Science stories of 2022 Part 2: Mendel’s corpse to Molecules to Star catching

On December 31, 2022 By Catherine HausteinIn chemistry, science history, scientists in fictionLeave a comment

Mendel resurrected. When I read about Gregor Mendel being dug up and his genes sequenced, I considered finding a job as a soothsayer.

In my first and now out of print novel, monks and Mendel play a small role. The novel is set in 1872 a time when the field of biology was exploding with perception changing information. You see, before Czech botanist and friar Gregor Mendel showed that both male and female pea plants contributed equally to the offspring, people thought that the male contributed more. They even thought that a tiny person was inside sperm. Yes, men were the seed and women were the dirt. But Mendel’s experiments contradicted this. Although he didn’t achieve fame during his lifetime, when his studies were found, they supported the popular and controversial theory of evolution. Darwin said that sexual selection and survival determined the fate of a species and that diversity helped a species survive. Mendel showed how the diversity comes about—through sexual selection and genetic recombination. This is one thing people didn’t like about Darwin back in the day. People are equal and diversity is good? It made them feel too guilty about exploitation.

Adding to the connections with my writing, my most recent novel revolved around Isaac Newton being dug up and “reconstituted.”

Right up my alley, the story about raiding Mendel’s casket for DNA is one of my top stories. The whole article is worth a click, especially if your knowledge genetics history is a little rusty. One interesting finding was that Mendel may have had epilepsy. He carried the genes for it. Mendel was a big guy with a huge brain. Like Newton, he suffered from bouts of “nerves.” I’m not sure if there is a sexy Mendel novel in my future but his “resurrection” supports the notion that diversity contributes to the survival and richness of a species.

2. Molecule of the year. I admit, I’ve always found fluorine a little scary. Maybe it’s the atomic symbol F. Or the fact that F₂ makes bleach look like a baby lotion. Or maybe it’s because no kind of birth control worked for the researcher I knew doing fluoride chemistry. It’s kind of a surprise that F₈C₈won a molecule of the year beauty contest. It beat out some new magnetic materials for the prize (of bragging rights.) It can capture electrons so might have a use someday but right now, it’s kind of quirky—a characteristic that attracts chemists like catnip.

3. How cool is fusion? We’ve all seen a fusion reaction. It’s what’s happening on our sun. The lovely, clear light of the stars are also fusion. So, what is it exactly?

It’s a nuclear reaction which right off the bat makes it special. Most day to day chemical reactions are not nuclear reactions. They involve the outside of the atom, the electrons. Electrons make up most of the space of an atom. They are fairly easily removed with energy. Static electricity and its dramatic counter part, lightning, are example of electrons being moved by rubbing, not liking where they are, and shockingly returning to their place around atoms.

We’ve all seen fanciful atomic images where the electrons swirl around in shells or favored paths. Most chemical reactions involve those electrons hopping about or sharing their spaces to make bond. When this happens, the heart of the atom, the nucleus, remains intact. The nucleus is what gives an atom, an element, its identity. When the nucleus is changed, the atom becomes a completely new element. The energy that holds the nucleus together is tremendous and this is released in a nuclear reaction.

Most types of atoms are far too stable, too held together with energy, to do anything like this. Electrons are flighty. They’ll move. Change the nucleus? Most elements say no thanks. I like who I am. Elements in the middle of the periodic table are most likely to refuse to participate in nuclear reactions. Take a look if you want. There’s good old iron right in the center. But iron rusts you might say. It does but rusting is an electron reaction, not a nuclear reaction. It’s more of a hook-up between iron and oxygen than a change in identity for either element. An iron nuclear bomb or reaction would be in the realm of the unbelievable. Also unbelievably devistating.

Nuclear reactions as we know them occur with the extreme elements–the very small or the very large. Fusion squeezes together the smallest of the elements, hydrogen, and makes helium, the last massive inert gas. It takes much less energy to hold together the helium than the two hydrogens. The reaction releases so much energy that of course, we’ve made bombs from the process. They are ignited with a fission bomb. But to make a non-bomb and get the energy out is much more difficult.

Fusion reactors have to essentially put the sun in a jar. The payoff is massive energy that has simple by-products: helium and an energetic neutron. But is it all it’s promoted to be? Atomic scientists have doubts. But this year scientists in California created a non-bomb reaction that made some energy without blowing the container to smithereens. It’s progress towards a clean energy future. Unlike Mendel being dug up, this story was perhaps bigger than it needed to be. But I couldn’t resist giving a lesson in chemistry, and being not too tall, I like it when small things get a big reaction, so thanks for reading!

The Great Blood Pudding Debate

On January 9, 2020 By Catherine HausteinIn science history5 Comments

If you’ve ever been privy to a church debate or argument, you know it’s a hurtful thing and can stick with you for a long time. The debate about blood pudding was fiercely fought in England in the mid 1600s to late 1700s. Sir Isaac Newton didn’t leave behind many papers or correspondence when he died at the age of 84 in 1727. But he did leave behind a treatise on his thoughts about the raging blood pudding debate-the question being, should Christians eat blood pudding?

First of all, what is blood pudding? Also called black pudding and blood sausage, it’s made from animal blood, a grain such as oatmeal, fat, and various spices, and is sometimes stuffed in a casing like a sausage. It’s considered an English breakfast staple. Bloedworst in the Netherlands, Boudin noir in France, morcilla to Spanish speakers, this dish is popular in many cultures. It’s said to be softer than a regular sausage but still meaty, with a taste you can only really describe as “dark.” But you might have never heard of it. In the US, it’s banned for sanitary reasons, however, it’s important in French and Cajun cooking and some versions have passed inspection.

In Newton’s day it was a staple food of the poor, particularly the Irish, who bled their oxen to make it without killing the animals.

Why was this food once worth a religious brawl? The debate centers around the book of Genesis. In the first part of Genesis, humans are told to eat only plants. Later, Noah is told it’s okay to eat animal but not their blood. For Christian scholars, the holy book held three sets of rules–Moses rules, Noah rules, and post-Jesus rules. No blood was a Noah rule. The argument is that drinking/eating blood is barbaric, consuming a life force that is not yours to consume. But according to some scholars, post-Jesus rules say you can eat the blood. Isaac Newton himself was squarely in the anti-blood pudding camp. He was a great reader of scripture and did his best to interpret it. He said,”the prohibition is a check to savageness and cruelty.” He was not alone in equating blood with sacred life. You could eat flesh but not blood in many opinions. To eat blood defiled the person who consumed it. It might give the person a thirst for blood.

In Newton’s day, many also thought that trophy hunting was forbidden by the bible, again, because it incited cruelty of the spirt. Newton was opposed to eating anything killed in a cruel manner because “such actions incline men to …unmercifulness.” The Methodists joined him in being anti-blood pudding. Newton, it should be noted, was not particularly merciful. He was full-Noah in regards to blood eating yet in the “post-Jesus” camp and against circumcision. But if anything, people in religious debates are not known for their consistency of stances.

The debate still goes on today in some circles. The tempest, however, subsided, possibly around 1797 when John Rollo, surgeon General of the Royal Artillery, prescribed it as a cure for diabetes, along with opium. Clinical Diabetes(Vol. 14, Issue 3).

The anti-puddingers have largely been forgotten. It’s popular throughout the world. There is even a Black Pudding Club and a Blood Pudding Press, which publishes poetry. A man saved his life by using a frozen one as a battering ram when he got stuck in a freezer.

Next time you get in a pointless debate, remember the Black Pudding.

At least he’s not getting hit with Black Pudding. You can buy this cute decal here https://www.etsy.com/listing/37437973/isaac-newton-gravity-decal-macbook?ref=shop_home_active_67

Decal link.

Laughing Gas–a history

On September 13, 2018September 13, 2018 By Catherine HausteinIn chemistry, marriage, science history, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Laughing Gas, nitrous oxide, was first created by Cornish chemist Humphry Davy in 1799…although some credit the reclusive Joeseph Priestly with this. In any case, it was Davy who brought laughing gas to the world and with it, won prestige.

Humphry Davy was born the son of a farmer and wood-worker. The athletic and garrulous Davy was not the best of students. He was, however, good at preparing remedies for a local doctor and even better at making explosions and gases intended to affect people’s health. Gases were created chemically and collected in silk or later, rubber bags and people took sucks of the bag while holding their nose to receive treatments. One use of gases Davy explored was as anesthetics. The only anesthetics in those days were alcohol and opium. Surgeons had to operate quickly–amputating limbs in a minute or two–three at most. The use of laughing gas as an anesthetic was slow to catch on– it wasn’t until 1844 that it became used by a dentist and not until the 1870s that use became routine. (The man who pioneered its use in dentistry later became deranged.)

Shunned as an anesthetic, the euphoric properties of nitrous oxide made it a popular party drug, sometimes administered in traveling entertainment tents bearing Davy’s picture. Davy called nitrous oxide inhalation “pleasurably thrilling.”Others have described it as “you’re all rubbery and relaxed and silly laughing usually. The rooms can seem to be collapsing and spinning but in a fun way with sort of swooshing wavy sounds.” The nitrous oxide promotion propelled Davy into fame–it was a fad that won him a prestigious appointment to the Royal Institution in 1801 at the young age of 22. In this capacity, he lectured and popularized science to the point that he was knighted at the age of 34 and later made a baronet.Davy also discovered ether and chloroform. Although he did help his assistant Michael Faraday achieve fame, Davy clung to his superiority as if he had been born into it.

In retrospect, nitrous oxide has some harsh side effects. It can suppress vitamin B12 uptake, destroy your body’s Vitamin B12, and cause brain damage if over-used. There have even been cases of paralysis and spinal degradation in frequent users. However, as anesthetics go, it is one of the safest. Perhaps this brain damage created his snobbish treatment of Michael Faraday later in life. Faraday attributed some of this to his high class wife, Lady Jane. (My Mom used the term”Lady Jane” to refer to a snotty attitude but it has taken new meaning these days).Lady Jane and her money can be thanked for numerous portraits of the handsome Davy in those pre-photography days. In any case, I digress.

Davy — This photo was taken from A History of Chemistry by F.J. Moore third edition 1939

Laughing gas is used today in dental offices where it eases the pain and anxiety that come with dental work. It’s used to aid the torment of childbirth and can create “giggly, happy women during birth.” It’s used as a whipped cream propellent and also as a recreational drug known as “whippet” and “Hippie Crack.” It can also be found in fumes from burning coal and is a greenhouse gas.

We now know that nitrous oxide keeps nerve impulses from reaching their target. It blocks the gap between the nerve endings. Ketamine acts in the same way. It also causes the release of opioid-like hormones and increases blood flow to the brain. It should be used infrequently. It hampers both male and female fertility. Indeed, neither Davy or his pupil Faraday had children.

Strange Change and other Elements of Science Fiction

On May 16, 2018June 23, 2019 By Catherine HausteinIn fiction writing, lablit, science, science history, scientists in fiction2 Comments

One reason I enjoy writing science fiction is because it is at its best, social satire. It’s both serious and campy, insightful and strange. It is by nature, multidisciplinary, wrought with nuance and language subtleties that make it unpalatable for some readers and catnip for others.

Author David Ketterer says “Science fiction (in the inclusive sense) combines satire with the kind of visionary (or prophetic) imagination exemplified by Dante’s Divine Comedy or Milton’s Paradise Lost. ..”

If you look at the history of science fiction, you can see prime examples of social satire. Ray Bradbury, who wrote during the era of segregation said that much of his work is about oppression and racism. The word robot derives from the Czech word for slave so often in science fiction, you can assume that a robot represents an individual who has low social status and is oppressed, like Wall E. The term was first coined in a play, R.U.R. In this campy melodrama, the robots finally accomplish a rebellion against their tormentors.

Likewise, an encounter with an alien or “other” may be a subtle comment about racism, classism, or sexism, often accompanied by an anti-colonialism sentiment. One of my favorite classical examples is First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells in which a scientist and a businessman have competing ideas about studying the moon vs conquering it.

James Gunn argues that science fiction has its own set of protocols set apart from literary fiction. Like science itself, it is a genre in which characters encounter the unknown, solve problems, and create understandable universes. He describes it as “the literature of the human species encountering change.”

Margaret Atwood calls Science Fiction “Social Commentary about Now. ” She doesn’t write a novel without a modern detail hidden in the story line. An older woman, she warns what life was like, and could be like, if women aren’t allowed to control their own bodies, as happened in the past.

Since science fiction is mainly about today’s society, a person doesn’t need to be a scientist to write science fiction. Some scientists avoid it because they dislike the anxiety about science that is often found on the pages. However, the science must be plausible and based on scientific information or the story won’t have authority. To paraphrase the late author and biochemist Isaac Asimov, science fiction needs to make brains respectable.

One way that an author can gain credibility is to accurately name chemical substances. For example, vibranium, found in Wakanda, carries the Latin noun ending -ium which became common for elements in the Victorian era when many elements were discovered and named. Despite a lot of well-known memes, keep in mind that scientists are most often drawn to science because they want to help people To create fresh, realistic characters, here are some traits that scientists feel help define them.

Through its discoveries and ways of looking at the world, science creates change that society adapts to. This is why we have science in science fiction–to create strange new change.The most important parts of science fiction are people and change, and in the best cases, satire based on today.

There is no Beauty without Strangeness (Detroit mural)

What ever happened to that actress and the prince?

On December 1, 2017December 10, 2017 By Catherine HausteinIn female scientists in literature, fiction writing, romance, science history, scientists in fiction, Uncategorized2 Comments

Wildlife scene — Wolves and Deer: A Tale Based on Fact (No, this isn’t the cover.)

You’ve heard the news. Here’s the Royal announcement:

A prince is engaged to an actress! Why would an American like me have any interest in such news at all? Actually, I do have interest and an announcement of my own.

I have interest because there was another time –200 years ago– when an actress took up with a prince who was third in line for the throne. Her name was Dora Jordan. She was Great Britain’s most famous comic, and I’ve written a novel about her. I just signed a contract for it with Rouge Phoenix Press. The e-book will be published in September, 2018 with paper backs available a little later.

Here’s the synopsis:

In 1832,Grace Clare works at the Royal Institution under the direction of the well-known chemist Michael Faraday. But science isn’t all she has on her mind. She learns that her birth mother was famous comic actress Dora Jordan. Grace is dangerously drawn into the tale of Dora’s mysterious, unjust death after her twenty-year relationship with the prince who now occupies the throne–a man who betrayed his life partner and mother of his children. As the only child free to do so, Grace travels to Paris for work and to view her mother’s lonely grave. Awash with the injustice of the cruel betrayal, will Grace be doomed to a tragic life of seeking revenge for her mother or like her mother will she be laughing in the end?

This novel is different from my others in that it’s written in third person –an appropriate point of view for the British Empire. The protagonist is more emotional and more vulnerable than my others. And, in keeping with the times–1832–the book is less absurd. The science is 100% realistic–based in 1832.

It’s filled with historical name dropping. Have you heard of any of these people?

Charles Babbage

Evariste Galios

Samuel Finley Breeze Morse

William IV and Queen Adelaide

Ching Shih

They’re all in Wolves and Deer: A Tale Based On Fact.

My previous novels had two-word titles. How did I get this long title for my third one? Here’s the story: Dora Jordan and Prince William lived on an estate in Bushy Park, famous for its fine deer. There was no retiring or resting for this actress. She worked to support the prince’s lavish tastes. She spent lots of her hard-earned cash fixing up the dilapidated estate, only to be tossed to the wolves and the house given to the Queen who replaced her. Dora’s not the only one thrown to the wolves in this novel. My heart bled all over the pages as I read about the betrayals suffered by the lower classes during this era. There were lots of “deer” and fewer but more powerful “wolves”.

How much of this book is based on fact? I did plenty of research on Dora’s life and times. I read letters she wrote (the best I could, her handwriting was difficult to decipher). I read plays she was in. Some such as Twelfth Night and As You Like It are old favorites. Others such as She Would and She Would Not are still published with the long S, (This was used at the beginning and middle of words but rarely at the end and can be found in typography before 1803.) Try reading that.

I became an amateur expert on Dora Jordan. I even found a sketch of her that her biographer had never seen. I have a Pinterest Board dedicated to her. I’ve written about her before. I purchased old newspaper clippings about Dora and even have one of her theater handbooks. I discovered that she was prone to telling tall tales. She was skilled at her own PR. Her lover, the Prince, acted as her agent and manager. It was difficult to tell truth from the fiction surrounding her. I put all of my data together and came up with the best story I could. Due to gaps and inconsistencies in history, I was compelled to fill in the blanks. I made up my own theories about her, logical and in keeping with how theater folk were expected to act at the time. As they said in the 1800s, it’s “a tale based on fact”, but it is, indeed, a tall tale of my own–a logical one created from the information gathered, but still, a tale. And it goes against the historical record, which I considered highly fabricated.

I also did research on Michael Faraday that included reading his biography and some of his letters. He took a trip to Paris and that helped me create the Paris of 1832. So did a British guide to Paris dated 1831.

For William IV, I read his biography and that of Queen Adelaide. The Diaries of Charles Greville provided some upper crust gossip–describing William as “something of a blackguard and something more of a buffoon.” And forgive me, mathematicians Babbage and Galios, I researched you too, and I’ve painted you as eccentric.

Wolves and Deer: A Tale Based on Fact is an 85,000-word historical novel that re-examines history and provides a happy ending along with tongue-in-cheek fun, early 19^th century-science, and mild social commentary. I hope you’ll love it.

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Science and equality and the homunculus

On October 23, 2016October 23, 2016 By Catherine HausteinIn science history, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Wouldn’t this Homunculus be a great Halloween costume?

homunculus_by_spacechili-1 — Just store it in glass, feed it blood and keep it warm for forty weeks and you too can have your very own human child!

The idea that a tiny person could be made by a man without help from woman is as old as Plato. The no-woman-required homunculus appeared in alchemical writings around 1530. It was wishful misogyny. How dare women do something men could not! But even as late as the 1920s, many people believed that the sperm contained a tiny person and the woman was no more than dirt for the seed to grow. This thought gave people permission to see women as lesser beings who didn’t deserve property rights or the right to their own children. It explains misplaced disdain for older women and women who don’t have children. Even the religious figure Martin Luther questioned if women had souls. Fortunately, science put a halt to this inequality.

The idea of inheritance from both parents, genetics, was first proposed in 1866 by Mendel who determined that peas contained traits from each parent in the same proportion. His work wasn’t widely known until 1900 and his clear evidence that both parents contribute equally to the offspring wasn’t accepted until 1925. The notion that the mother was an equal in the creation of offspring is less than 100 years old. This means that for eons past, a woman was blamed for barrenness or even for being too fertile. Charles Dickens, that great champion of humanity, brought this charge against his own wife as he abandoned her.

Genetic equality gave women more credibility but even still, James Watson, who is a discoverer of DNA, was a sexist man. Old ideas hang on even against clear evidence that they aren’t true. Fortunately, with time, the idea that women are lesser beings and a form of dirt because they bear children is on the way out.