Bumper car me left or right 
I’ll take a thousand knocks 
There’s a happy man in there 
And you won’t blink your eyes 
Like all the things you lost before I 
Right where you left me you know-oh 
Like all the things you found 
Mmm mmm 
Don’t taste them just swallow them whole 

I forfeit my time 
And wait 
While you make up your mind 
So tell me 
If you ever find your flag 
Cause I will be right by you where you stand 

Lift me up or tear me down 
I’ll stand right up again 
There’s happy soul in there 
But you won’t let him in 
Like all the things we say before me 
Crumble and fall to the floor 
Like all the things we try 
Aye aye 
I know where it’s headed and so 

I forfeit my time 
And wait while you re-make up your mind up 
So tell me 
If you ever find your flag 
Cause I will be right by you where you stand 
Oh I will be right by you where you stand 
I will deliver 
Where you stand I will not fall 
Where you stand there is no ocean 
Nor a river nor a shore 

I fall into line 
And wait while you make up your mind 
So tell me if you ever find your flag 

I forfeit my time 
And wait 
While you make up your mind 
So tell me 
If you ever find your flag 
Cause I will be right by you where you stand 
Oh I will be right by you where you stand 
Oh I will be right by you where you stand

La plage - Yann Tiersen

La plage - Yann Tiersen......La plage - Yann Tiersen

La plage - Yann Tiersen

In 15 minutes, this device can identify biological threats in a sample of blood

 



SpinDx  Jeff McMillan

 

This cube could detect a biological threat in a sample of blood in less time than it takes to commute home.

Funded by a grant from the National Institute of Health, SpinDx (yes, that's the name the researchers went with) is a liquid-testing lab in a cube. Using cheap disks to collect samples, usually blood but also other bodily fluids or even just water, the SpinDx disks "contain commercially available reagents and antibodies specific to each protein marker" embedded into 64 tiny pores. Using just a pinprick of blood (or tiny sample of whatever fluid is being tested), capillary action seeds the pores on the disk with the sample. The SpinDx cube then spins the disk in a centrifuge, and lets the reagents and antibodies in the pores test for up to 64 toxins, and delivers test results in just 15 minutes.

The faster a threat can be diagnosed, the better hospitals and the CDC will be able to treat patients. And with an effective early response, we are that much safer from zombies. Okay, zombie defense isn't the first goal, but in light of recent stories about lost viruses and new bioweapon risks, the prospect of a quick diagnosis machine is good news.

The device is still in the testing stages, but so far results have been impressive. Saddam Hussein once produced botulism, a poison used in small doses as a beauty product, in bulk for nefarious purposes. The poison also sometimes occurs in poorly canned food, and there are about 145 poisoning cases reported in the United States each year. It's also a difficult disease to test for--current standard practice requires a test on live mice. According to Sandia National Laboratories researcher Greg Sommer, the SpinDx test "vastly outperformed the mouse bioassay in head-to-head tests, and requires absolutely no animal testing."

Which is great, but to take the SpinDx from lab testing to production, researchers will have to clear two hurdles--animal and clinical tests. After that, the scientists believe the SpinDx will be at the forefront of catching new diseases, keeping researchers busy for years to come. And, hopefully, keeping the rest of us safe.



The most severe recorded earthquake in Oklahoma history may also have been the most severe earthquake ever linked to a certain oil and gas drilling operation.

Earthquakes In Oklahoma Between 1973 And 2011                    The yellow dots show earthquakes before 2009. The orange dots show earthquakes between 2009 and 2011. The red dots show earthquakes after November 5, 2011. For a full explanation, visit the USGS.                USGS        

In 2011, a series of earthquakes hit central Oklahoma, destroying six houses, damaging an additional 14, and bringing down a turret at the 700-student St. Gregory's University. Among the series was the largest earthquake ever recorded in the state of Oklahoma. And, some scientists say, the quakes may have included the largest earthquake ever triggered by the injection of wastewater from oil and gas drilling deep inside the Earth.

A team of U.S. geologists has published a paper in Geology that argues that wastewater injection triggered the magnitude 5.0 earthquake near Prague (pronounced with a long A), Oklahoma, on November 5, 2011. That quake then broke fault planes to the south, triggering more than 1,000 aftershocks, including a 5.7 quake November 6 and a 5.0 on November 8. "I think this should raise awareness for the potential for larger events that could be induced," Elizabeth Cochran, a geophysicist from the U.S. Geological Survey in California and one of the authors of the new paper, tells Popular Science.

The Oklahoma Geological Survey disagrees. The agency posted a statement on its website three days before the Geology publication, laying out its arguments for why survey scientists think those earthquakes were natural.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey says evidence is mounting that the American Midwest and East have seen increasing seismic activity since 2009, alongside increased wastewater injection. The increased quakes are generally small, of magnitude 3, which don't cause damage but which people can feel. Cochran tells Popular Science that her team's findings of larger induced quakes call for increased monitoring of areas where drilling occurs. However, there are no federal or state laws requiring companies to assess an area for earthquake potential before injections--nor to hold companies liable for earthquakes that occur afterward.

 

                                                                                                                                     

The practice of wastewater injection has proliferated over the past 60 years in the U.S. because it is a relatively inexpensive, swift way to get rid of oil and gas drilling waste, ProPublica reported last September. There are about 144,000 such wells in the United States. They're classified in such a way that they're under less stringent regulation than waste wells from the pharmaceutical, chemical or other industries. The ProPublica report mainly pointed to the wells' potential to contaminate nearby water supplies, but recent geological studies suggest that earthquake potential could also be a greater problem than previously thought.

Geologists have agreed-upon criteria for deciding whether an earthquake was triggered by human activity. One of these criteria is proximity, and the Prague earthquakes fit the bill. The first quake occurred about 200 meters, or little more than a tenth of a mile, away from an active injection well.

Another indicator of triggering is if a quake occurs soon after some drilling activity, sometimes within 24 hours. The Prague quakes don't fit that second category, as wastewater injection began in the area decades ago, in 1955. Cochran and her team argue, however, that the quakes began now because the pumping pressure increased recently. Jean-Philippe Avouac, a geologist at the California Institute of Technology who was not involved in the paper, found their argument convincing. "They have a reasonable explanation for this delay," he tells Popular Science.

On the other hand, the Oklahoma Geological Survey argues that pumping pressure increased too long ago, in 2004. The survey also argues that a naturally induced 5.7 quake wouldn't be unheard of for the area, even if it is generally more seismically stable than, say, California.

"Because Oklahoma has naturally occurring earthquakes, we can start with the assumption that the earthquakes are natural and then when we have enough data, we can challenge that idea," says Oklahoma Geological Survey seismologist Austin Holland. "There's no data that really challenge the idea that the earthquakes are naturally occurring."

The Oklahoma Geological Survey has previously determined earthquakes were human-caused. Earlier in 2011, Holland determined that quakes of magnitude 1.0 to 2.8 in south central Oklahoma were triggered by the injection of fluid into the Earth for hydraulic fracturing. After two injecting sessions, however, the drilling company didn't need to inject any more fluid, so it stopped.

Whether or not the Prague quakes are ultimately determined to be human-triggered, geologists such as Bill Ellsworth of the U.S. Geological Survey and the folks on Cochran's team--including geologists from the University of Oklahoma and Columbia University--say the trend of increased earthquakes around wastewater injection wells is real. (U.S. Geological Survey studies have not linked hydraulic fracturing to the increased number of earthquakes.)

The geologists were reluctant to give their opinions on whether more regulation is warranted, however. Holland makes a cautious argument similar to what many geologists told me. "We're not a regulatory authority and I'd be stepping on someone's toes if I made any recommendations," he says, "but certainly there's room for improvement on existing regulations."

                                                           

Illustration of an oil and gas wastewater injection well:   EPA

 

 

 

Did You Feel It?: A map of the shaking and damage that people reported to the U.S. Geological Survey's "Did You Feel It?" website after the magnitude 5.0 earthquake near Prague, Oklahoma, on November 5.  USGS

Caffeine. Like so many other wonderful compounds that provide a lift, buzz, high or other pleasant side effect, caffeine under certain circumstances is toxic. It's most certainly poisonous to humans in high amounts, but even small amounts of caffeine in a watershed can kill off native bacteria populations and can stunt the germination and growth of many plants--which is unfortunate, because caffeine is frequently found in the water around cities. It's also used to produce certain kinds of asthma medication, and that excess frequently makes its way into wastewater. Of course, nature has already come up with a solution to the problem in the form of Pseudomonas putida CBB5, a bacterial species that lives on caffeine. That's great, but scientists were eager to develop a more manageable system to remove caffeine from wastewater, so they harvested the genes that coded for the caffeine-metabolizing proteins in P. putida and put them into a much more amenable creature: Escherichia coli.

The group of researchers, who hail from University of Texas at Austin and University of Iowa, Iowa City, engineered the E. coli bacteria to not only metabolize caffeine, they created a bacterial strain that can't live without it. (I know the feeling.) Due to a quirk in its metabolism, the bacteria cannot synthesize DNA or RNA without caffeine, providing a useful "kill switch" for when decaffeination is complete. To test their bacterias' abilities to metabolize caffeine and their relative addictedness to the compound, the researchers then grew the transfected E. coli on a variety of growth media containing caffeinated beverages, including Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Starbucks Espresso, Monster and Red Bull (brave, brave E. coli). They also used caffeine-free Coca Cola in the growth media, and found that the bacteria simply could not survive without a jolt of joe. Most interestingly, the researchers found that they could back-calculate the amount of caffeine in a given sample by measuring how well the bacterial cells grew in that medium, making the bacteria a useful biomonitor as well as clean-up crew.

Is it wrong that what I really want to do with this bacterial strain is play an awful practical joke on my caffeine-addicted colleagues? A bit of this strain in the morning coffee pot (provided someone can make the bacteria heat-tolerant with a nice extremophile gene) and then sit back and watch as sleep takes over.

 

Water the most precious thing in the world

When water is scarce

The rich will not be able to buy water money

The price is death and destruction and wars inevitably

 



 

 

This interpretation of the classic ghazal features Rohini Ravada on vocals and Shankar Tucker on keyboards, clarinet, and tabla.