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Man or Mouse?

August 6, 2004 by pekingman

Have we over-estimated the importance of genomes (and by implication the Human Genome Project)? Is epigenesis a more fruitful field for understanding human disease and behavior? Is the rush to patent genes equivalent to seeking patents for each word in the dictionary?
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Matt Ridley in an article titled "Humans have no more genes than mice, but don't feel small" points out that the more we find out about genomes, the more humiliating the news they bring us. He says, "the human genome turns out to be profoundly ordinary. We have known for decades that human beings have one fewer chromosome than chimpanzees, which should have been ample warning. We have known for years that grasshoppers have three times as much DNA per cell as we do, deep sea shrimps ten times, salamanders 20 times and African lungfish a staggering 40 times. But we still kidded ourselves until just the last few years that human beings would prove to have more genes, arranged in a more sophisticated way, than most other creatures. How else to explain our exquisite brains?"

CNA's and their Knowledge of Feeding Techniques

August 4, 2004 by kgrzed

What knowledge do CNA's have of feeding techniques in nursing homes?

In a study conducted in the AJSLP, it was found that CNA's overall had poor knowledge of technical skills, safety, and communication across all facilities studied.

Feeding Techniques:
Most CNA's did demonstrate use of verbal/physical prompts for feeding, wiping the face, and removing food from clothing.

They were also aware of choking or coughing and difficulties with chewing food. A wet or gurgly voice was only mentioned by one CNA in the study.

Overall they demonstrated adequate knowledge.

Communication Skills:

Biology Poised to Lose its Innocence?

August 1, 2004 by pekingman

The following article describes creation of a polio virus cobbled together from bits bought over the internet. Britain’s Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees thinks we only have an even chance of making it to the end of this century (Rees 2003). He adds together the remote possibilities of nanobots running amuck and strangelets escaping from a heavy ion collider, to the more familiar threats of an asteroid impact, global warming, nasty pandemics, and environmental degradation. He does not like the resultant odds. He sees new opportunities from science and technology as well as threats. Civilization is now at threat of death by misadventure as well as by deliberate design. He believes that scientists have a special responsibility to make sure that he is wrong. Could the desire to make new forms of life be the ultimate fatal mistake?

Anti-HIV protein evolved millions of years before AIDS

July 30, 2004 by smazsyr

smazsyr's picture

Maybe someone with a better grounding in immunology can answer my question. Does this mean AIDS-like diseases have been around millions of years, or that the protein involved here simply is a catch-all kind of thing that tackles HIV and numerous other, older bugs as well? Question 2: Now that it's identified, what good is it? Can medicines be devloped with it/based on it?

Leapfrogging Technology

July 29, 2004 by pekingman

Leapfrogging was how the Thailand’s Prime Minister described his vision of Thailand moving up the manufacturing value chain. Thaksin Shinawatra named the country’s auto assembly and auto parts industries as candidates for this ambitious undertaking (The Nation Editorial - 10 June 2004).

“If the frog is to jump a long distance, it needs to leap from hard ground. This is supposed to be food for thought, for now,” he was quoted as saying to a group of reporters at Government House.

The editorial writer responded by using the boiling frog analogy. “For the frog – by which Thaksin means Thailand – to take this proposed leap of faith, it will need to be rescued from the heated-up water in the pan, by which we mean the government’s manipulation of the population’s unprincipled wants and needs with its populist policies, chief among them the oil price controls which are cushioning both industry and consumers. Like the frog, Thais cannot be expected to get strong or competitive by staying in the “comfort zone” forever. If Thaksin wants it to leap, he should avoid boiling it.”

Sustainable Cities?

July 29, 2004 by pekingman

One of the more interesting outcomes of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro has been the proliferation of Local Agenda 21 plans. The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) currently lists some 460 members, representing more than 300 million people, dedicated to creating sustainable cities. It is believed that cities are the best test bed to protect and repair the environment, because they represent the institutions closest to the people and their problems. If this is true, then one would expect to find breakthrough technologies first appearing in cities committed to sustainability. However, is it even possible to imagine a truly sustainable city?

Mmmm ... ancient beer

July 27, 2004 by smazsyr

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"Ancient Peruvians made chicha with local grains and fruit, which is quite different from today's commercial beers typically made with barley and hops." Prediction: Trader Joe's will have a version of this on the market within 18 months. Also, this does nothing to dispel the notion that beer=civilization

Update: Chicha de Maní recipe (Peanut Beverage)

Ancient brewery discovered on mountaintop in Peru - [Science Blog]

The American Wastebasket Corporation Meets the Newest Environmental Challenge.

July 27, 2004 by American Wasteb...

American Wastebasket Corporation scientists rise to the latest environmental challenge this week as they begin work on a new ecological scourge: Scotchgard-coated fish.

(http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0407270348jul27,1,4603358.s...) Recent reports that chemicals such as Teflon, Scotchgard, Stainmaster, and Gore-Tex -- known as perfluoronated compounds -- are now common in the Great Lakes, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Polar Ice Caps, dictates this new research direction for the American Wastebasket Corporation.

Fluid from aloe prolongs life after hemorrhagic shock

July 27, 2004 by smazsyr

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This seems promising. And particularly intriguing in that the aloe factor appears to be essentially a bio-lubricant: "'As a drag reducing polymer, it may provide better diffusion of oxygen molecules from red blood cells to tissues because of its ability to better mix in the plasma surrounding red blood cells." Coming on the heals of chitoson-infused bandages, it offers extra hope that folks hurt in action, industrial accidents or even car wrecks won't bleed out before they can be taken to a hospital.

Fluid from aloe prolongs life after hemorrhagic shock - [Science Blog]

Hello Science Blog Central

July 27, 2004 by OldCola

Hello everybody,

On a Science tagged site I would expect more scientific approaches of the various subjects treated in the blogs offered space. That's the reason I came along.
A fast tour and at least 2/3 of what I read is not really what I expected from scientists. But there is a touch of humor, and maybe the will for fair discussion.

Let me check it out pointing two threads of pekingman to start with :
One large software company (no prizes) has even patented the double click on the computer mouse. Did he read the patent ? Certainly not ! No mouse on a PDA in fact. My granny insisted that I must dig until the source before I meke my own mind on a subject, and said that this is what Science Driven Behavior should be.

Will Nanotech Save the Environment?

July 26, 2004 by pekingman

"Nanotechnology will reverse the harm done by the industrial revolution".
Dr. Richard Smalley, head of the Nanotechnology Initiative at Rice University,

Reading about flying nanotubes and how science often goes off in strange, sometimes serendipitous, sometimes dangerous directions, one wonders where nanotech will land humankind environmentally? While I think the grey or green goo scenario is a little extreme, is it possible that nanotechnology will answer all our 1990's environmental problems, or simply create a whole new bunch of difficult messes to clean up after?

“Molecular nanotechnology (MNT), the design and construction of macroscopic materials at the molecular level, will play a major part of solving the issues of both sustainable resource extraction and byproduct mitigation. Furthermore, MNT is the only technology that holds promise for achieving something like a sustainable First-World standard of living for the entire world” (Gillett 2002).

Intellectual Property Rights

July 25, 2004 by pekingman

We sometimes forget that much of the East Asia success in industry was due to wholesale copying of Western goods. It was not so long ago that "made in Japan" was a derisory term for cheap and poorly made knock-offs of Western products. China, Taiwan and Korea have followed the same development path. Will over-zealous protection of patents and copyright bar this path to development for some of the upcoming least developed countries?

The Patent Cooperation Treaty was first signed in Washington in June 1970. It has been amended several times since. The latest version has been in force since April 2002. It provides protection and legal remedies for registered inventions. By filing one international patent application an inventor can seek simultaneous protection in over 100 countries, including a number of developing countries. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is helping developing countries to develop improved patent protection laws and to ratify the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the Madrid system for the international registration of marks, and the Haque system for the international registration of industrial designs. Similar protection is afforded copyrights through the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literacy and Artistic Works. Plant varieties can be protected by patents or by a special system (such as breeder’s rights under the International Convention for Protection of New Varieties of Plants).

Alternative Futures to Avoid

July 23, 2004 by pekingman

Am I dreaming, or are some beacons of this new hi-tech world beginning to wonder if we are creating a monster? When the Astronomer Royal in the UK says that we only have a 50 percent chance of making it as a species beyond 2100, I am not sure if I want to take that new gene therapy to double my life span to 150.

“The 21st-century technologies - genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics - are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them. Thus we have the possibility not just of weapons of mass destruction but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction, this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self-replication. I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals” (Joy 2000).

Biotech Barbie

July 23, 2004 by pekingman

FROM BARBEQUE TO BARBIE? – WHERE IS BIOTECHNOLOGY LEADING US?

Scientist! That word has captured my heart and soul since I was kneehigh to a grasshopper. I still write proudly “scientist” as my occupation in those ridiculously small spaces allowed on immigration and other forms, which really have no business inquiring about your business. And, I could never find enough space to write “environmental scientist”, which is how I like to define my years of scientific study.

However, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, seems to be leading us up a very strange evolutionary alley. An alley which may not concern you or I in our dotage, but should concern your kids or theirs. I speak of the arcane world of biotechnology, which promises much but also starts to blur the lines between “them” and “us”, to a point where we should be concerned.

Get the Sun Screen Ready

July 23, 2004 by smazsyr

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Why isn't this being covered elsewhere? Seems there's a huge build up of sun spots pointed right at us. If all goes wrong, we could be in a world of hurt:

"At 20 times the size of Earth, the largest sunspot observed since the fall solar storm onslaught is now pointed directly at Earth. Its unusually large size also means that it's now visible with the naked eye (although you should never look at the Sun without a proper filter). The implications of this spot have scientists on the edge of their seats - if the active region gene



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