Slashdot Mirror

Of course the article is old (10/97?) and states that service between Philedelphia and Europe should start in 2000. I guess they are a bit behind their earlier estimates. The computerized photo on ZZZ is has more detail than the computerized photo at SciAm, so I guess they have done something in 3.5 years.

I think the problem is we need a better way to solve patent disputes then litigation... and the software industry isn't the worst hit. Take a look at this sciam.com article.

We have many natural clones running around (identical twins)

I remember reading in Scientific American an article about telomeres, sequences of DNA at the end of chromosomes. (Under certain conditions,) the number of telomeres decreases each time a cell divides. The researchers in the article believe that this contributes to the aging process.

I don't know how many times the stem cells to be used have divided, but it will be interesting to see if cloned children end up with a shorter lifespan than their "parents".

We have many natural clones running around (identical twins)

I remember reading in Scientific American an article about telomeres, sequences of DNA at the end of chromosomes. (Under certain conditions,) the number of telomeres decreases each time a cell divides. The researchers in the article believe that this contributes to the aging process.

I don't know how many times the stem cells to be used have divided, but it will be interesting to see if cloned children end up with a shorter lifespan than their "parents".

Here.

It's a shame we're almost no closer to colonizing extraterrestrial bodies than we were 30 years ago. The far-future plans NASA periodically comes up with are a lot more interesting than the actual missions they like to carry out...
--

• All of the planets beyond Mars consist mostly of a large atmosphere and planet-wide ocean (thus the semi-accurate label "Gas Giants")... except Pluto. Pluto is mainly rock and ice, with little or no atmosphere. Interestingly enough, Pluto does have an atmosphere, but it freezes during Pluto's "winter" and falls to the surface.
• All of the planets beyond Mars have a mass many times that of Earth; except Pluto. Pluto is roughly half the size of Earth's moon.
• All of the planets in our solar system have an almost planar orbit (ie, the orbits all lie within a few degrees of the same plane). Pluto's orbit is inclined over 15 degrees.
• Pluto's orbital radius is HUGE and highly erratic. About 49 times the average radius of Earth's orbit at it's peak.

scientific AMERICAN has the story... "Two years ago the world's only magnetically levitated train in commercial service shut down. It had carried riders for a 90-second trip between the airport in Birmingham, England, and a conventional rail line 600 meters"

see the link http://www.sciam.com/1097issue/1097stix_maglev.htm l

This is more important that you might imagine at first glance. You would expect that everyone would agree on the purpose, etc.

But this is no true than the varied reasons to build a motor vehicle. You look around, and you see many models of motor vehicle, depending on the purpose. And sometimes are using the wrong vehicle for the the job. [Imagine using a jaguar to tow your yatch to the beach for example.]

It is really tied into the vision that you have for the society. What kind of society do you want to build?

• a society of contented workers
• a society of active citizens
• a society of drug users
• a society of happy consumers
• a society of people competent in what they have studied
• etc. etc. etc. you add to the list

For example, I have seen education software that runs real world experiments such as physics and chemistry, etc in simulation. While this would be okay for a quick intro, can you really imagine someone becoming an expert guitar player merely by running a simulation on a computer?

and we also have the idea of subjects that are not meaningless to the students studying them

Education took place certainly in ancient times. [For example, check out this article on the information workers of 2500 B.C.E.] There are fundamentals of education that have been there regardless of culture and level of civilation. Failure to take advantadge of these fundamentals will doom an education enterprise, regardless of the bells and whistles and technology you employ. The ultimate failure is to not even know what these fundamentals are. From the results we see around us, despite what the education professionals tell us, these fundamentals are certainly missing in action

Birmingham Aiport (BHX) in the UK West Midlands sported a commercial operating Maglev between the terminal and the main-line railway station for eleven years. It has recently been replaced. There's a relevant Scientific American article here.

There are alternatives such as fuel cells, solar, etc each of which has drawbacks. All we really need is an economic incentive for people to move to alternatives. As long as it's cheaper for consumers to operate traditional vehicles, we will never get to the next-gen technology.

I found a couple of articles in Scientific American that are interesting but a few years old.

http://www.sciam.com/1196issue/1196sperling.html
http://www.sciam.com/1097issue/1097wouk.html

There are alternatives such as fuel cells, solar, etc each of which has drawbacks. All we really need is an economic incentive for people to move to alternatives. As long as it's cheaper for consumers to operate traditional vehicles, we will never get to the next-gen technology.

I found a couple of articles in Scientific American that are interesting but a few years old.

http://www.sciam.com/1196issue/1196sperling.html
http://www.sciam.com/1097issue/1097wouk.html

http://www.sciam.com/2000/1100issue/1100stjohn.htm l

Put a little work into your posts guys!

http://www.sciam.com/2000/1100issue/1100stjohn.htm l

Put a little work into your posts guys!

Perhaps it was bad science. The researchers thought they isolated only white blood cells and managed to trap some astrocyes. It wouldn't be the first scientific trap that caught something other than intended. Perhaps it was bad journalism. What kind of person wrote the article, from what resources, with what background with what purpose? I remember when the MIR space station lost pressure and the CNN science correspondant had to look up how much pressure a Torr was (maybe CNN can't afford interns).

Then the last possability (I'll bother with). It was good science and good enuff reporting. In my experience pure researchers have this insane laser like focus on their specialty. They literally don't see anything else of the world. Their time table estimates are wildly inaccurate with an optimistic bias. Perhaps that's a necessary character trait, to maintain the relentless intensity and make the breakthough. Without a good perspective on how well and how poorly researchers tend to see the world can a writer really present an accurate depiction? Given a researchers appearent success should a journalist hold a that scientists predictions as highly suspect? If they did, what would the reader think?

I think I've done enough preaching, but I'll make one final remark ala Jerry Springer. At the end of the day, we all make our own judgements as to what the objective truth really is, factoring out other peoples prejudices and factoring our own. And don't pay prostitutes with a personal check if you're the mayor of a major city.

Back on subduction zones, didn't they use this in David Brin's Uplift series for all waste? The idea was that when a civilization left a planet, all trace of their existence would be destroyed by natural geological processes (not leaving any mysterious artefacts for native sentients to find).

Back on subduction zones, didn't they use this in David Brin's Uplift series for all waste? The idea was that when a civilization left a planet, all trace of their existence would be destroyed by natural geological processes (not leaving any mysterious artefacts for native sentients to find).

To wit, it is easy for a human to use a virus to kill all the mice in a lab if the human is not susceptible to the virus. On the other hand, we have seen how difficult it is for a human to use a virus to kill other humans due to similar susceptibilities. Even something as simple as nerve gas requires special gear.

The one most famous case in which Europeans killed the natives of North America with smallpox was successful because the Europeans had a much lower susceptibility to smallpox. This is not the case for sarin, anthrax, or possibly genetically engineered smallpox. To handle such items, a proper protective infrastructure must exist which can increases the visibility of the to be warrior.

I feel much more threatened by super viruses created by the abuse of antibiotics. These agents exist. They already cause suffering. They move easily through the exisiting food chain to unsuspecting victim.

Because Puthoff and company are more than likely pseudoscientists and the technology they're so actively pimping is based on unrealisticly optomistic views of how much energy is available.

See this Scientific American article, from the December '97 issue.

Of course, I'd be very happy if I were wrong about this.... ;)

-- WhiskeyJack

i was reading an article in a Scientific American from a few months back about the vasimr propulsion system. it can get up to 300km per second and seems to be very fuel efficient. check out SciAm's comparisons.

I don't know if this is an urban legend or not, but I had heard that petroleum is actually more valuable as a lubricant than as a fuel, because we can't yet create synthetic lubricants which are as good as the real thing. The danger is that all of our machines may literally grind to a halt when we run out of oil, even if the machines themselves are solar/nuclear/etc powered.

True and false. There ARE in fact things we can put together out of carbon which are superior to any petroleum-based lubricant. Unfortunately, no one has done so commercially. This is mostly because it's expensive. You can see pictures of buckyballs here. CMU has a buckyball project. So does SUNY. You could make your own fullerenes. There are a number of fullerene-related patents.

That last page produces the real gem: this patent is for a "Magnetic recording medium comprising a solid lubrication layer of fullerene carbon having an alkyl or allyl chain". The abstract reads:

A magnetic disk has a magnetic medium or a protection film, and a solid lubrication film formed on the medium or the protection film and consisting of a fullerene C60, C 70 or C84 and an alkyl or allyl-chained fullerene. The lubrication film provides the disk with high mechanical durability and high linear recording density.

There are further supporting references. The Buckyball: An Excruciatingly Researched Report (which gives its references at the bottom) contains this quote:

A fully fluorinated buckyball would create the slickest molecular lubricant known to man, C60F60. The uses for a molecular lubricant are boundless, limited only by our imagination.

Of course, I don't know that anyone's actually assembled such a molecule. I located an article called Just Rolling Along which discusses tungsten disulfide, which is similar to buckyballs. It is, however, expensive to produce, and difficult to make in quantity; This is what we're waiting for. Incidentally, I did find one article that gave hope for this, under the heading "Cheap Buckyballs". Amusingly enough (to me) the anchor tag is named "cheapballs". I guess when you're hopped up on this much sugar all kinds of things are funny. If anyone has access to the text of "Journal of Organic Chemistry, March 8" perhaps they could help out here.

So in summary, there ARE better lubricants than those cracked from crude. They are not, however, currently on the market, as they are expensive and time-consuming to produce. However, science marches on, and we'll solve this problem, too.

The Scientific American article is here.

Scientific American gave a much more scientific review of the Z machine in 1998, and I saw no change in the numbers from that publication. They have been insisting that they are 30 years away from high-yield (read: energy-efficient) nuclear fusion since they came up with the theory in the first place. They are still about 30 years away from it.
I can almost hear Bullwinkle saying "This time, for sure". Every time they take another step forward, someone moves the finish line.

It's a really cool story, though.

This is quite a funny thing to learn that the disease that was first announced as so frightening by French media and then supposed to have disappeared can now be cured.
BTW, you'll also love to browse a bit further on this excellent web site.
Two thumbs up for the link, Slashdot :-)
--

Scientific American's current issue contains several articles on optical networks and prospects for switching and routing them without electronics.
--

Scientific American ran an article in one of their special edition magazines this last June called The Famine of Youth. It's a very informative article with several sub-parts covering the type of diet necessary, as well as the type of lifestyle you can expect to live. Unfortunately the web page doesn't seem to contain everything the magazine article did. The full story of Greg Smith that was in the magazine was eye opening and a little frightening.

After reading this article, it seems to me that the diet involved is quite a bit more severe than is being assumed here. It's not nearly enough just to give up snacking. According to the article It's four or five small meals a day, predominantly vegetables and fruits, and a life in which you are perpetually cold, painfully thin and constantly hungry. Calorie restriction, quite simply, is a Draconian diet and a lifelong one at that. Once you start living this diet, you can lose the ability to produce your own body heat.

The required diet is so small that it would come close to being torture. As an American I can fully appreciate the need to reduce unnecessary calorie intake. I ate enough to feed three people all through my teenage years. I eat fairly small meals now, but I don't know anyone who even approaches this kind of a diet. This is closer to a carefully controlled anorexia with special attention given to nutrient density.

I can appreciate this science for its goal, but it's still in the stage where the cure is worse than the disease. I would definitely take 70 comfortable years of life over 100 years of life on this program. Interesting, yes, and I'd expect that this concept will be the foundation to several new and innovative ideas in health, but it's not ready yet. American or no, I don't see too many people being willing to subject themselves to this kind of a life just to tweak out a few more years.


Seth

Actually, quantum computing is not (just) about making transistors very small. It's a totally different way of doing the computing, as many a slashdot article has pointed out :). This Scientific American article is a good overview of the subject, as well.

There was areally good article in Scientific American recently, about some "wargames" (for lack of a better word ;-) where a fed team hacked into a classified nuclear weapons lab to test vulnerabilities. Not that that's so interesting in and of itself, but what I thought was a little scary was how easily they were aparently able to do it. Not exactly a technical article, but worth a read.

Apparently interstellar magnetic fields are quite significant, here's a reference. There is a more recent article (that I can't find) that suggests that intergalactic magnetic fields may be more powerful than previously believed.

Granted, it will take people a while to give up the tactile thrill of typing, and there will always be a need for keyboards (for those who can't or don't want to talk while they work), but I think that for PDAs and similar "portable" devices, it's the most natural choice for an input device.

Here's an article from Scientific American on the topic.

--

Planetlet? Planette? Heck, we already had planetoid.

Actually the astronomical term "minor planet" has long been used to describe the thousands of identified solar system objects that are neither full-fledged planets nor moons. This new one, WR-106, is a member of the Kuiper Belt, essentially a large amorphous cloud of asteroids outside the orbit of Neptune; hence the official grouping Trnns-Neptunian Objects.

This is an exciting class of discoveries. It was surmised for a number of years but only in the 1990s did significant identifications of these objects begin. Now we're reached the hundreds, and there's likely many more to come, as techniques for locating them are refined. (In a nutshell, using computers to do the same flash image comparisons that Clyde Tombaugh used to find Pluto.)

What's significant about WR-106 is its hypothetical size -- which is far from verified. It could possibly be larger than Ceres (d. 570 mi), in the asteroid belt, which up until now has reigned as the largest minor planet. What this suggests is that the larger objects in the outer solar system are by no means all identified and discovered. Heck, there could even be a full-fledged twin of Mercury, or even Mars, way out in the deep dark. It's possible, and discoveries like WR-106 mean you can't just discount that possibility.

The whole question of Pluto's planethood has never really been open. What reached the press was a badly garbled story of disrespect to Clyde Tombaugh; what really happened is simply that the people who track minor planets wanted to include Pluto (and its almost-as-big moon) as part of the TNO group. There's no question, or at least wasn't, that Pluto would be at the head of that class, just as Ceres is at the head of the list of asteroids. It wasn't about downgrading Pluto, but about recognizing it as the first discovery in a vast new universe of discoveries in our outer solar system.

It's not really important to most astronomers what they're called. We've gone beyond the simplistic question of "how many planets, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10?" to the full realization that our solar system is made up of an infinite number of objects, from Jupiter-sized gas giants, to rocks like Pluto or Phobos, down to dust specks too small to see let alone count. The list of numbered asteroids is closing on 20,000, and that's just what we can find from Earth!

The importance of this discovery doesn't lie in the headline-grabbing reconsider-what-you-all-learned-in-fourth-grade aspects, but in how this affects the questions of cosmology and planetary formation, as well as the prospects for the future. If our solar system is made up of so many small rocks, it increases the odds that there are more rock-strewn star systems out in the larger galaxy. If our solar system has ore-filled rocks all over the place, that's probably a good omen for anyone contemplating colonizing the outer solar system.
----

A nice link to a readable and somewhat technical overview of fuel cells.
http://www.memagazine.org/contents/current/feature s/pems/pems.html

A nice Scientific American article.
http://www.sciam.com/explorations/122396exploratio ns.html

Two nice links to NEC's proton polymer battery.
Asian Biz Tech article.
EE Times article (short and sweet).

I'm still waiting for the car that runs on happy thoughts and chocolate that John Stewart promised me.

The question is: if there are so many intelligences in the universe, where are they?

This old scientific american article outlines serveral different techniques including the moziac.

For those so inclined, here's some references to the original literature prepared by AJ Annala::

Subject: REQUEST: Literature on Isolated Brain Perfusion Experiments
From: A J Annala (annala@neuro.usc.edu)
Date: Thu 04 Apr 1991 - 08:52:03 BST

I am writing a review paper describing the history (through the present day) of experiments designed to provide artificial support for maintaining normal brain activity following total circulatory or respiratory collapse. The ultimate goal of such research is to preserve normal brain function across lengthly periods (weeks/months) of cardiac or respiratory arrest.

There is a very substantial scientific literature (a brief chronology of which is provided below) describing an increasingly successfull series of experiments where animal brains have been supported by artificial methods after complete circulatory and respiratory failure.

If you are aware of any additional literature which should be included in this review or if you have comments regarding the appropriateness of this technology for current laboratory / distant future human clinical therapy please reply with an email note to annala@neuro.usc.edu.

-------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------

• 1812 -- Legallois put forth the original idea for resuscitating decapitated heads through the use of blood transfusion.
• 1836 -- Cooper showed in rabbits that compression of the carotid and vertebral arteries leads to death of an animal; such deaths can be prevented if the circulation of oxygenated blood to the brain is rapidly restored.
• 1857 -- Brown-Sequard decapitated a dog, waited ten minutes, attached four rubber tubes to the arterial trunks of the head, and injected blood containing oxygen by means of a syringe. Two or three minutes later voluntary movements of the eyes and muscles of the muzzle resumed. After cessation of oxygenated blood transfusion movements stopped.
• 1887 -- Laborde made what appears to be first recorded attempt to revive the heads of executed criminals by connecting the carotid artery of the severed human head to the carotid artery of a large dog. According to Laborde's account, in isolated experiments a partial restoration of brain function was attained.
• 1912 -- Heymans maintained life in an isolated dog's head by connecting the carotid artery and jugular vein of the severed head to the carotid artery and jugular vein of another dog. Partial functioning in the severed head was maintained for a few hours.
• 1928 -- Bryukhonenko and Cechulin showed life could be maintained in the severed head of a dog by connecting the carotid artery and jugular vein to an artificial circulation machine.

-------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------

• Chute-AL, Smyth-DH. Metabolism of the isolated perfused cat's brain. Quart J Exp Physiol 29:379-394 (1939).
• Geiger-A, Magnes-J. The isolation of the cerebral circulation and the perfusion of the brain in the living cat. Am J Physiol 149:517-536 (1947).
• *Geiger-A. Correlation of brain metabolism and function by use of a brain perfusion method in situ. Physiol Rev 38:1-20 (1958).
• Geiger-A. Technique of brain perfusion in situ. Methods Med Res 9:248-254 (1961).
• Demikhov-VP. Transplantation of the Head. "Experimental Transplantation of Vital Organs". Consultants Bureau, New York (1962) translated from Russian by Basil Haigh.
• *Meder-R, Massopust-LC-Jr, White-RJ, Verdura-J, Albin-MS. Isolated brain perfusion--electromechanical system requirements. Proc 16th Ann Conf Eng Med Biol 5:28-29 (1963).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS, Verdura-J. Isolation of the monkey brain: in vitro preparation and maintenance. Science 141:1060 (1963).
• *Gilboe-DD, Cotanch-WW, Glover--MB. Extracorporeal perfusion of the isolated head of a dog. Nature 202:399-400 (1964).
• Sano-K, Terao-H, Hayakawa-I, Kamano-S, Saito-I. Experimental transplantation of the head: two-headed dogs. Neurol Medicochir (Tokoyo) 6:35-38 (1964).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS, Verdura-J. Preservation of viability in the isolated monkey brain utilizing a mechanical extracorporeal circulation. Nature (Lond) 202:1082-1083 (1964).
• *Gilboe-DD, Cotanch-WW, Glover-MB. Isolation and mechanical maintenance of the dog brain. Nature (Lond.) 206:94-96 (1965).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS, Locke-GE, Davidson-E. Brain transplantation: prolonged survival of brain after carotid-jugular interposition. Science 150:779 (1965).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS, Locke-GE, Davidson-E. Transplantation of the isolated canine brain. Physiologist 8:304 (1965).
• Suda-I, Kito-K, Adachi-C. Viability of long term frozen cat brain in vitro. Nature 212:268 (1966).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS, Locke-GE. Vascular preparation of the isolated canine brain. Anatomical Record 154:441 (1966).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS, Locke-GE. Whole brain preservation near 0 degrees C. Cryobiology 2:315 (1966).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS, Verdura-J, Locke-GE. Prolonged whole brain refrigeration with electrical and metabolic recovery. Nature 209:1320 (1966).
• *Allweis-C, Abeles-M, Magnes-J. Perfusion of cat brain with simplified blood after filtration through glass wool. Amer J Physiol 213:83-86 (1967).
• Andjus-RK, Suhara-S, Sloviter-HA. An isolated, perfused rat brain preparation, its spontaneous and stimulated activity. J Appl Physiol 22:1033-1039 (1967).
• *Sloviter-HA, Kamimoto-T. Erythrocyte substitute for perfusion of brain. Nature (lond) 216:458-460 (1967).
• Taslitz-N, Acosta-Rua-G, White-RJ, Albin-MS. The rat brain as an isolated organ preparation. Anat Rec 157:332 (1967).
• White-RJ, Albin-MS, Verdura-J, Locke-GE. The isolated monkey brain: operative preparation and design of support systems. J Neurosurg 27:216-225 (1967).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS, Locke-GE, Davidson-E. Preparation and metabolic performance of the transplanted brain. Surgical Forum 18:463 (1967).
• White-RJ, Albin-S, Yashon-D, Austin-J, Austin-P, Taslitz-N. Mechanical circulatory support of the failing brain. Trans Amer Soc Artif Int Organ 14:349-351 (1968).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS. Mechanical circulatory support of the isolated brain.
• "Organ perfusion and preservation." (Norman-JC, Folkman-J, Hardison-WG, Rudolf-LE, Veith-FJ eds). Appleton-Century Crofts, NY. (1968).
• White-RJ. "Experimental transplantation of the brain." Human Transplantation (Rapaport-FT, Dausset-J eds). pp 692-709 (1968).
• Thompson-AM, Robertson-RC, Bauer-TA. A rat head-perfusion technique developed for the study of brain uptake of materials. J Appl Physiol 24:407-411 (1968).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS, Yashon-D. Neuropathological investigation of the transplanted canine brain. Transplant Proceed 1:259 (1969).
• *Clark-LC, Kaplan-S, Becattini-F, Benzing-G. Perfusion of whole animals with perfluorinated liquid emulsions using the Clark bubble-defoam heart-lung machine. Fed Proc Am Soc Exp Biol 29:1764-1770 (1970).
• Taslitz-N, White-RJ, Wolin-LR, Yashon-D. Adequacy of single carotid perfusion of the brain. Anatomical Record 166:388 (1970).
• *White-RJ, Albin-MS, Yashon-D, Verdura-J, Austin-JC, Austin-PE-Jr, Demian-YK. Autoregulation in the isolated brain during profound hypothermia and hypercarbia. Brain and Blood Flow (Ross-RW ed). Pitman, London. pp.209 (1970).
• Horst-WD, Jester-J. The use of isolated perfused rat brain in a study of 14-C-L-Dopa metabolism. Life Sci 10(I):685-689 (1971).
• *Jahnchen-E, Krieglstein-J. Die aufnahme von promazin, chlorpromazin und deren desmethylmetaboliten in das isoliert perfundierte rattenhirn. Naunyn- Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmak 268:300-309 (1971).
• Mukherji-B, Turinsky-J, Sloviter-HA. Effects of perfusion without glucose on amino acids and glycogen of isolated rat brain. J Neurochem 18:1783-1785 (1971).
• Sloviter-HA, Yamada-H. Absence of direct action of insulin on metabolism of the isolated perfused rat brain. J Neurochem 18:1269-1274 (1971).
• White-RJ, Wolin-LR, Massopust-LC, Taslitz-N, Verdura-J. Primate cephalic transplantation: neurogenic separation, vascular association. Transplantation Proceedings 3:602-604 (1971).
• Vasan-NS, Abraham-J, Bachhawat-BK. Sulphate metabolism in acute EAE rats using isolated brain perfusion technique. J Neurochem 18:59-66 (1971).
• *Zimmer-R, Lang-R, Oberdoister-G. Post-ischaemic reactive hyperaemia of the isolated perfused brain of dog. Pflugers Arch Ges Physiol 328:332-343 (1971).
• Fleck-WV, Krieglstein-J, Urban-W. Zwei apparaturen zur perfusion des isolierten rattenhirns. Arzneim-Forsch 22:1225-1230 (1972).
• Ghosh-AK, Mukherji-B, Slovitar-HA. Metabolism of isolated rat brain perfused with glucose or mannose as substrate. J Neurochem 19:1279-1285 (1972).
• Krieglstein-G, Krieglstein-J, Stock-R. Suitability of the isolated perfused rat brain for studying effects on cerebral metabolism. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch Pharmacol 275:124-134 (1972).
• Krieglstein-G, Krieglstein-J, Urban-W. Long survival time of an isolated perfused rat brain (Short Communication). J Neurochem 19:885-886 (1972).
• Stock-R, Krieglstein-G, Krieglstein-J. Studies on energy metabolism of an isolated perfused rat brain. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch Pharmacol 274:R112 (1972).
• Zivin-JA, Snarr-JF. A stable preparation for rat brain perfusion: effect of flow rate on glucose uptake. J Appl Physiol 32:658-663 (1972).
• Zivin-JA, Snarr-JF. Glucose and D(-)-3-hydroxybutyrate uptake by isolated perfused rat brain. J Appl Physiol 32:664-668 (1972).
• Fleck-W, Krieglstein-J, Reichmann-M. A two-circuit apparatus for the perfusion of the isolated rat brain. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch Pharmacol 278:319-322 (1973).
• Gruner-J, Krieglstein-J, Rieger-H. Comparison of the effects of chloral hydrate and trichloroethanol on the EEG of the isolated perfused rat brain. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch Pharmacol 277:333-348 (1973).
• Krieglstein-J, Stock-R. Comparative study of the effects of chloral hydrate and trichloroethanol on cerebral metabolism. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch Pharmacol 277:323-332 (1973).
• Krieglstein-J, Stock-R, Rieger-H. Influence of therapeutic and toxic doses of neuroleptics and antidepressants on energy metabolism of the isolated perfused rat brain. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch Pharmacol 279:243-254 (1973).
• Krieglstein-J, Stock-R. The isolated perfused rat brain as a model for studying drugs acting on the CNS. Psychopharmacologia 35:169-177 (1974).
• White-RJ. Hypothermic preservation and transplantation of brain. Resuscitation 4:197 (1975).
• Woods-HF, Graham-CW, Green-AR, Youdim-MBH, Grahame-Smith-DG, Highes-JT. Some histological and metabolic properties of an isolated perfused rat brain preparation with special reference to monoamine metabolism. Neuroscience 1:313-323 (1976).
• Woods-HF, Youdim-MBH. The isolated perfused rat brain preparation--a critical assessment. Essays Neurochem Neuropharmacol 3:49-69 (1978).
• Dirks-B, Krieglstein-J, Lind-HH, Rieger-H, Schutz-H. Fluorocarbon perfusion medium applied to the isolated rat brain. J Pharm Methods 4:95-108 (1980).
• *Llinas-R, Yarom-Y, Sugimori-M. Isolated mammalian brain in vitro: new technique for analysis of electrical activity of neuronal circuit function. Fed Proc 40(8)-2240-2245 (1981).
• Shapovalov-AI, Shiriaev-BI, Tamarova-ZA. "A study of neuronal activity of mammalian superfused or intra-arterially perfused CNS preparations." Electrophysiology of isolated mammalian CNS preparations (Kerkut-GA, Wheal-HV eds). pp 367-394 (1981).

• Acta Endocrinol Suppl (Copenh) 1972;158:200-16 Preparation and mechanical perfusion of the isolated monkey brain. White RJ
• White RK, Albin MS, Locke GE, Davidson E. Brain transplantation: prolonged survival of brain after carotid-jugular interposition. Science. 1965 Nov 5;150(697):779-81.
• White RJ, Wolin LR, Massopust LC Jr, Taslitz N, Verdura J. Primate cephalic transplantation: neurogenic separation, vascular association. Transplant Proc. 1971 Mar;3(1):602-4.
• White RJ. Brain transplantation. Surg Neurol. 1985 Apr;23(4):449.
• Krieglstein G, Krieglstein J, Urban W. Long survival time of an isolated perfused rat brain. J Neurochem. 1972 Mar;19(3):885-6.
• White RJ, Wolin LR, Massopust LC Jr, Taslitz N, Verdura J. Cephalic exchange transplantation in the monkey. Surgery. 1971 Jul;70(1):135-9.

Spinal cord repair:

• M. E. Schwab and D. Bartholdi. "Degeneration and regeneration of axons in the lesioned spinal cord." Physiol. Rev. 76 (2): 319-370 (1996).
• M.E. Schwab. "Bridging the gap in spinal cord regeneration." Nature Med. 2 (9): 976-977. 1996.

This story reminded me of the good old Rhesus monkey head transplant. Dr. White did it 30 years ago and now he wants to do it for a human head. The monkey lived for 8 days.

Most relevant and most interesting of the linked article is the section on Longer Life for the Paralyzed.

MIT is currently working on project "Oxygen", which uses FPGA technology as its foundation. The FPGA project is called "RAW"

The idea as I understand it, is that as chip complexity increases, circuit pathways grow longer and longer, creating inefficiencies. So the folks at MIT have designed a repeatable CPU core (RAW project) that is highly parallel in nature and uses FPGA technology. As transistor density increases, more power can be added just as easy as new blocks can be added to Lego, because the design is modular.

Here's some URL's for y'all:

Scientific Article on Project Oxygen:
http://www.sciam.com/1999 /08 99issue/0899dertouzos.html

MIT's Oxygen website:
http://oxygen.lcs.mit.edu/

MIT's RAW website:
http://www.cag.lcs.mit.edu/raw/

One of the best documents on FPGA technology and it's existing state in the RAW/Oxygen projects is this PDF document:
ftp://ftp.cag.lcs.mit. edu /pub/raw/documents/RawSpec99.pdf

Enjoy!

Scientific American had an interesting article titled "Is Space Finite?" which discusses the the possibility of the universe being quite small. They assert that it is theoretically possible that we are looking at echos of ourselves when we look way back into the past with our telescopes.

why to hell use ... an old codec like mpg2

Scientific American for Nov 2000 article "Creating Convergence" page 37 explains very well. MPEG2, unlike many multimedia formats/protocols, has been agreed on worldwide and is used worldwide. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

..use tags that say what the information is, not what it looks like...

The ability to capture and transmit semantic and structural data made possible by XML ...

Computers, of course, are not that smart; they need to be told exactly what things are, how they are related and how to deal with them. Extensible Markup Language (XML for short) is a new language designed to do just that, to make information self-describing.

So is there some steak among all of this sizzle?

(And yes, I'm well aware of the fact that CORBA is brain damaged as well.)

There was a great story on All Things Considered yesterday, I think, about this. The guy they interviewed explained what was going on and why very clearly. I'm not into this much, but understood the basic concepts pretty well. For those in the audience asking "What's a Higgs?", here's a link to a Scientific American Article about the Higgs Boson. I tried to get to NPR's site to see if they have a link to the story, but the site is pretty hosed right now. I wonder why :)

For more background information, see links:

Scientific American

Another description

Oh-So-Useful Slashdot Article

Uh, Keyboardist

What concerns me is the increasing amounts of money funneled into the War on Drugs and the meagre results being shown. I am also getting sick of hearing how people's basic Constituional rights keep getting trammeled by drug police (DEA, FBI, and local law enforcement) whether or not they are using drugs.

Harvard Study: Survey Finds Increased Use of Marijuana and Other Illicit Drugs at U.S. Colleges in the 1990s

Scientific American: Marijuana Use among Teens Increased Consistently through the 1990s

Nader is for decriminalization of marijuana use (not sale) and treatment for offenders (not mandatory prison sentences). This is in sharp contrast to both Gore/Bush who want to continue with the failing War on Drugs and its accompanying problems.

--

Nope, not just water on earth. In fact, Galileo found evidence for liquid water in the most unlikely of places, namely on three of Jupiters moons. Of those Ganymede and Europa are fair certainties. Callisto probably also has liquid water, but maybe only ice.

Check out some of these:
Europa, wet and wild
Titan, Mars, and other E.T.-nurseries
Overview: The Galileo Mission to Jupiter and Its Moons



xchg .,@

Nope, not just water on earth. In fact, Galileo found evidence for liquid water in the most unlikely of places, namely on three of Jupiters moons. Of those Ganymede and Europa are fair certainties. Callisto probably also has liquid water, but maybe only ice.

Check out some of these:
Europa, wet and wild
Titan, Mars, and other E.T.-nurseries
Overview: The Galileo Mission to Jupiter and Its Moons



xchg .,@

Nope, not just water on earth. In fact, Galileo found evidence for liquid water in the most unlikely of places, namely on three of Jupiters moons. Of those Ganymede and Europa are fair certainties. Callisto probably also has liquid water, but maybe only ice.

Check out some of these:
Europa, wet and wild
Titan, Mars, and other E.T.-nurseries
Overview: The Galileo Mission to Jupiter and Its Moons



xchg .,@

...because they're "tough on crime." See this Scientific American article.

One of the biggest problems with wireless networks is latency. Dropped packets and so on really screw things up when you're going throw tunnels and behind hills. IPv6 won't fix that. Sure, its a nice way of assigning an identifier, and it'd be groovy to have a similar system on both wired and unwired networks, but the entire IP system was never designed to be robust enough to cope with the crapness of a wireless network. The October issue of Scientic American has a pretty indepth report about wireless networks regarding WAP.. read it online at http://www.sciam.com/2000/10 00i ssue/1000alpert.html

Weirdly, the only thing that shows up when you search for 'hagfish' the results that showed up prominently featured the name "Caroline Meinel". Odd, that.

The article appears not to be online (boo!) but here's a summary: http://www.sciam.com/1998/1098issue/1098quicksumma ry.html

Bacteria evolve at a furious rate and we can expect new varieties to appear for any environment provided. They live where it is cold, where it is hot, and even in space! This article http://www.sciam.com/explorations/072196exploratio ns.html features an interesting experiment where bacteria were observed to evolve several times in four years.

This article http://www.sciam.com/1096issue/1096onstott.html#1 covers research of bacteria found in oil deposits and other unlikely places. Bacteria found in oil can be 300 million years old, and have certianly gotten out before. They get away with and without man's help, and you deal with it every day.

Now get back to work, everybody! No more strikes and millsmashing, execpt you poor loosers at dot coms. Dot com-ers can just go home.