Monthly Archives: January 2006

In the USA and other developed countries, cancer is presently responsible for about 25% of all deaths. The human immune system employs a network of microscopic sentries to watch for all manner of diseases, including the malformed, rapidly-dividing cells which make up cancer. But sometimes the immune system’s somewhat lackadaisical response to cancer cells allows the rogue cells to overwhelm the immune system, posing a deadly threat to the body.

Conventional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy can injure and kill these tumor cells, but with an inevitable degree of collateral damage. By way of example, chemotherapy has a therapeutic index of six to one, meaning that one healthy cell is killed for every six cancer cells which are destroyed. Given that tumors can be made up of millions of cells, the incidental damage caused by chemotherapy is considerable. Radiation therapy has the same drawback.

Clearly these radiation and specialized-poison therapies are highly indiscriminate treatments, but they are the best that modern medicine’s cancer-fighting toolbox has to offer. But science is working hard to develop an army of microscopic agents which can hunt down and destroy cancer cells with decisive prejudice: antitumor viruses.

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Shards, fragments, and ruins are all that remain from the earliest human civilizations ten thousand years ago. Nothing continues to function as it once did; the Earth has ruthlessly erased all that other humans did not destroy. But ten thousand years from now, in a cave in what is now Nevada, a single functional sign of human technological prowess may continue to tick, whether there are humans there to observe it or not. And no, it isn’t Yucca mountain.

The Clock, as its designer Danny Hillis calls it, will stand over 60 feet tall and keep track of every second, minute, day, century, and millennium for at least 10,000 years. Over that time, it will function with near perfect accuracy by occasionally resetting itself automatically using the warming heat of the desert sun. Its pendulum will be powered by the Earth itself – by temperature and pressure changes during the desert night. But its many faces will require winding. Thus if forgotten it will enter a long silence but continue to mark the years as they pass.

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Plants have been the the subject of human-imposed genetic manipulation for over 10,000 years. Historically this orchestrated effort was accomplished by way of selective breeding, but more recently technology has allowed direct manipulation of the plants’ DNA. Each successive generation of genetically modified crops produces bigger yields, more appealing output, greater nutritional value, or greater resistance to disease than each generation before it, making a modern crop plant a far more efficient human-feeding machine than its humble progenitors.

As a way to protect this huge investment of time, effort, and money, special-purpose seedbanks have been established which house quantities of seeds for each important crop. In the event of a natural disaster, disease, or war which wipes out the crops, these banks offer a way to re-introduce lost plant lines by way of their seeds. It’s a great idea, but because the vaults must be under constant refrigeration over very long periods of time, the infrastructure is difficult to maintain and highly dependent on electricity. But Norway has an answer.

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Transgenics, while still in its infancy as a field, is nothing new at this point. We already have genetically modified corn, rice, and numerous other plants that have been altered to produce crops that are more disease resistant, more nutritious, or just about anything else the plant geneticists have been able to dream up.

Now labs are starting to branch into animals. Recently researchers in Taiwan created some pigs that are a tad – different. Using genetic material from jellyfish, the National University of Taiwan, Department of Animal Research treated 265 pig embryos, implanted them in sows, and managed to produce three live births, all male, all glowing – but not just with good health. These pigs glow green down to the cellular level. Even their internal organs glow green, which is what distinguishes them from previous green transgenic pigs. The hope of the researcher is that these pigs can breed true, leading to a reproducible line of glowing green pigs.

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During World War II, German hydroelectric dams were lucrative targets for the Allies. Not only would busting one cut off a major source of power for Germany, but it would also cause destruction through flooding. Plus, it would bring the fight to Germany, rather than defending the Allies’ territory.

Finding a method for destroying the dams, however, proved difficult. Anything but a direct hit with a normal bomb would not do enough damage to break the dam, and bombs were not accurate enough at the time. A bomb powerful enough to destroy a dam via a direct hit would be too heavy for any conventional airplane to carry. On top of that, the dams were protected underwater by torpedo nets, so the only possible way to hit the dam would be against its wall, near the surface of the water. There were no bombs that could get around these problems. The British military found this dilemma unsolvable.

Then along came Barnes Wallis, who invented a bomb that capitalized on the same physics as skipping a stone over water.

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