Category Archives: Impact

Sci-Tech impact area topics

Proteins and quantum transition: Instant shape-shifting

Impact: Proteomics    February 22, 2011
Every once in a great while a piece of very interesting science comes along, quietly, until more and more people notice that not only is important but it may be right. Then scientists get into high gear and start doing more intensive experimenting. Sometimes the science press or even the popular media catch wind of [...]
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Reprogramming cells: The post stem cell future?

Impact: Stem Cells    February 13, 2011
Sixth in a series of posts inspired by ten topics in ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine The topics are: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light, alien planets, the microbiome, cell reprogramming, Martian water, the DNA time machine, cosmology and epigenetics. The original articles are now behind a [...]
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Oh Daphnia, why so many genes?

Impact: DNA Decoding    February 6, 2011
Ms. Water flea, Daphnia pulex…..credit: Wiki Commons This equal sign, =, is about as big the known champion of the gene-filled genome. Little Daphnia pulex, variously labeled a crustacean (like shrimp) or ‘the water flea,’ is the first of its subphylum to have its genome sequenced. Lo and behold: Daphnia’s genome has more genes – [...]
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Ephaptic coupling: Could be how brains coordinate

Impact: Neuroscience    February 4, 2011
I love it when scientists say things like this: “I firmly believe that understanding the origin and functionality of endogenous brain fields will lead to several revelations regarding information processing at the circuit level, which, in my opinion, is the level at which percepts and concepts arise,” Anastassiou says. “This, in turn, will lead us [...]
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Hoogsteen base pairs: An alternate structure in DNA

Impact: DNA Decoding    February 2, 2011
Reverse Hoogsteen base pairing…..Wikipedia Commons I know some of my biases. One of them is knee-jerk skepticism about taking little-tested scientific results and blowing them up to “…a cure for cancer” or “…revolutionize the electronics industry.” However, like most people I also have a bias to be curious about interesting, if somewhat unusual scientific findings. [...]
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The microbiome: Our life in common with microorganisms

Impact: Cell Biology    January 28, 2011
Fifth in a series of posts inspired by ten topics in ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine The topics are: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light, alien planets, the microbiome, cell development, Martian water, the DNA time machine, cosmology and epigenetics. The original articles are now behind a [...]
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This is the decade: Alien planets, alien life

Impact: Exogenous Life    January 22, 2011
Fourth in a series of posts inspired by ten topics in ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine The topics are: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light, alien planets, the microbiome, cell development, Martian water, the DNA time machine, cosmology and epigenetics. The original articles are now behind a [...]
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Transformation optics: the light fantastic

Impact: Photonics    January 17, 2011
Third in a series of posts inspired by ten topics in ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine The topics are: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light, alien planets, the microbiome, cell development, Martian water, the DNA time machine, cosmology and epigenetics. The original articles are now behind a [...]
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Global warming: The climatology of resignation

Impact: Climate Change    January 8, 2011
Second in a series of posts discussing the impact of ten topics framed by ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine. The topics are: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light, alien planets, the microbiome, cell development, Martian water, the DNA time machine, cosmology and epigenetics. This post reads more [...]
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Inflammation: An unsuspected killer

Impact: Major Disease Cures    January 6, 2011
Inflammation: An unsuspected killer. One in a series of posts discussing the impact of ten topics framed by ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light, alien planets, the microbiome, cell development, Martian water, the DNA time machine, cosmology and epigenetics. Lists of a [...]
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CellSearch: Wishing for a cancer blood test

Impact: Major Disease Cure    January 4, 2011
I’m beginning to think that wishing for breakthroughs in cancer treatment is part of the modern condition. Fifty or sixty years ago, such wishing was almost outside the realm of the thinkable. Today, well it’s rare that a few months go by without some kind of cancer breakthrough or another. It makes wishing seem worthwhile. [...]
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Welcome to a new world created by Wikileaks?

Impact: Online Information    December 27, 2010
Writers and journalists love to develop (and throw) the ideational bomb – that is, an idea so incendiary and potent that people everywhere talk about it. The idea goes viral. Perhaps a few heads explode. It changes perceptions. It causes many arguments. Of course, many of these bombs turn out to be duds. It’s not [...]
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Wild seeds for climate change

Impact: Climate Change    December 11, 2010
Perhaps dealing with climate change requires bold, even dramatic steps. Now that the Cancún climate change conference has ended with a diplomatically modest advance in various proposals (based on modest expectations) – and most of the difficult issues punted to the meeting next year in South Africa – it seems likely the best the world [...]
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An odd couple: Arsenic and Life

Impact: Origin of Life    December 3, 2010
It was unlikely that GFAJ-1 of the Halomonadaceae family of Gammaproteobacteria would grip the imagination; but it did. Of course, it did because instead of the long scientific name or the cryptic GFAJ-1, it was simply called Alien Life! This, of course, caused a minor sensation. It was even covered by the non-science media. The [...]
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Changing the frame of reference for quantum mechanics

Impact: Quantum Physics    November 24, 2010
Is there a relationship between the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and quantum nonlocality? Only a quantum physicist should know, or care. Wrong, at least in one way. Granted, quantum mechanics is a tough subject. So is your brain. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth knowing about. As for quantum physicists knowing about such a relationship, well [...]
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Addressing the climate change information gap(s)

Impact: Climate Change    November 17, 2010
As most people who follow science and technology are aware, climate change as an issue has lately become the victim of bad vibes. That’s not how you’d describe it? Okay. Point is: while the evidence for a changing global climate continues to roll in, the public seems to become less impressed. Depending on where you [...]
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First steps: Converting skin cells to blood cells without stem cells

Impact: Stem Cells    November 14, 2010
This is an important story about stem cell research because it doesn’t involve stem cells. I know that sounds odd, but it’s true. Of course, I’m being coy. The research by Mick Bhatia, Eva Szabo and colleagues at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada), published in the November 7, 2010 online issue of Nature [ Direct [...]
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Working toward a ‘triple threat’ graphene transistor

Impact: Nanotechnology    November 10, 2010
Anyone paying attention to science or technology this year must have noticed that graphene is a big deal. As in two guys, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, both at the University of Manchester (UK), winning a Nobel Prize in physics for (more or less) launching graphene on its way to fame and fortune. Hardly a [...]
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Microsoft Kinect connects with the future

Impact: Computer Power    November 8, 2010
This isn’t a review of the new Microsoft Kinect, the “controller free gaming and entertainment experience” that attaches to Microsoft’s Xbox. At least not exactly. I’ve only had a couple of hours to mess with it at a friend’s house, and during that time I had to fight off his three kids, who were already [...]
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Coming up: Body-to-Body networks (BBN)

Impact: Communications    October 30, 2010
Try this idea on for size: Built into clothes, clip-on devices, hand-held devices, or eventually implanted devices – tiny, very low wattage transmitters to become part of a “Body-to-Body Network” or BBN. Not so keen on it? What if you got a reduction in monthly cost of your telephone communications for becoming a participating transmitter? [...]
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The biodiversity crisis is more than extinctions

Impact: Species Loss    October 27, 2010
Published to coincide with the so called United Nations Biodiversity Conference (officially: The tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties) in Nagoya, Japan October 18-29, 2010, are a number of studies and reports on the current state of biodiversity. The most striking is a new assessment of the vertebrate species (that’s us and anything [...]
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Graphene finds mass appeal

Impact: Nanotechnology    October 25, 2010
Thanks to the 2010 Nobel Prize for physics, graphene is a hot topic. That doesn’t mean it’s a household word. Graphene is not like pencil lead, which most people know is graphite. (That may hold for another generation or two, pencils are disappearing into tiny niches.) Yet graphene is graphite. Same stuff, pure carbon, just [...]
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Published results: LCROSS lunar impact reveals scientific treasure

Impact: Space Exploration    October 22, 2010
The hypothesis: In the shadows of deep craters that pock the south pole of the Moon there might be ever-frozen water. The experiment: Guide the final stages of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) rocket into one of the craters and crash it into the surface, hopefully sending a plume of dust into [...]
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Histones: DNA packaging and much more

Impact: DNA Decoding    October 15, 2010
DNA winds around histones….Credit: Max Planck Society Most everybody knows that DNA is the carrier of the genetic code, the instructions for how life reproduces, grows, and maintains. Cell biologists have long known that DNA comes with a very complex packaging material, proteins called histones, which help the 2 meter (6 foot) strand of DNA [...]
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New light on solar cycle and Earth’s climate

Impact: Climate Change    October 8, 2010
Occasionally a piece of news comes along to which you can point and say “Now that’s science.” Here’s one: Scientists at Imperial College London (UK) and the University of Colorado (USA), publishing in Nature [October 7, 2010: An influence of solar spectral variations on radiative forcing of climate] have examined the Sun’s radiation data for [...]
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