Orac has a great post skewering an ambitious gambit over at Age of Autism: One Julie Obradovic lectures us there on how to actually save the vaccine program. Much of the advice has to do with accepting the incorrect premises of the vaccine skeptics, and humoring them. All of Orac's criticisms are on target, but I actually thought Obradovic wrote one thing worth listening to--at least if we take the more abstract point out of the biased context in which she introduces it. It is this:
Additionally, [vaccine skeptical parents] don't take kindly to propaganda or threats, and they most definitely don't like to be insulted. Telling them their choice is to go with the scientific side is juvenile in its approach, suggesting that any parent who researchers [sic] both sides of the debate, personally knows someone with a different experience, and disagrees with the one size fits all approach to vaccination is by default, non-scientific. Brilliant. Well, they actually are unscientific when they do this. However, it probably is true that the confrontational, "you're clueless and irrational approach" is unlikely to unclog their minds or shatter their misconceptions. Why? Human beings just don't work that way. We have vast bodies of social science ...
Deniers Still Going Strong, Even with Oil Leak
Below is some confused, strange chatter from FOX News on the oil leak, which will be parroted by Republicans in Congress and entertainment radio talk show hosts. “Where’s the oil?” FOX host Brit Hume can’t see it. This nonsense, this doubt-planting on every single environmental topic of the last 10+ years, just spreads and spreads among conservatives with soap boxes, to the point where the American people are no longer concerned about global warming much at all.  They used to be, before the denial movement started happening, funded by big oil and big coal and driven by GOP talking points.  Now these members of the “news media” are even denying there is much oil from this oil spill, when even some British Petroleum estimates were up to 70,000 gallons a day. Is there any hope that we can get serious climate action — ever? — with this type of propaganda and ignorance masquerading as “news” discussion?
Read more of the story here. It’s hard to believe, but this “news host”, Brit Hume, would have us believe that most oil in the ocean is from “seepage” and that makes this oil spill somehow less significant.  It’s no wonder that people of this political persuasion (the right-wing extremist kind) has no respect for facts, logic or science. It’s enough to infuriate anyone.  Talk to people on the coast of Florida, Mr. Hume, and tell me if they are ever concerned about “seepage”, or whether they think the ocean can just somehow absorb this oil.  The ocean is not a sponge for oil and other garbage humans dump into it.  It used to be a dependable carbon sink, but even that is changing.  This oil spill is now threatening the barrier reef off the coast of Florida, and it’s threatening the shores of Cuba, and Hume can’t see it. So therefore, it must not be very bad. That exemplifies FOX News about as well as anything.
The saddest thing of all is that this oil leak is not the only huge threat to the Atlantic ocean, not even to the Gulf of Mexico. Chemicals and pesticide runoff leading to the Gulf “dead zone”, overfishing, military sonar, and ocean acidification were already threatening the oceans before the sunken oil rig was built.
They are just now seeing the first tar balls off the shores of Key West, but people claim they can’t be sure where they come from. Are tar balls commonly found off the shores of Key West? Of course not. So, these must be from somewhere. Hmmm, what just happened that might have caused them to appear?  The currents are already picking up the oil and moving it around right off the coast of Florida. This will be a catastrophe for the local and state economies, and what will all those people in the tourism industry do when they lose their jobs?
Scroll Compressor Failure Reasons
Dear all,Can somebody help me to find out why a scroll performer compressor often fails?
Ductile Iron Pipes & fittings
Hi What are the types of lining for Ductile Iron Pipes & fittings? and please specify application for each type .
Thanks
B-30 Concrete
What is B-30 concrete? what does "B" mean? How does it differ from M-30 concrete used in india.
Regards,
PG
PRV's in CHW closed system
Can a Pressure reducing valves be used in the supply line for closed chilled water network system to reduce the pressures as per the desired value.
An umbrella against the mutational showers | Gene Expression
Mutations are as you know a double-edged sword. On the one hand mutations are the stuff of evolution; neutral changes on the molecular or phenotypic level are the result of from mutations, as are changes which enhance fitness and so are driven to fixation by positive selection. On the other hand mutations also tend to cause problems. In fact, mutations which are deleterious far outnumber those which are positive. It is much easier to break complex systems which are near a fitness optimum than it is to improve upon them through random chance. In fact a Fisherian geometric analogy of the affect of genes on fitness implies that once a genetic configuration nears an optimum mutations of larger effect have a tendency to decrease fitness. Sometimes environments and selection pressures change radically, and large effect mutations may become needful. But despite their short term necessity these mutations still cause major problems because they disrupt many phenotypes due to pleiotropy.
But much of the playing out of evolutionary dynamics is not so dramatic. Instead of very costly mutations for good or ill, most mutations may be of only minimal negative effect, especially if they are masked because of recessive expression patterns. That is, only when two copies of the mutation are present does all hell break loose. And yet even mutations which exhibit recessive expression tend to generate some drag on the fitness of heterozygotes. And if you sum small values together you can obtain a larger value. This gentle rain of small negative effect mutations can be balanced by natural selection, which weeds does not smile upon less fit individuals who have a higher mutational load. Presumably those with “good genes,” fewer deleterious mutations, will have more offspring than those with “bad genes.” Because mutations accrue from one generation to the next, and, there is sampling variance of deleterious alleles, a certain set of offspring will always be gifted with fewer deleterious mutations than their siblings. This is a genetics of chance. And so the mutation-selection balance is maintained over time, the latter rising to the fore if the former comes to greater prominence.
The above has been a set of logic inferences from premises. Evolution is about the logic of life’s process, but as a natural science its beauty is that it is testable through empirical means. A short report in Science explores mutational load and fitness, and connects it with the ever popular topic of sexual selection, Additive Genetic Breeding Values Correlate with the Load of Partially Deleterious Mutations:
The mutation-selection–balance model predicts most additive genetic variation to arise from numerous mildly deleterious mutations of small effect. Correspondingly, “good genes” models of sexual selection and recent models for the evolution of sex are built on the assumption that mutational loads and breeding values for fitness-related traits are correlated. In support of this concept, inbreeding depression was negatively genetically correlated with breeding values for traits under natural and sexual selection in the weevil Callosobruchus maculatus. The correlations were stronger in males and strongest for condition. These results confirm the role of existing, partially recessive mutations in maintaining additive genetic variation in outbred populations, reveal the nature of good genes under sexual selection, and show how sexual selection can offset the cost of sex.
Additive genetic variance just refers to the variation of genes which affect the phenotype by independent and usually small effects which sum together to produce the range of variation of the trait. Imagine for example that the range of variation in height within the population was 10 inches, and that there were 10 genes which varied, and that each gene exhibited co-dominance. One could construct a model where every gene pair could add 0, 0.5 or 1 inch to the height independently, so that the maximum height could be constructed by adding 10 inches to the baseline and 1 inch per locus, and the minimum height by adding no inches to the baseline when each locus is homozygous for null alleles.
Mutations can be conceived of in the same manner, with each mutation being a new variant which changes trait value. Even if most of the impact of a mutation is masked there is a small effect in the heterozygote state, and this may serve as a fitness drag. The range in mutational load can then naturally be analogized to additive genetic variance, in this case the trait under consideration ultimately being fitness, mediated through life history and morphological phenotypes.
In this report they focused primarily on the weevil’s ability to obtain resources and transform those resources into size, which correlates with greater sexual access for males and fecundity for females (ergo, greater fitness). They bred various outbred and inbred lineages across families of these weevils, because these sorts of crosses gauge the impact of masked deleterious alleles, which will manifest in homozygote state more often between related pairs who share mutations than unrelated ones. They found a correlation of -0.24 between inbreeding and breeding value; in other words the more inbred the pair the fewer offspring. The impact of these recessively expressed alleles is mitigated in heterozygous individuals, but because of the non-trivial impact the number of these alleles within an individual will determine its fitness all things equal.
Interestingly when background variables were controlled males tended to show the greatest fitness drag due to inbreeding depression. This would comport with models of sexual selection where males justify their expense (because they can not bear offspring) within the population by serving as the perishable dumping grounds of bad genes. In particular in a polygynous population a few healthy males with good genes could give rise to most of the next generation, and so providing the balance of selection to the background mutational rate.
Of course mating patterns vary between taxa. The more reproductive skew there is, in particular for males, the more recourse selection has every generation to dump deleterious alleles via selection. In contrast monogamous populations will have less power to expunge mutations in this fashion because there is more genetic equality across males, the bad will reproduce along with the good, more or less. Therefore a breeding experiment of weevils may have more limited insight than these authors may wish to admit. Geoffrey Miller’s The Mating Mind attempted to take the insights of sexual selection and develop a model of human evolutionary history, but it does not seem that this theory has swept all before it. Only time will tell, but until then more breeding experiments can’t help but clarify where theory goes wrong or right.
Citation: Tomkins, J., Penrose, M., Greeff, J., & LeBas, N. (2010). Additive Genetic Breeding Values Correlate with the Load of Partially Deleterious Mutations Science, 328 (5980), 892-894 DOI: 10.1126/science.1188013
tube light
why does a tube light doesnt glow at low voltage while many other electronic appliances like fan,computer, AC will work even at low voltages?
Purpose of Shunt Reactor
In a recent SLD which i have seen, I noticed that a 500MVA Trafo (400/132 Kv and Teriatiary Winding of 22kv) both primary and secondary are star/star and the tertiary winding is delta. The cable from the teritiary 22kv is connected to a RC unit with a rating of 22Ohms & 130 nF and the parellely
Flanges for Precision Steel Tubes
Dear colleagues,
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Bently Nevada Temperature Issue
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Beauty of Future Airplanes is More than Skin Deep
An 18-month NASA research effort to visualize the passenger airplanes of the future has produced some ideas that at first glance may appear to be old fashioned. Instead of exotic new designs seemingly borrowed from science fiction, familiar shapes dominate the pages of advanced concept studies which four industry teams completed for NASA's Fundamental Aeronautics Program in April 2010.Look more closely at these concepts for airplanes that may enter service 20 to 25 years from now and you'll see things that are quite different from the aircraft of today.
Just beneath the skin of these concepts lie breakthrough airframe and propulsion technologies designed to help the commercial aircraft of tomorrow fly significantly quieter, cleaner, and more fuel-efficiently, with more passenger comfort, and to more of America's airports.You may see ultramodern shape memory alloys, ceramic or fiber composites, carbon nanotube or fiber optic cabling, self-healing skin, hybrid electric engines, folding wings, double fuselages and virtual reality windows.
"Standing next to the airplane, you may not be able to tell the difference, but the improvements will be revolutionary," said Richard Wahls, project scientist for the Fundamental Aeronautics Program's Subsonic Fixed Wing Project at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. "Technological beauty is more than skin deep."
In October 2008, NASA asked industry and academia to imagine what the future might bring and develop advanced concepts for aircraft that can satisfy anticipated commercial air transportation needs while meeting specific energy efficiency, environmental and operational goals in 2030 and beyond. The studies were intended to identify key technology development needs to enable the envisioned advanced airframes and propulsion systems.
NASA's goals for a 2030-era aircraft, compared with an aircraft entering service today, are:
- A 71-decibel reduction below current Federal Aviation Administration noise standards, which aim to contain objectionable noise within airport boundaries.
- A greater than 75 percent reduction on the International Civil Aviation Organization's Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection Sixth Meeting, or CAEP/6, standard for nitrogen oxide emissions, which aims to improve air quality around airports.
- A greater than 70 percent reduction in fuel burn performance, which could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the cost of air travel.
- The ability to exploit metroplex concepts that enable optimal use of runways at multiple airports within metropolitan areas, as a means of reducing air traffic congestion and delays.
The teams were led by General Electric, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Company. Here are some highlights from their final reports:
- The GE Aviation team conceptualizes a 20-passenger aircraft that could reduce congestion at major metropolitan hubs by using community airports for point-to-point travel. The aircraft has an oval-shaped fuselage that seats four across in full-sized seats. Other features include an aircraft shape that smoothes the flow of air over all surfaces, and electricity-generating fuel cells to power advanced electrical systems. The aircraft's advanced turboprop engines sport low-noise propellers and further mitigate noise by providing thrust sufficient for short takeoffs and quick climbs.
- With its 180-passenger D8 "double bubble" configuration, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology team strays farthest from the familiar, fusing two aircraft bodies together lengthwise and mounting three turbofan jet engines on the tail. Important components of the MIT concept are the use of composite materials for lower weight and turbofan engines with an ultra high bypass ratio (meaning air flow through the core of the engine is even smaller, while air flow through the duct surrounding the core is substantially larger, than in a conventional engine) for more efficient thrust. In a reversal of current design trends the MIT concept increases the bypass ratio by minimizing expansion of the overall diameter of the engine and shrinking the diameter of the jet exhaust instead. The team said it designed the D8 to do the same work as a Boeing 737-800. The D8's unusual shape gives it a roomier coach cabin than the 737.
- The Northrop Grumman team foresees the greatest need for a smaller 120-passenger aircraft that is tailored for shorter runways in order to help expand capacity and reduce delays. The team describes its Silent Efficient Low Emissions Commercial Transport, or SELECT, concept as "revolutionary in its performance, if not in its appearance." Ceramic composites, nanotechnology and shape memory alloys figure prominently in the airframe and ultra high bypass ratio propulsion system construction. The aircraft delivers on environmental and operational goals in large part by using smaller airports, with runways as short as 5,000 feet, for a wider geographic distribution of air traffic.
- The Boeing Company's Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research, or SUGAR, team examined five concepts. The team's preferred concept, the SUGAR Volt, is a twin-engine aircraft with hybrid propulsion technology, a tube-shaped body and a truss-braced wing mounted to the top. Compared to the typical wing used today, the SUGAR Volt wing is longer from tip to tip, shorter from leading edge to trailing edge, and has less sweep. It also may include hinges to fold the wings while parked close together at airport gates. Projected advances in battery technology enable a unique, hybrid turbo-electric propulsion system. The aircraft's engines could use both fuel to burn in the engine's core, and electricity to turn the turbofan when the core is powered down.
NASA did not specify future commercial air transportation needs as domestic or global. All four teams focused on aircraft sized for travel within a single continent because their business cases showed that small- and medium-sized planes will continue to account for the largest percentage of the overall fleet in the future. One team, however, did present a large hybrid wing concept for intercontinental transport.
All of the teams provided "clear paths" for future technology research and development, said Ruben Del Rosario, principal investigator for the Subsonic Fixed Wing Project at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. "Their reports will make a difference in planning our research portfolio. We will identify the common themes in these studies and use them to build a more effective strategy for the future," Del Rosario said.These are some of the common themes from the four reports:
- Slower cruising -- at about Mach 0.7, or seven-tenths the speed of sound, which is 5 percent to 10 percent slower than today's aircraft -- and at higher altitudes, to save fuel.
- Engines that require less power on takeoff, for quieter flight.
- Shorter runways -- about 5,000 feet long, on average -- to increase operating capacity and efficiency.
- Smaller aircraft – in the medium-size class of a Boeing 737, with cabin accommodations for no more than 180 passengers – flying shorter and more direct routes, for cost-efficiency.
- Reliance on promised advancements in air traffic management such as the use of automated decision-making tools for merging and spacing enroute and during departure climbs and arrival descents.
The teams recommended a variety of improvements in lightweight composite structures, heat- and stress-tolerant engine materials, and aerodynamic modeling that can help bring their ideas to reality. NASA is weighing the recommendations against its objective of developing aeronautics technologies that can be applied to a broad range of aircraft and operating scenarios for the greatest public benefit.
"This input from our customers has provided us with well thought-out scenarios for our vision of the future, and it will help us place our research investment decisions squarely in the mainstream," said Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for aeronautics research at NASA Headquarters in Washington."Identifying those necessary technologies will help us establish a research roadmap to follow in bringing these innovations to life during the coming years," Shin said.
The next step in NASA's effort to design the aircraft of 2030 is a second phase of studies to begin developing the new technologies that will be necessary to meet the national goals related to an improved air transportation system with increased energy efficiency and reduced environmental impact. The agency received proposals from the four teams in late April and expects to award one or two research contracts for work starting in 2011.
NASA managers also will reassess the goals for 2030 aircraft to determine whether some of the crucial technologies will need additional time to move from laboratory and field testing into operational use. The four teams managed to meet either the fuel burn or the noise goal with their concepts, not both.
A companion research effort looked at concepts for a new generation of supersonic transport aircraft capable of meeting NASA's noise, emissions and fuel efficiency goals for 2030. NASA envisions a broader market for supersonic travel, with aircraft carrying more passengers to improve economic viability while meeting increasingly stringent environmental requirements.
Teams lead by The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin evaluated market conditions, design goals and constraints, conventional and unconventional configurations, and enabling technologies to create proposed roadmaps for research and development activities. Both teams produced concepts for aircraft that can carry more than 100 passengers at cruise speeds of more than 1.6 Mach and a range of up to 5,000 miles.
› View Future Aircraft Image Gallery
› Read October 2008 News Release and Team Abstracts
View my blog's last three great articles...
- Cassini Double Play: Enceladus and Titan
- Dust Cloud From China Shows How We Share the Air
- Earth Day 2010 with Bella Gaia
View this site auto transport car shipping car transport Houston criminal lawyer business class flights
Cassini Double Play: Enceladus and Titan
On the left, Saturn's moon Enceladus is backlit by the sun, showing the fountain-like sources of the fine spray of material that towers over the south polar region. On the right, is a composite image of Titan. › Larger image
About a month and a half after its last double flyby, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will be turning another double play this week, visiting the geyser moon Enceladus and the hazy moon Titan. The alignment of the moons means that Cassini can catch glimpses of these two contrasting worlds within less than 48 hours, with no maneuver in between.
Cassini will make its closest approach to Enceladus late at night on May 17 Pacific time, which is in the early hours of May 18 UTC. The spacecraft will pass within about 435 kilometers (270 miles) of the moon's surface.
The main scientific goal at Enceladus will be to watch the sun play peekaboo behind the water-rich plume emanating from the moon's south polar region. Scientists using the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph will be able to use the flickering light to measure whether there is molecular nitrogen in the plume. Ammonia has already been detected in the plume and scientists know heat can decompose ammonia into nitrogen molecules. Determining the amount of molecular nitrogen in the plume will give scientists clues about thermal processing in the moon's interior.
The second of Cassini's two flybys is an encounter with Titan. The closest approach will take place in the late evening May 19 Pacific time, which is in the early hours of May 20 UTC. The spacecraft will fly to within 1,400 kilometers (750 miles) of the surface.
Cassini will primarily be doing radio science during this pass to detect the subtle variations in the gravitational tug on the spacecraft by Titan, which is 25 percent larger in volume than the planet Mercury. Analyzing the data will help scientists learn whether Titan has a liquid ocean under its surface and get a better picture of its internal structure. The composite infrared spectrometer will also get its southernmost pass for thermal data to fill out its temperature map of the smoggy moon.
Cassini has made four previous double flybys and one more is planned in the years ahead.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.
More information on the Enceladus flyby, dubbed "E10," is available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/flybys/enceladus20100518/
More information on the Titan flyby, dubbed "T68," is available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/flybys/titan20100520/
View my blog's last three great articles...
- Dust Cloud From China Shows How We Share the Air
- Earth Day 2010 with Bella Gaia
- NASAs International Space Station Program Wins Col...
View this site auto transport car shipping car transport Houston criminal lawyer business class flights
Dust Cloud From China Shows How We Share the Air
The air we breathe doesn't always come from our own backyard. In fact, sometimes it doesn't even come from our neighbors.On April 22, 2010, a NASA satellite captured the appearance of a large dust cloud over the eastern coast of United States that originated on the other side of the world -- in China.
"Dust can stimulate the production of more clouds, altering local weather and potentially the climate," said Zhoayan Liu, a researcher at the National Institute of Aerospace and NASA's Langley Research Center who is monitoring the dust movement. The dust cloud was in upper troposphere, the atmospheric layer in which we live.
The dust plume that arrived in the U.S. maintained an average size of more than 1,200 miles wide and six miles tall as it traveled across the Earth. It began in China's Taklimakan and Gobi Deserts, and over 10 days, NASA captured the dust moving across the Pacific Ocean, through the United States and Canada and over Virginia.
"It is likely that a cold front over the deserts generated strong surface winds that pushed a large amount of the dust into the atmosphere and from there the jet streams brought it across the world," said Liu.
Liu and his colleagues at NASA discovered the relocation of the dust after analyzing data from Langley's Earth observing satellite CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations). It can be difficult to distinguish dust from regular clouds and other types of aerosols in photographs taken from space. CALIPSO, however, measures vertical profiles of the atmosphere and produces data that makes a distinction between the different particle types in our atmosphere, such as clouds, smoke, or dust. Not only can it tell scientists what is in our air, CALIPSO can also identify the vertical and horizontal location of the particles as well.
To validate what the satellite saw, NASA scientists took to the sky with the NASA King Air B200 aircraft and a lidar instrument similar to the one on CALIPSO. Aboard the plane, scientists were able to take the same measurements as CALIPSO over North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. The local flights, which took place the same day and time that the satellite detected the dust, confirmed what the satellite observed.
"This transport of dust out of China happens every spring, but we rarely see it move this far with such intensity," said Raymond Rogers, a Langley scientist who participated in the local flights. The air is always made up of various kinds of particles, but it is uncommon that those particles relocate in such large amounts that can their origin can be visibly tracked.
Rogers and Liu said that using CALIPSO and local airborne measurements to monitor the presence of dust in our atmosphere will provide others with data that can be used to gain a better understanding of how dust impacts humans and ecosystems.
View my blog's last three great articles...
- Earth Day 2010 with Bella Gaia
- NASAs International Space Station Program Wins Col...
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View this site auto transport car shipping car transport Houston criminal lawyer business class flights
Rent a Private Island
The Economic Times published a great article on the advantageous of renting a private island. The article notes that unlike many other things that the rich like to indulge in, private islands come in short supply and are finite. The article also acknowldge that islands are in very short supply, and they are not increasing—what’s existing now is the only supply.
The most precious of them are in the Caribbean and the US Virgin Islands. Billionaires own them, but you can experience the life for a while. The good news is that most of such owners, who include people like Richard Branson, are ready to rent them out. You can also get the island where Marlon Brando lived for years in rustic fashion on Tetiaroa in French Polynesia.
The article makes a point of acknowledging that renting an entire private island is not in everyone’s budget and recommends renting part of an island. “Castles with six or more bedrooms, and those with a celeb touch to it fetch around $2000 a night”. The properties that cost more are like the castle where actress Gwyneth Paltrow got married, but still they are much more affordable.
Hollywood couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie rented an entire island so that their six children could celebrate Easter in peace. Brangelina, as they are called by the tabloids, took their children to the Venetian island of San Servolo for a day of Easter activities. “From now on that island will fetch a higher rent,” says Pande, which might work out to around $200,000 for just one week.
To read the full article click here.
Ups and downs
Its been a while since we wrote 26 days in fact. Since we last wrote we have seen many of animals black bear moose elk mule eared deer white tailed deer mountain goats big horned sheep and osprey found work at KOA Kampgrounds of America biked thats not that surprising I know broken and fixed Chad the Van and meet some awesome people who bought the first van we looked at in Vancouve
looking for serndipity
Chang Mai. Un po' deludente. Questa mattina di buon ora 630 a.m. mi sveglio per godermi al meglio il giro degli wat templi e un po' di fresco. Carini i templi non c'e' che dire anche se i monaci non sono cosi' mattinieri come pensavo. In un tempio mentre camminavo cullato dalle preghiere dei monaci calato quasi in un'estasi sensoriale che mi faceva immaginare nello Shangri La non vado
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Hi everyone I am excited to let you know i'm on another adventure. This time to Maui Hawaii. As i rarely do anything like most people perhaps you may be interested once again in my recent travels. To catch you up here's what's been going on...I went to visit family in Kansas. In the late fall I bought a small rv trailer to tow and call home and was living in it. Now i was very excite