Zark's

Searching for Sea Level Truth

Earth at Twilight
Image Credit: NASA

We keep seeing pictures of a forlorn polar bear on a melting ice floe and climatologists warning that sea levels could rise as much as ten feet.  The industrial revolution began in the early 1800s, so skepticism about such statements is warranted. Why will we see such climate change tomorrow that we have not seen to date?

Certainly most people in the U.S. will disagree with NOAA: Sixth Warmest February in Combined Global Surface Temperature.  The press release says the global average was 1.35 degrees F above average, although it admits the U.S., Mexico, Europe, and Russia had much cooler temperatures than typical.  Alaska and Canada were notably warmer than normal.  A strong El Nino continued to raise sea surface temperatures by more than 2.7 degrees F. 

Climate Change: Sea Level explains that seal levels are rising from two phenomena: a) the melting of ice sheets and glaciers on land, b) expansion of water due to temperature.  The author, LuAnn Dahlman, cautions that even a small rise has large impacts on beaches and flat land, since an inch in elevation can correspond to several feet.

There are charts with combined global average sea levels, but I'm somewhat skeptical of the data aggregation.  Sometimes simpler data is better.  The chart below shows the water levels from The Battery, on the southern shoreline of Manhattan Island.  The trend seems unmistakable - that sea level is rising.  Accurate satellite-based altimeters indicate that the rise is about one and a quarter inches per decade.

Image Credit: NOAA, ClimateWatch Magazine

State of the Climate, just released by the Government of Australia.  Sea levels in Australia "since 1993 levels have risen 7-10mm per year in the north and west, and 1.5-3mm in the south and east."  (10 mm = 0.394 inches). 

I like the Australian report's conclusion - "It is very likely that human activities have caused most of the global warming observed since 1950."  Science cannot prove a one-to-one correlation, and at the present time, that is the most accurate statement that can be made.  But when the National Hurricane Center places my locale as possible landfall, I evacuate before the storm hits.

Spookiness too Big to Ignore

Image Credit: NASA E/PO, Sonoma State University, Aurore Simonnet

LEDs and semiconductors are possible because today's quantum theory accurately predicts their operation.  Although it works, the most thoughtful of quantum theory researchers will remark that it is more than a little strange. 

At the atomic level, physicists are accustomed to a probabilistic world.  The position of an atom or electron is never known, and the simple act of observing, changes its position.  One of the most bizarre quirks is that if two particles are separated and transported across opposite ends of the universe, observing one affects the other instantaneously - faster than light.  Einstein called this and others, "spukehafte Fernwirkung", or spooky actions.

Although quantum mechanics predicts all of this, physicists simultaneously accept two different worlds.  They view the physical world with Newtonian physics and the subatomic world with quantum theory.  Although admittedly incomplete, this perspective has served physicists and the rest of us for six decades.

To quote Bob Dylan, "The times they are a-changin" - Team's quantum object is biggest by factor of billions explains scientists have created one of these spooky things large enough to see.  The BBC article tells that researchers produced a resonator large enough to see with the naked eye.  By cooling it down to within a cat's whisker of absolute zero, they inserted a quantum of electrical energy and observed that the resonator also had vibrational states in quanta, called phonons.  Imagine pushing a child on a swing.  Newtonian physics predicts that the trajectory is continuous - that you can forever divide the trajectory into smaller and smaller parts.  But quantum theory implies that the trajectory is not continuous - there are discrete jumps.  This resonator is the first time that quanta has been observed for anything larger than a molecule of 60 atoms.

Macro-Weirdness: "Quantum Microphone" Puts Naked-Eye Object in 2 Places at Once explains some spookiness was observed.  The resonator was observed to be in two states at the same time.  In The Spookiness That Bothered Einstein, I explain a simple light experiment that demonstrates it, but the objects in this classic experiment are photons.  Now researchers have demonstrated that large objects can also be in two places at once.  Perhaps this breakthrough will result in Star Trek "transporters". 

At the least, it explains a phenomenon that has troubled parents ever since covered wagon days.  One child in the back claims that the other touched her.  He of course, denies it.  Now we know they are both right.

Inching Forward with Hydrogen Energy

Space Shuttle's Fuel Cell

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Dynamics Lab

NASA perfected the fuel cell with the Gemini manned space launches of the mid-60s.  Since that time, they have been the power source of all manned missions.  Fuel Cell Power Plants provides a detailed technical description of the latest NASA fuel cells on the Space Shuttle.  Hydrogen and Oxygen are chemically combined to produce heat, water, and electricity.  Each unit has three stacks of 32 cells, producing 28 volts at up to 436 amps.  They are reused until an accumulation of 2000 hours of on-line storage.

One kilogram of hydrogen has about the same energy as one gallon of gasoline.  The Department of Energy has a cost goal of $2.00 - $3.00 per kilogram of hydrogen.  Storage on vehicles is a challenging barrier to successful commercial transition.  Similar to electric vehicles, it is believed a hydrogen-powered vehicle should have a range of 300 miles.

The Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technical Advisory Committee (HTAC) has released a report on the status of hydrogen and fuel cells.  An early successful product is the fuel cell forklift.  They have greater range, require less time to recharge, and do not require battery change-outs.  For automobiles and trucks, there are 379 hydrogen refueling stations globally, with 69 located in the U.S.  Ever the trend-setter, California has 27 of them.  

Research efforts are encouraging.  Automotive fuel cell systems continue to decrease in cost, with a 16 percent reduction between 2008 and 2009.  High-temperature electrolysis, eventually to be powered by the next generation nuclear reactors, was demonstrated at the Idaho National Laboratory last year.  It produced 5,650 liters of hydrogen per hour.  Continued advancement in materials suggests that future storage tanks will be cryogenic, yielding much larger driving ranges.

Becoming a Stem Cell Researcher

Image Credit: Phase Images. In Stem Cell Information [World Wide Web site]. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008.

We read about stem cell lines all of the time. Suppose you wanted to experiment with stem cells.  Where would you start?

Stem Cell Information, published by the National Institute of Health (NIH) is a good 'first' resource.  One of the first things you read is that the subject is complex - several schools and organizations offer courses to teach researchers how to propagate and maintain a stem cell line.  An example is WiCell's Introductory Course.  They will teach you how to culture human Embryonic Stem (hES) cells in mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) feeder layers, and much more.

If you have laboratory experience, perhaps you only need the protocols, such as Culture of Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESC).  As an example,

• 6-well plates (Falcon Cat #353046) are coated for 20 to 60 minutes at room temperature with 0.1% gelatin (Sigma Cat #G1890) in dH₂O.
• Mouse embryonic fibroblasts (CF1 strain), cultured in MEF medium, are mitotically inactivated by treatment with 10μg/ml mitomycin C (Roche Cat #107 409) for 2 to 3 hours at 37°C. Cells are washed three to four times with PBS, trypsinized (Invitrogen Cat #25300-054), and plated at a density of 0.75 x 10⁵/ml with 2.5ml per well of a gelatin-coated 6-well dish. Alternatively, cells may be inactivated by exposure to 8000rads of X-irradiation and plated at the same density

The NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry is a good place to purchase a line of stem cells.  These 44 stem cell lines have been approved under U.S. policy and are considered 'immortal' by researchers.  A stem cell creates a replica of itself, and with these stem cell lines being propagated independently by laboratories all over the world, they should never die.  There is large distinction between non-profit and commercial use of the stem cell lines.  (Sheesh - our culture of everyone trying to take the last nickel off the table becomes wearying.)  

There are three different types of stem cells.  Multipotent cells are specialized, but have the ability to adapt within a band of specialization.  Pluripotent cells are highly prized, because they can become any type of cell within the body.  There are issues - first, they must come from embryos, and second, researchers don't know how to switch them into a specific type of cell.  More recently induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC) have been discovered.  Through some genetic manipulation, an adult cell can be converted into something very similar to an embryonic stem cell.

Imagine that your car mechanic could only repair an existing part - no additional parts could be purchased for your automobile.  That is analogous to medicine today.  Imagine if retinas, or livers could be regrown.  Stem cells offer a huge advancement for medicine, and ultimately for mankind. 

Healthy Food Choices

 

An image of poverty is emaciated, horribly thin individuals.  But the truth is more complex than that as The Obesity-Hunger Paradox explains.  37 percent of the people in the Bronx did not have sufficient funds to buy food sometime in the past 12 months.  But this population has an 85 percent higher probability of obesity than wealthier New York boroughs.

How is this possible?  The New York Times article suggests that it is difficult to obtain healthy food in the borough and that causes the citizens to make unhealthy decisions about the food they do purchase and eat.

Why Making Healthful Foods Cheaper Isn't Enough explains it is more than cost or availability.  The University of Buffalo created an experiment where it subsidized the cost of healthy foods such as vegetables.  Capitalism works - the participants did purchase more healthy foods.  But guess what they purchased with the extra funds available? - more junk food.  The NPR article tells that at the end of the shopping trip, the grocery cart contained the same amounts of fats and carbohydrates as when the healthy foods were not subsidized.

Yet USA Today's, Study: People would lose 5 pounds a year if soda cost extra 18% suggests that people would consume 124 calories less a day if soda were to cost an extra $1.  A consumption tax on pizza and soda has been proposed as prudent social engineering. 

I am not making this up - Detroit gardens need lead testing tells that fruits and vegetables may not always be healthy.  The principal risk is from external contamination with soil or dust clinging to the fruit or vegetable.  Many older industrial cities have a similar problem.  Elevated gardens with fresh soil are suggested.

The Unseen Changes in GPS

You might have heard about Global Positioning Service (GPS) Modernization, but what is it?

 

Credit: U.S. Air Force

GPS reached full operational capability in 1995.  It consists of at least 24 satellites, distributed in six different orbits, circling the earth exactly twice a day.  The original system transmitted signals on two frequencies, designed to support both commercial and military positioning receivers.  There was a predicted total of 40,000 military GPS receivers.  

Fast-forward to today, where more than 40,000 new cell phones with GPS capability are sold every week/month.  GPS modernization tells that new satellites and ground stations will be added to the existing constellation.  There will be three new civilian frequencies: L2C, L1C, and L5.  The first two allow the correction of atmospheric effects which can degrade the accuracy of computed position.  Signal processing improvements improve the ability to acquire and track the GPS satellites.

L5, called safety of life, is transmitted on a completely new frequency, 1176.45 MHz.  Air Force Successfully Transmits and L5 Signal from GPS IIR-20(M) Satellite tells that the new frequency was first transmitted on 10 April, 2009.  Not yet operational, the signal is being used to assist GPS developers in readying products to use the new capability.  Because of international frequency agreements, if the frequency was not transmitted, it would have been reassigned to other uses.  Operational use will be delayed until the Block IIF and Block III satellites.

The Industry Day presentations on L5 provides some of the design characteristics.  (If you want the technical details of the waveform, see - ICD-705.)  The System: L5 Arrives tells that the primary benefit will be reliability and integrity, very much needed for safety of life applications such as commercial airline navigation.  It will be transmitted with higher power and with longer spread spectrum codes, making it much less susceptible to interference.  The new frequency assignment permits correction of ionospheric-induced errors through frequency diversity.

GPS Modernization: Capabilities of the New Civil Signals explains that besides signal hardening, the system includes integrity machines.  These are monitors to that provide error bounds to safety critical users.  Airports are augmenting GPS with local and wide area differential GPS systems.  Corrections and error bounds are transmitted to aircraft, providing accuracies better than 1 meter.  The error bounds allow a pilot to determine whether a particular procedure/maneuver is safe.  Thus the error bounds advise the pilot to avoid unsafe landings.

Signals for Changing the Course of a Nation

At Stanford's Sustainability Summit, Secretary Steven Chu said, "The future prosperity of the U.S. is at risk.  Energy touches everything in the U.S."

Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

I encourage everyone to invest an hour and watch his speech.  (Slide up to 10:32, to skip past some of the university promotions.)  In his speech, Dr. Chu explained that recent data has established a correlation between increased greenhouse gases and elevated temperatures.  It also shows that mankind is directly responsible.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased 40 percent.  Interestingly, the atomic weapon tests of the 1950s placed significant levels of Carbon-14 into the atmosphere.  This radioactive isotope has a half-life of 5700 years.  The concentration of Carbon-14 has been decreasing much, much faster than its half-life can explain.  The reason is that fossil fuels are lifting up Carbon-12 in vast quantities.  (Fossil fuels are millions of years old, and the Carbon has decayed into Carbon-12.)  The declining ratio shows that mankind is directly responsible for the greenhouse gases.

A very clever paired-satellite constellation with precision radar has been able to accurately measure the mass of the Arctic and Greenland.  (They measure the force of gravity - corresponding to the mass underneath them.)  The data shows that the ice cap is melting rapidly.  The instrumentation is so sensitive that the data shows the mass changing with the seasons.

What most scientists think:  Solar energy striking the Earth is approximately constant over an 11-year solar cycle.  Heat-trapping greenhouse gases have increased, preventing the escape of infrared radiation.  Eventually, the Earth will reach an equilibrium at which the temperature and radiated heat will be in stasis.  But the Earth's oceans introduce a 100 year time lag between the increase of greenhouse gases and the full observation of the effect.

The U.S. innovation machine is the world's greatest.  But, Dr. Chu says we are falling behind in clean energy race.  The U.S. is now behind in: a) automobile efficiency, b) batteries, c) electricity transmission, d) power electronics, and e) nuclear power.  

"Why doesn't the U.S. attempt a Manhattan Project?"  Secretary Chu agrees that we need a large spike in funding, similar to the nuclear weapon program, or the 1960s moon shot.  With the large expenditures on energy, we should be prepared to invest tens and tens of billions in energy innovation.  Scalability is fundamental.

Another of the questions asked of Dr. Chu was, "How does the U.S. not fall behind China?"  He answered that we must create an environment that sends out signals to our economic and innovation engine.  A big ship can be turned with small signals.  There must be a declining carbon cap which will stimulate innovation and investment.  A comprehensive energy bill can send the correct signals to business and they can prepare for the future world, instead of wishing for $30 a barrel oil. 

If we innovate, we can win.  "If we don't do that, we will lose."  

Converting Carbon Dioxide Into Something Else

The solution seems obvious, doesn't it?  Since we have too much carbon dioxide, we just need to plant more trees. We learned that in elementary school science.  The problem is, biological mechanisms are too slow.  Think about it - half the planet is already covered with plants, and our ecosystem cannot keep up with the greenhouse gases being generated by mankind.  Of course, we are doing exactly what we shouldn't do - cutting down trees and simultaneously increasing the human population.

In Rethinking Artificial Trees, I posted - The Colorado Trees website provides some interesting statistics about natural trees.   An average tree absorbs about 48 pounds of CO2 a year.  It takes about one acre of tree coverage to compensate for driving an automobile about 8000 miles.  As much as I like photosynthesis, it does not seem scalable for 6.8 billion people on the planet.

Yet I encourage researchers to keep trying.  Asking 'What would nature do?' leads to a way to break down a greenhouse gas explains a University of Michigan biochemist has mimicked a form of photosynthesis.  Steve Ragsdale's discovery is that an enzyme-coated titanium oxide with a photosensitizer bonded to the titanium can convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide. 

His team hypothesized this is something that nature might accomplish, although none knows of an organism that actually converts CO2 into CO.  Of course, the surface of the earth would not be a healthy place with too much carbon monoxide, since it is highly toxic to animals and humans.  But it demonstrates scientists attempting to learn from the design patterns of nature. 

Sheesh.  I am more and more convinced we simply must reduce greenhouse emissions through alternative energy sources. 

The Miracle Drug from Easter Island

Longevity Drugs May be Coming explains rapamycin has been discovered to extend the lifetimes of old laboratory mice by almost 30 percent.  Wiki tells that rapamycin, also known as sirolimus, was first discovered in soil samples from Easter Island.  (Yes, that island that has the mysterious-looking stone heads.)

Originally the drug was intended for anti-fungal purposes.  It soon showed much more promise for suppressing the autoimmune system for organ transplants.  Recently rapamycin has shown promise in treating pancreatic cancer.  Ironically though, because the drug has such powerful immunosuppressive properties, patients taking the drug could suffer from a 10-100 probability increase of developing cancer.

Yet another application has been discovered - Bacterial Product Isolated in Soil from Easter Island Rescues Learning, Memory in Alzheimer's Mouse Model.  The Science Daily article tells that mice with Alzheimer's - like symptoms are improved with rapamycin.  Examination shows the drug reduces the lesions in their brains, recently correlated with Alzheimer's symptoms in humans.

Wiki tells that the patent has expired, with a generic produced in India available.  Daily treatment costs are $37 for rapamycin, and $20 for the generic.  The medical effects can be extended by drinking grapefruit juice with a smaller dosage.

Convincing Adult Stem Cells to Stay Juvenile

Stem Cell Basics explains they have the potential to become one of many different types of cells in the human body. When the stem cell divides, it could become a retina cell, muscle cell, etc., or even another stem cell.  A stem cell is unspecialized and is capable of renewing itself.  Gut and bone marrow stem cells regularly replace older tissue.  But it happens very infrequently and under special circumstances in other organs such as the pancreas and heart.

Much of the stem cell debate concerns the inner cells of the blastocyst, (4-5 day old embryo) the embryonic cells that basically duplicate a human being.  These cells obviously have the ability to create any type of human tissue or organ, because that's what they do.  The ethical debate results from the destruction of a growing embryo that could become a complete human.  

But stem cells have the promise of miracle cures.  Stem Cells Approved to Treat 'Orphan' Disease explains the FDA has approved stem cell treatment for a rare blindness syndrome.  The ScienceFair article explains that less than 30,000 globally are afflicted with Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy, and the return on investment is insufficient to attract big Pharma to develop products. 

In the last two or three years, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have been created from adult cells, essentially switching them back to a juvenile state.  While side-stepping the ethics of destroying a blastocyst, they also avoid the problems of tissue rejection.  Although the inner cells of the blastocyst are unspecialized, they sometimes have markers that are recognized as foreign bodies by the recipient's autoimmune system.  Anti-rejection drugs are then required throughout the patient's lifetime.

Still No Truce in the Stem Cell Wars explains that IPSCs are created by inserting four genes into the adult cell through a retrovirus.  Although easily produced, their advocates have been dismayed because they age prematurely.  For unknown reasons, the iPSCs stop dividing after only a few generations and they die prematurely.

Breakthrough Reveals Blood Vessel Cells Are Key to Growing Unlimited Amounts of Adult Stem Cells tells that endothelial cells of the vascular system proliferate stem cells.  Researchers inserted a gene from andenoviruses into the endothelial cells have been able to maintain stem cell cultures for a year instead of the 4-5 days with iPSCs.  Currently the technique is applicable to marrow and other blood-forming stem cells, but the Science Daily article indicates the concept can be applied to adult stem cells of other organs.  In the short term, it should bring immediate help for bone marrow transplantation.