The SATs might have made you hate analogy problems, but this one sure is tasty.

That clangy thing taking up space in the bottom of your Guinness or Tetley’s can might soon be done away with and replaced by a coffee filter.

The ball inside the Guinness can, called a widget, contains a pocket of nitrogen gas held under pressure. When some lucky person opens the can, the pressure is released and the gas shoots out into the beer through a small hole and creates the foam.

You may now be thinking, Wait a minute—most beers seem to have plenty of gas bubbles even without some fancy widget. The thing is that Guinness and similar brews need the widget because nitrogen bubbles are smaller than those filled with carbon dioxide, the bubbling gas in other fizzy drinks. The small nitrogen bubbles make Guinness’ foam deliciously thick and creamy, but it’s harder to get the gas to come out of solution. The widget forces lots of excess nitrogen into the beer, setting off a well-timed bubble eruption.

But the widget is not the only way to send nitrogen bubbles cascading upward. In normal ...

Sharp-eyed viewers may have noticed that the BA blog has a new banner! If you didn’t notice, then look up a few centimeters. See it?

All the Discover blogs got spiffy new banners to help individualize them, yet have a design theme to tie them together. If you look over on the right, at the sidebar, you’ll see the blogs linked by their banners. That’ll make it easier for you to read all the other science blogs enthralled to the Hive Overmind. If you haven’t checked them out, you should. We have quite a variety here, and they’re all really good.

Masculinity/femininity of fine fragrances affects color-odor correspondences: a case for cognitions influencing cross-modal correspondences.

“Four experiments found that the colors people choose as corresponding to the odors of fine fragrances are influenced by the perceived masculinity/femininity of those fragrances. Experiment 1 examined the colors chosen for 3 male and 3 female fragrances. The pattern of colors chosen for female fragrances differed from that for male fragrances. Experiments 2 and 3 found that colors assigned to 2 unisex fragrances depend on whether subjects thought that the fragrances were male or female fragrances. Experiment 4, by labeling unisex fragrances as male or female, showed that this difference in color selection was the result of subjects’ thinking that a fragrance is a male or female fragrance. Thinking of the masculinity/femininity of a fragrance influences the selection of colors that corresponds to these odors.”

Photo: flickr/fruity monkey

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This is a guest post composed at the NSF Science: Becoming the Messenger Workshop at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln (UNL) by Vicki Miller, Office of Research and Economic Development, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

I grew up in rural Nebraska amid friends and family who tilled the soil, grew crops and raised livestock. Low farm prices and over production were the pressing issues. Food was abundant and cheap. No one thought much about the whys and hows of this abundance and there was much talk on the farm about America’s so-called “cheap food policy.”

We didn’t think much about it at the time but, it turns out, this abundance was fueled by science. Agricultural research spawned improved crops and technologies that spawned the “green revolution” and expanded ag production worldwide. University of Nebraska-Lincoln agronomist Ken Cassman says that, by the late 20th century, food was plentiful and inexpensive partly because of scientific advancements made decades earlier.

Those days of plenty could become a thing of the past. Food security – producing enough food to feed a rapidly expanding population – is shaping up as one of the 21^st century’s most critical challenges. Scientific research will again be at the heart of the solution.

The stakes are high and the issues are complex. As an agronomist, Cassman has spent his career working on issues related to food security. These days he keenly focused on what kinds of agricultural research will produce the most bang for the investment of time and money. He chairs a council of scientists that advises an international ag research centers – the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, known as CGIAR – on global agricultural research projects.

While Cassman doesn’t buy the doomsday predictions that a global food crisis is inevitable, he says science must play a leading role. And researchers must make wise choices about the most critical issues to address.

The stakes have never been higher for the next green revolution. As a former farm kid and a science communicator, I’m betting on the power of science and the ingenuity of farmers to find ways to keep food on the global table.

This is a guest post composed at the NSF Science: Becoming the Messenger Workshop at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln (UNL) by Autumn McIlraith.

The field of communication disorders is full of unanswered questions. We want to know why some children struggle to speak fluently, and why others have difficulty learning to read. Why are some treatments effective, but others aren’t? Research in the field of speech and language disorders has traditionally used behavioral testing to evaluate the abilities of individuals with impairments, and to measure the effectiveness of interventions. However, behavioral testing has some limitations. Often, we can see the problem, but not where in the chain the breakdown occurred. For the child struggling to speak, was it planning the motor movements that was the issue, or was it putting together the words themselves?

Brain imaging can help to answer these questions. It gives us a window into the hidden world of the brain, without actually opening up the skull and poking it. Techniques like functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), event-related brain potentials (ERP) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) allow us to look at brain activity, by measuring blood flow, or electrical or magnetic activity from neurons. These imaging techniques are completely noninvasive, and can be used with young children and in some cases even infants.

Through brain imaging, we can observe the brain in action. When we look at the brain scan of a child struggling to speak, we hope to be able to see whether the issues lie in areas associated with motor speech planning, language processing, or maybe somewhere else entirely. If the child underwent treatment for his or her issues and seemed to show improvement, we could compare the brain activity before or after treatment, to evaluate its effectiveness.

Speech and language researchers can benefit greatly from the expertise of brain imaging scientists. Collaboration between these areas in the future will help researchers to answer some exciting questions about the nature of speech and language impairments, and give us further insight into the marvelous complexity of the human brain.

(For more information about a language lab involved in brain imaging research, visit the here and here)

Fuels derived from biological sources, biofuels, are currently receiving a fair amount of press.One of the biggest concerns is always, are biofuels a viable option? With rising oil prices and instability in the Middle East, biofuels, especially those derived from non-food energy sources, are becoming more and more attractive possibilities.As part of an NSF-supported program, we are attempting to enhance lipid production and quantity in algae used for this purpose.These algae can be grown commercially without competition for crop land mass used for food.A beneficial side effect of this process is the inception of new start-up companies to produce these fuels.One example of this is Sapphire Energy Inc.

In a March 8, 2011, news release, Sapphire announced a strategic collaboration with the giant Monsanto Co. In crop development and crop chemical production, Monsanto is at the forefront.Monsanto has been integral in the development new crop plants and chemistry that have made billions of dollars of profit.With an investment from this company, Sapphire is obviously being taken seriously by the business community.In addition, the United States Department of Agriculture and Federal Aviation Administration have teamed up to invest in the production of renewable jet fuels.In two separate tests in January 2009, Continental and Japan Airlines flew pilot missions powered at least partially by jet fuel derived from algae.Mounting evidence attests to the viability of these fuels.

Companies like Sapphire and other new start-ups such as these will require the biological and chemical expertise of new young scientists.It is essential that we now support the education and training of bright enthusiastic students.We can invest in these students future and be at the forefront of this new technology industry or we can be left on the sidelines.It’s our choice.

Guest post by Paul Twigg

This is a guest post from Dr. Heather CJ Smith of Creighton University, composed while attending the NSF Science: Becoming the Messenger workshop in Lincoln, Ne.

Hearing loss is a widely-preventable public health dilemma costing the US economy $56 billion annually. In the US alone, oral antibiotics cause approximately 120,000 people to suffer from some form of irreversible-hearing loss. Since antibiotics are essential for treating life-threatening infections, it is critically important to develop new hearing loss prevention and treatment strategies. 

With the advent of new imaging technologies, my research group has been able to make the first real-time measurements of inner ear metabolism (energy production and use). This novel technique allowed us to ‘see’ how inner ear energy production is rapidly and dramatically inhibited by specific antibiotics. Unfortunately, such decreases in metabolism lead to the production of cell-damaging free radicals which, when generated at high-rates, permanently damage cells and the inner ear. This damage leads to irreversible-hearing loss. 

I am working on expanding these novel findings by researching how and why antibiotics interfere with energy production and cause free radical generation in the inner ear. Once we understand the mechanisms controlling the production free radicals during antibiotic treatment, optimized hearing loss prevention strategies can be developed and implemented to preserve the hearing of thousands of people every year.