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Moon Landing Anniversary
2009-07-19 19:18:00
Forty years ago today, three American men—Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins—were floating in a tiny spacecraft above the surface of the Moon getting ready for two of them to make history: tomorrow will be the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. If Neil, Buzz, and Mike could have looked ahead 40 years from that point, where would they have thought we'd be right now? The reality is that we haven't been back to the moon in decades, and our space program has languished by trying to do too much (space shuttles, space stations, earth science, planetary science, astronomy, robotic exploration, etc.) with too little funding. And here we are, finally talking about going back to the moon. But we're going to be doing so with basically the same level of technology that those three brave explorers had at their disposal. That's not to say that we haven't learned anything in that time. We know far, far more about the effects of weightlessne...
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Science at the Creation Museum
2009-07-01 18:24:00
What happens when a group of scientists—attendees at the North American Paleontological Convention—take a trip to the Creation Museum ? Science and religion clash, that's what. The New York Times has an article this week about that very occurrence, with interviews with both the scientists and the staff at the Museum. There are some scary things in what the creationists have to say. Apparently the Great Flood was the cause of everything that turned the world into what it is today, including creating the layers of soil and rock that paleontologists dig through, as well as separating the continents and putting them where they are (all in a matter of a few days, not over the course of billions of years). One wonders what happened to all of the lava that would have welled up if you had ripped apart a massive land mass that quickly. One also must wonder if the Great Flood changed the rate at which carbon-14 decays, since that's how scientists determine how old the vario...

2009: International Year of Astronomy
2009-01-04 06:43:00
2009 has been designated the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations General Assembly. And I'm not sure they could have picked a better year for the designation. During 2009, a space shuttle mission will be launched to make repairs and upgrades to the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the greatest scientific and technical feats we've achieved. Not only will these upgrades replace some failed systems, but newer and better instruments will be added to the orbiting observatory, meaning that over the next several years (until it is de-orbited in a fiery mass) Hubble will be more powerful than it has ever been before. And we've all seen what it could do before! Not only that, but the Kepler mission will finally launch this year and, while it is unlikely to find many planets its first year, its discoveries will excite the imaginations of a great many people. And the year has started off with some great night skies showing the moon and Venus, Jupiter, and the vastness o...

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
2009-01-03 04:18:00
Things are changing. That's no surprise; our universe is not a static place. Just in the course of my life, we've seen the creation of the commercial Internet, Space Shuttles, Mars rovers, the sequencing of the human genome, personal genomes on-demand, a vaccine that can prevent some forms of cancer, and much, much more. The future holds even greater promise. Not only that, but people are living longer (that's one more thing science has done). I will likely live longer than my parents (though not by much). My son, though, his generation will likely live to be 120-150 years old, and they'll live most of their lives healthy, if groups like the Methuselah Foundation have anything to say about it. So what changes might I see in my lifetime? What changes will you see in yours? What changes will my son see in his? That's the question that the Edge's World Question Center wants to know: What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see? They...

Do It Yourself
2009-01-02 05:41:00
I've always said that you don't have to be a professional working in a sterile lab in order to contribute to the advancement of science and technology, and it looks like others are starting to catch on. The Associated Press ran an article a few days ago about amateurs using relatively inexpensive equipment, working out of their homes or garages, to genetically engineer new life forms. The best quote in the article is from computer programmer Meredith L. Patterson, who is working to alter the bacteria that create yogurt to glow in the presence of melamine, who said, "People can really work on projects for the good of humanity while learning about something they want to learn about in the process." And that's exactly the point: making a contribution, yes, but also learning something. It sounds interesting, but the biological sciences are not really an area that I've had any training (other than what I've taught myself and what I learned in biology class in 9th grade). I have...

Blog Activity
2008-12-29 18:56:00
I know I haven't been very good about posting on this blog lately... I could make all of the excuses about how my new job (started in August) takes up a lot more of my time, but the fact is that I could be doing more. And one of my resolutions for the new year is that I will do more in 2009. But what do you want from SufficientlyAdvanced in 2009? When I first started this blog, I talked about cool advances and how people like you and me—non-scientists—could contribute to the advancement of science and technology. Then, after a couple of the blogs where I got my sci-tech news disappeared, I kind of changed direction and began focusing on providing and aggregating what I thought of as the coolest news. But as this blog is intended to be a community forum for discussion, what would you, dear reader, like from SufficientlyAdvanced in 2009?
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Bloomberg Wants NYC To Go Green
2008-08-21 02:14:00
Mike Bloomberg , billionaire mayor of New York City, wants the city to invest heavily in a push to develop renewable energy The plan, still in its early stages, suggests placing wind turbines on buildings and bridges as well as in coastal waters near the city. Yesterday afternoon, the city issued a formal request for proposals to companies around the country for energy projects based on wind, solar and water resources in New York. Whether or not the plan sees any action remains to be seen, and could be in doubt. Bloomberg is known for his ambitious proposals that later collapse. In addition, any plans would take years or decades to complete, and Bloomberg has only 18 months left in his term. The plan also includes widespread use of solar panels, possibly by allowing companies to rent rooftops for solar panels and sell the energy to residents.
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The Possibility of Interstellar Travel
2008-08-21 02:04:00
There have been a number of blog posts over the last two days about interstellar travel and the difficulties involved therein. As reported in Wired, Robert Frisbee, group leader in the Advanced Propulsion Technology Group at JPL, conducted a study that designed an interstellar vessel with an antimatter-based propulsion system that could reach α Centauri in a mere 40 years. Brice Cassenti, associate professor in the Department of Engineering and Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute says that it would take between one and 100 times the current energy output of the entire world to send a probe to α Centauri. Many scientists at the recent Joint Propulsion Conference analyzed the proposed designs and largely agreed that traveling to even the nearest stars within the human lifespan is nearly impossible. Randall Parker at FuturePundit points out that the development of therapies for rejuvenating people will make it possible to live long enough to travel to another so...
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Synthetic Molecules Based on Curcumin Show Promise Against Cancer
2008-08-19 02:33:00
Centuries of anecdotal (and more recently, scientific) evidence shows that curcumin—a chemical found in the spice turmeric—is capable of protecting against multiple diseases, including cancer. When ingested, however, curcumin is not absorbed well by the digestive system, instead being mostly eliminated before it can be useful to the body. Now scientists at Ohio State University have created synthetic compounds based on curcumin that, in the lab at least, kill cancer cells and stop cancer from spreading. The compounds have been tested in computer simulations and, in some cases, in human cells in the lab. The computer-based predictions indicate that the most effective compound developed so far by the Ohio State lab may be effective in up to 50 percent of all breast and prostate cancers. Some of the compounds also show potential to kill pancreatic cancer cells and inhibit cancer cell migration. The team is planning to continue refining the compounds before advancing t...
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California to Gain Two Gargantuan PV Plants
2008-08-15 17:24:00
Two companies in California have announced plans to construct new photovoltaic (PV) power plants in that sunny state, each vastly larger than any photovoltain power facilities anywhere in the world. The plants together will cover 12.5 square miles of central California and will generate, at peak, 800 megawatts of power. While the actual capacity will be somewhat lower than that (because they won't always produce at their peak and at night won't produce power at all), they will be peaking during the part of the day when demand is the highest and energy the most expensive. Both plants will supply power to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a California state mandate to deliver 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. PG&E says that the two plants will help it reach a total of 24 percent of its energy from renewable sources, but not until they care completed, which should be around 2013. Both plants will be in San Luis Obispo County. One, built by OptiS...
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The Nature of Time
2008-08-15 17:00:00
You think you know something about Time ? Here's your chance to prove it. Foundational Questions in Physics and Cosmology, or fq(x) for short, is having an essay contest with the topic being "The Nature of Time", including but not limited to: the arrow of time; the emergence of time in quantum gravity; time, free will and determinism; time travel; the beginning or ending of time; and timelessness. The essays must be primarily concerned with physics, cosmology, or closely related fields. They must also be original and creative, and accessible to a diverse, highly-educated but non-specialist audience (the example they give is somewhere between Scientific American and a review article in Science or Nature). The maximum length is 5000 words of text or 10 pages, and entries must be submitted as PDF files (not sure why... that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me; I would think that Word documents would have been a better choice). Essays will be posted for all to read and voted ...

Robot Controlled By Rat Neurons
2008-08-14 18:09:00
In some of the weirder news I've read lately, New Scientist Tech is reporting on a set of experiments being conducted at the University of Reading in the UK that involve using rat neurons to control a specialized robot. The neurons—about 300,000 of them—are in a nutrient-and-antibiotic bath in a control unit that controls the robot wirelessly via Bluetooth. Because these are living cells, scientists are unable to program the robot. Instead, they are working on training it by sending electrical signals into the neurons in response to certain actions the robot takes. For example, an ultrasonic sensor on the robot can detect walls and other obstacles, and the brain cells receive an electrical input to let them know the wall is there. So far, they have "taught" the brain to avoid obstacles with about 80 percent reliability (another researcher at Georgia Tech has taught his robot to avoid obstacles with 90 percent reliability). The results of this research could be int...
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New Research on Quantum Entanglement
2008-08-14 17:34:00
The idea of faster-than-light—even instantaneous—communication has been around for a long time. Pretty much ever since the concept of quantum entanglement was proposed. Albert Einstein, notably, did not believe in such behavior, as his Theory of Relativity showed that faster-than-light travel and even communication were impossible. He mocked quantum entanglement, famously calling it "spooky action at a distance." Nevertheless, recent studies have confirmed the presence of this "spooky action" and now, for the first time, placed a limit on how quickly it happens. The experiment, conducted in Switzerland, confirmed that the entangled particles had exactly the same properties at the same time, even though they were 11 miles apart. In doing so, the research determined that the minimum speed at which the quantum information could be passing between the two particles was at least 10,000 times the speed of light. There are several possible explanations, but a great deal ...
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Joggers Live Longer, Healthier Lives
2008-08-13 17:19:00
A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine has told us something we pretty much already knew: if you jog, or engage in any regular aerobic exercise, in middle or late life, you're less likely to have disabilities and will live a longer and healthier life. The study, conducted over 20 years from 1985 to 2005, included 538 study participants who were regular runners and 423 people in a control group who had never run. All participants were at least 50 years of age when the study began. The data was compiled at the 8-year, 13-year, and 21-year marks and revealed—tada!—that the particpants who exercised had better aerobic capacity, better cardiovascular fitness, increased bone mass, fewer inflammatory markers, less physical disability, better response to vaccinations and even improved thinking, learning and memory. They also lived significantly longer. By the 19th year of the study, 34 percent of the non-runners had died compared with only 15 percent of...
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Company Engineers E. Coli to Make Fuel
2008-08-13 16:10:00
Researchers at biotech company LS9, Inc., have engineered E. coli bacteria to produce a substance very similar to diesel fuel after consuming pretty much any agricultural product. The bacteria—a harmless strain of E. coli—can also be engineered to produce gasoline or jet fuel, the researchers say. The fact that the bacteria can use any type of plant material is promising, as they will be able to produce fuel from waste materials, not just foor products. And because the bacteria are producing finished fuel products—instead of, say, ethanol—they can use the existing distribution system, such as pipelines and tankers. Ethanol cannot use oil pipelines because it will corrode them. The company is working through issues of scaling up the process now, but hopes to have large-scale commercial production within three to four years. They do not, however, expect their product to do anything more than supplement oil as an energy source, not replace it. Best of all...
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Orion First Launch Date Slips One Year
2008-08-12 17:08:00
As part of the government's Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), NASA had proposed to create a new launch system called Orion to enter use by 2015 as part of the Constellation program. Whatever you may think of Orion (and there are plenty of detractors) this is the launch system that—for better or worse—NASA will be using post-shuttle. With the space shuttle retiring in 2010 (or 2011, depending on Congressional priorities and willingness to take risks with a 30+ year old launch system) there will be a gap in the United States' ability to launch astronauts into orbit until Orion is available. The deadline in the VSE for Orion's first launch is March 2015, but NASA always thought they could get it done a little earlier, possibly as early as 2013, in an attempt to shorten the gap in launch capabilities. Unfortunately, their hopes have now slipped to September of 2014 as the earliest possible launch date for Orion due to insufficient funding from Congress. My opinion,...
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Researchers Create Interface To Help Immune System Fight HIV
2008-08-12 16:39:00
Roughly one percent of the antibodies in your blood are of a type known as anti-gal, a type of antibody that is used for fighting serious infections such as Salmonella and E. coli. If you're not fighting a serious infection... well, they don't really do all that much. For people with HIV and other serious viruses, though, that may soon change. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have created a new molecule that binds, on one end, to anti-gal. At the other end, the molecule binds to HIV. The result is that these powerful disease fighting antibodies are attached to the viruses that usually hide from them, allowing the disease fighting powers of the anti-gal antibodies to destroy the HIV viruses. While the treatment did not eliminate the viruses' ability to infect the cells, in an in vitro test, 90 percent of the HIV viruses in the sample were unable to infect their target cells. The group is now working to adapt the molecules so that they will bind to MRSA, an ...
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Researchers Identify Trigger for Brain Plasticity
2008-08-11 21:07:00
During childhood, the human brain is more readily able to learn than during adulthood. During this period, the brain has an improved ability to form new connections, a state called neuroplasticity. Now neuroscientists at Children's Hospital Boston have discovered a protein called Otx2, which appears to trigger this heightened state of brain plasticity. Their research, conducted in mice, demonstrates that Otx2, which is created in the retina, travels into the brain in response to stimuli and triggers the brain's ability to form new neural connections. In a series of experiments, they showed that mice kept in the dark—thus not triggering the sensory receptors to create Otx2—the Otx2 remains in the retinas, not migrating to the brain, preventing a type of cell known as parvalbumin cells, which are responsible for visual processing, from maturing. Further research will be needed to determine if these results are applicable to other parts of the brain besides the parva...
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The Future of Drug Development?
2008-08-11 20:46:00
Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Co. is taking an unusual step to help advance two drugs in its pipeline for treatment of Alzheimer's Disease—it is allowing a hedge fund, TPG-Axon Capital, to invest directly in the drugs. The investments, totaling $325 million, will help cover the costs to finish development and conduct clinical tests on the two drugs. In return for its investment, TPG-Axon will receive milestone payments as the drugs progress through the pipeline and a percentage of revenues if either of the drugs makes it to market. This is not the first time Lilly has taken this type of investment. Lilly allowed NovaQuest, an organization that helps drug companies manage the risks of developing and launching drugs, to invest in Cymbalta, an antidepressant. Since then, NovaQuest has reaped 8.25 percent of Cymbalta's sales. Lilly has a history of thinking outside the box when it comes to drug discovery, development, and marketing. In 2001, the company spun off its ...
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New Materials to Make Cars More Durable, Efficient
2008-08-11 20:16:00
Speaking of automotive technology, Brian Wang over at Next Big Future has an article about advances in automotive materials and how they could impact such things as vehicle durability and efficiency. A new process for working with titanium (which I blogged about back in May) could make it more cost-effective for manufacturers to make their parts out of the durable metal rather than using aluminum. Parts such as brake rotors made out of titanium should last longer than rotors made from aluminum, improving the durability of a vehicle. Brian also talks about increases in production volumes of carbon fiber and its potential for use in automobiles. Carbon fiber is lighter than steel and ten times as strong as iron. If most of the steel in an auto is replaced with carbon fiber, the vehicle could be made to weigh 40 percent less. Doing so could improve fuel efficiency (and reduce carbon emissions) by as much as 30 percent. But carbon fiber is currently vastly more expensive than ste...
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Thermoelectric Generators Improve Vehicle Fuel Efficiency
2008-08-11 20:05:00
Internal combustion engines, like the one in your car, generate power by burning a fuel source (usually gasoline) and converting that heat into mechanical energy, usually by heating a gas or liquid and causing it to expand, using the pressure to move the pistons outward. But it turns out that the process is fairly energy-inefficient, resulting in most of the heat (about 70 percent) being lost to the atmosphere (that's why the hood of your car gets hot and the exhaust gas that comes out your tailpipe is, likewise, hot). But what if we could capture some of that waste heat and use it for energy? That would make cars more energy efficient. It turns out that heat can be converted directly into electricity using devices called thermoelectric generators. The U.S. Department of Energy recently challenged researchers to use the wasted heat energy to make automobiles 10 percent more fuel efficient, and the researchers are coming through. It turns out that if you wrap the exhaust pipe ...
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Amateur Discovers Spacial Anomaly
2008-08-07 17:39:00
Over the past couple of years, since I started this blog, I've encouraged you to get involved in science and technology, including pointing you toward Galaxy Zoo as a way to contribute to the advancement of knowledge. Well, since then, one amateur using Galaxy Zoo—Hanny van Arkel, a schoolteacher from the Netherlands—has made a discovery that has stumped astronomers and physicists. The anomaly, a bright gaseous mass with a gaping hole in its middle, has come to be known as Hanny's Voorwerp (Voorwerp is Dutch for object). And now, thanks to Hanny's discovery, the Hubble space telescope will be pointed at the Voorwerp sometime in 2009 to help determine what it is. So thanks to amateurs like Hanny (and me, and you, if you've been participating in any of the amateur science opportunities I've highlighted in the past) the amount that we know about our universe is growing. Are you doing your part?
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Help Improve Education
2008-08-05 20:48:00
School teachers work hard for the education of our next generation. Without them, the next generation of science and technology visionaries may never get the education they need in order to create our future. And one of the tools that these teachers use to teach their students is classroom projects. But many (most) of these projects require materials for the students to use and learn from, and those materials cost money. Money that our all-too-often underpaid teachers just don't have. That's where DonorsChoose.org comes in. DonorsChoose.org is a website that allows teachers to place requests detailing the projects they want to ofter their students, the materials that they will need, and what the total cost will be. And it allows the general public (that's you and me) to see these requests and donate to help fund them. You can search for projects by a variety of conditions including keyword, geographic area (state, county, school district, and even specific schools), how m...
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Robotic Surgery Lowers Risks of Side Effects
2008-08-05 17:50:00
Technology has long been used to help people do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, and that's not going to change any time soon. A new advance in this area is robotic surgery. CNN reports on the growth in usage of robotic surgery devices made by Intuitive Surgical, Inc., and reveals that patients who undergo robotic surgeries have fewer side effects and faster recoveries. The systems work by allowing a skilled surgeon to control the robotic arms using a joystick. The robotic arms are more precise than human hands and work with smaller incisions. As a result, robotic surgeries often have fewer complications. For example, when a patient's prostate is removed via normal surgery, there are risks of incontinence and impotence. Robotic prostatectomies, on the other hand, have much lower risks for those side effects, meaning that patients are less likely to suffer from decreased quality of life. While the results look good so far, the American Urological Association has...
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Vitamin C Injections Shown to Inhibit Cancer in Mice
2008-08-05 17:24:00
Thirty years ago, a novel idea for cancer treatment was presented: vitamin C. But, it turned out, it was impossible to consume enough vitamin C to raise ascorbate concentrations to pharmacologically-active levels. Now a new study funded by the U.S. Government shows that injecting high concentrations of vitamin C stops the spread of cancer and slows growth of tumors by 50 percent—in mice, at least. The results were positive over a wide variety of cancers, but more research will be needed before human trials can begin.
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The Fight Against Global Warming Will Be Expensive
2008-06-06 18:39:00
Fighting global warming is going to be expensive. I think we all knew that, but now a new study from the International Energy Association illustrates just exactly how expensive. In order to reduce green house gases in the atmosphere fifty percent by 2050, the world needs to invest some $45 trillion, build 1400 nuclear power plants, and vastly expand wind power initiatives. The report outlines two scenarios: one that reduces greenhouse gases to the same levels as 2005 and one that reduces them to half that level. The results also assume an average 3.3% global economic growth rate through 2050. The second scenario, trying to reach half the levels of 2005, would require that 35 coal-fired and 20 gas-fired power plants be fitted with carbon capture and storage technology every year between 2010 and 2050. In addition, to keep up with increasing demand, the world would have to construct 32 new nuclear power plants and 17,000 new wind turbines every year during the same period. We'...
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Sucking Out Clots Improved Angioplasty Results
2008-06-06 18:27:00
Researchers at University Medical Centre Groningen in the Netherlands have conducted a study that shows that thrombus aspiration—sucking clots out of arteries—just before angioplasty can reduce the mortality rate following heart attacks, according to the Los Angeles Times. About 5.6% of patients who received thrombus aspiration either died or suffered a second heart attack in the first year, compared with 9.9% of patients who only received angioplasty. Expectations are that the procedure will be most useful for patients with larger clots or later angioplasties. These types of results are good news for people like me, with a family history of heart problems. I'm almost certain to have a heart attack at some point in time and anything that improves my chances of survival is good news. Then again, it should be pointed out that the company that sponsored the study is the company that makes the equipment used for the thrombus aspiration. So, as usual, I'd like to see ...
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PlanetQuest Update
2008-06-05 23:27:00
I received an e-mail today from Dr. Laurence Doyle of PlanetQuest , the BOINC-based search for extra-solar planets. I had e-mailed Dr. Doyle asking for a status update, and this is what he replied: We have been stalled with fund raising -- but I have written a business plan and that is being circulated through possible donors. As far as the (more predictable) science is concerned, we have half of the detection algorithms running on BOINC and we have a star catalogue of about 2 million observations reduced to light curves. We are also including some re-processed HST images (7-day search for extrasolar planets) and some other public domain data to include -- i.e., to be searched for eclipsing binary planets. Finally, I have been added (via a successful proposal) to the NASA Kepler mission and hope to share some of that data with PlanetQuesters, so that we can all participate in this mission to detect the first "Earths." It sounds like PlanetQuest is going to have a lot of data for ...
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MIT Offers Hope
2008-06-05 20:08:00
Nuclear fusion power. Rapid spread of robots. Technology for longer, healthier lives. Better energy storage systems. Harnessing plant-based photosynthesis for solar energy. Cars that drive themselves. Computers embedded in your clothing. No, this isn't a list of topics from science-fiction novels. It's a subset of a list that researchers at MIT think will help usher in a new era of prosperity. The MIT News Office asked a collection of MIT faculty and researchers for their thoughts on the potentially life-altering technologies that are on the near horizon. C|Net has more, including photos. Given that this information comes from MIT, I'm a little surprised there weren't more suggestions about nanotechnology or artificial intelligence.
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Treat Depression by Growing New Brain Cells
2008-06-05 16:37:00
The Booster Shots blog at the Los Angeles Times reports that a company called Brain Cells, Inc., has begun phase two testing of a compound to treat depression and anxiety. Nothing new so far, but BrainCells plans to treat these diseases by promoting neurogenesis—the growth of new neurons—in the brain. Company co-founder Fred Gage rocked the scientific world about ten years ago with a paper showing that adult brain cells could regenerate over time. While those findings are fully accepted these days, some researchers are skeptical that neurogenesis will work as a treatment for depression. Whether it works for depression or not, this is a valuable area of research that could be use to treat a number of brain and nervous-system conditions.
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