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One Year after Triple Disasters, Japan Continues to Struggle

By Guest PostMarch 3, 2012Environment, Generalbureaucratic red tape, catastrophe, coastal city, coastal communities, earthquake, ethan segal, evacuation zone, fukushima nuclear power plant, haiti, hurricane katrina, Japan, japanese government, japanese history, katsurao, michigan state university, nuclear meltdown, rikuzen takata, tepco, tokyo electric power, triple disasters, tsunami

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A year after Japan was struck by triple disasters – earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown – many citizens cannot find regular work and face the possibility of never returning to their homes and seeing their communities disappear, according to a Michigan State University scholar.

Ethan Segal, associate professor of Japanese history, made two trips to Japan following the March 11, 2011, catastrophe, spending close to two weeks in the northeastern part of the country that was most directly affected. (more…)

Amoeba May Offer Key Clue to Photosynthetic Evolution

By Guest PostMarch 3, 2012Scienceamoeba, animal cells, arthur grossman, bacterial cells, carbohydrates, cell wall, chemical energy, chloroplasts, chromatophores, cyanobacteria, endosymbiotic cyanobacterium, eva nowack, light energy, mitochondria, paulinella chromatophora, photosynthetic process, plant, silica scales, single celled bacteria, sugar breakdown, sugars

Stanford, CA— The major difference between plant and animal cells is the photosynthetic process, which converts light energy into chemical energy. When light isn’t available, energy is generated by breaking down carbohydrates and sugars, just as it is in animal and some bacterial cells. Two cellular organelles are responsible for these two processes: the chloroplasts for photosynthesis and the mitochondria for sugar breakdown. New research from Carnegie’s Eva Nowack and Arthur Grossman has opened a window into the early stages of chloroplast evolution. Their work is published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the week of February 27-March 2. (more…)

Oceans Acidifying Faster Today Than in Past 300 Million Years

By Guest PostMarch 2, 2012Environmentage of dinosaurs, barbel honisch, benthic foraminifera, candace major, coral reefs, ellen thomas, fossil carbonate shells, great dying, jurassic era, ocean acidification, ocean ph, siberian traps, white plankton fossils

*Few parallels for today’s rapid ocean changes in geologic record*

The oceans may be acidifying faster today than they did in the last 300 million years, according to scientists publishing a paper this week in the journal Science.

“What we’re doing today really stands out in the geologic record,” says lead author Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. (more…)

Sundance Looks to StorSimple to Simplify Its Massive Storage Needs

By Guest PostMarch 2, 2012Technologybizspark one, cloud storage, data access, fibre channel, guru pangal, hd video, Microsoft, microsoft sharepoint, san, scsi, silicon valley, startup, storage, storage area network, storsimple, storsimple solution, sundance institute, ursheet parikh, venture capital

*Microsoft BizSpark One startup solves enterprise-class storage challenges with hybrid cloud approach.*

REDMOND, Wash. — March 2, 2012 — StorSimple takes an innovative approach to storage design, betting early on the Windows Azure platform and assembling a first-rate team to make cloud-integrated storage a reality for enterprise companies.

Like many other innovations, StorSimple’s breakthrough began with a fundamental observation followed by a simple question. (more…)

Asteroid 2011 AG5 – A Reality Check

By Guest PostMarch 2, 2012Sciencearizona, asteroid 2011 ag5, cassegrain reflector telescope, catalina mountains, don yeomans, earth interception, gravitational influence, mars, mount lemmon, near earth object, orbit, space rock, spaceguard, torino impact hazard scale, tucson

Asteroid 2011 AG5 has been receiving a lot of attention lately because of a very unlikely scenario which would place it on an Earth-interception course 28 years from now. Here is a scientific reality check of this relatively nondescript space rock which is currently ranked a “1” on the 1 to 10 Torino Impact Hazard Scale

As of Feb. 26, 2012, asteroid 2011 AG5 is one of 8,744 near-Earth objects that have been discovered. It is approximately 460 feet (140 meters) in size and its orbit carries it as far out as beyond Mars’ orbit and as close to the sun as halfway between Earth and Venus. It was discovered on Jan. 8, 2011, by astronomers using a 60-inch Cassegrain reflector telescope located at the summit of Mount Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, Arizona. (more…)

How Megakaryocytes Get so Big — and The Bad Things That Happen When They Don’t

By Guest PostMarch 2, 2012Scienceblood cells, cell division, diane krause, DNA, ect2, ee chun cheng, elenoe smith, endomitosis, gef h1, gene, giant blood cells, guanine exchange factors, krause lab, leukemia, lin wang, malfunction, malignant leukemias, megakaryoblastic leukemias, megakaryocyte maturation, megakaryocytes, mkl1, mutant, platelets, process, protein, sharon lin, siying zou, stephanie halene, supernova, yuan gao

Yale researchers have discovered how megakaryocytes — giant blood cells that produce wound-healing platelets — manage to grow 10 to 15 times larger than other blood cells.

The findings, to be published March 13 in the journal Developmental Cell, also hint at how a malfunction in this process may cause a form of leukemia. (more…)

It Takes Two to Tango: Pairs of Entwined Proteins Handle The Stress

By Guest PostMarch 2, 2012Sciencebacterial protein, bleach, cell paper, dana reichmann, dance floor, function, helper protein, hsp33, jim erickson, michael fitzgerald, molecular chaperone, oxidants, protein, protein folding process, stress specific, tango, university of michigan, ursula jakob, ying xu

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Imagine two tango dancers sweeping across the dance floor and suddenly encountering a slick spot. To avoid a slip or even a nasty tumble, the pair must work together to support one another and glide safely through the stressful moment.

In a similar way, a certain type of helper protein called a stress-specific molecular chaperone prevents its client proteins from collapsing during stressful situations by uncoiling a long, supportive arm that wraps around them, a University of Michigan-led research team has shown. (more…)

UCLA Scientists ID Cell, Signaling Pathway That Regulate Blood Stem Cells in Placenta

By Guest PostMarch 2, 2012Scienceblood stem cells, placenta, placental niche, placental vasculature, signaling pathway

UCLA stem-cell researchers have identified a certain type of cell and a signaling pathway in the placental niche that play a key role in stopping blood stem cells from differentiating into mature blood cells in the placenta. Preventing this premature differentiation is critical to ensuring a proper blood supply for an individual’s lifetime. (more…)

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