Wednesday, February 16, 2005

New York, New York —On February 12, 2005, at 8:30 a.m., New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg dropped the first piece of fabric in The Gates, a land art project by Christo and Jeanne Claude.

The artists installed 7,500 metal “gates” along 23 miles of pathways in New York City’s Central Park. Each gate supported a flag-shaped piece of saffron fabric. The project is scheduled to run from Feb. 12, 2005 through Feb. 27, 2005. The project is sometimes referred to as “The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005″ in reference to the time between the artists’ initial proposal and the present day.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Ian Baldwin, of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, and colleagues have discovered a multi-step protective mechanism of tobacco plants against Manduca sexta caterpillars. In response to a chemical in the caterpillars’ larvae, the plants release an odorous substance into air to attract another species of insects, called “big-eyed bugs” (Geocoris). These carnivores come to the scene and attack the caterpillars. The response is triggered within 24 hours, which is a relatively short period of time. The discovery occurred as a result of field studies in a nature preserve in southwestern Utah.

The phenomenon starts with the recognition of the caterpillars by the plant. As a PhD student in the Department of Molecular Ecology Silke Allmann explained, “The plant cannot see its attacker, but plants can sense the digestive substances that attacking larvae have in their oral secretions when these substances come into contact with the leaves.” To test that, the scientists coated some of caterpillars’ eggs on two groups of tobacco plants and glued them. On one of the groups, the glue was mixed with caterpillars’ split. The latter got more attention of the attackers, getting 25% of eggs destroyed against 8% for the other group.

Allmann supposed that “The simplest assumption is that the larval oral secretions contain a special enzyme, probably an isomerase, which rearranges the Z:E ratio of the aldehyde in favor of (E)-2-hexenal.” The researchers heated the oral secretion to destroy the enzyme, and applied it to wounded leaves. No plant response related to the studied process was observed, confirming the hypothesis.

(E)-2-hexenal is a strong antibiotic agent. The food consumed by a caterpillar typically includes hundreds of microorganisms together with leaf tissue, which are mostly unneeded and killed by the above-mentioned substance quickly. Because of this important role of this substance, the caterpillars can’t change their metabolism easily enough to prevent the subsequent events from happening.

To find out what happens after a caterpillar’s presence is noted by the plant, Silke Allmann, a graduate student in Baldwin’s group, examined the green leafy volatiles (GLVs), the substances responsible for the smell of fresh-cut plant parts. These substances are released into air if a plant is damaged. As the study released, the tobacco plant GLVs typically have a major share of Z isomers with very small amount of E isomers present. But the shares are distributed equally during a caterpillar attack. In a study with varying amount of different isomers present, E isomers turned out to be the ones attracting the predators to come to the scene and to attack the caterpillars.

What is surprising, Silke Allmann found that the caterpillars are the direct stimulus of this change: caterpillar saliva converts the Z-isomers of the GLV molecules to E-isomers. Prof. Ian Baldwin commented, “That’s where it got really weird. Why would a caterpillar do this to itself?” He suggested that the E-GLVs could have anti-biotic effect in the caterpillar’s digestive system.

The speed of the triggered reaction is relatively fast, it taking about one hour for the GLV isomers ratio change, and about 24 hours for the predators to be attracted by the substance released into the air. As Prof. Ian Baldwin, who was leading the research, said, “Other indirect defense mechanisms of plants require the activation of new metabolic pathways for the release of odorant signals, and these responses are much slower.”

The multi-step intricate approach involved is attracting the attention of scientists, who are looking forward to its application in agriculture. Baldwin noted that “in effect, the caterpillar calls the police on itself”, and suggested to genetically modify crops to release similar signals to defend themselves against pests.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

The Australian House of Representatives heard the traditional right-of-reply to the Budget released May 9, from the Australian Labor Party, led by Kim Beazley (Labor, Brand), plus Budget replies from minor parties in the Australian Senate.

While the Budget is politically popular, having as one of its main features significant tax reform, Beazley focused on the omissions in the Budget, such as the failure to address a skills shortage.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

A lahar at New Zealand’s Mount Ruapehu is all but over, without causing anywhere the level of havoc for which authorities were prepared.

The event was first confirmed by a 3 News helicopter, and then the Department of Conservation.

The Department of Conservation had said that a “moderate lahar” was moving down the side of Mount Ruapehu.

The lahar travelled down the Whangaehu Valley, past the Tongariro catchment; and then continued on to the Tangiwai Bridge, the site of the 1953 Tangiwai disaster, which was itself caused by a lahar.

The crater lake is currently being reported by a free phone number as at a warning level of 3a. The crater lake is also being reported at a level between 5.7-6.7 metres up the Crater Lake tephra dam.

The lahar emergency plan was activated by Civil Defence. The district mayor of Ruapehu, Sue Morris, and conservation minister, Chris Carter, said that the authorities had been very quick to respond to the emergency. All three electronic surveillance technologies had their alarms activated. Mr Carter said, “The lahar travelled down the path as predicted, and the early warning response system that this government provided worked exactly as planned.”

Highways near Mount Ruapehu were closed by the Ohakune police, including the Desert Road. The roads have now been re-opened.

A lahar has been expected for a long time now, and scientists say the lahar could have been caused by, among other things, the bad weather New Zealand has been having lately.

Since 1996 the water level in the crater lake at the top of Mount Ruapehu has been rising, which created a risk of a lahar last year.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Natural Balance Pet Foods has recalled some of its wet and dry food for cats and dogs after several owners said that their pets were becoming sick. The company urges owners to stop feeding their pets the food immediately.

The brands recalled include Venison & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food and Venison & Green Pea Dry Cat Food.

Last month, Menu Foods recalled all of its 60 million products of dry and wet dog and cat food after pets began to fall ill and in some cases died of kidney failure.

“Natural Balance, Pacoima, CA, is issuing a voluntary nationwide recall for all of its Venison dog products and the dry Venison cat food only, regardless of date codes. The recalled products include Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog foods, Venison and Brown Rice dog treats, and Venison and Green Pea dry cat food. Recent laboratory results show that the products contain melamine. We believe the source of the melamine is a rice protein concentrate. Natural Balance has confirmed this morning that some production batches of these products may contain melamine,” said a press released issued by Natural Balance.

The FDA states that the “investigation remains open and active, and the agency continues to follow leads to get closer to the root cause of the problem and to ensure that all contaminated product is removed from the market.”

“The source of the melamine appears to be a rice protein concentrate, which was recently added to the dry venison formulas. Natural Balance does not use wheat gluten, which was associated with the previous melamine contamination,” said the press release.

Bags, cans and zip lock bags of the food are expected to be the most affected.

“The products are packaged in bags, cans and zip lock treat bags and sold in pet specialty stores and PetCo nationally. No other Natural Balance products are involved in this voluntary recall as none of our other formulas include the rice protein concentrate,” added the press release.

The company states that the food, Venison & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food and Venison & Green Pea Dry Cat Food, are the only brands affected by the recall.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Following a similar experiment in 2009, six men entered an enclosed room in Moscow last Thursday to simulate a flight to Mars. The Mars-500 team consist of a Chinese man, a Frenchman, an Italian, and three Russians. Only the Chinese man, Wang Yue, is a trained astronaut. The six waved goodbye, crying “see you in 520 days’ time!”.

According to Wang, not being able to see their families and friends was one of the greatest challenges, although e-mail is allowed during the experiment. Both Wang and the Frenchman, Romain Charles, expressed pride to be part of this experiment. Wang said, “it will be trying for all of us. We cannot see our family, we cannot see our friends, but I think it is all a glorious time in our lives.”

The joint-effort project is being organised by the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) and the European Space Agency; the goal is to study physical and psychological effects on would-be astronauts. All six men speak reasonable English; however, as Russian is another primary language for the simulated trip, Russian crew member Sukhrob Kamolov said body language will be used should they fail to understand one another.

Food for the volunteers will be rationed as it would in a real Mars mission. All supplies were supplied by China and loaded into the ‘simulated spacecraft’ prior to the beginning of the experiment. For backup, China is sending three mission support staff to Russia.

No women are included in the crew, excluding issues relating to a mixed-sex crew from the study. During a similar experiment in 1999, a woman complained that the captain attempted to kiss her.

Following 250 days of “travelling” to Mars, the group will split. Three will stay in the “spacecraft”, the other three going to the surface of “Mars”. Only two will actually leave the “spacecraft” to study the surface of “Mars”. After a month, the group will go through the return journey simulation, a 240 day trip. The men will follow a strict timetable, with 8 hours each of sleep, work, and leisure each day.