I've just returned from a week long trip to Germany (Düsseldorf and Dresden) for scientific meetings on stem cell research and regenerative medicine--the land of cheerful public artwork, amazing cab drivers and tear-inducing-good mass transit. How many hybrids did I see? Zero

Some thoughts:

I.

Human embryonic stem cell research in Germany is under tight restrictions. It is a criminal offense to destroy an embryo—defined quite conservatively as a fertilized egg after the fusion of the sperm and egg pronuclei. No stem cell line created after January 1st 2002 may be used at all, with private or public funds. Nor can research in Germany encourage the destruction of embryos elsewhere. In contrast, while public funded research is restricted in the United States to lines created before August of 2001, with private funds one can do essentially anything. The Germany policy, while more restrictive, is at least ethically consistent.

The policy reflects underlying conflict in the Germany constitution, between requirements to respect human life and the independence of science. This duality is reflected in North Rhine Westphalia Stem Cell Network's structure, combining both scientists and ethicists together in a cohesive program. As one of the local scientists delicately put it, "concerns over the lingering consequences of National Socialism cause conservatism on the use of human tissues in research." Slowly, the policy is liberalizing.

The embryonic stem cell ‘debate’ in the United States, between absolutist scriptural moralists and absolutist libertarians, is distressingly silly and unserious in comparison. (I personally favor an approach modeled from solid organ transplantation, in which the creation and distribution of human embryonic stem cells should be strictly decommercialized and regulated by an independent agency. And, I work on a near-daily basis with human embryonic stem cells.) The asinine Bush policies have guaranteed we will not have a quality debate on this subject. For that, one must go to the country where, not so long ago, my relations were processed into candles, buttons and soap.

II.

The universality of English in science was startling to experience firsthand. Deep within the former East Germany—where Russian still predominates over English as the second language for "political reasons in the past" as per my host—scientific talks are given in English, even when no native speakers are present. Without fluency in English, one cannot publish in the most widely read journals, attend the highest quality conferences, or even access the vast repositories of biological data available online.

Here is where the NIH's budget (comparatively paltry to the military budget) really pays off. For the decades following World War II, the brightest minds in the world have been drawn here, studied in American Universities and occasionally settled in our country. Those who return home become powerful ambassadors for American policy and worldview in the highly influential technocratic class. After now experiencing this effect firsthand, I'd gladly drink George Marshall's bathwater.

With our newly punitive immigration policies--everyone gets fingerprinted and eyeball scanned upon arriving, a deeply unwelcoming act--, startling xenophobia of many Americans and steady cuts of the NIH budget (in real dollar terms) might finally kill off this effect. We're fools for risking it.

If this post was insufficiently wonky for you, please continue to my blog to read an even more detailed breakdown.

In 2004, Celco Corporation opened a pulp mill near Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary in Valdivia, Chile. As a result of the horrendous amount of toxins Celco is dumping into the water, within months over 5,000 black-necked swans that inhabited the wetlands were dead. Celco (banking hundreds of millions a year) have Chilean government stating that there isn't a link between pollution and the deaths. Three years later, the people of Valdivia are still united--fighting for Celco to stop dumping waste into the sanctuary so it can be restored.

Last weekend, hundreds of Chileans came out to show support and watch a documentary about the tragedy. These musicians, dressed in elaborate bird costumes, opened for the event.

Sorry, ma.

Now I know what my dearly departed appendix was perhaps good for. May I never live in an isolated, cholera-prone community.

Sputnik orbited fifty years ago today--a tremendous accomplishment. But, let's not mistake the meaning here. The Soviet Union's launch of the first artificial satellite was both a fantastic technical achievement and a profound threat. If the Soviets could launch a new moon, they could also hurl an atomic bomb across the globe. In the context of the late 1950s, and under the very real threat of nuclear annihilation by a committed and dangerous foe, how did the country respond?

As my colleague and friend Tom Robey noted in todays P-I:

Science emerged as the antidote for America's shortcomings. Policymakers jumped to talk about science and, more important, to fund it: President Eisenhower established the position of Presidential Science Adviser; the House and Senate incorporated scientific review into their committee structures; Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Agency; and lawmakers quadrupled funding for the National Science Foundation. Most people agreed we needed to improve education to draw more young Americans into science and engineering.

In no small way, these decisions made America what it is today: the leader in technology, finance, medicine, and economics. Prior to this push, science was largely a career for the wealthy, or patrons of the wealthy. By putting the full weight of the public coffers and general will behind research and academics, we became the first real scientific society and changed the course of the planet as a result.

How do today's Republicans respond to our challenges--climate change, energy crunches, airline-transmitted pandemic illness, a world filled with hungry, bored, and girlfriend-less teenage boys to name a few?

The office of the Science Adviser to the President has been moved out of the White House; the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment was disbanded in 1995 after the Republican sweep of Congress; NASA has an image problem; science allocations lag behind inflation stifling innovation; and while more Americans than other nationalities win Nobel Prizes, those accolades go to scientists trained in a different era--the uncertain funding situation facing young scholars today is an impediment to many pursuing careers in science.

Even as a young scientist, coming to the end of my PhD training, I cannot easily recommend it as a path for younger students. The ever-tightening NIH budgets are only the start of troubles for a young American interested in science. Classrooms are under assault from throwback religious zealots; the president actively derides intellectualism, curiosity, and scientific pursuits from the bully pulpit.

When I think of the alternative careers I selected against--the NSA, biotech, financial services, software engineering--and the challenges facing me as I become an American scientist, I feel like an anachronism. Thankfully I live in Seattle, an island of the earlier spirit in a sea of reactionary fear.

I'm here. You're here. And I'm happy for that.

This piece of news will certainly be the cause of my next panic attack:

CHICAGO -- The rapid pulse and shortness of breath of a panic attack can feel like a heart attack, and it may signal heart trouble down the road, a study of more than 3,000 older women suggests.

Women who reported at least one full-blown panic attack during a six-month period were three times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke over the next five years than women who didn't report a panic attack.

The first time I read the following phrase in the New York Times, it warmed my little intelligent design-despising heart:

There is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that all living things evolved from common ancestors, that evolution on earth has been going on for billions of years and that evolution can be and has been tested and confirmed by the methods of science. [Cornelia Dean, "Evolution takes a back seat in US classes," Feb 2, 2005.]

It was a landmark. Journalists had been trapped in the scientists-say/but-whackjobs-assert lockbox since intelligent design first reared its stupid head, so this adamancy was incredibly refreshing. The phrase didn't seem quite so fresh, however, the next time it appeared:

''We were invited to debate one supposed theory against another,'' Dr. Leshner said, when in fact there was no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution. [Cornelia Dean, "Opting Out in the Debate on Evolution," June 21, 2005.]

Or the next:

"Darwinian evolution is the foundation of modern biology. While researchers may debate details of how the mechanism of evolution plays out, there is no credible scientific challenge to the underlying theory." [Cornelia Dean and Laurie Goodstein, "Leading Cardinal Redefines Church's View on Evolution," July 9, 2005.]

Or the next:

There is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that evolution explains the diversity of life on earth, but advocates for intelligent design posit that biological life is so complex that it must have been designed by an intelligent source. [Ian Fisher and Cornelia Dean, "In 'Design' vs. Darwinism, Darwin Wins Point in Rome ," Jan 19, 2006.]

Cornelia Dean! It's good to be emphatic, but you start to sound like a robot--one of those Darwin-believin' automatons whom the Discovery Institute takes great pleasure in deriding. Recently the statement of fact has hardened into a single immutable sentence, as in Dean's "Science of the Soul? 'I Think, Therefore I Am' Is Losing Force" [June 26, 2007] and her article on the deceptive practices of the producers of that ID agitprop with Ben Stein that Dan linked to below ["Scientists Feel Miscast in Film on Life’s Origin," today]:

There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth.

It's getting tired. Mix it up sometimes, NYT.

It's for your own good...

A man's testicles might be a source of stem cells to help him fight serious diseases, US scientists have shown.

They extracted early-stage sperm cells from mice, then turned them into cells capable of becoming different tissues.

Writing in Nature, the Weill Cornell Medical College team said their work might lead to treatments for illnesses such as Alzheimer's and diabetes.

However, some doubt has been expressed on the willingness of men to undergo the procedure to extract the cells.

From outer space:

Local media have reported eyewitness accounts of a fiery ball falling from the sky and smashing into the desolate Andean plain near the Bolivian border Saturday morning. Officials have said it was a meteorite.

Jorge Lopez, director of the health department in the southern state of Puno, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that 200 people have suffered headaches, nausea and respiratory problems caused by "toxic" fumes emanating from the resulting crater, which is some 66 feet wide and 16 feet deep.

But meteor expert Ursula Marvin, cast doubt on that theory, saying, "It wouldn't be the meteorite itself, but the dust it raises."

A meteorite "wouldn't get much gas out of the earth," said Marvin, who has studied the objects since 1961 at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Massachusetts.

To say that I do not envy these sick Peruvians is to say something that is far from the truth. To be made sick by an alien object that fell from space is to experience a higher (otherworldy) order of sickness. It puts to shame the earthy cough, the public sneeze, the domestic headache. What I would do to have a headache that has its cause in the mysterious materials of a meteorite. Or to have lungs that burn because of strange stuff from the stars. You lucky Peruvians, how I so envy your galactic stomach aches, nausea, and vomiting.

Just in time forNational Clean Hands Week, a surveillance project commissioned by the American Society for Microbiology and the Soap and Detergent Association reveals that only 66 percent of men wash their hands after using a public restroom, compared to 86 percent of women. Both men and women routinely lie about their behavior in public restrooms: 96 percent of women claimed to wash their hands, along with 89 percent of men. The surveillance, alas, did not include the men's room at the Minneapolis airport.

Via AdWeek.

For a little bit of this...

and this...

and this...
go over here...

Welcome to the very first Dear Science podcast. This week resident scientist Jonathan Golob and resident Marxist philosopher Charles Mudede discuss evolution, oranges, underwater iron-eating plants, the upside of nitrogen bombs, and so much more.

As the New York Times reported today, a higher than ever percentage of children are surviving until their fifth birthday.

This public health triumph has arisen, Unicef officials said, partly from campaigns against measles, malaria and bottle-feeding, and partly from improvements in the economies of most of the world outside Africa.

So, with more babies surviving through early childhood, will there be a population boom? Maybe not.

If you live in a culture where children are the only feasible retirement plan--i.e. most of the world--it's really important one child survives through your retirement, right? And if there is about a one in three chance that any given child won't survive to see his or her fifth birthday (where Sub-Saharan Africa was a few decades ago), you better have several children.

Here comes some math to back up this notion. If your only willing to risk a one in a hundred chance of ending up destitute in old age, and there is a thirty percent chance than any given child will perish, the math tells us you'll need to have four kids. Drop the mortality to fifteen percent--where Sub-Saharan Africa is today--and three kids will cut it. Five percent chance of perishing before five, like present day North Africa? Two kids will cut it. Magic. Smaller families through better survival.

Logic like this helps us understand why people in economically marginal areas of the world continue to have large families--further stretching resources, resulting in higher childhood mortalities, causing larger yet families--and how this pattern can be broken by public health.

I'm glad science spends its time discovering polio vaccines and trying to figure out whether chimps wage war for sexual purposes.

But couldn't science spare a little more time for things like this?

The unhappier you are, the more ice cream you get.

"Employing voice stress analysis of the user’s answers to specific questions, varying degrees of unhappiness are measured and the counteractive quantity of ice cream is dispensed: The more unhappy you are, the more ice cream you need."

I know, I know. There isn't enough research money to go around. But maybe we could take a little chunk out of our astronomy budget?

Intelligent people, properly provisioned (and that means ice cream) can think their way into the outer reaches of the universe. Do we really need to build expensive metal tubes to physically hurl them there? That seems kind of primitive and crude.

... to triple drug therapy for HIV.

While the new therapy started in 1996, it was on September 11th 1997 when the first report was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Here is a lovely manuscript--a proper randomized double-blind and controlled study.

The trial patients were grouped by CD4 T cell counts, and then randomized to triple drug therapy or the controls of single or double drug therapy. Initially, the study was to last 52 weeks. When the results started to roll in, the blinding was ended and everyone allowed access to the triple drug cocktail.

At the time the language both cautious and astounded,

The three-drug combination of indinavir, zidovudine, and lamivudine reduced the viral load in serum to less than 500 copies per milliliter for up to one year in more than 80 percent of the HIV-infected patients we studied, all of whom had prior antiretroviral therapy. Most patients in the three-drug group whose HIV RNA levels were reduced to less than 500 copies per milliliter also had less than 50 RNA copies per milliliter when the ultrasensitive investigational assay was used. The sustained response in HIV RNA levels with the three-drug therapy was superior to that with either indinavir monotherapy or the combination of zidovudine and lamivudine. No prior antiretroviral regimen has produced the marked, sustained decreases in viral load achieved with this three-drug combination.

The dissociation between the marked decreases in viral load and the incomplete restoration of CD4 cell counts in the three-drug group remains unexplained. Some patients may have ongoing, slower increases in CD4 cell counts after six months of therapy. In patients with autoimmune disease or cancer who receive intensive radiation therapy or chemotherapy, CD4 cell counts recover slowly and may take three years or more to reach normal levels.30,31 Further study is needed to determine what level of restoration of CD4 cell number and function can ultimately be attained with the three-drug regimen. It remains to be seen whether the immune system can be fully reconstituted even when regimens that achieve maximal HIV suppression are used.

Swoon.

So, happy ten years of highly effective anti-retroviral therapy.

The University of Washington was selected by the NIH as one of two national centers for human embryonic stem cell research. The purse? Ten million dollars in federal funds spread over five years. Hurray for us!

(Full disclosure time: I was a small contributor to the grant, including preliminary data, experimental design and writing. The lab I work in will be receiving some of the funds. Writing this, I am the eponym for conflict of interest.)

Hearing the news, Eric Earling at Sound Politics noted:

And a reminder that despite the annoyingly simplistic campaign rhetoric one hears around election time, there actually is federally funded, embryonic stem cell research already occurring in the country.

The source of human embryonic stem cells is limited to federally approved stem cell lines listed on the National Institutes of Health Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry.

Only lines created before August of 2001 may be studied with federal funds, as per the president and his infinite wisdom. Twenty-one are still around, and only ten are actually available for purchase right now. Federal research on human embryonic stem cells is limited the oldest lines, the lines where culture techniques were perfected, and the lines from a very limited genetic pool. (Fun fact: Three of the more popular lines (H1, H7 and H9) all started as embryos from the same in vitro fertilization clinic in Israel. How's that for genetic diversity?)

What's wrong with refusing to federally fund the creation of new embryonic stem cell lines? When government opens the purse, it gets to set rules. New lines are still being created (and pre-implantation embryos destroyed) -- just with private dollars, behind closed doors and without any federal governmental oversight. For anyone seriously concerned about the ethical implications of this research, this is the worst possible outcome. Rather than a real national debate to hash out some reasonable rules and guidelines, we've simple swept the whole problem under the rug.

Solving some of what stops us from using human embryonic stem cells clinically -- purifying out desired cell types from the differentiating population, delivering and integrating cells into target organs, avoiding grafting undesired or undifferentiated cells, protecting the genetic and epigenetic stability of the aged existing lines, and evading immune rejection -- will require the creation of new embryonic stem cells. So long as the asinine Bush policy remains in place, we cannot forge a coherent and ethical means of doing so.

Thanks to a G1 Geomagnetic storm, there is a decent chance of seeing the Northern Lights in Seattle tonight.

If the POES activity level hits 9 or 10,

or the estimated planetary Kp gets above 6

and the night sky is clear, we should be able to see the Northern Lights.

Vegetarians: outsource your meat eating. Venus fly traps can go vegan, if with a shortened and miserable life.

Hybrid drivers: stop duping yourselves and others. Hybrids are no more environmentally friendly than a small regular car, and maybe even a bit worse. Want to be sanctimonious? Ride a bike.

Bus riders: time does slow down when you're on the bus -- provided you're traveling above about a tenth of the speed of light. Thanks Hendrik!

Pot smokers: yes, you might have "psychotic symptoms", like hallucination, disorganized thoughts, agitation, or aggression. Pot might make you crazy, or you might just be high. Science isn't overly concerned.

Have a question on stem cells, epigenetics, transplant biology or gene therapy? Put it in the comments and I'll answer it within a day, or your money back. Or send your questions to DearScience@thestranger.com.

Scientists have confirmed that bird flu has finally mutated and can be transmitted from person to person.

The confirmed transmission, which occurred in 2006, occurred in rural Indonesia within one family and did not spread. Still, I'm not telling you where my stockpile is.

Echinococcosis -- or just one reason why dogs shouldn't be in restaurants.

Dogs (as well as other carnivores) can carry the Echinococcus granulosus tapeworm. As the dog goes merrily about its life, the tapeworm dutifully releases eggs in the dog crap.

When humans eat the eggs, the larvae hatch, eat their way into the blood, and make homes all over the body -- the liver, the lungs, the bone, the kidneys and the brain. Over time, the larvae divide, slowly producing massive hydatid cysts (pictured above), quivering to the brim with living tapeworm larvae.

Bon appétit!

(In other news: Medical school ruins everything.)

An alert reader pointed out this website for a documentary projected for release in February 2008. I can't find a distributor listed anywhere on the site, so hopefully Expelled will be "released" in a closet in the Discovery Institute, but it's got big guns behind it: cash from Canadian software developer and evangelical Christian Walt Ruloff and the star power of actor Ben Stein.

The Discovery Institute is officially not involved, but check out these simultaneous blog posts (more like press releases): one from Discovery Institute's Discovery Blog, another on Discovery Institute's ID: The Future blog, a third on Discovery Institute's Evolution News & Views blog.

The "academic freedom" argument has been percolating in the ID universe for some time, and it's a pathetic bait-and-switch. This approach frees IDers from having to support any of their contentions: they merely have to claim that they're being persecuted for their research. The producers hope you'll go, "Yay freedom!" And then rapidly thereafter, "down with Darwin!" But the truth is, ID doesn't belong in a science department. It requires metaphysical assumptions that don't make sense in a material inquiry. It doesn't lead to new hypotheses; it can't direct new research. It's useless. And if a professor, tenured or otherwise, is sitting around being completely useless, I would certainly hope she would be asked to defend her work.

See if this makes sense to you:

Weight is an intrinsic trait, determined by our genes. Yet, globally the number of obese people has nearly doubled since 1980--faster than alleles can redistribute in the population.

The amount we eat is strictly controlled by regulatory systems. Each of us is endowed with an energy set-point; forced overeating makes people feel ill, until their weight drops back down. Unless you are obese; then the setpoint is somehow reset to much higher than it should be. Eating fewer calories to dip below the new setpoint results in a starvation response from the body, even for people who are massively overweight.

The more overweight you are, the higher your risk for heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, sleep apnea, high blood pressure and even some cancers. Unless you are active and obese; for at least some of these maladies, you'd statistically have a similar risk to sedentary skinny folk.

Confused yet? Mix in all the high emotions that come from questioning who or what is responsible for our increasingly zaftig culture, and it's a real mess.

So, let's add one more piece: Your bone and fat cells are talking to one another.

We've known for a while that being obese protects you from osteoporosis. A protein made by fat cells called leptin--also essential for regulating feeling full when you've had enough to eat--stimulates the bone making osteoblast cells.

The authors of a recent Cell study figured that if fat cells can stimulate bone-producing cells, the bone cells should signal back to the fat, creating a tidy negative feedback loop, where the fat cells stimulate bone producing cells ("We need stronger bones to carry around all this fat!"), and the bone cells inhibit fat formation ("Too. Much. To. Carry. Stop making fat!")

So, what could be this signal? Bone producing cells create only a handful of distinct proteins, one of which deemed Osteocalcin. Mice lacking the Osteocalcin gene have fat bellies. Very interesting.

In this most recent study, the scientists followed this trail, and found that mice without Osteocalcin are not only fat, but are also glucose intolerant -- just like people with type-II diabetes. So, less Osteocalcin, more diabetes-like symptoms.

(Those of you unwilling to take my word for it can continue reading a far more detailed post on my blog. The less punitively minded can continue here.)

So, who knows. Now some wild speculation: Perhaps stimulating your skeleton is key in preventing diabetes. Certainly bone producing cells in mice can pump out a powerful signal that blocks belly fat, and keeps the blood sugar regulating system humming along. Next time you spend the whole weekend on the couch, think about the conversation between your bone and fat cells.

This...

...is a mechanical arm developed at Vanderbilt University. An entry in DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 program, it uses space shuttle rocket technology to control movement. Says Engadget:

The arm... relies on a modified miniature version of the same rocket motors the space shuttle uses to reposition itself in space: hydrogen peroxide is burned in the presence of a catalyst to produce pure steam, which is then used to move the arm. Unlike the batteries in traditional arms, which die quickly, a small canister of hydrogen peroxide concealed in the arm can last up to 18 hours, and provides about the same power and functionality of a human arm. Cooler still is the method the arm deals with waste heat and steam: just like a regular arm, it's allowed to filter up through a permeable skin, producing "sweat" -- the same amount of perspiration you'd get on a warm summer day, according to the team.

(Via The Feed.)

Some folks are all are excited about something they're calling "frozen smoke"--and, no, it's not pot-laced ice cubes.

A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.

Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.

Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars.

Dear John,

On the Washington Post’s election blog, you managed to make an ass of yourself.

Many religious conservatives, including President Bush, oppose the scientific use of embryonic stem cells because the cells often come from aborted fetuses.

This is objectively false. Many religious conservatives, including President Bush, oppose the scientific use of embryonic stem cells because they are ignorant fools.

Embryonic stem cells are NOT made from aborted fetuses. Embryonic stem cells are made from leftover embryos from IVF clinics. You know, the unregulated industry focused on bringing yet more children into a world of over six-billion people—a world that can sustain at most about two billion people with the Western lifestyle. Embryonic stem cell research is an alternative to fetal tissue research.

This isn’t an arguable point, like the idea that a clump of a hundred cells could be the moral, spiritual and legal equivalent to an adult human being. This isn’t balanced reporting. This is categorically false.

To help you figure things out, I’ve created and sent a T-shirt to you, c/o of the Post.

While brushing your teeth, washing your hands, or flossing, you can have a helpful hint right on your chest. Your back will help your editors—who allowed this to sit uncorrected for days—figure some things out as well.

Accurately Yours,
Science

Thanks to Tom Robey at Hope-for-Pandora for the catch. Know of any other reporters, politicians or relatives who deserve a t-shirt? E-mail me at dearscience@thestranger.com.

I've posted before on Slog about my severe distrust of squirrels. But even I have to admit this is pretty cool:

Squirrels are not as helpless as they may seem when confronted by rattlesnakes eager to make dinner of their pups. A new study reveals one of their most powerful tactics: the rodents heat their bushy tails and wave them back and forth to warn infrared-sensitive snakes they will not get fast food.

Infrared video showed that California ground squirrels' tails warmed by several degrees, up to 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), when threatened by northern Pacific rattlesnakes, which detect the infrared glow from small mammals using so-called pit organs in their noses. But no heating occurred while the rodents defended against gopher snakes, which lack such heat seekers, according to a report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

Should Seattle be a center for biotech? “At South Lake Union, we are building a center of excellence in life sciences,” says the mayor. Vulcan has voraciously devoured tax and zoning breaks in the name of biotech in Seattle. Will it work?

Tremendous potential exists in Seattle. Last year the university pulled in over a billion dollars in highly competitive research grants—no minor feat in George W Bush’s America. Grants getting funded in a hyper-competitive environment, only the top 18% or so were funded last year, tells you Seattle is filled with talented and hard working scientists. No other public university does as well. Seattle is geographically isolated in just the right way—1700 miles from Minneapolis and 800 miles from San Francisco, but close enough to the other major hubs to get quick shipments in of reagents—to assure unusual ideas, novel ideas, and heretical ideas can take hold and provide protection against groupthink from the better integrated hubs of California or the East Coast.

Seattle’s real potential ace is the confluence of biotech and computer science talent—second only to the bay area. Thanks to new tools, biologists can generate huge volumes of data. Whoever better processes this mass of data, reaching petabytes nationwide, will lead the next era in biology. Call it systems biology, data mining, bio-informatics, whatever; any place doing it well will rule the field. Rightfully, Seattle should be leading this field. We probably won’t.

So, how are we messing it up?

Continue reading "Building Biotech In Seattle" »

I.

No no, that was funny. That was valid humorous technique.

II.

Well, I can always get plastic surgery. No pill or cut can make you smarter.

You may have heard about 99942 Apophis, the asteroid scheduled to pass by our little blue marble in 2029. When it does, there's a chance that it could plow through something called a "gravitational keyhole," which would set it on a course to smack into Earth on April 13, 2036.

The current estimate is a 1 in 45,000 chance that Apophis will collide with Earth—not the best of odds, really, when you consider the outcome could resemble something like this:

Thankfully, NASA is already working on a plan to divert Apophis if/when the asteroid decides to destroy all life on our planet. And that plan, according to this posting on Engadget, involves...

...six missile-like interceptor vehicles that would launch aboard an Ares V cargo launch vehicle, each carrying with them a 1.2-megaton B83 nuclear warhead.

And if all goes according to plan, then...

...the warheads apparently wouldn't actually strike the asteroid directly, but instead detonate at a distance of one-third of its diameter, generating a force that would (theoretically) deflect the asteroid out of the Earth's path.

Let's hope it works. Even better: Let's hope we never need to find out.

Galactic dialectics:

Four gigantic galaxies have been seen crashing into one another in one of the biggest cosmic collisions ever seen.

The clashing galaxies are expected to eventually merge into a single, behemoth galaxy up to 10 times as massive as our own Milky Way.

A flashlight that makes you blow chunks.

Last week, I found myself writing for the Stranger and my General Exam more or less at the same time; these are orthogonal forms of writing. It caused me to reflect upon science and the English language.

(Committee members, stop reading here.)

The first paragraph of my alternative proposal:

I. As it is now.

With an undisputed ability to differentiate into cells from all three germ lineages, embryonic stem cells may provide a replacement cell source for grafting into weakly regenerating tissues. This broad potency can result in the introduction of inappropriate contaminating cell types—including teratoma-generating undifferentiated cells—during grafting.

I hate this paragraph, and will change it a dozen times before turning in the exam.

II. Short, simple declarative sentences.

Embryonic stem cells become everything. That includes heart or brain cells. Sick people need new heart and brain cells. Great! They also become unwanted cells. We only want the right cells. Grafting undifferentiated cells causes tumors! Bummer.

I would write this in crayon.

III. Passive (more so) and (increasingly) awkward.

Tissues have the potential to fail in regeneration. Formation of cells from multiple lineages, all three germ lineages, can occur during differentiation of embryonic stem cells. There are desired and undesired cell types that can be made to exist. It has been observed that teratomas can form. This event occurs particularly when undifferentiated embryonic stem cells were grafted.

This version is depressingly close to what I actually have in the draft.

IV. Mudede(-like)

The embryonic stem cell desires to become everything; being the total of the body is the central purpose of its existence. Our purposes require the embryonic stem cell to go against its most fundamental nature; we must turn the cell that can become anything into a shadow of itself. Such crimes require powerful tools.

I would love to turn in this version. Alas, I would promptly fail.

Pretty soon prying parents could be able to know exactly what their kids are looking at at every moment, thanks to a proposed "super V-chip" that Congress is urging the Federal Communications Commission to develop. The chip would allow parents to screen content on all their children's devices, including cell phones, laptops, and home computers. Senator Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) said the new technology is necessary because kids these days can access "inappropriate" content on more than just television and (ha!) radio. "It's an uphill battle for parents trying to protect their kids from viewing inappropriate programming," he told MediaWeek. "I believe there is a whole new generation of technology that can provide an additional layer of help for these parents."

The V-chip technology reminds me a lot of another privacy-invading technology touted as a panacea for worried parents: implantable microchips, which would enable parents to keep track of their kids at every moment. A recent abduction has resparked discussion of implantable chips in England; never mind that your child's odds of getting abducted by a stranger are significantly lower than that they'll be struck by lightning. Parents want technology to stand in for what parents used to do--talking to their kids, telling them to stay away from online predators, trusting that they'll listen and learn lessons by experience. When you're on an electronic leash, you can never get away with anything--and getting away with things is what adolescence, and growing up, is all about. By monitoring our precious children's every movement (instead of, say, talking to them realistically about the risks of various behaviors and letting them know we trust them to behave reasonably responsibly), we make it impossible for them to learn their lessons the hard way, through experience.

This is George Jetson and his family.

This is the M200G Volantor.

It takes off and lands vertically, hovers at three meters, has a top speed of 50 mph, and is currently in production by Moller International.

(On a semi-related note, while doing a Google image search for The Jetsons, I stumbled across this, which is just so, so wrong—not to mention completely NSFW.)

Update: In the comments, "Monkey" writes: "Moller's other flying car is much much sexier." Indeed it is:

This week in Dear Science, The Stranger's science column, Science answers the age-old question:

Are fluorescent lightbulbs really better for the earth? Because they fucking suck.

Science agrees ("Right now, Science looks near death thanks to some lowest-bid buzzing tubes overhead") and explains how traditional light bulbs work (lots of energy used in creating relatively little light) and goes on to say:

Fluorescent bulbs cheat, heating up a coil of wire only enough to start throwing off electrons, which in turn convert a low-pressure mercury vapor into plasma. The heavy-metal vapor throws off a bunch of ultraviolet light--excellent for tanning or destroying DNA, but not so great for looking. The white powder on the inside of the bulb converts the emitted ultraviolet light into visible light by fluorescence--hence the name. This convoluted pathway uses about a quarter of energy to make the same intensity light as a traditional bulb and also lasts longer than a regular bulb. Great! Fluorescents are a clear environmental winner, right?

Not so fast.

The "mercury vapor" that fluorescent bulbs require is quite toxic. While new compact fluorescent bulbs are voluntarily limited to five milligrams of mercury each, as little as a tenth of a milligram per square yard will make you seriously ill. Shaking hands, drooling, irritability, memory loss, depression, weakness--sounds like fun. And that's what happens to adults; kids can be permanently injured by mercury exposure. If you break one of these bulbs in your house--and think of all the times a bulb breaks--the current advice is to open a window and run...

The verdict? It might surprise you. It has something to do with where in the country you live.

By the way, Science is happy to answer your burning questions--whether glass is really a liquid, why pears taste so good, why some men dribble and others shoot, whatever. Send queries here.

Anyone know how much fuel these death machines use each day? Posted by marigold | August 2, 2007 11:36 AM

The General Electric F404 afterburning turbofan engine produces 11,000 lb-ft of thrust without and about 18,000 lb-ft with afterburners.

A pair of these engines consume approximately 18,000 pounds of aviation fuel per hour at maximum thrust without the afterburners. With the afterburners on, fuel consumption for a pair increases to about 62,000 pounds per hour.

Ask DearScience@thestranger.com and answers you shall receive.

"Neuroscience makes my Marxism look like a toy!" —Charles Mudede.

This morning I finally got around to reading AO Scott’s review of “No End in Sight.”

One line jumped out at me:

…nor does he spend a lot of time chronicling the violence that has so far taken the lives of more than 3,000 American soldiers and marines and tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of Iraqis.

There really is no need to equivocate about the number of Iraqi lives lost due to this invasion, thanks to a brave study done between May and July of 2006. While not flawless, this study is by far the most accurate estimate of the number of lives lost as a consequence of the 2003 invasion.

We estimate that between March 18, 2003, and June, 2006, an additional 654,965 (392,979–942,636) Iraqis have died above what would have been expected on the basis of the pre-invasion crude mortality rate as a consequence of the coalition invasion. Of these deaths, we estimate that 601,027 (426,369–793,663) were due to violence.

Why is this number so much higher than reported by surveillance measures (that report numbers more in the tens of thousands)?

Our estimate of excess deaths is far higher than those reported in Iraq through passive surveillance measures. This discrepancy is not unexpected. Data from passive surveillance are rarely complete, even in stable circumstances, and are even less complete during conflict, when access is restricted and fatal events could be intentionally hidden. Aside from Bosnia, we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based methods. In several outbreaks, disease and death recorded by facility-based methods underestimated events by a factor of ten or more when compared with population-based estimates.

The authors go on to show that the trends of the various studies match closely – a further validation of the approach.

This is an amazing study, given the enormous risk involved in sampling in an active war zone. For an Iraq spiraling into civil war, this was an ambitious undertaking.

A sample size of 12 000 was calculated to be adequate … and was chosen to balance the need for robust data with the level of risk acceptable to field teams… selection of survey sites was by random numbers applied to streets or blocks rather than with global positioning units (GPS), since surveyors felt that being seen with a GPS unit could put their lives at risk. The use of GPS units might be seen as targeting an area for air strikes, or that the unit was in reality a remote detonation control. By confining the survey to a cluster of houses close to one another it was felt the benign purpose of the survey would spread quickly by word of mouth among households, thus lessening risk to interviewers.

So, the next time you hear someone waffling on the human cost of this war—about equivalent to killing the entire population of Seattle—remind them of this study.

Friday-afternoon braintwister: What do all of these words have in common?

Apollo, Orion, Tsunami, Phoenix, Voodoo, Pulse, Unlimited, Clix, Essence, Groove, Kilo, Marine, Touch

Last night at the Hideout, I was talking to Jennifer Borges Foster and she interrupted me and said, "Are you drinking peach schnapps?" She smelled something on my breath. I was, in fact, drinking water. But I was chewing a piece of this--I took it out and showed her:

A couple minutes later, I was talking to Brangien Davis and she said, "What do I smell? Are you drinking peach schnapps?" I showed her the gum. "Can I try it?" she said. She put it in her mouth. I told her to anticipate tropical peach, with an edge of mint. She turned to the person next to her. "You should try this." And then to me: "Do you have another piece?"

I had one piece left, but I am nothing if not generous. As I was digging it out of the package, Davis took an interest in the packaging and, in particular, the two words there to the right: "WITH XYLITOL." What is xylitol? Why does it begin with an x? Will we grow an extra ear if we continue to chew it? She requested a full investigation, and as she was making this request there was a small explosion behind the bar, a liquid explosion, and all of us got hit with little droplets of something. The source of the flying liquid was never ascertained.

Davis said, "I blame xylitol."

On the way home from the Hideout, I stopped in a grocery store and bought Tropical Twist Trident's competitor, Citrusmint Orbit.

Huh. No mention of xylitol anywhere on the cover of the packaging. But further investigation of the miniscule text on the sides found this (blown up big so you can read it):

There it is. Xylitol. OK, xylitol: who are you and what do you want with us? Per Davis's request, a full investigation (2 minutes on Wikipedia) has been conducted, and lo and behold, xylitol is not some awful, awful, third-ear-growing agent, but a rather docile sugar-alcohol. It is "a naturally occurring sweetener found in the fibers of many fruits and vegetables, including various berries, corn husks, oats, and mushrooms. It can be extracted from corn fiber, birch, raspberries, plums, and corn."

Cute! But wait--there's more!

Xylitol was first derived from Birch trees in Finland in the 19th century and was first popularized in Europe as a safe sweetener for diabetics that would not impact insulin levels...

More on Finland, the country xylitol calls home:

Xylitol is widely used in Finland, its "home country." Many Finnish confectioneries employ xylitol, or have a xylitol version available. Virtually all chewing gum sold in Finland, as well as the rest of Europe is sweetened with xylitol.

Although, culturally, xylitol gets around:

In China, Japan and South Korea, xylitol is found in wide assortment of chewing gums. China, Korea and Japan even have a brand of gum named "Xylitol", Japan also has a brand called "Xylish". In addition, when Extra introduced xylitol-containing products to Hong Kong and Guangdong, the word "xylitol" is transcribed into Cantonese as "???" (Jyutping: saai³ lok⁶ to⁴), which literally means "suntan camel", and the camel is used as a figurative icon in its advertisements.

Oh, and:

Xylitol is a "toothfriendly" sugar. In addition to not encouraging tooth decay (by replacing dietary sugars), xylitol may actively aid in repairing minor cavities caused by dental caries. Recent research confirms a plaque-reducing effect and suggests that the compound, having some chemical properties similar to sucrose, attracts and then "starves" harmful micro-organisms, allowing the mouth to remineralize damaged teeth with less interruption.

And--and!--

Xylitol also appears to have potential as a treatment for osteoporosis. A group of Finnish researchers has found that dietary xylitol prevents weakening of bones in laboratory rats, and actually improves bone density.

Plus, did I mention--

Studies have shown that xylitol chewing gum can help prevent ear infections...

I'm sorry, there's just so much--

ASICS Corp., a Japanese company, markets a line of women’s t-shirts with xylitol infused into the fabric. Xylitol, like several other sugar alcohols, exhibits a cooling effect in the mouth. The t-shirts are intended to utilize this same property to keep a person cooler in warm weather.

Downsides: it's a mild laxative (hasn't had this effect on yours truly) and one time scientists fed a standard poodle a shitload of xylitol and it died.

Somewhat off topic: I'm starting a band called Berries, Corn Husks, Oats, and Mushrooms.