Willy Wonka and the Space Elevator

To tell the truth, the first time I heard about space elevators it kind of blew my mind. I couldn't get away from the image of launching a tethered object to just the right height and then having it stay there. For some reason it was a lot harder to wrap my mind around that than plain old satellites even though floating should seem more unnatural.

The space elevator has been proposed as a permanent route to space. Instead of launching rockets over and over to get people and things into space, the tether will acts as a road vehicles to climb, carrying people and materials.

The space elevator is way cooler than a base on Mars or more star wars defense projects but as I was looking around for fresh abstracts to link to this post I didn't find anything newer than 2005 in Google scholar. However, I did find a competition planned for fall 2007 to improve the design. The prize is $1 million.

There are several technological hurdles to the creation of the space elevator. Most importantly is the design of the tether which must be miles long and incredibly strong. Most groups are focusing on carbon nanotubes and a ribbon-like tether. Nova has a GREAT video on the subject with nice graphics and some video of the creation of nanotubes.

Autistic/Artistic

Autism and autistic spectrum disorders are among the most heritable of mental disorders as demonstrated by twin studies and family histories. Some of the heritability may be related to super genetic traits like expanded number of repeats in certain segments of the chromosomes as opposed to inheriting a gene for autism. The Autism Genome Project has been investigating some of the genes involved in autism and has come up with a few according to this news article.

Prevalence
Recent studies have disputed the perceived prevalence of the disorder. Some believe thr increasing incidence can be explained by better measures, better reporting and the expansion of the definition of autism into the autistic spectrum.

Savants
Check out this amazing video (5 mins) in which an autistic man takes one helicopter ride over Rome and then accurately reproduces a huge swath of the city on paper (Originally hosted by the Wisconsin Medical Society.)

Besides having some autism in the family [[ UPDATE: Diagnosis changed!]], I've read a few great books on autism: Oliver Sacks' An Anthropologist on Mars and Temple Grandin's Thinking in Pictures. I have to admit, Sack's book is a collection of essays on different interesting neurology cases, one of which is Temple Grandin, so they are two closely related tomes. Sacks writes about autistic adults and children and Temple Grandin writes about her own experience with autism. Both focus on the special talents that come with the deficits of autism. Grandin believes her experience of the world is closer to that of animals, not that she lacks intelligence but that her emotions are more like those of species other than humans.

Finally, here's an article on a group show of works by autistic artists.

Which came first, the lazy chicken or the lazy egg?

Abstract ahoy.



This study looked at the relationship between fitness and urban or suburban living. Not surprisingly, urban-dwellers tend to be in better shape. It could be because of all the 24-hour gyms they have in those big cities. But there is a possibility that people move to the suburbs so they can drive their cars everywhere. It's not location, location, location it's parking, parking, parking.

... these associations don't prove that sprawl causes laziness or weight gain. Most of the studies provide only a snapshot of different people at a single time. Such studies can't prove that living amid sprawl leads to inactivity; it may also be that inactive people choose to inhabit areas where driving is the easiest way to get around.

(from Science News)

While I was expecting city dwellers to be healthier it is a little weird. When you go to the suburbs you see parks and trees and bikes all over the place. When in the city all you notice are cars and buildings.

Fruity

This week's abstract is in honor of the news of the closure of PEAR.

PEAR, or Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research operated for almost thirty years. PEAR's studies looked at the ability for human consciousness to interact with the physical world. In some cases they used machines that use various schemes to create random numbers. The researchers asked people to influence the outcome of binary events controlled by these random machines. Using statistics to analyze extremely large samples, they came up with some indications that the conscious intentions of their subjects could affect the physical world. There are a lot of objections to these experiments, both methodological and theoretical.
















The main objection to these experiments, beyond their methodology, is the idea that scientific research should build on what came before; new experiments and hypotheses should be formed in the context of current understandings. However, others argue that we don't have to accept the idea that these are paranormal phenomena, and the rejection of all evidence and study on these topics is based on certain beliefs that also cannot be proven.

An article in today's New York Times on Carl Sagan brings up some interesting points on the intersection of science and religion but somehow tows the line that investigation is more important than confirming our beliefs.

“It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us.”

That's a sexy selection

Since the abstract isn't up yet:

In this Committee Opinion, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' Committee on Ethics presents various ethical considerations and arguments relevant to both prefertiliztion and post fertilization techniques for sex selection. The principal medical indication for sex selection is known or suspected risk of sex-linked genetics disorders. Other reasons sex selection is requested are personal, social or cultural in nature. The Committee on Ethics supports the practice of offering patients procedures for the purpose of preventing serious sex-linked genetic diseases. However, the committee opposed meeting requests for sex selection for personal and family reasons, including family balancing, because of the concern that such requests may ultimately support sexist practices. Because a patient is entitled to obtain personal medical information, including information about the sex of her fetus, it will sometimes be impossible for health care professionals to avoid unwitting participation in sex selection.

This statement is in reaction to new types of pre-implantation selection. One can now use sperm sorting to decide the gender of their baby (females always donate an X chromosome, males can donate either a X or a Y). Or, embryos created through in vitro fertilization can be selectively implanted.

After implantation, the sex can be determined either through ultrasound or cytogenetic analysis of amniotic fluid or villi (amniocentesis). Cytogentics is the study of chromosomes.

Because of the risks involved (although recently downgraded by quite a bit) amniocentesis is typically only used when the mother is of advanced maternal age or there is a history of chromosomal disease in the family.




I personally doubted a lot of sex selection is going on in the US, mostly because of the stigma attached to what's going on in India and China. But, then I found this site. The writer argues for using sperm sorting to choose the gender of children for family balancing reasons, exactly what the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology is arguing against.

Should we do things just because we can? It seems like a skewed sex ratio would be bad for society but there's always a chance people won't all choose the same gender.

Toothy Smile

Abstract for the day.

Why do orthodontics keep coming up here?

Anyway, this study looked at how getting braces improves or doesn't improve your life. In Britain, the researchers found there was no significant difference between people who had braces as a kid and those that didn't in terms of "well-being and self-esteem."

There were minor correlations between getting "necessary" tooth fixin' and later satisfaction but all in all the best predictor of "well-being and self-esteem" 20 years down the road was self-esteem at a young age.

I will make no comment about the generalizablity of this study beyond the following:

The authors didn't control for culture so you can't expect the same to hold true here in the US or in other countries because how people feel about their appearance depends on social norms.