Archive for the 'Science' Category

Improbable Research is a great Journal (did it used to be the Journal of Irreproducible Results, or was that another?), which has the yearly igNoble awards for the most dubious research.

I bring it up because it’s now available online, and the articles are viewable in Low-Res .pdf format for free, which is all I need to a good laugh. It’s good research-geek fun, and I hope you try it out!

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His title is perfect: SciGuy: My prayers answered — a fire ant virus

My prayers answered — a fire ant virus

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has recently identified a virus that kills red fire ants, and the agency has begun the process of finding a commercial partner to develop the virus into a pesticide.

Read the article. I hope this happens soon enough for the Horney Toads to make a recovery.

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Scientists say nerves use sound, not electricity

The common view that nerves transmit impulses through electricity is wrong and they really transmit sound, according to a team of Danish scientists.

The Copenhagen University researchers argue that biology and medical textbooks that say nerves relay electrical impulses from the brain to the rest of the body are incorrect.

“For us as physicists, this cannot be the explanation,” said Thomas Heimburg, an associate professor at the university’s Niels Bohr Institute. “The physical laws of thermodynamics tell us that electrical impulses must produce heat as they travel along the nerve, but experiments find that no such heat is produced.”

Hmm. I’m not buying it. Too many lectures involving micro-electrodes measuring electrical nerve impulses, and all that.

And, what about local anesthetics? Are they just sound-deadening?

The scientists, whose work is in the Biophysical Society’s Biophysical Journal, suggested that anesthetics change the melting point of the membrane and make it impossible for their theorized sound pulses to propagate.

So, anyone have a vacuum chamber and a nerve? Me, I’m sticking with the whole saltatory-conduction thing.

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From Wired:

…
The spicy greenish condiment was squirted out of a tube while astronaut Sunita Williams was trying to make a pretend sushi meal with bag-packaged salmon. The three space station crew members are given a certain number of bonus packs of their favorite foods to help endure their months in space where most meals are the equivalent of military MREs.

Since everything is weightless, spilled food is no ordinary clean-up challenge.

“We finally got the wasabi smell out after it was flying around everywhere,” Williams told her mother this week in a conversation arranged by Boston radio station WBZ. “We cleaned it up off the walls a little bit.”
…

Unfortunately for Williams, the wasabi tube has been banished to a cargo vehicle where it will stay packed away.

“I don’t think we’re going to use it anymore,” she said. “It’s too dangerous.”

My own brush with wasabi.  I can’t imagine it loose in a weightless environment.

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at least in space.  Including a psychotic event by a astronaut in orbit:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) — What would happen if an astronaut became mentally unstable in space and, say, destroyed the ship’s oxygen system or tried to open the hatch and kill everyone aboard?

That was the question after the apparent breakdown of Lisa Nowak, arrested this month on charges she tried to kidnap and kill a woman she regarded as her rival for another astronaut’s affections.

It turns out NASA has detailed, written procedures for dealing with a suicidal or psychotic astronaut in space. The documents, obtained this week by The Associated Press, say the astronaut’s crewmates should bind his wrists and ankles with duct tape, tie him down with a bungee cord and inject him with tranquilizers if necessary.

Interesting.  I can’t imagine what a chore wrestling with another in zero-g would be.  I’m guessing a choke-hold would be the only real option, but again, that’s just a guess.

And, who knew they take Haldol into space?

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Geostationary Banana Over Texas

I’d give a few bucks, just for the grins.

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Well, maybe not impossible, but the wildly hopeful: the elimination of diabetes (per Dr. Charles):

In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body’s nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.

Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. “Mice with diabetes suddenly didn’t have diabetes any more.”

Read it, and wonder: if this pans out a) what a boon for many medical diseases currently thought of as chronic, and b) neurologists may have a new lease on life medicine.

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Really interesting reading about the business and politics behind a popular drug, and why the cost of Plavix will be coming down soon.The Great Plavix Disaster

I’ve been remiss in not covering the Plavix situation, which is quite a story. The huge-selling anticoagulant is marketed in the US by Bristol-Meyers Squibb and in the rest of the world by Sanofi-Aventis…

It’s worth the time.

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E.coli airlift for four-year-old: "A four-year-old boy suffering from the E.coli virus is airlifted to hospital as the number of cases rises to 108 ."

 

 

(Via BBC News.)

They describe E. coli, a bacteria, as a virus. Twice. This is not to make light of their outbreak, but makes me wonder about the basics of medical reportage.

Update 9/25/04 @ 0845: the story has been significantly rewritten.  Viruses are no longer referred to, but E. coli isn’t described as being a bacteria, either.

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