Alan Alda, the internationally famous TV/movie actor, director and writer, is looking for answers to a question we’ve all pondered at some point in our lives – what is time?  So he recently issued a challenge to the world’s scientists to come up with a good explanation.

While the question alone might stump even the brightest of scientists, Alda’s challenge also has a catch.  The explanation must be made so that an 11-year-old can easily understand it.

Science World recently spoke with Alan Alda to learn more about his challenge.  He told us that when he was just 11 years old, he found himself becoming quite fascinated with the flame burning at the end of a candle.

Curious about what a flame was, Alda decided to ask his teacher – “what’s a flame?”  He was hoping for a clear and concise answer to his question, but the teacher instead came back at him with just a one word answer – oxidation.

Needless to say, young Alan was quite dissatisfied with his teacher’s answer and was frustrated that he still didn’t know what a flame was.

In spite of the teacher’s terse answer to his query, Alda continued to have a lifelong interest in science.

While he’s best known for playing the wisecracking surgeon Dr. Benjamin “Hawkeye” Pierce, M.D. on the classic TV show M*A*S*H, Alda also hosted the TV series “Scientific American Frontiers” that aired on the U.S. public television network PBS.

Throughout the course of hosting that TV show, Alda said that he had the chance to interview hundreds of scientists.  In doing so, he discovered that many of the scientists he spoke with had wonderful stories to tell, but some needed help in telling them.

Alda also concludes that the scientists themselves are recognizing that they need to become better communicators, and that there are three big groups of people that need to be communicated with better.

The first group is the general public. Alda says the public needs to have a clear understanding of science because they’re using it every day. And because they may not quite understand it, he says people aren’t asking the right questions and sometimes that creates barriers to better science.

The second group of people, according to Alda, includes legislators and policy makers.  “They routinely don’t understand what the scientists are asking funding for; they don’t understand it at a deep enough level anyway,” he said.

The third group that Alda said can really benefit from better science communication is that of fellow scientists — those who sometimes aren’t familiar with scientific disciplines other than their own. “So that’s holding back collaboration, I would think, holding back new inroads that can be made because an awful lot of things happening now, that are breaking ground, require the collaboration of a lot of people from a lot of different fields,” Alda said.

So to help scientists and health professionals develop the skills needed to become effective communicators, Alda helped create the Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York, where he is also a visiting professor.

His passion for communicating science to others also came through while writing a guest editorial for the journal Science.

“I realized that I had a personal story to tell about communicating science and it was that story about my teacher not really explaining the flame very well.  And then I realized by the end of the article that I had a contest and I challenged scientists to come up with an explanation an 11-year-old could understand.”

That challenge wound up being the first in what Alda and his colleagues at the Stony Brook University have called “The Flame Challenge.”

From over 800 entries submitted, 31-year-old Ben Ames, an American studying for his Ph.D in Austria, won the first “Flame Challenge” last year with his animated video explanation of “What is a flame?”

A couple of weeks ago, Alda issued his second “Flame Challenge.”  The question this time came from actual 11 year-old students.  Like the first “Flame Challenge” question, this one also is very basic – but it’s also quite perplexing and one that might be difficult for scientists to explain to the young students. The question: “What is time?”

According to the “Flame Challenge” website, entries can either be written, or in video or graphic forms.

Scientists competing in the “Flame Challenge” have till 0459 UTC March 2, 2013, to get their entries in. The judging will be done by thousands of 11-year-olds.

Alda says that judging the contest has been a big hit with the young scientists of the future.  “They really love the chance to take a serious position in deciding what’s a good explanation and they are very serious about it,” he said.

While the “Flame Challenge” question alone could be difficult to answer, why does the explanation have to be understood by 11-year-olds in particular?

“It just happened that way, because I was 11 when I asked that question,” explained Alda.  “It turns out that, as we look at 11-year-olds who are judging it, it seems they have a kind of special ability, they’re in a special place in their lives where they still have the curiosity, a sort of unbridled curiosity of a kid, but they’re beginning to take on the critical thinking of an adult, so they’re in a good position to both asked the question and judge the answer,” he said.

Videos of the youngsters reviewing answers that were submitted for last year’s challenge revealed just how serious they were about their judging duties.  “They say things like, ‘this is too short, it doesn’t have enough information,’” Alda said.  “And one kid was great, he said that ‘we like them if they’re entertaining, but this is silly.’  He said that ‘We’re 11, not seven,’ and I loved that very grown up approach to this old question.”

Schools around the world can also take part in the “Flame Challenge” by getting their 11-year-old students involved with judging.

For details on how scientists can take on the challenge, and how 11-year-olds can become judges, just visit the “Flame Challenge” website.

Alan Alda joins us this weekend on the radio edition of Science World.  He talks about the “Flame Challenge” and why it’s important for scientists to be good communicators.   For broadcast times please check the right column.

You can listen below to hear the full Science World interview with Alan Alda.

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Coral reefs provide one of the world’s most vital ecosystems and some of these reefs are in danger of being destroyed.

While people are to blame for much of the destruction, nature also plays a role. Encroaching species of seaweed with poisonous compounds on their surfaces are one of nature’s threats.

The toxic seaweed begins its lethal damage upon contact with the coral, killing its tissue within two to three days of contact.

But now scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found that one species of coral near the Fiji Islands  doesn’t sit around waiting to  destroyed; it actually sends out a call for help when it’s threatened by poisonous seaweed.

Small fish, known as gobies, which are about two centimeters long and spend their entire lives in the crevices of the coral, respond to the coral’s alarm within minutes.

The gobies go after the seaweed, chewing and mowing it away from the coral. Not only do the little fish protect their homes, but some species also use the toxic substances from the seaweed to build up their own protective arsenal.

Mark Hay, a biology professor at Georgia Tech and colleague Danielle Dixson conducted the research and published their findings in Science.

Hay said two species of goby serve as coral bodyguards.  One species simply chews away at the harmful seaweed and then spits it out, but the other type of fish actually ingests the poisonous substance. This enhances the fish’s already toxic characteristics, increasing its ability to protect itself from predators.

Researchers were unable to determine whether the fish were saving up the lethal seaweed compounds to use on enemies, or if they were already making their own poisons, and using the noxious material to build up their resistance to the poisons.

Not all fish possess the gobies’ protective instincts. Scientists also studied two other species of small fish that live in the coral.

According to Hay, these damsel fish simply swim away, moving on to other coral, when their homes are threatened.

“They just abandon it, say ‘It’s going to die, we’re out of here,’” Hay says.

Interestingly enough, the gobies are only protective when their particular species of coral is under attack.  The scientists placed the gobies within another closely-related species of coral and found that the little bodyguards did not respond or protect their new home when it was under a similar threat.

Hay hopes to study other species of coral in the future to see if they too are also aided by rapid responding protective fish.

Mark Hay joins us this weekend on the radio edition of Science World.  Tune in (see right column for scheduled times) or check out the interview below.

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For many students, getting 60 percent on a test is practically a failing grade.  Yet a new study, which rates overall ocean health at 60 out of a 100, suggests that score is not as bad as some think.

The Ocean Health Index (OCI) assesses the health of the oceans using a wide spectrum of evaluating factors such as the ecological, social, economic and political conditions for every coastal country.

While the OCI shows there are problems maintaining ocean health, Ben Halpern, lead scientist of the project, says there are many things humans are doing right in order to achieve  a score of 60.

The individual scores of the 171 evaluated countries vary widely; from a low of 36 off the coast of Sierra Leone to a high of 86 for the waters surrounding the uninhabited Jarvis Island in the Pacific.  In general, the other highest-scoring locations are densely populated and highly developed, while developing nations tend to be more likely to score low.

Halpern says that’s because developed countries tend to have stable governments, more resources and a stronger economies, which gives them the ability to pay more attention to environmental stewardship.

Unlike previous similar studies which focus only on the negative impact of human activity, the OCI is the first global assessment to combine both natural and human dimensions of ocean sustainability, according to Halpern. The study considers people as part of the ocean, not  as separate negative influences on the ocean.

“This index is really trying to reframe the discussion around, not just how we are impacting the ocean, but how the ocean impacts us,” said Halpern.

He adds the OCI provides a way to look at how human activities decrease or increase the ability of the ocean to provide us the things that we want, such as food, economic and recreational opportunities.

Ben Halpern joins us this weekend on the radio edition of Science World.  Check out the right column for scheduled air-times or listen now to the interview below.

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NASA’s Curiosity rover has beamed back spectacular HD photos of the Martian surface.

Captured by a 100-millimeter telephoto lens and 34-milllimeter wide angle lens, the images show the dark dunes,  layered rock and canyons of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside Gale Crater, where the rover landed.

NASA also released photos of Curiosity at work as it prepares to explore the Red Planet.

In another feat, Curiosity received and beamed back the first human voice transmission to travel from Earth to another planet and back.

The voice was that of NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden. The message was radioed to Mars, where it was received and then retransmitted back to Earth by Curiosity. Here on Earth, the return signal from Mars was picked up by NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN).

In his message, Bolden noted the difficulties of putting a rover on Mars and congratulated NASA employees and all  involved with the project on the successful landing.  He also commented on how curiosity is what drives humans to explore.

“The knowledge we hope to gain from our observation and analysis of Gale Crater will tell us much about the possibility of life on Mars as well as the past and future possibilities for our own planet. Curiosity will bring benefits to Earth and inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers, as it prepares the way for a human mission in the not too distant future,” Bolden said in his recorded message.

The rover is also busy stretching its legs, recently taking a couple of test drives near its landing spot.

Curiosity is already sending more data from the Martian surface than all of NASA’s earlier rovers combined, the space agency said.

Members of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission listen to a voice message from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in the mission support area at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA just can’t get enough of Mars.  Two weeks after successfully landing  the much-ballyhooed rover Curiosity on the red planet, officials at the U.S. space agency announced that yet another  mission to Mars is set for 2016.

The InSight mission, which stands for “Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport,” will investigate deep below the Martian surface to see why the planet developed differently than Earth.

InSight, according to NASA, will be more than a mission to Mars. Officials hope  this terrestrial planet explorer will  answer some long-held questions about planetary and solar system science, including the processes that went into forming the rocky planets of the inner solar system -Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars- more than four billion years ago.

Unlike the Mars explorers currently cruising the planet’s surface, the InSight lander is designed to stay put while several sophisticated instruments do the heavy lifting.

While a robotic arm and two cameras help set and monitor all of the gear placed on the planet’s surface, an onboard geodetic instrument will determine the rotational axis of Mars.

Other devices include one that measures the seismic waves traveling though the interior of Mars, as well as a subsurface heat probe designed to gauge the heat flow from the planet’s interior.

The InSight mission is getting assistance from international partners including the French space agency, CNES, which is contributing the seismic monitoring equipment. The German Aerospace Center is slated to  provide the subsurface heat probe.

Mission team members for InSight, the new Mars lander mission selected by NASA to launch in 2016, explain how the spacecraft will advance our knowledge of Mars’ history and rocky planet evolution.

The InSight mission was selected from three finalist proposals which were chosen from many in May 2011. The two rejected missions included putting a spacecraft on the surface of a comet, while the other proposed a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan.

“The exploration of Mars is a top priority for NASA, and the selection of InSight ensures we will continue to unlock the mysteries of the Red Planet and lay the groundwork for a future human mission there,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “The recent successful landing of the Curiosity rover has galvanized public interest in space exploration and today’s announcement makes clear there are more exciting Mars missions to come.”

Scheduled for launch in March 2016, InSight is expected to land on Mars in September 2016 for a 720-day mission.

Researchers in Georgia have developed a glove which seems to improve touch sensation and motor skills for people with severe spinal cord injuries.

The Mobile Music Touch (MMT) looks like a regular workout glove, except for the small box mounted on the back.

Along with a piano keyboard, the glove is used to help people with spinal cord injuries learn to play the piano by vibrating the player’s fingers to show which keys they should play.

Some people who used the musical glove for these specialized piano lessons experienced improved sensation in their fingers after their  sessions.

Researchers at Georgia Tech – the Georgia Institute of Technology – along with Atlanta’s Shepard Center, worked with volunteers with spinal cord injuries over eight weeks.

The volunteers suffered their injury at least a year before this study and had very little feeling or movement in their hands.

The  participants were required to practice playing the piano for a half hour, three times a week for eight weeks.  Half of them used the MMT glove to practice and the other half did not.

Researchers also had the participants wear the glove at home after or before practice, for two hours a day, five days a week, feeling only the vibration from the device.

The researchers hoped the volunteers would receive some rehabilitative effects from passively wearing the device while doing regular, everyday activities.

“After our preliminary work in 2011, we suspected that the glove would have positive results for people with SCI,” said Tanya Markow, the project leader. “But we were surprised by how much improvement they made in our study. For example, after using the glove, some participants were able to feel the texture of their bed sheets and clothes for the first time since their injury.”

(Video: Georgia Institute of Technology)

Along with the specially-equipped glove, the Mobile Music Touch system works with a computer, MP3 player or smart phone.

The system is then programmed with a song which is wirelessly linked to the glove.  As the song plays, its musical notes are illuminated on the piano keys and the device then sends vibrations to “tap” the corresponding fingers.

After the eight weeks, the researchers had their volunteers perform a number of grasping and sensation tests so they could measure for any improvement.

The researchers found that those who used the MMT system performed significantly better than the others who just learned the piano normally.

“Some people were able to pick up objects more easily,” said Markow. “Another said he could immediately feel the heat from a cup of coffee, rather than after a delay.”

Markow believes the increased motor abilities are due to renewed brain activity that sometimes can become dormant in people with spinal cord injuries.

She thinks that the vibrations produced by the MMT system might trigger activity in the hand’s sensory cortex, which leads to firing in the brain’s motor cortex.

Markow would like to take her research with the MMT further to include functional MRI results.

New research throws scientific cold water on NASA’s  purported 2010 discovery of a new form of life which lives and thrives off of arsenic rather than phosphorus,  an important element that supports life as we know it.

In December 2010, NASA announced its researchers, led by Dr. Felisa Wolfe-Simon, had found bacteria in California’s Mono Lake that substitutes the toxic substance arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

To support life as we know it, six essential elements are necessary: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus.

NASA heralded the discovery of the microorganism, called GFAJ-1, as significant because it offered an alternative biochemistry makeup with the potential to alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth.

At the time, Ed Weiler,  NASA’s  associate administrator for  Science Mission Directorate said, “The definition of life has just expanded, as we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it.”

From the beginning, critics within the scientific community cast doubt on the validity of NASA’s findings.

One of the early skeptics, Canadian microbiologist Rosemary Redfield, from the University of British Columbia, blogged, “I don’t know whether the authors are just bad scientists or whether they’re unscrupulously pushing NASA’s ‘There’s life in outer space!’ agenda.  I hesitate to blame the reviewers, as their objections are likely to have been overruled by Science’s editors in their eagerness to score such a high-impact publication.”

Redfield is an author of one of two new research papers, published in Science, which debunk  NASA’s findings.

In essence, the papers find that, while the GFAJ-1 bacteria may sometimes use a very small amount of arsenic in place of phosphate, it cannot fully substitute the toxic substance for a form of the key element and that some phosphate is needed in order to survive.

In a statement sent to Agence France Presse (AFP), Wolfe-Simon responded that the data published in the new papers “are consistent with our original paper” and that she and her colleagues expect to publish new information in the next few months.

“A great thing about science is that the ability to do rigorous tests with controls provides an increasingly accurate knowledge of life and the universe that is extremely useful,” she said in the statement.