Category Archives: Technology and Society

Science And Society, Technology and Society

Young Blood

13 Comments

…the fountain of youth?

Tissue from the hippocampus of old mice given young blood showed changes in the expression of 200 to 300 genes, particularly in those involved in synaptic plasticity, which underpins learning and memory. They also found changes in some proteins involved in nerve growth.

The infusion of young blood also boosted the number and strength of neuronal connections in an area of the brain where new cells do not grow. This didn’t happen when old mice received old blood.

To find out whether these changes improved cognition, the team gave 12 old mice eight intravenous shots of blood plasma either from a young or an old mouse, over the course of one month. They used plasma rather than whole blood to exclude any effect produced by blood cells.

The mice then took part in a standard memory task to locate a hidden platform in water. The old mice that had received young blood plasma remembered where to find the platform much quicker than the mice on the old plasma.

Of course, this is the theme of many a science fiction story in which a rich evil codger kidnaps youth to drain their blood and preserve his own vitality. But I hope it turns out to be right, and they can figure out how to extract and manufacture whatever it is.

Space, Technology and Society

Baumgartner

36 Comments

…is about to jump. He’s almost to altitude. Here’s a live link. He just beat Kittinger’s altitude record on his way to his ultimate altitude.

[Update a while after the successful dive and landing]

Here’s the Gray Lady’s take:

“It was harder than I expected,” Mr. Baumgarter said after returning by helicopter to mission control in Roswell. “Trust me, when you stand up there on top of the world, you become so humble. It’s not about breaking records anymore. It’s not about getting scientific data. It’s all about coming home.”

I’m going to have to add this to my space safety paper. No one in the government was responsible for regulating his safety to jump from a balloon. Why would they do it for him to jump from a rocket?

[Update a few minutes later]

An interesting coincidence (it has to be that, because he wanted to do it earlier this week). The first supersonic flight of a human in a suit took place on the 65th anniversary of the first controlled supersonic flight of an aircraft. And he’s going to do it again with an F-15 to commemorate it.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Talk about one giant leap for a man.

Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The Libertarian Democrat And Fifties Radios

9 Comments

Some thoughts from Lileks.

I was struck by the prices of those old AM radios. I hadn’t realized how expensive they were back then. In today’s dollars, you’d be paying two or three hundred for an AM radio, though it would probably have much better sound quality than a modern one. The tubes have their own audio quality that remains hard (and expensive) to replicate with solid state. Of course, they were also built to last, and unlike a modern device, repairable.

Business, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Plasma Jet Electric Thrusters

21 Comments

An interesting Kickstarter project.

Via (former co-blogger) Andrew Case, who writes:

It will be interesting to see if crowd funding of space projects is viable. I know that there’s a guy who successfully funded a project to study a lunar space elevator, but as far as I know this is the first that is focused on something practical that has a real chance of flying in the short term.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject.

I think it’s very viable, and a useful model for the future. It will be even better when we can start crowd funding actual businesses via the JOBS Act, and not just technology development.

[Late evening update]

Yeah, I know, I know. I was gone all day, and Trent provided it in comments, but here’s the link.

[Update a few minutes later]

Ignore my response to Paul Breed in comments. Doug Messier is now reporting that the engine exploded. If so, that puts a different complexion on things, but it still proves out their engine-out capability for the first stage, including shrapnel shield. The question is, as Paul notes, what are the differences between first and second-stage Merlins, if any, that can give us confidence in the second-stage reliability? Also, what would have happened to the Dragon had it happened on second stage? Just a loss of thrust, or an explosion of the entire stage (that is, would the explosion have taken out the tanks above as well, or does it have a similar shrapnel shield)?

In terms of commercial crew, the former wouldn’t necessarily require an abort system, and the latter probably wouldn’t be helped by one, unless there was sufficient warning to activate it. So it will be interesting to know from telemetry how soon they knew the engine was going south.