Adapting the crocodile’s immune system
Imagine you’re a crocodile, living in a swamp somewhere. You regularly fight with your neighbors; encounters which regularly leave you with large gashes and open wounds. You might even lose a limb. Now consider the water in which you live, and how dirty and bacteria-infested it is. But somehow, you never get an infection, despite the nasty bacteria being applied directly to open wounds.
Scientists hope to use parts of the crocodile immune system in humans, but the problem is adapting it in such a way where it doesn’t harm the host. The basic principle underlying the immune system is self/non-self recognition and destruction. For instance, during allergy season, your immune system is overzealous about attacking allergens, causing you to be miserable. Well, researchers would like to take pieces of the croc’s immune system and make oral tablets and antibiotic ointments that could be rubbed on wounds, while being careful that the croc’s immune system doesn’t harm the body. The problem with this is that the body’s immune system might see the croc’s immune system as a foreign invader, and attack it.
Nonetheless the croc’s immune system shows a lot of promise in many different areas: fighting HIV and I would even venture to say antibiotic-resistent bacteria as well.
Adam Britton, a member of the team, said: “If you take a test tube of HIV and add crocodile serum, it has a greater effect than human serum. It kills a greater number of HIV viral organisms.”
He continued: “The crocodile has an immune system which attaches to bacteria, making it explode. It’s like putting a gun to the head of the bacteria and pulling the trigger.”
The reptile’s immune system resists fatal infections despite savage fights with other crocodiles that result in missing limbs.
“Even though they live in an environment with all these microbes, they heal very rapidly and almost always without infection,” said Mark Merchant, a United States scientist working on the project.
It should be noted that the crocodile’s immune system is not “more powerful” than a human’s immune system. Instead, it is different — more suited to the environment in which the crocodile lives, which happens to be infested with bugs that the human immune system is not equipped to fight, but which occasionally make their way to humanity.
(It should be also be noted that the first sentence of the article reads thus: “CROCODILE blood may be the key to creating powerful antibiotics that fight HIV, scientists in Australia claim.” The truth of the matter is that antibiotics don’t fight HIV, they fight bacteria. Anti-retrovirals fight HIV.)
Storing summer heat for winter
In a reverse implementation of the Tokyo pavement-watering experiments, the UK’s Transport Research Authority has buried a network of pipes which will store summer’s heat underground in insulated water pipes.
In a trial of the idea, a network of polyethylene water pipes 25 millimetres in diameter has been buried below a section of private road in the UK. The pipes are laid in rows about 15 centimetres apart and at a depth of 12 centimetres, where the ground temperature is normally about 12 °C on average. In the summer this can rise to 25 °C.
The sun warms the asphalt at the surface, which absorbs heat and in turn warms the water in the pipes. This is then pumped for storage to a second array of pipes at the side of the road, which are insulated by a 1-metre-thick layer of polystyrene.
Then in winter, when sensors detect that the temperature of the road surface has fallen to 2 °C, the warm water is pumped back to the pipes under the road where it warms the ground and prevents ice from forming on the road surface.
There is some speculation that similar methods of heating the ground might be employed to heat office blocks. Similar road systems have been built in the Netherlands and Austria, but the UK plan differs in the depth that the water is stored at. The systems in Austria and the Netherlands are buried 20 meters under the ground, which make them far more expensive to implement and maintain.
I wonder how long the water will stay warm enough to thaw the roads? The systems in the Netherlands and Austria seem like they might be more robust during an especially cold winter — being pumped back way down into their holding tanks, the Earth’s heat could warm the water again for the next time it is needed. But water stored so close to the surface has no such re-heating mechanism, and the insulation that once kept the water warm will now keep it cold.
Oxford to stop accepting child prodigies
This isn’t in the realm of science developments, but I do think it’s related, since most “child prodigies” end up studying music, or science, as opposed to liberal arts. Regardless, due to recently-enacted child protection laws in the UK, Oxford is (probably) going to stop accepting children under the age of 17. This isn’t because Oxford is a dangerous or unhealthy place for children to study, but instead it’s because the University cannot guarantee the safety of the children while they are there. Oxford cannot conduct background checks on all of the undergraduate students in its residence buildings, which means that children will not be allowed to live there. Children under the age of 17 would not be allowed to have one-on-one tutoring sessions, either, because Oxford cannot conduct background checks on all of the faculty and staff.
‘The problem is that we can’t alter the environment here; we can’t lay on special measures for younger students. We’re used to operating as an institution for adults.’
I think it’s unfortunate that these kids will not be given the opportunity to work to their fullest potential, without going overseas. Oxford was the only university that accepted children under the age of 17 in the UK, and now this has changed. It remains to be seen what will happen to future British “prodigies” — whether they will come to the United States, or go elsewhere in the world.
The science of Stealth
LJ has written an article exploring the science and feasibility of the technology from the movie Stealth. Stealth, for those of you that don’t know, is about “EDI (”Eddie”) a prototype Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicle, or UCAV, being piloted by the US Navy.” She breaks it down:
In fact, the real-life Navy has been looking into the construction and deployment of UAVs for both combat and surveillance since the 1960s. 11 different models have been developed over the course of various programs, and 3 have entered actual production. And in the decade between 1985 and 1994, UAVs logged over 10,000 operational flight hours.
In particular, the Pioneer UAV highlights the effectiveness of such vehicles, with its great contributions to the success of Operation Desert Storm. Six of these planes flew in over 300 combat missions, their AI systems aiding in target selection, detection of enemy gunfire, and damage assessment. There was even one incident where Iraqi soldiers surrendered to a lone UAV; they knew that despite the lack of weaponry on the plane itself, they were surely being targeted by far-off battleships that had just been tipped off to their location.
LJ’s got the skinny on scramjets, space travel, and the technology that we’ve got today, and how long it might be before we see a real-world EDI. Funny, though, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of actual stealth in Stealth. Go figure.
Prehistoric footwear
I came across a nifty story today, where Dr. Erik Trinkaus has made the case for prehistoric shoes by analyzing the bone structures of early humans. By looking at the bones of the smaller toes, and discovering that they were not as strong as their earlier ancestors, he inferred the use of shoes: the lower leg bones of the remained just as strong as normal, only the toes were weaker. This implies the existence of prehistoric supportive footwear:
“I discovered that the bones of the little toes of humans from that time frame were much less strongly built than those of their ancestors while their leg bones remained large and strong,” Trinkaus said. “The most logical cause would be the introduction of supportive footwear.”
During barefoot walking, the smaller toes flex for traction, keeping the toe bones strong. Supportive footwear lessens the roll of the little toes, thus weakening them.
Finding the actual shoes themselves is a bit more of a challenge because the materials used obviously don’t hold up well to the test of time. Anyone who has seen the pile of shoes at the Holocaust Museum can tell you that. But by analyzing the fossil record, Dr. Trinkaus has found that about 26,000 years ago, the bone structure began to change, leaving the smaller toes weaker.
For some reason, I find the thought that it took humanity many thousands of years to figure out that it might be a good idea to wrap their feet up a very depressing thought. But then, I can barely walk outside on my lawn barefoot, and absolutely love those socks that have bottoms that are twice as thick as their tops.
Four scientific societies oppose Bush’s intelligent design stance
Earlier this month, I reported on how President Bush wants to teach “intelligent design” alongside evolution in public schools. Now, four separate scientific societies have come out against Bush’s stance. The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), and the American Chemical Society (ACS) have each come out in favor of teaching evolution in classrooms in the US.
A position statement was unanimously passed by the first three organizations I listed. Their position echoes my sentiments expressed in my previous post on the subject. Here’s an excerpt:
Intelligent design is not a scientific discipline and should not be taught as part of the K-12 science curriculum. Intelligent design has neither the substantial research base, nor the testable hypotheses as a scientific discipline. There are at least 70 resolutions from a broad array of scientific societies and institutions that are united on this matter. As early as 2002, the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) unanimously passed a resolution critical of teaching intelligent design in public schools.
The intelligent design/creationist movement has adopted the lamentable strategy of asking our science teachers to “teach the controversy” in science curriculums, as if there were a significant debate among biologists about whether evolution underpins the abundant complexity of the biological world. We believe there is no such controversy.
The fundamental tenet of evolution -– descent with modification -– is accepted by the vast majority of biologists. The current debates within the research community deal with the patterns and processes of evolution, not whether the evolutionary principles presented by Darwin in 1859 hold true. These debates are similar to those surrounding the relativistic nature of gravitational waves. No one doubts the existence of gravity just because we are still learning how it works; evolution is on an equally strong footing.
The discussion of life’s spirituality is most appropriate for philosophy or religion classes. It is a mistake to conclude that reluctance to incorporate spiritual questions in science classes runs counter to the cherished principle that vigorous challenge is vital to the scientific method.
[...]
…President Bush, by suggesting that we use intelligent design as a scientific counterpoint to the teaching of evolutionary biology, is unwittingly undermining the scientific method at its core. This is most unfortunate in an era when U.S. students are already lagging behind their international peers in science education.
(Emphasis mine.)
The fulltext of a separate statement posted by the ACS is available on the ACS website (PDF), and it expresses sentiments similar to those above.
If your science education was anything like mine, the topic of how we got here was glossed over. Vague references to “millions of years ago” and “the Jurassic period” and “the first Ice Age” were occasionally made, but we were never taught the ins and outs of evolutionary theory. Instead the school system opted to leave out this part of our education. As a result, I know next to nothing about evolutionary theory except the bits and pieces that I’ve learned from my independent reading, and journey through higher education. I went to a very good school, but they wouldn’t touch evolution with a ten-foot pole. I’m curious how many other Americans had an education like mine?
Tokyo opts to water its streets
In an effort to combat rising city temperautres, Tokyo has turned to a neglected custom called uchimizu, which is the sprinkling of water on the ground to lower air temperature.
This latest attempt to bring down summer temperatures that have been hovering in the 40s Celsius involves pumping up the water that seeps into the metro system and spraying it from the kerbside[sic] onto the road surface. A water-retentive coating stops the water from draining away, and evaporation does the rest.
At the test site, directly outside Japan’s parliament building in central Tokyo, a solar and wind-powered pump forces the subway flood water into high-pressure sprinklers that spray it over a 350-metre stretch of road. Recently, the researchers managed to cool the road surface - which often reaches up to 60 °C during the summer - by 10 °C, and the air above the road by 1 °C.
(For the Americans out there — myself included — 40°C is 104°F; 60°C is 140°F)
In recent years, the temperature of Japan’s cities has outpaced global warming by a factor of 4. Temperatures in Tokyo have increased by an average of 3°C (~6°F) compared to 100 years ago. Revisiting uchimizu has caused pavement temperatures to drop by 10°C, and the air temperature to drop by 1°C — no small feat.