The Top 50 Inventions of the Past 50 Years
In the past half-century, scientific and technological advances have transformed our world. PM convened a panel of 25 experts to identify innovations that have made the biggest impact, from the hospital to outer space to the kitchen. Here, then, are the breakthroughs of our time.
By Alex Hutchinson Email Print RSS Share
December 1, 2005 12:00 AM Text Size: A . A . A 1955—TV REMOTE CONTROL
It marks the official end of humanity's struggle for survival and the beginning of its quest for a really relaxing afternoon. The first wireless remote, designed by Zenith's Eugene Polley, is essentially a flashlight. When Zenith discovers that direct sunlight also can change channels on the remote-receptive TVs, the company comes out with a model that uses ultrasound; it lasts into the 1980s, to the chagrin of many a family dog. The industry then switches to infrared.
1955—MICROWAVE OVEN
In 1945 Raytheon's Percy Spencer stands in front of a magnetron (the power tube of radar) and feels a candy bar start to melt in his pocket: He is intrigued. When he places popcorn kernels in front of the magnetron, the kernels explode all over the lab. Ten years later Spencer patents a "radar range" that cooks with high-frequency radio waves; that same year, the Tappan Stove Co. introduces the first home microwave model.
1957—BIRTH-CONTROL PILL
Enovid, a drug the FDA approves for menstrual disorders, comes with a warning: The mixture of synthetic progesterone and estrogen also prevents ovulation. Two years later, more than half a million American women are taking Enovid—and not all of them have cramps. In 1960 the FDA approves Enovid for use as the first oral contraceptive.
1958—JET AIRLINER
The Boeing 707-120 debuts as the world's first successful commercial jet airliner, ushering in the era of accessible mass air travel. The four-engine plane carries 181 passengers and cruises at 600 mph for up to 5280 miles on a full tank. The first commercial jet flight takes off from New York and lands in Paris; domestic service soon connects New York and Los Angeles.
1959—FLOAT GLASS
There's a reason old windowpanes distort everything: They were made by rapidly squeezing a sheet of red-hot glass between two hot rollers, which produced a cheap but uneven pane. British engineer Alastair Pilkington revolutionizes the process by floating molten glass on a bath of molten tin—by nature, completely flat. The first factory to produce usable float glass opens in 1959; an estimated 90 percent of plate glass is still produced this way.
1961—CORDLESS TOOLS
Black and Decker releases its first cordless drill, but designers can't coax more than 20 watts from its NiCd batteries. Instead, they strive for efficiency, modifying gear ratios and using better materials. The revolutionary result puts new power in the hands of DIYers and—thanks to a NASA contract—the gloves of astronauts.
1961—INDUSTRIAL ROBOT
The Unimate, the first programmable industrial robot, is installed on a General Motors assembly line in New Jersey. Conceived by George C. Devol Jr. to move and fetch things, the invention gets a lukewarm reception in the United States. Japanese manufacturers love it and, after licensing the design in 1968, go on to dominate the global market for industrial robots.
1962—COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE
Telstar is launched as the first "active" communications satellite—active as in amplifying and retransmitting incoming signals, rather than passively bouncing them back to Earth. Telstar makes real a 1945 concept by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, who envisioned a global communications network based on geosynchronous satellites. Two weeks after Telstar's debut, President Kennedy holds a press conference in Washington, D.C., that is broadcast live across the Atlantic.
1962—LED
Working as a consultant for General Electric, Nick Holonyak develops the light-emitting diode (LED), which provides a simple and inexpensive way for computers to convey information. From their humble beginnings in portable calculators, LEDs spread from the red light that indicates coffee is brewing to the 290-ft.-tall Reuters billboard in Times Square.
1964—UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES
Widespread use of remotely piloted aircraft begins during the Vietnam War with deployment of 1000 AQM-34 Ryan Firebees. The first model of these 29-ft.-long planes was developed in just 90 days in 1962. AQM-34s go on to fly more than 34,000 surveillance missions. Their success leads to the eventual development of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles widely used today.
STATS
1962/VIDEO GAMES MIT programmers write Spacewar; 43 years later 89 percent of school-age kids own video games. 1955/POLIO VACCINE The year Jonas Salk finds a way to prevent polio, there are 28,985 global cases; by 2005, the number drops to 1200. 1957/THREE-POINT SEATBELT According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, more than 15,000 American lives are saved in 2005 by Nils Bohlin's device.
The first general-purpose computer, the nearly 30-ton ENIAC (1947), contains 18,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors and 10,000 capacitors. In 1959, the INTEGRATED CIRCUIT puts those innards on one tiny chip. Before the entire world is networked, there is the ARPANET—four computers linked in 1969. It introduces the concept of "packet switching," which simultaneously delivers messages as short units and reassembles them at their destination. The Apple II, Commodore Pet and Radio Shack's TRS-80 are introduced in 1977—four years before IBM, soon to become synonymous with the term "PC," unveils its PERSONAL COMPUTER. In 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee creates "hypertext markup language" (HTML) to make Web pages and the "Uniform Resource Locator" (URL) to identify where information is stored. These breakthroughs form the foundation of the WORLD WIDE WEB.
1964—MUSIC SYNTHESIZER
Robert Moog develops the first electronic synthesizer to make the leap from machine to musical instrument. Moog's device not only generates better sounds than other synthesizers, it can be controlled by a keyboard rather than by punch cards. The subsequent acceptance of electronic music is a crucial step in developing audio technology for computers, cellphones and stereos.
1966—HIGH-YIELD RICE
The International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines releases a semi-dwarf, high-yield Indica variety that, in conjunction with high-yield wheat, ushers in the Green Revolution. Indica rice thrives in tropical regions of Asia and South America, raising worldwide production more than 20 percent by 1970.
1969—SMOKE DETECTOR
Randolph Smith and Kenneth House patent a battery-powered smoke detector for home use. Later models rely on perhaps the cheapest nuclear technology you can own: a chunk of americium-241. The element's radioactive particles generate a small electric current. If smoke enters the chamber it disrupts the current, triggering an alarm.
1969—CHARGE-COUPLED DEVICE
Bell Labs' George Smith and Willard Boyle invent a charge-coupled device (CCD) that can measure light arriving at a rate of just one photon per minute. Smith and Boyle's apparatus allows extremely faint images to be recorded, which is very useful in astronomy. Today, its most noticeable impact is in digital cameras, which rely on CCD arrays containing millions of pixels.
1970—DIGITAL MUSIC
James Russell, a scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, invents the first digital-to-optical recording and playback system, in which sounds are represented by a string of 0s and 1s and a laser reads the binary patterns etched on a photosensitive platter. Russell isn't able to convince the music industry to adopt his invention, but 20 years later, Time Warner and other CD manufacturers pay a $30 million patent infringement settlement to Russell's former employer, the Optical Recording Co.
1971—WAFFLE-SOLE RUNNING SHOES
Bill Bowerman, the track coach at the University of Oregon, sacrifices breakfast for peak performance when he pours rubber into his wife's waffle iron, forming lightweight soles for his athletes' running shoes. Three years later, Bowerman's company, Nike, introduces the Waffle Trainer, which is an instant hit.
1962 Computer Mouse
"I don't know why we call it a mouse. It started that way, and we never changed it." —Doug Engelbart, engineer, Stanford Research Institute, 1968
1969 Automated Teller Machine
"On Sept. 2, our bank will open at 9:00 and never close again!" —Long Island branch of Chemical Bank, advertisement from 1969
1973 Cellphone
"Joel, I'm calling you from a real cellular phone." —Martin Cooper, leader of Motorola's cellphone team, to Joel Engel, research head of rival AT&T's Bell Labs, April 3, 1973
1978 In-Vitro Fertilization
"We'd love to have children of our own one day. That would be such a dream come true." —Louise Brown Mullinder, the first test-tube baby, on her wedding day, in 2003
1979 Sony Walkman
"This is the product that will satisfy those young people who want to listen to music all day." —Akio Morita, Sony Chairman, February 1979
RADICAL FIBERS
From easy-on shoes to lighter tennis rackets and stronger planes, revolutionary materials have changed our lives.
In 1955, Patent No. 2,717,437 is issued to George de Mestral for VELCRO, a fabric inspired by burrs that stick to his dog's fur. In 1961 researchers in Japan develop high-quality CARBON-FIBER COMPOSITES, capping a decade of experimentation with plastics reinforced by carbon fibers. Thanks to DuPont's Stephanie Kwolek and Herbert Blades, who in 1965 invent a high-strength polymer called KEVLAR, the body armor of 2920 police and correctional officers has protected them from fatal attacks. The term "FIBEROPTIC" is coined in 1956, but it isn't until 1970 that scientists at Corning produce a fiber of ultrapure glass that transmits light well enough to be used for telecommunications.
972—ELECTRONIC IGNITION
Chrysler paves the way for the era of electronic—rather than mechanical—advances in automobiles with the electronic ignition. It leads to electronic control of ignition timing and fuel metering, harbingers of more sophisticated systems to come. Today, these include electronic control transmission shift points, antilock brakes, traction control systems, steering and airbag deployment.
1973—MRI
Everyone agrees that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a brilliant invention—but no one agrees on who invented it. The physical effect that MRIs rely on—nuclear magnetic resonance—earns various scientists Nobel Prizes for physics in 1944 and 1952. Many believe that Raymond Damadian establishes the machine's medical merit in 1973, when he first uses magnetic resonance to discern healthy tissue from cancer. Yet, in 2003, the Nobel Prize for medicine goes to Peter Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield for their "seminal discoveries." The topic of who is the worthiest candidate remains hotly debated.
1978—GPS
The first satellite in the modern Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) is launched. (The GPS's precursor, TRANSIT, was developed in the early 1960s to guide nuclear subs.) It is not until the year 2000, though, that President Clinton grants nonmilitary users access to an unscrambled GPS signal. Now, cheap, handheld GPS units can determine a person's location to within 3 yards.
1981—SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE
By moving the needle of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) across a surface and monitoring the electric current that flows through it, scientists can map a surface to the level of single atoms. The STM is so precise that it not only looks at atoms—it also can manipulate them into structures. The microscope's development earns IBM researchers Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer a Nobel Prize and helps launch the emerging era of nanotechnology.
1984—DNA FINGERPRINTING
Molecular biologist Alec Jeffreys devises a way to make the analysis of more than 3 billion units in the human DNA sequence much more manageable by comparing only the parts of the sequence that show the greatest variation among people. His method quickly finds its way into the courts, where it is used to exonerate people wrongly accused of crimes and to finger the true culprits.
USES
1958/LASER BEAM Whitens teeth, removes tattoos, corrects vision, scans groceries, tracks missiles. 1978/GENETIC ENGINEERING Produces insulin, creates vaccines, clones sheep, increases shelf life of tomatoes, manipulates human cells to prevent disease. 1958/SUPER GLUE Repairs a broken taillight, reassembles a vase, strengthens knots on a hammock, closes wounds, lifts fingerprints.
LIFESAVERS
Over the past 50 years, a few pivotal medical discoveries have helped to boost adult life expectancy dramatically.
In 1956, Wilson Greatbatch grabs the wrong resistor and connects it to a device he is building to record heartbeats. When the circuit emits a pulse, he realizes the device can be used to control the beat; in 1960 the first PACEMAKER is successfully implanted in a human. Rene Favaloro performs the first CORONARY BYPASS SURGERY in 1967, taking a length of vein from a leg and grafting it onto the coronary artery. This allows blood to flow around the blocked section. Thanks in part to these advances, the number of deaths from heart disease declines in the U.S. by almost 50 percent. The outlook for people infected by HIV also dramatically changes. The FDA approves Invirase, the first of a class of drugs called HIV PROTEASE INHIBITORS, in 1995. By blocking the function of enzymes used in the virus's replication, the inhibitors can reduce HIV to undetectable levels for sustained periods in up to 90 percent of patients.
1985—POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION
Biochemist Kary Mullis invents a technique that exploits enzymes in order to make millions of copies of a tiny scrap of DNA quickly and cheaply. No matter how small or dried-out a bloodstain is, forensic scientists can now gather enough genetic material to do DNA fingerprinting. With PCR, doctors also can search for trace amounts of HIV genetic code to diagnose infection much sooner than by conventional methods.
1987—PROZAC
Prozac becomes the first in a new class of FDA-approved antidepressants called "selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors," which block the reabsorption of the mood-elevating neurotransmitter serotonin, thereby prolonging its effects. Though at times controversial, Prozac helps patients cope with clinical depression, reshaping our understanding of how personality and emotion can be chemically controlled. Within five years, 4.5 million Americans are taking Prozac—making it the most widely accepted psychiatric drug ever.
1998—GENETIC SEQUENCING
Scientist Craig Venter announces that his company will sequence the entire human genome in just three years and for only $300 million—12 years and $2 billion less than a federally funded project established to do the same thing. Venter uses a method called "shotgun sequencing" to make automated gene sequencers, instead of relying on the laborious approach used by the government program. The result is an acrimonious race to the finish, which ends in a tie. Both groups announce the completion of the human genome sequence in papers published in 2001.
1998—MP3 PLAYER
Depending on who you ask, the MP3 is either the end of civilization (record companies) or the dawn of a new world (everyone else). The Korean company Saehan introduces its MPMan in 1998, long before Apple asks, "Which iPod are you?" When the Diamond Rio hits the shelves a few months later, the Recording Industry Association of America sues—providing massive publicity and a boost to digital technology.
2002—IEEE 802.16
The geniuses at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers publish a wireless metropolitan area network standard that functions like Wi-Fi on steroids. An 802.16 antenna can transmit Internet access up to a 30-mile radius at speeds comparable to DSL and cable broadband. When it all shakes out, 802.16 could end up launching developing nations into the digital age by eliminating the need for wired telecommunications infrastructure.
FORWARD DRIVE
With 196 million licensed drivers in the U.S., a little automotive innovation can conserve a whole lot of oil.
The fuel cell goes back more than 150 years, and the first FUEL CELL VEHICLE—a 20-hp tractor—is built in 1959. But it isn't until 1993 that a Canadian company, Ballard Power Systems, demonstrates the first zero-emissions fuel cell bus. Since then, progress toward an economically viable fuel cell car has remained slow but steady. Likewise, Ferdinand Porsche wins his class at the 1902 Exelberg Hill-Climb in Austria in a front-wheel-drive HYBRID-ELECTRIC CAR. But it is almost a century later, in 1997, that Toyota surprises its rivals by unveiling the hybrid Prius to Japanese consumers. It takes nearly three years for the Prius to reach North America.
PM's Panel Of Experts
TO SELECT THE 50 most pioneering inventions of the past 50 years, PM consulted 25 authorities at 17 museums and universities across the country. Their collective expertise spans aeronautics, biology, physics, medicine, automobiles and technology. An initial call for suggestions resulted in a list of 100 inventions, which was then circulated for a formal vote and reduced via a points system determined by each expert's top picks. Any such list is open to debate, of course. We welcome your suggestions of other worthy inventions here at popularmechanics.com/50inventions.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
The mosquito is responsible for carrying the malaria parasite from human to human Efforts to eradicate malaria in some countries may be counter-productive, an international team of researchers suggest.
In the Lancet, they suggest some countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, may be better pursuing a policy of controlling the disease.They also criticise the World Health Organization (WHO) for not providing adequate direction.
But a WHO spokesman said beating malaria must remain the ultimate goal.The Lancet looks at the feasibility of eradicating malaria from the map, in the same way smallpox was conquered.
As the report points out, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation set the world such a target in 2007, an aim which was then endorsed by the WHO's Director-General Margaret Chan. The Lancet concludes such a goal, while noble, "could lead to dangerous swings in funding and political commitment, in malaria and elsewhere".
Malaria facts
Largely preventable and curable
In 2008 caused a million deaths - mostly African children
About 2,000 return to the UK with malaria every year
Only 12% of these become seriously ill
Symptoms can take up to a year to appear
And the WHO is accused of failing "to rise to their responsibilities to give the malaria community essential direction".The series of articles instead urges a pragmatic approach in which efforts and resources are concentrated on shrinking the global area where malaria still prevails.
It suggests some countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, may be better pursuing a policy of controlling the disease rather than one of eradication. The report's authors include Professor Richard Feacham of University of California's Global Health Group and researchers from the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
In an editorial accompanying the series, the Lancet's editor-in-chief Dr Richard Horton and executive editor Dr Pamela Das, argue control may save more lives. "If existing control efforts were indeed scaled up, by 2015, 1.14 million children's lives could be saved in sub-Saharan Africa alone. This finding is important. The quest for elimination must not distract existing good malaria control work," they write.
They also conclude that "malaria will only be truly eradicable when an effective vaccine is fully available".
"Premature efforts at elimination, before countries are ready, will be counterproductive”
Responding to the report in a statement, Robert Newman, director of the WHO's Global Malaria Programme, said the ultimate goal had to be eradication
"WHO has always supported - and will always continue to support - endemic countries in their efforts to control and eliminate malaria," he writes."It is entirely feasible to eliminate malaria from countries and regions where the intensity of transmission is low to moderate, and where health systems are strong. "Eliminating malaria from countries where the intensity of transmission is high and stable, such as in tropical Africa, will require more potent tools and stronger health systems than are available today."
Malaria is caused by five species of a parasite that can be carried from human to human by mosquitoes.
Over the last 150 years, the portion of the world where malaria is still endemic has shrunk, but the disease is still endemic in 99 countries. However 32 of these countries, most of them on the edges of the endemic zone, are attempting to eradicate the disease, while the rest are trying to reduce infections and deaths though control measures. But switching from a policy of controlling the disease to one of eradication brings with it problems and risks, according to the report.
The authors point out that malaria and mosquitoes do not respect national borders and that both parasite and insect may develop resistance to existing drugs.They also warn switching funds from control to eradication may negatively impact upon measures which have been shown to reduce infection and mortality. A spokeswoman for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said: "Malaria eradication is a long-term goal. "We believe that the WHO will play an important role in helping countries decide when they are ready to undertake elimination and what conditions and capabilities need to be in place for them to do so.
"High-level, sustained control will be essential before elimination can be attempted, and premature efforts at elimination, before countries are ready, will be counterproductive."
Friday, October 29, 2010
Stone tool-making existed 75,000 years ago
50,000 years earlier than previously thought
Researchers have found evidence of a technique called pressure flaking as far back as 75,000 years ago at Blombos Cave in South Africa. (Science/Associated Press)
Sophisticated methods of making sharp stone tools have been around a lot longer than archaeologists thought.Researchers have found evidence of a technique called pressure flaking as far back as 75,000 years ago at Blombos Cave in South Africa.That is about 50,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a report in Friday's edition of the journal Science."This finding is important because it shows that modern humans in South Africa had a sophisticated repertoire of tool-making techniques at a very early time," Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, said in a statement.
"This innovation is a clear example of a tendency to develop new functional ideas and techniques widely viewed as symptomatic of advanced, or modern, behaviour."Villa explained that the method makes it easier to control the sharpness, thickness and overall shape of tools like spearheads and stone knives.In pressure flaking, blades already shaped by blows from a hard stone hammer are finished with strikes by wood or bone hammers and carefully trimmed on the edges by directly pressing the point of a tool made of bone.Other than jasper and some high-quality flint, most stone materials need to be heated before they can be pressure flaked, Villa said.The researchers were able to find evidence of heating microscopically. They analyzed 159 points and fragments, 179 other retouched pieces and more than 700 flakes from a layer in Blombos Cave dated to between 76,000 years ago and 72,000 years ago.According to the researchers, at least half of the ancient, finished points at Blombos Cave were retouched by pressure flaking.The research was supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, the European Research Council, Norwegian Research Council and a PROTEA French-South Africa scientific exchange.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/28/stone-tools-humans.html#ixzz13kbtKBCR
Researchers have found evidence of a technique called pressure flaking as far back as 75,000 years ago at Blombos Cave in South Africa. (Science/Associated Press)
Sophisticated methods of making sharp stone tools have been around a lot longer than archaeologists thought.Researchers have found evidence of a technique called pressure flaking as far back as 75,000 years ago at Blombos Cave in South Africa.That is about 50,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a report in Friday's edition of the journal Science."This finding is important because it shows that modern humans in South Africa had a sophisticated repertoire of tool-making techniques at a very early time," Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, said in a statement.
"This innovation is a clear example of a tendency to develop new functional ideas and techniques widely viewed as symptomatic of advanced, or modern, behaviour."Villa explained that the method makes it easier to control the sharpness, thickness and overall shape of tools like spearheads and stone knives.In pressure flaking, blades already shaped by blows from a hard stone hammer are finished with strikes by wood or bone hammers and carefully trimmed on the edges by directly pressing the point of a tool made of bone.Other than jasper and some high-quality flint, most stone materials need to be heated before they can be pressure flaked, Villa said.The researchers were able to find evidence of heating microscopically. They analyzed 159 points and fragments, 179 other retouched pieces and more than 700 flakes from a layer in Blombos Cave dated to between 76,000 years ago and 72,000 years ago.According to the researchers, at least half of the ancient, finished points at Blombos Cave were retouched by pressure flaking.The research was supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, the European Research Council, Norwegian Research Council and a PROTEA French-South Africa scientific exchange.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/28/stone-tools-humans.html#ixzz13kbtKBCR
Thursday, October 28, 2010
ostriches are excellent runners
They may look ungainly, but ostriches are excellent runners.Now scientists have discovered how the birds run so fast and, importantly, so efficiently. Ostriches use half the energy that we humans need at our top running speed, say researchers, who made the discovery by comparing humans and ostriches in a running test. The secret is their springiness - ostrich tendons store twice as much "elastic energy" per step than us.
The birds were fitted with markers so their movement could be traced. The results of this biomechanics experiment are described in the Royal Society journal Interface. Five "very tame" ostriches were involved in the study; the scientists measured the movement of their limbs and joints and the force with which the birds' feet hit the ground. The avian subjects ran on a purpose-built 50m (164ft) running track. They were fitted with reflective markers on their joints to allow their movement to be captured in detail. Five human volunteers were studied in exactly the same way - with several cameras capturing them from different angles.
Professor Jonas Rubenson, from the University of Western Australia's School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health, led the study.
He said the findings could provide insight for biologists looking at the evolution of bipedalism, both in humans and in dinosaurs. They could also reveal some of the biological secrets of agility, which should ultimately inform the development of prosthetic limbs and even robots.Despite their size and speed, wild ostriches have fallen prey to cheetahs. They chose to study ostriches because they are of similar mass to humans - this mass-matching allowed the team to draw comparisons between the ostrich and the human gait.
The team was surprised to find that ostriches and humans used nearly exactly the same amount of mechanical work to "swing" their limbs back and forth when running."The difference lies in the elasticity of their joints," Professor Rubenson explained. "Ostriches generate over twice as much power from recoil of elastic energy stored in tendons than humans, which means they need less muscle power to run at the same speed. "Moving with elastic limbs is akin to bouncing on a 'pogo stick', where you don't have to work very hard to bounce along - so it's all in the spring of their step."
The birds were fitted with markers so their movement could be traced. The results of this biomechanics experiment are described in the Royal Society journal Interface. Five "very tame" ostriches were involved in the study; the scientists measured the movement of their limbs and joints and the force with which the birds' feet hit the ground. The avian subjects ran on a purpose-built 50m (164ft) running track. They were fitted with reflective markers on their joints to allow their movement to be captured in detail. Five human volunteers were studied in exactly the same way - with several cameras capturing them from different angles.
Professor Jonas Rubenson, from the University of Western Australia's School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health, led the study.
He said the findings could provide insight for biologists looking at the evolution of bipedalism, both in humans and in dinosaurs. They could also reveal some of the biological secrets of agility, which should ultimately inform the development of prosthetic limbs and even robots.Despite their size and speed, wild ostriches have fallen prey to cheetahs. They chose to study ostriches because they are of similar mass to humans - this mass-matching allowed the team to draw comparisons between the ostrich and the human gait.
The team was surprised to find that ostriches and humans used nearly exactly the same amount of mechanical work to "swing" their limbs back and forth when running."The difference lies in the elasticity of their joints," Professor Rubenson explained. "Ostriches generate over twice as much power from recoil of elastic energy stored in tendons than humans, which means they need less muscle power to run at the same speed. "Moving with elastic limbs is akin to bouncing on a 'pogo stick', where you don't have to work very hard to bounce along - so it's all in the spring of their step."
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Muzzling scientists impedes global problem-solving: ex-diplomat
Scientists' diplomacy role must grow: panel
By Emily Chung, CBC News
While many global problems ranging from pandemics to environmental degradation are rooted in science and influenced by technology, few diplomats in developed countries are scientists, said members of a panel on science diplomacy. (Heribert Proepper/Associated Press)The failure of recent climate change talks shows scientists need to be more involved in diplomatic relations concerning global problems, say former Canadian and U.S. diplomats.
"The Copenhagen negotiations and so forth, I think, attest to the fact that in these issues, political solutions and political alliances just won't work. Politicians have to pay attention to the needs of their own countries," said Nina Fedoroff, the most recent science adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview Thursday. She was referring to the failure to reach a binding agreement on climate change targets at international talks in December 2009.
'Scientists and diplomats need to be able to talk publicly. Right now they're gagged.'
— Daryl Copeland, former Canadian diplomatFedoroff, a geneticist and molecular biologist, told delegates at the Canadian Science Policy Conference in Montreal that for many global problems a more successful route to solutions appears to be using scientific interactions and partnerships.
"Sounds great," she said during a panel on science diplomacy. "Difficult to do. Difficult to leave what was [previously] the mode of interaction behind."
Diplomats rarely scientists
For many global problems, using scientific interactions and partnerships to generate solutions is more effective than political negotiations, said Nina Fedoroff, former science adviser to the U.S. secretary of state while speaking at the Canadian Science Policy Conference. (Emily Chung/CBC)Fedoroff and fellow panellist Daryl Copeland, who worked as a Canadian diplomat for 30 years, said that while many global problems ranging from pandemics to environmental degradation are rooted in science and affected by technology, few diplomats in developed countries are scientists.
And even in the case of the U.S., where the state department dealing with international affairs has had a science adviser since 2000, that doesn't necessarily mean the advice gets acted on."The influence of a science adviser is only as good as ears open to that science advice," Fedoroff said. "We have right now a president how is particularly open to that, and I think you're seeing much more change and much more openness to the input of the science community. But will that last? Will that become institutionalized? I don't know how you overcome the dearth of scientists in the government positions."
'The influence of a science advisor is only as good as ears open to that science advice.'
— Nina Fedoroff, former science adviser to the U.S. Secretary of StateShe said her office has had success in boosting scientists' influence in U.S. diplomatic relations through programs such as diplomacy fellowship programs that bring scientists into the state department and a newer program that sends science envoys to other countries.Through such programs, U.S. scientists have helped train foreign services officers and helped Iraqi scientists establish an organization similar to the National Academy of Sciences."If there's hope for the future, it's in the non-governmental, more global approaches," she said following the panel discussion.
Dialogue must be allowed: Copeland
'The extraordinary controls that are in place at the moment of scientists and diplomats in the employ of the federal public sector prevent public diplomacy from delivering the results of which it is capable,' says former diplomat Daryl Copeland. (Emily Chung/CBC) Copeland, who left the diplomatic service and published a book called Guerilla Diplomacy: Rethinking International Relations in 2009, said the situation is grimmer outside the U.K. and the U.S., which have science advisers for international affairs. Science and technology issues are "largely alien and invisible among policy institutions" and that is particularly the case with Canada, he added.
Copeland also believes "public diplomacy" that entails connecting directly with the population of other countries through partnerships and communication with NGOs, scholars and journalists is more effective than relying on "envoys talking about government business" when it comes to global, science-based problems. 'I don't know how you overcome the dearth of scientists in the government positions.'
— Nina Fedoroff, former science adviser to the U.S. Secretary of StateBut he said the government needs to improve connections between scientists and the foreign ministry in order to do that, and a key part of that is loosening its grip on the flow of information."Scientists and diplomats need to be able to talk publicly," he told the conference. "Right now they're gagged."The Canadian Science Writers' Association published an editorial in the journal Nature in September accusing the government of manipulating science news in the way it restricts the ability of scientists to speak publicly.
Canadian science adviser recommended
International problem solving based on scientific knowledge requires that knowledge to be shared through dialogue, Copeland later elaborated in an interview.So the extraordinary controls that are in place at the moment of scientists and diplomats in the employ of the federal public sector prevent public diplomacy from delivering the results of which it is capable."Copeland also recommended that Canada's foreign affairs department create its own science adviser position.
Naser Faruqui, director of innovation, policy and science for the federally funded International Development Research Centre and the third member of the panel, said Canada has already had some success in improving international relations through scientific initiatives. For example, it has programs that paired eight top scientists in less developed nations with top Canadian scientists and provides $1 million in funding for their collaborative projects.
However, he acknowledged that IDRC accounts for less than four per cent of Canada's international assistance budget and less than that amount of its science and technology budget.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/21/science-diplomacy-canada.html#ixzz136DKYRJl
By Emily Chung, CBC News
While many global problems ranging from pandemics to environmental degradation are rooted in science and influenced by technology, few diplomats in developed countries are scientists, said members of a panel on science diplomacy. (Heribert Proepper/Associated Press)The failure of recent climate change talks shows scientists need to be more involved in diplomatic relations concerning global problems, say former Canadian and U.S. diplomats.
"The Copenhagen negotiations and so forth, I think, attest to the fact that in these issues, political solutions and political alliances just won't work. Politicians have to pay attention to the needs of their own countries," said Nina Fedoroff, the most recent science adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview Thursday. She was referring to the failure to reach a binding agreement on climate change targets at international talks in December 2009.
'Scientists and diplomats need to be able to talk publicly. Right now they're gagged.'
— Daryl Copeland, former Canadian diplomatFedoroff, a geneticist and molecular biologist, told delegates at the Canadian Science Policy Conference in Montreal that for many global problems a more successful route to solutions appears to be using scientific interactions and partnerships.
"Sounds great," she said during a panel on science diplomacy. "Difficult to do. Difficult to leave what was [previously] the mode of interaction behind."
Diplomats rarely scientists
For many global problems, using scientific interactions and partnerships to generate solutions is more effective than political negotiations, said Nina Fedoroff, former science adviser to the U.S. secretary of state while speaking at the Canadian Science Policy Conference. (Emily Chung/CBC)Fedoroff and fellow panellist Daryl Copeland, who worked as a Canadian diplomat for 30 years, said that while many global problems ranging from pandemics to environmental degradation are rooted in science and affected by technology, few diplomats in developed countries are scientists.
And even in the case of the U.S., where the state department dealing with international affairs has had a science adviser since 2000, that doesn't necessarily mean the advice gets acted on."The influence of a science adviser is only as good as ears open to that science advice," Fedoroff said. "We have right now a president how is particularly open to that, and I think you're seeing much more change and much more openness to the input of the science community. But will that last? Will that become institutionalized? I don't know how you overcome the dearth of scientists in the government positions."
'The influence of a science advisor is only as good as ears open to that science advice.'
— Nina Fedoroff, former science adviser to the U.S. Secretary of StateShe said her office has had success in boosting scientists' influence in U.S. diplomatic relations through programs such as diplomacy fellowship programs that bring scientists into the state department and a newer program that sends science envoys to other countries.Through such programs, U.S. scientists have helped train foreign services officers and helped Iraqi scientists establish an organization similar to the National Academy of Sciences."If there's hope for the future, it's in the non-governmental, more global approaches," she said following the panel discussion.
Dialogue must be allowed: Copeland
'The extraordinary controls that are in place at the moment of scientists and diplomats in the employ of the federal public sector prevent public diplomacy from delivering the results of which it is capable,' says former diplomat Daryl Copeland. (Emily Chung/CBC) Copeland, who left the diplomatic service and published a book called Guerilla Diplomacy: Rethinking International Relations in 2009, said the situation is grimmer outside the U.K. and the U.S., which have science advisers for international affairs. Science and technology issues are "largely alien and invisible among policy institutions" and that is particularly the case with Canada, he added.
Copeland also believes "public diplomacy" that entails connecting directly with the population of other countries through partnerships and communication with NGOs, scholars and journalists is more effective than relying on "envoys talking about government business" when it comes to global, science-based problems. 'I don't know how you overcome the dearth of scientists in the government positions.'
— Nina Fedoroff, former science adviser to the U.S. Secretary of StateBut he said the government needs to improve connections between scientists and the foreign ministry in order to do that, and a key part of that is loosening its grip on the flow of information."Scientists and diplomats need to be able to talk publicly," he told the conference. "Right now they're gagged."The Canadian Science Writers' Association published an editorial in the journal Nature in September accusing the government of manipulating science news in the way it restricts the ability of scientists to speak publicly.
Canadian science adviser recommended
International problem solving based on scientific knowledge requires that knowledge to be shared through dialogue, Copeland later elaborated in an interview.So the extraordinary controls that are in place at the moment of scientists and diplomats in the employ of the federal public sector prevent public diplomacy from delivering the results of which it is capable."Copeland also recommended that Canada's foreign affairs department create its own science adviser position.
Naser Faruqui, director of innovation, policy and science for the federally funded International Development Research Centre and the third member of the panel, said Canada has already had some success in improving international relations through scientific initiatives. For example, it has programs that paired eight top scientists in less developed nations with top Canadian scientists and provides $1 million in funding for their collaborative projects.
However, he acknowledged that IDRC accounts for less than four per cent of Canada's international assistance budget and less than that amount of its science and technology budget.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/21/science-diplomacy-canada.html#ixzz136DKYRJl
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Gene linked to depression 'fixed' in mice
Could gene therapy help depression? Gene therapy in mice appears to be able to "correct" a gene defect strongly linked to depression in people.Abnormal behaviour in mice lacking a gene in a specific brain region was reversed after injections of a modified virus.
The US study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
A UK gene therapy pioneer said that despite the need for a brain injection, a future treatment should not be ruled out in severe depression.The gene, known as p11, is one of several candidates which appear to play a role in depression.
Examination of the brains of deceased patients with depression revealed that they had considerably lower levels of p11 in an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens.It is thought to work by regulating the brain chemical serotonin, which helps control mood, appetite and sleep.Mice bred so that the gene is not present in the nucleus accumbens also showed behaviour which has been compared to depression in humans, for example appearing to lack motivation when given a swimming task to complete.When they were given an injection of a virus altered to restore p11 to normal levels, their behaviour became indistinguishable from a normal mouse.
Dr Michael Kaplitt, from Weill Cornell Medical Center, and one of the research leaders, said: "We potentially have a novel therapy to target what we now believe is one root cause of human depression.
"Current therapies for depression treat symptoms but not underlying causes, and while that works for many patients, those with advanced depression, or depression that does not respond to medication, could hopefully benefit from our approach."
It seems to me that it could open up a whole new field of medicine” Professor Len Seymour Oxford University.Any such treatment would be many years away, and, given the complexity of depression, further work would be needed to determine how much impact p11 gene therapy could have in humans.
The viruses used to deliver the gene therapy are too big to pass the blood brain barrier which protects the brain, and would need to be targeted precisely at the nucleus accumbens, as p11 could have a variety of different roles in different brain areas.This would mean that a hole would need to be drilled in the skull, and a needle guided into precisely the right spot.
'Clinical issues'
Dr Guang Chen, a neuroscience researcher at pharmaceutical firm Johnson and Johnson, in a commentary in the journal, said that the use of gene therapy in this way for depression represented "uncharted territory".
"Although we have embarked on a promising new path, a large number of clinical and regulatory issues must be overcome before such therapies can be implemented."Other experts argue that even such an invasive treatment should not be dismissed as a future option.
Prof Alan Kingsman, a pioneer of gene therapy at Oxford University, and now chairman of biopharmaceutical company Oxford Biomedica, is already helping to run trials of gene therapy for patients with Parkinson's Disease.
This too is delivered by injection directly to the brain, but he pointed out that the procedure was no more invasive than deep brain stimulation, a treatment being trialled for severe depression in which an electrode is implanted beneath the skull. He said: "It certainly shouldn't be written off as something that is completely inappropriate in patients with depression."He said that it was possible that a gene therapy might only need to be administered once, unlike traditional drugs which might need to be taken long-term.
Len Seymour, a professor of gene therapy at Oxford University, said that the only way to move was for researchers to identify a group of depressed patients whose condition was so severe that ethicists could be convinced that such an experimental treatment was justified."Brain therapy is becoming more acceptable than it was 10 years ago, and it seems to me that it could open up a whole new field of medicine," Prof Seymour said.
"What this, and other studies, are showing, is that gene therapy, delivered correctly, can be effective."
The US study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
A UK gene therapy pioneer said that despite the need for a brain injection, a future treatment should not be ruled out in severe depression.The gene, known as p11, is one of several candidates which appear to play a role in depression.
Examination of the brains of deceased patients with depression revealed that they had considerably lower levels of p11 in an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens.It is thought to work by regulating the brain chemical serotonin, which helps control mood, appetite and sleep.Mice bred so that the gene is not present in the nucleus accumbens also showed behaviour which has been compared to depression in humans, for example appearing to lack motivation when given a swimming task to complete.When they were given an injection of a virus altered to restore p11 to normal levels, their behaviour became indistinguishable from a normal mouse.
Dr Michael Kaplitt, from Weill Cornell Medical Center, and one of the research leaders, said: "We potentially have a novel therapy to target what we now believe is one root cause of human depression.
"Current therapies for depression treat symptoms but not underlying causes, and while that works for many patients, those with advanced depression, or depression that does not respond to medication, could hopefully benefit from our approach."
It seems to me that it could open up a whole new field of medicine” Professor Len Seymour Oxford University.Any such treatment would be many years away, and, given the complexity of depression, further work would be needed to determine how much impact p11 gene therapy could have in humans.
The viruses used to deliver the gene therapy are too big to pass the blood brain barrier which protects the brain, and would need to be targeted precisely at the nucleus accumbens, as p11 could have a variety of different roles in different brain areas.This would mean that a hole would need to be drilled in the skull, and a needle guided into precisely the right spot.
'Clinical issues'
Dr Guang Chen, a neuroscience researcher at pharmaceutical firm Johnson and Johnson, in a commentary in the journal, said that the use of gene therapy in this way for depression represented "uncharted territory".
"Although we have embarked on a promising new path, a large number of clinical and regulatory issues must be overcome before such therapies can be implemented."Other experts argue that even such an invasive treatment should not be dismissed as a future option.
Prof Alan Kingsman, a pioneer of gene therapy at Oxford University, and now chairman of biopharmaceutical company Oxford Biomedica, is already helping to run trials of gene therapy for patients with Parkinson's Disease.
This too is delivered by injection directly to the brain, but he pointed out that the procedure was no more invasive than deep brain stimulation, a treatment being trialled for severe depression in which an electrode is implanted beneath the skull. He said: "It certainly shouldn't be written off as something that is completely inappropriate in patients with depression."He said that it was possible that a gene therapy might only need to be administered once, unlike traditional drugs which might need to be taken long-term.
Len Seymour, a professor of gene therapy at Oxford University, said that the only way to move was for researchers to identify a group of depressed patients whose condition was so severe that ethicists could be convinced that such an experimental treatment was justified."Brain therapy is becoming more acceptable than it was 10 years ago, and it seems to me that it could open up a whole new field of medicine," Prof Seymour said.
"What this, and other studies, are showing, is that gene therapy, delivered correctly, can be effective."
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Vitamin B12
People who consume lots of foods rich in vitamin B12 -- such as fish and fortified cereals -- may be at lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than people who take in less of the vitamin, a small study conducted in Finland suggests.In the study, which was published in Neurology, researchers in Scandinavia analyzed blood samples from 271 individuals ages 65 to 79 who showed no evidence of dementia. The researchers tested for levels of a blood marker of vitamin B12 and for levels of homocysteine, an amino acid that has been linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease (as well as heart disease and stroke).
B vitamins, including B12 and folate, have been shown to help lower homocysteine levels, so high levels of the amino acid suggest low levels of B12.
Health.com: 9 foods that may help save your memory
Over the next seven years, 17 study participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The people with the highest levels of homocysteine at the beginning of the study had the greatest risk of developing the disease. In contrast, each unit increase in the marker of vitamin B12 (known as holotranscobalamin) reduced the risk of developing Alzheimer's by 2 percent.
The relationship between vitamin B12 and Alzheimer's risk is "complex," says Dr. Sudha Seshadri, M.D., an associate professor of neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine and the author of an editorial accompanying the study. But, she adds, "B12 levels, particularly holotranscobalamin levels, likely play a contributory role."
The links among Alzheimer's risk, homocysteine, and B12 were more pronounced in older individuals, the study found. Health.com: 25 signs and symptoms of Alzheimer's disease
Blood levels of folate, which the researchers also measured, were not related to homocysteine levels or Alzheimer's risk in this study. Folic acid -- a synthetic version of folate found in many supplements and multivitamins -- has been shown to lower homocysteine in previous studies, but its effect on disease risk is disputed.A National Institutes of Health panel recently concluded that there are no foods or vitamins that definitively prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease, and experts say this study is consistent with the panel's recommendations. "A healthy diet likely remains important," Seshadri says. "The role of supplementation remains unclear."
Health.com: Ginkgo doesn't work: are there better ways to save your brain?
Maria Carillo, Ph.D., the senior director of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer's Association, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, urges caution in interpreting the new findings, especially given that so few study participants developed the disease. "We do know that vitamin B12 is a huge contributor to lowering homocysteine levels," she says. "Lowering these in general is important for cardiovascular health, and this study strengthens our knowledge about its role in risk for Alzheimer's disease."
Dr. Sam Gandy, M.D., the associate director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York City, says that it may make sense for people to get blood tests to measure their levels of B12 and folate.
Health.com: How to age-proof your memory
However, he says, the study findings may not necessarily translate to people outside Scandinavia. And he worries that the results may spur doctors to recommend B12 injections to their patients -- a preventive treatment that he says is unfounded and already overused.It's still unclear whether increasing your intake of vitamin B12 will help protect you from Alzheimer's, Gandy says. "Good nutrition should minimize the risk of Alzheimer's disease, but we can't say that any specific food has been proven to reduce this risk."
B vitamins, including B12 and folate, have been shown to help lower homocysteine levels, so high levels of the amino acid suggest low levels of B12.
Health.com: 9 foods that may help save your memory
Over the next seven years, 17 study participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The people with the highest levels of homocysteine at the beginning of the study had the greatest risk of developing the disease. In contrast, each unit increase in the marker of vitamin B12 (known as holotranscobalamin) reduced the risk of developing Alzheimer's by 2 percent.
The relationship between vitamin B12 and Alzheimer's risk is "complex," says Dr. Sudha Seshadri, M.D., an associate professor of neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine and the author of an editorial accompanying the study. But, she adds, "B12 levels, particularly holotranscobalamin levels, likely play a contributory role."
The links among Alzheimer's risk, homocysteine, and B12 were more pronounced in older individuals, the study found. Health.com: 25 signs and symptoms of Alzheimer's disease
Blood levels of folate, which the researchers also measured, were not related to homocysteine levels or Alzheimer's risk in this study. Folic acid -- a synthetic version of folate found in many supplements and multivitamins -- has been shown to lower homocysteine in previous studies, but its effect on disease risk is disputed.A National Institutes of Health panel recently concluded that there are no foods or vitamins that definitively prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease, and experts say this study is consistent with the panel's recommendations. "A healthy diet likely remains important," Seshadri says. "The role of supplementation remains unclear."
Health.com: Ginkgo doesn't work: are there better ways to save your brain?
Maria Carillo, Ph.D., the senior director of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer's Association, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, urges caution in interpreting the new findings, especially given that so few study participants developed the disease. "We do know that vitamin B12 is a huge contributor to lowering homocysteine levels," she says. "Lowering these in general is important for cardiovascular health, and this study strengthens our knowledge about its role in risk for Alzheimer's disease."
Dr. Sam Gandy, M.D., the associate director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York City, says that it may make sense for people to get blood tests to measure their levels of B12 and folate.
Health.com: How to age-proof your memory
However, he says, the study findings may not necessarily translate to people outside Scandinavia. And he worries that the results may spur doctors to recommend B12 injections to their patients -- a preventive treatment that he says is unfounded and already overused.It's still unclear whether increasing your intake of vitamin B12 will help protect you from Alzheimer's, Gandy says. "Good nutrition should minimize the risk of Alzheimer's disease, but we can't say that any specific food has been proven to reduce this risk."
Monday, October 18, 2010
Chinese and African history
Could a rusty coin re-write Chinese-African history?By Peter Greste
BBC East Africa correspondent, Mambrui, Kenya
It is not much to look at - a small pitted brass coin with a square hole in the centre - but this relatively innocuous piece of metal is revolutionising our understanding of early East African history, and recasting China's more contemporary role in the region.
"This is a wonderful and very important piece” Professor Qin Dashu
Peking University
A joint team of Kenyan and Chinese archaeologists found the 15th Century Chinese coin in Mambrui - a tiny, nondescript village just north of Malindi on Kenya's north coast. In barely distinguishable relief, the team leader Professor Qin Dashu from Peking University's archaeology department, read out the inscription: "Yongle Tongbao" - the name of the reign that minted the coin some time between 1403 and 1424.
"These coins were carried only by envoys of the emperor, Chengzu," Prof Qin said.
"We know that smugglers would often take them and melt them down to make other brass implements, but it is more likely that this came here with someone who gave it as a gift from the emperor." And that poses the question that has excited both historians and politicians: How did a coin from the early 1400s get to East Africa, almost 100 years before the first Europeans reached the region?
When China ruled the seas
The answer seems to be with Zheng He, also known as Cheng Ho - a legendary Chinese admiral who, the stories say, led a vast fleet of between 200 and 300 ships across the Indian Ocean in 1418. It is now believed that China's Zheng He reached East Africa long before any European explorer Until recently, there have only been folk tales and insubstantial hints at how far Zheng He might have sailed. Then, a few years ago, fishermen off the northern Kenyan port town of Lamu hauled up 15th Century Chinese vases in their nets, and the Chinese authorities ran DNA tests on a number of villagers who claimed Chinese ancestry.
The tests seemed to confirm what the villagers have always believed - that a ship from Zheng He's fleet sank in a storm and the surviving crew married locals, meaning some people in the area still have subtly Chinese features.
Searching for clues
It was then that Peking University organized its expedition to try to find conclusive evidence. The university is spending $3 million (£2 million) on the three-year project.The dig suggests China's interest in Africa goes back a long way.Prof Qin's team chose to dig in Mambrui for two reasons.
First, ancient texts told of Zheng He's visit to the Sultan of Malindi - the most powerful coastal ruler of the time. But they also mentioned that Malindi was by a river mouth; something that the present town of Malindi doesn't have, but that Mambrui does. "The Chinese had a very different approach from the Europeans to East Africa...they saw us as equals”Dr Herman Kiriama
National Museums of Kenya
The old cemetery in Mambrui also has a famous circular tomb-stone embedded with 400-year-old Chinese porcelain bowls hinting at the region's long-standing relationship with the East. In the broad L-shaped trench that the team dug on the edge of the cemetery, they began finding what they were looking for. First, they uncovered the remains of an iron smelter and iron slag.
Then, Mohamed Mchuria, a coastal archaeologist from the National Museums of Kenya, unearthed a stunning fragment of porcelain that Prof Qin believes came from a famous kiln called Long Quan that made porcelain exclusively for the royal family in the early Ming Dynasty. The jade-green shard appears to be from the base of a much larger bowl, with two small fish in relief, swimming just below the surface of the glaze.
"This is a wonderful and very important piece, and that is why we believe it could have come with an imperial envoy like Zheng He," Prof Qin said.
The team is hoping to unearth more buried secrets
Re-writing history?
While the evidence is still not conclusive, it undermines Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama's claim to have been the first international trader to open up East Africa. He arrived in 1499 on an expedition to find a sea route to Asia, and launched more than 450 years of colonial domination by European maritime powers.
"It... gives politicians a reason to say: 'Let's look East' because we've been looking that way throughout the ages” Herman Kiriama
National Museums of Kenya
"We're discovering that the Chinese had a very different approach from the Europeans to East Africa," said Herman Kiriama, the lead archaeologist from the National Museums of Kenya. "Because they came with gifts from the emperor, it shows they saw us as equals. It shows that Kenya was already a dynamic trading power with strong links to the outside world long before the Portuguese arrived," he said. And that is profoundly influencing the way Kenya is thinking about its current ties to the East. It implies that China has a much older trade relationship with the region than Europe, and that Beijing's very modern drive to open up trade with Africa may in fact be part of a far deeper tradition than anyone suspected.
In 2008 China's trade with the continent was worth $107bn (£67bn) - more even than the United States, and 10 times what it was in 2000."A long time ago, the East African coast looked East and not West," said Mr Kiriama. "And maybe that's why it also gives politicians a reason to say: 'Let's look East' because we've been looking that way throughout the ages."
BBC East Africa correspondent, Mambrui, Kenya
It is not much to look at - a small pitted brass coin with a square hole in the centre - but this relatively innocuous piece of metal is revolutionising our understanding of early East African history, and recasting China's more contemporary role in the region.
"This is a wonderful and very important piece” Professor Qin Dashu
Peking University
A joint team of Kenyan and Chinese archaeologists found the 15th Century Chinese coin in Mambrui - a tiny, nondescript village just north of Malindi on Kenya's north coast. In barely distinguishable relief, the team leader Professor Qin Dashu from Peking University's archaeology department, read out the inscription: "Yongle Tongbao" - the name of the reign that minted the coin some time between 1403 and 1424.
"These coins were carried only by envoys of the emperor, Chengzu," Prof Qin said.
"We know that smugglers would often take them and melt them down to make other brass implements, but it is more likely that this came here with someone who gave it as a gift from the emperor." And that poses the question that has excited both historians and politicians: How did a coin from the early 1400s get to East Africa, almost 100 years before the first Europeans reached the region?
When China ruled the seas
The answer seems to be with Zheng He, also known as Cheng Ho - a legendary Chinese admiral who, the stories say, led a vast fleet of between 200 and 300 ships across the Indian Ocean in 1418. It is now believed that China's Zheng He reached East Africa long before any European explorer Until recently, there have only been folk tales and insubstantial hints at how far Zheng He might have sailed. Then, a few years ago, fishermen off the northern Kenyan port town of Lamu hauled up 15th Century Chinese vases in their nets, and the Chinese authorities ran DNA tests on a number of villagers who claimed Chinese ancestry.
The tests seemed to confirm what the villagers have always believed - that a ship from Zheng He's fleet sank in a storm and the surviving crew married locals, meaning some people in the area still have subtly Chinese features.
Searching for clues
It was then that Peking University organized its expedition to try to find conclusive evidence. The university is spending $3 million (£2 million) on the three-year project.The dig suggests China's interest in Africa goes back a long way.Prof Qin's team chose to dig in Mambrui for two reasons.
First, ancient texts told of Zheng He's visit to the Sultan of Malindi - the most powerful coastal ruler of the time. But they also mentioned that Malindi was by a river mouth; something that the present town of Malindi doesn't have, but that Mambrui does. "The Chinese had a very different approach from the Europeans to East Africa...they saw us as equals”Dr Herman Kiriama
National Museums of Kenya
The old cemetery in Mambrui also has a famous circular tomb-stone embedded with 400-year-old Chinese porcelain bowls hinting at the region's long-standing relationship with the East. In the broad L-shaped trench that the team dug on the edge of the cemetery, they began finding what they were looking for. First, they uncovered the remains of an iron smelter and iron slag.
Then, Mohamed Mchuria, a coastal archaeologist from the National Museums of Kenya, unearthed a stunning fragment of porcelain that Prof Qin believes came from a famous kiln called Long Quan that made porcelain exclusively for the royal family in the early Ming Dynasty. The jade-green shard appears to be from the base of a much larger bowl, with two small fish in relief, swimming just below the surface of the glaze.
"This is a wonderful and very important piece, and that is why we believe it could have come with an imperial envoy like Zheng He," Prof Qin said.
The team is hoping to unearth more buried secrets
Re-writing history?
While the evidence is still not conclusive, it undermines Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama's claim to have been the first international trader to open up East Africa. He arrived in 1499 on an expedition to find a sea route to Asia, and launched more than 450 years of colonial domination by European maritime powers.
"It... gives politicians a reason to say: 'Let's look East' because we've been looking that way throughout the ages” Herman Kiriama
National Museums of Kenya
"We're discovering that the Chinese had a very different approach from the Europeans to East Africa," said Herman Kiriama, the lead archaeologist from the National Museums of Kenya. "Because they came with gifts from the emperor, it shows they saw us as equals. It shows that Kenya was already a dynamic trading power with strong links to the outside world long before the Portuguese arrived," he said. And that is profoundly influencing the way Kenya is thinking about its current ties to the East. It implies that China has a much older trade relationship with the region than Europe, and that Beijing's very modern drive to open up trade with Africa may in fact be part of a far deeper tradition than anyone suspected.
In 2008 China's trade with the continent was worth $107bn (£67bn) - more even than the United States, and 10 times what it was in 2000."A long time ago, the East African coast looked East and not West," said Mr Kiriama. "And maybe that's why it also gives politicians a reason to say: 'Let's look East' because we've been looking that way throughout the ages."
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Study backs chest compressions in resuscitation
Official guidelines show that 30 chest compressions should be followed by two rescue breaths
Concentrating on chest compressions rather than mouth-to-mouth when giving emergency resuscitation can produce better results, says research published in The Lancet.A study of 3,000 patients found that chest compressions alone increased chances of survival by more than 22%.But training in how to give both chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth breaths is the best option, experts say.
The UK Resuscitation Council is due to produce new CPR guidelines next week.Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a combination of chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth breaths, given in a life-threatening emergency like a cardiac arrest or heart attack.The study, compiled by doctors from the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, looked at the survival rates of people treated by untrained members of the public taking instructions from the emergency services over the phone.
If you're unwilling or unable to do full CPR then chest compressions are better than nothing.”
Dr Meng Aw-Yong St John Ambulance
Dr Peter Nagele, from the department of anaesthesiology, critical care and pain therapy at the Medical University of Vienna, said that if untrained bystanders avoided mouth-to-mouth breaths during CPR, they were more likely to perform uninterrupted chest compressions.That then increased the probability of CPR being successful.
Different techniques
The research in The Lancet involved two analyses.The first used data from three randomised trials involving more than 3,000 patients.It showed that chest-compression-only CPR was associated with a slightly improved chance of survival compared with standard CPR (14% v 12%). In the second analysis of seven observational studies, researchers found no difference between the two CPR techniques.The study authors maintain that continuous, uninterrupted chest compressions are vital for successful CPR. Dr Jas Soar, chair of the Resuscitation Council from Southmead Hospital in Bristol, said: "Any CPR is better than no CPR. If you witness a cardiac arrest, dial 999 immediately. Those trained in CPR should follow existing guidance of 30 chest compressions followed by two rescue breaths.
"Those not trained should start compressions and follow instructions until an expert arrives," Dr Soar said.
Dr Meng Aw-Yong, medical adviser at St John Ambulance, acknowledged that rescue breaths could be off-putting."The current advice is that if you're unwilling or unable to do full CPR then chest compressions are better than nothing. "The best solution, however, is for people to get trained in how to carry out chest compressions and rescue breaths so they can be the difference between a life lost and a life saved," he said.
The British Heart Foundation says that being able to do CPR more than doubles the chances of survival.
Claire O'Neill, community resuscitation programme lead at the BHF, said: "For someone who is untrained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, doing both chest compressions and rescue breaths really can be difficult.
"We also know that uninterrupted chest compressions are very important for increasing the chance of survival. So being directed to focus solely on chest compressions could make people more willing to attempt resuscitation, which could ultimately save lives," she said.
Concentrating on chest compressions rather than mouth-to-mouth when giving emergency resuscitation can produce better results, says research published in The Lancet.A study of 3,000 patients found that chest compressions alone increased chances of survival by more than 22%.But training in how to give both chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth breaths is the best option, experts say.
The UK Resuscitation Council is due to produce new CPR guidelines next week.Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a combination of chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth breaths, given in a life-threatening emergency like a cardiac arrest or heart attack.The study, compiled by doctors from the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, looked at the survival rates of people treated by untrained members of the public taking instructions from the emergency services over the phone.
If you're unwilling or unable to do full CPR then chest compressions are better than nothing.”
Dr Meng Aw-Yong St John Ambulance
Dr Peter Nagele, from the department of anaesthesiology, critical care and pain therapy at the Medical University of Vienna, said that if untrained bystanders avoided mouth-to-mouth breaths during CPR, they were more likely to perform uninterrupted chest compressions.That then increased the probability of CPR being successful.
Different techniques
The research in The Lancet involved two analyses.The first used data from three randomised trials involving more than 3,000 patients.It showed that chest-compression-only CPR was associated with a slightly improved chance of survival compared with standard CPR (14% v 12%). In the second analysis of seven observational studies, researchers found no difference between the two CPR techniques.The study authors maintain that continuous, uninterrupted chest compressions are vital for successful CPR. Dr Jas Soar, chair of the Resuscitation Council from Southmead Hospital in Bristol, said: "Any CPR is better than no CPR. If you witness a cardiac arrest, dial 999 immediately. Those trained in CPR should follow existing guidance of 30 chest compressions followed by two rescue breaths.
"Those not trained should start compressions and follow instructions until an expert arrives," Dr Soar said.
Dr Meng Aw-Yong, medical adviser at St John Ambulance, acknowledged that rescue breaths could be off-putting."The current advice is that if you're unwilling or unable to do full CPR then chest compressions are better than nothing. "The best solution, however, is for people to get trained in how to carry out chest compressions and rescue breaths so they can be the difference between a life lost and a life saved," he said.
The British Heart Foundation says that being able to do CPR more than doubles the chances of survival.
Claire O'Neill, community resuscitation programme lead at the BHF, said: "For someone who is untrained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, doing both chest compressions and rescue breaths really can be difficult.
"We also know that uninterrupted chest compressions are very important for increasing the chance of survival. So being directed to focus solely on chest compressions could make people more willing to attempt resuscitation, which could ultimately save lives," she said.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Body clock set by temperature shifts: study
U.S. researchers have shed light into what makes a person's internal clock tick.According to the study, in Friday's issue of Science, the body's circadian rhythm, which controls metabolism as well as sleep patterns and other functions of the body, is regulated by subtle variations in the body's internal temperature.
Researchers have long known that body temperature changes through the day on the 24-hour circadian rhythm. Investigators at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas studied mouse cells and discovered that the part of the brain that converts light, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, indirectly sets the body's clock.Once light enters through the eyes and is processed by the suprachiasmatic nucleus, messages are sent via neural signals to alter temperature.
These temperature shifts cause the body's tissues and organs to be active or inactive."Small changes in body temperature can send a powerful signal to the clocks in our bodies," said Joseph Takahashi, chair of neuroscience at UT Southwestern in Dallas and senior author of the study, in a release.
It takes only a small change in internal body temperature to synchronize cellular 'clocks' throughout the body."
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/15/body-temperature-shifts.html#ixzz12TUpzDYk
Researchers have long known that body temperature changes through the day on the 24-hour circadian rhythm. Investigators at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas studied mouse cells and discovered that the part of the brain that converts light, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, indirectly sets the body's clock.Once light enters through the eyes and is processed by the suprachiasmatic nucleus, messages are sent via neural signals to alter temperature.
These temperature shifts cause the body's tissues and organs to be active or inactive."Small changes in body temperature can send a powerful signal to the clocks in our bodies," said Joseph Takahashi, chair of neuroscience at UT Southwestern in Dallas and senior author of the study, in a release.
It takes only a small change in internal body temperature to synchronize cellular 'clocks' throughout the body."
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/15/body-temperature-shifts.html#ixzz12TUpzDYk
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Love is a drug?
Researchers believe love can act as a painkiller Love hurts, at least according to many a romantic songwriter, but it may also help ease pain, US scientists suggest.Brain scans suggest many of the areas normally involved in pain response are also activated by amorous thoughts.Stanford University researchers gave 15 students mild doses of pain, while checking if they were distracted by gazing at photos of their beloved.
The study focused on people early in a romance, journal PLoS One reported, so the "drug of love" may wear off. The scientists who carried out the experiment used "functional magnetic resonance imaging" (fMRI) to measure activity in real-time in different parts of the brain.
Hope over NHS pain relief implant
It has been known for some time that strong feelings of love are linked to intense activity in several different brain regions.These include areas linked to the brain chemical dopamine, which produces the brain's feel-good state following certain stimulants - from eating sweets to taking cocaine.
"Light up"
The Stanford University researchers had noticed that when we feel pain, some of the same areas "light up" on the scans - and wondered whether one might affect the other.They recruited a dozen students who were all in the first nine months of a relationship, defined as "the first phase of intense love".Each was asked to bring in a picture of the object of their affection and photos of what they deemed an equally attractive acquaintance.
"It's important to recognise that people who feel alone and depressed may have very low pain thresholds, whereas the reverse can be true for people who feel secure and cared for”Professor Paul Gilbert
University of Derby
While their brains were scanned, they were shown these pictures, while a computer controlled heat pad placed in the palm of their hand was set up to cause them mild pain.They found that viewing the picture of their beloved reduced perceptions of pain much more than looking at the image of the acquaintance.
Dr Jarred Younger, one of the researchers involved, said that the "love-induced analgesia" appeared to involve more primitive functions of the brain, working in a similar way to opioid painkillers."One of the key sites is the nucleus accumbens, a key reward addiction centre for opioids, cocaine and other drugs of abuse."The region tells the brain that you really need to keep doing this." Professor Paul Gilbert, a neuropsychologist from the University of Derby, said that the relationship between emotional states and the perception of pain was clear.He said: "One example is a footballer who has suffered quite a painful injury, but who is able to continue playing because of his emotionally charged state."
He added that while the effect noticed by the Stanford researchers might only be short-lived in the early stages of a love affair, it may well be replaced by something similar later in a relationship, with a sense of comfort and wellbeing generating the release of endorphins."It's important to recognise that people who feel alone and depressed may have very low pain thresholds, whereas the reverse can be true for people who feel secure and cared for."This may well be an issue for the health service, as patients are sometimes rushed through the system, and perhaps there isn't this focus on caring that might have existed once."
The study focused on people early in a romance, journal PLoS One reported, so the "drug of love" may wear off. The scientists who carried out the experiment used "functional magnetic resonance imaging" (fMRI) to measure activity in real-time in different parts of the brain.
Hope over NHS pain relief implant
It has been known for some time that strong feelings of love are linked to intense activity in several different brain regions.These include areas linked to the brain chemical dopamine, which produces the brain's feel-good state following certain stimulants - from eating sweets to taking cocaine.
"Light up"
The Stanford University researchers had noticed that when we feel pain, some of the same areas "light up" on the scans - and wondered whether one might affect the other.They recruited a dozen students who were all in the first nine months of a relationship, defined as "the first phase of intense love".Each was asked to bring in a picture of the object of their affection and photos of what they deemed an equally attractive acquaintance.
"It's important to recognise that people who feel alone and depressed may have very low pain thresholds, whereas the reverse can be true for people who feel secure and cared for”Professor Paul Gilbert
University of Derby
While their brains were scanned, they were shown these pictures, while a computer controlled heat pad placed in the palm of their hand was set up to cause them mild pain.They found that viewing the picture of their beloved reduced perceptions of pain much more than looking at the image of the acquaintance.
Dr Jarred Younger, one of the researchers involved, said that the "love-induced analgesia" appeared to involve more primitive functions of the brain, working in a similar way to opioid painkillers."One of the key sites is the nucleus accumbens, a key reward addiction centre for opioids, cocaine and other drugs of abuse."The region tells the brain that you really need to keep doing this." Professor Paul Gilbert, a neuropsychologist from the University of Derby, said that the relationship between emotional states and the perception of pain was clear.He said: "One example is a footballer who has suffered quite a painful injury, but who is able to continue playing because of his emotionally charged state."
He added that while the effect noticed by the Stanford researchers might only be short-lived in the early stages of a love affair, it may well be replaced by something similar later in a relationship, with a sense of comfort and wellbeing generating the release of endorphins."It's important to recognise that people who feel alone and depressed may have very low pain thresholds, whereas the reverse can be true for people who feel secure and cared for."This may well be an issue for the health service, as patients are sometimes rushed through the system, and perhaps there isn't this focus on caring that might have existed once."
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Fossils of earliest land plants discovered in Argentina
Modern liverworts are probably common ancestors of all land plants
The earliest plants to have colonised land have been found in Argentina.
The discovery puts back by 10 million years the colonisation of land by plants, and suggests that a diversity of land plants had evolved by 472 million years ago. The newly found plants are liverworts, very simple plants that lack stems or roots, scientists report in the journal the New Phytologist. That confirms liverworts are likely to be the ancestors of all land plants.
The appearance of plants that live on land is among the most important evolutionary breakthroughs in Earth's history. Land plants changed climates around the globe, altered soils and allowed all other multi-cellular life to evolve and invade almost all of the continental land masses.
The discovery of the oldest known land plants was made by a team of researchers led by Claudia Rubinstein of the Department of Palaeontology at the Argentine Institute of Snow, Ice and Environmental Research in Mendoza, Argentina. She and her collected samples of sediment from the Rio Capillas, in the Sierras Subandinas in the Central Andean Basin of northwest Argentina. They then processed the sediment samples by dissolving them in strong acids, taking great care to avoid contamination.
Five varieties
In the sediment the team found hardy fossilised spores from five different types of liverwort, a primitive type of plant thought to have evolved from freshwater multi-cellular green algae. "Spores of liverworts are very simple and are called cryptospores," Dr Rubinstein told the BBC.
"The cryptospores that we describe are the earliest to date."The fossils were found in rocks of the Sierras Subandinas, Argentina
These spores, dating from between 473 and 471 million years ago, come from plants belonging to five different genera - groups of species.
"That shows plants had already begun to diversify, meaning they must have colonised land earlier than our dated samples," said Dr Rubinstein, who made the discovery with scientists at the National University of Cordoba, Argentina and the University of Liege, Belgium.
The researchers' best estimate is that the colonisation of land could have occurred during the early Ordovician period (488 to 472 million years ago) or even during the late Cambrian period (499 to 488 million years ago).
The previous record holder of the earliest known land plants were small liverwort cryptospores found in Saudi Arabia and the Czech Republic.
These were dated at 463 to 461 million years old.
These spores are enclosed in a thick protective wall that is incredibly resistant, meaning they fossilise well.
Whole plants fossilise less easily, explaining why the earliest "megafossils" of whole plants are much younger. Cryptospores are just like modern plant spores, except for an unusual structural arrangement.
The discovery of spores from the oldest liverworts came as shock to the researchers.
"The surprise was so great that I asked my colleague Philippe Steemans to process the same sediment samples.
"He found exactly the same cryptospore assemblages, which demonstrated that the presence of the cryptospores in my samples was not due to a contamination," said Dr Rubinstein.
SOURCES
Visit the New Phytologist to read an expert commentary on the significance of the discovery. The cryptospores from Argentina hint at where land plants originated. "It most probably happened on Gondwana, as already demonstrated by previous discoveries, but very far, at least 5000km, from the Saudi Arabian and the Czech Republic, where previous earliest traces of land plants were found," said Dr Rubinstein. As land plants matured, they evolved from liverworts into mosses, and then into plants known as hornworts and lycopods. Then ferns appeared before seed plants, of which there are many species today, finally evolved.
The earliest plants to have colonised land have been found in Argentina.
The discovery puts back by 10 million years the colonisation of land by plants, and suggests that a diversity of land plants had evolved by 472 million years ago. The newly found plants are liverworts, very simple plants that lack stems or roots, scientists report in the journal the New Phytologist. That confirms liverworts are likely to be the ancestors of all land plants.
The appearance of plants that live on land is among the most important evolutionary breakthroughs in Earth's history. Land plants changed climates around the globe, altered soils and allowed all other multi-cellular life to evolve and invade almost all of the continental land masses.
The discovery of the oldest known land plants was made by a team of researchers led by Claudia Rubinstein of the Department of Palaeontology at the Argentine Institute of Snow, Ice and Environmental Research in Mendoza, Argentina. She and her collected samples of sediment from the Rio Capillas, in the Sierras Subandinas in the Central Andean Basin of northwest Argentina. They then processed the sediment samples by dissolving them in strong acids, taking great care to avoid contamination.
Five varieties
In the sediment the team found hardy fossilised spores from five different types of liverwort, a primitive type of plant thought to have evolved from freshwater multi-cellular green algae. "Spores of liverworts are very simple and are called cryptospores," Dr Rubinstein told the BBC.
"The cryptospores that we describe are the earliest to date."The fossils were found in rocks of the Sierras Subandinas, Argentina
These spores, dating from between 473 and 471 million years ago, come from plants belonging to five different genera - groups of species.
"That shows plants had already begun to diversify, meaning they must have colonised land earlier than our dated samples," said Dr Rubinstein, who made the discovery with scientists at the National University of Cordoba, Argentina and the University of Liege, Belgium.
The researchers' best estimate is that the colonisation of land could have occurred during the early Ordovician period (488 to 472 million years ago) or even during the late Cambrian period (499 to 488 million years ago).
The previous record holder of the earliest known land plants were small liverwort cryptospores found in Saudi Arabia and the Czech Republic.
These were dated at 463 to 461 million years old.
These spores are enclosed in a thick protective wall that is incredibly resistant, meaning they fossilise well.
Whole plants fossilise less easily, explaining why the earliest "megafossils" of whole plants are much younger. Cryptospores are just like modern plant spores, except for an unusual structural arrangement.
The discovery of spores from the oldest liverworts came as shock to the researchers.
"The surprise was so great that I asked my colleague Philippe Steemans to process the same sediment samples.
"He found exactly the same cryptospore assemblages, which demonstrated that the presence of the cryptospores in my samples was not due to a contamination," said Dr Rubinstein.
SOURCES
Visit the New Phytologist to read an expert commentary on the significance of the discovery. The cryptospores from Argentina hint at where land plants originated. "It most probably happened on Gondwana, as already demonstrated by previous discoveries, but very far, at least 5000km, from the Saudi Arabian and the Czech Republic, where previous earliest traces of land plants were found," said Dr Rubinstein. As land plants matured, they evolved from liverworts into mosses, and then into plants known as hornworts and lycopods. Then ferns appeared before seed plants, of which there are many species today, finally evolved.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Stem cell trial
There are hopes that stem cell therapy can be used to tackle many diseases US doctors have begun the first official trial of using human embryonic stem cells in patients after getting the green light from regulators.The Food and Drug Administration has given a license to Geron to use the controversial cells to treat people with spinal injuries.
The cells have the potential to become many of the different cell types found in the body, including nerve cells.The trials at a hospital in Atlanta will check if the treatment is safe.
Geron, a biotech company based in "silicon valley" south of San Francisco, has spent $170m on developing a stem cell treatment for spinal cord injury. The research will use cells coaxed to become nerve cells which are injected into the spinal cord. In animal trials of the treatment, paralysed rats regained some movement. But it is not yet known if it will offer any benefit to people with spinal cord injuries. "This is very exciting news, however, it is very important to appreciate that the objective of trials at this stage is to confirm first of all that no harm is done to patients, rather than to look for benefits”
Professor Sir Ian Wilmut
MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine
Every year around 12,000 people in the US sustain spinal cord injuries. The most common causes are automobile accidents, falls, gunshot wounds and sports injuries. In the trial, patients who have sustained such an injury within the last 14 days will be given the experimental stem cell treatment.
Geron president Dr Thomas Okarma said: "When we started working with human embryonic stem cells in 1999, many predicted that it would be a number of decades before a cell therapy would be approved for human clinical trials. "This accomplishment results from extensive research and development and a succession of inventive steps."
But it will take some time to get the results.
And there are many years of rigorous testing ahead before it can be known if the therapy is safe and effective.
Professor Sir Ian Wilmut, director of the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, said: "This is very exciting news, however, it is very important to appreciate that the objective of trials at this stage is to confirm first of all that no harm is done to patients, rather than to look for benefits. "Once that has been confirmed then the focus moves on to development and assessment of the new treatment."
Ben Sykes, executive director of the UK National Stem Cell Network, said: "This is indeed a significant milestone in our journey towards the promise of stem cell-based medicines. "The global stem cell and regenerative medicine community will be awaiting the results of this safety trial with much anticipation." Professor Chris Mason, an expert in regenerative medicine at University College London, said UK researchers hope to follow suit and begin trials next year with a stem cell treatment for age-related macular degeneration - a leading cause of blindness.
The cells have the potential to become many of the different cell types found in the body, including nerve cells.The trials at a hospital in Atlanta will check if the treatment is safe.
Geron, a biotech company based in "silicon valley" south of San Francisco, has spent $170m on developing a stem cell treatment for spinal cord injury. The research will use cells coaxed to become nerve cells which are injected into the spinal cord. In animal trials of the treatment, paralysed rats regained some movement. But it is not yet known if it will offer any benefit to people with spinal cord injuries. "This is very exciting news, however, it is very important to appreciate that the objective of trials at this stage is to confirm first of all that no harm is done to patients, rather than to look for benefits”
Professor Sir Ian Wilmut
MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine
Every year around 12,000 people in the US sustain spinal cord injuries. The most common causes are automobile accidents, falls, gunshot wounds and sports injuries. In the trial, patients who have sustained such an injury within the last 14 days will be given the experimental stem cell treatment.
Geron president Dr Thomas Okarma said: "When we started working with human embryonic stem cells in 1999, many predicted that it would be a number of decades before a cell therapy would be approved for human clinical trials. "This accomplishment results from extensive research and development and a succession of inventive steps."
But it will take some time to get the results.
And there are many years of rigorous testing ahead before it can be known if the therapy is safe and effective.
Professor Sir Ian Wilmut, director of the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, said: "This is very exciting news, however, it is very important to appreciate that the objective of trials at this stage is to confirm first of all that no harm is done to patients, rather than to look for benefits. "Once that has been confirmed then the focus moves on to development and assessment of the new treatment."
Ben Sykes, executive director of the UK National Stem Cell Network, said: "This is indeed a significant milestone in our journey towards the promise of stem cell-based medicines. "The global stem cell and regenerative medicine community will be awaiting the results of this safety trial with much anticipation." Professor Chris Mason, an expert in regenerative medicine at University College London, said UK researchers hope to follow suit and begin trials next year with a stem cell treatment for age-related macular degeneration - a leading cause of blindness.
Monday, October 11, 2010
200th Post- New fight against Staph Aureus
Staph bacteria altered to embed foreign molecules-Potential for fighting Staphylococcus aureus infections
A team of researchers at Yale University engineered small molecules to allow them to be recognized by an enzyme responsible for identifying and attaching proteins to the bacterium's cell wall. (iStock)
Scientists have managed to alter the cell wall of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria to "trick" them into accepting small molecules and embedding them.
The development could lead to ways of combating staph infections that can cause pneumonia and a wide range of skin infections. A dangerous antibiotic-resistant form of the bacteria, called methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, currently plagues many hospitals in Canada.MRSA killed approximately 2,300 people in Canada in 2006, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
A team of researchers at Yale University engineered small molecules of biotin, fluorescein and azide to allow them to be recognized by an enzyme in the bacterium. That enzyme, sortase A, is responsible for identifying and attaching proteins to the bacterium's cell wall.
"We sort of tricked the bacteria into incorporating something into its cell wall that it didn't actually make," said David Spiegel, a Yale chemist who led the study, in a release. "It's as if the cell thought the molecules were its own proteins rather than recognizing them as something foreign."
"By being able to manipulate the cell wall, we can in theory perturb the bacteria's ability to interact with human tissues and host cells."
The scientists point out that the bacteria did not have to be genetically modified to accept the foreign molecules, meaning the technique could make fighting Staphylococcus aureus within the body easier.
The study is published in the Oct. 7 issue of the journal ACS Chemical Biology.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/08/bacteria-cell-wall-trick.html?ref=rss&loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r4:c0.0622701:b38157010#ixzz123acJzye
A team of researchers at Yale University engineered small molecules to allow them to be recognized by an enzyme responsible for identifying and attaching proteins to the bacterium's cell wall. (iStock)
Scientists have managed to alter the cell wall of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria to "trick" them into accepting small molecules and embedding them.
The development could lead to ways of combating staph infections that can cause pneumonia and a wide range of skin infections. A dangerous antibiotic-resistant form of the bacteria, called methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, currently plagues many hospitals in Canada.MRSA killed approximately 2,300 people in Canada in 2006, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
A team of researchers at Yale University engineered small molecules of biotin, fluorescein and azide to allow them to be recognized by an enzyme in the bacterium. That enzyme, sortase A, is responsible for identifying and attaching proteins to the bacterium's cell wall.
"We sort of tricked the bacteria into incorporating something into its cell wall that it didn't actually make," said David Spiegel, a Yale chemist who led the study, in a release. "It's as if the cell thought the molecules were its own proteins rather than recognizing them as something foreign."
"By being able to manipulate the cell wall, we can in theory perturb the bacteria's ability to interact with human tissues and host cells."
The scientists point out that the bacteria did not have to be genetically modified to accept the foreign molecules, meaning the technique could make fighting Staphylococcus aureus within the body easier.
The study is published in the Oct. 7 issue of the journal ACS Chemical Biology.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/08/bacteria-cell-wall-trick.html?ref=rss&loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r4:c0.0622701:b38157010#ixzz123acJzye
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
New languages evolve in sudden bursts, study says
New languages often evolve quickly, in a sudden burst of new words coined as groups of people strive to describe the world around them, says an international team of researchers.Scientists debate the evolution of language in a way that parallels arguments in biological evolution. Do most changes come about slowly and gradually or rapidly within relatively short spans of time?To answer this question, the researchers studied sets of basic vocabulary from 490 different languages in Europe, Asia and Africa. Quentin Atkinson from the U.K.'s University of Oxford and colleagues reported their findings in the journal Science.
They used the same kind of computer program biologists use to create family trees to track the appearance of related words and so trace the evolution of new languages from older ones."We compared things like the words for body parts, words about kinship, colours and other basic words," says researcher Simon Greenhill, a PhD candidate from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.The results showed many of the novel words that make up new languages appear in an initial burst over a relatively short period of time.
"We're probably talking generations," said Greenhill, "maybe around 100 years."
Several factors might account for the tendency of new languages to evolve this way, the researchers say. For example, the changes might reflect the need of one emerging group of people to differentiate itself from another.
"Some people might exaggerate the differences between their languages to reinforce their groups," said Greenhill.
In other cases, small groups of people who become isolated might develop new ways of speaking based on the vocal quirks of their founders, he said.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/02/01/tech-language.html#ixzz11aaC5dmX
They used the same kind of computer program biologists use to create family trees to track the appearance of related words and so trace the evolution of new languages from older ones."We compared things like the words for body parts, words about kinship, colours and other basic words," says researcher Simon Greenhill, a PhD candidate from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.The results showed many of the novel words that make up new languages appear in an initial burst over a relatively short period of time.
"We're probably talking generations," said Greenhill, "maybe around 100 years."
Several factors might account for the tendency of new languages to evolve this way, the researchers say. For example, the changes might reflect the need of one emerging group of people to differentiate itself from another.
"Some people might exaggerate the differences between their languages to reinforce their groups," said Greenhill.
In other cases, small groups of people who become isolated might develop new ways of speaking based on the vocal quirks of their founders, he said.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/02/01/tech-language.html#ixzz11aaC5dmX
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Hidden language found in India
A "hidden" language spoken by only about 1,000 people has been discovered in the remote northeast corner of India by researchers who at first thought they were documenting a dialect of the Aka culture, a tribal community in the foothills of the Himalayas. They found an entirely different vocabulary and linguistic structure. Even the speakers of the tongue, called Koro, did not realize they had a distinct language, linguist K. David Harrison said Tuesday.
Culturally, the Koro speakers are part of the Aka community in India's Arunachal Pradesh state, and Harrison, associate professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, said both groups merely considered Koro a dialect of the Aka language.But researchers studying the groups found they used different words for body parts, numbers and other concepts, establishing Koro as a separate language, Harrison said.
"Koro is quite distinct from the Aka language," said Gregory Anderson, director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. "When we went there we were told it was a dialect of Aka, but it is a distant sister language."
People of the Aka culture live in small villages near the borders of China, Tibet and Burma, also known as Myanmar. They practise subsistence hunting, farming and gathering firewood in the forest and tend to wear ornate clothing of hand-woven cloth, favouring red garments. Their languages are not well known, although they were first noted in the 19th century.
Hotspot of diversity
The region where they live in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains requires a special permit to enter. There, the researchers crossed a mountain river on a bamboo raft and climbed steep hillsides to reach the remote villages, going door-to-door among the bamboo houses that sit on stilts.
Harrison and Anderson spoke at a news conference organized by the National Geographic Society, which supported their work. The northeast corner of India is known as a hotspot of language diversity and researchers were documenting some of the unwritten tongues when they came across Koro in research started in 2008.
The timing of their discovery was important.
"We were finding something that was making its exit, was on its way out. And if we had waited 10 years to make the trip, we might not have come across close to the number of speakers we found," said Anderson.
Previously undocumented languages are "noticed from time to time" Harrison said, so such a discovery is not rare. But at the same time, linguists estimate that a language "dies" about every two weeks with the loss of its last speakers. Counting Koro, there are 6,910 documented languages in the world, Harrison said. But he added that is really just a best estimate that can change regularly.
Endangered languages
Many languages around the world are considered endangered, including Koro, he explained, because younger people tend to shift to the more dominant language in a region. Unusually, Koro has been maintained within the Aka community, the researchers said, even though there is intermarriage and the groups share villages, traditions, festivals and food. In addition to the estimated 800 to 1,200 Koro speakers, the West Kameng and East Kameng districts of Arunachal Pradesh contain 4,000 to 6,000 Aka speakers.
The Koro speakers "consider themselves to be Aka tribally, though linguistically they are Koro. It's an unusual condition, such arrangement doesn't usually allow for maintenance of the minor language," Anderson said.
The threat, however, is from the spread of Hindi, a dominant language in India, and many youngsters go to boarding schools where they learn Hindi or English. The researchers said they hope to figure out how the Koro language managed to survive within the Aka community. They said Koro is a member of the Tibeto-Burman language family, a group of some 400 languages that includes Tibetan and Burmese. While Koro differs from Aka, it does share some things with another language, Tani, which is spoken farther to the east. The research was started in 2008 to document two little known languages, Aka and Miji, and the third language, Koro, was discovered in that process.
'Different in every possible way'
"We didn't have to get far on our word list to realize it was extremely different in every possible way," Harrison said. They said Koro's inventory of sounds was completely different, and so was the way sounds combine to form words. Words also are built differently in Koro, as are sentences.The Aka word for "mountain" is "phu," while the Koro word is "nggo." Aka speakers call a pig a "vo" while to Koro speakers, a pig is a "lele." "Koro could hardly sound more different from Aka," reported Harrison, author of a new book The Last Speakers, about vanishing languages. Joining the two was linguist Ganesh Murmu of Ranchi University in India.
The researchers detail Koro in a scientific paper to be published in the journal Indian Linguistics.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/06/tech-hidden-language.html#ixzz11aZzfT19
Culturally, the Koro speakers are part of the Aka community in India's Arunachal Pradesh state, and Harrison, associate professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, said both groups merely considered Koro a dialect of the Aka language.But researchers studying the groups found they used different words for body parts, numbers and other concepts, establishing Koro as a separate language, Harrison said.
"Koro is quite distinct from the Aka language," said Gregory Anderson, director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. "When we went there we were told it was a dialect of Aka, but it is a distant sister language."
People of the Aka culture live in small villages near the borders of China, Tibet and Burma, also known as Myanmar. They practise subsistence hunting, farming and gathering firewood in the forest and tend to wear ornate clothing of hand-woven cloth, favouring red garments. Their languages are not well known, although they were first noted in the 19th century.
Hotspot of diversity
The region where they live in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains requires a special permit to enter. There, the researchers crossed a mountain river on a bamboo raft and climbed steep hillsides to reach the remote villages, going door-to-door among the bamboo houses that sit on stilts.
Harrison and Anderson spoke at a news conference organized by the National Geographic Society, which supported their work. The northeast corner of India is known as a hotspot of language diversity and researchers were documenting some of the unwritten tongues when they came across Koro in research started in 2008.
The timing of their discovery was important.
"We were finding something that was making its exit, was on its way out. And if we had waited 10 years to make the trip, we might not have come across close to the number of speakers we found," said Anderson.
Previously undocumented languages are "noticed from time to time" Harrison said, so such a discovery is not rare. But at the same time, linguists estimate that a language "dies" about every two weeks with the loss of its last speakers. Counting Koro, there are 6,910 documented languages in the world, Harrison said. But he added that is really just a best estimate that can change regularly.
Endangered languages
Many languages around the world are considered endangered, including Koro, he explained, because younger people tend to shift to the more dominant language in a region. Unusually, Koro has been maintained within the Aka community, the researchers said, even though there is intermarriage and the groups share villages, traditions, festivals and food. In addition to the estimated 800 to 1,200 Koro speakers, the West Kameng and East Kameng districts of Arunachal Pradesh contain 4,000 to 6,000 Aka speakers.
The Koro speakers "consider themselves to be Aka tribally, though linguistically they are Koro. It's an unusual condition, such arrangement doesn't usually allow for maintenance of the minor language," Anderson said.
The threat, however, is from the spread of Hindi, a dominant language in India, and many youngsters go to boarding schools where they learn Hindi or English. The researchers said they hope to figure out how the Koro language managed to survive within the Aka community. They said Koro is a member of the Tibeto-Burman language family, a group of some 400 languages that includes Tibetan and Burmese. While Koro differs from Aka, it does share some things with another language, Tani, which is spoken farther to the east. The research was started in 2008 to document two little known languages, Aka and Miji, and the third language, Koro, was discovered in that process.
'Different in every possible way'
"We didn't have to get far on our word list to realize it was extremely different in every possible way," Harrison said. They said Koro's inventory of sounds was completely different, and so was the way sounds combine to form words. Words also are built differently in Koro, as are sentences.The Aka word for "mountain" is "phu," while the Koro word is "nggo." Aka speakers call a pig a "vo" while to Koro speakers, a pig is a "lele." "Koro could hardly sound more different from Aka," reported Harrison, author of a new book The Last Speakers, about vanishing languages. Joining the two was linguist Ganesh Murmu of Ranchi University in India.
The researchers detail Koro in a scientific paper to be published in the journal Indian Linguistics.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/06/tech-hidden-language.html#ixzz11aZzfT19
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
More Ig Nobel Prize winners
The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
The 2010 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday night, September 30, at the 20th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre. The ceremony was webcast live. Video will be posted soon.
ENGINEERING PRIZE: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
REFERENCE: "A Novel Non-Invasive Tool for Disease Surveillance of Free-Ranging Whales and Its Relevance to Conservation Programs," Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin and Diane Gendron, Animal Conservation, vol. 13, no. 2, April 2010, pp. 217-25.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin, Diane Gendron
MEDICINE PRIZE: Simon Rietveld of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Ilja van Beest of Tilburg University, The Netherlands, for discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride.
REFERENCE: "Rollercoaster Asthma: When Positive Emotional Stress Interferes with Dyspnea Perception," Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest, Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol. 45, 2006, pp. 977–87.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest
TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PRIZE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi of Japan, and Dan Bebber, Mark Fricker of the UK, for using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.
REFERENCE: "Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design," Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Dan P. Bebber, Mark D. Fricker, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi, Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Science, Vol. 327. no. 5964, January 22, 2010, pp. 439-42.
[NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ARE CO-WINNERS BOTH THIS YEAR AND IN 2008 when they were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for demonstrating that slime molds can solve puzzles: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero]
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Kentaro Ito, Atsushi Tero, Mark Fricker, Dan Bebber
PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
REFERENCE: "Preventing Winter Falls: A Randomised Controlled Trial of a Novel Intervention," Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest, New Zealand Medical Journal. vol. 122, no, 1298, July 3, 2009, pp. 31-8.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Lianne Parkin
PEACE PRIZE: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
REFERENCE: "Swearing as a Response to Pain," Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston, Neuroreport, vol. 20 , no. 12, 2009, pp. 1056-60.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Richard Stephens
PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Manuel Barbeito, Charles Mathews, and Larry Taylor of the Industrial Health and Safety Office, Fort Detrick, Maryland, USA, for determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists.
REFERENCE: "Microbiological Laboratory Hazard of Bearded Men," Manuel S. Barbeito, Charles T. Mathews, and Larry A. Taylor, Applied Microbiology, vol. 15, no. 4, July 1967, pp. 899–906.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Manuel S. Barbeito was unable to travel, due to health reasons. A representative read his acceptance speech for him.
ECONOMICS PRIZE: The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Eric Adams of MIT, Scott Socolofsky of Texas A&M University, Stephen Masutani of the University of Hawaii, and BP [British Petroleum], for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix.
REFERENCE: "Review of Deep Oil Spill Modeling Activity Supported by the Deep Spill JIP and Offshore Operator’s Committee. Final Report," Eric Adams and Scott Socolofsky, 2005.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Eric Adams, Scott Socolofsky, and Stephen Masutani
MANAGEMENT PRIZE: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
REFERENCE: “The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study,” Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo, Physica A, vol. 389, no. 3, February 2010, pp. 467-72.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo.
BIOLOGY PRIZE: Libiao Zhang, Min Tan, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, and Shuyi Zhang of China, and Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol, UK, for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats.
REFERENCE: "Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time," Min Tan, Gareth Jones, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, Shuyi Zhang and Libiao Zhang, PLoS ONE, vol. 4, no. 10, e7595.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Gareth Jones
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The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
The 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday night, October 1, at the 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre. You can watch archived video of the ceremony.
VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
REFERENCE: "Exploring Stock Managers' Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production," Catherine Bertenshaw [Douglas] and Peter Rowlinson, Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009, pp. 59-69. DOI: 10.2752/175303708X390473.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Peter Rowlinson. Catherine Douglas was unable to travel because she recently gave birth; she sent a photo of herself, her new daughter dressed in a cow suit, and a cow.
PEACE PRIZE: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.
REFERENCE: "Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?" Stephan A. Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael J. Thali and Beat P. Kneubuehl, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, vol. 16, no. 3, April 2009, pp. 138-42. DOI:10.1016/j.jflm.2008.07.013.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Stephan Bolliger
ECONOMICS PRIZE: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.
REFERENCE: Report of the Special Investigation Commission, issued April 12, 2010.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.
REFERENCE: "Growth of Diamond Films from Tequila," Javier Morales, Miguel Apatiga and Victor M. Castano, 2008, arXiv:0806.1485. Also published as Reviews on Advanced Materials Science, vol. 22, no. 1, 2009, pp. 134-8.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Javier Morales and Miguel Apátiga
MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.
REFERENCE: "Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?", Donald L. Unger, Arthritis and Rheumatism, vol. 41, no. 5, 1998, pp. 949-50.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Donald Unger
PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.
REFERENCE: "Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins," Katherine K. Whitcome, Liza J. Shapiro & Daniel E. Lieberman, Nature, vol. 450, 1075-1078 (December 13, 2007). DOI:10.1038/nature06342.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Katherine Whitcome and Daniel Lieberman
LITERATURE PRIZE: Ireland's police service (An Garda Siochana), for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means "Driving License".
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: [Karolina Lewestam, a Polish citizen and holder of a Polish driver's license, speaking on behalf of all her fellow Polish licensed drivers, expressed her good wishes to the Irish police service.]
PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
REFERENCE: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Elena Bodnar.
MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).
REFERENCE: Zimbabwe's Casino Economy — Extraordinary Measures for Extraordinary Challenges, Gideon Gono, ZPH Publishers, Harare, 2008, ISBN 978-079-743-679-4.
BIOLOGY PRIZE: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.
REFERENCE: "Microbial Treatment of Kitchen Refuse With Enzyme-Producing Thermophilic Bacteria From Giant Panda Feces," Fumiaki Taguchia, Song Guofua, and Zhang Guanglei, Seibutsu-kogaku Kaishi, vol. 79, no 12, 2001, pp. 463-9. [and abstracted in Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering, vol. 92, no. 6, 2001, p. 602.]
REFERENCE: "Microbial Treatment of Food-Production Waste with Thermopile Enzyme-Producing Bacterial Flora from a Giant Panda" [in Japanese], Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, Yasunori Sugai, Hiroyasu Kudo and Akira Koikeda, Journal of the Japan Society of Waste Management Experts, vol. 14, no. 2, 2003, pp. , 76-82.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Fumiaki Taguchi
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The 2008 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday night, October 2, at the 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre. You can watch archived video of the ceremony.
NUTRITION PRIZE. Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is.
REFERENCE: "TheRole of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness ofPotato Chips," Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence,Journal of Sensory Studies, vol. 19, October 2004, pp. 347-63.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Massimiliano Zampini. unable to attend the ceremony, was presented with the prize at a special ceremony, later in the month, at the Genoa Science Festival.
PEACE PRIZE. The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH) and the citizens of Switzerland for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.
REFERENCE: "The Dignity of Living Beings With Regard to Plants. Moral Consideration of Plants for Their Own Sake"
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Urs Thurnherr, member of the committee.
ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE. Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino of Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, for measuring how the course of history, or at least the contents of an archaeological dig site, can be scrambled by the actions of a live armadillo.
REFERENCE: "The Role of Armadillos in the Movement of Archaeological Materials: An Experimental Approach," Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino, Geoarchaeology, vol. 18, no. 4, April 2003, pp. 433-60.
BIOLOGY PRIZE. Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc of Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse, France for discovering that the fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than the fleas that live on a cat.
REFERENCE: "A Comparison of Jump Performances of the Dog Flea, Ctenocephalides canis (Curtis, 1826) and the Cat Flea, Ctenocephalides felis felis (Bouche, 1835)," M.C. Cadiergues, C. Joubert, and M. Franc, Veterinary Parasitology, vol. 92, no. 3, October 1, 2000, pp. 239-41.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Marie-Christine Cadiergues and Christel Joubert, unable to attend the ceremony, were presented with the prize at a special ceremony, later in the month, at the Genoa Science Festival.
MEDICINE PRIZE. Dan Ariely of Duke University (USA), Rebecca L. Waber of MIT (USA), Baba Shiv of Stanford University (USA), and Ziv Carmon of INSEAD (Singapore) for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine..
REFERENCE: "Commercial Features of Placebo and Therapeutic Efficacy," Rebecca L. Waber; Baba Shiv; Ziv Carmon; Dan Ariely, Journal of the American Medical Association, March 5, 2008; 299: 1016-1017.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Dan Ariely
COGNITIVE SCIENCE PRIZE. Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University, Japan, Hiroyasu Yamada of Nagoya, Japan, Ryo Kobayashi of Hiroshima University, Atsushi Tero of Presto JST, Akio Ishiguro of Tohoku University, and Ágotá Tóth of the University of Szeged, Hungary, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.
REFERENCE: "Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism," Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, and Ágota Tóth, Nature, vol. 407, September 2000, p. 470.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero
ECONOMICS PRIZE. Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico, USA, for discovering that professional lap dancers earn higher tips when they are ovulating.
REFERENCE: "Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?" Geoffrey Miller, Joshua M. Tybur, Brent D. Jordan, Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 28, 2007, pp. 375-81.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Geoffrey Miller and Brent Jordan
PHYSICS PRIZE. Dorian Raymer of the Ocean Observatories Initiative at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA, and Douglas Smith of the University of California, San Diego, USA, for proving mathematically that heaps of string or hair or almost anything else will inevitably tangle themselves up in knots.
REFERENCE: "Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String," Dorian M. Raymer and Douglas E. Smith, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, no. 42, October 16, 2007, pp. 16432-7.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Dorian Raymer
CHEMISTRY PRIZE. Sharee A. Umpierre of the University of Puerto Rico, Joseph A. Hill of The Fertility Centers of New England (USA), Deborah J. Anderson of Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School (USA), for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and to Chuang-Ye Hong of Taipei Medical University (Taiwan), C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang (all of Taiwan) for discovering that it is not.
REFERENCE: "Effect of 'Coke' on Sperm Motility," Sharee A. Umpierre, Joseph A. Hill, and Deborah J. Anderson, New England Journal of Medicine, 1985, vol. 313, no. 21, p. 1351.
REFERENCE: "The Spermicidal Potency of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola," C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang, Human Toxicology, vol. 6, no. 5, September 1987, pp. 395-6. [NOTE: THE JOURNAL LATER CHANGED ITS NAME. NOW CALLED "Human & experimental toxicology"]
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Deborah Anderson, and C.Y. Hong's daughter Wan Hong
LITERATURE PRIZE. David Sims of Cass Business School. London, UK, for his lovingly written study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations."
REFERENCE: "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations," David Sims, Organization Studies, vol. 26, no. 11, 2005, pp. 1625
The 2010 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday night, September 30, at the 20th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre. The ceremony was webcast live. Video will be posted soon.
ENGINEERING PRIZE: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
REFERENCE: "A Novel Non-Invasive Tool for Disease Surveillance of Free-Ranging Whales and Its Relevance to Conservation Programs," Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin and Diane Gendron, Animal Conservation, vol. 13, no. 2, April 2010, pp. 217-25.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin, Diane Gendron
MEDICINE PRIZE: Simon Rietveld of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Ilja van Beest of Tilburg University, The Netherlands, for discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride.
REFERENCE: "Rollercoaster Asthma: When Positive Emotional Stress Interferes with Dyspnea Perception," Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest, Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol. 45, 2006, pp. 977–87.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest
TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PRIZE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi of Japan, and Dan Bebber, Mark Fricker of the UK, for using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.
REFERENCE: "Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design," Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Dan P. Bebber, Mark D. Fricker, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi, Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Science, Vol. 327. no. 5964, January 22, 2010, pp. 439-42.
[NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ARE CO-WINNERS BOTH THIS YEAR AND IN 2008 when they were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for demonstrating that slime molds can solve puzzles: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero]
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Kentaro Ito, Atsushi Tero, Mark Fricker, Dan Bebber
PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
REFERENCE: "Preventing Winter Falls: A Randomised Controlled Trial of a Novel Intervention," Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest, New Zealand Medical Journal. vol. 122, no, 1298, July 3, 2009, pp. 31-8.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Lianne Parkin
PEACE PRIZE: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
REFERENCE: "Swearing as a Response to Pain," Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston, Neuroreport, vol. 20 , no. 12, 2009, pp. 1056-60.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Richard Stephens
PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Manuel Barbeito, Charles Mathews, and Larry Taylor of the Industrial Health and Safety Office, Fort Detrick, Maryland, USA, for determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists.
REFERENCE: "Microbiological Laboratory Hazard of Bearded Men," Manuel S. Barbeito, Charles T. Mathews, and Larry A. Taylor, Applied Microbiology, vol. 15, no. 4, July 1967, pp. 899–906.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Manuel S. Barbeito was unable to travel, due to health reasons. A representative read his acceptance speech for him.
ECONOMICS PRIZE: The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Eric Adams of MIT, Scott Socolofsky of Texas A&M University, Stephen Masutani of the University of Hawaii, and BP [British Petroleum], for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix.
REFERENCE: "Review of Deep Oil Spill Modeling Activity Supported by the Deep Spill JIP and Offshore Operator’s Committee. Final Report," Eric Adams and Scott Socolofsky, 2005.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Eric Adams, Scott Socolofsky, and Stephen Masutani
MANAGEMENT PRIZE: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
REFERENCE: “The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study,” Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo, Physica A, vol. 389, no. 3, February 2010, pp. 467-72.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo.
BIOLOGY PRIZE: Libiao Zhang, Min Tan, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, and Shuyi Zhang of China, and Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol, UK, for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats.
REFERENCE: "Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time," Min Tan, Gareth Jones, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, Shuyi Zhang and Libiao Zhang, PLoS ONE, vol. 4, no. 10, e7595.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Gareth Jones
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
The 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday night, October 1, at the 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre. You can watch archived video of the ceremony.
VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
REFERENCE: "Exploring Stock Managers' Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production," Catherine Bertenshaw [Douglas] and Peter Rowlinson, Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009, pp. 59-69. DOI: 10.2752/175303708X390473.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Peter Rowlinson. Catherine Douglas was unable to travel because she recently gave birth; she sent a photo of herself, her new daughter dressed in a cow suit, and a cow.
PEACE PRIZE: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.
REFERENCE: "Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?" Stephan A. Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael J. Thali and Beat P. Kneubuehl, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, vol. 16, no. 3, April 2009, pp. 138-42. DOI:10.1016/j.jflm.2008.07.013.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Stephan Bolliger
ECONOMICS PRIZE: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.
REFERENCE: Report of the Special Investigation Commission, issued April 12, 2010.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.
REFERENCE: "Growth of Diamond Films from Tequila," Javier Morales, Miguel Apatiga and Victor M. Castano, 2008, arXiv:0806.1485. Also published as Reviews on Advanced Materials Science, vol. 22, no. 1, 2009, pp. 134-8.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Javier Morales and Miguel Apátiga
MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.
REFERENCE: "Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?", Donald L. Unger, Arthritis and Rheumatism, vol. 41, no. 5, 1998, pp. 949-50.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Donald Unger
PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.
REFERENCE: "Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins," Katherine K. Whitcome, Liza J. Shapiro & Daniel E. Lieberman, Nature, vol. 450, 1075-1078 (December 13, 2007). DOI:10.1038/nature06342.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Katherine Whitcome and Daniel Lieberman
LITERATURE PRIZE: Ireland's police service (An Garda Siochana), for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means "Driving License".
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: [Karolina Lewestam, a Polish citizen and holder of a Polish driver's license, speaking on behalf of all her fellow Polish licensed drivers, expressed her good wishes to the Irish police service.]
PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
REFERENCE: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Elena Bodnar.
MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).
REFERENCE: Zimbabwe's Casino Economy — Extraordinary Measures for Extraordinary Challenges, Gideon Gono, ZPH Publishers, Harare, 2008, ISBN 978-079-743-679-4.
BIOLOGY PRIZE: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.
REFERENCE: "Microbial Treatment of Kitchen Refuse With Enzyme-Producing Thermophilic Bacteria From Giant Panda Feces," Fumiaki Taguchia, Song Guofua, and Zhang Guanglei, Seibutsu-kogaku Kaishi, vol. 79, no 12, 2001, pp. 463-9. [and abstracted in Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering, vol. 92, no. 6, 2001, p. 602.]
REFERENCE: "Microbial Treatment of Food-Production Waste with Thermopile Enzyme-Producing Bacterial Flora from a Giant Panda" [in Japanese], Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, Yasunori Sugai, Hiroyasu Kudo and Akira Koikeda, Journal of the Japan Society of Waste Management Experts, vol. 14, no. 2, 2003, pp. , 76-82.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Fumiaki Taguchi
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The 2008 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday night, October 2, at the 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre. You can watch archived video of the ceremony.
NUTRITION PRIZE. Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is.
REFERENCE: "TheRole of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness ofPotato Chips," Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence,Journal of Sensory Studies, vol. 19, October 2004, pp. 347-63.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Massimiliano Zampini. unable to attend the ceremony, was presented with the prize at a special ceremony, later in the month, at the Genoa Science Festival.
PEACE PRIZE. The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH) and the citizens of Switzerland for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.
REFERENCE: "The Dignity of Living Beings With Regard to Plants. Moral Consideration of Plants for Their Own Sake"
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Urs Thurnherr, member of the committee.
ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE. Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino of Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, for measuring how the course of history, or at least the contents of an archaeological dig site, can be scrambled by the actions of a live armadillo.
REFERENCE: "The Role of Armadillos in the Movement of Archaeological Materials: An Experimental Approach," Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino, Geoarchaeology, vol. 18, no. 4, April 2003, pp. 433-60.
BIOLOGY PRIZE. Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc of Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse, France for discovering that the fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than the fleas that live on a cat.
REFERENCE: "A Comparison of Jump Performances of the Dog Flea, Ctenocephalides canis (Curtis, 1826) and the Cat Flea, Ctenocephalides felis felis (Bouche, 1835)," M.C. Cadiergues, C. Joubert, and M. Franc, Veterinary Parasitology, vol. 92, no. 3, October 1, 2000, pp. 239-41.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Marie-Christine Cadiergues and Christel Joubert, unable to attend the ceremony, were presented with the prize at a special ceremony, later in the month, at the Genoa Science Festival.
MEDICINE PRIZE. Dan Ariely of Duke University (USA), Rebecca L. Waber of MIT (USA), Baba Shiv of Stanford University (USA), and Ziv Carmon of INSEAD (Singapore) for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine..
REFERENCE: "Commercial Features of Placebo and Therapeutic Efficacy," Rebecca L. Waber; Baba Shiv; Ziv Carmon; Dan Ariely, Journal of the American Medical Association, March 5, 2008; 299: 1016-1017.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Dan Ariely
COGNITIVE SCIENCE PRIZE. Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University, Japan, Hiroyasu Yamada of Nagoya, Japan, Ryo Kobayashi of Hiroshima University, Atsushi Tero of Presto JST, Akio Ishiguro of Tohoku University, and Ágotá Tóth of the University of Szeged, Hungary, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.
REFERENCE: "Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism," Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, and Ágota Tóth, Nature, vol. 407, September 2000, p. 470.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero
ECONOMICS PRIZE. Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico, USA, for discovering that professional lap dancers earn higher tips when they are ovulating.
REFERENCE: "Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?" Geoffrey Miller, Joshua M. Tybur, Brent D. Jordan, Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 28, 2007, pp. 375-81.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Geoffrey Miller and Brent Jordan
PHYSICS PRIZE. Dorian Raymer of the Ocean Observatories Initiative at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA, and Douglas Smith of the University of California, San Diego, USA, for proving mathematically that heaps of string or hair or almost anything else will inevitably tangle themselves up in knots.
REFERENCE: "Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String," Dorian M. Raymer and Douglas E. Smith, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, no. 42, October 16, 2007, pp. 16432-7.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Dorian Raymer
CHEMISTRY PRIZE. Sharee A. Umpierre of the University of Puerto Rico, Joseph A. Hill of The Fertility Centers of New England (USA), Deborah J. Anderson of Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School (USA), for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and to Chuang-Ye Hong of Taipei Medical University (Taiwan), C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang (all of Taiwan) for discovering that it is not.
REFERENCE: "Effect of 'Coke' on Sperm Motility," Sharee A. Umpierre, Joseph A. Hill, and Deborah J. Anderson, New England Journal of Medicine, 1985, vol. 313, no. 21, p. 1351.
REFERENCE: "The Spermicidal Potency of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola," C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang, Human Toxicology, vol. 6, no. 5, September 1987, pp. 395-6. [NOTE: THE JOURNAL LATER CHANGED ITS NAME. NOW CALLED "Human & experimental toxicology"]
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Deborah Anderson, and C.Y. Hong's daughter Wan Hong
LITERATURE PRIZE. David Sims of Cass Business School. London, UK, for his lovingly written study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations."
REFERENCE: "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations," David Sims, Organization Studies, vol. 26, no. 11, 2005, pp. 1625
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