Zark's

My Little Town

"My Little Town" became a 1975 hit for Simon and Garfunkel.  Wiki tells that the song is not autobiographical - Simon has said that it is about someone who hates their little town.  The lyrics are gritty, especially the lines, "Back in my little town, Nothing but the dead and dying," which are repeated frequently.  The vocals, perhaps not as soaring as "Bridge Over Troubled Water", are moving, if not haunting.

Paul Simon was born in Newark, NJ, but his family immediately moved to New York City, where as a teenager, he would sing with Art Garfunkel.  Doesn't sound like he would have much experience in a small town, does it?  So why the disparaging lyrics?

How to Reverse Rural Brain Drain describes the plight of small town America: a) decline of family farms, b) loss of manufacturing jobs, c) flight of young people to urban centers.  Husband and wife authors, Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas, have written a book, Hollowing Out in the Middle, which attempts to describe how the decline of rural population can be halted.  The authors moved to "Ellis", Iowa, population 2000, to study and analyze the trends in rural America.  (Unfortunately, the book is not on Kindle.)

The authors center on the brightest and the youngest leaving the small towns.  Ironically, the local high schools encourage it - more attention and opportunity is provided to the upper tier of students who are destined to leave.  From the author's website, we learn that one of five Americans live in a small town.  There are now more deaths than births in one out of two rural communities.  By pushing the brightest and the best to leave, and under-investing in the rest, the small towns themselves are contributing to the problem.

Gosh, I don't know.  Having grown up in a small town, and now living in a major metropolitan area, I think the issue is incredibly complex.  Unless you are born independently wealthy, you are dependent upon an income.  With the demise of American factories, there are not many jobs left in small towns except for health care, banking, school system, and perhaps some farming.  I don't believe that my rural high school pushed me away - I had very gifted and devoted teachers which wanted the very best for their students.  My profession was not possible in that small town.  But what about now?

If we had a better digital infrastructure that permitted high-resolution video conferencing, we might be able to have more telecommuting from the rural areas.  Today, we don't even have adequate infrastructure in my metro area.  But that is something that could be done - it would only require a handful of telecommuting professionals in every rural community to make a substantial difference.

The crisis facing rural communities is already affecting metro areas such as Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis.  The root problem is identifying economic endeavors for the American worker.  Mmm.

Is the Future Interfering With the Hadron Collider?

The website of the Large Hadron Collider begins, "Our understanding of the universe is about to change ..."  Maybe this was what the Stonehenge builders had in mind.  The LHC as it is called, is 17 miles around and is buried underneath the border of France and Switzerland, not far from Geneva.  (It was cheaper to tunnel underground than purchase all of the land above ground.)

Conceptually, the idea is that huge electromagnets will accelerate protons to speeds never before realized on earth.  It has two opposing racetracks so that the protons are accelerated in opposite directions, such that when they collide, the collision will have effectively twice the speed.  (Reminds me of a science experiment when my friend, Robin and I tried throwing rocks at each other, trying to have the rocks smash each other.  My chin stopped Robin's rock.)  But that's the idea - super-accelerate protons and watch what happens when they collide.  

To add some intrigue, one of the things physicists hope come from the collisions is the so-called god-particle, otherwise known as the Higgs Boson.  It has never been observed and its existence is still debated.  This Higgs boson particle is theorized to create the Higgs field, which accounts for mass, or proportionately, weight.  An atom has mass inside a Higgs field, but outside of it, would have none.  

Last year, the Large Hadron Collider had just become operational when a fault between two superconducting magnets almost destroyed the magnet array.  Since that time, CERN has experienced incredible difficulty in getting the world's largest science experiment working again.  Some people have wondered why it has taken so long.

Probably you have seen science fiction movies where a plot thread involved a time travel paradox.  Is the large hadron collider killing its own grandfather? speculates that the Higgs boson is traveling back in time to prevent its creation.  Two physicists have even written a paper to test whether this hypothesis is correct. 

Mmm. 

Ares I-X Liftoff - A Delightful Moment

 

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

In comparison to yesterday, the countdown today at Cape Canaveral was almost without excitement.  It began at 1 A.M., and the team had to carefully determine the safety and reliability of instrumentation, infrastructure, and the rocket itself after late-night thunderstorms.  Just before 7 A.M., the Rotating Service Structure (RSS) began moving away from 327 foot rocket.  At about the same time, Launch Weather Officer Kathy Winters declared the range 'red' due to the high clouds.  Triboelectrification can result from static electricity imparted from the clouds, resulting in a static barrier that blankets radio signals to and from the rocket.

For the next four hours, the prime team of Ares I-X patiently (on the outside) waited for a gap in the high clouds to launch the first new NASA rocket in 40 years.  At 11:30 A.M., the four solid rocket motors flamed into life, pushing the vehicle to an altitude of 24.6 miles.  Parachutes carried the Ares I-X to a sea landing almost 150 miles downrange.

For the six minutes from liftoff to splashdown, the prime crew experienced the full range of human emotions.  Will I foul up?  Will it fly properly?  Are things going too well?  Did it really fly - I've been dreaming of this moment for years?  Then pure, unadulterated joy.  It was fun, watching the team on NASA TV and vicariously feeling their pride and jubilation.

Seven hours after the Ares I-X liftoff, I checked several international websites: London Times, China Daily, Japan Times, Sydney Morning Herald, Pravda, and Hong Kong Standard.  The only one with coverage of the launch was the London Times.  Is it because of waning American influence?  Or is the world indifferent to science and technology?

Because life is that way, a report titled, Steady as She Goes?  Three Generations of Students Through the Science and Engineering Pipeline was released by professors at Rutgers and Georgetown today.  The report explains that American colleges are turning out plenty of college grads in science and engineering.  Industry is simply not attracting them - either through salary or opportunity.  (Real wages for engineers have declined for the past two decades.)  More engineers and scientists are graduated than hired.  As I watched the scenes from Cape Canaveral, I wished we could also harness similar passion and excitement for energy, sustainable technologies, etc.  Well done, NASA!

Making Tumors Claustrophobic

I watched NASA TV today (Tuesday) waiting for the Ares I-X rocket's test flight.  The weather would not cooperate.  I admired (perhaps even envied) the leadership exhibited by Flight Director Ed Mango and Flight Test Director Jeff Spalding.  As events occurred, they would call out decisions without hesitation.  (They had problems with an errant freighter, a cover that would not release, wind, and of course those high clouds that can create something called triboelectrification.)   It makes an interesting study of decision making.  I will be watching again Wednesday morning.

Medical News Today tells that Gene That 'Cancer-Proofs' Rodent's Cells Discovered by Scientists.  Scientists have known that the naked mole rat can live up to thirty years, but never suffers from cancer.  (Because they are tunneling rodents, they are well-equipped to exploit the scant oxygen in their habitat.  Their blood has an especially high affinity for oxygen.)

Previously it was thought that the mole rat's resistance to cancer was because they have the ability to shut down their metabolism, thus eliminating oxidative damage.  But new research by the University of Rochester has discovered the mole rat's cells express gene p16 which causes cessation of division when cells are crowded.  Wiki tells that the gene has previously been known as a tumor suppressor and mutations in p16 increases the risk of cancer.

Researchers deliberately mutated cells to produce a tumor, but the mole rat's cell's growth rates barely changed.  In contrast, a laboratory mouse's cells became fully cancerous.

The new research is intriguing.  Most researchers have believed that telomeres in cells were not properly regulating life cycles, and resulting in cancer.  (See Telomeres of Youth.)  This recent study of the mole rat suggests there could be other mechanisms.  

Balancing Yin and Yang in FDA Approvals

If you had a debilitating or terminal disease, you would cheer FDA fast-track approval of a drug that showed promise for your disease, wouldn't you?  But suppose that drug was not really effective.  Then you would have lost the opportunity for treatment with other regimens or drugs.  Or worse, the drug did something bad.

The FDA's How Drugs are Developed and Approved tells that the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) is responsible for ensuring that drugs are safe and effective.  As you probably know, the FDA does not conduct the clinical studies that will permit the product to be marketed.  The submitting company is responsible for performing the clinical data and analysis.  The FDA monitors the studies that demonstrate the safety and effectiveness.  The FDA also monitors the studies to ensure that volunteers in the study are protected.  Following the completion of the studied, a team of physicians, statisticians, chemists, pharmacologists, and others review the data and the proposed treatment regimen.  If the drug is effective and its benefits outweigh the risks, then the FDA will approve if for sale.

For priority reviews, the FDA will review the product in six months, and for standard reviews, the product will be evaluated in ten months.  Accelerated approval is for serious or life threatening diseases that can be evaluated with a surrogate end point.  This replaces the effectiveness metric.  As an example, a medicine for prevention of strokes might simply demonstrate reduced blood pressure since there is a plausible correlation between high blood pressure and strokes.  For a cancer drug, the surrogate endpoint might be reduction in tumor size.  In neither of these examples, is there clinical data that demonstrates effectiveness in curing the disease.

Obviously clinical trials cannot last forever, so the FDA assesses continuing studies during the post-marketing life of a drug.  They evaluate the medical risks including: product quality defects, known side effects, avoidable side effects, unavoidable side effects, medication errors, and rare events (1 in 10,000 patients).  From this post-marketing surveillance, they identify adverse effects not previously submitted in the clinical testing.  Then they can require new labeling, education, or even product cancellation.

Today, the General Accounting Office (GAO) released the report, FDA Needs to Enhance its Oversight of Drugs Approved on the Basis of Surrogate Endpoints.  In the past 16 years, the FDA has approved 90 applications using surrogate endpoints.  79 of these were for cancer, HIV, and inhalation anthrax.  (All good candidates.)  An additional 69 drugs were approved as new molecular entities (ingredients never before approved in the U.S.) with surrogate endpoints.  The primary criticism of the GAO is that the FDA is not diligent in post-marketing analysis of these accelerated approval drugs.  The FDA has never withdrawn approval of a medicine when the pharmaceutical company had delayed post-marketing data.

Appendix I of the GAO's report contains a list of the drugs approved under the accelerated approval process.  Two antibiotics that I posted recently - Cipro and Levaquin were approved under this process.  (See Caution About Levaquin.  This specific approval was for anthrax, not the general antibiotic use, indicating the yin and yang of FDA approval.  There are not very many drugs effective against anthrax.)  The surrogate endpoints were "Serum CIPRO concentrations" and "Drug exposure in surviving Rhesus monkeys compared to human plasma concentrations", respectively.  The approved indication was treatment of inhalation anthrax.

Mmm.  These are hard decisions.  Engineers are used to computing one failure in a billion.  Medical researchers - one in a thousand.  The FDA's comments to the GAO's findings defend the accelerated approval program.  It has significantly improved the quality of life and survival of HIV and cancer patients.  The FDA agrees that improved post-marketing surveillance is needed.  Congress has recently provided additional funding for this activity and more oversight/tracking is being implemented.  In the end, the FDA must choose for the greater good.

Estimating the Riches of the Arctic

The Energy Information Administration just released a new web page on Arctic Oil and Natural Gas Potential.  The Arctic is estimated to possess about 22 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas resources.  There are several caveats about this hydrocarbon honey pot.  First, most of the reserves are natural gas and liquefied gas compounds.  Although natural gas is becoming the most popular energy source for electrical generation, it is difficult to transport, especially over the challenging Arctic terrain.  There are many small fields in the arctic that have not been developed because of the cost of transportation infrastructure.  In the near future, only really large fields will be developed because of infrastructure cost.

There are 17 known large Arctic fields in North America, discovered in the 1970s and 1980s.  Yet, only three have been developed, all in Alaska, in close proximity to the enormous Prudhoe Bay Field, which originally contained 25 billion barrels of petroleum.  Because it paid for the construction of the Alaska Pipeline, the smaller fields such as the North Slope fields could be economically developed.  Even with the Prudhoe Bay complex, the North Slope fields still cost roughly twice as much as U.S. continental development.

Gulp.  Forty-three of the sixty-one large Arctic fields are located in Russia.  Six are in Alaska and eleven are in Canada.  The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that 78 percent of the Arctic hydrocarbons are natural gas and natural gas liquids.  Further, these tend to be concentrated in location.  65 percent of the reserves are in only 3 of the 25 Arctic provinces.  The Russian reserves are predominantly natural gas, but the North American reserves are more petroleum.  As I have written previously - Will the Meltdown of the Arctic Lead to War? , there are many sovereignty issues concerning the ownership of Arctic oil fields.  The U.S. government report speculates these will delay development of Arctic resources.

Another challenge for Arctic development is minimizing ecological damage.  There needs to be international treaties and enforcement to protect the fragile Arctic environment.  Currently the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) contains an estimated 16 billion barrels of petroleum, but most of it is closed to petroleum development because of environmental concerns.

The government report concludes - "Thus, while the Arctic has the potential to be a more important source of global oil and natural gas production sometime in the future; the timing of a significant expansion in Arctic production is difficult to predict."

Report from Human Spaceflight Committee

NASA has posted the Augustine Committee's recommendation for a path forward in manned spaceflight.  An executive summary and complete report are available.  The biggest discovery is that budget and schedule problems are worse than originally anticipated.  Prior to the committee, NASA had warned there would be a five year gap in manned space flight for the United States.  Norm Augustine's panel estimates at least a seven year gap.  In fact so long, that the new launch vehicles, Ares I and Ares V will not be available until after the International Space Station is decommissioned.

The complete report has an interesting summary of NASA's history and current space activities.  Because of the long flight to Mars, the committee recommends a moon-first program rather than Mars-first.  It recognizes the appeal of a Mars landing, but recommends the moon be used for developing technology and experience before attempting the more challenging mission.

After evaluating available and future launch vehicles, the committee recommends proceeding with the development of the Ares I and Ares V rockets.  The lift capability of space shuttle hardware and the DoD's vehicles is simply too limited.  They argue the U.S. needs the additional lift capacity for national security.  (Although not discussed, I assert it could be essential for defending the planet against asteroids or comets.)

The two difficult recommendations concern the space shuttle and space station.  Although the shuttle could maintain manned space flight capability throughout the gap, it would lengthen the development of new lift hardware if funding remained constant.  Wisely, the committee recommends decommissioning the shuttle in 2011.  The space station is more problematic. 

The report argues that decommissioning the international space station (ISS) prior to 2016 would seriously jeopardize future international space collaboration.  I think unconvincingly, they conclude that early retirement would jeopardize the return on investment.  (I am skeptical of any present or future return from the space station.  I think the the space station is one of those ideas that sounds better than it actually is.)

The committee performed their evaluations with 12 criteria: 1) exploration preparation, 2) technology innovation, 3) science knowledge, 4) expanding and protecting human civilization, 5) economic expansion, 6) global partnerships, public engagement, schedule and programmatic risk, 9) mission safety challenges, workforce impact, programmatic sustainability, and 12) life-cycle cost.  Figure 1-4 below shows NASA's budget over its fifty year history.  Not surprisingly, we recall the great achievements of NASA when their budget permitted innovation and urgency in the 1960s and early 70s.

Credit - Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, "Seeking a Human spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation", 22 October 2009.

Mmm.  Unless the budget is expanded, NASA's progress is going to be so slow that national interest will be lost.  Sheesh.  The money expended for bailing out AIG could have sent us to Mars and beyond.  The U.S. needs statesmanship similar to John F. Kennedy's original vision for NASA.   Today's and tomorrow's engineers and scientists should have aspirations beyond creating the next social networking site.

Where is the H1N1 Vaccine?

Frustration looms as H1N1 vaccines run out laments that the deliveries of swine flu vaccine have been slower than planned and the public is becoming nervous as the number of cases continue to rise.  The CDC reports that flu activity is widespread in 46 states.  Already hospitals and clinics are busier than the peak of a normal flu season.  Almost all of the influenza viruses identified are the 2009 H1N1 type A viruses.  Fortunately the vaccine and antiviral drugs oseltamivar and zanamivir are effective against these viruses.

As of 23 October, 11.3 million doses of vaccine had been shipped.  Two H1N1 vaccine doses for kids 'likely' tells that children under ten will need two independent doses for immunity against H1N1.  One of five manufacturers receiving orders from the U.S. government,  Sanofi Pasteur is headquartered in Lyon, France.  It annually produces 1.6 billion doses of vaccine.  Clinical Trials in Adults Following One Dose of Influenza A (H1N1) Vaccine tells that a single 15 mcg dose provides a robust antibody response 21 days after vaccination. 

The seed virus for the vaccination was provided by the CDC.  As of last month, the U.S. government had ordered 75.3 million doses of the vaccine from Sanofi.  Novartis says most U.S. swine flu shots ready in 2010 adds that Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, and CSL Ltd, have also received orders.  Delay undercuts H1N1 vaccine campaign tells that 40 million doses had been expected from all suppliers by the end of October.  The latest estimates are about 28 million doses.  Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella said there had been startup problems - there was 1/5 the normal yield from the seed virus.  Then in production, reports have been 1/2 the normal yield of seasonal flu virus.

Lowdown on H1N1 vaccinations explains that Japan is vaccinating about 1 million doctors and other medical workers first.  Second in priority is about 10 million with either chronic diseases or pregnant.  The country's 10 million school children are planned to vaccinated in December.  Japan is domestically producing 27 million doses and in January will import another 50 million doses.  Roughly 1/3 of Japan's vaccinations will be administered free by the government.

I'm not inventing this - For the busy executive - an anti-H1N1 suit tells that Haruyama Trading has produced a business suit coated with titanium dioxide.  It supposedly kills an flu virus within three hours and can retain its protective capability even after being washed.

Contrasts for Copenhagen Emissions Congress

COP 15 will be convened 7-18 December 2009.  The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) has 192 participants and 189 have signed the Kyoto Protocol.  37 nations have agreed to legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments.  The most important non-signature is the United States.  However, to be fair, much more is expected of the United States than the bigger emissions contributor - China.  The U.S. per capita emissions is similar to other large land mass nations such as Australia and Canada.  Europe and Asia tend to be smaller because of higher population densities.

Europe offers to cut emissions 95% by 2050 if deal reached at Copenhagen tells that Europe is offering to slash greenhouse emission in an attempt to coax others into signing up for reductions.  Internally, Europe failed to obtain agreement on funding developing countries.  Poorer European nations such as Poland are unhappy at being asked to fund emissions technology for richer, developing nations such as China.  It's China's World (We just live in it) tells how China has embarked on a shopping spree for the world's petroleum and mineral reserves.  It currently has $2.1 trillion in foreign-exchange wealth.  Mmm.  Why is the west expected to pay for converting China's coal plants to green technology?

PM reiterates India's stand on climate change illustrates why no agreement is likely in Copenhagen.  A rough interpretation is that India is in full agreement for the rest of the world to adopt emissions standards, but it is unwilling to attempt real reductions itself.  India has very low per capita emissions.  It is just they have the world's second-largest population (China is just slightly larger) and 22.2 births/1000.  A modest increase in the standard of living for their population immediately counters the best efforts of others in reducing green house emissions.

India and China agree to united front on climate change explains that the nations will resist fixed targets for emissions reductions.  They will however, be willing to sell wind turbines and other green technology to the western world.  More ominous though, the Christian Science Monitor article explains that the third world will unite behind India and China in resisting emissions reductions.  They are all in favor of others reducing their emissions.

Climate needs to change before Copenhagen explains that the developing countries (including China and India) are expecting $160B a year funding from the developed countries for green technology investment.

With less than seven weeks before the congress convenes, I am not optimistic.

New Understanding of Cell Division

Remember your first science experiment with cell division?  I can still recall my 7th grade biology classroom and committing to memory the five stages of mitosis.  If you have forgotten, the experiment example with an onion explains the five stages.

• interphase - a period of the cell cycle where the cell is preparing for cellular division.  At the end of this period, the cell will will duplicate each chromosome, with two sister chromatids joined by a a centomere.
  
• prophase - plant cells have a pre-prophase stage where the nucleus moves into the center of the cell.  In prophase, the chromosomes shorten and thicken.
• metaphase - the chromosomes align along an edge where the cell will divide
  
• anaphase - the chromosomes split and move to opposite ends of the cell
• telophase - a new cell membrane forms to separate the cells

(Mitosis occurs in complex cells known as eukaryotes.  Simpler cells reproduce through a process known as binary fission. These cells do not have a nucleus and the DNA material simply replicates.)

Checkered history of mother and daughter cells explains cell cycle differences explains that cell division does not result in mother and daughter cells being exact duplicates even though they each contain the same set of genes.  The daughter cell is smaller than the mother, but they start off with a completely different cell cycle.  Scientists believed that the daughter cell would have a delayed version of the mother's cell cycle because it would take time to reach the same size.

The Medical News Today article explains that if the daughter cell does not receive key proteins Ace2 and Ash1, it will begin dividing prematurely.  As might be expected, this can can cause genetic mistakes which could result in cancer.  Study has shown that the gene CLN3 is the receptor for the proteins, which apparently turns on cell division.