Task Force Reports No Major Safety Issues at U.S. Nuclear Plants After Month of Study (ContributorNetwork)

According to Reuters, a government-assigned task force in charge of assessing the current state of nuclear energy in the country has reported that, after a month of work, it has not found any major problems with any of the country's 104 nuclear power plants.

The federal task force went into action following the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster that occurred in March following an 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked Japan. The goal of the panel of experts is to look at where things failed at Fukushima and see if there are any similar risks at U.S. nuclear power plants. According to CNN, the task force was designed to complete a three-month study; so far, it is one month in. At the end of the three-month period, the task force will present its findings and any recommended changes or problems it might have with nuclear power plants in the U.S.

The CNN article also included a statement from task force leader Charles Miller, who spoke with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday. Miller said:

"As we stand today, the task force has not identified any issues that we think would undermine our confidence in the continued safety and emergency planning for nuclear plants in this country. That said, we do expect that we're likely to have findings and recommendations that will further enhance the safety of the nuclear plants in this country."

According to Dow Jones Newswires, the meeting Thursday between the task force, which consists of five experts, and theNuclear Regulatory Commission was the first in a series of meetings set to take place. Additionally, the task force has made its findings so far available to the public and noted it will most likely have recommendations on how to enhance safety preparation for nuclear power plants once the study is completed. After the panel releases safety recommendations, U.S. officials could take swift action to make sure the precautions are implemented in the country's 104 nuclear reactors.

After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, in which the power plant's cooling system failed, many states that utilize nuclear energy began looking at their safety plans and disaster preparations. Some states also put their plans to build more reactors on hold until nuclear energy was completely reassessed in the country and their individual state.

Rachel Krech provides an in-depth look at current environmental issues and local Chicago news stories. As a college student from the Chicago suburbs pursuing two science degrees, she applies her knowledge and passion to both topics to garner further public awareness.

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Video: Ranger Robot Sets New Distance Record, Walking 40 Miles on a Single Charge

Ranger Extends Its Range

Cornell?s Ranger Robot, world record holder for the longest walk by a robot on a single charge, has smashed its own personal best by logging 40.5 miles without stopping, recharging, or even being touched. Over the course of almost 31 hours, Ranger ambled along at a not-so-blazing 1.3 miles per hour for 397.75 laps around a running track, but managed to make the whole trek using just a nickel?s worth of electricity.

The robot?s previous record, set in July of last year, was just 14.3 miles. Ranger?s handlers at Cornell were able to squeeze more mileage out of their robot by improving its efficiency through better overall control. Ranger gets by on far less power than most legged robots because, for the most part, its legs swing freely, catching the robot as it falls forward and pushing it into its next step.

So while watching Ranger go may not be the most exciting thing going in robotics right now, the waist-tall little ?bot is something of a feat in consistency and efficiency. After all, it made 186,076 steps while covering more than 40 miles in this latest attempt, and never missed a step. That?s better than most humans can say.

Cue the Chariots of Fire and watch Ranger go in the video below. Of particular anti-climactic interest: the big finish, at the 3:40 mark.

[PhysOrg]

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Did Stem Cell Therapy Repair Bartolo Colon's Broken Pitching Arm?

Cy Young-winning pitcher Bartolo Colon is back in a big way this season, having claimed a spot in the New York Yankees starting rotation after not throwing a pitch during the 2010 season following elbow surgery and the usual shoulder problems that accompany a career as a major league fastballer. But controversy is brewing over his bounce-back season, as it has come to light that his shoulder and elbow were last year injected with Colon?s own stem cells.

Stem cell treatments like this are of dubious clinical efficacy but are not banned by Major League Baseball. However, they are part of a growing grey area in professional sports wherein athletes receive questionable treatments that don?t violate the rules outright but may or may not offer them a competitive advantage.

In Colon?s case, the treatment was carried out in the Dominican Republic--not because the treatment is illegal in the States (it?s not) but because Colon lives there--by Dominican doctors and a Florida surgeon named Joseph Purita, whose regenerative medicine clinic has treated several other professional athletes. And though his office does offer human growth hormone (or HGH) treatment, he says he didn?t provide it to Colon or any of the other athletes (HGH treatments would definitely run afoul of Major League rules).

Purita?s procedure involved removing stem cells from Colon?s fat and bone marrow and injecting them into his elbow and shoulder to repair ligament and rotator cuff damage. It?s a procedure that hasn?t been put through rigorous clinical reviews, and other physicians say there?s no conclusive evidence that it works. The MLB, fighting a constant uphill battle to stay current regulating new performance enhancing drugs and supplements, doesn?t even have an official opinion--much less a rule--on such treatments derived from one?s own stem cells. They told the NYT they are looking into Colon?s case.

For his part Colon is 2-1 and throwing like he was years ago, topping 93 miles per hour with regularity. His ERA is a respectable 3.81. And if stats told the whole story, it would be easy enough to deduce that these stem cell therapies have given a 37-year-old pitcher a younger man?s arm.

Whether or not that?s so is up for debate, and surely there will be one. Can someone?s own cells be considered a performance enhancer? Can leagues and athletic bodies effectively test for such therapies? Was it the procedure, or Colon?s season off from the majors, that really repaired his arm; that is, do such therapies even make a difference?

If you?re into baseball, stem cell therapies, or medical controversies click through to the NYT piece below, it?s a good read on an increasingly weighty topic in sports and medicine alike.

[NYT]

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Task Force Reports No Major Safety Issues at U.S. Nuclear Plants After Month of Study (ContributorNetwork)

According to Reuters, a government-assigned task force in charge of assessing the current state of nuclear energy in the country has reported that, after a month of work, it has not found any major problems with any of the country's 104 nuclear power plants.

The federal task force went into action following the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster that occurred in March following an 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked Japan. The goal of the panel of experts is to look at where things failed at Fukushima and see if there are any similar risks at U.S. nuclear power plants. According to CNN, the task force was designed to complete a three-month study; so far, it is one month in. At the end of the three-month period, the task force will present its findings and any recommended changes or problems it might have with nuclear power plants in the U.S.

The CNN article also included a statement from task force leader Charles Miller, who spoke with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday. Miller said:

"As we stand today, the task force has not identified any issues that we think would undermine our confidence in the continued safety and emergency planning for nuclear plants in this country. That said, we do expect that we're likely to have findings and recommendations that will further enhance the safety of the nuclear plants in this country."

According to Dow Jones Newswires, the meeting Thursday between the task force, which consists of five experts, and theNuclear Regulatory Commission was the first in a series of meetings set to take place. Additionally, the task force has made its findings so far available to the public and noted it will most likely have recommendations on how to enhance safety preparation for nuclear power plants once the study is completed. After the panel releases safety recommendations, U.S. officials could take swift action to make sure the precautions are implemented in the country's 104 nuclear reactors.

After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, in which the power plant's cooling system failed, many states that utilize nuclear energy began looking at their safety plans and disaster preparations. Some states also put their plans to build more reactors on hold until nuclear energy was completely reassessed in the country and their individual state.

Rachel Krech provides an in-depth look at current environmental issues and local Chicago news stories. As a college student from the Chicago suburbs pursuing two science degrees, she applies her knowledge and passion to both topics to garner further public awareness.

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Crab Nebula Emits Largest Gamma Ray Burst Ever Seen, Puzzles Astronomers

The Crab Nebula (And Its Enigmatic Eruption) The nebula set against a full-sky gamma ray map, showing the Crab Nebula's location in the crosshairs. NASA

Something strange is afoot in the Crab Nebula. Famous for beaming a steady dose of radiation at Earth at regular intervals thanks to the spinning neutron star at its center, the nebula has long been of interest to astronomers. So one can imagine their interest when an enormous gamma-ray flare five times more powerful than any previously detected burst from the region, making these "the highest-energy electrons known to be associated with any cosmic source," according to NASA.

The Crab Nebula is basically the remnants of a supernova located about 6,500 light years away (in Taurus, for those of you keeping tabs on the heavens at home). What was once the star?s core is now an expanding gas cloud anchored by a superdense neutron star that rotates 30 times per second, each time swinging a beam of intense radiation toward the Earth.

That?s been going on, from our perspective here, for thousands of years. And it?s been doing so with regularity, 30 times per second, ceaselessly. A handful of short-lived gamma-ray flares have been detected over the years, but nothing that fell outside the range of what?s considered normal cosmic violence.

Then, on April 12, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope--and later Italy?s AGILE satellite--picked up this monster of a flare 30 times more intense than the nebula?s normal energy output and five times more powerful than any previous uptick in energy. Four days later an even brighter flare erupted. Then, two days after that, the strange activity ceased without explanation.

Astronomers theorize that the flares must be coming from somewhere within a one-third of-a-light-year radius of that central neutron star, and that the area doing the emitting must be close to the size of our own solar system. And to offer some perspective on the energy unleashed, the electrons in these emissions must have energies some 100 times greater than the highest achievable energies in the LHC.

But what caused them is still unknown. The prevailing theory seems to be that the magnetic field around the neutron star suddenly rearranged itself, accelerating particles quickly to nearly the speed of light. As high speed electrons interact with the shifting magnetic field, gamma-rays are produced. Observations are ongoing. In the meantime, it gives us an excuse to post brilliantly pretty images of the Crab Nebula, like the one above.

[NASA]

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Scientists identify possible human lung stem cell (AP)

NEW YORK ? Scientists believe they've discovered stem cells in the lung that can make a wide variety of the organ's tissues, a finding that might open new doors for treating emphysema and other diseases.

When these human cells were injected into mice, they showed their versatility by rebuilding airways, air sacs and blood vessels within two weeks. One expert called that "amazing."

While stem cells have been found in bone marrow and some other parts of the body, it hasn't been clear whether such a versatile cell existed in the lung.

Experts not involved in the study stressed that the work must be confirmed by further research and that it's too soon to make any promises about therapies. But they said it could be a significant advance in a difficult field of research.

"These are remarkable findings and they have extraordinary implications," said Dr. Alan Fine of Boston University, who called the mouse results amazing. "But it has to be replicated."

Stem cells can produce a wide variety of specialized kinds of cells. Scientists are working to harness them as repair kits for fixing damage from diseases like Parkinson's and diabetes. Most people have heard about embryonic stem cells, which have caused controversy because embryos must be destroyed to recover them.

In contrast, the new lung cell would be an "adult" stem cell, like others found in the body. Adult stem cells maintain and repair the tissues where they're found. The bone marrow cells, for example, give rise to various kinds of blood cells, and they've been used for years in transplants to treat leukemia and other blood diseases.

The lung work is reported in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine by Drs. Piero Anversa and Joseph Loscalzo and colleagues at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. In a telephone interview, Anversa said it's not clear what the lung stem cell normally does but that he thinks it's involved in replacing other lung cells lost throughout life.

Loscalzo said it's too early to tell what lung diseases might be treated someday by using the cells. He said researchers are initially looking at emphysema and high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs, called pulmonary hypertension. Emphysema is a progressive disease that destroys key parts of the lung, leaving large cavities that interfere with the lung's function.

Anversa said the cells may also prove useful to build up lungs after lung cancer surgery. It's not clear whether they could be used in treating asthma, he said.

While a lung stem cell theoretically could be used to grow a lung in a lab for transplant, Loscalzo said that would be very difficult because the lung is so complex. Instead, he said, scientists will first look at isolating the cells from a patient, multiplying them in the laboratory, and then injecting them back into the patient's lung.

The mouse experiments showed "the cells are smarter than we are," able to build normal lung structures in an injured lung, he said.

The researchers found the cells in donated surgical samples of adult tissue. The same cells appeared in tissue donated from nine fetuses that had died, giving evidence that the cells are present before birth and perhaps participate in lung development. To study the cells' behavior, researchers injured lungs of mice and then injected six doses of about 20,000 cells apiece.

Within 10 to 14 days, the injected cells had formed airways, blood vessels and air sacs. "We had a very large amount of regeneration" involving millions of new cells, Anversa said.

The new tissue showed "seamless" connection to the rest of the lung, and researchers believe it would work, although that wasn't tested, Loscalzo said. The results appeared in all 29 mice tested.

Dr. Brigitte Gomperts at the Broad Stem Cell Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, said scientists have been hotly debating whether a single stem cell type could give rise to the more than 40 cell types in the lung __ cells that do such different jobs as protecting the body from inhaled germs and exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide. It's a technically difficult question to study, said Gomperts, who was not involved in the new work.

If the new results can be confirmed, "it's a significant advance" that will help in understanding normal lung repair and abnormal repair found in disease, she said.

The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and a Swiss foundation.

___

Online:

New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Study: It's not teacher, but method that matters (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Who's better at teaching difficult physics to a class of more than 250 college students: the highly rated veteran professor using time-tested lecturing, or the inexperienced graduate students interacting with kids via devices that look like TV remotes? The answer could rattle ivy on college walls.

A study by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, now a science adviser to President Barack Obama, suggests that how you teach is more important than who does the teaching.

He found that in nearly identical classes, Canadian college students learned a lot more from teaching assistants using interactive tools than they did from a veteran professor giving a traditional lecture. The students who had to engage interactively using the TV remote-like devices scored about twice as high on a test compared to those who heard the normal lecture, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.

The interactive method had almost no lecturing. It involved short, small-group discussions, in-class "clicker" quizzes, demonstrations and question-answer sessions. The teachers got real-time graphic feedback on what the students were learning and what they weren't getting.

"It's really what's going on in the students' minds rather than who is instructing them," said lead researcher Carl Wieman of the University of British Columbia, who shared a Nobel physics prize in 2001. "This is clearly more effective learning. Everybody should be doing this. ... You're practicing bad teaching if you are not doing this."

The study compared just two sections of physics classes for just one week, but Wieman said the technique would work for other sciences as well, and even for history.

Previous research has produced similar results. But this study, appearing in a major scientific journal and written by a Nobel laureate, can make a big difference in the field of teaching science, said Robert Beichner, a physicist and professor of science education at North Carolina State University. Beichner, who was named the 2010 U.S. undergraduate science professor of the year by the Society for College Science Teachers, wasn't part of the study but praised Wieman's work.

"He's got the scientific chops" to make other professors consider retooling their approaches, Beichner said.

Wieman heads the science education programs at both the University of British Columbia and the University of Colorado. He's also associate director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Lloyd Armstrong, a former provost at the University of Southern California and professor of physics and education, agreed that the study shows "it's not the professor, it's not even the technology, it's the approach."

Beichner, who uses the more hands-on method himself, likened it to the difference between being told how to ride a bike vs. getting on and riding it.

A prominent proponent of the traditional physics teaching method declined to talk about the study. Walter Lewin of MIT wrote in an email, "I have a rather unique lecture style which they could not cover in their tests."

In the spring 2010 experiment, Wieman and his colleagues followed two nearly identical physics classes of more than 250 students that were taught the usual way three hours a week for 11 weeks. In the 12th week, one class stuck with the long-tenured and well-regarded professor in lecture mode. The second class was taught by two of Wieman's grad students using the interactive method.

The classes' test scores were nearly identical before the interactive sessions, but there was an obvious difference after the students took a 12-question quiz on what they were taught during the experimental week of instruction. Students in the interactive class got an average of 74 percent of the questions right, while those taught using traditional method scored only 41 percent.

The best scores in the traditional class were below average for the interactive class, Wieman said. In addition, student attendance and attention were higher in the interactive class.

The professor who lectured students had been sure his method would work better, and it took a while for him to get over the results, said Louis Deslauriers, one of the graduate students who taught the interactive class. But now the professor is striving to adopt the new method.

The two graduate students are co-authors of the study and knew that what they were doing was part of the research, meaning this wasn't the usual blind scientific experiment. But Wieman said that didn't affect the results of the study. Independent people monitored the students and teachers' actions in the classroom. Wieman declined to identify the veteran professor, who was a willing participant.

Wieman said the need for a more hands-on teaching approach isn't an indictment of a generation raised on video games. It has more to do with the way the brain learns, he said. This method has long worked well in individual tutoring; it's just now being applied on a grander scale, he said.

As far as professorial brilliance, there's "nothing magical about a particular person," he said.

"Lectures have been equally ineffective for centuries," the Nobelist said. "Now we have figured out ways to do it better."

___

Online: http://www.sciencemag.org

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Task Force Reports No Major Safety Issues at U.S. Nuclear Plants After Month of Study (ContributorNetwork)

According to Reuters, a government-assigned task force in charge of assessing the current state of nuclear energy in the country has reported that, after a month of work, it has not found any major problems with any of the country's 104 nuclear power plants.

The federal task force went into action following the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster that occurred in March following an 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked Japan. The goal of the panel of experts is to look at where things failed at Fukushima and see if there are any similar risks at U.S. nuclear power plants. According to CNN, the task force was designed to complete a three-month study; so far, it is one month in. At the end of the three-month period, the task force will present its findings and any recommended changes or problems it might have with nuclear power plants in the U.S.

The CNN article also included a statement from task force leader Charles Miller, who spoke with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday. Miller said:

"As we stand today, the task force has not identified any issues that we think would undermine our confidence in the continued safety and emergency planning for nuclear plants in this country. That said, we do expect that we're likely to have findings and recommendations that will further enhance the safety of the nuclear plants in this country."

According to Dow Jones Newswires, the meeting Thursday between the task force, which consists of five experts, and theNuclear Regulatory Commission was the first in a series of meetings set to take place. Additionally, the task force has made its findings so far available to the public and noted it will most likely have recommendations on how to enhance safety preparation for nuclear power plants once the study is completed. After the panel releases safety recommendations, U.S. officials could take swift action to make sure the precautions are implemented in the country's 104 nuclear reactors.

After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, in which the power plant's cooling system failed, many states that utilize nuclear energy began looking at their safety plans and disaster preparations. Some states also put their plans to build more reactors on hold until nuclear energy was completely reassessed in the country and their individual state.

Rachel Krech provides an in-depth look at current environmental issues and local Chicago news stories. As a college student from the Chicago suburbs pursuing two science degrees, she applies her knowledge and passion to both topics to garner further public awareness.

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Kan. boy clawed by leopard leaves hospital (AP)

WICHITA, Kan. ? A 7-year-old Kansas boy who was clawed by a leopard last week during a school field trip to a zoo in Wichita is out of the hospital.

The first-grader went home Monday, three days after his run-in with the big cat at the Sedgwick County Zoo.

Zoo officials say the boy climbed over a 4-foot railing around the leopard exhibit, crossed an 8-foot safety zone and stood next to the metal mesh fence. The leopard was able to get its paws through the mesh and clawed the boy on the neck and face.

KAKE-TV reports the boy's family issued a statement Monday thanking bystanders who rushed to help after the attack.

___

Information from: KAKE-TV, http://

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Crab Nebula Emits Largest Gamma Ray Burst Ever Seen, Puzzles Astronomers

The Crab Nebula (And Its Enigmatic Eruption) The nebula set against a full-sky gamma ray map, showing the Crab Nebula's location in the crosshairs. NASA

Something strange is afoot in the Crab Nebula. Famous for beaming a steady dose of radiation at Earth at regular intervals thanks to the spinning neutron star at its center, the nebula has long been of interest to astronomers. So one can imagine their interest when an enormous gamma-ray flare five times more powerful than any previously detected burst from the region, making these "the highest-energy electrons known to be associated with any cosmic source," according to NASA.

The Crab Nebula is basically the remnants of a supernova located about 6,500 light years away (in Taurus, for those of you keeping tabs on the heavens at home). What was once the star?s core is now an expanding gas cloud anchored by a superdense neutron star that rotates 30 times per second, each time swinging a beam of intense radiation toward the Earth.

That?s been going on, from our perspective here, for thousands of years. And it?s been doing so with regularity, 30 times per second, ceaselessly. A handful of short-lived gamma-ray flares have been detected over the years, but nothing that fell outside the range of what?s considered normal cosmic violence.

Then, on April 12, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope--and later Italy?s AGILE satellite--picked up this monster of a flare 30 times more intense than the nebula?s normal energy output and five times more powerful than any previous uptick in energy. Four days later an even brighter flare erupted. Then, two days after that, the strange activity ceased without explanation.

Astronomers theorize that the flares must be coming from somewhere within a one-third of-a-light-year radius of that central neutron star, and that the area doing the emitting must be close to the size of our own solar system. And to offer some perspective on the energy unleashed, the electrons in these emissions must have energies some 100 times greater than the highest achievable energies in the LHC.

But what caused them is still unknown. The prevailing theory seems to be that the magnetic field around the neutron star suddenly rearranged itself, accelerating particles quickly to nearly the speed of light. As high speed electrons interact with the shifting magnetic field, gamma-rays are produced. Observations are ongoing. In the meantime, it gives us an excuse to post brilliantly pretty images of the Crab Nebula, like the one above.

[NASA]

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