Author Archives: curiouscat

Great Self Portrait

photo of astronaut's faceplate reflecting earth

Photo by, and of, Astronaut Clay Anderson, Expedition 15 flight engineer. He used a digital camera to expose a photo of his helmet visor during the mission’s third planned session of extravehicular activity (EVA) on the International Space Station (15 August 2007). Also visible in the reflections in the visor are various components of the station and a blue and white portion of Earth. During the 5-hour, 28-minute spacewalk, Anderson and astronaut Rick Mastracchio (out of frame), STS-118 mission specialist, relocated the S-Band Antenna Sub-Assembly from Port 6 (P6) to Port 1 (P1) truss, installed a new transponder on P1 and retrieved the P6 transponder.

NASA provides their content, photos etc. online in an open access spirit. When linking to content (especially images) it is best to provide context (and with the internet the easiest way to do is so is relevant links). You can find many low resolution pictures of the image above around the internet. Trying to find the context around the image is not so easy – it took me quite awhile to do so. I try to provide the context and links. Lately some more sites will link to some original sources but this is still done far to infrequently.

There are also still far too many pointy haired bosses (PHB) making decisions to break the web by killing pages: web pages must live forever. Those PHB’s decisions do reduce the great benefit of linking but it is still worth doing for those cases where web sites are managed by people with the knowledge and ability to manage an internet resource properly.

Photo: NASA – high resolution version

Jumping Savannah Cat

The Savannah cat breed is from the mating of a male African serval cat to a female domestic cat. The serval grows to from 9 to 20 kg (20-44 lbs) and lives 12-20 years in the wild. It is closely related to the African Golden Cat and the Caracal. The cats in the webcast are Savannahs.

Common Ancestor 6-10,000 Years Ago For All Blue-eyed People

Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor

“Originally, we all had brown eyes”, said Professor Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a “switch”, which literally “turned off” the ability to produce brown eyes”. The OCA2 gene codes for the so-called P protein, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives colour to our hair, eyes and skin. The “switch”, which is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 does not, however, turn off the gene entirely, but rather limits its action to reducing the production of melanin in the iris – effectively “diluting” brown eyes to blue.

Boiling Water And Plastic Spikes Bisphenol A Levels

Boiling water spikes bisphenol A levels

Adding boiling water to polycarbonate plastic bottles causes a dramatic spike in the amount of bisphenol A, or BPA, leaching from containers into drinks, according to a U.S. research team.

The finding suggests that parents sterilizing polycarbonate baby bottles by heating them in water or in a microwave may be inadvertently increasing the amount of the estrogen-mimicking chemical leaching from the containers. It also indicates hikers who use the bottles as a thermos to store hot tea or liquids may be doing the same.

The addition of boiling water increased BPA migration rates by up to 55-fold compared with water at room temperature, according to experiments run at the University of Cincinnati.

Swimmers’ Sunscreen Killing Off Coral

Swimmers’ Sunscreen Killing Off Coral Ker Than for National Geographic News:

Four commonly found sunscreen ingredients can awaken dormant viruses in the symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae that live inside reef-building coral species. The chemicals cause the viruses to replicate until their algae hosts explode, spilling viruses into the surrounding seawater, where they can infect neighboring coral communities.

Zooxanthellae provide coral with food energy through photosynthesis and contribute to the organisms’ vibrant color. Without them, the coral “bleaches”—turns white—and dies. “The algae that live in the coral tissue and feed these animals explode or are just released by the tissue, thus leaving naked the skeleton of the coral,” said study leader Roberto Danovaro of the Polytechnic University of Marche in Italy.

The researchers estimate that 4,000 to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen wash off swimmers annually in oceans worldwide, and that up to 10 percent of coral reefs are threatened by sunscreen-induced bleaching.

Fight to curtail antibiotics in animal feed

Consumer advocates have been campaigning for years to curb the use of antibiotics in agriculture, citing studies that show that 70 percent of all U.S. antibiotics are administered in low doses – not to treat disease, but to promote the growth of pigs, sheep, chicken and cattle.
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But as early as 1963, British researchers tied the emergence of drug-resistant strains of salmonella in humans to antibiotics fed to cattle.

Geothermal Power in Alaska

Geothermal Power in Alaska Holds Hidden Model for Clean Energy, how it works:

1) 165 F water, pumped three-quarters of a mile from Chena’s 700-ft.-deep production well, enters the evaporator. After circulating through pipes, the water, now 135 F, is reinjected into the reservoir at a well 300 ft. from the power plant.
2) The refrigerant R-134a fills the shell of the evaporator. Heat transferred from the 165-degree water causes the refrigerant to vaporize without the two liquids actually coming into contact.
3) The vapor is expanded supersonically through the turbine nozzle, causing the turbine blades to rotate at 13,500 rpm. This turns a generator at 3600 rpm, producing electricity.
4) 40 F water, siphoned from a shallow well 33 ft. higher in elevation than the plant, enters the con-denser without the aid of a pump. It circulates through pipes before being returned 9 degrees warmer to Monument Creek.
5) Vapor exiting the turbine fills the shell of the condenser, where the 40 F water returns the refrigerant to liquid form.
6) A pump pushes the refrigerant back to the evaporator, generating the pressure that drives the entire cycle so that it may start anew.

Weird Creatures

EDGE Amphibians – the world’s weirdest creatures just got weirder

This year ZSL [Zoological Society of London] scientists have assessed all amphibian species according to how Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) they are. “The EDGE amphibians are amongst the most remarkable and unusual species on the planet and yet an alarming 85% of the top 100 are receiving little or no conservation attention and will become extinct if action is not taken now.”
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1) Chinese giant salamander (salamander that can grow up to 1.8m in length and evolved independently from all other amphibians over one hundred million years before Tyrannosaurus rex)

2) Sagalla caecilian (limbless amphibian with sensory tentacles on the sides of its head)

3) Purple frog (purple-pigmented frog that was only discovered in 2003 because it spends most of the year buried up to 4m underground)

From Ghost Writing to Ghost Management in Medical Journals

Ghost Management: How Much of the Medical Literature Is Shaped Behind the Scenes by the Pharmaceutical Industry?

As discussed below, a substantial percentage of medical journal articles (in addition to meeting presentations and other forms of publication, which are not the focus here) are ghost managed, allowing the pharmaceutical industry considerable influence on medical research, and making that research a vehicle for marketing.

Ghost writing and honorary authorship are not in and of themselves scientific problems, though they become so when they shape science to meet particular interests [1]. Some honorary authors are senior professors and chairs of departments, who are added to articles because of local academic politics rather than at the request of drug companies [15,16].
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It has been repeatedly and firmly established that pharmaceutical company funding strongly biases published results in favor of the company’s products [17–19]. Ghost management amplifies that bias, because when one set of commercial interests exerts influence at multiple stages of research, writing, and publication, it will shape the resulting article.

This PLoS published essay includes 52 citations of studies in this area.

While they are clear to distinguish drug company influence on authors and other influence, I can see no justification for honorary authorships. Why can’t people just be honest. Is that really too high an expectation for scientists? Academic politics should not trump truth – especially for scientists. I can understand that traditionally claiming authors that were not actually authors has not been uncommon. But what reason is there to be dishonest in this way now? I don’t know of a good reason. Therefore it seems to me this practice should be seen as any other dishonest practice and those interested in finding the truth should stop making dishonest claims of authorship.
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Robot Finds Lost Shoppers and Provides Directions

robot

Robovie droid helps lost shoppers:

The Osaka-based Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR) has developed a crowd-monitoring humanoid robot that recognizes when people are lost and helps them find their way.
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Relying on data from 16 cameras, 6 laser range finders and 9 RFID tag readers installed in and around the area, the robot was able to watch up to 20 people at a time, pinpoint their locations to within a few centimeters, and classify each individual’s behavior into one of 10 categories (waiting, wandering, walking fast, running, etc.).

Whenever Robovie spotted people who looked disoriented, the child-sized droid wheeled up to them and asked, “Are you lost?” If so, the robot provided simple directions to the destination and pointed the way. If not, the robot proceeded to recommend nearby shops and restaurants.

Using the cameras to identify those that might be lost and then navigating to them is pretty cool if it actually is successful.

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