Listen to incoming meteors (or UFOs) live

The Air Force Space Surveillance Radar is scanning the skies above Texas. When a meteor or satellite passes over the facility–ping!–there is an echo. Click on the button to listen to a live audio feed:

http://wowzaweb.streamguys.com/~spaceweather/

Ooh! I heard one!  Hmm, that one sounded while a space whale… Interesting.

Obama President to acknowledge aliens today

When “The Top Secret UFO Project,” filmmaker R. J. Thomas’ parody of UFO documentaries, premiered on DVD in 2006, Mr. Thomas knew he would get reactions in all sizes and shapes.

Daily Grail.com, a UFO-themed website, said that the mockrumentary film was bound to cause some confusion. Well, they turned out to be right.

“I’ve received phone calls. I’ve received e-mails. Bloggers are arguing about whether it’s a fake or not,” Mr. Thomas said. “Some are telling me that UFOs don’t exist, and that the Bush administration had no UFO information to withold from the public. Others are saying that UFOs do exist, urging me to be patient because government UFO secrets will be exposed shortly.”

But the most unusual reaction came from a caller who left a message on Mr. Thomas’ voice mail on October 13th. In a deep and mysterious voice, the caller said, “We are not alone. On November 17th, President Obama will acknowledge about the aliens.”

“He put a big pause in-between the two sentences.” Mr. Thomas said. “I don’t know if it is just the way he talks or he was doing it for dramatic effect.”

The caller left no name, phone number, e-mail address, or even bothered to say whether he was affiliated with any UFO-related organization.

“He spoke in a deep, ominous voice,” Mr. Thomas said. “He would be perfect to do the narration of an eerie SyFy Channel documentary or be the narrator of a haunted house amusement park ride.” …

via Mysterious Caller Alerts Filmmaker to Obama UFO Disclosure.

In case the ominous voice is correct, here is a link to the White House so you can read the disclosure. I suppose they will post it there. Here is a link to White House posts with the word “alien”.

Get the Google Earth Plug in and Watch H1N1 Spread

Try it here: http://routemap.osu.edu/

Routemap produces a keyhole markup file (kml) that displays disease transmission events implied by genetic sequence data on pathogens.

Interactive routemap for geographic transmission of viral strains based on 461 full genomes of pandemic Influenza (H1N1). Click the dot for a location of interest. Mouse over the dots that arise from your location of interest to see incoming and outgoing transmissions. On mouse over, the green lines represent outgoing routes for spread of H1N1; red lines represent incoming routes for spread of H1N1.

A Second Skin

Despite advances in treatment regimens and the best efforts of nurses and doctors, about 70% of all people with severe burns die from related infections. But a revolutionary new wound dressing developed at Tel Aviv University could cut that number dramatically.

Prof. Meital Zilberman of TAU’s Department of Biomedical Engineering has developed a new wound dressing based on fibers she engineered — fibers that can be loaded with drugs like antibiotics to speed up the healing process, and then dissolve when they’ve done their job. A study published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research – Applied Biomaterials demonstrates that, after only two days, this dressing can eradicate infection-causing bacteria.

The new dressing protects the wound until it is no longer needed, after which it melts away. “We’ve developed the first wound dressing that both releases antibiotic drugs and biodegrades in a controlled manner,” says Prof. Zilberman. “It solves current mechanical and physical limitations in wound-dressing techniques and gives physicians a new and more effective platform for treating burns and bedsores.”

Not as simple as it sounds

While the concept is simple, the technology is not. Skin, Prof. Zilberman explains, serves a number of vastly different purposes. “Wound dressings must maintain a certain level of moisture while acting as a shield,” she says. “Like skin, they must also enable fluids from the wound to leave the infected tissue at a certain rate. It can’t be too fast or too slow. If too fast, the wound will dry out and it won’t heal properly. If too slow, there’s a real risk of increased contamination.”

Prof. Zilberman’s new wound dressing, which does not yet have a formal name, is designed to mimic skin and the way it protects the body. It combines positive mechanical and physical properties with what medical researchers call “a desired release profile of antibiotics.”

via American Friends of Tel Aviv University: A Second Skin.

Bigger not necessarily better, when it comes to brains

Tiny insects could be as intelligent as much bigger animals despite only having a brain the size of a pinhead say scientists at Queen Mary University of London. “Animals with bigger brains are not necessarily more intelligent ” according to Lars Chittka Professor of Sensory and Behavioural Ecology at Queen Mary s Research Centre for Psychology and University of Cambridge colleague Jeremy Niven.

This begs the important question what are they for Research repeatedly shows how insects are capable of some intelligent behaviours scientists previously thought was unique to larger animals. Honeybees for example can count categorise similar objects like dogs or human faces understand same and different and differentiate between shapes that are symmetrical and asymmetrical.

“We know that body size is the single best way to predict an animal s brain size ” explains Chittka writing in the journal Current Biology today. “However contrary to popular belief we can t say that brain size predicts their capacity for intelligent behaviour.” Differences in brain size between animals is extreme: a whale’s brain can weigh up to 9 kg with over 200 billion nerve cells and human brains vary between 1.25 kg and 1.45 kg with an estimated 85 billion nerve cells . A honeybee’s brain weighs only 1 milligram and contains fewer than a million nerve cells. While some increases in brain size do affect an animal s capability for intelligent behaviour many size differences only exist in a specific brain region.

This is often seen in animals with highly developed senses like sight or hearing or an ability to make very precise movements. The size increase allows the brain to function in greater detail finer resolution higher sensitivity or greater precision: in other words more of the same. Research suggests that bigger animals may need bigger brains simply because there is more to control – for example they need to move bigger muscles and therefore need more and bigger nerves to move them.

Chittka says: “In bigger brains we often don’t find more complexity, just an endless repetition of the same neural circuits over and over. This might add detail to remembered images or sounds, but not add any degree of complexity. To use a computer analogy, bigger brains might in many cases be bigger hard drives, not necessarily better processors.” …

via Bigger not necessarily better, when it comes to brains, Queen Mary, University of London.

One in seven Americans short of food. Shorted by the Americans who are fat of food?

More than 49 million Americans — one in seven — struggled to get enough to eat in 2008, the highest total in 14 years of a federal survey on “food insecurity,” the U.S. government said Monday.

While Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said programs such as food stamps softened the impact of an economic recession, anti-hunger groups pointed to the huge increase from the preceding year when 36.2 million people had trouble getting enough food and a third of them occasionally went hungry.

“The survey suggested that things could be much worse but for the fact that we have extensive food assistance programs,” Vilsack told reporters. “This is a great opportunity to put a spotlight on this problem.”

About 14.6 percent of U.S. households, equal to 49.1 million people, “had difficulty obtaining food for all their members due to a lack of resources” during 2008, up 3.5 percentage points from 2007 when 11.1 percent of households were classified as food insecure.

About 5.7 percent of households, or 17.3 million people, had “very low food security,” meaning some members of the household had to eat less. Typically, food runs short in those households for a few days in seven or eight months of the year, USDA said.

President Barack Obama called the USDA report “unsettling” and vowed to reverse the trend of rising hunger.

“Our children’s ability to grow, learn, and meet their full potential — and therefore our future competitiveness as a nation — depends on regular access to healthy meals,” Obama said in a statement.

USDA’s annual report was based on a survey conducted in December 2008, soon after financial markets slumped and when the jobless rate was marching toward its current 10.2 percent.

“The numbers are even worse than people otherwise believed,” said Jim Weill of the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger group. “We all know we have the worst downturn since the Depression.”

via One in seven Americans short of food | Reuters.

I found some of the food: Obesity Prevalence Among Low-Income, Preschool-Aged Children — United States, 1998–2008

Chart of obesity prevalence – cdc

 

Unfriend named word of 2009

“Unfriend” has been named the word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary, chosen from a list of finalists with a tech-savvy bent.

Unfriend was defined as a verb that means to remove someone as a “friend” on a social networking side such as Facebook.

“It has both currency and potential longevity,” said Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer for Oxford’s U.S. dictionary program, in a statement.

“In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year.”

Other words deemed finalists for 2009 by the dictionary’s publisher, Britain’s Oxford University Press, came from other technological trends, the economy, and political and current affairs.

In technology, there was “hashtag,” which is the hash sign added to a word or phrase that lets Twitter users search for tweets similarly tagged; “intexticated” for when people are distracted by texting while driving, and “sexting,” which is the sending of sexually explicit SMSes and pictures by cellphone.

Finalists from the economy included “freemium,” meaning a business model in which some basic services are provided for free, and “funemployed,” referring to people taking advantage of newly unemployed status to have fun or pursue other interests.

In the political and current affairs section, finalists included “birther,” meaning conspiracy theorists challenging President Barack Obama’s U.S. birth certificate, and “choice mom,” a person who chooses to be a single mother.

Novelty words making the shortlist were “deleb,” meaning a dead celebrity, and “tramp stamp,” referring to a tattoo on the lower back, usually on a woman.

via Unfriend named word of 2009 | U.S. | Reuters.

First U.S. marijuana cafe opens in Portland

The United States’ first marijuana cafe opened on Friday, posing an early test of the Obama administration’s move to relax policing of medical use of the drug.

The Cannabis Cafe in Portland, Oregon, is the first to give certified medical marijuana users a place to get hold of the drug and smoke it — as long as they are out of public view — despite a federal ban.

“This club represents personal freedom, finally, for our members,” said Madeline Martinez, Oregon’s executive director of NORML, a group pushing for marijuana legalization.

“Our plans go beyond serving food and marijuana,” said Martinez. “We hope to have classes, seminars, even a Cannabis Community College, based here to help people learn about growing and other uses for cannabis.”

The cafe — in a two-story building which formerly housed a speak-easy and adult erotic club Rumpspankers — is technically a private club, but is open to any Oregon residents who are NORML members and hold an official medical marijuana card.

Members pay $25 per month to use the 100-person capacity cafe. They don’t buy marijuana, but get it free over the counter from “budtenders”. Open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., it serves food but has no liquor license.

There are about 21,000 patients registered to use marijuana for medical purposes in Oregon. Doctors have prescribed marijuana for a host of illnesses, including Alzheimer’s, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and Tourette’s syndrome.

On opening day, reporters invited to the cafe could smell, but were not allowed to see, people smoking marijuana.

via First U.S. marijuana cafe opens in Portland | U.S. | Reuters.

Oh god, I totally could not stop laughing about this. It sounds like something a stoned person would decide. “Oh, you reporters. You can smell them, but you aren’t allowed to see them.  Oh yeah, good plan. Just sniff them. Heh heh.” After a while the reporters start to agree. “Oh. Yeah. Let’s smell those marijuana smokers some more. This is for our report you know. We have to smell them real good. Can we get a little closer? Heh. Heh.”

My personal exposure to pot is pretty much limited to Cheech and Chong movies a long time ago and 2nd hand smoke at rock concerts, by the way. But I think stoned people are really funny.

Meditation ‘eases heart disease’

Heart disease patients who practise Transcendental Meditation have reduced death rates, US researchers have said.

At a meeting of the American Heart Association they said they randomly assigned 201 African Americans to meditate or to make lifestyle changes.

After nine years, the meditation group had a 47% reduction in deaths, heart attacks and strokes.

The research was carried out by the Medical College in Wisconsin with the Maharishi University in Iowa.

It was funded by a £2.3m grant from the National Institutes of Health and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

‘Significant benefits’

The African American men and women had an average age of 59 years and narrowing of the arteries in their hearts.

The meditation group practised for 20 minutes twice a day.

The lifestyle change group received education classes in traditional risk factors, including dietary modification and exercise.

As well as the reductions in death, heart attacks and strokes in the meditating group, there was a clinically significant drop (5mm Hg) in blood pressure.

And a significant reduction in psychological stress in some participants….

via BBC NEWS | Health | Meditation ‘eases heart disease’.

Had flu? You may have H1N1 protection

People who have had repeated flu infections — or repeated flu vaccines — may have some protection against the new pandemic swine influenza, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They found evidence that the human immune system can recognize bits of the new H1N1 virus that are similar to older, distantly related H1N1 strains.

“What we have found is that the swine flu has similarities to the seasonal flu, which appear to provide some level of pre-existing immunity. This suggests that it could make the disease less severe in the general population than originally feared,” said Alessandro Sette, director of the Center for Infectious Disease at California’s La Jolla Institute.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may also help explain why many older people are less likely to have severe disease, said Allison Deckhut-Augustine of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“Adults may have some pre-existing immunity for H1N1,” Deckhut-Augustine said in a telephone interview.

That does not mean older people are protected from infection, and Deckhut-Augustine stressed that people should still be vaccinated against H1N1.

Swine flu has infected millions of people globally and killed an estimated 3,900 in the United States alone, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Drug makers are struggling to make vaccines and governments are working to vaccinate their populations.

Bjoern Peters and colleagues at the La Jolla Institute looked at flu epitopes — molecular markers or structures that the immune system recognizes — dating back 20 years.

“We found that the immune system’s T-cells can recognize a significant percent of the markers in swine flu,” Peters said in a statement.

DUAL PROTECTION

The human immune system has two kinds of protection. Antibody response can prevent infection, while T-cells fight infection once it has occurred.

Peters and colleagues found T-cell protection but not antibody response.

“This T-cell response decreases severity of disease but doesn’t prevent infection,” said Deckhut-Augustine, whose agency helped pay for the study and maintains the public database that Peters used.

The effect could be cumulative, Peters said, which could explain why people over 50 seem to be less likely to get noticeable H1N1 infections.

“This may also suggest why children are more susceptible to severe infection and why they might need two boosts,” Deckhut-Augustine said. “They haven’t been around as long and they haven’t been exposed to different strains of H1N1 as long as adults.”via Had flu? You may have H1N1 protection | Reuters.