Born this day, 1909

Rita Levi-Montalcini was an Italian Nobel Laureate honored for her work in neurobiology. She was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with colleague Stanley Cohen for the discovery of nerve growth factor.

In 1986 the Nobel Prize for medicine went to Rita Levi-Montalcini.

In troubled times, during the dictatorship of Mussolini, Rita had secretly studied nerve fibers in a makeshift lab hidden in her home.

Years later, after a great deal of work, this tenacious detective of the mysteries of life discovered the protein that multiplies human cells, which won her the Nobel.

She was about eighty by then and she said, "My body is getting wrinkled, but not my brain. When I can no longer think, all I'll want is help to die with dignity."

A brilliant woman, a brilliant, achieved woman and she spent some time right here in Missouri at our own St. Louis Washington University (see first link, below):

After the war (WWII), her family returned to Turin and Levi-Montalcini resumed her position as an assistant at the University of Turin Institute of Anatomy. Two articles that Levi-Montalcini had published in foreign scientific journals interested Viktor Hamburger, head of the Zoology Department of Washington University in St. Louis.  In September 1947 Rita Levi-Montalcini accepted Hamburger’s invitation to collaborate with him as a research associate. Though she initially planned to stay at Washington University for less than one year, Levi-Montalcini stayed for thirty years. She was named an associate professor of Zoology in 1951, and a full professor in 1958. In the early 1960s Levi-Montalcini began dividing her time between St. Louis and Italy.

Links:

Rita Levi-Montalcini (b. 1909) - Washington University

Rita Levi-Montalcini - Wikipedia

Rita Levi-Montalcini - Biography - Medical Professional

Rita Levi-Montalcini - Biographical - Nobelprize.org

Rita Levi-Montalcini obituary | Science | The Guardian

Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Revolutionary

A Profile of Rita Levi-Montalcini - Scientific American

Rita Levi-Montalcini | The Economist

What 2014 Was -- And Why It Matters

According to Scientific American:

2014 to Be Hottest Year Ever Measured

Yes, 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded in the history of humankind (though admittedly, in the "big picture" of things, that's a short time frame--around 150 years or so).

This year will likely be the hottest on record for the planet, with global temperatures 1.03 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 1961-to-1990 average, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization.

But here's why this is important and why we should do something about it. It's part of a far bigger trend:

This would make 2014 the 38th consecutive year with an anomalously high annual global temperature.

Each year for the past 38 years--nearly 4 straight decades, the new year tops the other in temperature increase.

Clearly, that's a trend.

And it's not a trend sitting there, all by itself. Here's another, rather obvious result:

World's Major Ice Caps Melting at Unprecedented Rate

And satellite images show it, in case there are any disbelievers out there:

Other possible effects this could and will likely have in the future for us:

Major U.S. Cities Face More Blackouts under Climate Change

Quote of the day -- on human and even national potential

"In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined."  

--Neil deGrasse Tyson

Go here, REALLY do something to help cancer victims and research

Instead of posting some inane note on Facebook or Twitter or some such, however heartfelt or well-intended, you can actually go to a British research organization's website and help do some research for them and for cancer victims across the world. I saw it in the Star today but, as usual, couldn't find it on their online website. (I swear, the Kansas City Star has the worst internal search engine quite possibly in the world):

Charity creates world's first citizen science project to speed up cancer research

Cancer Research UK Press Release

TeenagersCancer Research UK has launched the first ever interactive website - http://www.clicktocure.net - that will allow the public to delve into real-life cancer data from research archives and speed up lifesaving research, outside of the laboratory.

At the moment, cancer samples are given special stains that highlight certain molecules as part of research. These molecules could reveal how a patient will respond to treatment. But this process is slow and analysis is mostly done by trained pathologists, who are often also cancer researchers.

The new website – Cell SliderTM – is the first time real cancer data has been turned into a format that can be analysed by the public. By getting as many people as possible to take part, more samples will be analysed faster and more effectively, freeing up scientists to carry out other cancer research.



More from the article:

Cell SliderTM presents real images of tumour samples to the world for analysis in the form of a simple game of snap. Users will be guided through a tutorial that explains which cells to analyse and which ones to ignore.

Once cancer cells have been spotted by their irregular shape, users will be asked to record how many have been stained yellow and how bright that yellow is by simply clicking on another image that closely matches the sample they are viewing.

This information will be fed back to researchers who will look for trends between types of cells and a patient’s response to treatment.

So go to the website and help cancer research. Then, go again and again, as many times as you can, whenever you can to really help in the fight against cancer.

Link to full press release: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/news/archive/pressrelease/2012-10-23-worlds-first-citizen-science?view=rss

KS Biosciences Lab still supported by Feds

News out this morning says the Feds support--still support--the biosciences lab going in out at Manhattan, even if it is scaled down:

Fed. panel supports Kan. biosecurity lab project

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A government-backed committee of the National Research Council issued a report Friday saying the United States would have adequate biosecurity protections even if plans for a proposed $1.14 billion lab in Kansas are scaled back.

The study was prepared by a subcommittee formed this spring to look at three options for the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility that is to be built in Manhattan near the Kansas State University campus. The report was in response to tighter federal revenues and budget controls that are forcing agencies to rethink spending priorities.

DHS asked the National Research Council to review the threats of foreign animal disease, the capabilities needed to address such threats and analyze options for building the lab as proposed or scaling back the size and scope. A third option included keeping the current research lab at Plum Island, N.Y.

While the committee found that the need for a lab hadn't changed since the project was first proposed in 2006, it did find that DHS had two options for completing the goal of developing the capabilities with a laboratory designed specifically to respond to a biosecurity threat. However, the report concluded that both options had drawbacks.

So rest assured, Kansas--apparently you're still going to get your lab and the money and jobs, even if it isn't as big as once promised and hoped.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/fed-panel-supports-kan-biosecurity-lab-project-170920861.html

Important column from our own Arthur Brisbane

Former Kansas Citian and Star employee Arthur Brisbane asked what I think is both an important question and a stupid one, all at once, recently in The New York Times. It was: "Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?" (link at bottom). I'm sure he/they meant well but it has to be asked, if the newspaper media and PBS and NPR can't be "truth vigilantes" for society, who, exactly, is going to perform that role? This becomes even more important and true as we get more and more dependent on computers and websites for information and current events. We have already been made far too keenly aware of the fact that people only go to sites to reinforce beliefs they already hold, instead of to be told what actually is, even if it disagrees with already-held beliefs. My question is, if not you, NY Times, and again, PBS and NPR, then to whom are we to turn for hard data and "truth", instead of opinion? Link: http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/should-the-times-be-a-truth-vigilante/?pagewanted=all

One more insanity of our federal budget

News out yesterday: NOAA Chief: 2011 Weather Was "Harbinger of Things to Come" Pressure to reduce government spending is intensifying, whereas demand for services provided by agencies such as NOAA is at an all-time high. SAN FRANCISCO -- The United States was battered this year by at least 12 natural disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damages, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday. The agency said it was adding a June tornado outbreak in the Midwest and Southeast and record-setting wildfires in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico to a list that also includes flooding along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, drought in the Southern Plains and southwestern United States, five previous tornado outbreaks in Southern and central states, and a blizzard. That count could still rise, because NOAA is still tallying damages from Tropical Storm Lee and a late October snowstorm in the Northeast. But this year was not an aberration, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said during a speech here yesterday. "Budgets and politics threaten our observations, our research, our modeling and our delivery of information and other services," Lubchenco added. "The unfortunate thing is that with more and more extreme events, we are being requested with increasing frequency by emergency managers, by citizens, by the business community, by farmers ... for more information on climate-scale events, which we define as anything beyond 14 days," Lubchenco said. "We will not be able to do it as efficiently or effectively as we would like to because we were not able to reorganize." MR: We could and should take it from the defense budget. But we won't. Link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=noaa-chief-2011-was-harbi

Did you hear that?

That was the sound of the US--you and I--just losing nearly one-half billion dollars when the satellite NASA launched yesterday malfunctioned, seconds into flight and was destroyed.  Check this out:

NASA science satellite lost in $424 million launch failure

by William Harwood

NASA's Glory atmospheric research mission satellite crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean early today after a protective nose cone fairing failed to separate during launch aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus XL rocket. The $424 million failure was the second in a row for the Orbital Sciences booster following the 2009 loss of another environmental satellite due to a similar nose cone malfunction.

It gets worse, too.

With this loss, last night, along with the loss of the previous satellite 2 years ago, in 2009, according to the article,  "For NASA, the second Taurus XL failure in a row drove losses to nearly $700 million.

Ouch.  That makes the total loss here three-quarters of a billion dollars.

I would like to believe we--again, the US--can still "do" space, wouldn't you?

But the 2nd loss?

In a row?

Yikes.


Try to have a great weekend, y'all.

Link:  http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-20039222-239.html

Further proof of why we shouldn't have smoking in public areas

I still see and hear, once in a while, someone complain that they can't smoke in public. Last week, someone wrote in to The Kansas City Star, sarcastically ripping our smoking bans, saying life will be perfect one of these days, if we just keep passing laws similar to this one. And to this I say, you need to read the following scientific information on what smoking does to us, just released this morning: Scientists led by Dr. Ronald Crystal at Weill Cornell Medical College documented changes in genetic activity among nonsmokers triggered by exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke. Public-health bans on smoking have been fueled by strong population-based data that links exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke and a higher incidence of lung diseases such as emphysema and even lung cancer, but do not establish a biological cause for the correlation. Now, for the first time, researchers can point to one possible cause: the passive recipient's genes are actually being affected. The results suggest that the genetic changes among the low-exposure volunteers, some of whose exposure is exclusively secondhand, mimicked those of smokers and represent the first molecular steps toward later lung disease. ...the latest findings should reinforce public-health messages about the dangers of cigarette smoke, even if it is secondhand, says Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer of the American Lung Association. "When you look at the biology, there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke," he says. "This [study] adds an important piece of evidence that inhaling secondhand smoke is deleterious and does things to the airway that are not good." Okay? Got that? It's bad enough your cigarettes make us stink. We could live with that. And the scientific data told us years ago that secondhand smoke does cause cancer, even though you may not want to believe it. But here is further proof of just what you, smoking in public, in restaurants and so on, does to us--all of us. Could we get over this now? Link to original post: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599201210300;_ylt=AiwAHJetTqWiLcUjXzd7otHpCcB_;_ylu=X3oDMTM1dTVqMjI1BGFzc2V0A3RpbWUvMjAxMDA4MjAvMDg1OTkyMDEyMTAzMDAEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM4BHBvcwM4BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDc2Vjb25kaGFuZGNp