Could Parallel Universes Be Congenial to Life?

… recent studies by Alejandro Jenkins and Gilad Perez, authors of our cover story, “Looking for Life in the Multiverse,” show that some other universes may not be so inhospitable after all. “We have found examples of alternative values of the fundamental constants, and thus of alternative sets of physical laws, that might still lead to very interesting words and perhaps to life,” they write. In other words, scientists get a “disaster” for life if their models vary just one “constant” of nature, but if they vary more than one they can find values that are compatible with the formation of complex structures and perhaps intelligent life. What would these universes be like?

Many of us are captivated by the search for other beings in the vast cosmos beyond Earth. So it is ironic that we sometimes place such a paltry value on life that already exists on our own planet. Seven horrific tropical diseases, mostly caused by parasitic worms, ruin the lives and health of a billion impoverished people around the world by making them chronically sick, yet these ailments get less attention and money than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. In his feature article, Peter Jay Hotez presents “A Plan to Defeat Neglected Tropical Diseases.” Surely there is a way to provide the necessary drugs—which can cost just 50 cents per person—so that all people can thrive.

via Life Quest: Could Parallel Universes Be Congenial to Life?: Scientific American.

Next generation lens promises more control

Duke University engineers have created a new generation of lens that could greatly improve the capabilities of telecommunications or radar systems to provide a wide field of view and greater detail.But the lens they fashioned doesn’t look anything like a lens. While traditional lenses are made of clear substances – like glass or plastic – with highly polished surfaces, the new lens looks more like a miniature set of tan Venetian blinds. Yet its ability to focus the direction of electromagnetic rays passing through it dramatically surpasses that of a conventional lens, the engineers say.

The latest advance was made possible by the ability to fabricate exotic composite materials known as metamaterials. The metamaterial in these experiments is not so much a single substance, but the entire man-made structure which can be engineered to exhibit properties not readily found in nature.

The prototype lens, which measures four inches by five inches and less than an inch high, is made up of more than 1,000 individual pieces of the same fiberglass material used in circuit boards and is etched with copper. It is the precise arrangement of these pieces in parallel rows, that directs the rays as they pass through.

“For hundreds of years, lens makers have ground the surfaces of a uniform material in such a way as to sculpt the rays as they pass through the surfaces,” said Nathan Kundtz, post-doctoral associate in electrical and computer engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. “While these lenses can focus rays extremely efficiently, they have limitations based on what happens to the rays as they pass through the volume of the lens.

“Instead of using the surfaces of the lens to control rays, we studied altering the material between the surfaces,” Kundtz said. “If you can control the volume, or bulk, of the lens, you gain much more freedom and control to design a lens to meet specific needs.”

The results of his experiments, which were conducted in the laboratory of senior researcher David R. Smith, the William Bevan Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, appeared as an advanced online publication of the journal Nature Materials. This is the first demonstration of what was thought to be theoretically possible.

Recognizing the limitations of traditional lenses, scientists have long been investigating other options, including those known as gradient index (GRIN) lenses. These are typically clear spheres, and while they have advantages over traditional lenses, they are difficult to fabricate and the focus point is spherical. Additionally, because most sensing systems are oriented in two dimensions, the spherical image doesn’t always translate clearly on a flat surface.

The new lens, however, has a wide angle of view, almost 180 degrees, and because its focal point is flat, it can be used with standard imaging technologies. The latest experiments were conducted with microwaves, and the researchers say it is theoretically possible to design lenses for wider frequencies.

“We’ve come up with what is in essence GRIN on steroids,” said Smith, whose team used similar metamaterials to create one of the first “cloaking” devices in 2006. “This first in a new class of lenses offers tantalizing possibilities and opens a whole new application for metamaterials.

“While these experiments were conducted in two dimensions, the design should provide a good initial step in developing a three-dimensional lens,” Smith said. “The properties of the metamaterials we used should also make it possible to use infrared and optical frequencies.”

The researchers say a single metamaterial lens could replace traditional optical systems requiring vast arrays of lenses and provide clearer images. They could also be used in large-scale systems such as radar arrays to better direct beams, a task not possible for traditional lenses, which would need to be too large to be practical. – eurekaalert

Cannabis damages young brains more than originally thought, study finds

Canadian teenagers are among the largest consumers of cannabis worldwide. The damaging effects of this illicit drug on young brains are worse than originally thought, according to new research by Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a psychiatric researcher from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. The new study, published in Neurobiology of Disease, suggests that daily consumption of cannabis in teens can cause depression and anxiety, and have an irreversible long-term effect on the brain.

“We wanted to know what happens in the brains of teenagers when they use cannabis and whether they are more susceptible to its neurological effects than adults,” explained Dr. Gobbi, who is also a professor at McGill University. Her study points to an apparent action of cannabis on two important compounds in the brain — serotonin and norepinephrine — which are involved in the regulation of neurological functions such as mood control and anxiety.

“Teenagers who are exposed to cannabis have decreased serotonin transmission, which leads to mood disorders, as well as increased norepinephrine transmission, which leads to greater long-term susceptibility to stress,” Dr. Gobbi stated.

Previous epidemiological studies have shown how cannabis consumption can affect behaviour in some teenagers. “Our study is one of the first to focus on the neurobiological mechanisms at the root of this influence of cannabis on depression and anxiety in adolescents,” confirmed Dr. Gobbi. It is also the first study to demonstrate that cannabis consumption causes more serious damage during adolescence than adulthood.

via Cannabis damages young brains more than originally thought, study finds.

First commercial 3-D bio-printer makes human tissue and organs

Invetech, an innovator in new product development and custom automation for the biomedical, industrial and consumer markets, today announced that it has delivered the world’s first production model 3D bio-printer to Organovo, developers of the proprietary NovoGen bioprinting technology. Organovo will supply the units to research institutions investigating human tissue repair and organ replacement.

Dr. Fred Davis, president of Invetech, which has offices in San Diego and Melbourne, said, “Building human organs cell-by-cell was considered science fiction not that long ago. Through this clever combination of technology and science we have helped Organovo develop an instrument that will improve people’s lives, making the regenerative medicine that Organovo provides accessible to people around the world.”

Keith Murphy, CEO of Organovo, based in San Diego, said the units represent a breakthrough because they provide for the first time a flexible technology platform for organizations working on many different types of tissue construction and organ replacement.

”Scientists and engineers can use the 3-D bio printers to enable placing cells of almost any type into a desired pattern in 3-D,” said Murphy. “Researchers can place liver cells on a preformed scaffold, support kidney cells with a co-printed scaffold, or form adjacent layers of epithelial and stromal soft tissue that grow into a mature tooth. Ultimately the idea would be for surgeons to have tissue on demand for various uses, and the best way to do that is get a number of bio-printers into the hands of researchers and give them the ability to make three dimensional tissues on demand.”

The 3-D bio-printers include an intuitive software interface that allows engineers to build a model of the tissue construct before the printer commences the physical constructions of the organs cell-by-cell using automated, laser-calibrated print heads.

… The printer, developed by Invetech, fits inside a standard biosafety cabinet for sterile use. It includes two print heads, one for placing human cells, and the other for placing a hydrogel, scaffold, or support matrix. One of the most complex challenges in the development of the printer was being able to repeatedly position the capillary tip, attached to the print head, to within microns. This was essential to ensure that the cells are placed in exactly the right position. Invetech developed a computer controlled, laser-based calibration system to achieve the required repeatability. …

via First commercial 3-D bio-printer makes human tissue and organs | R&D Mag.

Archaeologists Claim They’ve Found Lost City Of Atlantis (video)

Undersea archaeologists have found the ruins of an ancient city on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea, and researchers claim that it is the fabled and lost city of Atlantis. The satellite photos do show something that could be a city, and the researchers believe that what they’ve found would predate the pyramids of Egypt. Indeed they claim to be able to make out a pyramid and other city-like structures from the satellite photos.

The archaeologists have so far refused to divulge their identities or the location in the Caribbean. They say they are raising money for an expedition to confirm their findings.

via Archaeologists Claim They’ve Found Lost City Of Atlantis (VIDEO).

Hoax? The image looks like some sand partially covering a computer circuit board.

Free Xeno Song: Holy Toledo

Here is song that I’m working on. Grab it if you like it.

Holy Toledo (mix 6) – Free Xeno Song (mp3)

Not star quality yet, but I’m excited about a few things. For one, I’m finally learning how not to sound so nasalish from my voice lessons.

Can you tell a real trumpet from a person faking a trumpet? All the trumpet is me making trumpet sounds without an actual trumpet. I do play the trumpet but for this song I liked this sound better than the real thing.

Researchers link calorie intake to cell lifespan, cancer development

Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have discovered that restricting consumption of glucose, the most common dietary sugar, can extend the life of healthy human-lung cells and speed the death of precancerous human-lung cells, reducing cancer’s spread and growth rate.

The research has wide-ranging potential in age-related science, including ways in which calorie-intake restriction can benefit longevity and help prevent diseases like cancer that have been linked to aging, said principal investigator Trygve Tollefsbol, Ph.D., D.O., a professor in the Department of Biology.

“These results further verify the potential health benefits of controlling calorie intake.” Tollefsbol said. “Our research indicates that calorie reduction extends the lifespan of healthy human cells and aids the body’s natural ability to kill off cancer-forming cells.”

Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have discovered that restricting consumption of glucose, the most common dietary sugar, can extend the life of healthy human-lung cells and speed the death of precancerous human-lung cells. Credit: Jamie Cottle/UAB

The UAB team conducted its tests by growing both healthy human-lung cells and precancerous human-lung cells in laboratory flasks. The flasks were provided either normal levels of glucose or significantly reduced amounts of the sugar compound, and the cells then were allowed to grow for a period of weeks.”In that time, we were able to track the cells’ ability to divide while also monitoring the number of surviving cells. The pattern that was revealed to us showed that restricted glucose levels led the healthy cells to grow longer than is typical and caused the precancerous cells to die off in large numbers,” Tollefsbol said.

In particular, the researchers found that two key genes were affected in the cellular response to decreased glucose consumption. The first gene, telomerase, encodes an important enzyme that allows cells to divide indefinitely. The second gene, p16, encodes a well known anti-cancer protein.

“Opposite effects were found for these genes in healthy cells versus precancerous cells. The healthy cells saw their telomerase rise and p16 decrease, which would explain the boost in healthy cell growth,” Tollefsbol said. “The gene reactions flipped in the precancerous cells with telomerase decreasing and the anti-cancer protein p16 increasing, which would explain why these cancer-forming cells died off in large numbers.”

The UAB research into the links between calorie intake, aging and the onset of diseases related to aging is thought to be a first of its kind given that it used the unique approach of testing human cells versus laboratory animals.

“Our results not only support previous findings from the feeding of animals but also reveal that human longevity can be achieved at the cellular level through caloric restriction,” Tollefsbol said.

“The hope is that this UAB breakthrough will lead to further discoveries in different cell types and facilitate the development of novel approaches to extend the lifespan of humans,” he added.via Researchers link calorie intake to cell lifespan, cancer development (w/ Video).

A few things to remember:

Vitamin C is structurally similar to glucose and the vitamin has a short half-life in the blood stream. – iw

Except for one mutated gene, we could turn glucose into vitamin C. Other animals do this.- nhaa

Vitamin C is an antioxidant – av

Considerable laboratory evidence from chemical, cell culture, and animal studies indicates that antioxidants may slow or possibly prevent the development of cancer. – cancer

The Known Universe

Tiny whispering gallery

Nanotechnology has already made it to the shelves of your local pharmacy and grocery: nanoparticles are found in anti-odor socks, makeup, makeup remover, sunscreen, anti-graffiti paint, home pregnancy tests, plastic beer bottles, anti-bacterial doorknobs, plastic bags for storing vegetables, and more than 800 other products.

How safe are these products and the flood of new ones about to spill out of labs across the world? A group of researchers at Washington University is devising instruments and protocols to assess the impact of nanoparticles on the environment and human health before they are sent to market

As part of this effort, a team led by Lan Yang, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical and systems engineering, has devised a sensor on a chip that can not only detect but also measure single particles. They expect the sensor will be able to measure nanoparticles smaller than 100 nanometers in diameter (about the size of a virus particle) on the fly.

The new sensor, an improved version of a sensor called a whispering-gallery microresonator, is described in the December 13 edition of Nature Photonics’s advanced online publication.

Whispering galleries

The sensor belongs to a class of devices charmingly called whispering-gallery-mode resonators.

One famous whispering gallery is St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. If you stand under the dome close to the wall and speak softly to the wall, someone on the opposite side of the gallery is able to hear what you say.

The reason is the sound bounces along the wall of the gallery with very little loss of energy and so can be heard at a great distance.

However, if you speak at normal volume, what you say can no longer be understood. The sound travels around the dome more than once, and the recirculating signal gets mixed up and garbled.

Whispering-gallery microresonators

In a miniature version of a whispering gallery, laser light is coupled into a circular “waveguide,” such as a glass ring. When the light strikes the boundary of the ring at a grazing angle it is reflected back into the ring.

The light wave can make many trips around the ring before it is absorbed, but only frequencies of light that fit perfectly into the circumference of the ring can do so. If the circumference is a whole number of wavelengths, the light waves superimpose perfectly each trip around.

This perfect match between the frequency and the circumference is called a resonance, or whispering-gallery mode.

The glass resonator can serve as a particle detector because the faint outer edge of the light wave, called its “evanescent tail, ” penetrates the ring’s surface, probing the surroundings. So when a particle attaches to the ring, it disturbs the light wave, changing the resonant frequency. This change can be used to measure the size of the particle.

There are two problems with these microresonators, says Yang. One is that they are finicky. Lots of things can shift the resonant frequency, including vibration or temperature changes.

The other is that the frequency shift depends on where the particle lands on the ring. A particle that happens to land on a node (the dark blue areas reflected on the base of the pedestal in the accompanying image) will disturb the light wave less and appear smaller than a particle of the same size that happens to land on an anti-node (the red spots visible on the base).

For this reason the frequency shift is not a reliable measure of particle size.

The ultra-high-Q microresonator

The way around these problems is a self-referring sensing scheme possible only in an exceptionally good resonator, one with virtually no optical flaws.

Yang’s lab uses surface tension to achieve the necessary perfection. The microresonators are etched out of glass layers on silicon wafers by techniques borrowed from the integrated circuit industry. These techniques allow the rings to be mass produced but leave them with rough surfaces.

In a crucial finishing step, the microresonators are reheated with a pulsed laser until the glass reflows. Surface tension then pulls the rings into smooth toruses.

“Nature helps us create the perfect structure,” says Yang.

“This quality factor gives the sensor a resonance as beautiful as the pure tone form the finest musical instrument,” says Jiangang Zhu, a graduate student in Yang’s lab.

The Q value, or quality factor, of the reflowed resonators, a measure of microscopic imperfections that sap energy from the resonating mode, is about 100 million, meaning that light circles the ring many time. Because recirculation dramatically increases the interaction of the light wave and particles on the ring’s surface, a different approach to particle detection is possible: mode splitting.

Each whispering-gallery mode is actually two modes: the light travels both clockwise and counterclockwise around the resonator. These modes are usually “degenerate,” meaning they have the same frequency.

When a particle lands on a resonator, it acts as a scattering center that couples energy between the modes. The two modes re-arrange themselves so that the particle lies on a node of one and an anti-node of the other. As a result, one wave is much more perturbed than the other, and this “lifts the degeneracy,” or “splits the mode.”

In a low-Q resonator, the split mode can’t be resolved. But in the high-Q resonator it is easily seen.

A sensor that relies on mode splitting is much less finicky than a frequency-shifting sensor. Because the clockwise and counterclockwise light waves share the same resonator, they share the same noise. Any jitter or jiggle that biases one biases the other by the same amount. Because it is self-referring, the sensor is more accurate and reliable.

Mode splitting also solves the particle location problem. The light scattering that perturbs the mode also broadens it. The mode split still varies with the location of the particle, but the ratio of the mode split and the difference between the linewidths (the breadth) of the two modes depends only on the particle’s size.

To test the sensor, Daren Chen, Ph.D., associate professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering, helped the team generate nanoparticles within specifc size ranges. In experiments with nanoparticles of salt or nanospheres of plastic, the resonator’s size estimates were within one or two percent of the actual values.

“Size is a key parameter that significantly affects the physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles,” says Yang. “It plays a crucial role in the applications of nanoparticles both in science and in industry, all of which will benefit from the ability to measure these particles accurately.”

via Tiny whispering gallery.

CDC Issues New Autism Prevalence Report: 1 in every 110 American children

In the wake of today’s new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stating that autism now affects 1 in every 110 American children, Autism Speaks, the nation’s largest autism science and advocacy organization, called on the federal government to immediately step up its efforts – and dramatically increase funding – to address the growing national autism public health crisis.

“Now that the government has confirmed that one percent of American children have autism, the question becomes what it will take to get our elected leaders to wake up and take on this crisis in an appropriate way,” said Bob Wright, co-founder of Autism Speaks. “Must we wait until every member of Congress has a child or grandchild with autism, or until every household is impacted by this devastating disorder? With nearly 750,000 children on the autism spectrum, we need meaningful action now that acknowledges the scope of this problem and allocates the resources necessary to take the fight against autism to a new level. We cannot expect the millions of people impacted by this crisis to wait another 20 years for answers.”

The CDC report, published in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), states that 1% or 1 in every 110 children has been diagnosed with autism, including 1 in 70 boys. This represents a staggering 57 percent increase from 2002 to 2006, and a 600 percent increase in just the past 20 years. Other significant findings include that a broader definition of ASDs does not account for the increase, and while improved and earlier diagnosis accounts for some of the increase, it does not fully account for the increase. Thus, a true increase in the risk for ASD cannot be ruled out. Even though parents typically express concerns about their child’s developmental progress before age three, the average age of diagnoses is not until 53 months, although diagnoses are occurring earlier than found in the 2002 study. The report uses the same methodology that produced the CDC’s 2007 prevalence findings of 1 in 150 children with autism.

“This study provides strong evidence that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder is, in fact, dramatically increasing,” said Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., Autism Speaks chief science officer, who noted that recent research indicates that a significant amount of the increase in autism prevalence cannot be explained by better, broader or earlier diagnosis.

via Autism Speaks, Press Updates, As CDC Issues New Autism Prevalence Report, Autism Speaks Asks, “What Will It Take?” for Government to Meet the Challenge of this National Health Crisis.

Read more about Autism here:

https://health.google.com/health/ref/Autism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/autism/DS00348

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001526.htm

Autism was first identified in 1943 by Dr. Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins Hospital. At the same time, a German scientist, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that is now known as Asperger Syndrome (read more). These two disorders are listed in the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) as two of the five developmental disorders that fall under the autism spectrum disorders. The others are Rett Syndrome, PDD NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder), and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. All of these disorders are characterized by varying degrees of impairment in communication skills and social abilities, and also by repetitive behaviors. For more discussion on the range of diagnoses that comprise autism spectrum disorder, click here.

Potential cure: Adult Stem Cell therapy: