Tomorrow is Elvis’ birthday and David Bowie’s and Xeno’s.

Once a every year I share a birthday with Elvis Presley and David Bowie. Elvis would be 75 years old. David Bowie will be 63.   I’ll be over 141 Mercurian years old.

This year I plan on celebrating by visiting Wilbur Hot Springs.

If you are quick, you may be able to book a room and bring a musical instrument and we can rock out. Or just bring a good book and enjoy the evening jam session.

Me

Biologists develop efficient genetic modification of human embryonic stem cells

Biologists have developed an efficient way to genetically modify human embryonic stem cells. Their approach, which uses bacterial artificial chromosomes to swap in defective copies of genes, will make possible the rapid development of stem cell lines that can both serve as models for human genetic diseases and as testbeds on which to screen potential treatments, they say.

“This will help to open up the whole human embryonic stem cell field. Otherwise, there’s really few efficient ways you can study genetics with them,” said Yang Xu, professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego who directed the research. Xu and co-authors Hoseok Song and Sun-Ku Chung, both postdoctoral fellows in Xu’s research group, describe their technique in the January 8 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.

Most attempts to alter the genetic makeup of the cells have proved too inefficient, Xu said. His group used bacterial artificial chromosomes, or BACs, to improve the yield.

BACs are synthesized circles of human DNA, which bacteria will replicate just like their own native chromosomes. Commercially available BACs can be modified within bacterial cells to insert altered copies of specific genes. Once the modified BACs are introduced into human cells, they will sometimes pair up with a matching segment of a human chromosome and swap segments of DNA, a process called homologous recombination.

The advantage of using BACS to alter the genetic code in human cells comes from the long flanking sequences on either side of the modified gene, which increases the chance that the BAC with line up with native DNA in position for a swap. Other genetic approaches have been limited by shorter segments of DNA.

Using BACs, the team was able to substitute modified genes in 20 percent of treated cells. Standard methods of genetic modification typically achieve modification in fewer than one percent of cells, Xu said.

His group successfully transferred a defective copy of the gene p53, which suppresses cancer, into a human embryonic stem cell line. By repeating the process in a second round, they developed a line of cells in which both copies of the genes were disrupted.

They also report success with a different gene, ATM, which when mutated in humans causes Ataxia-telangiectasia, a disease characterized by a host of systemic defects including increased cancer risk, degeneration of specific types of brain cells and degraded telomeres, the protective caps at the end of each chromosome.

Genetically engineered mice with two bad copies of the ATM gene share some of these traits with human patients, but not all. Neurons don’t degenerate in ATM mice, for example, and the telomeres are long. “If you want to study accelerated shortening of telomeres, you can’t do it in the mouse. You can only do it in human cells,” Xu said. …

via Biologists develop efficient genetic modification of human embryonic stem cells.

General’s Widow tells all about Roswell

THE GENERAL’S WIDOW: A ROSWELL TELL ALL

by Anthony Bragalia

Captivating and credible testimony recently obtained from the elderly widow of a highly-placed U.S. Air Force General reveals that the Roswell crash of 1947 was in fact an extraterrestrial event. Her confession affirms that the true nature of the wreck has been shrouded in secrecy for decades- even from those at the highest levels of government.

Her husband, General Harry Nations Cordes, who possessed Top Secret/SCI clearance, was uniquely positioned to be “in the know” on such matters. Perhaps no other military man in history can lay claim to having been stationed at Roswell Army Air Field in July of 1947; later with Wright Patterson Air Force Base; to have worked at Area 51; been employed by the CIA; to have acted as Deputy Chief of Staff at Intelligence Headquarters for the Strategic Air Command (SAC) and still later to have led many intelligence functions at the Pentagon.

The Cordes story is a telling one- and leaves little doubt that what fell from the skies to the desert floor in New Mexico six decades ago was not from Earth.

… TIME AT ROSWELL

In 1947 Cordes was stationed at Roswell (RAAF) as a Radar Operator. It was there that he met he met Rogene, his future wife. Rogene’s father’s cattle and sheep ranch was adjacent to the Roswell crash site. It is Rogene Cordes with whom this author has had extensive dialogue over several months. It is Rogene Cordes -the General’s widow- who felt compelled in the winter of her life to now tell all about what she and her husband knew about the Roswell crash and its history-making implications.

THEIR ROSWELL STORYBoth Rogene and Harry were well aware of the crash of a “flying disk” at the time of its occurence in the summer of 1947. As Roswell residents at the time, they read the papers and they personally knew many of the involved principals. But it was not until the 1980s when the Roswell story was brought back into the public eye that they began to discuss the meaning of the event and the truth of what has crashed there. Rogene recounts that she knew her husband knew much about the incident. She too wanted to know what really had happened.

Rogene told me that she used every tool she could to get him to talk. This included what she called “beauty” and “pillow talk” to coax him to reveal more about what he knew about the crash. Harry told her that he was not physically at the base the week of the crash and that he was on travel during that time period. She hints that she did not believe that he told her all that he knew. When she pressed him further he told her, “many of the guys there knew what had really happened. But it was a matter of duty to country to never talk.” Finally, after repeated attempts, Harry told her, “I was a radar operator at RAAF as you know. The object was flying and it was unidentified. The machine was tracked by White Sands radar and those folks didn’t know what the hell was happening.” She pressed further. She said, “Just tell me, was it a balloon?” Harry replied, “It was no balloon. Jesse Marcel told the truth. But if I tell you the details you will never view life the same.” He beseeched her to ask no more. But she did. Harry blurted out, “Rogene, if I tell you…I will have to kill you.” She thought he was joking. But Harry was not laughing.

Much later Rogene much decided to approach her by-then retired husband on the Roswell matter more assumptively. She asked him directly, “Where do they keep the craft honey, at Area 51?” She knew of course that he had worked at the Nevada Test Site for some time. He told her that it was not stored there. “Maybe at one time it was at Wright Patt, in off-limits area.”

Still later Rogene brought up the issue with her husband, remembering that he was in the CIA at one time. She asked him, “What did you learn about the crash when you were at the CIA?” The last thing he would utter on the matter to her was, “When I went to work for the CIA one of the first things that I did was to look for the Roswell file. I know it exists, but it was missing. Either that or they were hiding it from me.”

Rogene told me that “I know that he wondered his whole life why there was a coverup- why they would not tell the people.”

Though Harry Cordes was sparse in details about Roswell, he would tell her more general stories about UFOs that were encountered during his time in service. He told his family (including both of his daughters) that at one time when he was flying at 70,000 feet (the highest anyone has ever flown up to that time) he had personally witnessed what he said, “could only have been an alien craft.”

via The UFO Iconoclast(s).

Here is what Marcel, the intelligence chief at Roswell and the first to investigate sheep rancher Mack Brazel’s find, said:

Jesse Marcel was approached by researchers in 1978 and he recounted details suggesting the debris Brazel had led him to was exotic. He believed the true nature of the debris was being suppressed by the military. His accounts were featured in the 1979 documentary UFOs are Real, and in a 1980 National Enquirer article, which are largely responsible for making the Roswell incident famous by sparking renewed interest.

“There was all kinds of stuff — small beams about three eighths or a half inch square with some sort of hieroglyphics on them that nobody could decipher. These looked something like balsa wood, and were about the same weight, except that they were not wood at all. They were very hard, although flexible, and would not burn…. One thing that impressed me about the debris was the fact that a lot of it looked like parchment. It had little numbers with symbols that we had to call hieroglyphics because I could not understand them. They could not be read, they were just like symbols, something that meant something, and they were not all the same, but the same general pattern, I would say. They were pink and purple. They looked like they were painted on. These little numbers could not be broken, could not be burned. I even took my cigarette lighter and tried to burn the material we found that resembled parchment and balsa, but it would not burn – wouldn’t even smoke. But something that is even more astonishing is that the pieces of metal that we brought back were so thin, just like tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes. I didn’t pay too much attention to that at first, until one of the boys came to me and said: ‘You know that metal that was in there? I tried to bend the stuff and it won’t bend. I even tried it with a sledgehammer. You can’t make a dent on it,’” Marcel said. ^{- link}

… in 1978, ufologist Stanton T. Friedman interviewed Major Jesse Marcel who was involved with the original recovery of the debris in 1947. Marcel expressed his belief that the military had covered up the recovery of an alien spacecraft. His story spread through UFO circles, being featured in some UFO documentaries at the time.^[1] In February 1980, The National Enquirer ran its own interview with Marcel, garnering national and worldwide attention for the Roswell incident. – wiki

The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer. According to information released by the department, over authority of Maj. J. A. Marcel, intelligence officer, the disk was recovered on a ranch in the Roswell vicinity, after an unidentified rancher had notified Sheriff Geo. Wilcox, here, that he had found the instrument on his premises. Major Marcel and a detail from his department went to the ranch and recovered the disk, it was stated. After the intelligence officer here had inspected the instrument it was flown to higher headquarters. The intelligence office stated that no details of the saucer’s construction or its appearance had been revealed.

Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wilmot apparently were the only persons in Roswell who saw what they thought was a flying disk. They were sitting on their porch at 105 South Penn. last Wednesday night at about ten o’clock when a large glowing object zoomed out of the sky from the southeast, going in a northwesterly direction at a high rate of speed. Wilmot called Mrs. Wilmot’s attention to it and both ran down into the yard to watch. It was in sight less then a minute, perhaps 40 or 50 seconds, Wilmot estimated. Wilmot said that it appeared to him to be about 1,500 feet high and going fast. He estimated between 400 and 500 miles per hour. In appearance it looked oval in shape like two inverted saucers, faced mouth to mouth, or like two old type washbowls placed, together in the same fashion. The entire body glowed as though light were showing through from inside, though not like it would inside, though not like it would be if a light were merely underneath. – link

Jesse Marcel was working with, or was part of the CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps).  Is it not the job of the CIC to distort public information to mislead foreign enemies? This doesn’t mean what he said was incorrect, but it adds an interesting dimension to the story.

Acting on the call from Sheriff Wilcox, Intelligence Officer, Major Jesse Marcel was sent by Col. William Blanchard, to investigate Mack Brazel’s story.  Marcel and Senior Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) agent, Captain Sheridan Cavitt, followed the rancher off-road to his place. They spent the night there and Marcel inspected a large piece of debris that Brazel had dragged from the pasture. – roswellufo

The sheriff contacted Roswell (Army Air Field) AAF, which in turn sent intelligence officer, Maj Jesse Marcel, and two Counterintelligence Corps Agents, Capt Sheridan Cavitt and MSgt Lewis Rickett, to evaluate the debris. The officers collected a portion of the material and brought it back to Roswell AAF on the evening of July 7. (2) The following day, the Public Information Office released a statement saying that the Army Air Forces had recovered a flying disc. This press release was provided to local newspapers who sent it out to wire services. Meanwhile, Brig Gen Roger Ramey, Eighth Air Force Commander, ordered that the debris be flown to Eighth Air Force Headquarters at Fort Worth AAF, TX, for his personal inspection. – lbl.gov

What were Cavitt and Rickett of the CIC thinking in announcing that we had captured a flying disk? Wouldn’t they want to keep it quiet?

How plants ‘feel’ the temperature rise

Plants are incredibly temperature sensitive and can perceive changes of as little as one degree Celsius. Now, a report in the January 8th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, shows how they not only ‘feel’ the temperature rise, but also coordinate an appropriate response — activating hundreds of genes and deactivating others; it turns out it’s all about the way that their DNA is packaged.

The findings may help to explain how plants will respond in the face of climate change and offer scientists new leads in the quest to create crop plants better able to withstand high temperature stress, the researchers say.

“We’ve uncovered a master regulator of the entire temperature transcriptome,” said Philip Wigge of John Innes Centre in the United Kingdom in reference to the thousands of genes that are differentially activated under warmer versus cooler conditions.

Using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana the researchers show that a key ingredient for plants’ temperature sensing ability is a specialized histone protein, dubbed H2A.Z, that wraps DNA into a more tightly packed structure known as a nucleosome. Wigge likens nucleosomes to compact balls of string. As temperatures rise, H2A.Z histones allow DNA to progressively unwrap, leading nucleosomes to loosen up, they show.

“When it gets warmer, the DNA unwraps,” he said, which allows some genes to switch on and others to switch off. They aren’t yet sure exactly how all that happens, but Wigge suspects the altered nucleosome structure gives access to sites on the DNA where activators of some genes can bind along with repressors of other genes.

“In addition to H2A.Z containing nucleosomes having more tightly wrapped DNA, our results suggest that the degree of unwrapping may also be responsive to temperature,” the researchers wrote. “This result suggests a direct mechanism by which temperature may influence gene expression, since it has been shown that RNA Pol II [the enzyme responsible for transcribing DNA into messenger RNA] does not actively invade nucleosomes, but waits for local unwrapping of DNA from nucleosomes before extending transcription. In this way, genes with a paused RNA Pol II will show increased transcription with greater temperature as local unwrapping is increased.” The basic discovery could ultimately prove to have important implications for world food security, the researchers said.

As the number of people and affluence around the world continues to grow, “it is projected that world agriculture will have to increase yields by 70 to 100 percent in the next 100 years,” Wigge said. “Under climate change it will be challenging simply to maintain present yields, let alone increase them.” Crops such as wheat are particularly vulnerable to very hot and dry summers, he added, as evidenced by the fact that wheat reserves recently fell to their lowest level in 30 years. …

via How plants ‘feel’ the temperature rise.

30,000-year-old teeth shed new light on human evolution

The teeth of a 30,000-year-old child are shedding new light on the evolution of modern humans, thanks to research from the University of Bristol published this week in PNAS.

The teeth are part of the remarkably complete remains of a child found in the Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal and excavated in 1998-9 under the leadership of Professor João Zilhão of the University of Bristol. Classified as a modern human with Neanderthal ancestry, the child raises controversial questions about how extensively Neanderthals and modern human groups of African descent interbred when they came into contact in Europe.

‘Early modern humans’, whose anatomy is basically similar to that of the human race today, emerged over 50,000 years ago and it has long been the common perception that little has changed in human biology since then.

When considering the biology of late archaic humans such as the Neanderthals, it is thus common to compare them with living humans and largely ignore the biology of the early modern humans who were close in time to the Neanderthals.

With this in mind, an international team, including Professor Zilhão, reanalysed the dentition of the Lagar Velho child (all of its deciduous – milk – teeth and almost all of its permanent teeth) to see how they compared to the teeth of Neanderthals, later Pleistocene (12,000-year-old) humans and modern humans.

Employing a technique called micro-tomography which uses x-rays to create cross-sections of 3D-objects, the researchers investigated the relative stages of formation of the developing teeth and the proportions of crown enamel, dentin and pulp in the teeth.

They found that, for a given stage of development of the cheek teeth, the front teeth were relatively delayed in their degree of formation. Moreover, the front teeth had a greater volume of dentin and pulp but proportionally less enamel than the teeth of recent humans.

The teeth of the Lagar Velho child thus fit the pattern evident in the preceding Neanderthals, and contrast with the teeth of later Pleistocene (12,000-year-old) humans and living modern humans.

Professor Zilhão said: “This new analysis of the Lagar Velho child joins a growing body of information from other early modern human fossils found across Europe (in Mladeč in the Czech Republic, Peştera cu Oase and Peştera Muierii in Romania, and Les Rois in France) that shows these ‘early modern humans’ were ‘modern’ without being ‘fully modern’. Human anatomical evolution continued after they lived 30,000 to 40,000 years ago.”

via Bristol University | News from the University | Lagar Velho child.

How the Earth survived birth

For the last 20 years, the best models of planet formation—or how planets grow from dust in a gas disk—have contradicted the very existence of Earth. These models assumed locally constant temperatures within a disk, and the planets plunge into the Sun. Now, new simulations from researchers at the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Cambridge show that variations in temperature can lead to regions of outward and inward migration that safely trap planets on orbits. When the protoplanetary disk begins to dissipate, planets are left behind, safe from impact with their parent star. The results of this research are being presented this week at the 2010 meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.

“We are trying to understand how planets interact with the gas disks from which they form as the disk evolves over its lifetime,” says Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, Curator of Astrophysics and Division Chair of Physical Sciences at the Museum. “We show that the planetoids from which the Earth formed can survive their immersion in the gas disk without falling into the Sun.”

During the birth of a star, a disk of gas and dust forms. The midplane of this dusty disk is opaque and cannot quickly cool by radiating heat to outer space. Until recently, no one has included temperature variation in models of planet formation. Co-author Sijme-Jan Paardekooper of the University of Cambridge ran groundbreaking new simulations like that most recently published online (http://arxiv.org/abs/0909.4552). His work shows that the direction of migration of low-mass planets in disks depends on the detailed temperature structure of the disk. This key insight lays the groundwork for the current work.

The American Astronomical Society presentation incorporates the results of Paardekooper’s local models into the long-term evolution of the temperature and density structure of a protoplanetary disk. The result of the simulation is that, over the lifetime of a disk, planets get trapped in orbits between regions of inward and outward migration. The orbits slowly move inward as the disk dissipates. Once the gas densities drop low enough for the planets to no longer be influenced by disk, the planets are dropped into an orbit similar to the orbits of planets around the Sun. The radius of the orbit at which a planet is released depends on its mass.

“We used a one-dimensional model for this project,” says co-author Wladimir Lyra, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Astrophysics at the Museum. “Three dimensional models are so computationally expensive that we could only follow the evolution of disks for about 100 orbits—about 1,000 years. We want to see what happens over the entire multimillion year lifetime of a disk.”

via How the Earth survived birth.

Mozart’s music helps premature babies grow faster

The music they listen to doesn’t have any lyrics that tell them to grow, but new research from Tel Aviv University finds that premature babies who are exposed to music by 18th-century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gain weight faster — and therefore become stronger — than those who don’t.

A new study carried out by Dr. Dror Mandel and Dr. Ronit Lubetzky of the Tel Aviv Medical Center affiliated with Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine has found that pre-term infants exposed to thirty minutes of Mozart’s music in one session, once per day expend less energy — and therefore need fewer calories to grow rapidly — than when they are not “listening” to the music.

“It’s not exactly clear how the music is affecting them, but it makes them calmer and less likely to be agitated,” says Dr. Mendel, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University.

In the study, Dr. Mandel and Dr. Lubetzky and their team measured the physiological effects of music by Mozart played to pre-term newborns for 30 minutes. After the music was played, the researchers measured infants’ energy expenditure again, and compared it to the amount of energy expended when the baby was at rest. After “hearing” the music, the infant expended less energy, a process that can lead to faster weight gain.

via American Friends of Tel Aviv University: A Sonata a Day Keeps the Doctor Away.

Canine compulsive disorder gene identified

A collaboration between the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and the Broad Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has identified a genetic locus on canine chromosome 7 which coincides with an increased risk of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) susceptibility. The findings, published in the January 2010 edition of Molecular Psychiatry, suggest that particular genetic proteins may possibly influence central nervous system development and increase the risk of OCD.

Characterized by time-consuming, repetitive behaviors, OCD affects roughly 2 percent of humans. Meanwhile, the equally distressing canine equivalent, canine compulsive disorder (CCD), is more prevalent in certain dog breeds, especially Dobermans and Bull Terriers.

For more than a decade, animal behaviorists Nicholas Dodman, BVMS, MRCVS, professor of clinical sciences, and Alice Moon-Fanelli, PhD, clinical assistant professor, at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts, collected blood samples from carefully characterized Doberman patients exhibiting flank- and/or blanket-sucking compulsive behaviors, as well as healthy, unaffected Dobermans. In 2001, Edward Ginns, MD, PhD, director of the Program in Medical Genetics at UMass Medical School, joined the effort, enabling genetic studies that culminated in the genome wide association study that began in 2007 using the canine Affymetrix genotyping array at the Broad Institute.

The chromosome 7 location most significantly associated with CCD is located within the neural cadherin-2 gene, CDH2. CDH2 is widely expressed, mediating synaptic activity-calcium flux related neuronal adhesion. Dogs showing multiple compulsive behaviors had a higher frequency of the “risk” associated DNA sequence than dogs with a less severe phenotype (60 and 43 percent, respectively, compared with 22 percent in unaffected dogs). This association of CCD with the CDH2 gene region on chromosome 7 is the first genetic locus identified for any animal compulsive disorder. The neural cadherin-2 gene, CDH2, is an especially attractive candidate disease gene as it is involved in mediating presynaptic to postsynaptic neuronal junction adhesion, neuronal axon outgrowth and guidance in the central nervous system during development when critical brain nerve networks are established. Discovery of this locus raises the intriguing possibility that CDH2, and other neuronal adhesion proteins, are involved in human compulsive behaviors, including those observed in autism spectrum disorder.

“The CDH2 gene is expressed in the hippocampus, a brain region suspected to be involved in OCD,” said Dodman, the study’s lead author. “Additionally, this gene oversees structures and processes that are possibly instrumental in propagating compulsive behaviors – for example, the formation and proper functioning of glutamate receptors.” Dodman added that “this finding is congruent with current evidence that N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) blockers are effective in the treatment of OCD.”

“The occurrence of repetitive behaviors and similarities in response to drug treatments in both canine CCD and human OCD suggest that common pathways are involved,” said Ginns. “We are hopeful that these finding will lead to a better understanding of the biology of compulsive disorder and facilitate development of genetic tests, enabling earlier interventions and even treatment or prevention of compulsive disorders in at-risk canines and humans.”

via Canine compulsive disorder gene identified.

Researchers discover genetic differences between lethal and treatable forms of leukemia

A tumor’s genetic profile is often useful when diagnosing and deciding on treatment for certain cancers, but inexplicably, genetically similar leukemias in different patients do not always respond well to the same therapy. Weill Cornell Medical College researchers believe they may have discovered what distinguishes these patients by evaluating the “epigenetic” differences between patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

In recent years it has been appreciated that there are additional chemical codes in addition to DNA sequence that control the behavior of normal and malignant cells. These additional codes are called “epi”genetic since they are contained outside of the DNA sequence.

The investigators have concluded that much of the inter-patient difference in leukemia cell behavior is dependent on a patient’s specific epigenetic alterations. These results are expected to lead to tailored cancer therapies for patients who fall within the different epigenetically defined cancer subtypes.

The promising findings are published today in the journal Cancer Cell. … Traditionally, AML patients are treated with first-line chemotherapy drugs. If they fail, patients are classified as having a more severe and difficult-to-treat disease, and are then given a more aggressive therapy, like a bone marrow transplant. Being able to tell which patients are most likely to fail standard treatments could lead to the administration of more precise therapies at the outset of treatment.

via Researchers discover genetic differences between lethal and treatable forms of leukemia.

Interstella Starfleet Caught on Amature Telescope

This is footage is from an amature astronemers telescope,he has pictures and video evidence of large space craft in space around are planet.The goverment deny it but its there,if it is are goverments up there then why are they there? and what are they there for?,if it isn’t are goverments then who is it? where are they from? and what are they doing? All big questions am sure you would agree they need to be addressed.We the people have a right to know.

via YouTube – Interstella Starfllet Caught on Amature Telescope.