Category: Science

If a House bill goes through in its current form and becomes law, we’ll be one step closer to the genetic dystopia of GATTACA.

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins writes:

A bill with serious ramifications for the disabled and others medically at risk is scheduled for mark-up in the House Education and Labor Committee on Wednesday. As I previously mentioned, H.R. 493, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), was introduced to prevent insurance companies and employers from refusing to cover individuals or families based on the results of genetic tests. Unfortunately, due to a large loophole in the bill’s language, the definition of "family member" does not include children who are "to be born" or those who are in the process of being placed for adoption. Without an amendment to expand the definition, an insurance company could, on the grounds of a prenatal test, cancel a woman’s insurance–or encourage her to have an abortion because it doesn’t want to pay for the costs of a special needs child with an illness or disability such as Down Syndrome. When the bill was first introduced in 2005, sponsors said the language would be clarified. However, with the House now poised to act on the legislation, this has not been done. In our conversations with House members, we’ve learned that an amendment will likely be offered in committee to favorably change the bill. We encourage all representatives to vote for this equitable pro-family clarification.

MORE.

BE SURE TO TREAD LIGHTLY!

COSMIC RAYS CAUSE GLOBAL COOLING; ACTIVE SUN CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING?

MORE.

A reader writes:

Is this for real?

I know it is from a student newspaper, but if this is for real… yikes!

HERE’S THE LINK THE READER IS TALKING ABOUT.

And despite the fact that it’s from a student newspaper, it is indeed for real. I did some checking and found other references to the same possible cancer cure, and it’s been picked up by other news outlets.

HERE’S THE ARTICLE ON IT IN NEW SCIENTIST.

And, of course, it’s found its way onto Wikipedia.

HERE’S THEIR ENTRY ON THE REPORTED CURE.

For those who haven’t immediately zoomed off to read the above links, here’s a synopsis of the story: Researchers in Alberta have found a chemical–dichloroacetate or DCA–that appears to kill cancer cells while leaving normal cells unaffected. The links above contain details on precisely how it does this, but there are two striking things about this chemical: (1) It appears to work on a wide variety of different types of cancer cells and (2) it’s cheap–really cheap–because it can’t be patented.

The latter point is a significant part of the story because, since it can’t be patented, it can’t make a boatload of money for some drug company. Consequently, drug companies aren’t interested in doing the research needed to find out if it actually works in humans, what the therapeutic dosages are, what the side-effects are, etc.

This is not a new story in medicine, though it may be the first time some readers have run across this phenomenon. In fact, drug companies spend millions and millions of dollars so that they can produce near-knockoffs of natural or already-known substances so that they can patent the near-knockoff and use it to make money, when the already-existing substance that they’re imitating would treat the same condition just as well or better.

THAT’S ONE OF THE REASONS THAT I OFTEN RECOMMEND THIS BOOK.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not down on drugs or conventional medicine. I simply recognize the distorting effects that economic interests can have in this area, as in every other. Sometimes a drug is the best way to treat something. Sometimes a nutritional approach is better. It just depends.

Having said that, I am very intrigued by the reports concerning DCA and will be trying to find out more.

The odds are always against something like this panning out, but I would love it if this one did! A cheap and effective cancer cure would be the answer to countless prayers throughout the world.

One note: For people who are suffering from cancer or who know someone who is, there is going to be a huge desire to try personal therapies with DCA even before human clinical trials are done. It’s understandable that people would want to do this. I do not yet know if DCA is commercially and legally available in the US, but even if it is available and legal, caution is warranted here. There are side-effects if DCA is taken in the wrong dosages.

Remember the first law of toxicology: "The poison is in the dose."

IT’S TRUE!

I mean . . . it’s not scheduled to do that tomorrow or anything, but one day.

Yes, our moon–"Luna" as some people want to call it (though anyone who’s ever lived there just calls it "the Moon")–it’s going to blow up and rain down out of the sky.

You know what they say, "No boom today. Boom tomorrow. They’re always a boom tomorrow"–only the tomorrow in question is a ways down the road, long after all of us should have pushed up all the daisies that we’re going to.

Here’s the idea:

[T]he Moon is being pushed away from Earth by 1.6 inches (4 centimeters) per year and our planet’s rotation is slowing.

If left unabated the Moon would continue in its retreat until it would take bout 47 days to orbit the Earth. Both Earth and Moon would then keep the same faces permanently turned toward one another as Earth’s spin would also have slowed to one rotation every 47 days.

[But billions of years from now . . . ]

The Sun’s mutation into a red giant provides a huge stumbling block to the Moon’s getaway and is likely to ensure the Moon ends its days the way it began; as a ring of Earth-girdling debris.

‘The density and temperature both increase rapidly near the apparent surface (photosphere) of the future giant Sun,’ Willson explained. As the Earth and Moon near this blistering hot region, the drag caused by the Sun’s extended atmosphere will cause the Moon’s orbit to decay. The Moon will swing ever closer to Earth until it reaches a point 11,470 miles (18,470 kilometers) above our planet, a point termed the Roche limit.

‘Reaching the Roche limit means that the gravity holding it [the Moon] together is weaker than the tidal forces acting to pull it apart,’ Willson said.

The Moon will be torn to pieces and every crater, mountain, valley, footprint and flag will be scattered to form a spectacular 23,000-mile-diameter (37,000-kilometer)  Saturn-like ring of debris above Earth’s equator. The new rings will be short-lived. Theory dictates they’ll eventually rain down onto Earth’s surface.

GET THE (EXPLOSIVE!) STORY.

Capsaicin is the substance that makes chili peppers hot. I’ve loved the taste of it for years, and hot sauce has been a frequent guest at my table.

It also has medical applications. It’s used for a variety of conditions and is often found in creams for topical application and in the form of nutritional supplements. It helps with joint pain, muscle strain, and other complaints. It’s even been found to kill certain cancer cells.

THIS IS MY FAVORITE BOOK ON NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS, AND IT INCLUDES INFO ON CAPSAICIN.

But it turns out that capsaicin may have just unlocked one of the most troubling medical issues of our day: diabetes.

I’ve been meaning to blog on this for a while, and news has undoubtedly already raced through the diabetes community, but a team of Canadian researchers used capsaicin as part of a treatment that at least temporarily cures Type 1 diabetes in mice.

The researchers noticed abnormalities in the pain receptor cells in the pancreas of those affected with diabetes and conjectured that these were involved in the condition. They then took mice with Type 1 diabetes and injected their pancreases with capsaicin to deaden the pain receptor nerves. To their amazement, these mice almost immediately began producing insulin. They also injected a neuropeptide called Substance P, which helped, too. The upshot is that some of the mice have remained free of diabetic symptoms for as much as four months after a single treatment.

If this finding holds up, it turns a lot of thinking about the nature of Type 1 diabetes on its head and may open the door to an equivalent human treatment that could revolutionize the lives of those with diabetes.

It’s too soon to say whether this will all pan out, but human trials are expected to begin soon, and it’s definitely a subject to keep an eye on–and to keep praying about.

MORE ON CAPSAICIN.

MORE ON DIABETES.

MORE ON THE DIABETES DISCOVERY.

AND MORE.

AND MORE.

HERE’S THE ORIGINAL JOURNAL ARTICLE ON THE DISCOVERY (SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED).

IT’S TRUE!

EXCERPT:

Two new invasive species have recently been found along the South Carolina coast — a massive barnacle that dwarfs those found in the state as well as the Asian green mussel, which reproduces quickly and can pose a threat to floating docks.

The barnacle is native to the Pacific coast from southern California to South America. It is so big, colonies have been known to sink navigational buoys, slow boats and clog coastal water pipes.

The barnacle, the megabalanus coccopoma [PICTURED], was found by a College of Charleston student doing research this fall on the Folly River. It reproduces quickly, and, although only one has been found, scientists worry it could spread.

I know they’re a navigational hazard, but ever since I was a boy playing on the beach of Trinity Bay at Baytown, Texas, just down the hill from my Paw-Paw’s house, I’ve thought barnacles were neat.

MORE ON BARNACLES.

Be sure to note the piece of Catholic trivia regarding the Barnacle Goose.

P.S. FIDDLER CRABS ARE COOL, TOO.

AND HERMIT CRABS.

THIS IS REALLY INTERESTING.

It seems that we’ve just observed the central black hole of a galaxy eating a star.

The galaxy in question is 4 billion light years away and in the constellation Bootes.

This is apparently not an every day event. EXCERPTS:

Scientists used NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer, an orbiting telescope sensitive to two bands of ultraviolet wave lengths, to detect an ultraviolet flare coming from the center of a remote elliptical galaxy.

"This ultraviolet flare was from a star literally being ripped apart and swallowed by the black hole," Suvi Gezari of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and lead author of the paper describing the findings in Astrophysical Journal Letters, said in an interview.

"This is the first time that we’ve actually been able to monitor the flare of radiation from such an event in detail. Only once every 10,000 years will a star pass close enough to a (galaxy’s) central black hole to be ripped apart and swallowed in this manner," Gezari said.

Scientists continue to use the telescope to observe the ultraviolet light as it fades while the black hole snacks on the final table scraps from the devoured star.

"We looked at the galaxy in 2003 and there was no ultraviolet light coming from the galaxy at all," Gezari said. "And then in 2004, we suddenly saw this very bright source."

"The only way to explain such a luminous ultraviolet flare is if the black hole swallowed a star," Gezari said.

GET THE STORY.

I predicted that the International Astronomical Union’s ABSURD definition of what counts as a planet would not stand the test of time and would get revised.

Now others are saying the same thing (EXCERPTS):

Rather than crafting an acceptable definition, the IAU alienated members, put the group’s authority in jeopardy and fueled schisms among astronomers on theoretical grounds and even nationality.

The controversial planet-definition resolution, passed Aug. 24 in a vote of just 424 IAU members, will not stand as worded. Some 300 astronomers have pledged not to use it, and many others say it must be redone to eliminate contradictions. It will be reworked, at the least, and possibly overturned at the 2009 IAU General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Great Pluto War alienated many of the roughly 10,000 professional astronomers around the world who did not have a chance to cast a vote.

Good. Now let their voices be heard.

It really is appalling to me that the IAU adopted such a boneheadedly short-sighted definition that only covers objects in our solar system and is based on irrelevancies such as what kind of orbit it has as whether or not it has cleared its orbit of competitor bodies.

The author of the piece makes some very good points, though I don’t agree with everything he says. He is of the opinion, for example, that we will never have a definition for what counts as a planet. I don’t think we’ll have one soon, but eventually common sense will prevail.

There is a perfectly common-sense definition of "planet" that is easy to understand and will unambiguously apply to the vast majority of planets we find outside the solar system, regardless of what kind of orbit (if any) that they have: A planet is something big enough to be round because of its own gravity but not big enough to start nuclear fusion and become a star.

With the progression of time, the obviousness of this definition will force itself more and more on the astronomical mind and, in coming years and decades and centuries, the definition of planet will more and more approximate what I just wrote.

Yes, this definition leads to our solar system having considerably more planets than the ancients thought.

So what.

You don’t want to know more than the ancients did?

Yes, it leads to the Moon being a sister planet of Earth’s.

So what.

The Moon was one of the seven classical planets recognized by the ancients. Mankind has thought of the Moon as a planet before and–if common sense prevails–it will so again. Modern attempts to define what a planet is and discover more of them are attempts to build on the nature of the classical planets, and the definition I gave above fits six of the seven classical planets.

I’m willing to concede, of course, that further learning since ancient times has revealed that the sun is more like the stars in its nature and not the other planets, and so we today think of the sun as a star.

We should, however, think of the Moon as a sister-planet.

Because that’s what it is.

GET THE STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)

Soon your friendly, neighborhood spider man may be living closer than ever before–even right next door.

Yet because of his secret identity, you may never know it.

Actually, it’s not so much a matter of a secret identity as medical confidentiality.

What am I talking about?

It seems scientists are now trying to find ways to use spider silk in medical applications (EXCERPTS):

Spider web silk, the strongest natural fiber known, could possess untapped medical potential in artificial tendons or for regenerating ligaments, scientists now say.

Studies on animals have revealed that spider silk triggers little if any immune responses, which cause rejection of medical implants.

Scientists are also developing spider silk to make exceptionally fine sutures for stitching up surgeries or wounds to nerves or eyes, to potentially help them heal without scarring.

"Right now we haven’t even optimized the silks we’ve produced yet, and we’re in the ballpark of the material properties you’d want for artificial tendons and ligaments," Lewis told LiveScience.

And where will scientists get all of the silk needed for such applications?

To mass-produce spider silk, Lewis said "our lab is pursuing the production of spider silk in alfalfa." Other researchers are experimenting with producing spider silk proteins in goat milk. Scientists generate these proteins outside spiders by inserting the genes for them into target cells.

Having artificial, spider silk tendons might (for the sake of argument) let you jump long distances, but there is no word about whether applications are being developed that would allow you to stick to walls or have an innate danger sense.

Scientists should, however, bear in mind one thing as they seek to use spidery substances to develop new medical applications . . .

NO ORGANIC WEB SHOOTERS!

In the meantime,

GET THE STORY.