Zark's

Growing Hedonism

I spend considerable time on the web; searching for material for this blog and my novels.  Something that alarms me is the decline of civility.  A typical pattern is that someone will flame the author or previous comments of a web article.  (I am surprised that some even know the author's mother.)  Then more flaming comments appear.  I unsuccessfully performed a web search on this topic, and could not find anything scholarly to reference.  Yes, I too, wonder whether there is a correlation with the decline of civility and the development of talk radio and 24 hour news channels.

One of my pleasures is reading the biographies of former U.S. presidents.  There have been some like Truman and Nixon that could not tolerate disagreement.  Others seemed to enjoy debate and not assume an opposing view was a personal attack.  Our culture today is very polarized - the venom spewed in defense of a particular perspective is alarming.  In a sense, this is sort of hedonistic - we become the center of the universe and of course, we own the correct perspective in everything.  (I discovered some of the expected titillating web hits in a search of hedonism in the news.)

The problem seems to be a Gordian Knot.  All of us have attempted to negotiate with someone who was opposed to negotiation.  Unless we oppose vitriol, it will overtake us.  It does not mean that we should respond in same, but it does not mean that we fold in our opinions or perspective.  The world is becoming too crowded for us not to be able to appreciate or at least live with, disagreement.

Modern Medicine Reintroduces Larvae

Insurance companies may soon cover maggot therapy tells that the ancient Romans would put maggots (larvae) on infected wounds.  Wiki tells that it works in three ways: a) by eating or dissolving only necrotic, infected tissue, b) disinfecting the wound by killing bacteria, and c) stimulating wound healing.  Maggots were used routinely in medicine until the mid-40s when the first antibiotics became available.  We know today that maggot secretions contain enzymes exhibiting antimicrobial activity.

Today there are antibiotic-resistant bacteria and sometimes wounds too large for traditional dressings.  For such situations, some docs are returning to the old cure.  Maggots destroy a wide range of bacteria, including MSRA group A and B.

Maggots make comeback in medicine tells that green bottle fly larvae are used which only eat dead tissue.  The brand name is Medical Maggots, (do you think they could use some marketing assistance?) sold by Monarch Labs in Irvine, CA.  The company's website explains that the larvae are produced daily from fresh eggs and must be used within 24 hours of delivery.  

The larvae are deposited within a cage-like dressing over the womb or a membrane pack.  The larvae must have oxygen to live and must be removed in about two days as they become satiated and attempt to leave the wound.  Recall the life cycle is eggs, larva, pupa, adult blow fly.

Eeech.  Sounds creepy doesn't it?  Nonetheless, it would be better to have something contained and nibbling on your flesh than taking some of today's new antibiotics that have some horrific adverse drug reactions.

Bringing Down the Cost of Algae

The science project that most piqued my father was when I was trying to discover a yeast that would digest used motor oil.  The garage was a mess with open milk cartons of oil and I am not sure I ever had a single yeast cell do anything but die once it contacted the motor oil.

Fast-forward to today, and entrepreneurs are trying to find algae that can produce oil.  Actually, they want algae to first convert the CO2 from a coal-powered, belching, electrical generation plant into oxygen and biomass.  In principal, that is what algae do - they convert CO2 into oxygen and biomass through photosynthesis.  However, in our eco-sphere they convert the CO2 produced in small quantities from human carbon units, not 1.5 MW electrical plants.  From an engineering perspective, it would seem that the biggest problem is efficiently circulating the CO2 through the algae.  A better algae might help, but somehow you have to bubble that CO2 quickly and efficiently through the algae tank.  If you are curious, algae are about 7-10 times faster than trees with photosynthesis. 

Can Solix cut the cost of making algae by 90% explores the engineering aspect of converting a power plant's green house gases into oxygen.  A Durango, CO, company claims it has invented the better bubbler and decreased the cost of the algae converters.  As you would expect, they have increased the surface area exposed to the sun for increased photosynthesis.  However, energy enthusiasts need to lower their expectations.  Solix estimates that with desert-like conditions, it can produce 1500 gallons of oil per year for each acre of bioreactors.  It also estimated that an average coal plant would require almost 12 square miles of bioreactors (7500 acres).

Algae blooms: A new source of energy? tells that algae grow incredibly fast compared to other plants.  As a reference, think about mowing your lawn three times a day.  But, the article describes some of the problems that need to be solved.  Algae can produce toxic blooms that could devastating in open-system bioreactors.  Growing of algae takes considerable energy.

Marine algae try alternative lifestyle that a unique group of of blue-green marine algae can convert nitrogen in the air into solid nitrogent fertilizer.  Until recently, it was believed this process only occurred at night.  Scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have discovered an algae that can perform this nitrogen conversion in the presence of sunlight.

Mmm.  Perhaps it is viable, but it seems to we need an order-of-magnitude improvement in the technology to be practical.  That is true for most of alternative energy technology.  I remember the chief technologist for General Motors pointing to the 1400 pound battery of the Volt automobile and advising reporters it is only the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline.  We are going to need discipline to develop the technologies, something we have lacked for decades.

Cybercrime in the Underground Economy

Symantec has just released an internet security report on the underground economy, which you can download here.  The primary vehicle for communication in the underground economy is the internet relay chat (IRC).  Underground IRCs are typically accessed with a client application and then redirected to a specific channel.  They basically resemble AIM and Microsoft Messenger, but with far more primitive interfaces.  The underground IRC servers have an average lifespan of 10 days before changing venue. 

(If you use Wikipedia frequently as I, you have probably been frustrated in attempting to get the search terms correct.  I have found using powerset.com as a front end for Wiki increases my productivity.  Just navigate to powerset and type your search term in their window.)

Representing 70% of the goods and services available on the underground servers are: a) credit card information, b) financial accounts, and c) spam and phishing information.  Credit cards are typically sold in bulk, whereas the financial accounts allow criminals to withdraw currency directly.  Credit cards sell for a range of $.50 to $12 whereas bank account credentials sell for $10 to $1,000.  

Also for sale are attack tools.  Botnets sell for about $225 and Autorooters sell for $70.  The botnets include a network of compromised computers.  For example, a botnet might include a network of 2,000 infected computers that can provide an almost immediate return on investment.  Autorooters are automated tools that can scan for vulnerable computers.  Scam pages sell for $2 to $50 and mimic a legitimate website for the purpose of phishing.  In a 1 year period, Symantec observed 69,130 distinct advertisers on underground economy servers.

41% of the underground economy servers are in the U.S.  13% in Romania, and 11% in Germany.  It appears that most North America operations are independent, but the European/Asian activities much more organized. 

The 2025 Global Landscape

The National Intelligence Council has released a new report that you can download,  Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World.  If you were to time travel someone from 1960 to 2025, they would think they were on a different planet.  Not because of technology, but because people have changed.  The nations, corporations, institutions (such as churches) that existed following the Second World War II will have completely different names, cultures, and allegiances. 

Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRICs) will soon match the traditional Western governments in GDP.  As a result of 1.4 billion additional people by 2025, the demand for food will rise by 50%.  Fresh water will be scarce.

Two correlated key uncertainties are energy and climate change.  Will the world transition to different energy sources or face wars for petroleum?  Will China choke the planet's atmosphere with coal?  What will be the agricultural impact caused by increased temperatures and CO2 levels?  China already exceeds the U.S. in CO2 emissions, despite a smaller GDP. 

Information and technology became portable in the 90s because of the internet.  As we have recently witnessed, finance and wealth have become portable in this decade.  As a consequence, internationalism and globalism will increase.  As a consequence, the United States government will have a diminished global role as China and Russia increase in influence.  Europe's global influence will suffer a significant decline.  Politics will no longer be local.

There will be shortages of everything from water, food, uranium, etc.  Well, not CO2, and also hurricanes.  But no shortage of opportunity.  A dated (1967), but great movie, The Graduate, has Mr. McGuire advising Benjamin, "I just want to say one word to you - just one word."  Then, he advised, "Plastics".  Today, it would be "Energy."

Worrying About Something Other Than Financial Chaos

We needed this - just when we are tired of hearing countless bad news about global financial markets, we learn New type of Ebola virus discovered.  Bundibugyo ebolavirus is 30% genetically different from previously known strains of the virus.  It is named after the district in Uganda where it first appeared.  Over 1 of three infected died from the disease, earning it the distinction of 'slate-wiper' because of the lethality.  More details about the genetic mapping are found in the PLoS Pathogens research article.

New strain of deadly Ebola virus discovered tells that Ebola causes haemorrhagic fever.  Symptoms are similar to yellow fever, with the patient bleeding underneath the skin as the disease progresses.  Zaire ebolavirus is the most lethal, with a 80-90 percent death rate.  The Zaire host is the fruitbat, with the host for the other three strains unknown.

Winnpeg scientists offer explanation for sporadic nature of Ebola outbreaks tells that scientists theorize most of the time the disease lives peacefully in the host like a chronic infection.  An external stress such as climate change, chemicals, or even pregnancy could cause the viral infection to soar, with the host then shedding the virus to the world.  Herpes and chickenpox can exhibit this behavior in humans.  The theory is that perhaps the host of the Zaire Ebola is a female bat and is pregnant twice a year, causing the very sporadic dispersal of the disease.  That would explain why it has been impossible to identify a specific host.

Although a vaccine is currently unavailable, Germantown biotech firm developing Ebola vaccine explains that Integrated BioTherapeutics Inc has received a contract for developing a vaccine from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Hot - from the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.  Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World.  (And you thought Ebola was scary.)  Download a copy and I will write more about the predictions tomorrow.  (Much is similar to my upcoming novel, Butterflies Escape.)

Dark Energy Fills a Space

Sheesh.  I can remember when the only forms of energy were static and kinetic.  Now NASA is soliciting development for a dark energy mission.  If you are a bit hazy about dark energy, you are in good company.  As told in NASA and DOE developing the first space-based dark energy observatory, "Understanding the nature of dark energy is the biggest challenge in physics and astronomy today."  

Tackling the big questions -- approaching a revolution in our understanding of gravity explains that the rotational curves of galaxies cannot be explained by Einstein's General Theories of Relativity without assuming assuming existence of dark matter.  Vacuum energy is the energy left over when all the matter of the universe is removed.  Existing theory is that it should be large, but experimental data shows it to be small.

Wiki tells that dark energy was first coined by Michael Turner in 1998.  It also explains that dark energy is the "cost of having space".  Astronomers have determined that the universe is expanding, and that expansion is accelerating.  Dark energy is necessary to balance the geometry of space with the total amount of matter in the universe.  The idea is there must be a large quantity of dark energy with negative pressure to counteract gravity.  Actually, it is overpowering gravity in order to have an accelerating expansion.  Current speculation is that the universe is 74% dark energy, 22% dark matter, and just 4% ordinary matter.

Dark energy does not interact with any other forms of energy other than gravity.  However, New theories may shed light on dark matter tells that there may be unknown forces in dark matter.  

I don't know - I have never been a fan of speculative physics.  I prefer the simplicity and elegance of mathematics.

Standing Down a Navy

I have been intrigued by Australia ever since elementary school when I learned of koalas, kangaroos, and vegemite sandwiches.  Okay, I learned the latter from Men At Work's 1981 hit, Down Under.  Australia is also an important story thread in my second novel, Butterflies Escape, which I hope to publish on Kindle by Christmas.

Australia navy to get 62-day Christmas leave tells that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) cannot get enough sailors to operate its submarines and ships.  The navy is suffering a 10% personnel turnover, and has a current 27% recruitment shortfall.  The Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, believes that giving a Christmas holiday from 3 December to 3 February will give the navy a better image.  During the stand-down, the ships will have a skeleton crew for maintenance and security.

The reason for the personnel shortage is the attraction of higher-paying mining jobs in the Australian outback.  Australia unemployment rate holds steady at 4.3% explains why the navy is having difficulty filling its submarines - it can only staff three of six at the present time.  The Australian economy is facing the same global winds as North America and Europe, as financial services and factories have shed workers.  The real strength though, comes from the export of raw materials. 

Perhaps the Australian problem is simply competition from the mines, but the history of raw material export economies is not good.  (I will save the service-oriented economies for a future posting.)  Australia is a little different because typically there is a much higher unemployment rate with most raw material export economies.  Still, I am a little concerned for our friends down under.  Standing down a navy seems bizarre.

The Death of a Product

I have lots of computers in my household, so only a few years ago it cost me a bundle to maintain antivirus subscriptions on all my platforms.  As described in How Live OneCare changed the antivirus landscape, Microsoft introduced a new product that challenged Symantec's and McAfee's dominance with a price of only $49.95 for three computers.  OneCare would be much more than just antivirus - it would perform diagnostics and needed system maintenance such as repairing the Windows registry.  It sounded great - who but Microsoft would know better how to perform diagnostics and updates to my computer?  And it broke a lock on Symantec's ownership of the market. 

Alas, the product was 'not ready for prime time' as I told a service representative a couple of weeks after initial installation.  To give Microsoft credit, they had dedicated product support.  The only problem was the OneCare product was not very good and just two days after a support session, it would no longer live update.  In addition, reports started coming out that the product was not catching all the internet crud it should.  It was not very long before I was calling Symantec for help on removing the tentacles of OneCare and installing a new Symantec product.

Still, OneCare had an impact.  Both Symantec and McAfee had to respond to the Microsoft product and introduced new offerings with a much lower-priced 'three-pack' pricing.  As time went on, OneCare also began performing better in the virus and malware detection.

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced it was replacing OneCare with a new, free, product that would bring antivirus protection to the masses.  Rivals: Low share led to drop of OneCare tells that Microsoft had less than 2% of the market.  With that small market share, Microsoft had to change the business model.  Curiously, they adopted a freeware or shareware model, for the new product, code-named Morro.

Despite OneCare's failures, I am certain a team of engineers and program management are deeply disappointed.  Believe me, there is a very talented team who has been putting their heart and soul into making this a winning product - that is the way engineers are.  Having been there myself, I know what it is like to deny the gathering gloom (actually engineers think they can fix anything), and keep on pushing the boulder up the hill, only have it roll back down.  Sisyphus was possibly the first project engineer.  

So OneCare guys - thanks for changing the antivirus industry.  It did not turn out like you wanted, but you made things better for the rest of us.  Enjoy your families for a few weeks before you do it all over again, because that is how you are made.

Amazing Success With Stem Cells

First transplant of human windpipe conducted with stem cells describes an amazing transplant success.  A Colombian woman's windpipe collapsed as a result of a tuberculosis infection.  A donor windpipe was washed 25 times to remove live tissues and then it was coated using cartilage cells generated from the patient's own stem cells.  The result - a healthy young woman with no organ rejection.  It has been 5 months since the surgery and she is still doing well.

This success was achieved through adult stem cells.  Similarly Stem cell treatment could help heart patients tells how University of Utah researchers remove about three tablespoons of stem cells from a patient's bone marrow and then grow them in a culture dish over 12 days.  These are injected into the heart, forming new blood vessels and strengthening the heart muscle.  For a patient with a diseased heart, the stem cells naturally found in the heart work too slowly - they replenish the organ over a 5 year period, in comparison to the fast repair from the bone marrow stem cells.

Exercise increases brain growth factor and receptors, prevents stem cell drop in middle age tells that exercise can reverse a decline of stem cell production in the mouse brain.  As one might suspect, there is evidence of reduced cognitive activity with decreased stem cell production.  Researchers in Taiwan believe that exercise restores a brain chemical responsible for stem cell production.  Exercising mice have a 200% improvement in stem cell generation compared to those addicted to television (my emphasis).  We just need a little wheel to run in - possibly the next fitness rage.