Milestones on the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Dive! Dive! Dive!

0 FEET: EPIPELAGIC ZONE
Ample sunlight penetrates down to 650 feet, making photosynthesis possible. With abundant plant life (read: food), this zone is the most densely populated with fish.
…
656 FEET: MESOPELAGIC ZONE
Too deep to support photosynthesis: The fish that survive here are sit-and-wait predators that tend to have large mouths and specialized retinas to increase light reception.
…
1,640 feet: Maximum diving depth of the blue whale.
1,969 feet: The Deep Sound Channel, a layer in which acoustic signals travel far and fast.
1,969 feet: Maximum diving depth of nuclear-powered attack subs.

3281 FEET: BATHYPELAGIC ZONE
The ocean is dark at this level; the only glow is from bioluminescent animals. There are no living plants, and creatures subsist by eating the debris that falls from the levels above, including dead or dying fish and plankton.

3,281 feet: Maximum diving depth of the sperm whale. To navigate in the darkness, these whales emit high pitched sounds and use echoes to determine the location of prey.
3,937 feet: Maximum diving depth of the leatherback sea turtle.
4,000 feet: The domain of the Pacific sleeper shark, the largest toothed shark ever photographed. It can reach lengths of 28 feet.
…
5,187 feet: Maximum diving depth of the elephant seal.
…
13,123 FEET: ABYSSOPELAGIC ZONE
In the pitch-dark of the abyss, there is no light at all, the water temperature is near freezing. Of the few creatures found at these crushing depths, most are blind and have long tentacles – tiny invertebrates such as shrimp, basket stars, and small squids.
…
19,685 FEET: HADOLPELAGIC ZONE
Despite the intense pressure and frigid temperature in the deepwater trenches and canyons, life still exists here, especially near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. Invertebrates such as starfish actually thrive.

Engineer Your Life

Engineer Your Life is an outreach initiative committed to sharing with college-bound young women the opportunities available to them in the world of engineering. Unfortunately they chose to use flash content and the website fails to follow simple usability guidelines (basic stuff like human readable urls, links that work without javascript…) but there is decent content. The use of flash and failing to pay attention to usability are highly correlated in my experience. The site profiles 12 engineers including Judy Lee:

Judy’s enthusiasm paid off. A few months later, the IKEA engineer asked her to design a children’s play mat. Judy was thrilled and soon found herself in IKEA headquarters in Sweden, where she worked with a team of engineers and product developers. It was at this moment that she realized her ideal job was one that truly offered a balance between creativity and problem solving.

Designing for IKEA
Judy began her new project by thinking about the way kids play. “I realized that kids today play indoors a lot. Maybe because the world seems a little more dangerous and parents are more protective. So I knew that this mat had to incorporate some kind of physical play element.” Rather than a static mat, Judy designed one resembling a giant lazy Susan that kids could spin around on. “Once I had the concept, the mechanical engineer in me took over. I needed something simple. Simplicity is awesome. My mat is basically two injection-molded pieces of plastic that spin on a set of interior wheels.”

Judy will never forget the experience of seeing her mat in an IKEA store. “It was incredible,” she recalls, “and it was such important validation for me that my ideas matter, they’re good, and they’re marketable.”

Dream Job at IDEO
Today, Judy has found her dream job in Palo Alto, California, at a company called IDEO, one of the country’s most innovative design firms. IDEO hires engineers, designers, psychologists, and businesspeople who work in teams to develop cutting-edge products (they created Apple Computer’s first mouse, for example). Judy designs children’s toys, pet products, and packaging for over-the-counter drugs and food. “I feel pretty lucky to have such a creative and interesting job. I’m surrounded by brilliant people. It doesn’t really seem like work. It’s just plain fun!”

Engineering a Better World: Bike Corn-Sheller

photo of bike maize sheller

More appropriate technology from MIT’s D-Lab.

D-Lab-developed device makes corn processing more efficient

Jodie Wu, an MIT senior in mechanical engineering, spent the summer traveling from village to village in Tanzania to introduce a new system for processing the corn: A simple attachment for a bicycle that makes it possible to remove the kernels quickly and efficiently using pedal power. The device makes processing up to 30 times faster and allows one person to complete the job alone in one day.

The basic concept for the maize-sheller was first developed in Guatemala by an NGO called MayaPedal, and then refined by Wu last semester as a class project in D-Lab: Design, a class taught by Department of Mechanical Engineering Senior Lecturer Amy Smith. Now, thanks to Wu’s efforts, the technology is beginning to make its way around the world.
…
Thus, the owner of a bicycle, with a small extra investment, can travel from village to village to carry out a variety of useful tasks. A simple bike thereby becomes an ongoing source of income.

Wu refined the corn-sheller system, which was originally designed as a permanent installation that required a bicycle dedicated solely to that purpose, to make it an add-on, like Kiwia’s tools, that could be easily bolted onto an ordinary bike and removed easily.

Photo shows the prototype of the attachment. Engineering that makes a significant difference in people’s lives (especially those that need it the most) is even cooler than the latest high tech gizmos in my opinion. And those new gizmos are cool.

Related: Design for the Unwealthiest 90 Percent – Appropriate Technology posts – Water Pump Merry-go-Round – Nepalese Entrepreneur Success – Tumaini Cycles blog (by

MicroRNAs Emerged Early in Evolution

New Research Shows MicroRNAs Emerged Early in Evolution

“MicroRNAs have been available to regulate and shape gene expression as far back as we can go in animal evolution—they might even predate animals,” says Bartel, a leader in the discovery and functional study of microRNAs. “They might have helped to usher in the era of multi-cellular animal life.”

First discovered in 1993, microRNAs are strands of RNA that are 21-24 nucleotides in length. They dampen gene expression by intercepting messenger RNA before it can turn the cellular crank that translates a gene into a protein. Earlier, Bartel’s research team showed that each microRNA can regulate the expression of hundreds of genes.

The ability of microRNAs to silence gene expression likely evolved from a more ancient defense against viruses, bacteria, and other mobile genetic elements that can mutate host DNA.
…
The scientists determined that the starlet sea anemone has both microRNAs and piRNAs. In addition, the anemone makes proteins resembling those that interact with these small RNAs in humans. Both types of small RNA were also found in the sponge. The third target of their search, Trichoplax, did not contain any microRNAs, though Bartel suspects they may have existed in ancestral forms and later disappeared.

$400 Million More for Harvard and MIT

$400 million endowment for the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT

“Today the Broad Institute is the world’s leading genomics and biomedical institute, and we’re now making a $600 million bet that the Broad will be the place where the greatest scientific discoveries take place,” Eli Broad said at today’s ceremony.
…
In its short history, the Broad Institute’s accomplishments include cataloging and identifying genetic risk factors for diseases such as type 2 diabetes and autism; discovering new therapeutic targets for cancer, malaria, and other diseases; and applying genomic tools to better understand and treat human pathogens like tuberculosis.
…
The Broads’ gift is the largest to support biomedical research at a university anywhere in the world. The Broads initially invested $100 million in 2003 as a way to test the institute’s new approach to biomedical research. By 2005, the Broad Institute had already made significant accomplishments and progress, and the Broads invested a second $100 million. Their endowment of $400 million today will allow the Broad Institute to transition to a permanent, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization with both Harvard and MIT still at the heart of it, continuing to help govern the institute.

Many countries would love to create a world class center of biomedical research. And several are trying. Boston sure seems to be staking a claim that it will be one of those centers of excellence. The economic benefits of that to Boston will be huge.

Carbon Nanotechnology in an 17th Century Damascus Sword

Carbon nanotechnology in an 17th century Damascus sword

Wootz, with its especially high carbon content of about 1.5%, should have been useless for sword-making. Nonetheless, the resulting sabres showed a seemingly impossible combination of hardness and malleability.
…
Amazingly, they found that the steel contained carbon nanotubes, each one just slightly larger than half a nanometre. Ten million could fit side by side on the head of a thumbtack.
…
It isn’t clear how ancient blacksmiths produced these nanotubes, but the researchers believe that the key to this process lay with small traces of metals in the wootz including vanadium, chromium, manganese, cobalt and nickel. Alternating hot and cold phases during manufacture caused these impurities to segregate out into planes. From there, they would have acted as catalysts for the formation of the carbon nanotubes, which in turn would have promoted the formation of the cementite nanowires.
…
By gradually refining their blade-making skills, these blacksmiths of centuries past were using nanotechnology at least 400 years before it became the scientific buzzword of the twenty-first century.

Wind Power Provided Over 1% of Global Electricity in 2007

graph of global installed wind power capacity

Data from World Wind Energy Association, for installed Mega Watts of global wind power capacity in 2007. 19,696 MW of capacity were added in 2007, bringing the total to 93,849 MW. Europe accounts for 61% of installed capacity, Germany accounts for 24% and the USA 18%.

The graph shows the top 10 producers (with the exceptions of Denmark and Portugal) and includes Japan (which is 13th).

New Neurons are Needed for New Memories

New neurons are needed for new memories

Around 15 years ago, researchers discovered that the adult rodent brain contains discrete populations of stem cells which continue to divide and produce new cells throughout life. This discovery was an important one, as it overturned a persistent dogma in neuroscience which held that the adult mammalian brain cannot regenerate.
..
This study shows that inhibiting neurogenesis has strikingly different consequences in two distinct regions of the brain. In the olfactory bulb, it leads to significant shrinkage but apparently does not alter smell-related behaviour. In the hippocampus, the effect on structure is not so marked, but it is clear that newly-generated neurons are necessary for the processes of learning and memory. Exactly how the new cells contribute to memory formation is still unknown.

More interesting stuff. Related: How The Brain Rewires Itself – Scientists Witness the Birth of a Brain Cell – New Neurons in Old Brains – No Sleep, No New Brain Cells

Tidal Turbine Farms to Power 40,000 Homes

Scotland Plans World’s First Tidal Turbine Farms

Scottish Power Renewables will apply for planning permission next year to build the two farms in Northern Ireland’s seabed. The turbines will be manufactured in Scotland in an intentional boost to the country’s green-collar job market. The 98-foot structures have been tested to operate in water as deep as 328 feet, and they spin slow enough to allow marine life to avoid the 66-foot blades.
…
New York City installed its first turbine for their tidal power farm earlier this month, but the Scottish plan differs in that the farms will be located in the open sea, not a river or straight.

Project aims to harness sea power

Projects on the firth could be operational by 2020… The Scottish and Irish sites would host up to 60 of the turbines – 20 at each site – generating 60 megawatts of power for up to 40,000 homes.

Foreign Cells Outnumber Human Cells in Our Bodies

This is one of those area I find very interesting: People Have More Bacterial Cells than Human Cells. Colin Nickerson has written an interesting article on the topic: Of microbes and men

Scientists estimate that 90 percent of the cells contained in the human body belong to nonhuman organisms – mostly bacteria, but also a smattering of fungi and other eensy entities. Some 100 trillion microbes nestle in niches from our teeth to our toes.

But what’s setting science on its heels these days is not the boggling numbers of bugs so much as the budding recognition that they are much more than casual hitchhikers capable of causing disease. They may be so essential to well-being that humans couldn’t live without them.

In this emerging view, humans and their microbes – or, as some biologists playfully put it, microbes and their attached humans – have evolved together to form an extraordinarily complex ecosystem.

The understanding of the complex interaction is something I came to through reading on the overuse of antibiotics. And the more I read the more interesting it gets.

“We can’t take nutrition properly without bacteria. We can’t fight bad germs without good germs,” he said. “It may turn out that secretions from bacteria affect not only long-term health, but hour-by-hour moods – could a person’s happiness depend on his or her bugs? It’s possible. Our existences are so incredibly intertwined.”

However, in the opinion of some researchers, this strange union may be headed for trouble because of profligate use of antibiotics and antiseptic lifestyles that deter the transfer of vital strains of bacteria that have swarmed in our systems at least since early humans ventured out of Africa.