World’s largest, most complex marine virus is major player in ocean ecosystems

Curtis Suttle – UBC researchers have identified the world’s largest marine virus–an unusually complex ‘mimi-like virus’ that infects an ecologically important and widespread planktonic predator.

Cafeteria roenbergensis virus has a genome larger than those found in some cellular organisms, and boasts genetic complexity that blurs the distinction between “non-living” and “living” entities.

“Virus are classically thought of small, simple organisms in terms of the number of genes they carry,” says UBC professor Curtis Suttle, an expert in marine microbiology and environmental virology and lead author of the study.

“Much of the genetic machinery we found in this virus you would only expect to find in living, cellular organisms, including many genes required to produce DNA, RNA, proteins and sugars.”

The findings are reported in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Viruses cannot replicate outside of living host cells and they depend on proteins provided by the cell, a boundary that is often used to delineate “non-living” from “living” organisms. Giant viruses challenge this definition, as they still need a cell to replicate, but encode in their own genome most of the proteins required for replication.

Discovered in Texas coastal waters in the early 1990s, Curtis and his team where able to determine that the pathogen’s genome contains approximately 730,000 base pairs. That makes Cafeteria roenbergensis virus the largest known marine virus, and the second largest known virus, after the fresh water-borne Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus, which weighs in at 1.2 million base pairs.

via World’s largest, most complex marine virus is major player in ocean ecosystems: UBC research.

Daily vibration may help aging bones stay healthy

Toni Baker – Medical College of Georgia

A daily dose of whole body vibration may help reduce the usual bone density loss that occurs with age, Medical College of Georgia researchers report.

Twelve weeks of daily, 30-minute sessions in 18-month old male mice – which equate to 55- to 65-year-old humans – appear to forestall the expected annual loss that can result in fractures, disability and death. Dr. Karl H. Wenger, biomedical engineer in the MCG Schools of Graduate Studies and Medicine, reported the findings with his colleagues in the journal Bone.

Researchers found vibration improved density around the hip joint with a shift toward higher density in the femur, the long bone of the leg, as well. Hip fractures are a major cause of disability and death among the elderly.

They also found a reduction in a biomarker that indicates bone breakdown and an increase in the surface area involved in bone formation in the vibrating group.

The findings provide more scientific evidence that the technique, which dates back to the 1800s and is now showing up in homes, gyms and rehabilitation clinics, has bone benefit, particularly as a low-risk option for injured individuals with limited mobility, Wenger said.

The scientists theorize that the rhythmic movement, which produces a sensation similar to that of a vibrating cell phone but on a larger scale, exercises cells so they work better. Vibration prompts movement of the cell nucleus, which is suspended by numerous threadlike fibers called filaments. “The filaments get all deformed like springs and then they spring back,” Wenger said.

All the movement releases transcription factors that spur new osteoblasts, the cells that make bone. With age, the balance of bone production and destruction – by osteoclasts – tips to the loss side.

In the case of an injury, vibration acts on stem cells, the master controllers of the healing process. “We think that in fracture healing, you get a more dramatic response. We don’t know exactly why it affects the biology differently but it’s likely because of the extent to which stem cells invade the injured area,” Wenger said. They have found that vibration slows stem cell proliferation, which may sound counterintuitive, but likely means more stem cells differentiate into bone cells rather than continuing to just make more generic stem cells. With age, stem cells have difficulty differentiating.

To see if their findings translate to the trauma clinic, they are evaluating vibration tolerance in patients with lower-limb fractures and finding, surprisingly, that even two weeks after injury the subtle vibration is soothing, rather than painful, to most. …

via Daily vibration may help aging bones stay healthy.

Researchers find a stable way to store the sun’s heat

Jen Hirsch – Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Researchers at MIT have revealed exactly how a molecule called fulvalene diruthenium, which was discovered in 1996, works to store and release heat on demand. This understanding, reported in a paper published on Oct. 20 in the journal Angewandte Chemie, should make it possible to find similar chemicals based on more abundant, less expensive materials than ruthenium, and this could form the basis of a rechargeable battery to store heat rather than electricity.

The molecule undergoes a structural transformation when it absorbs sunlight, putting it into a higher-energy state where it can remain stable indefinitely. Then, triggered by a small addition of heat or a catalyst, it snaps back to its original shape, releasing heat in the process. But the team found that the process is a bit more complicated than that.

“It turns out there’s an intermediate step that plays a major role,” said Jeffrey Grossman, the Carl Richard Soderberg Associate Professor of Power Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. In this intermediate step, the molecule forms a semi-stable configuration partway between the two previously known states. “That was unexpected,” he said. The two-step process helps explain why the molecule is so stable, why the process is easily reversible and also why substituting other elements for ruthenium has not worked so far.

In effect, explained Grossman, this process makes it possible to produce a “rechargeable heat battery” that can repeatedly store and release heat gathered from sunlight or other sources. In principle, Grossman said, a fuel made from fulvalene diruthenium, when its stored heat is released, “can get as hot as 200 degrees C, plenty hot enough to heat your home, or even to run an engine to produce electricity.” …

via Researchers find a stable way to store the sun’s heat.

Foreclosuregate is Scary as Hell

… Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D. author of The Web of Debt asks in her article Homeowners’ Rebellion: Could 62 Million Homes Be Foreclosure-Proof? if it’s possible people won’t need to pay off their mortgages after all. To put it simply, the banks have recently been disclosed to have technically lost the chain to millions of titles to properties on its ledgers. In other words, banks have lost rights to the promissory notes due to selling the mortgages to third parties bundled as securities. The third parties repackaged the mortgages and sold them again as derivatives on the market. This amounts to the chain of title being broken that millions of people don’t technically owe the banks!

via Cheryl Meril’s Candid Blog- Nob Hill Notary: No Trick or Treat! Foreclosuregate is Scary as Hell.

 

What a mess. If my Countrywide loan was granted due to fraud on the part of the lender, getting out via a short sale should not reflect poorly on my credit. Give first time buyers who acted in good faith but were swindled into purchasing ARMs they couldn’t afford their good credit back.

Baby dies as family jump to ‘escape devil’

A baby was killed and several more people seriously injured when a family of 11 threw themselves from a third-floor flat to flee a man they mistook for the devil, French investigators said.

The bizarre tragedy came to light on Saturday when firefighters were called to the village of La Verriere on the outskirts of Paris following reports that several people had jumped from a balcony in a welfare housing block.

Among the injured they found an entirely naked man of African origin with a knife wound in his hand and two children, a baby and a two-year-old girl. The baby died later after receiving hospital treatment in Paris.

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The assistant prosecutor from Versailles, Odile Faivre, told reporters the incident began in the early hours when a group of 13 people were watching television in an apartment and the naked man heard the baby cry.

“The man got up to prepare a bottle for the baby when his wife, seeing him, screamed ‘It’s the devil, it’s the devil’,” Faivre explained.

In the confusion following this apparent case of mistaken identity, the naked man’s sister-in-law stabbed him in the hand and he was ejected through the front door of the flat. When he attempted to get back in, panic erupted. …

via Baby dies as family jump to ‘escape devil’.

To Boldly Go to New Worlds, NASA Announces ’100-Year Starship’

Lee Speigel – It might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but a NASA official says that “within a few years” scientists will unveil a prototype for a spaceship capable of taking earthlings to other worlds.

Speaking at a Long Now Foundation conference in San Francisco over the weekend, Simon Worden, center director at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, said a project is under way called the “Hundred Year Starship.”

As reported by news.com.au, the project is, so far, a joint venture between NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, and looks to utilize new ship propulsion modes.

“Anybody that watches the ["Star Trek"] Enterprise, you know you don’t see huge plumes of fire,” Worden, a retired Air Force brigadier general, said at the conference.

“Within a few years, we will see the first true prototype of a spaceship that will take us between worlds.”

Worden added that NASA is “now really aimed at settling other worlds. Twenty years ago, you had to whisper that in dark bars and get fired.”

So far, the starship project has received $1 million from DARPA and $100,000 from NASA. That’s certainly not enough to make this enterprise (if you will) a reality, and Worden said he’s hoping to entice some billionaires to help fund it. …

via To Boldly Go to New Worlds, NASA Announces ’100-Year Starship’.

The robot that reads your mind to train itself

Lakshmi Sandhana –

Rajesh Rao is a man who believes that the best type of robotic helper is one who can read your mind.

… the Neural Systems Laboratory, University of Washington, hopes to take brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to the next level by attempting to teach robots new skills directly via brain signals. …

Dr Rao’s team began by programming a humanoid robot with simple behaviours which users could then select with a wearable electroencephalogram (EEG) cap that picked up their brain activity.

The brain generates what is known as a P300, or P3, signal involuntarily, each time it recognizes an object. This signal is caused by millions of neurons firing together in a synchronised fashion.

This has been used by many researchers worldwide to create BCI-based applications that allow users to spell a word, identify images, select buttons in a virtual environment and more recently, even play in an orchestra or send a Twitter message …

“What if the user wants the robot to do something new?” Dr Rao asked.

The answer, he said, was to tap into the brain’s “hierarchical” system used to control the body.

“The brain is organised into multiple levels of control including the spinal cord at the low level to the neocortex at the high level,” he said.

“The low level circuits take care of behaviours such as walking while the higher level allows you to perform other behaviours. …

To emulate this kind of behaviour – albeit in a more simplistic fashion – Dr Rao and his team are developing a hierarchical brain-computer interface for controlling the robot.

“A behaviour initially taught by the user is translated into a higher-level command. When invoked later, the details of the behaviour are handled by the robot,” he said….

via BBC News – The robot that reads your mind to train itself.

Japan protests over Chinese boats near disputed islands

Japan’s government has made a formal protest to Beijing after two Chinese fisheries patrol boats were seen near a disputed island chain.

Relations between Asia’s two biggest economies have been tense since a Chinese trawler captain was arrested by Japan’s coastguard in the same area in early September.

The Chinese boats were spotted by the coastguard late on Sunday.

Protests over the territorial row took place in both countries at the weekend.

The islands in the East China Sea, known in Japan as Senkaku and in China as Diaoyu, are controlled by Japan, but claimed by China.

They are uninhabited, but surrounded by rich fishing grounds and potentially significant oil and gas reserves. …

via BBC News – Japan protests over Chinese boats near disputed islands.

Italian seaside town planning miniskirt ban

A seaside city in Italy is planning to ban miniskirts and other revealing clothing to improve what the mayor calls standards of public decency. Castellammare di Stabia is trying to be the latest location in Italy to make use of new powers to crack down on what is deemed to be anti-social behaviour. Mayor Luigi Bobbio said the regulations would help “restore urban decorum and facilitate better civil co-existence”.

Offenders would face fines of between 25 $35 and 500 euros $696.

…”Nothing too revealing” is the new policy Mayor Bobbio wants to enforce, says the BBC’s Duncan Kennedy in Rome. That means a tough new dress code which would effectively outlaw everything from miniskirts to low-cut jeans when people walk around Castellammare di Stabia, our correspondent adds. Mr Bobbio, from the centre-right People of Freedom party, says he wants to target people who are “rowdy, unruly or simply badly behaved”.

There will also be a ban on sunbathing, playing football in public places, and blasphemy, if the proposals are approved at a council meeting on Monday.

“I think it’s the right decision,” a local parish priest, Don Paulo Cecere, told the Cronache di Napoli newspaper. “It’s also a way of combating the rise in sexual harassment.” Castellammare di Stabia is latest city to make use of the extra powers handed down by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government to mayors, in the effort to fight crime and confront anti social behaviour.

via BBC News – Italian seaside town planning miniskirt ban.

I don’t get it. What’s anti-social about miniskirts, sunbathing, playing football in public places and blasphemy? I’d imagine  these are things the majority of Italians do when socializing.

“Taste buds” in lungs discovery could ease asthma

The discovery of “taste receptors” in the lungs rather than on the tongue could point the way to new medicines for asthma, it is suggested.

Experiments in mice revealed that bombarding the receptors with bitter-tasting compounds helped open the airways, which could ease breathing.

The University of Maryland study, published in Nature Medicine, may have implications for other lung diseases.

Asthma UK warned that any new drug would not arrive for some time.

The “taste receptors” discovered in the smooth muscle of the lungs are not the same as those clustered in taste buds in the mouth.

They do not send signals to the brain, and yet, when exposed to bitter substances, they still respond.

It was the nature of that response that surprised researchers, who assumed their presence was as a defence against noxious gases, triggering a tightening of the airways and coughing.

In fact, the mouse experiments revealed that exactly the reverse was true. …

via BBC News – Taste buds in lungs discovery could ease asthma.