milhayser | October 8, 2012
Some people can't see beyond the tip of their nose.
Mars appears to be our twin in some ways—it is rocky, nearby, and of similar size. But after many a hopeful prodding, Mars remains a dead body. The rover Curiosity made a happy discovery last month, photographing river rocks in an ancient Martian streambed. This led Claire L. Evans to straighten out the legendary “canals” of Mars, popularized by astronomers such as Percival Lowell in the nineteenth century. Lowell’s carefully mapped waterways were much nearer than he thought—likely “projections of the vein structure of his own eyeball, a…
milhayser | October 1, 2012On Casaubon's Book, Sharon Astyk says that although many books are ascribed profound historical significance, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring truly brought environmentalism to the mainstream. Carson described the deadly effects of pesticide use on its unintended targets—birds, wildlife, human beings. Carson was a nature-lover at heart, but her memory will always be tied to agricultural issues. On Tomorrow's Table, Pamela Ronald writes that Carson "envisioned harnessing the knowledge of biological diversity—entomology, pathology, genetics, physiology, biochemistry, and ecology—to shape a new…
milhayser | September 25, 2012Could HIV soon follow in the footsteps of smallpox and polio? On The Pump Handle, Sara Gorman says that recent research has "allowed political figures such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to proclaim that the phenomenon of a generation without HIV/AIDS is within reach." But no vaccine has proven effective at curtailing HIV infection, and a new prophylactic called Truvada could select for drug-resistant versions of the virus. On ERV, Abbie Smith explains that researchers have traced the origin of HIV to a single population of chimpanzees in West-Central Africa, thanks to "3108 samples…
milhayser | September 21, 2012A Stanford University analysis of over 200 nutritional studies found little evidence that organic food is better for you than conventional food. But health is affected by more than vitamins and minerals; for example by the chemical chlorpyrifos, which was banned for indoor use but continues to be sprinkled on our food crops. In California’s Salinas Valley, which grows greens for the entire nation, children exposed to chlorpyrifos and other pesticides are, well, stupider. As Elizabeth Grossman writes on The Pump Handle, “the higher the exposure, the lower the IQ score.” Researchers observing…
milhayser | September 17, 2012On a pilgrimage to Glacier National Park, Ethan Siegel notes "the hike to Grinnell Glacier is nearly a mile longer than it was when the trail was first constructed." Worldwide, nearly 90% of glaciers are shrinking, and "glacial melt is contributing noticeably to the overall sea level of our planet." The park itself will be glacier-free within twenty years—but don't everyone hop on a plane at once. Meanwhile, ice is also melting at astounding rates in the Arctic. On A Few Things Ill Considered, Coby Beck says that last month's extent was "640,000 square kilometers below the previous record set…
milhayser | September 13, 2012On The Pump Handle, Anthony Robbins discusses his tenure at NIOSH, the World Health Organization's drive to vaccinate people around the world, and the fallout of the CIA's decision to use a vaccination program as a subterfuge for spying operations in Pakistan. Robbins writes, "WHO had hoped to complete global polio elimination by 2005, but local armed conflicts and rejection by religious fundamentalists slowed polio campaigns in Nigeria and in Pakistan." Now, the CIA's actions have likely exacerbated distrust of vaccines, which festers abroad as well as at home. Robbins writes that no…
milhayser | September 5, 2012On Pharyngula, PZ Myers considers a computer model which posits that bones are simply exoskeletons turned inside-out. Myers writes “We know from the homology of the patterning molecules involved that vertebrates and invertebrates are upside-down relative to each other, so at some point an ancestor flipped.” Such major differences in body plan arise during embryonic development, driven by highly evolved genetic instruction. But the growth of internal and external skeletons depends on distinct biological mechanisms, leading PZ to call the dataless computer model “abiological and ahistorical…
milhayser | August 31, 2012
Neil Armstrong, first man to walk (and take a photograph) on the Moon, died August 25th at the age of eighty-two. Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin turned a primordial fantasy into reality, and what we knew was possible changed in the space of a television broadcast. On Universe, Claire L. Evans honors the human spirit as explorer of the solar system, writing "Going to the moon has a tendency to turn test pilots into poets.” Now, with machines like Curiosity in the vanguard, we will have to wait a while for true Martian poetry. On Starts With a Bang, Ethan Siegel says that Armstrong's last act on…
milhayser | August 27, 2012
Filovirus Entry by AJ Cann
Two weeks after an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda, the same disease is circulating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But the outbreaks have been caused by two distinct subtypes of virus, meaning they were not spread from one country to the other. The same thing happened in 1976, when over 500 people died in the two regions, hundreds of miles apart. Tara C. Smith asks, “Is this just coincidence that Ebola has twice now broken out in two different places at the same time, but with different viral subtypes?” If not, and specific environmental or ecological…
milhayser | August 22, 2012The extent of Arctic sea ice undulates like a yearly sine wave—rising in October, peaking in winter, and melting all spring and summer. This September we are likely to observe the lowest of lows; Greg Laden writes "There is less sea ice in the Arctic Circle than recorded in recent history." More ice has also melted in Greenland this season, with 4 weeks still to go. Greg says, "glacial melting is both more important than one might think and also more complicated." For example, the albedo of Greenland's ice sheet (the proportion of sunlight reflected back into the atmosphere) varies depending…
milhayser | August 16, 2012
Information exchange defines us as humans, and perhaps even as living things. In 2012, we're approaching a whole new level. Greg Laden introduces us to Apple's iBook, which handles images better than a generic eBook. Greg says "An iBook can be a product that has almost no writing in it at all, or it can be a way of producing a written work that has mostly words and stuff." While "words and stuff" may be undervalued in an increasingly visual, interactive, and abbreviated mediasphere, it has never been easier to get your words published, and in front of eyes around the world, for free. On A…
milhayser | August 8, 2012
Despite NASA's teasing prospect of a crash landing, the Curiosity rover touched down on Mars without a hitch. It is the biggest, most expensive, and best-equipped scientific instrument to ever reach the Red Planet. On Thoughts from Kansas, Josh Rosenau writes:
With its plutonium-fueled power plant, its robotic arms, and its rock-destroying lasers, Curiosity’s goal is to survey Mars and dig into the planet’s past. It will track the geology of the planet in greater detail than any previous rover or lander has done. It will take pictures with higher resolution and greater sensitivity than…
milhayser | August 7, 2012In Uganda, the fourth outbreak of Ebola in twelve years has killed sixteen people. On We Beasties, Kevin Bonham says the virus is "readily transmissible," kills quickly and assuredly, "and the way it kills is gruesome - causing massive bleeding from all orifices." These may seem like dominant characteristics, but a virus is not a predator. Bonham says Ebola viruses, like other emerging diseases, are "poorly adapted for our immune systems," and wipe out their hosts too quickly to spread. But all that can, of course, change. On Aetiology, Tara C. Smith details the history of outbreaks in Uganda…
milhayser | August 3, 2012At first glance, Richard Muller's "conversion" from global-warming skeptic to true believer—based on research funded by global warming denialists—is a welcome surprise. Hey, people can change their minds! But on Stoat, William M. Connolley takes a more critical view. Connolley asks, "Everyone who has doubts gets to run their own re-analysis of the temperature record? Wouldn’t it be quicker if people just read the existing literature?" Most of the data used by Muller has been around for years, and so has his conclusion: that humans are rapidly raising the temperature of this planet by…
milhayser | July 30, 2012On ERV, Abbie Smith writes “Malaria kills 1.24 million people a year. Mostly babies under 5 years old.” Malaria, although carried by mosquitoes, is caused by a single-celled protist which infects the liver and goes on to parasitize red blood cells. Now, a little genetic engineering could put a stop to this scourge. Smith says “Mosquitoes have a symbiotic relationship with their bacteria the same way we do—they need their ‘good’ bacteria to get all the nutrients they need to survive.” By tweaking the protein output of one such bacteria, scientists have made mosquito guts inhospitable to…
milhayser | July 19, 2012At scales where nothing can see, the best science is done by colliding particles at near lightspeed and picking up as many “pieces” as possible. We know of six quarks (which combine to make baryons, protons, and neutrons), six leptons (which include electrons and neutrinos), and four gauge bosons (which carry or exchange the fundamental forces of the universe). Not to mention antimatter and color charge, the last piece of the Standard Model puzzle is the Higgs boson. On Dynamics of Cats, Steinn Sigurðsson calls the Higgs “quintessentially a scalar field – there is no charge, colour, flavour…
milhayser | July 16, 2012Chief Justice John Roberts proved himself an independent thinker last month, siding against his fellow conservatives (and Republican appointees) in upholding the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Roberts agreed that Congress could not force a citizen to buy insurance, but allowed the individual mandate to survive as a tax. In the meantime, the ruling placed limits on federal power to expand Medicaid, leaving 16 million people in the lurch. Liz Borkowski says “the Supreme Court’s decision clouds what should have been a clear distribution of the most beneficial impacts to the most needy.” Kim…
milhayser | July 11, 2012
The Milky Way panorama by European Southern Observatory
Steinn Sigurðsson recently spent a weekend considering exoplanets and extraterrestrials at the Second SETI Conference in California. He writes, "It is important to remember that while science and discovery is important, it is not the ontological basis for space exploration. Space is, ultimately, about existential motivations." In other words, we wouldn't mind finding a friend, or a new Earth to colonize when this one gets fried by the sun. As Kepler continues to increase the number of known planets in the galaxy, it may only be a…
milhayser | June 18, 2012Animals serve as useful models in medical research—but they also serve as models for our anthropocentric fantasies. On Life Lines, Dr. Dolittle reports that researchers were able to "restore locomotion in paralyzed rats using a combination of nerve stimulation and engaging the mind by having the rats complete simple tasks." The rats, outfitted with a "support jacket" to provide external stimulation, learned to walk and even sprint to their favorite snack. Dr. Dolittle writes "the nerves had actually reorganized to create new connections around the injury site" and "these new research findings…
milhayser | June 11, 2012On ERV, Abbie Smith reports that scientists have discovered an entirely new branch of viruses in the boiling acid pools of Yellowstone National Park. By analyzing RNA segments from the pools, researchers inferred the existence of positive-strand RNA viruses with unknown genetic configurations. Smith writes, “These viruses are not just kinda new. They are really really different from the RNA viruses we already know about!” They infect primordial single-celled organisms called Archaea which thrive in the extreme heat of the pools. On the multicellular side of life, Dr. Dolittle shares the first…