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Hi peeps, Kim here! This week’s newsletter is all about the scientific method. Dan, Max, Maddie, and I are scientists-turned-science-journalists, so I think we collectively know something about science and how to do it. But we’re not blind champions and cheerleaders of science either. Science is but one way to know something — by setting hypotheses then stress testing its accuracy — and it isn’t always the best way either (see Dan’s bit about a Nobel Prize winner wielding his cachet to perpetuate biases). As evidenced from the COVID debacle in science communication, just brandishing the “science” label doesn’t necessarily sway people into social distancing, masking and vaccinating. What are some ways to do sound science? How about how not to do it? And how can we bring more science into our everyday lives, into unexpected realms such as… pole dancing? Dan, Max and Maddie have you covered. Signing off here and yielding the floor, Kim First there’s Dan dancing on James Watson’s grave: Dan: If you don’t know who James Watson is, well, there’s a lot to get through. He was one of the two credited co-discoverers of DNA's double helix structure, something we take for granted these days but was both completely unclear in 1953 when it happened and also opened up basically the entire world of molecular biology in the wake of that discovery. Watson himself was an utter piece of trash, however, capable of corralling basically every form of racial, ethnic, gender, or religious hatred inside his head. And despite the fact that all of this was known about him for decades, he was nevertheless biology's standard bearer almost his entire life, leading the prestigious Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Human Genome Project. I tried, and failed, to reckon with what a man like Watson means for science: I also collected stories of encounters with Watson that scientists had throughout his life, none of which are flattering: Second, some wisdom Max gleaned from a recent conference. Max: I just came back from a conference of the American Heart Association, and one of the illustrious invited speakers was Ardem Patapoutian, who earned a Nobel prize in 2021 for the discovery of special sensors in our bodies that relay information about temperature and pressure. The presentation focused mostly on the pressure stuff (a set of proteins called PIEZO) that underpin how we feel the world around us. But the enlightening piece I want to share toward the end: “One of the things that happens when you win a Nobel Prize, you give yourself the right to give advice whether people ask for it or not,” he said. “I know that a lot of trainees here have asked me to talk to them a little bit, so I've tried to summarize my rules of how to science.” So here is a summary of Patapoutian’s tips on “How to Science.” A lot of you Sequencer readers are scientists, ex-scientists, students, and people working in science media, but I think extend to life and work beyond our world. 1) Don't be too busy: “I have No Meeting Tuesdays. I often walk to work, which takes two hours. And during these times, I feel like I'm more creative than others. And I know the pressures on our schedules to do things, and sometimes it's very difficult to say no, but I think it's important to do so, and I protect this very, very carefully.” 2) Change fields: “Every time I do it, I feel like I bring perspective of everything I've learned to a new field, and I learned from people who come into our field” 3) Surround yourself with critics: “It’s very important, especially to me now that everybody's nicer to me than they used to be, and I want to make sure that I hear it when I do something wrong. I even have a bunch of junior faculty given the task to tell me when it's time to retire, so I don't go on and on and on, like I see some of my colleagues do.” 4) Don’t listen to advice: “Lots of people give advice, but it's really important to be conscious about what makes sense to you and what doesn't.” 5) Science is fun: “When the funding situation is hard, getting papers out is hard, we kind of forget how amazing it is to find out how our body works, and hopefully not just for curiosity, but translating this into medicine.” 6) Get political: This one should come as no surprise to Sequencer readers. And next, we have Maddie’s new piece about the science of pole dancing. I came across @pole.technica the way that most people have — I saw a viral social media graphic detailing the physics behind a pole dancing move. Fiora Wild (a stage name, real name Whitney Schoenthal) had drawn out a series of free body diagrams to explain why grip is such a key factor in pole — and how to compensate for sweaty hands or low grip strength. I teach introductory pole classes here in Honolulu, and slippy hands are undoubtedly the most common issue my students face. Here was a graphic that I could show them, and a set of workarounds we could try, like squeezing tighter or applying a grip aid. The more academic side of my brain was similarly delighted by these diagrams. They honestly wouldn’t look out of place in a classroom, and swiping through them scratched the same itch in my brain that once compelled me to complete an AP Physics project on conservation of momentum in ice skating. Finally, I thought, a kindred spirit. Wild found pole dancing nearly 13 years ago, while she was in graduate school for materials science. We spoke recently about the overlaps about her viral pole graphics, and the overlaps between her two domains of expertise. When do you think you first made the connection between pole and physics? I think it was kind of always there for me. But the first time I ever really sat down and did what I like to think of as “pole math” was actually rage math. I used to own a studio in Virginia for a couple years, and one of the students there messaged me. She was on the plus-size side, and she was like, “I have a boyfriend out in this city. And I was looking for a pole studio there. And the pole studio’s website says that their poles can only hold 200 pounds. I don't understand. Is that a legit thing? Should I be worried? Should I be mad?” The photos of their studio had the industry standard pole, which is an X-Pole [Ed: X-Pole is a manufacturer of the standard chrome or steel pole that you’re probably thinking of when you picture a pole]. X-Pole doesn't explicitly say a weight limit or anything like that. And I was like, “This is a problem I can figure out.” I went through and I got all the measurements of X-Poles: what material they're made of, what its material properties are, and started doing the math on what it would take to actually have an accident, based on weight on a pole and in a way that would damage the pole. Read the rest of the interview here:
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