Tag: biology

A new study of the Earth’s past climates has revealed that during warming periods the number of species multiplied.

4:01 pm

A new study of the Earth’s past climates has revealed that during warming periods the number of species multiplied.

The article spends a lot of time explaining that just because global warming in the past was beneficial for life does not mean that global warming today will be a good thing. Or to put it another way: “Absolutely not! We mustn’t think that! It can’t be! Never!!!! My fingers are in my ears! La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!”

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More rumors about a year-long mission on ISS

9:05 am

The possibility that NASA might finally agree with Russia’s repeated request to fly a year-long mission to ISS grew stronger this morning with two stories:

The first, by James Oberg, digs into the underworld of NASA politics to find that plans might very well be more advanced than NASA is letting on:
» Read more

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Russian authorities struggle to contain the spread of African swine fever, a deadly virus that attacks pigs.

9:10 am

Russian authorities struggle to contain the spread of African swine fever, a deadly virus that attacks pigs.

Russian authorities have incinerated tens of thousands of pigs and closed roads in the past few weeks, in an attempt to contain an emerging outbreak of African swine fever, a viral disease so lethal to the animals that it has been likened to Ebola. The spread of the disease comes with a heavy economic toll — last year, the Russian Federation lost 300,000 of the country’s 19 million pigs to swine fever, at an estimated cost of about 7.6 billion roubles (US$240 million).

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NASA today announced that recent research on ISS into bone loss due to weightlessness has found that proper exercise and diet can stabilize bone loss.

11:42 am

Good news! NASA today announced that recent research on ISS into bone loss due to weightlessness has found that proper exercise and diet can stabilize bone loss.

Past Russian research on Mir had found that exercise and diet could limit the bone loss, but not stop it entirely. The key difference in this recent work seems to be the use of more sophisticated exercise equipment.

If this research holds up, it eliminates one of the most serious obstacles to interplanetary travel.

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What do you do with a giant space station when its lifespan is over?

8:36 am

What do you do with a giant space station when its lifespan is over?

The article notes that no date has been set for deorbit, and that it likely will not happen before 2028. The article also includes information about some of medical and engineering problems of long term weightlessness that have been discovered on ISS, and how engineers have attempted to address them.

Unfortunately, some of these problems, such as the recently discovered vision problems, remain unsolved. It is a shame that while Russia wants to do multi-year missions on the station to study these issues, NASA continues to resist.

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This year there will be more cases of whooping cough in fifty years.

10:09 pm

Not good: This year there will be the most cases of whooping cough in more than a half century.

The CDC is trying to figure out what’s going on, but Schuchat said a couple of factors are clearly at work. The formulation for the whooping cough vaccine was changed in 1997, and kids hitting age 13 and 14 now are the first to have been fully vaccinated with five doses of the new vaccine. The new formulation causes less of a reaction, but it may also wear off sooner, Schuchat said.

The older vaccine was made using a whole pertussis bacterium. It was very effective, but it did cause swelling in some kids who got it, and sometimes caused a fever — something that scared parents. It also was widely blamed for causing rare but serious neurological reactions, although Schuchat said studies have not confirmed this.

I imagine the formulation was changed because of the uproar in the 1990s about the dangers of the old vaccine.

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