science buzz

A step-by-step guide to faking the Turin Shroud (on a miniature scale - but it's the principle that matters)

2012-02-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

Here's what I used to start with - a 3D artefact (Ghanaian trinket), a bed of moist sand, a pair of pliars . Didn't need the spatula... Note the result of the previous experiment (linen stretched over heated face-up trinket, instead of face-down towards linen/ sand)

I then placed a square of linen over the sand tray, and pushed the trinket face down into the linen/sand

Here you can see the indentation left in the linen/sand when the trinket is removed in preparation for heating. The indentation is a guide to where to place the heated trinket into a pre-prepared cavity (but I might try using level sand next time).

Here is then trinket being heated. A sample of linen is used to test its temperature (note that it has charred at the end, meaning the trinket is now hot enough to scorch linen, probably overheated in fact (but in this pilot trial I deliberately set out to produce a 'extreme' end-result that would photograph well)

Here is the hot trinket being pressed down into the linen/sand. At this stage there is no evidence of scorching.

Here is the trinket being removed. It stuck half way - on account of charring at the nose...

First view of full thermal 'footprint' (correction - 'faceprint')

Trinket fully removed, revealing a thermal print of most of its features compared with original. Note the way that the cheeks show up - that did not happen without the sand , i.e. when the linen was pressed down on the trinket face-up. Note the amount of fine detail picked up - the beading on the eyebrows etc. Note too that the image is left-right reversed (like a photographic negative), see the blemish on cheek as a marker.

Here was a second run, using a less-strongly heated trinket. There are two scarcely visible scorch images - side by side - to the left of the trinket. Granted this photograph is lacking in visual impact, but is a better model for the faint image on the Shroud. With trial-and-error it might be possible to reproduce the precise image intensity of the Shroud of Turin.

How was the Turin Shroud faked? First experimental test of my sandpit theory

2012-02-02T03:54:00.000-08:00

They say one picture is worth a thousand words. Well, here are just two pictures for starters showing an extreme scorch image produced by my sandpit theory (see previous post).

Heat 3D metal object. Use a fragment of linen to test temperature (deliberately made high for this experiment to produce an 'extreme' example of a thermal footprint).

Press the heated artefact into linen spread over a tray of moist sand. Then remove the object to reveal the thermal footprint. Shown here half-removed (excessive charring under the nose made it stick at that point).
That's the bed of sand you see intruding on the right. The sand makes all the difference when thermo-printing off a 3D object.

Conclusion: my 'sandpit theory' for how the Turin Shroud was produced has been confirmed to work - at least in principle. Details can come later (as will a fuller series of photographs taken during the above experiment).

For the moment, I'd simply say that one can obtain much fainter, more superficial images, comparable to the one on the Shroud of Turin, by heating to a lower temperature, and applying less pressure when impressing the 3D object into the linen/sand.

Equipment required: A 3D object made of metal (I used a trinket bought off a street-trader in Ghana), a source of heat (e.g. an electric ring on a cooker), a shallow tray filled with moist sand, a square of linen (I used a portion off a decorator's floor sheet), and a pair of pliars with which to grip the hot object.

Discussion: I suppose one could call the image a 'thermal footprint' (or maybe that should be 'faceprint' in this instance).

Will it be shown to have 'encoded 3D information' if scanned, digitized and displayed on a VP-8 image analyser? Probably yes, is my guess, depending on what one means by "encoded" and "3D"

I personally see no reason why the 'thermal footprint' above cannot be rendered in 3D, in the same way that a photograph of a boot print with a ribbed sole in mud could be made to resemble a forensic scientist's 3D plaster cast of the same after computerized image manipulation. There's nowt mysterious about converting 2D images to 3D representations, just as long as one realizes one is dealing all the time with artefacts, at least if the initial object (boot, metal trinket, bronze statue even of the crucified Christ) is an artefact.

My new sandpit theory for how the Turin Shroud was produced - as a medieval hoax

2012-01-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

The basic principle - thermal imprinting from a 3D object
The technique is essentially one of 'branding' (as onto the hide of cattle) but the 'branding iron' was more probably a bronze statue - which did not need to be red hot to create a superficial scorch on linen.

This is intended as the briefest of summaries. I propose using my own comments section to flesh out the details, but only in response to queries. In the absence of comments my time is probably better spent in further experimentation (continuing the work I have described in previous posts on thermo-imprinting or thermo-stencilling).

Essence of the new model:

1. It uses a statue or bas relief of a crucified Christ - the kind of icon that would have adorned (if that is the correct term) many a medieval church or cathedral.

2. A shallow sandpit (US: sandbox) is made with fine dry (ed. or maybe moist?) sand and levelled off with a rake.

3. The sheet of linen is stretched over the top of the sand and smoothed out. The linen may have been impregnated to make it more receptive to acquiring a heat-imprinted image (think "invisible writing" that uses dried-on lemon juice or similar).

4. The statue is evenly heated in a kiln or oven until a test shows it to be hot enough to make a yellow or brown impression, i.e. 'scorch mark', on a side-sample of the linen.

(Whether one calls it a scorch or not is a matter of semantics that can be discussed later. Certainly it does not have to be hot enough to degrade or scorch bulk cellulose per se, except perhaps for a highly superficial imprint).

5. The heated statue is then placed face-down horizontally onto the linen, and pressed down lightly.

Except for awkward bits like the feet (see later) the statue is probably pressed no more than a cm or two into the sand, just sufficient to imprint as a light scorch the most prominent frontal features of the statue onto the linen, with little of the side features that might otherwise later give distortion when the cloth is removed and flattened.

The image would of course be a "negative", but that has nothing to do with photography, primitive of otherwise. The technology here is better described as thermal-imprinting by direct contact, relying mainly on heat conduction rather than radiant energy..

6. When a satisfactory image has formed of the ventral (frontal) side, the second unused half of the sheet is positioned over the newly raked sandpit, and the process repeated for the dorsal (rear) side of the statue.

7. What about the blood stains - getting them correctly positioned etc? That can be arranged by a slight modification of the procedure.

It requires a "dry run", or more correctly a "cold run". Firstly, the cold, unheated statue is pressed onto the cloth so as to penetrate the sand a little, leaving an indentation in both the sand and the linen. The statue is then carefully removed, and blood is then applied to the appropriate parts of the anatomy, as judged from the indentation. It may be left to clot and dry first. The statue is then taken away and heated, and then deposited carefully back into its original indentation to ensure consistent alignment, then pressed down a little more into the sand in order to get a good impression.

8. Created in this way, I believe the image would meet some subtle criteria that so far have not been fully achieved, e.g. in Jackson's work with his bas-relief models (see earlier post).

I believe a balance can be struck that can achieve a good compromise between a shallow bas-relief and a fully 3D statue.The compromise gives enough relief to account for 20th century "3D-encoded information" - which if the truth be told is really just an (over-hyped) analogue- to-digitized impression of 3D, ie differential scorching- to-computer-aided graduated relief. The dynamics of the pushing process, ie. - the gentle pressure on the statue, impressing it into the fabric and into the receptive cushioning sand to achieve progressively greater contact between cloth and hot metal is what helps to achieve a softer-focus more natural effect.

9. Because the statue is pressed downwards into the sand, i.e. at right angles, that would account for the so-called "directionality" of the image-forming process.

Attempting to explain the latter with radiation and projected images has been problematical, in the absence of lenses, concave mirrors, collimating systems etc., none of which are credibly medieval or indeed achievable today

10. This procedure might also explain some of the curious - or at any rate unexpected - features of the Shroud, e.g. the somewhat elongated fingers.

Those fingers (to say nothing of those "too good to be true" blood trails on forearms and that celebrated "mechanically-correct" nail wound through "wrist").

That could be the result of a "sliding effect" of those hot fingers (one of the the first parts of the statue to hit the fabric) during the first few moments of pressing into the sand. It might also explain why the soles of the feet are so prominent on the dorsal image, despite their being out-of-horizontal plane, since the sand-moulding influence forcing fabric against metal would be largely indifferent to plane.

Why are the soles of the feet (even if blood-stained) so prominent in the left hand image (dorsal view), with subject's back to linen? What had been holding the linen so close and tightly apposed to them at the instant of image-imprinting? A bed of supportive sand, banked up maybe?

To get a better idea of how soles come to be imprinted, and how they look on the flattened sheet, imagine yourself lying down on a sheet with muddy boots, first with heel-only contact, then imagine you ask someone to raise and then press the end of the sheet against the muddy soles to leave an imprint. Then imagine how the imprint will look when you get up and view the flattened-out sheet from above.

Comments - premoderated - are invited, but ad hom attacks will not be tolerated (or published) If posting as "anonymous" please append an initial or two.

Turin Shroud - beware computer-corrected and/or otherwise manipulated images

2012-01-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

I've previously drawn attention to those images of the Turin Shroud that are described as having "3D-encoded" information. They make it sound as if there is something mysterious, almost supernatural-like about the man depicted.

In fact the computer merely scans the digitized image for light and dark regions, and then "raises" the light and "lowers" the dark to create a 3D relief.

Yes, we are told that ordinary photographs and paintings do not respond in this fashion, but the fact that the 1532 burn marks do should be sufficient to show that there is nothing unique about the image of the crucified man. Anything, late-acquired burn marks included, that gives tonal contrast is interpreted as differences in relief and displayed accordingly. There may well be intensity differences that are related to 3D properties in the original image, but they are not selectively processed, nor does the computer tell you anything about how the image was formed on the cloth (beware explanatory diagrams that show a sheet of linen held above a picture of a crucified man, suggesting projection across space with no lens or other imaging system shown).

In fact there are many aspects of the Shroud image that are hyped in my view, often misleadingly so as to suggest paranormal phenomena, and others that are strangely overlooked, or at any rate, rarely commented upon.

A particular one that bothers me right now is the size disparity between the ventral (front) and dorsal (rear) image.Why should there be a size disparity if the v&d images on the shroud are from the same subject or representation thereof?

Here's one picture that accompanied a Daily Mail article that made the point well, but was strangely not commented upon in the article:

Ventral and dorsal images of the Turin Shroud (photographic positives)

Now I don't know about you, dear reader, but I would have said the dorsal image was considerably taller than the ventral, agreed?

Being a retired science bod an' all, I did not take this one picture on trust, so accessed a Google image file that showed the entire shroud opened and displayed full length, and used the photoediting function on my MS Office to place d&v side by side:

My DIY job on comparing those two views - ventral and dorsal

You won't believe the hassle this elicited on another site. I was accused of computer trickery, in particular for aligning the two images feet upwards (or sideways). In fact, MS Office chose to do that with no help from me. And it seems a reasonable assumption that both images end in feet, and are not truncated at some other level. But who knows what different people see or do not see in those faint sepia orignals:( I have been chided for not seeing toes, but as hard as I try I am never able to discern anything that are unequivocally toes, and when folk say I am blind I am reminded of the tale of the King who was in his "altogether") .

Here's an exercise anyone can do. Enter Turin Shroud into a Google image file and look for any side-by-side images of the original. In going through the first 15 pages or so, I have counted about 6, and all WITHOUT EXCEPTION show the dorsal image as taller than the ventral.

Then go to the multi-author paper by Fanti et al (2005) , and there you will see the difference confimed quantitatively.They say right away in the Introduction that the ventral length is 1.95 metres, and the dorsal is 2.02 metres, making a difference of 0.07metres, which is a very considerable 7cm.

Nobody has made a song-and-dance about that difference before - so why do I get beaten up for pointing out something that is both obvious at a quick glance, and confirmed quantitatively? Might it be something to do with having acquired the label "sceptic" on whom it is open season for the true-believers (or anti-science bods) to browbeat and belittle?

But it does not end there. I have been told to go and consult a "real science" paper ("15 pages" no less, as if papers were judged by their length), and in case I fail to do as told, there is a diagram from the paper, showing how a computer analysis of the front and rear images reveals that the two are "superimposable" (sic) and entirely "consistent" (the term was in fact "compatible", but let's not quibble over semantics. Either way I have been told by a science teacher to go back to school. (I used to be a science teacher myself once - to A-Level and beyond, but never mind).

These image are described as "superimposable" (Well yes, almost anything is superimposable if you bend up an end or two here and there).

Well, what do you know? The two images are "superimposable", provided you line up at the head end, and overlook the small matter of the feet being in different places. So how was that conjuring trick performed, in such a way that a 7cm difference in length vanishes? Was it a muscular spasm in a supposed cadaver that kept the toes extended when measuring the dorsal length but conveniently turns them up when measuring up the ventral?

It's achieved my friends with computer "re-imaging" of course, and as always where computers are concerned, one has to look carefully at each and every assumption that is programmed in if one is to avoid the dreaded "GIGO" syndrome that so afflicts the world of megabyte jiggerypokery.

Let's do that, shall we? Let's go through that paper with a toothcomb, and see how the conjuring trick was performed that either adds 7 cm to one length or subtracts it from the other (take your pick). Or does it add 3.5 cm to one length, and subtract it from the other? Anything to do with the paper in question is in blue.

Computerized anthropometric analysis of the Man of the Turin Shroud

Giulio Fanti, Emanuela Marinelli and Alessandro Cagnazzo (1999)

Source? (found via Google Documents). Appears to be "Proceedings of the 1999 Shroud of Turin International Research Conference, Richmond, Virginia"

Abstract

For the development of the anthropometric analysis of the Man of the Shroud through vision

systems an anthropometric research integrated with experimental researches was realised.

OK so far

The images of the Man of the Shroud were acquired and numerically elaborated to point out

the outlines of the two imprints (frontal and dorsal) and to carry out the measurements.

Numerically elaborated? I don’t care for the sound of that. Sounds somewhat reminiscent of a 'with-profits' life-assurance quotation.

The dimensional results obtained were therefore corrected in consequence of the systematic

effects found, like for instance those due to the cloth-body wrapping effect.

Corrected? For cloth-body wrapping effect? When did you see an actual body wrapped in the Shroud? Photographs please.

The height of the Man, 174±2 cm, was therefore measured with different techniques and the

results obtained were compared with the anthropometric indices derived from bibliography.

Hallelujah. That systematic 7cm difference in length has been reduced to a +/- 2cm error bar. Isn’t it wonderful what one can do with computers?

That’s just the abstract. Let’s delve further into the “real science”:

Oh, here's the conclusion to the abstract:

"From the comparison among the anthropometric indices characteristic of different human

races and those of the Man of the Shroud it was shown that the Semitic race is the closest one

to the Man’s features."

Bless!

"Even if at first sight the task doesn’t seem hard, it is necessary to overcome some

difficulties: it must be observed that it is not enough to define two characteristic points such as

the top of the head and the sole of the feet, and then to measure the distance between them. It

must be considered that the cloth was wrapped around a man not lying completely flat, but

rather with his legs flexed and his head bent forward."

Er, how do you know it was a man, a real one that is, and not a statue? How do you know he was lying not completely flat, but with legs flexed forward? Oh yes, we are to “consider” that. Maybe you meant “hypothesize”. Maybe it’s Google that has mistranslated “hypothesize” as “consider”. The omens are not auspicious, but let’s withhold judgement and read on.

Oh, and y.ou also seem to be assuming that rigor mortis set in while still on the cross, for the head to be tilited down, even when laid supine, and for the knees to be locked up, and that rigor mortis was still there several days later on Resurrection (assuming that an imprint did not occur initially over 3 days, but in a sudden flash on resurrection). Never mind. let's press on.

"The length of the body image must then be corrected, considering these effects and the fact

that the cloth was not in contact with the whole body. For instance, the intensity variations of

the image just next to the knee on the dorsal image and below the calves on the two imprints,

frontal and dorsal, confirm the absence of such a contact."

The length needs to be "corrected". You don't say (well, you do, which is more the pity). How do you know you are not "uncorrecting" the length by introducing tendentious claims that the imprint was left by a real crucified man, and one moreover that was still in rigor mortis, or at any rate wrapped up so tightly that the initial posture was retained even after the muscles had relaxed? This is starting to look like Mickey Mouse science, of which there is a surfeit already in the so-called "scientific" Shroud literature.

"Till now, the studies carried out have been based on more or less subjective hypotheses
admitted also in consequence of the thesis that the various authors tried to show: some
researchers favourable to the authenticity of the Shroud are inclined to provide the lowest
values for the height, while those who are anti-authenticity are inclined to provide the highest
values."

Ah, we are still in the Results section and you are starting to question the objectivity of others. Should you not be keeping that for Discussion. You would not have been allowed to get away with that when I refereed papers for the Biochemical Journal etc. And lo and behold there is a red exclamation mark against the yellow security "padlock" icon that says "Beware. contains unauthenticated content". Surely not. This paper came recommended from a school science teacher as "real science", 15 pages no less, and we are still only at page 2.

"The authors who believe the Shroud is false claim that the Man of the Shroud, about 1.80 m

height, was a giant compared to his contemporaries and therefore it wouldn’t have been

necessary for Judas to give him the famous kiss to point him out in the group. However from

recent excavations made in Rishòn Letziòn [2] it is evident that many Canaanitic men were

very tall: many of them reach 1.75 m"

Ah, so it's now clear why you are interested in height. You want to show that the Man on the Shroud was from the right part of the world. This paper is nothing to do with whether there is a size discrepancy, or whether the image was from a man or an inanimate object. And we are still in the Results section...

PARAMETERS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POSITION OF THE MAN OF THE

SHROUD

By carefully observing the legs on the dorsal image, the intensity variations depending on a

touch-doesn’t touch effect of the sheet are evident; such a situation is explainable if we suppose

that the man has his lower limbs bent.

The inflexion [1] would be due to the position taken on the cross and therefore to rigor

mortis; the assumption becomes probable if one thinks what the natural position of rest taken

by a person lying down is. Moreover, such a position could also be the consequence of postmortal stiffening. The hypothesis is also supported by the non-flattening of some areas of the dorsal imprint, an effect that, because of gravity, should be present."

It's a bit late in the day to be talking about a "hypothesis". And I am beginning to suspect that this paper was not published in a journal, at least not in a recognized one. It looks to me more like a submission to a conference (as later confirmed -see earlier). Peer review?

Fig. 3.1: Verbatim text, except for non-Greek characters:

Hypothetical position of the Man of the Shroud characterized by 4

parameters, the angles a, b, g, d, that respectively show the position of the head, the

femur, the tibia and the foot.

"Figure 3.2 shows that, just because of the inflexion of the lower limbs, the length of the leg

measured on the frontal side is longer than that measured on the dorsal side.

In fact bending a limb, the center of rotation being just next to the knee, one will have a

lengthening of the front leg and a shortening of the back one.

Analogous considerations must be made for the position of the feet.

The Man of the Shroud has his feet bent forward and this is very important for the

measurement; in fact as shown in Figure 3.3, the position of the heel changes considerably if

measured with a “hammer” or outstretched foot.

The heel itself being a fundamental reference point for the length of the tibia, it becomes

necessary to value this effect too."

That's it. I have read enough.This paper is not about seeing if data fit a hypothesis. It is about using a computer to rejig data so as to make it fit a preconceived idea (I decline to dignify the latter with the description "hypothesis").

This is not science. This is merely religious apologia masquerading as science.

It may be good enough to fool a particular science teacher cum internet-busybody, the one who held it up as "real science". But it does not fool this retired researcher science bod, one who actually reads and evaluates papers first, instead of using them as weapons with which to browbeat total strangers on the internet... :-(

The Turin Shroud - a bit of bas-relief

2012-01-30T02:04:00.000-08:00

Multiple thermo-imprinted images from a single bas-relief template obtained as the trinket cooled down

Yes. I've given up on thermo-stencilling for a bit (see previous posts) and am now experimenting with bas-relief. So far I've merely repeated what John P Jackson of the STURP team and others have done - which was to produce a scorch mark on untreated linen with a heated bas-relief object (in this case a trinket I picked up while in Ghana). Yup, I know that the Turin Shroud is not a scorch mark according to the admirable Raymond N Rogers (RIP). But Rogers was not infallible - indeed I shall shortly be putting some of his experiments and conclusions under a fellow (bio)chemist's, er, microscope, and in any case Rogers only said it was not a scorch onto bulk fibres in linen. But that did not preclude the possibility that it was a thermal - or maybe chemical imprint onto a superficial layer of something else that was more thermo-sensitive than cellulose, as Rogers himself proposed. eg. starch, or simple hexose or pentose sugars.

However, experimental work will have to be put on the back burner for a while (literally). I am presently composing a critical overview of another paper that has been pushed under my blogging nose, namely that of Fanti et al on the use of computers to re-image the "true" (ho ho) ventral and dorsal ("front and rear") anthropomorphic dimensions of the image on the Shroud.

Forget those miraculous flashes of ultraviolet light - was the Turin Shroud produced simply with medieval technology - heat conduction and scorching?

2012-01-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

Could the Turin Shroud have been made in medieval times as a hoax or fake, simply by scorching an image onto linen, say from a 3D representation of the crucified Christ?

Could the latter have been a ‘bas relief’, i.e. a raised image on a background, comparable to a medallion say (albeit much larger) or even an intact statue, fully in the round, so to speak? Was the bas relief or statue heated and then draped with cloth to produce a scorch mark corresponding with the relief (thermal imprinting). These were questions that John P Jackson of the STURP team addressed back in the 1980s.

John P Jackson

Here from Stephen Jones’s splendid site is an account of Jackson’s work, shorn of references to keep it uncluttered, which I have interrupted and annotated to insert my own sceptical views (in blue).

John P. Jackson:
"Heated Bas-Relief/Scorch Theory Another possible image-forming mechanism similar to that proposed by Nickell involves pressing a stretched cloth over a heated bas-relief. Such an idea was first proposed in 1961 and tested, with limited success, by placing a white handkerchief on top of a heated small medallion that bore a carving of a horse. This theory is more intriguing than most because the Shroud image does appear to have many of the physical and chemical properties of a light scorch. STURP scientists Jackson, Jumper, and Ercoline tried to duplicate the image on the Shroud by testing the scorch hypothesis more fully. To accomplish this, they heated a full-size bas-relief model of a face and stretched over it a linen cloth of a thickness similar to the Shroud. The ... resulting image lacks the high resolution and sharp focus found on the Shroud.

Later, John Jackson (kneeling) used real human models, at least those with a passing resemblance to YKW...

High resolution? Sharp focus? I doubt whether those viewing the Shroud up to the end of the 19^th century would have described the image in those terms, indeed modern day viewers too. It was not until the first photographs were produced that the friendlier “positive” image became available.

The very first negative-to-positive transformation of the Shroud image (1898)

The subsequent 110 years or so have seen progressive advancements in imaging technology, bringing ever greater resolution, clarity, (claimed) realism etc. But how much is electronic and digital tweaking to produce the best picture, regardless of the information content of the faint sepia image with which scores of generations had to be content.

“While the bas-relief method seemingly yields a respectable three-dimensional image, problems are evident in the accompanying VP-8 relief of this image.

VP-8 image-analyser

Hollow spots below the eyes, next to the bridge of the nose, below the lips, in the beard, and on the forehead are all noticeable ... . Further, a slight plateau is visible on the high spots of the VP-8 relief, similar to those produced in VP-8 analysis of results from experiments with direct-contact methods.

A respectable three-dimensional image? I raise my hat to Jackson – those are words you will rarely see in the current Shroud literature that holds the image is genuine 1^st century AD, indeed the actual burial shroud of Christ.. Most are dismissive, indeed comtemptuous of any modelling with bas-relief etc, claiming that those techniques fail to produce ALL the characteristics of the Shroud image. And what tops the list time and time again? Yes - you guessed it – those claimed “3D-encoded characteristics”

3D image of Turin Shroud from VP-8 image analyser

Yet here we see Jackson conceding that an inanimate bas-relief produced a 3D image on cloth by simple heat conduction (”scorching”).

So the image of that bas-relief was deficient in some respects (hollow spots below the eyes etc) Yet for centuries, sorry to repeat myself, the eyes on the Shroud were little more than white hollows, but now, with the technology at our disposal, it is the photographic positive (naturally) is now being held up as the gold standard! “A slight plateau on the high spots” ? Did Jackson not consider modifying the bas-relief template, which was maybe too flat, or ringing the changes any other the other numerous variables that might have been tweaked to get a better image? Science is about establishing principles, not replicating every tiny detail of the arts and crafts, especially as the materials used were unknown. Science needs cues if it is to make a contribution. Science cannot be expected to travel back in time to discover precisely what materials and techniques were being employed. Science is a method, an approach, not a magic wand. Science has its limitations...

"Even though the heated bas-relief produced better three-dimensional information than other methods, Jackson and colleagues concluded that this process could not encode many of the necessary Shroud image characteristics. For example, regardless of the temperature of the bas-relief, thermal discoloration appeared on the back side of the test cloth within several seconds after being placed on the hot bas-relief. Thus, the superficiality characteristic is violated because the image could not be encoded only on the topmost fibrils of the linen."

A thermal discoloration on the back of the cloth? Would that by any chance be the “faint reverse side image” that we are told is one of the unique characteristics of the Shroud that no one has replicated, or can ever hope to replicate?

But the main characteristics we are told is the highly superficial image on the front side, so superficial as to defy modern science. Yet Raymond N Rogers provided a simple explanation for the superficiality, based on his crucial observation that the image could be stripped off with adhesive tape. The image is not on the cellulose fibrils of the actual cloth he said, or, if it is, only on the most exposed ones. The image is formed on a layer of adhering carbohydrate that is not cellulose, but something chemically more reactive, more prone to dehydration and scorching. The latter is a matter of speculation – it could be starch, simple carbohydrates, saponin etc, all of which have been proposed, either acquired adventitiously, e.g.in linen weaving and manufacture, or purposely as a known thermo-sensitive substance that would brown on exposure to heat (think invisible ink, think gravy browning etc.). Either way, there is a COMPLETE explanation for a faint image forming on both surfaces, but not the intermediate (bulk) cellulose fibres. Cellulose, as we know, is highly resistant to degradation by heat, oxygen etc on account of its highly ordered crystalline nature - a function of the multiple hydrogen bonding interactions between beta-linked glucose molecules.

Here is a scorch image I produced on cotton using simply powdered charcoal as a thermo-sensitizer and heat from a 60W lamp ( photographed after washing out the charcoal). Think how much easier it would be to scorch a surface layer of more reactive carbohydrates (fruit sugars such as glucose, sucrose etc)

Other carbohydrates, e.g. starch with its alpha-linked chains in amylase and amylopectin are less stable, and simple mono and disaccharides more so, especially the reducing sugars like glucose. Simple sucrose, which easily splits to glucose and fructose, can be the agents for easy caramelisation (browning) when exposed to heat.

“The researchers tried to circumvent this problem by wetting the cloth, thereby extending the scorch time. When this technique was tried, new problems appeared. The image's contrast was reduced, causing more severe distortions in the three-dimensional analysis and resembling images obtained from direct-contact techniques ... In addition, because the cloth was essentially flat when the image was encoded, tests of this image-forming method failed to generate an image that contains the subtle lateral distortions that are consistent with the cloth-drape effects found on the Shroud."

Again, these difficulties are less to do with science, and more to do with technology, indeed arts and crafts, difficulties that can or could have been be overcome by trial and error. Mimicking “subtle lateral distortions” may require nothing more than a stretching and/or ironing technique, instead of simply draping cloth over a hot template.

These are the Italian scientists who think you need high energy ultraviolet light to scorch an image onto linen (at a distance, focusing system unspecified).

and this is their equipment for modelling a 1st century miracle (leaving a superficial scorch mark on cellulose)

Returning to Planet Earth: what about Jackson's Hot Statue method? Critique to follow...

Effect of twiddling the gain control

This I believe to be the way to go (but replace the person with a bas relief template or statue): and spend time on ringing the changes with those critical experimental variables, too numerous to mention:

The Shroud of Turin - think of it, if you will, as a medieval EuroDisney, designed to attract thrill-seeking tourists, oops, sorry, devout religious pilgrims...

2012-01-24T06:21:00.000-08:00

Here are (sorry) 38 points to consider regarding the Shroud of Turin. I may add some more later. I will discuss details and/or objections on this blog (comments premoderated) and nowhere else.

Comments that accuse me of being an internet troll or similar will not be published. Kindly read my credo, in place since I began "Science Buzz". This blog is primarily about my scepticism re media-hyped gee-whizz science, especially 'pseudo-science', as previous postings will demonstrate, NOT religion...

1.The Shroud was produced by heat-imprinting onto linen, the latter having been coated or impregnated accidentally or intentionally, probably the latter, to make it weakly thermo-sensitive.

2. The imprinting was done from a template that could withstand heating. It was neither realistic fully-rounded 3D, eg not a statue, nor even a mummified cadaver, except possibly the hands – as I suggested previously - nor was it 2D (obviously).

3. As many before me has suggested, it was probably a shallow bas-relief that was created on soft stone or perhaps a soft metal by chiselling, sanding, engraving, gouging etc.

A shallow-cut modernistic bas-relief of the crucified Christ

Here is a more deeply recessed bas relief

Such objections as I have seen that attempt to dismiss bas-relief do not stand up to close scrutiny.

4. The relief depth may have been at most a few cm, possibly as little as a cm or less.

5. Dorsal and ventral imprints may have been obtained from two different templates. Some claim dorsal and ventral images are not consistent. A quick play around with my laptop would suggest as much.

Size disparity - dorsal and ventral images on two halves of Shroud

6. Separate templates may also have been used for the head and rest of the body. Some say the head is too small.

7.The hands and fingers especially were poorly executed, being far too long, and too bony. If really indicating an “X-ray” like quality to the shroud, then why is there not more of a skull-like quality to the head, say, or to the ribs, pelvis, feet etc?

8. Given the skeletal appearance of the hands, with the metacarpals easily mistaken for finger bones, it would be unwise to attach too much significance to a single blood stain indicating the site of a nail puncture being allegedly through or out of the wrist.

9. Flogging. marks were carved/gouged onto the template. The pattern looks too regular and systematic . Given the comprehensive nature of the flog markings, flaying might be a better description. It seems improbable that an individual would have survived long with that degree of trauma and rupture of skin capillaries. Fluid loss, dehydration, shock and probably death would have rapidly ensued.

10.The impregnation of the linen was inspired by the phenomenon of “invisible writing”.

Lemon juice and heat from a 100W light bulb

In its simplest form the latter requires writing on paper with lemon juice, allowing to dry and then heating. A sepia brown image is formed.

11.Probably more involved technology was used for the Shroud, e.g. by impregnating linen with one of more components like starch, simple reducing sugars such as fruit sugars, proteins etc, that are more heat-sensitive than cellulose, but which also have the properties of turning brown when exposed to heat.

12.There are indeed references to starch on Shroud fibres, and of the colour being confined to a superficial layer:

13.The template would have been heated, and when at a suitable temperature, probably equivalent to a modern-day electric iron on its highest setting, the linen would have been draped on top, maybe pressed lightly, e.g. with a roller, and removed at the first sign of an image appearing on the top side (i.e. the one that is the reverse on the Shroud).

14.Some say that pressing a cloth over a real person to produce an imprint would leave a distorted image when the cloth has been removed. That opinion was comprehensively dismissed in the case of a cloth lightly draped over a person to give partial conformity with natural body contours. See Mario Latendresse (pdf)

15.If the model was a bas-relief then the cloth could have been pressed against the hot template more tightly without fear of noticeable distortion.

16. There is some evidence that it may have been pressed with a board or batten placed lengthwise.

Darker band in central rectangular area, allegedly due to weave

See sharp demarcation between light and dark. Some attempt to explain this away by claiming that it is batch variation in the yarn used for weaving. But the demarcation line is not perfectly straight on the right side (see cheek bone) which is inconsistent with the latter theory. However, there could have been pressure applied briefly at the margins too, to produce a softer image, less like printing, more like a painting with a gradation of tonal contrast.

17. Produced in this way, by thermal imprinting, the image would have been a negative, with most prominent features, i.e. proud of the surface in the bas relief template making greatest contact with the linen.

18. Thus there is no need to invoke early “photography”, for which the technology did not exist, at least not one that was capable of producing a final “positive“ image which did not happen until 1898.

Negative v positive

That “negative” image seems to have been the starting point for much of the supernatural hype, especially when the alleged “encoded 3D” claim (see later) was added later.

19.The image is formed only in the superficial thermo-sensitive coating, not on the underlying cellulose itself – except perhaps for the most superficial fibrils. That explains why the Shroud of Turin image can be stripped away with adhesive tape, as demonstrated in the generally impressive studies of Raymond N. Rogers.

20. Further evidence of the superficiality – and easy detachability - comes from looking at midline of Shroud, which shows a white stripe with no image. The Shroud has clearly been folded along that axis, as evident from symmetry of the 1532 burn marks.

See my earlier post, showing how this reconstruction was produced by folding and cutting

Folding has probably caused the overlying film with image to strip off. http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/jesus-christ-shroud.png see white vertical lines.

21.The method of contact printing explains why the Shroud image has no features that resemble those of a painted image, i.e. no adhering artist’s pigments of the era, no brush marks, no directionality as regards alternation of light and shade.

22. The observation that brown fibres and white fibres are seen side by side under microscope is suggestive of highly localised heating by contact and conduction, as distinct from high energy radiation.

The highly localised "scorching" is highly suggestive of imprinting by close contact (heat conduction rather than radiation)

(There is another lower-magnification image that makes the same point better, which I have mislaid).

23 .A second factor may operate to produce selective fibre scorching. As soon as a fibre turns brown due to contact heating, it will then tend to absorb appreciably more energy in the form of infrared radiation from a hot template as well. There is then a positive feedback effect.

24.The half-tone effect, i.e. intensity of colour due to number of coloured fibres rather than density of colour, might suggest that the limiting factor in the pigmenting was the availability of thermo-sensitizer. If the latter were limiting, there would tend to produce an all-or-nothing half-tone effect.

25.Whether considered as a fake or the genuine article, advocates from both sides are agreed that the image is in the superficial coating and that the latter is a carbohydrate that is more reactive chemically than cellulose. There is the saponin theory, the latter being used in early linen production and which contains pentose sugars. Alternatively, reactive sugars could have been added immediately prior to scorching, even something as common as sucrose which splits easily into the monosaccharide sugars glucose and fructose - both of which are easily dehydrated by heat and then prone to caramelisation (browning reactions).

26. Is there any evidence of detail in the parts of bas relief that are furthest from a cloth laid over? If yes, it speaks of photographic imaging, e.g. with a lens or concave mirror. If not, it suggests thermal contact printing with no sharp image focusing, indeed no depth of field at all, sharp or otherwise. Indeed there does not. Look at the sharply demarcated boundary between dark and light on both sides of the face. There is no suggestion of ears for example, lurking in that deep recess.

No obvious ears

An absence of any detail in the lighter portions suggests contact printing rather than image-forming at a distance.

27.Others have commented on how the hair looks straight and lank as one would expect from a vertical subject. The template for the head may have been modelled on conventional images of the crucified Christ while still vertically on the cross.

28.Blood may have been applied to the template when cold, then apposed to cloth before heating. Less probably, blood may have been applied to hot template immediately before draping the linen but that would have risked having some of the blood drying and chemically decomposing immediately. There would be no image under the blood marks, the latter having protected the thermo-sensitive coating from heat. Indeed that observation alone would tend to rule out high energy radiation (uv, soft x-ray etc) since the latter tends to be highly penetrating and would have reached the linen through the blood.

29 .It is not clear why blood would transfer so readily to a burial shroud hours, possibly days after being shed, especially from a crown of thorns (which the Gospel writers say was placed in position before crucifixion). It is a characteristic of blood that it coagulates to a solid, horny clot on standing, and ceases to be a liquid, except for the exuded straw coloured serum fraction. The red blood cells that contain the red pigment haemoglobin become entrapped within a network of fibrin fibrils, forming an essentially solid clot.

30. So-called 3D-encoded information is an artefact of the computerised imaging – which explains why the 1532 burn marks appear as a hologram-like 3D as well as the image itself.

Note 3D appearance of 1532 burn marks (at shoulder level) as well as the figure

It is redundant to ascribe “encoded” information to the image if the same 3D-transformation can be achieved on burns acquired in 1532.

31. With a permanent heat-resistant template it would have been possible to experiment with the same template and more than one sheet of linen to achieve an optimal end-result.

32. There can be little or no bilirubin on the cloth, even after days and weeks, never mind centuries. Bilirubin is sensitive to light and oxygen, being easily bleached and chemically-degraded, even in vivo (as in the phototherapy of neonatal jaundice).

Bilirubin undergoes photoisomerism and then photooxidation on exposure to light resulting in more polar, readily excretable end products. (This was sciencebod's first research interest while employed as Research Specialist at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital Medical School, 1970-72)

A colorimetric test and other incidental “quickie” spot and tests does not suffice to identify bilirubin, nor is the pigment bright red, as claimed (it is orange). Nor do people become highly jaundiced as a result of trauma: distance runner's foot-strike haemolysis of blood cells (with consequent degradation of haemoglobin-derived porphyrins to biliverdin and bilirubin) produces mild not gross hyperbilirubinaemia, insufficient to alter the colour of blood.

33. Invoking bilirubin appears to be a means of evading the observation that the so-called blood stains would have long ceased to be intact haemoglobin, and are now “haematite”, which is iron(III) oxide, Fe2O3, probably hydrated with one or molecules of water. One would indeed have expected blood to degrade over centuries to inorganic constituents, aided by microbial action in moist air.

34. Reports that the blood is type AB, or have markers for male chromosomes, or genes for globins etc etc appear to be at best anecdotal, possibly apocryphal. DNA cloning by the DNA polymerase assay is notoriously sensitive to contamination with recent DNA, e.g. from sweat, fingerprints even, with a few shed skin cells.

35. Re hair: any high energy radiation capable of scorching either cellulose or a carbohydrate coating would have degraded hair as well – the latter being keratin, which is a protein. Hair is easily singed. The hair on the Shroud shows little by way of fine detail. Indeed, but for its location, it might not have been easily recognizable as hair.

36. Hungarian Pray manuscript. Said to show same L-shaped pattern of burn holes in the burial shroud. The cartoon-like line drawings show shroud immediately after the Resurrection. There is no emphasis given to holes – they are largely lost among the other markings gs.

The holes could just as well have been a nominal attempt to portray blood spots. The biblical account makes no mention of burn holes. If the creator of the Pray manuscript had meant those few holes to represent burn marks, would he not have added flames or wisps of smoke?

37. There is much else said about the images on the Pray manuscript that has “the eye of faith”, e.g that Christ shows the same epsilon-mark on forehead, as distinct maybe from an indistinct squiggle or that the artist has attempted with his fat “plus signs” to portray a herring-bone weave. One can read far too much into a sketch that gives little if any indication that it was intended to be heavy on symbolism, especially when those alleged symbols like burn marks form no part of the biblical account, and which modern day observers and interpreters intend merely to buttress speculation about the Shroud of Turin.

38. Conclusions so far:

The Shroud is too elaborate, contrived and stylised to be anything but a medieval fake. Why have a magically-produced imprint of a crucified man energetic enough to chemically degrade cellulose and/or other cloth constituents, yet also replicating a checklist repertoire of scourge marks (overdone) blood flows, crown of thorns, nail exit wounds, etc etc.

It is incredible that modern man should be be speculating and/or fantasizing about miraculous flashes of intense high-energy electromagnetic radiation, indeed coherent laser-beam ultraviolet light . What started this nonsense? Answer: 20th century computer games (converting faint 2D markings to 3D hologram-like images in what might be called upmarket computer games) together with "revealing" details (nails through wrist etc) regardless of whether they agreed with the Biblical account or centuries of received wisdom.

It simply beggars belief that folk should fall for this combination of digital jiggerpokery and special pleading. The Shroud can be viewed as a medieval forerunner of Euro Disney – inspired by the same motive to create a spectacle and through it to flog a dream - and about as genuine as the latter’s ersatz fairytale castle.

Why the cavalier and disrespectful treatment of the Turin Shroud - folding it down its midline?

2012-01-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

Why the cavalier treatment of the Turin Shroud at Chambery in 16th century France - folding the presumed holy relic down its midline, from head to foot?

Familiar image of the Shroud with those burn holes (trimmed of burnt edges)

Here is the familiar image of the Shroud, shown with the roughly triangular burn holes that we are told resulted from the Chambery fire in 1532, AFTER the Shroud had been intermittently on display in the sacristy chapel as a revered “holy icon”.

The holes we are told were patched over two years later by nuns; this photograph was taken after the 2002 "restoration", after the patches had been removed, and a backing sheet stitched in place. Nevertheless burn holes are all too apparent, and were the result we are told of molten silver penetrating the Shroud.

Note the holes form an approximately symmetrical pattern, so clearly the Shroud had been folded for storage –- presumably with great care and reverence one would have assumed – but all it took was a single blob of molten silver penetrating several layers of folded cloth to cause the extensive damage that intruded on the image, especially at the shoulders.

So how precisely had the Shroud been folded? It is easy to reproduce the pattern with a single sheet of A4 paper and a pair of scissors. My starting point was a cropped image of the shroud, removing as much as possible of the burn holes (since I wanted to add my own!).

Laterally-cropped image of the Shroud printed onto A4

Here is a sequence of 6 steps that ends up with cut (rather than burn) holes in approximately the right position and arrangement. Notice it took only one initial cut triangular hole to end up with 8.

Lower half folded to horizontal midline

Upper half now folded to midline also

Fold in half again along horizontal midline - ie. FOLDING THE MAN'S IMAGE IN TWO

Fold again, this time along the vertical midline

Cut out a single triangle through all 8 folded layers to simulate a single burn hole

As above, oblique view

Final pattern of "burn holes" matching that of the Shroud below:

Reminder: the Shroud (again)

Notice anything? It is simply not possible to achieve the pattern and symmetry without at some stage folding the Shroud lengthwise down its midline, i.e. folding the image of the face and body in two equal halves (!)

Is that not extraordinary – that a supposedly revered image of the crucified Christ was treated in this manner? What’s more, it is not just a picture we are told, but the actual burial shroud of Christ, preserved from the first century AD, but curiously only coming to public attention in the 14^th century (but see literature concerning Edessa and the "Mandylion").

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I frankly find it inconceivable that something believed to be Christ’s own burial shroud would have been treated in so cavalier a fashion, folding, indeed creasing Christ’s face in two. Surely care would have been taken to avoid any folding in the region of the face especially? It would have been folded scrupulously to avoid anything that could be viewed as disrespectful. Would it not have been rolled up rather than folded to avoid introducing any creases – ones that would have needed to be pressed out afterwards to maintain the Shroud in tip-top display condition?

So why was the Shroud folded in this disrespectful manner? I have reached a (tentative) opinion on that, but invite others to state theirs before revealing mine (which regrettably risks antagonising those who might see this line of enquiry as constituting an attack on their religious beliefs, which it most certainly is not).

Sure, the Turin Shroud has a 3D-encoded image of a crucified man. So how come the 1532 scorch marks come up in glorious 3D as well?

2012-01-11T13:02:00.000-08:00

"A 3D terrain map projection of the image color intensity. This is one of the most puzzling physical properties of the picture. Produced using a VP-8 Image Analyzer."

The graphic above, plus caption, is taken from the following site:

http://www.shroudstory.com/

Link

?????

Has state-of-the art NASA image-analysing technology revealed TOO MUCH?

Reminder: here is the non-analysed image for reference (photographic positive on left, original negative on right). Note the 4 elongated diamond shaped intrusions- not there before the 1532 fire. So why do they map as 3D as well? Miraculous process that defies modern understanding? Or simply an artefact of too-clever-by-half 20th century computer-aided image processing?

And here's here's another computer-generated reconstruction from a different site.

Click on image to enlarge (or use Con+)

Notice anything unusual (body proportions, say head v torso?). I am by no means the first to comment on this discrepancy*, nor the suspicion/conclusion that may perhaps form in the mind of the sceptic, namely that the image was faked in two separate parts - the head and then the rest of the body. Shame they were not correctly matched...

* "The body to head ratio on the shroud is nearly 8 to 1. The normal ratio is 6 to 1. This anomaly, omitted from most shroud websites, could indicate that the forger may have sculpted the face, but used a second source, possibly a corpse, for the body. The forger inadvertently made the head too small in relation to the body and introduced this error. A primitive projection system, as the one described above, could have been employed."

The Shroud of Turin- was a lightly baked mummified skeleton and thermosensitized fabric used to produce the image by thermo-stencilling?

2012-01-08T12:46:00.000-08:00

Yup, I think I know how it was done - faking, that is, the crucified body of Christ as a faint sepia image on cloth in the holy-relic obsessed 14th century. The initial inspiration may have been
mummified human bodies, near skeletons in some cases, with which at least some medieval monks (say) may have been well acquainted.

Yes, mummified skeletons were probably a plentiful commodity in your medieval monastery, if one in Brno (the Czech Republic's second city) is anything to go by. I was one of numerous tourists who visited there some three years ago to see the ghoulish spectacle of more recently mummified monks, still on display.

Capuchin Monastery, Brno

Here, very briefly, is what I think those monks did,. (I'll, er, flesh out the details later). They put one of their long deceased brothers in an oven (bread-baking?) and baked him until he was hot enough to quickly scorch cloth pressed against it. They probably did not have a thermometer, but if they did they would have opted perhaps for somewhere in the region of, say, 250 to 350 degrees Celsius, well below even the dullest red heat at approx. 500C (the max temperature on an electric iron is said to be about 200 -220C, capable of scorching if one's not careful, needless to say).

The crucial next step, omitting details for the moment like hair, blood etc, was as follows. The hot skeleton was laid on the lower half or a 14ft x 3ft length of impregnated linen, which was then doubled back at the head end and rolled back to the feet so that both dorsal and ventral surface were "enshrouded".

The treated cloth would then be monitored closely. In a short while it would have begun to acquire a scorch-like image (I hesitate to say "scorch" for reasons that will shortly become apparent). What's more the image would be comparable to a photographic negative - with a reversal of the light and dark one would see in a portrait or modern photograph. Why? Imagine a prominent (protuberating p) part of the body, say the hands folded over the groin region. They would be closest to the clothand produce a dark brown image, unlike the lighter image in a photo. But the eye sockets, furthest from the cloth, would leave little impression, which is the opposite a photo where they appear dark through being in shade, so to speak.

Starting with a skeleton and the technique described not only accounts for the negative image, and the 3D properties revealed by image analysis (inasmuch as the "subject" is 3D, absorbing radiant heat in inverse proportion to its distance from the shroud) but also explain the claimed X-ray like properties of the image:

See following link for an account of those X-ray like properties

I add a section later on the blood and hair. For the moment, let's address just two extra details. How was the cloth sensitised to scorch superficially in those parts closest to the hot skeleton? Check my 5 or 6 previous posts and you will find one possible method, using linen that had been lightly coated with charcoal slurry ( maybe starch and/or simple sugars too) and then dried. The charcoal acts as a thermosensitiser, absorbing heat rays (infrared), producing a light tanning effect on the part of the cloth in immediate contact with the charcoal. The chemistry might involve caramelisation, or a carbohydrate/protein reaction to form Maillard reaction products). The latter can be washed out later, leaving just the sepia "stencil" and the bemused (overawed) medieval religious pilgrim with no clue as how it was produced. It's a process that I have dubbed thermo-stencilling.

A thermo-stencilled image (see earlier post)

Alternatively, the cloth may simply have been impregnated with lemon juice or similar, relying on the old "invisible writing" trick we used to so as children with paper, lemon juice, a pen nib and a hot clothes iron.

What about the blood on the wrist instead of palms, which some see as lending authenticity to the Shroud (on the grounds that medieval fakers would have assumed like most that it was the palms that had been pierced by nails, rather than the wrists that would seem better able to support weight)?

Well, here's an argument that kills two birds with one stone. Firstly, the metacarpal bones of the hand are highly prominent in the Shroud image, despite being flesh-covered in life, which reinforces my skeleton theory.

But the medieval monks, looking at those metacarpals may have made an all to common mistake in assuming them to be finger bones, so placed their blood below the metacarpals, imagining they were centre- palm, when in fact they were nearer the wrist.

This explanation can account for the image being located on both sides of the cloth, as an exceedingly thin layer, with no intermediate layer. It depends on the cloth having been coated with carbohydrates that are more susceptible to scorching than cellulose, especially reducing free reducing sugars like glucose. Indeed, fruit juice (white grape juice?) may have been used. Again, that "invisible ink" effect.

Yup, this has been hastily written, I freely admit. This retired scientist knows that a new idea should be published quickly, before it becomes someone else's idea... ;-) That's enough for now. More tomorrow.

The Turin Shroud elicits ever more bad science... which the media dutifully reports as cutting-edge...

2012-01-07T09:49:00.000-08:00

Why did those Italian scientists choose the uv region of the spectrum to model their improbable hypothesis for the Turin Shroud's image?

Nothing, apart from the Blair/Brown legacy, infuriates this retired scientist more than seeing New Age so-called scientists straying over the line between science and religion. Yet that is what a group of Italian scientists have done in spectacular fashion. What’s more they have done it in such a manner as to create confusion and misunderstanding as to precisely what role they see for (wait for it) supernatural processes having produced the image, allegedly of the crucified Christ, on the Shroud of Turin.

On the one hand their spokesman says he is unwilling to go beyond the science, yet that is precisely what he proceeds to do with his references to “philosophy and theology”. OK, so he is not the first to do that – Stephen Hawking did so in his “Brief History of Time”, but he is a cosmologist who, usually in the absence of hard data, and dependent as he is on mathematical modelling, has to think the unthinkable. The Turin Shroud, on the other hand is a physical object, much damaged by the 1532 fire, the subject we are told of repair processes (that have conveniently “falsified” the carbon dating of 3 independent laboratories due we are told to contamination) yet here we have scientists speculating, yes speculating on intense flashes of ultraviolet light with all the implied supernatural intervention from on high..

Is this objective science? I say no. It’s in the same league as Uri Geller’s spoon-bending (and I say that in the knowledge there are those who still think that was “magic”, as distinct from a conjurer’s trick, using suggestion, distraction etc.).

Why did those Italians - ostensibly employed to research new technology in the public sphere - break off to beam ultraviolet light from a laser at linen? Why that particular region of the electromagentic spectrum (see diagram) , given that whatever findings they made, or claim to have made, there would be the inevitable conclusion that no medieval forger had access to a coherent beam of uv light? Does it not sound like a placing of a conceptual cart in front of a well-flogged, indeed knackered horse? Their credo is "Let’s discount any technology that was available to medieval forgers , because it would be unable to simulate the peculiar properties of the shroud revealed by 20^th century science – the superficiality of the image on the cloth, its appearance on the reverse side too (whether cloth of individual fibrils is not clear)? Let’s skip a whole raft of experiments that might be performed with accessible regions of the em spectrum, notably non-coherent infrared, visible or uv light, with or without the presence of putative photosensitizers". (See note at bottom re importance of photosensitizers in any discussion of cellulose and ultraviolet radiation)*. You know the sort of thing: certain drugs in the body - tetracyclin antibiotics, statins etc. - can sensitize certain susceptible folk to uv rays from the sun, producing phototoxicity, skin lesions etc. How can those Italians be so certain that there is not a more mundane explanation for that faint sepia image on the shroud. Why rush straight to a uv light, and state-of-the-art coherent uv light at that, from a laser, with all the wave peaks and troughs in perfect hi-tech step?

Here’s a question to ponder: why even contemplate uv light as a candidate for producing superficial images on fabric? That flies in the face of what we know about the interaction between uv light on organic molecules. Ultraviolet light covers a range of frequencies whose energy corresponds with the bond energies (C-C, C-H, C=O, O-H etc) in organic molecules. In other words, uv light causes those bonds to rupture - by promoting electrons to higher non-bonding molecular orbitals – resulting in reactive free radical being formed – i.e. atoms or functional groups carrying an unpaired electron.

Uv light penetrates to the very heart of molecules, breaking them up from within. Think of it like a torpedo aimed at a warship’s store of weaponry. That’s as distinct from infrared rays say, say, which do not carry enough energy to break bonds directly. What they do is cause chemical bonds (shared pairs of electrons) to vibrate in various modes, not break, but a small proportion of that energy can so agitate molecules as to make some collide. If the collision energy exceeds the activation energy required for chemical reaction (needing bonds to be broken before new ones can be formed) then infrared radiation can producing the kind of reactions that producing scorching (dehydration, chemical condensation reactions etc).

These days one sees the expression “to beg the question” used wrongly to mean “to invite the question” when it really means to give a response that merely rephrases the question in a different form, e.g. "Opium induces sleep because it has a soporific quality”.

Those Italian scientists have (temporarily I hope) forsaken the objectivity that is expected of scientists. Their beaming of ultraviolet rays at cellulose - and the way they have reported their results to the media - in order to preempt or dismiss other scientists is, to put it mildly, merely “begging the question”.

* "Cellulose undergoes auto-oxidation in the presence of UV radiation leading to bleaching of the surface. Cellulose itself does not absorb UV, however, lignin, hemi-celluloses and some dyes and pigments act as photo-sensitizers. (Photo-sensitizers absorb UV radiation and transfer the energy to the cellulose, initiating a reaction.) As a result some of the long molecular chains break up, lowering the degree of polymerisation, and weakening the material."

Taken from: link

It is important to keep this is mind when one reads of so much emphasis, possibly over-emphasis on the Shroud image being superficial, exceedingly thin, or present on opposite faces of cellulose fibres/fibrils but not in between. Any photodynamic action involving visible or uv light is likely to be confined to a very small distance from the interface between putative photosensitizer and cellulose.

In my recent previous posts (see link to posts with the keyword thermo-stencilling), I have described the use of "charcoal paint", subsequently washed out after heat-irradiation, to produce a thermo-stencil. It has just occured to me that the charcoal might be described as a "thermosensitizer", producing a highly localised scorch mark. A thermosensitizer would be to the infrared region of the em spectrum what a photosensitizer would be to the visible or uv regions.

Did the production of the Shroud image require the presence of sensitizer? If so, was it a photosensitizer or thermosensitizer?

Weblog: further experiments to reproduce, albeit approximately, the Turin Shroud by non-supernatural means, e.g. by thermo-stencilling

2012-01-06T04:00:00.000-08:00

I ended the previous blog, posted earlier this morning, with the following words:

"Experiments are underway, which I shall report in real time, i.e. as a (web)log, which was the original meaning and intention of the “blog”, with new items being added to the top, rather bottom. It’s a little self-indulgent, I grant you, since it supposes that visitors come back for a second or third look. Neither is the end product terribly user-friendly to someone reading a reverse chronology, so to speak. But it’s a suitable format for a reporting a lot of bitty experiments in real time – as evidence that one is still busy and interested – and more user-friendly summaries of chief findings and conclusions can come later. I’ll call it : Weblog: further experiments to reproduce, albeit approximately, the Turin Shroud by non-supernatural means, e.g. by thermo-stencilling."

So here we go with the weblog, posted in reverse chronological order:

Experiment 2: Given that starch (from white flour") did not increase the charring of cotton by charcoal-mediated thermo-stencilling in Experiment 1, does further addition of glucose have an effect?

Here you see a 4g tablet of glucose (Boots, 92% glucose plus additives) ready to be added to the white flour suspension.

Here's the result, hoping that my make-shift labelling is legible (click picture to enlarge). Note the brown fringe on the glucose+starch area, irradiated with charcoal in columns 1 and 3, but not in the centre column 2. The enhancing effect of glucose was much clearer when viewed from the oppposite side of the cloth, without being obscured by charcoal:

Glucose/starch had a major effect, allowing an intense char patch to form after just 1 minute under the ceiling spot, not seen with starch alone How will the cloth look after washing out the charcoal?

Here's one of the strips after rinsing in cold tap water and drying. One is looking at the top surface, i.e. the one to which the charcoal was applied, the one that was irradiated. With just 1 minute irradiation, with scarcely any charring in the starch/no glucose control (upper half) there is heavy charring in the starch/glucose impregnated area.

Conclusions (and discussion) so far:

There is a rapid browning reaction dependent on free glucose (as distinct from starch or cellulose) that requires both the charcoal and the source of radiant heat. It may or may not require oxygen. The brown product seems to adhere firmly to the fabric, i.e. does not strip off with adhesive tape, so one still does not have a match with the reported properties of the Shroud image, but never mind, these are early days. It may well be that the product is simply caramelised sugar, comparable to what is obtained by holding a spoonful of sugar (sucrose) over a flame.

But simulating all the characteristics of the Shroud image is not the sole objective. I used an analogy on another site involving cheese, addressed to an individual who called himself “MouseinaHouse”. If one had discovered, say, Stilton cheese for the first time, and knew nothing of its origin, one might start by discovering how the pale component was formed first, from what ingredients, which starting materials, and worry about the blue veins later.

Why even bother trying to simulate anything regarding the Shroud? Why not let those who wish to regard it as the real Shroud of Christ, and formed moreover by supernatural processes (by no means axiomatic, even if it were Christ’s) ? Three reasons. Firstly, it was the investigations by scientists back in the 80s that lent a great deal of credibility to the idea that the Shroud may be authentic – that was before the C dating. Secondly, the reasons given for rejecting the C dating that fixed it as 14^th century seems perverse to this individual – e.g. to claim that the Shroud had been repaired at the one tiny area that the Vatican had allowed to be sampled. Thirdly, and the last straw, so to speak, was the manner in which the research by the Italian group was reported to the media, and subsequently received by the blogging community. To say that I am disheartened by the “imaginification” (provisional term) of science is an understatement to say the least. There are times when modern so-called science, at least in the hands of certain individuals with an over-developed, some might say lurid imagination seems determined to take us back to pre- Renaissance era. The fact that the RC Church seems to be playing some kind of role in this, even a relatively non-aggressive one ( I hesitate to describe it as passive) comes as no surprise, given its stick-in-the-mud stance on so many other key issues, notably contraception.

The immediate aim then is to scotch the idea that because “science has not explained the Shroud ” then it’s somehow defied science, and ipso facto there must be a supernatural explanation. For a start, science has much better ways of occupying its time, now that the Shroud has been dated to the 14^th century. (Those who claim the sample was contaminated with more modern carbon should realise that the ball is in their court on that one). Secondly, it is unrealistic to expect science to explain every centuries-old item, artefact or otherwise, given no clues as to the materials used, given that age and original processing can alter the characteristics of familiar materials out of all recognition (a cooked onion is an entirely different eating experience from a raw one, and stale bread, even 10 days old, entirely different from bread that is still fresh).

Experiment 1: Does cotton char more quickly under a source of radiant heat if impregnated with a medieval source of "starch"?

What to use a source of starch? Potato starch is ruled out (Sir Walter Raleigh coming along much later). There is one reference I came across suggesting that starch for "starching" clothes in medieval times, and perhaps earlier, might have come from wheat bran. That would makle sense, given that bran has adhering flakes of starchy endosperm, i.e. white flour - which is not pure starch, needless to say, having some protein there as well. But i was not too worried about the latter, since protein would be necessary if the browning effect with impure starch depended on protein as well to generate Maillard type reaction products. So a level teaspoonful of white flour (self-raising, since no plain flour in cupboard) was added to 250 ml water, heated just to boiling with stirring, then cooled to room temperature. I then steeped half a cotton square in the cloudy suspension, allowed to drain, then dried over the radiator, and then applied my charcoal "paint" as previously described, i.e. a slurry of powdered barbecue charcoal. When the charcoal paint had dried, each black circle was held for 1 minute under a 60W ceiling spot. The charcoal was then washed out with tap water, and the strip of cloth dried and photographed.

Result after 1 minute of irradiation: the charred area was if anything lighter in the lower flour-impregnated half than the upper control (no flour). That admittedly qualitative result was confirmed a second time.

So despite starch being chemically more reactive than cellulose, there was no enhancement of charring by impregnating with starch. Indeed, there was possibly a little less charring. I am relieved in a way, since the fewer variables from hypothesised pre- treatments of ancient linen, e.g. during weaving, the better.

The next experiment will be to see whether a simple reducing sugar, e.g. glucose would affect the outcome. For that I decided to add glucose to the flour suspension, rather than test glucose alone (isolating variables one at a time can come later).

Overview - attempts to reproduce the image on the Shroud of Turin with simple technology available to medieval forgers

2012-01-06T02:33:00.000-08:00

Is it still worth attempting to reproduce a Turin Shroud-like artefact with modern materials and techniques? Could thermo-stencilling be a valid approach?

Scorching the charcoal image onto fabric using ceiling spotlight

Appearance after washing out the charcoal - drying in progress

We have been told repeatedly that the image on the Turin Shroud has features that have never been satisfactorily reproduced. Increasingly the message has become one of: “Don’t even think about it. That image could only have been made by supernatural means”

Whilst not verbatim, words to that effect have come recently from a group of Italian scientists no less (YES SCIENTISTS would you believe it?) who are talking about a miraculous corona discharge, producing ultraviolet or maybe some other high energy radiation. That shows the extent to which magic is now permeating into science. (We shall overlook the tiny fact that forming an image requires not just a source of light, regardless of which part of the electromagnetic spectrum – infrared, visible, uv etc. but in addition a means of focusing that light – see my previous post).

Am I the only one to be deeply disturbed by the blurring of the boundary between science and magic? And whilst the Vatican, to its credit, has never claimed that the Shroud is the burial cloth of Christ, or indeed of anyone from that era (its first response being to dismiss it as a fraud) is it not time for the Vatican to stop treating it as if it WERE a holy relic, and allow scientists access to more of the fabric. Is it not absurd that the C dating should be rubbished on the grounds that the sample was from a corner of the cloth that had allegedly become contaminated by frequent handling or, with even more brass neck, that it was not the original fabric, but a repair job that had used “invisible re-weaving”. It is quite simply ludicrous that scientific time and resources should be wasted in this manner.

This series of posts began with a prediction – that an image could be scorched onto linen (or other cellulosic fabrics, e.g. cotton) by drawing or painting with a black pigment, exposing the image to radiant heat, and then washing out the pigment, leaving just the scorch mark, and no clue as to its origin. That prediction was quickly confirmed using lump charcoal as the pigment initially applied dry, i.e. drawing, and then more effectively by applying as a pasty slurry in water, i.e. as charcoal paint.

So straightaway some pretty elementary science (black things absorbs heat) could be used to undermine one of the key claims made re the Shroud, namely that it was not “painted” on the cloth, that there are no brush marks, there are no residual traces of pigment. Using the ‘thermo-stencilling’ procedure I have described, one can indeed paint with a substance that can then be removed, leaving nothing except scorched cellulose with NO CLUE AS TO ITS ORIGIN.

That is just a beginning. There are further claims regarding the shroud (based it has to be stressed on that tiny, possibly unrepresentative sample of material). The crucial one is that the image is not a scorch mark, at least not a typical one (whatever that is – my own reading suggests that scorching of fabric has not been a major preoccupation of carbohydrate research). We are told that the coloration does not extend the entire width of the cloth, i.e. the total diameter of cellulose fibres- that it is confined to each of the external surfaces, with no coloration in between. We are told that the coloured material can be stripped off the surface with adhesive tape. We are even shown phase-contrast microscopy of a supposed coating on the surface of the fabric, with suggestions that it represents something acquired or added in weaving, possibly starch and simple sugars used as a processing aid for weaving, and that the image is confined to that layer.

Once you envisage the image being on an applied or accidentally acquired coating, rather than the cloth itself, then the number of formative mechanisms increases exponentially, and it becomes increasingly less worthwhile as a scientific exercise to explain images, if one does not know the starting materials. Indeed, some might say, especially in view of the C-dating, that the onus now rest entirely on the magicians to explain how the image was formed if wishing to prove a supernatural origin, as distinct from placing the onus on scientists to disprove a supernatural origin. Scientists do not like being asked to prove negatives, i.e. that there is no known non-supernatural means of reproducing the image, that exoplanets are not made of green cheese.

However, there is still some science that can be done, based on some rudimentary info we have re the nature of early linen, whether it be medieval in origin, or even 1^st century AD. It is said that it was treated with starch, accompanied perhaps by simple sugars, which are, needless to say, close chemical relatives of cellulose.

Experiments are underway, which I shall report in real time, i.e. as a (web)log, which was the original meaning and intention of the “blog”, with new items being added to the top, rather bottom. It’s a little self-indulgent, I grant you, since it supposes that visitors come back for a second or third look. Neither is the end product terribly user-friendly to someone reading a reverse chronology, so to speak. But it’s a suitable format for a reporting a lot of bitty experiments in real time – as evidence that one is still busy and interested – and more user-friendly summaries of chief findings and conclusions can come later. I’ll call it : Weblog: further experiments to reproduce, albeit approximately, the Turin Shroud by non-supernatural means, e.g. by thermo-stencilling.

What produced the image of a crucified man on the Shroud of Turin? Was it really formed from a corona discharge of ultraviolet light?

2012-01-05T03:18:00.000-08:00

Yes, according to some Italian scientists, the closest they have come to reproducing the image on the Turin Shroud is by means of ultraviolet light. That has reignited all the wild speculation about the image, supposedly of the crucified Jesus Christ, of it having been formed at the instant of resurrection, with talk about corona discharges and intense ultraviolet light. The scientists themselves have sadly been complicit in disseminating these weird, totally unscientific interpretations of their data, despite sending Tom Chivers of the Telegraph an email, claiming they had been misquoted. That's a imbroglio (that's Italian word, appropriately enough!) in which I am not keen to get involved, being just a retired science bod - one who prefers ideas and experimentation to conjuring tricks.

Here's a question I would put to those scientists. OK, so it may have been ultraviolet light that produced the image on the linen. But have you not forgotten something? To form an image requires not just a source of radiation. It requires a means of bringing rays to a focus (think converging lens, or concave mirror, or even a simple pinhole camera). How would a burst of uv light be able to produce an image without that necessary adjunct - a focusing device?

Reminder: here's a short series of pictures that I took a few minutes ago:

Here's a black surface (my camera case) being held under a standard lamp, emitting visible white light, with nothing except soft diffused light, certainly no image of the source of light.

Interpose a converging lens, aka "burning glass", and one sees the familiar spot of concentrated (focused) light. Let's now take a closer look.

Can you see what it is yet?

Ah, that's better. Looks a bit embryo-like. Have you guessed what it is (assuming you do not already know?)

I'll try doing an enlargement (update: result below). In the meantime, please take my word that it is an image of the incandescent filament in the lamp. But there was no visible image of that filament until the lens was interposed. (If you know your optics, and recall the means by which the pinhole camera works, you will know that an illuminated object does in fact cast images of itself on every surface with which those rays subsequently come into contact, but note the plural - images. Without a lens or single pinhole there is a multiplicity of overlapping images, such that all one sees is a patch of suffused light.

The conclusion should be obvious, even from this GCSE-level experiment: a source of radiation on its own, even a gee-whizz uv source that can allegedly leave a signature of its source on fabric - is no use on its own without some means of focusing the rays to form a single sharp image.

Yup, it's the filament. You can just about make out the helical turns of tungsten filament.

More progress in improving my thermo-stencilling technology for simulating the Turin Shroud

2012-01-03T10:03:00.000-08:00

Previously I used a charcoal stick to sketch pictures on cloth, prior to fixing those images with thermal radiation (charcoal absorbs heat and light rays). But the images were rather faint, and it was difficult to remove all the charcoal by washing (thus disguising the methodology) probably because of pressure needed to draw with a stick.

As suggested earlier, I figured that a better result might be obtained by painting with aqueous charcoal suspension ("charcoal paint") , and that has indeed proved to be the case, as should be apparent from what follows.

The lump charcoal was first reduced to a powder with a hammer, and then a little water added to the powder. That did not give a satisfactory "paint", with a lot of charcoal floating on top. As soon as a few drops of detergent were added (washing-up liquid) a relatively homogenous paste was obtained that could easily be applied to fabric with a brush as if painting.

The following pictures should be self-explanatory:

Charcoal painted onto cloth, with paint pot in background

The next step is to dry the paint over a radiator.

Each letter of the painted word was then exposed to a few minutes radiant heat from a 60W ceiling spot lamp, and here it is viewed from the rear before washing out the charcoal "stencil". Faint smoke was visible during the roasting procedure, but nothing burst into flame. The pyrolysis (charring) seems to be self-limiting, and greatest in the regions with most paint.

Here it is, back on the radiator, drying off, after washing out the charcoal with soap and water (which proved exceptionally quick and easy). So that's a scorch image that is visible now, instead of the original charcoal.

Here we are, back on the dining table. looking at the thermo-stencilled image,and with no trace of charcoal visible that might give a clue as to how it was formed. Painting is definitely the way to go, as distinct from drawing, allowing one to build up the density of heat-absorbing pigment in stages until one gets the desired intensity of scorching. And it's much easier to wash out the charcoal, due presumably to far less pressure from painting with a brush.Could this be how the Turin Shroud was produced?

Next experiment? It is said that the image is not formed on the cellulose fibres, but on a surface coating of starch, the latter having been used as an aid to weaving:

Link

Evidence for this is that the image can apparently be stripped off physically with adhesive tape (which is certainly not the case for scorched cotton) or reduced chemically with diimide, N2H2.

So the next step is to repeat the experiments with a starch-coated fabric. It's my guess that scorching will occur more readily with starch, which is chemically more reactive alpha-linked glucan, than with cellulose (beta-linked glucan), the latter having more extensive crystallinity due to multiple intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions. If scorching can be achieved quickly, then it may indeed be possible to strip off a superficial scorched layer from underlying cellulose, simulating more closely the characteristics of the Shroud. I shall have to think of an authentic (historically credible) source of starch. It certainly won't be potato starch!

Tom Chivers - re that Turin Shroud: you are the first (possibly second) person to be thermo-stencilled ...

2012-01-03T04:21:00.000-08:00

"Tom Chivers is the Telegraph's assistant comment editor. He writes on science, culture and anything that crosses his mind."

Link to his most recent DT posting on the Turin Shroud

That's what it says at the top of Tom Chivers' Telegraph blogsite - he of the commendable breadth of interest, taking in, unusually for this day and age, a range of scientific topics (and much else besides).

But he was not always called that. In fact I once pulled his leg re his previous somewhat grandiose title ("Strategic Events Editor) - how to win friends, ha ha.... ;-)

Maybe Tom ran out of strategic events to report. Well, here's a possible candidate, says I immodestly - a simple procedure that one CAN safely try at home and which might, and may, just may, have been the technology by which the Shroud of Turin was produced in the 14th century as a fake "holy relic".

Here is a series of pictures that should tell the story without needing a lot of words.

Photograph, "shroud cloth", charcoal

Place photograph under fabric, place on glass sheet, illuminate from beneath

Completed charcoal tracing

After radiating from a 60W spot light for about 5-10 mins, viewed from reverse side before washing - selective scorching apparent.

After washing out the charcoal and drying. OK, so the image is faint (but then so is the Turin Shroud's!)

Hiya Tom. You're not looking your usual self today... Feeling a bit browned off?

The next step is to improve the image intensity. I've just made some charcoal paint, using a slurry of powdered charcoal in water with a dash of wetting agent. It paints beautifully onto cloth. The next step is to grill under a source of radiant heat, and wash out the charcoal "stencil".

(Oops. I had meant to add this to the end of the next post, the one describing use of charcoal paint. Never mind.) Next experiment? It is said that the image is not formed on the cellulose fibres, but on a surface coating of starch, the latter having been used as an aid to weaving:

Link

Evidence for this is that the image can apparently be stripped off physically with adhesive tape (which is certainly not the case for scorched cotton) or reduced chemically with diimide, N2H2.

So the next step is to repeat the experiments with a starch-coated fabric. It's my guess that scorching will occur more readily with starch, which is chemically more reactive alpha-linked glucan, than with cellulose (beta-linked glucan), the latter having more extensive crystallinity due to multiple intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions. If scorching can be achieved quickly, then it may indeed be possible to strip off a superficial scorched layer from underlying cellulose, simulating more closely the characetristics of the Shroud. I shall have to think of an authentic (historically credible) source of starch. It certainly won't be potato starch!

How to make your very own Turin Shroud at home - while choosing your own image

2012-01-01T10:45:00.000-08:00

This is a brief synopsis of the previous post. OK, so it was a bit wordy on account of my relating the progression of an idea to a finished product, blow-by-blow so to speak. The finished product was a recognizable image, scorched onto fabric, with no clues as to how it was created.

Well, here's my home-made "Turin shroud" with a recognizable image of a smiley.

How was it produced? Simple. Sketch the image in charcoal on some cloth (barbecue lump charcoal will do). Then hold the cloth up close to a source of radiant heat, eg, a ceiling spot light.

Observe the rear side closely. When you see it scorch, but only in the charcoal coated areas (black pigments absorb heat, white areas reflect and stay relatively cool), remove, then wash out the charcoal with soap and water. For fuller details, see the previous post.

Here by the way is a link to an excellent site that I cannot recommend too highly, discovered purely by accident. The site's name is Silly Beliefs, and its page on the Turin Shroud is packed with telling observations.

So what next? Posting to Tom Chivers is a complete waste of time. Not one of the 10 comments I have posted so far - describing the genesis of an idea to its practical demonstration - has earned me a single recommend, while those who snipe or nitpick are rewarded. It would be nice if Tom himself, who frequently enters the fray on his own posts, were to proffer a word or two.

So what next on the experimental front? There's a detail that needs attending to - minor perhaps, but irritating. It is difficult to wash out all traces of the orginal charcoal - not surprising perhaps, given that it is microcrystalline graphite. That faint but residual sketch detracts somewhat from the "Turin Shroud- like" simulation.

Today I might try grinding up some charcoal, and making it into a water or oil-based paint that can then be lightly brushed on the fabric. The trouble with yesterday's procedure, using lump charcoal, unlike the artists' charcoal stick intended originally, is that one has to press quite hard to draw the image, thus grinding carbon particles into the body of the fabric.

The Turin Shroud - could it have been produced by thermo-stencilling?

2011-12-30T13:22:00.000-08:00

Original (note reversed light/dark)

Photographic negative with enhancement: Image now a "positive".

This is a quickie post. I'll tidy it up later. It's to show some comments I have today posted to Tom Chivers blog on the Daily Telegraph with the germ of an idea (that may or may not be original).

Tom's topic title:

The Shroud of Turin: forgery or divine? A scientist writes

The comments set out briefly an idea that came to me suddenly this afternoon as to how that image on the Turin Shroud may/might have been produced in the 14th century by medieval "forgers", intent on producing yet another 'holy relic' to add to fragments of the 'real cross' etc etc. Yes, holy relics were a major growth industry in the 14th century, given they could attract thousands of pilgrims to your cathedral or whatever each year - the beginnings of the travel industry...

Comment 1:

'THERMO-STENCILLING'? (don't bother googling - you read it here first ;-)

The crucial detail is that the image is a negative, i.e. parts of the original object that were well illuminated ("light") look dark and vice versa.

A negative image might at first sight suggest some kind of photography, either early primitive, or entirely accidental, or a combination of the two.

Leaving aside the nature of the photographic emulsion and photosensitive compound there is a problem with production of any image by photography. It needs either a good convex (converging) lens to bring light rays to a focus, or failing that a pinhole camera. It seems improbable(though not impossible) that either of those technologies were available even 800 years ago at a sufficient state of development, since if there had been there would surely be a host of other artefacts available from that era (e.g. grainy photographs of royalty?).

But there is another means by which an image can be produced that does not need photography, or at any rate the focusing of light from an object. One could use 'thermo-stencilling" instead. How? By taking some white fabric, and fashioning an image using black charcoal as one would a portrait, using degrees of shading rather than a line image. One would then expose the cloth to radiant heat, say from a furnace. The black areas would absorb heat and partially scorch the cloth in immediate contact with the charcoal while the white areas would reflect light and remain unscorched. The final step would then be to wash the particles of charcoal completely out of the cloth, leaving just the brown image - and if I am not mistaken it would be a negative image, assuming the artist used the charcoal lightly for light-reflecting features of a man's body, and more heavily for the bas-relief features that are in partial shade or reflect less light Oops - sorry about that. Thanks Mouse (comments) for pointing out that silly error.

By washing out the charcoal, the observer sees no evidence of the the image having been "painted" on the cloth. All that is left is a scorch mark - and being formed under a charcoal coating, it may be subtly different perhaps from one formed by direct action of hot iron or heat rays onto fabric.

Comment 2 (omitted, largely clarification in response to a query from xxxxxxx)

Comment 3 - further clarification:

Sorry, xxxxxxx , but I don't understand your difficulty re charcoal. If you had been barbecuing, and had got charcoal dust on your shirt, would you throw your shirt away, on the assumption that it was impossible to wash out? Surely not. Even without modern detergents, charcoal, which is simply microcrystalline graphite, i.e. sheets of carbon atoms arranged as fused hexagons, giant molecules in fact, should be relatively easy to wash out.

You are not by any chance confusing charcoal with scorched or charred cloth by any chance? The procedure I propose starts by drawing on a cloth with the kind of charcoal given out in school art classes - carbonised twigs. The cloth is then "grilled", i.e. exposed to radiant heat, e.g. from red hot coals, or again, charcoal, though I hesitate to mention it, and the black, charcoal-coated areas on the cloth will heat up - and become scorched - in contrast to the white reflective areas without charcoal that will remain relatively unscorched, at least with short exposure times.

I only suggested charcoal because it is "right for the period" and probably does the job, but other black substances might serve equally well, given that black subsrtances absorb heat as well as light, provided they can be washed out after heating so as to "dispose of the evidence" so to speak as to how the negative image was produced. Please tell me if I am not making sense.

Again, I thank you for your interest, but have to say I am somewhat disappointed by the response so far. Any feasible mechanism should surely place a big question mark over the assertion of those Italian scientists that there is no known mechanism by which the image could have been produced. I maintain there is - and I have chosen to call it "thermo-stencilling".

......................................................................................................................................

Tomorrow I must get hold of some charcoal, and see whether or not the idea works as predicted. I'll use a hot ring on the cooker hob as a source of radiant heat.

Update: Saturday 31 Dec 2011 I've just this minute cut up some cotton pillowcase (OK, so it's not flax/linen as per original Turin Shroud) and then cut some batten as per piccy below to create grips - left and right - that allow the cloth to be held close to a source of radiant heat without barbecuing knuckles. Missus will add artist's charcoal to her shopping list when she goes into town this afternoon.

While waiting for the charcoal. I have been giving thought to what to use as a source of radiant heat. The initial idea was to use the cooker hob:

But there's a potential complication there - it's not just radiant heat, but hot rising convection currents as well. It's better to isolate and study one variable at a time.

The new ceiling spots in my bathroom throw off a lot of radiant heat - downwards - in the opposite direction from rising convection currents, so I will try holding my "miniature shroud" up close to a spot.

Update Sunday 1st Jan 2012

Well, missus was unable to get hold of artists' charcoal stick, but never mind, we'll try barbecue lump charcoal:

Watch this space folks (will try "grilling" under a spotlight as soon as missus has vacated the bathroom).

OK, so here's the charcoal outline being exposed to radiant heat from a ceiling spot, with the charcoal-side facing the lamp. Within a few minutes I began to see a sepia smile appearing on my side.

And here is the reverse side back on the table after just a few minutes of gentle grilling. Prediction confirmed! 'Thermo-stencilling' WORKS - and given the utter simplicity of the procedure may or might well have been the method used 800 years ago to produce the Turin Shroud.

The final step is to wash out the charcoal, leaving hopefully just the scorch mark (with no clue as to how it was formed!)

Here it is after a brief rub with soap and a rinse. Not all the charcoal is removed, but enough to see that the image is now mainly in the form of a scorch mark.

The final step is to dry over the heated towel rail:

Incidentally, if you are wondering why the whole face (and those ears) are not brown, it's because of the limited diameter of my ceiling spots. I used one (60W) in the living room - bigger than the bathroom I had originally intended to use but the diameter is still only 7cm approx.

What might have been used as a souce of heat 800 years ago? Maybe a kiln or furnace (lime? glass?) with the door open...

Have just this minute posted this to Tom Chivers blog:

"Hello again everyone (and a Happy New Year to Tom). Guess what? I have just reproduced a downmarket version of the "Turin Shroud" in miniature, using simply a cotton sheet, a lump of barbecue charcoal, a source of radiant heat and a bar of soap. It's all on my own science buzz blog:

http://colinb-sciencebuzz.blog...

newsjunkie aka sciencebod

PS: Methinks, or rather mesuspects, that none of this will come as a surprise to the canny, well-informed Vatican ... ;-)"

Fukushima - growing nuclear catastrophe in slow motion

2011-04-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

Fukushima- planetary hotspot

The Guardian has invited readers with a relevant or specialist scientific background to suggest ideas for how the dire situation at Fukushima's crippled and leaking nuclear power station might be contained.

At present, the now highly-contaminated site is storing vast quantities of water that have been hosed in, a desperate and makeshift attempt to cool the reactor cores - and even spent fuel rods.

That is the dire situation that has arisen, following the breakdown in normal cooling systems. Fukushima has been hit with a double whammy from both earthquake and tsunami damage. The earthquake, at a massive 9.0 magnitude, damaged the reactor cores, and the tsunami knocked out power supply to the coolant systems.

It's easy to propose solutions, from the comfort of one's armchair, without worrying about one's exposure to hard penetrating radiation, but here, for what it is worth, is my advice, posting as sciencebod, to those brave workers, who suddenly find themselves in the wrong place and at the wrong time:

"First of all, stop thinking about quick fixes, panaceas etc. Fission products continue to give off decay heat long after the control rods are inserted to absorb neutrons and stop the chain reaction. Secondly, any leakage from reactor core sends the primary fission products – notably I -131 and Cs -137 into the air, which then get incorporated into the thyroid and other body tissues, bombarding with radiation from WITHIN, so the issue is one of containment – attempting to keep the nasties on site, while protecting the workers from external radiation (they are not at risk from internal, since the hazard of ingested I-131 and Cs-137 is well known and preventable).

So how does one contain, given there are accumulations of hosed water – a make-shift remedy in view of failed pumps etc – and cracks in concrete containment ponds etc?

Desperate situations call for desperate measures – remember Red Adair, and how liquid nitrogen was finally used to tame the Kuwaiti fires started by Saddam’s retreating troops.
The chief problem at present is radioactive contaminated water that has to be disposed of to free up space for more contaminated water. Dumping it in the ocean may seem acceptable, given the diluting power of the Pacific, but it is not. It is polluting the planet. Contaminated water must be kept on site for as long as possible. But how?

Here’s the answer. When you cool water, the ice that is first formed tends to be pure water. Dissolved substances tend to stay in the water that has not yet frozen. Import ice-making machines into Fukushima, powered of diesel generators, and then periodically drain off the highly radioactive liquid below the ice (remembering that ice floats on top) and store that on site. Flush the ice briefly with fresh water to cleanse of contaminants, then let it melt in situ, and run the weakly radioactive melt into the sea.

Nope, it’s not a panacea, just an Elastoplast job, but it might help preserve a shred of credibility for the nuclear industry if it can contain its problem, instead of using the sea as a convenient dump. And let’s not forget that not all nuclear reactors are situated on coastlines, so my “ice solution” might be one they should consider on inland river locations etc. in the event of a problem comparable to Fukushima.

I have also posted a copy to the Independent, where I blog as newsjunkie.

"Controlled" burn- off of spilt oil in Gulf of Mexico - a warning!

2010-04-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

Spilt oil from Torrey Canyon, 1967, deliberately bombed by RAF in attempt to protect Cornish beaches

A similar thing was tried when the Torrey Canyon oil tanker ran aground off Cornwall, SW England back in 1967 when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister. The pollution from black smoke was reckoned to be as bad, if not worse, than the spill itself.

Years later, I was pals with one Don H, who had a co-share in our hot-air ballooning syndicate. Don had recently retired from the RAF as an air-commodore, and had been a squadron leader at the time of the Torrey Canyon. The initial attempts to set fire to the oil had failed, he said, and he had been part of a dive-bombing team which had attempted to encourage combustion by bombing the wreck with sodium (potassium?) chlorate - containig incendiary devices.

Attempts to burn off the crude oil failed - and it ended with thousands of gallons of detergent dispersants being sprayed into the ocean - with devastating effects on marine life that lasted for years.

Chlorates are powerful oxidsing agents, an ingredient of the notorious "weedkiller' bombs. This retired scientist had much entertainment from sodium chlorate as a teenager when it was still available - pre-IRA - as a weedkiller, as did the lads on a neighbouring estate, who used to make "pipe-bombs" from it (sugar/weedkiller mixture).

If CO2 is so heavy, why doesn't it sink and suffocate us?

2010-01-12T06:21:00.000-08:00

The question was inspired by a comment on a site I visit a lot, one to which I've posted a lot in nigh on three years. More about that later. Suffice it to say that I shall reply to here, rather than there, and attempt to place a link on the other site. There will be no more posting to that site until such time as its moderation policies are given a thorough overhaul! Nuff said for now...

The question was essentially this: given that we all know that petrol fumes sink to the ground at a filling station, why doesn't CO2 - which we also know is denser than air - also settle at ground level? Why are we not suffocated by the stuff - or does it only come up to ankle or knee level?

Imagine one were to trap gases inside balloons - one for hydrogen, one for oxygen, one for nitrogen, one for carbon dioxide - and then release them. The four balloons would behave exactly as the questioner supposes. The hydrogen balloon would quickly ascend, the CO2 balloon would rapidly descend, and the nitrogen and oxygen balloons would probably hover or sink slowly - due mainly to the weight of the balloon rubber - not the contents. The relative densities of hydrogen :nitrogen: oxygen: air::carbon dioxide are approximately 1 : 7 : 8 : 7.2 : 22. Gases lighter than air rise, those heavier than air sink. No surprises there.

When petrol fumes are released, they too sink quickly, at least to start with. A typical molecule in petrol is one of the isomeric octanes, general formula C8H18, with a relative vapour density of 57 - some 4 times greater than air.

But the petrol fumes would not stay for very long at ground level. Convection current carry them upwards, and gaseous diffusion would cause mixing with air even without convection. That's because gas molecules are in a state of constant motion, colliding with other molecules, millions of times a second, causing them gradually to diffuse ("spread") in all directions. The fumes gradually spread into all the space available - which could be a jar, a garage, a hangar, the entire atmosphere. Once the space is evenly occupied, the molecules then show no tendency to unmix. Why not? Answer: because the 1g force that acts on all molecules in air at sea level is insufficient to overcome the kinetic forces due to collision between molecules. Put more simply - a molecule that gets a strong bump from below will be knocked upwards, against the weaker force of gravity.

This is true for g=1, but is not true for progressively higher g forces.

Here's an example - always a a controversial one. Enrichment of the fissile uranium isotope U-235 needed for atomic power stations OR Hiroshima-type A bombs, requires separation from the more abundant U-238. This can be accomplished in gaseous diffusion plants, or in centrifuges that generate an intense g force. Either process requires that solid metallic uranium first be converted to the gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6).

There is a well known experiment that is done in schools, at any rate, those that still have a fume cupboard, to demonstrate that dense gases and/or vapours gradually diffuse to fill the space available, and then do not subsequently unmix from air.

One places of few drops of elemental bromine, Br2, a fuming red liquid in the lower jar, which is separated from the upper jar by a glass divider. One waits for the lower jar to fill completely with red-brown fumes. One then removes the separator. The fumes gradually fill both jars evenly, despite bromine vapour being 5 times denser than air.

There's a variant on the experiment that I devised while teaching to demonstrate the petrol vapour effect. One places a jar of bromine on top, and then removes the divider. Most of the bromine fumes sink immediately into the lower jar, behaving as if they were enclosed in a balloon. But the fumes then gradually diffuse back upwards to produce the same end-result as before.

The short term behaviour of the petrol fumes is called a bulk phase effect. It's the temporary behaviour of heavy molecules in close proximity, which behave briefly as if enclosed in a balloon. But once diffusion has caused mixing of heavy molecules with the lighter molecules of nitrogen and oxygen, unmixing does not occur at normal values of g.

E.on Energy Debate, London Dec3, 2009

2009-12-27T03:49:00.000-08:00

I had intended to embed the video, but the code is not working, at least on this laptop. In the meantime, here is a link to the E.on Energy Debate (really more a Question Time), which this blogger attended. He was in fact privileged to be invited to ask the first question - see right hand margin re "How sensible is a one-size-fits-all solution to global energy policy?

Update: I have just discovered to my disgust that the Telegraph has deleted virtually* ALLof the E.on-sponsored content. And I mean everything - every one of the 10 weekly articles from Andrew Charlesworth, the staff journalist, and every one of the 3, sometimes 4 "reader" blogs that accompanied them, mine included, together with the comments they attracted.

This is shabby behaviour by any standard, Telegraph, and the fact that you now have a sponsored series going with Shell is no doubt the reason for wiping the record. but invited comment too? Yes, Kate Day appeared on My Telegraph, inviting folk to sign up for the 10 week series. I shall say no more on the matter just now. Words fail me.

Here is a C&P of the blogs I contributed over a 10 week period. I'd have saved the comments too if I had had a crystal ball.

* Googling has turned up just one archaeological specimen, a video clip from the Energy Debate with Panel introductions. Without this, one would hardly know there had ever been a sponsored series with E.om, such is the efficiency of the Kremlin-style airbrushing of history.

Week 1 post: Pumped up about water-power

Who can doubt that the future lies with renewable energy, and that we Brits are blessed with the stuff – existing or yet-to-be-realized.
First, there are those wind turbines – not the stuff of Wordsworthian rapture I grant you - but they are increasingly being sited offshore.

Then there’s solar energy, with a choice of two panels for your roof – the older thermal, or the state-of-the-art PV panels that can feed the electricity you don’t use into the National Grid.
And there’s wave power – which is a kind of secondhand solar power, recalling that weather and wind are due to unequal heating of the Earth’s surface.
And there’s even the dear old man in the moon, not wishing to be outshone by his flashy big brother, who contributes the prospect of tidal power. Just wait until we have a hydroelectric barrage across the Severn Estuary, supplying maybe as much as 10 per cent (?) of our power supply. (Yes, there are downsides, needless to say, to any big scheme, in terms of amenity, effect on wildlife, capital cost, the carbon-footprint of setting up etc. But let’s stick with the broad brush today.)
The problem with most of the renewable schemes is that the end-product – electricity, that energy-carrier par excellence – is generated at scattered locations across the country, supply may be intermittent, or supply may not match demand around the clock or calendar.
Is there a solution? Yes, there probably is, though it’s not always a panacea. One is talking about big money upfront, and, more to the point, big commitment.
But unless or until fusion power becomes a reality – which may take decades, centuries even – then there is no Plan B, assuming one is not a unbudgeable climate change denialist who thinks the world's scientists in their droves have abandoned all reason in condemning those fossil fuels.
So what is the solution? Simply go to the wiki page on Pumped Hydroelectric Storage, and it’s all there.
Britain already has 4 PHS stations – two in Scotland, two in Wales, and now needs a lot more in different shapes and sizes.
The principle is simple. One has two bodies of water – a lower and upper level. When there’s a surplus of electrical power, say from wind farms during the night, water is pumped from the lower to the upper level. When there’s extra demand, and the conventional stations are struggling to cope, water runs back through turbines, generating electricity.
It’s the closest one can get to “storing” electricity as the potential energy of a head of water. What’s more, the efficiency is surprisingly high – 80 per cent or more they claim in a well-designed system.
Do read the article, to see the new and imaginative ways of developing the principle. The Japanese have used the sea on Okinawa as one of the two levels, the other being a reservoir at the top of the headland.
The Danes have a plan that does not even need two levels – the water is simply pumped into a giant bladder which gradually plumps up, creating its own head. Sand is laid on top to get extra oomph.
My favourite is the salt-mine idea. We have lots of worked-out salt-mines in Cheshire and elsewhere. You pump water down into the old-workings, and site your upper reservoir on the surface. Yes, the water becomes brine, so all the equipment has to be corrosion-resistant. But there’s an upside too: once the water becomes saturated brine, it’s 20 per cent heavier than pure water, so becomes a more efficient energy-transfer medium.
What is it they say – where there’s a will, there’s a way!

Week 2 post: The Cost of Wind Power

So, it’s those wind–turbines that take centre-stage today. Practical solution or wooly-minded gesture politics? Cost-effective stop-gap measure or ruinously-expensive irrelevance? A logical and rational choice - or an expression of a closet-aversion to nuclear power?
There’s a lot more that one could say, especially in the light of:

(a) our current economic situation
See especially the mind-boggling cost (£100 billion over 10 years) of even a fairly modest expansion of wind–energy, supplying just 20% maximum of our requirements (that’s on a good day).
(b) the groundswell of anger and contempt being shown – at least on websites – against the projected costs of this Government’s decarbonisation programme. See, for example, Ceri Radford’s article today, entitled: “Global warming debate is too hot to handle” .
and, finally
(c) the strange focus on just one renewable energy source, with little more than lip-service to the others ( wave and tidal power, geothermal energy, solar panels, thermal panels, biomass, nuclear energy, home insulation, heat pumps etc).
All is not lost. If like me you are a tad “green“ in your outlook, worryingly so perhaps to fellow-Telegraph readers, you may feel one should be “ doing one’s bit”. If so, then consult the Government’s website on grants for renewable energy.
Don’t be put off by the Brave New Client State listings as to who qualifies. If you’re self-reliant, ie not on benefits, then it’s just freebie energy-saving light bulbs and subsidized gas central heating that are denied you.
Look closely and you’ll see there are grants for everyone, at least for a limited period, regardless of income, for anyone wishing to go green, even for your very own wind-turbine or hydroelectric scheme.
Whether you have any spare cash after paying for the next generation of windmills (and Government IOUs) about which you were unconsulted remains to be seen!
Read James Lovelock on the subject of wind-power. He doesn’t mince his words!

Week 3 post: What about our economic survival?

Almost every headline these days with “energy” in the title adds to my despair. This last week we’ve been told there’s to be a levy on our energy bills to pay for “clean carbon technology”.
Clean carbon? Wot, finding places we can squirrel away CO2 for a few decades (hopefully) in order to meet carbon-undertakings entered into lightly? (No country with a trillion pound national debt, rising by the minute, should be making such commitments).

Then we read that there’s to be a catch-up programme on nuclear power stations, which are back in fashion, but no subsidy. Why one for coal, but not for nuclear? Where’s the logic in that?
Then we read that a £100 billion is to be spent in the next ten years on wind turbines. So how come Spain is able to generate 50% of its energy, admittedly on a good day, with turbines costing less than a billion?
Why are we, a strapped-nation, attempting to find these staggering sums of money – better spent on paying down debt – when other nations can do it at a fraction of the cost?
Yes, we know about the extra costs of siting turbines offshore. But why have rotor costs doubled in two years? And why are we still importing ours? Why aren’t we making them ourselves, as Rolls-Royce pointedly asked yesterday? And if it’s a mixed bag of energy we seek, then why no Govt campaign to cut our domestic bills, by installing heat pumps, thermal or PV panels etc?
Why so little publicity to the available grants for renewable energy? Is it because they are unofficial, offered by the industry, despite appearing on a Govt website?
Yes, let’s have that Severn barrage. It should have been started in 1973, with the first oil crisis. Which leads me on to national strategic considerations, to do mainly with oil – and COAL.
North Sea Oil is running out – natural gas as well. Where’s the National Plan to cope with rising import bills, with the renewed threat of blackmail by dem furreners Where’s the joined-up thinking?
Have a look at the Forbes website: It describes how apartheid S. Africa, and before it Nazi Germany, dealt with the threat of oil blackmail. Not the nicest of historical precedents I grant you, but let’s focus on the science.
Converting coal to oil (CTO*) is a ready-made technology which supplies S. Africa with 40% of its oil. Why aren’t we, a nation with several centuries-worth of coal under our feet, not doing the same?
The present stumbling block is, needless to say, our new national obsession – the carbon footprint. A CTO station produces two and half times the CO2 of an oil refinery, we’re told.
My reaction is to say, so what? The aim is to reduce our NATIONAL carbon footprint – not to impose an economic strait jacket on every local or promising new development with strategic as well as economic considerations.
We as a nation urgently need to maintain our AAA credit status if we are to remain solvent. What better signal than to announce that it’s our aim to become largely self-sufficient in energy, especially in oil and gas that appear on the balance of payments figures. Coal can give us coal gas (50% hydrogen!), oil, coke (for our steel industry) and many other goodies besides.
If we are going down the road of burying CO2, then let’s start with CTO if one has to. But I’d say, cut development and running costs by venting CO2 into the atmosphere, but offset with a programme of subsidized home improvements to reduce CO2 elsewhere.
We are fighting for our economic survival goddamit! Aka CTL (coal-to-liquids).
P.S. The writer has no personal financial stake in any of the above, except as the recipient of modest pensions dependent on future stock market performance.

Week 4 post: Blame the Government and the energy suppliers:

The Government and energy suppliers are getting it all wrong. They are attempting to market future power supplies as if they were a desirable and seductive consumer product - a new car or a plasma TV.
If one’s talking of a shiny new fashion accessory, then a group of investors finds the start-up capital, maybe going to the money markets.

The product is then priced so as to make a return on that possibly risky investment, and also gradually (very gradually) to recoup the capital investment .
But one should not be applying the same principle to a boring old utility company (sorry, Eon, but when did you last see an undignified scramble on Monopoly for Waterworks and Electricity?).
There is no new product – gas, electricity etc. It’s the same old product, but with the prospect of ever -increasing bills. Yes, that’s the difference between launching a new saloon car, and generating more bog-standard electricity, if you’ll pardon the expression – RISK – of which there is much, much less in the utilities industries– and the business model should reflect that.
It’s probably not a good idea to use a blog to float a brainwave – least of all one that has only just entered one’s head, with a theme that may not be Mozart to the sponsor’s ears. But here goes.
The consumer must not be taken for granted. The consumer needs a carrot as well as a stick.
Here’s what I suggest. The Government announces an additional VOLUNTARY levy on fuel bills calculated to cover the capital cost of new nuclear power stations, wind farms etc.
The first million who sign up will get a 10 per cent discount, in perpetuity, on their bills. The next million that sign up will get a 9 per cent discount. The more numerate readers can probably detect a pattern here - one that should allow them to work it out for successive tranches… ;-)
So stop taking us energy consumers for granted. Industry and government need our goodwill and cooperation to meet its carbon targets, and to achieve greater economies in our homes.
So kindly cut us in please on some of the investment returns, given we are expected to put up some or all of the risk capital. Failure to do so will simply serve to generate a new wave of eco-cynicism – one that will destroy the incentive for individual initiative.
Or is no place seen for the latter in our brave new post-privatization world of State-supervised near-Monopoly?

Week 5a post: Carbon Capture and Storage

So it’s coal that will plug the gap in our energy supply, is it? That’s provided we can bury the evidence (CO2).
And that’s the long and the short of it: we sign up to agreements one day, promising hand-on-heart that we will honour our CO2 obligations – and then, and only then, decide if we have the technology.

Having thus painted ourselves into a corner, we have no option but to go looking for the rainbow’s end, but with a difference. A pot of gold is needed upfront to get there. That’s the price of seeing whether “carbon capture and storage”, CCS, is feasible, or even safe.

And who’s to provide the pot of gold for R&D? Yes, you guessed correctly. There’s to be a special levy on consumers, with no guarantee the technology will work. Even if successful in a narrow technical sense, would it not be replacing one putative hazard (atmospheric) with another one (geological) that could haunt future generations?
First, let’s be clear about what is proposed. It sounds simple and straightforward if you say it quickly: CO2 will be pumped underground where it will remain for thousands of years, or so we are assured. See this BBC feature on CCS
But when you look at the detail, the technology proposed is not just optimistic – e.g. finding the right geological strata capable of concealing billions of tonnes of CO2 under the biospheric carpet, out of sight, out of mind (?), it’s positively hair-raising.
Firstly, it’s not CO2 GAS that’s being pumped underground, but LIQUID CO2 – a refrigerant by any other name – needing huge pressures (70 times atmospheric!) to make and keep it liquid.
So where’s all this volatile refrigerant to be stored, where it can be kept under pressure to stop it turning back to a gas?
Answer: suitable spots in the Earth’s crust at least 800 metres deep. You see, there has to be the weight of millions of tons of overlying rock on top of to prevent it vaporizing back to gas. So the idea is basically to do what’s done in oil drilling, but in reverse.
Contrary to common belief, the crude oil down there is not in lakes. It’s dispersed throughout the pores of solid rock. It’s the pressure of overlying rock that brings it up to the surface. So the idea is to find porous rock down there, and then inject liquid CO2 under pressure.
Does this not strike you as a heroic, possibly foolhardy thing to do? How is the lid to be kept on this potentially self-propellant liquid CO2? By means of a “geological cap”, we are told. See that BBC website
And it’s warm down there too, is it not? When I read all this, I’m reminded of a rather naughty thing I used to do as a child with our pressure cooker. If left to cook the potatoes, then instead of cooling the cooker under running water, as prescribed, I’d get a fork, and simply lift off the collection of weights that were the safety valve.
The jet of steam was spectacular, hitting the ceiling, and lasting for half minute or more! Embryonic scientists learn to live dangerously!
I cannot help but recall that steam-spectacular when reading that liquefied CO2, under high pressure, is to be stored underground, relying upon a “geological cap” to keep the lid on things. Yeah, right. And what if CO2 did suddenly leak out – creating a dense carpet of suffocating gas?
And we’re picking up the tab to turn a boffin’s wild-eyed dream of “safely locked away” CO2 into reality… Dream or the stuff of nightmares? Is there a sane geologist in the house?

Week 5b post: Doubts about CCS

Still on “carbon -capture and storage” (CCS) – all £10 billion pounds worth upfront in the form of fuel levies (says he with a deep sigh): the more I think about it, the less I like it.
To recap: the plan is to dispose of CO2 gas from power stations by piping the gas (well, liquid actually) underground. The preferred geology, we are told, are porous rock layers deep underground, overlaid with a “geological cap”. It’s the same geology, we are assured, that kept crude oil trapped under ground for millions of years until the day our oil drills penetrated.. If it worked for crude oil, then - beware the Cheshire cat grin - why not for liquefied CO2? More about Cheshire later…

Hold on a minute. Did anyone else apart from me do O-Level Chemistry? Carbon dioxide reacts with water to make carbonic acid (H2CO3). And water is everywhere – especially deep underground.
Carbonic acid gradually attacks and dissolves limestone (calcium carbonate, CaCO3). And guess what: limestone is the preferred rock into which to inject CO2. It’s like a sponge we are told (“porous structure”).
So the limestone would gradually get eaten away and hollowed out (the timescale is anybody’s guess). Caverns and chambers will form. But that can’t go on forever. Sooner or later the roof will collapse (overlying pressure). Think old salt workings, Cheshire, surface subsidence, bye bye your home-sweet-home. “Dear insurers, I am writing this from a temporary address…”
For a dramatic (well OK, slightly over-dramatic) representation, see a recent post of mine on My Telegraph (scroll down to last comment).
Time scale? Who can say? But high local concentrations of CO2 and subterranean warmth (geothermal energy) would both favour rapid solution of limestone. So how good would that “geological cap” be if keeps periodically collapsing into underground caverns?
And what happens to dissolved limestone? Well, it changes to soluble calcium bicarbonate (aka hydrogen carbonate, Ca(HCO3)2). But calcium bicarbonate is chemically unstable: it reverts back to calcium carbonate (“chalk”) and CO2. It’s why pipes and kettles fur up in hard water districts, and what creates stalactites and stalagmites. Reforming of chalk is the least problem: MORE IMPORTANTLY, the CO2 gas would inevitably be re-released at a later date, seeping back gradually into the atmosphere or the oceans. Ever heard the term “futile cycle”?
In fact, there is another more fundamental objection to the entire strategy of burying future emissions of CO2. According to some theoreticians, CO2 has already produced most of its greenhouse gas/global warming effect. See the this article.
cIf global warming is still in progress – and only the statistical illiterati can think otherwise – then it’s not due to additional CO2. What is responsible? Methane? Soot? Positive feedback effects (eg melting Greenland ice exposes rock with decreased albedo, greater absorption of solar radiation, still more infrared, more warming?
The logic of that case, if true, is that prevention of further CO2 increase is not enough. Sooner or later we must engineer a DECREASE in CO2.
How can that be done? Conversion of biomass to inert charcoal (“biochar”) has been touted as a radical solution. The carbon must on no account be burned, but could still have uses, eg as a soil conditioner. (Such as shame to waste a valuable fuel, but it’s not wasting carbon – fossil carbon – that got us into this trouble).
Pyrolysis of wood etc to biochar is at best energy-neutral, and probably has an energy cost. It would have to be supplied from renewable energy to make any sense. That would mean less energy for power generation.
Without wishing to sound alarmist, we are in a real fix, folks – make no mistake about it.

Week 6 post: The problem with gas

So, the main focus this week has switched to gas. Hmm. What can one usefully say about gas? Well, starting in the late 60s/early 70s, we used to have lots of it from the North Sea. How long ago that all seems now – like the man coming to convert our gas cookers.
Well, we’re now told that natural gas is running out. I never did trust those finite resources! We are now forced to import more and more –but in specially converted tankers - as liquefied natural gas . Dodgy - very dodgy. Enough said.

Are there substitutes for methane that we could make ourselves, to cut our imports bill?
Probably not. Sure, we used to pipe coal gas to people’s homes. But the paramedics and hospitals hated it – need I say more - and gasworks were smelly.
What about a renewed role for coal – not a popular line to take right now, least of all with those gathering right now in Copenhagen, looking to set targets on carbon emissions? (OK, so I’m straying off gas).
Personally, I don’t question the need to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions. There will have to be a greater role for nuclear power, for renewable energy, with natural gas being a bridge. But why consign coal to oblivion on account of its high carbon footprint? Does every single process have to tick every green box?
You see, there’s coal-to-oil technology, currently used in S.Africa to replace 40% of oil imports.
The coal is gasified with injections of oxygen and steam, to make ‘syngas’ , a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen . One could burn syngas – for a power station - but that would be squandering a big opportunity.
Why? Because the mixture can be passed over heated catalysts to effect the Fischer-Tropsch process . The result, to a jaded chemist, is pure magic. The mixture transforms to a range of hydrocarbons, general formula Cn H2n+2 where n starts at 1 (plain old methane CH4) but can be much much higher. When n is 8, one is producing octanes, C8H18, which are volatile liquids, ideal for use as synthetic petrol. Planes have been flown on synthetic coal-derived petrol!
But as indicated – there’s a fly in the ointment. The process creates a larger carbon footprint than does conventional refining of crude oil. That’s because it generates some CO2 as a waste product. OK, so one could sequester it underground – using that somewhat dubious CCS - but it adds considerably to the costs - some 25 to 30%. That’s quite apart from any environmental concerns one may have about creating subterranean pressure cookers full of liquefied CO2 under the Earth’s crust.
Well, I’ve strayed from gas, onto oil – albeit synthetic oil - derived from coal.
Yes, I do see a revived role for coal.
Here’s a possible scenario - one that could probably be adopted whatever targets are set at Copenhagen. We would buy in surplus nuclear- generated electricity from France as and when available (it’ll take years to build more of our own power stations). Instead of paying in euros - with a now unfavourable exchange rate- we’d enter a barter deal, swapping it for our coal-derived synthetic oil.
The carbon footprint of French nuclear electricity (very low) and coal-derived oil (high) would average out at something intermediate, possibly comparable to natural gas. So let’s keep coal in the equation, but turn it into vehicle fuel, instead of burning it all directly to CO2 in power stations, with all those expensive and questionable CCS add-ons. Let’s box clever. We’re going to need petrol for vehicles for a while to come, so let’s start making our own - and trading it.

Week 7 post: Going nuclear

The focus this week is on nuclear power. One’s first reaction is to say: “Please – anything but nuclear power!”
Just a quick internet search was sufficient to reinforce all the old misgivings. Why do nuclear power stations have so limited a lifetime – a few decades as most, then requiring horrendously expensive and hazardous disposal of nuclear wastes?

Up popped this return on the decommissioning of nuclear power plants, telling me more than I really wanted to know.
In answer to my question: because of neutron irradiation of the structure, which gradually renders it unsafe (let’s not go into details, except to say that neutrons are like miniature bullets). But the practicalities are disturbing - nay hair-raising, like the mention of having to leave the core intact for a few decades while the worst of the radiation subsides. All my instincts say NO to nuclear power.
But then the practical scientist inside me takes over. Let’s face it, there are remarkably – and depressingly – few options where energy is concerned.
They can be divided into 4 categories: Chemical, Biological, Classical Physical, Nuclear.
Let’s take Chemical first. There are 92 chemical elements in nature, but only 2 of them, free or in chemical combination with other elements, are suitable as fuels, namely hydrogen and carbon. That’s because they react with oxygen to release energy, producing relatively innocuous end products - water and CO2. Innocuous that is from a personal health view. The health of the planet is a different matter (CO2).
Hydrogen has been touted as the fuel of the future. It’s not, and never will be. Why? Because it does not occur free in nature. Obtaining it from water (by electrolysis or reaction with carbon) or from natural gas requires roughly as much energy input as the output when burned.
Hydrogen is not a real fuel – it’s better described as an energy carrier – similar to electricity. Forget hydrogen as a solution to our energy crisis.
Carbon – whether as coal, natural gas etc. is now the no no. So that’s the chemical possibilities exhausted.
Biological power? This means trapping the energy of sunlight with photosynthesis to make biofuels, or methane by fermentation, or charcoal from biomass and then burning the product.
CO2 in this instance is not a no no, because unlike fossil fuel CO2 one is only putting back into the atmosphere what was taken out. Ne would think that biological-energy (really solar) should be a panacea, but it’s not. There are too many associated problems of cost – both economic and environmental.
Classical Physics? Here I refer to renewable energy: wind, hydroelectric, wave and tidal, solar panels, heat pumps, geothermal etc which all depend on converting one kind of physical energy to another, which is usually electricity or heat.
But again – while they can be developed and expanded – they are no panacea. They simply cannot meet those three criteria simultaneously – affordable, reliable, low carbon.
That leaves us with nuclear power. Given there are still abundant reserves of uranium, that it’s not in the hands of a few suppliers, that nuclear power stations are low-carbon (though probably not as low as claimed) and that they operate round-the-clock, then there’s no escaping the conclusion that it is nuclear power that will have to fill the energy gap. That’s until fusion power becomes reality – which may take decades or longer.
It’s a bitter experience for those familiar with the history of nuclear power in Britain – e.g. the decision to develop our own AGR and Magnox technologies, that have not proved as safe and or as economical as the PWR reactors developed in the USA, France etc. Then there was the Windscale incident, and then Chernobyl that all but killed off the UK industry.
I guess we have no choice now but to re-habilitate nuclear power in the UK – and fast – unless we want the lights going out!

Week 8a: Time to reinvent oneself

One’s first thought is unprintable. Does one really want to be bothered with a whole lot of new paraphernalia in and around the house? Does one really want to become an energy-efficient obsessive? Will one suffer terrible pangs of conscience for leaving lights burning? Or luxuriating under a hot shower for another minute or two. Will one feel like an eco-Neanderthal to be the last house in the street without solar panels?
The immediate answer to all these is a forceful NO WAY. But then one thinks to oneself : hold on a min, one’s a baby-boomer who’s probably enjoyed halcyon years the like of which will never be repeated. OK, so it didn’t always seem like clover, like that time interest rates hit 15 per cent, and I was seriously thinking of erecting a tent in my first new house to reduce heating bills, and pinned sheets of polythene across all the windows. But there were those generous student grants, plus the mortgage interest relief and other subsidies that sound bizarre now.

Then one remembers the austerity years – the 50s – before Super Mac told us we’d never had it so good. One of the daily rituals was making up the coal fire. One needed a stock of newspaper – annoying because the chippy would pay you 6d for a decent-sized stack. Then there was the kindling – which cost 6d – or even firelighters if you were posh, or a gas-poker if you were the Jones, and finally the coal. Who can forget the heart-in-mouth experience of waiting to see if the fire “took” before one had exhausted one’s meagre stock of material?
So this veteran of both softer and harder times says – time to reinvent oneself, Sunny Jim, and become an eco-obsessive, one for whom energy economy becomes part of one’s daily routine.
So where would I start? A well-insulated hot water tank, obviously. It can pay for itself in weeks, they say. Then loft insulation. Double the thickness, even if it means ditching all those seems-a-shame-to-throw-them-away items. Ditch – that’s an order ! (trust me, you’ll feel much better when the deed is done).
Then cavity wall insulation – and get any grants that are going.
Don’t stop with the cavity, though. Put up pine-panelling inside, with an air gap. Even more insulation – and you’ve sequestered some carbon into the bargain. Let a Scottish or Scandinavian forest make some more wood, taking up more CO2. Maybe laminate flooring too, with a good quality insulating underlay.
Then install double-glazing if one hasn’t already done so. Cost-effectiveness? Let’s keep that for comments.
Then consider a replacement gas boiler, preferably a double-condenser. Cost effectiveness? As above.
Then one thinks about the big ticket items. Hopefully there will be new grants and subsidies shortly – provided the whole thing doesn’t get bogged down in party politics.
My first preference would be for photovoltaic (PV panels) with a feed to the National Grid, allowing one to sell any surplus. But without a grant to defray the big bill for all that photoelectric silicon, I’d probably settle for good old-fashioned thermal panels, the sort with an intermediate heat-exchanging fluid.
Heat pumps? If one has a big plot for buried heat-exchangers, then yes. Otherwise it’s probably not practical or cost-effective.
Forty words left. Must make each of them count. Damn – have used 14 already. Nope, don’t want a wind turbine. Oh yes, I know. It’s been at the back of my mind for ages. Turn down the thermostats, wear more pullovers (not hairshirts) , and watch the blight of the baby-boomer generation slip away - inch-by-inch - with an increased basal metabolic rate. The fat of the land… (ed – best stop there Colin, you’re over your word limit anyway).

Week 8b post: Colin on COP15

Well now, would you believe it? I’ve been asked by that nice Maya at Blog Central to provide an update. Carte blanche too!
They'll be asking me to be caretaker on the whole front page at this rate, while they nip out to get their Christmas shopping done.

What to talk about? Copenhagen? Oh my! What a disaster! Of course, some of us saw it coming. Here's the question I put to the panel at the E.on Energy Question Time, London, Dec 3: "Re Copenhagen: how sensible is a one-size-fits-all policy on cutting global emissions, given there are other environmental considerations, eg oil stock conservation?"
Supplementary: Might one not envision a smart-deal in which Britain concentrates, say, on converting her abundant coal to petrol, thus conserving oil for organic synthesis (polymers etc) while countries like China and India would concentrate on cutting their CO2 emissions?
Personally, I thought it madness to imagine that a few magic fountain pens could be waved over documents to secure a worldwide agreement.
Whoops. There's my own Xmas shopping still to to complete, Here, with apologies, is a lazy way of concluding, with a copy‘n'paste of what I said yesterday on My Telegraph re Copenhagen, which brought the sky tumbling down on my head (strange place, MyT ;-):
"It's interesting to compare the successful Montreal protocol, phasing out CFCs, with the now failed attempts to reproduce them with Kyoto and Copenhagen. Turning off the CFC tap was easy, because it only required legislation, applied to manufacturers.
Turning off, or at rate down, the anthropogenic greenhouse gas tap is infinitely more difficult, because legislation cannot be applied to individuals - thus the attempt to substitute the quasi-legislative carbon trading at the industrial level, with all the opportunities it offers the opportunists. The whole shebang has been mishandled and misconceived from the word go. Fossil fuels have played a vital role in developing the planet.
One cannot demonise them at the stroke of a pen - or the broadcasting of a few politician's soundbites - and expect the entire world to reinvent itself - especially if that involves re-inventing the windmill. Back to the drawing board, you world so-called leaders. This time, try leading instead of imagining you could solve this one by waving a few magic fountain pens.”
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/china_jo/blog/2009/12/20/for_chl
Comments welcome, natch

Week 9 post: Response to Andrew Charlesworth

Response to Andrew Charlesworth’s “On the road to Decarbonisation): Well, Andrew, the ideas that you outline sound great in theory, and one can see why the energy suppliers are keen on them. First, we trade in our petrol/diesel vehicles for electric ones. Then we recharge them at night, using renewable energy from wind turbines etc. That then helps to balance the load on the power supply – we would be recharging when demand for cookers, washing machines etc is low, but the blades are still a turning'o. And we, as car purchasers, would be the ones who would have to cough up for all those expensive storage batteries. Ingenious!
Yes it fits the bill nicely if you are an energy supplier, caught painfully on the over-prolific horns of a trilemma, looking for affordability, reliability and low-carbon simultaneously.

But once it ceases to be purely about generation, and involves the consumer as end-user – then yet another horn sprouts forth - that of convenience. Yes, CONVENIENCE. We are now into quadrilemma territory, with more protests from my spellcheck .
Let’s be clear about one thing. Electric cars do have their uses. They are ideal for congested cities. Why? Because they are zero emissions. That’s not just zero CO2, but zero CO, SO2, NOx and all without those expensive catalytic converters. They are fine as a runabout with low predictable mileages. But they are NOT suitable as general purpose family cars. The reasons are obvious. Once the battery runs flat, it takes hours to recharge. What’s more, one would probably incur a cost penalty for doing that during the day.
Cars play too vital a role in our everyday lives to have one’s convenience curtailed in this fashion. And supposing one got an emergency call in the night, and the car was only half-charged?
Whilst I accept the need to decarbonise where possible, we should be realistic and accept there will always be a role for some CO2-emitting operations. The trick is to replace fossil fuel. One can do that with biofuels, although they are controversial, removing arable land from food production.
There are alternatives. Synthetic petrol can be made from coal via so-called syngas– admittedly with a large carbon footprint. But the same technology could be applied to wood charcoal and other sources of “biochar”, using managed forestry, waste processing etc. The power needs of the process (carbon to syngas to liquid hydrocarbons) can also be met using renewable energy to minimize the carbon footprint.
There’s an intermediate solution – using hydrogen instead of electricity as the energy carrier. But it’s no panacea. It’s not a true fuel – needing energy to produce from water, methane etc – and also having problems of low-range, safety considerations etc.
My interim solution would be based on biochar. Use half of it for synthetic petrol, and the other half as a soil conditioner, applied to marginal land to raise its biomass output.
It’s easy in a fit of crusading zeal to demonise fossil fuels and, from there, all CO2 – including recycling biomass CO2. That is illogical. Here’s a comment from “OntheDot” that appeared on my Week 8a post (“Views on the Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen) that I would recommend to world leaders while licking their post-Cop15 wounds, and hatching their amended plans for Mexico:
“We use energy in three different ways:
1 Electricity; the most useful producer of this would be Nuclear energy.
2 Heating; the most efficient method is gas.
3 Transportation; The only reliable method is liquid hydrocarbons.
Until politicians realise this can we begin to plan accordingly. At the moment we use our energy in a haphazard manner to the detriment of all.”
Thanks OntheDot. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Week 10 (final post): Diversity and Economy are the Key

Two clear messages have emerged during the ten weeks this series of sponsored features has been running. They can summed up in two words - DIVERSITY (of energy supply) coupled with ECONOMY (at the point of use). The drivers are also two-fold – the need to REDUCE EMISSIONS of greenhouse gases, primarily CO2, and the UK’s INCREASING RELIANCE on imported fuel, notably crude oil, natural gas, and not forgetting uranium for the next generation of nuclear power stations.
Personally, I think it’s a shame we have to stop the discussion now. Why? Because there is, to my way of thinking, a largely unexplored conflict between reducing emissions on the one hand, and watching the national import bill rise on the other. Whether one views decarbonisation as an act of self-interest or one of altruism – or even a forlorn and futile act of gesture politics – given the outcome of Cop15- it’s coming at a time when Britain is ceasing to be self-sufficient in fuel. So we face all the horrendous costs of decarbonisation, estimated at £20 billion a year for the next 10 years, while at the same time we are obliged now to buy fuel with the prospect of volatile spot prices. So we volunteer to be saints on the one hand, while risk being treated as sinners with the next crisis affecting crude oil or gas supplies.

I’ve already hinted in earlier posts to some possible approaches that may help to square the circle. The first is to abandon the absurd one-size-fits-all approach adopted by the major Western nations at Cop15. The major sticking point there was China, along with India and the other rapidly emerging economies. They were offered a stick with no carrot (unless one regards a lessening of the immediate threat of catastrophic climate change as sufficient of an inducement to accept the West’s and UN’s proposals).
If China is to be persuaded to cut its massive discharges of largely coal-derived CO2, it has to be offered a more tangible quid pro quo. What might that be? Security of crude oil supplies – at a price that can be afforded - might just swing it. That’s where other coal-rich nations like Britain can contribute – by developing the coal-to-oil technology that has been so successfully developed by S.Africa, and maybe extending it to biochar-to-oil as well, thereby reducing the net carbon footprint.
My own feeling is that enlightened self-interest is always a better bet where international relations are concerned. Britain needs to reduce its reliance on imported oil, and can do that using its abundant reserves of coal. If we produced a surplus of oil, some could be bartered in exchange for French nuclear electricity between now and 2020 while we catch-up on nuclear power. The carrot? Convincing China that a reduced demand from Britain and other coal-to-oil nations will help to prevent repetitions of the oil price hike that occurred in 2006 – when prices trebled over an 18 month period.
Gettting China – now reckoned to be the second largest economy in the world – to play ball will not be easy – and there may be solutions more realistic or imaginative than the ones proposed here. What’s for certain is that unilateral – or even multilateral agreements on carbon emissions - will be futile unless China, and then India, Brazil, Russia etc are brought on board. One hopes the lessons learned at Cop15 will not be repeated next time around in Mexico. The clock is ticking where global temperature rise is concerned.

The origins of life, nucleic acids, purines, pyrimidines and extra-terrestrial cyanide

2009-11-07T02:14:00.000-08:00

An opportunity has just presented itself to share with my fellow earthlings an idea that's been fermenting in this senescent brain for some time. It concerns the building blocks of DNA and RNA - the purine and pyrimidine bases. These are the flat stackeable molecules that make up the base pairs in double-stranded DNA - Watson and Crick's double helix- and thence the triplet genetic code.

Left: pyrimidines and purines. Right: a pyrimidine nucleotide showing the intermediate ribose sugar between a pyrimidine base and phosphate

Why were these particular molecules selected from the primeval soup? Could other molecules have served in their place? Did adenine and guanine (the purines) and cytosine, thymine and uracil (the pyrimidines) just happen to be "lying around", so to speak, in some primeval rock pool, or forming in the vicinity of a hydrothermal vent?

I tried tackling it first from a physicochemical standpoint. What conditions would be needed for any kind of spontaneous chemistry to occur in a puddle say on Earth? The classic Miller-Urey experiments you may recall subjected the assumed constituents of Earth's proto-atmosphere to electric discharges, in an attempt to generate the precursors of proteins and nucleic acids (amino acids, purines and pyrimidines). Glycine - the simplest of the amino acids- was formed, but that was hardly a chemical cornucopia.

The Miller-Urey apparatus. The test mixture of water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen and carbon monoxide was intended to replicate the then-imagined reducing atmosphere. Current thinking is that the main carbon component was CO2 rather than methane CH4. Interestingly, substituting CO2 for methane gives the same range of amino acid and other products, provided that oxygen is excluded.
See wiki for more details

One of the chief problems would have been intense uv radiation from space - without oxygen, there would have been no ozone "sun-screen". So maybe the first requirement was to generate sun-screen agents in situ. Purines and pyrimidines all absorb strongly in the ultraviolet:

From left: adenine ( as the nucleotide AMP ); uracil (as UMP); cytosine (as CMP); guanine (as GMP)

So if they formed by accident a kind of proto-Darwinian natural selection would operate. Further molecules could then evolve, protected by the sun-screen molecules. What about the sugars - the five carbon ribose and deoxyribose? Could they have developed initially in a permissive role, simply to allow more chemistry to proceed?

If life did evolve on land, say in a rock pool receiving intermittent rain, and exposed to all weathers, then there needed to be a mechanism to protect against freezing or evaporation. Chemistry generally needs to be in solution if one is to synthesise. Well, there's a possible role for sugars. Firstly, they depress freezing point, ie have anti-freeze properties. What's more, a sugar solution tends to go syrupy when water is evaporated. It's often quite difficult to drive off the last of the water. Sugar molecules bristle with hydrogen-bonding OH groups which cling tenaciously to water.

Sun-screen agent, anti-freeze - are these the properties of purines, pyrimidines and sugars that caused them to become the building blocks of life?

What about those five chemical bases? Where did the carbon and nitrogen come from for their cyclic structures?

It was the article in the current New Scientist ("Was life founded on cyanide from space crashes?") that provided another piece of the jigsaw. It's proposed that life on earth was seeded by cyanide , -CN, in asteroids. As written it's a free radical, not a stable molecule. It would have to be HCN, or a metal cyanide, eg KCN. Now if you look at the detailed structure of purines and pyrimidines, you will see that all of them feature an alternation of -C-N- in their rings. There are some -C-C bonds as well, but the cyanide dimer cyanogen N-C-C-N could have provided that.

As soon as I started googling I struck pay dirt, with a 1978 paper describing how solutions of HCN began to form purines and pyrimidines spontaneously in the presence of alkali.

Read the New Scientist article and comments, five at the time of writing, with the suggestion that cyanide is the carbon precursor par excellence, not only for its association with nitrogen, but for being "electron-rich" (my term), given the presence of that triple bond between the two atoms, representing three shared pairs of electrons.

Standard valence formula (lower left); electronic configuration (upper right). Of the six electrons in the triple bond, 4 are available for forming new chemical bonds with additional atoms of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen etc.

Further reading: for a critique of the Miller-Urey experiment, indeed, the entire idea that life could have evolved spontaneously, see the article by John Peet.

Postscript: it's all been thought of before: at least the cyanide to purines route.

And, to end on a light note:

Talking Energy - an individual perspective

2009-10-30T01:29:00.000-07:00

Today's the day when the Telegraph launches its "Talking Energy" feature in association with E.on, the energy supplier.

One is invited to join the debate . Four of us bloggers are each given individual "home pages" on the website: Christina O, SabinaA, the recently-arrived Robert and myself.)

Whether, in the case of E.on, one calls it a public consultation exercise or a PR campaign, does not worry this blogger unduly. Given the way that the AGW debate has been politicized and polarized, any new forum is to be welcomed if it allows the voice of reason and real science to be heard without all the personal aggro.

So this blogger has signed up, asking that any new forum be proactively moderated. I suggested in an email that it could usefully take a leaf from New Scientist about how to moderate. (For example, the NS has no time or patience for those persistent conspiracy theorists who clutter up its comments, and a good thing too.)

"Reactive moderation", as one sees on My.Telegraph, may be cost-effective, but it degenerates quickly into unseemly dogfights, ending with entire posts and comments - good as well as bad - being deleted by the tardy moderators.

I received an electronic galley proof of the Telegraph/Eon opening gambit, scheduled for ~~later today~~ tomorrow, and submitted my 600 words yesterday, along with mugshot and bio' as requested. One waits with bated breath (more commonly rendered these days as "baited breath", with visions of mouse traps and Cheddar cheese*).

I'm not giving any secrets away by telling you that the central message of the exercise is that energy companies like E.on are confronted with what they call a "trilemma". (A parallel campaign on YouTube whence came my graphics is already underway with that questionable t-word neologism in prominence). The trilemma refers to so-called "conflicting" demands that future energy supplies be: 1. Green (low-carbon) 2. Affordable and 3. Reliable.

Well, one could be pedantic and say there's nothing conflicting there - they are merely three desirable criteria that need to be met simultaneously. Otherwise our lives would be burdened with trilemma, like where to live (it's got to be a nice area, affordable, handy for public transport).

Rather than nitpick, this blogger decided to focus on renewable energy, and how it might be made more reliable, given fluctuations in wind speed affecting turbine output etc. Clue: Dinorwig.

I'll let the Telegraph publish first, then wait a day or two.

Watch this space!

* Cruel Clever Cat by Geoffrey Taylor:

Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

This little ditty first appeared in an anthology called Catscript, edited by Marie Angel. However, it was first published in 1933 in a limited edition of Geoffrey Taylor’s poems entitled A Dash of Garlic.

Additional reading E.on powers down to cut carbon and costs

Interesting to see the spotlight being put on our PCs - and rightly so, when you consider the heat that comes - not just from the laptop itself, but the charger too.

Energy-saving tip: when using one's laptop, switch off a light or other appliance that would normally be on, if it's superfluous to requirements when you are online.

Update: Thur 5th November: Here's a C&P of my first post on the E.on site. Having been up for a few days now, it would not seem a terrible breach of protocol to add it here for archival purposes:

Who can doubt that the future lies with renewable energy, and that we Brits are blessed with the stuff – existing or yet-to-be-realized.
First, there are those wind turbines – not the stuff of Wordsworthian rapture I grant you - but they are increasingly being sited offshore.

Then there’s solar energy, with a choice of two panels for your roof – the older thermal, or the state-of-the-art PV panels that can feed the electricity you don’t use into the National Grid.
And there’s wave power – which is a kind of secondhand solar power, recalling that weather and wind are due to unequal heating of the Earth’s surface.

And there’s even the dear old man in the moon, not wishing to be outshone by his flashy big brother, who contributes the prospect of tidal power. Just wait until we have a hydroelectric barrage across the Severn Estuary, supplying maybe as much as 10 per cent (?) of our power supply. (Yes, there are downsides, needless to say, to any big scheme, in terms of amenity, effect on wildlife, capital cost, the carbon-footprint of setting up etc. But let’s stick with the broad brush today.)

The problem with most of the renewable schemes is that the end-product – electricity, that energy-carrier par excellence – is generated at scattered locations across the country, supply may be intermittent, or supply may not match demand around the clock or calendar.

Is there a solution? Yes, there probably is, though it’s not always a panacea. One is talking about big money upfront, and, more to the point, big commitment.

But unless or until fusion power becomes a reality – which may take decades, centuries even – then there is no Plan B, assuming one is not a unbudgeable climate change denialist who thinks the world's scientists in their droves have abandoned all reason in condemning those fossil fuels.

So what is the solution? Simply go to the wiki page on Pumped Hydroelectric Storage, and it’s all there.
Britain already has 4 PHS stations – two in Scotland, two in Wales, and now needs a lot more in different shapes and sizes.

The principle is simple. One has two bodies of water – a lower and upper level. When there’s a surplus of electrical power, say from wind farms during the night, water is pumped from the lower to the upper level. When there’s extra demand, and the conventional stations are struggling to cope, water runs back through turbines, generating electricity.

It’s the closest one can get to “storing” electricity as the potential energy of a head of water. What’s more, the efficiency is surprisingly high – 80 per cent or more they claim in a well-designed system.

Do read the article, to see the new and imaginative ways of developing the principle. The Japanese have used the sea on Okinawa as one of the two levels, the other being a reservoir at the top of the headland.

The Danes have a plan that does not even need two levels – the water is simply pumped into a giant bladder which gradually plumps up, creating its own head. Sand is laid on top to get extra oomph.

My favourite is the salt-mine idea. We have lots of worked-out salt-mines in Cheshire and elsewhere. You pump water down into the old-workings, and site your upper reservoir on the surface. Yes, the water becomes brine, so all the equipment has to be corrosion-resistant. But there’s an upside too: once the water becomes saturated brine, it’s 20 per cent heavier than pure water, so becomes a more efficient energy-transfer medium.

What is it they say – where there’s a will, there’s a way!

Can entropy decrease in a Big Crunch - without defying the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

2009-10-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

The Universe, we're told, is expanding, and has been from the beginning of time - reckoned to be some 13.6 billion years ago. Extrapolate back, and the Universe must have started as something incredibly small, hot and dense - a singularity. Something caused that singularity to explode, in a Big Bang. So far, I'm telling you nothing you have not already heard or read many times.

Will the Universe go on expanding for ever? If you believe in Dark Matter and Dark Energy, then the answer is probably yes. But so far, neither of those hypothetical entities has yet been detected.

So there's another scenario that cannot be dismissed - that expansion will slow, and the Universe will cease expanding and then start collapsing back on itself, ending in a Big Crunch.

Some, myself included, are attracted to this idea, especially as it makes possible the idea of a new Big Bang, indeed, a never-ending series of Bangs and Crunches.

But some objections, or at any rate difficulties, have been raised with the idea of a Big Crunch. One of them is to do with entropy (eg link to Yahoo forum) , and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is the one I intend to discuss briefly here today and tomorrow.

The essential idea conveyed by the Second Law is that while energy is never created or destroyed, energy is gradually dispersed, becoming less and less useful. Engines use concentrated energy - fuel - to operate. The end product is waste heat - too dispersed for it to be recaptured and re-used. Indeed, the very act of trying to do that would be self-defeating, incurring a greater energy cost than that recouped. Entropy - the spontaneous tendency for systems to become chaotic, more dispersed, has been successfully analysed statistically in terms of order/disorder, more specifically to do with numbers of possible arrangements. The example I used to give students was this. Imagine you have a neat and tidy bedroom, and there's a strong gust of wind through an open window. Papers get scattered, things fall off shelves etc. Suppose one started with a disordered bedroom, and there was a gust of wind. You would be very surprised if you ended with a tidy bedroom. The probability of a chance event - in this case the wind - producing disorder is hugely greater than that of producing order. Why? Because there are relatively few ordered arrangements compared to the number of disordered ones.

What's all this got to do with cosmology you may ask? Well, we see entropy increase around us on a daily basis - eg salt dissolves in water. The ordered structure of a crystal is replaced with the chaos of dispersed ions in solution. If entropy is steadily increasing, in accordance with the Second Law, then the entropy of the initial singularity must presumably have been minimal, possibly zero - a maximally-ordered system it would seem.

There's a problem, then, with the idea of contraction back to a singularity - the Big Crunch. Why ? Because if the end result is the same singularity, then entropy would decrease steadily during the contraction. But that would be contrary to the Second Law, would it not? Other objections have been raised. If we lived in a contracting universe, salt would presumably still dissolve in water, so we would still be seeing the Second Law in action.

Some have tried to get round the conundrum by introducing the variable of time. It then gets very counter-intuitive, especially the concept of negative time, even history running in reverse! Let's not go there.

I believe there is a way of reconciling the concept of a Big Crunch with entropy and the Second Law.

I shall be posting it here tomorrow!

Wed 21 Oct: Well, tomorrow has arrived, so here's the rest of the story.

It's all to do with the size of the Universe, and its fitness or otherwise to act as an entropy-increasing heat sink. While the Universe is expanding, there is abundant space in which heat can dissipate, or other forms of disorder can occur - eg dilution of gaseous end products etc. In the initial stages of contraction, things would continue much the same while there are still light-years between galaxies, or light-minutes between planets and their nearest neighbours, or even light-seconds between a planet and its moon with intervening space.

But imagine the process of contraction occurring continuously. There will finally come a time when one's perception of nature will change. Galaxies will collide for a start, but let's focus on events at a more local level. Previously there was almost limitless space for heat to dissipate. That will no longer be the case - for two reasons. First there is less space for any new heat to dissipate. Secondly, and more importantly, all the previous heat dissipated into the Universe - which is still out there- will become progressively concentrated. (Reminder; it's not just the contents of space that disappear into a black hole vortex - but the fabric of space-time itself- represented by the mesh in the graphic).

Temperatures in deep space, presently a few degree above absolute zero, will start to increase. The so-called microwave background radiation, a left-over from the Big Bang - will gradually shift and start to shorten in wavelength - first to normal radio frequencies, and then into the infra-red region. That's when things start to get interesting. Engines will no longer run so efficiently, because as background temperatures rise, they will find it progressively harder to dissipate exhaust heat.

Let's now look at the salt/water system. Yes, salt will continue to dissolve in water, suggesting that all is well - that the Second Law is still operating. But as background temperatures increase, the water gets hotter, and if there were still observers around, a point would be reached when the water was no longer liquid at normal temperatures and pressures. In other words, salt could not dissolve in water - if there were no liquid water still in existence!

So there would in fact be a gradual violation of the Second Law as we know it, were the Universe to implode towards a Big Crunch, due to increasing difficulty in dissipating waste heat against a background of rising temperature. In the final stages, the temperatures would become so great that no heat could be dissipated at all. In that situation, one has returned to a state of minimum entropy, but hugely elevated temperatures.

Had a classical thermodynamicist such as Carnot (of eponymous cycle fame) been born into a contracting Universe he would have enunciated the Second Law of Thermodynamics differently, methinks. Quite how it would have been worded I would not care to speculate, except to say it would need to have been heavily qualified re differences between open and closed systems. Could a contracting Universe even be described as "open". Only when the system under study was small, with a sizeable temperature difference between it and everything else "out there"?

What then? See my earlier ideas in the margin (scroll down) which have now been appeared in the MSM - so far with no serious objections being raised. I do not believe that the Big Crunch continues indefinitely. There comes a point when, through frictional forces, the plasma reaches the maximum possible temperature - when its constituent particles (strings?) then moving/vibrating so rapidly that they reach the speed of light, and then transform into massless photons. When that occurs, the system ceases to be a superblack hole, and spectacularly flies apart, creating a new Big Bang...

What went wrong with NASA's moon crash?

2009-10-10T00:49:00.000-07:00

The idea was to crash a spacecraft into the Moon at a chosen spot where ice might be lurking. Hitting the Moon at twice the speed of a bullet would send a plume of debris miles high that could then be analysed spectroscopically for water.

But there appears to have been no plume - only a brief white flash. Why not? Here's this blogger's explanation for what it's worth, published first on New Scientist and now the Times.

From the latter:

"Maybe a plume was formed but settled too quickly to be seen by the following probe, 4 minutes behind. Don't forget that although gravity is lower on the Moon, making things slower to fall, there's no air to slow the descent - even of dust particles or those hoped-for ice crystals.

There's a classic lab experiment in which a stout glass tube has all the air pumped out. A feather inside then falls as quickly as a ball-bearing.

Let's hope the NASA scientists did not forget their school physics."

Update: Sunday 18 October Well, halleluja, a plume was captured on camera after all, although the photograph in New Scientist ("Elusive lunar plume caught on camera after all") was somewhat disappointing. I mean to say - given it was said to be 6-8 kilometres wide, why show us a mere smidgeon of white on a so-called "zoomed image"? Small wonder the conspiracy theorists began falling out of the woodwork!

The fact that a plume was briefly formed lends support to the hypothesis I've ventured above. The plume didn't last long, because the particles fell back faster than many might suppose (given that the Moon's lower gravity seems to dominate most thinking, with the absence of an atmosphere frequently overlooked).

The absence of an atmosphere alters the dynamics of an impact and its aftermath considerably. Dust and other particles (ice?) may well be ejected much higher and further than on Earth, due to absence of a cushioning atmosphere - no air molecules to be pushed aside- but their return to "earth" would look entirely different to an observer or camera. Initially the descent would seem gentle - due to 1/6th Earth's gravity- but acceleration would be continuous, without anything comparable to "terminal velocity" (approx 120 mph on Earth in "old money"). A quick back- of- envelope calculation using school physics says that while it would take some 30 seconds for dust or ice particles to reach 120mph (which is our earthly terminal velocity), they would go on accelerating indefinitely until they finally hit the surface. There's another factor to consider - which another scribe on NS comments has pointed out : much of the ice -if present- would be vaporised by the kinetic energy (heat) of impact. The molecules would be unlikely to re-coalesce in the Moon's near-vacuum, and simply disappear from view - except perhaps to a highly sensitive spectrometer that was set up specifically to look for them - and certainly fail to drop back. Molecules generally don't "drop back" in a vacuum, especially in a weak gravitational field. They would simply spread out, ie diffuse rapidly.

The Times "Eureka" magazine - first impressions

2009-10-08T06:39:00.000-07:00

I've just spent an hour leafing through the Times's most recent addition to its publishing platform. It's called Eureka, its cover is very green, with an unattractive graphic of a chap who's lost the top half of his skull, with a plethora of sciencey things bursting forth from the exposed remainder.

Personally I find it hard to conceive of an image that is better guaranteed to confirm in the layman's mind that science is a nerdy thing that reveals more than you really want to know - an autistic lack of the light touch, to say nothing of discretion and good taste .

Well, I hadn't intended to start on so negative a note, but it's sitting there next to me in all its disturbing, stomach-churning immediacy, so I want to get that off my chest. First impressions still count, do they not?

Second and subsequent impressions are a lot more favourable. One doesn't envy anyone the task of producing a digest of science for the general reader of a newspaper, not even a serious one like The Times. How does one define the target audience, given that a relatively small proportion will have formal scientific qualifications much beyond GCSE - or O-Level? Then there is the notorious antipathy that exists towards science and scientists in the UK - one that has produced what someone described some years ago as the "ghettoization" of science.

Scientists are partly to blame themselves - let's not go into all that right now. Suffice it to say that the finger hovers over the remote when a science programme appears on TV. Woe betide any presenter who attempts to get too immersed in detail, or who overdoes the gee-whizzery, pie-in-the-sky delivery. The British public is inured to that kind of thing, and is likely to say "Come back in 10 years when you know some more, or have a workable, marketable product."

The criterion for a good thriller is that it is un-putdown-able. So what should it be for a periodical that appears only once a month? Not un-putdownable - that would be asking too much, in view of the subject matter. I suggest it should be put-downable, ie nothing too long and demanding of time, but so pick-uppable again that it escapes an early fate in the nether regions of a bulging paper-rack, or worse still the dustbin. In that sense I believe "Eureka" is over its first hurdle. There's a good mix of light and serious, human and technical, visionary and realistic to make it worth returning to if one only has the time or inclination to dip in now and again.

I'll come back in a day or two with a closer look at some of the features. I do have one or two quite serious gripes with some of the detailed science. In particular the feature "Living in the City" seems to have some unrealistic chemistry and biology. Since when has carbon dioxide reacted with magnesium chloride to give magnesium carbonate? (The reaction proceeds fine in the opposite direction!) But let's not nitpick today. The line-up of writers is impressive - with at least three with solid research experience and qualifications - up to and beyond PhD - and amazingly the Times has secured the services of Martin Rees - President of the Royal Society- whose keynote contribution is worth a read, touching as it does on a host of the issues that confront scientists, and the perception (or misconceptions) re the scientific approach to modern life and the myriad questions it throws up.

Update: Friday 9 October

The individual articles in Eureka are now online, including the one with the questionable chemistry. Have submitted this comment:

"Hmmm. While one welcomes "out-of-the-box" thinking on technology, the fundamental science has to stay firmly within the box.

It would not seem feasible, for example, to use "magnesium chloride" as a trapping agent for CO2. Magnesium hydroxide, certainly, but since that's made from magnesium carbonate, heating in steam to drive off CO2, it's self defeating re carbon footprints.

With magnesium chloride, one is trying to make the following (well known) reaction go in reverse:

magnesium carbonate + hydrochloric acid -> magnesium chloride + water + carbon dioxide

Not only does it prefer to go in the direction shown, but if one did contrive conditions to make it go in reverse one would release hydrochloric acid fumes into the neighbourhood! Hardly environmentally-friendly!

The bacterial illumination look improbable too. Yes, there are strains that react oxygen with luciferin, but the light-show is mediated by the enzyme luciferase, and that catalysis, like the rest of bacterial metabolism, requires an aqueous environment. I doubt whether bacteria would take kindly to being incorporated into coatings if that meant having to exist lichen-like in all weathers. Bacteria - excluding their resistant spores- are a lot more fussy about their environment!"

That so-called "Anglo-Saxon" treasure could have been of genuine British-manufacture

2009-09-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

I'm going to stick my neck out here. Who's to say that the fabulous hoard of gold and silver craftwork, unearthed by that bloke with the metal detector in Staffordshire, was produced by Johnny-Come-Lately Anglo-Saxon settlers?

Just 9 of some 1500 so-called "Anglo-Saxon" artefacts - a stupendous find, regardless of provenance

OK, so we are supposed to be proud of our admixture of Anglo-Saxon and other genes. We are supposed to take pride in being an allegedly mongrel race (hybrid vigour an' all).

But have your read your Stephen Oppenheimer? He's the Oxford scholar who analyses modern DNA to trace our genetic roots. I blogged about his claims some 3 years ago. Oppenheimer rejects the idea that Anglo-Saxons supplanted the native Brits, sending us scurrying to the Celtic fringes. Oppenheimer reckons that the native Brits pre-dated the Celts, and indeed resisted numerous waves of invasion - the Celts, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, stubbornly staying put, and surviving - either by putting up resistance, or by assimilating the invaders.

Oppenheimer reckons that native Brits are derived from Basque migrants who recolonised Britain some 15,000 years ago after the last Ice Age, crossing the then still existing land bridge between the Continent and England.

So why is the treasure being described as Anglo-Saxon? Who's to say it is not native British - or, less probably, Celt?

OK, so it was discovered in a Staffordshire field, in central England, and is reckoned to be 7th century, when that part of England was in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. But that does not mean that it was Anglo-Saxon treasure. It may have been of native British manufacture, possibly from the era (mythical or otherwise) of King Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. It may have been taken from our dead warriors on the battlefield as war booty - or maybe our knights buried their finery (purely for show!) before facing the invader in battle wearing the equivalent of combat fatigues.

What's the evidence that Anglo-Saxons ever produced such exquisite artwork? I thought they were practical types, more concerned with clearing forest, ploughing, agriculture and animal husbandry? Their efforts went into producing axes and ploughs - not fine gold filigree ornamentation.

Yep, I'll put my head on the block. The "experts" have got it entirely wrong. It's not Anglo-Saxon treasure. It's British treasure. And no, I don't mean Celtic treasure - although that gifted if mercurial folk did produce fine arts and crafts - and are arguably more highly regarded in that respect than the Anglo-Saxons.

Nope, I reckon the treasure was produced by native "aboriginal" Brits, of Basque-derived stock according to Professor Oppenheimer - the true Brits - the ones who re-settled the British Isles, and who have managed to survive and prosper despite waves of immigrants seeking a better life. Britain's geography permitted co-existence within probably quite confined geographical areas - a few hundred square miles for example - which could be a little as 20m x 20m- thanks to our varied topography, the (then) more abundant forest cover, and, dare I say it, mutual tolerance and/or respect between native and newcomer. There was room for everyone who was prepared to work, and to "live and let live" - the British way. Britain was, if you like, the "New World" of the first millennium, once the Romans had left.

I repeat: the experts may have got it wrong. One cannot assume it is Anglo-Saxon treasure. It could well have been the exquisite handiwork of native Brits who succeeded in maintaining their genetic, ethnic and cultural identity over thousands of years - standing firm and finally expelling - or assimilating- the Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Vikings and Normans.

Update Sat 26 14:31 : See the Telegraph article with its 23 comments - at the time of writing.

The "Staffordshire Hoard" now has a wikipedia entry

No genuinely free water on the Moon, it would seem...

2009-09-24T22:41:00.000-07:00

The ambiguity of "free" in my title is deliberate. The traces of water detected by that inspired Indian lunar probe are not of course free water, in a chemical sense, but chemically-bound, non-wettening "water".

Is that a water-diviner in his hand? If so, then happy-hunting..

Even my non-scientific wife was quick to realize that, watching last night's news, even if the media reports elsewhere conjure up visions of future moon colonists tapping into an abundant supply. Moonshine!

Being chemically-bound, whether weakly or strongly, it's hardly free for the taking either. The expression "getting blood out of a stone" springs to mind.

Here's what I sent last night to the Times in response to that trumpeting headline re there being a litre of water per tonne of lunar soil. (One feels that "water" should have been enclosed in quotation marks in the Times's article).

To say there is "water" on the Moon when it's there as the hydroxyl radical/ion is a little misleading, as others have pointed out. It's like saying that farmer's lime, calcium hydroxide, is a potential source of water. True, in a manner of speaking, but you would have to get it red hot to drive off water as steam, as in lime-furnaces, and then have a means of cooling and condensing to get liquid water. It may sound easy in principle, but the practical aspects of attempting this on the Moon are formidable. One would need an abundant supply of energy - probably tens or hundreds of square metres of solar panels to generate megawatts of electricity.

Why not get the Sahara green first - to create biomass and reduce CO2? Huge problems to overcome, yes, but if we can't lick that problem, what hope is there of colonising the Moon or Mars on a realistic timescale?

September 24, 2009 11:10 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk

Aside: well done, btw, Times for finally adding a time and date stamp to readers' comments, and for a much-speedier moderation than before. The BBC-style facility for expressing approval is also cute. It even survives cut-and-pasting here, apparently as a live-link - see the blue font above! Shame though that one's comments are not accessible to search engines. The world wide web depends on linking, you know, if only for information-retrieval. Vanity has nowt to do with it, of course...

Update: Friday 15:15 pm. Had some further thoughts on the inconclusive nature of the chemistry after reading the New Scientist's feature: Have just sent the following:

"Hmmm. So the signal could have come from water or from the "OH molecule". Leaving aside the faulty nomenclature - OH is not a molecule, but is either a free radical if electrically neutral, or a negatively- charged ion - it seems a bit of a liberty to lump together two entirely different chemical species in this manner. The discovery of H2O would indeed be exciting, even if strongly adsorbed to minerals. But "hydroxyl", presumably as mineral hydroxides, would be an entirely different matter, requiring somewhat high temperatures in most cases if desiring to drive off molecular water, which would then have to be cooled and condensed. Most of the hydroxides of predominant minerals in the Earth's crust - magnesium, calcium, aluminium etc- hang onto their oxygen and hydrogen quite firmly, needing red heat or higher to dissociate into oxides and steam.

So it's somewhat premature surely to report that "water" has been discovered. On the basis of available evidence, none of which can be described as "hard", what's been discovered are oxygen atoms that are bonded to one or possibly two hydrogen atoms with a strong attachment to a mineral matrix given they are able to survive solar heating in a vacuum. Alternatively, and less usefully from the point of view of harvesting lunar water, the signal is picking up a temporary association, ie the turnover model, which would explain why the discovery did not come earlier from study of Apollo-mission rocks"

Update Sep 25 21:17 : See also "How could astronauts harvest water on the Moon" - latest article in New Scientist.

Flightless birds: why are they found on islands?

2009-09-24T06:37:00.000-07:00

Whilst on holiday (see previous post) I've been reading Jerry Coyne's excellent "Why Evolution is True".
Here's a tip: next time you encounter an advocate of "intelligent design" or, perish the thought, creationism, ask them if they've read his book - or something comparable. Ask if they know about 'devolution' (my term ) which is the loss of function, with vestigial traits still visible - like that otherwise inexplicable "floating" pelvis and hind limb of the whale. If they haven't, then refuse to enter into any discussion - probably futile in any case - until they have apprised themselves of the impressive marshalling of evidence in Coyne's book.

I should probably stop here - not presuming to be on anything like equal terms with someone who has spent his entire career researching the mechanisms of evolution (yes, the latter is possible, after a fashion, using his experimental model of fruit flies with their relatively short generation times). But I can't resist floating an idea that may or may not be codswallop. It concerns "flightless birds" - an example of that so-called 'devolution'.

The kiwi (NZ) - archetypal flightless bird

Here's Coyne's rationale:

"The long and the short of it is this: flight is metabolically expensive, using up a lot of energy that could otherwise be diverted to reproduction. If you're flying mainly to stay away from predators, but predators are often missing on islands, or if food is readily obtained on the ground, as it can be on islands (which often lack many trees), then why do you need fully functioning wings? In such a situation, birds with reduced wings would have a reproductive advantage, and natural selection could favor flightlessness. Also wings are large appendages that are easily injured. If they're unnecessary, you can avoid injury by reducing them. In both situations, selection would directly favor mutations that led to progressively smaller wings, resulting in an inability to fly."

Well, maybe, but wings confer such an extraordinary advantage over us terrestrial landlubbers that one has to seek an equally extraordinary reason why birds would divest themselves of such an advantage - even if in thrall to random mutation and natural selection.

Here's my explanation - for what it's worth.

Suppose the first bird to land on an island had been blown way off course by strong winds, and had landed exhausted on its new home with abundant plant life and insects, but no snakes and other reptiles, or other predators- notably birds and mammals. Suppose too the bird had found a mate earlier, and was carrying eggs, duly laid in the new home.

The fledglings would have developed into fully-grown birds in due course. What then? Would they have stayed in their place of birth - or would they have been adventurous, and ranged further and further over the ocean in search of their more 'natural' habitat, ie that imprinted on inherited memory from mother?

Those that explored further afield might be fortunate and make landfall. Alternatively, and more probably, they sadly would not make it, and would fall exhausted into the sea, or hopefully perhaps turn back in time and return to their island home-sweet-home.

Over the millennia, natural selection would favour birds that were content to "stay put". Mutants that had progressive loss of flying ability would gradually predominate. Flight-capable birds would continue to suffer attrition, at least where the island was concerned. In the absence of predators, the flightless mutants would gradually displace the gypsy wanderers, provided there was sufficient food available at ground level - seeds, insects etc.

Maybe Mother Nature pioneered the joys of indolent vegetating, with old birds and/or their partners marooned on islands, long before late middle-aged expatriate human beings arrived on the planet...

Sciencebod takes a late summer holiday

2009-09-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

Yes, having spent most of the summer looking after a friend's house in Bratislava - complete with resident cats - it's time to have a touring holiday, with no bowls to be re-charged morning, noon and night.

Where are we going? Well, here's a clue. These structures are megalithic (which sounds technically savvy until you realise the literal meaning - "big stones"- which is hardly a giveaway.

We'll work in a visit to those" big stones", then travel north and hop across the straits to another more mountainous island. I've been sampling its beer, which recently appeared locally.

Chestnut flour is a major ingredient of the brew, we are told. It's not bad at all, with a well-defined malty presence, but maybe a tad too strong for my liking (6% alc).

If our various hotels all deliver on their wi- fi promises, I'll be able to keep an eye on the science news, and try to post a short report on anything that looks tasty. There are also a couple of posts in draft that could be fleshed out if rainy weather sets in - which is not impossible in mid-September, even in a location noted for its sunny climate. Will report back in a couple weeks - if not sooner.

Update 24th September

Am back from a fascinating 13 night recce of Sardinia and Corsica. Visited the world-famous Su Nuraxi site at Barumini (see first piccy above) , about 50km north of Cagliari - which thanks to an officious and frankly sub-standard local guide was a mixed experience.

Here is the lady guide who not only insisted we join her group, despite her not speaking a word of English, but specifically prevented us from tagging along with the other guide whom we later heard using both English and Italian.

Reminder, young lady: Barumini is a UNESCO World Heritage site. To accept a question in English, and to reply in Italian is just downright inconsiderate, not to say perverse, especially when your colleague(?) was talking fluently in both languages.

Su Nuraxi? To give some idea of its age, it was abandoned by its inhabitants, about whom we know next to nothing, in the 6th century BC. Prior to that, it had been occupied for millennia!

Random - and irreverent - thoughts on the British Science Festival

2009-09-07T03:29:00.000-07:00

John McCririck: missed his vocation as an SC (see below)?

Uh, uh. It's that time of year again. With the first chill nip of autumnal air, and the sight of new back-to-school satchels, or their modern-day equivalent, the UK press should now be going cold turkey on its silly season reporting. But our esteemed MSM eases itself back into "business as usual" mode gently. Temporary methadone maintenance is provided by the annual September shop-window for that charming if somewhat quirky organization - the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Oops, I'm showing my age. It's abandoned that 19th century name, conveying as it did an earnest desire to improve the scientific literacy of the muddled masses - and so cruelly satirized by Charles Dickens as "The Mudfog Society for the Advancement of Everything".

It now wishes to be known simply as the British Science Association.

I see that BBC correspondent Sue Nelson is on the spot in Guildford for this year's jamboree - it's using the University of Surrey campus - and is being suitably non-overawed by the occasion. Here's a delightful tongue-in-cheek equation she has "derived" by which she rates SC, the colourful "Science Communicators" she encounters:

H = the number of hand gestures

J = the brightness of a jacket

A = the number of times someone says "amazing"

F = the amount of facial hair

Well, we've had some quite memorable and sometimes colourful characters in front of our TV screens - Sir Patrick Moore, Magnus Pyke, James Burke. Maybe John McCririck should be drafted in, if only for his stratospheric SC rating (see graphic :-)

So what kind of science will be on offer this year? Is science still capable of capturing the modern imagination? Can we safely assume there will always be another "big idea" along soon, comparable to the DNA double helix, genetic engineering, stem cells, plate tectonics, superstring theory etc etc. Or has science become so infected with quantum uncertainty that it is now dismissed as telling us more and more about less and less? Will this year's Science Festival give us a taste of new insights, or is it a forlorn exercise in window-dressing, concealing an increasingly bare cupboard and shelves?

(I choose my words carefully, having scanned the list of honorary members and sponsors, discovering names of people whom it would not be wise to offend, including an ex-employer who is now Something Big in Science Policy-Making.)

Religion seems to be flavour of the year at this year's Science Festival, if the Telegraph Science page is reliable as a straw in the wind.

Well, it makes a change from "Why future Moon colonists may keep bees" or similar (OK, so I made that one up, but you get my drift).

Speaking of the Telegraph, it seems to be on a religious kick at the moment. It's even spilled over onto its so-called Science Page. See the recent article by Christopher Howse: "Do you Believe in Angels?"

That "angels" feature incidentally provoked a quick riposte from your sciencebod ;-)

"And to think this is the latest post in the DT's Science section! Is nothing sacred?"

One "getagrip" responded to this and similar sentiments with:

"The word angel occurs 194 times in the Bible. My challenge to all those who have written sceptic comments is to go and read it for yourselves or just remain ignorant bigots."

Well, I guess that's progress of sorts - the bible-quoters are now fighting fire with fire - quantitative data no less!

Incidentally: there are 64 occasions on which miracle(s) appears in the Bible. There's even a website for the benefit of the new breed of Biblical number cruncher. The most commonly used word, not surprisingly, is "and"...

Update: Scientist Lord May attacks BBC rejection of Planet Earth day

Thus reads the headline in the Times. It also needs to be read in conjunction with Lord May's somewhat whimsical advocacy in today's Telegraph for a return to a God-fearing society (tongue-in-cheek methinks because he himself is described as a non-believer). Why? Because nothing less than religious commitment is likely to make people see sense on the need for urgent steps to prevent AGW.

Hmmm. There are some real characters in the upper echelons of the UK Government science establishment. Lord May, an ecologist, with wide-ranging interests and expertise in biodiversity etc, was Chief Scientific advisor in the Blair government, and was President of the Royal Society for 5 years.

My response to the Times:

"If I were religious, which I'm not, I'd be somewhat offended by the sight of a non-religious person (described elsewhere as an "atheist"), no matter how distinguished, telling me that my God was maybe a Good Thing after all, provided He is perceived as waving a big stick at climate change sceptics, bringing them to order.

I personally am slowly coming to accept at least some of the AGW arguments, but that's not because of politicians preaching about a so-called "scientific consensus" but in spite of them. Nothing is better guaranteed to turn off the enquiring mind than the claim that the time for debating is over, and that one must now obediently accept the nanny state's medicine like a good obedient citizen."

Fame at last!

2009-09-06T03:03:00.000-07:00

From today's New Scientist homepage

FAVOURITE COMMENT

Climate will cost much more than UN thinks

"Have you ever known anything to cost less than originally forecast? That would break an immutable law of grant-seeking." sciencebod

Here was my comment in full:

"Have you ever known anything to cost less than originally forecast?

That would break an immutable law of grant-seeking. Estimates are always pitched low initially, so as not to frighten off the fund-givers. They are then gradually and expensively racked up to take into account a host of hitherto unrecognized factors that no one could possibly have forseen, because their eyes were deliberately focused on the far horizon, and nothing so immediate and mundane as the nitty-gritty.

The maximum final/initial ratio is reckoned to be in the region of 3:1 for seasoned pros, who know how far they can push their luck. One notable exception are the organizers of the 2012 London Olympics, who are pushing the envelope, as they say, up into new unheard-of brass neck ratios. Hidden costs, like VAT for example, which no lobbyists, least of all at ministerial level, could possibly have forseen."

To global warming sceptics - other reasons for cutting fossil fuel consumption

2009-09-05T02:55:00.000-07:00

London photochemical smog - it begins with the burning of fossil fuels

Here's an article I would strongly recommend. It's written by Geoffrey Lean in today's Telegraph.
The strap under the headline ("How's your carbon-footprint doing?") reads:

Cutting emissions of carbon dioxide makes sense even if you don’t believe in climate change.

And here is a quotable quote:

"Carbon dioxide emissions are turning the seas acid, and dooming the coral reefs, quite apart from their effect on global warming. Reducing fuel use would also cut other forms of pollution, such as the tiny particles, mainly from car exhausts, that EU research concludes kill some 30,000 Britons each year – shortening average life expectancy by six months – and the nitrogen dioxide which is increasingly implicated in the asthma epidemic that now afflicts one in seven British children...

... driving cars less reduces congestion and the building of new roads through the countryside. Walking and cycling are good for your health, as is eating less meat. Using water economically – and thus reducing the vast amounts of energy needed to pipe it around – helps tackle the water shortages threatening areas like the South East. Recycling paper saves trees. And so on."

Note regarding that nitrogen dioxide: it's a real insidious nasty. Why? Because the nitrogen does not come from the fuel, unlike, say, the sulphur in that other air pollutant - sulphur dioxide. So there is no point in scientists seeking a low-nitrogen petrol or gas. With the exception of coal, fossil fuels have virtually no nitrogen to start with!

The nitrogen comes from the air. What happens is this: when our fossil fuels burn inside engine cylinders, gas boilers etc, the high temperature make some of the nitrogen (normally considered chemically inert) to combine with oxygen to make nitric oxide, NO. That colourless gas then combines with more oxygen on cooling to form nitrogen dioxide, NO2. That gas is no doubt responsible for most of the yellowish-brown colour of city smogs, and is highly damaging to our airways and lungs. NO2 is thought to be a major contributor to the increasing incidence of asthma attacks.

Here is a graphic showing the multiple sources of polluting nitrogen oxides in our air.

Source - same Camden link as above.

So wherever you have fossil fuel being burned, you have toxic polluting nitrogen dioxide being formed. Sadly you can't have one without the other - no one's been able to find a way of uncoupling the two.

What a shame that nitrogen dioxide is not soot-coloured instead of being a light yellow-brown. Had it been so, one suspects that our burning of fossil-fuels would be much curtailed - voluntarily!

Afterthought: Some of the pollution by nitrogen dioxide has admittedly been cut by the introduction of catalytic converters, now compulsory in new vehicle exhaust systems. The platinum and other catalysts have been cleverly chosen to make nitrogen dioxide react with another dangerous pollutant - carbon monoxide- to form non-injurious end-products:

nitrogen dioxide & carbon monoxide react together on catalyst surface, and are converted to nitrogen & carbon dioxide

It helps, but there's still a hazard from NO2, which is not surprising since it's not just internal combustion engines that create it - see pie chart.

( Apol's btw for the divider lines. Not sure where they came from - some kind of formatting glitch)

Yes, it is theoretically possible to see into the past (to be taken with a pinch of salt)

2009-09-04T04:00:00.000-07:00

Safely home - and receiving calls?

It being a slow news day - at least where the science is concerned- I was going to take a break. But I had an idea while shaving that I must share with you, dear readers.

They say it's impossible to travel back in time, right? I'm sure I don't need to remind you why (like what's stopping you from locating Hitler's grandfather, pushing him under the wheels of a stage coach, thus preventing Hitler from being born? ).

But suppose I told you that it's theoretically possible to see what really happened in the past, say at Dallas, Texas in 1963, or to the Marie Celeste? You'd say rubbish, would you not? Certainly I would have, up until a couple of hours ago.

Well think again.

Now you've heard of those distant exoplanets, right? They are outside our own solar system, orbiting their own stars. We know they are there - a few hundred have now been detected. No, we can't see them directly, but they can be detected by the small amount of light they block out when they transit their sun.

Suppose now there's an exoplanet called Zog, and that it is, let's say, 25 light years from Earth (our own Sun, by comparison, is 8.5 light minutes away, and the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, about 4.3 light years away).

Suppose the Zogians are far more advanced than we are, technologically, and have not only detected our presence, but have gone on to develop high-resolution video ( unlikely, but not theoretically impossible). Supposing Earth's history is being stored on Zogian video tape right now. What it records right now is what took place on Earth 25 years ago - because that's how long it took the light to travel from Earth to Zog.

Now suppose we find a way of sending a radio message to Zog, saying "Hello neighbours. Please could you include us on your subscription list for Earth video footage?" OK, so it would take 25 years for Zog to receive our message, and - if they responded promptly- another 25 years for the footage to get back to us. So Zog's most recent footage would show what was taking place on Earth 50 years ago, albeit in Zogian "real time"!

For historians, it would be the equivalent of the "third umpire" in cricket - the video camera that is the final arbiter on what really happened... Now then, was there a second gunman, lurking behind that grassy knoll?

Who says artificial sweeteners don't help you lose weight?

2009-09-03T01:08:00.000-07:00

Is the love-affair over?

So who is saying that artificial sweeteners don’t help you lose weight?

Answer : Professor Soraya Shirazi-Beechey, who is a veterinary science researcher at the University of Liverpool. She claims that "our bodies cannot distinguish between them and sugar." So what's wrong about that, you might say? We all know that artificial sweeteners - saccharine, aspartame etc - are no magic wands. But is the body totally fooled, indeed traduced by them, even in the lower regions of the small intestine, as she claims?

Well, see the article by Chris Irvine in today’s Telegraph (Health Section) and judge for yourself. To say I read it with a growing sense of incredulity, indeed bafflement, would be a gross understatement. Little if any of it makes sense to me.

Let's begin with the statement that “artificial sweeteners do nothing to help weight loss”. It does not appear to be a finding of the Professor’s research. Indeed, from googling her other work, it would appear to be more by way of an article of faith.

Whilst I’m no expert on weight loss strategies – and am fighting a losing battle – that statement offends the most basic scientific principles. If somebody is on a dietary regime that just maintains body weight, and they then replace the sugar in that diet with artificial sweetener – then they are almost certain to lose weight, since their calorie intake is reduced. Now the cynics or defeatists may say differently, claiming, for example, that sweeteners increase one’s appetite for real sugars. But that does not permit the bald statement that artificial sweeteners do nothing to help weight loss. We all know, or should know, that any slimming aid has to be part of a “calorie-controlled diet”. We are constantly warned about that on the side of food packaging.

She then says that our bodies cannot distinguish between the sweeteners and sugar. Here’s where it starts to get scientifically a bit complicated, but bear with me, and see if you can follow the lady’s chain of reasoning.

We have at least two different sensor locations for real sugars - sucrose, glucose etc - in our bodies. One is in the taste buds, which detect “sweet”. These we know can be fooled, so that an artificial sweetener, with a chemical structure entirely different from real sugars, registers as “sweet”, making that cup of coffee more appealing to those of us with a sweet tooth.

But there's another place too - down in the intestine - where we have clever systems in the wall of the gut concerned with selectively absorbing sugars into the blood stream. The important one where this post is concerned deals with ordinary cane sugar ie “sucrose”, in our diet. There is an enzyme in the wall of the gut that recognizes and binds sucrose, and then cleaves it into two halves – glucose and fructose. There is then another system that recognizes and binds these sugars and then transports them across the wall of the bowel into the bloodstream. The glucose transporter works in conjunction with sodium uptake, and is called the sodium-dependent glucose transporter.

So where does the Professor’s research change our picture of this well-established digestive physiology? She claims to have found yet another system in the bowel comparable to the one in our taste buds that recognizes “sweetness”. In other words it is activated not just by natural sugars but by artificial sweeteners. She herself has described that as “surprising”. Indeed, it is surprising. What’s a receptor for one’s perception of whether food is nice to eat or not doing way down in the bowel? Down there one would expect molecules to be recognized purely by size, shape, chemical make-up – nothing so subjective as taste.

Now here’s where things start to get really bizarre. The prof' says that these new sweetener receptors are the reason why sweeteners don’t allow us to lose weight. She claims that the sweetener receptors fool our ordinary sugar-transporters into thinking there's an abundance of real sugar about, and send a signal to our sugar-transporters to work more efficiently. End-result – we absorb more glucose and other sugars from the diet than we normally would. Result: the sweeteners make our bodies more efficient at absorbing sugar calories, with the result that we fail to lose weight, and indeed are at risk of putting on weight

Hold on a minute. There’s a weak point in that argument – and that’s all it is – an argument – a far cry from doing scientifically-controlled experiments.. It’s the assumption that sugar absorption from the gut is inefficient in normal individuals, and that sweeteners improve that efficiency.

Well, I personally know of no evidence that we are inefficient at absorbing sucrose. OK, it may not be 100% efficient – small amounts may reach the lower bowel where it would be fermented to hydrogen, short chain fatty acids etc. But if sucrose were just 95% absorbed, with a "mere" 5% reaching the lower bowel, we would quickly know about it to our gross discomfiture, with bloating, wind, intestinal cramps – in other words all the symptoms suffered by those with the distressing and socially-embarrassing "malabsorption syndromes".

Sorry, Professor , but your story does not make sense. To be honest, there seems to be just a little science, and a whole lot of conjecture. What’s more, it’s conjecture in an area in which consumers are already bombarded with a lot of conflicting information from scientists and health professionals. Someone has to act as watchdog. Who better than a retired biochemist/nutritionist with time on his hands? I would send a brief critique to the Telegraph, but there’s unfortunately no facility for doing so. But there is this ability now to attach comments and critiques to Google links. Tally ho!

PS The Mail has opened a thread on this topic

Update Sun 5th September. Who says that personal blogs are a waste of time, unless one is besieged daily by comments?

I've just been googlin', and find my humble observations as a "retired biochemist/nutritionist" have been picked up across the pond by an Atkins Diet/Low Carb forum. Here's what "OregonRose" has to say:

"A few thoughts:

First, is this "real" research? There doesn't seem to be an actual paper or published findings associated with Shirazi-Beechey's alleged research; it's somehow "on display" at a Food Museum. That doesn't sound too awfully rigorous to me, although I might not be qualified to judge that. Also, in the articles I Googled up on her (Soraya Shirazi-Beechey + artificial sweeteners), I found lots of sound-bitey quotes from her but no mention of actual experiments and actual results. And there's this guy, a retired biochemist/nutritionist, who takes issue with what he labels her bald assertion, noting that there doesn't seem to be any experimental data to back up her claim:

http://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot....eners-dont.html

Second: As to the problem of where the "extra" absorbed glucose in a low-carb diet might come from--assuming for the sake of argument that her claim might have merit--what about glucose generated by the liver from protein? Supposing she's right, maybe somehow AS prods the liver to produce more?

And finally, the whole claim sounds weakly supported to me. Sure, I think avoiding AS is a good idea in general, along with any other frankenfoods, since we just don't know enough about them (heck, we know barely anything about our own physiology, and here we as a species are throwing hundreds of thousands of years of accumulated food wisdom away and eating who knows what...). Nevertheless, during my first year of LC, they helped assuage many a dessert craving, and I'm glad they were available."

I'd have left a comment, but not only is the site not open to those who are not registered, but I'm fundamentally opposed to the Atkins diet - not because it doesn't help lose weight - it almost certainly does - but because I consider it to be misconceived - biochemically, physiologically and medically. The Atkins diet takes a huge liberty with one's cellular biochemistry - the subject of a forthcoming post.

Why is Moon dust sticky?

2009-09-02T03:34:00.000-07:00

This goddamned stuff gets everywhere!

I expect you have seen those close-up photographs of spacemen on the surface of the Moon. Have you noticed how they invariably have dust sticking not just to their boots, but higher up- often up to the knees in fact? That dust is sticking to a vertical surface - in defiance of gravity - albeit weaker on the Moon than on Earth.

Well, there was an opportunity this morning on the New Scientist's website to mention that strange stickiness of Moon dust, and to speculate on what might cause it.

Afterthought: "sticky" is perhaps not the best adjective, since it may suggest "gooey". Maybe the title should have been : "Why does Moon dust stick to everything?" If this were a scientific paper, which it's emphatically not, I guess one would be deploying terms like "adherent" etc. "Sticky" will do for now.

How come the mechanical engineers were able to steal a march on the Royal Society?

2009-09-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

The Royal Society HQ, London

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London

A few days ago the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was in the headlines - under photographs of highways lined with wind turbines and strange new "artificial trees". The latter were poorly explained. In fact, even now, after diligent internet searches, I'm still not certain as to whether they are science fact or science fiction. More about the technological feasibility later.

For the moment, I'd simply say that I placed a comment on the Times, asking why a particular professional society with a mech' eng remit was hogging the headlines, given that solutions to global warming and climate change require an interdisciplinary approach. I was careful to slip in a mention of the Royal Society in the list, feeling that it should be orchestrating the response from the UK's scientific, indeed engineering community too (since engineering solutions are only as good as the underpinning science).

Here's what I said...

"... one notes that these latest suggestions - which are by no means new - have come from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. Might it not have been better if proposals for saving the planet had come from a broader-based consortium of professional societies, that would have included the Institutes of Biology, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, The Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Royal Society etc etc? The underlying chemistry/biology in today's press release is hardly impressive, and regrettably less-than-authoritative."

August 27, 2009 12:45 PM BST on UK-TimesOnline

Note the date. Today, just four days later, the Royal Society has come out with its own position paper, with proposals that look remarkably similar to those of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Indeed, they ask for the same pump-priming Government support to the tune of of £10m.

So, did the engineers jump the gun, one wonders, stealing the thunder of the senior service? Did the latter wince on seeing its apparent inertia being pointed out by your humble blogger? I guess we'll never know, but you have to admit that it's odd that two prestigious societies say basically the same thing within a few days of each other, with an apparent breach of the expected pecking order...

Newspaper sub-editors: bless them...

2009-09-01T01:24:00.000-07:00

Satellite photograph: Saharan dust, blowing westwards, carrying plant nutrients to the Amazon

There's an invited article in today's Telegraph by Steve Jones. His academic title is Professor of Genetics at University College London, but he's better known as a high profile author and TV presenter. He is writing on Mother Nature's dust bowl phenomenon, scourge of farmers past and present, but tempered with the recognition that dust, stripped off land in one continent, can provide nutrients thousands of miles away.This is a topic on which I blogged on the old Dreams and Daemons site.

Did you know that the nutrient-poor laterite soils of the Amazon basin are fed by dust blowing in from across the Atlantic - from the Sahara desert in fact, and from a relatively small part thereof (a particular dried-up lake bed - the Bodélé depression- that is subject to ferocious sandstorms - or should that be dust storms?).

And what title has the Telegraph sub' used on the Home Page. Wait for it: "View from the lab: Beware of the dust". The lab? Well now, that's you pigeon-holed Professor Jones. Did they ask for a picture of you in a crisp white lab coat, peering intently into a test-tube?

Steve Jones

PS I see from Wiki we were both born the same year, but you already qualify for the State pension. This retired lab wallah still has a short while to wait.

Testing new Google comment facility on the Gareth Roberts diabetes story

2009-08-31T22:39:00.000-07:00

Click to enlarge

I did a post yesterday on the amazing - some might say disturbing - report on the BBC's website about Gareth Roberts, the man who had been on insulin injections most of his 32 years, and is now able to take pills instead - ones intended for what supposedly is an entirely different type of diabetes.

Last night I googled *gareth edwards diabetes* to see what else was on the Web, and spotted not just a link to the BBC's story, but a facility to leave a comment. With my thoughts now hardening on Gareth's story, I immediately availed myself of that opportunity to say what I really think. What you see above is a cropped image capture! The key words (final sentence) are "He is now being presented as a medical miracle. NHS cockup more likely!"

It'll be interesting to see whether or not this facility gives added audibility to one lone voice - moi- crying in that wilderness we call the blogosphere...

Scroll back 3 posts to see my own initial "take" on the Gareth Robert's story. Alternatively, click here.

One Diabetic: Diabetes and The Luckiest Man Alive!

2009-08-31T15:28:00.000-07:00

One Diabetic: Diabetes and The Luckiest Man Alive!

"Am not sure how these links work, so I'll just insert the URL of my own post, on which I posted earlier today on the subject of Gareth Roberts. Medical miracle? NHS cockup more likely, if you ask me!"
Sciencebod

Confusing message? You betcha. No, this IS NOT my main post on Gareth Roberts of diabetes fame. That's now two before this one.

So how on earth did this one get here? Well, it's like this.

I had googled *gareth roberts diabetes* and found the link to the BBC's story. I then spotted a facility I hadn't really noticed before, namely the ability to attach a comment to a Google entry, which I did so, asking whether Gareth's liberation from daily insulin injections was really a medical miracle, or whether it was an NHS cockup. It'll be interestig to see if that added note "makes waves" or not.

I then spotted another link lower down to the site of another diabetes patient, a genuine Type 1 patient this time, and tried to leave a comment.

But the "Leave a comment tab" was totally dead - why for heaven's sake? Does he not want comments? But there was a facility to link to one's own blog, and this new post is the result. In other words, this post was generated completely automatically - by a robot- without my being aware it would appear! It's not what I'd intended, and I'm not over-enamoured with the result: it's probably not really clear to you the reader how it came to be here, and could be confusing if you were looking for my main post. But it may have its uses in future, now I now how it operates.

This blog-linking facility is way of creating a shop window for someone else's post, which in this instance is the one at the top "One diabetic..." etc. But it's a tool I shall use with caution in future, since it has the potential to create confusion.

British plan to tackle asteroids

2009-08-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

One of these could really spoil your day

Have you seen that article on the BBC's website: "British plan to tackle asteroids"?

First, I have a confession to make. I know little or nothing about the detailed science - all I can offer is my gut feeling.

A couple of weeks ago I was reading the excellent Bill Bryson book : A Short History of Nearly Everything. He devoted a couple of pages to the threat from asteroids. It did not make for easy reading. It's reckoned that a relatively small asteroid, eg a kilometre or two in width - would be sufficient to extinguish life - or at any rate- most life (certainly ourselves) on Earth. What's more, its approach speed is so great that we would probably have only minutes - or seconds warning - of its approach.

So when the BBC article says that the threatening asteroid would have to be detected 15 years, no less, before its ETA, time in which for us Earthlings to mount our defences and launch a so-called "tractor", then it hardly inspires confidence.

But there's worse to come, at least where the science is concerned. The article says a space craft would be sent up that would park itself alongside the asteroid. It's mere presence would gradually make the asteroid veer off course due to the small amount of gravitational attraction between craft and asteroid.

Hold on a minute. The asteroid is vastly bigger than the craft. The asteroid will pull the craft towards it with far greater force than vice-versa. The only way a small craft can act as a gravitational magnet would be if it had a propulsion unit that kept it at a constant distance, fighting the gravitational force. But that would surely require an input of energy - for 15 years or more. Is that why the article threw in a brief mention of solar power? Well, I say - that's one super Duracell battery.

I may be completely wrong, but my initial reactions are that this scheme is hare-brained - or maybe there's a lot more untried technology involved than the authors - or the BBC journalists- are letting on. The BBC, to its credit, inserts a little caveat - "No prototype have as yet been tested". Pie in the sky? Sci-fi hardware in outer space?

Tell me: are there any other kindred spirits out there who share my profound scepticism with what looks at first sight like silly season gimcrack "science".

Neonatal diabetes - a shocking case of correct diagnosis, but 32 years of wrong treatment

2009-08-31T02:33:00.000-07:00

Gareth Roberts

You know how it is – when you tackle a subject which leads to exams. You learn all the different categories, which you store in your head in separate little compartments. Thus doctors and nutritionists are taught that there are two main forms of diabetes. There’s Type 1 diabetes, also called early-onset diabetes. One day a child is fit and well, and next day it’s gravely ill, because its pancreas has stopped producing insulin, and blood sugar can no longer get into cells where it’s needed. There’s only one known treatment – daily insulin injections.

Then there’s the other form – Type 2 diabetes, also called middle-age onset diabetes, associated with obesity. The pancreas is still producing insulin, but not enough, or the tissues are not responding to insulin. For milder Type 2 diabetes, insulin injections are rarely necessary. Treatment is to correct overweight and faulty diet, supplemented if necessary by tablets of drugs like the sulphonylureas which stimulate insulin secretion from a flagging pancreas. Type 1 and Type 2 – and ne’er the twain shall meet, right? Imagine the response of a James Robertson Justice type consultant if the young medic suggests treating a Type 1 (real or apparent) with sulphonylureas! "You NINCAMPOOP!!"

Yet that is what has apparently happened in the case of Gareth Roberts from Blackpool, reported in today’s BBC Health page ("They have given me my life back") .

Gareth was born with diabetes, which was treated immediately with insulin injections. For most of his life, he has been treated as if he had Type 1 diabetes. But he doesn’t. Type 1 diabetes usually develops in childhood, usually following an infection. It’s thought to be an auto-immune disease, in which the body starts attacking itself.

The good news for Gareth Roberts is that doctors at a West Country medical school decided to try him on sulphonylureas, for the “wrong” kind of diabetes, with near-miraculous results. The drugs control his diabetes. He no longer has to inject himself with insulin.

The bad news is that he’s spent most of his 32 years receiving 4 injections a day, because it was assumed that his form of diabetes was closer to Type 1 than Type 2, being apparently insulin-dependent, and that sulphonylureas are the wrong kind of treatment.

There is a moral here, methinks. Medics – and their support scientists – must always question the soundness or otherwise of their basic assumptions. People who think out of the box should be given a fair hearing, and not immediately dismissed as nitpickers, awkward squad etc etc.

Having said that, what a superb outcome it is for Gareth Roberts, to be freed from his daily regime. But spare a thought for the typical “Type 1” sufferers, for whom those daily injections are still needed.

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Viruses - did they evolve as a form of inter-species germ warfare?

2009-08-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

Swine flu virus

I know it's a crazy idea, but...

Have you ever wondered about viruses, and their place within the scheme of things? I mean to say - they are not living, and they are not dead. They are intermediate between the two. They have been called "incomplete organisms"? Why? Because they are incapable of independent existence. They are simply infective DNA (or RNA)- enclosed within a protein coat. They are unable to reproduce themselves independently. The only way they can do so is by infecting a living cell - plant, animal, even bacterial - and hijacking the host's sophisticated biochemistry in order to make copies of themselves. They are parasites, in other words, and ones which have no other purpose except to make copies of themselves. They are the epitome of the "selfish gene".

It seems clear, then, that the sophisticated cell, capable of independent existence, evolved first, and the virus arrived later - as a spoiler. But why? What were the evolutionary pressures that drove the process, with such devastating consequences ( think pandemic flu, AIDS, hepatitis B, and a host of other viral diseases).

Viruses came up as a topic today on the New Scientist, and was an opportunity to fly a kite for an idea that's been incubating in this senescent brain of mine for some time.

Suppose viruses are not something radically different from, say, higher species, say pigs. Suppose they are pigs, or parts of pigs- ie a maverick version thereof - that has been spawned to keep in place those who abuse pigs.

You can probably guess what I'm driving at. At some distant point in time, man started capturing pigs, and rearing them as food. But pigs had no way of knowing their fate as pork chops on a plate. But suppose that a mutant pig developed a malady, and began sneezing. And suppose the people keeping those pigs began inhaling droplets from the air, and the pig DNA and protein in those droplets - prototype virus- invaded the mucous membranes of the farmers, weakening or killing them? That would have given the farmed pigs a way of fighting back against their "predators", and the particular trait for infecting humans, being advantageous for surviival, would have been conserved by natural selection.

You see, pigs that sneezed and infected their owners would have survived longer, with an extra window of opportunity in which to mate and pass on their mutant genes. In time, the majority of pigs would have evolved these smart viruses, ie shed-cells that can be sneezed out, that improve longevity and mating prospects. In time, other species that are kept for food, like ducks etc, would also have evolved the same trick, and ducks, pigs etc then start exchanging infective DNA and protein, giving rise to flu pandemics. It's surely no coincidence that a lot of them originate in poorer, rural communities in which farmers live in close proximity with their animals, allowing opportunity for infective material to be transmitted.

Remember - all that's necessary for a virus to be infective is for it to be able to breach the protective cell membrane of its host, and then use its DNA to start running off copies of itself within the host. The mere act of hijacking is sufficient to weaken - and sometimes kill- the host cell. But in time, the host cell develops an immune response, such that it is no longer killed outright by the virus.

So what I'm suggesting, in essence- is that viruses evolved as a form of germ warfare between one species and another. Farmed animals - pigs etc - may have been the first to strike back against us - their oppressors!

My Projects (No.1): Is the world greening?

2009-08-30T00:57:00.000-07:00

Scattered acacia trees in Africa

Anyone reading my intro top right might be forgiven for thinking this blog existed purely for sniping. Well, there's certainly a lot of misreporting (or at any rate, over-hasty ill-researched reporting) in the media. Somebody has to correct the record. (I'll post at a later date on how effective or otherwise a private blog can be in that regard. For the moment, think just two words: Google returns).

Having trained as a scientist, and published in a number of areas, the itch to be doing one's own research never forsakes one. Whilst it cannot be the hands-on lab-based variety, there is still that amazing research resource at one's finger tips - the internet search engine.

So from time to time, I will research topics that seem timely.

The first, as the title indicates, is whether or not there is evidence to back up suggestions that our planet is greening. If so -and I appreciate that I could be accused of prejudging the issue- then for what reasons? Is it due directly to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Or is it due to secondary changes in climate (temperature, rainfall amount and distribution etc) that are associated with climate change - whether or not due to alleged AGW?

I'll add new information as I find it onto this blog - the primary source - and flag up this post from time to time to remind visitors that this is an ongoing project.

First step: to google "are trees growing faster". Well, one has to start somewhere!

The graphic? It was chosen having read about evidence for Sahara desert greening in the National Geographic News, and reports that trees are encroaching onto hitherto virgin areas above present treelines.

"Literature" search :

1. Trees are growing faster and could buy time to halt global warning Telegraph 5 April 2009

Suspended term for tea poison man

2009-08-28T06:05:00.000-07:00

Globules of mercury

I could scarcely believe my eyes when I read the above headline on the BBC site. It's about a man who tried to poison his estranged wife by lacing her tea with mercury.

When you read the detail, it's clear that he used elemental mercury, ie the sort in thermometers. Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at normal temperatures. How do we know it was elemental mercury? See the reference to little "ball bearings" at the bottom of the tea cup.

Fortunately for the lady, her estranged husband was ignorant of chemical toxicology. Liquid mercury passes through the body largely unchanged, which would explain why her blood mercury levels were not raised, and why she appears - so they say- to have suffered no lasting ill effects - although she reportedly had symptoms of poisoning initially.

The real hazard with mercury comes from spillages. Mercury has an appreciable vapour pressure, and it's the vapour, when inhaled, which is highly toxic. Laboratories are required to have special decontamination kits to deal with mercury spills. They used to contain elemental sulphur to which the miniature silvery globules stick. Whether they still do or not, I couldn't say.

Mercury salts and other compounds are also highly toxic, although one would probably be doubled up with pain very quickly if these were ingested.

OK, so the guy was ignorant, but the intent was still there. Why should his sentence have been so lenient? The man tried to poison his wife - a despicable act - especially as it exploits intimacy and trust ("care for a cuppa, my dear?"). He wasn't trying to kill her, the court was told - but simply make her dependent. He just wanted her back, under the same roof, grateful to him as a "carer" to a bed-ridden wife. Oh well, that's OK then...

Scientists finally image a single molecule (pentacene).

2009-08-28T03:05:00.000-07:00

The most shared story on the BBC's excellent site right now is from the realms of chemistry - a subject that rarely gets a look-in these days.

It shows a remarkable "photograph" of a single molecule - obtained with a new gee-whizz imaging technique.

Here's the image (hope I'm not out-of-order here):

Pentacene molecule - in the flesh, so to speak

The molecule chosen for study is an aromatic hydrocarbon by the name of pentacene. It's a relative of naphthalene (mothballs). What's immediately clear from the piccy is that it's made from five fused six-carbon rings - benzene rings in fact. (Naphthalene by contrast has only two fused benzene rings).

The BBC's report draws attention to the fact that one can even see the bonds to hydrogen at the periphery of the molecule. However, that won't mean a lot to non-specialist readers if they are not familiar with pentacene's chemical structure.

Ay, but there's the rub - there are different ways of representing chemical molecules, depending on precisely which aspects one wishes to highlight. A quick look at Google images will show what I mean:

Here's the most "realistic" model, so-called space-filling, in which the carbon atoms (black) and the hydrogen atoms(white) are shown in their correct relative sizes. The atoms merge with each other to represent strong chemical bonds. But the fused-ring aspect is now scarcely visible, the "hole' in the centre of each benzene ring being reduced to a mere white spot due to "crowding" of carbon atoms.

The conventional chemical shorthand strips out all non-essential detail, including the hydrogen atoms, and attempts to show the chemical bonding within the rings, as an alternation of single and double bonds (wrong, as it happens).

But that's another story: suffice it to say that chemists know it's wrong...

It took a bit of searching, but here's the representation that best complements, in my view, the BBC's image:

Ignore the second small molecule that hovers above pentacene. This structure shows clearly the five fused rings, and the hydrogen atoms. It is the bonds to the hydrogens at the two opposite ends of the molecule that are visible as bright areas in the BBC image. Don't ask me why the other C-H bonds are not easily visible.

So-called "synthetic trees" employ discredited mickey mouse chemistry!

2009-08-27T01:06:00.000-07:00

Both the BBC and the Times use this picture.

The synthetic/artificial trees are the fly-swat shaped objects, not to be confused with wind turbines. The BBC's caption reads "Artificial trees could be used in areas where carbon emissions are high". The BBC's caption writer seems a little confused, inasmuch as CO2 "pollution" is a global, not a local problem. He or she seems to be confusing it with vehicle pollutants like SO2, NOx, unburned hydrocarbons etc which are an immediate health hazard (asthma-inducing etc) as distinct from global-warming greenhouse gases.

There are reports right now on the BBC, in The Times, and no doubt elsewhere of so-called "synthetic trees" (aka artificial trees) that will help save the planet.

Your ever alert and responsive critic of pop science has just dashed off the following and sent off to the Times:

"Sorry, but the technology for these synthetic trees, reported in 2003, has been totally discredited:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2784227.stm

It uses plain old limewater* to sequester CO2. Where does the lime come from? It comes from roasting chalk or limestone at high temperature, which not only requires a lot of energy, but puts CO2 into the atmosphere.

1. calcium carbonate (+ heat) -> calcium oxide + CO2 (gas)

2. Calcium oxide + water -> calcium hydroxide (+ heat)

3. Calcium hydroxide + carbon dioxide -> calcium carbonate (regenerated!) + water

In other words the whole process, at least as originally described, is entirely self-defeating from the point of view of carbon sequestration. It's simply an expensive way of moving chalk or limestone from a hillside to a so-called synthetic tree by the roadside.

*an aqueous solution of calcium hydroxide"

The Telegraph is now running the same story, again with the same piccy, but unfortunately provides no Comment facility.

From the archives: here is a link to a BBC item on "synthetic trees" as long ago as 2003 which explained why the chemistry was a non-starter.
More later.

Latest breakthrough cannot eliminate all forms of cancer and diabetes

2009-08-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

Cell mitochondria - highly enlarged - with their own DNA - able in some cases to transmit disease

Hereditary diseases, including cancer and diabetes, could be eradicated before birth, scream the headlines.
It hinges on new techniques for fixing faulty DNA.But not just any old DNA.

How can cancer and diabetes be prevented, given that those diseases, while having a genetic component, are not simple inborn errors of metabolism, but multifactorial - influenced by environment as well as genetics?

One has to read quite deep into the article to see the reasons for the apparent contradiction.

It's to do with mitochondria - those sausage-shaped subcellular organelles of which the typical human cell has a thousand or two (see graphic). Mitochondria play a key role in supplying the cell with energy, by providing a package of enzymes and electron-carriers that convert the energy of foodstuffs to ATP - the universal energy currency of living cells- using molecular oxygen to release energy.

Remarkably, mitochondria have their own DNA. It's only a tiny proportion of the cell's total DNA, but certain diseases are due to defective mitochondrial DNA, as distinct from the predominant DNA in the cell's nucleus. The new technique prevents faulty mitochondria, with defective DNA, passing on their defect to a fertilized human embryo, basically by transplanting the nucleus with its "good" DNA, leaving the bad mitochondrial DNA behind, and substituting "good" mitochondrial DNA.

So the technique only works for those variants of cancer and diabetes that are due to defective mitochondrial DNA. Headlines that suggest that all cancer, or all diabetes, can be eliminated, are clearly misleading.

How come mitochondria have their own DNA? There is now an impressive amount of evidence that mitochondria are ancient bacteria that were somehow engulfed in early cells, and not only managed to survive, but set up a productive partnership. The host cell protected the bacteria, and the latter returned the favour by providing a highly efficient means of oxidising foodstuffs. Prior to the so-called endosymbiotic partnership, the host cells had to rely on glycolysis - the biochemistry of anaerobic fermentation in, for example, brewing and yogurt production, or anaerobic muscle metabolism, which provides a little energy without oxygen, which is not only far less efficient than aerobic metabolism, but generates potentially toxic endproducts (alcohol, lactic acid etc). The end-product of aerobic metabolism is gaseous CO2 - non-toxic because it is easily got rid of.

One curious feature of mitochondria is that is only the mother's mitochondrial DNA that is passed on to offspring. Male gametes (spermatozoa) have mitochondria, but they are selectively destroyed in the ovum at fertilization. Mitochondrial DNA has proved of great utility in tracing human lineage back to one original female ("Eve") in Africa, by avoiding the complication of all that invasive male DNA!

Further reading: New Scientist article

The Times

Has Gaia got over her hissy fit?

2009-08-25T07:08:00.000-07:00

Saharan oasis

In a startling about turn, James Lovelock CBE, CH, FRS produced a book not so long ago with the title "Revenge of Gaia". He had previously presented Gaia as a benign guardian presence, a quasi-religious one some might say. Gaia - the totality of life on Earth, behaves as a gigantic single organism, in which its numerous parts function cooperatively when confronted with threatening change to ensure the survival of the total. Lovelock then suddenly jumped aboard the alarmist bandwagon, having become an AGW true-believer. We're doomed, he said, we're all doomed I tell you. Why? Because we've foolishly pushed up the level of CO2 so fast with our wanton burning of fossil fuel that poor old Gaia was now in a right tiz-woz.

Some of us questioned whether things were really so bad. According to the Gaia idea, a change like, say, increasing CO2 or average global temperature would provoke changes in one or more life-forms that tend to restore the status quo. In other words, a variety of subtle feedback control mechanisms come into play, maintaining homeostasis. Thus increased CO2 would tend to stimulate plant growth . There is abundant experimental evidence: levels of the gas are increased in some greenhouses to stimulate growth and yields. A CO2-boosted increase in photosynthesis would result in an increase in total planetary biomass, thus tending to restore CO2 levels to their original levels.

Well, a report has just appeared on the BBC's site today, with evidence for just such an adaptive change. The treeline in the world's hills and mountains, especially in the northern hemisphere it seems, has been creeping higher and higher. This is believed to be a response to warmer winter temperatures. More trees means more photosynthesis, more biomass, less atmospheric CO2 - other things being equal.

Now here's a strange and serendipitous thing. Having mentally composed the above, I got to wondering what further adaptive change might occur - one that might have an even more dramatic effect. I found myself thinking about those vast bare expanses of the Sahara, and wondering yet again why that desert gets so little rainfall. Googling was not terribly informative, with vague references to planetary wobble, orbital precession, climate cycles bla bla. But there was gold-dust in that list of returns. On the last day of last month (July) a report appeared claiming that the Sahara is again greening up - in Sudan, the Sahel and other regions that have been parched in recent times.

So, far from being in vengeful mood, dear old Gaia seems to be doing exactly what her proponent originally proposed. Oh ye of little faith, Professor Lovelock. Admit it - you thought your old girl had given up on us...

Further reading: Rowena Mason in the Telegraph ("Carbon capture etc").