From the category archives:

Bloggy-blogging

Fukushima — best video, possible recriticallity [*?]

March 27, 2011

Here’s current video showing the steam, smoke, and wreckage at Units 1, 2, 3 & 4, seen with good optics from a helicopter at a safe standoff distance. It gives tantalizing glimpses of what’s going on, but what would be visible around the corners inside?
The mobilization of technology here is pitiful. An off-the-shelf Parrot.AR drone [...]

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Fukushima — where are the Parrots?

March 24, 2011

Here are two Monirobo robotic machines — radiation-hard, 2.4 km/hr, 600 kg robots, recently arrived on site:

These probably aren’t very good at exploring wrecked buildings, viewing fuel storage pools obscured explosion debris, sampling smoke plumes rising from (?), etc.
Here’s a Parrot AR.Drone — iPhone controlled, resistant to multiply-lethal radiation doses [update: > 10 times the [...]

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Good and popular

January 20, 2011

  I’ll get back to posting more regularly, but meanwhile, here are a few of the most popular posts to date:

How to Learn About Everything
…the title above isn’t “how to learn everything”, but “how to learn about everything”. The distinction I have in mind is between knowing the inside of a topic in deep detail [...]

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Why We Get Fat

December 8, 2010

Gary Taubes has started a blog, and his first post nicely summarizes his case against the idea that overeating causes obesity: A tiny caloric imbalance of ~1% (only while actively gaining weight, of course) isn’t a cause of obesity, it’s a consequence of the onset of obesity, which is itself best understood as a consequence [...]

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QED meets General Relativity

November 8, 2010

“Quantum gravitational contributions to quantum electrodynamics” (D. Toms, Nature, 4 Nov.) is the most exciting paper I’ve seen on quantum field theory and gravitation in a long time. It offers no speculations about strings, extra dimensions, new symmetries, or the like, and no loop quantum gravity or causal dynamical triangulations, just a carefully cross-checked mathematical [...]

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As the word turns…

October 21, 2010

Latest semantic news:
…the field of nanotechnology deals only with the science and technology of entities dominated by surface atoms….nanomedicine is a field of science, which is based on cellular uptake of targetable nano-sized materials….Hence nanobiotechnology or the science nanomedicine derived from it is a part of cell biology and under no circumstances can be [...]

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Antioxidants block cell repair —
New information and what it may mean

September 26, 2010

Abstract: Antioxidants inhibit basal autophagy and block the induction of autophagy by calorie restriction and other means. Because this effect inhibits the central mechanism of cell repair, it helps explain why dietary antioxidants have failed to deliver their expected benefits to health and longevity. The nature of the effect suggests prudent modifications to popular supplementation [...]

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Out of the memory-hole:
A historian speaks out on nanotechnology

September 24, 2010

A recent retrospective on the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (Nature, 1 Sept 2010) repeats the story that strong excitement about nanotechnology “began at the birth of the NNI [established in 2000] and peaked in the middle of the decade”.
This paints a strange and false picture. Excitement launched the bureaucracy, not vice versa, and it [...]

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Trehalose vs. trehalase

September 18, 2010

Update, 3 March 2011: Trehalose reportedly “has good blood–brain barrier penetration”.

My recent post, “Trehalose, autophagy, and brain repair” references a few of the papers that suggest potential advantages to absorbing and circulating some of the wonder-sugar, trehalose. The problem is trehalase.

– Trehalose –

In us animals, trehalase metabolizes trehalose into glucose, but the details differ widely. [...]

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Trehalose, autophagy, and brain repair: Sweet

September 15, 2010

Abstract of recent abstracts:
Trehalose induces autophagy.
Autophagy induces neuronal repair.
Starvation induces autophagy.
Trehalose goes well with coffee and tea.

– Trehalose –Now on sale

Quote: “Macroautophagy (here simply called autophagy) is a cellular housekeeping process that degrades and recycles long-lived proteins, large protein aggregates, and even entire organelles like mitochondria. The term autophagy is of Greek origin and translates [...]

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Boron is the new carbon…

September 13, 2010

…and I read it in EMBO Reports.
Declaring that “boronate esters are the new [reversible covalent linkers in foldamers and self-assembly]” would be less playful and entertaining, but I say something like that here: “Exploiting strong, covalent bonds for self assembly of robust nanosystems”.

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Chemists deserve more credit (2):
   The 150th anniversary
    of the first international science conference

September 10, 2010

In this week’s Chemical & Engineering News, the American Chemical Society marks the 150th anniversary of the world’s first scientific conference — yes, a chemistry conference — held Sept. 3, 1860, in Karlsruhe, Germany.

August Kekulé Atomic scientist,conference organizer

Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz The guy who gets the credit

August Kekulé suggested idea of holding a conference, [...]

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