If you don’t get it, then I just have one thing to say and it’s: “A voiced alveolar stop and breathy-voiced low-back unrounded vowel, with advanced tongue root” – duuuuh…

(That latter words is described by James Harbeck in his accompanying article as aiming to sound as stupid as possible. Of course, the stupidity being communicated is not that of the articulator but of you, dear listener, or did you not get that either? Meh.)

Translating teenage grunts is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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Deceived wisdom about pruney fingers is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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As NHS Choices explains: “The researchers estimate that the absolute risk of SIDS for room-sharing infants was 0.00008 (eight per 100,000) when neither parent smoked and the baby was less than three months old, breastfed, and had no other risk factors.”

That’s 8 of every 100,000 infant deaths for babies sleeping in the same room, not the same bed as their parent(s). The research showed that bed-sharing increased this death rate risk to 0.00023 (that’s 23 per 100,000) deaths. Both tiny proportions of the total number of deaths. There is a world of difference between absolute and relative risk. The tabloids said a fivefold increase in risk (actually looks like it’s less than threefold), but the risk is tiny either way. Absolutely tiny. Of every 100,000 babies that die, the “cause” is referred to as SIDS in just 0.023%.

Exactly what SIDS is and what causes it are yet to be determined. Two of the bullet points given in the article hint at the specific risks: “do not share a bed with your baby, particularly if you have been drinking or have taken drugs”, do not let your baby get too hot and keep your baby’s head uncovered.

NHS Choices alludes to the fact that smoking, alcohol and drug use are also risk factors and that the risk of SIDS decreases as baby gets older. Like I say, tragic for the parents and families affected, I’m not belittling the tragedy, just trying to point out that the risks are small and while parents should listen to advice from their healthcare workers, they shouldn’t become neurotic about the safety of their child on the back of tabloid headlines.

Sharing a bed with your baby ups risk of cot death – Health News – NHS Choices.

SIDS, cot death absolute risks is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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Elderly cake baker image via Shutterstock

Adam Glasgow and Peter Higgins of Swinburne University of Technology, in Hawthorn, Australia recently offered seven general design points for appliances – ovens, washing machines, dishwashers etc – for older people with some form of dementia:

• The use of spatial relationships in an appliance interface is not problematic
• Make use of the lexical abilities of older persons
• As older persons scan within a smaller useful field of view, and at a slower rate, than younger adults, interfaces that require monitoring across multiple objects confine them within limited field of view
• Make graphical display and control objects distinctly different from each other and the background
• To evoke an appropriate mental model of its operation, the characteristic features of graphical objects should reflect, where possible, equivalent objects in similar products
• Make the objects in a display immediately accessible and limit information needed for the task at hand
• Use perceptual training to ameliorate prolonged response times for comprehending complex interfaces, e.g., deciphering integrated features

They add that for appliances with several functions, the information display should adapt to the specific and immediate needs of the user to avoid distractions. The ultimate aim of this new approach to appliance design would be to extend the person’s independence at home and maintain or even restore their self-efficacy.

Glasgow A. (2013). The use of domestic appliances by cognitively impaired users, Int. J. Cognitive Performance Support, 1 (1) 40-53. DOI:

A design for life is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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On an entirely unrelated note, I wrote a song about flight, which you can hear on my SoundCloud page or via my Songs, Snaps and Science site.

How did feathers evolve? is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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Anyway, to mark this wee milestone, follow @sciencebase on twitter and RT (retweet) this blog post update, you could be in with a chance to win a free electronic copy of the book in ePub, mobi or PDF format (your choice). You must be following me so that I can direct message you details if you win. First 10 RTs will be in with a chance of a copy.

Meanwhile, early adopters can still be winners. If you bought the hardback as a gift or even for yourself and would like an e-copy, follow me on twitter, drop me a line with proof of purchase or comment below and I can let you have an electronic copy to keep yourself.

Win #DeceivedWisdom in our 10k competition is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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Big coffee drink image c/o Shutterstock

Thankfully, there are researchers who are working on potential alternative uses for this organic waste material. Indeed, I vaguely recall writing for New Scientist back in the early 1990s about an alternative outlet for waste coffee grounds…but it may well have been Brazil nut shells, or both. Anyway, a team based at Boumerdes University and the National Polytechnic School in Algeria know all about the problem of coffee grounds. There are an estimated two and a half billion cups of coffee consumed each day (I know at least one classic radio presenter who imbibes a goodly proportion of that number) with Algerians using about 3.5 kilograms of coffee per head annually. That’s slightly behind the US at 4.2 kg, but way behind Finland at 12 kg. UK is 2.8 kg, global average is 1.3 kg.

However you look at it, it’s a lot of grounds to cover.

The Algerian team, writing in the journal IJEWM (reference below) explain how they can use zinc chloride and phosphoric acid to convert coffee grounds into “activated carbon” at 500-700 Celsius in just quarter of an hour. The final product, they also show, can be used as a potentially sustainable filtration materials for waste water treatment to remove organic pollutants and dyes. Coffee grounds as a source of activated carbon might preclude the need for using coal, wood or peat, and co-exist with coconut shells as a source. Given that in Algeria alone there are about 300 tonnes of coffee grounds generated daily, that could be a useful feedstock for the activated carbon industry provided sustainable collection and processing infrastructure can be put in place.

Mekarzia A. (2013). Chemical production and characterisation of activated carbon from waste ‘coffee grounds, Int. J. Environment and Waste Management, 12 (2) 154-166. DOI:

We’ve got a lot of grounds to cover is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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You can learn more about the NASA image here. The sound with which the song fades is a snippet from the NASA Voyager 1 audio repository with a little added digital delay echo just for fun. I hope it evokes the feeling of Voyager racing endlessly away from our planet. At the time of writing, the space probe was almost 18.5 billion kilometres from Earth, about 125 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

I’ve written a song about our Pale Blue Dot, which you can hear via my Songs, Snaps & Science site or on my SoundCloud page.

Pale Blue Dot

Although I know that the world keeps turning
It never stops, my stomach’s churning
But, I worry about how much we’re burning

The fantasy of a global village
We pull together in some kind of New Age
But there are those set on rape and pillage

I took a trip, a billion miles I was to roam
Looking back on the place that we call home…

This old planet is broken in two, f you like it or not
Some with panic deep in their hearts, Others won’t stop the rot
This old planet is broken anew, If you like it or not
But, I’m worried about it, our pale blue dot

Although I know that we can heal the divides
It will take time coming up to size
Beyond our world she won’t hear our cries

Something happened and we don’t know why
When we look up, we can’t see the sky
And in the end it means we just might die

This old planet is broken in two
Whether you like it or not
There is panic deep in our hearts
I’m just worried about you, our Pale Blue Dot

Pale Blue Dot is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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Now plant material turning blue in acid (vinegar is weak acetic acid) is the basis of the litmus test and is more obvious with red cabbage, which shuttles between a deep red colour and a definite blue depending on the acidity. So, I assumed that was perhaps what was happening with the garlic, but couldn’t think what would be colourless in unpickled garlic that might go blue-green in acid.

A quick Google turned up this page in which they report that the most common pigment, anthocyanins, are colourless in raw garlic, can be red at high pH, but are blue-green at low pH. So, that might be it.

But, scientists have also homed in on amino acids as possible villains for giving garlic the pickled blues. J Cho of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Seoul National University in Korea suggests that green discolouration arises as a combination of amino acids that are yellow and blue in the presence of thiosulfinates released enzymically from the garlic to give an overall green hue.

This overturns earlier research that suggested just one blue pigment was to blame and instead suggests that eight are involved: thiosulfinates of free glycine, arginine, lysine, serine, alanine, aspartic acid, asparagine, glutamic acid, and tyrosine.

Cho J., Lee E.J., Yoo K.S., Lee S.K. & Patil B.S. (2009). Identification of Candidate Amino Acids Involved in the Formation of Blue Pigments in Crushed Garlic Cloves (L.) , Journal of Food Science, 74 (1) C11-C16. DOI: 10.1111/j.1750-3841.2008.00986.x

Instructables had a Q&A on the issue back in 2011, but had presumably overlooked this research. This is probably not the end of the story as yet more research papers come up in PubMed.

Getting the garlic blues is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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Hungardian doctor Berci Meskó MD PhD ‏knows his medical communities and uses the internet like a pro in his practice: “We must include digital literacy in the medical curriculum,” he tells TEDxNijmegen ;-)

What if Greg House MD were on twitter? is a post from the science blog of David Bradley, author of Deceived Wisdom
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