Human stem cells restore motor function in mice with spinal cord injuries

A recent study at UC Irvine has demonstrated that human neural stem cells can restore mobility in cases of chronic spinal cord injury, suggesting that a human-specific application may be around the corner. About 1.3 million people in the United States live with chronic spinal cord injury; this latest study indicates that human neural stem cells may be a viable treatment in the near future.

Previous studies have focused on the early stages of spinal cord injury when drug treatments are still effective in helping restore some functional recovery. But the UC Irvine study, led by Aileen Anderson and Brian Cummings of the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, is important because the therapy has restored mobility during the later chronic phase—the period after spinal cord injury in which inflammation has stabilized and recovery has plateaued. As is stands, there are no drug treatments to help restore function in such cases.

The team transplanted human neural stem cells into mice 30 days after a spinal cord injury caused hind-limb paralysis. The cells then differentiated into neural tissue cells and migrated to spinal cord injury sites. After three months of this treatment, the mice demonstrated "significant and persistent recovery of walking ability" in two separate tests of motor function when compared to control groups.

"Human neural stem cells are a novel therapeutic approach that holds much promise for spinal cord injury," said Anderson, associate professor of physical medicine & rehabilitation and anatomy & neurobiology at UC Irvine. "This study builds on the extensive work we previously published in the acute phase of injury and offers additional hope to those who are paralyzed or have impaired motor function."

According to Dr. Stephen Huhn, vice-president and head of the central nervous system program at StemCells Inc., the strong preclinical data that has been accumulated to date will enable the transition to a clinical trial, which they plan to initiate in 2011.

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The future of space telescopes

With the Hubble Telescope project slowly winding down, it's time to look ahead to the next generation of space-based telescopes. There are two projects currently in the works that will undoubtedly revolutionize space telescopy and yield extraordinary results once put into use: The James Webb Space Telescope and the Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be an infrared space observatory with the main scientific goal of observing the most distant objects in the universe beyond the reach of either ground based instruments or the Hubble. The JWST is a NASA project with international collaboration from the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, including contributions from fifteen nations.

Current plans call for the telescope to be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket in June 2014 (or mid 2015) and put on a five-year mission. The JWST will orbit the Sun in Earth's partial shadow, approximately 1,500,000 km on the far side of Earth at the L2 Lagrange point. Objects at the L2 point orbit the Sun in synchrony with the Earth, which will allow JWST to use one radiation shield, positioned between the telescope and the Earth, to protect it from both the Sun's and the Earth's heat and light. It's also possible for the same shield to block moonlight as the telescope is much further from Earth than the Moon.

The JWST's primary scientific mission has four main components:

1. Search for light from the first stars and galaxies which formed in the Universe after the Big Bang
2. Study the formation and evolution of galaxies
3. Understand the formation of stars and planetary systems
4. Study planetary systems and the origins of life

All of these tasks are more effectively done in the near-infrared than the visible. For this reason the JWST will not have the Hubble Telescope's visible light and ultraviolet capability but will be able to see much further into the infrared. Because of this, JWST will be able to see many more and much older stars than Hubble.

In addition, visible spectrum views cannot peer through much of the gas and dust that may obscure an image like infrared views can. Almost all of the gas and dust obscuring images in visible spectrum views may entirely disappear if viewed in the infrared, so that the stars lying behind the gas and dust will become easier to see. Infrared astronomy can penetrate dusty regions of space (such as molecular clouds), detect objects such as planets, and also view highly red-shifted objects from the early days of the universe.

The most distant stars in view are also the "youngest," that is, they were formed during a time period closer in time to that of the Big Bang than those stars less distant to us, such as our Sun. Because the universe is expanding, the light reaching us from those younger stars becomes red-shifted and are therefore easier to see if viewed in the infrared. Infrared light is also useful for observing the cores of active galaxies which are often cloaked in gas and dust.

The Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope

The Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) is still in the design and approval stage. If constructed, it will be a 8 to 16.8-meter (320 to 660-inch) UV-optical-NIR space telescope with the ability to obtain spectroscopic and imaging observations of astronomical objects in the ultraviolet, optical, and Infrared wavelengths. It will have substantially better resolution than either HST or the JWST. And like JWST, ATLAST will be launched to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point.

ATLAST is envisioned as a flagship mission of the 2025 to 2035 period and will be designed to address the question of whether or not life exists elsewhere in the Galaxy. It will work to accomplish this by detecting biosignatures like molecular oxygen, ozone, water, and methane in the spectra of terrestrial exoplanets.

In addition to this, ATLAST will assist in uncovering the underlying physics that drives star formation and the complex interactions between dark matter, galaxies, and the intergalactic medium. Because of the large leap in observing capabilities that ATLAST will provide, it is not fully known which types of investigations will dominate its use—just as the creators of HST did not foresee its pioneering roles in characterizing the atmospheres of Jupiter-mass exoplanets or measuring the acceleration of cosmic expansion using distant supernovae. ATLAST will likely have the versatility to outlast the scientific vision of current-day astronomers.

Implications

Technological advances have worked to drive science forward for centuries. There's no reason to believe that JWST and ATLAST won't do the same. Given the insights gleaned from Hubble, we may discover completely new things about the Universe, our Galaxy, and other solar systems.

We should also probably brace ourselves for what we may find. Our place in the Universe will undoubtedly get smaller and increasingly insignificant—that has been the trend for quite some time now as we continually gaze deeper into space.

In addition, I suspect that we'll start to find solar systems that more closely resemble our own. To date, we have only been able to find systems in which gas giants reside in the inner solar system. As it stands, our solar system, with its outer gas giants, is atypical—but that may be the result of an observation selection effect caused by limited telescopic technology.

Lastly, we should be on the lookout out for signatures that may reveal the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Specifically, we should look for signs of megascale engineering (Dysonian structures and megascale computers) and so-called calling-card objects.

UFO≠ET

Looks like I created a bit of a fuss yesterday when I put Michio Kaku to task for suggesting that extraterrestrials may account for UFOs. I realize that he didn't explicitly say that ETIs were definitely behind unexplained flying phenomenon; he was obviously choosing his words very carefully. But it is my opinion that Kaku exercised poor judgement (and not courage as others have pointed out) by appearing on a ridiculous TV segment that was clearly geared toward linking UFOs with aliens. His claim that "we don't have the smoking gun...but this is as close as you can get to the smoking gun," was a bit alarming to me.

I recognize that there are still a number of unsolved mysteries out there. As Kaku pointed out, we cannot account for 5% of these sightings. Okay, cool, I get it.

But it's the leaping to conclusions I don't get. Why the immediate linkage to extraterrestrial intelligence? Why not ghosts, superheros, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? The tendency to do so has become a reflex action, a legacy of 1950s era futurism and its fixation on flying saucers.

I'm guessing that a lot of people, including Kaku, didn't get the memo: spaceships are dead. The whole starship concept makes for great science fiction, but as a potential method for galactic travel and colonization, it's an idea that's increasingly growing into disfavor among the futurist cognoscenti. And that's if colonization even happens at all. Kaku should stick to physics and leave the theorizing to those who know what they're talking about.

As for me, correlating UFOs with aliens seems very... unintuitive. It's not immediately obvious to me that an extraterrestrial intelligence has anything to do with with appears to be atmospheric phenomenon. If we're going to start throwing baseless Wild Assed Guesses out there, I'd put collective psi phenomenon or a simulation glitch ahead of alien visitations.

But Wild Assed Guessing like this is a bit of a cop-out. It's a kind of desperatism that people resort to when science can't provide the immediate answers. And this is another thing that disturbed me about Kaku's recent television appearance. Sure, it's very likely that he was using the segment to pedal his unique take on physics—extra dimensions and all—but it was frustrating to see him give up so easily on established science. For Kaku to tread forth and make assumptions about UFO phenomenon falling outside of the known laws of physics was surprising.

Am I suggesting that we know everything there is to know about physics? Not by a long shot. I'm just suggesting that we exhaust all scientific avenues of inquiry before we start making extraordinary and sensationalistic claims like these.

Apples in Stereo member creates mind-controlled Theremin

Okay, Robert Schneider of Apples in Stereo is my new hero. In one fell swoop he has combined two of my favorite things, namely vintage electronic instruments and a neural interface device. Scheider has invented a new instrument he calls the Teletron, which allows him to play an analog synth completely through brain activity.

The Teletron combines a vintage Moog with a Mattel toy called the Mindflex. "Experimental composers like Alvin Lucier and Pierre Henry used EEG sensors to make brain-controlled music as early as the 1950's. What is cool about the Teletron is that you can go out and buy this toy and make this simple mod, and mentally control your own synthesizer at home," he says.

Anissimov: Beware botulinum and EMP attacks

Michael Anissimov of Accelerating Future is feeling a bit doomy these days—and for good reason. He argues that we're collectively understating and underreporting non-conventional but thoroughly viable catastrophic risks, including the deliberate spread of botulinum toxin and an EMP attack.

On the latter risk, Anissimov writes:

If an EMP attack came, cars and trucks would just stop. Factories, controlled by computers, would stop. Molten steel on the assembly line would cool and solidify in place due to failure of the heating elements. The vast majority of tractors, combines, and other heavy machinery would become useless. Transformers and other electrical elements, large and small, would be fried. The largest transformers have to be ordered from China and are generally ordered with a year of lead time.

An effective EMP attack on the US would cause tens of trillions of dollars of damage. Cities would run out of food in a few days. The US grain stockpile only has about a million bushels of wheat. Wheat is the only common grain with enough nutrients to sustain someone on an all-grain diet. A bushel is only 60 pounds, and someone needs about a pound of wheat a day to avoid hunger pangs. Ideally two pounds if you are doing manual labor. 60 million man-days of food is not a lot. The population of the United States is 300 million. That means our grain stockpiles are enough food for everyone to eat a fifth of a pound and then they’re gone.

By the way, if you're particularly paranoid about this, you can always convert your house into a Faraday Cage. I'm just not sure how useful all your electronics will be given that everyone else's will be fried.

And in regards to the botulinum risk, he writes, "99.9% of the population will dismiss [it] as not a big deal, due to wishful thinking. It’s all just words on the page, until people start dying."