Science Ain't So Bad

I just heard from Dr. Von Herrath (La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology) who’s research I describe in the last post. As you can imagine, there’s a LOT of interest in his timeline and knowing when the human studies start.

Dr. Von Herrath says that they’re “actively pursuing combination therapies in recent – onset diabetes with Genentech and Bayhill Therapuetics”. They’re not ready to announce human trials yet but he hopes it’ll be soon.

Indeed, so do we.

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From Morguefile.com

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by ckurle

From MSNBC/AP : Two kids in New York City were infected by roundworms from raccoon droppings. One of them was blinded and the other suffered brain damage.  The spokesperson for the NYC Department of Health suggested proper measures for avoiding contact with the poop and safely disposing of it.  She said that the problem, which can be fatal, is also very rare. According to her, less than 30 cases have been reported in the medical literature. She seemed to handle things well. Informative, reassuring, responsible.

But Science Ain’t So Bad checked with the CDC which, four years ago, published a fact sheet on the infection (called Baysascari). It is a reminder that scientific matters are subject to human interpretation.

According to the CDC fact sheet, the disease, which can lead to coma and blindness, is FAIRLY COMMON in raccoons. It goes on to say, however, that “it is believed that cases are mistakenly diagnosed as other infections or go undiagnosed.” So it’s a fairly common disease in the raccoon population but it is often missed in humans. That’s not quite as reassuring, is it?

Science Ain’t So Bad respectfully wonders if the NYC Health Department needs to find a better balance between reassuring its citizens and alerting them to the presence of a dangerous and often missed disease. And maybe other communities may want to raise their level or vigilance. Certainly no need to panic. But there may be something here. Let’s have a look at it. OK? Raccoons are amazing creatures and probably deserve to be better understood.

Let’s start with their feces.

The Hubble Space Telescope is located in a high orbit where there’s lots of “space junk”. This makes me wonder how long it’ll last up there AFTER lives are risked and money is spent.

There are worries enough about the crew of the Atlantis which is servicing the Ol‘ Gal. Each Shuttle flight – each ONE – has a little less than a 1% chance of destruction. It’s a horrible thought in terms of the crew and it’s also a gamble with “The Peoples Money”. 

You’re going to say (aren’t you?) that the odds for Christopher Columbus were no better.  And it didn’t put off Queen Isabella. But maybe she didn’t have to explain herself to the taxpayers.

Anyway, Atlantis is now off fixing up the broken – down Hubble. Supposedly, it’s harder than it looks to do mechanical repair work while weaving around on a wiggily mechanical boom, trying to focus on the job instead of the consequences of vomiting into your helmet. 

Past Hubble repair missions were designed around modular packages which were intended to be handled by humans trapped in expando suits where zero gravity movements are unnatural and awkward. But, for this expedition, the job requires that they swap out “board level” components, keep track of each screw that’s removed, and, at the end of the job, put them back into the same holes. And no scrounging in the parts bin for spares. If it works, this may be one of the crowning achievements of the “manned” (means human) space program.

Space debris (or “space junk”), always a worry, has gotten even worse this year. NASA’s chief scientist said that it isn’t anything to lose sleep over because the chances of a “catastrophic” collision for the Atlantis are “less than 1 in 221” (so about .5%) . The logic? Shuttle flights are already so full of risk, what’s a little more? Would YOU lose sleep if your flight to Cincinnati had a probability of blowing up of 1 in 221? I know I wouldn’t. 

And I know that’s a not-quite-fair low blow. 

Anyway, there IS a point to all this. If the odds against the shuttle failing to survive a few days up there are that bad, what are the risks to the Hubble, itself,  of dodging a debris bullet for five full years? After all,  if the risk is bad enough, this noble mission is pretty silly.

Science Ain’t That Bad is trying (at least) to be a little more of a primary news source. But,  in researching this, I didn’t bother NASA because there’s already public info about the Hubble and its debris dance. An article from 2002 (a little old and there’s more debris now but the principles are the same) claims that the Hubble gets popped often but the odds of destruction are small. Obviously, a hole in the skin WOULD be more consequential if the telescope needed oxygen as much as an astronaut does. But the Hubble, being a telescope, doesn’t mind a hole in its skin  as long as the impact doesn’t damage a critical instrument or part of the optics (or contain enough kinetic energy that the impact blows everything to bits). In time, the odds will catch up to each instrument package. And, this time, as each one fails, death will be permanent.  

The final end of the Hubble may be largely in the hands of space junk.

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T-shirts ‘n mugs ‘n such with the ScienceAin’tSoBad dog (above) on them at zazzle .

 I try to be selective about the things I write. There’s a lot of scientific work being done and, realistically, I can’t report on all of it. But this work by physicist Andre Martin at the Large Hadron Collider (Switzerland) is too important to ignore. 

You know how the tables at outdoor cafes ALWAYS seem to need a napkin tucked under one of the legs so that you don’t spill your wine? Dr. Martin has studied this problem and, with some preliminary experimentation and then with the rigor of mathematics, he has shown us a way to remove the napkin and keep the table steady.

As to my previous post concerning the health of Dr. Stephen Hawkings, happily he  is reported to be recovering.

Almost 9% of Americans (me too!) are hard-of-hearing or deaf. We now know it can be reversed or cured. We’re not there yet, but lots of the pieces are understood already. It sounds like a decade-ish kind of thing. I’ll write about the progress on the regeneration of “hair cells” (I hope) in my next post.

Surely you remember my rant about pirates . Captain Richard Phillips, the merchant marine captain who’s remarkable leadership and pluck saved his ship and crew was OBVIOUSLY pursuaded by my irresistable logic (or something). He is calling for ships to carry guards and for the crews to be trained and armed.