TIZER'S SCIENCE NEWS

[Tripps]

Another step inthe right direction of the ultimate prize of power storage.
Did you catch the brief news item a week ago about a company which was using off peak electricity to make liquified air, which was later use to drive generators. No I don't understand how it's done either, but it seems to work, and he gave efficiency figure of 60%. Good use for all those windmils.

[Tizer]

Yes, it sounded interesting but is only economical on the large scale - it won't be in my back garden (unfortunately)!

[Stanley]

For some reason I woke at 2am this morning fully alert so I got up. Turned World Service on as usual and listened to an interesting discussion of sleep patterns, the day/night cycle and our internal body clocks. Some fascinating stuff based on the latest research which covered the effects of light on the totally blind, the consequences of permanent night shift working and the way our bodies are controlled by our body clocks to a far greater extent than has been realised. ESP is cheaper than the Radio Times!

[Stanley]

Peter, did you see the report yesterday about the new treatment for heart muscle damage after a heart episode. They take some healthy tissue from the heart, cultivate it in some way to increase the stem cells and apply it to the scars with a catheter. Initial results are very promising in a field which up to now has defeated the surgeons.

[Bodger]

All we need is sun,
http://www.prw.com/subscriber/headlines ... t=1&id=452

[Tizer]

One here for Tripps who has suffered twice from the nasty Norovirus...

US scientists have developed the first vaccine against norovirus
"A study involving 84 volunteers showed that an experimental norovirus vaccine provided considerable protection against infection and symptoms of gastroenteritis, researchers from Baylor College of Medicine reported in NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine). The authors added that theirs is the first study to show protection from norovirus illness due to a vaccine. To date, the only treatment for norovirus illness is to take plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration, and drugs to treat the symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting."
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/238879.php

[Tardis]

Fits here, the energy matters, and climate change topics:

renal units with Braun Dialog+ dialysis machines. These are the ones which can save 20% on electricity by retrofitting heat exchangers (that's about 536 kWh and £50 saving per machine per year, for machines used twice a day).

The Kent & Canterbury service have recently retrofitted 52 machines and are expecting pay-back within 4 years.

If your unit uses these machines and doesn't yet have heat exchangers fitted, please get in touch! We can help liaise with your Trust to make the case for investment (& carbon saving).

I have removed the bits from the person who sent it, but if you have one, let me know and I'll put you in touch,

Also demonstrates that some bits of the NHS are listening to patients, and actually doing something about it.

[Stanley]

I see that the Mail has once again raised the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse knocking out the National Grid and other systems for 'at least two months'. As if we didn't have enough to worry about!

[Pluggy]

Slack news day, they've been harping on about on and off for years. Heres one from 2009 : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8304256.stm . I have difficulty in taking the Mail seriously, my parents read it, sensationalism with right wing tendancies about cuts it.

[Tizer]

I see that the Mail has once again raised the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse knocking out the National Grid and other systems for 'at least two months'. As if we didn't have enough to worry about!

A coincidence here...I've just asked on the Creative Writing topic if Heather ever started that novel about something similar knocking out communications on Earth!

[Stanley]

Kev and Plugs' sister have had their own personal electromagnetic disturbance! I like the description of the Daily Mail.....

[Tizer]

Some spectacular aurora events have recently occurred but the man who writes on weather in The Times says they seem to have a different cause compared with the usual ones. Instead of variation in the solar wind it seems to be some change in the sun's magnetic field that has triggered the auroras.

[Tizer]

We all know that tree ring dating (dendrochronology) is used to give accurate dates for events in history and archaeology (e.g. on Time Team ) but now scientists at Pennsylvania State University have raised some doubts about the accuracy of the method. They were looking at past volcanic eruptions and relating their dates to tree rings. The volcanic ash blocks the sun's heat and cools the Earth, causing slower tree growth which shows up in the rings. But they found instances where there was no evidence of such cooling effects in the tree rings, even for eruptions several times the size of the Mount Pinatubo event. They now believe that the absence of cooling effects in these cases is due to a dramatic effect on tree growth, especially in trees growing near the tree line, causing complete absence of rings during the cold interval. This has important implications for all users of tree ring dating - it is not as accurate as previously thought. Time Team may have to review some of their dates!
[To be published in Nature Geoscience journal]

[Tripps]

Isn't that odd. I'd never heard of Mount Pinatubo until yesterday, when I looked up local rainfall figures to follow up my post about my pond. There were some photos there of the red sunsets in Royston, which followed the eruption of this volcano in Luzon, in the Phillipines, when the dust had blown right round the world. Now - here it pops up again.

[Stanley]

Dave, one of my interests has been to look at major volcanic events and relate them to local history. It's quite amazing how much we were affected by remote events and of course in medieval times they had no idea of the cause. It was all down to God punishing us for our sins.
I see they are still trying to tease out the truth behind the neutrino speed measurements at CERN that caused such a stir last year. Nothing definite yet but the mind boggles at the complications of measuring such tiny aberrations. I should think they are learning a lot from the investigation.

[Pluggy]

Dodgy connection from a GPS unit as has been suggested is a big let down from exceeding the speed of light.......

[Stanley]

For years we have been told that women were born with a finite number of eggs. I heard a report this morning that turns this on its head. Scientists in the US have noted stem cells spontaneously creating eggs using nothing but the base materials present in the womb. There will be some head-scratching?
Report on Farming Today about experiments done with piglets that seem to suggest that the more pathogens they are exposed to the better their resistance to them. Dirt can be good!

[Stanley]

Did anyone else watch the follow-up programmes on the criticism of Crufts and the Kennel Club in 2008? Terrible and well-authenticated cases of cruelty to dogs by bad breeding and refusal to accept that it was breed standards and competition at Crufts that was the main driver. Dalmatians genetically programmed to produce too much uric acid which eventually kills them by blocking their urinary tract because such dogs have a conformation that ticks the Crufts boxes. Flat faced dogs that can't breathe, Dachshunds crippled by breeding for long backs and short legs. There were many more and they showed before and after pics to demonstrate how the dogs had been changed by in-breeding.
What wasn't mentioned was the fact that the officials at the Kennel Club and Crufts have a built in imperative to defend the breeders, pedigree dogs are a multi-million pound industry. It's a good example of how ineffective self-regulation can be. The situation is so bad that about twelve breeds are classified as 'endangered species' because the genetic faults introduced by the breeders will eventually stop the breeds reproducing. This isn't guesswork, it's a well-proven scientific fact. Leaving aside all the arguments, this is cruelty and exploitation by hypocrites who protest that they are 'improvers' and dog lovers. The sooner they are banned from interfering with nature the better. One clear message for dog-buyers is steer clear from registered or pedigree dogs. Get a good lively mongrel or first cross and watch them thrive! They are friends, not status symbols.

[Pluggy]

Probably why a mutt lives longer than a pedigree. 12 year old pedigrees are generally on their last legs if they live that long (some 8 year olds are in a bad way), mutts usually go on into their late teens. Lets hear it for the illicit union behind some bins somewhere........

[Whyperion]

Same with cats , annoyingly my cousin bred some kind of cat , they mostly had breathing problems and potentially other difficulties live to 12 if lucky, my two wandering in moggies have done quite well with hardly any vet attention needed ( other than a bit of stitching after taking on the unadvisable bushes and animals while out exploring )

[Tizer]

3D-Printer with Nano-Precision
12 March 2012, Vienna University of Technology, TU Vienna, Austria

Printing three dimensional objects with incredibly fine details is now possible using “two-photon lithography”. With this technology, tiny structures on a nanometer scale can be fabricated. Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) have now made a major breakthrough in speeding up this printing technique: The high-precision-3D-printer at TU Vienna is orders of magnitude faster than similar devices (see video). This opens up completely new areas of application, such as in medicine.

Setting a New World Record
The 3D printer uses a liquid resin, which is hardened at precisely the correct spots by a focused laser beam. The focal point of the laser beam is guided through the resin by movable mirrors and leaves behind a hardened line of solid polymer, just a few hundred nanometers wide. This fine resolution enables the creation of intricately structured sculptures as tiny as a grain of sand. “Until now, this technique used to be quite slow”, says Professor Jürgen Stampfl from the Institute of Materials Science and Technology at the TU Vienna. “The printing speed used to be measured in millimeters per second – our device can do five meters in one second.” In two-photon lithography, this is a world record.

This amazing progress was made possible by combining several new ideas. “It was crucial to improve the steering mechanism of the mirrors”, says Jan Torgersen (TU Vienna). The mirrors are continuously in motion during the printing process. The acceleration and deceleration-periods have to be tuned very precisely to achieve high-resolution results at a record-breaking speed.

The press release continues on this link:
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.as ... ureCode=en

[Bodger]

A plastic skull for brain trauma
http://www.prw.com/subscriber/featured2 ... uredid=585

[Stanley]

Getting very close to magic Tiz!

[Pluggy]

Same with cats , annoyingly my cousin bred some kind of cat , they mostly had breathing problems and potentially other difficulties live to 12 if lucky, my two wandering in moggies have done quite well with hardly any vet attention needed ( other than a bit of stitching after taking on the unadvisable bushes and animals while out exploring )

Fortunately, there isn't the same money orientated fashion business in cats as there is in dogs. The majority of dogs are pedigree, the majority of cats are 'domestic fireside moggies'. You don't take them out and so they aren't a fashion statement......

When was the last time you saw a 'free to good home' notice for puppies ?. You see them all the time for kittens (that where our present one came from).

[Tizer]

Bodger, when you think about having a plastic skull fitted after a road accident it makes you wonder whether we should be wearing reinforced plastic crash helmets when we drive!