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The Autism Speaks Brain Bank, part 2.

The Autism Speaks Brain Bank, part 2.

Apr 16 2009 | comment(s)

This next in my series on Brain donation is of necessity going to seem partisan as the principal objection to this particular programme cannot help but be critical of the organization that is sponsoring it since the objection in part has to do with the climate of public opinion surrounding autism that has been created by organizations such as autism speaks. I cannot deal with the middle of my three strands of objection - "The ethical implications for the target population in terms of the repercussions in that community" without considering that climate.

To recap the history of autism briefly:
A Fascinating New Higgs Boson Search By The DZERO Experiment

A Fascinating New Higgs Boson Search By The DZERO Experiment

Apr 16 2009 | comment(s)

Reporting on scientific results to a broad audience is difficult, in my opinion, not so much because of the need to explain things in a simple way -which is easy and fun, once you master the matter- as for the self-discipline you are forced to stick to.
The Game Of Life In An Organic Universe

The Game Of Life In An Organic Universe

Apr 16 2009 | comment(s)

    Last week I described how Fred Hoyle, in 1946,  came up with the idea that carbon is synthesized in hot stars toward the end of their lifetime, and we now know that carbon and the other elements of life are strewn into interstellar space when the star explodes. In his later career, Hoyle was never able to match his earlier triumph of carbon nucleosynthesis, but he certainly tried.

Triple Merger Of Four Galaxy Clusters Is A Special Sort Of Awesome

Triple Merger Of Four Galaxy Clusters Is A Special Sort Of Awesome

Apr 16 2009 | comment(s)

The most crowded collision of galaxy clusters has been identified by combining information from three different telescopes. This result gives scientists a chance to learn what happens when some of the largest objects in the Universe go at each other in a cosmic free-for-all.

Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, astronomers were able to determine the three-dimensional geometry and motion in the system MACSJ0717.5+3745 (or MACSJ0717 for short) located about 5.4 billion light years from Earth.
Secret To Night Vision - Rod Cell Nuclei Become Light Collecting Lenses

Secret To Night Vision - Rod Cell Nuclei Become Light Collecting Lenses

Apr 16 2009 | comment(s)

What's different about nocturnal mammals that have 'night vision'?  According to a Cell report, the DNA within the photoreceptor rod cells responsible for low light vision is packaged in a very unconventional way.   That special DNA architecture turns the rod cell nuclei themselves into tiny light-collecting lenses, with millions of them in every nocturnal eye.
Step Back Y Chromosome, X Is Getting Some Respect In The Evolution Of Sexual Reproduction

Step Back Y Chromosome, X Is Getting Some Respect In The Evolution Of Sexual Reproduction

Apr 16 2009 | comment(s)

There's a perception among some that it's a man's world and they get all the attention.   If you've ever been in a bar or a library or a baseball game, you know this is not true - have a woman drop a napkin and see what happens whereas a man could be bleeding out his eyes and be unnoticed.   But women want to keep men on their toes by pretending they are in charge.

Now the gig may be up, thanks to biology.   

University of California, Berkeley biologist Doris Bachtrog and her colleagues say that the history of the X chromosome offers important clues to the origins and benefits of sexual reproduction.     X even compensates for the degeneration of Y, which will get people talking.

Take that,  much-studied male-determining Y chromosome. 
For Earth Day, NASA Wants You To Vote On Their Greatest Hits

For Earth Day, NASA Wants You To Vote On Their Greatest Hits

Apr 16 2009 | comment(s)

What?  NASA wants to make Earth Day about space?

Not at all, NASA is instead asking the public to vote for the most important contribution the space agency has made to exploring and understanding Earth and improving the way we live on our home planet.  That's right, they call this our home planet, which means there may be a vacation planet on the way.  That's thinking big, people.
Battling Biological Warfare May Get Easier Thanks To DNA Biosynthesis

Battling Biological Warfare May Get Easier Thanks To DNA Biosynthesis

Apr 16 2009 | comment(s)

Combating several human pathogens, including some biological warfare agents, may one day become a bit easier thanks to research reported by a University of Iowa chemist and his colleagues in the April 16 issue of the journal Nature.

Amnon Kohen, associate professor of chemistry in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said that the study indicated a new mechanism by which certain organisms manufacture the DNA base thymidylate. This new mechanism is so very different from the way humans synthesize this base that drugs targeting this biosynthetic path in the pathogens are unlikely to affect the human path, thus resulting in very reduced side effects or no side effects at all.
Blood Falls - Microbes Have Thrived In Antarctic Cold And Darkness While Lacking Air For A Million Years

Blood Falls - Microbes Have Thrived In Antarctic Cold And Darkness While Lacking Air For A Million Years

Apr 16 2009 | comment(s)

An unmapped reservoir of briny liquid chemically similar to sea water, but buried under an inland Antarctic glacier, appears to support unusual microbial life in a place where cold, darkness and lack of oxygen would previously have led scientists to believe nothing could survive, according to newly published research.

After sampling and analyzing the outflow from below the Taylor Glacier, an outlet glacier of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet in the otherwise ice-free McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, researchers believe that, lacking enough light to make food through photosynthesis, the microbes have adapted over the past 1.5 million years to manipulate sulfur and iron compounds to survive.
Life On Other Planets? Ancient Microbes Under Antarctic Survived Millions Of Years Without Light Or Oxygen

Life On Other Planets? Ancient Microbes Under Antarctic Survived Millions Of Years Without Light Or Oxygen

Apr 16 2009 | comment(s)

Scientists have found an ancient ecosystem below an Antarctic glacier and learned that it survived millions of years by transforming sulfur and iron compounds for growth.
A new environmental weapon everyone can get behind

A new environmental weapon everyone can get behind

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)

Is it a weapon? Is it a tool? Is it a form of protest? Can it make your city pretty? Then it must be a seed ball!

Screening criteria for use: are you able to throw, drop, give to someone else to throw or otherwise deposit a small seed ball onto a patch of urban ugliness? Congratulations, you're approved.



A Japanese pioneer in "natural farming" developed the seed ball, a technique for planting seeds in abandoned places and often inhospitable land, says NPR. And anyone can make one and join in the fun.

Science Citation Classics: Sanger Sequencing

Science Citation Classics: Sanger Sequencing

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)

Sanger F, Nicklen S, Coulson AR. 1977. DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U S A 74: 5463-7.

This paper describes the most important (IMHO) technical breakthrough in the biological sciences:  DNA sequencing using a single-stranded DNA template, a DNA primer, a DNA polymerase, radioactively or fluorescently labeled nucleotides, and modified nucleotides that terminate DNA strand elongation.
A banner worth a thousand words

A banner worth a thousand words

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)

If you happened to visit this site earlier today, you may have found it devoid of a suitable banner. That is because I took some time pondering on that design detail for this new site. I wanted something that resembled the banner of the old site which hosted my blog, over at wordpress, which showed a starry field; but I also wanted to convey some personality with it -no more anonymous pictures stolen from a prepackaged theme (Regulus in that case); and possibly, some meaning.
Hong Kong Virus Prevents Uprising Of Norwegian Supergenius Army, For Now

Hong Kong Virus Prevents Uprising Of Norwegian Supergenius Army, For Now

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)

Science is great at finding new rules for expectant mothers.  They already can’t have alcohol, caffeine, or cigarettes. They also need to stay away from their cat’s litterbox, stay off of planes and rollercoasters, stay off of antidepressants, drop their acne medication, and forgo even a well-considered vegan diet.

Now they have to avoid the Hong Kong flu, too.  The Annals of Neurobiology recently published a study that suggested that exposure to the Hong Kong virus during the first trimester of pregnancy may contribute to decreased adult intelligence.  

The Hong Kong flu is fairly easy to avoid now.  But it was everywhere in 1969 and 1970.  It reached its Norwegian apex in the spring of 1970, affecting up to 40% of the population.  
A Theory of Time Part 6 : Inertia, Information and The Arrow of Time

A Theory of Time Part 6 : Inertia, Information and The Arrow of Time

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)

Part 1, which begins our examination of the question 'what is time?' can be viewed here.
Part 2 Some travels through time can be viewed  here.
Part 3 discussing language, sequence and order, can be viewed  here.
Part 4 a brief discussion of clocks, Steno, Foucault and Allais, can be viewed here.
Missing Polar Ice Can Give Us More Energy-- And Not In A Good Way

Missing Polar Ice Can Give Us More Energy-- And Not In A Good Way

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)

The setup to the classic Melting Ice Cube problem goes something like this: “Fifty grams of ice are melting in a 100-mililiter cup of 35-degree water.” Using simple principles of energy transfer, we can estimate what the final temperature of the water will be, and how much energy transfer was required to make the ice melt.  

But what if that ice cube was 20,000 square miles and the cup of water was 300 million cubic miles?  What if the ice reflected incoming heat but the water absorbed it?  And what if hurricanes, droughts, and forest fires depended on the outcome?  
Your University Now Owns Your Blog

Your University Now Owns Your Blog

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)

Bora has posted an interesting draft policy on social media from an unidentified "Big Research Institution" (BRI).

It's already stimulating some good discussion (follow the link for more links) - no surprise, since the policy guidelines contain juicy quotes like these:

All BRI social media output is the intellectual property of BRI.


Whether you are setting up new BRI social media pages within the BRI website or on an existing social media site such as Flickr or Facebook, they need to follow the BRI interactive project process.
Confirmed for WCSJ 2009

Confirmed for WCSJ 2009

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)

This short post is my first contribution to ScientificBlogging: with it I am relocating my blog here from wordpress. I am thrilled by the opportunity to join a larger group of excellent science writers, and possibly reach a larger audience interested in particle physics and in my other occasional discussions of chess, politics, astronomy, astrophysics, or the personal notes I sometimes choose  to dump here.
Rare Panda Butchered and Eaten

Rare Panda Butchered and Eaten

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)


Tormented cries from mother as her cub is butchered and eaten...

Does it pull at your heart strings? Mine, too.

A rally of cries about a shark attack generally bring something less warm and fuzzy, something closer to terror and visions of a nasty end for some surfer. No surfer this time.

The 20th Century's most significant marine find became surf and turf himself at a recent feast in a village off the coast of Donsol in the Bicol Region of the Philippines.

Behavioral Flexibility's Brain Mechanisms

Behavioral Flexibility's Brain Mechanisms

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)

New research provides insight into how the brain can execute different actions in response to the same stimulus. The study, published by Cell Press in the April 16 issue of the journal Neuron, suggests that information from single brain cells cannot be interpreted differently within a short time period, a finding that is important for understanding both normal cognition and psychiatric disorders.