The Old Eighteen

Aggie researchers find healthy fatty acid in brisket

Brisket as health food?  If this pans out, I'm taking back everything bad I've ever said about the Aggies.  Well, okay, not everything, but you get my point:

Aggie graduate student Stacey Turk's master's thesis shows that fat from brisket contains significant amounts of oleic acid, a monounsaturated fatty acid that can promote good cholesterol in people.

The study was publicized by A&M officials in late April. Stephen Smith, the professor who supervised Turk's study, says it shows that oleic acid in brisket "is like olive oil, and, as far as I know, has no downside to it."

Smith, whose doctorate is in biomedical research, said the acid's "effects are either neutral or positive (in a diet). And other studies confirm that good cholesterol goes up in men who consume fat high in oleic acid."

"We did not know we could get that kind of fat from brisket," Smith said.

[...] Smith, who has been at A&M for 25 years, said the cut's fatty ridge generally is trimmed off by butchers and tossed aside. But he thinks that meat processors should save the beneficial fat and use it when they produce ground meat.

"It could make for a healthier hamburger," Smith said.

Now, if we could just get a study extolling the health benefits of chicken-fried steak...

You've got mail - from the Altairian solar system

If a Japanese astronomer's efforts are successful, our first contact with an alien civilization might come in the form of a LOLcat with the caption, "im in ur solar system invadin ur planetz":

An “e-mail” message from aliens inhabiting the Altair solar system could reach Earth within 7 years, some astronomers suggest. The alien message would come in response to a radio-wave signal sent toward Altair 25 years ago by Japanese astronomer Hisashi Hirabayashi, who suggests we may receive a reply as early as the year 2015 if intelligent aliens received, decoded and responded quickly to the message. Altair is located approximately 16 light-years from Earth.

Hirabayashi, a former researcher at the University of Tokyo Astronomical Observatory (now known as the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), along with colleague Masaki Morimoto, sent the message via a US radio telescope in 1983 on the Tanabata holiday, a traditional Japanese star festival celebrating the annual meeting of two stars — Vega (which represents the goddess Orihime) and Altair (which represents the god Hikoboshi) — in the night sky.

The message, which is believed to have reached Altair in 1999, consisted of 13 binary-encoded images (71 x 71 pixels each) that showed, among other things, the characteristics of our solar system, the location of our planet, the known chemical elements, whole numbers, human characteristics, and the basic structure of DNA. Their message also attempted to explain biological evolution with a depiction of mammals evolving from primeval life forms (see the image above of the fish crawling onto land).

My guess is that we'll get a reply similar to the email below:

REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

FIRST, I MUST SOLICIT YOUR STRICTEST CONFIDENCE IN THIS TRANSACTION. THIS IS BY VIRTUE OF ITS NATURE AS BEING UTTERLY CONFIDENTIAL AND 'TOP SECRET'. I AM SURE AND HAVE CONFIDENCE OF YOUR ABILITY AND RELIABILITY TO PROSECUTE A TRANSACTION OF THIS GREAT MAGNITUDE INVOLVING A PENDING TRANSACTION REQUIRING MAXIIMUM CONFIDENCE.

WE ARE TOP OFFICIAL OF THE ALTAIRIAN HIGH COUNCIL CONTRACT REVIEW PANEL WHO ARE INTERESTED IN IMPORATION OF GOODS INTO OUR COUNTRY WITH FUNDS WHICH ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED ON CETI ALPHA 5. IN ORDER TO COMMENCE THIS BUSINESS WE SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE TO ENABLE US TRANSFER INTO YOUR ACCOUNT THE SAID TRAPPED FUNDS.

THE SOURCE OF THIS FUND IS AS FOLLOWS; DURING THE LAST MILITARY REGIME HERE ON ALTAIR-12, THE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS SET UP COMPANIES AND AWARDED THEMSELVES CONTRACTS WHICH WERE GROSSLY OVER-INVOICED IN VARIOUS MINISTRIES. THE PRESENT CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT SET UP A CONTRACT REVIEW PANEL AND WE HAVE IDENTIFIED A LOT OF INFLATED CONTRACT FUNDS WHICH ARE PRESENTLY FLOATING IN THE CENTRAL BANK OF ALTAIR-12 READY FOR PAYMENT.

HOWEVER, BY VIRTUE OF OUR POSITION AS CIVIL SERVANTS AND MEMBERS OF THIS PANEL, WE CANNOT ACQUIRE THIS MONEY IN OUR NAMES. I HAVE THEREFORE, BEEN DELEGATED AS A MATTER OF TRUST BY MY COLLEAGUES OF THE PANEL TO LOOK FOR AN INTERSTELLAR PARTNER INTO WHOSE ACCOUNT WE WOULD TRANSFER THE SUM OF US$21,320,000.00(TWENTY ONE MILLION, THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND U.S DOLLARS). HENCE WE ARE WRITING YOU THIS LETTER. WE HAVE AGREED TO SHARE THE MONEY THUS; 1. 20% FOR THE ACCOUNT OWNER 2. 70% FOR US (THE OFFICIALS) 3. 10% TO BE USED IN SETTLING TAXATION AND ALL LOCAL AND FOREIGN EXPENSES. IT IS FROM THE 70% THAT WE WISH TO COMMENCE THE IMPORTATION BUSINESS.

PLEASE,NOTE THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% SAFE AND WE HOPE TO COMMENCE THE TRANSFER LATEST SEVEN (7) BANKING DAYS FROM THE DATE OF THE RECEIPT OF THE FOLLOWING INFORMATIOM BY TEL/FAX; 234-1-7740449, YOUR COMPANY'S SIGNED, AND STAMPED LETTERHEAD PAPER THE ABOVE INFORMATION WILL ENABLE US WRITE LETTERS OF CLAIM AND JOB DESCRIPTION RESPECTIVELY. THIS WAY WE WILL USE YOUR COMPANY'S NAME TO APPLY FOR PAYMENT AND RE-AWARD THE CONTRACT IN YOUR COMPANY'S NAME.

WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO DOING THIS BUSINESS WITH YOU AND SOLICIT YOUR CONFIDENTIALITY IN THIS TRANSATION. PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE THE RECEIPT OF THIS LETTER USING THE ABOVE TEL/FAX NUMBERS. I WILL SEND YOU DETAILED INFORMATION OF THIS PENDING PROJECT WHEN I HAVE HEARD FROM YOU.

YOURS FAITHFULLY,

DR NOONIAN SOONG

UT researchers discover a way to use bacteria to produce ethanol

I'm no scientist, but this sounds like a promising step forward in the development of alternative fuel sources:

UT researchers have developed a way to make the production of ethanol more sustainable, less expensive and less laborious.

The University scientists discovered how to use photosynthetic organisms, known as cyanobacteria, to make ethanol, which is a type of alternative fuel.

[...] Corn-based ethanol has caused problems regarding the overuse of agricultural land and rising crop prices, while extracting sugars from other sources is labor-intensive and costly. The production of sugarcane has also caused a depletion of Brazil's rainforests, said David Nobles Jr., a molecular genetics and microbiology research associate.

The cyanobacteria that the researchers have studied produce cellulose, glucose and sucrose using the energy of the sun. The sugars can be extracted from the bacteria relatively easily and inexpensively. The cyanobacteria can also grow in deserts using salt water and thus would not take up agricultural land, the researchers said.

If this pans out, it could represent a huge step forward for the environment.  Not only would this reduce or perhaps eliminate the need for corn-based ethanol, which has been a key contributor to food shortages and rising prices, but it could also help reducle levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere:

Cyanobacteria are a photosynthetic bacteria, which means they get energy from the sun and use the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to convert it into organic components. On a large scale, the researchers said this could help reduce global warming.

"Cyanobacteria have been around for some 3.5 billion years and are responsible for all of the oxygen in the atmosphere," Nobles said. "Cyanobacteria changed the Earth once, and we're looking to make it change the Earth again."

According to the researchers, it would take over 820,000 square miles of farm land to produce enough corn-based ethanol to meet the US demand for fuel.  But with cyanobacteria, the same amount of fuel could be produced on no more than 5,000 square miles of land, and it could be done on land that isn't suitable for farming.  Malcolm Brown, one of the researchers, sees the potential for this discovery to have a profound effect on the way that fuel is produced in this country:

Brown said he would love to see an undertaking similar to the scale of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s that would employ millions of Americans to start up the energy farms to produce ethanol.

"It would be a fantastic project," Brown said. "After Kennedy sent a man to the moon, U.S. high school kids became future engineers. We need a revitalization of that for the biofuels area."

Brown said the green revolution started in the U.S. and that the energy revolution will start in the U.S. as well.

"We have a unique opportunity here," he said. "We need to help make it go forward."

Here's hoping that help arrives on January 20, 2009.

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(via Burnt Orange Report)

Senate passes Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act

Genetic testing can play a significant role in early prevention and treatment of a lot of really nasty diseases, so it's good to hear that the Democratic Congress is making a priority of addressing the understandable fears some people have that their genetic information might be misused by insurance companies and employers:

People learning through genetic testing that they might be susceptible to devastating diseases wouldn't also have to worry about losing their jobs or their health insurance under anti-discrimination legislation the Senate passed Thursday.

The 95-0 Senate vote sends the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act back to the House, which could approve it early next week. President Bush supports the legislation.

The bill, described by Sen. Edward Kennedy as "the first major new civil rights bill of the new century," would bar health insurance companies from using genetic information to set premiums or determine enrollment eligibility. Similarly, employers could not use genetic information in hiring, firing or promotion decisions.

PETA announces $1 million prize for commercially viable lab-grown meat

This is an excellent idea, and I'm surprised it hasn't come up sooner:

Scientists around the world are researching or seeking the funds to research ways to produce meat in the laboratory—without killing any animals. In vitro meat production would use animal stem cells that would be placed in a medium to grow and reproduce. The result would mimic flesh and could be cooked and eaten. Some promising steps have been made toward this technology, but we're still several years away from having in vitro meat be available to the general public.

PETA is now stepping in and offering a $1 million reward to the first scientist to produce and bring to market in vitro meat.

[...] The contestant must do both of the following:

• Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike.
• Manufacture the approved product in large enough quantities to be sold commercially, and successfully sell it at a competitive price in at least 10 states.

Lab-grown meat is a good idea for a number of reasons: it would not only eliminate the suffering from meat production, but it could also reduce the industry's environmental footprint. And I'm sure that lab-grown meat could be made healthier, and produced in ways that lessen the incidence of food-borne illnesses. Some extremists in the animal rights movement might oppose this, and the idea would need to be sold to people who would have a knee-jerk reaction to the thought of meat grown in a lab, but I say bring it on.

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(via The Current)

Somewhere in the afterlife, Douglas Adams is having a laugh

We haven't encountered any alien life yet (no, Michael Jackson doesn't count), but when we do, at least one linguist thinks that we should be able to invent a device that will enable us to talk to them:

If we ever make contact with intelligent aliens, we should be able to build a universal translator to communicate with them, according to a linguist and anthropologist in the US.

Such a "babelfish", which gets its name from the translating fish in Douglas Adams's book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, would require a much more advanced understanding of language than we currently have. But a first step would be recognising that all languages must have a universal structure, according to Terrence Deacon of the University of California, Berkeley, US.

This is all fine and good, but first, can they please, please invent a device that would make it easier for the customer service guy in India answering AT&T's phone calls to understand what the hell I'm telling him?

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(via Andrew Sullivan)

We're #1!

In per-capita CO2 emissions, that is, at least judging by this map produced by scientists at Purdue:

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(via Wired Science)

I hope this pans out

This could be the best news I've heard in a long, long time:

What if we told you that a guy with no background in science or medicine-not even a college degree-has come up with what may be one of the most promising breakthroughs in cancer research in years?

Well it's true, and if you think it sounds improbable, consider this: he did it with his wife's pie pans and hot dogs.

His name is John Kanzius, and he's a former businessman and radio technician who built a radio wave machine that has cancer researchers so enthusiastic about its potential they're pouring money and effort into testing it out.

Here's the important part: if clinical trials pan out-and there's still a long way to go-the Kanzius machine will zap cancer cells all through your body without the need for drugs or surgery and without side effects. None at all. At least that's the idea.

The way it works, if I've read and understood the article correctly, is that metallic nanoparticles are attached to antibodies that target cancer cells, and high-powered radio waves are are used to heat the nanoparticles so they destroy cancer cells without doing any damage to the surrounding tissue.  Unlike radiation, radio waves are not harmful to people so they don't do any collateral damage when passing through a person's body.  So if everything works like it's supposed to, a person can have all of the cancer inside of their body wiped out, without drugs and without side effects.  And the treatment can be used for any type of cancer.

This treatment is still up to 4 years away from human testing, although it has been tested successfully on animals.  (Note to PETA: get over it.)  I'm hesitant to get my hopes up too much for this, but maybe when the testing is done we'll finally have a way to wipe out this horrible disease forever.  I lost my mom to cancer seven years ago, and watching her suffer was worse than any torture I can think of.  What made it worse was knowing that much of her suffering was being caused by the treatments that were being used to prolong her life, not by the cancer itself.  It's great to think that we might finally have a way to treat people like my mom without putting them through the suffering involved with chemotherapy and radiation, and better yet to fully cure them.

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(via Daily Kos)

Now that's a fricking laser

Now we just need to find a fricking shark big enough to fit this fricking thing on its head:

Scientists have switched on the world's most powerful laser, which for one-trillionth of a second is 2,000 times more powerful than all the power plants in the United States. The laser's output tops a petawatt, which is a quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) watts of power.

In the basement of the physics building at the University of Texas at Austin, the school's High Intensity Laser Science Group built a petawatt laser in hopes of recreating astronomical phenomena like supernovae in miniature.

"We can put materials into states that you can't access here on earth," said Mikael Martinez, the laser project's manager. "You'd have to go out into space and hang out with an exploding star to observe what we plan to observe here in Texas."

When the scientists turned on the laser on March 31, it became the world's most powerful operational laser, but it doesn't yet hold the record for the most powerful laser ever built. That honor, at least for a few more months, belongs to the now mothballed Nova laser built at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. The Nova produced 1.25 petawatts of power when it was first switched on in 1996. Martinez said he expected his project to break that record within the year, reaching between 1.3 and 1.5 petawatts.

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(via Burnt Orange Report)

It's a small world

For those of you clinging to the naive idea that there is such a thing as a "regional" nuclear war, a new study by Michael Mills at the University of Colorado at Boulder suggests that a limited nuclear war on another continent would have wide-reaching consequences around the world, including here in the United States.  The study used a scenario in which the long-standing bitterness between India and Pakistan escalates into a limited nuclear exchange, with each side launching 50 nuclear weapons against the opposing nation's largest cities, and found that even such a limited exchange would do significant damage to the earth's ozone layer and increase cancer rates across the Northern Hemisphere:

"Our research supports that there would be worldwide destruction," said Michael Mills, co-author of the study and a research scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "It demonstrates that a small-scale regional conflict is capable of triggering larger ozone losses globally than the ones that were previously predicted for a full-scale nuclear war."

[...] Incorporating the latest atmospheric modeling, the scientists are finding that even a small nuclear conflict would wreak havoc on the global environment -- cooling it twice as much as it's heated over the last century -- and on the structure of the atmosphere itself.

Mills' work [...] found that when a cluster of cities are burning together, they end up creating their own weather, pumping soot 20,000 feet into the atmosphere. Once there, sunlight would heat the smoke, and drive it up 260,000 feet above the earth's surface.

Along the way, the hot soot would cause a variety of atmospheric changes with a net result of huge reductions in ozone, which in the stratosphere serves as sunblock for the earth.

[...] According to research cited by the paper, the increase in ultraviolet light falling to earth at the 45-degree latitude -- a little south of Portland, Oregon -- would cause damage to DNA to increase 213 percent.

"It would have a dramatic effect on skin cancer and cataracts and be very damaging to crops and ecosystems," Mills said.

The reduced levels of ozone would persist for five years, with substantial reductions in ozone continuing for another five years after that.

Missile defense systems won't protect us from a depleted ozone layer, no matter how much money we spend on them.