?????????? ??? | Bad Astronomy

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I sometimes get requests from people asking if they can translate something I’ve written into a different language. The answer is usually yes, if they provide a link back to the original post. The funny part is not knowing if they’ve done a good job or not!

So there’s a certain trust involved, I suppose, because I don’t speak too many languages. And it’s even harder if they don’t use vowels! But that hasn’t stopped Yoav Landsman from translating some of my posts into Hebrew. He did three:

- Just in case you need reminding how nice place to live Earth is
- 30 years, a half million asteroids
- Do rainbow clouds foretell earthquakes? (also on Spinoza, the Israeli skeptics community website).

I can actually puzzle through some of the pronunciation of the words phonetically, but that’s about it; my knowledge of Hebrew is limited to probably fewer than two dozen words. But I’d like to thank Yoav for helping me reach a population that I might otherwise never reach. L’chaim!


Georgia on My Mind | The Intersection

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Today I’m at North Georgia College & State University and can already report that I’m falling in love with the town of Dahlonega–known as the gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the site where the Gold Rush began in 1928. I’m here as the speaker for the university’s information literacy initiative and will be talking to students and the community about scientific illiteracy in the United States.

Tonight’s event is free and open to the public so if you’re in the area, come on by! It takes place at 7:30 in the Health & Natural Sciences Building. You can read more about this terrific initiative and my participation at The Gainesville Times…


Robot, Build Thyself: Machine Made of Lego Builds Models Made of Lego | Discoblog

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lego-house3D printers are beloved by geeks the world over. Enter the Lego 3D printer: it’s not only MADE of Legos, but it also PRINTS with Legos.

With only a few tweaks, this LegoBot could even take over the world print copies of itself, maker Will Gorman told Wired:

“There is a recursiveness to this whole thing,” says Gorman.

“I love the idea of self-assembly and the Star Trek replicator and I love Legos,” he says. “I wanted to bring those two worlds together.”

Gorman built this recursive masterpiece for the LegoWorld expo, happening from Oct 22th to 26th in the Netherlands. Dutch lego enthusiasts can visit the expo to see LegoBot in action, the rest of us can check out his website for detailed instructions on how to build your own.

Hit the jump for more info on his Lego-contraption and a video of it in action.

For now, the bot requires a human operator to stack bricks into the feeder system and program it with a design from MLCad (a computer-aided Lego designing program) through a PC, which determines the printout instructions. Currently the system uses only normal Lego bricks (not the Lego robotics NXT components) in the 1×2, 2×2, 3×2, 4×2, and 8×2 sizes, and can print up to 12 bricks tall. The printer itself is made out of 2,400 bricks.

Related content:
Discoblog: Can Scientists Use a Printer to Create a Human Heart?
Science Not Fiction: I Have Seen the Furniture, and It Is Robotic
Science Not Fiction: Knight Rider: 3D Printing
Bad Astronomy: Smart girls at the party
Bad Astronomy: Compasskirt

Image: Will Gorman


UVa still fighting climate witch hunt, ups the rhetoric | Bad Astronomy

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I’m happy to report that my alma mater, the University of Virginia, is not only fighting back against State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s witch hunt against climate scientist Michael Mann, they are also being pretty clear about their protest:

In its most strongly-worded court filing to date, UVA characterized Cuccinelli’s investigation as "an unprecedented and improper governmental intrusion into ongoing scientific research” and said that Cuccinelli is targeting Mann because he “disagrees with his academic research regarding climate change."

In other words, they’re saying this is a politically and ideologically motivated abuse of power, which I’ve been saying all along.

I’m thrilled to see the University standing firm. Cuccinelli’s actions, on purpose or otherwise, are sending out a message that academic research can be chilled due to political ideology, and that is something that must not be allowed. I fully support what UVa is doing, and hope they can stop Cuccinelli in his tracks.

The University’s court filing really is worth reading. Thomas Jefferson would be proud.

Related posts:

- Cuccinelli warms to his task of climate change denial
- Another climate scientist responds to Rep. Joe Barton’s false claims
- UVa will fight climate change attack
- Climate change followup


Are You A Researcher Who Rocks? | The Intersection

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Rock Stars of Science Spread (final)_Page_1Readers know well that here at the Intersection we care a great deal about increasing the public visibility of science, and trying to ensure that our researchers are recognized as the national heroes they are. That’s what Unscientific America was all about.

And that’s why I’ve decided to team up with an initiative that has dramatic potential to make Americans far more aware of science, and it’s importance to our future.

That initiative is the Geoffrey Beene Gives Back® Rock Stars of Science™ campaign–whose most famous image is pictured at right.

Geoffrey Beene is a designer men’s clothing brand; its foundation funds philanthropic causes–many of them relating to the advancement of biomedical research and the search for cures for devastating diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.

For instance, in 2006 it founded the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), and has given over $ 110 million in value from Geoffrey Beene combined entities to innovative translational cancer research.

Rock Stars of Science™ is another Geoffrey Beene initiative, designed to raise the visibility of our leading researchers by pairing them with musicians–and showing that scientists rock and are themselves celebrities and superstars. To that end, it launched a spread in GQ magazine last summer, depicting folks like Francis Collins jamming with Joe Perry. One key goal? Increase funding for medical research–and inspire young people to pursue scientific careers.

The next installment of Rock Stars of Science™ is going to be in GQ’s December “Men of the Year” issue. I’ve seen it–it’s going to get people talking. Stand by for more about that.

But in the meantime, Rock Stars of Science™ has put a call out to any scientists who are also musicians, like Pardis Sabeti or the Professors of Bluegrass, or Andy Revkin’s “Uncle Wade” (surely science journalists also count): Identify yourselves! The Rock S.O.S.™ website is going to feature tons of videos of scientists performing music, and it’s calling for the submission of links to scientist-musician videos.

Know of any musical scientists? Happen to be one yourself? You should send an email to info@rockstarsofscience.org. Include: your name, e-mail address, short bio including research specialty & additional weblinks. And heck–post anything you may know of in the comments section here as well.

(That includes you, Sheril. We all know you’re a drummer.)

I can’t wait to start posting and watching some of these vids….to start off, here’s “Arlington,” written by top science reporter Andy Revkin and performed by his band “Uncle Wade”:


Coming Soon to the Internets: Digitized Dead Sea Scrolls | Discoblog

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1-DeuteronomyIn a great convergence of old and new, Google and the Israel Antiquities Authority are teaming up to digitize the millennia-old Dead Sea Scrolls.

The scrolls are the oldest known surviving biblical texts, created between 150 BC and 79 AD. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and include nearly every book of the Old Testament (except the Book of Esther), and several other religious texts.

The scrolls have been tightly guarded because of their delicate nature. Only two scholars are allowed to study the scrolls at a time, which are held in a room where temperature, light, and humidity are all carefully controlled. Public access to the writings will change how they are studied, Rob Enderle told Computer World:

“This is information few have ever seen and a piece of our oldest written history,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. “What makes this epic is that it could be important for generations of religious scholars. This is a project that could have an impact on thousands of years in the future. There are few projects that have that kind of life expectancy.”

As a part of the digitization, the scans will be posted online, and will have accompanying transcription, translations, and bibliography, the press release from the Israel Antiquities Authority said:

…upload not only all of the digitized Scrolls images but also additional data online that will allow users to perform meaningful searches across a broad range of data in a number of languages and formats, which will result in unprecedented scholarly and popular access to the Scrolls and related research and scholarship and should lead to new insights into the world of the Scrolls.

The scans are being done at the highest possible resolution; the picture quality will be equivalent to actually looking at the scrolls, which will help keep the delicate papyrus and parchment from future handling. The scrolls were previously imaged in infrared light (in the 1950s), but the current digitization will be done using light of many spectra, which the press release said may yield new insights:

The technology will also help rediscover writing and letters that have “vanished” over the years; with the help of infra-red light and wavelengths beyond, these writings will be brought “back to life”, facilitating new possibilities in Dead Sea Scrolls research.

The project isn’t just a “plug and chug” exercise. The 900 scrolls have been fragmented into about 3,000 pieces, so the technicians won’t just be sliding papers into a scanner. As Pnina Shor, the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Dead Sea Scrolls project manager, told National Geographic:

“You hear ’scrolls’ and you think of something big and rolled up. But we have thousands and thousands of fragments that are some 2,000 years old. A lot of this work is puzzle work, scholars piecing things together”—both physically and philosophically. “Now hopefully we will have a lot of new readings” by scholars worldwide who wouldn’t have otherwise been able to scrutinize the Dead Sea Scrolls in detail, said Shor.

The imaging will begin in early 2011 and the first images will hopefully be available within six months.

Related content:
Discoblog: World’s Oldest Bible, Now Available on Your Laptop
Discoblog: The Science of Virgin Birth
Discoblog: Retracted Study: Biblical Woman Had Flu, Not Demonic Possession
Bad Astronomy: Are the Ten Commandments really the basis for our laws?
DISCOVER: In Search of John the Baptist

Image: IAA


Daily Data Dump – October 21st, 2010 | Gene Expression

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Bob Guccione, Penthouse Founder, Dies at 79. Playboy has been in decline too.

HUMAN GENE COUNT: MORE THAN A CHICKEN, LESS THAN A GRAPE. Going under 20,000. Hey, it’s just a number, not the measure of a man.


Robert Heinlein, We Never Knew Ye. Fred Pohl’s blog is really interesting.

Only You. And You. And You. This is really confusing: “Terisa Greenan and her boyfriend, Matt, are enjoying a rare day of Seattle sun, sharing a beet carpaccio on the patio of a local restaurant. Matt holds Terisa’s hand, as his 6-year-old son squeezes in between the couple to give Terisa a kiss. His mother, Vera, looks over and smiles; she’s there with her boyfriend, Larry.”

Insulin Sensitivity May Explain Link Between Obesity, Memory Problems. Another reason to lose weight.

Depressed Mice Just Need a Shot of Gene Therapy in the Brain | 80beats

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BrainBlackAccording to a new study out in Science Translational Medicine, treating depressed mice with gene therapy in the brain to bolster a protein connected to the neurotransmitter serotonin can make those depressive symptoms dissipate.

Here’s the gist: The gene in question creates a protein called p11 that help carry serotonin receptors up to the surface of a brain cell where they can receive signals from other brain cells. Poor serotonin signaling may be one of the major drivers behind depression, and a dearth of p11 could worsen the problem, according to study author Michael Kaplitt.

“In the absence of p11, a neuron can produce all the serotonin receptors it needs, but they will not be transported to the cell surface,” said Kaplitt. [AFP]

To test this, back in 2006 Nobel winner Paul Greengard (another coauthor on this study) created mice engineered to lack p11. Indeed, those mice developed the signs of severe depression. This time around, the team took similarly depressed mice and injected a reward center in their brain (the nucleus accumbens) with a virus that gave them a shot of p11. According to the researchers, the boost turned around the mice’s depression symptoms and they began to act like normal mice.

“Psychological disorders, such as depression, are increasingly viewed as brain disorders,” says study author Michael Kaplitt of the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. “If true, we may be able to help some patients by bringing levels of this protein back to normal.” [USA Today]

That said, the main criticisms of Kaplitt’s study note that depression is much more complicated than a single gene, protein, or receptor. And is a treatment as invasive as gene therapy on the brain really necessary for treating depression, or even effective against the most serious forms of the illness?

Because the treatment is invasive — requiring brain surgeons to drill into the skull and deliver the therapy to the right spot in the brain — it should only be used by severely afflicted patients that don’t respond to other drugs. “But that’s really not what the study tested,” says [Husseini] Manji, whose commentary on the study was also published in Science Translational Medicine today. The mice in the study might well have responded to Prozac, and it is not clear whether the treatment does treat the severest forms of the disorder. [Nature]

Worries aside, these types of therapies are on the horizon. The scientists involved in this study are also testing similar procedures for Parkinson’s disease. Kaplitt is working on a new project to test the p11 treatment in non-human primates, which could pave the way for human trials.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: Psychologist Says Antidepressants Are Just Fancy Placebos
80beats: Gene Therapy Hope for HIV: Engineered Stem Cells Hold Promise
80beats: Gene Therapy That Bulks up Muscles Raises Doping Concerns
80beats: Scientists See the Foreshadowing of Depression in Brain Anatomy

Image: iStockphoto


“Metabolic Sins of the Father”: Fat Dads May Give Their Kids Diabetes | 80beats

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ratScientists knew that overweight mothers tend to have more overweight children. But is the same true for fathers? This week in Nature, Margaret Morris and her team demonstrated this effect in male rats, the first time it’s been shown to work in males. The findings are another example of how non-genetic factors, like how much a parent eats, can have a biological impact on offspring.

The researchers put one of their two groups of male rats on a high-fat diet, the other on a normal one. Unsurprisingly, the high-fat rats put on a lot of weight and began to show symptoms of type II diabetes, like insulin resistance and struggles with metabolizing glucose. And then there were their kids:

The real surprise came when Morris’s team went on to examine the obese rats’ female offspring. These too had problems regulating insulin and glucose levels. The healthy fathers, however, had correspondingly healthy daughters. Whether similar defects emerge in sons remains to be seen. [Nature News]

Morris says that the “fat father” effect in the rats’ female offspring was not as obvious as the effect of an overweight mother. That’s to be expected, as the father makes his contribution only at conception, while the mother continues to influence an offspring throughout pregnancy. Thus, Morris says, obesity must cause some profound change in gene expression in the father’s sperm.

The prime suspect, says Morris, is not a genetic mutation in the sperm’s DNA, but an “epigenetic” alteration in chemical tags on the DNA. These epigenetic tags help determine whether a gene is expressed, and they can be passed on to offspring. During sperm development, which is occurring constantly in the male, epigenetic marks are erased and replaced. Environmental factors such as diet may interfere with this process. [ScienceNOW]

In fact, the Nature study found 600 variations in the expression of genes relating to the pancreas in the daughters of fat male rats. But the actual genetic code had not changed, pointing the finger at an epigenetic cause.

This finding is fascinating, says Andy Feinberg, at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. “In a way it’s saying the metabolic sins of the father can be visited on the daughters, even if the daughters haven’t been conceived yet,” he says. [NPR]

Of course, you can’t directly translate a mouse or rat study to humans and say we’d be affected in the same way. But if a similar effect is happening in people, it would be one more way the growing obesity problem is spreading across generations.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: DNA Is Not Destiny explains how epigenetics is rewriting the rules of heritability
DISCOVER: How Good Genes Go Bad explores the role environmental toxins play in epigenetics
80beats: Is an Ant Colony’s Caste System Determined by Epigenetics?
80beats: Child Abuse May Leave a Lasting Mark on Victims’ DNA

Image: iStockphoto


Sean O’Keefe Talks About Fatal Plane Crash

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Sean O'Keefe Recounts Surviving Alaskan Crash, AOL

"The degree of separation between survival and not was a fraction of what you'd imagine," said O'Keefe, who still wears a brace for his fractured neck and a leg guard for his severely broken ankle. He also suffered a dislocated hip and broken ribs. "It could have been anybody. The randomness of this whole experience was such that any doubt you have about divine intervention goes away," said O'Keefe, 54, who returned to work this week at the Washington office of a European aerospace firm."

Stevens Plane Crash Survivor Recounts Experience, AP

"He said he was greatly relieved that his 19-year-old son, Kevin O'Keefe, survived. "I can't even imagine surviving from this experience if he were not OK," he said."

He survived plane crash that killed Ted Stevens

"Former NASA Administrator and Secretary of the Navy Sean O'Keefe was dazed and confused when he regained consciousness, unaware for a moment that the single-engine DeHavilland DHC-3T he and eight others had been flying en route to a remote Alaskan fishing camp had just crashed into the side of a mountain."

Nebula: NASA Moves Into The Cloud

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Announcing the Launch of IaaS, powered by Nebula

"Today, the pre-release of NASA Cloud Services, powered by Nebula is available to all NASA personnel. Plans call for the pre-release to be seamlessly transitioned to production after the Operational Readiness Review (ORR) is completed in the coming weeks."

NASA wants to run space missions, not data centers, ComputerWorld

"NASA CTO Chris Kemp said he believes that compute resources are fundamentally a utility, no different than electric power. And "we don't own power plants right now - we don't own other services that are provided as utilities," he said "I don't see why NASA needs to operate any infrastructure," said Kemp. "We can build space probes, we can build deep space networks, we can stay out on the frontiers, where the American public wants us to be and not spend over $1 billion a year on it infrastructure."

OpenStack: An Open Cloud Initiative Makes its 1st Release, ReadWrite Cloud

"It's official. Open Stack has made its first release. It's a major moment for the nascent open cloud initiative, a service that combines the Rackspace object storage capabilities with NASA's Nebula, the open computing effort from the U.S federal space agency."

Bolden Drops Off Of Radar Screen – Again

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China's space program: phantom menace or new hope?, GlobalTimes.cn

"It's the silly season in the US. So it's no surprise, just a disappointment, that some of the US legislators, especially the Republicans set to retake Congress, are again sharpening their sword and sticking it to China. I'm not talking about exchange rates, jobs, the environment or human rights, but something more deadly serious: the future of the final frontier. It's Star Wars season in Washington and the US empire is striking back. This silliness is only eclipsed by the stupidity of timing the visit this week to China of former astronaut and now National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) head, Charlie Bolden so close to election day. The visit was reportedly agreed by Chinese Presidents Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama when they met last November, but I can't believe that the visit had to be scheduled at a time that provides a clear opportunity for China-bashers in the US."

Three-legged space race for China and US?, Shangaiist

"That being said, space analyst, Morris Jones comments that nothing too exciting is going to be happening at these meetings. "Bolden is there basically just to shake a few hands. It's the first step in a very long process to get co-operation between the US and China in space flight... [r]elations between the US and China are very bad at the moment for all sorts of political and economic reasons." You don't say. Could it have to do with China callling the US a preening pig?"

Keith's note: While the semi- and quasi-official media in China attempt to spin an/or dissect the political undertones of Bolden's visit, NASA is utterly inert when it comes to any news whatsoever regarding Bolden's activities in China. No travel itineraries, no speech transcripts, photos - nothing. Its as if, once again, he has gone into overseas stealth mode.

Keith's update: According to Lori Garver Bolden is on his way home. Still no news.

NASA LaRC PAO Still Refuses To Release TEDxNASA Information

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Keith's note: I have sent multiple requests to NASA LaRC PAO, posted requests on their Facebook page, and made Twitter commentary. Yet they still refuse to release the names of the people who will be speaking at this NASA-sponsored and supported event. Why are they refusing to release this information? Laziness? Bad planning? Arrogance?

Keith's update: Once again NASA LaRC's Stephen Craft has formally refused my request for a list of speakers. Craft et al clearly know who these speakers are by virtue of their Twitter teases yet they seem to be in utterly uninterested in the transparency and openness that you see coming from the White House, NASA HQ, etc. It is quite obvious that Lesa Roe (who has been cc:ed on these requests) thinks that rules that apply to the rest of the agency do not apply to her employees at LaRC.

Oh yes, NASA civil servants are allowed to charge their time (up to 8 hours) to a special account while NASA LaRC contractor employees need to charge the time to annual leave.

- TEDxNASA Organizers Did Not Learn Much From Last Year's Event, earlier post
- TEDxNASA 2010 Focus: Science and/or Pseudoscience?, earlier post
- TEDxNASA 2010, earlier post

The Moon Is Full of Useful Stuff – Let’s Go Use It

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NASA Missions Uncover The Moon's Buried Treasures

"By understanding the processes and environments that determine where water ice will be, how water was delivered to the moon and its active water cycle, future mission planners might be better able to determine which locations will have easily-accessible water. The existence of mostly pure water ice could mean future human explorers won't have to retrieve the water out of the soil in order to use it for valuable life support resources. In addition, an abundant presence of hydrogen gas, ammonia and methane could be exploited to produce fuel."

Overview of CSA’s Exploration Core Program

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An Overview of the Canadian Space Agency Exploration Core Program, SpaceRef

"At the recent 61st International Astronautical Congress in Prague, Jean-Claude Piedboeuf, Head of Exploration Planning at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), provided an overview of Canada's preparatory exploration activities. While Canada has been involved in exploration activities for 25 years with its contributions in robotics, science and astronaut core, it wasn't until 2007 that the CSA created the Exploration Core Program to unify the activities within the agency."

Lori Garver Speaking At Spaceport America

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NASA Deputy Administrator Available for Interviews at Spaceport

"NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver will attend a dedication celebrating completion of the runway at Spaceport America in New Mexico at 11 a.m. MST on Friday, Oct. 22. She will be available before and after the event for media interviews. Garver will speak at the runway dedication event and also will be a keynote speaker on Thursday at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, N.M."

USA Terminates All of its Defined Benefit Plans

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United Space Alliance Memo: CEO/COO Message: Retirement Plan Changes

"As you know, United Space Alliance has been undergoing a significant transformation in order for the company to remain competitive and successful following the completion of Shuttle Program operations and the closeout of the Space Program Operations Contract (SPOC). Retirement plans like USA's defined benefits plans are a significant cost driver, and many of USA's competitors have eliminated such plans to drive their costs down. After fully considering all options available, USA is announcing its intention to terminate all of its defined benefit plans, effective as of the close of this plan year. You will receive official notices via US Mail to your home. This memo is an explanatory "heads up" of what this means to you."

NASA Open Government Summit Update

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NASA Open Government Summit Emphasized Data Exchange

"NASA is working to publish more of its data sets online and create more opportunities to engage with the public using digital tools. This was a major part of the discussion during the monthly Open Government Community Summit at NASA Headquarters in Washington last week. NASA's Office of the Chief Information Officer and Office of the Chief Financial Officer hosted the meeting. The event brought leaders from both government and public sectors together to discuss transparency, participation and collaboration in an era of emerging new technologies, maturing systems and increased generation of open data."

Bob Barker Pings Bolden Over Monkey Experiments

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"Dear Gen. Bolden: My friends at PETA tell me that NASA plans to fund a cruel radiation experiment on squirrel monkeys at Harvard's McLean Hospital and New York's Brookhaven National Laboratory. These scientifically invalid experiments squander $1.75 million of taxpayers' money and cost animals their health and freedom, so the price isn't right on any count. The sensitive, intelligent squirrel monkeys who would be blasted with radiation in this experiment would no doubt suffer from brain damage, cancerous tumors, blindness, and a loss of motor control. Following the exposure, these social animals would spend the rest of their lives isolated in barren laboratory cages and subjected to years of behavioral experiments."

I am not alone in this opinion: Former astronauts, the European Space Agency, scientists, physicians and compassionate people around the world agree that these cruel experiments would not help protect astronauts traveling to deep space and violate our evolving relationship with other species.
 
I urge you to cancel this ill-advised plan.
 
Sincerely, Bob Barker"