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It took this long to analyze its function, which was published in this week's Science magazine (along with the giant-brained mutant mice, which I thought was a much cooler story.)

It took this long to analyze its function, which was published in this week's Science magazine (along with the giant-brained mutant mice, which I thought was a much cooler story.)

The abstract, and some comments.

The abstract, and some comments.

Still, by biotech standards, this is the equivalent of doing science in the garage. At least the smallpox genome is ~25x bigger than polio.

Cello, J., Paul, A.V. & Wimmer, E. Chemical synthesis of poliovirus cDNA: Generation of infectious virus in the absence of natural template. Science published online, doi:10.1126/science.1072266 (2002).

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Indeed the flood was catastrophic; it buried billions of animals and wiped out just about everything.

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However if you're going to count ice rings and the like, you first have to show that they are based on annual data.

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For example, in Greenland the "lost squadron" of P-38's landed there during WWII. In the 90's some guy from Kentucky (rich man with an obsession, I guess) went up there with advanced echo-location sonars and found them under the ice. He dug them out. When they got down there, they were still perfectly level. If they'd sunken into the ice, they are so front-heavy that they would be tilted downward. And on the way down, he saw hundreds to thousands of ice layers (seen as rings if looked at in a core instead of from inside a tunnel). He stated that those layers form sometimes in days, that they are warm/cold not summer/winter rings. The point of this is, don't just assume annual unless you've proved it.

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And if you measure the growth rate of the Great Barrier Reef, it comes out to being roughly 4000 years old. Just old enough to have started growing right after the flood.

Also, the UGA stop codon is a good choice, since the ribosome will pause there longer than the typical amino acid coding sequence and it also has a higher readthrough probability than other more efficient stop codons - both of which are helpful for more involved tRNA-mRNA interactions.

You're right--what the hell IS "Scientific Misconduct"? Clearly, the NYT reporter is ignorant of the exact charges against the Lucent research team. Luckily, others are not so ignorant. If you have a Science subscription, check out this article, or else see other evidence here. The accusations do not stem from "cultural perceptions," but from specific evidence that a large number of papers, all lead-authored by one person, Hendrik Schon, have data curves that look IDENTICAL, down to the NOISE features, in graphs representing DIFFERENT experiments on DIFFERENT devices.

I apologize for yelling, but there is nothing sociological or reactionary about this one. The evidence is there, and spans (at last count) as many as 20 papers. The only sociological ramifications will be how Lucent, Science, Nature, and the molecular physics community as a whole, most of whom either were suckered or willingly suspended their disbelief, cover their butts as the fallout hits.

This was submitted yesterday to slashdot, but not posted for some reason...

For the past two years, a team at Bell Labs/Lucent, led by a young physicist named Jan Hendrik Schon, has published a dizzying array of groundbreaking work in the field of solid-state physics, which has previously
inspired discussions at Slashdot,
here
and here.
However, as reported tonight in Science (look under
the "ScienceNow" link), and I'm sure soon in Nature, it may all be a fraud. It looks like Schon has used identical data curves for very different experiments in different papers. The scale of the deception is enormous--there are duplicated graphs in at least 5, and as many as 20, papers. The fallout from this will be huge, not just for Lucent, but for the physics community as a whole, as a large number of these papers made it through the review process at the two most prestigious journals in the natural sciences, Science and Nature.

For a comparison of two plots from two seperate papers about two seperate experiments with remarbably similar data, check out here here. Scroll down to thursday may 16...

impacting

The article is at
(But you've got to be a subscriber to see it.)


The most damning piece of evidence presented in that article are two graphs, purportedly describing different experiments which look identical down to the random noise, and a third graph with a different scale which looks almost identical.

Noone seems to be able to reproduce any of the results. The scepticism seems at least justified.

.

The abstract of the article in Science doesn't mention Mercury either. (Nosy free registration required.) I don't know where the BBC got the idea. It would be cool (hot) if it was true, but don't know who originated it. Another note about the meteorite, referring to "another Vesta," but not Mercury.

There were two more articles in Science about this "bubble fusion" stuff: one, called To publish or not to publish that explains why they published the article despite the controversy, and another one called 'Bubble Fusion' Paper Generates a Tempest in a Beaker which has some opposing viewpoints. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure you need to be a subscriber or at a university which subscribes to access those (I access it through my university account).

It's all very interesting, and I'll be curious to see what the final conclusions are. I'm still not sure if I think it was best to publish now, or wait for more independent confirmation. At least they didn't try to hide all the controversy (they even point out that senior science managers at Oak Ridge Lab contacted the journal and asked them to delay publishing the paper..)

There were two more articles in Science about this "bubble fusion" stuff: one, called To publish or not to publish that explains why they published the article despite the controversy, and another one called 'Bubble Fusion' Paper Generates a Tempest in a Beaker which has some opposing viewpoints. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure you need to be a subscriber or at a university which subscribes to access those (I access it through my university account).

It's all very interesting, and I'll be curious to see what the final conclusions are. I'm still not sure if I think it was best to publish now, or wait for more independent confirmation. At least they didn't try to hide all the controversy (they even point out that senior science managers at Oak Ridge Lab contacted the journal and asked them to delay publishing the paper..)

Or at least that's how I understand Science tells it. I am sure that you will now willingly either accept that you got your facts wrong in the above post, produce evidence to contradict the Science editorial, or show that I have misread it.

Or at least that's how I understand Science tells it. I am sure that you will now willingly either accept that you got your facts wrong in the above post, produce evidence to contradict the Science editorial, or show that I have misread it.

News article about the uproar.

Special section about the discovery.

News article about the uproar.

Special section about the discovery.

While I'm not denying that your points are important, they are discussed in the article. They irradiate the flask with neutrons with and without the cavitation, and only observe tritium with cavitation. They do also consider the possibility that the observed neutrons are from their own neutron source. Their claim is that they observe a peak of emitted neutrons at the same time as the luminescence of the collapsing bubbles (and therefore at the same time as the supposed fusion event.

Science Mag now has the article posted. They also have a discussion about the decision to publish this paper amidst calls from scientists not to publish. They claim that reviews have been done and that the authors of the paper "cautiously interpret these observations as evidence that deuterium-deuterium fusion occurred in the imploding bubbles." They do not seem to me like scientist making outrageous claims for attention. Pons and Fleishman broke the news first to the media one week before the Nobel prize ceremony. These scientists, in contrast, have submitted for peer review and make no claims that any energy will ever be obtained from this process.

Does anyone else wonder if the infamous snapping shrimp have been causing fusion reactions with their claws all along?

Science Mag now has the article posted. They also have a discussion about the decision to publish this paper amidst calls from scientists not to publish. They claim that reviews have been done and that the authors of the paper "cautiously interpret these observations as evidence that deuterium-deuterium fusion occurred in the imploding bubbles." They do not seem to me like scientist making outrageous claims for attention. Pons and Fleishman broke the news first to the media one week before the Nobel prize ceremony. These scientists, in contrast, have submitted for peer review and make no claims that any energy will ever be obtained from this process.

Does anyone else wonder if the infamous snapping shrimp have been causing fusion reactions with their claws all along?

I'm concerned that it hasn't been duplicated yet, but hopeful.

Here is a link Science Magazine is providing:

Science Magazine

It has a pdf version of the article in question. Here is the abstract.

In cavitation experiments with deuterated acetone,tritium decay activity above background levels was detected.In addition,evidence for neutron emission near 2.5 million electron volts was also observed,as would be expected for deute- rium-deuterium fusion.Control experiments with normal acetone did not result in tritium activity or neutron emissions.Hydrodynamic shock code simulations supported the observed data and indicated highly compressed,hot (10 6 to 10 7 kelvin)bubble implosion conditions,as required for nuclear fusion reactions.

Here is a link Science Magazine is providing:

Science Magazine

It has a pdf version of the article in question. Here is the abstract.

In cavitation experiments with deuterated acetone,tritium decay activity above background levels was detected.In addition,evidence for neutron emission near 2.5 million electron volts was also observed,as would be expected for deute- rium-deuterium fusion.Control experiments with normal acetone did not result in tritium activity or neutron emissions.Hydrodynamic shock code simulations supported the observed data and indicated highly compressed,hot (10 6 to 10 7 kelvin)bubble implosion conditions,as required for nuclear fusion reactions.

PDF copies can be downloaded from here.

Science magazine had a news article on this in their 4 Jan. issue, if you want to see

In this special issue (membership required beyond TOC) Science magazine has named nano-circuits the breakthrough of the year. Nano-circuits should allow circuits several orders of magnitude smaller than what we currently achieve with the best chip technologies today. However, the editors note that commercial fabrication is still along ways off, and we don't even know what a nano-fab plant will look like. The interesting point is that this breakthrough appears to push forward the standard boolean logic design used by current computing machinery. Although quantum computing is not ruled out (I suppose), it is not a pre-requisite.

If you attend a major university, you may be able access Science magazine electronically free of charge (minus tuition of course) from any computer with an IP address on your university's network. Try going to Science's homepage. If under the advertisments at the top of the page, there is some text that says "Institution: University of foo", then you have electronic access to all the articles that have appeared in print (Sadly institutional subscriptions don't include access to papers on ScienceExpress that have been published electronically but not yet on paper)

For those of you who don't have a subscription to the Science journal, here's the article, with references:

The Closest Living Relatives of Land Plants

Kenneth G. Karol,1* Richard M. McCourt,2 Matthew T. Cimino,1 Charles F. Delwiche1

The embryophytes (land plants) have long been thought to be related to the green algal group Charophyta, though the nature of this relationship and the origin of the land plants have remained unresolved. A four-gene phylogenetic analysis was conducted to investigate these relationships. This analysis supports the hypothesis that the land plants are placed phylogenetically within the Charophyta, identifies the Charales (stoneworts) as the closest living relatives of plants, and shows the Coleochaetales as sister to this Charales/land plant assemblage. The results also support the unicellular flagellate Mesostigma as the earliest branch of the charophyte lineage. These findings provide insight into the nature of the ancestor of plants, and have broad implications for understanding the transition from aquatic green algae to terrestrial plants.

1 Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
2 Department of Botany, Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: karol@umail.umd.edu

The evolutionary origin of the embryophytes (or land plants) from their green algal ancestor was a pivotal event in the history of life. This monophyletic group has altered the biosphere and now dominates the terrestrial environment, but uncertainty as to the identity of their closest living relatives has persisted in the literature after more than a century of scrutiny (1-3). Morphological and molecular studies have identified two distinct lineages within the green plants sensu lato, termed Charophyta and Chlorophyta. The Charophyta comprise the land plants and at least five lineages (orders) of fresh water green algae, and are sister to the Chlorophyta, which consist of essentially all other green algae. Previous molecular analyses have verified monophyly of most of the charophyte orders (4-6), but branching patterns among these lineages have been only weakly supported, with results that were sensitive to taxon selection and method of phylogenetic reconstruction. Similarly, analyses of morphological and genome structural data have clarified some relationships (7-10), but have been limited by the number of characters available, uncertain homology assessment, and a lack of character independence.

Identifying the closest living relatives of land plants has been difficult. Roughly 470 million years of evolution since the colonization of the land, coupled with rapid radiation and numerous extinction events (2, 3, 11), has resulted in an inherently difficult phylogenetic problem, with much information from the early, common history of evolution obscured by subsequent evolution in the now independent lineages (12).

To investigate the evolutionary origin of land plants and identify the closest living relatives of this group, we analyzed DNA sequence data from four genes representing three plant genomes: atpB and rbcL (plastid), nad5 (mitochondrial), and the small subunit (SSU) rRNA gene (nuclear). The data set used for phylogenetic analyses excludes introns and unalignable regions for a total length of 5147 base pairs [Appendix 1 (13)] (14). We sampled 34 representative charophytes, including eight land plants, and six outgroup taxa [Appendix 2 (13)]. The data were analyzed with Bayesian inference (BI), maximum likelihood (ML), maximum parsimony (MP), and minimum evolution with two distance measures [LogDet (ME-ld) and maximum likelihood (GTR+I+ [Gamma ] ; ME-ml) distances] [Appendix 3 (13)]. Both BI and ML are probabilistic methods that utilize explicit models of sequence evolution to test phylogenetic hypotheses. Advantages of BI are that it is relatively fast and provides probabilistic measures of tree strength that are more directly comparable with traditional statistical measures than those more commonly used in phylogenetic analyses (15, 16). To measure phylogenetic stability, posterior probabilities (PP) as inferred by BI were calculated and bootstrapping was performed for the ML, MP, and ME analyses.

Using BI and ML on the combined four-gene data set (Fig. 1), we found the order Charales sister to the land plants with strong statistical support (PP = 1.0, ML = 94) and a monophyletic Coleochaetales sister to the Charales/land plant clade (PP = 1.0, ML = 59). The MP and ME analyses [Appendix 4 (13)] also support the result that Charales have a closer relationship to land plants than do Coleochaetales (MP = 80, ME-ld = 97, ME-ml = 92). The overall structure of the best tree is consistent with previous work in that the classically recognized orders were also recovered (land plants, PP = 1.0, ML = 100, MP = 100, ME-ld = 100, ME-ml = 100; Charales, PP = 1.0, ML = 100, MP = 100, ME-ld = 100, ME-ml = 100; Coleochaetales, PP = 1.0, ML = 62, MP = Fig. 1. Phylogenetic relationships for Charophyta determined by Bayesian inference from the combined four-gene data set. The maximum likelihood tree (-ln = 64499.87863) was of identical topology. Posterior probabilities are noted above branches and maximum likelihood bootstrap values are below branches. The topology is drawn with Cyanophora rooting the tree. Branch lengths are mean values and are proportional to the number of substitutions per site (bar, 0.05 substitutions/site). Taxonomy is modified from (23). [View Larger Version of this Image (41K GIF file)]

The phylogenetic placement of Mesostigma, a unicellular, scaly green flagellate has been controversial. Traditionally classified with like forms as a prasinophyte, it also has been allied with the Charophyta. The phylogenetic position of Mesostigma is critical to understanding the evolution of form and structure in the lineage that gave rise to land plants. Like the results presented here, analyses of actin sequences place Mesostigma at the base of the Charophyta (17), and analyses of SSU rRNA gene sequence data place it among them (albeit in close association with Chaetosphaeridium, a grouping not supported by other data) (5, 18). By contrast, maximum likelihood analyses of amino-acid data from both the plastid and mitochondrial genomes of Mesostigma find strong support for placement of this genus as sister to all green algae rather than as a basal charophyte lineage (19, 20). The latter analyses differ from those presented here in the number of taxa sampled (8 versus 40). When divergence times are large and internal branches short, limited taxon sampling can lead to inaccurate phylogenies (12). If taxon sampling explains this conflict, then one would predict convergence on the phylogeny presented here as additional organellar genomes become available.

Both Charales and Coleochaetales have long been considered to be close relatives of the land plants (1, 21-23). Key morphological characters uniting these three lineages include branched filamentous growth, oogamous sexual reproduction, and phragmoplastic cell division, along with a suite of ultrastructural and biochemical features (2). In light of similar morphological traits (i.e., parenchyma-like tissue, placental transfer cell wall ingrowths, and zygote retention), the genus Coleochaete and, in some instances, a single species, C. orbicularis, has been discussed as a possible sister taxon to land plants (8, 24). Our results indicate that the Coleochaetales are monophyletic and less closely related to the land plants than the Charales. Both Bayesian inference and bootstrap analyses permit evaluation of alternative hypotheses; we were unable to identify any alternative hypothesis with nontrivial support (25).

The Charales also share numerous characteristics with land plants, some of which are not found in the Coleochaetales. These include gross sperm morphology and ultrastructure (26), numerous discoidal chloroplasts per cell, protonemal filaments, complete absence of zoospores (sperm are the only flagellate cells), and encasement of the egg by sterile jacket cells (cortication) prior to fertilization (10, 21). Our data suggest that many of the similarities between Charales and land plants reflect homology rather than convergent evolution. Cortication of the zygote reminiscent of that in Charales is found in some species of Coleochaete, but occurs only after fertilization of the egg, and zygote cortication is not thought to occur in Chaetosphaeridium (10). In addition, primary plasmodesmata have been confirmed in the Charales, a character shared with land plants (27). Although plasmodesmata have been described in Coleochaete, it is unknown whether their development is primary or secondary in nature.

Identification of the Charales as the sister taxon to land plants with the Coleochaetales as sister to the Charales/land plant clade suggests that the common ancestor of land plants was a branched, filamentous organism with a haplontic life cycle and oogamous reproduction. The early stages of development in the Charales involve formation of protonemal filaments reminiscent of those found in some mosses and other land plants, which suggests that a similar heteromorphic development might have occurred in the common ancestor. Other characteristics of this ancestor, including both developmental and biochemical features, may explain not only how their descendants came to survive on land, but also how they ultimately came to dominate terrestrial ecosystems. Moreover, the charophytes have important applications in a wide range of disciplines (Charales in cell biology, Coleochaetales in ultrastructure, and Zygnematales in physiology) (10). Consequently, a robust phylogeny relating these taxa to land plants can place this work in an evolutionary context and lead to the identification and development of appropriate model systems for future studies.

Although it is tempting to envision the origin of land plants as having been from amorphous pond scum, these data indicate that the common ancestor of land plants and their closest algal relatives was a relatively complex organism. The extant Charales are the remnants of a once diverse, but now largely extinct, group which includes some of the oldest known plant fossils [roughly 420 million years ago (Ma) from the late Ordovician] (11, 28). While the fossil record for the other charophyte orders is fragmentary at best (29), the molecular phylogenetic data presented here (Fig. 1) suggest that these lineages diversified more than 470 Ma. While not species-rich, these algae hold a key position in the tree of life and, consequently, represent an important part of eukaryotic diversity.
REFERENCES AND NOTES
1. F. O. Bower, The Origin of Land Flora. A Theory Based upon the Facts of Alternation (Macmillan, London, 1908).
2. L. E. Graham, The Origin of Land Plants (Wiley, New York, 1993).
3. P. Kenrick, P. R. Crane, The Origin and Early Diversification of Land Plants, Smithsonian Series in Comparative Evolutionary Biology (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, 1997).
4. R. L. Chapman et al., in Systematics of Plants II, D. E. Soltis, P. S. Soltis, J. J. Doyle, Eds. (Kluwer Academic, Norwell, MA, 1998), pp. 508-540.
5. B. Marin and M. Melkonian, Protist 150, 399 (1999) [ISI][Medline].
6. R. M. McCourt, et al., J. Phycol. 36, 747 (2000) [Abstract/Full Text].
7. H. J. Sluiman, Plant Syst. Evol. 149, 217 (1985) [ISI].
8. L. E. Graham, C. F. Delwiche, B. D. Mishler, Adv. Bryol. 4, 213 (1991) .
9. B. D. Mishler and S. P. Churchill, Brittonia 36, 406 (1984) [ISI].
10. L. E. Graham, L. W. Wilcox, Algae (Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2000).
11. M. Feist, N. Grambast-Fessard, in Calcareous Algae and Stromatolites, R. Riding, Ed. (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1991), pp. 189-203.
12. J. Felsenstein, Syst. Zool. 27, 401 (1978) [ISI] .
13. Supplementary material is available on Science Online at www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/294/5550/2351/ DC1.
14. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequencing: Total cellular DNA was isolated by the CTAB method [ J. J. Doyle and J. L. Doyle, Phytochem. Bull. 19, 11 (1987) ], UNSET method (a high-urea, SDS extraction buffer) or using the Nucleon Phytopure Plant DNA extraction kit (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech) following the manufacturer's protocol from fresh thalli growing in uni-algal condition. The genes were amplified by PCR with gene specific primers (atpB upstream: 5'-TGTTACTTGTGAAGTTCAACA-3'; atpB downstream: 5'-CTAAATAAAATGCTTGTTCAGG-3'; rbcL upstream: 5'-ATGTCACCACAAACAGAAACTAAAGC-3'; rbcL downstream: 5'-AATTCAAATTTAATTTCTTTCC-3'; nad5 upstream: 5'-GTAGGTGATTTTGGATTAGC-3': nad5 downstream: 5'-GTACCTAAACCAATCATCATATC-3'; SSU upstream: 5'-GTAGTCATATGCTTGTCTC-3': SSU downstream: 5'-CTTGTTACGACTTCTCCT-3') and sequenced using either an ABI-PRISM 377 or 3100 DNA sequencer (PE Applied Biosystems) according to the manufacturer's protocols. The resulting sequence chromatograms were edited and compiled into a single alignment using Sequencher 3.1.1 (Gene Codes Corp.) and exported in NEXUS format for phylogenetic analyses. Many published SSU rRNA gene sequences were difficult to align to published secondary structure models. Small subunit sequences that could not be matched to such structure models were resequenced for this study (13). A single intron was found in the Coleochaete orbicularis nad5 sequence and the distribution of introns in nad5 was examined in the taxa within our study. No introns were found in any other species of Coleochaete or other algal charophyte nad5 sequence sampled. Introns with the same insertion point as that of C. orbicularis were only found in Sphagnum (a moss) and Marchantia (a liverwort) which share a sequence identity of 69.39%, compared with only 37.82% and 37.81% to C. orbicularis, respectively. Anthoceros (a hornwort) has an apparently unrelated intron inserted 128 base pairs downstream with 37.35% identity with that of Sphagnum, 35.99% identity to Marchantia, and 39.46% to C. orbicularis. For comparison, pairs of random sequences with similar base composition and length as the natural sequences had an average of 37.78% sequence identity. These data suggest that the C. orbicularis nad5 intron was acquired independently from that shared by Sphagnum and Marchantia.
15. J. P. Huelsenbeck, J. P. Bollback, in Handbook of Statistical Genetics, M. Bishop, Ed. (Wiley, London, 2001).
16. J. P. Huelsenbeck, F. Ronquist, R. Nielsen, J. P. Bollback, Science 294, 2310 (2001) [Abstract/Full Text] .
17. D. Bhattacharya, K. Weber, S. S. An, W. Berning-Koch, J. Mol. Evol. 47, 544 (1998) [ISI][Medline] .
18. H. J. Sluiman and C. Guihal, J. Phycol. 35, 395 (1999) [Abstract].
19. C. Lemieux, C. Otis, M. Turmel, Nature 403, 649 (2000) [CrossRef][ISI][Medline] .
20. C. Lemieux, C. Otis, M. Turmel, in press.
21. F. E. Fritsch, The Structure and the Reproduction of the Algae (Cambridge Univ. Press, London, 1935), vol. I.
22. J. D. Pickett-Heaps and H. J. Marchant, Cytobios 6, 255 (1972) [ISI] .
23. K. R. Mattox, K. D. Stewart, in The Systematics of the Green Algae, D. E. G. Irvine, D. M. John, Eds. (Academic Press, London, 1984), pp. 29-72.
24. B. D. Mishler and S. P. Churchill, Cladistics 1, 305 (1985) .
25. Alternative hypotheses that were explored include: Coleochaete orbicularis sister to land plants, PP = 0.0, ML = 0.0%; Coleochaete sister to land plants, PP = 0.0, ML = 0.0%; Coleochaetales sister to land plants, PP = 0.0, ML = 0.0%; Coleochaetales sister to Charales, PP = 0.0, ML = 0.4%.
26. T. M. Duncan, K. S. Renzaglia, D. J. Garbary, Pl. Syst. Evol. 204, 125 (1997) .
27. M. E. Cook, L. E. Graham, C. E. J. Botha, C. A. Lavin, Am. J. Bot. 84, 1169 (1997) [Abstract] .
28. M. Feist and R. Feist, Nature 385, 401 (1997) [ISI][Medline] .
29. H. Tappan, The Paleobiology of Plant Protists (Freeman, New York, 1980).
30. We thank T. Bachvaroff, T. Cooke, G. French, M. Hibbs, J. Lewandowski, T. Marushak, and E. Zimmer for critical comments; C. Drummond, S. Snyder, and A. Zeccardi for technical assistance; J. Bollback and J. Huelsenbeck for important discussions and assistance with Bayesian analyses; M. Casanova, M. Feist, and V. Proctor for material; F. Lang et al., C. Lemieux, C. Otis, and M. Turmel for unpublished sequence data; and S. Fritz, A. Kaspar, R. Sudman, K. Sytsma, and the GPPRGC ("Deep Green"; USDA) for help with development of this project. This work was supported by NSF grant DEB-9978117 and is dedicated to the memory of C. C. Delwiche.
7 August 2001; accepted 9 November 2001
10.1126/science.1065156
Include this information when citing this paper.

You can get the abstract here for free and demonstrate to yourself that the news article was wrong, and that it was actually in Science, not Nature. Thus endeth my Karma whoring for today. :)

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Here's the Science Magazine Abstract

----Abstract-----

Electrically Driven Single Photon Source
Zhiliang Yuan 1, Beata E. Kardynal 1, R. Mark Stevenson 1, Andrew J. Shields 1,Charlene J. Lobo 2, Ken Cooper 2, Neil S. Beattie 3, David A. Ritchie 2, Michael Pepper 3
1 Toshiba Research Europe Limited, Cambridge Research Laboratory, 260 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WE, UK.
2 Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, UK.
3 Toshiba Research Europe Limited, Cambridge Research Laboratory, 260 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WE, UK; Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, UK.

Electroluminescence from a single quantum dot within the intrinsic region of a p-i-n junction is demonstrated to act as an electrically driven single photon source. At low injection currents the dot electroluminescence spectrum reveals a single sharp line due to exciton recombination, while another line due to the biexciton emerges at higher current. The second order correlation function of the diode displays anti-bunching under a DC drive current. Single photon emission is stimulated using sub-nanosecond voltage pulses. These results suggest that semiconductor technology can be used to mass-produce a single photon source for applications in quantum information technology.

-----End Abstract-----

If anyone has access to Science Online (http://www.sciencemag.org) you can download the PDF reprint at this link: here.

1. You don't actually rebut my point.

2. Have you tried listening with a good turntable/tonearm/cartridge? Again, you avoid the main issue.

As for (B), since you are such an authority, I shouldn't need to give you references, but since I'm so magnanimous, I'll give a few anyway:

• M. L. Lenhardt et al., "Human ultrasonic speech perception", Science 253: 82 [1991].
  
• T. Oohashi et al., "High-frequency sound above the audible range affects brain electronic activity and sound perception", AES Preprints
  91: 3207 [1991].
  
• P. Mills, "The need for extended high-frequency bandwidth" [1999].

3. This is just point 2 again.

4. We agree here, I think. I was referring to analog equalizers (which seems to be what your original post was citing).

Your last comment seems an attempt to slip by the issues. My remark was hardly ad hominem (think about it).

Just a small quibble:

First: the article was published in Science and is available here.

And you're very right in pointing out that of the vast number of antibody-directed cancer therapies mentioned in the literature, almost all have failed in people. However, there are a few successes - Mylotarg, Ontak, Herceptin, and Rituxan spring to mind. In fact, the Herceptin antibody was one of the antibodies used in this study - which increases the odds of clinical relevance.

Hasta.

It think it is slightly premature to hail this as the cure for cancer. The problem is without a subscrition we can't even get to the Science magazine website. I'd love to peruse the article but i think it needs registration, and the free version seems to only give abstracts. We don't have proper figures on their tests so there's no way we can individually verify what the article is saying.

The treatment may work on mice but its no guarantee it will work on humans - major clinical trials (which take a long time) would need to be done before the public could get to a treatment. The CNN article is a bit sketchy on details, but it did point out this fact. Thalidomide is an example of treatment which worked in lab experiments but went on to cause chaos with mothers who used it (their babies were born deformed).

Another issue is how it targets cells - it's no good if it targets healthy cells as well. However chemotherapy and radiotherapy also have this side effect so if it kills less cells and is succesful in killing the cancer cells it should be used. But as i said more information (i.e. free access to the original article) would be nice so we could make a more informed opinion on this article.

There are two reasons this particular therapy favors cancer cells over "normal cells"

First: the caged actinium-225 is attached to a monoclonal antibody. The antibody (or, in their case, 4 antibodies) binds very nicely to a specific receptor/molecule. Ideally, this receptor/molecule is ONLY found on cancer cells, and not on healthy cells. In practice, this isn't ever the case - but there are a number of receptors which are more prevalent on cancer cells than normal cells. There are a couple of FDA approved anti-cancer treatments which make use of monoclonal antibodies (such as Mylotarg and Herceptin).

Second: Why does radiation kill cancer cells faster than normal cells? Well - 'radiation' does bad things to DNA - it can cause strand breaks, or base-pair dimer formation. These sorts of things happen all the time in cells, and they have a number of repair mechanisms to take care of just these sorts of problems, if they have enough time (and the damage isn't too severe). In cancer, cells are typically dividing as fast as they possibly can, since the normal regulatory checkpoints which govern cell division are often missing or damaged. Often, cancerous cells will even have problems with their DNA repair mechanisms. So - the repair mechanisms don't have time to fix the damage before the cell replicates its DNA or divides. The result of faulty or incomplete DNA synthesis is unpredictable, but often bad - in other words, the cell dies.

By the way, the journal article can be found here.

Dielectrophoretic Assembly of Electrically Functional Microwires from Nanoparticle Suspensions
Kevin D. Hermanson, Simon O. Lumsdon, Jacob P. Williams, Eric W. Kaler, and Orlin D. Velev

Abstract:
A new class of microwires can be assembled by dielectrophoresis from suspensions of metallic nanoparticles. The wires are formed in the gaps between planar electrodes and can grow faster than 50 micrometers per second to lengths exceeding 5 millimeters. They have good ohmic conductance and automatically form electrical connections to conductive islands or particles. The thickness and the fractal dimension of the wires can be controlled, and composite wires with a metallic core surrounded by a latex shell can be assembled. The simple assembly process and their high surface-to-volume ratio make these structures promising for wet electronic and bioelectronic circuits.

Science Nov 2 2001: 1082-1086.

[Full Text] (only if you have a science account)

[Supplemental Data] - including QT movies!

Dielectrophoretic Assembly of Electrically Functional Microwires from Nanoparticle Suspensions
Kevin D. Hermanson, Simon O. Lumsdon, Jacob P. Williams, Eric W. Kaler, and Orlin D. Velev

Abstract:
A new class of microwires can be assembled by dielectrophoresis from suspensions of metallic nanoparticles. The wires are formed in the gaps between planar electrodes and can grow faster than 50 micrometers per second to lengths exceeding 5 millimeters. They have good ohmic conductance and automatically form electrical connections to conductive islands or particles. The thickness and the fractal dimension of the wires can be controlled, and composite wires with a metallic core surrounded by a latex shell can be assembled. The simple assembly process and their high surface-to-volume ratio make these structures promising for wet electronic and bioelectronic circuits.

Science Nov 2 2001: 1082-1086.

[Full Text] (only if you have a science account)

[Supplemental Data] - including QT movies!

I posted this earlier and it got modded down as off topic, but maybe I didn't say enough about why I thought this link was relevant.

My point in posting this link was to help people write their representatives to express their concern about the DCMA. We can whine all we want to in forums such as slashdot, but all we're really doing is preaching to the choir. If you want to change things, you have to contact your elected representatives. The U.S. is a participatory democracy, and those who actually take the time to participate have disproportionate power.

If you are a U.S. citizen, write your congressional representative a short note politely asking them to read the Science article mentioned in the original post. Tell them why you think this is an important issue. Make your voice heard.

To find out who your Congressional representative is and how to contact them, visit:
http://www.house.gov/writerep

The reason there's no preprint circulating is that Science (and Nature) are notoriously draconian about that sort of thing. Papers are embargoed until the date of publication.

A real paper does exist, though - I've got it right in front of me.

The "Science" link is actually to slashdot's home page...

Here's a working link...
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/293 /5529/468

... okay, it's not REALLY working. You have to buy access! Wasn't there a protest by scientists about this kind of thing?



- - - - -

As the Reg reports, the journal Science contains the original article. Best of luck getting at it though.

I suppose it is hard to get through with the wrong link:)

Try this one instead(Reg required).

"We show that the physical and electrical structure and hence the inversion charge for crystalline oxides on semiconductors can be understood and systematically manipulated at the atomic level. Heterojunction band offset and alignment are adjusted by atomic-level structural and chemical changes, resulting in the demonstration of an electrical interface between a polar oxide and a semiconductor free of interface charge. In a broader sense, we take the metal oxide semiconductor device to a new and prominent position in the solid-state electronics timeline. It can now be extensively developed using an entirely new physical system: the crystalline oxides-on-semiconductors interface."

URLs Abstract and article (subscription may be required...)

My summary:
Oak Ridge National Lab scientsts demonstrate "crystalline oxide semiconductors", that are a combination of Ba-SrO and SrTiO3 on Silicon or BaTiO3 on Germanium. The cool thing is it looks like this will enable germanium field effect transistors that could switch faster than the 210 GHz Si-Ge transistors that IBM can now produce.

"We show that the physical and electrical structure and hence the inversion charge for crystalline oxides on semiconductors can be understood and systematically manipulated at the atomic level. Heterojunction band offset and alignment are adjusted by atomic-level structural and chemical changes, resulting in the demonstration of an electrical interface between a polar oxide and a semiconductor free of interface charge. In a broader sense, we take the metal oxide semiconductor device to a new and prominent position in the solid-state electronics timeline. It can now be extensively developed using an entirely new physical system: the crystalline oxides-on-semiconductors interface."

URLs Abstract and article (subscription may be required...)

My summary:
Oak Ridge National Lab scientsts demonstrate "crystalline oxide semiconductors", that are a combination of Ba-SrO and SrTiO3 on Silicon or BaTiO3 on Germanium. The cool thing is it looks like this will enable germanium field effect transistors that could switch faster than the 210 GHz Si-Ge transistors that IBM can now produce.

Yes - the article clearly said that in 2000, Levitus found an increase in ocean temperature, but couldn't attribute the change to natural vairation of human activity. The original article can be found here. It is important to note - this is NOT THE STUDY discussed in the CNN article. This is what is known as "previous work."

This previous work was one of the motivating factors for the next study they performed, the study discussed in the aformentioned CNN article. In this study, they performed simulations "using an atmosphere-ocean general circulation model that includes estimates of the radiative effects of observed temporal variations in greenhouse gases, sulfate aerosols, solar irradiance, and volcanic aerosols over the past century." These simulations MATCHED their data, and the increase in temperatures in their model could be attributed to greenhouse gases released by human activity. And THAT is the study discussed in this CNN article.

And, just to pour a little salt on the wound, let's look at some of the other quotes in the article which you've chosen to ignore (rather than merely take out of context)

"I believe our results represent the strongest evidence to date that the Earth's climate system is responding to human-induced forcing,"said Sydney Levitus of the National Oceanographic Data Center.

"Warming in the ocean is bad and good news. It really does add strength to the claims that global warming is here," said Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography .. ." but it also suggests that the immediate impact may not be as great because the oceans may slow things down a little"

Exactly as I originally stated. Global warming is real. There is overwhelming scientific evidence to support this. The evidence that it is caused by human activity is becoming overwhelming. But the consequences of this warming, its magnitude, etc, is still a question of scientific debate.

Personally, I feel we should take steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Not because "I know" horrible things will happen to the earth's climate. But because SOMETHING will PROBABLY happen, and it MIGHT be very bad. But I was never much of a gambler.

Yes - the article clearly said that in 2000, Levitus found an increase in ocean temperature, but couldn't attribute the change to natural vairation of human activity. The original article can be found here. It is important to note - this is NOT THE STUDY discussed in the CNN article. This is what is known as "previous work."

This previous work was one of the motivating factors for the next study they performed, the study discussed in the aformentioned CNN article. In this study, they performed simulations "using an atmosphere-ocean general circulation model that includes estimates of the radiative effects of observed temporal variations in greenhouse gases, sulfate aerosols, solar irradiance, and volcanic aerosols over the past century." These simulations MATCHED their data, and the increase in temperatures in their model could be attributed to greenhouse gases released by human activity. And THAT is the study discussed in this CNN article.

And, just to pour a little salt on the wound, let's look at some of the other quotes in the article which you've chosen to ignore (rather than merely take out of context)

"I believe our results represent the strongest evidence to date that the Earth's climate system is responding to human-induced forcing,"said Sydney Levitus of the National Oceanographic Data Center.

"Warming in the ocean is bad and good news. It really does add strength to the claims that global warming is here," said Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography .. ." but it also suggests that the immediate impact may not be as great because the oceans may slow things down a little"

Exactly as I originally stated. Global warming is real. There is overwhelming scientific evidence to support this. The evidence that it is caused by human activity is becoming overwhelming. But the consequences of this warming, its magnitude, etc, is still a question of scientific debate.

Personally, I feel we should take steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Not because "I know" horrible things will happen to the earth's climate. But because SOMETHING will PROBABLY happen, and it MIGHT be very bad. But I was never much of a gambler.

A recent letter in Science provides 13 citations for reports of such exciting phenomena as reduction in alpine glaciers, increase in permafrost thawing, later freeze-ups & earlier thaws of lakes, etc. etc. etc. occuring over the past 60 years.

These 13 citations are A VERY SMALL FRACTION of the total evidence supporting a warming trend over the recent past. A quick search through the web of science over just the past 2 years turns up 595 articles. Do they all provide evidence of a warming trend? No. Do many of them? Yes.

Heck, even a quick search on CNN turns up evidence of ocean warming caused by humans.

A more complete review of the evidence is presented here.

There is very little doubt that the earth is getting warmer. The debates over the past few years settle on "is it caused by humans" and "how much will it affect climate". The evidence seems pretty clear that humans are responsible for a good portion of the warming. The overall affect of this warming, however, is still very much in doubt. THAT'S where the main scientific debate is.

And, on a slightly unrelated rant . . .

Comments like this really piss me off. It's clear you haven't done any poking through the scientific literature about global warming, and your "as i understand it" comes from mouthpieces of our good friends in the oil industry, rush limbaugh, and others.

Plus, EVERYTHING in science is a theory. It's an explanation of how the world works, based on experimental data. A good theory explains the current data and makes predictions about the results of future experiments (ie, warming the earth will cause an increase in the rate of polar ice cap melting). Theories are NEVER PROVEN - there's always the chance that some experiment in the future will provide data that can't be explained by the current theory - which leads to its modification or, in very rare and exciting cases, a completely new theoriy. This is why we have a "theory of gravity" or "theory of evolution" - they can't be proven, but they explain very nicely all the data we've picked up to this point.

Sheesh.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/292/ 5526/2413a.

Huzzah for another great mystery of life revealed...