March 2009 Archives

Photo by Ron Edmonds
President Barack Obama signs an executive order on stem cells and a presidential memorandum on scientific integrity, Monday, March 9, 2009, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. AP

Obama Lifts Restrictions On Stem Cell Research
by Julie Rovner and Jenny Gold
*click* http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101613066

NPR.org, March 9, 2009 · President Barack Obama removed restrictions on the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research put in place by the Bush administration, fulfilling a controversial campaign promise. He also issued on Monday a presidential memorandum intended to further separate politics and science.

"Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident," Obama said Monday. "They result from painstaking and costly research; from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit; and from a government willing to support that work," he said.

New Momentum For Stem Cell Research

The stem cell restrictions, imposed by former President George W. Bush, limited federal spending for embryonic stem cell research to a small number of cell lines created before Aug. 9, 2001.

Bush's restrictions were strongly supported by the anti-abortion community, which contends that destroying human embryos is morally wrong. But researchers say many of the early cell lines have major drawbacks. Scientists have created hundreds of other cell lines since then, which have been off-limits to researchers who receive federal dollars.

Embryonic stem cell research is believed to hold the key for better treatments and possible cures for diseases, including diabetes and paralysis. The cells have the potential to turn into any cell in the human body, which is what makes them so promising to researchers. Proponents, from former first lady Nancy Reagan to the late actor Christopher Reeve, have long called for ending the limits on federal spending.

But the research is highly controversial because embryonic cells are derived from human embryos, which are destroyed in the process.

And while the new order will allow researchers to use federal funds to work with new cell lines, a legislative ban on the use of federal dollars to create new stem cell lines remains in place.

The president said that he could not guarantee more research would lead to new treatments and cures, but that opening up new research was worth the gamble to "make up for lost ground."

The National Institute of Health now has 120 days to come up with new guidelines for the use of stem cells, which Obama said will include prohibiting the use of cloning for human reproduction.

Most research institutes are likely to wait to allow researchers to use federal funds for new stem cells until the federal guidelines are announced. Researchers will also still be subject to state regulations and the guidelines of their individual research institutions, which may be stricter than the federal requirements.

A Controversial Decision

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) has been working to overturn the Bush administration restrictions since they were first imposed. The next step, she said, is for Congress to write federal standards for the research funding into law, "in large part because we don't want to see this become a pingpong ball between different administrations like the international family planning issues and other issues have become." Those policies have switched back and forth depending on which party is in control of the White House.

Opponents of embryonic stem cell research funding are already crying foul. Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) issued a statement asking Obama to "re-evaluate" his decision. "The president has rolled back important protections for innocent life, further dividing our nation at a time when we need greater unity to tackle the challenges before us," Rep. Boehner said.

Virginia Republican Rep. Eric Cantor said on CNN that "federal funding of embryonic stem cell research can bring on embryo harvesting, perhaps even human cloning."

'Restoring Scientific Integrity'

Obama also signed a presidential memorandum on Monday directing the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to "develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making." The memorandum, Obama explained, would ensure that his administration's policies would be based on "the soundest science," and that scientific advisers be appointed "based on their credentials and experience, not their politics or ideology."

DeGette says that during the Bush administration, scientific policy was often dictated by things other than scientific evidence. "It started with global climate change, where the Bush administration announced they really didn't believe it was true, contrary to the scientific evidence. And then it moved all the way through (to) abstinence-only sex education, stem cell research and many other issues," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Also, here's audio via NPR regarding the last section and Obama's promise to "restore scientific integrity":
*click* The 'Obama Effect' On Technology

For further listening on the topic, here's a great piece from last February on NPR regarding stem cells:

Talk of the Nation, February 22, 2008 · *click* What Makes a Stem Cell a Stem Cell?
Both stem cells and cancer cells have the unusual ability to renew themselves. In tumor formation, formerly specialized tissue cells become "reprogrammed" to form tumor tissue. A similar reprogramming takes place in the creation of stem cells. So what lets a stem cell know it's a stem cell, and not a cancer cell?

Stem cell researcher George Daley talks about the discovery of a protein that may help give stem cells their unusual multi-function abilities. The protein, named Lin-28, appears to help regulate the activity of certain small RNA molecules found in both stem cells and cancer.

Following up on last week's Science Friday we're in ur space peepin' ur planets! For the next several years over 100,000 planets are going to be surveyed through a space initiative to find other planets similar to earth

*click* : http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/03/06/nasa.kepler.launch.planets/index.html

Spacecraft blasts off in search of 'Earths'
(CNN) -- NASA launched its Kepler spacecraft just before 11 p.m. Friday in a mission that the agency says may fundamentally change humanity's view of itself.
This image shows part of the Milky Way region of the sky where the Kepler spacecraft will be pointing.

The Kepler spacecraft blasted into space on top of a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The telescope will search our corner of the Milky Way galaxy for Earth-like planets.

"This is a historical mission. It's not just a science mission," NASA Associate Administrator Ed Weiler said during a prelaunch news conference.

"It really attacks some very basic human questions that have been part of our genetic code since that first man or woman looked up in the sky and asked the question: Are we alone?" Watch iReport video of launch

Kepler contains a special telescope that will stare at 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way for more than three years as it trails Earth's orbit around the Sun.

The spacecraft will look for tiny dips in a star's brightness, which can mean an orbiting planet is passing in front of it -- an event called a transit. Video Watch how astronomers will try to find 'Earths' »

The instrument is so precise that it can register changes in brightness of 20 parts per million in stars that are thousands of light years away.

"Being able to make that kind of a sensitive measurement over a very large number of stars was extremely challenging," Kepler project manager James Fanson said.

"So we're very proud of the vehicle we have built. This is a crowning achievement for NASA and a monumental step in our search for other worlds around other stars." See what the telescope looks like and which part of the galaxy it will monitor »

Are we alone?

The $600 million mission is named after Johannes Kepler, a 17th-century German astronomer who was the first to correctly explain planetary motion. His discoveries combined with modern technology may soon help to answer whether we are alone in the universe or whether Earth-like worlds inhabited by some type of life are common.

"We won't find E.T., but we might find E.T.'s home," said William Borucki, science principal investigator for the Kepler mission.

About 330 "exoplanets" -- those circling sun-like stars outside the solar system -- have been discovered since the first was confirmed in 1995.

Most are gas giants like Jupiter, but some have been classified as "super earths," or worlds several times the mass of our planet, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution who serves on the Kepler Science Council. They are too hot to support life, he added, calling them "steam worlds."

Europe's COROT space telescope caused a stir last month when it spotted the smallest terrestrial exoplanet ever found. With a diameter less than twice that of Earth, the planet orbits very close to its star and has temperatures up to 1,500° Celsius (more than 2,700° Fahrenheit), according to the European Space Agency. It may be rocky and covered in lava.

Scientists have marveled how strange some of the alien worlds are.

"The density of these planets has been astounding," Borucki said. "We're finding planets that float like a piece of foam on water, [with] very, very low densities. We're finding some planets where the densities are heavier than that of lead."

The Kepler telescope, however, is seeking something much more familiar: Earth-like planets with rocky surfaces, orbiting in their stars' habitable, or "Goldilocks," zones -- not too hot or too cold, but just right for liquid water to exist. Video Watch a NASA scientist explain where life could exist »

Quest for a 'pale blue dot'

Once Kepler spots a planet, scientists will be able to calculate its size, mass, orbital period, distance from star and surface temperature, Boss said. He called the mission a "step one" that will tell astronomers how hard it is to find nearby habitable worlds.

"Once we know how many there really are ... then NASA will be able to build space telescopes that can actually go out and take a picture of that nearby 'Earth' and measure the elements and compounds in its atmosphere of the planet and give us some hint as to whether or not it's got life," Boss said.

Boss believes that there may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy. He said scientists should know by 2013 -- the end of Kepler's mission -- whether life in the universe could be widespread.

The 20-year goal is to someday take a picture of a pale blue dot orbiting a nearby star, said Debra Fischer, an astronomy professor at San Francisco State University, during a NASA news conference.
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Boss called it a potentially unprecedented time of discovery for scientists.

"Sometimes, people call this the golden age of astronomy. I think it's more like the platinum age of astronomy. It's beyond gold," Boss said.

Bre Pettis is a founder of NYCResistor, a hacker collective in Brooklyn. Besides being a TV host and Video Podcast producer, he's created new media for Etsy.com, hosted Make: Magazine's Weekend Projects podcast, and has been a schoolteacher, artist, and puppeteer. Bre is passionate about invention, innovation, and all things DIY. He developed a really amazing manifesto of accomplishing things called The Cult of Done. Here are the 13 principles of the Cult and a visualization of the principles via James Provost. I think that this is an amazing way of looking at the power of confidence and intention. I am totally loving the visualization utilizing the Rubik's cubes as well. Dyno-mite.

Dear Members of the Cult of Done,

I present to you a manifesto of done. This was written in collaboration with Kio Stark in 20 minutes because we only had 20 minutes to get it done.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

I want to see this:

I'm going to see this tonight:

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Also, we're ready to break ground on the Design/Build studio for Mary Pat + Tony's house and we're just waiting on the permit. This is exactly what I wanted the studio to be and I can't be more excited about what we're doing right now. There are some other students down with their professor doing work near the new Walmart in Pass Christian and we invited them to join us for our seminar last night which was a great experience for everyone involved. I love our weekly Wednesday evening seminar but having new energy and fresh ideas and perspectives as part of the conversation helps us to evaluate what we are doing and take stock of things we may have forgotten and we value in making decisions in our practice.

Welcome to the fourth edition of *click*itecture. Each week (or so), I'll be wrapping up some of the most notable news items I've stumbled across while surfing the waves of the internets. These may be related to either end of the Mississippi, cross-disciplinary work, student or competition based info, or anything that may suit my fancy. Occasionally there will intentionally, or unintentionally, be themes for the week.The main stories will be in the headlines and then at the end of the column there will be "Quick Clicks".

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAUHAUS!
The legendary Bauhaus movement turns 90 this year and the anniversary is being marked by exhibitions from Tokyo to New York. The school was founded by a young architect, Walter Gropius, who wanted to shape products for the future and create a more just society.
*click* http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,610283,00.html

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NO RESPAWNING IN REAL LIFE
Conex containers are rugged and durable enough to stand up to the rigors of troop training. MOUT structures made from containers are re-locatable, reconfigurable, and deployable via standard means of national and international transportation, namely truck, rail, and ship. - via Subtopia
*click* http://subtopia.blogspot.com/2009/03/galleries-for-art-of-war-play.html

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THE NEW SCHOOL
via Dwell Blog- http://www.dwell.com/daily/blog/40447882.html
"
Dwell Daily / Dwell Blog
Miyoko Ohtake
New School Architecture

The American Institute of Architects San Francisco chapter has a fascinating exhibition in their gallery right now that asks how school design can help develop our citizens of tomorrow.

The exhibition, titled The State of Affairs: A New Architecture for a New Education, is based on a show presented in Zurich in 2004 that culled prime examples (largely from Austria, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia) of how architects can provide the best—which also means most flexible and adaptive—environment for learning."

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Quick *Clicks*:

Preservation in Pink: A smart little blog regarding a variety of preservation topics and projects
*click* http://preservationinpink.wordpress.com/

Tiny Texas Houses: A guy who builds from 99% salvage some beautiful little cottages
*click* http://www.tinytexashouses.com/index.html

New P.O.S. video & Minneapolis anecdote

From the blog Uptown Musings (which I recommend checking out):

Ah, the good old days. In this case, for some of us, anyway, that means the 1980s. The decade of tight zipper-legged jeans, leg warmers, big hair, and Thriller. In Uptown it was the decade of the McPunks.

The McPunks were the mostly teenage punks with mohawks and piercings who used the Uptown McDonald's as their primary hangout. McDonald's had a different building back then, with a small patio separating the restaurant from Hennepin. At the time they were a highly visible, as well as controversial, part of the Uptown street scene. Some people thought they were scary: bad kids who meant trouble, and who undoubtedly would run amok in the neighborhood as soon as they got bored with nursing a Coke or cold fries on the patio. Others didn't have a problem with the McPunks themselves, but worried that they would scare away more conventional customers. Still others just saw them as kids with a different style who didn't hurt anyone, and in some ways might even help the neighborhood avoid becoming too tarnished with the gentrification brush. Calhoun Square was still brand new after all, and the neighborhood was starting to regain its position as a regional draw, and a bunch of teenagers with spikes on their head and safety pins in their noses might not fly with visitors of Edina. On the other hand, conventional visitors from the 'burbs didn't agree with all of the locals, many of whom were still bitter about the new urban mall in their midst.

The reality, of course, was that many of the McPunks were themselves from Edina. Or, if not Edina, then at least southwest Minneapolis. While there were some examples of vandalism and other crimes possibly attributed to some of the McPunks, for the most part they were good kids who simply chose to express themselves through the radical hairstyles and clothing of the time.

What does this mean, if anything, for those of us in Uptown today? I think a lot of people look back to the 1980s as the last decade in which Uptown had any claim to "weirdness," the last hoorah before national chains moved in in the 1990s and rents and housing prices began to escalate at even faster rates. The McPunks were a symbol that Uptown was an eccentric place and somehow different from other city (or suburban) neighborhoods. They were also a sign of the tensions of the neighborhood; did Uptown want to be weird? And where did the balance tip between weird-exotic and weird-scary? It wasn't an easy question, and was in some ways the neighborhood's clash-of-cultures of its time.

I'm pretty conventional in a lot of ways. My hair's its natural color, and I'm too cheap and lazy to get a cut that would involve too much maintenance, let alone put in the kind of time that must have been necessary to maintain one of those elaborate spiked 'dos. But even as a kid I was never bothered by the McPunks. They were just part of the landscape, just like the old people at McDonald's - who also hung around for hours, nursing a coffee or doing crossword puzzles - and the rest of the Uptown regulars. And while I'm not not a McDonald's regular myself, I do miss that old patio and its place in Uptown's cultural history.