Fabulous Games and Prizes - in the lab.

I'm sure many readers are aware of the X Prize for various goals reached in commercializing the space race, as illustrated by the landmark (spacemark?) achievement by SpaceShipOne in 2004. But did you know there are X Prizes for cell crushers too?

There's another cool 10 million bucks out there for the ability to cut the cost of genomic sequencing into the affordable range, that is, to sequence one person's entire genome for less than a thousand dollars.

There appears to be several groups that are going to make this a photo finish.

The possibilities of such a cheap and afforable technology are staggering, as one's genome would become core information in medical files, allowing treatments and therapies to be targeted with greater precision.

I recall in 1994 as a college freshman I went to a seminar with a representative of the Human Genome Project, then working on merely sequencing a composite of the complete genome. I was told of the industrious effort being put into this project, a thousand computers crunching millions of numbers non-stop with a target of around 2006. Not only did the HGP beat that goal by a long shot, they were almost usurped by a private company! The merger into the HGP is its own sordid story, alas. Never the less, the acceleration curve of our technology is staggering sometimes.

Like a big 'You Are Here' sign

I'm sure you've heard of the news last month of UFO sightings in Stephenville, Texas. One of my colleagues queried me if I felt there was any legitimacy to the story - could the UFO actually be some intelligent and advanced alien life?

Unfortunately, my answer is a dull almost certainly no. I feel there is plenty of good evidence to suggest life as we know it could arise independently across the universe. Given we have at least a grasp that how things are put together here (like stars and matter) this is probably how they are put together elsewhere. Also, given the vastness of space and the cosmically short time it has taken us to go from polymer goo to intelligent life, it seems ignorant to assume we are in some special and unique nook of the Big Everything, and everywhere else is just void storage.

That said, I also think us meeting up with another indendently arising alien race is also unlikely, for the very same enormity of the universe.

Our little probes, our pollution of the planet, our TV, radio and light waves, even our active search for aliens are riding on a lot of luck to suddenly be noticed by anyone, even if they are taking a hard look at our solar system.

The real trick would be to construct something BIG, and I think Jaron Lanier has the right idea: start moving stars around. Lanier proposes building up a fleet of gravitational tugs or tractors to move objects around, eventually one could get enough of them to start influencing a star's movement. From there, the idea is simply one of scale:

Why move stars around? Because then they could be guided into orbital formations that almost certainly would not have occurred naturally. An imaginable set-up period of tens of thousands of years could therefore be leveraged into a much longer period—billions of years, perhaps—during which aliens could observe the fruits of our efforts. A group of stars organized to present a sign in this way might be called a “graphstellation” (like a constellation, but also a form of writing).

Yeah, the bumps in the roads are almost as big as the objects that are being suggested to be moved into some sort of kitschy Vegas eyesore. Still, I think this is the first proposal I've heard of that even gets close to achieving what so many people feel they've done in Stephenville, Texas - get noticed by little green men.

Weather didn't do this Atlantis in

Atlantis lifted off this afternoon despite threats both from gloomy weather and a faulty fuel sensor.

This is a huge mission as the Atlantis shuttle is taking up the Columbus science lab, a five billion (with a BUH) dollar module built by ten European nations. The lab is going to more than double the amount of science that can be done on the international space station once the Atlantis crew gets it attached and running.

I still recall in grade school getting to put down the composition and times tables once every few times a year to watch the shuttle lift off on a TV strapped down to a cart in the glorious theatre that was my classrooms. I may not always agree with the government's expense of funds, but the exploration of space never ceases to feel like a most righteous investment and spectacle.

You wonder who funds them.

America's Funniest home videos wacky science papers.

I'm not sure how farts keep one's personality together, but I'm listening.

Still the #1 threat to America

Bear kills Moose in Alaska Driveway.

She tore apart the chest cavity, ripped out the heart and ate it," Gary said. "It was like she knew that's what kept it alive.

Oh my Science, Colbert was right.

That extra Earth environmentalists are always hoping for.

Earth-like planet found a mere 20 light years away.

One of those things that we have always predicted in our models finally materializes in objective reality. Still, a 13 day year sounds pretty wild. I'd be 858 years old by now, and would likely still vote for Kodos.

Slashing the NIH budget

In late January this report ran announcing the Bush administration's intentions to cut the NIH budget by one percent, making 2008 the fifth year the NIH budget has languished in mediocrity and failed to keep up with the rate of biomedical inflation. While fears and smoke boasted the slash could go as high as ten percent, indeed, the jury is out: Once again the NIH budget will receive a meager 0.8% increase in funding, falling ever further behind the cutting edge of research, at a time when critical discoveries are likely to be had.

Scientists must now spend more and more time writing grants, competing for less and less money. What used to be a mad rush two times a year now seems like a perpetual Sisyphean task, grinding research to a halt without some sort of guarantee of success. That's not what academic research is supposed to be about. By no means am I advocating that academia does not bear a responsibility to give back to the community that is funding their work, but if we are to be scientists, that is, to practice Science, we can't be asked to tell the people our pre-experiment intelligence is a slam dunk.

The science community has responded with a comprehensive presentation of why this funding is so critical.

But there's also a broader question with respect to America's identity. Are we ready to abandon our status as champions of innovation and research? This kind of retrograde action speaks more to the landscape of the current political culture, but it does bear mentioning here, if only in passing.

Or let's think like an economist. What's a more sound strategy for the long term? Do we cut funding to research by the brightest minds of our generation to save on the budget now, or do we accept the inherent risk associated with science and gamble that our discoveries and breakthroughs will translate into not only a better life, but a fatter treasury? What if we could cut the cost of medicine in the States in half with new technology and research? Would that be of interest to anyone? What if we could cure Alzheimer's? Obliterate cancer? Don't these goals deserve at least the dignity of keeping up with nominal rising costs?

Ah well, at least the power of prayer is free.

It's all relative

A review of the American Museum of Natural History in New York is covering their new Human Origins exhibit. I particularly like the idea of bringing together the fossil and molecular evidence, because doing so is both powerful and essential to really get a clear understanding of both history and mechanism of the process.

I think a trip to NYC is warranted.

Same Science-Time, Same Science-Channel

I'll be accepting the Science Challenge from the folks over at Just Science, which should send stunning shockwaves through the readership. I'll be attempting to bring some focused relevance to some of the work I'm currently involved in, but I also thought I'd solicit ideas from you, gentle reader. I'd be interested in fielding any general question about the Life Sciences or specific questions in the fields of chemical biology, molecular biology or developmental biology. If such a question tickles your fancy, email me at science.ripsaw@gmail.com