Science Extra Geeky Bits from David Bradley
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The latest science extra Geeky Bits news from Sciencebase's David Bradley. The most recent 30 days of news snippets, worthies and oddities, as well as other items of interest that didn't make it on to the Sciencebase Science Blog homepage because I was (a) too busy to do a full write-up (b) too lazy to do a full write-up (c) too bored to do a full write-up. Visit the Science Extra Geeky Bits Archive for all items posted during the last year.
- IBM, the Musical - June 29, 2007 → Ever since the 1960s IBM mainframes have been tuned up. But for all-out spectacle check out the ,a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ff_AXVlo9U”tuned tesla coil instead.
- Black gold from giant microwave - June 28, 2007 → An enormous industrial strength microwave oven can rip apart plastics and rubbers and spit out “crude oil”
- Cloning Neanderthals June 28, 2007 → We’re not far off from having the technical capacity to clone not only the woolly mammoth but the Neanderthals! What a party that’s going to be, ey?
- Upgrading Darwin - June 28, 2007 → Evolutionary biologists hanker for a revolution and hope for a paradigm shift, but may have to settle for an upgrade to Darwin’s theory. Darwin 2.0 anyone?
- Mammoths in Neogenic Park - June 27, 2007 → Scientists are on the verge of cloning the woolly mammoth, but should they? Even though mammoth DNA exists only as tiny degraded fragments rather than a complete genome, researchers can still read these fragments and piece together the genetic instructions.
- Tunguska crater claim - June 27, 2007 → Scientists have identified a possible crater left by the biggest space impact in modern times - the Tunguska event of June 1908
- Firstborns more cleverer - June 23, 2007 → I must rush to tell my younger sister that first borns have higherer intelligance than there sibberlings. Durr. (Yes, I know this is written in poor English, it’s a joke)
- A lightbulb to outlast lamp - June 22, 2007 → Ceravision (http://www.ceravision.com/) has announced a new class of lightbulb that is more efficient even than the LED and could last forever…well obviously not quite forever, but it should never need replacing, well, not quite never…but much longer than any incandescent bulb or LED
- Strike a light - June 22, 2007 → When Eta Carinae a star just 7500 light years from earth explodes, the resulting supernova it could outshine our moon in brilliance, according to NASA. Presumably, that means it will be visible during daylight hours too. It could be quite spectacular…
- Children and Second-hand Cigarettes - June 20, 2007 → Chemical traces of cigarette smoke may show up in babies of parents who smoke, according to a new study. No surprises there, then, and another reason to quit.
- Upper and lower temperature limits - June 20, 2007 → Absolute zero is described as the lowest possible temperature, but what about the highest temperature, is there a similar limit in the extreme?
- Cool laser - June 19, 2007 → US company Raydiance is developing a laser that can vaporize matter without generating heat. Couple that with MIT WiTricity and you could have the ultimate weapon, bwuah, hahhaaha, hahhhhaaaaaaargggh
- Cloned hearing - June 18, 2007 → Researchers one step closer to curing genetic or acquired hearing loss. “Our results show that gene therapy reagents are effective in human inner ear tissue. Taken together with the results from another group of scientists who showed that similar gene therapy compounds can produce new hair cells and restore hearing function in guinea pigs suggest that the future of gene therapy in the human inner ear is sound,” lead researcher Jeffrey Holt of University of Virginia claims.
- Fat fighters - June 15, 2007 → “alli” is the first FDA-sanctioned over-the-counter, no prescription diet drug. But, is it just me or does their logo look a rip-off the Google logo
- Tomorrow way back when - June 15, 2007 → According to John Cramer of the University of Washington, quantum retrocausality will allow us to send a signal back in time. Cramer has failed to get DARPA funding however. DARPA is the the US military’s famously wacky research bureau, according to The Register.
- Honda’s green diesel - June 14, 2007 → Is that the same shade of “green” that is reserved for Al Gore’s allegedly green mansion? There will never be a green car, ever. It’s an oxymoron. No matter how efficiently you make running it, it will always require vast resources and energy to manufacture and vast amounts of land and resources on which to drive.
- Green Gore - June 13, 2007 → Apparently, Al Gore’s mansion is going eco-friendly with several improvements to make it a model green home. Did anyone spot the oxymoron? Yes, a “green mansion”. I think not Mr Gore. Go back to your Powerpoint slides.
- Cheesy name, deadly drug - June 13, 2007 → “Cheese heroin” contains black tar Mexican heroin and the over the counter antihistamine diphenhydramine. A deadly sedative brew that has already killed 21 teenagers in Dallas.
- Life’s handedness - June 13, 2007 → Yet another possible explanation for the bias in life’s handedness - the fact that nature uses mainly only form of the building blocks of proteins - comes from Dutch chemists experimenting with the sublimation of amino acids.
- On reflection…no reflection - June 12, 2007 → Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute scientists have devleoped a novel nanocoated semiconductor material that reflects no light. The material could be a boon for improving the efficiency of LEDs and photovoltaic solar cells.
- $3 straw purifies water - June 12, 2007 → A $3 straw could mean the difference between drinking potentially lethal microbe-contaminated water and having fresh drinking water according to the makers of LifeStraw.
- Kitchen Windows - June 12, 2007 → The trouble with the Windows toaster is that you can only use white bread with no wheatgerm and it comes out blue on one side and covered in bugs. Conversely, the Linux hacked version runs, I mean, toasts, all types of bread, including crumpets and there is very little chance of catching anything nasty from it. Oh and it comes out brown.
- Solving Sudoku - June 11, 2007 → Mathematicians add colour to ubiquitous puzzles to help them solve them but throw up a new graph theory conundrum in the process
- Carry on snacking - June 11, 2007 → Apparently, despite concerns that metabolism slows as we age, there is a point when digestion begins to fail, people lose weight, and that is a sign of ill health. So, regular snacking could help keep caloric intake up in the very old, and ward off malnutrition. Just don’t overdo it on the donuts, granddad, ey?
- Brain 2.0 (beta) - June 10, 2007 → Israeli scientists imprint multiple, persistent memories on a culture of neurons, paving the way to cyborg-type machines. Yeah, right. And what happens when it crashes? You’ll be bricked.
- Deadly bacteria - June 8, 2007 → A new emergent strain of bacteria, Bartonella rochalimae, closely related to the pathogen involved in First World War trench fever has been identified.
- Cleaning up the Five-Second Rule - June 7, 2007 → You know the one, drop some food, pick it up within 5 secs and it will be fine. Apparently, Clemson U scientists have analyzed this rule from a microbiology angle. Turns out serious bacterial contamination occurs within that timeframe, so you have to be really desperate for that last slice of pizza, if you ask me.
- Who is Sick? - June 7, 2007 → Got a runny nose, cough, headache? Tell the world, well the US, and map the spread of disease. Be interesting to see how this Google Maps mashup copes with the inevitable emerging virus we will see spread in the coming years.
- Nothing standard about finding God particle - June 6, 2007 → Rumours are flying that Fermilab scientists have found the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle. No other rumours abound that Fermilab staff sabotaged the Large Hadron Collider, of course.
- Mining Drug Space - June 6, 2007 → Joerg Kurt Wegner makes the case for open source/open access in the chemical sciences
- Sleep on it for 20/20 vision - June 6, 2007 → The coward’s alternative to laser therapy: contact lenses that fix your eyes while you sleep
- Phase Zero in the Pipeline - June 5, 2007 → Phase Zero, Size Zero, and Coke Zero… It strikes me there is some bizarre marketspeak shenanigans going on here. Obviously, there is a serious purpose to the Phase 0 notion, as in the labeling of software editions 0.1, 1.01, 2.2, etc in which the release 0.0x series would be one before the alpha release and two before beta. I have to admit I’ve never fancied being a beta tester for a drug. The TGN1412 debacle ever springing to mind when clinical trials are mentioned these days.
- Macular insight - June 5, 2007 → New treatment offers hope for elderly blind suffering from macular degeneration
- Finding new formulas for pharma success - June 4, 2007 → Reformulating existing drugs has become an increasingly popular strategy for tackling productivity shortfalls. David Bradley investigates the trend. Finding new markets for old drugs or ways to modify a formulation to allow it to enter a new market could be the key to keeping productivity from stalling as markets for older products dry up, patents expire and profit margins continue to be eroded by market pressures, competitor products and generic alternatives. (Free registration required)
- 4 out of ten for solar cells → Boeing scientists at Spectrolab Inc have passed the 40% efficiency mark for electricity-generating solar cells.
- Watson DNA cracked - June 1, 2007 → The DNA of James Watson co-discoverer of DNA has been sequenced by researchers at 454 Life Sciences. It took two months and less than $1million to completely read his whole genome, such speed could herald an era of personalized medicine. Unfortunately, his collaborator, Francis Crick died in 2004 and for him personalized medicine is no longer an option.
- Sharks are people too - June 1, 2007 → Genetic analysis reveals almost identical snippets of DNA in sharks and humans, highlighting our distant, shared evolutionary ancestry.
- Chaos in the name of sustainability - June 1, 2007 → Could the butterfly effect save the world?
- Faster wound healing - May 30, 2007 → A topical gel derived from a patient’s own blood may help prevent infection while speeding up the healing process.
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