Insiders Sell Like There’s No Tomorrow
September 11th, 2009Just put some more lipstick on Maria Bartiromo and everything will be fine.
Via: CNN:
Can hundreds of stock-selling insiders be wrong?
The stock market has mounted an historic rally since it hit a low in March. The S&P 500 is up 55%, as U.S. job losses have slowed and credit markets have stabilized.
But against that improving backdrop, one indicator has turned distinctly bearish: Corporate officers and directors have been selling shares at a pace last seen just before the onset of the subprime malaise two years ago.
While a wave of insider selling doesn’t necessarily foretell a stock market downturn, it suggests that those with the first read on business trends don’t believe current stock prices are justified by economic fundamentals.
“It’s not a very complicated story,” said Charles Biderman, who runs market research firm Trim Tabs. “Insiders know better than you and me. If prices are too high, they sell.”
Biderman, who says there were $31 worth of insider stock sales in August for every $1 of insider buys, isn’t the only one who has taken note. Ben Silverman, director of research at the InsiderScore.com web site that tracks trading action, said insiders are selling at their most aggressive clip since the summer of 2007.
Silverman said the “orgy of selling” is noteworthy because corporate insiders were aggressive buyers of the market’s spring dip. The S&P 500 dropped as low as 666 in early March before the recent rally took it back above 1,000.
“That was a great call,” Silverman said. “They were buying when prices were low, so it makes sense to look at what they’re doing now that prices are higher.”
Harvard and Yale Endowments Get Their Asses Handed to Them
September 11th, 2009Via: Reuters:
Harvard and Yale, America’s two richest universities, said on Thursday their endowments lost roughly 30 percent of their value last year, showing how severely the financial crisis battered even the world’s best managers.
Both schools, long admired for delivering top-notch returns for years, warned about the declines late last year when their presidents told students, faculty and alumni about upcoming heavy cutbacks.
Harvard, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said its endowment dropped 27.3 percent, or $11 billion, to $26 billion in the year that ended on June 30. Despite the loss, the endowment has still returned an average of 8.9 percent every year for the last decade while the average comparable fund has risen 3.2 percent, according to research and consulting firm Wilshire Associates.
Harvard’s investment decline, the biggest in four decades, forced the 373-year-old school to lay off staff and interrupt a prominent campus expansion across the Charles River.
Yale, located in New Haven, Connecticut, said its endowment shrank a larger-than-expected 30 percent to $16 billion in the fiscal year that ended on June 30.
The drop means that Yale will have an annual deficit of $150 million from 2010-2011 to 2013-2014, Yale President Richard Levin wrote. He also said the school will cut another 5 percent from non-salary expenses this year after having already reduced staff and non-salary expenses 7.5 percent this year.
In recent years both Harvard and Yale invested heavily in hedge funds, private equity funds and timber, relying on these alternative asset classes to add billions to their endowments.
Last year, however, many of those bets did not pay off and both Ivy League schools lost far more than the median college endowment which concentrated mainly on stocks and bonds and dropped 18 percent, according to Wilshire Associates.
Jane Mendillo, head of Harvard Management Co, which oversees the school’s endowment, blamed Harvard’s heavy commitments to illiquid asset classes for the losses.
Harvard did not have enough cash on hand in the last year, Mendillo said in a report where she outlined changes to the way the university will invest from now on.
“We expect to see a prolonged period of instability and slower growth in some markets,” she wrote in the report.
To raise cash, Mendillo sold stock, pulled money back from certain hedge funds and exited some private equity funds. She also laid off a quarter of the workforce, or 50 people, at Harvard Management to cut costs.
Additionally, Harvard is reducing its exposure to real assets like real estate, timber and commodities and is investing is shrinking its future commitments to private equity funds and other investment funds.
U.S. Gold Rises Above $1,010 on Dollar Deterioration
September 11th, 2009Via: Reuters:
U.S. gold futures broke above $1,010 an ounce on Friday, reaching their highest level since February, as a steadily weakening dollar increased the status of bullion as an alternative investment.
GOLD
* December gold GCZ9 up $13.80, or 1.4 percent, at $1,010.60 an ounce at 10:26 a.m. EDT (1426 GMT) on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
* Ranged from $996.30 to $1,013.70, which marked the highest level since Feb. 20.
* The U.S. dollar fell to a one-year low against major currencies as optimism about the outlook for the global economy encouraged investors to favor higher yielding currencies and stocks instead of the safety of the greenback.
* Gold continues its steady upward move, helped by technical buying, stronger euro and crude oil rally – George
Gero, vice president of RBC Capital Markets Global Futures.
Brazil’s Armored Car Culture
September 11th, 2009This is absurd on many levels, but I couldn’t look away.
Interestingly, the Brazilian government doesn’t allow vehicles to be outfitted with Level 3 and Level 4 armor. In other words, any assault rifle would cut through the armor on these vehicles like a hot knife through butter.
Via: Wall Street Journal:
Everywhere 19-year-old Kareen Passos drives in her pink VW New Beetle, men approach her and onlookers shout “Barbie!”
They can look, but they dare not touch: Ms. Passos’s car is bulletproof.
This metropolis of 10 million is the auto-armoring capital of the world, by some estimates. Last year alone, more than 3,000 automobiles were taken apart, and then put back together complete with steel door plates, windows five layers thick, and tires that keep rolling even after taking a bullet.
Over the last three years, the number of armored cars in Brazil has doubled as an explosion of wealth has sent the newly rich in search of ways to live safely in a class-driven society where the murder rate is nearly five times that of the U.S.
“I wouldn’t drive it unless it was armored,” says Ms. Passos. Her bedroom has a pink computer and pink snowboard in it. “Everything that is mine I personalize in pink. I think it’s a very pretty and expressive color.”
Unlike Ms. Passos and her attention-grabbing car, most Brazilians seek safety by trying not to call attention to themselves, or to their wealth. Publicly traded companies here don’t report executives’ salaries, fearing disclosure could turn them into targets. And the high-heeled feet of São Paulo’s wealthiest women rarely touch the city’s pavement. Many descend from their armored vehicles only in guarded garages.
Brazil’s armoring industry, including some 120 companies that convert vehicles, got its first big break in 1999, when bandits tried to kidnap the children of Jorge Paulo Lemann, the most famous banker in Brazil. A magazine story headlined “The Hero Car” told the gripping tale of how the bandits’ bullets bounced off the car’s windows.
Although the market is still small — less than one percent of all cars sold in Brazil get armored — sales are jumping again, but this time on a quickening of Brazil’s economy that’s expanded the ranks of status seekers. “They want to wear a suit, have a nice watch and buy a nice car, so then it needs to be armored,” says David Silva Ferreira, a salesman employed at a Mercedes showroom.
The country’s armored-car fleet now numbers some 86,300 vehicles according to the Brazilian Association of Armoring, a São Paulo-based trade group. Another 6,000 are added annually.
Even the car-rental company Maxiauto has about 30 armored cars on offer. “You don’t want to be the only one without,” says rental manager Maria Tereza Soubihe, whose customers are often looking to impress clients or friends. On weekends, the company offers a “Bulletproof Bride” special. For $875, a driver in a steel-plated Chevy Omega whisks wedding clients to the hairdresser and then to church.
…
Brazil’s army keeps tabs on rolling fortresses. The army forbids automobiles with so-called Level III or IV armoring, the kind strong enough to resist military weapons. Having such super-cars on Brazil’s roads “would not be convenient for internal security” an army spokesman said, since they could be used “in a rebellion.”
Research Credit: Lagavulin
Millions More Thrust Into Poverty: Decade of Headway in Household Income Erased
September 11th, 2009Via: Washington Post:
A new comprehensive economic survey shows that the recession has plunged 2.6 million more Americans into poverty, wiped out the household income gains of an entire decade and pushed the number of people without health insurance up to 46.3 million.
The grim economic statistics unveiled Thursday in the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, poverty and health insurance are destined to grow bleaker. Since the data were collected in the spring, millions of people have lost their jobs.
“When the numbers come out next year at this time, I expect them to look even worse,” said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The statistics reflect the toll the recession has taken on the nation since the downturn officially began in December 2007.
The nation’s poverty rate rose to 13.2 percent in 2008, up from 12.5 percent in 2007, the Census Bureau data showed. That was the first significant increase since 2004 and the highest level in 11 years.
In all, 39.8 million Americans were living in poverty in 2008, defined as an income of $22,025 for a family of four. The last time there were that many poor people was 1960, although the nation’s population was smaller then.
Almost one in five children younger than 18 are living in poverty, with the total number rising from 13.3 million in 2007 to 14.1 million in 2008.
In a measure of the breadth of the decline, median household income — the amount earned by a family at the exact center of the income scale — sank 3.6 percent in 2008: from $52,163 to $50,303. In 1998, at the height of the tech stock boom, the comparable income was $51,295. All the figures were adjusted for inflation.
The drop in median household income was the first in four years. It had stagnated for four years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“We’ve basically seen a lost decade,” said Lawrence Katz, an economist at Harvard University. “We had a plutocratic boom. Then we have egalitarian recessions. Taken together, only the top ends up growing, on average. For the typical American family, the 2000s have been a disaster.”
The income loss is the largest one-year decline on record, said Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, tracing it to the number of people shifting from full-time jobs to part-time work.
Although incomes went down for all races, Hispanics experienced some of the biggest losses. Income declined 5.6 percent for Hispanic households, 4.4 percent for Asians, 2.8 percent for African American families and 2.6 percent for non-Hispanic whites. Hispanics and Asians also showed the biggest increases in poverty rates.
World Architecture News: Explosives and Thermitic Material Brought Down Buildings on 9/11
September 11th, 2009Via: World Architecture News:
Conspiracy theory or hidden truth? The 9/11 enigmas…
Richard Gage, AIA, Gregg Roberts, and David Chandler
Richard Gage, AIA has been a practicing San Francisco Bay Area architect for more than 20 years, and is a registered member of the American Institute of Architects. Most recently he worked on a $400M mixed-use facility in Las Vegas NV. But he is also the founder and CEO of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, now numbering over 800 A/E’s, calling for a new investigation into the destruction of all 3 WTC high-rises on 9/11. Gage has spoken at over 100 events, reaching 20 U.S. states and 8 countries. He has been invited to present in 14 cities Australia, New Zealand, and Japan before the end of this year. As the anniversary of the events approaches, Gage tells WAN why he thinks there are hidden depths to the destruction of the World Trade Centre…
In all likelihood, you are unaware of the most important facts involving the destructions of the World Trade Center buildings. Nearly all the mainstream information sources and government officials have kept crucial information hidden from the public. This brief article will provide a clear explanation as to what actually happened to the Twin Towers and Building 7 (WTC 7) on September 11, 2001.
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization now numbering over 800 technical professionals and thousands of other supporters dedicated to exposing the facts that point to the explosive destruction of all three World Trade Center (WTC) high-rises.
We are calling for a new independent investigation empowered to subpoena and question witnesses under oath. Well-documented facts prove the WTC high-rises were destroyed by explosives. The implications are grave, but we ask that you look at the facts. AE911Truth is also concerned that evidence has been distorted and covered up by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal agency assigned to investigate the building collapses.
WTC 7 was a 47-story steel-framed high-rise 100 yards from the North Tower. Even though no airplane hit it, it collapsed rapidly and totally on 9/11, in the manner of a controlled demolition. Despite its suspicious collapse, the 9/11 Commission report does not even mention WTC 7. NIST left its analysis of the WTC 7 collapse until 2008, seven years after the events, long after all the rubble was destroyed. NIST claims WTC 7 collapsed due to “normal office fires” which created a “new phenomenon” in high-rise catastrophes: collapse caused by thermal expansion of beams. NIST claims this caused the failure of a single column – the rest just followed.
NIST Forced to Acknowledge Free-Fall of WTC 7
In August 2008, NIST released the draft of its final report on Building 7. In that draft NIST claims that the building took 40% longer than “free-fall time” to collapse the first 18 stories. In a technical briefing that followed the release of the draft report Shyam Sunder, NIST’s lead investigator, denied that free-fall had occurred and stated that free-fall was incompatible with their analysis. He said, “… a free fall time would be an object that has no … structural components below it…And that is not at all unusual because there was [emphasis in original] structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had … a sequence of structural failures that had to take place and everything was not instantaneous.”
However, one of this article’s co-authors, David Chandler, used video analysis to show conclusively that for 2.5 seconds (about 100 feet) WTC 7 was in complete free-fall. He publicly challenged NIST’s claims at the technical briefing and he, along with others, filed formal requests for corrections.
NIST were forced to reverse themselves in their Final Report and acknowledged 2.25 seconds of absolute free-fall. Yet they did not reconsider how this was compatible with their analysis. A network of heavy steel girders had to be forcibly removed suddenly across the width of the building for eight floors. However, a free-falling object cannot exert force on anything in its path without slowing its own fall, so the structural support had to be removed by something else—explosives. The free-fall of Building 7 is a smoking gun.
World Trade Center – Commonalities in all Three Building Destructions
Complete Destruction Through the Path of Greatest Resistance
NIST claims that the Twin Towers collapsed due to the plane impacts and fire, and that WTC 7 collapsed due to fire alone. However, note that the Twin Towers survived the plane impacts and the jet fuel burned off in the first 10 minutes. Beyond that, all we have are not very large office fires. Over 100 steel framed buildings have suffered major fires, many much worse, yet none have collapsed. All three buildings on 9/11 fell through what should have been the path of greatest resistance – thousands of tons of steel – resulting in total dismemberment. This would require precisely timed removal of critical columns, which office fires cannot accomplish. Furthermore, a small falling top section would destroy itself before it could destroy a larger, stronger, undamaged lower section of the building. The impossible collapse is a smoking gun.
Molten Iron
The temperatures of the fires present a problem for NIST’s claim that fire alone was involved. The melting point of steel is about 2800° F. According to NIST’s own documents, hydrocarbon fires (e.g., jet fuel and office furnishings) generate temperatures only up to about 2,000° F under ideal conditions. NIST recognizes these fires could not melt steel, so they had to postulate elaborate mechanisms that might trigger collapse due to weakened columns and sagging girders.
Yet there is widespread evidence of molten iron in the rubble piles. Photos and numerous witnesses — including fire fighters, cleanup crews, and structural engineers — confirm the existence of several tons of molten metal under the debris. Some fire fighters described molten steel flowing like lava. Photos clearly reveal molten metal dripping as material is being lifted by excavation equipment.
A video of the South Tower shows molten metal pouring out, glowing a radiant orange-yellow. Some have claimed this is molten aluminum, which melts at a lower temperature, but molten aluminum would be silvery in these conditions. This is molten iron or steel.
At least three independent laboratory analyses of the dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan after the destruction of the Twin Towers reveal the presence of iron-rich “microspheres.” These spheres are formed when molten iron is sprayed into the air and forms droplets that cool before hitting the ground. The iron droplets indicate temperatures during the collapses much higher than hydrocarbon fires, in an explosive environment that could spray many tons of these droplets into the air.
In April 2002, the RJ Lee Company was hired to investigate environmental contaminants in the Deutsche Bank, across the street from the World Trade Center. It reports, “Many of the materials, such as lead, cadmium, mercury and various organic compounds, vaporized and then condensed during the WTC Event.” The problem here is that lead vaporizes at 3200° F, some 1200° F hotter than is possible in hydrocarbon fires. A study of the WTC dust by the USGS for the EPA observed molybdenum-rich spheres that can form only above 4750° F. The high temperatures are another smoking gun.
Unignited Nano-Thermite in the WTC Dust
NIST did not even look for physical evidence of explosives. In fact NIST did not look at the physical evidence at all, apart from a few selected samples of the steel. The rest was destroyed. However, physical evidence did remain: the dust. NIST did not look at the dust, but independent investigators did. They discovered, along with the microspheres, tiny red-grey chips. They examined samples of WTC dust from different parts of Manhattan. All contained the red-gray chips. They found that the red layer consisted of unignited nano-thermite. Ordinary thermite is an incendiary: it can burn through heavy steel in seconds. The tiny particles in nano-thermite (1/1000 the thickness of a human hair) causes a much faster reaction so it can be used as a high explosive. The discovery of nano-thermite in the WTC dust was published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal in April 2009.
These scientists found not just a smoking gun, but a loaded gun.
Independent lines of evidence prove the official government claims are impossible. We see our role at AE911Truth as exposing the evidence official agencies and the corporate media are covering up. Following up on the implications is the responsibility of every citizen. Every citizen must face his or her own conscience when confronting these difficult facts — especially when we consider that 9/11 is the foundation for two wars, the launching of an endless “war on terror,” and the loss of our freedoms due to legislation pushed through amid the fog of war.
Following Up on the Evidence
Here are some starting points for action:
a) Send the AE911Truth.org link to your personal mailing list and every architect and engineer that you can find.
b) Sign the petition and demand a new, independent investigation. Volunteer. Become a sustaining donor.
c) Write your local news media and representatives. Tell them to address the evidence. Send them the DVD, “9/11: Blueprint for Truth.”
A video of initiation of explosive destruction is here for WTC 1 (North Tower) and here for WTC 2 (South Tower).
COAST GUARD INCIDENT IN POTOMAC RIVER SECURITY ZONE
September 11th, 2009Update3: Coast Guard to review exercise after Potomac security scare
CNN:
The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday it will review a training incident along the Potomac River that triggered security concerns about President Obama on the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
“We are still gathering information of how this training event might have been misconstrued as an actual incident. We will conduct a thorough review of this incident,” the Coast Guard said in a statement.
It added, “The best way that we in the Coast Guard can remember Sept. 11, and our security obligations to the nation is to be always ready and this requires constant training and exercise. To ensure the appropriate readiness posture we conduct training scenarios across the nation on a daily basis.”
Minutes after Obama crossed the Memorial Bridge following an event at the Pentagon, word broke that a Coast Guard vessel apparently was trying to prevent a suspicious boat from entering a security zone.
There were reports on police scanners that the Coast Guard fired 10 rounds of ammunition. But a Department of Homeland Security representative later said no shots had been fired.
The Secret Service said the president was back at the White House by the time of the reports of shots being fired.
Federal agency emergency operations centers were not aware of the Coast Guard training exercise and began making contingency plans when word broke of what seemed to be a security incident, a federal source said.
—End Update—
UPDATE2: Coast Guard reports Potomac incident as a drill
The Associated Press cited Coast Guard Chief Keith Moore as saying the Coast Guard was conducting a training exercise in the Potomac moments before President Barack Obama and his motorcade crossed a nearby bridge. He also said that no shots were fired as part of the exercise, according to The AP.
Amid high security, the U.S. Coast Guard confronted a boat on restricted waters on the Potomac River outside Washington, D.C., according to CNN.
CNN initially reported 10 round being fired, but on reported its website shortly afterward that police scanner reports of shots being fired could not be immediately confirmed.
Departures from Reagan National Airport were halted shortly after 10 a.m. as a precaution, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said. The airport borders the Potomac River near where shots were reported fired.
President Obama had been taking part in a September 11th ceremony at the Pentagon.
—End Update—
UPDATE1: Training Exercise?
AP: Coast Guard conducts training exercise on Potomac
(AP) – 12 minutes ago
WASHINGTON — The Coast Guard was conducting a training exercise in the Potomac River moments before President Barack Obama and his motorcade crossed a nearby bridge.
Coast Guard Chief Keith Moore said Friday no shots were fired as part of the exercise. Media reports suggested shots had been fired in the river.
Obama had traveled to the Pentagon for a ceremony commemorating the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
—End Update—
Via: CNN:
The U.S. Coast Guard tried Friday to prevent a boat from entering a security zone on the Potomac River not far from the Pentagon, where President Obama was at an event commemorating the September 11 attacks.
There were reports on police scanners that the Coast Guard fired 10 rounds of ammunition, but those reports could not immediately be confirmed. It was not immediately clear from the reports whether they referred to warning shots.
The incident took place between the Memorial and 14th Street bridges, in a zone that had been blocked off because of the ceremonies.
Obama had departed the Pentagon shortly after 10 a.m. ET. Reports of the incident came in shortly after 10 a.m. ET.
Fifty Questions on 9/11
September 11th, 2009Via: Asia Times:
It’s September 11 all over again – eight years on. The George W Bush administration is out. The “global war on terror” is still on, renamed “overseas contingency operations” by the Barack Obama administration. Obama’s “new strategy” – a war escalation – is in play in AfPak. Osama bin Laden may be dead or not. “Al-Qaeda” remains a catch-all ghost entity. September 11 – the neo-cons’ “new Pearl Harbor” – remains the darkest jigsaw puzzle of the young 21st century.
It’s useless to expect US corporate media and the ruling elites’ political operatives to call for a true, in-depth investigation into the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. Whitewash has been the norm. But even establishment highlight Dr Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski, a former national security advisor, has admitted to the US Senate that the post-9/11 “war on terror” is a “mythical historical narrative”.
The following questions, some multi-part – and most totally ignored by the 9/11 Commission – are just the tip of the immense 9/11 iceberg.
…
None of these questions has been convincingly answered – according to the official narrative. It’s up to US civil society to keep up the pressure. Eight years after the fact, one fundamental conclusion is imperative. The official narrative edifice of 9/11 is simply not acceptable.
FBI Informant Says Agents Missed Chance to Stop 9/11 Ringleader Mohammed Atta
September 11th, 2009Via: ABC News:
On the eve of the eight year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an FBI informant who infiltrated alleged terrorist cells in the U.S. tells ABC News the FBI missed a chance to stop the al Qaeda plot because they focused more on undercover stings than on the man who would later become known as 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta.
In an exclusive interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline, former undercover operative Elie Assaad says he spotted and became suspicious of Atta in early 2001, when he was sent by the FBI to infiltrate a small mosque outside Miami. Atta was there with Adnan Shukrujuman, an al Qaeda fugitive who now has a $5 million U.S. reward on his head.
“There was something wrong with these guys,” Assaad, a 36-year-old Catholic native of Lebanon who pretended to be an Islamic extremist, says.
The FBI initially declined to comment but released a statement following the ABC News report, saying: “The 9/11 investigation, the most extensive ever conducted by the FBI, has been reviewed in its totality by the 9/11 Commission, Congress and others. The claims made in the news report and the factual conclusions contained in the story are not supported by the evidence.”
The FBI did not specify which claims or conclusions it referred to.
…
Assaad, who posed as “Mohammed” a personal representative of Osama bin Laden, says he’s a “million percent positive” the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped if the FBI had gone after Atta and Shukrujumah. But because Atta and his men were suspicious of the FBI undercover operative, and secretive, Assaad says his FBI agent handlers sent him after the easier target two wannabe terrorists whose cases were easy to crack and who were both eventually convicted and sent to prison.
Mice Levitated in Lab Using Magnetic Fields
September 11th, 2009Via: Live Science:
Scientists have now levitated mice using magnetic fields.
Other researchers have made live frogs and grasshoppers float in mid-air before, but such research with mice, being closer biologically to humans, could help in studies to counteract bone loss due to reduced gravity over long spans of time, as might be expected in deep space missions or on the surfaces of other planets.
Scientists working on behalf of NASA built a device to simulate variable levels of gravity. It consists of a superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals, with a space inside warm enough at room temperature and large enough at 2.6 inches wide (6.6 cm) for tiny creatures to float comfortably in during experiments.
Disoriented
The researchers first levitated a young mouse, just three-week-old and weighing 10 grams. It appeared agitated and disoriented, seemingly trying to hold on to something.
“It actually kicked around and started to spin, and without friction, it could spin faster and faster, and we think that made it even more disoriented,” said researcher Yuanming Liu, a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They decided to mildly sedate the next mouse they levitated, which seemed content with floating.
A plastic cage was also designed by physicist Da-Ming Zhu at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, to keep the mice in during levitation. Its top remained open to let in air, food, water and video surveillance, and its bottom was filled with small holes to allow waste removal.
From time to time, mice would kick the walls of the cage, causing it to briefly drop off from the levitation zone before re-entering it and floating again.
Although the researchers could levitate mice with or without the cage, “it’s easier to house a mouse in a cage when you bring it to the levitation zone,” Liu explained. Also, if you want to run an experiment comparing mice living inside and outside the levitator, you want to set up exactly the same living conditions to match results up as best as possible.
Results
Repeated levitation tests showed the mice, even when not sedated, could quickly acclimate to levitation inside the cage. After three or four hours, the mice acted normally, including eating and drinking. The strong magnetic fields did not seem to have any negative impacts on the mice in the short term, and past studies have shown that rats did not suffer from adverse effects after 10 weeks of strong, non-levitating magnetic fields.
“We’re trying to see what kind of physiological impact is due to prolonged microgravity, and also what kind of countermeasures might work against it for astronauts,” Liu said. “If we can contribute to the future human exploration of space, that would be very exciting.” They are now applying for funding for such research with their levitator.
The researchers also levitated water drops up to 2 inches wide (5 cm). This suggests the variable gravity simulator could be used to study how liquids behave under reduced gravity, such as how heat is transferred or how bubbles behave.
Liu, Zhu and their colleagues detailed their findings online Sept. 6 in the journal Advances in Space Research.
Research Credit: dilinger
