Doing it right now: just not venting yet.
Courtesy NASAFine. Be a jerk about it—apparently there are only two reasons I could be an astronaut. There are definitely plenty of reasons why I should be an astronaut—including, but not limited to, 1) people love astronauts, 2) when aliens come, you’ll want someone on the front lines with gumption and verve, 3) I’ve seen Apollo 13, like, twice, etc—but nobody seems to care about those. No, it’s always “but what are your qualifications? Are you a pilot? An astronomer? How do you handle heavy g-force? Have you a buzz cut?”
Numerous and impressive. No. Not technically. Pretty well, I assume. Not at the moment, no.
But let’s look at the important things: primarily that I have a fully functional renal system, and can pee with the best of them. And that’s an important thing at NASA these days. Or so I hear.
An internal memo from NASA, calling for donations of urine, has been, um, leaked to the public. It seems that during the last ten days of July, NASA will be requiring about 8 gallons of fresh urine a day (the output of about 30 people) for super-secret, awesome space tests. That is to say, to help figure out how to build a better space bathroom.
It turns out that while peeing in space is probably a little tricky (and hilarious), storing and getting rid of that pee is at least equally problematic. The Orion space capsule, which will help ferry astronauts to the moon, will eventually have to vent stored astronaut pee into space. This, amazingly, isn’t as easy as spitting out a mouthful of lemonade—urine has lots of tiny solids suspended in it, and those solids clog up the venting system. And you don’t want clogged vents. Not here, and not in space.
To test the space urinal, NASA needs pee. And, as NASA’s head of life support systems says, you can’t make fake urine.
But I can make the real stuff. And I don’t want to brag, but it’s actually pretty easy for me.
Unfortunately, NASA only wants NASA pee (the original memo was internal, after all). But I’ll be waiting by the phone, ready to do my duty for America. In return, I only ask that a seat be saved for me on the lunar lander.
Tags : 
Some fingers: Some fingers down, more fingers up.
Courtesy anna_tResearchers from MIT have found that a tribe in remote northwestern Brazil has no words for specific numbers.
The language of the tribe, of which there are only about 300 members, seems to be unique in that it has no numbers. Counting was thought to have been innate in human cognition. Apparently that isn’t totally the case. Specific numbers weren’t useful to this culture, so they never developed them in their language.
Instead of specific numbers, the group, called the Piraha, has a couple of relative terms, translating to something like “some” and “more.” Piraha math classes, I assume, would be awesome.
Some + some = more (obviously)
Nothing + some = some (duh)
Nothing + more = some (interesting!)
More – some = some (probably)
Some – more = your mind blown (Whoa!)
Something very anthropologically and linguistically crazy is going on here. Something about how even though we think our thoughts shape language, language actually ends up shaping our thoughts. So if you come from a culture whose language has no concept of specific numbers, how does that shape your perception of the world?
Oh, if only I had been a better student.
You deserve it Avis: Be careful though—it may be a trophy, but it really fires. Golden bullets.
Courtesy davidaugspurgerRata a tat tat tat get yourself psyched a tat rat rat rat rat…
The award goes to Avis Blakeslee of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania!!
Now, before we get into Avis’s specific accomplishments, let’s have a little background on the Sara Connor award itself.
A female-only award, meant to recognize the truly hardcore ladies out there, the Sara Connor award is, in fact, a precursor to the Otzi the Iceman Medal of Badassery. The OtIMoB, was created more than a decade after the SCA, under social pressure to acknowledge that men can also, on occasion, be pretty tough. But the Sara Connor is truly the original, and as deserving as the Otzi winners are, the Badassery medal is in a different—and frankly lower—league.
Originally the Sara Connor and Lt. Ellen Ripley Medal of Valor, the award was split after the selection committee could not agree on a recipient. Those members who would eventually form the Lt. Ripley Organization wanted to give the award to Margaret Thatcher, for eating the eyes out of a living goat, while the charter members of the Sara Connor board felt that an Argentinean woman who gave birth while clinging to the wing of an airborne Learjet was more deserving. The board members of the award parted ways amiably, although the Sara Connor Award has since received greater attention and respect, on account of widely held opinion that the Lt. Ripley Organization is simply unable to “keep it real.”
The Sara Connor Award is given regularly, but not necessarily every year. For example, in 1995, the SCA was given to Svetlana Kovach of the Ukraine after she removed her own cystic kidney using only a bottle of grain alcohol and a claw hammer (while trapped in a mineshaft, although this was only discovered after the ceremony—Ms. Kovach was tremendously modest), but in 1996 no suitable recipients were nominated. The award was given once again in 1997, posthumously, to Nozomi Chinen of Okinawa, who clawed her way out of a shark’s belly, and drowned fighting a second shark barehanded.
Avis Blakeslee, this year’s deserving recipient, is being recognized for an epic battle with a rabid fox in the garden of her farmhouse.
Although Ms. Blakeslee’s accomplishment is perhaps not as immediately impressive as those of past recipients (it pales in comparison even to 1999’s formidable runner up, a 15-year old Jordanian who slapped a mortar out of the air), extenuating circumstances must be considered. Again, the fox was rabid—and if you read last week’s post on the bat-pantsed Scotswoman (who is unlikely to receive a nomination), you’ll know that rabies is serious business. Paralysis, insanity, hydrophobia, etc; rabies is no cakewalk. The disease is no doubt what lead the fox to leave its habitat to attack an unsuspecting gardener. Ms. Blakeslee had never even seen a fox in person before, and believed the creature to be a small dog (before it went crazy on her). Another important factor here is Avis’s age: 77. Avis is a grandmother, and not used to fighting wild animals, and yet she wrasseled that pooch into submission, even after sustaining seven leg wounds, an arm wound, and severe blood loss. She then pinned the rabid fox to the ground, holding its jaws shut with one hand, until help arrived to dispatch the creature with a firearm. I have no doubt that, had Mavis a free arm, she would have simply driven a finger into the fox’s brain. As it was, however, she did her two-armed best and subdued the fox ultimate fighting style, until the cavalry came to do its own thing.
A job well done, Avis, a job well done. You’ve taught us all a little bit about what it means to be hardcore, and for that…we salute you.
Getting stoned: Here's an array of shapes and sizes of kidney stones. Researchers say global warming will lead to an increase in the production of the little buggers in our bodies.
Courtesy Trevor BlakeIt’s going after polar bears and ice sheets. It’s threatening glaciers and coastal cities. Now, global warming has is setting it’s evil intentions against your kidneys.
That’s the conclusion a group of scientists announced yesterday. Increases in global temperatures could lead to an increase in kidney stones.
Having had more than my share of bouts with those pesky stones, that alone is scaring me straight to reduce my carbon footprint and do my part to reduce global climate change.
A kidney stone forms from salts that crystallize inside the kidney. That process speeds up when bodies become dehydrated. As the stones grow and move through the urinary tract, they can cause enormous (and I mean enormous) pain until it passes out through urination. The bigger the stone gets, the greater the discomfort. About 12 percent of men and seven percent of women in the U.S. will experience a bout of kidney stones in their life.
What the scientists announced this week is that warm states in the southeastern U.S. have a 50 percent higher rate of kidney stone cases than in the northeast.
Warm weather and dehydration are two factors that can accelerate kidney stone production, the researchers said. They’re seeing an unusually high rate of kidney stones among soldiers serving in the heat of Iraq.
On the flip side, drinking lots of water and staying cool can help reduce kidney stone risks, the scientists added. Kidney stone rates have been on the rise in the U.S. since 1976
So what do you think? Is there a connection between hot weather and kidney stones? Do you have a great kidney stone story to share? Ever see the Seinfeld episode where Kramer passes a kidney stone at the circus? Share your thoughts about kidney stones and/or global warming here with other Buzzers.
Influenza Outlook
in Life Science, Cells, Diversity of Organisms, Interdependence of Life, Biological Populations Change Over Time, and Human Organism
Flu vaccine: This is CDC Clinic Chief Nurse Lee Ann Jean-Louis extracting Influenza Virus Vaccine, Fluzone® from a 5 ml. vial.
Courtesy CDC/Jim Gathany
Did you know back in February scientist and medical professionals selected the influenza virus strains for the upcoming flu season? Now that it is July the pharmaceutical companies are well into manufacturing, purification and testing the vaccine. Meanwhile, it is winter and flu season in the southern hemisphere and the virus is busy mutating. The big question on everyone’s mind is will it mutate so much that the northern hemisphere vaccine will be ineffective?
I agree with Dr. Steven Salzberg remarks in his recent Nature commentary…
"The current system, in which most of the world’s vaccine supply is grown in chicken eggs, is an antiquated, inefficient method requiring six months or more to ramp up production, which in turn means that the vaccine strains must be chosen far in advance of each flu season. More crucially it sometimes prevents the use of the optimal strain, as it did in 2007."
Influenza (the flu) is a serious disease
Each year in the United States, on average:
- 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;
- More than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu complications, and;
- About 36,000 people die from flu.
Some vaccine problems in the past
In recent years the match between the vaccine viruses and those identified during the flu season has usually been good. In 16 of the last 20 U.S. influenza seasons, including the 2007-08 season, the viruses in the influenza vaccine have been well matched to the predominant circulating viruses. Since 1988, there has only been one season (1997-98) when there was very low cross-reaction between the viruses in the vaccine and the predominate circulating virus and three seasons (1992-93, 2003-04, and 2007-08) when there was low cross-reaction (CDC). So after last year’s miscalculation the committee picked three new strains for the vaccine this year. One is a current southern hemisphere vaccine virus which they expect will still be present next year. In addition, they predict a second new Type A strain, known as H1N1/Brisbane/59, to also hit, along with a newer Type B/Florida strain.
Dr. Salzberg feels last year’s miscalculation was a failure…
"The harm was thus twofold; people fell ill and their trust in the vaccine system was undermined. This failure could have been predicted, if not prevented, through a more open system of vaccine design, a stronger culture of sharing in the influenza research community and a serious commitment to new technologies for production. The habits of the vaccine community must change for the sake of public health."
He goes on to suggest…
"The process of choosing flu-vaccine strains needs to be much more open. Other scientists, such as those in evolutionary biology with expertise in sequence analysis, could meaningfully contribute to the selection. At present, external scientists cannot review the data that went into the decision, nor can they suggest other types of data that might improve it."
Even with all of these miscalculations, I still feel getting the vaccine is worth the risk. But that doesn’t mean the process shouldn’t be improved. So once again I will be vaccinated and I will make sure my family is too—but what can we do as citizens to improve this process? What will you do?
HealthMap screen capture
Courtesy Art Oglesby
Want a warning about disease outbreaks?
With the internet's new capabilities, new information is highly contagious. The web is increasingly being used to exchange information about public health and disease outbreaks. Now, thanks to HealthMap anyone can track where and when infectious disease outbreaks are occurring.
Web crawlers, automated translation, GIS mapmaking, ISP tracking, and cell phone imagery have created a world where, for good or ill, rumors of outbreaks outpace confirmation. The Journal of Life Sciences
Colored pins point to disease outbreaks
Using what is often referred to as Web 2.0 dynamics, Healthmap.org crawls the internet for disease outbreak information, integrating information from various sources like Google News, ProMED, and World Health Organization disease alerts. Through an automated text processing system, the data is sorted by disease and overlayed by location on top of Google Maps.
Want to learn more about HealthMap?
HealthMap was created by Clark Freifeld and John Brownstein through Children's Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP) at Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology. Click this link to view a presentation about HealthMap given at a Georeferencing Workshop at Harvard, March 21, 2008 by John Brownstein.
Ice cream is a delicious treat on a hot day: provided you DON'T SOAK IT IN ANTIFREEZE!!!
Courtesy Clover_1
Let me start by stating this as clearly as I can:
ETHYLENE GLYCOL, THE ANTIFREEZE COMMONLY USED IN CARS, IS POISON!! DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, DRINK ANTIFREEZE!
There, are we all clear on that? Good.
A scientist in Wisconsin has developed an edible antifreeze that will prevent ice crystals from forming in that block of old ice cream you forgot about in the back of your freezer.
DO NOT PUT ANTIFREEZE IN YOUR ICE CREAM!
The edible antifreeze is made from a fruit enzyme that cuts proteins into smaller pieces and keeps them from freezing. It might also be used to protect meats from “freezer burn.”
DO NOT SOAK YOUR MEAT IN ANTIFREEZE!
We hope you have enjoyed our little discourse on the wonders of food processing.
It was horrible: just horrible.
Courtesy Steveie-BA pipistrelle bat, local to Aberdeen, Scotland, was shocked and disgusted to find the naked leg of a 19-year-old woman thrust into the soft contours of its new cave.
Having just moved from the grim crawlspaces of an Aberdeen flat, in favor of a cozier, denim living space, the two-inch flying mammal assumed that it was set for life.
Shortly after settling in for the day, however, the pipistrelle was bludgeoned into consciousness by the colossal, pale shank of a Scottish receptionist. The invading limb was squeezed through the cloth tube like a kielbasa in the neck of a beer bottle, leaving the bat little choice but to hunker down and wait for the flesh-storm to subside.
Unfortunately, the young receptionist remained maddeningly unaware of the presence of the sorely abused batty for the better part of an hour. It was not until her mother was driving her to work that the nerve signals from her monstrous apparently completed the arduous journey to her brain. The screaming and thrashing that followed was no doubt tortuous for the small creature’s delicate bones and hyper-sensitive ears. One can only imagine the experience must have been to the tiny merkel cells lining the bat’s wings, as the delicate, single-haired structures were meant only to sense subtle changes in air flow, not to endure the scraping of Scotch legs.
The bat was shortly evicted from its new home, and placed into a holding cell, where it was given the humiliating nickname “Rat-bat.”
“My name,” the pipistrelle was quoted, “is Henry Fitzroy-Lennox, and I want to go home.”
Lamentably healthy, the bad wondered how things might have been different, had it been a carrier of rabies. The virus, present in the nerves and saliva, could have been easily passed to the receptionist through a quick bite (or, less likely, but intriguingly possible, via an aerosol through the mucus membranes. The infection would have necessitated an infection of immunoglobulin near the infection site, and another intramuscularly away from the site, followed by several shot of vaccine.
If the receptionist had neglected to seek proper treatment for the Henry’s well-deserved revenge, she could have looked forward to the rapid passage of the virus along her nerves, through her central nervous system, to the ultimate destination of her brain, where it soon would have caused encephalitis—painful and deadly inflammation of the brain.
There’s some small chance that a drug induced coma could have saved her brain from further damage at this point, but very likely the damage would have been done, and irreversible symptoms would soon begin to appear. Initially symptoms would be flu-like, but before long the woman would have suffered from insomnia, confusion, agitation, partial paralysis, paranoia, terror, and severe hallucinations. The receptionist would have become distinctly drippy, as her body would produce excessive amounts of tears and saliva. Her slight paralysis would have prevented her from swallowing, causing the characteristic “foaming at the mouth” of rabies. She may have developed hydrophobia—a fear of water—because the excess fluid in her mouth and inability to swallow could bring her to a panic when presented with liquids to drink (indeed, “hydrophobia” was once synonymous with rabies, so characteristic was the symptom).
Approximately one week after developing symptoms, the receptionist would have died.
So, all in all, it seems that she really dodged a bullet after throwing herself in front of a gun.
Mr. Fitzroy-Lennox was released into the wild (of Aberdeen) at the end of the lucky and inconsiderate woman’s shift. He will never again put himself into a position where a receptionist could abuse him so awfully.
You're being a little dramatic: That's what I think, anyway.
Courtesy pjryan3“I don’t know, mate. I was just walking down the street thinking ‘Oy! It’s been a long time since I’ve had burning diarrhea!’ And then I saw the sign at the Cinnamon Club: hottest curry in the world. It was like God gave me a gift card for free burning diarrhea!”
“I had some bad chicken in Bath last week, and was fortunate enough to end up with sever stomach pain and vomiting. But with five days left in my vacation, it seemed like I was done with the puking. What a rip off! I’ve been planning this trip for years, and I didn’t come to England not to be physically ill the whole time. Thank goodness for naga peppers!”
“‘Grossly visible gastric bleeding’? Where’s the queue?!”
Brits and tourists alike were thrilled last week by the opportunity to try a London restaurant’s Bollywood Burner curry, a dish that will likely be named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the planet’s hottest curry.
(The meal, apparently, isn’t in quite the same league as Venutian gonad-exploding curry.)
The curry (which is “too extreme to keep on the menu”) gets its heat from the naga jolokia pepper, which was recently declared to be the hottest pepper in town (that is to say, again, on the planet). The naga has a maximumScoville rating of over one million—more than one hundred times hotter than the jalapeño pepper.
Capsaicin, the chemical that gives peppers their spicy dreams and hot flashes, has been explored as a treatment for chronic pain, and has been shown to kill cancer cells in lab rats. Ironically, capsaicin also causes severe pain, and has been shown to be associated with stomach cancer.
Would you still love Nessie if it looked like this?: Don't lie to me. I know when you're lying to me.
Courtesy cramsay23Our sly creature pal, the Loch Ness Monster, is back flaunting his hot stuff on tape.
A couple of Huddersfield holidaymakers (“holidaymakers” being British for “dangerous social deviants”) claim to have captured the image of Nessie on their vaca video (“vaca” is American for “debauchery near water.” I think it’s also Spanish for “cow.”)
Fearing institutional commitment (think “Oliver Twist” without the songs—so, like, Oliver Twist the book), the British challengers of the unknown kept mum about their discovery for several weeks, until an important decision was made while drinking: let the world know.
The video was apparently assisted in its journey to the public eye by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a well know scientific institution. Coincidentally, SPE was in the neighborhood (of Scotland) intending to stage a projection of Nessie for the release of its new DVD Waterhorse: The Legend of Horsewater.
One wonders to what extent Sony went to kick up some exciting videos.
Anyway, I hope this is encouraging news for everyone. Pack your video cameras and harpoon guns, because I hear Scotland is beautiful this time of year.
Oh, right. Here’s the video.
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