Don't expect giant machines that can purify the atmosphere or nanotech that can reverse global warming just yet. The U.S. government has yet to approve the fledgling agency which would unify several independent researchers and university labs with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Basically, it would be an Earth-monitoring super-group whose goals are to research and solve humanity's crimes against the biosphere.

USGS director Charles Grote, who is helping to put the group together, isn't quite as grandiose when explaining the ESSA's mission:

The USGS, in bringing not only its geologic, biologic, hydrologic and geospatial expertise to the understanding of natural systems, but also its research capabilities in energy, mineral, water, and biologic resources, gives the new organization a comprehensive perspective on both environmental and resource systems. If we effectively link these capabilities with those of NOAA, we will have a powerful research institution

But David Rejeski, former member of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is thinking bigger:

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demonstrated the value of funding high-risk, high-reward research and development. ESSA should foster similar ventures in the environmental arena.

Given the kinds of projects that have come out of DARPA, including the internet and swarm robots, Rejeski is clearly hoping for giant robots who can cool down the oceans or clean up chemical spills. That's what we're hoping for too.

Earth Systems Science Agency, we have a planetary emergency! Help us before it's too late!

Image from Earth Sons.

Organizing an Earth Systems Science Agency [Nature via Eurekalert]

This face is being used by people practicing shoving a nasal endoscope, well, up your nose and down your throat.

Here is a family of obese manikins, which are used for teaching medical professionals how to deal with people whose organs are covered in a bigger layer of fat than the average medical manikin is.

This is by far the saddest and most disturbing of the manikins. This is a geriatric patient manikin, who looks totally miserable. Maybe that's because it has two sets of genitals that you can ram into its body cavity via a huge metal rod. I guess the idea is that when you are elderly, there are no differences between the two sexes other than those interchangeable genitals? That just seems weird to me.

There are a ton more strange and delightful images at Oobject. Top image by Tomer Ganihar.

Medical Manikins [Oobject]

Meow!

The Large Hadron Collider, once operational, will fire beams of protons into each other at energy levels never seen on Earth. We don't really know what will happen when experiments begin (or we wouldn't bother running the experiments), and there are fears that all kinds of weird, hypothetical particles could be created that will devour the planet, or that a small but stable black hole will begin consuming all nearby matter. Steve Giddings, Professor of Physics at UC Santa Barbara, studied the risks. His conclusions:

• The chances of a microscopic black hole forming are impossibly small.
• Cosmic rays smash into particles all the time at very high energies. We probably would have noticed if the universe was being chewed up by an endless torrent of ravenous mini black holes.
• In the incredibly unlikely event that a microscopic black hole forms, it would exist for "a nano-nano-nanosecond." Not long enough to do any damage, in other words.
• Giddings even studied what would happen if a long chain if bizarre events occurred, and a stable micro black hole formed. The result would be...nothing much. Even a stable microscopic black hole would be harmless.

If The Large Hadron Collider Produced A Microscopic Black Hole, It Probably Wouldn't Matter. [Science Daily]

Heart Surgery - Open heart surgery hasn't simply improved since 1948. Back then, it wasn't even possible. Before heart and lung bypass machines, doctors cooled the patient with ice (pictured above) to get a few seconds when they could work on the heart without causing death. Now we can repair and even replace entire structures within the heart, or transplant the heart itself.

Reconstructive Surgery - Microsurgery is the key to successfully reconnecting or rebuilding damaged body parts. Joining the tiny blood vessels speeds healing and makes grafts assimilate better. Now we can repair areas damaged by tumors or injuries with skin, muscle and bone from other parts of the body.

Outpatient Surgery - We have become so good at certain procedures that what used to require a two-week hospital stay (and all the expense and discomfort that entails) now doesn't even require an overnight visit. From the point of view of both patients and hospital administrators, the benefit to the bottom line has had a huge impact on medical care.

Cochlear Implants - The lives of people with certain types of deafness have been vastly improved by these devices, which are essentially bionic ears. By sending audio information as electrical signals through the cochlea and into the auditory nerve, a cochlear implant allows someone who may have previously heard very little to make out speech and other sounds in quiet environments.

Specialization - The typical doctor of 1948 was a general practitioner or generalist surgeon who treated a wide variety of medical problems, but was not necessarily an expert in any of them. Today, doctors are branched into fine specialties, allowing for greater expertise and more intense research into certain areas. Many of these advances would not have happened without increased specialization. Image by: National Institutes of Health.

A 60-year revolution in surgery. [BBC News]

This is one of the first graphical representations of the network structure of our brains. The larger the circle, the more neural connections — highly connected areas create big circles, and areas of few connections are dots. You can see that the biggest circles are concentrated in the back of your brain, roughly in the middle between the two hemispheres. That central position for the core processor might be a result of high chatter levels between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Though everyone's brain is slightly different, most share this same fundamental neurological pattern. You can see an even more revealing image below.

Here, the bigger the red dot, the more neural connections formed in one area. The thicker the blue line, the greater the nerve fiber densities. So you can see areas that are highly connected, as well as connections that are used frequently.

The study was published in PLoS Biology today. PLoS' Liza Gross writes:

This study represents a major step toward mapping the connectivity patterns of the billions and billions of neurons whose interactions allow us to navigate the daily demands of human existence. The next major challenge will be to incorporate the brain's subcortical regions, such as the thalamus and basal ganglia, into a complete human “connectome” for structurally guided investigations of brain function. Until then, future studies can further explore the relationships between structure and function using the approach described here. And by comparing differences in structural and functional connectivity between individuals, researchers can begin to identify the neural basis of variation in human behavior.

Basically, this is an early network road map of the human brain. We can use it to figure out not just how we think, but where we think. Literally, we are looking at where thoughts traverse the structures of our brains.

Mapping the Connection Matrix of the Human Brain [PLoS Biology]

Once the two patterns have been compared, you get a kind of black-and-white silhouette of the object you want to photograph. Scientists call this a "ghost photograph." University of Maryland physicist Yanhua Shih has been working on this "ghost photography" for a while, and has been talking to the military about using it in UAVs for photographing bomb damage through smoke.

According to the Air Force Times:

Albert Einstein explored the basic research behind ghost imaging — quantum entanglement — which he called "spooky action at a distance" in 1935. Shih discovered ghost imaging in 1995, but the theory has yet to leave the laboratory.

Air Force satellites could use ghost imaging by pointing a light sensor toward the Earth's surface and another toward the sun. The technique could allow the service to penetrate clouds or the smoke that follows airstrikes . . . Defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin has shown interest in quantum entanglement, acquiring a U.S. patent in May to develop quantum radar that could defeat stealth aircraft and find camouflaged improvised explosive devices and mines, according to the patent.

Discovery May Make Ghost Imaging a Reality [Air Force Times]

The leaves tremble with vibrations, much the same way typical speakers do. Koga sticks the leaves into a magnet and coil at the base of this vase (pictured below), and hooks it up to a CD player. The magnet and coil relay sound up through the stems, and the leaves vibrate out a sound. No word yet on how good the sound quality is. Photos via AP.

It's a region that is likely to become contested by Canada and Denmark, who both lay claim to parts of the formerly-useless area. (Some of you may recall the Hans Island territorial struggle between the two nations, which at one point bizarrely became a skirmish over Google adwords.) Also, as the planet heats up, northern regions like Nunavut in Canada may become valuable real estate. So as environmentalists and systems biologists wring their hands over the biosphere beatings, the locals are going to be counting this bit of climate change a financial windfall.

Source: Live Science

While Griff and his Bush Administration cronies dust off their tie-dye shirts, smoke a bowl and try to relive NASA's Apollo golden years with their mission back to the Moon, it's good to know someone's paying attention to the Asteroid threat.

Of the many different methods proposed for altering space rocks' course — or blowing them up — gravity tractoring seems to be the most attractive. By launching a satellite towards a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) and hanging out close by, the vehicle's gravitational influence will slowly, and ever so slightly alter the asteroid's course. The process requires a lot of advaned notice, but should work without the use of lasers, nuclear weapons, or Bruce Willis.

From B612's mission statement:

The reality of concern to us, among others, is that the discovery of a NEA headed toward an impact with Earth could be announced at any time by the Spaceguard program. If this were to happen the public would be extremely concerned and demand to know what is being done about it.

Unfortunately the answer is "nothing". This, it seems to us, is intolerable and could cause widespread alarm. For this reason the B612 Foundation, recognizing that national governments feel (to the extent that they have considered the matter) that they are not in a position to spend public money on mitigation, are taking the initiative now to begin this process with the use of private funds. We believe that there are adequate numbers of intelligent and concerned people to support the critical initial planning work that needs to be done to eventually reach an operational system to deflect incoming NEAs.

Our conviction is that there is nothing more powerful to convince the public that this audacious challenge can be met than to actually do it. Our goal is to physically deflect a representative asteroid as a demonstration that a longer term, more challenging operational system can become a reality.

Now of course it's a possibility that B612 could take a rock that's not an imminent threat to Earth and make it one by altering its course, but that's pretty unlikely. More important is that someone is serious about saving humanity from a space rock strike, but they're seriously underfunded — $50,000 is a drop in the bucket, and we're going to need an X-Prize style contest, or some mega-rich asteroid geek to pony up some bucks if we're ever going to dodge the big one.

Source: LiveScience

Image: B612 Foundation

According to UPI:

The department also assessed the possibility of a terrorist attack releasing pathogens from the lab — which will work on the most infectious animal diseases, like Foot and Mouth; and on those most deadly to humans, like the Hendra and Nipah viruses. The overall risk assessment for a release at the five mainland sites was "moderate" because of "the potential easy spread of a disease through livestock or wildlife" nearby, the statement said.

DHS is currently considering five possible sites in the mainland United States. They'd better hope nobody in those towns has read The Hot Zone or seen 28 Days Later.

New Report on Bio-War Lab Danger [UPI via Space War]

According to a release from Oregon State University, where some of the research took place:

While using fluorescence to illuminate organic material has been done for decades, light sources were too large and unwieldy to use for a robotic mission to another planet, said [researcher Michael] Storrie-Lombardi. However, new generations of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are very small, reliable and energy efficient, he added.

"Placed on a Mars rover, one of these LEDs positioned a few centimeters from a target can easily provide enough light to produce fluorescence in small polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons," Storrie-Lombardi said. "But even more encouraging is the very recent development of a small 375 nanometer laser diode that can illuminate anything a PanCam can see, including geological layers and crevices high up on an otherwise inaccessible rock outcrop."

Added [U.K. scientist Jan-Peter] Muller: "This laser is now undergoing rigorous tests in the laboratory under Mars-like conditions prior to showing that it is flight-ready, even at this late stage, to be seriously considered to be launched in only five years' time."

The instrument appears to be "an ideal initial survey tool," Storrie-Lombardi pointed out.

"It requires no sample preparation, does not destroy sample material and requires only electrical power to operate, conserving precious water and other consumable resources for sister instruments," he said.

I'm waiting for a USB version of the device to attach to my laptop or mobile. You never know where you might need to scan for lifeforms.

Laser fluorescence could find life on Mars [via Eurekalert]

Al Gore may be the #1 movie star of the neo-green, anti-global warming set, but Hansen's the guy with the scientific chops — so when he talks, Congress listens. Sort of. More like they listen in the 'let's call a hearing, we're somewhat concerned' way, rather than the 'holy shit we'd better do something' way.

Now Hansen's got another shot at a hearing, and he wants the heads of big oil companies behind bars for what he sees as their purposeful attempts to trick the world into thinking that global warming is no big deal:

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

He is also considering personally targeting members of Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated. Hansen's speech to Congress on June 23 1988 is seen as a seminal moment in bringing the threat of global warming to the public's attention. At a time when most scientists were still hesitant to speak out, he said the evidence of the greenhouse gas effect was 99% certain, adding "it is time to stop waffling".

He will tell the House select committee on energy independence and global warming this afternoon that he is now 99% certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond the safe level.

The current concentration is 385 parts per million and is rising by 2ppm a year. Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, says 2009 will be a crucial year, with a new US president and talks on how to follow the Kyoto agreement.

He wants to see a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, coupled with the creation of a huge grid of low-loss electric power lines buried under ground and spread across America, in order to give wind and solar power a chance of competing. "The new US president would have to take the initiative analogous to Kennedy's decision to go to the moon."

His sharpest words are reserved for the special interests he blames for public confusion about the nature of the global warming threat. "The problem is not political will, it's the alligator shoes - the lobbyists. It's the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it's intended to work."

Anyone who's willing to speak truth to power is OK in my book, but one hopes Dr. Hansen isn't committing political suicide here. Going before Congress with plans to strip out lobbyists' influence and jail the leaders of some of the most profitable companies in America? Noble, but not likely. And maybe you don't want to mention the part about trying to have members of Congress unseated? Telling people 'listen to me or I'm going to have you fired' isn't really a good idea unless you're their boss.

Source: The Guardian, via SciGuy

MYTH: Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) and a few select others have a special, super-shooting ability that makes it possible for them to curve the trajectories of the bullets they shoot.

FACT: To change the movement of any object, external force must be involved — so says a little thing called Newton's First Law. After the initial impulse that propels a bullet from the barrel of a gun, a bullet's path will essentially follow a straight line. In long-range shooting, gravity will impose a downward acceleration on the bullet, causing the bullet to travel in a slight parabola. Air resistance, wind, and even the Coriolis effect might also affect the trajectory of the bullet (especially at long distances), but this is quite apart from Wanted's claim that bullets are able to dodge obstacles.

Of course, there's always the possibility that a simple bullet could be more than meets the eye. In 1998, two professors from California — Dr. Chih-Ming Ho of UCLA and Dr. Yu-Chong Tai of Caltech — published a landmark paper detailing their research into the possible application of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) to situations involving fluid flows. What they were exploring is the behavior of tiny transducers (sensors or actuators such as accelerometers or microflaps) that are surrounded by a fluid flow; these MEMS transducers could be as small as a thousandth of a millimeter, or one micrometer. With sophisticated enough micro-devices, a bullet might be able to detect, record, and control its own trail. Ho and Tai, however, are now focusing their research on biomedical applications, so McAvoy will have to look elsewhere.

MYTH: If you concentrate hard enough — and if you're as badass as Wesley Gibson — you can shoot the wings off a fly.

FACT: Let's leave aside for a moment the assumption that flies will remain perfectly still in politeness while you shoot them, and that small considerations like human error, weapon defects, and unpredictable air resistance won't affect the accuracy of a gunshot more than one millimeter. According to the Internet Movie Firearms Database, the gun that James McAvoy is most likely shooting in Wanted is either a Beretta 92 with 9x19mm Parabellum cartridges or a Heckler & Koch USP Compact pistol with .357 SIG cartridges. (In the side image, the Beretta cartridge is at the far left, while the .357 SIG is third from left.) For both these cartridges, the bullet diameter is 9 millimeters.

Wikipedia notes that the common adult housefly is 6-9 millimeters long, and any detailed pest control website will tell you that the wingspan of such a housefly ranges from 12-15 millimeters. This means that the wing of a single housefly, at most, is less than 7 millimeters. Good luck blowing the wings off and leaving the fly intact, Wesley, no matter how supernaturally accurate a shot you are.

Interested in more movie physics fallacies? Check out the Internet Movie Firearms Database for details on the exact guns used in your favorite films so that you can perform the proper calculations yourself — or just take a look at Intuitor's Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics to get an idea of common mistakes. Angelina Jolie can teach you a lot of things, but don't let her teach you physics.

Additional sources: Barrow Borough Council Pest Control, Valent BioSciences Environmental Science Division, and Special Topics MEMS: An Interview with Professor Chih-Ming Ho.

Crappiest way to encourage people to use their imaginations and experiment with evolutionary possibilities in a game devoted to both: Last week saw the release of EA/Maxis' Creature Creator — a component of the upcoming evolution game Spore — and the entire internet greeted it with a cry of happiness. Creature Creator lets you build any organism you like, quickly fleshing out an animated being as cute or hideous as you can imagine. An algorithm animates the little beast, giving it realistic motions for its body shape. You can share your creations with other users, too.

Of course, one of the first things that people did was create the most obscene-looking creatures they could. It turns out the Creature Creator is very versatile when it comes to adding body parts that look like penises, vaginas, and anuses. Thus, within a day after Creature Creator's launch, Sporn was born. Instead of laughing the whole trend off and coming up with ways to prevent people from uploading their dirty bits to kid-friendly areas in the Spore community, EA reacted with censorious poopheadedness. They banned users from the Creator Creator community who uploaded naughty creatures, and requested that YouTube yank any Sporn videos. What the hell, people? Is this any way to encourage people to think about evolution, which is after all very much about genitals and where you put them? I can understand wanting to wall off this grown-up stuff once kids start playing the game, but squashing it entirely? Crap! Luckily, io9 has managed to procure some of the best Sporn available and we've edited it into a smashing NSFW music video for you.

Infographic above via UK Telegraph.

You can get in for free if you can prove you walked or bicycled to the club. Otherwise it's 10 pounds. According to Environmental Graffiti:

Based at Bar Surya in Pentonville Road, the club is owned by property millionaire and head of new climate change organization Club4Climate, Andrew Charalambous. The Greek-Cypriot businessman is trying to reach out to young people in an effort to save the world . . . Apparently everyone [who goes to the club] needs to sign a pledge promising to work towards curbing climate change. Is it just me or does that sound annoying?

It does sound annoying, especially if they want your e-mail or address so they can spam you. Hopefully the weird pledge thing won't get off the ground, but these dance floors will become more popular. I want one for my flat right now.

Eco-Nightclub [via Environmental Graffiti]

This represents a huge breakthrough for the mission, which had until now been unable to find much solid evidence that frozen water existed beneath the Martian pole. A release from NASA quoted lead researcher Peter Smith, who said:

It must be ice. These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that.

Early yesterday, Phoenix was digging in a trench unrelated to the icy one, and found a very hard surface that scientists might be an entire layer of ice beneath the planet's surface. This bodes well for future missions to Mars that contain humans. If the ice can be converted into something drinkable, it could become a supply of much-needed water for thirsty colonists.

Exploring the Arctic Plane of Mars [via NASA]

Over at Wired, which has been doing a great job covering this controversy, Thomas Goetz explains that this is rather like the state government refusing to let people give themselves pregnancy tests:

We neither want nor assume that doctors should have a gatekeeper role in establishing whether we are or are not pregnant, nor do we look to the state to protect us from that information. Pregnancy is a part of life, and it has all sorts of implications and ramifications. So too with DNA . . . The assumption that there must be a layer of "professional help" is exactly what the new age of medicine bodes — the automation of expertise, the liberation of knowledge and the democratization of the tools to interpret and put to use fundamental information about who we are as people. Not as patients, but as individuals. This is not a dark art, province of the select few, as many physicians would have it. This is data. This is who I am. Frankly, it's insulting and a curtailment of my rights to put a gatekeeper between me and my DNA.

And yesterday Aaron Rowe added fuel to the anti-gatekeeping side of this debate with his list of ten reasons why regulators should not hinder people's ability to gain access to information about their own genetic code. Most of his reasons boil down to "I like these companies and they seem like nice/well-informed people." That may be true, but as I've pointed out before a lot of these companies may be run by shysters. That doesn't matter. The fact is, this is consumer technology. We don't prevent people from buying computers even though they could lead to bewilderment and might be best set up with help from "professionals." Ultimately, as Rowe writes:

The price of genetic tests is high, and insurance companies are not paying for them, which makes the current situation much like an open beta test. Early adopters know that they are part of an experiment, and their experiences — good or bad — will allow each business to refine its services.

In other words, this is consumer biotech, not medicine. It should be treated more like a Macbook Air than like an AIDS test.

Top 10 Reasons Regulators Should Not Hinder Access to Genetic Testing [Wired]

RadBall was developed by Dr. Steven Stanley at Nexia Solutions. It is designed to be used in nuclear power plants and nuclear research facilities to detect specific radiation sources in inaccessible or dangerous areas. The green plastic globe is filled with polymer chains, and is placed inside a reusable lead sheath pierced with more than 100 small holes. As radiation passes through the lead, it reacts with the polymer chains and causes them to cross-link. This shows up as a visible markings inside the ball, sort of like a holographic radiation map.

Once the RadBall has been left in place long enough, it can be analyzed by shining a light through it. The lines and shapes inside can be interpreted by software to show a map of radiation sources, including their intensity and type. They will be cheaper than other detailed radiation scanners, claims Dr. Stanley, and they require no power source or prolonged human exposure in the irradiated area. Do not taunt RadBall. Images by: Nexia Solutions & BBC News.

On the ball. [The engineer online]

According to LiveScience:

[Lead researcher Andrea] Camperio-Ciani and his team hypothesize that the genes they modeled may cause people of both sexes to be extremely attracted to men, which would lead men with the genes to pursue relationships with other men, while causing women with the genes to have more sexual partners, and become pregnant slightly more often than an average woman.

Scientists involved in the study were also quick to point out that there is no single genetic cause for homosexuality, and that environmental factors are almost certainly involved as well. They also are still completely clueless about female homosexuality. Researchers have yet to figure out what causes lesbianism, and so far nobody has figured out a form of gene therapy I can use to make straight girls want me.

Sexually Antagonistic Selection in Human Male Sexuality [PLoS One via LiveScience]

Robot fish have been around for a few years (pictured above in the London Aquarium, from 2005), but the UW invention is a milestone because it's the first group of robofish that can school through active communication. Biological fish form dazzling schools by communicating through their lateral lines and in a sense the bots do the same thing, only their communication is based on sonar. The fish are also equipped with 3-d compasses so they know where they are in the water, and pressure sensors to keep track of how deep they dive.

Admittedly they're not as sexy as their biological cousins, but videos of them swimming here show they make spooky stand-ins for the real thing.

Source: University of Washington via Discovery News

Holy crap do I ever love that one with the scientist hugging the nuke plant. But what do I love more? Two of the tees below. First, I adore the one that says "fucking pterodactyls," a sentiment I experience practically every time Rodan steals my Prius. And the ear mouse one. Just because I've always wanted to grow an extra ear on my cat. I don't think she'd mind.

There are a lot more where these came from, including a bunch more "teach the controversy" ones (including unicorns!). And they're priced pretty reasonably, too.

Amorphia Apparel [official site]

Wonder of life and all that crap. But seriously — wonder of life! It's pretty awesome. Now if only I could get a robot to do this for me, instead of having to poot out those eggs myself every month, I would be totally psyched.

Human Ovulation Caught on Film [via New Scientist]

Space.com reports on the ongoing water search:

[TEGA team leader William] Boynton says the team wasn't surprised that they found no indication of water ice because the sample sat out in the Martian sun for several days while it was stuck at the entrance to one of TEGA's ovens, which heat up the soil so that the instrument's mass spectrometer can analyze the composition of the vapors the soil gives off.

In the next few days, scientists will further heat the sample up, to a maximum of 1,800 F (1,000 C), to vaporize out minerals that might have chemically-bound water, carbon dioxide or sulfur dioxide.

"We expect there's a high probability that we would find minerals with chemically-bound water, which would release their water at higher temperatures," Boynton said. Signs of water in the minerals would indicate that rocks on the surface once interacted with liquid water.

And here's what's going on with that mystery white substance:

Mission scientists are still debating whether this bright, white material is exposed subsurface water ice or salt minerals. "It could be ice; it could be salt. We have to sample it to be able to tell," said Phoenix robotic arm team leader and mission digging czar Peter Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis.

A small chunk of the material was knocked loose by the robotic arm scoop as it performed one of its backhoe-like maneuvers in the trench. Scientists will be monitoring this chunk and expect to see it change if it actually is ice.

"If it really is ice, we expect it to sublimate, or go into the vapor phase," Arvidson said.

Here's hoping it's the top of a secret underground laboratory put there by an alien race to study humanity from a distance.

Robot Finds Mars Dry So Far [via Space.com]

Previous work with antibodies-as-cancer-killing-smart-missiles has involved attaching strong, nasty chemotherapy drugs to the antibodies. That's a good option, but even better would be to not have harsh chemicals circulating in your blood stream in the first place. Using nanotubes and infrared light is a good, pretty safe alternative because IR radiation doesn't damage living tissue. The only drawback is the tumors will need to be less than 1.5 inches deep in the body, about the limit for the radiation's effectiveness.

Source: UT Southwestern Medical Center

On her blog, Walton says that doing all the research to make her science unimpeachable slows down her writing process to a crawl, to the point where she loses interest in the story. And her friends who know science end up suggesting alternatives that screw up what she wanted to do in the first place. She explains:

So I have this thing about aliens with four genders. It takes place in the universe where the solution to the Fermi Paradox is that FTL drives make your star explode after 20 uses. So these aliens are stuck in their solar system (with a couple of other aliens who showed up and can't go home) and they know about other aliens. (Earth may or may not exist in this universe. It doesn't matter. This is a story about some aliens.) My aliens have a mother planet and a terraformed marslike, and a moon where they live in domes. My character comes from the terraformed planet. He's leaving a spaceship on the mother planet, he smells the mother planet air, and he thinks "Ah, the sweet smell of /INSERT ATMOSPHERE COMPONENT GAS HERE/, which we don't have in the air of my terraformed home, which smells so atavistically good because this is where my ancestors evolved, but which nevertheless reminds me of the three years I spent here in the prison camp." And I stop, and I trot off to ask what atmospheric component gas it could be (and already you notice I have stopped writing and started checking, and also, note how much I had to explain to get to this point, which in the actual story would all not be explained) and after a long discussion I find out that there's nothing, unless I totally change everything I want, or give them noses that can smell argon or something (which is an unnecessary complication when they already have turtle shells and four eyes and the interesting thing is the four genders) and I have to scrap that sentence which was doing set up and incluing and background and was about to set up the next sentence about how he met his best friend in the prison camp and was going to lead on into some actual story.

If I didn't know any science at all, I'd just merrily put traces of chlorine in an oxygen atmosphere and it would all be as dumb as heck but at least it would actually get written and the characters would get out of my head and get to have their adventure.

And this is just one line, and it's all like that.

So anyway, that's why I don't write SF, even though it's what I like to read.

I wonder how many would-be science fiction authors get turned off by these sorts of concerns. And how many of them would have written thought-provoking classics of the genre. (And how many people who do write tons of science fiction novels bother to know their science half as well as Walton already does.) The comment thread over at Walton's post is also well worth reading. [Paper Sky]

When the ozone hole is finally closed in about 60 years, thanks to environmental protection laws forbidding emissions that thin the ozone layer, the weather will change dramatically at the pole. According to ScienceNOW:

The appearance of the ozone hole actually created a unique wind pattern called the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), which prevents warmer air from reaching Antarctica. The pattern results from two competing conditions: a cooling of the stratosphere, 12 to 50 kilometers above Earth's surface, due to the depletion of its heat-absorbing ozone layer; and a warming troposphere, which lies below the stratosphere and which has seen its temperature rise thanks to greenhouse-gas accumulation.

As the ozone hole recovers, the stratosphere will once again warm up over the Southern Hemisphere, with unpredictable effects on SAM. In the new study, an international team of researchers compared standard climate change computer models with newer versions that take atmospheric chemistry into account. The comparison showed that ozone-induced stratospheric warming could reduce the role of SAM in blocking tropical air from migrating to the pole. That's worrisome, the team says, because the wind pattern affects, among other things, the Southern Hemisphere's climate, the extent of its sea ice, the variability of its storm tracks, and its patterns of rainfall and drought.

An article about the researchers' work appears in today's edition of Science. This isn't exactly as ironic as you might think. The only reason the SAM exists is because global warming shifted cold winds from the upper atmosphere down to the lower. Basically, the weather just keeps getting more and more screwed up. Photo by Julian Dowdeswell.

Computer Models Show Major Climate Shift [via ScienceNOW]

In the USDA experiment, cows equipped with special ear receivers (like iPods for cows) receive signals from a remote controlling station. By giving them irritating stimuli, such as unpleasant sounds, they can direct the cows to move in a certain direction. They can even play them traditional "gathering songs" used by cowboys to group the herd. Based on invisible fence technology used by ranchers, the devices were upgraded by MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to include GPS and a full suite of animal diagnostics. That could make it very easy to track and return a lost pet, and it could be a huge boon to biologists who track and study wildlife. Image by: Flikr.

A Futuristic Linkage of Animals and Electronics. [U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service]

A group of researchers observing this Brazilian insect drama in the wild say it's the first time they've been able to prove scientifically that parasites essentially mind-control their hosts to ensure the parasites' survival.

According to a release from PLoS One:

Inside the caterpillar host, a cruel drama takes place: the eggs of the parasitoid hatch and the larvae feed on the body fluids of the host. The caterpillar continues feeding, moving and growing like its unparasitized brothers and sisters. When the parasitoid larvae are full-grown, they emerge together through the host's skin, and start pupating nearby. Unlike many other combinations of host and parasitoid, the host remains alive but displays spectacular changes in its behaviour: it stops feeding and remains close to the parasitoid pupae. Moreover, it defends the parasitoid pupae against approaching predators with violent head-swings.

The caterpillar dies soon after the adult parasitoids emerge from their pupae, so there can be no benefit whatsoever for the caterpillars . . . The research team found that, in the field, parasitoid pupae which were guarded by caterpillars suffered half as much predation as those which had no bodyguard. Hence, the behavioural changes of the host result in increased survival of the parasitoids.

In other words, this caterpillar is made to love those wasps so much that it will protect them at all costs, including its own life. Now imagine if these researchers decided to figure out whether this wasp behavior mod could be ported to the human brain. A squirt of wasp juice could make you a super soldier, willing to give your life to protect whatever your "parasite" might be.

Parasitoid Increases Survival of Its Pupae By Inducing Host to Fight Predators [PLoS One via Science Daily] (Thanks, Brian!)

This image is of a cumulonimbus cloud over Africa. It has a similar shape to that of the thunderhead, though it doesn't necessarily have to cause thunderstorms. Often it will, however.

You can see a ton of other images in this series at the Boston Globe.

The Sky, From Above [Boston Globe]

Apparently, Identigene lays claim to being the first home DNA testing kit, which might in fact be true. It's only recently that companies like 23andme.com have started offering more extensive home DNA testing, offering to chart your ancestry or identify whether you've got a genetic predilection for depression. The thing that makes me think "scifi" when I see the Indentigene site, which you really must check out, is the way it feels like a cheesy ad from 2040. Just because they treat what still seems like cutting-edge technology as if it were as cheap and simple as a home pregnancy test. Which it is.

This is the consumer biotech, future kids: It begins not with a bang but with a cheesy website and late-night TV infomercials. Also, I love how the Identigene test comes in a box that looks like it's for condoms.

Identigene [actually real website for actual service you can buy]

A bunch of scientists at New York University made their test subjects watch several movies while recording their brain patterns with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI - basically like stop-motion MRI). We checked, and none of the scientists was named Dr. Clayton Forrester or TV's Frank. In any case, the subjects watched a Hitchcock movie, a portion of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." They also watched unedited footage of a concert in a park as a control.

The results showed that the brain patterns of subjects watching a "good" movie (Hitchcock) were remarkably similar - 65 percent similar, in fact. The number diminished slightly with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly , and further for the sitcom, with similarity bottoming out with the raw footage (around 5 percent). The researchers did not test the subjects with Monster A Go-Go or Star Force: Fugitive Alien II, but then they probably wouldn't have been able to get informed consent. Image by: 20th Century Fox.

Film Content, Editing, And Directing Style Affect Brain Activity, Neuroscientists Show. [Science Daily]

Writes Shachtman:

In a recent report, unearthed by Secrecy News, the [Pentagon science advisory team] JASONs are recommending that the American military push ahead with its own performance-enhancement research — and monitor foreign studies — to make sure that the U.S.' enemies don't suddenly become smarter, faster, or better able to endure the harsh realities of war than American troops.

He quotes members of JASON worrying about the possible ways enemies might make use of a brain-computer interface. Most concerning are the problems that:

may arise in a feedback mode, in which a the interface provides a soldier with a simple signal or a pain/pleasure pulse in response to externally provided situational information. Longer term adversarial developments may include prosthetic applications providing specialized sensory input or mechanical output.

Wait, what? A "pleasure pulse in response to externally provided situational information"? OK, I know I read about that on mcstories first. Is it wrong of me to want to volunteer to test one of these out? I only want the pleasure model, though.

Top Pentagon Scientists Fear Brain-Modified Foes [Danger Room]

MYTH: Ghidorah, an alien giant monster who fights Godzilla, has three heads and gets along just fine.

FACT: A turtle with three heads lives at a Chinese monastery and apparently walks in a zig-zag pattern because it can't decide which direction to go.

MYTH: Zaphod Beeblebrox, the disgraced child of royalty, can steal spaceships and has occasional arguments between his two heads.

FACT: A pair of conjoined twins, with two heads and one body, live quite happily in Minnesota and are pretty much the most ordinary pair of teens you could meet. They don't steal spaceships, and they try to share everything so they won't get into fights.

MYTH: A two-headed salamander hangs out in the virtual world eXistenZ, from David Cronenberg's eponymous flick. It runs around and squeaks and is downright cute.

FACT: A two-headed snake born in a US aquarium will live an average lifespan, apparently because both its head are connected to one stomach. Sadly, its owners couldn't sell it on eBay.

MYTH: Doduo is a fierce Pokemon creature who has the power of flight, and can put its two heads together to solve problems. When it reaches level 31, it gains a third head!

FACT: A two-headed partridge lived in Boston in the late nineteenth century and was said to have matured into adulthood with both heads intact.

MYTH: The Puppeteers are a race of two-headed creatures in Larry Niven's universe, whose heads are essentially camouflage because their brains are actually encased in their bodies. In Ringworld, one Puppeteer gets a pleasure-inducing weapon embedded in one of his heads to use in case his human companions get out of line.

FACT: A two-headed turtle, pictured in the video below, doesn't need a pleasure-inducing weapon because he's so damn cute that you'll be reduced to cooing instantly.

Turtle With Two Heads

Well, obviously you do. So here you go.

These two images are taken from a high-def virtual tour of the galaxy, thanks to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which is packed with beautiful images that you can zoom around in just by moving your mouse. It's like the Google maps version of the whole galaxy.

A Glimpse of the Milky Way [official site]

Right now, the blog contains a pretty interesting writeup of the group's first meeting, and a lot of questions about whether biology hobbyists' time has come. A presentation from bio hobbyist Mackenzie "Mac" Cowell focused on how easy it is to get all the stuff you need for your wet lab online, and also explored the accomplishments of bio hobbyists. Mac described one such hobbyist:

A ham-radio hacker, turned reluctant cancer patient, recently combined his expertise about radio waves with spare parts from his home to build a prototype device capable of targeting the destruction of cancer cells. This device is undergoing clinical trials at two major medical research centers, after attracting investments from venture capitalists and the collaboration of a Nobel Laureate who was intrigued by preliminary results generated from the DIYers garage.

This is exactly the kind of bio-tinkering io9 wants to encourage. And in fact, we're willing to put our money where our many mouths are and actually hand out some cash to people who are doing DiYbio in their backyards. Oh yes, my pretties. Watch io9 for more details next week!

In the meantime, check out the DiYBio club. They have a pretty active Google group too.

DiYBio [blog]

Over at the New York Times, John Schwartz has seen the whole miniseries and says it has a not-so-subtle message: Will we continue to fund the space program? He writes:

Along with the drama of the Discovery programs and the overwrought musical score and the sometimes-portentous narration by [Gary] Sinise is, always, the message of the series: Human space exploration is worthwhile, even necessary. While critics of the manned space program argue that robots outstrip the abilities of humans for less cost and risk, the film puts forward Edward Weiler, the former chief scientist on the Hubble Space Telescope program.

The telescope was famously flawed upon its initial deployment and had to be repaired in orbit through a bold shuttle mission that involved five spacewalks of unprecedented complexity. “I can say unequivocally that if it wasn’t for the human space program, Hubble would be a piece of orbiting space junk,” he says.

NASA is now in the process of winding down the shuttle program; no flights are scheduled after 2010. What comes next, a new generation of spacecraft known as Constellation, will not be flying until 2015 at best. In the middle is a gap that will be filled by buying seats to the space station aboard the Russian Soyuz capsules. That period to come will test the nation’s commitment to spending the billions of dollars it takes to send humans into space and keep them safe from start to finish. It will test the notion that we need to send people into space at all.

These are topics worthy of a spirited national debate. And the Discovery Channel has put the argument on the table.

The miniseries will start Sunday at 9 PM on Discovery