Input Welcome to Make Buildings Greener Buildings

June 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I had a great day Wednesday . . . just learning. With so many outlets available, people now seem to have a compulsion to expound, expound, expound (guilty as charged . . .) and more decisions seem to be made based on opinion, regardless of any pesky facts that might be hovering around.

This welcome input-heavy respite came courtesy of the two-day GreenBuildingsNY conference, which ended today at the Javits Center. Admittedly, as conference chair, I put together a program full of information that I wanted to get, and I’m happy to say I wasn’t disappointed. I’ll cover some of the interesting sessions I attended next week, as well as provide a link to the presentation material.

Sadly, because of the GreenBuildingsNY event, I was not able to attend the Johnson Controls/U.S. Energy Association’s 21st Annual Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington, D.C., but Annie Snider’s excellent recaps are almost as good as being there (except for the part where you get to rub elbows with congressional representatives and top energy executives). Here are her posts from yesterday and today. Behavioral scientist, Dr. Robert Cialdini from Arizona State University, presented a surefire energy-saving technique that was found to be three times more effective than several others tested.

Earlier this week, GreenBiz.com and GreenerBuildings.com conducted a Philips-sponsored webinar entitled “Bringing Efficiency to Light” that described the opportunities for whole-building energy savings that can spring from the seed of lighting efficiency. Philips’ Steve McGuire noted that lighting technology is moving rapidly and described a new free online tool at ASimpleSwitch.com that allows users to calculate their energy efficiency of their company or home as well as how much they can save by improving it. An archive of the hour-long webinar may be accessed here.

I suppose incarceration could be considered a form of input (or certainly feedback for negative output), so the reuse and adapting of shipping containers as prison cells in New Zealand is quite intriguing, though if one fully applied an integrated approach to the question, it seems as though we would want to find ways to need fewer prison cells. Certainly, prison overcrowding is an issue in the U.S. and fully heated and cooled cells can be made from modified shipping containers (they have windows, for example) at half the price of building a new facility.

Shari Shapiro follows last week’s piece on litigation surrounding the construction problems in a LEED-aspiring project with another fascinating piece about dueling opinions regarding whether a Wisconsin high school deserved its LEED-Gold certification. A group of citizens and engineers sponsored the first-ever third-party appeal the project’s certification on the grounds that key prerequisites were not complied with.

In response to this appeal, the USGBC hired two independent reviewers to assess the merits of the complaint and they found that the award of LEED certification was appropriate, much to the dismay of the appellants. Having skimmed the ~150 pages of material involved, it seems that this case is as much as a philosophical one as a technical one.

Is LEED’s role one of a collaborative market transformation tool or as a clear set of rules that must be fully obeyed to achieve certification? As I was helping shape the system in its early days, I believe that LEED’s initial job was to achieve market penetration and to then become increasingly more stringent in its technical and compliance requirements as the market became more capable.

On the building front, the Church of Scientology is about to open a new LEED certified church in Pasadena, following a string of renovations of historic buildings — some award winning — over the last several years.

This week’s Look-Grandpa-I-picked-up-the-$20-bill-you-said-was-fake-but-it’s-real! award goes to Burger King for its new restaurant in Germany that is expected to have on-site solar and wind energy systems reduce energy use by 45 percent and CO2 emissions by 120 metric tons per year. On top of the renewable energy system, its state of the art heating and cooling system uses only 27 percent of a conventional HVAC system, while waste heat recovery will reduce water heating energy by 50 percent and interior heat loads from lighting will be reduced by over 50 percent by extensive use of LEDs. The restaurant even features an advanced broiler that reduces gas use by 50 percent and electricity by 90 percent. The broiler is already in place throughout North America.

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Social status in paper wasps is established early in life

May 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 20 (ANI): The road to royalty begins early in paper wasps, a new American research has found.

While many social insects have distinct social classes that differ in appearance and are fixed from birth, paper wasp society is more fluid – all castes look alike, and any female can climb the social ladder and become a queen.

Now, molecular analysis reveals that paper wasp social hierarchy is less flexible than it appears.

Queens diverge from their lower-status sisters long before they reach adulthood, scientists say.

Slender reddish-brown wasps with black wings, Polistes metricus paper wasps are a common sight throughout the Midwestern and Southeastern US.

Hidden in papery umbrella-shaped nests in the eaves and rafters of your house, a complex society is hard at work.

Female wasps develop into one of two castes that take on different roles within the nest.

While young queens don”t work and eventually leave the nest to reproduce and rule colonies of their own, workers forego reproduction and spend their lives defending the nest and raising their siblings.

Lead author James Hunt, currently a visiting scholar at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, NC, said: “All offspring look alike but some work and some don”t.

“The workers are the ones that fly out and sting you if they feel their colony is threatened.”

Hunt and his team wanted to find out if hidden molecular mechanisms set some paper wasps on the path to becoming workers, and others to becoming queens.

Hunt, also a biologist at North Carolina State University, said: “Many scientists think that paper wasp social status isn”t decided until they are adults, but some think there is more to it than that.”

With Amy Toth and Tom Newman at the University of Illinois and Gro Amdam and Florian Wolschin at Arizona State University, the researchers measured gene activity and protein levels in young paper wasp larvae before they took on different roles.

Although all wasp larvae look and act alike, the researchers discovered several differences during development that predispose them to one caste or the other.

The larvae that become queens have high levels of a group of proteins that enable them to survive the winter and reproduce next year, whereas the ones that become workers are much shorter-lived and have low levels of these proteins, said Hunt.

He added: “There”s less upward mobility in the ones that become the workers. They may look just like the future queens, but they are strongly biased toward the worker role.”

Future queens also showed higher activity of several genes involved in caste determination in other, more recently evolved insects that have more visible distinctions between castes.

Hunt explained: “Paper wasps and honey bees are separated by 100 million years of evolution, but we see some of the same gene and protein patterns in paper wasps that lead to different types of adults in bees.”

The results help shed light on how insect social behaviour comes to be.

Hunt said: “It is sometimes argued that adult wasps actually choose to become workers in order to help their mother reproduce and raise their sisters – hence the term ”altruistic,”” he said. “What we found is that really the choice is limited by how they develop as larvae.”

The findings of the study have appeared in the May 17 issue of PLoS ONE. (ANI)

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Molecules that behave like robots created

May 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, May 14 (ANI): In a breakthrough study, researchers have created and programmed robots the size of single molecule that can move independently across a nano-scale track.

The development, by Researchers from Columbia University, Arizona State University, the University of Michigan and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), marks an important advancement in the nascent fields of molecular computing and robotics.

And the feat could someday lead to molecular robots that can fix individual cells or assemble nanotechnology products.

Led by Milan N. Stojanovic, the project involved reprogramming DNA molecules to perform in specific ways.

“Can you instruct a biomolecule to move and function in a certain way–researchers at the interface of computer science, chemistry, biology and engineering are attempting to do just that,” Nature quoted Mitra Basu as saying.

Recent molecular robotics work has produced so-called DNA walkers, or strings of reprogrammed DNA with ”legs” that enabled them to briefly walk.

Now the researchers has shown these molecular robotic spiders can in fact move autonomously through a specially-created, two-dimensional landscape.

The spiders acted in rudimentary robotic ways, showing they are capable of starting motion, walking for awhile, turning, and stopping.

In addition to be incredibly small–about 4 nanometers in diameter–the walkers are also move slowly, covering 100 nanometers in times ranging 30 minutes to a full hour by taking approximately 100 steps.

This is a significant improvement over previous DNA walkers that were capable of only about three steps.

While the field of molecular robotics is still emerging, it is possible that these tiny creations may someday have important medical applications.

“This work one day may lead to effective control of chronic diseases such as diabetes or cancer,” said Basu.

The study was published in the latest edition of the journal Nature. (ANI)

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Icy asteroids may have seeded life on Earth, claim scientists

April 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, April 29 (ANI): NASA has revealed compelling evidence of life on Mars.

NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity missions have disclosed signs of sulphates on Mars, which evidently means there could be water on the Red Plant and consequently life.

While previous missions have also suggested the presence of water on Mars, NASA says the recent evidence is more concrete.

Boffins are especially excited over the discovery of gypsum – a sulphate found in fossils in the Mediterranean.

Jack Farmer, researcher at the Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona, was “optimistic” there was – or had been – life on Mars.

“One, thanks to Opportunity and the rovers and orbital imaging it is clear that there are literally vast areas of Mars that are carpeted with various sorts of sulphates, including gypsum,” the Sun quoted Bill Schopf, researcher at the University of California in Los Angeles, as saying.

Schopf went on: “Two, it turns out on earth there just hasn””t been hardly any work done at all to show whether gypsum ever includes within it preserved evidence of former life.

“The age doesn””t matter. We just didn””t know that fossils and organic matter and things like that were well preserved within gypsum.

“So, three, it turns out that now we have made that first step we are going to find out how widespread it is in other sulphate deposits on earth.

“And those lines of evidence will then give us a way to justify going to Mars and looking at gypsum because it looks as though based on these findings that is going to turn out to be a really excellent place to find evidence of ancient life, regardless of age, if in fact it is there.”

According to Dr Steve Squyres, of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, a sample of Mars rock would help establish the presence of life on the planet.

He believes the presence of Methane in the Martian atmosphere hinted at the possibility of life.

Squyres said: “Methane is a molecule that should go away very quickly. We need to send a mission to find out if the source is biological.

“We also need to send a mission to return samples from Mars. That would enable scientists to find out whether Mars might ever have harboured life.

He added: “If we are ever going to show if there was ever life on Mars, I think we””re going to have to study samples back on Earth.” (ANI)

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American physicists locate long lost Soviet Union reflector on Moon

April 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

San Diego, Apr 27(ANI): A team of physicists, led by a University of California professor, has pinpointed the location of a long lost light reflector left on the Moon by the Soviet Union nearly 40 years ago, which many scientists had unsuccessfully searched for and never expected would be found.

The French-built laser reflector was sent aboard the unmanned Luna 17 mission, which landed on the Moon on November 17, 1970, releasing a robotic rover that roamed the lunar surface and carried the missing laser reflector.

The Soviet lander and its rover, called Lunokhod 1, were last heard from on September 14, 1971.

“No one had seen the reflector since 1971,” The American Astronomical Society quoted Tom Murphy, Associate Professor of Physics at University of California, San Diego, as saying.

Murphy said his team had occasionally looked for the Lunokhod 1 reflector over the last two years, but faced tall odds against finding it until recently.

The breakthrough came last month when the high-resolution camera on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, obtained images of the landing site, he added.

The camera team, led by Mark Robinson at Arizona State University, identified the rover as a sunlit speck on the image- miles from where Murphy and his team had been searching.

“It turns out we were searching around a position miles from the rover. We could only search one football-field-sized region at a time. The recent images from LRO, together with laser altimetry of the surface, provided coordinates within 100 meters, and then we were in business and only had to wait for time on the telescope in good observing conditions,” Murphy said.

On April 22, his team sent pulses of laser light from the 3.5 meter telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, zeroing in on the target coordinates provided by the LRO images.

Murphy, together with Russet McMillan of the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, NM, and UCSD Physics graduate student Eric Michelsen found the long lost Lunokhod 1 reflector and pinpointed its distance from Earth to within one centimeter.

They then made a second observation less than 30 minutes later that allowed the team to triangulate the reflector’s latitude and longitude on the Moon, in other words its exact spot on the Moon, to within 10 meters.

In the coming months, he estimates it will be possible to establish the reflector’s coordinates to better than one-centimeter precision. (ANI)

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Microbes genetically reprogrammed to ooze oil for renewable biofuel

March 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 30 (ANI): In a new study, a team of scientists has genetically reprogrammed photosynthetic microbes to secrete oil, thus bypassing energy and cost barriers that have hampered green biofuel production.

The study was carried out by researcher Xinyao Liu and professor Roy Curtiss at Arizona State University”s Biodesign Institute, US.

The challenges of developing a renewable biofuel source that is competitive with the current scalability and low-cost of petroleum have been daunting.

“The real costs involved in any biofuel production are harvesting the fuel precursors and turning them into fuel,” said Roy Curtiss, director of the Biodesign Institute”s Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology and professor in the School of Life Sciences.

“By releasing their precious cargo outside the cell, we have optimized bacterial metabolic engineering to develop a truly green route to biofuel production,” he added.

Photosynthetic microbes called cyanobacteria offer attractive advantages over the use of plants like corn or switchgrass, producing many times the energy yield with energy input from the sun and without the necessity of taking arable cropland out of production.

Lead author Xinyao Liu and Curtiss, applied their expertise in the development of bacterial-based vaccines to genetically optimize cyanobacteria for biofuel production.

In the group”s latest effort, the energy-rich fatty acids were extracted without killing the cells in the process.

Rather than destroying the cyanobacteria, the group has ingeniously reengineered their genetics, producing mutant strains that continuously secrete fatty acids through their cell walls.

The cyanobacteria essentially act like tiny biofuel production facilities.

Liu realized that if cyanobacteria could be cajoled into overproducing fatty acids, their accumulation within the cells would eventually cause these fatty acids to leak out through the cell membrane, through the process of diffusion.

To accomplish this, Liu introduced a specific enzyme, known as thioesterase, into cyanobacteria.

The enzyme is able to uncouple fatty acids from complex carrier proteins, freeing them within the cell where they accumulate, until the cell secretes them.

A second series of modifications enhances the secretion process, by genetically deleting or modifying two key layers of the cellular envelope-known as the S and peptidoglycan layers-allowing fatty acids to more easily escape outside the cell, where their low water solubility causes them to precipitate out of solution, forming a whitish residue on the surface.

Study results show a 3-fold increase in fatty acid yield, after genetic modification of the two membrane layers.

To improve the fatty acid production even further, the group added genes to cause overproduction of fatty acid precursors and removed some cellular pathways that were non-essential to the survival of cyanobacteria.

Such modifications ensure that the microbe”s resources are devoted to basic survival and lipid production. (ANI)

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Neptune may have gorged on a planet and stolen its moon

March 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, March 23 (ANI): A team of scientists has suggested that Neptune may have polished off a super-Earth that once roamed the outer solar system and stolen its moon to boot, which could explain mysterious heat radiating from the icy planet and the odd orbit of its moon Triton.

Neptune’s own existence was a puzzle until recently.

The dusty cloud that gave birth to the planets probably thinned out further from the sun.

With building material so scarce, it is hard to understand how Uranus and Neptune, the two outermost planets, managed to get so big.

In 2005, a team of scientists proposed that the giant planets shifted positions in an early upheaval.

In this scenario, Uranus and Neptune formed much closer to the sun and migrated outwards, possibly swapping places in the process.

That would have left behind enough material just beyond their birthplace to form a planet with twice the Earth’s mass, according to calculations published in 2008 by Steven Desch of Arizona State University in Tempe.

According to a report in New Scientist, Desch and colleague Simon Porter now say that Neptune’s peculiar moon Triton may once have been paired with this hypothetical super-Earth.

Triton is larger than Pluto, and it moves through its orbit in the opposite direction to Neptune’s rotation, suggesting that it did not form there but was captured instead.

For Neptune to capture Triton, the moon would have had to slow down drastically.

One way to do this is for Triton to have had a partner that carried away most of the pair’s kinetic energy after an encounter with Neptune.

In 2006, researchers argued that Triton was initially paired with another object of similar size that wound up being gravitationally slung into space after the pair ventured near Neptune.

But Triton could have slowed even more if its former partner were a heavy super-Earth.

That’s because a more massive body could carry away more of the pair’s kinetic energy, Desch calculated in a study presented earlier this month at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas.

“It would be a lot easier to capture Triton if it were orbiting something bigger,” he said.

Neptune may have engulfed the super-Earth.

“Heat left over from the impact could explain why the planet radiates much more heat than its cousin Uranus, which is similar in mass and composition,” Desch said. (ANI)

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Consumers prefer nostalgic products when they feel the need to belong

March 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 23 (ANI): Ever wondered why you sometimes like to watch an old episode of ‘Friends’ instead of your current favourite TV show? Well, a new research seems to have found the answer.

It has shown that when people acutely feel the need to belong, they reach for a nostalgic treat.

Authors Katherine E. Loveland (Arizona State University), Dirk Smeesters (Erasmus University, The Netherlands), and Naomi Mandel (Arizona State University) examined situations that lead people to prefer nostalgic products (products that remind them of the past) over more contemporary products.

They conducted a series of five experiments in which they found that the key to preferring nostalgic products is the need to belong.

“Whenever a situation arises in which people feel a heightened need to belong to a group, or generally need to feel socially connected, they will show a corresponding higher preference for nostalgic products,” the authors said.

In one experiment, the participants played a ball-tossing game on a computer in which some people were excluded soon after beginning.

“Those people who were excluded after just a couple of ball tosses not only said that feeling like they belong is more important to them than people who were not excluded did, but they also chose more nostalgic than contemporary products in a variety of categories, including movies, TV shows, food brands, cars, and even shower gel,” the authors said.

In a final experiment, the authors discovered that when participants were excluded (from the same ball game as in the previous experiments) they not only felt a higher need to belong, but their need to belong was “cured” by eating a “nostalgic cookie”—a brand that had been popular in the past.

The study has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research. (ANI)

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Semiconductor Research Corporation and Researchers from Arizona Universities Develop Sensor to Drastically Cut Water Usage During Chip Making Process

March 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

One-of-a-Kind Sensor Shown to Conserve Water Up to 50 Percent
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.–(Business Wire)–
Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world’s leading
university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies,
University of Arizona and Arizona State University researchers have shown a new,
exclusive way to dramatically conserve the amount of water needed to manufacture
semiconductors. Using a unique device called Electro-Chemical Residue Sensor
(ECRS), it allows for clean, rinse and dry process optimization that helps make
semiconductor facilities more efficient, sustainable and cost-effective.

Water conservation in semiconductor facilities is becoming a major concern for
integrated device manufacturers (IDM), as the costs, availability, and
sustainability of water resources can greatly affect manufacturing facilities.
Approximately 80 percent1 of water consumed by semiconductor sites is used in
the rinsing of the wafer during various stages of device fabrication.
Additionally, a wafer going through a modern semiconductor process is rinsed
roughly 400 times, according to industry experts.

“The use of water resources are getting increasingly more critical especially as
the industry moves to smaller features and approaches nano-scale manufacturing
technologies,” said Dr. Bert Vermeire, associate professor of research at
Arizona State University. “A main reason for high water usage is inadequate
process monitoring, which can be attributed to the lack of appropriate
monitoring tools. One cannot optimize what one cannot measure.”

ECRS addresses this measurement challenge by dynamically assessing a wafer`s
cleanliness during the clean, rinse and dry cycles. A comprehensive simulation
model estimates residual impurity concentrations from the measured results. No
other sensor of this type is available today.

“Tests performed in collaboration with an IDM`s large integrated circuit
manufacturing facility demonstrated this sensor`s capability to detect chemicals
inside features, showing annual water savings of up to 50 percent could be
realized by optimizing the rinse process using the ECRS,” said Dan Herr, SRC
director of Nanomanufacturing Sciences.

The fundamental science for the ECRS was developed at the University of
Arizona’s Engineering Research Center for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor
Manufacturing with support and mentoring from SRC. Environmental Metrology
Corporation was spun off from this center in 2003 to commercialize the sensor. A
prototype was designed, built and tested under the National Science Foundation`s
Small Business Innovation Research program. Environmental Metrology Corporation
was also awarded a 2009 Editors` Choice Best Product Award from Semiconductor
International for the ECRS.

A wireless version of the sensor is being jointly developed by Environmental
Metrology Corporation and the ConnectionOne Industry-University Research Center
located at Arizona State University.

About SRC

Celebrating 27 years of collaborative research for the semiconductor industry,
SRC defines industry needs, invests in and manages the research that gives its
members a competitive advantage in the dynamic global marketplace. Awarded the
National Medal of Technology, America`s highest recognition for contributions to
technology, SRC expands the industry knowledge base and attracts premier
students to help innovate and transfer semiconductor technology to the
commercial industry. For more information, visit www.src.org.

1Kempka, Steven N., “Evaluating the Efficiency of Overflow Wet Rinsing,” Micro,
41-46, May 1995

The Francisco Group for SRC
Dan Francisco, 916-293-9030
dan@franciscogrp.com

Copyright Business Wire 2010

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Pete Rose’s Girlfriend | Pete Rose Girlfriend | Playboy Auditions in Houston | Rose’s Ex-Girlfriend Mikki Chernoff | Kiana Kim | Pete Rose’s Girlfriend Kiana Kim

November 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Pete Rose’s Girlfriend | Pete Rose Girlfriend | Playboy Auditions in Houston | Rose’s Ex-Girlfriend Mikki Chernoff |  Kiana Kim | Pete Rose’s Girlfriend Kiana Kim

Playboy auditions in Houston,Pete Rose is sending his girlfriend to the auditions in Houston.

She’s very intelligent and just a really sweet girl,” Rose told the newspaper. “She had a very prestigious job several years ago when she was a flight attendant for Korean Airlines, which is really a big deal in Korea, and she’s Korean. Let’s just hope that the Playboy people like her.”

According to a Playboy publicist, the test photos will be shot by Rose’s ex-girlfriend, former Playmate and Playboy photographer, Mikki Chernoff.

One magazine referred to her as Pete Rose’s Mystery Girl, when she was in Houston for her Playboy shoot.

Her name is Kiana Kim. She was born in Seoul, South Korea, and moved here when she was 5. She has a degree in marketing from Arizona State University. She and Rose live in California. She owns a hair salon and hopes to become the host of a TV show. She worked out five days a week for six months in order to get ready for her Playboy photos.

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Setting world standards for e-waste recycling important to curb harmful processing practice

September 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, September 16 (ANI): Experts behind the world’s first international e-waste academy have said that processes and policies governing the reuse and recycling of electronic products need to be standardized worldwide to stem and reverse the growing problem of illegal and harmful e-waste processing practices in developing countries.

Making appropriate recycling technologies available worldwide and standardizing government policy approaches to reuse and recycling could dramatically extend the life of many computers, mobile phones, TVs and similar products and allow for more complete end-of-life harvesting of the highly valuable metals and other components they contain.

“Rapid product innovations and replacements – the shift from analog to newer digital technologies and to flat-screen TVs and monitors, for example – is pushing every country to find more effective ways to cope with their e-waste,” said Ruediger Kuehr of United Nations University, Executive Secretary of a global public-private initiative called Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP).

Based in Bonn, Germany, StEP works with policy makers, industry, academia and other stakeholders.

“Millions of old devices in North America and Europe could easily double their typical three or four year ‘first life’ by being put to use in classrooms and small business offices across Africa, South America and Asia,” said Ramzy Kahhat, Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management at Arizona State University.

“An old Pentium II computer with an open-source operating system like Linux can run faster than some of the latest new models on store shelves,” he added.

“It’s vitally important, however, to get unwanted devices into re-use before they get too old and damaged to be re-conditioned,” said Dr. Kahhat, who advocates a return deposit to discourage consumers from simply storing old equipment in a drawer, garage or basement.

An exhaustive study Dr. Kahhat conducted in 2008 in Peru found that more than 85 percent of used computers imported by that country were put back into service.

That record contrasts sharply with the alarming statistic from Nigeria, Pakistan and Ghana that roughly 80 percent of imported devices classified for reuse are simply scrapped.

Computers and other electronics that can no longer be used contain valuable materials when devices are properly dismantled and recycled.

Recovering these metals with state-of-the art recycling processes generates a small fraction of the CO2 emissions, land degradation and hazardous emissions caused by mining them. (ANI)

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Darwin wrongly called the appendix a biological ‘remnant’, say researchers

August 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, August 21 (ANI): Charles Darwin was wrong when he theorized that the appendix in humans and other primates was the evolutionary remains of a larger structure, called a cecum, which was used by now-extinct ancestors for digesting food, according to research collaborators from three U.S. institutions.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center, the University of Arizona, and Arizona State University have observed that not only does the appendix appear in nature much more frequently than previously acknowledged, but it has been around much longer than anyone had suspected.

“Maybe it’s time to correct the textbooks. Many biology texts today still refer to the appendix as a ‘vestigial organ’,” says Dr. William Parker, assistant professor of Surgical Sciences at Duke.

He revealed that his research team used a modern approach to evolutionary biology called cladistics, which utilizes genetic information in combination with a variety of other data to evaluate biological relationships that emerge over the ages, for their study.

He said that his study has shown that the appendix has evolved at least twice, once among Australian marsupials and another time among rats, lemmings and other rodents, selected primates and humans.

“We also figure that the appendix has been around for at least 80 million years, much longer than we would estimate if Darwin’s ideas about the appendix were correct,” he said.

Parker says that his study shows two major problems with Darwin’s idea of the appendix being a “biological remnant”.

First, several living species, including certain lemurs, several rodents, and a type of flying squirrel, still have an appendix attached to a large cecum which is used in digestion.

Second, Parker says, the appendix is actually quite widespread in nature.

“For example, when species are divided into groups called ‘families’, we find that more than 70 percent of all primate and rodent groups contain species with an appendix,” the researcher said.

Parker further pointed out that Darwin had thought that appendices appeared in only a small handful of animals.

“Darwin simply didn’t have access to the information we have. If Darwin had been aware of the species that have an appendix attached to a large cecum, and if he had known about the widespread nature of the appendix, he probably would not have thought of the appendix as a vestige of evolution,” said Parker.

The study report further states that Darwin was not aware of the fact that appendicitis, also known as inflammation of the appendix, is not due to a faulty appendix, but rather due to cultural changes associated with industrialized society and improved sanitation.

“Those changes left our immune systems with too little work and too much time their hands – a recipe for trouble,” said Parker.

The researcher added that that notion wasn’t proposed until the early 1900′s, and “we didn’t really have a good understanding of that principle until the mid 1980′s.”

“Even more importantly, Darwin had no way of knowing that the function of the appendix could be rendered obsolete by cultural changes that included widespread use of sewer systems and clean drinking water,” Parker said.

Given that scientists these days understand the normal function of the appendix, Parker stresses that a critical question to ask is whether we can do anything to prevent appendicitis.

He thinks the answer may lie in devising ways to challenge our immune systems today in much the same manner that they were challenged back in the Stone Age.

“If modern medicine could figure out a way to do that, we would see far fewer cases of allergies, autoimmune disease, and appendicitis,” he said.

A research article describing the study has been published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. (ANI)

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Alabama State University | Asu | U of A | Arizona State University | University Of Phoenix | Asus 1002ha

August 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Alabama State University | Asu | U of A | Arizona State University | University Of Phoenix | Asus 1002ha


Alabama State University, founded 1867, is a historically black university located in Montgomery, Alabama. ASU is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund.

ASU’s has Georgian-style red-brick classroom buildings and architecturally contemporary structures. ASU is home to the state-of-the-art 7,400 seat academic and sports facility the ASU Acadome; the Levi Watkins Learning Center; a five-story brick structure with more than 267,000 volumes, the state-of-the-art John L. Buskey Health Sciences Center; which is 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) facility which houses classrooms, offices, an interdisciplinary clinic, three therapeutic rehabilitation labs, state-of-the-art Gross Anatomy Lab, Laboratory for the Analysis of Human Motion (LAHM), a Women’s Health/Cardiopulmonary lab, and a health sciences computer lab, and WVAS-FM 90.7; the 80,000-watt, university operated public radio station.

Alabama State University has an enrollment of more than 5,000 students from 42 states and 7 countries. Alabama State University, one-third of the students are non-Alabama residents and 11 percent are minorities. The student-faculty ratio is 18 to 1. Alabama State University has 7 degree-granting colleges or schools or divisions.

* College of Arts and Sciences
* College of Business Administration
* College of Education
* College of Health Sciences
* College of Visual and Performing Arts
* Division Of Aerospace Studies (Air Force ROTC)
* School of Graduate Studies

Alabama State University offers 47 degree programs including 31 bachelors’, 11 masters’, and two Education Specialists and three doctoral programs.

* Doctorate in Educational Leadership, Policy, and Law (EdD)
* Clinical Doctorate in Physical Therapy (DPT)
* Doctorate in Microbiology (PhD)

For More Information On : http://www.alasu.edu/about/

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Massive greening of Earth 700 mln yrs ago triggered off explosive growth of life

July 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, July 9 (ANI): A team of scientists has suggested a massive greening of the planet by non-vascular plants, or ‘primitive ground huggers’, triggered off the Cambrian explosion of life, roughly 700 million years ago.

The Cambrian explosion of life was one of the biggest moments in Earth’s lifetime, around 540 million years ago, when complex, multi-cellular life burst out all over the planet.

While scientists can pinpoint this pivotal period as leading to life as we know it today, it is not completely understood what caused the Cambrian explosion of life.

Now, researchers led by Arizona State University geologist L. Paul Knauth believe they have found the trigger for the Cambrian explosion.

It was a massive greening of the planet by non-vascular plants, or primitive ground huggers, as Knauth calls them.

This period, roughly 700 million years ago virtually set the table for the later explosion of life through the development of early soil that sequestered carbon, led to the build up of oxygen and allowed higher life forms to evolve.

Knauth and co-author Martin Kennedy, of the University of California, Riverside, have presented an alternative view of published data on thousands of analyses of carbon isotopes found in limestone that formed in the Neoproterozoic period, the time interval just prior to the Cambrian explosion.

“An explosive and previously unrecognized greening of the Earth occurred toward the end of the Precambrian and was an important trigger for the Cambrian explosion of life,” said Knauth.

“During this period, Earth became extensively occupied by photosynthesizing organisms,” he added.

“The greening was a key element in transforming the Precambrian world – which featured low oxygen levels and simple, bacteria dominant life forms – into the kind of world we have today with abundant oxygen and higher forms of plant and animal life,” he explained.

By carefully plotting carbon isotopic data against oxygen isotopic data, a process Knauth said took three years, the researchers began to formulate a very different type of scenario for what led to complex life on Earth.

Rather than a world subject to periods of life-altering catastrophes, they began to see a world that first greened up with primitive plants.

“The greening of Earth made soils which sequestered carbon and allowed oxygen to rise and get dissolved into sea water,” Knauth explained.

“Early animals would have loved breathing it as they expanded throughout the ocean of this new world,” he added. (ANI)

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NASA spacecraft sends first lunar images to Earth

July 3, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, July 3 (ANI): NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has transmitted its first images from the Moon, since reaching lunar orbit on June 23.

The spacecraft has two cameras – a low resolution Wide Angle Camera and a high resolution Narrow Angle Camera.

Collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, they were activated on June 30.

The cameras are working well and have returned images of a region a few kilometers east of Hell E crater in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium.

As the moon rotates beneath LRO, LROC gradually will build up photographic maps of the lunar surface.

“Our first images were taken along the moon’s terminator – the dividing line between day and night – making us initially unsure of how they would turn out,” said LROC Principal Investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe.

“Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972. While these are magnificent in their own right, the main message is that LROC is nearly ready to begin its mission,” he added.

LRO will help NASA identify safe landing sites for future explorers, locate potential resources, describe the moon’s radiation environment and demonstrate new technologies.

The satellite also has started to activate its six other instruments. The Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector will look for regions with enriched hydrogen that potentially could have water ice deposits.

The Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation is designed to measure the moon’s radiation environment. Both were activated on June 19 and are functioning normally.

Instruments expected to be activated during the next week and calibrated are the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, designed to build 3-D topographic maps of the moon’s landscape; the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, which will make temperature maps of the lunar surface; and the Miniature Radio Frequency, or Mini-RF, an experimental radar and radio transmitter that will search for subsurface ice and create detailed images of permanently-shaded craters.

The final instrument, the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project, will be activated after the other instruments have completed their calibrations, allowing more time for residual contaminants from the manufacture and launch of LRO to escape into the vacuum of space.

This instrument is an ultraviolet-light imager that will use starlight to search for surface ice. It will take pictures of the permanently-shaded areas in deep craters at the lunar poles. (ANI)

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Large cylindrical blob of cold material found beneath US West Great Basin

May 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 27 (ANI): A team of geologists has found a large cylindrical blob of cold material far below the surface of the US West Great Basin.

The Great Basin in the western US is a desert region largely devoid of major surface changes.

The area consists of small mountain ranges separated by valleys and includes most of Nevada, the western half of Utah and portions of other nearby states.

For tens of millions of years, the Great Basin has been undergoing extension – the stretching of Earth’s crust.

While studying the extension of the region, geologist John West of Arizona State University (ASU) was surprised to find that something unusual existed beneath this area’s surface.

West and colleagues found that portions of the lithosphere – the crust and uppermost mantle of the Earth – had sunk into the more fluid upper mantle beneath the Great Basin and formed a large cylindrical blob of cold material far below the surface of central Nevada.

“It was an extremely unexpected finding in a location that showed no corresponding changes in surface topography or volcanic activity,” said West.

West compared his unusual results of the area with tomography models – CAT scans of the inside of Earth – done by geologist Jeff Roth, also of ASU.

West and Roth, both graduate students; working with their advisor, Matthew Fouch, concluded that they had found a lithospheric drip.

“The results provide important insights into fine-scale mantle convection processes, and their possible connections with volcanism and mountain-building on Earth’s surface,” said Greg Anderson, program director in NSF’s Division of Earth Sciences.

A lithospheric drip can be envisioned as honey dripping off a spoon, where an initial lithospheric blob is followed by a long tail of material.

When a small, high-density mass is embedded near the base of the crust and the area is warmed up, the high-density piece will be heavier than the area around it and it will start sinking.

As it drops, material in the lithosphere starts flowing into the newly created conduit.

Seismic images of mantle structure beneath the region provided additional evidence, showing a large cylindrical mass 100 km wide and at least 500 km tall.

“The idea of a lithospheric drip has been used many times over the years to explain things like volcanism, surface uplift, surface subsidence, but you could never really confirm it – and until now, no one has caught a drip in the act, so to speak,” said Fouch. (ANI)

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Scientists unveil top 10 newly discovered species

May 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 23 (ANI): A pea-sized seahorse, caffeine-free coffee and bacteria that live in hairspray were among the top 10 species discovered last year, a committee of scientists said.

The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists – scientists responsible for species exploration and classification -announced the top 10 new species.

The other species on the list include the very tiny (a snake just a slither longer than 4 inches or 104 millimeters), the very long (an insect from Malaysia with an overall length of 22.3 inches or 56.7 centimeters) the very old (a fossilized specimen of the oldest known live-bearing vertebrate) and the very twisted (a snail whose shell twists around four axes).

Rounding out this year’s list are a palm that flowers itself to death, a ghost slug from Wales and a deep blue damselfish.

The taxonomists also are issuing an SOS – State of Observed Species – report card on human knowledge of Earth’s species. In it, they report that 18,516 species new to science were discovered and described in 2007.

The SOS report was compiled by ASU’s International Institute for Species Exploration in partnership with the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, International Plant Names Index, Zoological Record published by Thomson Reuters, and the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

Photos and other information on the top 10 and the SOS report are online at species.asu.edu.

Among this year’s top 10 picks is a tiny seahorse – Hippocampus satomiae – with a standard length of 0.54 inches (13.8 millimeters) and an approximate height of 0.45 inches (11.5 millimeters).

From the plant kingdom is a gigantic new species and genus of palm – Tahina spectablilis – with fewer than 100 individuals found only in a small area of northwestern Madagascar. The plant flowers itself to death, producing a huge, spectacular terminal inflorescence with countless flowers. After fruiting, the palm dies and collapses.

Also on the top 10 list is caffeine-free coffee from Cameroon. Coffea charrieriana is the first record of a caffeine-free species from Central Africa.

And, in the category of “spray on new species” is an extremophile bacteria that was discovered in hairspray by Japanese scientists.

Phobaeticus chani made the list as the world’s longest insect with a body length of 14 inches (36.6 centimeters) and overall length of 22.3 inches (56.7 centimeters). The Barbados Threadsnake – Leptotyphlops carlae – measuring 4.1 inches (104 millimeters) is believed to be the world’s smallest snake. It was discovered in St. Joseph Parish, Barbados.

The ghost slug – Selenochlamys ysbryda – was a surprising find in the well-collected and densely populated area of Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales.

A snail – Opisthostoma vermiculum – found in Malaysia, represents a unique morphological evolution, with a shell that twists around four axes.

The other two species on the top 10 list are fish – one found in deep-reef habitat off the coast of Ngemelis Island, Palau, and the other a fossilized specimen of the oldest known live-bearing vertebrate.

Chromis abyssus – a beautiful species of damselfish made it to the top 10 representing the first taxonomic act of 2008 and the first act registered in the newly launched taxonomic database Zoobank.

Also on the top 10 list is a fossilized specimen – Materpiscis attenboroughi – the oldent known vertebrate to be viviparous (live bearing).

“The international committee of taxon experts who made the selection of the top 10 from the thousands of species described in calendar year 2008 is helping draw attention to biodiversity, the field of taxonomy, and the importance of natural history museums and botanical gardens in a fun-filled way,” says Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist and director of the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University.

“Charting the species of the world and their unique attributes are essential parts of understanding the history of life. It is in our own self-interest as we face the challenges of living on a rapidly changing planet,” the expert added. (ANI)

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Mars samples from NASA missions may be contaminated

May 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, May 14 (ANI): A new report by the US National Research Council has said that if NASA aims to bring Mars samples back to Earth, it should prepare for the possibility that the samples could include organisms that might endanger humans and other terrestrial life.

According to a report in New Scientist, the report argues that to prevent potential contamination by any Martian life, NASA should begin building a secure facility on Earth to house the samples.

Within the next two decades, NASA hopes to launch a mission to Mars that could return the first pristine samples of Martian atmosphere, rocks and soil.

These samples could be used to perform tests that may be impossible with lightweight robotic explorers, such as definitively measuring rock ages and, potentially, finding the first evidence of Martian life.

But, the hazards such life might pose to terrestrial life are unknown.

If self-replicating organisms are brought back to Earth, there could be a slim but non-zero chance that they could infect Earth organisms or compete with them in a way that could affect Earth’s ecosystems.

The new report updates a long-standing recommendation that Mars samples be kept in isolation in a special facility while they are examined for life.

“I think the bottom line here is containment, containment, containment,” said Jack Farmer of Arizona State University in Tempe, who chaired the committee of 10 experts behind the report, which was commissioned by NASA.

“Such a facility would need to have stringent controls to contain agents that might be fatal to humans. It could take 7 to 10 years to build, so its design and construction should be considered at the earliest stages of Mars sample return mission planning,” the committee writes.

This report helps update the agency on the issue of contaminating Earth with extraterrestrial samples, or “back-contamination”, according to Cassie Conley, NASA’s planetary protection officer.

Conley said that it would be incorporated in future discussions at both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), which is also considering a sample return mission. (ANI)

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Arizona University guests to brave scorching sun for Obama’s speech

May 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 8 (ANI): President Obama will address the Arizona State University’s commencement on a day when temperature will hit 98 degrees. People who want to see Obama speak are likely to bake in sun for hours.

Around 65,000 people are expected to attend Obama’s address, and they are being told to come at least four hours in advance to clear security checks. Many are complaining.

Sharon Erickson, the mother of a graduate student receiving her masters’ degree on Wednesday, said she’s appalled.

“I’m an upset mother. People are very upset about this. There is no shade in the football stadium where the ceremonies will be held,” Foxnews.com quoted Erickson, as saying.

Erickson added that her daughter is the first to earn a post-graduate degree in the family but that her 81-year-old grandfather won’t be able to attend because he can’t sit in the heat for that long.

The university is telling guests and graduates to begin arriving in groups starting at 3 p.m. local time that day. Bachelor’s graduates are supposed to arrive first, followed by master’s graduates at 3:30 p.m. Doctorate recipients are told to arrive a half-hour later, followed by all other guests at 4:30 p.m. Obama doesn’t speak until 7 p.m.

But university spokeswoman Terri Shafer said there’s nothing Arizona State can do.

“If we don’t do it that way, people will be jammed up at the gates. In an ideal world, we’d love to bring them in as late as possible. It’s just not physically possible,” Shafer said while adding that doors open four hours early to make sure that everyone can clear the metal detectors in time for Obama’s address.

She said the university would be providing water, as well as entertainment, for those stuck in the stadium for hours.

The university previously held graduation ceremonies in the indoor Wells Fargo Arena. Shafer said the university eventually was planning to move out of that arena because the crowds were getting too big, and that Obama’s arrival was an “incentive” to do so. (ANI)

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