Tactical assault carriages for babies: "
I recall late great UT-Austin Philosophy professor Robert Solomon once saying in lecture, 'We're lucky babies are so helpless, because if they had any power at all they would destroy the world.' Well, Chinese artist Shi Jinsong is apparently trying to immanentize that particular eschaton by arming the world's infants with engines of destruction worthy of a Space Marine Terminator. Way to go, dude. [via Dude Craft]
Tactical assault carriages for babies: "
I recall late great UT-Austin Philosophy professor Robert Solomon once saying in lecture, 'We're lucky babies are so helpless, because if they had any power at all they would destroy the world.' Well, Chinese artist Shi Jinsong is apparently trying to immanentize that particular eschaton by arming the world's infants with engines of destruction worthy of a Space Marine Terminator. Way to go, dude. [via Dude Craft]
The cat is out of the bag: cortical simulations with 10^9 neurons, 10^13 synapses: "Results of massively parallel cortical simulations of a cat cortex, with 1.5 billion neurons and 9 trillion synapses, running on Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Dawn Blue Gene/P supercomputer, will be presented by IBM and LLNL researchers today at the SC09 Conference on High Performance Networking and Computing in Portland.
'The simulations, which incorporate phenomenological spiking neurons, individual learning synapses, axonal delays, and dynamic synaptic channels, exceed the scale of the cat cortex, marking the dawn of a new era in the scale of cortical simulations,' according to the ACM proceedings abstract.
BlueMatter, a new algorithm created in collaboration with Stanford University, exploits the Blue Gene supercomputing architecture in order to noninvasively measure and map the connections between all cortical and sub-cortical locations within the human brain using magnetic resonance diffusion weighted imaging. Mapping the wiring diagram of the brain is crucial to untangling its vast communication network and understanding how it represents and processes information. (IBM Research)
Also see: IBM Moves Closer To Creating Computer Based on Insights From The Brain (Source: )"
Machine Converts CO2 into Gasoline, Diesel, and Jet Fuel: "Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have built a machine that uses the sun's energy to convert carbon dioxide waste from power plants into transportation fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
The system could provide an alternative to carbon sequestration; instead of permanently storing CO2 underground, the CO2 could be recycled and put to use. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news178203219.html)"
Pork meat grown in the laboratory: "Pork meat grown in the laboratory
December 1st, 2009 in Biology / Biotechnology
meat
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from Eindhoven University in The Netherlands have for the first time grown pork meat in the laboratory by extracting cells from a live pig and growing them in a petri dish.
The scientists, led by Professor of Physiology Mark Post, extracted myoblast cells from a living pig and grew them in a solution of nutrients derived from the blood of animal fetuses (although they intend to replace the solution with a synthesized alternative in the future).
Professor Post said artificially cultured meat could mean the meat of one animal could be increased to a volume equivalent to the meat of a million animals, which would reduce animal suffering and be good for the environment. As long as the final product looks and tastes like meat, Post said he is convinced people will buy it.
At present the product is a sticky, soggy and unappetizing muscle mass, but the team is seeking ways to exercise and stretch the muscles to turn the product into meat of a more familiar consistency. Post described the current in-vitro meat product as resembling wasted muscle, but he is confident they can improve its texture. Nobody has yet tasted the cultured meat because laboratory rules prevent the scientists tasting the product themselves.
The research is partly funded by the Dutch government, but is also backed by the Dutch sausage-making firm Stegeman, which is owned by food giant Sara Lee. The scientists (and presumably, the sausage makers) believe the meat product may be available for use in sausages within five years.
Other groups are also working on trying to produce cultured meat. NASA has funded research in the US on growing fish chunks from cells and meat from turkey cells, with the idea that the technology could have wide application in future space travel, since growing edible muscle would allow future astronauts to avoid a range of problems associated with using live animals in space. In a June 29 paper in the journal Tissue Engineering another group of scientists proposed new techniques that could lead to industrial production of meat grown in cultures.
The reaction of vegetarian groups has been mixed. A representative of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) said as long as the meat was not the flesh of a dead animal there would be no ethical objection. Last year PETA even offered a prize of $1 million to the first person or group who could come up with a commercially viable cultured meat product. Other vegetarians have been more guarded, with a representative of The Vegetarian Society saying the main foreseeable problems would be labeling issues, as it would be difficult to label products containing cultured meat in a way that vegetarians would trust."
New study measures HIV anti-retroviral regimens' safety and efficacy: "A study in the New England Journal of Medicine released on World AIDS Day reports that viral failure, the point at which medication can no longer suppress the HIV infection, was twice as likely and happened sooner among patients initiating anti-retroviral therapy with high viral loads who were given Epzicom when compared to similar patients treated with Truvada."
Dutch PhD student develops device to combat noise
Johan Wesselink of the University of Twente, The Netherlands, has developed a device to actively combat noise nuisance. This invention curtails sound waves and vibrations by producing anti-noise. The researcher is confident that his device will be used in the transport and industrial sectors within a matter of years.
Man invents electric lobster taser: "
Tasering just isn't for 10 year olds, a UK man invented a lobster zapper that some feel is more humane than just tossing them in boiling water. I would like to try this electric lobster they speak of. Looking at the photo, it looks like two big metal plates that 'zap'. The company is called 'CrustaStun'.
A company in the United Kingdom is about to lift the lid on a device that zaps lobster with electricity to kill them, and the inventor said Wednesday his humane alternative to boiling is about to give the entire industry a jolt.
British entrepreneur Simon Buckhaven said the CrustaStun system, developed over the past decade by his company Studham Technologies Limited, near London, kills the lobster with an electric charge, so the crustacean feels no 'pain or distress.'
The application of a stun (110 Volts - 2-5 amps) causes an immediate interruption in the functioning of the nervous system of the shellfish. By interrupting the nerve function, the shellfish (be it Crab. Lobster or other) is unable to receive stimuli and thus by definition, cannot feel pain or suffer distress (Dr. Dave Robb 2000 - Bristol University - paper on sentience in Crustacea, Baker 1975, Jane Smith 1991, Bateson 2000, Sherwin 2000 & Gregory & Lumsden 2000). The prolonged application of the stun causes a permanent disruption which kills the shellfish.
In short, Hathaway took the idea of providing people with pre-shucked lobster, researched it and found that the government had been looking for ways to extend the shelf life of foods without freezing or irradiation for years. He discovered there are only two companies in the world that make machines that use extremely high water pressure to process foods and give them extended shelf life. (The government applied that process to its MREs, or meals ready to eat, for the military.) About a year and a half ago, Hathaway learned that this process also separated shellfish meat from the shell and that several Canadian lobster processors were using this system. Hathaway came up with the money for a machine. He started the new business by qualifying for a block grant from the state (which had a matching fund) and through private investors. Then, instead of having an architect design a fancy, state-of-the-art building on the coast, he decided to go back to his roots. He took a space in the nearly empty, old Etonic sneakers factory in Richmond, a slightly down-at-the-heels river town in central Maine between Wiscasset and Augusta, an area with people needing work. In April 2006, he opened his new company, Shucks Maine Lobster.
Buckhaven, meet Hathaway.
New Optomechanical Crystal Allows Confinement of Light and Sound: "PBH writes "Physicists and engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a nanoscale crystal that traps both light and sound. The interaction of light quanta (photons) and sound quanta (phomons) are so strong that they produce significant mechanical vibrations. 'Indeed, Painter points out, the interactions between sound and light in this device—dubbed an optomechanical crystal—can result in mechanical vibrations with frequencies as high as tens of gigahertz, or 10 billion cycles per second. Being able to achieve such frequencies, he explains, gives these devices the ability to send large amounts of information, and opens up a wide array of potential applications—everything from lightwave communication systems to biosensors capable of detecting (or weighing) a single macromolecule. It could also, Painter says, be used as a research tool by scientists studying nanomechanics. "These structures would give a mass sensitivity that would rival conventional nanoelectromechanical systems because light in these structures is more sensitive to motion than a conventional electrical system is."'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Fruit Bats Have Oral Sex Too: "sciencehabit writes 'Researchers at Guangdong Entomological Institute in Guangzhou, China, have observed oral sex for the first time in a non-primate. During intercourse, female short-nosed fruit bats lick the genitals of their partner, a possible ploy to increase copulation time. The discovery suggests there may be a biological advantage to fellatio.'
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Xerox's Fabric-Printable Circuitry Coming to Production, Heralds Electronic Clothing: "
If you're like me, the lack of computing power in your T-shirt causes constant problems. Well, thanks to the guys over at Xerox, you'll never have to worry about a jacket that can't run Windows 7 ever again. The company has just announced a new process for creating an ink that doubles as a circuit, paving the way for ubiquitous computing through printable electronics.
To create the circuits, Xerox uses an ink containing signal-conducting silver. Previous attempts at using liquid silver to print circuits failed because the ink required high heat to keep the metal liquid. That heat melted weaker substrates like plastic, and made the ink incompatible with existing technology. This new ink, however, can print circuits at room temperature from currently available inkjet printers.
Xerox is already making the ink available to third-party developers, and it will be widely available once they begin making the ink in bulk. The near-term uses focus on printing RFID tags and smart paper, but since the ink can print onto nearly any surface, the applications are nearly limitless. A 150 GB necktie, anyone?
[via Cnet]
Electric Fields Halt Spread of Brain Cancer: "
Until the naked mole rats yield their secrets, humanity will still have to worry about treating and controlling cancer. And to that end, one company may have figured out a novel way to prevent the spread of a highly dangerous form of brain cancer, through the use of pulsing electric fields.
The company, Novocure, just completed early trials of a device that shuts down the division of cancerous cells. The device consists of two electrodes placed directly into the brain, around a cancerous tumor. The electrodes then generate an electric field that paralyzes the cells during the moment of division, thus preventing the spread of the cancer.
The earliest trial began with 10 volunteers, seven of whom are still alive today. Additionally, some early evidence from a lung cancer trial shows that the electric field, when combined with chemotherapy, may prevent the spread of other kinds of cancer as well.
These results are still preliminary, and the device remains unrefined, to the point where users have to carry around a giant battery pack for years on end. However, with Novocure starting a larger brain cancer trial, as well as expanding tests to see if the electric field could work with breast cancer, this is proving a promising area of anti-cancer research.
[via Technology Review]
Silk-Silicon Implantable Electronics Conform to Tissues, Then Melt Away: "
Implantable electronics like pacemakers are old hat, but these kinds of implants are limited by the fact that they must be encased to protect them from the body, and vice versa. But in the quest to make our bodies ever more bionic, researchers have now developed implantable silicon-silk electronics that almost dissolve completely inside the body, leaving behind nanocircuitry that could be used for improved electrical interfaces for nervous system tissues or photonic tattoos that display blood-sugar readouts on the skin’s surface.
Most electronics must be “canned,” or encased so they don’t trigger irritation inside the body, and also so the body doesn’t interfere with the device’s performance. But by building an array of one millimeter-long, 250 nanometers-thick transistors on a thin silk substrate, the researchers have demonstrated that their circuitry is thin enough fly under the body’s immune reaction radar.
The silk-silicon stamp can be laid directly onto biological tissue, like muscle or even brain matter. Wetting the silk causes the structure to conform to the shape of the tissue, blending it seamlessly with the body’s natural designs. The silk then dissolves harmlessly over time, leaving behind a layer of working silicon circuits too thin to cause irritation.
The researchers, which hail from a handful of institutions including the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, are now tinkering with electrodes built on silk to serve as interfaces for the nervous system. Existing electrodes, employed in procedures like deep-brain stimulation in Parkinson’s patients, generally sit atop or sometimes pierce the tissue. Arrays of silk-implanted electrodes could integrate better with biological tissues, conforming to the brain’s canyon-esque architecture to reach regions that were previously inaccessible.
The technology could also enhance a variety of existing medical devices that now require “canned” circuitry. Enhanced neurological implants could improve prosthetic device control, and the group is developing LEDs that could act as photonic tattoos that would relay information from inside the body to the surface of the skin. While we’re likely a ways away from customizable LED tattoos of the artistic, cosmetic variety, it’s an interesting thought; and who knows, they may be closer than we think. One of the more convenient aspects of silk-silicon electronics is that silk is already FDA-approved for implants, potentially sidestepping a lengthy approval process.
Baguette Dropped From Bird's Beak Shuts Down The Large Hadron Collider (Really): "
The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a bird dropping a piece of bread on a section of the accelerator has, according to the Register, shut down the whole operation.
The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.
This incident won't delay the reactivation of the facility later this month, but exposes yet another vulnerability of the what might be the most complex machine ever built. With freak accident after freak accident piling up over at CERN, the idea of time traveling particles returning from the future to prevent their own discovery is beginning to seem less and less far fetched.
[via The Register]
Laser-Wielding Scotsmen to Turn Landmarks into Holodeck Experiences: "
In April, a team from Glasgow School of Art will shoot lasers at the heads of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson. And they will do it all in the name of preservation.
The Scottish artists have perfected a system of laser scanning giant monuments, ensuring the digital preservation of even their finest nooks and crannies. They have already completely digitized Scottish landmarks like Rosslyn Church and Stirling Castle. The team is also working in conjunction with CyArk, a non-profit dedicated to laser scanning 500 UNESCO world heritage sites.
The artists use a specialized laser scanner that records 50,000 points per second. They simply sweep the laser across the monument they're looking to digitize, and a receiver records the minute changes in range as points in 3-D space.
An inventor, and co-founder of CyArk, created the process in the wake of the Taliban's destruction of the giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Armed with precise measurements of monuments taken with the laser device, engineers could reconstruct an exact replica of any site that suffers destruction similar to the Buddhas.
Of course, these scans do more than just provide a blueprint for future restoration. When combined with high-def 3-D graphics, the library of images created with laser scanning could one create a basis for virtual tours of the world's most impressive monuments.
Additionally, the scanning of regular buildings with this technology would allow the construction of incredibly detailed virtual cities. Placed on the Internet, users could roam these virtual cities or model the effects of new construction projects.
[via The New York Times]
Will Drilling Into a Volcano Trigger an Eruption That Destroys Naples?: "
Scientific research has helped humankind avoid or mitigate many of nature’s best attempts to send us to a violent end, but what do researchers do when the pursuit of research could trigger the very disaster from which science is trying to protect us? That’s the question facing geologists in Naples, Italy that will begin sinking seven four-kilometer bore holes into the Campi Flegrei caldera, the site of a “supercolossal” volcanic eruption 39,000 years ago.
Those doing the drilling hope to learn more about the geological activity beneath the giant collapsed crater so they might better predict future volcanic disasters. Critics say the drilling could precipitate that very cataclysmic eruption the researchers are trying to avoid.
Previous studies show that Campi Flegrei is one of Earth’s most volcanically high-risk places; just 4,000 years ago series of violent eruptions cut the landscape into what it is today. Prior to those eruptions the Earth’s crust rose by several meters across the entire caldera. The crust has been rising again since the 1960s, causing concern among scientists that it might be ready to blow its top once again. An eruption now would be devastating: In a New Orleans-esque display of engineering foresight, the majority of the metropolitan area of Naples is situated within the caldera.
Predicting the next big eruption from Campi Flegrei, then, is of utmost importance not only from a scientific standpoint, but to avoid the kind of disaster that befell nearby Pompeii two millennia ago. The boreholes could reveal exactly where magma might surface and collect prior to eruptions, as well as reveal locations of fracture zones and pockets of magma underneath the caldera. Rock samples could also be collected and tested to help researchers model ground deformation in the area.
But drilling so deep into the earth is fraught with risks, critics say, not least of which could be eruptions of varying magnitudes triggered by the drilling. Explosions caused by super-hot magma flooding into the borehole and vaporizing the drilling fluid are common in such projects. The Iceland Deep Drilling Project, a geothermal energy play, was recently halted 2,014 meters down for exactly that reason. The difference, critics say, is that an explosion is worst case scenario for most drilling projects like the IDDP; hitting a main vein of pressurized silica-rich magma in Campi Flegrei could theoretically cause a complete disaster, sending the volcano into full eruption (and Naples to its demise).
The boreholes at Campi Flegrei won’t likely hit magma, researchers say, as the holes will reach only half as deep as any known reservoir, and even if it does, the result will not necessarily be a disaster. It could, rather, provide researchers with important new information about the inner-workings of volcanoes in general, and Campi Flegrei in particular. Meanwhile, Naples will simply have to hold its breath.
Synthetic Molecules Trick Body Into Improved Immune Response to HIV, Cancer: "
When it comes to eluding detection, HIV and cancer cells are at the top of the class. As such, the few treatments currently available to sufferers of HIV or prostate cancer are generally expensive, often hard to manufacture, and come packaged with a smattering of unpleasant side effects. But Yale researchers have now developed synthetic molecules that help the body recognize HIV and prostate cancer cells as threats, tricking the body into initiating an immune response that it normally would not.
Both HIV and prostate cancer have biological methods of flying under the immune system's radar, cruising throughout the body without raising red flags. But the Yale group's synthetic molecules -- known as 'antibody-recruiting molecule targeting HIV (or ARM-H) and 'antibody-recruiting molecule targeting prostate cancer' (or ARM-P) -- bind both to antibodies already present in the bloodstream and to the offending cells at the same time.
Much as a seeing-eye dog might guide its owner's hand directly to a doorknob, the synthetic cells guide the antibodies directly to proteins on HIV or cancer cells, making a connection that the antibodies cannot make on their own. The antibodies in turn send up a red flag, tagging the pathogen as a threat and triggering an immune system response that otherwise would not take place. The body then has a chance to fight off the intruders rather than allowing them to mix unchallenged among healthy cells. ARM-H even goes a step further, keeping the HIV-infected cells from going about their usual business of infecting more cells.
Inexpensive to produce and theoretically administrable in pill form, ARM-P and ARM-H could potentially replace current antiviral and chemical treatments like chemotherapy and radiation that kill malicious cells but also disrupt healthy tissues. As they do so, these synthetic molecules could curb the spread of HIV, which affects 33 million worldwide, and take the edge off of prostate cancer, the second-leading cancer-related cause of death for American men.
New Breed of Mice Retains Great Hearing (and Sex Lives) in Old Age: "
A group of leading researchers working on hearing loss have created mice whose hearing worsens as they age, as mirror counterparts to humans. But these mice fail to breed well, which led the University of Rochester group to crossbreed them with mice that had great sex drives but even worse hearing loss in their old age. The result was a new super breed that is prolific and has superb hearing.
About 55 mice, including the older generations and the new offspring, took part in hearing tests normally applied to human babies. A speaker or microphone broadcasted sounds in the mice's ears, as researchers monitored brain activity and ear echoes.
The researchers prize their hearing-impaired mice as useful medical models in ongoing studies of human hearing loss. About 5 percent of people, mainly women, retain their hearing as they age.
Now the group hopes that their new mice can help uncover the factors that preserve outstanding hearing, as opposed to factors that lead to hearing loss.
'This allows us to really take a detailed look at good hearing in old age,' said Robert Frisina, a biomedical researcher at the University of Rochester. 'Which chemical pathways are most active, for instance? This is about what goes right with age, not what goes wrong.'
[via Science Daily]
Modified Algae Produce Clean, Easy Hydrogen: "
Algae get a lot of airtime as a possible future source of biofuels to wean us from dirty fossil fuels, but even biofuels don't go so far as to eliminate hydrocarbons (and their constituent carbon emissions) from our energy diet. But a different use for algae could prove a better solution to the future of fuel.
A new process that produces clean, sustainable hydrogen from photosynthesis in algae could change all that. The means of manufacturing clean, usable hydrogen has heretofore required a high-energy process that drastically dilutes the upside.
Researchers at the U. of Tennessee Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Labs found that in certain algae, the cellular workings that carry out photosynthesis can be coaxed into producing a clean, steady supply of hydrogen when exposed to light and a platinum catalyst. As far as bang-for-buck is concerned, the novel process could be a boon; compared to biomass sources of ethanol and biodiesel, the process turns out a much larger quantity of fuel with a much smaller energy input.
Previous efforts to produce hydrogen from algae were stymied by the high temperatures that exist in large sunlight-trapping systems, which render the process slow and inefficient. But the researchers found that a thermophilic blue-green algae that thrives at higher temperatures will carry out photosynthesis in environments up to an ideal 131 degrees Fahrenheit. The method also cuts out inefficiencies, like the amount of time it takes a plant to photosynthesize, die and fossilize, and the relatively high energy required to cultivate and process biomass into fuel.
Researchers are now tasked with scaling the process to meet energy demands that grow daily despite the fact that energy reserves are ever-depleting. Speeding the process at which algae produce hydrogen provides efficiencies that clear a path toward a sustainable hydrogen economy where vehicles emit no greenhouse gases and America's reliance on foreign oil is trimmed to nil. That doesn't just spell a scientific breakthrough, but a much-needed shift in the way we live our lives.
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (Darwin): "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (fifth thousand (second edition): London: J. Murray, 1860), by Charles Darwin (Gutenberg text, illustrated HTML, and page images)"
From Attic to Cellar (Holt): "From Attic to Cellar: or, Housekeeping Made Easy (Salem: Salem Press, 1892), by Elizabeth F. Holt (page images and uncorrected OCR text at MOA)"
Songs of the Workers to Fan the Flames of Discontent (Industrial Workers of the World): "Songs of the Workers to Fan the Flames of Discontent (19th edition, 1923), by Industrial Workers of the World (HTML at sacredchao.net)"
The Road to Peace, According to Stalin And According to Lenin (Cannon): "The Road to Peace, According to Stalin And According to Lenin (1951), by James Patrick Cannon (HTML at marxists.org)"
Sesame Street & The Origin of Om nom nom nom: "
Cookie Monster shows Ella the right way to eat a cookie - om nom nom nom nom! Rocketboom’s field correspondent Ella Morton heads over to Sesame Street in celebration of their 40th season to talk with a few furry inhabitants. Music by Podington Bear.
"
Age of cyber warfare is 'dawning': "Many nations are now arming to defend themselves in a cyber war and readying forces to conduct their own attacks, says a report."
Bad driver? Blame your genes: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - No need to curse that bad driver weaving in and out of the lane in front of you -- he cannot help it, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.
The Will to Power--Is "Free Will" All in Your Head?: "
Surely there must have been times in high school or college when you laid in bed, late at night, and wondered where your “free will” came from? What part of the brain--if it is the brain--is responsible for deciding to act one way or another? One traditional answer is that this is not the job of the brain at all but rather of the soul. Hovering above the brain like Casper the Friendly Ghost, the soul freely perturbs the networks of the brain, thereby triggering the neural activity that will ultimately lead to behavior.
Although such dualistic accounts are emotionally reassuring and intuitively satisfying, they break down as soon as one digs a bit deeper. How can this ghost, made out of some kind of metaphysical ectoplasm, influence brain matter without being detected? What sort of laws does Casper follow? Science has abandoned strong dualistic explanations in favor of natural accounts that assign causes and responsibility to specific actors and mechanisms that can be further studied. And so it is with the notion of the will.
[More]"The AMA eases its stance on marijuana: "
The Obama administration announced last month that people who buy or sell medical marijuana in the growing number of states that have decriminalized its therapeutic usage should not be targeted for arrest or prosecution by federal authorities. Now, the American Medical Association (AMA) has called for the federal government to go one step further in easing restrictions, the Los Angeles Times reported last week . [More]
"Why do human testicles hang like that?
Earlier this year, I wrote a column about evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup’s “semen displacement hypothesis,” a convincing hypothesis presenting a very plausible, empirically supported account of the evolution of the peculiarly shaped human penis. In short, Gallup and his colleagues argued that our species’ distinctive phallus, with its bulbous glans and flared coronal ridge, was sculpted by natural selection as a foreign sperm-removal device. As a companion piece to that work on our phallic origins, Gallup, along with Mary Finn and Becky Sammis, have put forth a related hypothesis in this month’s issue of Evolutionary Psychology. This new hypothesis, which the authors call “the activation hypothesis,” sets out to explain the natural origins of the only human body part arguably less attractive than the penis--the testicles.
In many respects, the activation hypothesis serves to elaborate what many of us already know about descended scrotal testicles: that they serve as a sort of “ cold storage” and production unit for sperm, which keep best at lower body temperatures. But it goes much further than this fact, too. It turns out that human testicles display some rather elaborate yet subtle temperature-regulating features that have gone largely unnoticed by doctors, researchers and laymen alike. The main tenet of the activation hypothesis is that the heat of a woman's vagina radically jumpstarts sperm that have been hibernating in the cool, airy scrotal sack. Yet it explains many other things too, including why one testicle is usually slightly lower than the other, why the skin of the scrotum becomes more taut and the testicles retract during sexual arousal, and even why testicular injuries--compared to other types of bodily assault--are so excruciatingly painful to men.
The opening line of Gallup's new article helps readers to appreciate the oddity of the scrotum:
It is almost unthinkable to ask why ovaries do not descend during embryological development and emerge outside the female’s body cavity in a thin, unprotected sack…
After you’ve finished exorcising that unsettling image from your mind, consider that the dangling gonads of many male animals....: "
[More]"
Ulf Leonhardt is riding high these days, with a new award from the Royal Society of Great Britain to further develop his ideas on how to make things in plain sight disappear.
Born in East Germany and now occupying the theoretical physics chair at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, Leonhardt is among the leaders of the worldwide race to realize an old dream of science fiction: cloaking devices. They would steer light or other electromagnetic waves around them like water around a stone in a smooth stream, leaving nary a ripple of difference in the flow. Such things, letting light swish past like a boxer ducking every punch, would be invisible. more>>>
Scientists at Cern hold their breath as they prepare to fire up the LHC: "
A giant scientific instrument that was designed to recreate the big bang but blew itself up in the process will be back in business on Friday.
Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern, the nuclear research organisation near Geneva, aim to have beams of subatomic particles whizzing around the machine on Friday evening, and will begin smashing them together soon after.
The first collisions will mark the end of a long and frustrating period for the researchers, who waited eight years for the machine to be built only to see it explode shortly after being switched on in September last year. Repairs and a new safety system cost an estimated £24m.
The machine, which occupies a 27km tunnel 100m beneath the French-Swiss border, will probe some of the deepest mysteries of the universe by crashing subatomic particles into one another at close to the speed of light.
The collisions are expected to reveal tantalising signs of new physics that could include extra dimensions of space and “supersymmetry”, a theory that calls for every particle in the universe to have an invisible partner. more>>>
Vatican Ponders the Existence Of Alien Life: "
After years of lagging behind in the acceptance of scientific fact, the Vatican has not only caught up, but, with a conference this week, moved far past the boundaries of modern science. Yes, 376 years after they condemned Galileo for discussing a heliocentric solar system, and a mere 16 years after pardoning him for it, the Vatican will host a conference on astrobiology and the existence of extraterrestrial life.
The conference is sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and will host 30 scientist from fields such as astronomy, biology, physics, chemistry and geology.
The Vatican's interest in extraterrestrial life began last year, when Father Jose Gabriel Funes, the chief papal astronomer and a Jesuit priest, announced that the existence of alien life does not contradict the Bible. This revelation opened up a wide range of theological implications, including the possibility of aliens who don't need salvation, since their ancestors didn't commit original sin in the Garden of Eden.
[Physorg]
Leonid meteor shower peaks Tuesday, Nov. 17 (w/ Video): "(PhysOrg.com) -- The Leonid meteor shower best viewing this year will be in the hours before dawn on Nov. 17."
Hawaii planning to replenish sand at Waikiki Beach: "(AP) -- Hawaii officials are appealing to the state's tourism authority for funds to restore part of world-famous Waikiki Beach."
Interviewees: Cynthia Amberg, Suffered from depression,
Bradley Peterson, Columbia University Medical Center
Produced by Sunita Reed– Edited by Sunita
Reed and Chris Bergendorff
Transluscent Brain Animation: Courtesy iStockphoto.com/ Piotr Podermanski
Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc
Scanning For Depression
"The depressed person was in terrible and unceasing emotional pain, and the impossibility of sharing or articulating this pain was itself a component of the pain and a contributing factor in its essential horror."
-opening line from "The Depressed Person" by David Foster Wallace
Though an excerpt from a work of fiction, that sentiment is all too real for people like 69-year-old artist Cynthia Amberg. Like her mother, Amberg experienced her first episode of depression after her second child was born. Normally exuberant, she says in that dark time she could barely get herself out of bed.
“It was a hell worse than anything I could ever adequately describe to someone who hasn’t suffered from it,” says Amberg.
Depression is a subject many people are reluctant to talk about openly, but Amberg wants people to know that they don’t need to be ashamed that they have it. She got counseling and medication, and is better able to deal with the depression that she learned often runs in families. She now only checks in periodically with Patrick McGrath, a psychiatrist with affiliations at both Columbia University Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute who monitors her health and her medication. Since the ’90s Amberg has rarely been depressed.
Now McGrath’s colleague, child psychiatrist Bradley Peterson, has found new clues as to why people with a family history of depression are at high risk for developing it themselves. Together with epidemiologist Myrna Weissman, they led a brain study of people with and without a family history of depression.
The subjects, who ranged in age from six to 54 years old, had their brains scanned in a functional magnetic resonance scanner, or fMRI. The researchers compared the thickness of the brain’s outer layer, called the cortex, in both groups. They found a striking difference. People with the family history had cortexes that were an average of 28 percent thinner on the right side.
“It went all the way from the back of the brain to the front of the brain in regions that are involved in spatial processing, emotional processing, social processing, planning and execution of behavior," explains Peterson. "It was really very, very prominent.”
Also on ScienCentral
Undoing Depression
01.22.09
Antidepressant Suicide Genes
09.28.07
Generational Depression
02.24.05
But the difference in thickness did not correlate with whether or not the subjects themselves had actually experienced depression. That’s where the next piece of the puzzle fits in. It turns out that the people who experienced depression not only had thinning in the right side but they also had thinning in the left side.
“That seems to tip you over from having a vulnerability into having overt symptoms and illness,” says Peterson.
But there’s more to the right side cortical thinning. The researchers also conducted tests on social memory and social attention, such as how well the subjects could remember faces or scenes around a dinner table. They found that people with cortical thinning on the right side scored lower on these tests.
“We think ultimately that’s what predisposes people to being vulnerable to developing depression– is that you have these problems with attention and memory for social stimuli,” says Peterson. “And that kind of cuts you off or leaves you disconnected a bit and not processing emotions and social relationships very well.”
Peterson says this pattern of thinning is distinct from that of other disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. He is hopeful that further research will lead to more customized treatments for depression and ultimately ways to prevent it altogether. However, Peterson cautions that at this stage, this type of brain scan is still in the experimental stage.
Peterson hopes that this kind of research will also change the way mental disorders are perceived by some.
“There’s still enormous stigma attached to them and to having them— and even having family members who have them," says Peterson. “And it really is unfortunate. It’s terrible because there are many other brain disorders that we don’t hold people accountable for—having Parkinson’s, or Huntington’s, or epilepsy. But all too often society does hold people accountable for having a psychiatric illness. And they ought not to because this is as biologically based as those other conditions.”
PUBLICATION: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 14, 2009
RESEARCH FUNDED BY: National Institute of Mental Health, National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders, National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Sackler Institute at Columbia University, and the Suzanne Crosby Murphy Endowment at Columbia University
Transluscent Brain Animation: Courtesy iStockphoto
Gene therapy technique slows ALD brain disease
November 5th, 2009 in Medicine & Health / Research
Gene therapy technique slows brain disease
Progeny of HSCs that were engineered to carry the correct version of a gene (through the integration of a lentiviral vector) distribute throughout the body. Cartier et al. show that some cells replaced diseased microglia in the brain and relieved lipid storage in patients suffering from ALD.
Credit: Image courtesy of Y. Greenman/Science
A strategy that combines gene therapy with blood stem cell therapy may be a useful tool for treating a fatal brain disease, French researchers have found. These findings appear in the 6 November 2009 issue of the journal Science.
In a pilot study of two patients monitored for two years, an international team of researchers slowed the onset of the debilitating brain disease X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) using a lentiviral vector to introduce a therapeutic gene into patient's blood cells. Although studies with larger cohorts of patients are needed, these results suggest that gene therapy with lentiviral vectors, which are derived from disabled versions of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), could potentially become instrumental in treating a broad range of human disorders.
"This is the first time we were able to successfully use an HIV-derived lentivirus vector for gene therapy in humans, and also the first time that a very severe brain disease has been treated with efficacy by gene therapy. We've demonstrated that this HIV-derived lentivirus vector works as was hoped for so many years," said coauthor Patrick Aubourg, professor of pediatrics at University Paris-Descartes and head of a research unit at Inserm-University Paris Descartes.
Featured in the movie "Lorenzo's Oil," ALD is a severe hereditary condition caused by a deficiency of a protein called ALD that is involved in fatty acid degradation. Sufferers steadily lose their myelin sheath, the protective layer that coats nerve fibers in the brain. Without myelin the nerves lose function, leading to increasing physical and mental disability in patients. X-linked ALD, the most common form of the disease, affects boys starting at age 6-8 years of age and death usually occurs before the patients reach adolescence.
Bone marrow transplants typically slow progression of the disease because the donor marrow includes cells that develop into myelin-producing cells. However, finding a matching bone marrow donor can be a challenging and lengthy process, and the procedure carries considerable risks.
Genetically correcting the blood stem cells in the patients' own bone marrow may prove to be a valuable alternative approach when no matched donors are available.
This figure represents four cells, four purified CD34+ (the CD34+ cell population comprises true hematopoetic stem cell) from patient P1. These cells were sampled/purifed from his bone marrow 2 years after gene therapy. The blue circles represent nucleus of cells. The red dots in one cell are peroxisomes (intracellular organelle) in which the ALD protein encoded by the integrated lentiviral vector is expressed. In other cells, the red dots are not detectable because these cells are not corrected after gene therapy and the mutation of ABCD1 gene in this patient results in complete absence of ALD protein expression in peroxisomes. The exact ratio of corrected/non-corrected CD34% cells in patient P1, two years after gene therapy, is 18 percent. Credit: Image courtesy of Patrick Aubourg
In most gene therapy studies, a working gene is inserted into the genome to replace a dysfunctional, disease-causing gene. A carrier molecule called a vector is used to deliver the therapeutic gene into the patient's cells. Vectors are typically the backbones of viruses that have been genetically altered to carry normal human DNA. Scientists have recently turned to vectors based on the lentivirus genus of retroviruses, which includes HIV. Lentiviral vectors are a type of retrovirus that can infect both dividing and nondividing cells, and are thought to provide long-term and stable gene expression, unlike other retroviruses.
"The HIV-derived lentivirus vector allows expression of the therapeutic gene in principle for life, because the therapeutic gene is inserted in the chromosomes—the genome. Therefore, cells that derive from the initially corrected cells, stem cells in particular, will continue to express the therapeutic gene forever," said Aubourg.
In the study, blood stem cells were removed from the patients and genetically corrected in the lab, using a lentiviral vector to introduce a working copy of the ALD gene into the cells. The modified cells were then infused back into the patients' after they had received a treatment that destroyed their bone marrow. Two years later, healthy ALD proteins were still detectable in both patients' blood cells. Encouragingly, both patients showed neurological improvement and a delay in disease progression comparable to that seen with bone marrow transplants.
The healthy ALD protein was expressed in about 15 percent of blood cells, yet surprisingly this low level was sufficient to slow brain disease in ALD. "This percentage of correction will not be sufficient for all diseases," warns Aubourg. "There is a lot of work to be done to make this gene therapy vector more powerful, less complicated, and less expensive. This is only the beginning," he said.
Gene therapy is not without serious risks. Like other retrovirus vectors, the HIV-derived lentivirus vector is tasked with inserting the therapeutic gene in the chromosomes of the patients' cells. In a worst case scenario, this action could disturb the biology of the cells and patients could end up with leukemia; this outcome has occurred in past gene therapy trials. "The HIV-derived lentivirus vector basically has this same risk, although the design of the vector makes patients less prone to this side effect," said Aubourg.
More information: Science paper, "Hematopoietic Stem Cell Gene Therapy with a Lentiviral Vector in X-linked Adrenoleukodystrophy," by Dr. Nathalie Cartier et al.
Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science
DIY Botox: Site Offers Injectable Drug Without Prescription — With How-To Video: "
A website that sells a prescription drug similar to Botox without requiring a prescription claims it has more than 2,000 customers. Some have learned how to inject the botulism-derived drug into their own faces from YouTube videos produced for the site.
Discountmedspa sells a variety of other DIY cosmetic treatments, including prescription Renova, and lip-filling gels. The botulinum toxin-derivative for sale on the site is Dysport, produced by the pharmaceutical company Ipsen and is a competitor of Allergan’s Botox. The site simply calls it “the Freeze.”
A Grand Prairie, Texas, woman, Laurie D’Alleva, who appears to be the site’s proprietor, performs treatments on herself in self-made videos posted to the site’s YouTube channel. In one video, D’Alleva pulls out a vial of what is presumably Dysport and a syringe filled with saline.
“It’s important to remember that you are mixing the potency of the botox,” she says, mixing the contents of the vial with the saline solution. She then injects her forehead and the areas around her eyes.
Ipsen received FDA clearance to sell Dysport in the United States a few months ago, but it’s a prescription medication. It’s the first direct competitor for the branded Botox, which is the most popular cosmetic treatment in America. Doctors did more than 2.4 million Botox procedures in 2008, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. In recent years, the vast amounts of money spent on the treatment have attracted scams and knockoffs, which the FDA has had to crack down on. In May, the FDA also ruled the drug needed a tougher “black-box” warning label to reflect an increased understanding of the small, but real risks of the treatment.
In the U.S., it is illegal for anyone but a doctor or nurse practitioner to prescribe drugs to patients and only pharmacists can dispense drugs to people. Yet drug sellers on the internet routinely flout the FDA’s regulations. A review published last month in the Annals of Family Medicine found more than 130 websites offering antibiotics without a prescription. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy tracks thousands of sites that don’t meet its standards for brick-and-mortar shops. LegitScript, a private firm that works with the NABP, has database of 47,633 internet pharmacies; 46,570 of them aren’t up to snuff.
These sites are brazenly circumventing regulations that protect consumers from bad or fake drugs and ensure that the chemicals are used correctly. The laws were designed precisely to prevent Americans with little to no medical training from doing things like buying a form of toxin, mixing it with saline and injecting it into their faces. Yet, precisely that appears to be possible with the help of discountmedspa.com.
Wired.com was able to complete the ordering process on discountmedspa.com for the Freeze without being asked for a prescription. In fact, the word, “prescription” does not appear anywhere on the website.
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.
Engineered Rabbit Penises Raise Human Hopes: "
Using tissue grown in a laboratory, researchers have engineered fully functional replacement penises. The organs were made for rabbits, but the technique may someday be useful for people.
“This technology has considerable potential for patients requiring penile construction,” wrote researchers in a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Leading the team was Anthony Atala, director of Wake Forest University’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine. Atala is best known for developing a technique in which cells are taken from an organ and sprayed onto a frame made of collagen, the primary structural protein in animal tissue. The structure is then bathed with growth-stimulating compounds and kept in an oven that duplicates the body’s temperature and chemical composition.
Given these starting conditions, natural biology does the rest. The cells divide and arrange themselves in natural, working configurations.
Atala’s group has already implanted lab-grown bladders, grown from the patients’ own tissue, in seven men. Bladders are just one of dozens of organs being engineered by the group, from every part of the body — but in some organs, it’s been difficult to find the right starting mix of different cell types, and reconstruction has proved challenging. The penis is one such organ.
In earlier studies, the researchers grew segments of the penis’ main structures, called corpus cavernosa. These lie along the shaft of the penis, and are made from a complex, sponge-like arrangement of different cell types. But when implanted in rabbits whose corpus cavernosa had been removed, the tissue failed to become erect.
This time, they used a different mix of growth factors, and grew entire corpus cavernosa, rather than pieces of them. It worked: The next penises responded normally to electrical and chemical stimuli, and — more importantly — to biological imperative. When given the chance to have sex, eight were able to ejaculate, and four became fathers.
Oddly, the procedure seemed to make the rabbits randier than usual.
“Most control rabbits did not attempt copulation after introduction to their female partners,” wrote the researchers. “All rabbits with bioengineered neocorpora attempted copulation within one minute of introduction.”
Image: PNAS
Citation: “Bioengineered corporal tissue for structural and functional restoration of the penis.” By Kuo-Liang Chen, Daniel Eberli, James J. Yoo, and Anthony Atala. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 45, November 9, 2009.
Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on a book about ecosystem and planetary tipping points.
Posts
All Comments
