Several Italian cities this past week, including Milan, took the unusual step of banning any new ethnic food outlets from opening. The Italian Minister of Agriculture, Luca Zaia, is a staunch supporter of the foreign food ban. When asked if he had ever tasted a kebab, he replied with the following:
On this day in 1930, 3M began marketing Scotch tape. They introduced a mascot Scotty McTape (I'm not kidding) in 1944 and the Wallace tartan-inspired plaid in 1945. 3M has a page with old ads, including the 1958 ad on the left in which Scotty McTape helps a kid who desperately needed tape: "with this slick tape to help me out my marks will all be grand!"
This year is the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson's 1609 arrival to the island of Manhattan (the explorers first saw the island on September 12, 1609). The native Lenni Lenape called the island Mannahatta, the "land of many hills". No piece of Earth has been so transformed. Times Square, where I worked for two years, was a swamp in 1609.
In one of his final pieces, John Updike wrote about Mars for National Geographic last month. Updike previously wrote about Extreme Dinosaurs for National Geographic in 2007. At that time, he did an interview and reading, heard here.Now the Phoenix mission, with its surpassingly intricate arm, scoop, imagers, and analyzers, takes us inches below the surface of dust, sand, and ice in Mars's north polar region. Spoonfuls of another planet's substance, their chemical ingredients volatilized, sorted, and identified, become indexes to cosmic history. Meanwhile, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the newest of three operational spacecraft circling the planet, feeds computers at the University of Arizona with astoundingly vivid and precise photographs of surface features. Some of these false-color images appear totally abstract, yet they yield to knowledgeable eyes riches of scientific information.
The dead planet is not so dead after all: Avalanches and dust storms are caught on camera, and at the poles a seasonal sublimation of dry ice produces erosion and movement. Dunes shift; dust devils trace dark scribbles on the delicate surface. Whether or not evidence of microbial or lichenous life emerges amid this far-off flux, Mars has become an ever nearer neighbor, a province of human knowledge. Dim and fanciful visions of the twinkling fire planet have led to panoramic close-ups beautiful beyond imagining.
(image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell University, from ngm.nationalgeographic.com)
For reasons known only to FoxNews.com, they consistently refer to the Large Hadron Collider as the 'Doomsday Machine'. It doesn't seem to matter if the article is about the dangers some people have suggested the LHC poses. For example, 'Doomsday Machine' Repairs to Cost $21 Million or Gala Inauguration for Broken-Down 'Doomsday Machine'. Even when the heading is appropriate, as in Scientists Not So Sure 'Doomsday Machine' Won't Destroy World, FoxNews.com keeps you guessing. Describing the relative improbability of the LHC destroying the Earth:
The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) provides coverage of all global elections on ElectionGuide, a great website for keeping up with international events that aren't reported by our media.
Milton Friedman is one of the 20th century's great economists - Nobel prize winner and Reagan advisor, the ultimate champion of the free market. His grandson, Patri Friedman (pictured), wants to build an independent country in the ocean.
Today is the 64th anniversary of the Soviet liberation of Auschwitz. Auschwitz-Birkenau is located less than 50 miles west of Krakow, Poland. It is estimated that over one million prisoners (mostly Jews) perished at the concentration camp from 1940-1945 at the hands of Nazi barbarism.
The great and prolific writer John Updike died today at age 76, of lung cancer.
Trichoplax adharens, the living member of the Placozoan phylum, is a microbe-eating blob of several thousand cells. If you looked closely, you might just see it with naked eye. This tiny, humble creature may have been Earth's first animal. Placozoa are thought to have evolved early in the development of multicellular organisms. Trichoplax likely represents the oldest living animal group.
Scientists have used electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis on newborns to demonstrate that babies are born with rhythm. Newborns' brains responded to breaks in a rock drum rhythm, even while the babies slept. This is an interesting insight into the human love of music and may allow early recognition of brain abnormalities.
Researchers have achieved quantum teleportation between ytterbium ions. The ions were entangled, meaning that information could be passed instantaneously between them and without traversing space - it is teleported. The transfer of information between ions (as opposed to photons) represents in important step in establishing quantum memory systems and quantum computing. Quantum computers could allow unbeatable encryption and incredible efficiencies for some computing tasks.
Scientists are developing nanosensors, injected like tattoo ink, that can monitor chemical levels including glucose. The nanosensors chemically determine the level of the targeted substance and fluoresce (with infrared light) to indicate concentrations. Sodium sensors are now being tested in mice.
The FDA has approved clinical trials with embryonic stem cells. Researchers with Geron Corporation will test safety and efficacy of stem cells in spinal cord injury patients in trials likely starting this summer. The first clinical trials represent a big step forward in stem cell research, research that has been significantly hampered by the Bush administration. Geron CEO Thomas Okarma remarked that Bush restrictions had "devastated the field".
The situation in Zimbabwe today is even more deplorable than it was when I first posted on December 13, 2008. A raging cholera epidemic has now killed at least 2,773 people and infected 50,000 according to the United Nations. The Red Cross recently warned that the number of infections could top 60,000 by next week.
The Texas Board of Education has endorsed a new teaching standard that students "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing" rather than discussing the creationist-pushed "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. The vote was only 8-7 to endorse scientific rigor in science teaching. And this was only the first vote. After a public comment period, a final vote is scheduled for March.
About 100 trillion microbes live on and in the average human being (for comparison, your body has only about 10 trillion cells). This silent, teeming complexity is responsible for many essential functions. Scientists are now scrutinizing the genes and metabolic products of our microbes and their correlation with disease. Burgeoning fields of metabolic profiling and human metagenomics promise to redefine our relationship with our bugs and offer new insights into health and pathology. Biologist Craig Venter gives a worthwhile overview of the big ideas in genomics and metagenomics in Seed:
After 8 years of Bush, many scientists are excited for a new, science-friendly administration.
Impossible objects are illusions in which a physically impossible object is perceived as real. Scientific American has a cool slide show of such objects including mathematician Roger Penrose's famous Penrose triangle, which he described as "impossibility in its purest form". The Lego M.C. Escher interpretations are immensely enjoyable. In Tim Noble and Sue Webster's "Dead White Trash (With Gulls)" (image above from sciam.com), light reveals the sculpture's amazing shadow.
Science writer Ed Regis, who can't like his Wikipedia page, offers an Edge answer on "good old-fashioned nanotechnology":
The Guardian UK is displaying satellite images of the mall from yesterday's inauguration. Thank you to the Guardian for the images.
New 3-D skull analysis supports the contention that Homo floresiensis, known as "the Hobbit", was a separate species of hominid distinct from modern humans. The Hobbit was a miniature human-like creature that lived only 18,000 years ago. We discussed the Hobbit here. Stony Brook University researchers performed extensive analysis of skull samples and concluded that the Hobbit skull is consistent with a separate species. The debate continues as to whether Homo floresiensis represents a distinct species or pathological human variants, but a consensus for a separate species is building.
"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Frenchman Lluis Colet set a new world record by talking nonstop for 124 hours. Colet discussed his native Catalan culture at length and his affection for Spanish painter Salvador Dali. Officials confirmed the record for possible entry into the Guinness Book of Records. Colet narrowly outlasted previous record holder American Vice-President elect Joe Biden who has repeatedly, casually established new records while discussing what he ate for breakfast.
Lincoln's second inaugural address is short by today's standards (and significantly shorter than his first) but is often considered the greatest inaugural address given. Lincoln would be dead just over a month after its delivery. He concludes:
A list of firsts in photography (h/t Andrew Sullivan). James Clerk Maxwell, father of electromagnetic theory, made the first color photograph in 1861 (pictured above, the photograph is of a tartan ribbon). Maxwell isn't as well known as other great physicists but deserves mention alongside Newton and Einstein.
NASA has been studying huge "flumes" of methane, some covering an area roughly that of the continental United States, which escaped from the crust of Mars and disappeared. They can explain the 'disappearance': a chemical reaction in the atmosphere neutralizes the gas, but there are still questions about the origin of the methane.
Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a tiny, hand-like tool that can be magnetically guided. This could be an important step forward in minimally invasive interventions. The researchers describe it as "a step toward the development of biocompatible, minimally invasive, autonomous microtools."
Taxpayer advocate Nina Olson has recommended the IRS "proactively address emerging issues such as those arising from virtual worlds." Virtual world economies are growing fast with some entrepreneurs becoming virtual moguls. This has set up tax ambiguities that the IRS is now beginning to work out. Virtual Ron Paul and his virtual supporters are not going to be happy.
President George W. Bush has repeatedly suggested that only History can judge him. The idea that history is univocal, unchanging, and belongs to a far future that won't give any credence to his critics is difficult to support, but so are many of the ideas that guided and sustained this administration -- an administration which will soon belong to the past. The president who will give his name to this era has certainly left a mark on our time, but how do we read that mark?
Wired lists its Top 5 Bets for Extraterrestrial Life in the Solar System. Jupiter's moon Europa (see last post) is #2. Mars is the most likely planet. If the 2000 movie Mission to Mars is any guide, we should have a manned mission on the Red Planet by 2020. Also, men will be wearing considerably more makeup in the future (see Gary Sinise).
Cornell and Dupont researchers have created a better carbon nanotube semiconducting ink. Scientists have long been trying to render a more efficient nanotube ink. The new process uses fluorine to maximize the proportion of semiconductor tubes. The more efficient ink might represent an important breakthrough for transistors and photovoltaic cells.
Chemist Robert Doyle and colleagues at Syracuse University are working on better delivery of insulin. By binding insulin to vitamin B12, researchers hope to protect insulin from destruction in the gut and allow delivery to the bloodstream. This would allow diabetics to take insulin orally, a nice improvement from injections. It might mean an insulin pill though the researchers think an insulin gum would be more effective.
Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM) is a new technique offering 100 million times the resolution of MRI and allowing researchers to see the three-dimensional structure of nanometer-size viruses and proteins.
NASA scientists have discovered unexpectedly loud background radio noise (h/t DJ). The ARCADE (Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics and Diffuse Emission) system, a space-scraping giant balloon (see image), was searching for faint radio signals generated by heat from the universe's first stars but found a much louder, mysterious signal. Astronomers and astrophysicists are scrambling to explain the results.
The Atlantic tracks some changes in America over the past eight years. Click on the map to enlarge. (h/t Andrew Sullivan)
Researchers at Stockholm University in Sweden have found tiny amounts of surfactant-like compounds in the atmosphere. They believe the compounds come from ground bacteria and foster rain production.
Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute have synthesized self-replicating RNA from basic chemical components and demonstrated that nonidentical RNA molecules can compete for parts with fitter RNA replicators eventually dominating. Pretty stunning stuff - organization, replication, and evolution from simple chemicals. Study head Dr. Gerald Joyce is careful to say that these RNA replicators do not represent life. But this is an extraordinary glimpse of how life might have developed.
Steven Pinker on his involvement with the Personal Genome Project (PGP) and the future and meaning of personal genomics. Quote:
Tomorrow night the full Moon will appear bigger in the night sky than during any other time in 2009. Saturday's perigee Moon represents the Moon's closest approach in its elliptical orbit. A slightly larger appearing perigee Moon was seen last month (see photo). The Moon's proximity significantly brightens the night and mildly increases the tides.
This crisis is not merely the result of the U.S. housing bubble’s bursting or the collapse of the United States’ subprime mortgage sector. The credit excesses that created this disaster were global. There were many bubbles, and they extended beyond housing in many countries to commercial real estate mortgages and loans, to credit cards, auto loans, and student loans. There were bubbles for the securitized products that converted these loans and mortgages into complex, toxic, and destructive financial instruments. And there were still more bubbles for local government borrowing, leveraged buyouts, hedge funds, commercial and industrial loans, corporate bonds, commodities, and credit-default swaps—a dangerous unregulated market wherein up to $60 trillion of nominal protection was sold against an outstanding stock of corporate bonds of just $6 trillion.
Taken together, these amounted to the biggest asset and credit bubble in human history; as it goes bust, the overall credit losses could reach as high as $2 trillion. Unless governments move with more alacrity to recapitalize banks and other financial institutions, the credit crunch will become even more severe. Losses will mount faster than companies can replenish their balance sheets.
Insulin grown in safflowers is being used in patients for the first time. Human insulin genes were incorporated into the plant producing a precursor to insulin. The precursor pro-insulin can be enzymatically modified to usable insulin.
Gene therapy, the manipulation of DNA typically by exploiting viral vectors, is an elegant but so far impractical disease intervention. Scientists manipulate viral genomes, adding therapeutic genes, and then allow the virus to do its natural work of adding the engineered changes to human DNA. Two cancer drugs coming out in 2009 utilize this "Trojan horse" delivery and could herald the era of practical gene therapy.
