Almost 55 years have passed since the publication in Nature of Francis Crick and James Watson's description of the structure of DNA. It was on February 28, 1953, that the two Cambridge colleagues actually pulled together the crystallographic and chemical data to form the original model of the double helix. They shared the 1962 Nobel Prize with King's College physicist Maurice Wilkins for their innovative discovery.
Research crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, who had made the key reports and x-ray images from which Watson and Crick gleaned their data, died in 1958 and thus was not included in the Nobel Prize.
In retrospect, the discovery of the structure of the gene was a landmark event in science and environment. But at the time, it was met with skepticism and doubt. The new era of biotechnology that sprang from that initial discovery could have followed the same track as the space program. Man's first step on the moon was hailed as a fantastic moment in the history of technology and exploration in 1969, yet a coherent follow-up remains illusive and piecemeal.
As Watson reminisced at a 2005 Technology, Education, Design (TED) conference presentation, the next few years after their initial discovery remained scientifically lean. Most biologists did not immediately buy the "twisted ladder" as the reality of the gene. But Watson and Crick were confident that they had solved the most basic secret of life: how life begets life.
"We knew we were right," Watson says in his presentation. "From nothing to thing" in about two hours. While they believed that the structure they proposed also solved the multiple riddles of replication, inheritance and evolutionary variability and mutability, Watson recalls that there were only five references to their work over the next few years. The run-up to today's world of burgeoning gene-centric potentials was at first slow.
"We were left by ourselves trying to do the last part of the trio," Watson continues. That trio--the three-step process the cell uses to translate the DNA information into a molecule called RNA and then into working proteins that drive all biochemistry--is the focus of new research into disease and diagnosis.
This is particularly a focus of cancer research. Finding ways to block gene function, to literally interfere with the faulty protein-making process that seems to control cancer cells, would be an ideal way to attack these cells. Rather than blanketing the body with generic therapies such as radiation or toxic chemicals, RNA-based therapies would target the errant cells precisely.
According to a Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory press release concerning recent research published in Science, "These [RNA molecules] can target a specific gene and stop it from being expressed. If the cancerous cells die off, and the same short-hairpin RNA doesn't kill off healthy cells, then the gene it targets is a cancer proliferation and survival gene."
The work has led Gregory Hannon, Ph.D. CSHL professor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and his coauthors to propose a "Genetic Cancer Genome Project" in which geneticists will identify and catalogue cancer type-specific genes with the goal of revealing potential drug targets. The press release continues: "This could mean that the next generation of cancer treatments will include fewer side effects, and be tailored to target certain types of cancer, such as breast or colon cancer, specifically.
"This means that we can investigate thousands of genes at a time which will allow us to comb through the human genome with previously unattainable efficiency,' said Dr. Hannon. 'We have already identified several genes that appear to be selectively required by certain breast cancer cells but not by normal cells.'" The press release concludes that as this new technique is used to discover increasing numbers of cancer proliferation and survival genes associated with different kinds of cancer, it could introduce a new era in cancer treatment. "We have opened a door into a whole new world of cancer treatment possibilities," Dr. Hannon said.
It is certainly something to imagine a world of personalized medicine where the very chemical core of our maladies could be repaired, patched or blocked. While it will certainly be quite some time before these possibilities ever reach the clinic, the process had to begin with understanding DNA. For that, society and culture can be thankful for the work and sacrifice of Rosalind Franklin and for those who used her work to lay the foundation of our genetic century.
About the Author
Author, Dan Cloer, contributes articles on science and environment for Vision Media. More information about these and other topics can be found at http://www.vision.org.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Science and Environment: From Nothing, to Thing, to Something by Dan Cloer
Interesting Facts About Reptiles by Brandon Cornett
This article illustrates the amazing diversity found within the animal kingdom. Below, I have compiled what I feel are some of the most interesting facts about reptiles and their behavior.
Interesting Reptile Facts
There are more than 8,000 species of reptiles on the planet, and the live on every continent except Antarctica (where it is too cold).
Most kinds of reptiles do not tolerate the cold very well. But the Blanding's turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) is sometimes found swimming under the ice in the Great Lakes region of the United States.
Reptiles are among the longest-lived species on the planet. For example, large tortoises such as the Aldabra tortoise can live for more than 150 years. Alligators can live nearly 70 years. Ball pythons, a popular type of pet snake, can live up to 40 years (consider that before getting one as a pet).
Most of the world's snakes (nearly two-thirds) are non-venomous. Only about 500 snake species are venomous, and of those only 30 - 40 are considered harmful to humans. In other words, less than 2 percent of all snakes are considered harmful to humans.
It is a fact that more Americans die each year from bee stings than from snake bites.
With regard to reptile fact #4 above, the opposite is true in Australia. There are actually more venomous snakes in Australia than non-venomous snakes. The inland taipan is one of the most popular of these venomous Australian snakes. Australia is the only continent where venomous snakes outnumber non-venomous snakes.
Certain types of snakes can go months without eating. This is especially true of the big constrictors, such as the Anaconda and the reticulated python. Snakes eat large meals (relative to their body size), and they have much slower metabolisms than we humans have. This partly explains how they can go so long between meals.
"Cold-blooded" is not the best way to describe reptiles. Their blood is not necessarily cold by itself. But they are ectothermic, which means they get their body heat from external sources. Reptiles cannot regulate their body temperature internally as humans do.
Snakes and lizards flick their tongues in the air to capture scent particles. They don't smell through their noses like you and I. Instead, the use their tongues to collect scent particles and then pass the particles over something called a Jacobson's organ to decipher the air around them. This is partly how reptiles hunt for food.
True to its name, the African egg-eating snake (of the genus Dasypeltis) prefers to dine on the eggs of other animals. It will swallow the egg whole, and then use tiny "spikes" extending internally from its spine to crack the egg open and swallow the nutritious contents. Lastly, it will regurgitate the unneeded egg shell in a neatly folded piece.
If you enjoyed this article and would like to learn more about this subject, be sure to check out the informational resources listed below.
About the Author
Brandon Cornett is the pubisher of Reptile Knowledge, an educational website full of information about lizards, turtles, snake classification and other reptile species information. Learn more by visiting http://www.reptileknowledge.com
Interesting Facts About Reptiles by Brandon Cornett
This article illustrates the amazing diversity found within the animal kingdom. Below, I have compiled what I feel are some of the most interesting facts about reptiles and their behavior.
Interesting Reptile Facts
There are more than 8,000 species of reptiles on the planet, and the live on every continent except Antarctica (where it is too cold).
Most kinds of reptiles do not tolerate the cold very well. But the Blanding's turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) is sometimes found swimming under the ice in the Great Lakes region of the United States.
Reptiles are among the longest-lived species on the planet. For example, large tortoises such as the Aldabra tortoise can live for more than 150 years. Alligators can live nearly 70 years. Ball pythons, a popular type of pet snake, can live up to 40 years (consider that before getting one as a pet).
Most of the world's snakes (nearly two-thirds) are non-venomous. Only about 500 snake species are venomous, and of those only 30 - 40 are considered harmful to humans. In other words, less than 2 percent of all snakes are considered harmful to humans.
It is a fact that more Americans die each year from bee stings than from snake bites.
With regard to reptile fact #4 above, the opposite is true in Australia. There are actually more venomous snakes in Australia than non-venomous snakes. The inland taipan is one of the most popular of these venomous Australian snakes. Australia is the only continent where venomous snakes outnumber non-venomous snakes.
Certain types of snakes can go months without eating. This is especially true of the big constrictors, such as the Anaconda and the reticulated python. Snakes eat large meals (relative to their body size), and they have much slower metabolisms than we humans have. This partly explains how they can go so long between meals.
"Cold-blooded" is not the best way to describe reptiles. Their blood is not necessarily cold by itself. But they are ectothermic, which means they get their body heat from external sources. Reptiles cannot regulate their body temperature internally as humans do.
Snakes and lizards flick their tongues in the air to capture scent particles. They don't smell through their noses like you and I. Instead, the use their tongues to collect scent particles and then pass the particles over something called a Jacobson's organ to decipher the air around them. This is partly how reptiles hunt for food.
True to its name, the African egg-eating snake (of the genus Dasypeltis) prefers to dine on the eggs of other animals. It will swallow the egg whole, and then use tiny "spikes" extending internally from its spine to crack the egg open and swallow the nutritious contents. Lastly, it will regurgitate the unneeded egg shell in a neatly folded piece.
If you enjoyed this article and would like to learn more about this subject, be sure to check out the informational resources listed below.
About the Author
Brandon Cornett is the pubisher of Reptile Knowledge, an educational website full of information about lizards, turtles, snake classification and other reptile species information. Learn more by visiting http://www.reptileknowledge.com
The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) - Are We Alone in the Universe?
Are we alone in the Universe? Who is out there? Scientists around the world are trying to receive extraterrestrial signals. What do they hope for? What have they found? Where is the evolution of human beings headed?
The Cosmic Radio Dial
290 miles northeast of San Francisco, California, something other worldly is going on.
An array of 350 antennas is being put together at Hat Creek Radio Observatory. This array made of large radio antennae, resembles the one that Jodi Foster's character Ellie worked at, in the screen adaptation of Carl Sagan's book "Contact". Officially it's called The Allen Telescope Array.
Funded mostly by former Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen at a price of $50 million, the SETI Institute, all these years later, is still hot in pursuit of an alien message beamed our way.
SETI researchers believe an advanced alien civilization attempting to communicate with another species, in this case us, would beam a message into space via radio waves. The challenge has been to figure out what radio channel they are transmitting on.
It was put forth by Giusseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison in a paper appearing in Nature Magazine, that the most reasonable place to send a message would be near the radio-channel of neutral hydrogen. Neutral Hydrogen's cosmic frequency is 1420 mhz on the radio dial. At that frequency there seems to be a minimum amount of background noise and so they postulated, that would be the best place to send a message. So for decades, SETI researchers excited by that possibility have been trying to listen in on the cosmic radio dial at or near that radio frequency to hear if there might indeed be a signal from an extra terrestrial civilization beamed in our direction.
A Species-to-Species Call
During the first 4.5 billion years nothing but silence has emanated from our planet on the cosmic radio dial. Then, during the past 100 years Earth started broadcasting radio and TV signals which have leaked off our planet and out into space.
It is reasonable to assume that if there were an advanced civilization within 100 light years of Earth (as the radio and TV waves travel at the speed of light) listening for messages, the way we are, they would hear our first broadcasts. They might think we are still in World War 1 or 2 if they don't take into account the time it took for the signal to travel there. It makes you wonder if seeing that might give them the wrong impression (or the right one) of our race.
If they were on the ball and sent out a reply to us, depending on their distance from us, it would take up to 100 years for their reply to reach us.
As co-author of the Cocconi-Morrison paper and MIT physicist Philip Morrison said, "It's not a person-to-person call. It's not a station-to-station call. It's a species-to-species call!"
Optical SETI
Dr. Stuart Kingsley, of the Columbus Optical SETI Observatory, has argued for years that if aliens were transmitting a signal toward Earth, they would certainly try to send the signal through pulsed light beacons because using that method, one could store a lot information and have it travel further with less loss of data than one could using radio waves.
His views were found interesting, but due to some hard-nose politics, and a lot of competition for funding, he flew solo on the Optical Search for many years, tirelessly promoting Optical SETI.
His arguments proved to be correct. "After all" Dr. Kingsley said, "we can see that in the future, robots probing Mars will beam back messages via laser beam and that signal will in turn be broadcast in your home via fiber optic. The future is clearly photonic!"
Now, nearly two decades later, his advocacy for Optical SETI has paid off. There are now Optical SETI searches at Harvard, sponsored by the Planetary Society, and at UC Berkeley as well as his own (formerly in Columbus, Ohio now relocated to Bournemouth, United Kingdom).
What Have We Found?
After several decades of searching it's fair to ask, "What have we found?".
The best signal so far came from a former SETI Search Programme at Ohio State University, called "Big Ear". The "WOW Signal" was a signal that appeared to come from an extra terrestrial source but didn't last long enough to be verified by another source. Several attempts to re-acquire the signal were in vain. It's referred to as the "WOW Signal" because the astronomer on duty wrote "WOW" on the paper print-out monitoring the signal.
That's pretty much it.
Sure there are signals all the time, but unless the observers can verify that the signal came from an off-Earth source, they can't officially record anything as a confirmed existence of an extraterrestrial signal.
For that reason, searches are taking place all over the world, in both hemispheres. Some do the key searching, others do the follow ups, if something of interest might be discovered.
So you ask, "After decades, that's it?". Well remember, if the aliens listening to our TV and Radio broadcasts are 60 to 100 years away (and that's considerably close considering the vastness of space), and if they have a response prepped and ready to send immediately without further pause, then that will take decades to centuries to receive a reply, if they choose to reply.
Are They Benevolent?
They may be asking the same thing of us Earthlings, especially if the first signals they received from us are that of World War.
They may choose not to make "Contact" with us until we have solved our problems.
Conversely, our military experts might argue, we may choose not to reply if we receive a confirmed signal from them, as we may not know their intentions. They just may well be hostile. Some argue that a technologically advanced society would have overcome their petty differences and hostilities. Has technology helped us overcome our differences or has it only hastened the killing?
It is hoped that the aliens would be able to offer us cures to our rare diseases and have a Galactic Treasure Trove of knowledge at their fingertips (if they have fingers). Are we so audacious as to hope that they would share that information with us? Have we proven ourselves worthy of such knowledge?
Regardless of intentions, the SETI researchers are not broadcasting (like our Radio and TV stations) rather, they are listening.
Whether they'll release the details of a signal detection is another matter. Are religious institutions and people around the world ready to accept that 'we are not alone'? That we were not created in HIS image?
Arthur C. Clarke said, "If after centuries of searching we still find nothing, then we can consider ourselves to be 'Guardians of the Galaxy!'"
Learn More
Videos For an excellent introduction of the SETI issue, watch the film:
Contact: The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence http://spaceviz.com/documentaries/contactseti/contactseti.html
¡Video disponible en espanol! A Spanish version is available "Contacto: La busqueda para la inteligencia extraterrestre"
http://spaceviz.com/store/espanol/espanol.html
Contact: The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, speaks with researchers, authors and scientific experts about the various SETI issues.
The film features eminent science fiction author of "2001: A Space Odyssey" Arthur C. Clarke, MIT physicist Philip Morrison, Gerritt Verschuur, the SETI Institute's Seth Shostak and Jill Tarter, Jaymie Matthews (UBC), Clive Goodall, Stuart Kingsley (Optical SETI), Bob Dixon (Ohio State University), Harvard's Paul Horowitz, UC Berkeley's SERENDIP researchers and many others.
"An excellent introduction to the most awesome quest upon which science has ever embarked - the search for intelligence elsewhere in the Universe.
The interviews with the astronomers and engineers involved should convince any thoughtful person that the modest sums needed for the enterprise may be the best investment mankind will ever make."
-Arthur C. Clarke, Chancellor: International Space University
Contact: The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, the DVD, is available for purchase through the Space Viz web site at:
http://www.SpaceViz.com
The DVD is also available for purchase from Amazon.com at this URL:
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-alias=dvd&field-keywords=Space+Viz+Productions
Online
For more comprehensive information about SETI visit the following links:
The SETI Institute http://www.seti.org
SETI at U.C. Berkeley http://seti.berkeley.edu
Columbus Optical SETI http://www.coseti.org
SETI League http://www.setileague.org
SETI@home http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu
Ohio State Big Ear http://www.bigear.org
Optical SETI at Harvard http://seti.harvard.edu/oseti
Project BAMBI http://www.bambi.net
SETI Australia Centre, Southern SERENDIP http://seti.uws.edu.au
SETI Italia http://www.seti-italia.cnr.it
A plethora of other material about the SETI issue can be found online.
Use Water for Fuel
A Manual on how to build an attachment for gasoline engines to Run Your Car On Water. This is NOT a Hydrogen Booster! Help Stop Global Warming!
Learn how to build a Hydrogen Generator to use Water for Fuel and get Free Energy! How would you like to build your own alternative fuel system? Run your car on water by converting water to hydrogen fuel with the Hydrostar system. Its like having Free Energy and helps stop global warming. Forget the stories you’ve heard about fuel cells being years off and build your own alternative fuel sources. The idea of water fuel has been around for years, but now is the first time a hydrogen generator has been offered readily to the consumer.
We all know the hype about hydrogen technology. What they don’t tell you is that much of current technology is still based on using a derivative of oil as the hydrogen source. Learn to make your car one of the hydrogen powered cars. The future may bring genuine hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen cars, but for you, the future could be now with HydroStar fueled cars. Transform your current vehicles into alternative fuel vehicles and join the hydrogen fuels revolution now. Invest now from wam-a-bam.com
How to Get Living Off the Grid by shofik
Is your Electricity bill reaching $200-even $300 per month? Do you want to learn what you can do about it? Are you interested in off grid living, renewable energy, solar panels, how to build your own homemade wind generator, or even how to build your own house?
Homemade Wind Generators
If your family is anything like ours you want to make a wind generator because it is just so expensive to buy one. The 1000 watt wind generator needed to power our Off Grid home brand new costs in excess of $2,500! That's a lot of money to plunk down, a lot of money. So we set out to find another answer. Find out how we got started... Read more
Over the past 10 years we have perfected this design and are pleased to share it with you.
The Gap by Carroll J. Wright, Ph.D.
I can safely say that everything that happens to us has but one single purpose: to awaken us to the truth of our divine nature. How can I say this? Because the finite world experience can never fully satisfy us, rarely more than 50% of the time, even with Herculean effort. This inherent sense of dissatisfaction and frustration sets us up then for asking why there is such a gap between what we have and what we want. This Gap exists because we are asleep, brainwashed, hypnotized, and confused, because we are living in an illusion of limitation, in a very narrow dreamscape, in what we have called the matrix or the trap, in the world of effects.
This unknown Gap is the source of our anxiety. This gap has a built-in guarantee that we call existential anxiety. Without infinity awareness we will never close that gap or rid ourselves of anxiety. That Gap is the source of our fear of the unknown. That Gap contains the secret of being human. Praise God for the Gap, and I don’t mean the hip clothing store. That Gap has been called every cuss word in the human dictionary: the void, emptiness, loneliness, alienation, starvation, estrangement, isolation, lack, lostness, separation, abandonment, hell and other choice explicatives. These are only symbols of our misunderstanding.
Actually the Gap is where the Infinite and the self meet and join, the place where you transcend idols and the ego. The Gap is where you go at night when you sleep. The Gap is the source of renewable energy. The Gap is the fountain of creativity and intuition. The Gap is the space between every thought, word, sound and musical note. The Gap is what is so often missed “between the lines.†The Gap is where the infinite is alive. The Gap offers us a taste of Eternity when we are “here now.†The Gap is the home we had before we went into exile in matter. The Gap is the pause that refreshes. The Gap is the peace place. The Gap is the paradise we have been looking for in the external finite world. The Gap is what I have called the hidden Third Factor. The Gap is where you need to go when you are hung up in any power struggle or conflict between two opposites, two polarities, two choices. The Gap is the source of wisdom for an information-obese world. The Gap is where the Quantum Self can be known. The Gap is the source of all cause; the entire effect world of the finite arises here.
Quantum physics defines the Gap as the non-local unified energy field behind all phenomena. Jesus called the Gap the kingdom of God. The Gap is where the treasure is buried. The Gap is that space between our reach and our grasp. The Gap is where the Cosmic Host meets us. Only the ignorance kept in place by our story of good and evil keeps us out of the Infinite Good of the Gap. False memory and perception keep us out of the Gap of Paradise. Visit here more deliberately and consciously.
About the Author
Carroll J. Wright, Ph.D. Psychotherapist, author, researcher, holistic health practitioner, with 50 years experience and practice.
