Women Android Robots look strangely human

Japanese android expert Hiroshi Ishiguro, second left, and National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Miraikan Chief Executive Director Mamoru Mohri, second right, pose with a female-announcer robot called Otonaroid, right, and a girl robot called Kodomoroid during a press unveiling of the museum's new guides in Tokyo Tuesday, June 24, 2014. 

The latest creations from Osaka University Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro are the Otonaroid, the Kodomoroid and Telenoid, a hairless mannequin head with pointed arms that serves as a cuddly companion. 

The robots with silicon skin and artificial muscles were shown to reporters at Miraikan museum on Tuesday.

Credit Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

The new robot guides at a Tokyo museum look so eerily human and speak so smoothly they almost outdo people, almost.

Japanese robotics expert Hiroshi Ishiguro, an Osaka University professor, says they will be useful for research on how people interact with robots and on what differentiates the person from the machine.

"Making androids is about exploring what it means to be human," he told reporters Tuesday, "examining the question of what is emotion, what is awareness, what is thinking."


In a demonstration, the remote-controlled machines moved their pink lips in time to a voice-over, twitched their eyebrows, blinked and swayed their heads from side to side. They stay seated but can move their hands.

In a clear triumph, Kodomoroid read the news without stumbling once and recited complex tongue-twisters glibly.

The robot, designed with a girlish appearance, can use a variety of voices, such as a deep male voice one minute and a squeaky girly voice the next.

The speech can be input by text, giving them perfect articulation, according to Ishiguro.

There were some glitches, such as the lips not moving at all while the robot spoke, or the Otonaroid announcer robot staying silent twice when asked to introduce itself.

National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Miraikan Chief Executive Director Mamoru Mohri hands a female-announcer robot called Otonaroid a letter of appointment to assign as a guide at the museum as a girl robot called Kodomoroid, second left, looks on during a press event in Tokyo Tuesday, June 24, 2014. 

The latest creations from Japanese android expert Hiroshi Ishiguro are Otonaroid, Kodomoroid and Telenoid, a hairless mannequin head with pointed arms that serves as a cuddly companion.

AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

But glitches are common with robots because they are delicate gadgetry sensitive to their environment.

Kodomoroid and the woman robot Otonaroid were joined at the demonstration by the minimally designed Telenoid, a mannequin head with pointed arms that serves as a cuddly companion.

The two life-size robots, which have silicon skin and artificial muscles, will be on display starting Wednesday, at Miraikan museum, or the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, in Tokyo, allowing the public to interact with them extensively.

Android robot Kodomoroid speaks during a press event at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Miraikan in Tokyo Tuesday, June 24, 2014. 

The latest creations from Japanese android expert Hiroshi Ishiguro are a female-announcer robot called Otonaroid, a girl robot called Kodomoroid and Telenoid, a hairless mannequin head with pointed arms that serves as a cuddly companion. 

Kodomoroid read the news without stumbling once and regurgitated complex tongue-twisters glibly.

Credit Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

Reflecting widespread opinion, Ishiguro said Japan leads the world in playful companion robots. But he acknowledged the nation was behind the U.S. in military robots.

Developing robots for more than 20 years, Ishiguro has made a point of creating robots that approximate the human appearance, including creatures that look like him. He has sent them to give overseas lectures.

His approach differs from some robotics scientists who say human appearance is pointless, perhaps creepy, and robots can look like machines, such as taking the form of a TV screen or a portable device.

Trillions of tiny bits of plastic pollutant materials trapped in Arctic ice

A team of researchers with Dartmouth College in the U.S. and the University of Plymouth in the U.K. has found that a massive amount of tiny bits of rayon, plastics and other man-made materials are embedded in Arctic sea ice.

In their paper published in the journal Earth's Future, the team describes how they found evidence of the materials in core samples taken in 2005 and 2010 and note that as Arctic sea ice melts, the embedded material will be released into the ocean, likely causing problems for marine life.

We all use plastics and other materials every day, but few of us give much thought to what happens to it after we toss it in the trash after it's no longer useful to us.

A lot of it winds up in landfills, of course, but a lot goes missing and now it appears that the researchers studying core samples, may have found where it's gone: it's been captured in Arctic sea ice, torn apart into tiny pieces during the journey there.

The rayon and plastic bits aren't noticeable to a person walking around in the Arctic because the pieces are so small, typically less than 5 millimeters in length. It's in the form of beads, fibers or irregular fragments.

Scientists have observed such material in the ocean before, particularly around garbage islands such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but never before have scientists noticed them in ice cores taken from the top of the world.

The researchers don't see any imminent threat from the embedded materials, the problem is that global warming is causing Arctic sea ice to melt, and as it does so, it will release the captured material into the sea, and no one knows what sort of impact that will have.

Most of the materials aren't expected to be toxic, but many are known to soak up chemicals, like a sponge. If the chemicals are toxic and an animal eats them, it likely would get sick or die.

In counting the number of bits of material in the ice cores and estimating the amount of ice they are in, the researchers have concluded that there might be in the neighborhood of a trillion pieces of the stuff in position ready to be released into the world's northern oceans.

A little over half of the bits were rayon, the researchers report, others were polypropylene, acrylic, nylon, polyester, polyethylene and polystyrene.

More information: Global warming releases microplastic legacy frozen in Arctic Sea ice, Earth's Future, DOI: 10.1002/2014EF000240

The Grand Tack model: 'Rogue' asteroids may be normal

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

To get an idea of how the early solar system may have formed, scientists often look to asteroids.

These relics of rock and dust represent what today's planets may have been before they differentiated into bodies of core, mantle, and crust.

In the 1980s, scientists' view of the solar system's asteroids was essentially static: Asteroids that formed near the sun remained near the sun; those that formed farther out stayed on the outskirts.

But in the last decade, astronomers have detected asteroids with compositions unexpected for their locations in space: Those that looked like they formed in warmer environments were found further out in the solar system, and vice versa. Scientists considered these objects to be anomalous "rogue" asteroids.

But now, a new map developed by researchers from MIT and the Paris Observatory charts the size, composition, and location of more than 100,000 asteroids throughout the solar system, and shows that rogue asteroids are actually more common than previously thought.

Particularly in the solar system's main asteroid belt—between Mars and Jupiter—the researchers found a compositionally diverse mix of asteroids.

The new asteroid map suggests that the early solar system may have undergone dramatic changes before the planets assumed their current alignment.

For instance, Jupiter may have drifted closer to the sun, dragging with it a host of asteroids that originally formed in the colder edges of the solar system, before moving back out to its current position.

Jupiter's migration may have simultaneously knocked around more close-in asteroids, scattering them outward.

Francesca DeMeo

"It's like Jupiter bowled a strike through the asteroid belt," says Francesca DeMeo, who did much of the mapping as a postdoc in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.

"Everything that was there moves, so you have this melting pot of material coming from all over the solar system."

DeMeo says the new map will help theorists flesh out such theories of how the solar system evolved early in its history.

She and Benoit Carry of the Paris Observatory have published details of the map in Nature.

The compositional diversity seen in this new asteroid map may add weight to a theory of planetary migration called the Grand Tack model.

This model lays out a scenario in which Jupiter, within the first few million years of the solar system's creation, migrated as close to the sun as Mars is today.

During its migration, Jupiter may have moved right through the asteroid belt, scattering its contents and repopulating it with asteroids from both the inner and outer solar system before moving back out to its current position—a picture that is very different from the traditional, static view of a solar system that formed and stayed essentially in place for the past 4.5 billion years.

"That [theory] has been completely turned on its head," DeMeo says. "Today we think the absolute opposite: Everything's been moved around a lot and the solar system has been very dynamic."

DeMeo adds that the early pinballing of asteroids around the solar system may have had big impacts on Earth.

For instance, colder asteroids that formed further out likely contained ice. When they were brought closer in by planetary migrations, they may have collided with Earth, leaving remnants of ice that eventually melted into water.

"The story of what the asteroid belt is telling us also relates to how Earth developed water, and how it stayed in this Goldilocks region of habitability today," DeMeo says.

More information: Paper: dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12908

Hybrid Heart combines cows and mechanics

A new kind of heart has been developed which contains both synthetic and mechanical elements as well as sensors and software that detect changes in a patient’s body and adjust outputs accordingly — coming encased in the sac that surrounds a cow’s heart.

Designed by Carmat, the “bio-prosthetic” device contains two chambers — separated by a membrane — which contain hydraulic fluid.

A motor-powered pump shifts the fluid through the chambers; forcing blood to channel through the opposite section.

The membrane is constructed with cow tissue, and it is hoped that by using material better suited to a biological environment, patients will become less dependent on anti-coagulation medication.

Valves obtained from cows are also used in conjunction with pressure sensors that monitor a patient’s condition and adjust the rate of blood flow depending on activity — including when the user is exercising.

Alain Carpentier

If proven to be effective, the new design could be used to give patients who may have to wait years for a heart transplant extra time and a better quality of life.

Artificial hearts generally fail after a few years due to the task of pumping over 100,000 times or more a day, but even this stopgap measure could be used to save lives.

The system was developed through collaboration between the European Aerospace and Defense Systems (EADS) and French cardiac surgeon Alain Carpentier.

SpaceX to Launch Dragon Capsules carrying Human Cargo - Astronauts

The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is grappled by the International Space Station's Canadarm2 robotic arm.

This manouvre was carried out on Oct. 10, 2012 during the spacecraft's first cargo delivery mission for NASA, under a $1.6 billion deal for commercial cargo delivery.

CREDIT: NASA

Representatives from the three different companies chosen by NASA to develop private space taxis to carry astronauts to orbit say their vehicles are making substantial progress toward launching people into orbit within the next few years.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), The Boeing Company, and Sierra Nevada Corp., are competing to fill the gap left by NASA's retired space shuttles for the launching of cargo and crews to the International Space Station.

Each private space taxi firm has received funding from NASA under the Commercial Crew integrated Capability program (CCiCap) to complete a series of development milestones with the goal of taking over transportation to low-Earth orbit from the Russians.

"We're going great guns, we're working very hard, and we hope to have people flying very soon inside the Dragon," SpaceX's commercial crew project manager Garrett Reisman said at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight.

RBSP Mission: Energetic particles in the magnetosphere emit radio waves - Video

Energetic particles in the magnetosphere emit radio waves that are audible to humans. The NASA Radiation Belt Storm Probes mission's (RBSP) instrumentation captured an instance of the event. The 'chorus' phenomenon is well known by scientists. Credit: NASA / SPACE.com

Malaria evades the Human Body's Immune system

It’s known that malaria causes a highly inflammatory response in infected individuals that leads to the deadly clinical complications of anemia and cerebral disease.

The Yale research team learned that the parasites produce their own version of a human cytokine, or immune hormone, which directs the inflammatory response during malaria.

They also discovered that this cytokine, called PMIF, incapacitates the anti-malaria, memory T-cell immune response.

Using a genetically modified strain of the malaria parasite in mice, the Yale team found that PMIF causes host T-cells to develop into short-lived effector cells rather than protective memory cells.

The short-lived cells die during the infection, and the long-lived memory T-cells are not produced in adequate numbers to combat the infection or to protect from re-infection, which occurs repeatedly in malaria-endemic regions.

“These findings indicate that malaria parasites actively interfere with the development of immunological memory, and may account for the inhibition of protective immune responses in human malaria,” said Rick Bucala, M.D., professor of internal medicine, pathology, and epidemiology and public health at Yale School of Medicine.

• “This knowledge will help us identify specific therapies that can protect anti-malarial T-cells from death and improve an individual’s immune response to infection or to vaccination.”

More information: PNAS paper: www.pnas.org/conte… ull.pdf+html

Human Destruction of Habitat and Earth's Resources Accelerates!

A scavenger bobs around on a giant ocean of rubbish on one of the world's most polluted waterways.

The makeshift vessel carves a path through rubbish on the River Sentiong in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The river, which winds through the capital city, has been dubbed the 'River of Refuse'.

Picture: Sinar Sakti Images / Barcroft Media

On 6 June 2007, the city administration introduced the Waterway (officially Angkutan Sungai), a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River. 

However, because of the large amount of floating garbage which kept jamming the propeller, it is no longer in service. 

Neanderthals were ancient mariners

Neanderthals may have beaten modern humans to the seas. Growing evidence suggests our extinct cousins criss-crossed the Mediterranean in boats from 100,000 years ago, although not everyone is convinced they weren't just good swimmers.

Neanderthals lived around the Mediterranean from 300,000 years ago. 

Their distinctive "Mousterian" stone tools are found on the Greek mainland and, intriguingly, have also been found on the Greek islands of Lefkada, Kefalonia and Zakynthos. 

That could be explained in two ways: either the islands weren't islands at the time, or our distant cousins crossed the water somehow.

Now, George Ferentinos of the University of Patras in Greece says we can rule out the former. The islands, he says, have been cut off from the mainland for as long as the tools have been on them.

Ferentinos compiled data that showed sea levels were 120 metres lower 100,000 years ago, because water was locked up in Earth's larger ice caps. 

But the seabed off Greece today drops down to around 300 metres, meaning that when Neanderthals were in the region, the sea would have been at least 180 metres deep (Journal of Archaeological Science, DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2012.01.032).

Flying People in New York City - YouTube

Three people were spotted flying around the skies of lower Manhattan last Friday, causing dropped jaws from onlookers.

But while it appeared to be flying "death eaters" of  the "Harry Potter" series, it actually turned out to be a clever piece of viral marketing for this week's upcoming film "Chronicle."

In an interview to yahoo! James Percelay, the co-founder of Thinkmodo said he and his partner Michael Krivicka were approached by 20th Century Fox, the studio behind "Chronicle," and they came out with a plan for the viral video.

Those aren't people in the air, but some very intricately designed radio-controlled airplanes. Percelay has not disclosed who exactly was piloting the planes in the video. He only said: "They are expert AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) members with amazing skills."

New Brain Structure Explains Willful Blindness

The article in today's NYT by Nancy Koehn titled “Why Red Flags Can Go Unnoticed” was chiefly concerned with the effects of willful blindness in humans. It did not answer the primary question: WHY do people ignore clear warnings of impending problems.

Bruce Nappi, in his new novel LIARS! provides a profound explanation: two human species coexist on earth today, and one of them is not able to broadly understand or apply logical reasoning, and no, it's not males and females!

The new discovery came when he first determined what creates consciousness in the human brain. Step one was recognising a new physiological brain model that revises Sigmund Freud's Id, ego and super-ego brain structure.

The second was sorting out what makes humans different from animals. In fact, contrary to common belief, that difference does not occur at the homo sapiens level but further back down the evolutionary tree. Differences in awareness for humans and animals are described and labeled A2 and A1 respectively, but, the characteristics listed for humans (A2) raised a big problem: they didn’t describe all known human abilities.

He categorised the additional abilities with a new label A3. The implication was both amazing and unsettling! Both A3 and A2 had human traits, but they were as distinct as A2 (humans) and A1 (animals). The solution required that each be considered a different species - amazing for sure.

However, if the discovery was true, it would have huge ramifications for human social structures. He tested the theory against more and more of the great social questions. The new A3 model produced so many logical answers that he is convinced he has stumbled onto a profound discovery.

New Brain Structure Explains Willful Blindness In Humans And Why Red Flags Go Unnoticed

ESA Astronaut as Director of Human SpaceFlight: Thomas Reiter, DLR

Thomas Reiter, Executive Board Member responsible for Space Research and Technology at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), was appointed as the Director of Human Spaceflight at the European Space Agency (ESA) for the next four years.

In addition, Volker Liebig will continue to be the Director of Earth Observation Programmes.

The new Director of Human Resources and Infrastructure is Hans-Georg Mockel.

He was the Chancellor of the University of Frankfurt (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt) and the Head of Corporate Development at Fraport AG for 12 years.

"Thomas Reiter has done an excellent job both as an astronaut and as a member of the DLR Executive Board, and has gained extensive experience for his new role," said Johann-Dietrich Worner, Chairman of the Executive Board.

"As Director of Human Spaceflight, he will be responsible for a subject area in which Germany is a leader in Europe: the human exploration of space." Worner added, "Although the presence of German expertise at ESA is important, we are losing a good friend and colleague on the DLR Executive Board".

In his new role at ESA, Reiter will be responsible for astronaut training and microgravity research, as well as operations of space-based infrastructure and European satellite missions.


Pilot and astronaut
Thomas Reiter has been a member of the DLR board since 1 October 2007. Born in Frankfurt on 23 May 1958, he graduated with a degree in Aviation and Space Engineering from the University of the German Federal Armed Forces (Universitat der Bundeswehr) in Neubiberg, near Munich.

Apart from holding various positions in the German Air Force as pilot and commander, Reiter was a member of the development team for the Hermes manned spacecraft at ESA. In 1992 he was selected to join ESA's European Astronaut Corps. In March 1995 Reiter was assigned Flight Engineer for the 179-day Euromir 95 mission to the Russian space station, Mir.

From June 1999 to March 2000, he continued to train at the Russian Cosmonaut Training Centere in Star City for the Russian segments of the International Space Station, ISS. Between September 2001 and September 2004, he worked on the project team for the Columbus European ISS module.

From 4 July to 22 December 2006, Reiter took part in the Astrolab mission, the first European long-duration mission to the ISS. During his missions, he performed three spacewalks.

Thomas Reiter has been awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Grosses Bundesverdienstkreuz).

He was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in March 2009 and on 28 June 2010, he received an honorary degree from the University of the German Federal Armed Forces in Neubiberg. near Munich.

ESA - Human Spaceflight and Exploration, Next step their first Moon lander

ESA - Human Spaceflight and Exploration - Next step for ESA’s first Moon lander

Next step for ESA’s first Moon lander
Mission description: land autonomously with pinpoint precision near the Moon’s south pole, a region full of dangerous boulders and high ridges. The aim of ESA’s proposed precursor is to probe the moonscape’s unknowns and test new technology to prepare for future human landings.

The first mission to visit the south polar region of the Moon took a significant step forward today when a further study contract was signed with EADS-Astrium in Berlin, Germany.

The mission aims to land in the mountainous and heavily cratered terrain of the lunar south pole in 2018. The region may be a prime location for future human explorers because it offers almost continuous sunlight for power and potential access to vital resources such as water-ice.

To reach the surface safely, the lander must precisely navigate its way to a mountain peak or crater rim, carefully avoiding boulders and steep slopes before gently setting down to take in one of the most spectacular views in the Solar System.

The Moon is a favoured target for the human exploration missions outlined in the ‘Global Exploration Strategy’ by 14 space agencies around the world. The strategy supports international space exploration and calls for further studies of the Moon and Mars – places where humans will one day live and work.

Re-inventing the wheel to support human progress

While the evolution from the Neolithic solid stone wheel with a single hole for an axle to the sleek wheels of today’s racing bikes can be seen as the result of human ingenuity, it also represents how animals, including humans, have come to move more efficiently and quicker over millions of years on Earth, according to a Duke University engineer (our spokes person!).

Adrian Bejan, professor of mechanical engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, argues that just as the design of wheels became lighter with fewer spokes over time, and better at distributing the stresses of hitting the ground, animals have evolved as well to move better on Earth. In essence, over millions of years, animals such as humans developed the fewest “spokes,” or legs, as the most efficient method for carrying an increasing body weight and height more easily.

“This prediction of how wheels should emerge in time is confirmed by the evolution of wheel technology,” Bejan said. “For example, during the development of the carriage, solid disks were slowly replaced by wheels with tens of spokes.”

The advantage of spokes is that they distribute stresses uniformly while being lighter and stronger than a solid wheel. “In contrast with the spoke, the solid wheel of antiquity was stressed unevenly, with a high concentration of stresses near the contact with the ground, and zero stresses on the upper side,” Bejan said. “The wheel was large and heavy, and most of its volume did not support the load that the
vehicle posed on the axle.

“If you view animal movement as a ‘rolling’ body, two legs, swinging back and forth, perform the same function of an entire wheel-rim assembly,” Bejan said. “They also do it most efficiently — like one wheel with two spokes with the stresses flowing unobstructed and uniformly through each spoke. The animal body is both wheel and vehicle for horizontal movement.”

Bejan’s analysis was published early online in the American Journal of Physics. His research is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

“An animal leg is shaped like a column because it facilitates the flow of stresses between two points — like the foot and hip joint, or paw and shoulder,” Bejan said. “In the example of the Neolithic stone wheel, the flow of stresses is between the ground and the whole wheel.”

Bejan believes that the constructal theory of design in nature (www.constructal.org), which he started describing in 1996, predicts these changes in the wheel and animal movement. The theory states that for a design (an animal, a river basin) to persist in time, it must evolve to move more freely through its environment.

Since animal locomotion is basically a falling-forward process, Bejan argues that an increase in height predicts an increase in speed. For a centipede, each leg represents a point of contact with ground, which limits the upward movement of the animal. As animals have fewer contacts with ground, they can rise up higher with each stride.

“The constructal theory shows us this forward-falling movement is dictated by the natural wheel phenomenon, which is required for the minimal amount of effort expended for a certain distance traveled,” Bejan said.

An earlier analysis by Bejan showed that larger human swimmers are faster because the wave they create while swimming is larger and thus carries them forward faster.

While wheel-like movement evolved naturally, it also describes what Bejan likes to call “nature’s gear box.” Humans have two basic speeds, Bejan said — walking and running. A running human gets taller, or higher off the ground, with each stride, which increases his speed.

A horse has three speeds — walk, trot and gallop.

“The horse increases its speed by increasing the height from which it falls during each cycle,” Bejan said. “Then, from the trot to the gallop, the body movement changes abruptly such that the height of jump increases stepwise for each stride. Nature developed not only wheel-like movement but also mechanisms for changing speeds.”

Lake sturgeon have genes from parasite, signs of human STD

Lake sturgeon have genes from parasite, signs of human STD

While trying to find a DNA-based test to determine the sex of lake sturgeon, Purdue University researchers found that the sturgeon genome contains trematode genes that didn't originally belong to it and may harbour a protozoan parasite that causes a sexually transmitted disease in humans.

Genetics professor Andrew DeWoody and postdoctoral associate Matthew C. Hale found the parasite and pathogen genes while analyzing DNA from the gonads of lake sturgeon, a species that is on the decline because of overfishing and pollution of its habitats. The only way to determine a lake sturgeon's sex currently is to examine its internal sexual organs.

DeWoody said about 15 genes found in the lake sturgeon came from Schistosoma, a parasitic worm. Lateral gene transfer from one organism to another is rare, especially in multicellular animals, he said, but could be part of some evolutionary process for the sturgeon.

"Organisms may accept some new genes from other species because the new genes can serve as raw material for evolution," said DeWoody, whose findings were reported in the early online version of the journal Genetica. "The genome may be more fluid than we usually think."

Hale said genes often work in combination, and new genes may one day become involved with other genes to help the lake sturgeon create new traits needed to adapt to changes in its environment.

"It isn't necessarily a bad thing for the sturgeon. It probably doesn't have a cost," Hale said. "It's either neutral or has a benefit or it wouldn't be there."

While lateral gene transfer from a trematode worm could ultimately benefit the lake sturgeon, evidence of the Trichomonas pathogen is more likely to have a negative effect.

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a human version of this pathogen causes Trichomoniasis, a common sexually transmitted disease that mostly affects women and can cause pregnant women to deliver early or have children with lower birthweights.

The finding is the first suspected case of Trichomonas in a fish, DeWoody said. While it's unclear how the parasite might affect lake sturgeon, DeWoody said it could negatively impact the fish's reproductive ability, which is especially alarming in a species of conservation concern.

"If it has the same effect in lake sturgeon as it does in humans, that wouldn't be good," he said.

Borna Virus: Hunting Fossil Viruses in Human DNA

The borna virus is at once, obscure and grotesque. It can infect mammals and birds, but scientists know little about its effects on its victims.

In some species it seems to be harmless, but it can drive horses into wild fits. The horses sometimes kill themselves by smashing in their skulls.

In other cases, they starve themselves to death. Some scientists have even claimed that borna viruses alter human behavior, playing a role in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, although others say there is no solid evidence of a link.

The virus now turns out to have an intimate bond with every person on Earth. In the latest issue of Nature, a team of Japanese and American scientists report that the human genome contains borna virus genes. The virus infected our monkey-like ancestors 40 million years ago, and its genes have been passed down ever since.

Borna viruses are not the only viruses lurking in our genome. Scientists have found about 100,000 elements of human DNA that probably came from viruses. But the borna virus belongs to a kind of virus that has never been found in the human genome before. Its discovery raises the possibility that many more viruses are left to be found.

Scientists who hunt for these viruses think of themselves as paleontologists searching for fossils. Just as animals get buried in rock, these viruses become trapped in the genomes of their hosts. While their free-living relatives continue to evolve, fossil viruses are effectively frozen in time.

“We can really dig fossils out of the genome and literally put them back together,” said Cédric Feschotte, a genome biologist at the University of Texas, Arlington. “It’s like putting a hominid back together and asking it if it can walk upright.”

When scientists sequenced the human genome in 2001, they noticed many segments that bore a striking resemblance to genes in retroviruses, a class of viruses that includes H.I.V.

Retroviruses carry their genetic material in a single-stranded version of DNA, called RNA. To make new viruses, they make DNA versions of their genes, which are inserted into a host cell’s genome. The cell then reads the retrovirus’s genes as if they were its own, and manufactures new retroviruses.

Scientists speculated that every now and then a retrovirus inserted itself into a host cell and then failed to turn it into a virus factory. If the trapped retrovirus happened to be in sperm or egg cells, its DNA might be passed down to the host’s descendants. From generation to generation, the virus’s DNA would mutate. It would lose its ability to produce normal viruses. For a while it might be able to make new viruses that could re-infect the same cell, but over enough time, the viruses would become disabled.

In recent years, scientists have found several lines of evidence to support this idea. . Koala retroviruses, for example, appear to be in the middle of the journey. The viruses can move from one koala to another. But in some populations of koalas, the virus’s DNA is permanently lodged in their genomes.

Thierry Heidmann of the Gustave Roussy Institute in France and his colleagues put the fossil virus hypothesis to a spectacular test: they tried to resurrect a dead retrovirus. They first identified a number of copies of the same virus-like stretch of DNA in the human genome. Each version had its own set of mutations that it acquired after the virus had invaded our ancestors.

By comparing the copies, Dr. Heidmann and his colleagues were able to figure out what the original sequence of the virus’s genes had been. When they synthesized the genes from scratch and injected the genetic material into cells, the cells produced new viruses.

“It was a tour-de-force of an experiment,” said John Coffin, an expert on fossil viruses at Tufts University.

Click here to read the full article

Human Genome Contains Viral DNA

WHEN, in 2001, the human genome was sequenced for the first time, we were confronted by several surprises.

One was the sheer lack of genes: where we had anticipated perhaps 100,000 there were actually as few as 20,000.

A bigger surprise came from analysis of the genetic sequences, which revealed that these genes made up a mere 1.5 per cent of the genome.

This is dwarfed by DNA deriving from viruses, which amounts to roughly 9 per cent.

On top of that, huge chunks of the genome are made up of mysterious virus-like entities called retrotransposons, pieces of selfish DNA that appear to serve no function other than to make copies of themselves. These account for no less than 34 per cent of our genome.

All in all, the virus-like components of the human genome amount to almost half of our DNA. This would once have been dismissed as mere "junk DNA", but we now know that some of it plays a critical role in our biology. As to the origins and function of the rest, we simply do not know.

The human genome therefore presents us with a paradox. How does this viral DNA come to be there? What role has it played in our evolution, and what is it doing to our physiology? To answer these questions we need to deconstruct the origins of the human genome - a story more fantastic than anything we previously imagined, with viruses playing a bigger part than you might care to believe.

Around 15 years ago, when I was researching my book Virus X, I came to the conclusion there was more to viruses than meets the eye. Viruses are often associated with plagues - epidemics accompanied by great mortality, such as smallpox, flu and AIDS.

I proposed that plague viruses also interact with their hosts in a more subtle way, through symbiosis, with important implications for the evolution of their hosts. Today we have growing evidence that this is true (New Scientist, 30 August 2008, p 38), and overwhelming evidence that viruses have significantly changed human evolution.

To read the full article click here ...

Re-usable Launch Vehicles: Promised but not Delivered

There is a large up-front investment needed to develop and test any new launch system and companies either cannot raise enough money or are unwilling to take the risks associated with investing the needed funds.

The market for a reusable system is still immature, i.e., demand for launch services is in the embryonic stages, even though we have been launching satellites for over 50 years

Launch vehicle prices are sky high and they have been for a long time. This has presented a very high hurdle to space access for many potential space applications. There are literally tens of thousands of university experiments awaiting flight opportunities, but the cost is too high for students and faculty.

Hundreds of private-sector entrepreneurs have waited years for a chance to try new ideas and applications. Even large, established companies would like to stretch product lines through space experimentation, but have been frustrated by the high cost of launching trial products.

The promise of reusable space launch systems is dramatically lower costs to orbit. An ideal, fully-reusable system would be highly reliable, readily available and could cut costs by a factor of 10 or more. The introduction of such a system would open space access to thousands of denied users. So, why don't we have one?

There are several reasons. Technologies for fully-reusable orbital launch systems still evade the many companies that have attempted to design and build them.

There is a large up-front investment needed to develop and test any new launch system and companies either cannot raise enough money or are unwilling to take the risks associated with investing the needed funds. The market for a reusable system is still immature, i.e., demand for launch services is in the embryonic stages, even though we have been launching satellites for over 50 years.

Elusive technologies include truly reusable cryogenic tanks, low-maintenance thermal shielding, ultra-lightweight structures and advanced avionics. Financing such projects has been problematic, thanks to the many failures and overly-optimistic cost and revenue projections.

However, these hurdles will be overcome as the market matures. The one missing ingredient that would truly make reusable vehicles come to life is a "killer application" that would create a strong market demand for low-Earth-orbit flights.

There seem to be two possible business activities that might generate the needed market demand. One is the eventual human-tourism market that is just getting started with sub-orbital flights.

The other is the creation of a large, distributed space infrastructure of low-orbiting satellites that must be maintained over a long period of time. There is little doubt that the day will come when reusable systems are indeed a reality. The only question is: How soon?

If you want to know more about the design and technologies of launch vehicles register for a special session of the internationally popular course: Launch Vehicle Systems Design and Engineering, to be presented in Cocoa Beach on December 14-16, 2009.

Industrial robot hones virtual autopsies - New Scientist

Industrial robot hones virtual autopsies - New Scientist

THE small industrial robot that dominates the room is in many ways much like any other. A robotic arm smoothly wields grippers and probes - always accurate and never tired. But rather than working on cars or computers, this robot is processing human corpses.

A team of forensic pathologists at the University of Bern in Switzerland reckon it could make autopsies more accurate and also less distressing for families.

The researchers are already pioneers of virtual autopsies, or "virtopsies", which use non-invasive imaging of a body inside and out rather than the radical post-mortem surgery typically used to determine cause of death.

Now they are using a robot, dubbed Virtibot, to carry out parts of that process, making it more reliable - and standardised.

Their virtopsies combine 3D imaging of a body's surface with a CT scan of its interior anatomy. The result is a faithful, high-resolution virtual double of the corpse (see diagram). This double can be used to accurately determine what killed someone. And it's a more tactful approach: only needle biopsies are used to sample tissues, leaving a body essentially undamaged.

This virtual body-double can be used to accurately determine what killed a person "Currently, organs are taken out and sliced for analysis of tumours and lesions, but if something is overlooked you have no chance of seeing it again," says team member Lars Ebert. "All you have afterwards is a huge pile of organ slices."

By automating virtopsies, he now hopes to free the post-mortem from the influence of the unavoidable human failings of pathologists, which can affect conclusions about cause of death.

"Too much of an investigator's autopsy results depend on their ability to describe in a report what they see - and they may overlook things," says Ebert. "We want to make the whole procedure more objective and generate digitally stored data that can be re-examined 20 or 30 years later."

Turmeric: The Indian Spice of Life

Rates of Alzheimer's in India are about four times lower than in the USA and studies suggest that Indian curry contains a powerful substance that might protect the brain from damage that leads to Alzheimer's. The growing file on the benefits of eating curry, includes compelling evidence gleaned from animal and human studies.

The findings from Western science are becoming more aligned with what traditional Indian healers have long said about turmeric. They call it the "spice of life".

For centuries, doctors trained in Ayurvedic medicine, a traditional medical system in India, have turned to turmeric to treat inflammatory diseases such as arthritis. In the USA, many people with arthritis take over-the-counter supplements that contain curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric.

Ina scientific study, rats that were bred to develop rheumatoid arthritis, were given injections of turmeric. The turmeric almost completely prevented the onset of arthritis. The spice also seemed to help stop joint destruction in rats that had already started to develop the disease.

Curry also may offer some protection against cancer. Indians eat from 100 to 200 milligrams of curry every day, and US cancer experts think that that might be enough to prevent cancer.

The curcumin in curry seems to shut down genes that trigger the development and the spread of breast cancer, animal studies in suggest and a preliminary human study suggests curcumin supplements might — in a handful of cases — be able to stabilise pancreatic cancer.

Epidemiology studies in humans also have linked frequent use of turmeric spice to lower rates of breast, prostate and colon cancer but more extensive clinical studies still need to be carried out.

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