Meat Without Death

Armchair Science is a Kindle ebook available at Amazon. It contains over 120 short mysteries of science that can be solved from a single observational clue, without the need for experimentation.

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

Clue 65. Cells from animals can be grown in the laboratory to produce more cells, indefinitely.

Deduction. It is possible to make hamburgers without killing cows.

Illustration. Tissue culture flasks. The red fluid is nutrient culture medium. On the inside-bottom of each flask, bathed by red culture medium, is a monolayer of growing cells that can be visualized, as live cells, using a phase contrast microscope. Source: U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Illustration. Live Chinese hamster ovary cells grown as an adherent monolayer on the bottom of a tissue culture flask containing nutrient medium. The photograph was taken using a phase contrast microscope. Source: Wikipedia, donated to the public domain by its author, Alcibiades.

Resolution. Although billions of people, throughout human history, have subsisted entirely on food whose preparation does not involve killing animals, many of us stubbornly believe that the diet of healthy humans must include animal meat. In the 21st century, enthusiasm for vegetarian diets is far outpaced by the growing demand for meat from pigs, poultry, cows, and so on. Virtually every animal species, even the endangered ones, are considered fair game for hungry humans.

Advances in tissue culture have brought us to the point where meat can be prepared, in the laboratory, or the factory, without killing animals. A small biopsy of tissue, from virtually any type of living organism, can be grown in cell culture. The cells will grow rapidly when supplied with a chemically defined solution of nutrients. Techniques exist whereby cultures grown from animals can be manipulated to grow as muscle cells. Such cultures can be harvested, cooked, and eaten; all without sacrificing animals.

Today, we can make attractive, warm clothing from synthetic materials (e.g., nylon), or from plants (e.g., cotton), or from composite fabrics. We do not need to kill minks and sables and foxes and beavers to keep warm. Though the demand for fur is in decline, the fur industry persists, supported by a loyal base of fur-loving consumers.

Thanks to advances in the science of human nutrition, it is now possible, even preferable, to live on a plant-based diet. If there is a requirement for animal protein, it can be satisfied with milk-based foods and eggs (i.e., a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet). If you believe that consuming animal meat is necessary for maintaining health, the non-discriminating palate could choose from a variety of protein-rich animals drawn from the lower rungs of the food chain (e.g. grubs, worms, snails, insects). The tissue culture option delivers our favorite sources of meat (e.g., pork, beef, chicken, fish), without the necessity of killing animals. Wouldn't it be nice if we humans chose an available alternative to the needless slaughter of billions of sentient creatures?

I urge you to read more about this book. There's a good "look inside" of the book at the Amazon store.

- Jules J. Berman, Ph.D., M.D.

tags: deductive science, science mysteries, deductive reasoning, ebook, general science reading, general science book, science puzzles, scientific amusements

Where Do Chloroplasts Come From in Non-Plant Organisms?

Armchair Science is a Kindle ebook available at Amazon. It contains over 120 short mysteries of science that can be solved from a single observational clue, without the need for experimentation.

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

Clue 87. Plant chloroplasts are wrapped in a 2-layer membrane. Chloroplasts in organisms other than plants are wrapped in membranes of 3 or 4 layers.

Deduction. Non-plant chloroplasts were stolen from plant chloroplasts.

Illustration. Various organisms of the order Desmidiales, the green algae. The tiny green granules are chloroplasts. Source: Painting by artist and naturalist Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834-1919).

Resolution. Archaeplastida is the superclass of organisms that contains all plant life on the planet, and every species of Archaeplastida either contains chloroplasts or has derived from a species that contained chloroplasts (i.e., organelles in which oxygenic photosynthesis occurs).

Chloroplasts are self-replicating cytoplasmic organisms, somewhat analogous to the mitochondria in human cells. It is presumed that the chloroplasts in plant cells were originally acquired when a primitive eukaryotic organism (i.e., a non-bacterial organism) that engulfed a cyanobacteria. All plant species are descendants of the original eukaryotic cell that captured the one cyanobacteria that adjusted to a new existence within that eukaryotic cell.

All chloroplasts in all plant species are wrapped by two membrane layers: one layer presumably contributed by the captured cyanobacteria, and one layer presumably contributed by the eukaryotic cell as it wrapped the cyanobacteria in its own cell membrane.

Plants are not the only organisms to contain chloroplasts. Chloroplasts are found in a variety of eukaryotic species that are not members of Archaeplastida, the ancestral class of plants. How did non-plant species acquire an organelle that evolved as a characteristic feature of the plant kingdom? It seems that the non-plant organisms that contain chloroplasts simply stole their chloroplasts from other organisms, including plants. Whereas the chloroplasts of plants always have exactly two membranes, the chloroplasts of non-plant organisms have three or four membrane layers, suggesting that an organism containing chloroplasts was engulfed, and the double membranes of the chloroplast plus the membranes of the engulfing organisms, were entrapped in the process.

Is there any reason to think that organisms go about stealing organelles from other organisms? It seems that plant chloroplasts can be acquired by contemporary organisms through a process called kleptoplasty. The kleptoplastic cell captures a chloroplast from an algae and uses the captured chloroplast for a short period (a few days to a few months) until the chloroplast degenerates. These chloroplasts not self-replicating. When new chloroplasts are needed, the kleptoplastic organism simply ravages another colony of algae. The sacoglassan sea slug, has achieved a photosynthetic life-style, all thanks to kleptoplasty.

There is some evidence to suggest that we may be witnessing a repeat of the process by which a primitive eukaryote stole a cyanobacteria, initiating Class Archaeplastida. Paulinella chromatophora, a member of the eukaryotic class Rhizaria, seems to have captured its own cyanobacteria and created its own permanent chloroplast-like organelle (1).

References.

1. Nowack EC, Melkonian M, Glockner G. Chromatophore genome sequence of Paulinella sheds light on acquisition of photosynthesis by eukaryotes. Curr Biol 18:410-418,

I urge you to read more about this book. There's a good "look inside" of the book at the Amazon store.

- Jules J. Berman, Ph.D., M.D.

tags: deductive science, science mysteries, deductive reasoning, ebook, general science reading, general science book, science puzzles, scientific amusements

Why do Heavy Ships Float?

Armchair Science is a Kindle ebook available at Amazon. It contains over 120 short mysteries of science that can be solved from a single observational clue, without the need for experimentation.

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

Clue 21. An object can displace a volume of water that has a weight equal to or less than its own weight; but no more than that.

Deduction. Objects made of materials that are denser than water can float, if they are shaped properly.

Illustration. A cruise ship. How does it manage to float so high above the water line? Source: Wikipedia, and donated to the public domain by its author.

Resolution. As an object begins to sink into water, it will displace water until it gets to the point where the displaced quantity of water matches its own weight. After that, the object must stop sinking (i.e., must stop displacing water). As you lower an enormous ship into the water, regardless of the material from which it is constructed, the object will displace water (i.e., sink) until it has displaced a weight of water that is equal to its own weight; at which point, it ceases to sink. If the object is designed so that the weight of water it displaces (i.e., its own weight) is reached prior to the point when the object disappears beneath water's crest, it will float.

Because objects cannot displace a weight of water exceeding their own weight, enormous ships, built from materials that are denser than water, will float. Caution is advised: if you knock a hole into the wall of a floating ship, water will enter, increasing the weight of the ship, and thus increasing the amount of water the ship can displace before it must stop sinking. The ship will continue to sink as more and more water enters its hull.

I urge you to read more about this book. There's a good "look inside" of the book at the Amazon store.

- Jules J. Berman, Ph.D., M.D.

tags: deductive science, science mysteries, deductive reasoning, ebook, general science reading, general science book, science puzzles, scientific amusements

The Early Clue that Genetic Material Resides in the Nucleus

Armchair Science is a Kindle ebook available at Amazon. It contains over 120 short mysteries of science that can be solved from a single observational clue, without the need for experimentation.

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

Clue 60. Red cells have no nuclei.

Deduction. Genetic material must be located in the nucleus.

Illustration. Blood smear from patient with chronic myelogenous leukemia. There is an increase in white blood cells, with lobed nuclei. The red cells are much smaller than the white blood cells, with pallid interiors, and lacking a nucleus. Source: Panton PN, Clinical Pathology. P. Blakiston's Son and Company, Philadelphia, 1913.

Resolution. It seems second nature to us now, but at the dawn of the twentieth century, scientists did not know the chemical nature of genetic material. They correctly inferred the existence of genes, because they knew that some cellular constituent must convey inheritance from parent cells to daughter cells. They did not know the chemical nature of genes, and they did not know that genes resided in the nucleus. By 1910, Thomas Hunt Morgan had demonstrated that genes live in chromosomes, in the nucleus, a discovery that won him the Nobel Prize, in 1933.

In retrospect, it would seem that scientists should have suspected, all along, that genes reside in the nucleus of cells, simply by observing that red blood cells have no nucleus.

The red blood cell is a highly specialized cell, designed to squeeze through tiny capillaries, as it carries oxygen throughout the body. Basically, a red blood cell is an elastic, but durable bag of hemoglobin. Red blood cells do not divide; they live for about 120 days, and then they die, to be replaced by new red blood cells produced by stem cells of erythroid lineage. During the development of the mature red blood cell, the nucleus dissolves; from this point on, the red cell has no chance of dividing. It seems reasonable to suppose that if all the dividing cells of the red cell lineage contain nuclei, while the non-dividing cell of the red cell lineage lacks a nucleus, then the nucleus must carry the cell's heritable information (i.e., the genes).

I urge you to read more about this book. There's a good "look inside" of the book at the Amazon store.

- Jules J. Berman, Ph.D., M.D.

tags: deductive science, science mysteries, deductive reasoning, ebook, general science reading, general science book, science puzzles, scientific amusements

Maximum Jumping Height for All Animals

Armchair Science is a Kindle ebook available at Amazon. It contains over 120 short mysteries of science that can be solved from a single observational clue, without the need for experimentation.

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

Clue 91. The highest that any animal can jump is on the order of six feet.

Deduction. Muscles have about the same power, regardless of animal species.

Resolution. Jumping, stripped to its most basic definition, is the action whereby a muscle lifts itself off the ground. All animals have muscles of similar composition and function (i.e., sliding actin and myosin molecules, contracting in response to nerve stimulation). Every jumping animal has the same basic job; using muscle to lift muscle. Consequently, all jumping animals are limited to about the same maximum performance. Humans can jump about six feet high. The Guinness record for a high-jumping dog is 5 feet 8 inches. Gazelle's can jump 10 feet high. An orca can jump about 15 feet, vertically, out of the water. Grasshoppers can jump about 2.5 feet high. It may seem as though there is a wide discordance between the grasshopper's jump and the orca's, but both animals jump to near-equivalent height, within an order of magnitude.

I urge you to read more about this book. There's a good "look inside" of the book at the Amazon store.

- Jules J. Berman, Ph.D., M.D.

tags: deductive science, science mysteries, deductive reasoning, ebook, general science reading, general science book, science puzzles, scientific amusements

2-D Galaxies in a 3-D Universe

Armchair Science is a Kindle ebook available at Amazon. It contains over 120 short mysteries of science that can be solved from a single observational clue, without the need for experimentation.

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

Clue 36. The universe is three dimensional, but most collections of large objects in the universe, such as galaxies, are flat, seemingly two-dimensional.

Illustration. Collage of galaxies, all somewhat flat. Source: NASA.

Deduction. Galaxies must be spinning.

Resolution. Gravity causes objects to come together, in a ball. With all the gravity produced by mass objects, one would expect the universe to be composed of spherical things. Indeed, stars and planets are round, but most collections of large things in the universe are flat. These would include virtually every galaxy, the planar orbits of the planets, and accretion disks.

The reason is simple: gravity pulls things into a ball, while angular momentum tends to stretch everything out into a disk. Objects that spin, even solid balls, have a tendency to be disk-shaped. Spinning objects that seem to be spherical are more accurately described as oblate spheroids. For example, the earth bulges at the equator, where the centrifugal force is greatest.

When we look into the skies, and we see flat galaxies, it is a safe bet that they are spinning.

I urge you to read more about this book. There's a good "look inside" of the book at the Amazon store.

- Jules J. Berman, Ph.D., M.D.

tags: deductive science, science mysteries, deductive reasoning, ebook, general science reading, general science book, science puzzles, scientific amusements

If the speed of light is constant, then photons must have no mass

Armchair Science is a Kindle ebook available at Amazon. It contains over 120 short mysteries of science that can be solved from a single observational clue, without the need for experimentation.

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

Clue 9. The speed of light is constant.

Deduction. Photons have no mass.

Illustration. Atoms can be stimulated to emit photons as a narrow, cohesive beam of particles (i.e., laser beams). Source: U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.

Resolution. Though we expect everyone to understand one another when the term "mass" is mentioned, we should admit that "mass" is at least as difficult to comprehend as any of the fundamental mysteries that consume the lives of physicists. Mass is best described functionally, as a physical property that renders matter resistant to acceleration or deceleration. Essentially, if you need to push on something to make it move faster, then it must have mass; the harder you need to push, the more the mass. We can easily measure an object's mass, but doing so does not explain how the object acquired its resistance to acceleration (i.e., how the object acquired its mass).

Visible light, and all electromagnetic radiation cannot be accelerated or decelerated; its speed is constant. Light is composed of particles known as photons that travel at the speed of light. Because light cannot be accelerated or decelerated, it must be massless; hence the photons that compose light are massless particles.

I urge you to read more about this book. There's a good "look inside" of the book at the Amazon store.

- Jules J. Berman, Ph.D., M.D.

tags: deductive science, science mysteries, deductive reasoning, ebook, general science reading, general science book, science puzzles, scientific amusements