Breathing Polluted Air May Wreak Havoc on Our DNA, Reprogramming Genes in as Few as Three Days
May 19th, 2009VIa: National Geographic:
Breathing in polluted air may wreak havoc on our DNA, reprogramming genes in as few as three days and causing increased rates of cancer and other diseases.
So says a new study that tracked DNA damage in 63 steel-foundry workers in Brescia, Italy, who, under their normal factory conditions, were exposed to particulate matter.
The same damage may occur in city dwellers exposed to normal air, the researchers say.
Particulate matter includes suspended, tiny bits of dust, metal, or soot in the air, which can lodge deep in the lungs. Exposure to the substance has been linked to respiratory diseases, lung cancer, and heart problems.
Scientists know little about how inhaling particulate matter can cause health problems, according to lead study author Andrea Baccarelli of the University of Milan.
But they did find that exposed workers’ DNA was damaged by a slowed rate of “methylation,” a biological process in which genes are organized into different chemical groups.
Fewer groups means that fewer genes are expressed—or made into proteins—a crucial process in the body’s regular maintenance.
Reduced-size gene groups like the ones observed in the new study have also been found in the blood DNA of lung cancer patients.
Cellular Communication Through Light
May 19th, 2009This is just the abstract. The entire paper is available.
Via: PloS One:
Information transfer is a fundamental of life. A few studies have reported that cells use photons (from an endogenous source) as information carriers. This study finds that cells can have an influence on other cells even when separated with a glass barrier, thereby disabling molecule diffusion through the cell-containing medium. As there is still very little known about the potential of photons for intercellular communication this study is designed to test for non-molecule-based triggering of two fundamental properties of life: cell division and energy uptake. The study was performed with a cellular organism, the ciliate Paramecium caudatum. Mutual exposure of cell populations occurred under conditions of darkness and separation with cuvettes (vials) allowing photon but not molecule transfer. The cell populations were separated either with glass allowing photon transmission from 340 nm to longer waves, or quartz being transmittable from 150 nm, i.e. from UV-light to longer waves. Even through glass, the cells affected cell division and energy uptake in neighboring cell populations. Depending on the cuvette material and the number of cells involved, these effects were positive or negative. Also, while paired populations with lower growth rates grew uncorrelated, growth of the better growing populations was correlated. As there were significant differences when separating the populations with glass or quartz, it is suggested that the cell populations use two (or more) frequencies for cellular information transfer, which influences at least energy uptake, cell division rate and growth correlation. Altogether the study strongly supports a cellular communication system, which is different from a molecule-receptor-based system and hints that photon-triggering is a fine tuning principle in cell chemistry.
Research Credit: pookie
Hard to Stomach: The Ten Worst Meals in America
May 19th, 2009Via: Minyanville:
Wrap it up in colorful paper like McDonald’s (MCD) and place it next to an adorable talking dog llike Taco Bell (YUM) and Americans will eat just about anything. But cheeseburgers and chalupas aside, some foods are so unappetizing they defy even the biggest appetites.
And yet, they’re willfully consumed.
Minyanville takes a look at 10 meals that, for any sensible human being, should be hard to stomach.
Research Credit: pookie
Robot Warriors Will Get a Guide to Ethics
May 19th, 2009Oh sure. You better clip a clothes peg on your nose for this one.
Via: MSNBC:
Smart missiles, rolling robots, and flying drones currently controlled by humans, are being used on the battlefield more every day. But what happens when humans are taken out of the loop, and robots are left to make decisions, like who to kill or what to bomb, on their own?
Ronald Arkin, a professor of computer science at Georgia Tech, is in the first stages of developing an “ethical governor,” a package of software and hardware that tells robots when and what to fire. His book on the subject, “Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots,” comes out this month.
He argues not only can robots be programmed to behave more ethically on the battlefield, they may actually be able to respond better than human soldiers.
“Ultimately these systems could have more information to make wiser decisions than a human could make,” said Arkin. “Some robots are already stronger, faster and smarter than humans. We want to do better than people, to ultimately save more lives.”
Brazil and China Eye Plan to Axe Dollar
May 19th, 2009Via: Financial Times:
Brazil and China will work towards using their own currencies in trade transactions rather than the US dollar, according to Brazil’s central bank and aides to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president.
The move follows recent Chinese challenges to the status of the dollar as the world’s leading international currency.
Mr Lula da Silva, who is visiting Beijing this week, and Hu Jintao, China’s president, first discussed the idea of replacing the dollar with the renminbi and the real as trade currencies when they met at the G20 summit in London last month.
An official at Brazil’s central bank stressed that talks were at an early stage. He also said that what was under discussion was not a currency swap of the kind China recently agreed with Argentina and which the US had agreed with several countries, including Brazil.
“Currency swaps are not necessarily trade related,” the official said. “The funds can be drawn down for any use. What we are talking about now is Brazil paying for Chinese goods with reals and China paying for Brazilian goods with renminbi.”
Henrique Meirelles and Zhou Xiaochuan, governors of the two countries’ central banks, were expected to meet soon to discuss the matter, the official said.
Mr Zhou recently proposed replacing the US dollar as the world’s leading currency with a new international reserve currency, possibly in the form of special drawing rights (SDRs), a unit of account used by the International Monetary Fund.
In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Mr Zhou said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations”.
Court Tosses Case Over GPS Tracking
May 19th, 2009Via: Times Union:
A Watervliet man will get a new trial on burglary charges after the state’s top court ruled Tuesday it was wrong for a police investigator to slap a GPS device on the defendant’s van to track his movements without a search warrant.
A divided Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision, reversed the conviction of 41-year-old Scott Weaver, finding that his protection against unlawful search and seizure under the state constitution was violated. The court suppressed information obtained from the device from being used as evidence at a new trial as it was at the first trial.
Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, in the 20-page majority opinion, wrote: “What the technology yields and records with breathtaking quality and quantity is a highly detailed profile, not simply of where we go, but by easy inference, of our associations — political, religious, amicable and amorous, to name only a few — and of the pattern of our professional and avocational pursuits.”
He also wrote that “the great popularity of GPS technology for its many useful applications may not be taken simply as a massive, undifferentiated concession of personal privacy to agents of the state.”
The Case of the Missing H-Bomb: The Pentagon Has Lost the Mother of All Weapons
May 18th, 2009Via: Alternet:
Things go missing. It’s to be expected. Even at the Pentagon. Last October, the Pentagon’s inspector general reported that the military’s accountants had misplaced a destroyer, several tanks and armored personnel carriers, hundreds of machine guns, rounds of ammo, grenade launchers and some surface-to-air missiles. In all, nearly $8 billion in weapons were AWOL.
Those anomalies are bad enough. But what’s truly chilling is the fact that the Pentagon has lost track of the mother of all weapons, a hydrogen bomb. The thermonuclear weapon, designed to incinerate Moscow, has been sitting somewhere off the coast of Savannah, Georgia for the past 40 years. The Air Force has gone to greater lengths to conceal the mishap than to locate the bomb and secure it.
Chart of the Day: S&P 500 Earnings Plunge
May 18th, 2009Via: Chart of the Day:
While the stock market is up sharply since early March, the economy as well as corporate earnings continue to suffer. Today’s chart helps provide some perspective as to the magnitude of the current economic decline. Today’s chart illustrates that 12-month, as-reported S&P 500 earnings have declined over 90% over the past 20 months (with over 90% of S&P 500 companies having reported for Q1 2009), making this by far the largest decline on record (the data goes back to 1936). In fact, real earnings have dropped to a record low and if current estimates hold, Q3 2009 will see the first 12-month period during which S&P 500 earnings are negative.
Source: Chart of the Day
Guatemala: Thousands Protest Alleged Political Killing
May 18th, 2009Via: AFP:
Thousands of Guatemalans took to the streets on Sunday demanding justice in the case of a slain lawyer who eerily accused the President of ordering his murder in a video that shook the country.
Just days before he was shot dead on May 10, Rodrigo Rosenberg recorded a video accusing President Alvaro Colom of ordering his death.
In the video, widely broadcast in Guatemala, he named Mr Colom’s wife, Sandra Torres, and his personal secretary, Gustavo Alejos, as co-conspirators.
Many of Mr Colom’s opponents want the social democratic President to resign, and used their rallies on Sunday to generate pressure.
An estimated 50,000 people jammed Plaza Italia outside the mayor’s office in the capital, many wearing white to press for justice in Mr Rosenberg’s case, but also for a better justice system in a country where an estimated 98 per cent of crimes are never solved.
Onward, Christian Soldiers!
May 18th, 2009GQ has published alleged cover pages from briefing documents that Rumsfeld produced for Bush.
