Nexus - 1602 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

GLOBAL NEWS BACTERIAL DETERGENTS MAY STIMULATE RAINFALL FDA SCIENTISTS CLAIM MASSIVE CORRUPTION cientists with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have become so fed up with the criminal behaviour of their own administration that they've filed a strongly worded complaint with President-elect Obama, alleging that the FDA has been deeply "corrupted and distorted". The letter explains that FDA managers are "placing the American people at risk" by using tactics of intimidation to censor scientific debate within the FDA, and that FDA managers "have ignored serious safety and effectiveness concerns of FDA experts". The letter goes on to explain: "Managers have ordered, intimidated and coerced FDA experts to modify scientific evaluations, conclusions and recommendations in violation of the laws, rules and regulations, and to accept clinical and technical data that is not scientifically valid." In other words, the FDA is being run like a criminal mob operation with a complete disregard for actual University of Maine, Orono, and her colleagues have collected the first direct evidence that floods in this network can affect the speed of glaciers flowing into the sea. They tracked the ocean-bound movement of East Antarctica's Byrd Glacier and events in two lakes that lie beneath it, and found that the glacier sped up between late 2005 and mid-2007, precisely when satellite imaging showed that both lakes were overflowing. "The extra water can't escape fast enough, so it spreads out beneath the glacier bed and reduces the friction between the ice and the rock, allowing the glacier to slide faster," says Stearns. (Source: New Scientist, 19 November 2008, http://tinyurl.com/ 8yzcan) acteria seem to release a powerful detergent into the atmosphere that may be one of nature's most powerful rain-makers. Studies have already shown that bacteria can affect cloud formation, and now Barbara Noziére of Stockholm University, Sweden, and colleagues suggest that surfactants secreted by many species of bacteria could also influence the weather. The team discovered that bacteria reduce the surface tension of water better than any other substance in nature. This led them to suspect that if the detergent were found in clouds, it would stimulate the formation of water droplets, causing rainfall. Noziére collected air samples over a coastal region, an ocean, a forest and a jungle at locations in Brazil, Sweden and Finland. Particles in all the samples contained minute amounts of detergent with a chemical structure that resembled the surfactants. It also broke down the water into droplets in the same way. Noziére suggests that the bacteria may be helping to keep the atmosphere healthy and active. (Source: New Scientist, 12 January 2009, http://tinyurl.com/8gygp6) ELECTRICITY SPARKS STEM-CELL TRANSFORMATION Ihe activity of stem cells, prized for their ability to differentiate into any cell type in the body, can be controlled by manipulating cellular electrical signals. At present, researchers expose stem cells to nutrients and growth factors to trigger differentiation and control what type of cell they will become. But when David Kaplan of Tufts University, Boston, and colleagues discovered voltage changes in adult human stem cells as the cells naturally differentiated into fat an bone, they wondered if changing the voltage could control a cell's fate. Sure enough, when they blocke' ion flow in a fresh batch of cells, differentiation was suppressed, while adding chemicals that increase the voltage across cell membranes spe: up their transformation. The group hopes to use this metho to control stem cell differentiation more precisely when using the cells to build organs for transplantation. (Source: New Scientist, issue 2686, 16 December 2008, http://tinyurl. com/9eujlb) science. (Source: Mike Adams, Natural News, 12 January 2009, http://tinyurl. com/76bgs4) YES, THE WoRLD'S EcoNONUES ARE ALU DowN. on ane ae, SIDE, WARS Ce merville somerville NEXUS ¢ 7 FEBRUARY — MARCH 2009 www.nexusmagazine.com