Monday, August 28th, 2017
MARIA TEMMING, - Science News
Stephan: Here is some good and fascinating news. The technology of space has entered the realm of what used to be science fiction.
Spacecraft have gone bite-sized. On June 23, Breakthrough Starshot, an initiative to send spacecraft to another star system, launched half a dozen probes called Sprites to test how their electronics fare in outer space. Each Sprite, built on a single circuit board, is a prototype of the tiny spacecraft that Starshot scientists intend to send to Alpha Centauri, the trio of stars closest to the sun. Those far-flung probes would be the smallest working spacecraft yet.
“We’re talking about launching things that are a thousand times lighter than any previous spacecraft,” says Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard University who is part of the committee advising the initiative. A Sprite is only 3.5 centimeters square and weighs four grams, but packs a solar panel, radio, thermometer, magnetometer for compass capabilities and gyroscope for sensing rotation.
These spacecraft are designed to fly solo, but for this test, they hitched a ride into low Earth orbit on satellites named Max Valier and Venta-1. Each satellite has one Sprite permanently riding sidecar, and the Max Valier craft has another four it could fling […]
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Sunday, August 27th, 2017
Stephan: Having served in the Department of Defense during the height of the Cold War, and having had an informed sense of what a Cold War means, I cannot adequately convey to you how distressing I find this story. We have a madman -- I mean that literally not figuratively -- at the helm of the nation and things I never thought I would hear or read again I am now hearing and reading.
What is particularly concerning, and the reason I picked this particular piece, is that it is the English account of a German piece. This is how others now see us.
It is my view that Trump is using international stress like a shiny object to draw the media's attention away from the many legal inquiries into him and his family. But he is so ignorant and clumsy, such an inept geopolitical player, that this could easily get out of hand.
A new Cold War, including an increase in nuclear arms, is brewing between the Western world and Russia with three top world leaders at the forefront, Germany’s foreign minister said in an interview published Saturday.
Trump and Putin
Credit: CNN
Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s top diplomat, told German newspaper Bild that a new “ice age” has started and said that U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s means of keeping and attaining power were responsible.
Gabriel said each leader views the world “as an arena, a battleground…This is a dangerous development.”
He also called for Germany to stand against what he called a “new phase of nuclear rearmaments,” and criticized sitting German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party for lashing out against former Chancellor Gerard Schroder’s links to Russia businesses.
Merkel is currently leading polls and expected to win a third term next month when Germany holds elections.
Gabriel’s comments came as relations between the U.S. and Russia have been described by diplomats and other leaders as at a low point and deteriorating. […]
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Sunday, August 27th, 2017
SIGNE DEAN, - Science Alert
A new view of the anatomy of the brain
Credit: The Blue Brain Project
Neuroscientists have used a classic branch of maths in a totally new way to peer into the structure of our brains. What they’ve discovered is that the brain is full of multi-dimensional geometrical structures operating in as many as 11 dimensions. (emphasis added)
We’re used to thinking of the world from a 3-D perspective, so this may sound a bit tricky, but the results of this new study could be the next major step in understanding the fabric of the human brain – the most complex structure we know of.
This latest brain model was produced by a team of researchers from the Blue Brain Project, a Swiss research initiative devoted to building a supercomputer-powered reconstruction of the human brain.
The team used algebraic topology, a branch of mathematics used to describe the properties of objects and spaces regardless of how they change shape. They found that groups of neurons connect into ‘cliques’, and that the […]
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Sunday, August 27th, 2017
, - Michigan State University
Stephan: I am currently in Tucson for meetings of the Academy for the Advancement of Post-material Sciences and, as is often the case when I am travelling, I have been noticing what has increasingly become a distinct America physical characteristic, enormous bellies.
This is a real problem, and if it is something specific to you I urge you to read this recent research report and take appropriate action.
Citation: D Chakraborty, V Benham, B Bullard, T Kearney, H C Hsia, D Gibbon, E Y Demireva, S Y Lunt, J J Bernard.
Fibroblast growth factor receptor is a mechanistic link between visceral adiposity and cancer.
Oncogene, 2017; DOI:
10.1038/onc.2017.278 
New research sheds light on how obesity increases the risk of cancer.
Credit: hin255 / Fotolia
A new study now offers new details showing that a certain protein released from fat in the body can cause a non-cancerous cell to turn into a cancerous one. The research also found that a lower layer of abdominal fat, when compared to fat just under the skin, is the more likely culprit, releasing even more of this protein and encouraging tumor growth.
It’s been well established that obesity is a contributor to cancer risk, but how it actually causes cancer is still a question that hasn’t been fully explained.
A new Michigan State University study now offers new details showing that a certain protein released from fat in the body can cause a non-cancerous cell to turn into a cancerous one. The federally funded research also found that a lower layer of abdominal fat, when compared to fat just under the skin, is the more likely culprit, releasing even more of this protein and encouraging […]
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Sunday, August 27th, 2017
, - Pesticide Action Network
Stephan: America's mono-culture industrial poison agriculture model is very profitable for a few companies but deadly for farmers and the life-forms that inhabit their land. Here is a report on a crisis you may well never have heard about.
Credit: Tamina Miller| Flickr
Pesticide drift is a severely underreported problem in rural, agricultural communities. And now we’re in the middle of an epic summer of drift thanks to Monsanto’s new dicamba-resistant seed line, Xtend. Expanded planting of Xtend soy and cotton is leading to more spraying of the herbicide. As a result, farmers in Southern and Midwestern states are reporting extensive and debilitating crop damage from dicamba traveling from where it’s applied to nearby fields.
This is a crisis moment for many, but drift damage is not a new problem. For years, we at PAN have been been working with those impacted by drift — farmworkers, farmers and rual families who have experienced health harms or crop damage from drifting pesticides — and we’ve been pushing for preventative policies to protect these communities.
Now we have a new tool to offer in helping rural residents respond to drift incidents on farms, at work sites and in homes. This just-released guide, “In Case of Drift,” was created to help anyone facing drift from […]
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