Category Archives: Students

Items for students and others, interested in learning about science and engineering and the application of science in our lives. We post many of the general interest items here.

Helium-3 Fusion Reactor

Future In Fusion? by John Lasker:

Nevertheless, UW fusion researchers believe their plan could get civilization off fossil fuels. That’s if crews could return to the moon to mine for helium-3, super-heat it out of the lunar soil to process the gas, and return it to the Earth.
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But scientists and investors have taken notice. Nearly all of UW fusion research is privately funded. And meanwhile, with China, India, the European Space Agency and at least one Russian corporation all pursuing plans for a manned lunar base in the coming decades, there is increasing talk of a race to control this fuel, one shuttle load of which could theoretically power the United States for a year.
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Aftergood doesn’t believe a race with China for lunar helium-3 has begun. Yet a race to the moon against China — whether real or superficial — may be in NASA’s best interest, he said. “There are some who wish this would be the case — this race with China. They believe it would recapture the dynamic of the United States’ and Russia’s race to the moon,” he said.

This sounds pretty incredible to me and I find the claims of using fuel from the Moon economically to power our needs on Earth. Still it is interesting and just because it sounds fantastic does not mean it can’t be true. But I am skeptical.

Hispanic Engineering Students

A Future Engineer:

While they are the largest minority group in the United States at 14.5 percent of the population, only 4 percent of engineers in the workforce in this country are Hispanic. Just 7 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in engineering, 5 percent of master’s degrees and even fewer doctoral degrees are awarded to Hispanics
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To this end, several universities host summer camps to expose young Hispanics and other minorities to STEM subjects. New Mexico State University’s College of Engineering, for instance, brings 180 middle and high school students to campus each summer for intense math and science workshops. “We target demographics that we really want to push engineering on,” says Castillo, who became interested in engineering himself at a summer camp at rival University of New Mexico. “It’s been an extremely successful program for us.”

Edinburgh University $115 Million Stem Cell Center

Stem cell centre plan confirmed

Additional Scottish Executive funding of Â£24m will allow Edinburgh University to develop the Â£59m centre in collaboration with Scottish Enterprise. The Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine (SCRM) is thought to be equalled only one in Kobe, Japan. Prof Ian Wilmut, formerly of the Roslin Institute, will be the director.

The state-of -the-art facilities are expected to house 220 academic researchers and will include a centre for “scale-up” development and manufacture of cells. Space will also be made available for commercial regenerative medicine. It is hoped that the SCRM, which will be part of the new Centre for Biomedical Research at Edinburgh’s Little France, will create about 560 jobs and generate Â£18.2m per year for the Scottish economy.

via: Univ. of Edinburgh Launches $115 Million Dollar Stem Cell Research Center

Concrete Houses 1919 and 2007

Robo-builder threatens the brickie [the broken link was removed]

Is the writing on the wall for the brickie? Engineers are racing to unveil the world’s first robot capable of building a house at the touch of a button. The first prototype — a watertight shell of a two-storey house built in 24 hours without a single builder on site — will be erected in California before April.

Brickie?: a search seems to indicate that is a bricklayer.

By building almost an entire house from just two materials – concrete and gypsum – the robots will eliminate the need for dozens of traditional components, including floorboards, wooden window frames and possibly even wallpaper. It may eventually be possible to use specially treated gypsum instead of glass window panes. Engineers on both projects say the robots will not only cut costs and avoid human delays but liberate the normal family homes from the conventional designs of pitched roofs, right-angled walls and rectangular windows.

Edison patented a process for constructing concrete buildings in 1908 (1917 issued). Photo is of a concrete Edison house being constructed in one day in Union, NJ on October 9th, 1919. See more photos of concrete houses and much more at the great National Park Service Edison photo gallery [sadly the NPA broke the link and it has been removed].

Evolved for Cancer?

Evolved for Cancer? by Carl Zimmer:

In cancer, cells play the role of organisms. Cancer- causing changes to DNA cause some cells to reproduce more effectively than ordinary ones. And even within a single tumor, more adapted cells may outcompete less successful ones.
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Tumor suppressor proteins are among the most effective defenses against cancer. Studies suggest that some of these proteins prevent cancer by monitoring how a cell reproduces. If the cell multiplies in an abnormal way, the proteins induce it to die or to slip into senescence, a kind of early retirement. The cell survives, but it can no longer divide. Tumor suppressor proteins play a vital role in our survival, but scientists have recently discovered something strange about them: in some respects, we would be better off without them.

Scientists discover new class of RNA

These new RNAs are named after their distinctive features: Each molecule contains 21 chemical building blocks (or nucleotides), and each begins with the chemical uridine, represented by the letter U (the only RNA nucleotide not also found on DNA). In addition, each of the 5,000 different 21U-RNA molecules comes from one of two chromosomal regions.

Further, “we can predict where additional 21U-RNA genes might reside,” says Bartel, who is also a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “Combining these predictions with the 5,000 (21U-RNAs) that we experimentally identified, we suspect that there are more than 12,000 different 21U-RNA genes in the genome.” Because each gene typically produces a unique 21U-RNA, a very large diversity of molecules is made.

RNA description from the Nobel Prize site:

When an organism needs to use the data stored in the genome, e.g. to build components of a new cell, a copy of the required DNA part is made. This copy is called RNA and is almost identical to DNA. Just like DNA, RNA is an abbreviated form of a chemical name which in the case of RNA is ribonucleic acid. Unlike the double stranded DNA, RNA is only made up of a single strand. Furthermore, the base T, thymine, is replaced by U, uracil in RNA. This RNA string is used by the organism as a template when it builds protein molecules, sometimes called the building blocks of the body. For example, your muscles and hair are mostly made up of proteins.

Related: DNA-RNA-Protein Introduction

Can Brain Exercises Prevent Mental Decline?

Last month we posted about: Short Mental Workouts May Slow Decline of Aging Minds. Now here is another article on the same topic: Little proof that brain exercises can prevent mental decline by Alice Dembner

Richard Suzman, who oversees behavioral and social research at the National Institute on Aging, said the downside of using the programs include “harm to the wallet or false hope,” or health setbacks if people spend time brain-training instead of getting physical exercise. But others say, despite the lack of evidence, that the programs may be worth trying, particularly in conjunction with other activities that may help with brain health such as a healthy diet, exercise, managing stress, and keeping up social contacts.
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And only last month did the first rigorous study suggest that brain training could positively affect daily-life activities and might delay age-related declines in everyday functioning. Even in that large, government-funded study, the evidence was far from conclusive.

In the original post we mentioned: “Another Paper Questions Scientific Paper Accuracy (just a reminder that the conclusions of many studies are not confirmed in future studies).” That is always important to keep in mind, even though we don’t post that reminder every time.

Robot Espionage

Robot tech on ground zero makes Lucknow, India lad a hero – Shadab Ahmed Ansari has developed a robot that

is capable of traversing any terrain and it can even be used for aerial reconnaissance as well as for submarine explorations. It consists of three parts – a military suit, an espionage robot and a base camp computer.
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The military suit is to be worn by soldiers in the battlefield and will control the movement of the espionage robot. The espionage robot has a robotic arm capable of mimicking the hand movement of the soldier. It is capable of transmitting audio-visual data to the soldier as well as to the base camp computer in real-time. This helps in taking on-the-spot decisions that play a crucial part in any military operation

For more see: Leading the Charge

Human Embryo Hybrids

Embryo hybrids are used to grow human stem cells (for a few days) in eggs from animals. Public debate on embryo hybrids

Allowing DNA from humans and animals to be mixed should be put to a public debate, a regulatory body has said.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which oversees embryo research and fertility treatment, said the research could fall under its remit and would not be prohibited by law after a meeting of experts on Wednesday.

Door left open for creation of hybrid embryos:

Two teams of British scientists have applied for licences to create “hybrid” embryos that would be about 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent animal to produce embryonic stem cells — the body’s building blocks that can grow into all other types of cells.
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They want to use stem cells to understand and develop therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cystic fibrosis, motor neurone disease and Huntington’s. The hybrid embryos would be destroyed within 14 days when they were no bigger than a pinhead.

Gene Study Finds Cannibal Pattern

Deep in the recesses of the human heart, lurking guiltily beneath the threshold of consciousness, there may lie a depraved craving — for the forbidden taste of human flesh. The basis for this morbid accusation, made by a team of researchers in London, is a genetic signature, found almost worldwide, that points to a long history of cannibalism.

The signature is one that protects the bearer from infection by prions, proteins that can be transmitted in infected meat and attack the nerve cells of the brain. Prions can be acquired from eating infected animals, as in the case of the mad cow disease that in 1996 spread to people in England, but they spread even more easily through eating infected humans.
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The researchers then examined DNA from various ethnic groups around the world and found that all but one, the Japanese, carried the protective signature to some degree, and that the Japanese are protected by a different signature in the same gene.

Various genetic tests showed that the protective genes could not be there by chance, but were a result of natural selection. This implies that human populations in the past must have been exposed to some form of prion disease, the researchers say.