| #32 |
12/31/2007
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As we head into a new year, it's only appropriate that we reflect on the year just passed. 2007 was an excellent year for good news of all varieties. This year's collection is heavy on the medical, energy, and environmental stories. Here are 50 of our favorites -- not really the "top 50 good news stories of the year," but rather just a random selection. There were so many positive developments in 2007, we can't even pretend that this is a representative sample. But we hope you enjoy it nonetheless, and look forward to what we'll see in 2008.
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1
Trashing Our Energy
Problems
How about an energy technology that will reduce the need for landfills while replacing as much as a quarter of the gasoline burned in the United States?
The technology, developed originally by researchers at MIT and at Batelle Pacific Northwest National Labs (PNNL), in Richland, WA, doesn't incinerate refuse, so it doesn't produce the pollutants that have historically plagued efforts to convert waste into energy. Instead, the technology vaporizes organic materials to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide, a mixture called synthesis gas, or syngas, that can be used to synthesize a wide variety of fuels and chemicals.
There is enough municipal and industrial waste produced in the United States for the system to replace as much as a quarter of the gasoline used in this country, says Daniel Cohn, a cofounder of IET and a senior research scientist at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
Implementing this kind of technology would represent a huge win-win. Let's ward off the peak oil problem while reducing landfill waste. Wastefulness is a criticism often leveled against Americans (not without good reason.) Reclaiming a significant amount of the energy we consume from what we throw away would be an excellent place to start addressing the waste problem.
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2
Give
a Little Bit
Are you a giver? Brain scan finds the truth
Altruism, one of the most difficult human behaviors to define, can be detected in brain scans, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday.
They found activity in a specific area of the brain could predict altruistic behavior -- and people's own reports of how selfish or giving they are.
"Although understanding the function of this brain region may not necessarily identify what drives people like Mother Theresa, it may give clues to the origins of important social behaviors like altruism," said Scott Huettel, a neuroscientist at Duke University in North Carolina who led the study.
In the study, students played games to earn money either for themselves or for a charity (selected by the students themselves.) The tests given monitored the difference in response when a student won money for charity rather than for him- or herself. One of the intriguing aspects of the study was that the response both to winning for oneself or for a charity did not show up in the region of the brain expected -- a region associated with reward stimulus.
Understanding why nice people are nice could be a way of helping to bring about more niceness. Here's hoping.
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3
What
a Day for a Daydream
The scans showed a distinct pattern in brain activity when people were daydreaming, which involved a complex network of disparate brain areas. Mason explains that a wandering mind still leaves the brain in an optimal state of arousal so it is primed for more purposeful tasks, yet it allows people to remain only as alert as they need to be during mundane tasks.
Science marches on. First we learned that red wine and dark chocolate have life-extending properties, now we discover that daydreaming is an optimum mental state. This may require some rethinking of my online bio, which begins with these words:
Phil Bowermaster has been a full-time amateur speculist since about age three. Often misunderstood during his childhood and adolescence, he fought a frequent perception that he was "daydreaming" or "goofing off" when in fact he was involved in serious contemplation of alternative scenarios to the world he saw around him. This misunderstanding persists to the present day.
Now that research is putting a mark of respectability on daydreaming, maybe I can dispense with the apologies. It turns out that I've not only been contemplating better worlds, I've been tuning my brain in the process. That's kind of a win-win, now, isn't it?
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Of
all the Nerve
Stem cells nurture damaged spine: study
BOSTON (Reuters) - Human embryonic stem cells can help regenerate damaged nerves in rats, producing compounds that nurture nerve cells and stimulate the growth of new ones, Geron Corp. said on Wednesday.
Geron had earlier reported that human embryonic stem cells had helped replace myelin, a fatty covering on nerves that is vital to function.
Now, the company's researchers said, they had shown the cells produce multiple nerve growth factors, which are proteins that stimulate the survival and regeneration of neurons.
stemcell.jpg
For victims of paralysis, the ability to replace damaged or missing nerve tissue is the Holy Grail of stem cell research. It will take considerably more than what's been done here before we start seeing people abandoning their crutches and wheelchairs, and even more still before stem cell research offers hope to those who suffer in other ways -- e.g., Parkinson's/ Alzheimer's -- but this is an important step, nonetheless.
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5
Silver
Bullet for Cancer
It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.
It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.
Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.
DCA works by switching the mitochondria back on inside cancer cells. Deprived of oxygen, cancer cells survive by an alternative energy-supplying process called glycolysis. This bypasses the normal metabolic process governed by the mitochondria. Unfortunately, the mitochondrial process not only supplies a cell with energy, it determines the cell's lifespan. When a cell adopts this workaround fuel strategy that bypasses the mitochondria, it becomes an "immortal" cancer cell. By switching the mitochondria back on in such cells, DCA ensures that they die a natural, and very welcome, death.
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6
Missile-Proof
Jet
LOS ANGELES - An MD-10 cargo jet equipped with Northrop Grumman's Guardian anti-missile system took off from Los Angeles International Airport on a commercial flight Tuesday, the company said.
The FedEx flight marked the start of operational testing and evaluation of the laser system designed to defend against shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles during takeoffs and landings.
The system works by detecting a missile launch, honing in on the missile, and then hitting it with a laser which fries the guidance system. Of course, it's unfortunate that steps such as this have to be taken, but it's encouraging that they are being taken. The potential downside is that all commercial aircraft will be fitted with these systems just as a new threat, completely immune to this defense, emerges.
One the other hand, we can expect that the version of this system that makes it out to commercial airliners will be considerably more robust than what's being tested now. Let's just hope that it's robust enough.
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7
Conquering
Snow
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the remote-controlled snowplow. It's a re-purposed golf cart!
Although the original news story that featured this cart is gone now, it's nice to look back and remember.
Having shoveled snow four times in the past week, I can only say I hope the inventor is busily working on bringing the thing to market.
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8
Love
Has Been Around for Some Time
They died together, some 5,000 - 6,000 years ago. Based on their teeth, it is estimated that they were fairly young. It is also assumed that they were a man and a woman, but that hasn't been confirmed yet.
They were found in an archaeological dig in Italy. Apparently nothing quite like this has ever been discovered from the neolithic period. You have to wonder what happened. How is it that they came to die together? Illness? Exposure to the cold? There is apparently no evidence of foul play, but then that might be hard to determine at this point.
It's an evocative image. There's usually something gruesome about skeletons, but the apparent tenderness of the embrace, and the suggestion that they were trying to draw even closer together at the time of death -- which may be poetic license, but I can live with that -- give this scene a transcendent quality.
A good deal of time passed from the moment these two breathed their last and the moment they were uncovered. The world has changed immensely. And of course, I believe that much greater changes than any that were seen over those thousands of years are on their way, and soon. With that in mind, there's something very comforting about this image.
Three things endure,
and the greatest of these is love.
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Beetle Power
Juicing up your cell phone or iPod may take on a whole new meaning in the future. Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri have developed a fuel cell battery that runs on virtually any sugar source - from soft drinks to tree sap - and has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium ion batteries, they say.
Wet-tech meets dry tech. If sugar is a good energy source for cell phones, why not other things? Maybe we've been going about this environment thing all wrong. Perhaps rather than electric/petroleum hybrids, we should be looking at bio-mechanical hybrids. Look, all I'm saying is that maybe these two ought to share more than just an approximate shape and cutesy name:
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10
Just
Like a Mouse, Only Better
It's a little something called the human hand:
Technovelgy comments:
A camera focused on the user's hand above the keyboard detects when the user touches his forefinger to his thumb. When that "circle" is made, the software maps the gesture to the screen, allowing control in the same way that a mouse can drag and drop, and so forth. Gesture recognition using video frames grabbed in real time has been around since the early 1990's. The interesting thing about this story (to me) is not necessarily the PodTech software, but the fact that now all of the hardware components (built-in cameras, powerful processors) are standard equipment on many computers, and are cheap in any case.
Seems like a step in the right direction.
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Interchangeable Blood
I've often wondered when this would become a possibility:
Blood groups 'can be converted'
The technique potentially enables blood from groups A, B and AB to be converted into group O negative, which can be safely transplanted into any patient.
The method, which makes use of newly discovered enzymes, may help relieve shortages of blood for transfusions.
Of course, this is just a step along the way to fully synthetic blood, which will not only be interchangeable between all the different blood types, but will also provide other benefits as well
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The
Bridge to Everywhere
How's about we build a tunnel under the Bering Strait to connect Russia with Alaska. A little something like this, if you will:
Some ambitious Russians are working on getting it done:
Russia plans to build the world's longest tunnel, a transport and pipeline link under the Bering Strait to Alaska, as part of a $65 billion project to supply the U.S. with oil, natural gas and electricity from Siberia.
The project, which Russia is coordinating with the US and Canada, would take 10 to 15 years to complete, Viktor Razbegin, deputy head of industrial research at the Russian Economy Ministry, told reporters in Moscow today. State organizations and private companies in partnership would build and control the route, known as TKM-World Link, he said.
A 6,000-kilometer (3,700-mile) transport corridor from Siberia into the US will feed into the tunnel, which at 64 miles will be more than twice as long as the underwater section of the Channel Tunnel between the U.K. and France, according to the plan. The tunnel would run in three sections to link the two islands in the Bering Strait between Russia and the US
Interestingly, this is not a new idea:
Tsar Nicholas II, Russia's last emperor, was the first Russian leader to approve a plan for a tunnel under the Bering Strait, in 1905, 38 years after his grandfather sold Alaska to America for $7.2 million. World War I ended the project.
Of course, this will not just be a road connecting Alaska with Russia. This will be the Hemispheric Highway! It will become possible to drive from Paris, Texas to Paris, France; from Indianapolis to Istanbul; from Beijing to Buenos Aires. I'm not saying a lot of people will start making these drives -- then again, maybe they will -- but at least they'll have the option.
Anyway, it will be a good alternative to this. (See step 24.)
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13
Where
the Wild Things Are
The American bald eagle marked a four-decade fight for survival Thursday as the government declared the bird - a national symbol - no longer requires the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act.
"Today I am proud to announce the eagle has returned," Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne proclaimed at a ceremony near the Jefferson Memorial.
The Interior Department made the recovery official by removing the eagle from the list of threatened species under the species protection law. The bird had been reclassified from endangered to threatened in 1995.
Today there are nearly 10,000 bald eagles in the contiguous 48 states, compared to a documented 417 in 1963 when the bird was on the verge of extinction everywhere except in Alaska and Canada where it has continued to thrive.
When I was a kid, we were told in school that bison and bald eagles were on their way out -- that we would live to see that last of their kind. A few years ago, my brother and I got fishing passes via lottery to some very lovely lakes in an area that used to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal -- once widely described as the most toxic patch of ground on earth. The Arsenal land became a protected wildlife refuge in part because it was discovered that it was nesting grounds for a thriving population of bald eagles. A herd of bison was recently introduced there as well. Speaking of bison, I should also point out that -- dire predictions aside -- I can get in my car and drive 20 minutes to Buffalo Overlook, which provides nice view into a valley where one of Colorado's many herds of these magnificent animals live.
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Private
Space Station Launched
Bigelow Aerospace has now successfully launched their second inflatable satellite, a prototype for an evenatual private space station:
A privately-built space station prototype successfully launched into orbit Thursday from a Russian missile base, kicking off the second test flight for the US firm Bigelow Aerospace.
Genesis 2, an inflatable module laden with cameras, personal items and a Space Bingo game, rocketed spaceward atop a Dnepr booster from a silo at Yasny Launch Base, an active Russian strategic missile base in the country's Orenburg region. Liftoff occurred at 11:02 a.m. EDT (1502 GMT) though it was near evening at the Russian launch site.
"It was beautiful," Bigelow Aerospace corporate counsel Mike Gold, who attended the launch, told SPACE.com immediately after the Dnepr blastoff. "Genesis 1 is about to have company."
I have commented
in the past that I don't want to take the first private trip to the moon
offered. I think subsequent lunar vacation packages will be safer, more
economical, and (most importantly) will include more fun stuff to do on
the moon. One of the changes that will help bring this about is a robust
and competitive market for private space development. Bigelow is helping
to make that happen.
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Flowers
for Algernon Revisited
Daniel Keyes; classic science fiction story (and later novel) Flowers for Algernon tells of a mentally disabled man who is suddenly made a great genius via a surgical procedure. Before the procedure is performed on him, it is proved on a mouse -- named Algernon.
And now we have this:
In a case of life imitating art, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) reported today that they had successfully reversed mental retardation in mice... Now M.I.T. scientists report in Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences USA that they ameliorated brain damage in mice caused by a genetic disorder known as fragile X syndrome by blocking an enzyme involved in cellular development.
Fragile X affects one in 4,000 boys and one in 6,000 girls. It is caused by a mutation in the fragile x mental retardation 1 gene (FMR1)-located on the X sex chromosome- that results in the loss of the fragile x mental retardation protein (FMRP). The resulting illness is characterized by hyperactivity, attention deficit, repetitive behavior, anxiety and cognitive difficulties ranging from learning disability to mental retardation.
When studying the formation of dendrites for a 2004 paper, Mansuo Hayashi, a research affiliate in M.I.T.'s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, discovered that these structures could be strengthened and altered to transmit information more efficiently by inhibiting nerve cell production of the enzyme called p21-activated kinase (PAK). PAK regulates actin, another protein, which shapes parts of the cell (including the dendrites). When PAK is inhibited, more actin is manufactured and the dendrites are able to properly mature.
What made Keyes' story a tragedy is the eventual reversal of the condition of both the man and the mouse subected to intelligence-enhacing procedure. While it's not clear what applicability this current research will have for human beings -- although it is bound to have some -- there wouldn't appear to be much risk that gene therapy will suddenly reverse itself.
So we'll stay tuned.
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The
Unlikeliest of Places
If you were to ask me where I think lies humanity's greatest hope for conquering AIDS, it probably wouldn't occur to me to guess the home of a desperately poor Kenyan prostitute: a woman who turns dozens of tricks each week (earning a quarter each time) as her only means of feeding her children. Nope, I wouldn't guess there.
But maybe I'd be wrong:
[I]n a way, Munyiva is a fortunate woman -- extraordinarily fortunate to be free of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Since the disease emerged in Nairobi in the early 1980s, the sexually transmitted virus has infected 90% of the city's lower-class prostitutes; but somehow Munyiva, 42, has avoided the scourge during her 13 years in that grim line of work. "Perhaps God knows that if he takes me away, my children would suffer," she says.
Munyiva is one of 25 prostitutes in Nairobi who are currently being studied to see if the source of their apparent immunity to HIV can be identified.
A small number of people in other high-risk groups, including some homosexuals and spouses of infected hemophiliacs, have shown resistance to infection. But the Nairobi prostitutes, so frequently exposed to the virus for so many years, provide the strongest evidence yet that people can have a natural immunity to AIDS. If the cause of that protection can be identified, it could spur efforts to develop a vaccine.
I certainly hope that, even if this research provides no immediately fruitful results, these 25 women are remunerated for their participation in such a way that helps to improve their condition. But it's hard to think about them without remembering all the other desperately poor women who face similar circumstances -- and who aren't immune to HIV.
Makes me wish there was something I could do about it. But then, there's plenty we can all do.
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Robots Looking for Life
Going where we can't, robots are being deployed in the quest to learn more about life in the arctic ice:
The Gakkel Ridge, encased under the frozen Arctic Ocean, is steep and rocky, and scientists suspect its remote location hosts an array of undiscovered life.
Researchers hope newly developed robots will give them their first look at the mysterious ridge between Greenland and Siberia.
Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod plan to begin a 40-day expedition of the ridge on July 1. They plan to use the robots to navigate and map terrain and sample life found near a series of underwater hot springs.
The leader of the expedition says that this is "almost like going to Australia for the first time." Like Australia, the arctic hot-springs environment is isolated from the rest of the world, and promises to yield up some new creatures unlike anything discovered before.
Here's hoping the robots hold out under the severe conditions. They look pretty sturdy.
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18
The
Littlest Genius
I'm
going to say cutest, too. Meet Georgia
Brown, at age 2, the youngest member ever of Mensa. She has an IQ
of 152, which they're saying puts her in the ballpark of Stephen Hawking.
This little girl was dressing herself at 14 months and now enjoys "explaining
difficult words to her friends."
Unfortunately for Mensa, I believe we're rapidly heading toward the day when little Georgia Brown will not be the exception. The exceptionally gifted of today give us something to aim for as we begin to seriously discuss augmenting human mental (and other) capacities. Whether we do it pharmacologically, through genetic manipulation, or with electronic implants -- or a combination of the three -- we're on our way to a world of much smarter people.
I hope that I, too, might one day be as smart as Stephen Hawking...or Georgia Brown.
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The
Table-Top Laser
Barry Schuler, the former CEO of AOL, has a laser he says can do it all. It can cut metal, heal burns and kill cancer tumors -- all without damaging heat.
All you need is one of his ultrashort pulse, or USP, lasers, he said. To change the function, just change the software. He's so confident in the technology that he's built his latest business venture, Raydiance, around it.
"Bits and blades are all going to be replaced by light," says Schuler, who ran AOL after the Time-Warner merger. In 10 years, he said, the technology will lead to a "smart" power tool that won't need sharpening and won't cause injuries.
The technology can't do any of these things yet. All Raydiance has is a small black box -- but that's no small feat. The technology once filled a large room at Darpa until Raydiance scientists made it into a compact, tabletop unit. Schuler said he hopes it will replace just about any cutting device you can think of, from a big metal saw to a precise surgical blade.
Scientists have long known that USP lasers could do cool things, literally, by cutting without generating heat. But the lasers' complexity and large size made the technology impractical. Now that it's a little bigger than a breadbox, researchers want to use them to kill cancer tumors, identify friend or foe during combat, and even remove tattoos. The company has distributed about a dozen Raydiance units to researchers around the country, and hopes to have 30 in the field by the end of 2007.
I'm thinking that a technology like this might provide a real boost for desktop fabrication systems as well.
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The
Everlasting Lightbulb
The headline might be a slight exaggeration. But only slight:
Ceravision has just announced that they have developed a lightbulb that is 50% efficient (more than twice the efficiency of CFLs) and will last...um...forever?
No, that can't be right, but a very very long time anyhow. They say they expect their new lamp to outlast whatever device they put it in, so apparently your lamp will break before the bulb does.
So can the never-ending lamp be far behind? So how, exactly, does this thing work?
The device doesn't use any fascinating new technology, which is really good news as it can be built from parts already in mass production. It's a new sort of metal halide lamp (a tube of gas inside a lump of a metal oxide.) When the lamp is put in the presence of a microwave emitter (just like the one in your kitchen, but much smaller) a concentrated electric field forms in the tube of gas which promptly turns into plasma. More than 50% of the energy is emitted as light, which is 2x more than ordinary metal halide lamps, and four times more than ordinary fluorescents.
Cool!
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Killing
Viruses with Light
I like the sound of this:
Visible light pulses knock out viruses in blood
Viruses lurking in biological samples could be killed off with an intense pulse of visible light, new research shows.
Scientists in the US say the technique seems to have significant advantages over alternative methods, including use of UV irradiation or microwaves, as it kills viruses more effectively and safely.
The technique destroys a virus with a pulse of light from a low-power laser. The pulse produces mechanical vibrations in the virus shell, or capsid, irreversibly damaging and disintegrating it, and so "deactivating" the virus for good. The technique might be used to kill HIV, as well as hepatitis C, say the researchers involved.
This approach is a big improvement over other forms of radiation, which can cause a virus to mutate into even nastier forms, or which can damage nearby healthy cells. The laser light is purple in color, and the blast lasts only 100 femtoseconds. Amazing.
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Electro-Biking
I drive from south-suburban Denver up to Boulder a couple of times a week. Until recently, I would always swap my relatively gas-guzzling Jeep for my wife's relatively fuel-efficient Subaru to make the drive. Subsequently, I traded the Jeep in for something more economical and planet-friendly (my own Subaru, in fact), but along the way I also toyed with this crazy idea -- especially now back when the weather was nice -- of getting a motorcycle. Depending on the route you take, the drive up skims the edge of the mountains, and seems like it would be a lot of fun to do on a bike.
Of course, even the most gas-guzzling of motorcycles would be huge improvement over the Subaru in terms of fuel economy. And then there's this option:
Advanced battery technologies are enabling a much cleaner alternative to pollution-spewing gas-powered motorcycles and could help promote a larger-scale move toward electric vehicles. Yesterday, an electric scooter with motorcycle-like performance made by Vectrix, based in Newport, RI, was delivered to its first customer. And next year at least two motorcycles powered by advanced lithium-ion batteries will be sold in the United States.
The thing is, while conventional motorcycles are a big help on the fuel-saving front, they aren't that much help on the save-the-planet front:
Although conventional motorcycles get extraordinary gas mileage--with many getting more than 50 miles per gallon--they emit more pollution than even large SUVs because they aren't equipped with equivalent emissions-control technology. Indeed, with new emissions standards, SUVs are 95 percent cleaner than motorcycles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. So while motorcycles could help reduce oil consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions, these gains come at the price of dirtier air. Electric motorcycles eliminate tailpipe emissions, keeping pollution out of the city, and they can be powered with clean sources of electricity. What's more, electricity costs less than gasoline. Vectrix estimates that it will cost riders just a couple of cents a day to operate its scooter.
The fastest of the motorcycles described can do about 65 miles per hour -- which would keep me within the speed limit, I suppose. However, the best range given for any of them is 80 miles, which means I wouldn't be able to handle a round-trip to Boulder. Depending on whether I could find a somewhere in Boulder to plug in -- and how long it takes to recharge -- it could still be doable.
Still, like with the iPhone, this might be a good technology to allow to mature a generation or two before picking one up.
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Practical
Solar Draws Closer
How common will solar power be when this technology is widely available...
New Flexible Plastic Solar Panels Are Inexpensive And Easy To Make
Science Daily - Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. "The process is simple," said lead researcher and author Somenath Mitra, PhD, professor and acting chair of NJIT's Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. "Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations."
Here's a potential win-win for those of us lucky enough to be living the good life here in the suburbs. Print out solar panels in colorful floral shapes, attach fake stems, and "plant" them in your yard. No more watering or mowing grass for that energy-producing patch of ground. I wonder if the HOA will go for it?
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Fusion
for Dummies
I like the heroic score. Apparently this is some old technology -- going back to Tesla -- being repurposed as a possible driver for fusion energy.
Here's a much more thorough explanation from Robert Bussard (yep, the ramjet guy) who is working for a company looking to bring this technology to market. Radiation-free nuclear power! They claim that they'll be in commercial energy production 15 years. Just the other day, a contributor to a futures forum I participate in commented that fusion has been 30 years off for last 50 years. I wonder how long it will be 15 years off?
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Seeing
with His Ears
Some stories just pretty much speak for themselves:
Amazing kid. Amazing mom, too.
Via Dean Esmay, who comments:
Now ask yourself the question that the newscasters and just about everyone else isn't asking:
Why are researchers and disability advocates not right now studying this kid and his mom's techniques to learn how to do what he can do? Kid's got no eyes but he can play video games and foosball and rollerblade on the goddamned street without assistance. Yes he's a great brilliant kid, and inspiring, but why aren't we scrambling like crazy to figure out what he and his mom have figured out-- and turning it into a training program? I mean, holy cow, just look at what they've accomplished! Study! Learn from them! Even sighted people might benefit. If he can do it so can others probably, right???
Absolutely.
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Hot
Jupiter! Water in Space!
"We're thrilled to have identified clear signs of water on a planet that is trillions of miles away," said study leader Giovanna Tinetti of the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris in France.
Called HD 189733b, the planet belongs to a class of gas giants called "hot Jupiters," which orbit their stars from a distance closer than Mercury is to our sun.
With average temperatures over 1300 degrees Fahrenheit (more than 700 Celsius), it's unlikely that this planet supports any life -- water or no water. Still, if there's water on one planet out there, it's looking more likely that there will be water on others. From the example of our own solar system, we know that some (perhaps most?) planetary systems include both gas giants and little rocky planets. And we know that there are little rocky planets out there, that such bodies are not unique to our own neighborhood. It's a matter of time, now, before we find the first little rocky planet with water, a nice distance from its sun. That will be quite a discovery.
Discovering a new planet used to be a big deal. But now that we've found anywhere between 212 and 247 new planets (depending on whom you ask) and we can only suppose that there are trillions upon trillions of them out there. The recent demotion of one of the original nine was treated as a much more significant news story than the discovery of any of the subsequent 200-plus.
To recapture the imagination of a planet-jaded public, we're going to have to find life out there. We're getting closer to having that capability all the time:
In [a] previous study, the scientists looked for spectral absorption lines created by radiation traveling up from the interior of the planet and passing through layers of cool gas that selectively absorb certain wavelengths of light.
Without a temperature difference, no absorption occurs.
In the new study, the researchers observed HD 189733b as it passed in front of, or "transited," its parent star.
Using Spitzer's infrared camera, the team analyzed light that was emitted from the interior of the parent star and which passed through the planet's atmosphere on its way to Earth.
In this case, absorption occurs because of the temperature difference that exists between the star's atmosphere and that of the planet.
We discovered extrasolar planets by observing the stars they orbit and extrapolating -- when a star wobbles just so, we know that a planet is out there tugging on it. Getting a hint as to what that planet is made of is a big step forward, but we're still figuring out what we can about the planets by looking at the stars. This is like trying to describe the fish based on the way it tugs on the fishing line.
There are a number of initiatives underway that will help us to continue to improve our understanding of extrasolar planets. And one of these days, we'll be able to look at these distant planets directly. Then things are going to really get interesting.
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Water-Walking
Robot
Here's something you don't see every day:
Water striders, insects that walk on the surface of the water, may never set foot on land in their lives, and yet they're not swimmers. Over the past million or so years, this insect-sometimes called a water skater-has optimized its use of surface tension to balance its 0.01-gram body on lakes, ponds, and even oceans.
Researchers Yun Seong Song, a PhD student in mechanical engineering, and Metin Sitti, assistant professor in mechanical engineering, both from Carnegie Mellon University, have recently built a robot that mimics the water strider's natural abilities. The first water striding robot, with an appearance and design closely resembling its insect counterpart, doesn't ever break the surface tension of the water, and is highly maneuverable.
Right now, the robot can only do its stuff in water of about 3mm depth. Stay tuned...
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First
Look
The world's largest telescope will take its first peek into the heavens this week, ushering the University of Florida into the top ranks of the "big observers," as one astronomy professor put it.
The Gran Telescopio Canarias, or GTC, under construction in Spain's Canary Islands for the past seven years, will hold its "first light" opening ceremony Friday.
The roughly $175 million GTC is not yet complete. Only 12 of the 36 mirrors that together will compose its 34.1-foot primary mirror have been installed, Dermott said. The rest are expected to be mounted this year, with the telescope's grand opening - to be presided over by King Juan Carlos I of Spain - set for next summer. Only after that date will scientific-quality observations begin.
The Gran Telescopio Canarias while still under construction in 2002
The Crown Prince of Spain was on hand to take that all-important first peek. He looked at Polaris, so no big discoveries were forthcoming. Right now it looks like we're a little heavy on the ceremony and light on the science, but that will change as more of the mirrors are put in place.
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Baby
Mammoth
Only six months old at the time of her premature demise, this female mammoth may be the best-preserved young mammoth ever found. Other than a missing tail, she appears to be pretty much intact:
Preserved in Siberian ice for more than 10,000 years, she may provide the means (or at least help to provide the means) to bring the mammoths back. It depends in part on how well her DNA was preserved.
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Wind
Power is Everywhere
It's here:
Norwegian energy group Norsk Hydro is to place giant floating wind turbines in the North Sea that will provide a reasonable, environmentally-friendly and economically feasible alternative to standard energy generation processes.
"It's attractive to have windmills out at sea, out of sight of land, away from birds' migration routes," said Alexandra Bech Gjoerv, head of Hydro's New Energy division at a signing ceremony to develop floating wind turbine technology.
And it's here:
A new, 130-megawatt wind power project is to be built in southeastern Turkey. It will more than double the country's installed wind capacity. The wind park will feature 52 wind turbines built by GE, each rated at 2.5 megawatts. This will be the largest wind power project to date in Turkey. The project's estimated annual electricity production of 500 million kilowatt-hours will be purchased by independent power consumers. Interest in wind-generated electricity has been increasing in Turkey.
According to the European Wind Energy Association, the country had 84 megawatts of installed wind capacity at the beginning of 2007, an increase of 65 megawatts from the start of 2006.
Approaching Oakland last week on a flight from Denver, I saw a huge wind farm in action out in "fly-over country," probably 100-150 miles east of the bay area. It seemed to go on forever. I know there's worry about windmills ruining the scenery, but when you consider how much of that 2-hour flight is spent over open and untouched land, and how little is spent over developed areas in general, much less wind farms in particular, I think we're going to be okay on the scenery.
Plus, in some really barren areas, wind farms actually contribute to the scenery...
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LED
Traffic Lights in Taiwan
We talked about a possible energy-saving light bulb under development a couple of weeks ago. Of course, there are already highly efficient alternatives to standard light bulbs, depending on the use case. Compact fluorescents, for example, are a good way to cut costs on exterior illumination, or lighting areas such as garages, workshops, unfinished basements...some people are even swapping them out in their living rooms and bedrooms.
Another good alternative is the LED. And it looks like the folks in Taiwan have found a good use case for it:
Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has budgeted NT$229 million (US$7.0 million) for the next three years starting in 2008 to change the traffic lights in all counties and cities in Taiwan to LED-based ones, according to the Chinese-language Central News Agency (CNA).
Taiwan's Bureau of Energy, under the MOEA, said Taiwan now has 350,000 traffic lights using LEDs as a lighting source, with the remaining 420,000 traffic lights to also use LED lighting in the next three years for a total savings in power consumption estimated to be 85%, CNA said.
After switching traffic signals to LEDs, MOEA will launch a NT$130 million plan to change street lamps at specific roads or areas to LED-based ones, CNA indicated.
I've been wondering when we would hear more about expanded uses for LEDs. They must be good for something besides panels on electronics devices and Christmas ornaments. Traffic lights may be a good start.
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Mouse
Cells Provide Missing Link
Here's an interesting development:
The discovery of a mouse embryonic stem cell startlingly similar to its human counterpart will likely speed progress toward the regeneration of healthy cells and organ tissue in people, two studies reported Wednesday.
The newly-found "epiblast" stem cells, taken from the inner-most layer of week-old rodent embryos, will provide a better model in testing potential therapies for human diseases and injuries, the researchers said.
"They are a missing link between mouse and human embryonic stem cells," Roger Pedersen, who headed a research team at Cambridge University, told AFP.
Developing treatments
at the mouse scale is much, much
quicker and more efficient that trying to do it at the human scale --
especially when we're just trying to figure out how things work and what
the best way forward will be. Once that best way forward is found, there
is still a huge challenge in making what works with mice work with people.
This development may help in dealing with that significant challenge.
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More
Reasons to Have Sex
Want Yet Another Reason to Have Sex?
A study shows that men who have three or more orgasms a week are 50 percent less likely to die from coronary heart disease.
These findings suggest that sex can be used to help prevent heart attacks and strokes as one means of fulfilling physicians' recommendation for sustained physical activity for at least 20 minutes, three times a week. Conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Bristol and Queen's University of Belfast, the researchers studied 2,500 men aged 45 to 59 for 10 years.
"The relationship found between frequency of sexual intercourse and mortality is of considerable public interest," says study co-author Shah Ebrahim, Ph.D., a University of Bristol professor of epidemiology and aging, who presented the study results at the fourth World Stroke Congress. "It may however be a confounding [relationship] due to other aspects of a healthy lifestyle." Ebrahim cautions that further research is necessary.
Right. More research is needed! Let's not just assume that men who have orgasms three times a week are in better physical condition than men who don't, and that being in shape is what really makes the difference here. That would be jumping to conclusions...
Look, the study says that having sex prevents heart attacks and that's that. Thank you.
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Where
Little Solar Systems Come From
NASA astronomers held a press conference announcing that a new ultraviolet mosaic from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows a speeding star named Mira that's leaving an enormous trail of "seeds" for new solar systems. Mira is traveling faster than a speeding bullet, and has a tail that's 13 light-years long and over 30,000 years old. The website has images and a replay of the teleconference.
Here's an artist's conception of Mira doing her stuff:
It's a real shooting star. It's a super-comet! How wonderful that our universe still has so many amazing new things to show us.
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Deep
Brain Stimulation
Brain-Injured Man Speaks After 6 Years
A brain-damaged man who could communicate only with slight eye or thumb movements for six years can speak again, after stimulating electrodes were placed in his brain, researchers report.
The 38-year-old also regained the ability to chew and swallow, which allows him to be spoon-fed, rather than relying on nourishment through a tube in his belly.
The man's brain was injured during an assault, he spent six years with only occasional signs of consciousness and no useful movement of his limbs. In an experiment, researchers implanted electrodes in his brain for a procedure called deep brain stimulation, which is routinely done for Parkinson's disease and some other illnesses.
The article goes on to explain that the man was in a minimally conscious state, as distinct from a permanent vegetative state (who show no signs of awareness of their surroundings whatever.) This method of treatment has proved ineffective for those in a persistent vegetative state, but may offer hope to many of the more than the estimated 100,000 patients currently in a minimally conscious state.
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Soccer-Playing
Robots
The coolest part about this is that they're doing it all themselves:
Kind of reminds me of this:
Maybe we'll see real robot boxing matches before too long. Could robot players be the new frontier in spectator sports? It would certainly do away with any controversy about enhancement drugs...
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Chat
Your Way to a Smarter You
The gift of gab could boost brainpower, new research suggests.
A U.S. team found that talking to another person for 10 minutes a day improves memory and test scores.
They found that "socializing was just as effective as more traditional kinds of mental exercise in boosting memory and intellectual performance," lead author Oscar Ybarra, a psychologist at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, said in a prepared statement.
In one investigation, they analyzed data on 3,610 people, ages 24 to 96.
They found that the higher their level of social interaction, the better their cognitive functioning. Social interaction included getting together or having phone chats with relatives, friends and neighbors.
The good news:
We shouldn't be surprised to learn that interacting with others makes us smarter. As pleasant as having a chat with a friend or co-worker may be, there is serious mental heavy lifting taking place every time we do it. Assuming we have a standard set of social skills in place, we are constantly checking in to see if the other party is still paying attention, is following what we're saying, is not offended by what we're saying, etc. Just sitting around and thinking — even thinking about some very challenging subject — could be relaitively easy by comparison.
So we no longer have to worry that enjoying a chat is somehow a waste of time. It is mental time well spent.
Moreover:
These findings have profound implications for office life. Now when the boss catches you and your buddies standing around the coffee machine chewing the fat and orders you to get back to work, you have the perfect response: "Ease up, there, Chief — we're just sharpening our wits for the rest of the day's work!"
Plus:
Here is proof (if
you ever needed it) that you should not just listen to FastForward
Radio. You should definitely call in.
TASTY species live at the bottom of the sea. Plucking these morsels from their habitat, however, is often a violent affair that destroys other denizens of the deep. Now researchers have developed a more benign way to fish.
Trawling is the most widespread form of fishing. But bottom trawling is brutal. It uses an enormous, toothed bar mounted on a device called a dredge to scrape the seabed. Dredging throws the intended catch up into a cloud that is captured by a net trailing behind. Unfortunately, the cloud contains a lot of other stuff. Anything at or just below the surface of the seabed—the benthic zone, in fishery parlance—gets dragged up. The result is that a lot of other types of fish, crustaceans and molluscs are caught unintentionally.
More worryingly, sponges, seaweeds and centuries-old coral are destroyed. This is serious because such sessile creatures are not merely part of the ecosystem. In a sense, they are the ecosystem—in the way that it is plants rather than animals that define a forest. Indeed, trawling has been compared to clear-cutting trees. And from a practical point of view, this destruction of habitat contributes to the dwindling of fish stocks worldwide.
However, in one case—scallop trawling—Cliff Goudey of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reckons he has a solution. He and his team have designed a dredge that can dislodge scallops without touching the seafloor.
The dredge has several hemispheric scoops in place of the toothed bar. As it is pulled along, the scoops direct water downward. That creates a series of gentle jets that can shuffle the scallops from their resting places—but the streams of water are not powerful enough to damage the benthic zone's long-term tenants. And the scoops swivel out of the way if they encounter anything solid, so the dredge does not destroy such protuberances. Best of all, from the fisherman's point of view, it takes less effort to float a dredge on water jets than it does to drag it across the uneven surface of the seabed. That makes Dr Goudey's new device a more fuel-efficient way to fish than the traditional method.
The good news:
Mmmmmmmmm...scallops...
Plus we can have them and still have this:
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Cooking
Cancer with Bubbles
As we reported earlier this week:
An Oxford University team is developing a new cancer fighting technique that is noninvasive, does not use toxic chemicals, or radioactivity. It is called Hifu - High Intensity Focused Ultrasound.
This is the same principle behind burning leaves with a magnifying glass. But here, instead of focusing light, they are focusing ultrasound. When the ultrasound focuses, bubbles are generated within the body. When the bubbles pop, sufficient heat is released to kill surrounding cells - which, hopefully, are cancer cells.
The good news:
An innovative and non-destructive way of dealing with cancer. We need to see a lot more of that. Take the next item, for example.
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Compact Nukes --
The Good Kind
How about a portable, safe nuclear power plant?
Often referred to as a “cartridge” reactor or “nuclear battery,” the Hyperion hydride reactor is self- regulating with no moving parts to break down or corrode. The inherent properties of uranium hydride serve as both fuel and moderator providing unparalleled safety among nuclear reactors.
Sealed at the factory, the module is not opened until it is time for the unit to be “refueled,” approximately every five years or so by the manufacturer. This containment, along with the strategy of completely burying the module at the operating site, protects against the possibility of human incompetence, or hostile tampering and proliferation.
One of the largest problems in the energy industry today is the transmission of power from large generating facilities to distant locations. Currently, enormous infrastructure costs, reliability and loss issues plague this effort.
The good news:
It's a nuclear reactor that can fit in a rail car. Non-greenhouse-gas emitting, and -- according to Hyperion -- free from any danger of meltdown, or other nasty radiation incident.
Bonus:
One of the initial applications proposed for the generator is to power the recovery of oil from shale fields. So maybe we'll use an alternative energy source to acquire an alternative energy source! Sounds like a good idea.
Many people agree that chocolate is good for the soul, and researchers are finding that chocolate can be good for the body, too. But the environment? How could chocolate help with global climate change?
The answer is found in a little piece of paradise, a patch of rainforest in eastern Brazil. Everywhere you look, something is growing. Orchids nestle in the crooks of trees. There are hundreds of shades of green, and the forest is loud with birds and insects.
Some areas have been thinned out and planted with cacao trees — the source of chocolate. The pods contain the magical beans that Aztecs counted like gold. The cultivated cacao trees grow just a bit higher than a man can reach, and rainforest trees tower over them like something out of Dr. Seuss — some round like lollipops, some flat like a plate.
And here's the climate connection. Rainforest trees and plants store massive amounts of carbon — keeping it from getting into the air as carbon dioxide.
Step up, people.
Finally, an easy and proactive step we can all take to help nurture the environment. So don't be shy, folks. Support the chocolate industry. Support your planet. Have that second chocolate bar.
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Tattoos
Could Replace Needle Sticks For Diabetics
A diabetes "tattoo" might be just the thing to relieve diabetes sufferers of the constant pain of needle sticks. Most glucose-monitoring methods require that a blood sample be taken using a needle; researchers have long sought a non-invasive test method. Finding a less painful way of monitoring blood sugar could make a real difference to the 6.7 percent of Americans who have diabetes.
Gerard Cote, biomedical engineering professor in the Dwight Look College of Engineering, is testing an experimental system using fluorescent polymer microbeads implanted just under a patient's skin. Glucose levels affect how much light the beads emit when exposed to laser light; the blood glucose level could be measured with a wristwatch-like monitor.
When injected under the skin, the microbeads cannot enter cells - unlike tattooing, in which cells absorb the pigment. The beads remain in the spaces between the cells; these interstitial spaces are filled with water and glucose molecules. According to Dr. Cote, the level of glucose in interstitial fluid is directly related to the blood glucose level measured by the traditional needle-stick method.
The good news:
Speaking as someone who has to take daily injections (for a different condition, not diabetes) I know how much pain and trouble is involved. This technique may help significantly reduce both for a lot of folks who have to deal with diabetes. So here's hoping.
However:
There is no word yet on the aesthetic aspects...
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300
MPG...
...but only when you feel like burning gas at all:
Aptera announced today that it would be producing both an all-electric and hybrid version of the 300 MPG prototype we told you about in July. The Aptera Typ-1 plug-in hybrid uses an all-electric drive train coupled to a small diesel gas engine and will achieve 300 MPG, while the all-electric version has a total range of 120 miles. The company claims that the car (categorized as a motorcycle by the Dept. of Transportation) in either form will be available for under $30,000! Aptera is Greek for "Wingless Flight," so let's hope this isn't a flight-of-fancy. The company will take a $500 reservation deposit if you live in Southern California (and has taken 400 already)...
The good news:
I've been arguing for a long time that motrocycles are a great alternative to cars when you consider them from the standpoint of fuel consumption, and that somebody ought to design a stabe one with a hard covering that can be driven like a car. So now we have a motorcycle that looks kind of like a spaceship, and did we mention that it gets (at the worst) 300 miles to the gallon? Sweet.
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Breakthrough
On World's Most Efficient LEDs
LED Lighting Fixtures of Morrisville, North Carolina will announce today that it has made a technology breakthrough that will dramatically lower the cost of LEDs (light emitting diodes).
CEO Neal Hunter told the Raleigh News and Observer that his company is developing a lamp that uses less energy than its current LED fixtures but emits the same amount of light. He said a just-released federal study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology confirms that the product is the most efficient in the world. It uses 5.8 watts of power, compared with 60 watts for an equally bright incandescent bulb.
According to the National Institute report, the new fixture uses less than 9 percent of the energy consumed by common bulbs and less than 30 percent of that consumed by fluorescent lights. LLF's best existing product consumes 15 percent of the energy used by an incandescent bulb and 50 percent of that used by fluorescents.
The good news:
If this pans out, we can save money, save the planet, and not have to light our homes with those wonderful (yet some would argue cold and uninviting) compact fluorescent bulbs
Of course, I currently do use CFs in my garage and basement. And I'm looking forward to a good alternative to the incandescent bulb for lighting my home. Maybe this is it?
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Personal
Gene Sequencing
"Yesterday, deCODE genetics announced the launch of their $985 personal genotyping product, deCODEme (video), beating their competitors to market. Perhaps not coincidentally, 23andMe's website is suddenly much more informative today, and the New York Times features a preview of 23andMe's $999 offering. deCODEme and 23andMe will scan about a million and 600,000 sites across the genome, respectively and assess your risk for common diseases, along with providing information about ancestry, physical traits, and the ability to compare genes with friends and family."
The good news:
It's not that long ago that sequencing a single human genome seemed a project beyond the reach of technology; now everyone's individual sequence is available. And the more we learn about the human genome overall, the more useful individual gene sequencing will be for treating disease and overcoming other health problems.
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The
One That Didn't Get Away
Until they let it go, that is:
Captured just before midnight on November 13 by fishers in Cambodia, this Mekong giant catfish is 8 feet long (2.4 meters long) ands weighs 450 pounds (204 kilograms).
"This is the only giant catfish that has been caught this year so far, making it the worst year on record for catch of giant fish species," said Zeb Hogan (far right), a fisheries biologist at the University of Reno in Nevada.
After collecting data on the fish, Hogan released it unharmed.
The real thing:
Growing up in western Kentucky, I heard my share of stories about fish like these, and even bigger ones. Rumor had it that there were enormous bottom-feeding catfish living in the deep waters next to Kentucky Dam and Barkley Dam -- some were said to be as big as Volkswagens! Thos fish were persistent in legend, but we never saw any photos of them such as the one shown above.
The National Geographic story goes on to report that population levels of the Mekong giant catfish have declined as much as 99% over the past century. The good news here is that now, when these magnificent fish are caught, they are returned to the wild.
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Gorillas at
Large
A couple of positive developments where gorillas are concerned:
In the first story, a pair of reintroduced Western Gorillas have given birth to a baby named Okeli in Gabon. The birth marks the first time reintroduced gorillas have had a baby in the wild in Gabon.
Okeli’s parents Marco and Lekedi were both orphans. They were born in the wild in Gabon, but poachers killed their entire families. A wildlife conservation group rescued them and sent them to a rehab and reintroduction center run by the Aspinall Foundation.
The Aspinall Foundation has reintroduced 14 gorillas into Gabon since 2002. They aim to re-establish a healthy population in the region as part of an effort to save the critically endangered Western gorilla from extinction.
The second story involves a group of Western Lowland gorillas known as the Taiping Four. The three female and one male gorillas were sent to the Taiping zoo in Malaysia in 2002 and branded as gorillas from a breeding program in Nigeria.
However, officials quickly realized that the gorillas, all juveniles at the time, were born in the wild and most likely orphaned by bush meat hunters. This would mean the gorillas had been smuggled into Nigeria by poachers.
The gorillas’ plight has become a cause celebre. Many people felt the gorillas should be returned to the wild rather than face the rest of their life in a zoo. Red-faced Malaysian authorities sent the animals to a South African zoo in 2004. The gorillas had arrived on a South African Airlines flight, so the Malaysian officials decided it was a South African problem.
Finally, the arrangements for the return of the gorillas to the wild have been finalized. The animals were flown to Cameroon before being trucked to the country’s Limbe Nature Preserve in the southwest.
Hyperion is small and portable enough to be transported by railcar, ship or truck and offers the long-awaited answer to the need for cost-efficient, practical power sources in rural or remote locations; from oil fields to water purification.
The good news:
The photo above says it all -- mother and child. There's room enough on this planet both for us and our powerful, forest-dwelling cousins.
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Tiger
cub may hold future in his paws
If the preceding
wasn't enough good cute-endangered-wildlife-baby news for you, don't worry.
There's more:
With his eyes open for little more than a day, an 11-day old cub, the newest addition to one of the world's rarest cat species, the South China tiger, was revealed at his birthplace in South Africa.
The birth of the exceptionally rare tiger has generated huge interest from around the world as he is the first of his species to be born in captivity outside of China.
"There has been humongous (massive) interest in this little baby," said Li Quan, founder of the Save China's Tigers Organisation, of the male tiger who was born on November 23 at Laohu Valley Reserve in the Free State Province.
"It is the first time a South China tiger is born into a project and born outside China. Because of their highly endangered state there are only about 60 to 70 left (in captivity) and between 10 and 30 in the wild," she told AFP.
"They are highly precious, there are so few of them."
The cub, who has not yet been named, was the first born to mother Cathay and father TigerWoods, who have been successfully returned to the wild in South Africa.
The cub is being hand-reared after unseasonally cold weather meant he had to be removed from his mother to prevent him from dying from exposure.
"Our first priority is to have the mother rearing cub, but we had to take into account the weather and the fact that the mother could reject the cub."
Quan said the goal would be to return the cub to the wild as well, for eventual return to China. This rehabilitation process could start as early as when he is a month old when he will be taken to see his mother and other tigers.
"So he will know he is a tiger and not a human being," said Quan.
The good news:
With so much going on in China, and with concern for the environment being a relatively recent priority there, it's very encouraging to see this kind of progress being made. Hang in there, tiger.
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Officials:
Ham Radio Operators Are Storm's 'Unsung Heroes'
When parts of Oregon were overwhelmed by wind and water during the recent storm, vital communication often was lacking, with trees down and across phone lines and cell coverage limited.
Even the state police had difficulty in reaching some of their own troops.
But ham radio worked.
In fact, amateur radio operators were heralded by state emergency officials as heroes. Ham radio is more than just a hobby to some. It can set up networks for government and emergency officials to communicate when other communication services fail.
The Good News:
And in this case, that's exactly how it worked out:
A network of at least 60 volunteer amateur radio operators working along the coast and inland helped from keep crucial systems such as 911 calls, American Red Cross and hospital services connected. They relayed information about patient care and relayed lists of supplies needed in areas cut off by water.
In addition to getting an FCC license to operate, certain groups of operators are cleared by the federal government to work as emergency responders.
"Amateurs in name only"...indeed. Way to go, hams!
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The
Cancer-Proof Mouse
Finally, our favorite good news story of the year would have to be our print and audio interviews with Dr. Zheng Cui, the discoverer of the cancer-proof mouse.
In 1999, my lab encountered a mouse that was expected to die upon a lethal injection of cancer cells that uniformly killed all other normal mice we tested before, several dozens or even several hundreds. But he didn’t. In the following years, we came to realize that the ability of survival from lethal cancer challenges was a genetic trait that can be passed on to 40% of offspring if one parent was cancer-resistant.
The good news:
The good news is that a tendency towards being cancer-proof exists in human beings as well as mice, and Dr. Cui will soon be performing a trial with human subjects to see if cancer immunity is something that can be shared.
Better All The Time was compiled by Phil Bowermaster . Happy New Year, everybody! And, of course...
Live to see it!