Kirsten: This Week in Science would like to thank AudibleKids.com for their support of this hour of science programming.
Justin: Good morning, Kirsten!
Kirsten: Good morning, Justin! Welcome back to another Tuesday of science.
Justin: This Week in Science.
far
Kirsten: That’s right.
Justin: The number one, number one science podcast at KDVS.
Kirsten: That’s right. We are the number one science podcast here at KDVS and the only one.
Justin: Oh.
Kirsten: Oh yeah, right.
Justin: Well, you know, I can’t help it if the competition is afraid to play in our arena.
Kirsten: Well, we’re here again this week to talk about a whole bunch of science that’s happened or have been published within the last week or so in journals from all around the world.
We have our “Weird from Washington” today around 9 o’clock.
Justin: Now, Tuesday.
Kirsten: Yes, now on Tuesday.
Justin: Because you don’t have a Thursday show anymore.
Kirsten: Right, update.
Justin: We’ve condensed the show.
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: It’s now concentrated.
Kirsten: That’s right. Hopefully.
Justin: Each shows is going to be more potent with science-y goodness than before.
Kirsten: Hopefully. A more concentrated version of TWIS will be appearing in your ears very soon. Michael Stebbins, Weird from Washington will now be alternating Tuesdays. We’ve got him today.
Justin: Sweet.
Kirsten: Which will be great. He’s going to be telling us all sorts of stuff happening on the science politics front in Washington D.C. Also, I’ve got a whole bunch of cool stories that are biology related. I’ve got a genome transplant.
Justin: Wow!
Kirsten: I’ve also got stem cells. I’ve got some frozen, little baby cells, Alzheimer’s disease and Prion disease and a potential cure for HIV.
Justin: Wow!
Kirsten: And the Big Bounce.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: The Big Bounce.
Justin: The Big Bounce.
Kirsten: It’s not a giant dryer sheet either.
Justin: No.
Kirsten: So…
Justin: I’ve got some World Robot Domination. I’ve got some good statistics, some bad statistics. Some…?
Kirsten: Some good and bad?
Justin: Yeah, it’s a little bit of everything. Cats. Let’s start with the cats because we are all themed up on the cat stories.
Kirsten: Okay, we can start with the cats. If you’d like to join us down here at this hour, give us a call at 752-2777 in the 530 area code. Our website is www.twis.org. And I guess let’s head it off.
Justin: Science finds felines fouling bronchial bliss, causational cure calls for catapulting kitty-cal habitation. Researchers in United Kingdom have found that increased exposure to cat allergen is associated with greater bronchial stress in people with common allergies, even if they are not specifically allergic to cats.
Kirsten: Huh?
Justin: Yeah. My red eyed, co-host who hath many cats.
Kirsten: And many allergies.
Justin: This suggests that reduced exposure to cats maybe beneficial for allergic individuals regardless of their specific allergies. “It was an unexpected finding,” says Susan Chinn, lead author of the study.
“We presupposed that we would find increased response only in those individuals who are expose to cat allergen and whose blood tests showed that they were allergic to cats. But our study suggests that ALL allergic individuals have signs of asthmatic response if exposed to cat allergen, EVEN if the blood test show they are not allergic to cats.”
So, the study include the data on sensitization – aw heck with it. People who got the allergy reaction from cats, dust mites, common molds and grass. This was the four categories of people who were in this. Because the study included complete data, nearly 2,000 individuals across 20 centers in Europe, researchers say, they were able to exclude a lot of potentially confounding effects or other parameters.
Primary results showed no correlation between levels of say, house mite dust and bronchial response amongst individuals who weren’t sensitive to the dust but were to the others. Even moderate exposure though to cat allergen resulted in significantly greater responses.
The difference in response between those who had low versus high exposure to cat allergen was almost as great as the differences as that between non-asthmatic and asthmatic individuals.
Kirsten: Wow!
Justin: Yeah. It was…
Kirsten: Pretty severe.
Justin: Yeah. Studies supports and clarifies previous research that found that asthma is strongly related to indoor allergens and that patients with specific allergies exhibit greater stress and response to exposure to the allergens to which they are sensitized. However, the interaction between sensitization of any kind in cat, again, totally unexpected.
So, based on the current research, it appears that many individuals including my co-host could benefit from reduced cat ownership and exposure.
Kirsten: Oh. Yet another reason for the cat haters to go on the rampage against cats.
Justin: Well, Toxoplasma Gondii, it’s bad enough…
Kirsten: There’s one.
Justin: …they’ve got this parasite…
Kirsten: Yeah, yeah. That’s the other one.
Justin: …that can control your brain. You know, make you schizophrenic or whatever. And then, you know…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: And also, you get the asthma, if you have any kind of allergy. So, I’m not saying to get rid of your cats. But, you know, maybe just don’t get them next time around.
Kirsten: Maybe don’t get them next time.
Justin: Let this be the last.
Kirsten: Let’s take this phone call.
Justin: Good morning, TWIS minion. You’re on the air with This Week in Science.
Woman: Hi, Justin. I’m curious about that cat study. Did they look at age of first contact with the cat…
Justin: No.
Woman: …with the allergens.
Justin: That wasn’t part of the study. Not that — or at least it wasn’t in anything that they had shown me. But these were 2,000 different individuals…
Woman: Okay.
Justin: …with a range of ages. But yeah, they don’t say when the first contact was.
Woman: Okay. Because I am highly allergic and my daughter has been around cats since babyhood is so un-allergic.
Kirsten: Yeah. I think this study is just showing that any allergies that you have make you more sensitize toward this…
Woman: Okay.
Kirsten: …cat allergenic.
Justin: Or if you’re allergic to cats, you’re allergic to cats.
Woman: Yeah.
Justin: That’s just it.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: But if for instance, you know, you’ve taken your daughter and they said, she’s not allergic to cats. But she has an allergy to mold for instance, being around cats would still affect her.
Woman: Okay.
Kirsten: Yeah. It could eventually lead to a cat allergy.
Justin: No, no, no. It didn’t say that. But it would cause bronchial stress. Now, if she’s, you know, allergy-free and has got — doesn’t have immune system that overreacts to these things, then yeah, she’s going to be fine.
Woman: Okay. Well, she’s perfect in every ways.
Kirsten: Of course, she is.
Justin: Of course, she is.
Woman: Okay. Well, thank you.
Justin: You’re welcome.
Kirsten: Thanks for calling in. On the other kitty-cat front this morning…
Justin: This week in kitty-cat news.
Kirsten: This week in kitty-cats. I love it. Oh, my goodness. A study being published this last week, June 28th, from the National Cancer Institute. These researchers at the National Cancer Institute have looked at the DNA of five subspecies of wild cats and of many house cats and fancy cats. Those are the special ones…
Justin: Fancy cats.
Kirsten: …that are bred to be fancy. Looked at the DNA of a whole bunch of different species of cats and was able to determine the exact date of the origin of the domesticated cat, progenitors.
So, the date is some 100,000 years ago, there were five – about five females of a wild cat subspecies known as Felis Sylvestris Lybica from which all of the world’s 600 million house cats are descendants.
Justin: Wow!
Kirsten: Yeah. Anyway, so about 100,000 years ago, the original lineage from which all of the cats of today, that’s how long ago – they began. However, that doesn’t mean that’s when domestication occurred. The first evidence of domestication is approximately 1500 or 2000 years ago during the age of the Egyptians. There are…
Justin: 1500 and 2000? That’s not the age of the Egyptians, that can’t be right.
Kirsten: No, no, no. When was it? I’m pretty sure from what I was reading.
Justin: 2000 years B.C. – 1500 years – 5000 years B.C.
Kirsten: Maybe that’s what it was. But anyway, there are hieroglyphs indicating a cat on a leash inside of – there are drawings of a cat with a leash, you know, being…
Justin: Another little drawing…
Kirsten: Symbol of domestication of the kitty-cats.
Justin: …showing you to pick up after a year.
Kirsten: Right. But anyway, all of today’s domesticated house cats come from just five females.
Justin: Wow!
Kirsten: Yeah. Just five, that’s all.
Justin: So, remember to spare or neuter because look how many they are now.
Kirsten: Over 600 million.
Justin: What?
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: You’re kidding me. Is that how many?
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Oh, my goodness. We’re in trouble.
Kirsten: Yeah, 600 million house cats around the world. I don’t even know if that’s talking about the ones who are wilds, yeah, a little ferrule.
Justin: Okay. From cat news to catatonic news.
Rapid growth of video game popularity has generated concern amongst practitioners, parents, scholars and politicians. Particularly, during adolescence when social interactions and academic success lay the groundwork for health and adulthood. There’s concern that video games will interfere with the development of skills needed to make a successful transition into adulthood.
Kirsten: Like being able to talk to other people.
Justin: Yeah. Why can’t they just veg-out in front of the TV like we did when we were kids– bemoan agitated old people.
Hope M. Cummings, M.A. of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor and Elizabeth A. Vandewater, Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin collected surveyed debut from nationally representative sample of some 1500 – oh, no 1500 10-year olds to 19-year olds in the 2002-2003 school year.
A total of 36% played video games which I think is low. I would think that more than 36% of kids play video games. But most of these 80% were boys, 20% were girls.
This is where it gets interesting though. The more time spent playing video games with their parents, the more time they spent in other activities with them as well. The opposite was found to be inversely true. So, the less video games they play with their parents the less other activities that…
Kirsten: Other activity – it just has to do with how much time the parents maybe have to spend with their kids.
Justin: Perhaps.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Overall, let’s see, video game players did not spend less time – no, overall video game players did not spend less time than non-video game players interacting with parents and friends. So, there wasn’t a difference overall between how much they interact.
On weekends, the more times boys and girls spent playing video games with their friends, the more time they spent other activities with their friends. And the opposite was therefore also, true. Compared with non-video game players, adolescents, who played video games spent 30% less time reading and 34% less time doing homework. Wow!
Kirsten: Wow!
Justin: So, playing video games makes you read faster and better at homework. That’s pretty cool.
Kirsten: Or maybe not do as much.
Justin: Huh?
Kirsten: Huh? What?
Justin: Well, they haven’t looked into that. That’s the next part of the study, to see if there is a correlation between grades and that sort of thing.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: So, that’s the next step. They have to figure out how the video game playing youth of the world is going to come out of their adolescence. Are they going to be educated…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …and interactive? Or are they going to be dumb and anti-social.
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: I think…
Kirsten: I think it all depends on the majority of video games that these are kids are playing. How many other activities they have? You know, do they play T-Ball, you know? Is it only video games? Is that the only thing – do video games also mirror the amount of television these kids are watching? Do video games…
Justin: It takes away from TV time.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: It takes away from TV time. And the thing is if you look at the system of any video game, the way they’re designed with the levels and the progressions…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …you need to pick up new things and learn new things as you go along and then apply them later and then pick up the new skills sets to it and apply those later. So, it’s in a way, you know, I mean, granted…
Kirsten: There’s definitely learning taking place.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: There’s hand-eye coordination. There is response time that’s being managed. There are lots of good things that video games can bring. I mean I think…
Justin: Much more so, in television.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: I think television was – I think that’s who’s probably the most concern about this is television execs who are like…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …can’t have the kids playing video games.
Kirsten: I mean video games, its graphics are getting better. But video games have been around for years. I mean I grew up playing video games. And look how I turned out.
Justin: Yeah, a nice scientist. And actually, there’s not like…
Kirsten: Exactly. And there are plenty of video game playing going on…
Justin: …my four-year old…
Kirsten: …20, 30 years ago.
Justin: My four-year old has video games.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: He’s got one of this little learning ones that teaches letters…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …and putting letters together to make words.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: He’s totally doing it. Now, he’s running around spelling stuff.
Kirsten: It’s awesome.
Justin: Awesome. Yeah.
Kirsten: It’s great.
Justin: Yeah. Oh, free plug…
Kirsten: Smart kids.
Justin: …the LeapFrog little video game system stuff. Now, those are cool.
Kirsten: Cool. In terms of learning new things, some researchers at the Jay Craig Venter Institute in Rockville Maryland have taught some bacteria some new tricks through genetic transplantation…
Justin: Sounds like a flee circus.
Kirsten: All right. Well, it’s a little tiny, tiny, tiny flee circus, tiny microscopic flee circus. They took two strings of bacteria, M.mycoides and M.capricolum. Into the M.mycoides genome, they inserted a gene that gave those bacteria resistance to specific antibiotic drug.
So, they gave a dose of that antibiotic drug to the bacteria, it killed off all the cells that did not have that…
Justin: Resistance.
Kirsten: …resistant genes. So, you end up with bunch of antibiotic resistant bacteria. It was only in the laboratory, very happy safe environment not spreading out to the outside world, so no worries about that.
So, they took these souped up M.mycoides and then they put them in a gel with enzymes that broke down the bacteria and destroyed their proteins and left them with nothing but their chromosomes. They’re naked DNA so that all is left swimming around in this little gel is DNA.
Justin: Skinny-dipping.
Kirsten: Yes, skinny – a way to take the bacteria skinny-dipping. They then, took this mycoides DNA and they mixed it into the colonies of the other bacteria the M.capricolum and they added a chemical that made them want to fuse together. And so, this naked DNA entered into the cells of the Capricolum. Okay.
Justin: New clothes.
Kirsten: Huh?
Justin: New clothes.
Kirsten: New clothes, exactly. So, what ended up happening, they think is that the genetic material from the one bacterium entered the other bacterium and integrated into it and in effect took over so that when they tested the bacterium, the Capricolum bacterium, what they found is that they acted the exact same way as the Mycoides.
Justin: Wow!
Kirsten: Yeah. So, what they were able to do is apply the antibiotic to this new fused bacteria and be able to – okay, so kill off the ones that did not have the mycoides, the DNA integrate into them. So, those ones die often. And all you’re left with are the cells, the bacteria that have Mycoides and the Capricolum DNA (mooshed) together inside of their cells.
And they found that they continued to work – these two different species, they worked that were now one…
Justin: In the same body.
Kirsten: In the same body.
Justin: Same cell.
Kirsten: You know, this transplant of a genome is this bacteria still worked, it still lived…
Justin: Wow!
Kirsten: …even with the proteins and all the bacterial material that exists within the capsule of a bacteria aside from the chromosomes. There’s all these other stuff inside of a cell. And you wonder whether or not that machinery is still going to work with the new genetic constructions put into it, and it still did.
Justin: Oh, my goodness.
Kirsten: So, all the stuff…
Justin: That’s pretty ingenious.
Kirsten: All the cellular functions are still going on. These bacteria are still doing really well in functioning. And what they’re saying is, this is proof of concept for creating synthetic bacteria.
And that’s why they have their sight set on at this, at the Venter Institute. What they want to do is create bacteria in the laboratory and that’s their ultimate goal. They want to create bacteria that suck up carbon dioxide. They want to create, you know, and have huge vats of them that can combat climate change. They want to…
Justin: Combat.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Identify it. Death overcome bacteria. Wow!
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Bacteria go marching.
Kirsten: Other ideas is to turn a cell from other organisms into human stem cells to be able to create medical treatments.
Justin: Wow!
Kirsten: You know, like be able to turn something into something human, that’s I mean, so far out of my comprehension at this point in time. But this is what they’re working towards. They’re trying to be able to use genetic instructions to be able to do new things…
Justin: Bacteria already make insulin for us.
Kirsten: Yeah, yeah.
Justin: I mean, that’s the number one producer of insulin now, it’s bacteria.
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: It’s stemming. They’re super cool.
Kirsten: Well, we use bacteria now to, you know, help create things. We’ve been able to…
Justin: To digest our food.
Kirsten: We’ve been able to incorporate little genes. But you’re not – and we just use those bacteria to do particular – as tools but to actually synthetically create something from scratch is something that we have yet to do to say, I would like a bacteria that does this and we haven’t found it in nature yet. So, why don’t we…
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: …make it? Make it happen, naked cell.
Justin: That’s awesome. That might actually be a little easier to incorporate than a whole new organ.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: To do stuff. Unless we made that organ the home of the bacteria that we synthetically make and put into the body, yeah.
Kirsten: Keep thinking.
Justin: See, I’ll come up with the ideas and I’ll let the scientist figure out how to make it actually happen.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: This is a story plucked from the headlines. And picked from Wired magazine by World Robot Domination Alert TWIS minion (Justin Cole) who sent this in via the email which I can barely even open. There’s so much spam.
Kirsten: We need to help with you this, Justin.
Justin: I need a new email.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: So, as if the debate over immigration and guess work of programs wasn’t complicated enough. Now, there’s a couple of robots raising their hands.
Kirsten: Robots…
Justin: Vision of Robotics, a San Diego company is working on a pair of robots that would trundle through orchards plucking oranges, apples or other fruit from the trees. In a few years, troops of these machines could perform the tedious and labor-intensive task of fruit picking that currently employees thousands of workers each season.
The robotic work has been funded entirely by the agricultural associations and pushed forward by the uncertainty surrounding the future availability of labor in the United States.
Farmers are very, very nervous about…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …availability and the cost of labor in the near future.
Kirsten: Well, especially with like immigration laws that people are trying to push through right now. I mean, not to put a political slant on it but it could reduce the number of migrant workers that are available for them to do — to pick their crops.
Justin: Oh, which makes total sense as long as you don’t live in a part of the country that’s heavily reliant on agriculture. Actually what’s funny is…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …people who’d live far away from agriculture don’t realize how heavily they’re dependent on…
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: …migrant labor because…
Kirsten: But they could soon become dependent on robot labor.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: Which do you think is safer? That’s all I want you to know. Think about that for a little bit. Humans versus machines.
Kirsten: Well, until robots get that, you know, nice sense of touch where they’re be able to gently pick fruit…
Justin: Oh, they got that…
Kirsten: …from the vine…
Justin: That wasn’t the problem actually the issue…
Kirsten: …without bruising the fruits.
Justin: The issue wasn’t the plucking.
Kirsten: Not the plucking?
Justin: The issue was the identification. Basically, the problem in the past has been that machines would approach a tree like a human one and would look and find the piece of fruit, pick it and then look for the next one. And it was very slow and the robot would basically be circling on one tree…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …and like, you know, go through and miss one. It have to go all the way back around and find it and keep going around until it could a do a full circle or hadn’t gotten enough of it or all of it.
Now, what they’ve done is they’re working on sort of two robots. One is the Vision-Bot or – I made that name. I don’t know what its called. Well, basically that’s what it does.
Kirsten: One that actually has vision…
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: …of sorts.
Justin: It’s like – but you can call it the Vision-Bot. And it basically goes – it identifies the fruit as you’re approaching the tree. It identifies where all the fruit is and it plots out the most logical means of plucking them all.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: It comes up with how to do it. And the robot – it’s buddy, it’s robot body is an octo-bot, and eight-armed harvester that can go up and…
Kirsten: Nice.
Justin: …actually pluck.
Kirsten: That sounds something – like something out of a cartoon.
Justin: Yeah. And so…
Kirsten: Their arms…
Justin: I’m like looking out like – because I’ve been out in the farm land now…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …so, I look out and I see, you know, the tractors and the folks and the stuff going on out there.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: And it would be just, it would be kind of cool to see some robots out there. I would actually – I would be a little bit…
Kirsten: Robot farmers.
Justin: Little bit scary but also pretty cool. Yeah. And it’s one of the things that even though they’re putting a lot of money into this, they’re saying that, you know, just being able to know how much a machine is going to cost to operate and maintain…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …versus the uncertainty of having, you know, I mean, the death of cheap produce in America would be Americans working in the fields.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: That would be destroy it, would be done. So, we need robots or we need to figure out a worker program…
Kirsten: Do something.
Justin: …or something of that.
Kirsten: Do something. Well, it’s not just robots that are going to be taking over humans very soon, there is an – how about rats and mice.
Justin: Huh?
Kirsten: Researchers have published in Nature, the journal from the UK, one of the leading research journals in the UK have published their studies on mouse and rat cells that are now, they’re more like human embryonic stem cells than the existing mouse embryonic stem cells that have been used for embryonic stem cell research to this point.
Justin: Huh.
Kirsten: So, they’re not going to take over. But, you know, they’re going to take over the research end of things. Dubbed the Epistem cell, EpiSC, they’re isolated from post implantation mouse and rat embryos and they may offer a brand new controversy-free model for understanding how human stem cells grow and differentiate.
Justin: I think we already that controversy free version, don’t we? Those blastocysts, that new blastocysts technology that’s come along.
Kirsten: Right. Well, there’s…
Justin: That’s not embryonic.
Kirsten: It’s not, right. The new blastocysts technology.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Exactly.
Justin: We should go forward with THAT new one.
Kirsten: New controversy, for your blastocysts research.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Anyway, there are several lines of research currently looking into ways that we can look at embryonic stem cells without the problem of destroying what is termed an embryo.
Justin: It’s not termed that.
Kirsten: …an alternate term…
Justin: It’s mis-term that.
Kirsten: It’s mis-termed. But no, it is called, at this point, it is called an embryo in the political sphere. But that actual term that should be used is a Blastocysts .
Justin: Stem cells are less.
Kirsten: Exactly.
Justin: That’s what it’s use.
Kirsten: Not a viable embryo at that point. It’s just a bunch of cells that can be harvested, that are pluripotent in the sense that they can turn into any tissue in the body. These researchers are really excited about this new mouse and rat cells because what they’ve been using so far in the model system, so the mouse cells that they’ve been using so far are from a more primitive stage of development and actually aren’t that much like human stem cells at all.
And so, basically the models…
Justin: Aren’t going to represent…
Kirsten: Don’t represent…
Justin: …what happens in the real model.
Kirsten: Exactly. These mouse cells that have been used, they don’t represent what’s going on in human cells. And so, this new development is going to be just a step above in terms of our understanding. These stem cells come from the Epiblast, the innermost cells of a mouse embryo at 5.5 days after implantation in the uterus.
Very much like human stem cells or embryonic stem cells, they don’t thrive with particular inhibitory factors present. And they share patterns of gene expression and cell surface markers with human cells. So, there are things that are a lot more similar now than in the previous model.
Justin: Very cool.
Kirsten: And so, it’s a more advanced stage of development and what they’re calling a missing link between traditional embryonic mouse cells and cells that are beginning to differentiate. So, this is just another step forward and much more similar.
They’re predicting that scientists will be able to generate such cells from most or all mammals which will be — if we can develop lineages from many more mammalian lines, it will give us that much better of an idea, a solid grasp of how stem cell development proceeds.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Yeah. So, it’s pretty exciting.
Justin: You know, I still think we need, you know, I know I’ve called for a scientists of the world to overthrow world governments many, many times. But I think what would be just as useful at this point in time is sort of a compromise.
We’ll allow world governments to persist a little bit longer. But I think we need like just a science nation. Like, you know, some place where we can just go and do the research that’s going to benefit all mankind and allow the politics to stay on some other shore.
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: You know, there should be like some neutral…
Kirsten: Just a science – the place where science…
Justin: Switzerland for science, you know. Some place where science can go and just do good science. Politics be damned. Oh, I’ve still got other. There’s…
Kirsten: But it’s 9 o’clock.
Justin: 9:02.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Whatever this – what’s this one?
Kirsten: The Big Bounce…
Justin: Oh, this is the sad story.
Kirsten: The Big Bounce in HIV treatments in the next half hour. And we’ll be right back with Michael Stebbins.
Justin: The Weird from Washington.
Kirsten: That’s right.
Justin: Just push any button.
Kirsten: (I’m sorry.)
Justin: Any button will do, hit the buttons.
Kirsten: It went to sleep on me. What is this? My CD player is going on to sleep.
Justin: I don’t understand why a CD player needs to go to sleep.
Kirsten: But we’ll be back in just a moment. Don’t go to sleep.
Justin: Kirsten via New York for the last time.
Kirsten: Right. This is the last phone call from New York City. I’ll be back in little Davis. Yet again, full of culture shock next Tuesday. In the meantime, I’ve got lots of New York science going on.
(Taking) World Robot Domination.
Justin: We need to like a…
And we’re back with more of This Week in Science.
Kirsten: That’s right. We have the Weird from Washington, Dr. Michael Stebbins on the phone, right now. And without further ado, let’s bring him on.
Justin: Dr. Michael Stebbins.
Michael: That’s very loud.
Justin: I’m sorry. Yeah, I heard you’re in a little bit of a delicate condition this morning.
Michael: I am.
Justin: I’ll try to speak softly.
Michael: I damaged myself last night.
Kirsten: What you got for us, damaged one?
Michael: Yes, indeed. Today, I want to talk all about Dick. And this is going to be just a sole, a single topic piece this week. Because there’s really been quite a bit of information that’s come out about the Vice President’s role in several environmental screw-ups over the last couple of years.
And I think, it’s important for the listeners to actually get a sense of what’s been going on. So, couple of people have probably heard out there that this about this Klamath river base and a fiasco that happened a couple of years ago where tens of thousands of salmon, dead salmon washed-up on the riverbanks. And there’s this giant die-off of several different species of salmon.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Michael: As it turns out, the Vice President actually probably had a tremendous amount of influence on why that happened.
Kirsten: He had a shot gun? Sorry.
Michael: Exactly. He didn’t shoot them in the face. But what he did was actually intervened in a government program to limit the water flow from THAT river into an irrigation system.
And the Vice President basically literally said, “What does the law say? And is there someway around it?” Okay because what was happening was, there was a drought at that time. And the government decided that they had to actually cut-off, water flow for the irrigation so that the…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Michael: …species would survive. So, Cheney, instead of going through the established exemption root for the Endangered Species Act went through and decided to challenge the science itself that claimed that the water would actually damage the species. So, I’m totally wrecked today.
So anyhow, they established exemption list that seven cabinet officials can overrule the statute if they determined that economic hardship outweighs the benefit of protecting the threatened wild life.
But instead, he decided to go to the National Academies and put and scrutinized the actual biology behind the program. So, in 2002, he started putting pressure on the Academy to do the study.
And what they sound was that in the preliminary report that there would be no substantial scientific foundation to justify withholding water from the farmers. It turns out, they were probably wrong. And they open up the floodgates and we have this massive die-off.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Michael: Last summer, the federal government declared a commercial fishery failure on the West Coast after several years of poor returns on salmon. That caused the government about $60 million in disaster aid for fishermen to recover their losses. And $15 million that the government is already paying farmers in that area since 2002 not to farm in order to reduce the demands…
Kirsten: Oh, my goodness.
Michael: …from the water system.
Justin: It seems so odd though that he would use misinformation challenging of science and (parsing) of laws to…
Michael: I know.
Justin: …get what they want.
Michael: And it really doesn’t seem like him.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Michael: But the interesting part is that the government actually put together a ten-year rule that allowed irrigation water to be drawn from that river. A federal court now called that rule arbitrary and a violation of Endangered Species Act.
Kirsten: Mm hmm. So, going back and looking at it, they’re like, “Yeah, that was a bad idea.”
Michael: Okay. So, there’s this really defined system by which the Vice President actually went in and intervened in this particular case. But this is not the only instance where the Vice President is inserting himself into environmental policy and really screwing the country.
In August 2001, it was Cheney’s insistence that the air pollution controls associated with — that run by the EPA will be lucent. And this exactly why Christine Todd Whitman, the then head of the EPA, resigned.
Now, if you remember, Bush’s 2002 Clear Skies Initiative which outlined a market-based approach to reducing emissions over time.
Justin: Which I love, (Frankin’s) take on it, cleared the sky of birds.
Michael: Exactly. The initiative went nowhere. Because Cheney at the same time was offering to loosen the rules without the industry having to give in anything. So, basically, this entire of system broke down.
Christine Todd Whitman at that time, claimed that it was a family reason that she was leaving. But it turns out that it was because Cheney’s intervention and the change of this rule.
In August 2003, this definition of what’s called the routine maintenance of power plant was changed. And so, it allowed some of the nations dirtiest plants to actually make modifications without installing new pollution controls. And a federal appeals court has since found that the rule change who violated the Clean Air Act.
Now, he’s also been involved in pushing to make Nevada Yucca mountain, the nation’s repository for nuclear and radioactive waste.
Kirsten: Right.
Michael: Even though there has been a long standing safety concerns over this. And actually there was some – Department of Energy reports that actually seem to have a fraudulent data in it.
Justin: The geographic survey folks were…
Michael: Right. His office is behind the White House’s decision to rewrite the land protection measures that put nearly a third of national forest off limits to logging and mining. That was reversed, Cheney was apparently behind that, too.
And now, when the Vice President got wind – there was a petition to list, a fish called the cutthrouat trout which is in Yellowstone National Park as a protected species, he had a former congressional aid of his, a guy named, Paul Hoffman who is now – at that time the Deputy System Interior Secretary for Fish and Wildlife take over that little project. And basically the agency did not declare the trout as threatened in 2002 or 2006.
Then, there was a ban on snow mobiling in National Park where there are numerous studies that showed that the vehicles, the snowmobiles actually harmed parks, environment and that there was several polls, showing that majority of American support the ban. And Cheney’s influence actually lifted the ban in 2002.
And now, there was a follow-up on that in 2005 where a proposal to fundamentally change national parks was actually put forward. That plan would have emphasized recreational use over conservation and actually, that never went through that time.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Michael: Now finally, there’s some speculations that he actually had something to do with the loosening of the tighter standards on arsenic levels in drinking water.
Kirsten: He’s behind a whole bunch.
Michael: So, he’s been a busy boy on these sorts of thing. And the Supreme Court has recently actually come back on two good things besides almost overturning (Brown) versus the Board of Education.
Back in April, they rejected two other policies closely associated with Chenney. So, the efforts to loosen the rules unto the Clean Air Act were changed. And that they also ruled that the EPA should be regulating greenhouse gas.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Michael: And so, now, this is at the same time that Cheney is declaring that there was a conflicting viewpoint and that the science wasn’t clear on it.
So, this is, I mean, extraordinary set of examples where the Vice President is absolutely inserting himself directly in environmental law. So, that’s all the bad news. So, I always promise you guys a bit of good news if I can have it, so…
Kirsten: Please.
Justin: Please back from the brink of…
Michael: I know. Take you one way and bring you back the other. So, Bush administration’s budget request for the NIH called for cutting the funding, again, by about $275 million a year. The appropriation’s committee on the Senate rejected that cut and instead is providing an extra $1 billion increase over the fiscal year 2007 appropriation.
Justin: Nice, nice.
Michael: So that the amount will actually allow the NIH for the first time since 2005 to actually increase the average cost of new grants by about 3%.
Kirsten: Oh wonderful.
Michael: And they’re going to extra be fully committed to funding non-competing grants. So, this is after four years of stagnant budget…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Michael: …of the extra actual overall funding for the agency has actually dropped by about 8.3% in real terms, so that’s after inflation. So, in other words, what they get for their buck.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Michael: So, the overall success rate for research grants now is actually hovering below 20% depending on what type of grant people are going to (force). This is actually a really good news by the Senate.
Kirsten: Yeah. In the area that I’ve been working, it’s about 8% granting rate.
Justin: Wow!
Kirsten: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah, crazy, crazy numbers.
Kirsten: Eight percent of all researchers who apply for grants are getting their grants which is that stupid.
Michael: Now, a lot of your listeners might not actually be aware of what it takes to get an NIH grant. This is not something where we write up a little proposal. These grants are like 50 page, you know…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Michael: …incredibly detailed proposals…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Michael: …to get money. And so…
Justin: Or you can get the quick form from the federal of Colorado.
Michael: When you’re looking at the success of that 8%, it’s daunting.
Kirsten: Yeah, yeah. It’s very daunting.
Michael: So, that’s good news.
Kirsten: It’s very good news.
Michael: I mean the Senate is actually putting some money back into it. And so, we’re starting to reverse the trend. So, if anyone was doubting whether the democratic Congress is actually a good idea, there’s your answer actually that we’re going to actually start funding biomedical research at a higher level.
Kirsten: Yehey!
Michael: Yeah.
Kirsten: I’m so excited. Thank you for that good news.
Michael: Sure.
Michael: Sorry about all the bad news about Cheney. But it’s really, I mean, when it’s all put together, it really is an extraordinary picture of a man who has hell-bent on really undermining all the environmental law for the last four years.
Justin: And I thought he always impresses me.
Kirsten: He has a goal. He’s going somewhere with it, definitely.
Justin: I think what impresses me is actually how prolific his insertions are because they’re in – now, we’ve talked momentarily about the environmental. There’s also every form of business out there that’s being affected, you know, there is – I don’t know.
I feel like the treasury got looted somehow like, I don’t know how that happened exactly. But it feel like there’s – if we went in there right now, there would be a big IOU that it was like, laugh out, LOL, just kidding. We’re not paying you back.
Michael: Your listeners might – so, I worked at the Federation of American Scientist and so actually this whole fiasco with Cheney’s role in claiming secret or proprietary information…
Kirsten: Right, yeah.
Michael: And what he can and cannot do in the intelligence world. Actually I was spark by a guy who works here named, Steve Aftergood who runs a blog called secrecy news.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Michael: And Steve actually was the one who filed the original Freedom of Information Act request to find out Cheney’s budget and information on what his office was doing in terms of the intelligence community.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Michael: And so, that actually was kicked off here.
Justin: Awesome.
Kirsten: Excellent.
Michael: And it’s now turning into quite a little showdown between his office and the Congress.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: (Did) they take his house away or something.
Michael: Well, his house is in Navy Observatory. So, I don’t think so.
Justin: Okay.
Kirsten: No.
Michael: No.
Kirsten: All right. Well, thank you very much Mike for another entrancing…
Michael: And I apologized for my horrible state.
Justin: It’s okay. You sound fine.
Kirsten: Well, he sounds fine.
Justin: You got like give mid-string. You picked up your energy there.
Michael: Yeah.
Justin: It’s what you need to do some…
Kirsten: You’re bringing it. You’re bringing it.
Justin: …some eggs, some – what is it, Tabasco sauce and a good rant and it will get you going again.
Kirsten: That’s right. Thank you so much for joining us this morning and bringing the weird.
Michael: (Unintelligible) talk to you guys, soon.
Kirsten: We definitely appreciate it. Talk to you soon.
Justin: And the Weird from Washington with Dr. Michael Stebbins.
It’s so weird in Washington. It’s so strange.
Kirsten: It is so such a strange place. But it’s turning into a place, the world round, I tell you, have you ever heard of the Big Bounce?
Justin: Is this something to do with the Big Bang. Is it like we squished in…
Kirsten: Yes.
Justin: …and then we splash back out again and that’s the…
Kirsten: Exactly. The idea is that instead of coming from nothing and there just being a bang that appeared out of nowhere, they’re actually was something before us, a universe before us. And maybe there were a number of universes before us.
And what they do is contract into a point where then they have a bang and then they expand or have inflation which is cosmic inflation and it’s what we’ve got going on right now.
Justin: Kind of like a big black hole.
Kirsten: Yeah. And then, maybe when we expand to a certain point, then we’ll contract back down again and get to a point where another bang is created. And there is this possibility that what we came from was more a bounce than a bang.
Justin: Huh?
Kirsten: Yeah. And so, a researcher out of – where are you from?
Justin: Have they looked at our…
Kirsten: Penn State, yup.
Justin: Have they looked at our escape velocity? Are we going to make it this time?
Kirsten: No, they haven’t. That’s not what he is looking at. But a researcher, Martin Bojowald, an assistant professor of Physics at Penn State is publishing this next month in Nature Physics on his new mathematical model that he says can be used to derive new details about the properties of a quantum state as it travels through the Big Bounce.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: And his mathematical model is based on something called Loop Quantum Gravity which is — what is possibly an approach to the goal of unifying general relativity with quantum physics.
And scientists who use this theory can trace our universe backwards in time and find that it’s beginning point has a minimum volume that’s not zero and a maximum energy that’s not infinite which is what we would need in order for a bang to happen. And the theory’s equations produced mathematical results that are valid past the point of the Big Bang.
And basically what happens, here’s an explanation from this press release, quantum gravity theory indicates that the fabric of space time has an atomic geometry that is woven with one-dimensional quantum threads.
The fabric tears violently under the extreme conditions dominated by quantum physics near the Big Bounce causing gravity to become strongly repulsive so that instead of vanishing into infinity as predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, the universe rebounded in the Big Bounce that gave birth to our expanding universe. The theory reveals a contracting universe before the Big Bounce with space time geometry that otherwise was similar to that of our universe today.
Although, Bojowald says that even though the universe, the mathematics suggest that the space time geometry of the universe previous to ours was similar, it wasn’t exactly the same, that there are uncertainties within the mathematical model that suggest that it was probably different that it wasn’t the exact same universe… going in the opposite direction.
Justin: That doesn’t – huh? Okay, I believe them.
Kirsten: Well, basically within his mathematical model, there are a number of different parameters, okay.
Justin: I mean the universe wouldn’t look the same in any respect. I mean, it’s just a dispersion of matter…
Kirsten: Logically it doesn’t even (exalt).
Justin: They’re saying the wing bee has much matter from the…
Kirsten: Not necessarily.
Justin: …collapsing as expanding. Because that bugs with some key rules of the universe doesn’t it? If we can suddenly eliminate matter from our…
Kirsten: No, no. It’s not what he’s saying at all.
Justin: Okay.
Kirsten: No, it’s not that there’s matter being eliminated or anything like that.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: But that aspect, some kind of aspects of the space time geometry, the way that universe…
Justin: The dispersion…
Kirsten: Possibly.
Justin: We might be…
Kirsten: That might be too specific.
Justin: (Discus).
Kirsten: That might be too specific a term. But what does go through that there are quantum elements that continue to exist from the previous universe and get pulled into this universe.
So, there is some continuity between the two universes. And the space time geometry is similar. But there are some parameters that don’t survive mathematically in his mathematical calculations that these parameters got canceled out at the point of the Big Bounce. So that they’re not – it’s just shows that the two universes are not perfect replicas of one another.
Justin: Oh, no. They couldn’t be.
Kirsten: Yeah. And what he says, this is an interesting quote, he says, “The eternal recurrence of absolutely identical universes would seem to be prevented by the apparent existence of an intrinsic cosmic forgetfulness.”
So that there’s some aspect of, you know, it doesn’t just go in and out like an accordion that there is something like, maybe determined by quantum uncertainty principles that things get left behind or shifted in their form to something else.
Justin: Wow! Well, I think, yeah, I think if the universe collapses upon itself, it would be pretty much like smashing down everything into it’s minutest particles. And then, when it blasted it out again because the pressure got too much, you figure, yeah, it’s going to be different.
But I don’t – I still don’t see what the…
Kirsten: It’s another interesting idea and for those mathematically minded people out there. This might be a really interesting paper to look forward to as the August issue of Nature comes out, just in terms of the mathematical speculation of these continuously existing universes as opposed to just, “This is it.”
Justin: Oh, yeah.
Kirsten: The one that we’ve got bang happen.
Justin: See, this is the crazy thing about the universe to me. I mean, we could spend eternity just trying to explore our Milky Way, you know…
Kirsten: Oh, sure.
Justin: …like physically.
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: That’s one of a billion galaxies. And some are thousands of times bigger. I mean it’s big enough. And yeah, so we can barely see beyond our own limited view – never mind this center of our own galaxy we can’t see, never mind where the middle of our universe is. I mean, we have indications of where it’s at but that’s potentialities.
Kirsten: Right. But it’s just interesting…
Justin: Then, you know, we can’t see beyond that because there could be multi, multiverses out there.
Kirsten: Right, right.
Justin: There can be all kinds of expansions and contractions. There could be collisions taking place between universe.
Kirsten: There could be all kinds of things. It’s just an interesting thought problem that theoretical physicists are at the point where, I mean, this is to get a little bit, I guess, questioning but at are the point of studying mathematically the origin of our universe.
I mean, there’s the question of what happened before the Big Bang. Where did we come from? Where did everything come from? And theoretical physicists using this technique are on that path of looking at what happened before.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Which is something that we, at this point, are not able to get at. I mean, if you remember our conversation with (Rocky Cole), I mean he was saying that we can only get back to using actual, not just theoretical physics but particle physics, we can only get back to the particles that were in existence – we can’t get back to the particles that were in existence at the moment of the Big Bang. You know, technically, we aren’t even at the point where we can find those particles yet.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: We’re still looking at three minutes after the Big Bang or something like that – I don’t remember the exact number. But, you know, we still can’t get back to that exact point.
Justin: With the (documentation) or detection.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: However, theoretically, we’re there.
Kirsten: But the theoretical aspects of things is very neat that we as people are trying to move our brains beyond that point of initiation — that spark. Yeah.
Justin: I don’t know. I don’t know. Actually, I like this loop of gravity idea but it seems like it’s getting a little bit more in line with my oceanic string space based intuitive belief system.
Kirsten: Excellent. Quick news, we got a few more minutes left.
Justin: Yes, bring it.
Kirsten: Bring it. The first baby was born – the first baby has been born from oocytes that were matured in the lab rather than chemically, hormonally within the body of a woman.
Justin: Test-tube babies.
Kirsten: Yeah. But this is even more extreme.
Justin: Petri dish babies.
Kirsten: Yeah. They were matured in the lab, frozen, thawed, implanted or frozen, thawed fertilized, implanted and now born as a little baby. And there are three more in the process of gestation at this point in time.
This is really exciting news for women who have polycystic ovarian syndrome in which hormonal therapies that increase the maturation rate of their ovaries and their oocytes might actually have detrimental effects on their health.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: New report, fatigue resistance of aligned to carbon nanotube arrays under cyclic compression, also known as take a block of nanotubes and smash them over and over and over again to see what happens.
They did it 500,000 times compressing a tiny block of nanotubes down to about 25% of its original height and each time the nanotubes, went back to their original form. What this can be use for? One of the suggestions was the materials could be use in the future is to mimic artificial muscles.
Kirsten: Yeah, yeah.
Justin: Because they were able to send electrical conduit very specific places down these nanotubes.
Kirsten: Yeah. They’re very flexible. They really mimic like organic tissues.
Justin: That’s what they’re saying, yeah. It’s a living soft tissue. They do still need to work on a few polymers to assist because they’re out by themselves and nanotubes can’t do it. They need some sort of polymers around them to allow them to do this more and more efficiently going forward.
Kirsten: Right. That’s cool. Researchers at the University of Leads have determined that Prions that naturally exists within your brain cells, their function might be to keep away Beta-Amyloid which when it collects and plaques cause Alzheimer’s disease.
Justin: Wow!
Kirsten: Yeah. In their study when they…
Justin: Putting a crayon in your brain can keep off…
Kirsten: Prions.
Justin: Oh, prions. I’m sorry.
Kirsten: Prions in their mutated form are the cause of scrappy, mad cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. These are all neurological disorders of the brain. And it just seems that they’ve had some similarities to Alzheimer’s disease.
And these researchers noticing those similarities said, hey, why don’t we look to see whether Prion in it’s naturally non-mutated form actually has any kind of effect on the Alzheimer’s formation. And they found that mice genetically engineered to lack the Prion protein, they formed high levels of Beta-Amyloid proteins.
And in cells in a petri dish that had high or low levels of the protein, when the Prion protein was present in high levels, there was no formation of Beta-Amyloid. Or when it was low or absent, Beta-Amyloid formation was, it went back up again.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Yeah. Other researchers in – where are you? Let me see, this is the last story here. Other researchers have shown that they’ve engineered an enzyme that attacks the DNA of the HIV virus in infected cells and cuts it out.
This has been published in Science magazine.
These researchers are from Harvard University’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. They write that a customized enzymes that effectively excises integrated HIV-1 from infected cells in vitro might one day help to eradicate the virus from AIDS patients.
Justin: That is — eradicate from patients who already have.
Kirsten: Yeah. So, the potentiality of this direction of research could actually one day lead to something that if injected or swallowed in a pill form…
Justin: Sure.
Kirsten: …could cut HIV out of the cells. Go locate it within cells of the body and remove it.
Justin: Bring it. Why?
Kirsten: That was loud. That was really loud.
Justin: Bring it, (make) freaking rocks. I’m sorry.
Kirsten: Well, that’s it for us today.
Justin: How come that’s not the first story. How do we end with that?
Kirsten: Well, we have to get, you know, a good – we have to keep people listening, right? Thanks for listening to this…
Justin: Happen in (lab) science.
Kirsten: Thanks for listening to us this morning.
Justin: We’ll be back next week, next Tuesday.
Kirsten: Next Tuesday…
Justin: With more of This Week in Science. And if you learned anything from today’s show, remember…
Kirsten: It is all in your head.
Justin: The Periodic Table of Fun coming up next.
Kirsten: Thanks once again to AudibleKids.com for supporting this hour of This Week in Science.
Justin: Brilliant. So glad they thought of it.
Kirsten: Brilliant.
Here is the link to the Podcast: http://www.twis.org/audio/2007/07/03/138/