OK, I know that some people see the face of their religious icons in random things. I’ve written about this a zillion times. And I know that sometimes it’s just pareidolia, our tendency to see faces in random objects. And I know that people will think it’s a miracle, when really it’s the end-product of thousands of generations of the evolution of our pattern-seeking abilities.

But then there’s stuff like this: a guy is "clueless" about how the face of Jesus appeared on his truck window, and why it persists day after day.

Oh, I have a clue. It’s clearly not random, which means it’s either a) divine, or 2) drawn on by someone. My conclusion that it’s (2) comes from having a daughter who would take her finger and draw her name in the misty back window of my car when she was younger. And also doing it myself when I was a kid. And seeing eighty bazillion examples of this as a human living in America.

So I think someone drew it on the window. The oil from their finger doesn’t wash off with water, so every morning the picture reappears with the advent (advent! Haha! A little funny for the upcoming season) on the morning dew.

But, of course, that’s just me. When I hear hoofbeats I think horses, not zebras. And since I don’t live near a zoo or in the African plains, I’m guessing what we have here is a horse-drawn carriage.

Um. Well. You know what I mean.

Picture credit: (AP Photo/Johnson City Press, Lee Talbert)

In truly French fashion, the Large Hadron Collider has shut down by… a baguette. Zut alors!

According to Popular Science:

[A] bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.

The overheating shouldn’t postpone the LHC’s reactivation at the end of the month, but all the delays and mishaps are adding to our paranoid, sci-fi suspicion: Is the LHC being sabotaged from the future? See this Cosmic Variance post for an authoritative take on such a possibility.

Related Content:
Discoblog: LHC Collisions to Commence Next Week…Hopefully
Discoblog: You Say Large Hadron Collider, I Say Sizeable Particle Crasher
Discoblog: While LHC Scientists Were Drinking Champagne, Hackers Were Attacking
Cosmic Variance: Spooky Signals from the Future Telling Us to Cancel the LHC!

Image: CERN

The Tangled Bank is now officially out; I’m getting word back from readers that it’s actually showing up from Amazon. If you’re curious about it, here are a couple ways to find out more.

1. I’ve set up pages on my web site where you can download the introduction, look at some of Carl Buell’s artwork for the book, read reviews, and get contact information if you’re a teacher interested in a desk copy.

2. The New York Academy of Sciences has published an excerpt in the new issue of their magazine. It’s about the evolution of the eye, and you can read it online here.

3. Discover has another excerpt, about coevolution, in their November issue. The print issue is out now, and it should be posted online some time soon.

Motorola’s Anroid 2.0 phone debuts today with its slide-out keyboard, 5-megapixel camera, and DVD-quality video recording. The NYTimes calls the Droid 2.0 incredibly fast with superb audio quality, but adds:

..the Droid’s design screams “Star Wars,” if not “Darth Vader.” It’s jet black, all sharp angles and industrial-looking edges. Verizon asked Motorola to soften the design for better female appeal, but it’s hopeless: Droid is all masculine, all the time. When you slide the screen up to reveal the thumb keyboard, there’s no spring-assisted snap; it drags like a plow through soil. It’s all part of the manly man design concept.

Wait I sec… I love Star Wars! Still, it’s a shiny new phone with lots of buzz and anticipation surrounding the release. The Wall Street Journal predicts it may be a big win for Verizon, Motorola and Google, while naming several drawbacks.

I have the original iPhone and am planning to purchase a new one soon. My contract’s been up for a long time and the screen finally cracked last week after an unfortunate collision with hardwood flooring. It’s past time to join a 3G network. However, next year I’m headed to Austin, TX and service sounds unreliable in the region.

So I’m curious to hear from our tech savvy readers about early impressions of the Droid 2.0. Further, what do think is the best smart phone on the market right now?

News that an Iowa cat has been diagnosed with swine flu has sparked a new round of concerns, as pet-owners worry both that their furry companions could get sick, and that their pets could pass the virus on to other humans. The 13-year-old, mixed-breed cat showed the symptoms of lethargy, sneezing and coughing typical to sick cats [ABC News]. The veterinarians who treated him say that several people in the cat’s home had been experiencing flu-like symptoms, and lab work confirmed that the feline had the H1N1 virus.

Happily, the cat is expected to make a full recovery. But both vets and public health officials are rushing to reassure the public that one sick cat probably does not indicate a coming crisis. While it’s possible that more cats will be diagnosed with the swine flu, vets point out that the virus was circulating for more than six months before the first cat case was discovered, indicating that the virus probably doesn’t jump from species to species very easily. Doctors also note that there’s very little chance that a cat will spread the virus to humans: Even when inter-species transmissions do occur, the H1N1 virus seems more likely to move from humans to animals, rather than the other way around [HealthDay News].

There have been no reported cases of dogs catching the virus, but there is one type of pet that is known to be vulnerable. Ferrets are generally susceptible to the seasonal flu, and the AP reported Wednesday that H1N1 infection has been confirmed in two ferrets, one in Nebraska and the other in Oregon. “Not only can they be infected with the flu but they are clearly able to transmit the flu back to people,” Treanor said [HealthDay News]. But the bottom line appears to be: Unless you’re a ferret-owner, you probably have nothing to worry about.

Related Content:
80beats: This Week in Swine Flu: How It Kills, Lawsuits, and a Pregnant Woman’s Story
80beats: This Week in Swine Flu: Vaccines Arrive, and Doctors Combat Myths
80beats: This Week in Swine Flu: Pregnant Women’s Concerns & Hospital Woes

Image: flickr / theogeo

It can’t be easy being the guy who has to introduce Albert Einstein. But it helps if you’re George Bernard Shaw.

You have to love YouTube, although this is only an excerpt from a somewhat longer speech. Most of the text is here.

Looking for something to do this weekend, and for the next month? Are you anywhere near New York City?

Then I am very pleased to let you know that a group of artists there have created an exhibit based on my book, Death from the Skies! The exhibit is hanging at the ABC No Rio site, and runs from now until November 25 (actually it started last week). The viewing times are Sundays 1:00 – 3:00pm and Wednesdays & Thursdays 4:00pm – 7:00pm.

This is very cool, and I am deeply honored they based their work on my book. I was contacted by artist Brian George about it some time ago. Just recently he sent me some snapshots, and I was totally blown away by this:

I recognized this poor sot right away, and if you’ve read the first few pages of the book you will too. He’s the first guy killed by the Universe, straight away in Chapter 1. But don’t fret too much about him: everyone dies in the book. Over and over again, even.

I love the shadows of the trees in that drawing. Read the book to find out why. <Mwuahahahaha!>

The artwork on display is eclectic and interesting, and if you’re into astronomy and mayhem you want to go! The artists include Michael Estabrook, Brian George, Jacob Hashimoto, HC Noel (who drew Mark, above), Kevin Pyle, Kelly Savage ("Galaxies" over there on the left), William Stamos, Es Muss Sein Quartet & B-Cat and C-Town.

There’s a Facebook group for the exhibit, too.

And as an aside, if you happen to be in NYC Friday November 6, why not pay my friend, the wonderful flame-haired chanteuse Marian Call, a visit at her east coast debut? Her voice and music are really good, and she sings about cool scifi stuff, and even has a song the title of which I suggested to her. She’s awesome.

Of course, if you’re not in NYC, but instead are in Florida, that’s OK, because then you can go to Carl Sagan Day on Saturday, November 7!

I’m quoted in USA Today this morning talking about Gore’s solutions book–Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, currently at # 21 on Amazon. As I note, it is very good that Gore is focusing on fixes, given that An Inconvenient Truth was faulted for not having enough focus in this area. However, there is always the problem of partisanship: Who listens to Al Gore? Democrats, that’s who. Republicans pretty much dismiss him out of hand–unfortunate, but it’s true. I am very glad Gore is out there raising as much consciousness as possible about the climate crisis; he’s a unique asset. But I am also sure we need very different emissaries to reach the denialists (if that’s even possible).

The hi-res Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s camera captured a pretty cool image of a (what I’m guessing is an ancient) landslide on the Moon. Check this out:

[Click to embrobdingnangate.]

The slide is down the steep slope of a crater called Marius, located in Oceanus Procellarum, a vast smooth-surfaced area on the Moon (generally called "maria" — singular is "mare" — and easily visible to the naked eye). The crater itself is pretty old; the floor is covered with the same smooth surface as the mare around it, so it predates Oceanus Procellarum which we know is pretty frakkin’ old.

The slide is very interesting; what could have caused it? A moonquake, or a nearby impact? Either way, the ground shook, knocking loose rubble at the crater rim which then rolled downhill. And just to give you an idea of the scale here, the image is 510 meters across: you could walk that distance in a few minutes. The fingers of debris are only a few dozen meters across at most! The smallest objects you can see in this image are less than a meter across.

Features like this on the Moon yield a lot of information. Better, as the LROC page notes, this feature can be compared to similar ones on Mars, giving scientists insight into both worlds.

And? It’s just really cool. Landslides on the Moon! Look out below!

It is now up on Slate and you can read it here. There are many good points but I’ll just quote the end; Specter responds to my remark about the Internet and misinformation spreading as follows:

There will always be irresponsible blogs and Web sites. But there is also the New York Post. What we need to defeat denialism are independent and thoughtful publications (like this one, for example) that serve up information that is at least as reliable as newspapers have been. We will get there, but it is going to take a while, and the journey has and will be painful. In the mean time, the American public, and particularly those of us who write about science, need to start talking more vigorously about our scientific opportunities and their potential risks. If we don’t start soon, we are going to let some very promising solutions to our worst problems slip away. Do you agree with me that a national discussion on the future of synthetic life is necessary? More importantly, do you think it’s possible?

I think it’s crucially important to have a national discussion on synthetic life…and I’m now writing my next response to Specter. Meanwhile, read his here.

Researchers may have taken a step towards curing the rare, inherited brain disease made famous by the movie Lorenzo’s Oil–and also towards ushering a new era of gene therapy. To help two young boys suffering from the disease, researchers tried an experimental treatment using a deactivated version of the HIV virus. The virus delivered working copies of a gene to stem cells from the patients’ bone marrows. The HIV virus, stripped of genetic material that makes it toxic, integrates permanently into the DNA of cells it enters, scientists said. That means the modified gene remains in the blood-forming stem cells for the life of the patient [Bloomberg].

Adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD, is a progressive disease characterized by the gradual destruction of the myelin sheaths that insulate neurons and nerves, allowing electrical signals to be transmitted through them. The disease is caused by a genetic defect, which prevents cells in the bone marrow from producing a crucial protein necessary for the formation of the myelin sheaths. Typically, children with ALD are given bone marrow transplants to provide them with healthy blood-forming stem cells, but in the two cases described in the study, no matching donors could be found.

In the experimental treatment, described in a paper published in Science, researchers took blood stem cells from the patients’ bone marrow and used the new vector system to genetically alter them by inserting a working copy of the … gene. The modified cells were then put back into the patients [Reuters].

The boys are now seven years old, and if the disease had continued on its course they would have been nearly dead by now. Says lead researcher Patrick Aubourg: “They would now be unable to speak, to walk, to communicate, to sit, to eat. They would be in an advanced stage of the disease, in a vegetative state…. Instead they go to school. They live a normal life” [Wired.com]. Aubourg says brain scans of the two boys show the myelin destruction has come to a halt, and cognitive tests have shown no further deterioration over the course of several years.

The tactic will be tested further to see if its beneficial effects extend to other patients, and the treated boys will also be monitored for any late-breaking side effects. So far the researchers have detected no ill effects, but they will be vigilant because gene therapy is still best-known for its high-profile failures. In 1999, 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger died during tests of a gene therapy for a rare metabolic disorder. In 2003, two French children receiving treatment for severe immune deficiencies developed leukemia. But with the recent success of a gene therapy for blindness, and the refinement of new, apparently more reliable methods, gene therapy may have turned a corner [Wired.com].

Related Content:
80beats: Gene Therapy Cures Color Blindness in Monkeys
80beats: Gene Therapy Restores Sight to the Blind
DISCOVER: The Second Coming of Gene Therapy

Image: Science / Patrick Aubourg, et al. The top row shows the deterioration over time of an untreated brain with ALD, while the bottom shows the brain of one of the treated boys.

When 3-year-old Mark Blinder developed pain in his right arm, doctors diagnosed him with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone tumor. Chemotherapy wasn’t working and radiation would have destroyed the growth plates in his bones. So instead of amputating the arm, doctors tried an experimental approach–implanting an artificial, expandable bone made of titanium and cobalt chrome, designed specifically for Mark. The bone, produced by the company Biomet Inc., is small enough to fit inside the 3-year-old’s arm, but should be sturdy enough to last his entire life. Most artificial bones are used to replace only part of a bone, so they are glued securely to remaining bone. In Mark’s case, the entire humerus was being removed, so the prosthetic had to be attached to soft tissue [Los Angeles Times].

To install the bone, doctors first had to remove the tumor by carving out the fat around it, a process one of the doctor’s likened to carving out a peach pit without ever touching the pit. The surgery was a success but Mark, who is now 4 years old, underwent chemotherapy as a precaution. Mark is gradually relearning how to use his arm. He’s moving his wrist and fingers, can pick up small objects, and is receiving physiotherapy to rebuild strength and flexibility in the elbow and shoulder. He won’t ever regain full function in those joints, but he is using the arm more each day, his mother said [Los Angeles Times]. He will have to undergo three or four minor surgeries over the years so doctors can extend the prosthetic bone as he grows–but since the only other option open to Mark was amputating his arm completely, he probably won’t complain.

Related Content:
Science Not Fiction: Dr. Terminator: The Prosthetics Designer Who Makes Sci-Fi Sculptures
DISCOVER: High Powered Prosthetics: a bionic muscle 100 times stronger than yours
DISCOVER: Neural Prosthetics may be the next frontier

Image: iStockphoto

If you’re jonesing for some spacey stuff and maybe some critical thinking too, then check out these three links:

1) Starts with a Bang has a diary of the Ares I-X launch a couple of weeks ago.

2) The 127th Carnival of Space is lying in wait at Next Big Future.

3) The 123rd Skeptics Circle is at Blue Genes Science News, where things have become decidedly Galilean.

So go waste your Thursday afternoon learning stuff.

Ever wondered if your Florida grapefruit is really from Florida? After all, how can you trust those flimsy little stickers. Well, researchers have a solution to this important problem: lasers!

Via Physorg.com:

Laser labeling of fruit and vegetables is a new, patented technology in which a low-energy carbon dioxide laser beam is used to label, or “etch” information on produce, thereby eliminating the need for common sticker-type labels.

In the United States, the FDA is in the final stages of approving this “tamper-free labeling technology.” Laser-etching of fruits and veggies is already underway in New Zealand, Australia, and Pacific Rim countries, and it has been been approved in many other regions.

There’s actually some science behind laser-etching. A recent study in the journal HortTechnology concluded “the fruit quality remains high as the invasion of the epidermis does not incite decay [or] provide an avenue for food pathogens,” as the laser essentially cauterizes the peel of the fruit. “The technology will offer the grapefruit industry a safe alternative to adhesive sticker labeling without enhancing decay susceptibility.” Thank goodness for that.

Related Content:
Discoblog: Pilots Attacked By Frickin’ Laser Beams
Discoblog: When Fruit Gets Deadly: Woman Eats Grapefruit, Nearly Loses Leg
Discoblog: EU Embraces Ugly Fruits and Vegetables

Image: Agricultural Research Service and University of Florida

It’s tough to get people to make healthier decisions about the way they live their lives. Public health officials have tried for decades to stem the obesity epidemic by getting people to exercise more, but all their tactics–lecturing, scolding, scaring, informing, inspiring, empowering–have had very little effect.

But at a subway station in Stockholm, a band of inventive social engineers had amazing results when they decided to get commuters off the escalators and onto the stairs. They asked themselves, “Can we get more people to choose the stairs by making it fun to do?” And then they turned the staircase into a piano keyboard, complete with black and white keys.

The project was part of a larger initiative sponsored by Volkswagen called “The Fun Theory,” which aims to prove that people will change their behavior for the better if you let them have a little fun in the bargain. Have you pulled off a similar trick? Tell Volkswagen about it and you can win more than $4,000.

Related Content:
Discoblog: Video: Bottomless Soup Bowls Trick Us Into Pigging Out
Discoblog: Fighting Child Obesity, One Bake Sale at a Time
DISCOVER: How to Make Your Friends Fat

Video: Volkswagen

See here. We’re discussing Denialism, which I recommended earlier. I start of the dialogue with Michael Specter like this:

Hi Michael,

First, let me say it has been a pleasure to read Denialism, a book I’ve wanted to dig into ever since you came to speak about it to our Knight Science Journalism Fellows seminar at MIT. It’s heartening to see another author beating the drum about America’s dysfunctional relationship with science, and making the point so vividly and memorably. Your narrative about vaccine skeptics’ attacks on an unassuming and rigorous scientist like Harvard’s Marie McCormick—whom I have also interviewed—made me so angry I wanted to hurl the book across the room (and that’s a good thing!).

What’s more, your book looks past some of the more obvious cases of “denialism”—of climate change, HIV/AIDS, evolution, and so forth—to lesser known realms like personalized medicine and synthetic biology, where our qualms about where science is taking us are likely to manifest next. You don’t deny the older and more famous instances of anti-science sentiment, but you smartly move along to the ones we’re going to be dealing with for years to come.

That’s not to say I agree with everything in Denialism; I think there are some aspects of the big picture that you haven’t painted quite right. Take, for instance, the baffling fact that despite all of our irrationality on topics like vaccination, Americans aren’t actually “anti-science” in any meaningful sense of the term…..

You can read my full entry here. Michael Specter will be replying sometime this afternoon and we’ll take it from there…

My friend Bug Girl (an entomologist and Skepchick) sent me a note about a cool opportunity for U.S. east coast teachers: you can participate in a Shuttle experiment involving Monarch butterflies in space!

When Atlantis launches next week, it will be carrying some Monarch caterpillars to be taken aboard the Space Station, where they will hatch and be observed. Lots of questions will be investigated: What happens when pupae burst open in space? How will the butterflies cope? Will their migrating instinct be satisfied by moving 7 km/sec across the face of the Earth?

OK, I made up that last one, but Monarch Watch is looking to get teachers and students involved in the real science of butterflies in microgravity. But HURRY! They need your email by tomorrow, Friday, November 6! So if you’re an east coast teacher, go to Bug Girl’s blog and see how you can join in on the insecty fun.

A supernova that was observed in 1680 by Britain’s first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, has been revealed to have produced a strange little neutron star that will give astronomers insight into how such stars are born and mature. The remains of the supernova, known as Cassiopeia A, have been something of a mystery to astronomers. Supernovae usually leave behind an extremely dense object such as a black hole or neutron star. But for decades no such object was seen at the centre of Cassiopeia A [Nature News]. Now new observations suggest that the 330-year-old neutron star escaped detection because of its odd atmosphere.

Instead of resembling more mature neutron stars, which are surrounded by hydrogen, this baby star is blanketed in carbon gas – a discovery that could provide important new insights into the evolution of neutron stars [Physics World]. The new study, published in Nature, suggests that the star is still extremely hot in the aftermath of the supernova–about 2 billion degrees Fahrenheit. This overheated condition caused a nuclear fusion reaction on the star’s surface that converts all the hydrogen and helium into carbon gas, researchers say. As time goes on, and as the star cools, the researchers think the surface fusion reaction will stop and the star will develop a more traditional hydrogen atmosphere.

Related Content:
80beats: Detoured Light From Tycho’s Supernova Finally Makes it to Earth
80beats: Mysterious Stellar Blast in the 1840s Was a “Supernova Imposter”
DISCOVER: Sliced: Inside a Supernova
DISCOVER: One Spectacular Stellar Death

Image: NASA / CXC / Southampton / W. Ho / M. Weiss

Many blog and Twitter readers may be acquainted with Jonathan Eisen, a biologist at UC Davis. In my latest Meet the Scientist podcast, I spend an hour chatting with Eisen about what you can learn by looking at the genomes of particularly weird microbes–from radiation-resistant critters to bugs that live in the guts of insects or on the bellies of deep-sea worms. Check it out.

The SEAPLEX (Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition) voyage to the island of garbage in the North Pacific Gyre continues… Watch marine mammal specialist Josh Jones deploy his acoustic array to study dolphins and whales:

More videos from the expedition are available at Dive Into Your Imagination.