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Neutered HIV Virus Delivers Treatment to Fatally Ill Boys | 80beats

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

ALD-brains 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].

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.

Specter’s First Reply: Denialism Kills People | The Intersection

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

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.

Toddler Gets a Telescoping, Prosthetic Arm Bone That Grows With Him | 80beats

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

arm 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

Ares and the carnivals | Bad Astronomy

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

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.

Musical, Fahrvergnügen-Inspired Staircase Makes Commuters Less Lazy | Discoblog

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

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.

Video: Volkswagen

Laser-Etched Fruit Is an Answer in Search of a Problem | Discoblog

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

laser-grapefruit 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.

Image: Agricultural Research Service and University of Florida

Butterfliiiies… iiinnnn… SPPPAAAAACCCCEEEEE! | Bad Astronomy

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

bug_girl_by_skepchickjill 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.

My Slate Dialogue with Michael Specter Begins | The Intersection

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

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…

A Baby Neutron Star, Swaddled in a Carbon Atmosphere | 80beats

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

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.

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

Podcast: An Embarrassment of Genomes | The Loom

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

mtsitunes220 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.

Laser-Powered Robot Climbs to Victory in the Space-Elevator Contest | 80beats

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

A laser-powered robot took a climb up a cable in the Mohave Desert in Wednesday, and pushed ahead the sci-fi inspired notion of a space elevator capable of lifting astronauts, cargo, and even tourists up into orbit. The robot, built by LaserMotive of Seattle, whizzed up 2,953 feet (nearly 1 kilometer) in about four minutes, which qualifies the team for at least $900,000 of the $2 million in prizes offered in the NASA-backed Space Elevator Games.

Theorized in the 1960s and then popularized by Arthur C. Clarke’s 1979 novel “The Fountains of Paradise,” space elevators are envisioned as a way to gain access to space without the risk and expense of rockets. Instead, electrically powered vehicles would run up and down a cable anchored to a ground structure and extending thousands of miles up to a mass in geosynchronous orbit — the kind of orbit communications satellites are placed in to stay over a fixed spot on the Earth [AP].

The LaserMotive vehicle that climbed up the cable (held by a hovering helicopter) was powered by a system that resembles an upside-down solar power mechanism. Laser beams on the ground were fired up at the ascending craft and hit its photovoltaic cells–like those used in solar panels–in a process known as “power beaming.” LaserMotive will have a chance to improve its vehicle’s speed at another trial today, and other teams will also be vying for prizes.

Related Content:
80beats: Japanese Group Pushes for $9 Billion, 22,000-Mile Space Elevator
DISCOVER: Going Up follows U.S. engineers on the space elevator quest

Image: Space Elevator Games. The LaserMotive vehicle gets weighed in.

Checking Back In With SEAPLEX | The Intersection

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

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.

Inspired by Maple Seeds, a Robotic Whirligig Takes To The Skies | Discoblog

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

Introducing the maple-seed-inspired Ulrich flyer, the world’s first controllable robotic monocopter. The monocopter’s inventors studied the way a maple seed whirls and twirls as it falls to the ground, and designed their flyer based on that biological blueprint. In this video, watch the little aircraft rise through the air with its single blade spinning furiously–accompanied by an epic soundtrack that ranges from techno to symphonic grandeur.

Invented at the University of Maryland’s Aerospace Engineering Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory and Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center, the small and capable craft meets most of the challenges set forth by DARPA’s nano-air-vehicle program. The program asks engineers to invent ultra-lightweight vehicles that could come in handy for urban military missions.

Read more about the copter over at Physorg.com.

Video: YouTube / RoboSeed

New Statesman on Accommodationism | The Intersection

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

There is a middle-of-the-road report on the “new atheist”/”accommodationist” argument in The New Statesman, which, it seems to me, gives a pretty fair account of the dispute. Frankly, I am surprised that there has not been more objective media coverage of this very significant rift; if Lingua Franca magazine were still around, that would be an appropriate place for it, but where are other appropriate outlets, like the Chronicle of Higher Education?

Anyways, I didn’t speak with the New Statesman author, but it seems Barbara Forrest did:

Forrest argues that new atheists should respect the personal nature of faith, and nurture a sense of humility by recognising that scientific evidence does not rule out existence of the divine. They should accept that there is a wide range of views, she says, and stop insisting that everyone follow the “one true way” of atheism. Failing to do so only turns people off in droves.

Yet it seems unlikely that the new atheists have been this damaging. They have been an identifiable group and social force for five years only – starting with Harris’s The End of Faith in 2004, which was followed by Dawkins’s The God Delusion in 2006. More significantly, polls indicate that the proportion of the US public that subscribes to a creationist account of human origins has remained relatively constant for the past 25 years, hovering around 45 per cent. The previous era, which advocated greater respect for religion, does not seem to have won over hearts or minds. So who is to say that taking the opposite approach will drive anyone away?

I want to comment on this, because I think it contains some pretty big misconceptions about the nature of public opinion, and how we might detect changes therein.

We know there is a strong and unwavering subset of the public that embraces creationism, and that it is deeply entrenched, and has been for decades. That’s not in dispute. But there is a lot of questionable thinking about how the New Atheism, a very young movement, may or may not have affected this.

First, I don’t know to what extent that part of the population that embraces creationism views the New Atheism as something distinctly “different” from what came before. After all, creationists and the religious right were denouncing “secular humanists” long before the New Atheism came along. Creationist leaders are surely aware of the New Atheism, but for the creationist rank-and-file, who have long considered evolutionary science to be the equivalent an atheist plot (and have been told this repeatedly by said leaders), it is not clear to me that they will find any news here, much less change their views dramatically on that basis.

Therefore, even assuming that the New Atheists are having an impact somewhere, it is hardly obvious that the creationist ranks are the place where we would expect to detect it. For my part, I’m far more worried about alienation of the middle, and the thwarting of coalitions that might combat the creationists, as a result of the New Atheism.

Secondly, I find it highly dubious to judge past strategies to be a failure based on the lack of movement in the creationist polling numbers cited above.

In a longstanding culture war situation, like the one we have over the teaching of evolution, you often have to run to stand still. And in the “previous era,” at least one kind of undeniable stride was made that has nothing to do with polling numbers–namely, we won the court cases and got the legal precedents when it really counted. Moreover, in the courtroom, e.g., the Dover trial, “accommodationism” was the triumphant strategy.

These court victories don’t mean that the creationist numbers went down; they just mean the creationists didn’t get a stronger foothold in our schools–which itself was a pretty big achievement.

Throughout all of this, there has been a longstanding perception in much of America that science and religion are inimical to one another, and contradictory. This is a perception that the creationists have fanned for a long time (hence the “secular humanism” business), and that the New Atheists now also explicitly support. In a sense, it works to the advantage of both groups, at the expense to of the middle.

This “conflict narrative” or “conflict thesis” also happens to be a historically misinformed perspective, in my view, and one that is questionable on other fronts as well–but I think it is a dominant perception, and constantly reinforced by the mass media.

For those of us critical of the New Atheists, then, it is not because we think they have emerged and dramatically upset the culture war stalemate over the teaching of evolution in some way. Rather, it is because they are likely alienate the middle ground and aren’t a constructive response, in the present moment, to the need to defuse longstanding tensions over science and religion in America.

Britain’s New Protected Minority: Tree-Huggers | Discoblog

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

forest-cathedral Employers in the U.K. have just learned that there’s a word for discrimination against a person based on their earth-conscious, tofu-eating ways: “greenism.” And firing someone for their environmental views is just as illegal as firing someone for their religious or philosophical beliefs, according to a court ruling.

Tim Nicholson, former head of sustainability at property firm Grainger Plc, claims he was laid off because of his views on climate change and the environment. A judge said Nicholson could take Grainger to the Employment Appeals Tribunal over the layoff, but Grainger challenged the ruling on the grounds that climate change is a scientific and not philosophical viewpoint. However, that challenge was overturned, according to the Telegraph:

In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.”
The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.

Nicholson said during previous hearings that due to his strong convictions he refused to travel by air and renovated his house to be environmentally friendly. He also said Grainger’s chief executive, who allegedly once flew a staff member from Ireland to London to deliver a forgotten Blackberry, was hostile toward his beliefs. The company said it will now argue that there was no link between Nicholson’s views and his layoff.

Image: flickr / hpeguk

The Secret Lives and Loves of Great White Sharks | 80beats

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

great-white-shark-web Great white sharks, much like humans, tend to stick to familiar turf, according to new research. Also like a lot of people, they like to hang out along the coastal waters of California. Sharks tagged with acoustic devices often spent up to 107 days at four key sites along the central and northern California coast where seals and sea lions are abundant: Southeast Farallon Island, Tomales Point, Año Nuevo Island and Point Reyes [LiveScience]. A few of the fearsome predators were tracked as far inland as the Golden Gate Bridge, apparently in search of snacks, say the researchers. The study, the largest and most detailed study of North American great white sharks, provides evidence contrary to the popular notion of great white sharks swimming aimlessly in the ocean.

The sharks under study divided most of their time between three locations: Northern California, Hawaii, and an area that the researchers called the white shark café, a spot in the open ocean about halfway between the Baja Peninsula and the Hawaiian Islands. Exactly what goes on at the café is still unknown–although researchers suspect it may be a hot spot for mating. Lead researcher Salvador Jorgensen explains that male white sharks “converge in a very specific area of the cafe,” Jorgensen said, while female sharks move in and out of the area. “It adds a little more evidence to the argument that this could be an important reproductive area” [Washington Post].

The scientists tracked the snaggly toothed predators between 2000 and 2008 from the Bay Area to San Diego, Hawaii and back as the sharks followed a route that was carried out with surprising precision and under a strict time frame [San Francisco Chronicle]. These great whites have been isolated from other great white sharks near Australia and South Africa for so long that they are now genetically distinct. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Image: flickr / hermanusbackpackers

Are You a Cognitive Miser? | Cosmic Variance

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?

A) Yes.
B) No.
C) Cannot be determined.

This is from this month’s Scientific American — article unfortunately costs money. It’s about “dysrationalia,” which is what happens when people with nominally high IQ’s end up thinking irrationally. A phenomenon I’m sure we’ve all encountered, especially in certain corners of the blogosphere.

And the answer is the first option. But over 80 percent of people choose the third option. Here’s the solution: the puzzle doesn’t say whether Anne is married or not, but she either is or she isn’t. If Anne is married, she’s looking at George, so the answer is “yes”; if she’s unmarried, Jack is looking at her, so the answer is still “yes.” The underlying reason why smart people get the wrong answer is (according to the article) that they simply don’t take the time to go carefully through all of the possibilities, instead taking the easiest inference. The patience required to go through all the possibilities doesn’t correlate very well with intelligence.

In Controversial Scent Lineups, a Dog’s Nose Picks Out the Perp | 80beats

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

bloodhound-web Curvis Bickham spent eight months in prison for a triple-homicide because a police dog confused his scent with that of the killer. Now Bickham and others who spent months in jail after dogs linked their scents to evidence from crimes they did not commit are filing a lawsuit claiming Texas authorities falsely arrested and imprisoned them, their attorney said Tuesday [AP]. In a scent lineup, dogs sniff items found at a crime scene, and then sniff jars swabbed with the suspects’ scents and the scents of others not involved in the crime. When the dogs link crime scene and suspect, that evidence is often relied on heavily in court by the prosecution. Alaska, Florida, New York and Texas all use scent lineups to link suspects to crimes.

Dogs are used all the time to fight crime—from sniffing out bombs and drugs to locating dead bodies. However, scent lineups have critics barking. They say the lineups are poorly controlled, and argue that avoiding cross-contamination is basically impossible. The main target of the current lawsuit is Fort Bend County Deputy Keith Pikett—whose home-trained bloodhounds identified the suspects. A 2004 F.B.I. report warned that dog scent work “should not be used as primary evidence,” but only to corroborate other evidence. In several of the cases that were based on Deputy Pikett’s dogs, however, the scent lineups appear to have provided the primary evidence, even when contradictory evidence was readily available [The New York Times]. Deputy Pikett, by his own estimation, has conducted thousands of scent lineups.

The three men who filed the lawsuit against Deputy Pickett were all eventually set free after contradictory evidence proved their innocence. The Innocence Project of Texas, a legal defense organization … released a report last month that excoriated dog scent lineups as a “junk science injustice” [The New York Times]. Dog scent lineups bring to mind another high profile forensic science debate in Texas that many believe led to the execution of an innocent man. Now that the science behind dog scent lineups is coming under the same scrutiny, one can’t help but wonder if scent lineups might have led to a similar outcome.

Related Content:
80beats: Think DNA Evidence Can’t Be Faked? Think Again.
80beats: NYC Uses DNA to Indict Suspects to Be Named Later
80beats: DNA Sampling of Innocent-Until-Proven-Guilty People Is on the Rise
DISCOVER: Reasonable Doubt examines the fallibility of DNA evidence

Image: flickr / contadini

Don’t Pack Your Bags Yet—New Planet-Finder Hobbled by Electronic Glitch | 80beats

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

Kepler The quest to find a second Earth–a potentially habitable planet that’s about the size of our home, but that lies in a distant solar system–has hit a snag. The Kepler space telescope was expected to be well on its way to detecting Earth-sized exoplanets by now, but an electronic glitch is slowing it down. The delays are caused by noisy amplifiers in the telescope’s electronics. The team is racing to fix the issue by changing the way data from the telescope is processed, but the delay could mean that ground-based observers now have the upper hand in the race to be the first to spot an Earth twin [Nature News].

Kepler, which was launched in March, uses the transit method to detect exoplanets; it’s watching a patch of 100,000 stars in hopes of detecting the brief dimming of a star’s light, which indicates that a planet has passed in front of the star. Kepler focuses light onto 42 light-detecting chips, called CCDs, each of which monitors stars in a different part of the telescope’s field of view. Each CCD is split into two for the purposes of sending data back to Earth, for a total of 84 data channels. Three of these channels are plagued by electronic noise that makes stars in their field of view appear to flicker – “like it’s changing its brightness at a rapid rate”, says Kepler chief scientist William Borucki [New Scientist]. That’s awkward, since the artificial flickers could obscure the real dimming that occurs during a planet’s transit.

The astronomers reportedly detected the problem during testing before Kepler’s launch, but they judged it riskier to dismantle the satellite at the last minute than to correct the glitch after launch. The noise affects only a small portion of the data, Borucki says, but the team has to fix the software — it would be “too cumbersome” to remove the bad data manually — so that it accounts for the noise automatically. He says that the fix should be in place by 2011 [Nature News].

Still, researchers say that the problem isn’t likely to delay the announcement of an Earth-like planet. For an exoplanet to be habitable to life as we know it, the planet would have to orbit its star at a distance that would keep it at a reasonable temperature and allow for liquid water. An Earth-like planet around a sun-like star would have an orbit roughly similar to Earth’s, and would take about a year to complete one circuit around its star. Astronomers feel the need to record three transits to confirm a planet’s existence–and in three years time, the noise-canceling software should be available. The delays would only affect habitable planets around smaller, cooler stars. The habitable zone for these stars is closer in, where planets could complete the necessary three orbits in about one Earth year. Without the glitch, this kind of planet could in principle be confirmed in 2010 [New Scientist].

Image: Kepler / Ames Research Center

Finally! An iPhone App That Lets You Track Your Bathroom Habits | Discoblog

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Danzig

poolog-web The folks behind the best-selling book, “What’s Your Poo Telling You?” aren’t satisfied with being mere bathroom reading material. So they’ve dropped a new iPhone app, the Poo Log, which allows you to time, log, and graph your BMs—and learn about your gastrointestinal health while doing so.

Via The Presurfer:

The ‘Poo Log’ is a digital timer and journal for recording and studying the wondrous uniqueness of each bowel movement. With a clever mix of bathroom humor and legitimate medical information, the ‘Poo Log’ allows the user to track his/her digestive workings and graph their ‘poo’ – all with one hand.

According to the app’s developers, AvatarLabs Inc, the tracker features medically accurate info that is suitable for all ages, and of course helpful tips such as, “Light a match. Now.”

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