While reading a recent article about genetic testing services a thought occurred to me for another reason why genetic privacy will be impossible to protect: What is to stop someone from sending in a sample of DNA from someone else to a DNA testing service while claiming the sample is their own DNA?

In the past I've argued that the eventual development of cheap miniaturized DNA sequencers will spell the death knell for genetic privacy. Miniaturized sequencers will enable individuals to surreptitiously acquire DNA samples from other people and then secretly test the DNA on their own DNA sequencer machine. Given that microfluidic silicon chips will some day be as cheap as microprocessor and memory chips the idea of DNA sequencers operable by complete amateurs seems inevitable. Granted, such devices will not be offered for sale in the next few years. But 30 years from now (and perhaps much sooner) I'm hard put to see why such machines won't be cheap to build and easy to operate.

However, long before personal DNA sequencers hit the market commercial DNA testing labs will be competing to tell us increasing numbers of insights about our minds and bodies that will be gleanable from DNA testing. Once those services start producing useful information with predictive value about health and physical and mental performance what is to stop any person from impersonating another person and submitting another person's DNA as their own?

Consider that identity theft is a rapidly growing problem. Most cases of identity theft are discovered when someone gets a bill for a product or service they didn't buy. But identity theft for the purpose of getting DNA tested would not necessarily eventually result in the victim ever benig notified that someone else temporarily masqueraded as them. Why? Because when the DNA sample is submitted it would not have to be submitted with the real name of the person the DNA sample was stolen from.

I can envision a DNA testing regulatory regime whereby this method of privacy invasion could be made much harder. To catch such deception everyone in a society would have to be required to donate a tissue sample to a central database. Each sample could be converted to a DNA gel pattern that would be of the sort that law enforcement agencies use to check human tissue samples found at crime scenes. All samples submitted to DNA testing services would be compared against the centralized database to verify the identity of the submitters. If a submitted pattern matched an entry in the central database then the identity supplied with the submitted DNA could be verified against the identity associated with that pattern in the central database. A difference in name, age, or other characteristic could raise a red flag.

The hardest part of the authentication of the identity of the DNA sample submitter would be to verify that the person who submits the sample really is the person whose sample it is. One way to solve that problem would be to require DNA samples be taken from a person in a licensed clinic. Though bribery of clinic workers could defeat such a scheme. Another approach would be to store biometric data in the form of images of irises, fingerprints, and/or other biometric information into the centralized database. Then a person submitting a DNA sample at a clinic could have their eyes or fingers scanned by a remote computer to authenticate their identity during the DNA sample submission process.

I still see such an elaborate regulatory system as fairly easy to defeat. Even if civil libertarians didn't block the creation of a centralized DNA pattern and biometric informaton database and even if the regulatory requirements for sample submission were make rigorous enough to prevent DNA sample submitters from masquerading as someone else such a system would still be defeatable. How? Simply take the tissue sample to another country where the regulations are much more lax and submit the sample for testing in the other country.

Crooked employees of DNA testing labs would be another weak link in a regulatory regime aimed at protecting DNA privacy. Test samples could be tested basically off the books. How to prevent that? Require use of DNA testing machines designed to be unable to operate without being currently hooked via some sort of encrypted link to a larger database that would record all DNA that gets tested.

I do not expect to see such a rigorous regulatory system for DNA testing to be enacted in the next 10 years and probably not for much longer. By the time regulation starts to catch up I'm guessing that personal DNA testers based on microfluidics chips will be on the market and the regulatory regime for large DNA testing facilities which I outline above will therefore become irrelevant.

Currently some DNA testing services accept samples via the mail. Well, this makes cheating incredibly easy. On the other hand, the incentive to get another person's DNA tested is still very low and will remain low until a lot more information about a person can be gleaned from testing their DNA.

I'm still betting on the eventual death of DNA privacy. Incentives to learn about the DNA of others will be too great while regulatory regimes will lag technological advances and will be too easy to defeat. Technological advances, corruptible employees of testing services, the ability to fake identities, and the ability to travel to less regulated jurisdictions will combine to make DNA privacy impossible to protect.

Update: Medical Madhouse Madman points out that a person who lets their doctor or a hospital have a copy of their DNA sequence (or even some subset of that sequence) is also at risk of having their DNA information stolen by a clinic worker.

Personal medical information is protected by law today yet, one’s medical records can easily be accessed by someone working in a medical clinic, a hospital, or a nursing home. In order to obtain someone’s private medical information one would simply bribe a clinic worker, same as the solution suggested in the above entry. The question remains, if the information is not used for the purpose of ultimate profit, of what use it would be?

Might I add that if the hospital is part of a chain with a large central database then the number of people who will be able to get access to that information is even larger.

As for the potential uses of that information: Insurance companies looking to more accurately measure risk are one big obvious set of users. Note that not only medical insurance companies will find DNA sequence information useful. I think it exceedlngly likely that specific genotypes will be found to contribute to dangerous driving habits and slower reflexes. Car insurance companies would therefore find DNA sequence information useful for assessing accident risks.

Companies looking at potential hires would like better measures of mental abilities, level of motivation, ability to handle stress, and other qualities that will be at least partially predictable from DNA sequence information. Companies will also seek to hire employees more resistant to infections, less likely to become drug addicts, and less likely to suffer from other medical problems. Again, DNA sequence information will provide information that will allow companies to reduce the risk of hiring people at greater risk of these and other problems.

DNA sequence information will also be useful in personal relationships. A woman looking for Mr. Goodbar will want to check out the DNA of some guy she meets. She'll looking for both desirable genetic qualities for children and for genetic tendencies for preferred types of behavior in her potential spouse. For example, genetic variations influence the tendency to remain sexually faithful or to cheat. A woman who is looking for a monogamous guy is going to want to steer clear of a guy who has genotypes that code for promiscuity.

Similarly, intelligence agencies and militaries are going to want to know about genetic variations that occur more often in people who become traitors. A genotype does not have to cause a given behavior 100% of the time in order to be useful. If only 1% of the carriers of a genotype engage in a behavior while a mere 0.1% of non-carriers do that fact will have enormous value to businesses, intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, and individuals.

Once DNA sequencing costs fall by a few more orders of magnitude scientists will discover functional effects of hundreds of thousands of genetic variations by compariing the behavior and medical records of millions of people. DNA tests will become cheap and then not long after DNA tests will gain considerable predictive value. At that point people will start surreptitiously testing each others' DNA.

Leroy Hood of the Institute for Systems Biology says nanotech-based devices will make thousands of blood measurements from a person's blood sample within 5 to 8 years.

"We will over the next five to eight years have a measurement device, a nanotechnology device, that can make thousands of measurements very rapidly and very inexpensively," he said, referring to blood protein analysis.

Patterns in blood proteins and other compounds will be used to ascertain the status of every organ in the body.

"Each human organ has, through the blood, a unique molecular fingerprint that reports the status of that organ. Hence, if we can read these blood molecular fingerprints, we will have the capacity to assess health and diseases," he said.

Back around 1980 or 1981 while Hood was still at Cal Tech (i.e. before Bill Gates put up a lot of money to get him to move to the University of Washington) Hood developed the first automated DNA sequencer using a mass spectrometer that was originally developed for a Mars probe (Mariner I think). I saw Hood deliver a talk about this device at that time when he visited a different university. One thing stood out in my mind: The instrument was so sensitive that he had a lab tech working full time taking the purest available commercial grade reagents and purifying the reagents further to make them pure enough for this instrument. Yet the instrument was an absolute marvel compared to more manual methods of DNA sequencing that were then in use. Well, since then DNA sequencing has become several orders of magnitude cheaper and faster and in the next couple of decades will most certainly become still several more orders of magnitude cheaper and easier. So will a larger array of other biological and medical tests.

Testing costs will plummet in the next decade and the range of what is testable will expand by orders of magnitude. Within 20 years (and probably much sooner for people managing some chronic diseases) we'll have minilabs embedded in us measuring our blood that will be readable by radio signals. We'll also be able to spit and breathe into devices in our bathrooms that will quickly analyse for signs of hundreds and maybe even thousands of illnesses. Even toilets will eventually have embedded disease detection sensors.

Hood also foresees a coming shift in medicine from reaction to diseases to predicting diseases before diseases happen so that diseases can be prevented.

Hood predicts that in the next 10 to 20 years, systems biology will provide two breakthroughs: First, it will allow physicians to predict an individual's health makeup -- his genetic predispositions and other key indicators that might make him healthy or sick. Second, it will provide powerful new tools for preventing disease.

"We'll move from a mode of medicine that's largely reactive to one that's predictive and preventive," he says.

Diseases will be detected at much earlier stages. This will not always help. Some known diseases exist in all adults at very early stages and yet we currently can't do anything about them. For example, most middle aged people already have cancerous cells in their bodies. Really, I'm not making this up. We have cancer cells that are stuck in small areas because they have not yet mutated to start secreting compounds which cause blood vessels to grow (pro-angiogenesis compounds as distinct from anti-angiogenesis compounds which are used against some forms of cancer). So our cancers are stuck in half millimeter nodes between capillaries and have reached the limits of their ability to grow given the amount of food and oxygen they can acquire from existing blood vessels nearby.

The mutational events that allow early stage cancers to start secreting angiogenesis enhancing compounds are probably impossible to predict. Too much randomness is involved in mutation to allow precise predictions to be made. Though some genetic sequences will no doubt be found that make such mutations more or less likely to happen. What we need at this stage is the ability to kill those early stage cancers that sit there for decades waiting for a mutation that will free them from their food limits and set them off growing. We also need the ability to kill senescent cells that secrete compounds which encourage the growth of cancer cells (and that is not the only bad thing senescent cells do btw).

Still, precise disease prediction will be feasible for many diseases. For example, I would expect disease prediction to be much more feasible for osteoarthritis, heart disease, kidney disease, and other ailments that strike once sufficient damage has accumulated over time. Also, predictive capabilities will become more useful as our toolbox of treatments expands. Why wait for a knee to become painful and severely damaged if we can detect the problem years earlier and send in stem cells to do repairs before repair becomes much more difficult?

Disease prediction will also provide much greater incentive for changes in behavior. If your doctor can tell you that you will definitely get kidney failure in 12 to 15 years or heart disease in 20 to 25 years if you do not change your ways you'll have a much greater incentive to shape up and take blood pressure medicine or cholesterol lowering drugs or to improve your diet and get more exercise. Embedded sensors could even be combined with your PDA or wrist watch to warn you when your stress level from lousy food, lack of sleep, or lack of exercise has gotten high enough to accelerate your damage accumulation rate above some level that you decide is acceptable.

Luca Technologies reports on the presence of bacteria in an oilfield which are producing methane from the oil.

DENVER, CO (April 28, 2005): Luca Technologies LLC today announced that its researchers have confirmed the presence of a resident, methane-generating community of microorganisms ("microbial consortium") in substrate samples taken from the 110,000 acre Monument Butte oilfield located in North Eastern Utah. This site represents the latest in a series of active "Geobioreactors^TM" that Luca Technologies has identified since its first demonstration of this phenomenon in the Powder River Basin coalfields of Wyoming. Geobioreactors are sites where microbial conversion of underground hydrocarbon deposits (oil, oil shales, and coal) to methane is ongoing. Such Geobioreactors may offer the potential of turning currently finite energy reserves into methane "farms" capable of long-term, sustainable energy generation.

"The hydrocarbon resources available in the Monument Butte oilfield are very large, making the possibility of shifting from oil production to the ongoing farming of clean, natural gas an attractive consideration," said Robert Pfeiffer, president and chief executive officer of Luca Technologies. He noted that the Monument Butte site was one of six oil fields across the United States that Luca has been studying. The company has demonstrated two of those sites to be robust, methane-generating Geobioreactors, and two to be less actively generating methane. Three additional sites are not currently active but may have the potential to be turned into active Geobioreactors through cross-inoculation with microbial consortia from active sites.

Luca scientists have also begun to isolate and identify particular members of the Monument Butte microbial consortium. Through partial DNA sequence analysis, the company has identified Clostridia and Thermatoga as two of the key members of this consortium. Clostridia form a broad genus of bacteria known for their diverse metabolic pathways. Clostridia frequently thrive in anaerobic environments and many species are known for their heat tolerance. Thermatoga microorganisms are known to play a role in the anaerobic oxidation of hydrocarbons to alcohols, organic acids and carbon dioxide. Thermatoga also thrive in high temperature environments, such as those found in sub-surface oil wells.

"Oil within the Monument Butte field has a waxy composition that may facilitate the strong real-time methane generation we see at this site," commented Mr. Pfeiffer. "If so, then areas with large accumulations of waxy oil – for example, the Daqing Field in Northeast China -- could prove to be important sites for the bioconversion of residual oil to methane and the restoration of these 'spent' sites to economic energy production."

Note that oxygen suppresses the methane generation.

Luca scientists, employing the tools of modern biotechnology and genomics, have now shown that living methane generating, microbial consortia are present and actively forming methane within some of these hydrocarbon substrates. In addition to demonstrating that methane formation by these microbes can be stimulated by the introduction of nutrients or suppressed by heat sterilization or the introduction of oxygen, Luca has shown that radio-labeled CO2 (carbon dioxide) introduced to these substrate samples is converted to radio-labeled methane. This demonstrates that the methane formation is the result of a biological process occurring today.

Luca has a more detailed paper on their web site about this report. (PDF format)

Because their environment is hostile to familiar forms of surface life, oil reservoirs were originally thought to be devoid of life. However, more recent research has revealed that many oil reserves contain a variety of active and diverse microorganisms (19). In general, these microorganisms have been studied in the context of fouling, souring, and degradation of oil 8 reservoirs. Various gases are frequently associated with oil wells, and Luca’s data indicate that methanogenesis, the creation of methane, is another biological process occurring in some oil reservoirs. In addition to identifying these active systems (Geobioreactors), it will be important to understand the variables that control this overall methanogenic process.

Because oil is a liquid, it is likely to be an easier substrate for the microbial consortia to contact, biodegrade, and convert to methane compared to solid-phase substrates such as coal and the kerogen in shale. Biodegradation is carried out by the consortia, and it has been shown that a mixed group of microorganisms is more effective at biodegrading organic compounds than any of the component strains acting alone (5). These microorganisms utilize the hydrocarbons as both a carbon and energy source, and the process most likely takes place at the oil/water interface (13). The enzymatic diversity within these microorganisms required to carry out the myriad of metabolic steps involved in methanogenesis is extensive. The ability to influence and control these microbial reactions in situ has major economic implications.

Back in November 2004 Luca Technologies claimed to have found methane generating bacteria in the coal deposits of Wyoming's Powder River Basin. At the time of that previous report another blogger asked me if I thought this report could lead to a practical way to extract large amounts of methane from coal. My initial reaction was that injection of bacteria into coal beds would be very problematic because the bacteria would not diffuse rapidly through solid masses. The amount of drilling needed to get good diffusion of the bacteria might result in costs too hgh to make such an approach economically feasible. Well, in their latest report they specifically note that getting bacteria into contact with liquid oil is easier than getting it into contact with solid coal.

Of course coal is much more plentiful than oil. But old and heavily depleted oil fields which have a lot of inaccessible oil left which injected bacteria might reach. If bacteria injected could reach those oil left-overs then bacterial injection might become an economically viable way to extract otherwise unreachable energy.

The November 2004 report is also online and Luca points out that if even a small percentage of a coal field's coal could be converted to natural gas in situ then the amount of natural gas that could be produced would be substantial.

The primary goals of the research were to evaluate the recent and ongoing biogenic methane formation in PRB coal seams and to identify some of the variables that may affect the creation of biogenic gas in these coals. The sheer size of the PRB coal-bed resource as substrate for biogenic methane creation is the primary incentive. The coalbeds of the PRB are thought to contain ~580 billion tons of coal in contiguous seams at least 20 feet thick (DeBruin et. al, 2001). Only a small portion of this coal is accessible for domestic use via mining. Although substantial quantities of methane exist in the PRB coal seams (estimated total resource of ~37 TCF, DeBruin et. al, 2001), this quantity of gas likely represents a small fraction of the methane that could be created through biogenesis supported by hydrocarbon substrates within the coals. For instance, the conversion of only 1% of the known PRB coal resource above would generate approximately 86 TCF of gas (Luca estimation).

So how much as 86 trillion cubic feet of natural gas worth? Natural gas is priced in dollars per thousand cubic feet with a general upward trend in natural gas prices now putting natural gas at the wellhead at about $5 per thousand cubic feet. If we assume $5 per thousand cubic feet then conversion of 1% of the Powder River Basin coal into natural gas yields a market value of about $430 billion. Bacteria suddenly become fascinating little creatures.

Here are some numbers (first 3 items for the US and the last 3 for the world) on natural gas production and reserves to put those 86 TCF of potentially extractable gas in perspective.

As of December 31, 2002, the estimated U.S. total proved reserves of natural gas were at 183.46 trillion cubic feet (tcf).

...

Natural gas consumption reached 22.6 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in 2000, a four percent increase over the previous year.

Natural gas supply, consumption, and imports are projected to steadily expand, with consumption projected at 35 tcf in 2025.

...

Current worldwide natural gas resources are about 13,000 tcf and natural gas reserves are about 5,000 tcf.

Global estimates place the gas volume resident in oceanic natural gas deposits in the range of 30,000 to 49,100,000 tcf, and in continental natural gas hydrate deposits in the range of 5,000 to 12,000,000 tcf.

World production of natural gas is dominated by the United States (24 tcf) and Russia (21 tcf), whose combined gross production accounts for 45 percent of the 102 tcf produced in 1998.

Aside: While some more recent estimates of oceanic clathrate gas deposits put the numbers way lower if we could ever get at the clathrates economically then CO2 emissions could rise so high we really would melt the polar ice caps.

At a 1% conversion efficiency then Luca's process might be able to extract an amount of natural gas from a coal field that equals 47% of current US natural gas reserves. A practical proposition? Imagine drilling down vertically to a coal seam and then drilling horizontally into the coal seam many times at places spaced apart so that all coal would be in reach of water and bactera sent down into the drill holes. Could this be done cost effectively? Or would the distance between drill holes have to be only a few inches due to lack of ability of the bacteria to migrate very far away from the drill holes? Also, if the holes couldn't be kept full of water oxygen exposure might stop the anaerobic process of methane production in the bacteria. So pumping of pure nitrogen gas into the holes might be necessary as a way to keep the oxygen out.

Any readers know enough about coal drilling costs and about water diffusion in coal to take a stab at guessing about the economic viability of such an undertaking? Also, assuming a 1% conversion efficiency due to diffusion problems what volume amount of coal would contain 100 times the energy of 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas? My guess is one would be better off drilling more thoroughly into a smaller area in order to get a conversion efficiency much higher than 1%. But maybe that would require something akin to converting the coal to powder to even make that work Such an effort to turn coal into powder underground might be too costly. Just guessing though.

Irregular sleep patterns may be contributing to human problems with obesity, high cholesterol. and other ills.

Staying up past bedtime, skipping meals, and snacking constantly all add up to weight gain, fatty livers, and high cholesterol levels for an unlucky group of mice whose internal biological clocks are genetically disrupted.

Researchers at Northwestern University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have identified wide-ranging molecular and behavioral changes in mice that have a faulty circadian system. In people, similar changes in body fat and metabolic activity are known as metabolic syndrome, which can lead to cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

Lots of things go wrong metabolically when mice don't sleep regularly.

The Clock mutant mice lost both their alarm clocks and their internal dinner bells. Mice typically sleep during the day and then eat a meal at the beginning and at the end of their active nocturnal day, akin to breakfast and dinner. Instead, the Clock mutant mice skipped their meals, stayed awake far into the usual rest time, and snacked often.

The insomniac mice also were a little more sluggish, as measured by infrared sensors in their cages. The researchers removed the exercise wheels normally used to gauge mouse activity, because regular spins can help the mice reset their biological clocks, just as a daily walk might help a person sleep better at night.

In repeated round-the-clock measurements, the researchers found signs of further trouble emerging in the mice's early adult months. The circadian-challenged mice developed high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood sugar, low insulin, bloated fat cells, and lipid-engorged liver cells. Some of these changes appeared to be independent of the weight gain, Bass said.

So then does artificial light contribute to human obesity? Probably. Note that exercise helps mice reset their biological clocks. Could be that lack of exercise causes people to stay up too late and also to eat too much, and have lousy blood lipid and sugar profiles.

Also see my previous post "Sleep A Lot To Avoid Burn-Out From Stress And To Stay Skinny".

An electronic sniffing sensor can detect lung cancer.

The electronic nose, a device long used for safety and quality control in the food, wine and perfume industries, also can be used to detect early evidence of lung cancer, according to research conducted at The Cleveland Clinic.

Known as the Cyranose, the electronic nose is a hand-sized device that uses biosensor technology to produce a “smellprint” of the volatile organic compounds that comprise human breath and other scents.

Led by Serpil Erzurum, M.D., chairman of the Department of Pathobiology at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, researchers speculated the electronic nose could be used to detect and distinguish between lung diseases, particularly lung cancer. Testing their theory, they found the exhaled breath of lung cancer patients had specific characteristics that, in fact, could be detected with the device. Their findings will be published in the American Journal of Respiratory Medicine later this spring.

“Our work indicates that the electronic nose can be used as a non-invasive tool for the early diagnosis of lung cancer and to monitor the effectiveness of treatment on lung cancer patients,” Dr. Erzurum said. “Use of the electronic nose could enable physicians to determine the appropriate course for a lung cancer patient’s treatment at an earlier stage, rather than after the cancer has spread to other parts of the body and is more difficult to treat. The small, portable nature of the electronic nose also makes it easy to use in physician offices and outpatient settings.”

Breath of lung cancer patients is detectably different than breath of healthy patients.

In their study, Cleveland Clinic researchers examined the exhaled breath of 14 lung cancer patients and 45 healthy patients. The electronic nose was programmed to detect certain characteristics in breath and used algorithms to create patterns viewable on a computer screen. Researchers found the pattern characterizing the breath of lung cancer patients was distinctly different from that of healthy patients and of people with other lung diseases.

Breath is not the only promising target for the development of fast and less invasive methods for detecting diseases. Back in December 2004 David Wong and colleagues at UCLA found human messenger RNA (mRNA which is made from DNA to be translated into proteins) in saliva. Wong has been able to show that salivary mRNA can be used to detect some types of cancer.

The UCLA team collected saliva and blood from 32 patients with primary oral squamous cell carcinoma and 40 breast cancer patients, and matched each with saliva and blood from otherwise normal subjects. New techniques were developed to halt RNA degradation so the scientists could recover as much mRNA as possible for their samples. In all, the new techniques allowed the scientists to harvest up to 10,000 types of human mRNA from saliva, setting up a comparison test between cancer patients and the normal subjects based on analysis of their genetic "profiles."

"Both serum and saliva exhibited unique genetic profiles," said Wong. "The risk model yielded a predictive power of 95 percent by using only the salivary transcriptome samples and 88 percent by using only serum transcriptome samples for oral squamous cell carcinomas," said Wong. "For oral cancer, salivary transcriptome has a slight edge of that of serum transcriptome analysis."

Messenger RNA can be tested for using chips designed to bind with minute quantities of different mRNA sequences. A single chip can be made to test for the presence of many different mRNA sequences in parallel. Results from such tests will form patterns akin to fingerprints with different diseases having different patterns of mRNAs present.

Wong is director of the UCLA Human Salivary Proteome Project which has as its goal to identify and characterize all the proteins in saliva. But Wong is also working on development of tests for salivary mRNA to detect pathogens, cancers, and other diseases. My guess: mRNA patterns in saliva will become far more important than protein patterns because the mRNA patterns will be much easier to test for.

Watch for a gradual partial replacement of blood tests by breath and saliva tests that will be performed in doctors' offices while you wait. Then watch for the introduction of home saliva and breath tests that can be done cheaply and more often. Expect the mRNA saliva tests to hit the market in this decade. Ditto for breath tests.

Why get a CAT scan when you can get a HUTT scan instead?

Researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering have successfully demonstrated a novel “High-resolution Ultrasonic Transmission Tomography” (HUTT) system that offers 3-D images of soft tissue that are superior to those produced by existing commercial X-ray, ultrasound or MRI units.

Vasilis Marmarelis, professor of biomedical engineering in the USC Viterbi School, presented HUTT images of animal organ tissue at the 28th International Acoustical Imaging Symposium recently held in San Diego.

According to Marmarelis, HUTT offers nearly order-of-magnitude improvement in resolution of structures in soft tissue (i.e., 0.4 mm, compared to 2 mm for the best alternatives).

HUTT supplies high resolution images while simultaneously avoiding the use of ionizing radiation

• Robust algorithmic tools enable HUTT to differentiate separate types of tissue based on their distinctive “frequency-dependent attenuation” profiles that should allow clinicians to distinguish malignant lesions from benign growths in a non-invasive and highly reliable manner.

• In addition to improved resolution, the system can locate tissue features with extreme precision in an objective, fixed-coordinate 3-D grid, crucial for guiding surgical procedures.

• Scans can be performed in a matter of a few minutes and because they are ultrasonic, they do not use potentially harmful ionizing radiation.

• The system requires a minimum of special pre-scan procedures and appears likely, in clinical use, to be more comfortable for patients than alternatives.

While conventional ultrasound works by recording echoes that bounce back from tissues HUTT works by recording the sound that passes all the way through tissue. Since 2000 times more sound passes through than echoes the amount of sound signal that can be recorded using HUTT is much greater.

HUTT also allows very selective scanning for details of specific tissue types.

The technology could also be used to isolate one type of tissue, allowing, for example, all the blood vessel structures to be displayed alone and studied.

Medical imaging technology keeps getting better.

Insertion of a human gene into rice raises the question of what is a human.

Environmentalists say that no one will want to eat the partially human-derived food because it will smack of cannibalism.

But supporters say that the controversial new departure presents no ethical problems and could bring environmental benefits.

In the first modification of its kind, Japanese researchers have inserted a gene from the human liver into rice to enable it to digest pesticides and industrial chemicals. The gene makes an enzyme, code-named CPY2B6, which is particularly good at breaking down harmful chemicals in the body.

A scientist quoted in the article claims mammalian liver enzyme genes inserted into food crops could be used to clean up soil contaminated by industry chemical pollutants.

Will people buy the rice?

But anti-GM campaigners say using human genes will scare off consumers worried about cannibalism and the idea of scientists playing God.

Sue Mayer of GeneWatch UK said: 'I don't think anyone will want to buy this rice.

I predict lots of people will buy and eat the rice just for kicks. But use of liver enzyme genes from other species would effectively avoid the cannibalism claim. Then British opponents to genetic modification of food would switch their other standard reasons for opposing this sort of thing.

British researchers would be a lot more reluctant to try what these Japanese researchers did. Opposition to genetic engineering of foods is much more widesprad in Britain than in Japan or even in the United States.

The Japanese researchers may have used the human gene rather than a gene because they happened to know more about it. But surely other genes could be found to do the same thing.

Picture something far more extreme that just putting a single human gene in rice. Imagine the ability to grow human cells in culture to grow muscle tissue. Would you consider someone who eats human muscle tissue grown in a vat to be a cannibal?

In a few decades tissue engineering technology will be far beyond what we have today. Growth of organs in vats ought to be a piece of cake by the year 2035. I predict home tissue vats sold to the masses will lead to celebrity tissue cannibalism. Picture someone running up to a celebrity and either pulling out some hair or scratching the celebrity with fingernails and then running away. That'd be a way to get cells from that celebrity. Imagine some college sorority or fraternity whose members who have egged on each other to get celebrity tissue samples. Then the frat or sorority could grow up the tissue and dine on the hot babe of the day. Criminalization will just make the dinner parties smaller and more select.

Of course some narcissists will insist that nothing but their own vat-grown tissue is tasty enough. Then there will be the exhibitionists who will grow their own tissue to give or sell to others.

Biotechnology will eventually reach then point where full human bodies minus the head can be grown in a vat. Imagine growing a replacement body, having your head transplanted to it, and then eating the old body. One can imagine big old/new body dinner parties where someone using their new body has all their friends over to eat the old one. How will the old body be served? As Frank famously put it: "That's a rather tender subject. Another slice anyone?"

Feel disgusted or revolted?

30% of transportation fuel could be extracted from farms and forests.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 21, 2005 — Relief from soaring prices at the gas pump could come in the form of corncobs, cornstalks, switchgrass and other types of biomass, according to a joint feasibility study for the departments of Agriculture and Energy.

The recently completed Oak Ridge National Laboratory report outlines a national strategy in which 1 billion dry tons of biomass – any organic matter that is available on a renewable or recurring basis – would displace 30 percent of the nation's petroleum consumption for transportation. Supplying more than 3 percent of the nation's energy, biomass already has surpassed hydropower as the largest domestic source of renewable energy, and researchers believe much potential remains.

"Our report answers several key questions," said Bob Perlack, a member of ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division and a co-author of the report. "We wanted to know how large a role biomass could play, whether the United States has the land resources and whether such a plan would be economically viable."

Looking at just forestland and agricultural land, the two largest potential biomass sources, the study found potential exceeding 1.3 billion dry tons per year. That amount is enough to produce biofuels to meet more than one-third of the current demand for transportation fuels, according to the report.

Such an amount, which would represent a six-fold increase in production from the amount of biomass produced today, could be achieved with only relatively modest changes in land use and agricultural and forestry practices.

"One of the main points of the report is that the United States can produce nearly 1 billion dry tons of biomass annually from agricultural lands and still continue to meet food, feed and export demands," said Robin Graham, leader for Ecosystem and Plant Sciences in ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division.

The benefits of an increased focus on biomass include increased energy security as the U.S. would become less dependent on foreign oil, a potential 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and an improved rural economic picture.

They are expecting about three quarters of the biomass to come from agricultural lands. But will the processing to this biomass material consume more energy than it will produce? Biomass crops have to be planted (though some biomass will be in the form of left over stalks of corn and other grain crops). Then the biomass has to be collected and transported to processing sites. The processing sites use energy as well. Future technological advances will lower processing costs and processing sites will become more energy efficient. But transportation energy costs will remain a bigger problem. Perhaps mini-processing plants that can be set up on farms will eventually reduce some of the transportation costs.

You can read the full text of the report (PDF format). I'm not excerpting from it because the authors of the report set its security properties to disallow copying selected sections of text. Given that this document is made by the US government at taxpayer expense for free distribution the logic of this choice escapes me.

As an example of advances being made in biomass conversion a team of researchers have developed a way to use bacteria to produce hydrogen out of biomass.

Using a new electrically-assisted microbial fuel cell (MFC) that does not require oxygen, Penn State environmental engineers and a scientist at Ion Power Inc. have developed the first process that enables bacteria to coax four times as much hydrogen directly out of biomass than can be generated typically by fermentation alone.

Dr. Bruce Logan, the Kappe professor of environmental engineering and an inventor of the MFC, says, "This MFC process is not limited to using only carbohydrate-based biomass for hydrogen production like conventional fermentation processes. We can theoretically use our MFC to obtain high yields of hydrogen from any biodegradable, dissolved, organic matter -- human, agricultural or industrial wastewater, for example -- and simultaneously clean the wastewater.

"While there is likely insufficient waste biomass to sustain a global hydrogen economy, this form of renewable energy production may help offset the substantial costs of wastewater treatment as well as provide a contribution to nations able to harness hydrogen as an energy source," Logan notes.

The new approach is described in a paper, "Electrochemically Assisted Microbial Production of Hydrogen from Acetate," released online currently and scheduled for a future issue of Environmental Science and Technology. The authors are Dr. Hong Liu, postdoctoral researcher in environmental engineering; Dr. Stephen Grot, president and founder of Ion Power, Inc.; and Logan. Grot, a former Penn State student, suggested the idea of modifying an MFC to generate hydrogen.

In their paper, the researchers explain that hydrogen production by bacterial fermentation is currently limited by the "fermentation barrier" -- the fact that bacteria, without a power boost, can only convert carbohydrates to a limited amount of hydrogen and a mixture of "dead end" fermentation end products such as acetic and butyric acids.

However, giving the bacteria a small assist with a tiny amount of electricity -- about 0.25 volts or a small fraction of the voltage needed to run a typical 6 volt cell phone -- they can leap over the fermentation barrier and convert a "dead end" fermentation product, acetic acid, into carbon dioxide and hydrogen.

Logan notes, "Basically, we use the same microbial fuel cell we developed to clean wastewater and produce electricity. However, to produce hydrogen, we keep oxygen out of the MFC and add a small amount of power into the system."

The conversion of existing sewage processing facilities into biomass energy extractor operations holds more promise because the cost of waste processing is already being paid.

Whether genetically engineered bacteria or inorganic catalysts turn out to be more efficient approaches for biomass conversion remains to be seen. But I'd prefer solar photovoltaics over biomass so that humans do not compete as much with other species for use of the land.

Also see my previous post "Is Corn Ethanol A Good Energy Source?" which includes a report of another recent advance in methods to more efficiently convert biomass materials into useful fuels.

Getting interrupted a lot by email and other messages has the equivalent effect on work efficiency of a 10 point IQ drop.

- One in five will break off from a business or social engagement to respond to a message.

- Nine out of 10 people thought colleagues who answered messages during face-to-face meetings were rude, while three out of 10 believed it was not only acceptable, but a sign of diligence and efficiency.

Note that if 9 out of 10 thinks it is rude to answer messages but 3 out of 10 think it is acceptable then doesn't that suggest that at least 2 out of ten think answering email messages while in meetings is both rude and acceptable? Hmmm....

Better to be stoned than to lose sleep or be interrupted?

- In 80 clinical trials, Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King's College London University, monitored the IQ of workers throughout the day. He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points -- the equivalent to missing a whole night's sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana.

"This is a very real and widespread phenomenon," Wilson said. "We have found that this obsession with looking at messages, if unchecked, will damage a worker's performance by reducing their mental sharpness.

How real is this phenomenon? In my first real job I was placed in a small office next to the company's machine shop. While I tried to debug the software and hardware for a scientific instrument next door I heard drilling and hammering. I went to a gunshop and bought one of those headsets that target practice gunners use to protect their ears. It helped some.

"Companies should encourage a more balanced and appropriate way of working."

But many managers want their workers to promptly answer messages, promptly answer the phone, and come out to meetings and other distractions from getting work done.

Wilson said the IQ drop was even more significant in the men who took part in the tests.

"This is very, very real; but it is not a new phenomenon." Adam Boettiger, an author, publisher and professional coach to executives on time management and managing email overload says. "I've suspected the connection and witnessed it first-hand for years. Why this is a significant find is because (to my knowledge) it is the first clinical study that makes the connection."

Adam Boettiger is right. This is so not new.

The study was done using consistent types of problem solving tasks to measure differences of productivity under different conditions.

Eighty volunteers were asked to carry out problem solving tasks, firstly in a quiet environment and then while being bombarded with new emails and phone calls. Although they were told not to respond to any messages, researchers found that their attention was significantly disturbed.

Alarmingly, the average IQ was reduced by 10 points - double the amount seen in studies involving cannabis users. But not everyone was affected by to the same extent - men were twice as distracted as women.

Some things seem destined for repeat discovery until the results are finally taken seriously. Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister reported years ago in their book Peopleware that computer programmers who get interrupted often enough by phone calls, intercom announcements, and other sources of interruption get literally nothing done. While the book is a vague memory for me at this point I recall that as part of their consulting work they did studies in companies where they measured the ability of staffs to complete some standard programming assignments and had the staffs keep records of their interruptions. Interrupt rates accounted for a large portion of differences in programmer productivity between companies. Some companies seem intent on treating their programmers and other knowledge workers as highly interruptible and distractable. Go figure.

The extent to which distractions decrease productivity depends on the type of mental work being performed. Some people work on much larger mental tasks, Therefore interrupts cause them to lose a lot of context from working memory. A person who is trying to picture and move around between many parts of a large computer program or a silicon chip design suffers a greater loss in productivty from being interrupted than, for example, a person who handles 5 minute service calls where the answers are pretty rote. Someone who writes complex technical manuals or who tries to find connections between many parts of a complex body of law similarly may hold a lot of mental state and the cost of interruption of such a person is much higher than, say, a person who is simply proofreading a legal document for obvious syntax and grammar errors.

Methods of batchng up interrupts would allow workers to have longer stretches of mental time during which to concentrate on handling large interacting sets of rules and relationships. For example, rather than having all email arrive immediately an email program could be set to check email only at many hour intervals. Perhaps email inboxes should be updated at lunch time so that a person could come back from lunch and process all new morning email at once. Also, imagine phone extensions where the message at the extension reports up "Bob will not be accepting calls for the next 93 minutes. Please call back at 3:30 PM to reach Bob".

Loud intercom announcements are evil, mmmkay? (and before anyone corrects my spelling you should hear that in the voice of Mr. Mackey of South Park) Then we come to cubicle land conditions where every office conversation carries over 5 foot high walls to interrupt the concentration of minds in at least a half dozen other cubicles. What to say about this madness? Words fail me. Working at home is much more productive.

Update: Note the larger effective IQ drop in men than in women. This is consistent observations I've read elsewhere: Women are less irritated by interruptions and can function better through interruptions. Is this a female adaptation for child raising? Young children are like distraction machines. A mother can't get too wrapped up in some work or else her toddlers might wander off into danger. Even if they are nearby they make noises or do other things that demand attention. Are female minds better adapted to dealing with these interrupts?

Men spend less time raising children even after decades of feminist demands for change. Our male ancestors were hunting while the women were gathering. Maybe male pursuits historically had less distractions and required focused concentration that was easier to achieve.

Another point here: Modern technology automates the production of distractions. Will the problem get worse? Think about futuristic movies that show signs reading the identity of passersby and generating voices that speak to each passing person by their real name. Think about advertisements geared ever more precisely to the interests of each customer. Sounds like a recipe for increasing distaction, lower productivity, and unhappier lives.

The technologies which produce distractions appear to be mining fertile ground. Human minds seem drawn to many kinds of distractions. Are we stimulus junkies? Or are our minds wired up to evaluate distractions as potential attacks from predators? Did selective pressure on our neolithic ancestors make our minds geared up to constantly evaluate messages from humans in order to check for potential threats?

But technology also provides means to filter out distractions. Don't want to look through bills every month? Set up auto-pay from your checking account to various utilities and credit cards. Also, tune in to satellite radio stations that have no commercials. Or listen to prerecorded music from your own music database rather than listen to a radio station. Lower tech methods to reduce distractions include soundproofing and closing the blinds. I personally like to work in low lighting conditions so that the clutter around me won't distract my mind from the computer screens in front of me.

Once business executives finally understand that they are providing productivity-robbing work environments to their employees (and business managers appear to be slow learners on this score) we can expect to see lower distraction workplaces become all the rage. Some of the distraction lowering technologies developed for workplaces will find their way into homes as well.

Some day in the future cars will drive themselves for much of commuter trips down electronically instrumented highways. Before then more people will work from home and at least for some home workers the distractions of driving will be eliminated altogether. But we need to find more lower and higher tech ways to reduce the distractions that lower our productivity and reduce our ability to enjoy leisure activities.

Elizabeth King and Eric McErlain of NEI Nuclear Notes blog have a post comparing the cost of new nuclear power plants to other types of electric power plants. (note: O&M means Operations and Maintenance)

The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), an agency within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the International Energy Agency (IEA) recently published a 2005 update to their “Projected Costs of Generating Electricity” series. The study provides some interesting perspective on some ongoing discussions posted on FuturePundit and Disinterested Party regarding the costs of generating electricity using nuclear power versus other technologies.

The NEA/IEA study uses the levelized lifetime cost approach to compare generating costs for the future. This approach looks at generation costs over the plant economic lifetime, while taking into account the time value of money; that is, money spent yesterday or tomorrow does not have the same value as money spent today. Levelized costs are comprised of all components of capital, Operations and Maintainence (O&M) and fuel costs that would influence a utility’s choice of generation options, including construction, refurbishment and decommissioning, where applicable.

The study finds that at a 5% discount rate, levelized costs for nuclear range between $21 and $31 per MWh (2.1 to 3.1 cents per KWh), with investment costs representing 50% of total cost on average, while O&M and fuel represent around 30% and 20%, respectively. For gas-fired plants, the study finds levelized costs ranging from $37 to $60 per MWh (3.7 to 6 cents per KWh), with investment costs accounting for less than 15% of total costs, O&M accounting for less than 10%, and fuel costs accounting for nearly 80% of total costs, on average. The study finds levelized costs for coal-fired plants ranging between $25 and $50 per MWh (2.5 to 5 cents per KWh). Investment costs for coal plants account for just over a third of total costs, while O&M and fuel account for around 20% and 45%, respectively.

If you are wondering why oil is not mentioned oil is more expensive and is rarely used in electric power plants anymore.

Nuclear power is more sensitive to interest rate levels. But a nuclear builder can try to time financing for construction of a nuclear plant to periods when long term interest rates are low. Whereas a builder of coal or natural gas plants will have to live with fluctuations in fuel prices over the life of the plant. Nuclear plant construction could be made much more responsive to long term interest rates by shrinking time spent in the regulatory approval and construction stages. Uranium fuel costs also fluctuate considerably but count for a much smaller percentage of total costs of a nuclear plant.

The costs above are production costs for electricity leaving an electric plant. The physical transmission system and electric losses due to resistance in the transmission both add additional costs as do billing and customer service. Still, the price of new nuclear power plant electricity would be about a third the average American retail price for electricity.

Keep in mind that the figures we quote here don't reflect retail electricity rates, which also include transmission costs.

According to the most recent data from the Energy Information Administration, the average retail price of electricity for residential customers in the U.S. clocked in at 8.5 cents per KWh. However, in some areas of the country, that can be significantly higher, especially during periods of peak demand

Does anyone have a good source for the relative contributions of transmission and other downstream costs?

Coal generation costs could be raised by toughening environmental regulations on coal plant emissions. But technological advances in emissions control methods will eventually reduce those costs. Of course technological advances will reduce nuclear plant construction costs as well.

Natural gas prices have already risen substantially in the last few years and could rise further still, at least until planned liquified natural gas terminals come on line. Coal prices probably have lower upside pricing potential in the United States because US coal reserves are enormous. A long term increase in coal demand will be matched by a long term increase in capital deployed for extracting coal. Therefore the real competition to watch is between coal and nuclear.

With nearly 100 coal fired electric plants planned by industry in the United States and 5 times that number of coal plants planned in China coal is clearly in the lead to provide the next increase in electric power generation capacity. However, signs of serious industry consideration of new nuclear plant construction can be found.

Until such a time that solar power becomes competitive we need to ask ourselves a basic question: Would we prefer 100 more coal-fired electric generating plants or 100 more nuclear plants? The coal generators insist the costs of eliminating all the mercury, other heavy metals, particulates, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, and other pollutants are too high and not worth the effort. This attitude and their ability to enshrine their views in policy make me much more well disposed toward the arguments coming from the nuclear power industry.

Some popular fears about dangers that will arise as a result of technologcal advances have gotten far more attention than other threats that strike me as equally plausible. For example, one much discussed fear is "nanotech goo". Nanotech goo could take over the world if self-replicating nanotech devices get out of a factory or lab and overrun the whole world. The TV show Stargate SG-1 even has a recurring theme of replicators trying to take over the Milky Way Galaxy or Thor's galaxy (and if you don't know who Thor is from the show he's the leader of the Asgard race of extremely advanced beings who have posed to humans on various planets as Norse Gods of Earth mythology).

The DNA-based biological organism nightmare scenario that attracts the most attention is the release of genetically engineered killer viruses or bacteria that could wipe out much or all of the human race. I grant that threat is plausible and the attention that threat receives is understandable. However, in the future we will face a more general biological threat that has received far less attention: the genetic engineering of organisms that either through infection or environmental competition wipe out or greatly decrease the size of other species.

Think about the world 50 years hence. Genetic engineering will no longer be the province solely of Ph.D. scientists working in large teams under corporate and government direction with very expensive equipment. Genetic engineering will inevitably become accessible to low skilled hobbyists working with small budgets. That is going to create enormous potential for mischief and worse. Think Rottweilers bred for ferocity are a threat at the local park? Wait till homies decide to compete to genetically engineer dogs that are the most dangerous in the neighborhood. Heck, why limit oneself to dogs? Mountain lions, cougars, and cheetahs will serve as genetic starting material for cognitive reengineering to make them highly trainable and controllable by humans.

You see the problem here? People are going to take many existing species and modify their DNA for fun. This will be easy to do. One doesn't need to be a mechanical or electrical engineer to modify and enhance a car in all sorts of ways. Well, the same will be true of all the species of biological life.

Let us return to the example of genetically engineered pathogens. Imagine some Muslim extremist in 2050 deciding that all black dogs should be killed to please Allah. He'll have some theological basis for this opinion. He might also be able to genetically engineer a virus that would be highly transmissible and capable of selectively killing black dogs. Or suppose someone decides snakes are all evil representatives of Satan on Earth and decides to make viruses aimed at wiping out various species of snakes. Cheap high tech equipment will make development of such viruses easy to do.

Hobbyist level genetic engineering equipment will also open up the possibility for all sorts of pranks. How about a virus spray placed on the desk of some annoying boss that makes his skin green or purple? Or imagine a genetically engineer a virus to give a person a temporary mild case of Tourette's Syndrome so that he says exactly what he is thinking.

Another possibility is illustrated by invasive species. Species intentionally or accidentally carried by humans between continents and to islands have outcompeted existing species. Australia has lost many species to rabbits and to other species introduced by humans. Hawaii is undergoing a similar process of plant and animal invasion which is driving species to extinction. Invading ants are leading to bird extinctions because the ants destroy species the birds eat. The same is happening in other parts of the world. Eucalyptus trees in California are from Australia, displace native trees, and do not create the high quality of wood that they produce in Australia (thereby defeating the purpose of their introduction).

The phenomenon of invasive species will be replicated more powerfully with genetically engineered species. In a few decades hobbyists will be able to take an existing species of rat and genetically engineer it to be capable of outcompeting wild natural rats. Introduction of such a rat would lead to the gradual displacement of wildtype. Hobbyists could even engage in competitions with each other to see who can create the new winning rat species. Laws won't stop them. Just as there are computer virus writers the world over breaking laws trying to build more successful computer viruses so there will be kids trying to code up more successful rodents.

Genetically engineered species competition could be carried out with many types of starter species. A grass could be genetically engineered to outcompete other types of grasses. The same could be done with bushes and trees. A bird could be genetically engineered to be a better hunter of rodents and released into the wild might wipe out some rodent species and other bird species.

Why will people release their own genetically engineered species into the wild? For kicks. For fame. Out of anger. To see if it can be done. To immortalize themselves by having their own species live all over the world. To remake some part of physical geography in their image. Vanity, pride, a desire to be noticed, a desire to strike out at the world, all the normal human failings will be at work.

Anyone see reasons why this won't happen? Strikes me as inevitable.

In Britain more crimes are being solved using a national database of DNA sequences of criminals and suspected criminals.

One year on from legislation permitting police in England and Wales to collect and retain DNA samples from those arrested, a New Scientist investigation of the effect this is having on policing has revealed new data on the law's consequences.

Launched on 10 April 1995, NDNAD holds DNA profiles from almost 3 million people (see "DNA database: the facts"). "From an investigator's perspective it's a powerful tool," says Paul Stickler of Sussex police. In a typical month, the database churns out hits for 15 murders, 45 rapes and sexual offences and 2500 car, theft and drug crimes. With DNA evidence, the average crime clear-up rate increases from 24 per cent to 43 per cent.

That is a dramatic increase in clearance rates. With a total population of 60 million people in Britain the 3 million DNA database entries make up about 5 percent of that population. Future database growth will no doubt make it an even more effective tool for catching criminals.

DNA samples from suspects from previous investigations are proving fertile ground for discovering perpetrators of other crimes.

Since it began in 2001, the practice of retaining profiles of suspects subsequently acquitted has added 175,000 extra profiles to the database. Of those, more than 7000 have since been connected with crimes, including 68 murders, 38 attempted murders and 116 rapes.

The trend toward keeping biological samples and not just the DNA profiles produced from those samples is driven by expectations of future advances in DNA testing techniques. As DNA testing becomes more powerful the original samples from crime scenes which do not match with samples of known individuals in the database will be reanalysed in order to derive more information about race, ethnicity, eye color, skin color, hair color, height, facial features, and other features. Existing DNA analysis techniques already can provide quite a lot of racial and ethnic information. As larger numbers of DNA locations are deciphered more characteristics will be inferrable from DNA sequences.

Privacy advocates who oppose DNA databases have had little success in slowing their spread. In November 2004 liberal California passed Proposition 69 to collect samples for a DNA database not just for felons but starting in 2009 anyone arrested for a felony crime. The proposition received a 62% Yes vote.

In California Even those arrested for misdemeanors qualify for DNA sample collection if they have a previous felony conviction.

Collection from Convicted/Adjudicated Felony Offenders: Who qualifies for DNA collection following conviction or adjudication?

a) Any person (adult or juvenile) who is newly convicted/adjudicated of a felony offense, or who is newly convicted/adjudicated of a misdemeanor or infraction offense but has a prior felony (California or equivalent out-of-state crime) of record; (b) Any person (adult or juvenile) currently in custody or on probation, parole, or any other supervised release after conviction for any felony offense committed prior to November 3, 2004; (c) Any person (adult or juvenile) currently on probation or any other supervised release for any offense with a prior felony (California or equivalent out-of-state crime) of record.

...

Collection from Arrestees: Which arrestees are subject to DNA collection?

Until January 1, 2009, only adults arrested on or after November 3, 2004 for murder, voluntary manslaughter, a felony PC 290 sex offense, or an attempt to commit one of those crimes are subject to DNA collection under Proposition 69. Beginning in 2009, adults arrested for any felony offense are subject to DNA collection. Note: Prior felony convictions do not trigger DNA collection from any arrestees. The arrestee provision is not retroactive.

California's DNA database will become much more effective as a gradually growing percentage of all criminals in California are placed in it. The British experience suggests that arrest rates for crimes will go up dramatically as the California database grows.

Expect to see fearful parents putting their babies and young children into DNA databases in order to find their children again should the children be kidnapped and raised as someone else's child. While that sort of kidnapping is a rare event the perception is widespread that the risks are much higher.

Also, we shouldn't be too surprised to see at least some countries start collecting DNA samples from visitors from other countries both for crime investigation and anti-terrorism efforts. The CIA and other intelligence agencies might even surreptitiously collect DNA samples along with fingerprints and other biometric data from suspected terrorists.

Update: I forgot to mention one really obvious way criminal DNA databases will be used once we know a lot more about the human genome: Criminals will be genetically classified by their propensity to commit various types of crimes. Suppose a murder crime scene has no DNA evidence. Well, the local police will be able to look at the DNA sequences of all criminals they have on file and see which ones have genetic sequences that most strongly correlate with the propensity to commit murder. Then likely murderers can be placed at the top of suspect lists and receive greater attention.

The ability to predict a criminal's likely development from, say, a drug dealer or car thief into a murderer or rapist will be considered in sentencing decisions. Perhaps not all jurisidictions will allow it. But I bet most will.

The identification of genes that contribute to criminal behavior will also ignite a debate about reproductive rights. Should couples who are, genetically speaking, "bad to the bone" be allowed to reproduce? I expect that some governments and populations will say "No".

Forbes magazine has found that billionaires enjoy only a small advantage in life expectancy over the average American. (same article here)

The average age of death for the 20 billionaires featured in the 2004 and 2005 "In Memoriam" sections of the annual Forbes Billionaires list was 78. We compared this number with the average male life expectancy in the U.S., since all but one of the 20 billionaires on our list that died were males: the billionaires lived 3.5 years longer than average American males. The results would be even more dramatic if we took into account average life expectancies from around the world, since the billionaires on our list are of all different nationalities.

A large part of that difference may not even be due to the ability of the wealth of those billionaires to buy better health care. Writing for Forbes back in June 2004 Dan Seligman pointed out that national health case services have not decreased the gap in life expectancy between upper and lower classes.

But even ten years ago, when this magazine last delved into the topic (FORBES, Jan. 31, 1994), the available answers seemed inadequate. If access was the key, then one would have expected the health gap between upper and lower classes to shrink or disappear with the advent of programs like Britain's National Health Service and America's Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention employer-sponsored health insurance. In fact, the gap widened in both Britain and America as these programs took effect. The 1994 article cited a study of British civil servants--all with equal access to medical care and other social services, and all working in similar physical environments--showing that even within this homogeneous group the higher-status employees were healthier: "Each civil service rank outlived the one immediately below." How could this be?

There are already known substantial differences in life expectancy between the social classes. So even an upper middle class person has a longer life expectancy than average. It is safe to assume that billionaires, like the upper middle class, are a lot smarter than the average person. Seligman points to the research of Linda Gottfredson and Ian Deary which points to average differences in intelligence as an explanation for why the social classes differ in life expectancies.

An explanation not presenting these problems has recently been proposed in several papers by two scholars long associated with IQ studies: Linda Gottfredson, a sociologist based at the University of Delaware, and psychologist Ian Deary of the University of Edinburgh. Their solution to the age-old mystery of health and status is at once utterly original and supremely obvious. The rich live longer, they write, mainly because the rich are smarter. The argument rests on several different propositions, all well documented. The crucial points are that (a) social status correlates strongly and positively with IQ and other measures of intelligence;(b) intelligence correlates strongly with "health literacy," the ability to understand and follow a prescription for disease prevention and treatment; and (c) intelligence is also correlated with forward planning--which means avoidance of health risks (including smoking) as they are identified.

All of Linda Gottfredson's papers on intelligence and health are available on her website. Her paper with Ian Dreary showed that childhood intelligence predicts differences in longevity. (PDF format)

ABSTRACT—Large epidemiological studies of almost an entire population in Scotland have found that intelligence (as measured by an IQ-type test) in childhood predicts substantial differences in adult morbidity and mortality, including deaths from cancers and cardiovascular diseases. These relations remain significant after controlling for socioeconomic variables. One possible, partial explanation of these results is that intelligence enhances individuals’ care of their own health because it represents learning, reasoning, and problem-solving skills useful in preventing chronic disease and accidental injury and in adhering to complex treatment regimens.

That paper also examines the plausible argument the same factors may be causing differences in intelligence and longevity. For example, poor prenatal nutrition would both prevent the brain from developing optimally and also prevent other organs from developing properly. Improperly developed organs would tend to fail sooner and therefore contribute to lower life expectancy. But some of the biochemical environmental factors that hobble fetal development are at least partially a consequence of lower intelligence on the part of pregnant women and their mates. A woman of lower intelligence is less likely to make wise food choices, refrain from smoking and drinking while pregnant, and avoid use of dangerous recreational and addictive drugs.

In her paper Life, Death, and Intelligence Gottfredson points out that many activities that influence life expectancy are very cognitively demanding.

Preventing and managing both chronic disease and accidental injury, the leading causes of death today, is a highly cognitive process. Studies of health literacy, which is learning and reasoning applied to health matters, show that less literate individuals have difficulty understanding and adhering to treatment regimens. Lower adherence predicts higher mortality. Accident prevention models reveal that it requires the same information processing skills that job analyses document as distinctive requirements of high-level, complex jobs: for instance, learning and recalling relevant information, identifying problem situations quickly, and reacting swiftly to unexpected situations. Health providers can reduce excess complexity in their communications and treatment regimens. They can also increase cognitive assistance when tasks are inherently complex, such as in the daily self-management of diabetes, hypertension, and asthma.

In her paper Intelligence: Is It the Epidemiologists’ Elusive “Fundamental Cause” of Social Class Inequalities in Health? Gottfredson argues that much of the difference in health outcomes that correlate with socioeconomic status (SES) may be due to differences of intelligence.

Virtually all indicators of physical health and mental competence favor persons of higher socioeconomic status (SES). Conventional theories in the social sciences assume that the material disadvantages of lower SES are primarily responsible for these inequalities, either directly or by inducing psychosocial harm. These theories cannot explain, however, why the relation between SES and health outcomes (knowledge, behavior, morbidity, and mortality) is not only remarkably general across time, place, disease, and kind of health system but also so finely graded up the entire SES continuum. Epidemiologists have therefore posited, but not yet identified, a more general “fundamental cause” of health inequalities. This article concatenates various bodies of evidence to demonstrate that differences in general intelligence (g) may be that fundamental cause.

There are two implications of these results. One implication is bad news for the lower classes. The other implication is bad news for rich folks.

First off, less bright people in industrialized societies have lower expectancies because they make lousier choices and more incorrect decisions about their health and medical care. This is a hard problem to remedy because many of those decisions are made (or not made) every day. A person doesn't take a beneficial prescription drug that is sitting in their medicine cabinet. Or a person ignores an obvious symptom of disease and fails to see a doctor until it is too late. Or a person smokes cigarettes, eats lots of junk food, or abuses drugs or alcohol. Or a person behaves in ways that increase the chance of accidents. There is an endless variety of ways to shorten your life expectancy. Draconian government involvement in the lives of less intelligent people would be required to prevent many of the life-shortening errors which less intelligent people make.

Even if the government could in theory craft less invasive ways to improve the health of the less intelligent it is hard for public policies to be implemented for this purpose. Why? Because the believers in modern liberalism (whether of the leftist or, in many cases, the neoconservative variety) are loathe to admit that we are not all born into this life with equal potential to learn and achieve. I have no solution to offer on that score except to encourage the funding of development of cheaper DNA sequencing methods. In the decades to come DNA sequencing costs will fall to the point where the genotypes for intelligence will be easily identified and the genetic causes of differences in intelligence will become much harder to deny. Then many of the deniers of the truth will start to come around and admit the obvious. At that point the importance and implications of innate differences in cognitive abilities will return to mainstream discourse after an absence of about a hundred years. My guess is this will happen by 2015 or 2020 at the latest.

The second implication is bad news for billionaires. They can't buy much better medical care. They are super rich. They can buy any medical treatments available. But the same incurable diseases that kill most people in industrialized countries kill billionaires as well. The billionaires not only can't take it with them but they also can't use it to substantially delay their departure into the afterlife. There are limits to their buying power because of the deficiencies in our scientific knowledge about human biology.

The lesson here for the billionaires is that if they want to extend their lives the best use of their own wealth is to fund more research and development aimed at developing better treatments. There are research topics which are poorly funded where the development of Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) could be greatly accelerated by a few tens of millions of dollars. For example, a billionaire could easily fund an effort to shift the mitochondrial DNA genes into the nucleus of some lab mice or rats to then see how much their life expectancies are increased as a result. Another possibility for wealthy philanthropists is to make a big donation to the the Methuselah Mouse Prize to provide greater incentives for scientists to development rejuvenation treatments.

In a similar vein, members of the middle class can individually make better decisions about diet, exercise, and preventive health care. But collectively the middle class can do far more to improve their health in the long run by supporting policy changes by their governments aimed at accelerating the rate of advance of biomedical science and biotechnology. Only advances which produce new methods of curing diseases and reversing aging can produce a large improvement in health and life expectancies.

A company called Axon Sleep Research Laboratories has developed a headband alarm clock that awakens you when you are not in a deep stage of sleep.

Have you ever felt that you have had a full night’s sleep, but you still feel tired when your alarm rings? When we sleep, we repeatedly move through several cycles of brain activity. It is incorrectly believed that an extra 15 minutes of sleep would make us feel better. What actually makes us feel alert and energetic, however, is being awoken out of the right sleep cycle.

The scientific community has known about this phenomenon for decades, but the technology has not existed to take advantage of it — until now. Enter SleepSmart: an intelligent alarm clock that monitors your sleep cycles as you sleep, waking you at the ideal moment from the optimal stage of sleep. This optimal moment might be several minutes prior to your set alarm time. However, when you wake up, you will be refreshed and ready for action — just as if you had awoken naturally.

The device is worn on your head and it analyses your EEG brain wave to decide when to awaken you. The device does not appear to be on sale yet.

They claim that being awakened from a lighter stage of sleep will cause a person to feel less tired.

SleepSmart’s technology is based on the existence of sleep cycles. For the sake of simplicity, we will classify the cycles into 3 categories: light, deep and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Recent scientific research has learned that the way one feels after waking up is determined not by the length of sleep, but rather the sleep cycle from which that person awakens. When awoken from deep sleep, the sleeper feels groggy, tired, and grumpy. However, if someone wakes up from a lighter stage of sleep, no matter how many hours they slept, they still wake up recharged, invigorated, energetic and alert.

SleepSmart capitalizes on this finding by waking people only from light sleep. In order to do this, users wear a soft headband that passively monitors the brain. The end result is the aversion of sleep inertia and the production of a more energetic, attentive and happy morning.

The headband is the idea of a group of Brown University students.

Mike Millikin of Green Car Congress reports on arguments about whether corn ethanol is a net producer of energy, of general harm to the environment, and of CO2 emissions.

To that list, on the con side, I would add a paper by Tad W Patzek. Patzek, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who had earlier authored a paper with Pimentel, one of the energy critics of ethanol, has recently updated (24 March 2005) a paper, Thermodynamics of the Corn-Ethanol Biofuel Cycle.

It’s an interesting and detailed paper, and in it he reviews and corrects the assumptions and calculations of both primary pro- and con- ethanol factions (including some of his earlier work), while making new calculations of his own. His conclusion is that corn ethanol is a net loss to the environment and in energy, and a net contributor of CO₂. Nor is he particularly keen on biomass-based ethanol, as a paper published earlier this year (with Pimentel) details. Patzek would prefer the research money (and crop subsidies) flowing to ethanol and corn production go instead to solar and hybrid research.

Corn ethanol research is funded because the farmers are a powerful lobby, not because it makes sense to grow corn for energy. Though maybe some day a way will be found to take the left-over cornstalks and convert them into ethanol for less energy than it takes to do the conversion.

Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Chu argues for biomass using cellulose.

The US already subsidizes farmers to grow corn to turn into ethanol, but $7bn in the past decade has been wasted because the process isn’t carbon-neutral. “From the point of view of the environment,” explains Chu, “it would be better if we just burnt oil.”

“But carbon-neutral energy sources are achievable. A world population of 9 billion, the predicted peak in population, could be fed with less than one third of the planet”s cultivable land area. Some of the rest could be dedicated to growing crops for energy. But the majority of all plant matter is cellulose—a solid, low-grade fuel about as futuristic as burning wood. If scientists can convert cellulose into liquid fuels like ethanol, the world’s energy supply and storage problems could both be solved at a stroke.“

Mike Milliken also reports on efforts to drive down the materials cost for corn ethanol conversion by development of cheaper enzymes.

Regarding the reference to a paper by Tad W Patzek with David Pimentel of Cornell University on whether corn ethanol is a net producer of energy: This debate has been raging for years. Michael Graboski of the Colorado School of Mines has taken the opposing position that corn ethanol is a net source of energy. I have not read their papers and can not comment on the question of which side is right. But be aware that it is not a settled question and that some sharp engineering minds think corn ethanol is both bad for the environment and a net energy drain.

Biomass has some other big downsides. The most obvious is that if it is produced by growing crops for biomass then it will increase the demand for cultivable farm land and water. In industrialized countries increases in productivity of farms have been decreasing the amount of land and water needed for farming. While some of that freed up land gets used for building residential and business areas a significant portion of farmland in the United States has reverted to nature. But biomass could easily reverse that trend in the United and speed the already problematic encroachment of human habitats on nature worldwide.

Cost effective biomass would also make food crops compete with fuel crops for cultivable land. This could have the effect of driving up food prices. This would be especially problematic in the poorest countries.

By contrast solar panels do not need cultivable land. When photovoltaics and other solar energy collection devices become cheap enough for widespread use most solar collectors will be attached to buildings and given enough advances in materials science photovoltaics could be built into roof shingles and siding. Solar panels that are installed on land can just as easily be placed in a desert that supports relatively less wildlife. The solar panels will not need to be watered or sprayed with insecticides. Therefore they will not deplete water tables, lead to the build-up of salt in soil, or cause pollution in the form of agricultural run-off.

Wind energy is similar to solar energy in that lends itself to dual uses of land. Wind towers can be build over food crop farm fields since the shadow that a tower would cast would move during the day and crop plants near towers would still get the bulk of the light that they would get in absence of the towers. But not all towers will be built on farmed lands. Operators of wind towers will tend to want to build them in mountainous areas with high winds and along shorelines and thereby ruin some beautiful scenic vistas.

Over at the NEI Nuclear Notes blog Elizabeth King reacted to an earlier discussion we had here on Futurepundit about nuclear power costs and has written a post on efforts by the nuclear power industry to set and achieve goals for nuclear power capital costs.

To ensure a common basis for comparison, the capital costs of electric generating technologies are expressed in dollars per kilowatt of capacity. The capital costs used in such comparisons are so-called “overnight” capital costs—i.e., they assume the plant is built “overnight” and thus do not include interest charges and financing costs.

In order to provide competitive electricity, the nuclear industry has determined that the next generation of nuclear reactors must have overnight capital costs in the range of $1,000 – $1,200 per kilowatt of generating capacity for the so called “Nth-of-a-kind” nuclear plant. Nth-of-a-kind capital costs are achieved after first-time design and engineering costs have been recovered and as industry incorporates improvements in construction techniques and construction management gained during construction of the first few units.

Let us suppose the nuclear power industry has met this stated cost goal. Well, how to translate those numbers into kilowatt-hour (kwh) prices that are a few pennies each at the residential meter? As a starting point I'll note that there are 8760 hours in a year. Also, nuclear plants run for decades and the new designs are supposed to last longer (anyone know how much longer?).

There are additional costs including nuclear fuel costs, labor costs, maintenance costs, waste disposal costs, decommissioning costs, and still other costs.

Also, how many nuclear plants would have to be built before “Nth-of-a-kind” costs would be 90+% of the cost of building a nuclear plant?

Rimonabant (commercial name Accomplia) has completed the first year of its phase III drug approval trial with very promising results.

The first year results of the two-year trial Rimonabant In Obesity -- Europe (RIO-Europe), a Phase III clinical study comparing rimonabant, the first agent in a new therapeutic class known as selective cannabinoid type 1 (CB1) blockers, to placebo, were published today in The Lancet. The reported findings in overweight or obese patients taking rimonabant 20 mg once daily show a significant reduction in body weight, waist circumference -- a marker of intra-abdominal adiposity -- as well as improvements in insulin resistance and lipid and glucose profiles. The improvement in lipids (HDL-cholesterol and triglycerides) was shown to be partially independent from weight loss, suggesting a direct effect of rimonabant on these important metabolic cardiovascular risk parameters. The trial findings also revealed a decrease in the number of patients with metabolic syndrome(i) in the rimonabant 20 mg/day group.

Patients on rimonabant lost an extra 10 lbs over placebo, had higher HDL cholesterol, lower triglycerides, lower blood glucose, and lower insulin. All these are changes in healthy directions.

At one year, patients treated with rimonabant 20 mg/day lost an average of 14.55 lbs (p < 0.001 vs placebo) compared to 7.5 lbs for patients on rimonabant 5 mg/day (p = 0.002 vs placebo) and 3.97 lbs for those on placebo. Patients on rimonabant 20 mg/day also had an average decrease in their waist circumference of 2.56 inches (p < 0.001) versus 1.54 inches for those on rimonabant 5 mg (p = 0.002 vs placebo) and 0.94 inches for those on placebo.

Among patients completing the study, 67.4% of patients treated with rimonabant 20 mg/day lost more than 5% of their initial body weight (p < 0.001 vs placebo), compared to 44.2% of patients in the rimonabant 5 mg/day group (p = 0.001 vs placebo) and 30.5% in the placebo group. Moreover, 39% (p < 0.001 vs placebo) of patients on rimonabant 20 mg/day lost more than 10% of their initial body weight compared to 15.3% of those on rimonabant 5 mg/day and 12.4% of those on placebo.

The percentage of patients fulfilling the criteria for the metabolic syndrome was reduced by 54% after treatment with rimonabant 20 mg compared to 21% treated with placebo (p < 0.001). In addition to the reduction in weight and waist circumference, a statistically significant improvement in metabolic risk factors with rimonabant 20 mg vs. placebo was also observed. In patients treated for one year with rimonabant 20 mg/day, HDL-cholesterol (good cholesterol) increased by 22.3% (p < 0.001 vs placebo), compared to 16.2% (p = 0.005) in the rimonabant 5 mg/day group and 13.4% in the placebo group. Triglycerides were reduced by 6.8% in patients treated with rimonabant 20 mg (p < 0.001 vs placebo), compared to an increase of 5.7% and 8.3% in rimonabant 5 mg and placebo groups, respectively. Almost 50% of the rimonabant-induced changes in HDL-cholesterol and triglycerides were independent of the weight loss observed, suggesting a direct effect of the drug on lipid metabolism.

A significant reduction in fasting plasma glucose of 0.09 mmol/L was seen in patients treated with rimonabant 20 mg (p = 0.026 vs placebo) compared with an increase of 0.03 mmol/L in the placebo-treated group. A similar pattern was observed for insulin levels which decreased by 1.0 micron IU/mL in the rimonabant 20 mg group (p < 0.001 vs placebo) versus an increase of 1.8 micron IU/mL in the placebo-treated group. Finally, a decrease of 0.3% in HOMA-IR (a measure of insulin resistance) was seen in the rimonabant 20 mg group (p = 0.002 vs placebo) compared with an increase of 0.4% in the placebo-treated group.

Accomplia/Rimonabant may be on the market within a year.

Accomplia is made by the French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-Aventis which is applying for licences to market it early in 2006 in Europe and the U.S. It is also known by its generic name Rimonabant.

Obesity contributes to heart disease, stroke, cancer, type II diabetes, and likely dozens of other diseases. A drug that reduces the incidence of obesity could substantially improve the long term health outlook for hundreds of millions of people. If no problems turn on Sanofi-Aventis stands to earn huge profits. But patients will receive the lion's share of the benefits from an effective and safe anti-obesity drug.

Might Rimonabant block a marijuana high?

Rimonabant acts by blocking receptors in the endocannabinoid system, one of the body's pleasure centers -- the same class of centers affected by marijuana.

Rimonabant may also make it easier to quit smoking.

The drug, which has progressed to phase III development, works by blocking endogenous cannabinoid binding to neuronal CB1 receptors. Activation of these receptors by endoegenous cannabinoids, such as anadamide, increases appetite. It is the only endocannabinoid receptor antagonist in clinical development and thus offers a unique therapeutic approach to appetite control and weight reduction. The drug also has potential as a treatment for smoking cessation because the endocannabinoid system is also involved in the body's response to tobacco dependence.

As things stand now many people who give up smoking gain weight. With this drug smokers may be able to lose weight and stop smoking at the same time. Imagine if this drug works out as advertised. Millions of people will be skinnier and healthier and gain longer life expectancies.

The Glittering Eye alerts me to a post about nanomaterials that can use light to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The original Sandia National Laboratories press release adds more details on how these nanoscale devices might be the key to the use of solar energy to produce hydrogen for energy.

Sunlight splitting water molecules to produce hydrogen by devices too small to be seen in a standard microscope. That’s a goal of a research team led by Sandian John Shelnutt (1116) that has captured the interest of chemists around the world who pursue this “Holy Grail of chemistry."

“The broad objective of the research is to design and fabricate new types of nanoscale devices,” John says. “This investigation is exciting because it promises to provide fundamental scientific breakthroughs in chemical synthesis, self-assembly, electron and energy transfer processes, and photocatalysis. Controlling these processes is necessary to build nanodevices for efficient water splitting, potentially enabling a solar hydrogen-based economy.”

The prospect of using sunlight to split water at the nanoscale grew out of John’s research into the development of hollow porphyrin nano-tubes (see “Porphyrin nanotubes versus carbon” on page 4). These light-active nanotubes can be engineered to have minute deposits of platinum and other metals and semiconductors on the outside or inside of the tube.

The key to making water-splitting nanodevices is the discovery by Zhongchun Wang (1116) of nanotubes composed entirely of porphyrins. Wang is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Georgia working in John’s Sandia research group. The porphyrin nanotubes are micrometers in length and have diameters in the range of 50-70 nm with approximately 20-nm-thick walls. They are prepared by ionic self-assembly of two oppositely charged porphyrins — molecules that are closely related to chlorophyll, the active parts of photosynthetic proteins.

Photovoltaic devices that convert photonic energy into electricity are just one of several approaches for methods to convert solar energy into more useful energy forms. Devices that could use light to catalyse the splitting of water would generate hydrogen that could be burned in fuel cells to generate electricity or burned in more conventional engines to produce mechanical energy.

Another approach might be to copy nature which uses photonic energy in chlorophyll to drive the fixing of hydrogen from water and carbon from carbon dioxide to produce hydrocarbons. Most biomass energy approaches use the ability of plants to do this. However, entirely synthetic materials could be developed that have the ability to generate hydrocarbons and those materials have the potential to generate hydrocarbons more efficiently than plants can manage.

Shelnutt thinks hydrogen-generating nanodevices could absorb and use a very large portion of the light energy spectrum. This could make them more efficient than either plants or all currently produced photovoltaic cell designs.

“Laboratory-scale devices of this type have already been built by others,” John says. “All we are doing is reducing the size of the device to reap the benefits of the nanoscale architecture.”

John says the nanodevice could efficiently use the entire visible and ultraviolet parts of the solar spectrum absorbed by the tubes to produce hydrogen, one of the “Holy Grails of chemistry.”

These nanotube devices could be suspended in a solution and used for photocatalytic solar hydrogen production.

“Once we have functional nanodevices that operate with reasonable efficiency in solution, we will turn our attention to the development of nanodevice-based solar light-harvesting cells and the systems integration issues involved in their production,” John says. “There are many possible routes to the construction of functional solar cells based on the porphyrin nanodevices. For example, we may fabricate nanodevices in arrays on transparent surfaces, perhaps on a masked free-standing film. However, we have a lot of issues to resolve before we get to that point.”

If solar energy can be harnessed to produce pure hydrogen we will still be faced with the problems of how to store and transport the hydrogen. We need both better battery technologies and better hydrogen storage materials.

What, me worry?

A dangerous strain of the flu virus that caused a worldwide pandemic in 1957 was sent to thousands of laboratories in the United States and around the world, triggering a frantic effort to destroy the samples to prevent an outbreak, health officials revealed Tuesday.

Because the virus is easily transmitted from person to person and many have no immunity to it, the discovery has raised alarm that it could cause another deadly pandemic if a laboratory worker became infected, officials said.

...

The virus, known as an H2N2 strain, killed one million to four million people worldwide in 1957 and 1958, including about 70,000 in the United States.

The world population is a lot bigger today. So the potential death toll from outbreak of the same strain could be much higher.

Meridian Biosciences distributed the virus in order to give labs a strain to use for practice testing for flu.

In this case, the kits and samples were designed for groups that assist labs with proficiency testing. Dr. Jared Schwartz, an official with the College of American Pathologists, said Meridian was told to pick an influenza sample and chose from its stockpile the deadly H2N2 strain, which it had received from a "germ library" in 2000.

The College of American Pathologists has said it sent 3,747 kits to various U.S. labs.

At the moment I'm writing this the Meridian Bioscience web site is suspended. My guess: A rarely visited web site was suddenly swamped by a huge number of visitors coming to see what Meridian has to say about their potentially deadly error.

If an outbreak does not happen as a result of this error we might benefit in the long run from the publicity surrounding the error. There is an obvious question that ought to be asked at this point: Which other companies, academic, and government labs already have the 1957 strain or other past killer influenza strains? If you would have asked me before this story broke to guess at how many organizations had the 1957 H2N2 strain I would have guessed a few government labs and maybe a couple of academic labs. Now I'm guessing at least hundreds of labs already had it even before Meridian's latest distribution. The same applies to other past killer strains.

Meridian and the World Health Organization think the risk of outbreak is low.

"While a few H2N2 laboratory acquired infections have been documented in the past, the likelihood of laboratory-acquired influenza infection is considered low when proper biosafety precautions are followed," Meridian said in a statement. "The risk for the general population is also considered low." The WHO also has said the risk of an outbreak is slight.

Klaus Stohr of the World Health Organization says that the CDC doesn't classify this pathogen as so dangerous that its distribution should be restricted.

Stohr said the company which sent out the virus samples - Meridian Bioscience Inc. of Newtown, Ohio - abided by current U.S. regulations.

"At the moment, H2N2 is classified as a BSL2, or biosafety level 2, pathogen," he said. "They are allowed to (send it out as part of a test kit).

"They sent it properly packaged, they informed the recipient, they only became aware after the whole matter was better understood that (the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention) is working on a change in the biosafety level for H2N2."

This error was not discovered quickly or reacted to quickly.

The virus samples were distributed by the CAP in October 2004, but the problem was discovered only by a Canadian laboratory only last month.

So the virus was sitting in labs for 5 months, was discovered last month by a Canadian lab (good for them!), and only now is the word going out to destroy the samples. One can argue that labs which get these sorts of samples follow all sorts of safety procedures. But don't you think those lab workers would be more diligent (if not to say scared) if they were made aware that they were receiving a influenza virus that has more lethality than the average strain?

Coincidentally, a great vaccine developer and the man who led the development of the original vaccine for the 1957 Hong Kong flu strain has just died.

Maurice Ralph Hilleman, 85, whose vaccines probably saved more lives than any scientist in the past century, and whose research helps the medical establishment predict and prepare for upcoming flu seasons, died April 11 of cancer at Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia.

Dr. Hilleman created eight of the 14 most commonly used vaccines, including those for mumps, measles, chicken pox, pneumonia, meningitis, rubella and many other infectious diseases. He developed more than three dozen vaccines, more than any other scientist. His measles vaccine alone is estimated to prevent 1 million deaths worldwide every year.

This article on Hilleman makes him sound like an unusually independent, creative, and driven mind:

He discovered Darwin in eighth grade and was caught reading "The Origin of the Species" in church.

He reminds me of similar unknown, Norman Borlaug, whose work developing crop strains has saved more people from hunger than any other person in history.

Parents are less eager to safeguard their less attractive offspring.

A researcher at the University of Alberta has shown that parents are more likely to give better care and pay closer attention to good-looking children compared to unattractive ones. Dr. Andrew Harrell presented his findings recently at the Warren E. Kalbach Population Conference in Edmonton, Alberta.

Harrell's findings are based on an observational study of children and shopping cart safety. With the approval of management at 14 different supermarkets, Harrell's team of researchers observed parents and their two to five-year-old children for 10 minutes each, noting if the child was buckled into the grocery-cart seat, and how often the child wandered more than 10 feet away. The researchers independently graded each child on a scale of one to 10 on attractiveness.

Findings showed that 1.2 per cent of the least attractive children were buckled in, compared with 13.3 per cent of the most attractive youngsters. The observers also noticed the less attractive children were allowed to wander further away and more often from their parents. In total, there were 426 observations at the 14 supermarkets.

Harrell, who has been researching shopping cart safety since 1990 and has published a total of 13 articles on the topic, figures his latest results are based on a parent's instinctive Darwinian response: we're unconsciously more likely to lavish attention on attractive children simply because they're our best genetic material.

"Attractiveness as a predictor of behaviour, especially parenting behaviour, has been around a long time," said Harrell, a father of five and a grandfather of three. "Most parents will react to these results with shock and dismay. They'll say, 'I love all my kids, and I don't discriminate on the basis of attractiveness.' The whole point of our research is that people do."

Another possible interpretation is that the parents of less attractive children have genetic sequences that make them more lackadaisical toward thier children or less concerned about risks or perhaps more worried about other things (e.g. having enough money to buy the food). Perhaps the parents who have less attractive children are less intelligent on average. One could adjust for this by watching parents who have multiple children of different levels of attractiveness. Also, one could measure parental attractiveness and look for symbols of parental economic status (e.g. the economic value and type of the car the parents get into when they leave the supermarket). Still, I think the researchers are right that parents react more favorably toward more attractive children.

I'd like to see a study of this sort take pictures of parents and children and then measure their symmetry. Symmetry is one quality that enhances perceived attractiveness. More symmetrical parents are probably more likely to have more symmetrical children because the parents have genetic sequences that code for better embryonic development. My guess is that more symmetric parents will, on average, be more inclined to safeguard their children.

This is all an argument for genetic engineering by the way. How? If children are all genetically engineered to be beautiful then parents would be more likely to protect and less likely to abuse their children. Therefore in the future when genetic engineering is routinely used to improve physical appearances we can expect child injuries from accidents and abuse to become less frequent. Anyone like Leon Kass who opposes germ line genetic engineering is effectively opposing measures that will reduce child accidents and child abuse.

Science writer Joe Kaplinsky argues that the same environmentalists who most fear global warming caused by carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels are going to oppose nuclear power as a solution because they see the same human character flaw of hubris as motivating the use of both fossil fuels and nuclear power.

The idea that nuclear power has a role to play in reducing greenhouse emissions makes sense only if we disregard the mythic dimension of the global warming discourse. Science has established that rising concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to lead to warmer temperatures. The 'myth of global warming', however, goes beyond those facts, interpreting them through a story of man's arrogant attempts at mastery leading to a revenge of nature. There is no place for nuclear power as a hero in this myth. Rather, nuclear power is the original villain - the hi-tech, scientific, large-scale solution to economic development. Seen in this light it is apparent that while a higher profile for global warming might give nuclear power a boost, in the end it will hold nuclear energy back. A substantial revival of nuclear power could only occur if the case was made for science and technology contributing to social progress. Without that case being made nuclear technologies will remain hedged in with restrictions, and society will be unable to realise their potential.

How dare we mere humans, faced with the mightiness of nature, think we can harness nature's forces and use them wisely. But I see a contradiction in this paganistic attitude: Why would infinitely wise nature give humans the innate ability to develop technologies that could cause such damage to Gaia? Or do the environmentalists fear that if we step too far up the ladder of high technology then mother nature will strike out and destroy us for our impudence?

I see a shift of public opinion back in favor of nuclear power as more likely to occur in the United States than in Britain. Why? Americans are less afraid of technology. For example, genetic engineering of foodstuffs attracts little political opposition in the United States while it is strongly opposed by environmentalists in Britain.

Why the difference? I see the lesser fear of technology in America as due in part to the wider spead belief in Christianity in America as compared to Britain. In the Chrisitian view humans stand above nature while God stands above humans. Humans then have a God given right to control and master nature. Take away that Christian world view and some (though not all) Westerners revert to a paganistic view of nature as being imbued with supernatural qualities. To master or redesign some part of nature becomes sacrilegious to a pagan who sees life forms in nature as more authentic and legitimate than devices which are the product of human minds.

Looked at this way the French, with their continued enthusiasm for nuclear power, might be more authentically unreligious (in the sense that they didn't just shift from Christianity to paganism) than the Germans who are shutting down all their nuclear power plants.

Does this explanation really work? Lots of influences come together to cause changes in public opinion. So at best the decline of Christianity and the lingering echoes of pagan cultures explain only part of the differences in views toward nuclear power or genetically modified foods. But the opposition to genetic engineering of crops seems especially difficult to justify on any scientific grounds. So explanations for the opposition must be sought in culture, religion, and other influences.

Whole Earth catalog founder and environmentalist Stewart Brand expects environmentalists to shift back in favor of nuclear power and change their tune on other issues as well.

Over the next ten years, I predict, the mainstream of the environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in four major areas: population growth, urbani­zation, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power.

...

Along with rethinking cities, environmentalists will need to rethink biotechnology. One area of biotech with huge promise and some drawbacks is genetic engineering, so far violently rejected by the environmental movement. That rejection is, I think, a mistake. Why was water fluoridization rejected by the political right and “frankenfood” by the political left? The answer, I suspect, is that fluoridization came from government and genetically modified (GM) crops from corporations. If the origins had been reversed—as they could have been—the positions would be reversed, too.

I have one quibble with Brand: In America the mainstream environmental movement abandoned opposition to population growth decades ago. Why? Immigration and concerns about racism. Opposition to population growth was seen as opposition to reproduction and migration by non-white people. White fertility was falling more than that of other races and ethnicities (leaving aside Japan) back in the 70s and 80s and so to continue to push for birth control efffectively became a push for birth control by people who are not white. For similar reasons the environmentalist movement in the US dropped its opposition to large scale immigration. So while environmentalists were upset by California reaching 20 million population (and I agreed with them fwiw) they make nary a peep about the nearly 40 million now in California and the projections of 50 plus million for California's future population. This issue has come back to life as Richard Lamm and allies have tried to gain control of the Sierra Club and return it to its previous opposition to immigration. The Sierra Club's members are even voting again on this issue in April 2005. But population growth is not a big issue for most American environmental organizations.

Genetic engineering of plants for food crops strikes me as a very pro-environment development. Why? Plants can be improved to produce more food in less land area, thereby freeing up lots of land to return to nature. Advances in agricultural technologies have already caused this to happen in the United States where there are far more trees now than there were 100 years ago. Though in the future population growth will continue to spur the development of previously natural areas and may increasingly offset the gains from higher agricultural productivty per acre. Also, if the enthusiasm for biofuels is translated into wider spread use of land to grow crops for energy this could more than wipe out any gains in land made available for nature that come from higher agricultural productivity.

I predict that when genetic engineering produces treatments that rejuvenate our bodies then opponents of genetic engineering of food will find themselves in a small minority even in Britain and Europe. The public will see genetic engineering as capable of delivering wonderful benefits and will tend to give most other applications of the technology the benefit of the doubt.

Brand thinks the alternatives to nuclear power all add up to not enough.

So everything must be done to increase energy efficiency and decarbonize energy production. Kyoto accords, radical conservation in energy transmission and use, wind energy, solar energy, passive solar, hydroelectric energy, biomass, the whole gamut. But add them all up and it’s still only a fraction of enough. Massive carbon “sequestration” (extraction) from the atmosphere, perhaps via biotech, is a widely held hope, but it’s just a hope. The only technology ready to fill the gap and stop the carbon dioxide loading of the atmosphere is nuclear power.

Whether these alternatives add up to a sufficient set of solutions to various projections for carbon dioxide emissions depends on whether you think the effects of CO2 emissions create a problem that really needs to be solved and how urgently you think it needs to be solved. Even if you think CO2 will cause large changes in climate (and I remain unconvinced) and even if you think humans can not adapt to those changes without a big net loss in our collective well being (and again I'm unconvinced and suspect a warmer world might even be a net plus) the feeling of urgency in some quarters to start implementing ways to do CO2 emissions reduction today seems like a wrong response. The longer we wait the larger the array of lower cost technologies we will have to prevent or reverse global warming.

Most temperature projections from those unproven climate models show the bulk of the warming will occur in the second half of the 21st century. Why not spend the next 20 to 30 years funding many research and development efforts to produce new technologies for creating and harnessing and reducing emissions from various sources of energy? Yes, these technologies are all "just a hope". But so is funding of research for the development of cancer cures. Does anyone really believe that cures for cancer will not eventually come or that ways to make cheap photovoltaics or better batteries will not be found? To argue that we must use nuclear power is to argue that the brighter scientific and engineering minds will fail to develop other alternatives.

Mind you, I say all this as a person who likes nuclear power. I think we should develop pebble bed reactors and continue to do research on fusion energy. I would even go so far as to say that it be imprudent not to build more nuclear reactors and not to develop more advanced nuclear power technologies. Why? First of all, wind and solar power are not reliable sources of energy under some natural catastrophe scenarios. For example, at 600,000 to 700,000 year intervals massive volcanic eruptions have been occurring at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Such an eruption would release so much sunlight-blocking ash and gasses into the atmosphere that photovoltaics would be rendered useless in much or all of the world. The reduced light levels might last for a period of years. In comparison, nuclear power is an uninterruptible power source. Yes, reactors have to shut down periodically. But with thousands of reactors we'd always have thousands running even though hundreds would be shut down down for maintenance at any given moment.

While some people are shifting toward support of nuclear power due to concerns over global warming I see other environmental reasons for nukes. First off, unlike coal, nuclear power does not emit mercury, other toxic metals , oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, assorted organic compounds, or particulates. The uranium emissions from burning coal are causing far more health damage than radiation from nuclear plants. Also, nuclear power does not require strip mining operations. Plus, nuclear power avoids the need to cover the landscape with windmills or to convert land to crops for biomass energy production. On the downside nuclear power is still not "too cheap to meter". Plus, political opposition has prevented the development of good ways to store the waste. But those problems are probably solvable should public sentiment shift in favor of nuclear power.

Staphylococcus aureus or staph is a bacteria that occasionally causes deadly infections. Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus or MRSA is a strain (or probably a group of strains) of staph that are resistant to many antibiotics. For a long time MRSA and other resistant strains were rarely found outside of hospital settings. Now a new article published by CDC researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that drug resistant staph is increasingly being found in people who have no obvious connection to hospitals or other risk factors.

Overall, they found 17 percent of drug-resistant staph infections were caught in the community and did not have any apparent links to health-care settings.

"Close to one-fifth of what used to be a hospital-specific problem is now a community problem. And that's a large number," said the CDC's Dr. Scott K. Fridkin. "We didn't think it would be anywhere near that high when we started the study."

The drug resistant strains have become more robust.

The CDC researchers checked up to two years of lab reports for drug-resistant staph. More than 80 percent of the 12,553 cases were excluded because the patients had been hospitalized, had a history of surgery or dialysis or had another risk factor.

About 17 percent overall, or 2,107 cases, were determined to be community-acquired staph. The rate was 20 percent in Atlanta, 12 percent in Minnesota and 8 percent in Baltimore.

"When they got out in the community, it was felt these strains weren't strong enough to make it on their own. That no longer appears to be the case," said Dr. Henry F. Chambers of the University of California at San Francisco, who wrote an accompanying editorial.

Those cases are from a small number of cities for 2001 and 2002. The national figure is much higher. MRSA causes 130,000 people to be hospitalized per year.

Previously, MRSA was seen only in the hospital in patients with underlying diseases or compromised immune systems. Now the organism appears to be common among people everywhere, including those in communal settings such as the military, prisons, daycare facilities, and on athletic teams. The CDC estimates that roughly 130,000 people are hospitalized with MRSA each year.

This state of affairs is the result of decades of overuse of antibiotics. Natural selection has produced mutations to allow bacteria to resist many different antibiotics. Bacterial infections are starting to get scary again. Worse yet, the MRSA strains of staph could be stopped with Vancomycin. But Vancomycin resistant staph (VRSA) is believed to be spreading rapidly.

For years, the best treatment for MRSA was the powerful antibiotic vancomycin. But even this weapon has failed against new strains of staph that have emerged. Some infectious-disease experts predict that by 2010, 40% of staph infections will be vancomycin-resistant. And for the moment, there are few alternatives. Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CBST ) in Lexington, Mass., won approval in September for a new type of antibiotic, Cubicin, that works as well as vancomycin against staph. But experts figure it’s only a matter of time before the bug learns to evade Cubicin, too.

Worse yet, previously the "flesh eating" (really flesh killing) disease necrotizing fasciitis was caused mainly by strep. But now staph is developing the ability to spread rapidly in skin even as it develops the ability to resist a larger set of antibiotics.

In a separate article in the journal, researchers reported that they had linked drug-resistant staph infections to a rare, often-deadly disease known as necrotizing fasciitis, or more commonly, "flesh eating" syndrome.

"Necrotizing fasciitis is a terrible disease, but before now, Staph aureus was never the cause," said Dr. Robert Daum, a pediatrics professor at the University of Chicago and one of the first physicians to notice wider circulation of drug-resistant staph.

Surgeons cut large chunks of skin off of people suffering from drug-resistant necrotizing fasciitis. Even amputations of extremities are necessary in some cases. Sometimes the people survive badly scarred. Other times they die anyway.

In the United States tens of thousands of people die per year from infections that they picked up while hospitalized.

For example, with a hospital infection rate of 5%, of which 10% are bloodstream infections, and an attributable mortality rate of 15%, 26,250 deaths can be directly linked to nosocomial bloodstream infections. However, if a 20% attributable mortality rate is assumed, the number of deaths is from 17,500 (with a 2.5% nosocomial infection rate) to 70,000 (with a 10% total nosocomial infection rate).

Drug-resistant bacteria might be killing more people per year than are killed by car accidents. If that is not the case now it might be the case 5 years from now - barring either big advances in techniques to avoid infection or the development of better antibiotics to use on infected patients.

Meanwhile the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is using trailing edge benchmarks to test the efficacy of new antibiotics.

Another obstacle to drug development is the increased regulatory requirements for antibiotics. In the early 1990s, the FDA introduced guidelines that resulted in new and costly demands for the development of antibiotics.7 In an era when hospital- and community-acquired infections are increasingly drug resistant, the efficacy of new drugs are benchmarked against susceptible strains, such as methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus.

An FDA advisory board has stated that novel antibacterial agents, to be considered for approval, should demonstrate frank superiority to existing antibiotics.6 However, innovative products that fight drug-resistant strains are unlikely to be better than existing drugs that can effectively treat susceptible strains. New antimicrobials would be more likely to make it to market if the FDA introduced new references, such as drug-resistant strains of bacteria, and used new pathogenic targets to evaluate efficacy, such as the inhibition of toxins or prevention of biofilms.

Why should the FDA measure efficacy of new antibiotics against strains that are not antibiotic-resistant? Isn't the biggest need for new antibiotic drugs due to the development of resistant strains of bacteria?

Also, why should the FDA require that new antibiotics be better than existing antibiotics? What is wrong with allowing new competitors that are no better than existing choices? Keep in mind that some people are allergic to or otherwise react adversely to multiple antibiotics. They need more choices.

Think help is on the way in the form of new antibiotics? Don't count on it. Many drug companies have decreased or ended their efforts to develop new antibiotics.

Part of our problem is due to the overuse of antibiotics for humans and also in agriculture. Antibiotics derived from natural sources such as the penicillin family found in a mold have been used so much that resistant strains are now quite common. It is harder to develop an antibiotic totally from scratch. But another obstacle is the FDA. This problem is unlikely to be fixed until the yearly body counts from bacterial infections in the United States get much larger. The public fears dangerous drugs and generally wants more regulation, not less.

By contrast, Tyler Cowen points to a recent post by Bryan Caplan (and these four guys I'm mentioning are all economists) who reports on work by Dan Klein and Alex Tabarrok on how economists see the FDA.

What happens, however, if we listen to economists who specialize in the FDA, rather than random economists at the AEA? Klein reports that opposition becomes very one-sided indeed:

Alexander Tabarrok and I review much of the literature in our website “Is the FDA Safe and Effective?” (FDAReview.org). We include a compendium of 22 quotations by economists calling for significant liberalization of FDA control, and we explain that we have been unable to find quotations favorable to current levels of control by economists who work on the FDA. I believe economics reaches a clear conclusion in favor of significant liberalization of FDA control of pharmaceuticals. Thus, given the range of response options provided by the question, the first two options [strongly support/mildly support] are simply wrongheaded.

Bottom line: The public thinks the FDA is great. Regular economists think it's pretty good. And economists who specialize in the FDA think it's pretty bad. I think I see a familiar pattern.

To address the problem of drug resistant antibiotics We need:

• a better regulatory environment to allow more antibiotics to make it to market.
• more basic research on bacteria.
• less use of antibiotics in cases where only viruses are involved.
• better practices in hospitals to reduce the spread of pathogens to patients.

Stay well rested, well nourished, healthy, and away from hospitals. Wash your hands and body after exposure to others - especially after contact sports. Also, don't go visiting someone in the hospital if you have even so much as a cold.

Jay C. Buckey, associate professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and a former Shuttle payload specialist, argues that advances in high temperature superconductors may allow creation of a protective magnetic field around a Mars mission spacecraft.

Just as a magnetic field protects Earth, it might be possible to put a magnetic field around a spacecraft. A coil of a superconducting material could produce a substantial magnetic field, which could, in turn, deflect the energetic galactic cosmic radiation. For a small-coil radius, the magnetic field would have to be quite strong (several Tesla) to be effective. A field of this size presents major structural and safety issues. The larger the coil, however, the weaker the magnetic field needs to be. A wire wrapped on a spool could be unwound in space into a large coil. As the radius of the coil approaches a kilometer or so, the field strength and current that is needed will drop to reasonable levels. This approach to shielding, called active shielding, potentially could keep radiation levels within the spacecraft at any desired level.

One of the big unsolved problems for a Mars mission is how to protect the astronauts from cosmic radiation while they are travelling between Earth and Mars and while on the surface of Mars. A physical shield around crew living quarters would require too much mass. Maybe an artificial magnetic field could solve the problem.

Buckey notes that the bone loss from zero gravity might be solved in time for a Mars mission by on-going biomedical research aimed at developing treatments for osteoporosis and other bone diseases. This fits a larger pattern: Most of the problems that make a Mars trip highly problematic will eventually be solved because of research and development advances that will come from industrial and academic labs motivated by profit and by the desire to solve problems we face down here on Earth.

A push for a Mars mission is unlikely to lead to funding of large numbers of areas of research well enough to appreciably accelerate the various fields of science and engineering that will produce those solutions. Why? The number of people wanting those advances for space exploration is far smaller than the numbers who want those advances for purposes on Earth. We will get better superconductors because the electric power industry and other industries on Earth see those superconductors as a way to lower costs by huge amounts. We will get better ways to control bone cells because of the desire for better ways to treat osteoporosis and bone injuries. We will eventually get better nuclear reactors and even fusion reactors which would be of considerable value for a Mars colony. But those reactors will come as a result of the widely recognized need for better replacements of costly fossil fuels down here on Earth.

Another big area of research is robotics. In two or three decades robotics should reach a point where robots could be sent ahead of a human mission to operate mining operations and construct habitats for humans on Mars. Will NASA and other space agencies get budgets large enough to appreciably accelerate the rate of advance of robotics? I'm guessing the answer is No.

I'm not arguing against funding specifically aimed at developing technologies in order to use them in space. In fact, if a larger fraction of NASA's budget was allocated to new technology development and less of NASA's budget was allocated to operating existing technologies ("existing technologies" examples include the expensive Space Shuttle and International Space Station) we'd be better off because technological advance would be accelerated. But a big push to put people on Mars in 20 years would mostly go to engineering development and manufacturing aimed at using existing proven lower risk technologies. Look at the International Space Station for an example of what big budget space hardware projects produce: Little new technology and lots of work for aerospace contractors.

My lack of enthusiasm for space exploration is in large part due to my perception that there are far better ways to spend money to accelerate the rate of scientific and technological advance than to do a new Moon mission or a Mars mission. Want advances in robotics? Fund robotics research. Want advances in energy? Fund energy research. Want advances in medicine that are useful for space trips? Fund osteoporosis research, stem cell research, tissue engineering, gene therapy, genome mapping, microfluidics, and many other areas of biomedical research.

Humans will go into space in larger numbers and travel greater distances once technologies developed for Earth-bound purposes mature to the point where future technologies provide solutions which lower the cost and increase the safety of space exploration by orders of magnitude. Changes in government policies that accelerate the general rate of advance of science and technology on Earth will do far more in the long run to bring about a new age of space exploration than would a push to start development of spacecraft and other equipment needed for a Mars mission.

Some day decades from now environmental extremists groups might try to sabotage a rocket launch carrying equipment to Mars for a massive climate engineering project. Artificially created octafluoropropane could trigger a melting of the Mars polar ice caps and make Mars much more capable of supporting life.

WASHINGTON—Injecting synthetic "super" greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere could raise the planet's temperature enough to melt its polar ice caps and create conditions suitable for sustaining biological life. In fact, a team of researchers suggests that introducing global warming on the Red Planet may be the best approach for warming the planet's frozen landscape and turning it into a habitable world in the future.

Margarita Marinova, then at the NASA Ames Research Center, and colleagues propose that the same types of atmospheric interactions that have led to recent surface temperature warming trends on Earth could be harnessed on Mars to create another biologically hospitable environment in the solar system. In the February issue of Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets, published by the American Geophysical Union, the researchers report on the thermal energy absorption and the potential surface temperature effects from introducing man-made greenhouse gases strong enough to melt the carbon dioxide and ice on Mars.

"Bringing life to Mars and studying its growth would contribute to our understanding of evolution, and the ability of life to adapt and proliferate on other worlds," Marinova said. "Since warming Mars effectively reverts it to its past, more habitable state, this would give any possibly dormant life on Mars the chance to be revived and develop further."

The authors note that artificially created gases—which would be nearly 10,000 times more effective than carbon dioxide—could be manufactured to have minimal detrimental effects on living organisms and the ozone layer while retaining an exceptionally long lifespan in the environment. They then created a computer model of the Martian atmosphere and analyzed four such gases, individually and in combination, that are considered the best candidates for the job.

Carbon and flourine would need to be concentrated from the Mars surface materials.

Their study focused on fluorine-based gases, composed of elements readily available on the Martian surface, that are known to be effective at absorbing thermal infrared energy. They found that a compound known as octafluoropropane, whose chemical formula is C3F8, produced the greatest warming, while its combination with several similar gases enhanced the warming even further.

My guess is that this would still be very difficult to do because a nuclear reactor would probably be needed to provide the energy for a chemical plant to fix the flourine to carbon. Also, a permanent human Mars colony or robots would be needed to carry out the needed work. The construction of a human colony would require much more material to be shipped to create livable conditions for humans far enough under the surface to provide protection from radiation.

The researchers anticipate that adding approximately 300 parts per million of the gas mixture in the current Martian atmosphere, which is the equivalent of nearly two parts per million in an Earth-like atmosphere, would spark a runaway greenhouse effect, creating an instability in the polar ice sheets that would slowly evaporate the frozen carbon dioxide on the planet's surface. They add that the release of increasing amounts of carbon dioxide would lead to further melting and global temperature increases that could then enhance atmospheric pressure and eventually restore a thicker atmosphere to the planet.

Such a process could take centuries or even millennia to complete but, because the raw materials for the fluorine gases already exist on Mars, it is possible that astronauts could create them on a manned mission to the planet. It would otherwise be impossible to deliver gigaton-sized quantities of the gas to Mars. The authors conclude that introducing powerful greenhouse gases is the most feasible technique for raising the temperature and increasing the atmospheric pressure on Mars, particularly when compared to other alternatives like sprinkling sunlight-absorbing dust on the poles or placing large mirrors in the planet's orbit.

How many gigatons would be needed? How much energy would it take to manufacture those gasses? How much energy would be required simply to gather and refine the raw materials?

Advances in robotics will eventually make climate engineering of Mars much easier to carry out. Fusion reactors (still a distant prospect) would probably weigh less than fission reactors and therefore would be easier to transport to Mars. This whole job will become much easier to carry out as a variety of new technologes are developed in the future for Earth-bound purposes.

I do not see Mars colonization as a cost-effective way to ensure the survival of the human race in the short to medium term. Mars is too costly to reach and too hostile to human life forms and to the life forms that humans use for food, medicine, and other purposes. At best only a handful of people could be transported to Mars to form a colony there.

If the goal is to ensure the human race's survival then the money spent on creating a Mars colony would be better spent on a number of other purposes. A great asteroid defense system could be built for a small fraction of the cost of setting up a Mars colony. Such a system would eliminate the biggest natural threat to continuation of the human species.

A massive volcanic eruption is another potential danger that could lead to billions of human deaths. Well, most humans wouldn't die from the initial eruption blast. The problem is that the sun would be blotted out (thereby rendering solar photovoltaic power useless). What we need is an uninterruptible power source. Today the only such power source we have is fission energy but cost and safety concerns have limited its use. Therefore if ensuring the continuation of the human race is the goal money allocated to accelerate fission and fusion energy research would be better spent than money allocated to a Mars mission.

Then we come to the human-generated threats to our continued existence. Most and perhaps all of those threats would probably pose a threat to a Mars colony as well.

First off, some humans may either intentionally or accidentally develop aggressive artificially intelligent robots. Well, Mars is not a place to go to escape from them. If robots some day become smart enough take over the Earth they will be able to build rockets and travel to Mars where they will be able to easily overrun any human Mars colony.

The nanotech goo idea is a human doom scenario where nanotech replicators start dividing uncontrollably and overrun the earth. The nanotech goo probably eventually lead to the overrun of a human Mars colony as well. The nanotech replicators would probably develop artificial intelligence because some of them would be programmed to construct complex systems. If the nanotech replicators become self-aware and highly organized they too would eventually mount a mission to Mars and wipe out humans on Mars.

About the only scenario where I see that a Mars colony might prevent the extinction of the entire human race is the case where a bioengineered plague would be unleashed in the human population. But my guess is we'd be better off spending money on biodefenses than on a Mars colony. Certainly that is true for the vast bulk of humanity that would still be here on Earth after a Mars colony is established.

There is a more fundamental reason why I oppose human species continuation as a justification for the creation of a Mars colony: I don't want to die either here on Earth or on Mars. Nor do I want to have the vast bulk of the people I know die while I (improbably) survive a while longer in a puny Mars colony. We ought to set our sights higher and aim at ensuring the continued life of the vast bulk of the human race, not just some small remote outpost living a tenuous existence in an extremely hostile environment. Efforts to set up a Mars colony seem to me misdirected as long as we do not have an asteroid defense system, fusion enengy, and last but not least, technologies for rejuvenation.

A German team has found that congenital prosopagnosia (CP), a conditon where a person has a hard time recognizing faces, is genetically inherited. Thomas Grüter, himself a CP sufferer, and his team at the Institute for Human Genetics in Münster, Germany traced CP in 7 families and found evidence that CP is inherited through a single genetic defect.

The team recruited members of a prosopagnosia support group and their families into the study, plus Grüter's own relatives. Using a questionnaire to identify prosopagnosia symptoms, the team found 38 prosopagnosics in seven families. By plotting the condition on family trees, the team showed that the inheritance pattern is consistent with the trait being carried by a single gene: just one defective copy of the gene could make the carrier face-blind.

Other people suffer from prosopagnosia due to trauma to the brain that caused brain damage. But for those who have prosopagnosia from birth the open question has been whether the condition is the result of trauma or toxin exposure during early development or inheritance.

The fact that this disorder can be caused by genetic defect demonstrates that at least for one important cognitive ability the brain's structure that supports that ability is coded for genetically. This result then is another piece of evidence against a blank slate view of the brain.

Another team has found that in people with the CP condition a part of their brain known to be involved in facial recognition is smaller.

PITTSBURGH--Recognizing faces is effortless for most people, and it's an ability that provides great evolutionary and social advantages. But this ability is impaired in people who have suffered brain damage or in those with a rare congenital condition, and research by Carnegie Mellon University psychologists reveals startling insights into how the brains of those individuals operate. Psychology Professor Marlene Behrmann and postdoctoral associate Galia Avidan have found that people with congenital prosopagnosia--in which their ability to recognize faces is impaired from birth--are not just deficient at recognizing individuals they know, but they are also poor at simply discriminating between two faces when presented side by side. The researchers also have discovered through functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans that, contrary to their expectations, the regions of the brain that are activated when normal individuals perceive and recognize faces also are activated in individuals with congenital prosopagnosia (CP). Behrmann and Avidan will summarize the results of their findings in the April issue of the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

...

Behrmann and Galia said that much remains to be learned from the individuals in their research. They have begun to examine the anatomical details of the brains of their participants, and preliminary findings show that some brain structures are smaller in the region known to control face recognition.

Did Michelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci have a larger region of their brains for facial recognition? Did they from birth have more neurons dedicated to understanding facial structures? Or were their mental gifts due to more general enhancements of cognitive abilities?

The gene for the protein PCSK9 is a promising new target for the development of a new class of cholesterol lowering drugs.

DALLAS – March 29, 2005 – Mice lacking a key protein involved in cholesterol regulation have low-density lipoprotein, or "bad" cholesterol, levels more than 50 percent lower than normal mice, and researchers suggest that inhibiting the same protein in humans could lead to new cholesterol-lowering drugs.

In a study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and available online this week, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center deleted the Pcsk9 gene in mice. The gene, present in both mice and humans, makes the PCSK9 protein, which normally gets rid of receptors that latch onto LDL cholesterol in the liver. Without this degrading protein, the mice had more LDL receptors and were thus able to take up more LDL cholesterol from their blood.

"The expression of LDL receptors is the primary mechanism by which humans lower LDL cholesterol in the blood," said Dr. Jay Horton, associate professor of internal medicine and molecular genetics and senior author of the study. "This research shows that in mice, deleting the PCSK9 protein results in an increase in LDL receptors and a significant lowering of LDL cholesterol."

The results of this study illustrate how new drug development begins. When a protein is found to play a key role in regulating some part of metabolism that can contribute to disease development or disease prevention then suddenly the pharmaceutical companies have a new target for for drug development. Pharmaceutical firms may well react to this report by screening tens of thousands of chemical compounds to look for compounds that bind to the protein PCSK9. Or (and more expensively), the pharma companies could grow cells that express PCSK9 in culture and then introduce compounds to see if the compounds increase or decrease the amount of PCSK9 found in those cells.

Another important thing to note about this study: The investigation relied on the ability to produce a mouse strain which has the PCSK9 gene deleted or disabled. The techniques used to knock out genes and produce special strains of mice are incredibly valuable and have sped up the process of identifying what functional purposes are served by the tens of thousands of genes shared by humans and mice.

It is not hard to imagine other ways that genes could be modified in mice to study gene function. For example, every gene has a promoter region which controls when a gene is expressed. Special promoter sequences can be placed in front of each gene to change when it will be turned on. One can place a special promoter on a gene that will turn it on only in the presence of a particular drug. Or multiple copies of a gene could be inserted to increase the level of expression of the gene.

In the future the process of producing gene knock-out mice will become more automated. Also, implantable miniature blood sensors will allow automated and cheap checking of blood hormones, gasses, proteins, and other compounds. Work like the research done PCSK9 gene knock-out study will some day be done in a much more automated way that will allow many effects of many genes to be checked in parallel.

Humans have been identified who have low levels of PCSK9 gene and low LDL cholesterol.

On average, mice lacking the Pcsk9 gene, called knockout mice, had blood LDL cholesterol levels of 46 milligrams per deciliter, while wild-type mice had levels around 96 mg/dl, a difference of 52 percent.

Dr. Horton's research is consistent with findings from another recent UT Southwestern study showing that humans with mutations in their PCSK9 gene, which prevented them from making normal levels of PCSK9 protein, had LDL cholesterol levels 40 percent lower than individuals without the mutation. That study, based on data gathered from nearly 6,000 participants in the Dallas Heart Study, was published in February in Nature Genetics. The research was led by Dr. Helen Hobbs, director of the Dallas Heart Study and of the Eugene McDermott Center for Growth and Development, and Dr. Jonathan Cohen, associate professor of internal medicine.

"The lower cholesterol levels of humans with mutations in PCSK9, combined with the results of our studies in mice, suggest that variations in the levels of the PCSK9 protein significantly affect blood cholesterol levels, and compounds that inhibit this protein may be useful for the treatment of high cholesterol," Dr. Horton said.

The latter study on humans illustrates another way that proteins and genes will be identified for drug development: Genetically compare humans who have a condition or a disease with humans who do not have that condition or disease. See if there are any consistent genetic difference between the groups. Advances that lower the cost of DNA sequencing and other genotyping technologies (e.g. single nucleotide polymorphism testing using gene chips) will eventually lower the cost of doing human genetic comparison studies by orders of magnitude. This too will accelerate the identification of targets for drug development.

Advances that accelerate the rate of identification of functions of genes will produce larger numbers of targets for drug development. Further into the future the identification of the purposes of various genes will provide targets for the development of gene therapies as well. Why take a drug for decades to keep your cholesterol low when you will be able to get a gene therapy that will modify your PCSK9 gene to lower your LDL cholesterol to a range optimal for long term vascular health?

A new highly efficient fuel cell design converts liquid hydrocarbon fuel into hydrogen and then burns it.

"A hydrogen economy is not a perfectly clean system," said Scott A. Barnett, professor of materials science and engineering. "You have to process fossil fuels at a plant to produce hydrogen fuel as well as develop an infrastructure to get that fuel into vehicles. We have bypassed these technological hurdles by basically bringing the hydrogen plant inside and pairing it with a high-temperature fuel cell in one compact unit that has a fuel efficiency of up to 50 percent."

In a paper to be published online today (March 31) by the journal Science, Barnett and graduate student Zhongliang Zhan report the development of a new solid oxide fuel cell, or SOFC, that converts a liquid transportation fuel -- iso-octane, a high-purity compound similar to gasoline -- into hydrogen which is then used by the fuel cell to produce energy. The cells could lead to cost-effective, clean and efficient electrical-power sources for applications ranging from aircraft and homes to cars and trucks.

Although only demonstrated on a small scale, Barnett and Zhan's fuel cells are projected to have a 50 percent fuel efficiency when used in a full-sized fuel cell generator, which would improve on other technologies. Higher fuel efficiencies mean less precious fuel is consumed and less carbon dioxide, a greenhouse-effect gas related to global warming, is produced. Internal combustion engines have a "well-to-wheels" efficiency of a mere 10 to 15 percent. Current hydrogen fuel cells that require hydrogen plants and new infrastructure have been calculated to have a 29 percent fuel efficiency while commercial gas/electric hybrid vehicles already have achieved 32 percent.

"The advent of hybrid vehicles has shaken up the fuel cell community and made researchers rethink hydrogen as a fuel," said Barnett, who drives a Toyota Prius and foresees his new fuel cells being developed for use in battery/SOFC hybrid technology for vehicle propulsion or in auxiliary power units. "We need to look at the solid oxide fuel cell -- the one kind of fuel cell that can work with other fuels beside hydrogen -- as an option."

They use the heat from the fuel cell's operation to catalyze the breaking of the carbon-hydrogen bonds in the liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Smart approach.

Because conventional solid oxide fuel cells operate at such high temperatures (between 600 and 800 degrees Centigrade) Barnett recognized that the heat could be used internally for the chemical process of reforming hydrogen, eliminating the need for hydrogen plants with their relatively low fuel efficiency. Barnett and Zhan found the optimal temperature for their system to be 600 to 800 degrees.

The real key to the new fuel cell is a special thin-film catalyst layer through which the hydrocarbon fuel flows toward the anode. That porous layer, which contains stabilized zirconia and small amounts of the metals ruthenium and cerium, chemically and cleanly converts the fuel to hydrogen.

This approach avoids the need solve all the difficult technical problems that stand in the way use of hydrogen as a form of energy. Even if all the hydrogen distribution and storage problems are solved there would still be the need to build the infrastructure to transport and store hydrogen. This approach avoids the need for massive capital investments to deliver hydrogen to cars.

Also, the use of the fuel cell's own heat to separate the hydrogen probably achieves a larger overall system efficiency than could be achieved if hydrogen was produced in special chemical plants that had to generate their own heat to separate the hydrogen. As long as fossil fuels are the source of the energy used to generate the hydrogen the use of fuel cell heat to convert hydrocarbon fuel to hydrogen will increase overall efficiency. However, if hydrogen could be generated from nuclear or solar power the efficiency advantage of converting from liquid fuel to hydrogen in a vehicle would not be as great.

Another thought: Fuel cells as energy sources in cars will not obsolesce the use of batteries in hybrids. Why? Hybrid vehicles get part of their fuel efficiency boost from regenerative braking. Applying the brakes in a hybrid kicks in an electric generator that uses wheel rotational energy to spin the generator to recharge the batteries. This recaptures some of the energy used to accelerate the vehicle. Even if the internal combustion engine is replaced by fuel cells at some future date a hybrid design would still enable energy recapture when braking to improve fuel mileage.

Batteries may also allow fuel cells to operate more efficiently by reducing the frequency with which fuel cells are activated. Note the high operating temperature mentioned above. In their design that heat is harnessed to generate hydrogen. But every time the fuel cell is turned off waste heat is lost as the fuel cell cools. Some fuel cell designs may even need to be heated up before they can start operating. Plus, there is also the need to generate enough heat initially to use to produce the hydrogen fuel. On shorter trips batteries could avoid the need to use of energy to warm up and run a fuel cell and avoid the energy lost as a fuel cell cools.

Jason Shogren, Erwin Bulte, and Richard Horan propose that homo sapiens out-competed Neanderthals by forming trading networks that produced a greater specialization of labor.

March 23, 2005 -- Economics-free trade may have contributed to the extinction of Neanderthals 30,000-40,000 years ago, according to a paper published in the "Journal of Economic Organization and Behavior."

"After at least 200,000 years of eking out an existence in glacial Eurasia, the Neanderthal suddenly went extinct," writes University of Wyoming economist Jason Shogren, along with colleagues Richard Horan of Michigan State University and Erwin Bulte from Tilburg University in the Netherlands. "Early modern humans arriving on the scene shortly before are suspected to have been the perpetrator, but exactly how they caused Neanderthal extinction is unknown."

Creating a new kind of caveman economics in their published paper, they argue early modern humans were first to exploit the competitive edge gained from specialization and free trade. With more reliance on free trade, humans increased their activities in culture and technology, while simultaneously out-competing Neanderthals on their joint hunting grounds, the economists say.

Archaeological evidence exists to suggest traveling bands of early humans interacted with each other and that inter-group trading emerged, says Shogren, the Stroock Distinguished Professor of Natural Resource Conservation and Management in the UW College of Business. Early humans, the Aurignations and the Gravettians, imported many raw materials over long ranges and their innovations were widely dispersed. Such exchanges of goods and ideas helped early humans to develop "supergroup social mechanisms." The long-range interchange among different groups kept both cultures going and generated new cultural explosions, Shogren says.

Anthropologists have noted how judicious redistribution of excess resources provides a distinct advantage to "efficient hunters" as measured by factors such as increased survivorship, social prestige, or reproductive opportunities, the researchers say.

Could humans have developed a greater tendency to feel obligated to each other? Imagine genetic mutations that would increase the feeling of obligation when someone does you a favor. Then imagine a family that does more for each other because they all share this mutation and therefore have an edge in survival.

"For instance, it is believed that killing large game became a method of acquiring wealth, and that efficient hunters could build up 'reciprocal obligations' by exchanging food," Shogren says of his research. "Such obligations, and the gains from trade in general, provide strong incentives to search for new technologies. One of the striking features of the archaeological record is that Neanderthal technology was nearly stationary for many thousands of years whereas technology of early humans experienced many innovations."

Adam Smith would not have approved of the Neanderthals.

He says the evidence does not support the concept of division of labor and trade among Neanderthals. While Neanderthals probably cooperated with one another to some extent, the evidence does not support the view that specialization arose from any formal division of labor or that inter- or intra-group trade existed, he says. These practices seem to require all the things that Neanderthals lacked: a more complicated social organization, a degree of innovative behavior, forward planning and the exchange of information, ideas and raw materials.

"Basic economic forces of scarcity and relative costs and benefits have played integral roles in shaping societies throughout recorded human history," Shogren says. "No reason exists today to discount either the presence or potential impact of economics in the pre-historic dawning of humanity."

He suggests that early humans could have prevailed even if humans and Neanderthals were about equally capable -- provided that humans invented the appropriate economic exchange institutions that created greater wealth for the greater good.

Did humans evolve genotypes that supported better communications skills with which to bargain? Or did humans evolve other abilities that facilitated free trade such as a more sophisticated ability to compare the net worth of different physical objects?

"Through trade and specialization, humans could have conquered their niche even if the incumbent party was somewhat stronger, better adjusted to its environment and equipped with a larger brain volume," he says. "If language and symbolic communication facilitated the invention of trade, it enabled humans to turn the tables on their otherwise dominant competitor."

I think the development of language abilities was important for the development of trade. However, I strongly suspect that more was involved. Consider the wide range of social behaviors seen in various species. Some species are loners that meet up only occasionally to mate. Other species exist only in groups and the shapes of those groups and how they relate to each other varies greatly from species to species.

One can easily imagine (since some species are this way) a human-like species that does not like to socialize at all outside of the immediate group. Such a species could only achieve economies of scale in small groups. Whereas another equally smart primate that enjoys socialization across larger boundaries than just a local group would have much greater chances for setting up trade to achieve larger scale division of labor.

A species that focuses a lot of attention on understanding the personalities of other members of the same species would also have advantages for forming trade relations. A trader who has a mind that causes him or her to think about the behavior and personality of others of the same species would be better equipped to notice and remember how well other traders carried out terms of previous trades.

Anthropologist Eric Delson has doubts about this theory.

“It’s an intriguing and novel idea,” says Delson. “But it requires stronger support.” He points out that the Gravettians in particular only emerged 28,000 years ago, while the last of the Neanderthals died about 29,000 years ago.

So the Gravettians could not have had very much influence in the extinction of the Neanderthals, he argues. “He also assumes that all they ate was meat, which of course is not true,” he adds.

Whether or not this particular theory about Neanderthal extinction turns out to be correct I predict that human genes that code for a variety of trade-supporting cognitive characteristics will be found. When genetic engineering of offspring becomes possible the future economic order of huiman or post-human society will depend on what decisions parents and governments make about genes that code for cognitive characteristics which affect economic behavior.

If we some day allow free trade between artificially intelligent computers and robots will the resulting competition and specialization of labor drive humans to extinction?