That Which Divides
This morning I am struck by an article in the New York Times about testing of athletes in the Olympics, and this time it’s not drug testing. It’ s testing for sex.
According to the article sex testing has been a part of the Olympics since the days of Soviet-era steroid doping. Steroids are a class of hormones, which function by affecting changes in the activity of target cells, and are responsible for modulating physiological processes ranging from sexual differentiation to kidney function to inflammation. The type of steroid with which most people are familiar in the sporting arena is the anabolic steroid, or ‘roid.
Anabolic steroids are synthetically produced compounds that mimic the “male” sex steroids, or androgens. They are commonly used to increase muscle mass, and have secondary effects often resulting in masculinization. Consequently, they have become popular among both male and female athletes in the quest to increase performance level in a variety of sports. In the 50’s-60’s, the Soviets used steroids institutionally as a part of the training regimes for state athletes. It became common to question the sex of the very masculine appearing female athletes, and testing was instated for verification.
Now, steroids are still used, but not in such an overt manner. Many female athletes appear quite masculine, but is it because they take drugs to get a competitive edge?
I’m forced to consider our classification of the human sexes as a binary system. Historically, we have averted our eyes to anything that does not fit the mold, but evidence suggests that human sexual characteristics reflect more of a continuum rather than a neat categorical division. According to the NYT article, the results of some sex tests have surprised even the athlete being tested. Can you imagine thinking that you are female, being raised as a female, only to have a test at an international sporting event tell you otherwise — that you have a Y chromosome?
From the article:
“It’s very difficult to define what is a man and what is a woman at this point,” said Christine McGinn, a plastic surgeon who specializes in transgender medicine.
There are men with no Y chromosomes or too many, women with Y chromosomes, men and women with the appropriate chromosomes who don’t feel like they are the right sex. A study came out recently that underlines the complexity of sexuality and our limited understanding of what makes a person’s sex, which loosely links a particular gene variant to transsexual behavior. It is becoming more and more obvious that chromosomal sex, while an important part, is not the only factor involved in sex determination. We also need to consider hormonal environment within the womb, genes apart from the X and Y chromosomes, and epi-genetic factors.
The situation is obviously not very cut-and-dried, and the testing seems an extreme invasion of privacy. Maybe, instead of testing athletes to see whether they fit neatly into a competitive category, our system should be changed to reflect the variety of forms that make us human.
Filed under Esoterica, Science & Politics | Comments (2)Making A Stirling Engine
Is not to be taken lightly. I tried to make one from scratch, and it still doesn’t work. I did find a fairly inexpensive (relatively to all the other kits out there on the interwebs, that is), easy kit on ThinkGeek‘s website, however. You can see the results on PopSiren. I will continue the quest to create a tin can engine. I will. And, one day I will see a cd spin from the power of ice and flame, and it will be a good day.
Filed under PopSiren | Comments (2)Oh, The Places I Go
Like the RoboGames. What a fun event. It is absolutely amazing what people are building these days. The robots at the games ranged everywhere from little remote controlled humanoids to giant steel combat drones to autonomous explorers. I was doubly impressed by the number of kids involved in robot building. Robots are definitely not only for adults anymore. Young or old, all the builders at the games shared a love for creating that was fired up a notch due to the intensity of the competition.
Thank goodness I brought a camera along to record some of the experience.
Filed under Esoterica, Reads and Watches | Comments (3)
Amazing Female Scientist
I just read a profile of an amazing female scientist, named Susan Greenfield. She’s a professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, and the director of the Royal Institution in London. She, being a woman and having reached such a place of distinction within academia, is a rarity in science.
According to statistics from the Association for Women in Science, in 2001 women made up 20.6 percent of those people employed in tenured academic positions for more than 10 years. Career longevity for women in the sciences appears to be something that’s lacking.
A more recent report suggests that the reason for the attrition rate (52% of women in sciences leave with the greatest rate being approximately 10 years into the career path, which coincides with the average woman’s thirties) may be due in part to hostile work environments that fail to take the female role as mother into account.
A brief look at Susan Greenfield’s life suggests that she continues to contend with the male dominated scientific environment, and may have made some compromises to her personal life in order to be so successful.
“It’s unfair. I publish three or four papers a year in peer-reviewed journals,” she says. She fits it all in by “not doing what other people do: gardening, watching television, sleeping in late. I wake up between four and five. If it’s a London day, I get the 6.30 train from central Oxford, where I live. I’ll have a working breakfast here with my second in command, then a day of meetings or interviews. In the evening, I may chair an event or go to a reception.”
On Oxford days she wears T-shirt and jeans, but is still in the lab by 7.30am, planning experiments, applying for grants, analysing and writing papers. She plays squash three times a week. With a trainer. “He pushes me to improve my skills.” At weekends? “I write, read, prepare talks.”
Her marriage to Oxford professor of physical chemistry Peter Atkins ended in 2005. Is all this activity a way to escape loneliness? “You can be lonely when you’re with someone,” she says quickly, “as much as when you’re by yourself.”
It is somewhat of a chicken and egg question, however. Is it only driven personalities, male or female, who are able to succeed so outstandingly? Or, is it the environment that engenders the sink-or-swim behaviors; people learning, and thus believing that if they do not work 16 hour days they’ll never get anywhere, and only those who do so being rewarded. It puts most women in a position of having to choose between family and career.
Usually, family will win.
Yet, I’m among a growing number of women who have put off starting a family in order to pursue my career. Is this a wise choice? I will certainly find out sometime down the road. It’s certainly both a blessing and a hazard to be a woman in this century.
Filed under Women in Science | Comments (8)Uh… And the Robots Inherit the Earth
I am absolutely impressed by this video of a robot named BigDog:
And, a little frightened. The mobility of this robot is simply beyond amazing. I would fall more readily than the machine. The only thing that could make it any better are electric motors, but I guess we’ll have to wait for the battery technology to catch up to the robots for that to happen.
Filed under Esoterica | Comments (7)Home Is Where the Heart Is
And, mine is certainly now in San Francisco. The past month has brought some incredible changes to my life, and I am now looking (only somewhat fearfully) at the upcoming year with excitement. I am commuting once a week to Davis, CA for TWIS. We’ll see how long I’ll be up to the commute, but I promise that TWIS will persist regardless. Food Science is on hold for the time being. Hopefully, we’ll be bringing new episodes to you sooner rather than later. And, I’m working on a new project with Revision3, which will launch in late February. Stay tuned for lots of science fun!
In the meantime, this past week included two important days: Valentine’s Day and Darwin’s birthday. While I saw people running around with flowers, cards, and candy for the former, the latter heralded hardly a peep outside the science community. It’s quite a shame I think that a vaguely known Saint is so celebrated, but Darwin remains in the sidelines aside for the occasional attacks by religious fundamentalists.
Many scientific hypotheses come and go, but Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection has weathered the tests of time. It remains a solid, well-tested mechanism comprising one of the fundamental processes of the Theory of Evolution. Darwin’s influence on the entire field of evolutionary thought cannot be discounted, and is possibly as important as that of Einstein on the field of physics. Yet, where is the love? Here’s a song produced by a friend of mine, which I think does a great job of covering the issue. Expect to hear it on the 2008 TWIS compilation cd!
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (5)Making Science Political
I know many people out there like their science and politics to mix about as much as a red sock in a load of white laundry. However, the two are inextricably linked no matter how furious the protestations.
This is one of the reasons that I have made The Weird From Washington with Dr. Michael Stebbins a regular part of the TWIS line-up. Politicians are making decisions about our lives that should be informed by science, yet science remains the red-headed stepchild of the United States government. Science is ignored. It is attacked. It is misused and mistreated.
There is a light in the woods, and we will see how bright it can burn over the next year as scientists and bloggers band together to force science into the Presidential debate. Will independent media be able to put science and the environment on big media’s plate? Will it become an issue outside of the halls of academia?
Support the ScienceDebate2008.
Filed under Science & Politics | Comments (4)
