Charged Magazine

Category: Articles

  • Hey Kids: Brush your teeth, stay in school… and read the citations!

    Hey Kids: Brush your teeth, stay in school… and read the citations!

    A co-worker sent this out to our research group in a rare moment of light-heartedness in the otherwise all-work-no-play world of physical chemistry research. His take was that we, as disseminators of scientific research, must be careful not to mislead the impressionable public. My take, which is admittedly more jaded, was that once again non-science media cannot be trusted to re-interpret the work of specialists. Of course a certain amount of external scrutinizing is required to keep we the bespectacled on the straight and narrow, otherwise we’d be spending all our grant money on Ferraris and replica iron man suits, but I’d like to imagine there is a happy medium between the far-fetched interpretations of science and technology that leave people feeling short changed  and some legitimately useful marriage of cutting edge scientific research and mass media.

    While trolling the interwebs for humorous tie-ins to this article, I came across a few pieces on the topic of science journalism written by Ananyo Bhattacharya, the online editor for Nature magazine, who in his own words has turned to the “dark side” of journalism after getting a PhD in physics and working as a researcher. Dark side is right, considering his views on the role of journalists covering science is basically that they have zero obligation to accurately portray scientific research as long as no explicit lies are told. I was particularly dumbfounded on his take regarding a concept of “copy-checking”.  Considering I am not a famous enough scientist to have articles written about my research I had never heard of copy-checking, but the basic idea is that journalists should not allow the scientists who they are writing about to preview their articles before submission. Ostensibly, this is to prevent scientists from doctoring the article to shed a more favorable light on their work, which I guess is an institutional convention for journalists to prevent politicians or other public figures from massaging press releases. That’s all well and good, but considering scientific researchers are supposed to be following rigorous ethical guidelines anyways, especially regarding publications and authorship, this seems to be a superfluous condition. Nature publishing group (who employs the journalist mentioned above) explicitly states the following regarding the requirements of authors.

    “Submission to a Nature journal is taken by the journal to mean that all the listed authors have agreed all of the contents.”

    That is to say, if your name appears on the work you are tacitly vouching for its content. Why the same consideration should not be extended to “non-scientific” reporting of research results I don’t know, but I digress. There is a simple solution to the ancient struggle between science and the media: read the references yourself. If you ever find yourself in the strange land of pseudo-scientific explanations or questionable presentation of the latest research, quit while you’re ahead and go straight to the source of the research being reported. Presumably even bad science journalism should cite the source of their topics, maybe even including the title of a research publication. A quick search in your favorite internet search engine will usually take you straight to the desired publication, and if you’re on a college campus you can probably even access the entire article gratis. Even reading the abstract (a brief overview of the research methods and findings used in the article) can go a long way in telling you with how much vigor you should roll your eyes.

    But what possible consequence could bad reporting of scientific research have? In some of the most esoteric research areas I’d say very little. For example, when the research occurring at the CERN Large Hadron Collider is misrepresented or even completely wrong in a news report, likely only the most familiar with their research (that excludes me!) would ever notice. Meanwhile, a piece on climate change with an appropriately alluring title might encourage residents of southern Florida to head for the hills. Medical research may be the one exception in which media claims are taken with a grain of salt, maybe because they’ve got this guy who makes this article feel a little redundant, but I’ll just tell myself we’re on the same team.

    Bottom line: you owe it to yourself as an inquisitive person (you ARE reading Charged Magazine after all) to apply a healthy dose of skepticism to any scientific report or study. The whole point of science after all is not to persuade with vagaries, but to convince with facts.

    Sources:

    http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/authorship.html

    http://www.memegenerator.net

  • A Trip to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens

    A Trip to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens

    This past month I had the absolute pleasure of visiting the Atlanta Botanical Gardens as part of class field trip with my BIOL 4440 Plant Physiology class. Located just up the street from Piedmont Park, a quick 10 minute drive or 30-40 minute walk (for those of us without cars on campus, cough cough, me) from Georgia Tech, the Gardens offer year round awesomeness. My first visit to the Gardens was free of charge thanks to Dr. Jerry Pullman, Georgia Tech’s one and only resident plant researcher. Dr. Pullman works with the Research and Conservation division of the Botanical Gardens to study native endangered plant species such as the Georgia Aster and various types of pitcher plants. Also due to Dr. Pullman’s sweet connections with the Garden’s staff, my classmates and I received a tour of the greenhouses led by the director of Research and Conservation, the lovely and informative Dr. Jenny Cruse-Sanders.

         Cruse-Sanders took us through several of the greenhouses that showcase different genres of botanical wonder. The pride and joy of the spring season is their Orchid collection, with a showcase called ORCHIDdaze which runs February through April before a “Gently Used Plant Sale” is held to sell the orchids to the public. However, the Gardens have orchids on display year-round with different seasonal displays and house an Orchid Reference Library for more bookish visitors, with public access available on Tuesdays. The Research and Conservation department runs a program for the restoration of the orchids native to Georgia. The Gardens also specialize in carnivorous plants, specifically Asian pitcher plants, Nepenthes, which can be seen in the Special Exhibits area of the Fugua conservatory. Also found in the conservatory are tropical conifers, some of which can be seen in the Tropical Rotunda, and Amborella, a rare genus of small trees native to New Caledonia and thought to be one of the earliest angiosperms.

          One the most enjoyable indoor exhibits for me was the Orangerie, which allows guests with the opportunity “to see, touch and smell some of the plants which are so important in our daily lives.” The Orangerie includes common foods such as vanilla, tea, coffee, cocoa, ginger, and many others. The botanical geek in me loved seeing these foods in the context of the whole plant, rather than just the isolated products.

         The Botanical Gardens work not only with plants, but also animals; in the tropical conservatory, quail and yellow saffron finches can be found among the underbrush and canopy, and snapping turtles and various types of frogs can be found in and around the water feature. My class was also treated to a tour of the amphibian displays and amphibian research lab by Amphibian Conservation Scientist, Dante Fenolio.

          The outdoor areas have much to offer as well, including The Edible Garden, The Rose Garden, The Southern Seasons Garden, a children’s area, and much more. The Gardens offer several events and classes, both delicious and educational, throughout the year, as well as volunteer opportunities. The garden is having an Endangered Species Day on June 2nd, where you can learn more about the work the Botanical Gardens do with rare plants and animals. Science Cafe is something I plan checking out soon, a climate change talk series held this May through October on the third Thursday of each month. The series will feature regional speakers discussing different aspects of climate change. This month’s lecture is titled “Pandora Botanicals: What kind of plants might grow on OTHER planets,” led by Dr. Angelle Tanner from Mississippi State University. More information on these events and other information about the Gardens can be found at http://www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org. Happy Exploring!

  • Supermassive Black Hole Causing a Stir in the Milky Way

    Supermassive Black Hole Causing a Stir in the Milky Way

    Have you ever wondered what goes on in outer space, especially around black holes? I know as a kid, viewing black holes as giant vacuum-like structures, I wondered about the kind of things that might be getting sucked into them while drifting through space. Well, a few weeks ago, I heard a talk by Dr. David Ballantyne about what is actually happening in space around supermassive black holes (SMBHs). (cue Twilight soundtrack)

    Black holes are categorized based on their number of solar masses, where one solar mass is equal to 1.989×1030 kg. In order for a black hole to be considered supermassive, it must be greater than 105 solar masses. Goodness gracious! That’s the equivalent of several million or, in some cases, several BILLION suns. A BILLION suns?!? Yes, folks. A billion. And while the formation of black holes isn’t completely understood, it’s possible for black holes to add to one another and form new, supermassive black holes (known as merging).

    One location of particular interest is the center of the Milky Way galaxy at Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius A star”) where a SMBH potentially resides. Abbreviated Sgr A*, this radio source is about 2.5×104 light years away from our solar system. It can be hard to see due to the murky clouding around it, but with advancements in adaptive optics and the use of telescope arrays, astrophysicists have been able to track young stars orbiting around the area— a key indicator that a black hole is present. In the animation below, you can see various stars orbiting around Sgr A* (the stationary star shape). Star S0-2 is particularly cool to watch as it can be seen making a complete orbit:

     

     

    Another interesting thing scientists have found is a dense cloud of gas which is moving directly toward this same SMBH. As the gas nears the black hole, part of its structure gets sucked inside. As you can see in the video below (at around 3:22), the cloud will have its closest encounter with the black hole in 2013. That’s next year! As the gas gets sucked into the SMBH, the black hole will gain energy and begin to glow brighter.

     

     

    Black holes are typically found at the center of galaxies organized in structures referred to as active galactic nuclei (AGNs), which are comprised of the black hole and any surrounding material, in addition to any gas or radiation present. As the material near the black hole swirls around, it creates what is known as the accretion disk. Like our sun, whose corona emits x-rays, black holes can also emit various forms of radiation, including x-rays. What?! Yessir! In a process called magnetic reconnection, magnetic field lines interact and reconnect with one another, causing (x-ray radiating) plasma to be emitted. These x-rays are then dispersed into space, some of which hit the accretion disc and create a ‘reflection spectrum’ which scientists can study.

     

     

    Now, while supermassive black holes weigh millions (sometimes billions) of suns and have the ability to tear apart nearby objects in space, you don’t have to worry about being sucked into one any time soon. Unless you’re this guy, in which case you may have some issues…

     

     

    MUSE’s “Supermassive Black Hole”:

     

     

    Sources:

    UCLA Galactic Center Group (http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghezgroup/gc/)

    Special thanks to Dr. Ballantyne

  • The Pollinator Commeth!

    The Pollinator Commeth!

    It’s pollen season, and where I live in Atlanta Mother Nature has given everything with the misfortune to be outside a healthy dusting. Now that my car has the same greeny-yellow slime color of an abandoned pool I am resolved to do some digging into the phenomenon. However, I feel pollen is fairly well known natural event. It’s part of plants making baby plants and bees are involved. What else is there to know right? Well for starters, how are pollen levels measured? Pollen levels being the standard metric by which news organizations inform drugstores to stock up on tissues and anti-histamine. This concept has gotten my engineer-sense tingling…unless that’s just… Oh geez…

    ::Achoo!::

    Just kidding. My immune system is like an impregnable fortress made of Dwarven forged mithril (the good stuff), but if you are one of the many people who suffer from pollen allergies (known collectively as allergic rhinitis AKA hay fever) you should take solace in the fact that science is on your side. Right now, on a rooftop somewhere in your area is a greased up rod spinning around in a tube that is sucking in air and pollen. This doohickey has the understandable but perhaps uninspired name of a “rotorod”. Air is sampled for a fixed interval, usually for one minute out of every ten minutes for a twenty-four hour period, and any pollen grains in the sampled air are stuck to a layer of silicone grease on the rotorod as they pass over its surface. After the sampling period a special staining solution that contains a dye designed to adhere preferentially to the surface of the pollen grains (and not for example on mold or dust also in the air) is put onto the rotorod localized pollen, and then a fixed area of the rotorod surface is observed under an optical microscope. By utilizing the fact that the sampling rate, volume of air sampled and observation area are all fixed the number of pollen grains on the observed area of the rotorod can be used to calculate the average concentration of pollen grains floating around in the air.

    If your response to that last paragraph was, “Wait, somebody has to physically count every single pollen grain collected during the test AND because they are a good scientist and want to minimize the scatter in their data took multiple tests? I thought you said science was on MY side!” then I am right there with you friend o’ mine. Sounds like a lot of work, especially when automated particle counters exist to constantly measure the concentration and size of particulates in the air. These particle counters use either the blocking of light (for particles larger than about 1000 nanometers) or scattering of light (for particles around 50-500 nanometers) and with similar methodology to the rotorod and microscope method (known volume of sampled air at fixed sampling intervals) these devices can determine total particle concentrations and size distributions for a given volume of air. This type of sampling technique is commonly used to monitor the “cleanliness” of clean rooms used for semiconductor and satellite fabrication where even minor levels of contaminants can cause device failure. The best clean rooms have as few as one or less particle with a diameter of 500 nanometers in every cubic foot of air. As someone who has spent some time as a famous clean room technician (that’s me in the background!), and considering the fact that normal “dirty” room air has over a million particulates of the same size for every cubic foot, I can tell you these are some pretty clean rooms.

    Images of pollen grains in SEM with false color added

    One very important reason for not using this technique is the fact that pollens of different varieties imply different allergic responses for different people. Thus reporting a total pollen count or grain size distribution might not be an effective method to inform the public about the likelihood of a runny nose in their future which is the whole point of monitoring pollen levels in the first place. As a consequence, a trained specialist must identify both the species and concentration of pollen grains with the method described above which results in the reported “pollen count”. The myriad of sizes and shapes among different pollen grains, which macroscopically have very similar appearances, is shown in this false color image taken in a scanning electron microscope shown to the left. The original grey scale image (all SEM images are taken in grey scale) can be found here with call-outs to identify the pollen grains.

    All of this finally brings us to the featured topic: the pollen count. From some sources only a value of high or low, moderate or severe or something of this nature is given, but this belies what we should now understand is a much more detailed piece of data from a very sensitive measurement system: a trained scientist. One source reported that the pollen count in Atlanta hit a record at over 9000 grains per cubic meter which seems like quite a lot, but not so bad when you consider the recent panic in Moscow when clouds of pollen from trees were so thick people thought they were toxic chemical fumes. Bonus points if you can spot the trained scientist in the video from Russia. With that knowledge, I’m feeling a little better about my car.

  • Earth Day Festival Turns A Gray Day Green

    Earth Day Festival Turns A Gray Day Green

    In 1970, 100,000 people gathered in Washington DC to protest the Vietnam War.  The deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin that year had fatally deglamorized the hippie lifestyle.  Smog-darkened skies were accepted as a byproduct of prosperity.  Environmental concerns had never been at the forefront of serious discussion.  It was Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson who first proposed a “national teach-in” on the environment to take place at every university campus in the US.  What better way to ignite a grassroots-led movement than to take advantage of the existing energy from anti-war protests?  The poignant events of 1970 awakened an emerging consciousness on which Earth Day was able to capitalize.  Consequently, 20 million Americans participated in the first Earth Day, and thousands of colleges protested against the deterioration of the environment.

    Forty-two years later, new generations are still helping to make Earth Day a huge international event.  Although the subject of most concern has shifted from local toxic pollution to the complexities of climate change, Earth Day continues to stress the importance of a sustainable society.

    This year at Georgia Tech’s 15th Annual Earth Day celebration the opportunity to unite our voices for a sustainable future was palpable.  Events were designed to encourage environmentally aware behaviors such as recycling, energy efficiency, and reducing disposable items.  The event featured a car exhibit, a green market, a clothes swap, an E-waste drop-off, free bike repair stations, Captain Planet, Reynard the Fox, a stage, and 70 exhibitors all on one sidewalk.

    Most of Earth Day, I volunteered with the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) booth where participants had the opportunity to paint a recycled cardboard tile, with labels “land” or “water” or both, so that when all tiles were pasted together, a map of the world emerged.  The message?  “EWB wants to highlight the interconnectedness of our environment, our world and the importance of sustainability.  Our goal at EWB is to help people on an international level to become more sustainable,” said EWB president Hannah Kates.

    An Earth Day-goer for the last few years, Janna San Juan noted, “Earth Day seems like it’s growing every year.  It gets people excited and reinforces the idea of being green.”  She was looking forward to trying the ‘Renewable Energy Challenge’ where participants could race against a solar panel on a stationary bike to generate energy.  They could light a bulb or fan themselves, such as the person in this image chose to do.

    Shoes flying through the air soon caught my attention.  The ‘Shoot the Shoe’ booth was run by the women’s basketball team, where participants had the opportunity to throw an old tennis shoe through a basketball hoop.  Earth Day committee member, Luke Chambers, who was promoting the booth in collaboration with Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program said, “Nike’s shoe recycle program reduces the need for new rubber and other materials which decreases environmental impact.  Our goal is to collect 500 pairs of worn-out tennis shoes.”  He also went on to tell me that $10,500 worth of reusable office supplies were donated for the ‘Office Supply Exchange’ event where students could shop for free.

    Before I could walk anywhere else, I was accosted by what could only be described as the Abominable Plastic Bag Man.  One More Generation, the non-profit organization founded by two elementary school students, was at Earth Day to raise awareness about Americans’ plastic bag use.  Fittingly, their “Plastic Bag Monster” donned 500 bags, the average person’s yearly usage and, hopefully, scared many others into purchasing reusable grocery bags.

     

    Like a child at a carnival, I let my senses lead the way at this event, so I ended up next in front of the live music.  This anomaly of a band, appearing in swing attire while at one point dishing out Spoon’s punk rock song “I Turn My Camera On,” attracted a large crowd with their energetic dancing and old school vibes.  Champagne Room lead singer Jared McGrath announced to the audience in between songs, “My favorite thing that comes from this Earth would have to be… beer.”  Cheers to that.

     

    After taking dozens of photos of the self-proclaimed “Southern Fried Swing Punk” band, I turned around to find another simple sensory boost.  Dry ice!  It was the American Chemical Society giving out cups of cold smoking punch.  They really sealed the deal with some bubble action.  By filling a bowl with a block of dry ice and running soapy water over the top, they created a ‘CO2 bubble’ which eventually erupted into a cloud of fog.  The kids, myself included, loved it.

    Free T-shirts were available for a very small labor fee.  You could collect your olive green “Helluva GREENgineer” shirt by participating in the ‘deconstructed’ maze.  Four eco-trivia stations were distributed throughout the event representing earth, wind, fire, and water.  Participants collected a stamp at each booth by answering the trivia question correctly, and four stamps got you the 100% organic cotton t-shirt.  “We’ve already given out about 150 stamps,” Marcela Moreno, a volunteer at the wind booth, informed me two hours into the event.  I quickly decided to take advantage of this freebie and ran to each station before the event ran out of shirts.

    Near the end of the event, I went back to the EWB booth where all the tiles had been painted.  As I helped paste the painted world back together again, I couldn’t help but think about all of the strides that have been made since the first Earth Day in 1970.  The development of the EPA, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, necessary laws that were formed because of the grassroots effort behind an unsettled generation.  I then noticed that someone had painted a new continent in the middle of our Pacific Ocean, and someone else had painted trees and flowers in our Antarctica.  Clearly, we still have a lot to work on, but with a united society and events like Earth Day, we can still continue to make large strides to save our environment.

     

     

  • Badass Biology: The Pistol Shrimp

    Badass Biology: The Pistol Shrimp

    “Wtf, shrimp!!? I make it all the way to this website from who knows what part of the internet, and I see ‘Badass Biology’. Man, Kevin, you flip my brain out with possibilities of flying sharks, rabbits of doom, or a half-honeybee half-unicorn rainbow pollinators. And what do you deliver? A stupid shrimp??! I hate you, and I quit this website. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)” To which I reply, “Charles Barkley, I think you’re over-reacting. Please repair my table at once”.

    It was hard to find a chart that even went up to 150dB, let alone the 220 these guys produce.

    Yes, it’s a shrimp. A measly two-inch-long shrimp. But you don’t understand. This one single stupid shrimp is just about the coolest thing I’ve ever heard. Trust me, and when you hear one too, you’ll probably go deaf, because this one little shrimp IS ONE OF THE LOUDEST ORGANISMS ON THE PLANET. I’m talking 220+ decibels, much louder than a gunshot and louder than standing next to a jet engine at take-off. O_o.

    First, I want to talk about some other wicked cool stuff this little guy does apart from being a tiny walking firework of sonic pain. These shrimp garner lots of attention from ecologists because of their symbiotic, or mutually-beneficial, relationship with gobies, a type of small marine fish. The coral reef populations of this shrimp build burrows and recruit the help of a goby to stand guard out front while being no more than an antennae’s distance from the shrimp, using the goby’s well-developed vision to watch for danger. Once danger comes, the goby flicks its tail to signal a threat, and both the goby and the shrimp retreat into the same burrow. Then they start slapping five. It’s flippin sweet.

    The mutualisms don't just end at gargoyle-ing.

    From an ecologist’s point of view, this is totally mutualistic, and some scientific literature lists this interaction as “totally f-ing amazing” [citation needed] (Good luck with finding THAT reference -ed.). Yeah, both the goby and the shrimp live to see another day should a shark, barracuda, squid, rogue buoy, really fast snail, very-misplaced land predator, sinking boat part, cloud of wasps, or sentient shrimp-hating spear come around to threaten them. The goby gets a burrow, and the pistol shrimp gets a gargoyle. Selection at work.

    I like to think of the goby as the pistol shrimp’s pet, kinda like me buying a falcon and parading it around the neighborhood on a leash. And once danger comes, the falcon goes “Hey yo, Kevo, you might need to reconsider this route”, we split, we don’t find danger, and I buy the falcon ribs for a job well done (and because I really want ribs right now). So in a sense, pistol shrimp are danger shepherds equipped with sun-blasting cannons of glory that we’ll get to in a moment.

    I need to take a break to collect myself. Holy balls, these shrimp own everything own-able. Next time I see one, I’m buying it ribs. The whole rack.

    Let’s get to that “pistol” thing, why don’t we? Pistol shrimp have one very distinct set of front appendages, like two arms extending outwards from its body. Only, one of these arms is disproportionately larger than the other, and it’s quite a contrast. Like no foolin’ man, this one arm alone can be as long as half the entire length of the shrimp’s body. Imagine walking around with one of your arms the size of the Hulk’s and you get the idea. This may look pretty stupid, but this powerful musculature operates one of the most badass weapons nature can offer.

    Yeah, kinda like this

    When in serious danger or when hunting, the pistol shrimp cocks its massive claw backwards into a 90o position. Once the claw snaps shut, it produces a jet of water propelled forward at 60mph. Yeah, woo, a fast water jet. Big deal. But here’s the amazing part. Are you ready to have your mind blown? If you have ever listened to me before, now is a pretty good time, too: This jet of water creates a bubble that cavitates, or implodes, generating a pressure wave that creates a sound loud enough to break glass in an instant. Not only that, but once the bubble cavitates, the heat generated by the force of the implosion causes the temperatures inside the bubble to reach about 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes. Eighteen. Thousand. Oh, and to top it off, the whole process takes three tenths of a second. 

    THIS TINY SHRIMP MAKES A BUBBLE SO AWESOME THAT IT’S LOUDER THAN A JET AND MORE THAN TWICE AS HOT AS THE SURFACE OF THE SUN.

     

    You can imagine the horribly bubbly doom the pistol shrimp’s enemies must face. Stunned (or killed) by the force of that kind of pressure change, the pistol shrimp’s prey has basically just become lunch in an instant. The shrimp pulls its quarry into its burrow, and goes to town, just how I could go to town on some ribs right about now. I dug up a video about this whole process in case what I said wasn’t convincing enough:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKPrGxB1Kzc

    If you want me to write about any other badass biological bosses, leave a comment. I may talk about them, or I may just tell you that your suggestions are awful. Probably not the latter though. I like people.

    Well, I like most people except you, Charles Barkley. I really miss that table. Now I’ve got nothing to rest my wine on when Glee’s on.

    Photo credits:

    http://www.airpowered.co.uk/images/dbachart.jpg

    http://loyalkng.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/arm_wrestling_champion_03.jpg

     

     

  • Celebrate DNA Day with a Chocolate Smoothie!

    Celebrate DNA Day with a Chocolate Smoothie!

    Happy DNA Day!!!!

    So, it’s April 20th and you want to celebrate DNA day, but aren’t sure how?  What about making chocolate smoothies in honor of Alfred Hershey and Barbara Chase, the rockin’ scientists whose experiment finally convinced everybody that the information for your traits (i.e. genes) was contained in DNA rather than in protein, which was the other contender .  They made their discovery 60 years ago so now’s a good time to call them out.

    Now, 1952 was a prosperous time in America and while folks were makin’ babies, watching TV and buying $0.20/gallon gasoline to fuel their big, beautiful cars, Hershey and Chase were hanging out on Long Island at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, mixin’ up phage (bacteriophage) and E. coli.  Phage are viruses that infect bacteria and when they do that they bring genetic information along with them.  Hershey and Chase had the genius idea that if they labeled the different parts of the phage with radioactivity and then tracked which parts went INTO the bacteria, they could figure out what genes were made of.  So, they labeled the phage protein with radioactive sulfur or the phage DNA with radioactive phosphorous and added it to the bacteria for a little while.  Then they used a blender (like the vintage Waring blender pictured here) to knock off any parts of the phage stuck to the outside of the bacteria and, lo and behold, the radioactive DNA was inside the cells carrying the genes and the radioactive protein got knocked off of the cells and floated away.

    The results of the Hershey Chase experiment paved the way for the golden era of molecular biology and actually made people care about the big paper Watson and Crick put out the next year that proposed the structure of DNA.

    So, HAPPY DNA DAY! Here’s how you can use YOUR blender to pay delicious tribute to these important scientists.