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Update: April 04, 2008 
GLOBAL WARMING AND ALLIGATOR BLOOD
By Pam Eastlick for THE DEEP on line
Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond.

Greetings and welcome to another adventure into the wonderful and sometimes wacky world of science. We've got some short stuff this week, but it's good!

OKAY, IT'S NOT THAT

There are some people, corporations and governments that absolutely do NOT want global warming to be caused by human activities because they are deeply invested in keeping those activities at an all time high. So, with our billions of dollars in profit, we look for other causes. New research has dealt a fatal blow to the skeptics who argue that climate change is caused by cosmic rays. The new evidence shows no reliable connection between cosmic ray intensity and cloud cover.

It had been suggested that global warming was caused by a decrease in cosmic rays over the last hundred years which would produce decrease in the production of low clouds allowing more heat from the sun to warm the Earth and cause global warming. The new research shows that change in Earth's cloud does not correlate in any way to changes in cosmic ray intensity. Nor does it show increases and decreases during the sporadic bursts and decreases in the cosmic ray intensity which occur regularly. Well . . . . that's a big load off my mind, I think . . . . And now on to some space news.

LOOK, CAPTAIN KIRK, A FALLING STAR!!

A team of scientists at Armagh Observatory have detected a storm of shooting stars on Mars, for the first time. The meteor shower was predicted when astronomers realized that Mars intersects the orbit of Comet du Toit-Hartley. Astronomers have now verified the 'falling stars' over Mars using the instruments aboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) satellite that orbits Mars. Since the current Mars rovers can't detect meteors from the ground (they weren't designed to do that) and MGS can't see them from orbit, the researchers had to dig through megabytes of satellite data to look for evidence of burning particles in the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet. Mars should have many more meteor showers than Earth because roughly four times as many comets cross the orbit of Mars as cross Earth's orbit. This is because it has a bigger orbit than Earth and also because it's closer to Jupiter. Jupiter is big enough that its gravity tends to deflect comets into shorter paths around the Sun. The researchers are hoping that a meteor shower camera can be incorporated into the Exo-Mars mission, set to launch by the European Space Agency in 2015. And in other space news.

WHAT IS THAT BIG BLOB?

Although we will never see them from Guam, most of us have heard of the Northern Lights, also called the aurora borealis. There are also Southern Lights or aurora

australis. The aurorae are caused by particles coming from the Sun that intersect with Earth's magnetic field. As they whiz along the Earth's magnetic field lines that dip toward the Earth at the poles, these particles lose energy and humans see it as beautiful rippling bands of light. Other planets have aurorae too. Jupiter is not only the biggest planet, it also has the biggest planetary magnetic field. Jupiter also has four planet-sized moons, and one of them, Io, is almost exactly the same size as our moon, Luna. The two worlds orbit their planets at about the same distance (ca. 250,000 miles). But there are some big differences. Luna orbits Earth in 28 days, and Io orbits Jupiter in 42 hours (a near-perfect example of "the closer you are to a large body, the faster you must go"). There's another big difference. Luna is so far away from Earth that it never interacts with Earth's magnetic field but astronomers have recently discovered that that is NOT the case with Jupiter and Io. Scientists have observed unexpected luminous spots on Jupiter caused by its moon Io. Besides displaying the most spectacular volcanic activity in the solar system, Io causes auroras on its mother planet that are similar to the Northern Lights on Earth. The auroral emissions linked to the volcanic moon are called the Io footprint.

Remembering through the stages. (Credit: iStockphoto/Cathy Keifer)

Like a rock in a stream, Io obstructs the flow of charged particles, or plasma, around Jupiter. As the moon disrupts the flow, it generates powerful plasma waves that blast electrons into Jupiter's atmosphere, creating the auroral spots.

And now we'll leave space, return here to Earth and peruse a little medical news. Have you been nearsighted all your life? There could be a very surprising reason?

YOUR SIGN COULD BE MAKING YOU SQUINT

There's surprising new evidence that when you were born can increase your chances of being nearsighted. While scientists think genetic factors play the strongest role in nearsightedness, a number of studies show that light exposure before and just after birth generates biological signals that influence the baby's eye development, particularly its ability to focus and refract light properly.
A team of Israeli doctors used candidates for Israeli military service, medically evaluated between 2000 and 2004, as test subjects. All quarter-million participants (157,663 male, 119,248 female) were born in Israel, ensuring their exposure to the same seasonal light variations. Their degree of near-sightedness was found to be: mild, 18.8 percent; moderate, 8.7 percent; and severe, 2.4 percent. The risk of moderate and severe myopia (nearsightedness) seem to vary with seasonal levels of light, with the highest levels found in babies born in June and July and the lowest in December and January. The findings were adjusted for other known myopia risk factors, such as gender, education level, and father's country of origin. Mild myopia was not associated with birth date or prenatal light exposure. H-m-m-m-m . . . . I was born in July and guess what? I'm nearsighted! Makes you wonder, doesn't it? And to finish up, two different stories about the superbugs.

JUST SLAP A LITTLE OF THAT WHAT? ON MY WOUND

We've all heard of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), the bacterium that has become resistant to far too many different antibiotics. Now researchers are beginning to find ways of treating MRSA by making IT sick . . . . with viruses. New methods that involve sticking thousands of bacteria-killing viruses to wound dressings are offering ways to prevent hospital operating theatres from spreading infections. Bacteria are also attacked by viruses, but specific ones that only infect bacteria, not human or animal cells. Now doctors are harnessing these little alien creatures to help prevent the spread of hospital superbugs by developing materials impregnated with thousands of tiny beads coated in bacteria-killing viruses. Some bacteria-specific viruses called bacteriophages (which literally means, "we eat bacteria) were used in the past to help clear up infections caused by bacteria, but doctors stopped using them when antibiotics like penicillin and methicillin became widely available. Bacteriophages are being considered again now that multiple antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria have become such a problem in hospitals. The researchers have developed a technique to keep the viruses active for more than 3 weeks, instead of having them die after a few hours, by chemically bonding them to polymers. The polymers, including nylon, can be in various forms including microscopic beads and strips. Nylon beads can be incorporated into cleaning materials, to decontaminate operating theatres and prevent infections. The nylon can also be used in sutures or wound dressings to decontaminate and prevent wound infection. This limits the risk of blood poisoning, which can be life threatening. Immobilizing the bacteriophages onto sutures -- the hospital thread used to stitch up patients during operations -- immediately kills some of the bacteria that would otherwise infect the wound. This speeds up wound healing and reduces the likelihood of the patient developing a major infection. The prototype bacteriophage devices have been shown to clean MRSA infected surfaces such as tiles and cotton, with the bacteriophages successfully killing 96% of the MRSA strains isolated from patients in 3 different hospitals in the UK and USA. Well, if you don't want viruses in YOUR superbug-infected wound, how about blood . . .

A NEW USE FOR THE OLD GATOR

Despite their reputation for deadly attacks on humans and pets, alligators are wiggling their way toward a new role as potential lifesavers in medicine, according to some research biochemists in Louisiana. They described how proteins in gator blood may provide a source of powerful new antibiotics to help fight infections associated with diabetic ulcers, severe burns, and "superbugs" that are resistant to conventional medication. Previous studies showed that alligators have an unusually strong immune system that is very different from that of humans. Unlike people, alligators can fight microorganisms such as fungi, viruses, and bacteria without having prior exposure to them. Scientists believe that this is an evolutionary adaptation to promote quick wound healing, as alligators are often injured during fierce territorial battles. The researchers collected blood samples from American alligators and then isolated disease-fighting white blood cells (leucocytes) and extracted the active proteins from those cells. In laboratory tests, tiny amounts of these protein extracts killed a wide range of bacteria, including MRSA. These superbugs are increasingly resistant to multiple antibiotics and cause thousands of deaths each year. The proteins also killed six out of eight different strains of Candida albicans, a yeast that can cause rashes and other problems and there is also evidence that alligator blood proteins may help fight HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The scientists are working to identify the exact chemical structures of the proteins and determine which proteins are most effective at killing different microbes. The gator blood extract may contain at least four promising substances, they estimate. After the chemical structures are determined, scientists can begin developing them into antibacterial or antifungal drugs, including pills and creams, for fighting infections. These drugs show particular promise as topical ointments. Gator-blood creams could be rubbed onto the foot ulcers of patients with diabetes to help prevent the type of uncontrolled infections that lead to amputations and applied to the skin of burn patients to keep infections at bay until damaged skin can heal. So . . . . two new promising scenarios for fighting superbugs. Viruses and alligator blood??? Welcome to the wonderful world of science!

 

Alligator blood could provide a powerful new source of antibiotics for fighting deadly "superbugs" and other infections, researchers say. (Credit: Courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) Cruise on over to the Deep Website at www.thedeepradioshow.com to learn more about extra-terrestrial meteor showers and aurorae and viruses and alligator blood. It's a rich feast! Enjoy!