HoodedHawk

Have you ever wondered exactly what the “light, sweet crude” was referring to when you hear a commodity price quote? Well, it refers to partially refined crude oil. Crude oil (out of the ground) is made up of various components, which can be separated by boiling point (related to the density of a component) – “fractionated”. Lighter fractions are more desireable (such as gasoline and diesel), while heavier fractions contain more sulfur (“sour”). For use, this sulfur needs to be removed, i.e., the oil needs to be made “sweet”). The goal is to go from a “heavy, sour” crude oil to a “light, sweet” crude – i.e. partially fractionated with a higher percent of light components, like diesel, with most of the sulfur gone.

A team of paleontologists and zoologists have found the “missing link” fossil, showing the progression from water to land. The researchers report in the April 6, 2006 issue of Nature that they found the 375-million-year-old fossils in the Canadian arctic (in an area once a balmy river delta ). They’ve dubbed the new beast Tiktaalik roseae, which is Inuit for “big freshwater fish”.

So, the standard anti-evolution argument that such “missing links” are not found can be laid to rest. This animal is partway betwwen a fish and early tetrapods. It has lost some of the bones that fuse the head to the shoulders in fish (i.e., it has a neck). And its front “fins” have bone structures similiar to “wrists”.

Some 300-500 million people suffer from malaria every year, and over a million die from it. The most effective drug for treatment, artemisinin, is derived from a species of Chinese wormwood. The process of extracting and purifying artemisinin from this plant is costly, so those that need it most can’t afford a treatment course. Also, the supply is very limited so even if they could afford it, there isn’t enough of the drug to go around.

The April 13, 2006 issue of Nature has a paper by researchers at UC Berkeley reporting they have tweaked yeast into creating artemisinic acid, a precursor of artemisinin. Creating artemisinin from the precursor acid is relatively straight-forward. So, scaling up this process may well result in reducing the cost of the drug by 10-fold, bringing a course of treatment within the reach of those who need it.

The current cost of a course of treatment is US $2.40.

That’s less than the cost of a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

I heard this on a Scientific American podcast I was listening to on the way in to work this morning. Hysterical! And *soooo* true; I’ve often wondered about the budgets of these CSI teams, and have often commented about scenario 2. Enjoy!

CSI agent 1: “I’ve got some trace evidence for you to analyse. Run Sample A through the Mass Spec.”

CSI agent 2: “We don’t have a Mass Spec”.

CSI agent 1: “OK, run Sample B through the gas chromatograph”.

CSI agent 2: “Um, we don’t have one of those, either”.

CSI agen 1: “Well, let’s do a DNA analysis of Sample C”.

CSI agent 2: “OK, we can do that. I’ll send off the sample; we should have the results back in about a month”.

CSI agent 1: “Well, can we run these fingerprints through a database to look for a match?”

CSI agent 2: “Sure, but we only have access to the state db; our system doesn’t really connect well with other states’ or the national registry…”

*sigh*

CSI agent 1: (2pm) “I’m entering the house now…” *click*, *click*, *click*. “Damn, my flashlight has dead batteries”.

CSI agent 2: “Um, why don’t you just, um, flick on this here light switch?”

I must have missed something when I went to hear Michael Crichton give a talk a few months ago. I didn’t think he really hit on anything I took as controversial. He did touch on global warming, but I didn’t come away with the idea that he didn’t believe it was happening; at worst he thought it wasn’t happening as much as the “media hype”. He focused more on complexity and complex systems. I need to go back and listen to his talk again. Or, I can just read his talk, since a copy is on his website. I do know that while he mentioned his book a few times, he didn’t focus on it.

What made me think of this and resolve to find the time to read his book, “State of Fear”, (hey, I have a copy already) was something I read in Locus: “‘State of Fear’ – which denies the existence of global warming – received a journalism award from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists“. Sheesh! Global warming does exist, as any rational person will agree. There’s a big difference between denying the existence of global warming, and debating the amount of warming. The National Academy of Sciences states unequivocally in it’s report (see summary):

Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century. Secondary effects are suggested by computer model simulations and basic physical reasoning. These include increases in rainfall rates and increased susceptibility of semi-arid regions to drought. The impacts of these changes will be critically dependent on the magnitude of the warming and the rate with which it occurs.