Healthcare spin control plan vs. ProPublica

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Photo: shanelkalicharan/Flickr CC

Worried by a ProPublica investigation revealing disgusting and dangerous conditions at dialysis clinics nationwide, PR people for the billion-dollar industry braced itself with a spin control document, with talking points.

From an industry PR memo obtained by ProPublica:

Despite our collective efforts, we do not anticipate a balanced presentation (in the ProPublica report), and we therefore feel it’s essential to create the “machinery” necessary to orchestrate an aggressive and prompt community-wide response.

The authors of the spin control doc suggests that docs and administrators, if contacted by the media in the wake of the ProPublica report, emphasize technological advances in the industry — rather than taking criticisms head-on.

The doc also shows industry flacks fretted that the story will get “will get traction through other media outlets.”

The reason my wife watched BSG with me

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Photo: Liane Chan/Flickr CC

Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ronald D. Moore barred the BS technobabble that made so much of every show after the original Star Trek series aired.

That’s what allowed the epic space opera to come through.

And the guy he hired to keep the show honest has written a book about it:

Grazier – whose new book The Science of Battlestar Galactica finally puts geeks out of their misery by explaining the “hows”, “whys”, and “what ifs” – is blunt in explaining BSG’s success. BSG, he says, was not a technology show.This formula worked. BSG became a cult and critical hit. BSG was the first ever sci-fi show to earn a prestigious Peabody Award for its treatment of contemporary subjects. It won over fans of the 1970s original who were initially suspicious of Moore’s plans for their beloved show, and BSG secured a rarity for any TV sci-fi creation: the nodding approval of members of the science community.

via Shut up, Spock! – how Battlestar Galactica beat Trek babble • The Register.

UB boffins craft cells that never age

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Photo: Bob Bobster (LIC)/Flickr CC

In a big step toward human superlongevity, University at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo) boffins have made adult stem cells that *do not age.*

The UB researchers anticipate their finding could result in “cost-effective treatments for diseases including heart disease, diabetes, immune disorders and neurodegenerative diseases.”

More from the announcement:

UB scientists created the new cell lines – named “MSC Universal” – by genetically altering mesenchymal stem cells, which are found in bone marrow and can differentiate into cell types including bone, cartilage, muscle, fat, and beta-pancreatic islet cells.

via Researchers Engineer Adult Stem Cells That Do Not Age, Overcoming a Major Barrier to Progress in Regenerative Medicine.

Pesticides will soon include potentially toxic nanoparticles

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Pesticide manufacturers expect that — by incorporating nanomaterials into their products — they can help farmers spray their fields more efficiently, losing less pesticide to “environmental drift,” for example.

But as with GMOs, the federal government has no existing protocols for testing nanoparticles (which behave in ways that are dramatically different from larger scale materials). before they are used in consumer and industrial products.

Oregon State University scientists also warn that researchers have found that six out of 40 nanomaterials (in a cancer study) “evoked a toxic response, most of which was linked to a specific surface chemistry that scientists now know to avoid.”

via New approaches needed to gauge safety of nanotech-based pesticides | News & Research Communications | Oregon State University.

“Garbage wars” to threaten stability in developing nations, futurists say

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Some states make so much garbage, they’re shipping it to other states.

But now Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Louisiana are limiting how much they will accept from places like New York.

And that trend is about to go global, according to the World Future Society, which predicts protests in the developing countries at risk of becoming garbage heaps for the “rich.”

Trash producers in the developed world will ship much more of their debris to repositories in developing countries. This will inspire protests in the receiving lands. Beyond 2025 or so, the developing countries will close their repositories to foreign waste, forcing producers to develop more waste-to-energy and recycling technologies. Ultimately, it may even be necessary to exhume buried trash for recycling to make more room in closed dump sites for material that cannot be reused. Waste-to-energy programs will make only a small contribution.

via 2011 Top Ten: 4. Will there be garbage wars in the future? | World Future Society.

Mysterious global warming "hiatus" blamed on sudden ocean cooling

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Photo: Steve Ryan/Flickr CC

Scientists don’t want us to get bogged down in the details — the ups-and-downs of global temperatures. The mercury is still rising, they say…

That is, except in large parts of the globe, and during certain decades:

“The suddenness of the drop in Northern Hemisphere ocean temperatures relative to the Southern Hemisphere is difficult to reconcile with the relatively slow buildup of tropospheric aerosols,” Thompson said.“We don’t know why the Northern Hemisphere ocean areas cooled so rapidly around 1970. But the cooling appears to be largest in a climatically important region of the ocean,” Wallace said.

via Sudden Ocean Cooling Likely Aided Mid-20th Century Global Warming Hiatus in Northern Hemisphere.

Chemo nose drops beat blood-brain barrier

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Docs in Japan have found that “nose-brain direct transport” beats injection for delivering a brain cancer-fighting drug:

Nasal chemotherapy with MTX significantly reduced the tumor weight as compared to nontreatment control and IP group. The strategy to utilize the nose−brain direct transport can be applicable to a new therapeutic system not only for brain tumors but also for other central nervous system disorders such as neurodegenerative diseases.

via Transnasal Delivery of Methotrexate to Brain Tumors in Rats: A New Strategy for Brain Tumor Chemotherapy – Molecular Pharmaceutics (ACS Publications).

Moon "Diviner" finds useful minerals

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Diviner. Illustration: NASA/UCLA

Good news for Moon setters: Scientists seeking mineral wealth on the Moon have struck upon minerals that can be used to make nuke fuel and fertilizer.

Among the mineral wealth detected by NASA’s Moon recon orbiter vessel, Diviner, is the element thorium, which might be used to power nuclear energy plants on the Moon.

More from a recent announcement:

Most impressively, in several locations around the Moon, Diviner has detected the presence of highly silicic minerals such as quartz, potassium-rich, and sodium-rich feldspar – minerals that are only ever found in association with highly evolved lithologies (rocks that have undergone extensive magmatic processing).

via New Types Of Rock Found On Moon By Researchers At Stony Brook University And NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Star of David-shaped nanoparticles better than the rest

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Photo: zeevveez/Flickr CC

Hebrew University researchers in Israel have created Star of David-shaped, hexagonal “nano-cages,” which help make chemical sensors more sensitive than other materials have:

The researchers generated a three-dimensional image of the tiny nanoparticles using a powerful electron microscope and found that the Stars of David are, remarkably, “nano-cages.” The particles are nano-sized, hexagonal crystals, each with a tiny metal frame wrapping around and encasing them just like a bird’s cage, but 100 million times smaller. Because the nano-cage is hexagonal, when looking at pictures of them from above, they appear as Stars of David. No one had ever seen hybrid nanoparticles form with such a cage structure before.

via New nanomaterial, shaped like Stars of David, discovered at Hebrew University.