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Caffeine As Cancer-Cell Killer Generates Some Buzz

Caffeine As Cancer-Cell Killer Generates Some Buzz

Apr 18 2013 | comment(s)

Research has established that caffeine interferes with processes in cancer cells that control DNA repair, a finding that has generated interest in using the stimulant as a chemotherapy treatment, but given the toxic nature of caffeine at high doses, researchers from the University of Alberta have instead taken advantage of caffeine's lethal effects on cancer cells identify genes and pathways responsible for DNA repair.

The research team found that fruit flies with a mutant gene called melanoma antigen gene, or MAGE, appeared normal when fed a regular diet but died when fed food supplemented with caffeine. On closer inspection, they found the mutant flies' cells were super-sensitive to caffeine, with the drug triggering "cell suicide" - apoptosis. 

The Quote Of The Week - G.H.Hardy, Second-Rate Minds

The Quote Of The Week - G.H.Hardy, Second-Rate Minds

Apr 18 2013 | comment(s)

"It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings: there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain.
Rescinded: The Light Matter Proposal: A Big Picture View

Rescinded: The Light Matter Proposal: A Big Picture View

Apr 18 2013 | comment(s)

I have decided to rescind this proposal.  Stars in a galaxy travel at one velocity, light at the speed c.  There is only one velocity involved in applying the product rule to the definition of a force as a change in momentum.  Note that is not a trivial application of the product rule either.  Newton's second law is invariant under Galilean transformation.  The dm/dt dR/dt is not invariant.
Alzheimer's Disease Breakthrough? Scientists Reverse Memory Loss In Animal Model Brain Cells

Alzheimer's Disease Breakthrough? Scientists Reverse Memory Loss In Animal Model Brain Cells

Apr 17 2013 | comment(s)

Researchers have taken a step forward in efforts to help people with memory loss tied to brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease. Using sea snail nerve cells, the scientists reversed memory loss by determining when the cells were primed for learning. The scientists were able to help the cells compensate for memory loss by retraining them through the use of optimized training schedules. 

This latest study builds on a 2012 investigation that pioneered this memory enhancement strategy. The 2012 study showed a significant increase in long-term memory in healthy sea snails called Aplysia californica, an animal that has a simple nervous system, but with cells having properties similar to other more advanced species including humans.

Long Observation - Supernova SN 1006 Gets A New X-Ray View A Thousand Years After First Sighting

Long Observation - Supernova SN 1006 Gets A New X-Ray View A Thousand Years After First Sighting

Apr 17 2013 | comment(s)

X-ray astronomy is only 50 years old but nothing shows the progress of the technology like a new view of a supernova scientists watched over a thousand years ago. 

Stem Cell Therapy: Leading Edge Medicine Or 21st Century Alchemy?

Stem Cell Therapy: Leading Edge Medicine Or 21st Century Alchemy?

Apr 17 2013 | comment(s)

In 2013, stem cell therapy is touted as the future of medicine by proponents in Europe and Asia while scientists in America urge caution. Contrast that to a decade ago, when the concern was that American President George W. Bush was holding back progress because he limited federal funding for one form of stem cell research. In 2012, Governor Rick Perry of Texas not only believed in stem cell research, he declared that he wanted to make his state the home of American stem cell science.
Are You Smarter Than Your Clothes?

Are You Smarter Than Your Clothes?

Apr 17 2013 | comment(s)

Some people just don't know how to put patterns and colors together. Or anything about style.

Some of that is cultural, of course. No one really wears corsets any more, for example, and good luck finding anyone outside the Mid-East who knows what a caftan is. Some new technology may herald a future for fashion, its creator claims; computerized fabrics that change their color and their shape in response to movement.

The Top 5 Most Irritating Terms In Evolution Reporting

The Top 5 Most Irritating Terms In Evolution Reporting

Apr 17 2013 | comment(s)

Evolution is misunderstood by millions.  And, it has to be said, a lot of the time, this problem isn't helped by the way things are reported on the TV or in the news.


These are the 5 most common terms that, when I hear them used, I die a little. Though their effect is subtle, all of these terms perpetrate common myths about the way evolution works. The sooner they become extinct, the better!

1. Survival of the Fittest
The Power Grab Of Science Vs Critical Theory

The Power Grab Of Science Vs Critical Theory

Apr 17 2013 | comment(s)

Those who know the meaning of ‘third culture’, know that since the days when it was lamented that the members of the intellectual elite would not even know the second law of thermodynamics, the land grab of science has been astounding and is indeed an ongoing coming to power by science. 
Ancient Bacteria-Killing Virus Holds Evolutionary Secret Against Antibiotic Resistance

Ancient Bacteria-Killing Virus Holds Evolutionary Secret Against Antibiotic Resistance

Apr 16 2013 | comment(s)

The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a common concern in hospitals worldwide, and is the evolutionary result of the selective pressures caused by our extensive use of antibiotics to fight bacterial infections.

Scientists are often fighting the losing battle against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, with every new antibiotic treatment outwitted by the bacteria’s uncanny ability to adapt to whatever adversity comes their way. Although bacteria’s evasive strategies may have outwitted scientists in the last century, their strategies still fall prey to the nature’s billion-year old bacteria-killing virus known as bacteriophages.
New Microbatteries Are Tiny But Can Jump-Start A Car

New Microbatteries Are Tiny But Can Jump-Start A Car

Apr 16 2013 | comment(s)

The most powerful batteries on earth are only a few millimeters in size but a cellphone version can jump-start a dead car battery and then recharge the phone in the blink of an eye. 

Led by Professor William P. King, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign show that the new microbatteries out-power even the best supercapacitors and could drive new applications in radio communications and compact electronics.

Peel-And-Stick Solar Power

Peel-And-Stick Solar Power

Apr 16 2013 | comment(s)

When many of us were kids, water-transfer printing meant a fake tattoo. For our children, it will mean peel-and-stick versions of solar cells that charge cell phones, change the tint on windows, or power their toys. 

Peel-and-stick, or water-assisted transfer printing (WTP), technologies were developed by a group at Stanford and have been used before for nanowire based electronics. A new partnership between Stanford University and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has conducted the first successful demonstration using actual thin film solar cells, NREL principal scientist Qi Wang said.

B100 Biodiesel Quality Improved A Lot In 5 Years

B100 Biodiesel Quality Improved A Lot In 5 Years

Apr 16 2013 | comment(s)

The latest national survey of 100% biodiesel (B100) "blend stock" samples by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that 95% of the samples from 2011-12 met ASTM International fuel quality specifications, a big improvement over 2007 when less than half of the samples met quality specifications. 

The ASTM standards serve as guidelines for industry and are designed to ensure quality at the pump for consumers, along with reliable operation of the nation's vehicles powered by biodiesel blends.  

Digoxin Safe For Patients With Atrial Fibrillation - Study

Digoxin Safe For Patients With Atrial Fibrillation - Study

Apr 16 2013 | comment(s)

One group writing in the European Heart Journal found that digoxin increases mortality in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Another group just found that it did not and published in the same journal.

They used the same data.

Forget The Death Star, We Need Weapons Using Gamma Ray Bursts

Forget The Death Star, We Need Weapons Using Gamma Ray Bursts

Apr 16 2013 | comment(s)

A new type of exceptionally powerful and long-lived cosmic explosion, powerful blasts of high energy gamma-rays, known as gamma-ray bursts, that lasts hours rather than the more common minute, may mean a new hypothesis; that they arise in the violent death throes of a supergiant star. 

The first example astronomers found was on December 25th, 2010, but it lacked a measurement of distance and so remained shrouded in mystery, with two competing ideas put forward for its origin. The first model suggested it was down to an asteroid, shredded by the gravity of a dense neutron star in our own galaxy, the second that it was a supernova in a galaxy 3.5 billion light years away, or in the more common language of astronomers at a redshift of 0.33. 

Organic Fruit Should Be Free Of Antibiotics - But Isn't

Organic Fruit Should Be Free Of Antibiotics - But Isn't

Apr 16 2013 | comment(s)

Organic food labeling is almost dizzying. Despite the claims of this $29 billion industry that it is 'organic' and therefore nutritionally and environmentally and medically superior to nasty regular food of the last few centuries, it is really only 95% organic - and the list of dozens of synthetic ingredients that are exempted is truly difficult to fathom.
WIMP - Is This 3 Sigma Signal The Road To Dark Matter?

WIMP - Is This 3 Sigma Signal The Road To Dark Matter?

Apr 16 2013 | comment(s)

Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) collaborators are reporting what could be a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) signal at the 3-sigma level. In common parlance, that is 99.7 confidence - which sounds high.  But to physicists it really means they have 3 bumps in their data that could be a WIMP, which means it might be a hint of dark matter.

That sounds like a lot of qualifiers but particle physics is conservative that way. Data means what it means and not much more.  But certainly not less, and that is pretty important too.
Natural Selection And Microbiota

Natural Selection And Microbiota

Apr 16 2013 | comment(s)

There is no question that Darwin's tremendous insight into the mechanisms by which evolution occurred was one of the singularly most significant events in biology.  Similarly with the discovery of DNA and genetics, the processes by which organisms were formed received a similar boost.  So the purpose of this article is not to argue that Darwin or genetics is wrong.  Instead, the point is to suggest that it is necessarily incomplete.  In the same way that Darwin's work was incomplete because he lacked the necessary information about genetics.  The modern evolutionary synthesis is also incomplete, because it fails to extend the issues of natural selection in an organism's development to their co-evolutionary pa
Mind-Boggling Numbers: Genetic Expression In The Human Brain

Mind-Boggling Numbers: Genetic Expression In The Human Brain

Apr 16 2013 | comment(s)

President Obama’s

Cutting 4 Pollutants Would Slow Sea Level Rise

Cutting 4 Pollutants Would Slow Sea Level Rise

Apr 15 2013 | comment(s)

 Average sea level changes have averaged about 3 millimeters annually in recent years, leading the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report to estimate that sea levels could rise between 18 and 59 centimeters (7 to 23 inches) this century.  

The potential impact of rising oceans on populated areas is one of the most pressing concerns. Many of the world's major cities, such as New York, Miami, Amsterdam, Mumbai and Tokyo, are located in low-lying areas near the water.