Originally published 3/24/11:

Saying Jim Miller likes to bike is an understatement.

The 55-year-old facility engineering manager at Research Triangle International said he rides his Cannondale road bike to and from work every day of the year, including winter.

“I’ve biked when it’s 15 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and I’ve biked when it’s 105,” Miller said.

He estimates that he’s cycled between thirty and forty thousand miles between work and errands in the last three years. So naturally, each year Miller pledges to participate in the RTP SmartCommute Challenge.

The 5^th annual challenge, which runs from April 1^st to June 1^st, encourages residents and employees in Wake, Orange and Durham counties to explore alternative modes of transit to work. In addition to biking, popular options include walking, carpooling, taking the bus, and telecommuting.

“Telecommuting is the most popular SmartCommute alternative in the region,” said James Lim, director of RTP programs at the Research Triangle Foundation.

Lim helps coordinate SmartCommute. He said one of the major benefits of taking the challenge is reducing the number of vehicle miles traveled.  Along with this comes improved air quality, which includes reductions in CO₂, mono-nitrogen oxides (NOx), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Lim and his colleagues on the SmartCommute committee have established two goals for this year’s challenge: trying to save around 18,000 gallons of gasoline and trying to recruit 12,500 pledges. He said last year’s goal of 10,000 pledges was met and surpassed.

But to talk the talk, Lim feels he must walk the walk, literally. He plans to jog seven miles to the RTF headquarters from Durham each morning over the course of the two months.

“Now that I’m saying this in print,” Lim said. “I have to do it.”

He also carpools with another Foundation coworker. It’s important that employers are supportive of their staffs’ efforts to join the challenge, he said. Some companies have flexible starting and leaving times for those who bike or walk; others issue carpool parking passes closer to the building.

Darren Danko, the information technology director at RTF, is an avid SmartCommute cyclist as well, though admittedly he’s not as hardcore as Miller.

“I’ll bike whenever it’s 60 degrees or above,” Danko joked. His 3.2-mile ride from Durham takes him about 20 to 25 minutes on his aged, 10-speed Schwinn street bike.

Danko also opts for eco-friendly transit even after the challenge is over.

“It’s important to let people know that there are other alternative ways to get to work,” he said. “People need to get off their butts and do some exercise.”

According to past survey data, 75 percent of SmartCommuters elect to maintain the challenge after it comes to an end, Lim said.

Their efforts aren’t without incentive. Lim’s committee sponsors a SmartCommute Challenge awards ceremony each summer wherein companies and employees who participate are honored for their achievement. Two grand prizes of $750 are handed out to a pair of individuals who distinguish themselves.

This year there are two prize pools: one for new pledges trying green transit for the first time and one for veterans who continue to reduce their carbon footprints to work.

SmartCommute is co-sponsored by GoTriangle, a regional collaborative of transit providers. Research Triangle-based corporations like IBM, Cisco and Miller’s RTI also donate to the program.

Miller bikes twelve miles from his home in Chapel Hill to RTI’s headquarters in Research Triangle Park, a 24-mile roundtrip per day. He said it takes him about 45 minutes each way. Over the course of last year’s challenge, Miller rode more than 612 miles. It’s a part of who he is.

“I biked a lot when I was in my early twenties,” he said. “And I started again after I divorced 13 years ago.” His biggest ride was a coast-to-coast excursion in 2003.

He doesn’t see any downside to leaving the car in the garage. The only the cycling becomes a problem, he said, is during right turns at intersections with drivers jetting out behind him.

“I’ve only been hit by a car one time,” Miller said. “No accident, though. They just hit me in my arm with their side view mirror.”

Co-sponsored by the North Carolina Network Consortium (NCNC) and the NC Translational and Clinical Sciences (NC TraCS) Institute, home of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) at UNC, the conference brought together over 100 primary care providers, clinic staff and research coordinators from across the state to discuss the kind of studies practice-based research networks can conduct to improve health care.

“The new treatments that come out all the time from drug companies, device makers, or even things we do in clinic, require testing and evaluation prior to widespread adoption,” said Rowena Dolor, M.D., M.H.S., director of the Duke Primary Care Research Consortium, one of six practice-based research networks in the NCNC. “What we do know though is once a new drug or device is out on the market, there is widespread variation in how it is used in clinical care. And despite good intentions, not all treatments benefit patients. For example, we didn’t realize the COX2 inhibitors that were meant to relieve arthritis pain would also increase the risk of heart attack or stroke. That is why research is necessary.”

Dolor explained that practice-based research networks are a group of ambulatory practices, devoted principally to clinical care of patients, which also have an ongoing commitment to participate in research. NCNC is one of 10 networks nationally that have received special recognition from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the lead federal agency charged with improving the quality, safety, efficiency and effectiveness of health care for Americans.

The conference convened an expert panel to present an update on electronic health records. Sam Cykert, M.D., a leader in the NC TraCS Community Engagement Core, presented the N.C. Regional Extension Center’s approach to helping practices with project management, workflow redesign and IT services. According Cykert, proper use of electronic health records can lead to improvements of anywhere from 5 percent to 56 percent in quality indicators. Next were Kensaku Kawamoto, M.D., Ph.D., who designs decision support software at Duke University, and Laurie Williams, Ph.D., who tests the security of electronic health records at NC State University.

The attendees also received “rapid-fire” updates on practice-based research results on a variety of topics, including Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureas (MRSA), rural diabetes care, health literacy toolkits, vaccination of infants’ caregivers and better office management of asthma. In addition to sharing their research findings, the presenters commented on some of the lessons they learned from doing research outside of the academic setting.

“This research is unpredictable,” said Duke’s Alex Kemper, M.D., M.P.H., who partnered with NC TraCS’ Philip Sloane, M.D., M.P.H., to evaluate different strategies to improve the management of skin and soft tissue infections caused by MRSA. “Clinics can be in the middle of adopting electronic medical records and at the same time can be inundated with unexpected community illnesses such as the H1N1 influenza. This can make it hard to do everything, such as following up on the patient’s health after they leave the clinic.”

In the afternoon, a number of break-out sessions gave participants an introduction to research design and methods. Topics covered included how to develop research questions, how to start clinical trials in office practice and how to engage minorities to identify and address health priorities.

The final plenary panel gave an update on the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), an approach to providing comprehensive primary care that brings together patients, providers and sometimes even a patient’s family. Warren Newton, M.D., M.P.H., of UNC presented some of the challenges and opportunities inherent to developing a PCMH. John Anderson, M.D., M.P.H, of Duke, and Skip Cummings, PharmD, of East Carolina University, each presented their own experiences with this new model of care.

The conference ended with poster sessions and a reception that gave attendees the opportunity to foster new collaborations and pose new research questions of their own. As Dolor said at the meeting, practice-based research is not just about putting research into practice, but putting practice into research. What works and doesn’t work in the real world of community practice is valuable feedback to the researchers and will ultimately benefit patients and physicians alike.

My name is Molly, I am 12 and I created STEM Leadership Camp.

Betta fish come in many colors. This is a green one.

When I was little I wanted tons of pets. My mom said I could have a betta fish if I took really good care of it. So I got Rainbow, who lived for two years. When I was 5, I got my first puppy, Zoe, who is my best friend.

Once we drove by a pond and I saw a turtle. I had seen one in a nature book, so I asked for a turtle. My mom and I looked up what kind of tank they like and where to get one.

Eventually, we adopted two turtles from an owner who couldn’t keep them. We decided to adopt more and realized we needed a permit to have more than four, so my mom applied for one and now we take care of many turtles.We also created Raleigh Aquatic Turtle Adoption (RATA) www.raleighaquaticturtleadoption.com and it has been running since 2006. RATA helps to get new homes for unwanted aquatic pet turtles.

I currently have about 20 fish, including 13 koi, three salamanders, 12 turtles, two dogs, two rabbits, one betta and three moon jellyfish, making a grand total of 36 pets.

I think everybody walks into the pet store thinking, “This is so awesome, I want to get a fish.” But when you actually end up taking it home and you learn how you have to care for it you get a different understanding of how that animal lives and what it needs. I think having pets has given me a little window into the natural world and natural environments.

Cuttlefish

My favorite animal is the cuttlefish. I think it’s so alien to everything – it can change color and the texture of its skin. I think “sci-fi movie” when I think about it. It’s really interesting that we’re sharing the same planet with this animal and I’m curious to learn more about it.

I’ve had different ideas for a STEM Leadership Camp for awhile, and I would say things like, “A dissection would really be awesome to have in a camp,” or, “I wish we had more guest speakers,” or even, “Mom, can you find a camp where everyone takes it really seriously but they still have tons of fun?”

One day last summer I said to my Mom, “You know I could really be good at running a camp, I could have STEM stuff like robots and Sudoku and every day could have a different theme and campers could all get journals…”

After half an hour of constant talking she eventually said, “Write it down.” I wrote everything on my white board and then created a Powerpoint that I presented to many people in the Research Triangle area, trying to find a home for my camp. My principal agreed and camp will run at Resurrection Lutheran School in Cary from June 20-24.

The first day of camp will be an introduction and we’ll talk about leadership, the rest of the days go in the order of STEM, science (Tuesday) technology (Wednesday), engineering (Thursday) and math (Friday). There will be a good balance of hands-on activities and listening to guest speakers. Hands-on activities will include bridge building, frog dissection, Rubik’s Cube, learning how to have a safe web presence by making one yourself and math activities.

I’ve created this camp because it’s very different than other camps in the area. There are many camps designed to motivate kids, but there is no bridge between “Yes, I’m motivated” and “Watch me run the aquarium.”

My plan is to have students apply so that I can learn why they want to be here. This has been put on the facebook page for the Contemporary Science Center, I’m emailing many STEM teachers in western Wake County, I’ve emailed my friends on Centennial Campus, it’s going in my school newsletter and I’ve told my STEM Facebook friends from around the country about it. I’m also promoting it by word-of-mouth.

STEM Leadership is especially designed to help self-motivated kids start a successful career. I believe that children thrive when they are surrounded by others who share the same interests and role models who inspire them.  I’ve only met a little more than a handful of these kids and have gotten to know them really well, but those are the friends I trust the most.

“Best thing about #scio11 is that people will pull out an iPhone or iPad in the middle of a convo and they’re not rude; they’re live-blogging.”

If these two tweets give the impression that ScienceOnline 2011 (or #scio11 in the Twitterverse) was a brave new world populated by geeky early adopters who have foresaken pens, paper, and print in favor of devices and Web 2.0, well, that’s partly true.

After all, it was a conference where it was normal to see panelists consulting notes on their iPads, where attendees did in fact live-blog and live-tweet, and where many sessions had a panelist devoted to monitoring Twitter for questions and comments from the audience. (One aggrieved camera operator told me that people watching the live webcast were tweeting complaints about camera angles!)

But in fact, the conference welcomed a number of people who are open to the opportunities afforded by new media even if they are not cutting edge practitioners.

I became particularly interested in how nonprofits were faring with social media, given the challenges of budget and staffing. For instance, I chatted with Katie Mosher, communications director for North Carolina Sea Grant. While some journalists flew in from California and even Ireland, Mosher or someone on her staff is able to attend each year because it’s local and the registration fee is relatively modest. Her organization is one of the conference sponsors, because, she told me, their interest in and support of the goals of ScienceOnline are strong, even if their use of new media is not advanced.

For dot-orgs like NC Sea Grant, the challenge of using new media is largely a staffing issue; finding staff time to learn what’s available and finding staff time to implement it. That’s why attending — and sponsoring — ScienceOnline is valuable. Mosher says, “This conference helps us understand the potential of what we can do online.”

NC Sea Grant does have a Facebook page, and Mosher says, “Not surprisingly, it tends to have a younger audience than our paid subscribers to Coastwatch magazine.” A new intern is interested in helping the organization get started on Twitter.

For groups with limited budgets and staff time, the challenge is not just learning how to use tools like Facebook and Twitter, but learning to use them effectively. Rick MacPherson, interim executive director and conservation programs director at the Coral Reef Alliance, says that the group’s experiments with Facebook paved the ways for constituents to “talk back.”

“Normally with conservation organizations and nonprofits, we do most of the talking,” he says. “We haven’t had an opportunity to have true social engagement with our constituents. Facebook is allowing that. With blogs like Deep Sea News and Southern Fried Science, these are fantastic opportunities for readers, constituents, etc., to talk back to us.” [For the downside of that backtalk, see my post "Why scientists (should) blog."]

Mosher says that NC Sea Grant doesn’t see a lot of commenting on its Facebook page, “but we do see the reposting and sharing.”

Blogging platforms offer nonprofit organizations opportunities to spread the word without having a deep technical support staff. Blogging software is user-friendly, allowing staff to focus on the message, not the technology. Mosher says NC Sea Grant’s marine science newsletter, Scotch Bonnet, has been moved online, using a blog template. The “audience of teachers and other educators have the option to read it on-screen, or to print the hard copy in newsletter layout–to take it with them to read offline. So, the news items have not changed much but the delivery method has.”

Although newsletters have their place, online and on paper, where nonprofits are really shining is in the use of blogs to convey information that the public wants to know. Blogs like Deep Sea News, which MacPherson writes for, present scientifically rigorous information to a public thirsty for scientific knowledge. Mariners Menu gives seafood recipes along with servings of useful information on seafood safety and the cultural history of fisheries. If both of those blogs lead their readers across the internet to learn more about nonprofit organizations protecting our oceans, that’s not a bad thing.

Marketing Mondays

5:00-6:30 PM

RTP Headquarters

Brad Ball will discuss both the strategy and execution of loyalty marketing today. Loyalty Marketing is an approach to marketing in which an organization focuses on growing and retaining existing customers through incentive programs and targeted communications.

RSVP at http://marketingmondays.eventbrite.com/ ADMISSION IS FREE. Please visit us online at www.marketingmondays.org (our LinkedIn Group) or send an email to marketingmondays@quarry.com.

Tuesday, January 25

Building your SEO Strategy

6:30-9:30 PM

Cary, NC

Register and find more details here.

Wednesday, January 26

A Green Future for Economic Development: The Dollars and Sense of Open Space

8AM – 3PM

McKimmon Center, NCSU, Raleigh

Open space preservation promotes vibrant economic development and attracts the talented workforce we need for the region while saving money and improving the quality of place and the health of our regions’ citizens.

Learn more here.

RTP IdeaLab

8-10:30 AM

Do you have an idea that could turn into the next Facebook, Sham Wow or Snuggie? Do you want expert help shaping your idea and finding out how viable it might be? Come join us for our next RTP Idea Lab meeting on January 26th at 8:00 AM at RTP Headquarters at 12 Davis Drive. Space is limited to the first 100, so go online to register and submit ideas at www.rtpidealab.org to request participation.

RSVP at www.rtpidealab.

Thursday, January 27

Global Innovation Series

11:30AM – 2PM

This series of events is focused on identifying & promoting globally the state’s most innovative companies, individuals & groups. This series of co-creation and collaboration luncheons brings together the big thinkers and doers in our regions to share their perspectives and ideas. Our speakers for this roundtable discussion include: Frank Plastima, President and CEO of Tekelec Dr. John Hardin, Executive Director of North Carolina Board of Science and Technology Timm Crowder, Director of Innovation of CoE, GSK.

Members: $25. Non-Members: $45

More details here.

For a complete listing of professional, networking, and tech-based events in the Research Triangle Region, please visit the Science in the Triangle events calendar.

As a first-time attendee and representative of Science in the Triangle, I divided my time between chasing down interviewees and attending panels, which were organized by participants on an online wiki.

One of those interviewees, Katie Mosher of NC Sea Grant, told me that she’d observed a coming together of science blogging and science journalism in the three years since she’d started attending ScienceOnline. More journalists are using the blog form either to replace or to supplement their print or broadcast stories, she said, some of them writing in traditional journalistic objective form and some of them adopting a point of view. Some of those journalists were present at the conference, just as she sees bloggers now attending conferences hosted by organizations like the National Association of Science Writers.

But journalists appeared to be outnumbered at the conference by scientists who blog (or tweet, or both). As a professional writer who frequently covers science, I should perhaps see these scientist-bloggers as competition. Not at all. To me, they are representative of a welcome trend in academics to communicate with the public about scientific findings and (sometimes controversially) the public policy implications of these findings. A scientist-blogger who writes well (perhaps one who attended the panel by Carl Zimmer and Ed Yong on avoiding obfuscation in science writing) and who knows how to attract an audience can have an immediate impact on public understanding of breaking news, as has been the case with the scientists at Deep-Sea News who covered science surrounding the Gulf oil spill. (Bora Zivkovic explains why scientists are such good explainers.)

A scientist-blogger takes some professional risks. Although I was unable to attend “Perils of Blogging as a Woman under a Real Name,” panelist Kate Clancy provides a detailed writeup here, which alludes to the skepticism with which academic colleagues and tenure and promotion panels view blogging and similar “soft” activities.

A scientist-blogger has to deal with certain downsides of being an online presence, most notably “cranks . . . who come onto our sites and leave comments that foment dissension rather than productive commentary,” according to Rick MacPherson, interim executive director and conservation programs director at the Coral Reef Alliance. It happens wherever evolution or climate change are discussed, he said, and he is the target for negative comments every time he writes or is interviewed about the role of climate change in sea level rise and ocean acidification, both threats to coral reefs.

According to MacPherson, the negative commenters are evidence that the general public doesn’t understand the evidence-based nature of science. “People don’t understand how science works,” he said. “It’s not a democratic process. . . . not opinions.”

His sentiments were echoed in “Lessons from Climategate” by panelist Chris Mooney, coauthor of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future, who listed these depressing statistics:

• only 18 percent of Americans know a scientist
• just 13 percent follow science and technology news
• 44 percent can’t name a scientific role model; those who can most frequently name Albert Einstein, Al Gore, and Bill Gates, two of whom are not scientists
• in every five hours of cable news, just one minute is devoted to science and technology

According to Mooney, the situation “is ripe for climate skeptics; they are well-trained, skilled communicators who exploit lack of public knowledge and are willing to fight hard in ways climate scientists are not.” His co-panelist Josh Rosenau, who works to defend the teaching of evolution at the National Center for Science Education, said that the language of the attacks against climate science has an eerie parallel in the attacks against evolution. “For 90 years we’ve been fighting same battle,” he said. “Public opinion has not moved. If that happens to climate change we are doomed.”

Mooney and Rosenau were joined on the panel by Thomas C. Peterson, chief scientist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville. Peterson was one of the climate scientists whose emails were hacked and published just a few weeks before the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit. Although his role in the affair was minor, he was excoriated in blogs (Peterson reminds us that some “science” blogs are unsound scientifically), subjected to harassing calls and emails, and asked by a congressman to produce all emails on the topic (which he did, and which vindicated him). Yet he was still subsequently elected by his peers to be president of the World Meteorological Association’s Commission for Climatology. Clearly, in his professional circles, he is a rock star even if some of the public doesn’t think so.

For Peterson and his co-panelists, the implication is clearly that the public doesn’t understand scientists the way scientists do. Mooney said that the climate emails were taken out of context by people who don’t understand science or scientists. His solution: train “deadly ninjas of science communication”–people who can frame the message and convey science clearly to different constituencies. He wants good communicators to claim the vacancies created when CNN dumped its entire science reporting unit and when daily newspapers gradually reduced their science coverage.

That’s a space that good scientist-bloggers can occupy alongside professional writers: reporting on science from the trenches, bringing scientific research alive, demystifying the scientific method, and unveiling the wealth of unsound science out there.

Notes:

Read my colleague Sabine Vollmer’s post on credibility in science blogging here.

A great resource for finding science blogs is scienceblogging.org.

Innovation in RTP

4:00 – 5:o0 pm
RTP Headquarters, 12 Davis Drive
To RSVP click here

Topic: CREE: New Horizons in Energy, Environmental and Advance Cluster Sectors! by Rick Bain

Rick Bain is currently the Director of Business Development for Cree, a technology based company, is focusing on the LED lighting market and power systems.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

National Humanities Center Public Lecture: What is College For?

James Engell, Harvard University

5:00pm at the National Humanities Center

Thursday, January 13 – Saturday, January 15, 2011

ScienceOnline 2011 Conference

3-Day Event (ends 5:00pm Sat, 1/15)

Sigma Xi, RTP

2010 has been an exciting year in science, in the developments of the Web, and in the media (including science journalism). The past year’s events, coupled with the growing reputation of our conference around the world, prompted us to make the conference bigger than last year: we expect as many as 500 participants to convene over the three full days of exciting discussions, conversations and events.

As in all the previous years, the meeting will be held in an ‘Unconference’ style – the Program is built beforehand with the help of participants on the wiki, and the sessions are designed to foster conversations and discussions rather than a more traditional lecture approach.

To view a complete calendar of RTP community events, please visit the Science in the Triangle calendar.

“The use of stem cells in regenerative medicine has the potential to transform the way a variety of disorders in both humans and animals are treated,” stated chair Jorge Piedrahita as he introduced the symposium. “But, like other technologies and approaches, it must cross that inevitable bridge between the bench and the clinics.”

Networks like the Center for Comparative Medicine and Translational Research (CCMTR) at NC State, which sponsored the symposium, the NC Translational and Clinical Sciences (NC TraCS) Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in RTP exist to help bridge that gap.

Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, explained that the field is not as young as many might think, since the first journal article on regenerative medicine appeared over sixty years ago. Today, he says scientists at his institute can grow 22 different organs and tissues, but tricky organs such the liver, pancreas and nerves continue to elude them.

Atala and his colleagues were the first to implant a laboratory-grown organ into humans, effectively replacing the defective bladders of children and teenagers with functional organs grown from their own cells. He is now working to correct other devastating congenital anomalies, testing experimental models to restore reproductive function in individuals born without their sexual organs.

“At the end of the day the promise of regenerative medicine is not about the technologies we use or the cells we choose, it is all about making our patients better,” said Atala, who is also chair and professor of urology at Wake Forest.

Steve Suter, an assistant professor of oncology at NC State, also shared that sentiment, stating that transplantation of cells from bone marrow has saved the lives of people with a number of diseases, including myeloma, leukemia and lymphoma. Suter explained that such successes are due in large part to the work of veterinary schools such as the one at NC State, quoting that 95 percent of all human bone marrow transplantation protocols were first perfected in dogs.

According to Suter, the NC State Veterinary School is the only one in the world with a fully functioning transplant unit. Since it made the procedure available in 2008, the canine bone marrow transplant unit has performed transplants on 36 dogs from across the nation. As of now, sixty percent of the transplanted dogs have survived with no evidence of disease, in comparison to the typical 0 to 2 percent survival rate with chemotherapy alone.

“So this is the idea of comparative medicine — at the same time you are helping the dog patient, you are helping develop new technologies that can save the lives of many, many human patients,” said Piedrahita, who is also director of the CCMTR and professor of genomics at NC State.

About 100 scientists met at the symposium to share their research through presentations, a poster session and a reception. The posters covered everything from work to remove the cancer-causing potential of induced pluripotent stem cells to the creation of a model of fracture healing. Clearly, regenerative medicine looks a lot different than it did sixty years ago, and Atala hopes that with a concerted effort from many talented scientists, the same will be true sixty years from now.

“In just my forty-five minute talk I showed the work of some 900 researchers spanning 20 years,” cautioned Atala. “And for every slide showing an experiment that has worked, I could have shown 100 slides showing things that didn’t work. But that is the nature of this field – we have to test our approach over and over again until we know it is safe enough to take into the first patient.”

I found this Conference to be interesting for many reasons that reflect the development and potential of our community, both technical and entrepreneurial.  In addition to the reliable supporters from the area such as SAS and IBM, there were a range of marketing and advertising sorts; familiar service providers; smaller entities that grew up such as iContact and Bronto.  The teams of those seeking to continue to shape the Internet as an advertising channel outnumbered those who seek to perpetuate the Internet as a disruptive force to the way that things are presently done.  At the conference, the present class of disrupters were those who understand mobile devices and the new realm of of apps that run on them.  

Bob Young, CEO of Lulu and founder of Red Hat, was as direct in his opinions as befits someone who only reports to himself.  When asked where does one find the talent for this brave, mobile world, he related a tale of an unprofitable business investment that he made. Being a loyal Canadian from Hamilton, Ontario, he rescued their Tiger-Cats from bankruptcy. Rapidly he was able to compare the value of experience: ‘in a technology company, it (experience) doesn’t matter so much as what one learned ten years ago is nearly obsolete today.  However, in the general management of a football team, accumulated wisdom (experience) is worth an awful lot.’  But his point was that hiring the smartest people is the most reliable way to capitalize on the capabilities of the latest technologies.

Overall, I much admired the make-up of the crowd.  Everyone knows that there is something big happening amidst us; that these devices in our jacket pockets and belt-holsters do too much more than make phone calls; that people are able to connect to others and to the friends and places of others without much interference or sponsored help from the traditional advertising megaphones; that there is a call for reliability of information; and that somehow there is a shift of control from those who own the channels of information distribution, i.e. media of all sorts, to those who develop and share the content of these channels.

In the familiar model of advertising, the media outlet, television, for example, sells a product, the consumer, to its customer, the advertiser.  Content, such as the television program, is negligible and serves only to segment the products (the viewers) within themselves.  There is the Sports Shelf, the Kardashian Shelf and the Sponge Bob Shelf.  I think that my Summit colleagues who want to ‘promote social’ as a way of delivering products to advertisers will and should learn that their best contributions will be by enhancing the quality of the content as the consumer, aka former products, can now easily connect with one another without nearly ever having to listen to the promotional pitches.  Now the consumer becomes the customer and the content becomes the product.  Such a shift in power or control or knowledge is enabled by these mobile devices and their allies, the mobile applications.

Next year’s Internet snapshot will be an interesting one now that the Android operating system is a fully accepted alternative to all things Apple.  As well, the Samsung Galaxy Tablet, with Android as its operating systems, offers an alternative to Apple’s iPad.   My guess is that 2011 will be the year where the tablet computer becomes the device of choice.  A side-note: what will become of RIM and its Blackberry?  Three months ago, this corporate sanctioned email device appeared to be the iPhone’s prime competitor given its penetration of the enterprise.  It now appears that RIM must compete with Microsoft and Nokia for third place and survival.  My conclusion is that the Android’s success comes at the expense of RIM more than Apple.

Who would have thought in the early 90s, not even Bob Parsons, that less than twenty years later that Microsoft would hardly be part of the mobile computing conversation.

30 Nov 2010 Photos compliments of the The Raleigh Telegram.

Sophia Kathariou talks microbes to a crowd at Mitch’s Tavern in Raleigh.| Photo by Tyler Dukes

Note: Story cross-posted from Scientific American.

Sophia Kathariou is the kind of scientist who can turn food-borne bacteria into great dinner conversation.

The associate professor of food science and microbiology at N.C. State University in Raleigh spoke about her work Thursday night at Mitch’s Tavern, a longtime haunt for professors and students alike. The talk was one of Sigma Xi’s Science Cafés, which aim to promote science among the public.

Over local craft brews, Greek salads and gumbo, Kathariou was quick to mention the softer side of bacteria. Whether we hear about them “attacking our immune system” or “weakening our defenses,” she said the militaristic tone of communication about microbes has to change.

“Society has been trained to think about microbes and bacteria as enemies. This could not be further from the truth,” she said. “They are part of who we are and what we do.”

Symbiotic microorganisms in the digestive tract, for example, edge out the more harmful ones that would normally make people sick. Probiotic supplements are even supposed to increase the role these “good bacteria” play in the gut, a claim that prompted questions from one of the audience members. Although Kathariou said it’s always possible to have too much of a good thing, some data have shown probiotics can promote better function of the immune system.

“In my interpretation, they don’t hurt,” Kathariou said.

But there are plenty of microbes that do cause harm. That’s why Kathariou said the overuse of antibiotics is increasingly becoming a problem. While organisms often obtain their genes through biological parents, or vertical transfer, many microbes are able to adapt and mutate through horizontal transfer — simply swapping bits of DNA with each other. Because nature allows for that rapid change in genetic material, Kathariou says patients should avoid “self-medicating the ghost.”

“We don’t always get just what we target,” she said.

What’s important, Kathariou said, is that we continue to learn more about microbes not just in terms of what they do to us, but what they do for us. She said gaining a better understanding is critical to figuring out how to live with these bacteria – just as it would if you were dealing with a problem child or a bad marriage.

“If you don’t know the person, you can’t solve the problems,” she said.

That attitude has already helped scientists paint a better picture of the microscopic world. Like humans, for example, bacteria behave differently in small groups than in large ones.

“If bacteria are in low numbers, they’re not going to be doing the same things as a large biomass,” Kathariou said. “Some things they do are highly dependent on numbers.”

Proximity to such a tipping point might determine factors like whether harmful bacteria release toxins. And that makes sense to Kathariou from a survival standpoint.

“They don’t want to be producing stuff and wasting it if it’s not going to cause an illness,” she said.

But as Kathariou pointed out to her audience, humanity worked to increase its knowledge of microbiology long before it was established as a scientific discipline. Preventing diseases like botulism, which can be caused by an anaerobic bacterium in food, prompted societies to learn preservation techniques like smoking and curing.

“All cultures learned by trial and error to avoid foods that cause disease,” Kathariou said. “They find them repulsive.”

After about an hour of conversation on putrid food, fatal disease and beneficial gut flora, the bar settled back to its normal Thursday night bustle. Judging from the constant stream of questions during the talk, there was certainly interest from the crowd. That’s not surprising to Jennifer Larese, who coordinates similar Science Cafés with WGBH Boston.

“We’ve found lots of people are interested in asking questions, but don’t want to feel silly,” Larese said. “This gives them a casual, comfortable place to do that.”

Café organizer Elsa Youngsteadt, with Sigma Xi, said she was happy owner Mitch Hazouri jumped at the chance to host the discussion in his tavern.

“I thought that no venue would want to have this talk,” she said with a grin.

Tyler Dukes is a freelance science writer and full-time journalism adviser at N.C. State University. Follow him on Twitter as @mtdukes. Special thanks to Rob Fisher for the photo editing help!