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Month: November 2006
Pop-up University
Was I seeing things? I don’t know. It’s never happened before.
I just visited the site of a well-known professor at a US University, Firefox alerted me to a failed pop-up ad. Curious as to what pop-ups the University researchers might be serving I refreshed the page and this time allowed the pop-ups.
They were ads for Flirtomatic and an online gambling site.
Curious, I thought.
So, I ran Spybot S&D and Adaware Personal just to double check that I hadn’t gained some trojan or spyware along the way. Of course, these two programs may have let something slip through the net but working together they pretty much catch 99%.
Nothing, perfectly clean machine.
Opened the site again, this time in Internet Explorer 7. Same result. Pop-ups blocked. Tried it from another machine offsite and asked a couple of friends to double check. Same result.
I thought for a moment it might be University policy, but no other pages produced the pop-ups. I suspect therefore that it’s someone in the department, a student with an affiliate ad account, perhaps, hoping to cash in on site visitors. I asked the webmaster at the University to look into this and within 24h they’d replied to say the ads had been removed. So, it wasn’t just me. They didn’t say whether my hunch was right or whether it was a compromised server.
Of course, Sciencebase would never stoop so low. We carry editorially independent advertising to help subsidise the site, of course, who doesn’t? But, if you ever see a pop-up let me know and I’ll advise on how to clear your site of Spyware, because it won’t have been coded at this end of the service!
Rare cattle and human hybrids
Is it just me or is there a certain irony to be found in the timing of a rare cattle and other animal breeds conservation initiative being announced in the UK and stem cell researchers at Newcastle University requesting authorisation to hybridize nuclear-free eggs from cows with a human skin cell nucleus?
Ironic or not, both are issues that will inevitably attract great controversy over coming days.
The rare breeds initiative will build a database of livestock breeds across the UK to help. Announcing the launch of this genetic “Noah’s Ark”, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs sets out recommendations for how the industry and Government can improve and maintain the diversity of the UK’s livestock genetic material in the future. Among its detailed recommendations are the maintenance of an advisory body that better informs the public, industry and policymakers on the country’s farm animal breeds, the collection of high-quality information on genetic resources to provide effective ways for their future use, and support for the prioritisation, development and implementation of projects to conserve genetic diversity.
‘This plan is important economically, socially and culturally,’ says Food and Farming Minister Jeff Rooker, ‘We have a fine tradition in this country of breeding a diverse range of farm animals which in many cases can be found across the world.
‘However, there are growing concerns over genetic diversity as growing economic pressures have lead to a few specialised breeds spreading across the globe. The threat of exotic diseases is also a threat to diversity in some breeds.”
On the same day, scientists at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne sought regulatory approval to fuse an egg from a cow that has had its nucleus removed, with the nucleus of a human tissue cell, from skin for instance. The resulting hybrid, which would essentially be 99.9% human with only a tiny amount of mitochondrial DNA from the cow remaining. The egg could then be cultured and stem cells that are human to all intents and purposes, harvested from the growing chimera. The hybrid embryo would, the researchers say, be destroyed once the stem cells were collected.
They point out that human eggs are a precious and scarce a commodity, whereas there is a glut of cow eggs. Cow eggs are also a lot easier to handle than the eggs from the conventional source of laboratory test eggs, the mouse.
The UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is yet to grant permission although teams at Edinburgh University and King’s College London are also seeking approval for similar research.
The aim of creating such a human-cow hybrid is to develop the techniques that will eventually be used to create 100% human stem cells in the laboratory without having to expend years of human eggs honing the necessary skills that will ultimately make stem cell production routing.
Both strands of research, the genetic conservation program and the human-cow hybrid are already provoking a reaction from those who consider such efforts a violation of animal rights, another example of human exploitation of animals, and the lobbyists who want an outright ban on stem cell research.
Stephen Minger of King’s College London told journalists that, “We feel that the development of disease-specific human embryonic stem cell lines from individuals suffering from genetic forms of neurodegenerative disorders will stimulate both basic research and the development of new medicines to treat these horrific brain diseases.”
PS Before anyone says, yes, I know it’s a picture of a bullock not a cow and that, yes, you’d be hard pushed to extract cattle eggs from him, hybridised or not!
Irish chemistry thrives on spin
Peace talks and an IRA ceasefire were only dreamed of the last time I visited the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland and the Queen’s University. Indeed, at the time there were still a few grey armoured vehicles on the streets and the city centre was still gated. There were British soldiers patrolling outlying villages and on the day I departed there was a major bomb scare at an unopened shopping centre, which meant a long-winded taxi diversion back to the airport. Times have changed.
Beyond the snazzy new university logos, truncated Qs, and mission statements lies a thriving department at Queen’s University Belfast that has attracted to its membership several high-performing researchers from some prestigious international laboratories. Among them are such rising stars as Frederic Meunier who has worked with pioneering catalytic chemist Marc Ledoux at Strasbourg, Raman spectroscopist and Innovative Molecular Materials scientist Steven Bell, and Joe Vyle an alumnus of the laboratory of Marv Caruthers in Boulder, Colorado, who invented the chemistry used during the past 20 years for synthesising DNA on machines. And, of course, AP de Silva whose pioneering work in molecular logic has already led to multimillion dollar sensor technologies and is making inroads into the world of combinatorial chemistry through the development of molecular computational identification (MCID)
Alternatives to animal testing
Despite the claims of extremist animal protesters, scientists do not in fact relish the use of animals in tests of new pharmaceutical and other chemical products and are continually searching for valid alternatives that might reduce the numbers of small mammals, for instance used in pesticide safety tests.
According to Jennifer Rohn writing in this week’s issue of Chemistry & Industry magazine, the thousands of test animals currently need for pesticide evaluation might be replaced by tricking ticks into setting up home on a faux cowhide. The hide, developed by Swiss researchers consists of a skin-like silicone membrane, complete with hair that rests over a layer of cow’s blood. The insects are so comfortable with the faux-cow that they set up home, mate and lay eggs.
Currently, some 10,000 animals are used annually to test new tick-fighting chemicals because pesticides to kill Lyme-disease carrying ticks and other insects are constantly being updated.
Thomas Kröber and Patrick Guerin at the University of Neuchâtel confirmed the effectiveness of their test bed using a standard tick pesticide, firponil, and observing central nervous system damage revealed by leg trembling in the ticks. They report details in the journal Pest Management Science.
Vicky Robinson, chief executive of the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research, said: This research takes a simple idea and applies it to great effect, resulting in a potentially significant impact on animal use. Most importantly, it demonstrates that finding ways to reduce the use of animals in research and testing is as much about improving the science as it is about considering the welfare of animals.’
Obviously, the tick test avoids the need to test on rodents or other laboratory mammals, but it remains a devastating blow to tick lovers everywhere.
Climate change hot air
It seems that mere “climate change” was not nearly bad enough for the media scaremongers and the environmental activists so even the smallest upward blip in global average temperatures has became “catastrophic climate change”.
The increasing use of this pejorative term as well as “chaotic”, “irreversible”, and “rapid” climate change has altered the public discourse around climate change. So says Mike Hulme Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
His commentary comes at an interesting point in environmental politics with protests mounting and a report presented to the UK government last week providing Tony Blair yet more ammunition and vote-building rhetoric than ever before.
The Guardian this year mentioned the phrase “climate porn” the apparent thrill of seeing new scientific results that protend natural disaster on a global scale. The media of course is almost entirely to blame for this state of affairs boulstered by anti-capitalist, anti-industry, and other misinformed groups, as well as the politicians hoping to make the most of their opposition’s positions.
Simon Retallack, the IPPR’s head of climate change, told The Guardian that “Currently, climate communications too often terrify or thrill the reader or viewer while failing to make them feel that they can make a difference, which engenders inaction.”
The spirit of his report is echoed by Hulme in this latest commentary.
There is no concensus on climate change catastrophic or otherwise. The South of England basked in the longest “Indian summer” on record this year, the warm spell that began as a warm but wet August faded into September didn’t entirely halt until the beginning of November. Is that an effect of global warming? Who knows? It’s been rather colder than you’d expect these last few days…perhaps there’s an ice age on the way. It’s a facile task to draw a straight line sloping one way then the other through a scatter of temperature plots in which the error margins are almost as wide as the problem being discussed. Couple the experimental issues with the limitations of computer modelling and throw in some oil company disinformation with a few ludicrous pronouncement from a Bush in denial (God moves in mysterious ways) and it’s no wonder the public is at once thrilled and scared sh*tless by all this hot air. The real catastrophe could be that in the confusion we continue to waste resources while whole nations and continents languish in poverty and disease. Whether or not climate change turns out eventually to be catastrophic or not is almost irrelevant when we are faced with so many other global ills.
Grabbing the long tail of search engines
A revamped search engine from Heriot-Watt University in the UK makes the most of the long tail allowing searchers to drill way down into the most obscure, but nevertheless useful, pages across dozens of technology databases and sites.
“It’s a prerequisite for any successful search service in technology
subjects to have a ‘Long Tail’ (or large inventory), Heriot-Watt’s Roddy MacLeod explains, “This is because the majority of search queries made by technologists, or by others seeking information in technology-related subjects, tend to be very specific. It’s in the nature of the subjects, and the real information retrieval needs of those involved in these subjects, for granularity to be important.”
MacLeod heads up the team behind TechXtra http://www.techxtra.ac.uk/. This search engine aggregates content from a vast array of databases with technology-related content, and provides meta results that are essentially invisible to general search engines. “A search of TechXtra will search across more than 4 million records of various kinds – articles, technical reports, digital theses and dissertations, books, eprints, news items, job announcements, video, learning & teaching resources, key websites, and more – most of which relate to technology subjects,” MacLeod adds.
You can restrict searches to a particular format (technical reports, or
articles, or books, and so on), or select only specific databases among those listed with the ubiquitous Advanced Search option.
Among the most interesting of the databases for the Youtube generation is perhaps the Open Video Project, which is a growing repository of digitized video. And serious tech research can provide the full text of thousands of theses, eprints from arXiv, earthquake engineering
technical reports from Caltech, and almost half a million articles in computer and information science from CiteSeer. In addition many articles in Digital Open Access Journals (DOAJ), are available.
I’ve added a TechXtra link to the Sciencebase science search toolbox and will upgrade that to a fully-fledged search link in the next few days.
One thing which is a fairly recent development is the number of freely available full text digitised theses that TechXtra can now access. “These theses are the results of considerable research,” MacLeod told me, “they can be excellent resources on specialised topics.
HW University also produces the superb Internet Resources Newsletter.
First ever useful chain letter
I usually don’t, you know, read chain-letters, but this one hit my inbox and caught my eye, not least because it appeared to be from someone I know and trust…although closer inspection of the email headers revealed that they were simply one of dozens of people to have been cc’ed when the messages was forward for the umpteenth time.
Anyway, this is what it said:
“Warm Water After a Meal — It is nice to have a cold drink after a meal. However, could it be that the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down digestion and once this “sludge” reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and can lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm tea/water after a meal.
The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals…not cold water.. maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating!”
Now, that part sounds fairly reasonable but for the fact that it was couched in a rather unscientific manner, but I think there might just be something in the idea that any warm fats your ingest could indeed become solid once they have cold water poured on to them. Although they don’t say anything about the churning and warming of food by the stomach itself. Moreover, whether that leads to digestive problems, coating of the intestine with fat, and ultimately cancer, is a different matter. It may or it may not. I’d like to see some test results on that before forwarding this chain letter.
Meanwhile, on a totally different theme, albeit still health related, the chain letter goes on to say:
“A serious note about heart attacks — Women should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting. Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line as well. You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack. Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms. 60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up. A pain in the jaw can wake some from a sound sleep. Let’s be careful and be aware The more we know, the better chance we could survive.”
Apparently, some anonymous cardiologist says that if everyone who receives the email forwards it to 10 people, you can be sure that we’ll save at least one life. I suppose statistically that number could be even higher if you have even a 105 marketing hit rate in sending the message on to friends and family. But, I prefer to blog about these things and not simply forward emails. Do any cardiologist readers have any comment on this method of nocturnal myocardial infarction prevention, I wonder?
Red wine diet
Are you middle aged and eating too much? Are you worried about ill health and getting old? Do you have whiskers and prefer wood shavings to down for your bedding?
Researchers at Harvard University may have the answer to a healthier and longer life for you.
David Sinclair and his colleagues have studied middle-aged mice fed on a high-calorie diet and found that a compound extracted from red wine not only improved the health of the mice but also extends the animals’ lifespan. The results appear online today in the journal Nature.
The researchers supplemented a high-calorie diet with resveratrol, a small molecule that has been shown to extend the lifespan of other animals. The treatment shifted the animals’ physiology towards that of mice fed a standard diet. The mice lived longer than other mice on the same high-fat diet that didn’t get the resveratrol supplemement, and even though they didn’t lose any weight, their quality of life was also improved — resveratrol-treated mice had healthier livers and better motor coordination.
Resveratrol seems to counter various of the health risks associated with a high-fat diet, but without skimping on the calories. It could provide a solution to the French paradox in which the stereotypically high-fat diet favoured by the French is counteracted in terms of health by the consumption of red wine.
“Mice are much closer evolutionarily to humans than any previous model organism treated by this molecule, which offers hope that similar impacts might be seen in humans without negative side- effects,’ says Sinclair.
The impact on health and lifespan the researchers observed in the obese mice treated with resveratrol, included increased insulin sensitivity, decreased glucose levels, and a healthier heart and liver. These are all positive clinical indicators and, says Sinclair, may mean we can stave off age-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer in humans. He adds that only time and more research will tell. Just for the record Sinclair is a co-founder of Sirtris, a spin out company part owned by Harvard. The company is currently phase 1b trialling a proprietary formulation of resveratrol in people with diabetes.
When scaled up from the obese mouse model, the doses used in the mouse study should be feasible for human consumption, hence the phase 1b trial, but it’s not yet clear whether the molecule will yield similar effects in people, say the researchers. If it does, it may lead to the development of drugs that can reduce some of the negative consequences of excess calorie intake and improve health and survival.
Alternatively, it may provide those of us in middle age who like our food with an excuse to wash it all down with a classic Chianti, hang the expense, and live longer, healthier lives regardless.
For the French version of this story, or indeed, a version in any of nine languages, click the appropriate flag towards the top right of this page.
Metallic BO
“The smell of iron upon contact with skin is ironically a type of human body odour,” explains Dietmar Glindemann. “That we are smelling the metal itself is actually an illusion.”
Many people notice a peculiar “metallic” smell when handling iron objects, such as tools, utensils, door handles, railings, firearms, coins, and other objects. But, iron untouched by human hand has a subtly different almost garlic like smell. Dietmar Glindemann of the University of Leipzig and his colleagues Andrea Dietrich at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and Hans-Joachim Staerk and Peter Kuschk of the Leipzig Environmental Research Center, Germany, have used a sophisticated analytical process to sniff out the reason why. It transpires that the metallic smell of iron that has been touched is a kind of body odour rather than a smelly metal.
More… (fixed link)
For those worrying about other kinds of BO, chemists and microbiologists have an answer to why some people smell the way they do. The research reported in Reactive Reports might one day lead to a new type of deodorant for even the smelliest of pits.
If you’re interested in how armpit scents can affect other people here’s an article from my days freelancing for The Guardian that explains how “eau d’armpit” might be used to treat pre-menstrual syndrome.