Reality-Based Engineering: Sunday Morning Science Roundup

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Sunday Morning Science Roundup

A quick trip through the blogosphere reveals:

Science Blog has a post on microbes that can degrade polystyrene:

O’Connor and his colleagues from Ireland and Germany, utilized pyrolysis, a process that transforms materials by heating them in the absence of oxygen, to convert polystyrene — the key component of many disposable products — into styrene oil. The researchers then supplied this oil to P[seudomonas] putida, a bacterium that can feed on styrene, which converted the oil into a biodegradable plastic known as PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates). The process might also be used to convert other types of discarded plastics into PHA, according to O’Connor.

Darksyde over at dailykos has a bulletpoint list of stuff to read over. Of perhaps biggest note is that the planet Pluto very likely has a total of THREE moons, not just one! Here's NASA's press release.

The European Space Agency is rebuilding a key satellite whose original purpose was to study the thinning of the Arctic ice.

Just in the nick of time, February's molecule of the month is hemoglobin.

Another from scienceblog, this time about detecting brain diseases:

"Engineers have found a way to pinpoint and identify the tiny iron oxide particles associated with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases in the brain. The technique is likely to accelerate research on the cause of the diseases and could lead to the first diagnostic procedure for Alzheimer’s in patients while they are alive."

Now, I had thought that there were already diagnostic tests out there that looked for a particular protein excreted through your tears...as well, that's going back 10 years now, and perhaps that proved to not be accurate. Although this Fe2O3 analysis is not simply a "yes/no" qualitative analysis like a protein dip test is - if successful it would be quanitative, especially if they are able to start using NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance - health care calls it "MRI") as a means. Wonder what they could use to dope the rust particles...

Update:

Living On Earth radio show has the entire Feb 24 2006 show dedicated to looking at fusion technology, including cold fusion, which apparently still has some research going on. Despite this personal rant, I'm all for unlimited amounts of energy without massive magnetic fields or temparatures appropaching a million degrees F, so we'll see...take a listen to the entire show here.