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The Research Case For Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

The Research Case For Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Jul 23 2012 | comment(s)

No one is asking the Department of Energy to play venture capitalist with taxpayer money again, but basic research in dye-sensitized solar cells may bring the cost of solar down enough to allow for mainstream acceptance - primarily because dye-sensitized solar cells (also known as DSCs) are less fragile than panels that use crystalline silicon, also a benefit of thin-film panels, and don't require a clean room.
Global Warming Upside; Better Produce

Global Warming Upside; Better Produce

Jul 23 2012 | comment(s)

Temperatures above 100 degrees and drought-like conditions have taken a toll on corn and soybeans in the upper Midwest for weeks but it has brought a benefit to peppers and other crops: Their flavors have become unusually concentrated, producing some of the most potent-tasting produce in years.

"Peppers really like hot weather," said Irwin Goldman, a horticulture professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "When it's dry and hot outside, you'll get a higher concentration of alkaloids."
A Treatment For Neurodegenerative Machado-Joseph Disease?

A Treatment For Neurodegenerative Machado-Joseph Disease?

Jul 23 2012 | comment(s)

Researchers have moved a step closer to find a treatment for the fatal neurodegenerative disorder Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) after a Portuguese team from the Centre for Neurosciences at the University of Coimbra was able to halt the brain degeneration in mice, by blocking a molecule called calpain. Calpain are known to cut ataxin-3 (the mutant protein behind MJD) into fragments, and the study proves that these fragments are crucial to trigger the neurodegeneration. 

Leukemia Mutations Linked To Aging, Not Cancer

Leukemia Mutations Linked To Aging, Not Cancer

Jul 23 2012 | comment(s)

At the time of diagnosis, hundreds of mutations already exist in leukemia cells but new research has found they are a part of normal aging and are not related to cancer.

Even in healthy people, stem cells in the blood routinely accumulate new mutations over the course of a person’s lifetime. In many cases only two or three additional genetic changes are required to transform a normal blood cell already dotted with mutations into acute myeloid leukemia (AML). 
Not Afraid Of The Dark: Dark Energy

Not Afraid Of The Dark: Dark Energy

Jul 23 2012 | comment(s)

There is a “Carnival of Cosmology: Dark Energy”; here is my contribution: I will discuss the public acceptance of dark energy (1), then I explain that dark energy is crazy but also that the crazy stuff is actually basic general relativity, so that if you refuse dark energy, the crack-pots are your team (2), and lastly, I explain that dark energy, as opposed to dark matter, is completely natural and obviously exists(3).


1) Perception: Nobel Prize for Einstein’s Greatest Blunder

Medulloblastoma: Mutations In Childhood Brain Tumors Identified

Medulloblastoma: Mutations In Childhood Brain Tumors Identified

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

Researchers have linked mutations in specific genes to each of the four recognized subtypes of medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor of children. The discovery provides doctors with potential biomarkers for guiding and individualizing treatment and reveals prospective therapeutic opportunities for countering this devastating malignancy.

Medulloblastomas occur in the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls balance and other complex motor functions, and are treated with a combination of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Though overall survival hovers around 70 percent, most survivors are unable to live independently due to the lasting effects of both tumor and treatment. 
Redesigning The Medical Bag Could Cut MRSA Worldwide

Redesigning The Medical Bag Could Cut MRSA Worldwide

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

Could a new bag squash a new bug?

A new medical bag designed to replace ‘outdated and unsafe’ portable medical bags could transform treatment around the world, says its manufacturer.  A study found a third of its outdated predecessors carry the MRSA bug.  In 2008, East Riding of Yorkshire (NHS ERY) introduced the first of its Neighbourhood Care Teams (NCT) to enable patients with long-term illnesses to receive treatment at home. NCTs now provide over 450,000 patient contacts each year.
Synthetic Life? Silicone And Cardiac Tissue Becomes Medusoid - Swimming 'Jellyfish'

Synthetic Life? Silicone And Cardiac Tissue Becomes Medusoid - Swimming 'Jellyfish'

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

Silicone and living cardiac muscle cells have been combined to form a freely swimming "jellyfish", proof of concept for reverse engineering a variety of muscular organs and simple life forms.

It also suggests a broader definition of what counts as synthetic life.

Study co-author Kevin Kit Parker previously demonstrated bioengineered constructs that can grip, pump, and even walk. He says the inspiration to mimic a jellyfish came out of frustration with the state of the cardiac field. Similar to the way a human heart moves blood throughout the body, jellyfish propel themselves through the water by pumping. In figuring out how to take apart and then rebuild the primary motor function of a jellyfish, the goal was to figure out how such pumps really worked.
Neurological Surgery Professor Paul Muizelaar Banned For Illegal Experiments

Neurological Surgery Professor Paul Muizelaar Banned For Illegal Experiments

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

In 2010, when Dr. Paul Muizelaar of U.C. Davis began performing illegal experimental treatments on terminally ill brain cancer patients, he earned over $800,000. (1)

That's pretty good money for an academic, especially while we are enduring the political theater of universities canceling core curriculum classes to try and pressure taxpayers into agreeing to tax increases if we 'care about education'.  
Science May Help You Win Your Fantasy Football League

Science May Help You Win Your Fantasy Football League

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

A team of academics from the University of Southampton thinks they will top the rest of the English Fantasy Football League when the new football season kicks off next month in England.

By football, we mean Soccer to Americans.  Sorry if we confusingly used the term for the game that actually uses feet and lets people who use their feet in the Hall of Fame.

Biofuels include

Biofuels include

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

 "Bioethanol, Biobutanol, Biodiesel, Vegetable oils, Biomethanol, Pyrolysis oils, Biogas, Biohydrogen. Biodiesel: Technically, Mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from renewable lipid feedstock such as vegetable oils and animal fats for use in Compression Ignition engines”. 
The definition eliminates pure vegetable oils. Depending on the feed stock it may be referred as : – Soybean methyl ester - SME or SOME – Rape methyl ester - RME – Fatty acid methyl ester - FAME (a collective term including both of the above). – Vegetable oil methyl ester - VOME yielding plants provide bio-diesel. 
On vacation

On vacation

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

I am spending my vacations in the beautiful island of Leukada, in the Ionian sea. Consequently, my posting rate here has dropped significantly in the last few days. I will return in August; in the meantime I will still post something, but expect a much smaller rate of articles for a while here.

Disgruntled OxyContin Addicts Switch To Heroin

Disgruntled OxyContin Addicts Switch To Heroin

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

Drug addicts are outraged by recent changes to the formula of frequently abused prescription painkiller OxyContin which makes it harder to inhale.

So they are taking their business to heroin.

For nearly three years, psychiatrists have been collecting information from patients entering treatment for drug abuse and more than 2,500 patients from 150 treatment centers in 39 states have answered survey questions about their drug use with a particular focus on the reformulation of OxyContin.

Surveys. Of drug addicts. Calibrate accordingly.
If Cuban Healthcare Is So Great, Why Is There A Cholera Epidemic?

If Cuban Healthcare Is So Great, Why Is There A Cholera Epidemic?

Jul 21 2012 | comment(s)

Cuba is adored by communists - maybe they like 1950s decor. 

No, they like the socialized medicine. Specifically, they like to claim that a lower infant mortality rate means Cuban health care is better than in America. It doesn't take long to see through that. America does not abort at the first sign of trouble, like Cuba does, and so America has more babies that don't live very long.

Abortion is not the issue in this case, except to show that abortion rates are not a bellweather of health care. What is a bellweather of health care is the health of the country overall. Cuba's cholera epidemic shows that its health care system, which they present with pride, is not all that terrific. 
Was Charles Darwin a Plagiarist? Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution

Was Charles Darwin a Plagiarist? Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

Today, scientists are extremely careful in making sure they cite others’ works, if not for ethical reasons because plagiarism destroys reputations and is potentially a career ender. However, in the past for some scientists including Charles Darwin and James Watson, the public has controversially given them credit for game changing discoveries and catapulted them into rock star status.

European Commission Endorses Free Public Access To Research

European Commission Endorses Free Public Access To Research

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

The European Commission, which controls one of the world's largest science budgets, has backed calls for free public access to taxpayer-funded research. Reed Elsevier is not thrilled.

"Taxpayers should not have to pay twice for scientific research and they need seamless access to raw data," said Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice-president for the Digital Agenda, though Kroes does not understand taxpayers are still paying twice.   The largest open access publishers do tens of millions of dollars in revenue by shifting the cost from readers to scientists - who are taxpayer funded.
Gestation Stalls For Pigs - A Business And Cultural Win

Gestation Stalls For Pigs - A Business And Cultural Win

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

Have you noticed a huge increase in the price of pork chops or bacon or hot dogs?

Neither have I, despite the fact that sow gestation stalls, or crates or whatever you may call them in your neighborhood, are disappearing.  The stalls are basically where pregnant sows are kept. Anti-science hippies who are always looking for ammunition in their war on human food contend big business uses these crates because they are, you know, eeeevil, but that isn't true.  Long before Big Pork even existed farmers kept sows apart because they fight.  And during pregnancy, if you screw with a female pig, you are asking to roll in the mud.   The American Veterinary Medical Association says stalls are safer and therefore better than pens(1).
Psychic Science? Scientists Read Monkeys' Inner Thoughts

Psychic Science? Scientists Read Monkeys' Inner Thoughts

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

Brain activity is a complex cipher but researchers were recently able to 'decode' monkey thoughts and determine how the little primates were planning to approach the same task - before they moved a muscle.

Watching large groups of neurons doesn't reveal much but a group of scientists recently took it to another level; they demonstrated that multiple parameters can be embedded in the firing rate of a single neuron and that certain types of parameters are encoded only if they are needed to solve the task at hand. Interesting enough, but  they also discovered that the population vectors could reveal different planning strategies.  

 They could, in effect, read the monkeys' minds.
Guest Post: Higgs ? 126 GeV, Said The Four Colour Theorem

Guest Post: Higgs ? 126 GeV, Said The Four Colour Theorem

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

The following text has been offered as a followup of the Higgs observation by the LHC experiments, which finds a signal at a mass compatible with the pre-discovery predictions made some time ago by Vladimir Khachatryan - ones which I published in this blog. - T.D.

Considerations following the Higgs boson discovery - Ashay Dharwadker
300,000 Caribou Huddle Together To Avoid Nature

300,000 Caribou Huddle Together To Avoid Nature

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

A giant herd of cattle are not huddled together to get away from evil oil companies or other things that have overwhelmingly improved the ecosystem in Alaska, these Northwest caribou are avoiding nature.

Namely, mosquitoes.