Traveling-Wave Reactor

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22114/

NASA announcement: Arsenic-based life form discovered on Earth

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/02/AR201012
0204183.html

UN 'to appoint space ambassador to greet alien visitors'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8025832/UN-to-appoint-space-ambassador-to-greet-alien-visitors.html

How many stars are there? More than you thought

http://us.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B053U20101201?ca=rdt

NASA finds new life

http://m.gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life

reverse aging

I was aware of telomeres.  They are like a fuse that shortens every time cells replicate.   

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 30, 2010, at 1:58 PM, "larry.r.trout

'Aging is generally accompanied by a gradual decline in cellular and organ functioning that eventually results in increased mortality risk. One proposed mechanism for aging focuses on telomere maintenance. Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes that, for mechanical reasons, require a special copying enzyme. Human germ cells produce a complex called telomerase to maintain telomere length; other human cells do not. As a result, the telomeres of most cells get shorter with each cell division. Eventually, their reduced length activates DNA damage signaling pathways that induce the cell to enter a sort of senescence…

Ron DePinho and his colleagues have just added telomerase back into these telomerase deficient mice to see if this would halt, or possibly even reverse, the tissue degeneration. Their report appears in Nature.

First, they determined that the reinstated telomerase works; when it was induced in cultured cells, it elongated telomeres. Moreover, the cells were no longer subjected to DNA damage signals, so they resumed proliferating. '

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/gene-reactivation-reverses-aging-related-brain-deficits-in-mice.ars

Re: reverse aging

I was aware of telomeres.  They are like a fuse that shortens every time cells replicate.   

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 30, 2010, at 1:58 PM, "larry.r.trout

'Aging is generally accompanied by a gradual decline in cellular and organ functioning that eventually results in increased mortality risk. One proposed mechanism for aging focuses on telomere maintenance. Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes that, for mechanical reasons, require a special copying enzyme. Human germ cells produce a complex called telomerase to maintain telomere length; other human cells do not. As a result, the telomeres of most cells get shorter with each cell division. Eventually, their reduced length activates DNA damage signaling pathways that induce the cell to enter a sort of senescence…

Ron DePinho and his colleagues have just added telomerase back into these telomerase deficient mice to see if this would halt, or possibly even reverse, the tissue degeneration. Their report appears in Nature.

First, they determined that the reinstated telomerase works; when it was induced in cultured cells, it elongated telomeres. Moreover, the cells were no longer subjected to DNA damage signals, so they resumed proliferating. '

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/gene-reactivation-reverses-aging-related-brain-deficits-in-mice.ars

Discovery Health "Caffeine and Adenosine"

"The problem with caffeine is the longer-term effects, which tend to
spiral. For example, once the adrenaline wears off, you face fatigue and
depression. So what are you going to do? You consume more caffeine to
get the adrenaline going again. As you might imagine, having your body
in a state of emergency all day long isn't very healthy, and it also
makes you jumpy and irritable.

The most important long-term problem is the effect that caffeine has on
sleep. Adenosine reception is important to sleep, and especially to deep
sleep. The half-life of caffeine in your body is about six hours. That
means that if you consume a big cup of coffee with 200 mg of caffeine in
it at 3:00 p.m., by 9:00 p.m. about 100 mg of that caffeine is still in
your system. You may be able to fall asleep, but your body will probably
miss out on the benefits of deep sleep."

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/drugs-alcohol/caffeine3.htm

Electrowetting breakthrough may lead to disposable e-Readers fast enough for video

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101122102804.htm

Albert Einstein

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep
moving."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

New Microscope

From: larry.r.trout

'For the first time, there is no need to chemically fix, stain or cut cells in order to study them. Instead, whole living cells are fast-frozen and studied in their natural environment. The new method delivers an immediate 3-D image, thereby closing a gap between conventional microscopic techniques.

The new microscope delivers a high-resolution 3-D image of the entire cell in one step. This is an advantage over electron microscopy, in which a 3-D image is assembled out of many thin sections. This can take up to weeks for just one cell. Also, the cell need not be labelled with dyes, unlike in fluorescence microscopy, where only the labelled structures become visible. The new X-ray microscope instead exploits the natural contrast between organic material and water to form an image of all cell structures. Dr. Gerd Schneider and his microscopy team at the Institute for Soft Matter and Functional Materials have published their development in Nature Methods.'

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101119102354.htm

An Introduction to TerraPower

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIfMmqKYC6w

Bill Gates also talks about this ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieX88nBFVS4&feature=related

The Young Double-Slit Experiment

The first 20 seconds of the TV series "The Big Bang Theory" caused me to go look this up ...

http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/kenny/papers/quantum.html


I was somewhat familiar with this already, but I didn't understand what they meant in the TV show about "observation" so this link allowed me to deepen my understanding.

More on the double slit experiment can be found here ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment

The nuclear reactor that could clean up

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/5081833/The-nuclear-reactor-that-coul
d-clean-up.html

100 year starship

Seems like a mute point to me.  Long space voyages will require some sort of nuclear powered propulsion, like an ion drive that will get us there faster. 

 <larry.r.trout wrote:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/29/nasa-cover-up-hundred-year-starship/

Astrophysicists discover new galaxy clusters revealed by cosmic 'shadows'

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101101161907.htm

Oh, Crap: Scientists Discover That High-Fructose Corn Syrup Makes You Really Fat

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-oh-crap-scientists-discover-that-high-fructose-corn-syrup-makes-you-really-fat-2010-3

10 Big Differences Between Men's and Women's Brains

http://www.mastersofhealthcare.com/blog/2009/10-big-differences-between-
mens-and-womens-brains/

Emotional Brain Damaged Think Like Vulcans

How caffeine works

Skewed Views of Science

Skewed Views of Science
Churches hold Darwin conference
Bear Evolution
Whale Evolution

Breakthrough e-display means electronics with high speed, high readability and low power usage

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101005104339.htm

Top 10 Freaking Amazing Explosions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRRGaxx8Zf4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Re: Crazy world

I saw this already.   I saw the video with Bill Gates at the TED conference and realized he misspoke.  He was trying to say that better health services in general can prevent pregnancy.   Not a big deal.  

Best wishes,

John Coffey

On Oct 6, 2010, at 10:32 AM, 

 <larry wrote:

'Bill Gates says vaccines can help reduce world population

"In a recent TED conference presentation, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to new vaccine efforts, speaks on the issue of CO2 emissions and its effects on climate change. He presents a formula for tracking CO2 emissions as follows: CO2 = P x S x E x C.

P = People
S = Services per person
E = Energy per service
C = CO2 per energy unit

Then he adds that in order to get CO2 to zero, "probably one of these numbers is going to have to get pretty close to zero."

Following that, Bill Gates begins to describe how the first number -- P (for People) -- might be reduced. He says:

"The world today has 6.8 billion people... that's headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent."…

So what does it mean when Bill Gates says "if we do a really great job on new vaccines... we could lower [world population] by 10 or 15 percent?"

Clearly, this statement implies that vaccines are a method of population reduction. So is "health care," which all NaturalNews readers already know to be more of a "sick care" system that actually harms more people than it helps.'

http://www.naturalnews.com/029911_vaccines_Bill_Gates.html

The people who wrote this article are nuts.

 

Aubrey de Grey: Why we age and how we can avoid it

The Origin of Life - Abiogenesis - Dr. Jack Szostak

Creation 'Science' Made Easy

Human Evolution Made Easy

The Theory of Evolution Made Easy

Natural Selection Made Easy

Amino acids from space?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cosMs5EtktY&sns=em

Did life originate from Mars?

I am not sure this can be proven...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj4Q1hPRoDs&sns=em

Carl Sagan on Origins of Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7ivTdcHYvI&sns=em

Abiogenesis

An alternative but related hypothesis, proposed to explain the presence of life on Earth so soon after the planet had cooled down, with apparently very little time for prebiotic evolution, is that life formed first on early Mars. Due to its smaller size Mars cooled before Earth (a difference of hundreds of millions of years), allowing prebiotic processes there while Earth was still too hot. Life was then transported to the cooled Earth when crustal material was blasted off Mars by asteroid and comet impacts. Mars continued to cool faster and eventually became hostile to the continued evolution or even existence of life (it lost its atmosphere due to low volcanism); Earth is following the same fate as Mars, but at a slower rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

FOXNews.com - Odds of Life on Nearby Planet '100 Percent,' Astronomer Says

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/09/29/odds-life-newfound-earth-size-planet-percent-astronomer-say/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fscitech+%28Internal+-+SciTech+-+Mixed%29

New Drug Could Help Stop the Spread of Disease from Coughs, Researchers Believe

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100922111438.htm

Printed Lithium Ion Batteries

'Planar Energy has developed a roll-to-roll process for making larger
solid lithium-ion batteries. The company, which received $4 million in
funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy program this
spring, says it can print solid batteries that offer three times more
storage than liquid lithium-ion batteries of the same size. This boost
in energy storage is possible primarily because the company's
all-solid batteries don't require many of the support structures and
materials that take up space in conventional batteries, making more
space for energy storage.

Planar Energy expects to reduce capital costs by half compared with
solid-state battery manufacturing using high-vacuum machinery. And the
company says its processes can be used to make cells big enough to
power electric vehicles.'

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/25825/

AutoblogGreen Q&A with Transonic Combustion: Can supercritical fluids give a 30% mpg boost? - Autoblog Green

http://i.green.autoblog.com/2010/08/26/autobloggreen-qanda-with-transonic-combustion-can-supercritical-f/

The comments at the end of the article are interesting.

I should point out that the Mythbusters created a car covered in golf
ball dents, and despite being heavier, got better gas mileage.

Fwd: iPSCs

From: larry.r.trout
Date: September 16, 2010 8:48:38 AM MDT
Subject: iPSCs

'Human embryonic stem cell research is the $10,000 toilet seat of the 21st century. Years ago, science created a cell that appears to be, in the words of an MIT study published last month, "virtually identical" to an embryonic stem cell but is cheaper, promises better compatibility to patients and kills no embryos.

These new induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) "do all the things embryonic stem cells do," explains the father of human embryonic stem cells James Thomson. Harvard's David Scadden agrees that iPSC technology "is absolutely changing the field." IPSCs "perhaps even eliminate the need for human embryos as a source of stem cells," says Keisuke Kaji of the University of Edinburgh. IPSCs even caused the man who cloned Dolly the sheep to abandon cloning three years ago because "changing cells from a patient directly into stem cells has got so much more potential."

"The world has changed," Thomson told The Boston Globe in 2007. "Human embryo stem cell research will be abandoned by more and more labs." …

As CBS News reported on August 2, adult stem cells appear to have the ability to stimulate tissue repair and to suppress the immune system.

"That gives adult stem cells really a very interesting and potent quality that embryonic stem cells don't have," said Rocky Tuan, director of a cellular engineering institute at the University of Pittsburgh. '

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/16/bowman.stem.cell.research/index.html?hpt=C2

Virus Enables New Wave Of Rechargeable Batteries

http://electronicdesign.com/article/components/virus_enables_new_wave_of_rechargeable_batteries.aspx?nl=1

Record-breaking carbon dioxide storage capacity enhances ability to capture CO2

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100715172044.htm

Liver cells created from patients' skin cells

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100825131546.htm