inignoct wrote:
] ] President Bush beckoned the nation "forward into the
] ] universe" on Wednesday, outlining a costly new effort to
] ] return Americans to the moon as early as 2015 and use it
] ] as a waystation to Mars and beyond.
]
] i'm really interested in what people think about this...
] progressive commitment or poltical opportunism? I tend to
] take the latter view, personally, though i have trouble being
] *too* unhappy with anything that funds basic science.
]
] second question, will such a proposal even *begin* to get
] through congress? i think it's unlikely, which solidifies my
] belief that it's a political move, so W can say "I *wanted* to
] fund science... but that mean 'ol congress wouldn't let me!"
]
] a more relevant question, to me is : is the moon even a useful
] place for a permanent base? are there useful raw materials
] there? feasible means of energy generation? is using it as a
] launch venue sensible given its substantial (though admittedly
] less than earth's) gravity well?
]
] Guys like Robert Zubrin (who is, admittedly, zealous,
] sometimes to the point of unreasonable) makes good arguments
] that the moon is pretty pointless, and there's not a lot of
] reason to put people there, other than nationalism, pride, and
] other forms of self-fellatio. Could we make more progress by
] devoting those resources (or even a fraction of them) towards
] other projects, like a space elevator (and the attendant
] advances in nanoscience that would be widely beneficial)?
]
] Given how limited the budgets usually are for basic science,
] it's important to make sure we spend the money we do get on
] the most promising projects, not planetwide publicity stunts.

I think that an interesting thing that could eventually come out of all of this Mars research is the ability to study further into the universe. If we could somehow set up some sort of way of researching from Mars - like setting up powerful telescopes or whatever and getting the information to be sent back to scientists here - then maybe we can learn more about our universe and beyond. I think that would be really interesting, although I am not an astronomer, so I don't know how that would work. Lets not just learn more about Mars - lets look beyond Mars if we can. - Nano

RE: ABCNEWS.com : Bush Outlines Plan for 2015 Moon Landing

] Since their discovery in 1982, prions have been mostly
] associated with deadly and devastating neurodegenerative
] disorders%u2014notably variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease
] and bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Nevertheless, some
] maintain that the mechanism by which prions change their
] shape and aggregate might be put to good use in
] biological systems. In back-to-back papers in the
] December 26 issue of Cell, researchers ascribe prion-like
] properties to an elegant mechanism involved in
] maintaining memory

This is interesting...its also kinda cool that this came along right after I decided that I would probably write about prions for my grant writing course

The Scientist :: Good news for prions?

Our simple theory and experiments provide a unified view of the creeping, undulating, and inchworming gaits observed in limbless locomotion on land, all of which originate as symmetry-breaking bifurcations of a simple base state associated with periodic longitudinal oscillations of a slender gel. These ideas are therefore also applicable to technological situations that involve moving small, soft solids on substrates.

Be sure to check out the supporting movies, for which no subscription is required.

Biomimetic ratcheting motion of a soft, slender, sessile gel

] Giant rats in Sub-Saharan Africa are being trained to
] sniff out tuberculosis in humans

So I walked into Tom and I's living room the other day and caught the headline "Giant rats to sniff out tuberculosis" go by on the LCD screen Tom has set up. Needless to say, I had to hunt down the article to see what the hell it is about:) - Nano

New Scientist - Giant rats to sniff out tuberculosis

I don't know about the last line of this article, but I figured I would meme it along anyway:)

Wired News: Saddam's DNA Test a Fast Job

ryan is the supernicety wrote:
] ] The U.S. Senate this week passed the 21st Century
] ] Nanotech Research and Development Act, which authorizes
] ] $3.7 billion over four years for research and development
] ] into nanotechnology.
]
] There may be some research money for you after all, nanochick!

Werd:)

RE: Senate passes nanotech funding bill | CNET News.com

A new tool that blocks disease-causing genes, RNA interference, could lead the way for the next wave of blockbuster drugs in biotechnology

A story Wired is running about a technology that I am about to learn about in my next lab rotation in grad school. The use of RNA to silence genes can be a powerful thing with regard to future therapies - I am very excited about learning about this technique. - Nano

Next Big Thing in Biotech: RNAi

]But an important technical bridge towards the creation of such life was crossed
] Thursday when genomics pioneer Craig Venter announced that his research
]group created an artificial virus based on a real one in just two weeks' time.

Scientists create new virus

] Powers of Ten

Can I get this as a screensaver? This is rad.
yay for science geeks playing around with Flash!

Science, Optics and You

] Why? It's an evolutionary mystery. The ability to regrow
] legs and eyes seems like a clear Darwinian advantage -
] one that surviving generations would have retained. But a
] paradox of regeneration is that the higher you move up
] the evolutionary chain, the less likely you'll have the
] ability to regrow limbs or organs. Keating's mission:
] figure out the cause of this paradox - and reverse it.

Regrow Your Own Broken heart? No problem. New liver? Coming right up. The road to regeneration starts here.