The researchers are working on the relationship between body cell condition and aging. Their experiments have shown that the presence of stem cells or progenitor (undifferentiated) cells can have a beneficial effect on cells afflicted with either progeria or simple old age. Merely injecting the stem cells had an impact on cells in the brain and muscles. In experiments conducted with cells in a culture dish, the proximity of stem cells – close but not touching – had a beneficial effect on unhealthy cells.

Rather obviously this research begs a question: What do the stem cells do to the aging cells? This type of research is pretty much a ‘black box’ experiment. The cells are injected and the results observed, but the chemistry or molecular-level pathways are not known. Which is why further research is required. However, it should be noted that a lot of medicine is used in which the results are accepted without knowing the underlying mechanism. These days, however, as equipment and procedures for work at the molecular level improve, it should be possible to take this kind of top-level research and successfully look for low-level linkages to the aging process.

If this had happened, say, thirty years ago; it would have been an occasion for great nationalistic clucking and crowing. These days, people notice the irony, perhaps. More likely, with the tightening of budgets for space everywhere, the loss of any major expedition is viewed with dismay.

Mars is a difficult target. More than one-half of the missions have failed, some like the recent Russian Fobos-Grunt project fail even before leaving Earth orbit. Others, such as the NASA Mars Polar Lander crashed into the Martian surface. It’s known as the Mars Curse, but in truth it’s the complexity of the journey and the various requirements of landing on a major planet that demand near perfection in every detail, which is difficult to achieve.

Mars is often cited as the most important destination for human space exploration. Conceptually, this is certainly so; Mars has more to offer humanity – including possible colonization – than any other planet or moon. However, Mars Curse or not, it’s clear that Mars is logistically very difficult – beyond our means (money and technology) at least for the time being. What I just wrote can be vociferously disputed, but I wouldn’t take any bets on a manned Mars mission happening within two decades.

Zircon is a very common trace mineral in many kinds of rocks and soils. It’s relatively hard, crystalline material that, among other things, often contains trace amounts of radioactive elements uranium or thorium. The radioactivity has made it possible to date zircon with considerable precision, leading to the discovery that some zircons were formed about 4.4 billion years ago, the oldest known minerals.

Scientists at the New York Center for Astrobiology at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute reasoned that zircon might also be used to determine what kind of gasses were present in the magma that formed the zircons. That, in turn, could reveal what gasses were escaping from magma that reached the Earth’s surface and were contributing to the formation of the atmosphere. Their results, published in Nature [30 November 2011, paywalled, The oxidation state of Hadean magmas and implications for early Earth’s atmosphere] may overturn fundamental assumptions about Earth’s early atmosphere.

The heart of the research was to create zircons in the laboratory, in essence making lava with various compositions and particularly with various levels of oxygen. The key to the research was using a rare earth metal, cerium, as a component of the zircon. Cerium is found in two oxidation states (containing different quantities of oxygen molecules). The more of the cerium with higher oxygen content found in zircon, the more likely the zircon was formed in magma with higher oxygen content. Since it is a long-standing hypothesis that most of Earth’s atmosphere was formed by outgassing from magma at the surface; demonstration that magmas of higher oxygen content would produce atmosphere with more oxygen could change long held beliefs about the early Earth atmosphere.

According to the Renssalaer researchers, Dustin Trail, E. Bruce Watson and Nicholas Tailby, zircon with the higher oxygen content was prevalent during the Hadean eon (4.7 – 3.8 billion years ago), and by their calculations this indicates that Earth’s atmosphere at the time contained more oxygen than previously thought. If it holds up under further testing, this is a significant finding that could change how astrobiologists view the conditions for the formation of life. Oxygen is a key component of organic material, and in the current notion of primordial atmosphere it was in short supply. It has long been assumed that the early atmosphere was mostly methane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulphide and ammonia – not the best mix for life. Now with the possibility that there was far more oxygen available in the crust of the Earth and in the atmosphere, the view on the formation of water and life could be pushed much closer to the origin of the Earth. As researcher Bruce Watson put it:

“Our planet is the stage on which all of life has played out,” Watson said. “We can’t even begin to talk about life on Earth until we know what that stage is. And oxygen conditions were vitally important because of how they affect the types of organic molecules that can be formed.”

Despite being the atmosphere that life currently breathes, lives, and thrives on, our current oxidized atmosphere is not currently understood to be a great starting point for life. Methane and its oxygen-poor counterparts have much more biologic potential to jump from inorganic compounds to life-supporting amino acids and DNA. As such, Watson thinks the discovery of his group may reinvigorate theories that perhaps those building blocks for life were not created on Earth, but delivered from elsewhere in the galaxy.

[Source: EurekAlert]

This sort of hypothesis will be controversial, but as is the case with novel but plausible research, it will be tested.

This story begins with chaotic terrain on a moon of Jupiter, Europa. Ever since the space probe Galileo zipped by this part of the solar system and recorded the most detailed pictures of the surface of Europa, astroscientists have pretty much come to an agreement that Europa has a lot of water underneath the icy surface; oceans of water. The question they argued about was how thick was the surface ice? Some said, “Very thick, as in tens of kilometers”; other said, “at times and at certain places, not very thick at all – three kilometers or maybe even water on the surface.” Typically, the thick-icers had believable mathematical models to back up their story. All except for the “chaotic terrain” an area on the surface of Europa that looks exactly like it has icebergs that once floated on water. The thin-icers claimed this patch. Now we can add a third point of view, call them the middle-lakers.

In a paper published in Nature [16 November 2011, paywalled, Active formation of ‘chaos terrain’ over shallow subsurface water on Europa ] a team of scientists mostly from the University of Texas, Austin have hypothesized that enormous liquid ‘lakes’ exist in the Europa ice crust, figuratively half-way between the oceans below and the rock-like surface of ice. These lakes, some with at least the volume of the Great Lakes in the United States and Canada, may provide a means of water exchange between the truly massive oceans below (more ocean water than Earth) and the surface of the moon.

The significance of this hypothesis, beside settling the thin-icer vs thick-icer controversy by saying “both” with an intermediate layer some places, is that it increases the possibility of life on Europa. This has always been considered possible – the presence of water has long been associated with life; but on a Europa with a very thick shell of ice, the chances for energy and gasses interchange with the surface might limit the development of life. The postulated existence of the lakes means there is more dynamics in the waters of Europa, which would favor life.

Of course, this is a hypothesis. That means it needs to be tested. One of these days one or more probes will be sent from Earth to Europa and now it’s at least likely one will head for the ‘chaotic terrain’ area. Not only is that the area of most interest on the surface, but probably represents the shortest distance for drilling to the waters below. For now though, scientists in the field are quite pleased to have this alternative explanation for the chaos terrain and the behavior of Europa water. It fits the available facts, which is a good start.

[SciTechStory: On the Moon or elsewhere, follow the water]

The cover page for downloading is at: NHS choices, Hope and hype: stem cells in the media.

The pituitary gland is tiny, about the size of a pea, but it has an extremely important set of roles in the body’s hormonal chemistry (which applies to almost all mammals including mice and men). As the key organ to the endocrine system, the pituitary glands secrete nine major hormones regulating growth, fertility, blood pressure, breast milk, temperature control and fluid management – among other things. When the pituitary gland is malfunctioning, a lot of bad things happen. The ability to repair and eventually replace pituitary glands with synthetic tissue is obviously a major achievement. But science is not there yet.

The big news from the Japanese researchers is that they have been able to culture the mice embryo stem cells into pituitary gland cells, which is no easy feat. It required that the cells be grown together with cells of the hypothalamus, a companion gland of the pituitary. These two glands have many symbiotic connections and it became obvious that functional pituitary cells could not be reproduced without the interaction of the hypothalamus. The researchers also pioneered new techniques for implanting the synthetic pituitary cells into living mice. This too was tricky and represents a future hurdle for applying the technique to human beings.

As is usually the case with breakthroughs accomplished with lab animals, mice in this case, there is always the caveat that a similar procedure for human beings may or may not work. Typically the biochemistry is compatible, but the scale change and complexity of the human brain sometimes make the transition from mice to men very difficult. Dr. Sasai at RIKEN believes that it will take about three years to produce human pituitary cells, but the technique for implanting them successfully might take much longer.

So far stem cells have been turned into synthetic liver, heart, muscle, eye, and other organs. The list grows. In some cases this has been done with embryonic stem cells, which has a controversial side, especially when it comes to humans. Most researchers try to do the same thing with pluripotent stem cells derived (through various techniques) from adult or differentiated stem cells, which gets around the controversy. The researchers at RIKEN would like to follow this path in the future.

November 9, 2011: It was a reminder for the neighborhood (Earth and Moon) that strangers pass in the night. Night being metaphorical in this case because the asteroid 2005 YU55 actually took about three days to orbit through the vicinity of the Earth and Moon. As asteroids go, YU55 is fairly large, about 400 meters (1300 ft) wide, what Americans would call a city block. If it collided with Earth it would make a helluva bang, on the order of many megatons of TNT, roughly a nuclear bomb that would make a crater 6.4 km (4 miles) across and 518 meters (1700 ft) deep. Of course, it didn’t this time and probably won’t collide with the Earth in the future; so it serves as a reminder that such asteroids are around and collisions can happen. In fact, because 2005 YU55 also passes close to Venus and Mars during its long orbit, it is subject to gravitational and other forces that can alter its path. Current calculations indicate that despite changes caused by Mars or Venus, the asteroid still will not be anywhere near collision course with Earth when it comes back around 2041, however, there is a margin of error.

First seen in 2005 (hence the provisional name, 2005 YU55), this particular asteroid passes between the Earth and Moon with 319,000 kilometers (198,000 miles) to spare at its closest point to the Earth. It’s too far away and too small to be seen by the naked eye, but professional and amateur astronomers will have a day in the field spotting, tracking and studying the relatively infrequent event. The next such ‘near miss’ (to put it with as much dramatic spin as possible) will be in 2028 when asteroid 2001 WN5 swings by for a passing visit.

These passing asteroids, part of a group known as the Near Earth Asteroids are also the subject of a NASA mandate for a human landing. 2005 YU55 might, in fact, be a candidate. Asteroids present an interesting opportunity to ‘hitch a ride’ through the solar system, while at the same time extracting metals and minerals too heavy to be lifted in quantity from Earth. Since asteroids have negligible gravity, it would in theory be easier to ship heavy material from them than to fight the gravity well of any planet or moon.

It was, as so many jokingly put it, a real down-to-earth mission to Mars. As in, the mission never left Earth. Beginning June 3, 2010 and ending November 4, 2011, the Mars 500 mission took place in a facility at the Russian Academy of Science Institute of Biomedical Problems near Moscow, as a joint project of the European and Russian space agencies. Joking is easy but try looking at it this way: How would you like to step into a windowless room about as big as a studio apartment (12×66 ft or 3.6×20 m) and spend the next 520 days (18 months) with five other people, in this case all men, who until this experiment you’ve never met in your life?

Actually I’m not sure why this story was often treated by the media as something of a joke. Other than the obvious and unavoidable fiction of space travel while remaining on the ground, this was a serious experiment that cost over $15 million. The specially constructed facility, which included a simulated Mars Lander and an ‘external area’ that simulated the surface of Mars, was designed to maintain the isolation and confinement that would actually occur on a 500 day mission. The program included over 100 experiments, some requiring the use of spacesuits and there were many simulated ‘events’ that would typically be encountered by a real space flight. The six cosmonauts maintained communications with Earth, including with their families, but a transmission lag of up to 25 minutes was created, just as it would be on the 54 million kilometer flight.

It was not easy. In fact, all of the other attempts at doing something like this, including the expensive and widely hyped Biosphere II in Arizona (USA) were failures. Whether a mission to Mars was faked or you just put six people into a small space for a long time, the experience is grueling and potentially violent. It is already known that jealousy over workload and contact with loved ones was a problem among this crew.

It will be interesting to read what was learned from the experiment. We know that part of conquering the vast distances involved with interplanetary travel is overcoming boredom and the inevitable stresses of living in close quarters. Much has been learned from the navies of the world, especially those on submarine duty, but the situation in space – and especially the very long duration of travel in an unrelenting and extremely hostile environment – is different. How different, we have yet to learn. This experiment was part of the process of learning, for example, fatigue and lack of motivation were part of the difficulties encountered.

It is not accidental that the Russians spearheaded Mars 500. Almost from the beginning of the so-called ‘space race’ with the United States back in the 1950’s, the Russians placed greater emphasis on the human aspects than their counterparts at the U.S. space agency, NASA. This included, early on, extensive experiments and observation of psychological factors and later with social and cultural factors. Outside of weightlessness (microgravity) and the dangers of radiation in space, psychological and physical problems may be the most important in these long flights.

The six men who participated, three Russian, and one each Italian, French and Chinese were paid $100,000 for the duration. They also spent over a year in preparation. When they stepped out of the facility modules on November 4, they were pale but healthy. Officially, they said they were ready to go on the next mission. The next mission may well be even more ambitious – a similar experiment aboard the International Space Station, where microgravity is real.

In his New York Times column [06 November 2011, Here Comes the Sun] Krugman takes on three interrelated and explosive issues:

One: Taking the crown of most important new technology from computers, solar power is on the verge of becoming the technology the world not only desperately needs, but is “on the cusp of an energy transformation” because the cost of solar power is dropping so fast. The rate of price decrease is now at 7% a year and accelerating, which means that within a few years energy from solar panels will be cheaper than from burning coal.

Two: The ascendency of solar energy, which is already well underway in many parts of the world (e.g. China, India, Europe) scares the absolute living daylights out of an entrenched energy industry dominated by fossil fuels. There is nothing, truly nothing, that won’t be tried to delay, obscure, obstruct and deflect energy transformation. Nothing short of the richest and most powerful industry in the world is at stake, so in the battle against alternative forms of energy, money is no object. Politics and the media will follow thereafter.

Three: As an example of the dynamics created by the fossil fuel industry and the competition with solar power, the United States and other places in the world are suddenly in the rush to develop natural gas extraction from deep layers of shale. The extraction process, already notoriously known as “fracking,” has set off alarm bells because of its potential threat to the environment. Krugman outlines the threat and emphasizes that it represents a concerted attempt by the fossil fuel industry to reap profits while avoiding the cost of environmentally responsible development. In short, industry wants a massive delayed subsidy for any messes it creates, while simultaneously attempting to short-change subsidy for alternative energies, especially solar.

Those people who follow the world energy crisis and the development of alternative energies will nod their head and say, “Nothing new here.” This is not quite accurate. What is new is that an extraordinarily influential economist, working in his academic wheelhouse, can see lines of supply, demand, and price converging on solar energy. He’s also willing to stick his neck out and make a statement:

So what you need to know is that nothing you hear from these people is true. Fracking is not a dream come true; solar is now cost-effective. Here comes the sun, if we’re willing to let it in.

Given the political atmosphere in his native United States, it is worth emphasizing that Krugman’s column is courageous. The pack of baying hounds has been at his heels for years, now the dogs of war will be let slip against him. Less poetically, he becomes the highly visible target for the obscuring, obstructing and, of course, ad hominem attacks that are sure to follow.

The SQUELCH button will be pressed. Let’s see how the world’s media reacts. Perhaps more importantly, for those whose intelligence tells them that Krugman is right and solar energy can be in ascendency, this is not only a test but an opportunity to do their part. -nk

Obviously human beings can’t agree on anything important. I’m sure there are those who deny there are seven billion people on Earth for no particular reason other than its easy to deny something and force others to prove them wrong – which in this case they can’t, because they can’t agree on the answer.

Meanwhile the population of the Earth continues to grow, on its way toward a probable ten billion or so by the end of the century. Is that too many people? There’s no agreement on that either. Mind you, I’m not complaining about the lack of agreement. If we can’t agree on trivial things, I don’t expect agreement on really big things. In fact, the bigger it is, the less likely we are to agree.

Not that it’s necessary or even desirable to agree about everthing; although it would be beneficial if we could agree about things involving the fate of the Earth like global warming, overpopulation and nuclear holocaust. Don’t you agree?