't let him down, right?). But it doesn't have to be the only reason why someone goes into science. Maybe sometimes I wish I had absolute passion, it might make the journey more enjoyable. Anyways, even though I could have done many things with my life I do not regret the experiences I've had in science. Plus, I save a lot of money fixing everything at home.

So... next time someone asks I'll have an honest answer