From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Wed Sep 22 1999 - 21:35:56 MDT
~Nanogirl news~ Sept. 22, 1999
*Stem cells may be powerful gene shuttle
Stem cells may be a better shuttle than viruses for delivering corrective
genes to tissues throughout the body, say HHMI researchers. The study hints
that adults may harbor stem cells from a variety of organs and tissues that
might be manipulated to heal genetic defects in organs and tissues
throughout the body. http://www.hhmi.org/news/stemcell.htm
*PHYSICISTS CATCH BEST WAVES EVER FROM NEW, IMPROVED SURF III AT NIST.
Upgrades to the Synchrotron Ultraviolet Radiation Facility at the Commerce
Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology are yielding
greatly improved calibrations for a wide variety of optic and photonic
devices from satellite instruments to medical lasers and environmental
monitoring devices. http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/tn6215.htm
*UI researchers find more natural method to possibly induce vascular growth
By lowering an individual's heart rate, doctors someday may be able to
trigger the sprouting of new blood vessels without having to resort to
invasive methods, according to results from a University of Iowa Health Care
study. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/uiow-uir092299.html
*Tabletop Laser Futuristic Way To Separate Isotopes
Using an ultrapowerful laser system that sits on a tabletop, University of
Michigan researchers have demonstrated a new way to separate different forms
of the same chemical element.
http://unisci.com/stories/19993/0922995.htm
*In the 2020s, you may be able to buy a ''recipe'' for a PC over the net,
insert plastic and conductive molecules into your ''nanobox,'' and have it
spit out a computer. (Business week online)- 08/30/99, but still enticing
for us nanofanatics if you haven't seen it yet.~ Drexler mention.
http://www.businessweek.com/reprints/99-35/b3644007.htm
*A milestone in the application of proton radiography technology to nuclear
weapons stewardship was reached at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center
(LANSCE) with the successful execution of the first implosion experiment to
be imaged with proton beams.
http://www.lansce.lanl.gov/news/features/990909_billig.htm
*Particle physics factory builds modules to understand mass, matter. Answers
to physicists’ questions about the universe may be found in detectors now
under construction at Argonne’s “particle physics factory.” The sensitive
instruments detect energy from collisions in particle physics experiments
and store the data in a computer for physicists to analyze.
http://www.anl.gov/OPA/whatsnew/minos.htm
*Best of What's New (special feature) When future historians of science and
technology consider 1998, what will they say were its most important
advances? In the 11th annual "Best of What's New," Popular Science
celebrates some of the past year's most intriguing innovations - a total of
100 in all. http://new.popsci.com/bown/
*Nanovation Technologies is listed in an article about the 4 top stocks of
the next decade. "Enter now a private company called Nanovation Technologies
that proposes to eliminate digital gridlock by introducing new networking
semiconductors and switches powered by speedy pulses of light rather than
pokey old electrons. A reader named McNally, writing from British Columbia,
suggested this one, noting that the firm is "not listed, but on the bottom
rung of the electronic to photonic computer transformation. Important
patents in place."
http://nanovation.ad-vantage.net/nanomsn/
*Future uses of MicroElectricalMechanical Systems to be featured at Santa
Clara show in September .
http://www.ca.sandia.gov/news/memsnr.html
*DOE's Pulse: Science and technology highlights from the DOE National
Laboratories. (Sept 20)
http://www.ornl.gov/news/pulse/pulse_v39_99.htm
*Shape of things to come.Scientists step "five minutes into the future" to
show off the next generation Internet which promises a huge increase in
bandwidth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_452000/452554.stm
*Industry funding fuels perception of science for sale. Dilemma growing over
how to sort science from self-interest. (San Jose Mercury news)
http://www7.mercurycenter.com/premium/scitech/docs/sciforsale21.htm
*L.A.Times: Various links to light and color.
http://www.latimes.com/excite/990922/t000085054.html
*MURRAY HILL, N.J. (Sept. 20, 1999) - The C&C Prize, one of the world's top
honors for pioneers in computing and communications, has been awarded to
George Smith and Willard Boyle for their invention of the charge-coupled
device (CCD). This brings to 12 the number of Bell Labs engineers and
scientists who have received the C&C Prize.
http://www.bell-labs.com/news/1999/september/20/1.html
*Norris and ASR Vice President for Research & Development Jay Manifold
will each be making presentations on how privately-funded companies like
ASR will expand humankind's reach into space at this weekend's Space
Frontier Conference in Los Angeles (conference details available at
http://www.space-frontier.org/EVENTS/SFC8/). By co-sponsoring this and
other scientific conferences and symposia, ASR team members keep scientists
and space enthusiasts up to date on mission development, and contribute to
the building of a space exploration philosophy for the 21st century.
*With its Lunar Retriever I mission, Applied Space Resources is
developing a core competency in the use of existing technologies for the
development of resources in near-Earth space. ASR is focused on delivering
spacecraft to any destination with precision, and returning resources and
information with equal precision, for a profit. Additional information,
including various space policy papers, is available on the company's web
site at http://www.appliedspace.com.
*The Science of repitition (Fox news article)
http://www.foxnews.com/js_index.sml?content=/scitech/features/perelmuter/092
299.sml
*IBM, which took the pulpit to sell itself as an OS-agnostic company when it
endorsed Java, is now going one giant step further. With its
soon-to-be-announced “client-stack” embedded OS strategy and developerWorks
portal, it will attempt to win support for its “all operating systems are
equal” religion. http://www.msnbc.com/news/313676.asp
*U.S. Army special agents from the Army Criminal Investigation Command have
'proved' that NetBus and Back Orifice can be used to hijack desktop camera
and microphone applications for the purposes of industrial espionage, spying
or to gather evidence for a criminal investigation. The commandeered cameras
and microphones can then secretly send data to a monitoring station
unbeknownst to the end user.
http://www.pcworld.com/pcwtoday/article/0,1510,12891,00.html
*NAAC cracked Sept. 19th
Original site: http://www.naacp.org/
What was left behind:
http://www.hackernews.com/archive/1999/naacp/index.html
*Resurrecting a Mammoth. In Siberian deep freeze, a mammoth may hold some
pristine DNA. If so, then the very real possibility of cloning a mammoth
exists. If it can be done, should it be done?
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/mammoths990917.html
*WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Human beings may have twice as many genes as
previously thought, researchers at a biotechnology company said on
Tuesday -- a suggestion that would have big implications for scientists
racing to map all the genes.
http://www.cnn.com/NATURE/9909/22/science.genes.reut/index.html
*(Nasa) Now you see it - now you don't- A prodigious eruption of X-rays
from near the center of our Milky Way announces the latest round of activity
in a binary star system containing a variable star and a compact object.
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast22sep99_1.htm
*(Book) t h e f e e l i n g o f w h a t h a p p e n s Body and
Emotion in the Making of Consciousness BY Antonio Damasio. snip "I remember
wondering as I took my Intro to Bio midterm why I couldn't answer certain
questions about the brain. The very machinery that had told me to put one
foot in front of the other in order to get me to that classroom was now
holding out on me about its own nature. "What are the components of
neurons?" Not a clue. What was relaying this question through my mind?
Neurons. It doesn't get much more paradoxical than that."
http://www.salonmagazine.com/books/review/1999/09/21/damasio/index.html
*Brilliant Beginnings Brings the Latest Research in Brain and Child
Development Home to Parents. Products and Information Based on the Latest
Brain Research and Supported by a Panel of Child Development and
Neuroscientific Experts. Brilliant Beginnings LLC is developing products and
resources for parents to guide them in nurturing their children's
intellectual development during the first five years of life.
http://news.excite.com/news/bw/990921/ca-brilliant-beginnings
*Gene tests that promise to predict a person's health are being sold to
Americans for hundreds of dollars apiece, with a seldom-mentioned caveat: No
one regulates the accuracy of most of those tests, even though mistakes can
be life-altering.
http://www.herald.com/content/tue/docs/019121.htm
*Sculpting Virtual Reality .3-D models offer new ways of seeing art.
(Science news online article)
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/9_18_99/bob1.htm
*Cortical Neuron Net Database [Java, .pdf]
http://cortex.med.cornell.edu/index.html
The APLYSIA Project
http://ganglion.med.cornell.edu/Aplysia/db-home.html
Researchers at Cornell University Medical College are developing "an
Internet-accessible database of electrophysiological and other information
describing cortical neurons and their characteristic responses to
somatosensory and other stimuli." The homepage describes the Cortical Neuron
Database Project (part of the Human Brain Project), including the Common
Data Model (Java), Vocabulary for Neuroscience Metadata, and a series of the
project's research abstracts (.pdf) to be presented at the 1999 Human Brain
Project Conference in October. Interested viewers should also check out The
APLYSIA Project page, which describes the development of a similar
(invertebrate/ molluscan) Web-accessible database. The Aplysia project
database will enhance identification of molluscan neurons, the largest and
best-studied nerve cells in the animal kingdom.
*Science for Tomorrow's Society
http://www.britishcouncil.org/virtual/science/index.htm
The British Council hosts a series of virtual publishing exhibitions on the
Internet, the latest of which is entitled Science for Tomorrow's Society.
Due to be replaced in October 1999, this exhibition represents a succinct
selection of UK-published science titles covering subject areas that promise
to impact the future. A section on Award-winning Books features books for
both children and adults that have won or been short-listed for a major
award. For example, last year's winner of the Science Book Prize, The
Consumer's Good Chemical Guide, is described here. Other sections include
Biotechnology and Bioscience, Information and Communication Technology,
Public Understanding of Science, and Science Policy and Exploitation.
Depending on the section, titles are aimed at both professional and general
audiences.
*Universe Is Expanding Faster Than Expected -Study. First scientists thought
it was slowing down, then they discovered it was speeding up. Now a team of
international astronomers say the universe is expanding even faster than
they thought.
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990922/15/news-space-universe
*The Selective Laser Sintering User's Group (SLSUG) will hold its annual
conference October 24-27 in...
http://library.northernlight.com/FD19990922210000089.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0
doc
*Little grey cells in the pink. Normal ageing is associated with memory
loss -- but this could be delayed, or even reversed. A report in the October
issue of Nature Neuroscience shows how removing hormones associated with
stress allows the continued proliferation of cells in a part of the brain
associated with learning and memory, even in old age.
http://helix.nature.com/nsu/990923/990923-6.html
*Evidence that a free-running oscillator drives G1 events in the budding
yeast cell cycle
STEVEN B. HAASE AND STEVEN I. REED (nature)
In yeast and somatic cells, mechanisms ensure cell-cycle events are
initiated only when preceding events have been completed. In contrast,
interruption of specific cell-cycle processes in early embryonic cells of
many organisms does not affect the timing of subsequent events, indicating
that cell-cycle events are triggered by a free-running cell-cycle
oscillator. Here we present evidence for an independent cell-cycle
oscillator in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We observed
periodic activation of events normally restricted to the G1 phase of the
cell cycle, in cells lacking mitotic cyclin-dependent kinase activities that
are essential for cell-cycle progression. As in embryonic cells, G1 events
cycled on schedule, in the absence of S phase or mitosis, with a period
similar to the cell-cycle time of wild-type cells. Oscillations of similar
periodicity were observed in cells responding to mating pheromone in the
absence of G1 cyclin (Cln)- and mitotic cyclin (Clb)-associated kinase
activity, indicating that the oscillator may function independently of
cyclin-dependent kinase dynamics. We also show that Clb-associated kinase
activity is essential for ensuring dependencies by preventing the initiation
of new G1 events when cell-cycle progression is delayed.
*Earthquake hits computer chip plants, world prices may rise. The Taiwan
earthquake means computer-chip makers will lose up to two weeks of
production and could lead to an increase in worldwide prices, analysts said
Wednesday. The quake knocked out power at most companies in the the Hsinchu
Science-based Technology Park. By Wednesday morning, only partial power had
been restored to several leading chipmakers there. The U.S. investment firm
[ Merrill Lynch ] said in a report that Tuesday's deadly quake would affect
output for one to one and a half weeks.
Taiwan is expected to account for 10 percent of global production in value
terms this year, the report said.
* Leading article: The gene machine Research which must not be privatised
(The Guardian)
If they succeed in negotiating an Anglo-American agreement to ensure that
gene patents are freely available worldwide to combat diseases, rather than
being snapped up by patent-seeking entrepreneurs, then Tony Blair and Bill
Clinton will have done a service to humanity. Most people, understandably,
still find it difficult to get their minds around the fact that the problem
exists in the first place. Multinational companies are trying to take out
patents over the genes or fragments of genes that control the human body.
They are hijacking one of the principles of the US constitution for
`promoting the useful arts and sciences': this allows inventors to exclude
others from pirating their inventions for up to 20 years. That is fine for
products and new drugs, but not for the `blueprints of life'. The author
Jeremy Rifkin has called this debate `one of the most important issues ever
to face the human family'.{QQ} It is wrong both in principle and in
practice. If the patents are monopolised by large (mainly American)
corporations, small companies will be shut out of the innovation race and
exploitation of the benefits will - as with GM foods - follow a fierce US
corporate agenda. The needs of the rest of the globe will be swept aside in
the process. If gene patenting were privatised it would be possible for
someone holding the rights to a DNA fragment to retard the development of
vibrant new products making use of lots of fragments. One of the biggest
worries is the entrepreneur scientist Craig Venter, whose company, Celera,
is rushing to patent as many human genes as possible. Entrepreneurs have a
vital role in any economy in starting companies, but not in making money out
of something that most people in the world justifiably regard as public
property. All research on human genes should be released to the world
without patent protection. This is one area where mutualism must triumph
over the serial patent hunters. {QQ}
<<<>>>This page is printed on 100% post consumer recycled
electrons<<<>>>
*Until we meet again!
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Index to all my websites at:
http://www.homestead.com/nanotechind/nothingatall.html
Email: nanogirl@halcyon.com
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