A new method of treating wounds and surgical incisions

I'm very interested to read of a new treatment for cuts and incisions, involving lasers and nanotechnology. Wired magazine reports:

Forget stitches and old-school sutures. The Air Force is funding scientists who are using nano-technology and lasers to seal up wounds at a molecular level.

It might sound like Star Trek tech, but it’s actually the latest in a series of ambitious Pentagon efforts to create faster, more effective methods of treating war-zone injuries.

. . .

Massachusetts General Hospital researchers Irene Kochevar, Robert Redmond and dermatologist Sandy Tsao are behind the nano-tech project, which has been funded by various agencies within the Department of Defense for eight years. They’ve successfully tried out the nano-sutures in lab experiments and a clinical trial of 31 patients in need of skin incisions.

An incision treated half with the new laser/nanotech treatment,
and half with conventional sutures. The difference in healing is obvious.

The process would replace the sutures and staples traditionally used to repair wounded skin. Instead of being sealed up with a needle and thread, a patient’s wound would be coated in a dye, then exposed to green light for 2-3 minutes. The dye absorbs the light and catalyzes molecular bonds between the tissue’s collagen.

The bonds instantly create a seal that’s watertight, which prevents inflammation or risk of infection, and speeds up the formation of scar tissue.

“It’s so simple, but such an improvement on current processes, and that’s what’s really remarkable,” Kochevar told Danger Room. The process uses a hand-held laser device that’s about a foot long and a few inches wide.

Penetrating eye wounds, like shrapnel injuries, could also benefit from a patch version of the treatment. A biological membrane stained with dye would be applied over the eye, and quickly sealed using the laser until a soldier could undergo more intensive surgery.

There's more at the link.

Intrigued, I went to the researchers' Web site to learn more. They describe the process as follows:

Light-activated protein crosslinking technology is being developed for attaching tissue surfaces with a water-tight, strong bond and for forming engineered tissues with unique properties. For attaching tissues, the technology is called Photochemical Tissue Bonding (PTB). PTB has demonstrated advantages over conventional sutures, staples and glues in a wide variety of surgeries. These technologies were invented and developed in the Kochevar and Redmond laboratories over the last seven years.

In the PTB process, a light-sensitive dye is applied to the tissue surfaces, the surfaces are placed in contact and the dye-stained area is exposed to visible radiation that does not cause thermal damage. An immediate, water-tight strong bond is produced without additional glues or proteins.

. . .

Photocrosslinking of proteins has significant advantages over sutures and staples for tissue repair.

- PTB does not stimulate inflammation or cause additional damage to tissue, thus reducing fibrosis and scarring.

- Very small structures that require time-consuming microsurgery can be rapidly joined with less damage using PTB.

- Soft, delicate, difficult-to-suture tissues can be readily joined with PTB.

- An immediate, water-tight seal is formed.

Again, there's more at the link.

This looks like a real advance in wound and incision treatment, if it can be further developed. Looking at the various and sundry scars on my body, and remembering how long it took for some of them to heal (particularly when infection set in), I'd have loved to have had something like this available thirty years ago!

Peter

That's a hell of a way to die!

I'm more than a little grossed-out by the death of an unfortunate man in China.

A man has died after an eel that was inserted into his rectum gnawed away at his bowels, causing agonising injuries which were eventually fatal.

The 59-year-old man, a chef, was reportedly taken to a Sichuan hospital complaining of abdominal pain, dehydration and a great deal of anal bleeding. He was soon diagnosed as being in a severe state of shock.

Doctors were mystified as to the cause, and obtained permission from his family to undertake an exploratory laparotomy. Cutting open his innards, they discovered a 50cm long Asian swamp eel lodged in his rectum.

Though dead, the eel had apparently already wrought havoc on his innards, biting its way through his intestines prior to dying. Internal bleeding and infection rapidly set in.

He was reported to have eaten a lot of eel the previous day, but otherwise doctors had no idea how the creature had got there. His condition quickly worsened.

He lingered for 10 days in intensive care but eventually succumbed to the injuries and sepsis.

The likely cause was eventually established - he had apparently been drinking with friends, and had passed out. His friends had decided it would be amusing to insert a live eel into his anus whilst he was comatose.

There's more at the link.

With "friends" like that, who needs enemies?





Peter

A very interesting inside look at the Russian Navy

The US Naval Institute has published an article giving a very interesting series of impressions of the Russian Navy. It cites a Russian document prepared for that Navy's high command, discussing a joint exercise with the French Navy in 2004. Here are a few excerpts from that Russian report, as cited by the USNI.

French sailors (not standing watch) have twelve hours in which to relax while Russian sailors have but six.

French officers paid attention to the presence on board the BPK [the Udaloy II-class destroyer Admiral Chabanenko] of a large number of:

- large mirrors (which can shatter during explosions and seriously cut people standing nearby; and the shards are potentially dangerous);

- plastic and wooden surfaces (which burn well and put out toxic smoke).

The sauna is potentially dangerous.

In the French Navy, the presence on board of dangerous objects and materials without good reason is categorically and strictly controlled.

. . .

Russian Udaloy II-class destroyer Admiral Chabanenko

The metal decks [on Russian ships], especially when they are wet or covered in salt, are very slippery. There is a great probability of falling and receiving serious injury during pitching. The guests often slipped. The decks on French ships (as well as on American, British and Norwegian ships) are covered with a rough paint which limits slipping even when wet. The ladders also have a special coating, kind of like emory board, that limits slipping.

. . .

On board the more than thirty year old Tourville, there was hot and cold fresh water in all the compartments and showers all the time. (Note: in the margin, someone scribbled “No comment!!!”). The Tourville boils about a hundred tons of fresh water a day.

French F67-class destroyer Tourville

French officers were surprised that onboard the most modern Russian ship, provision of hot water to the staterooms wasn’t even planned for and that cold water was available once a day for ten minutes. The entire crew (450 people) washed once every ten days, over the course of eight hours. Each man had three to four minutes in the shower. The French officers paid attention to the appearance of the Russian sailors. By the end of the deployment, lice was found on the sailors.

. . .

1. “How seniors in rank and position relate to juniors, particularly to the sailors”.

This was a topic that the French officers paid special attention to. There was much yelling and cursing on the BPK and subordinates were often belittled (even senior officers in the presence of sailors.

The Chief of Staff refused to talk with a Russian communications officer (who had told the COS that he was a Captain 3rd rank) over the HF radio (I.E for the whole world to hear) to resolve some sort of problem. The French interpreter interpreted this conversation for the French servicemembers present. And they were very surprised: “Why doesn’t he want to talk to a Captain 3rd Rank?”

It was noted by the French officers that similar relations between people in France would be intolerable.

2. “There are a lot of officers on the ship”.

There are twenty four officers in the three hundred person crew on the Tourville. On board the BPK Admiral Chabanenko, with just a little more crew, there were twice as many officers, and taking into account embarked staff – four times as many. French officers were surprised at the amount of senior officers on board, especially Captain 1st Ranks – seven, whose functions could not be understood (on the Tourville, there is only the captain).

. . .

While spending a lot of time on the underway bridge of the BPK, the French liaison officers (the first one – the navigator, who normally stands officer of the watch and the second one – the electronic warfare officer, who normally stands watch as the combat officer) noted the following:

- The constant presence of the captain or senior on the bridge, who runs the ship: he works the radio himself, he himself evaluates the situation, he himself gives the wheel and engine telegraph commands. The watch officer plays no role in the running of the ship. The function of the watch officer is not understood.

In the French Navy, ships and submarines are run by the watch officer. There is no command watch. In normal situations, the commander appears on the bridge only episodically (on submarines, surfacing is done without the commander): in complicated situations, he will be there but he does not take control, but is there to support the watch officer. The watch officer, in turn, trains his assistant (the warrant officer). In 2003, during a refueling evolution, the Latouche-Treville came along side the Admiral Chabanenko twice for refueling: the first time, the watch officer brought her along side (with advice from the commander), while the second time, the commander didn’t participate as the watch officer advised his assistant.

French frigate Latouche-Treville

- Stationing an additional navigation watch.

On the French destroyers, the plot is kept by the watch officer or by one of his two assistants (a warrant officer and a senior sailor who also is the signalman). The plot is kept on the bridge with the aid of GPS. Besides that, the plot is kept in the combat information center on an electronic map on a personal computer.

- Conflicting commands are issued.

Often, conflicting commands were issued when the commander of the ship, the chief of staff and task force commander were on the bridge. The French liaison officers were surprised when someone corrected the orders of the ship’s commander.

- Tense situation on the bridge.

This was noted especially in areas with a lot of shipping traffic. There was much screaming and cursing on the bridge. The BPK, even having the right of way in accordance with MPPSS-72, would initiate unpredictable maneuvers, confusing the transports proceeding in their own lanes. The French liaison officers asked, “Don’t you ever have intensive marine traffic transiting your area?”

. . .

As noted above, the Tourville launches and recovers their rubber boat without crew for safety reasons.

A SPETZNAZ detachment was launched in a rubber boat from the BPK for an inspection operation. The launch was conducted in full view of the French ship. Because there was no initial planning of the launch and the boat wasn’t hooked up in the center, the boat was launched in almost a vertical position with SPETZNAZ troops strapped in. The French noted that this was dangerous.

It can be noted about boarding operations that the order to form a boarding group was only given as the ship was leaving base. No member of the team had a clear idea of what to do or how to do it. For a month before deployment the commander of the SPETZNAZ detachment on board was told that his help wasn’t needed during boarding and inspection operations. As a result, the order was given to the SPETZNAZ representative to be included in the inspection group and they began a crash training course (without actually getting into a small boat).

. . .

Food on French ships was significantly better and varied. The basic part of the menu – frutti di mare, meat and vegetables. For the week the Russian officers were on board, the menu did not repeat itself. According to the French sailors, the menu begins to repeat itself after they have been at sea for a month. As opposed to the Russian BPK, where the ration worsens as you go from the Captain's table, to the wardroom for the officers and warrants and further down to the crew, on the French destroyers and multipurpose submarines, there is one galley and the food is the same for everyone. The only difference: the crew’s mess is self service while the wardroom is served by well trained orderlies.

There's much more at the link.

It's a fascinating look at how different navies approach the same problems . . . and goes some way towards explaining why the Russian navy is not considered a serious threat by the US Navy or other major maritime powers.

Peter

Garbage disposal FAIL!

Using a burn barrel to dispose of your garbage: can be useful.

Adding a little gasoline to your garbage, to make it easier to burn: potentially useful.

Adding a little too much gasoline to your garbage . . .

. . . not useful at all!



Peter

Night vision may be getting a whole lot cheaper and more accessible

I'm very pleased to see that the ongoing development of night vision systems has led to the announcement of night vision sunglasses. That sounds a bit like a contradiction in terms - I mean, who wears sunglasses at night, apart from the Blues Brothers? - but it's true. Ares reports:

Night-vision goggles have become essential equipment for soldiers and airmen, but are heavy and expensive. Now a University of Florida research team has developed an infrared-to-vision imaging device that is cheap, light and could be added to eyeglasses once the technology is scaled up.

Conventional image-intensifying NVGs require high voltage and a heavy CRT-like vacuum tube to amplify the meager photons of a moonlit night. This makes them bulky, especially when clipped to a pilot's helmet. UF professor Franky So's imaging device uses organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology - as used in cell phone displays - and is thin and light, the university says.

Replacing the vacuum tube with several layers of thin-film organic semiconductors, the device consists of a photodetector connected to a light-emitting diode. Infrared photons are converted to electrons, which are injected into the LED to generate visible light. So far, So's team has produced versions ranging from millimetre- to nickel-size, but manufacture of larger devices is expected to be inexpensive as it could employ the same equipment used to make laptop screens.

There's more at the link.

The University has set up a spinoff company, Nirvision, to commercialize the technology. Their Web site describes the potential for this invention as follows:

Street lighting can be responsible for a significant proportion of an area's energy costs and CO2 production, but is essential for safety and comfort. But what if there was a way to do away completely with street lights?

NIRVision is using nanotechnology to develop flexible, thin films to replace existing night-vision technology. The films use several nano-based components to convert infra-red light into visible light that we can see and understand. The first is a photo-detector film that converts invisible infra-red light into electrons. These electrons then stimulate an optical film, like a thin flexible display, to create a visible image. The overall technology will be less than a 1/2000th of a millimeter in thickness, more sensitive than conventional night-vision technologies and will use just a 1/40th of the energy.

The films will be very flexible and lightweight and can be incorporated into standard glasses or even vehicle windscreens to create night-vision head-up displays. They will also cost a fraction of what it costs to produce conventional night-vision technology. The technology has exciting potential in all security applications. NIRVision technology should be ready for field testing by 2012.

Night-vision spectacles? Night-vision windscreens in our vehicles? In our aircraft? Even in our cellphones? This sounds like a huge advance in this technology - and if it's to be field tested as quickly as 2012, we may be able to buy commercial products incorporating it by 2014/15. I can hardly wait!

Peter

Glad to see the good guy won

Now and again one reads news of a good guy taking down one or more bad guys as they try to do their bad thing. It's often spoiled by the GASP! SHOCK! HORROR! reaction of the news media. Many journalists seem congenitally incapable of understanding that a gun is neither good nor evil: it's morally neutral, an instrument in the hand of the user, who can decide whether to use it for good or bad ends.

In this case, two bad guys decided to use a gun for an evil end: and a good guy with a gun made sure that they came to a bad end instead.

The Walgreens customer who killed a would-be-robber Monday night has been cited for carrying a concealed weapon but won't face a charge in the shooting.

Harry J. McCullough III, 32, had a permit to carry a loaded handgun in plain view — typically in a holster — but did not have a concealed weapons permit, said Omaha Police Officer Jacob Bettin.

McCullough pulled his handgun from the waistband of his pants when he shot and killed Marquail Thomas, a shotgun-wielding 18-year-old and would-be-robber at the Walgreens in Benson Monday night, Bettin said.

McCullough was not arrested in connection with Thomas' death, and Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said Tuesday afternoon that he would not file charges in connection with the shooting.

Bettin said two masked men had entered the Walgreens at 6101 Northwest Radial shortly before 9 p.m.

He said one of the men pointed the shotgun in the direction of the cash register, where several customers were standing in line.

McCullough fired several shots as the shotgun-wielding suspect pointed his weapon at customers. Thomas was hit several times. He fled from the store but collapsed outside.

McCullough then grabbed a second masked man and held him until police arrived, Bettin said.

Thomas was taken to Creighton University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

The second suspect, who authorities identified as 17-year-old Angelo Douglas, was booked into the Douglas County Youth Center on suspicion of robbery and use of a weapon to commit a felony.

Nebraska law allows individuals to use force when their life or another person's life is threatened.

There's more at the link. A video report of the incident may be found here.

It was a very close call . . . one of Mr. McCullough's bullets was reportedly found embedded inside the barrel of Mr. Thomas' shotgun. In other words, the latter was pointing his gun directly at the former, and fortunately was rendered incapable of firing it by his wounds. Things don't get much closer than that!

I'm also pleased to note, in another report, that Mr. McCullough (who was initially cited for the misdemeanor offense of carrying his handgun concealed, rather than openly) won't be charged after all. The DA's office reviewed security video footage of the incident and determined that although his gun was shoved into his waistband, it was still visible, and therefore could be counted as open rather than concealed carry.

Nice going, Mr. McCullough, and thank you.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #348

Today's Doofus is from Australia.

A man who called in police after he was attacked in a home invasion apparently forgot he had $10,000 worth of allegedly illegal drugs on the premises.

Police found the drugs, as well as $9000 in cash and a money-counting machine, when they went to the unit in Corrimal, on the NSW south coast.

The man called police to his home on Thalassa Avenue, just after midnight, saying he had been attacked.

Officers found blood throughout the unit, but said they also found the drugs, including 4.3 kilograms of cannabis and 77 tablets believed to be ecstasy.

The 25-year-old man was taken to Wollongong Hospital with an injured finger and was later charged with supplying and possessing prohibited drugs, and dealing with the proceeds of crime.

He was refused bail and was due to appear in Wollongong Local Court.

I'm sure the cops were absolutely delighted to be presented with the evidence on a plate, as it were. Next time perhaps our Doofus will be more circumspect!



Peter

Yet another threat to privacy

It's reported that scientists have come up with a new way to monitor 'everything'. CNN reports:

In the 1990s, a researcher named Kris Pister dreamed up a wild future in which people would sprinkle the Earth with countless tiny sensors, no larger than grains of rice.

These "smart dust" particles, as he called them, would monitor everything, acting like electronic nerve endings for the planet. Fitted with computing power, sensing equipment, wireless radios and long battery life, the smart dust would make observations and relay mountains of real-time data about people, cities and the natural environment.

Now, a version of Pister's smart dust fantasy is starting to become reality.

"It's exciting. It's been a long time coming," said Pister, a computing professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

"I coined the phrase 14 years ago. So smart dust has taken a while, but it's finally here."

Maybe not exactly how he envisioned it. But there has been progress.

The latest news comes from the computer and printing company Hewlett-Packard, which recently announced it's working on a project it calls the "Central Nervous System for the Earth." In coming years, the company plans to deploy a trillion sensors all over the planet.

The wireless devices would check to see if ecosystems are healthy, detect earthquakes more rapidly, predict traffic patterns and monitor energy use. The idea is that accidents could be prevented and energy could be saved if people knew more about the world in real time, instead of when workers check on these issues only occasionally.

HP will take its first step toward this goal in about two years, said Pete Hartwell, a senior researcher at HP Labs in Palo Alto. The company has made plans with Royal Dutch Shell to install 1 million matchbook-size monitors to aid in oil exploration by measuring rock vibrations and movement, he said. Those sensors, which already have been developed, will cover a 6-square-mile area.

That will be the largest smart dust deployment to date, he said.

"We just think now, the technology has reached a point where it makes basic sense for us ... to get this out of the lab and into reality," Hartwell said.

. . .

The sheer number of sensors in the network is what truly makes a smart dust project different from other efforts to record data about the world, said Deborah Estrin, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles, who works in the field.

Smart dust researchers tend to talk in the millions, billions and trillions.

Some say reality has diverged so far from the smart dust concept that it's time to dump that term in favor or something less sexy. "Wireless sensor networks" or "meshes" are terms finding greater acceptance with some researchers.

Estrin said it's important to ditch the idea that smart dust sensors would be disposable.

Sensors have to be designed for specific purposes and spread out on the land intentionally -- not scattered in the wind, as smart dust was initially pitched, she said.

. . .

Wireless sensors currently monitor farms, factories, data centers and bridges to promote efficiency and understanding of how these systems work, researchers said in interviews.

In all of these cases, the sensor networks are deployed for a specific purpose.

For example, a company called Streetline has installed 12,000 sensors on parking spots and highways in San Francisco. The sensors don't know everything that's going on at those parking spots. They are equipped with magnetometers to sense whether or not a huge metal object -- hopefully a car -- is sitting on the spot.

That data will soon be available to people who can use it to figure out where to park, said Tod Dykstra, Streetline's CEO.

It also tells the cities if the meters have expired.

Other sensors are equipped to measure vibration in factories and oil refineries to spot machine problems and inefficiencies before they cause trouble. Still others might pick up data about temperature, chemistry or sound. Tiny cameras or radars also can be tacked onto the data-collecting network to detect the presence of people or vehicles.

The power of these networks is that they eventually can be connected, said David Culler, a computer science professor at UC Berkeley.

Culler says the development of these wireless sensor networks is analogous to the creation of the World Wide Web. What's being created with the smart dust idea is a "Real World Web," he said.

. . .

Even when deployed for science or the public, some people still get a Big Brother feeling -- the uncomfortable sense of being under constant, secret surveillance -- from the idea of putting trillions of monitors all over the world.

"It's a very, very, very huge potential privacy invasion because we're talking about very, very small sensors that can be undetectable, effectively," said Lee Tien, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocate.

"They are there in such numbers that you really can't do anything about them in terms of easy countermeasures."

That doesn't mean that researchers should stop working on smart dust. But they should be mindful of privacy as the work progresses, he said.

Pister said the wireless frequencies that smart dust sensors use to communicate -- which work kind of like Wi-Fi -- have security built into them. So the data is public only if the person or company that installed the sensor wants it to be, he said.

"Clearly, there are security concerns and privacy concerns," he said, "and the good news is that when the radio technology was being developed for this stuff, it was shortly after all of the big concerns about Wi-Fi security. ... We've got all the security tools we need underneath to make this information private."

Further privacy concerns may arise if another vision for smart dust comes true. Some researchers are looking into making mobile phones into sensors.

In this scenario, the billions of people roaming the Earth with cell phones become the "smart dust."

There's more at the link.

Y'know, this sounds all very well, and I can understand why scientists are excited at the prospect . . . but what will it mean for personal privacy? In the past few days I've mentioned micro air vehicles that can cling inconspicuously to surfaces, transmitting data to their home base. What happens if they're joined to a network of 'smart dust' sensors as well? Will there be anywhere on Earth that we can be alone and in private?

These new technologies may be great from a research perspective, but I'm afraid I rate personal privacy rather higher on my scale of relative values than I do universal data gathering and storage. I suspect I'm far from alone in that perspective. I wonder what (if anything) the scientists will do to accommodate our concerns?

Peter

A very funny look at weddings

Lucy Mangan describes how, after having given up on the idea of marriage, she found herself swept off her feet - and the challenges of getting ready for the big day. I laughed out loud at several of her comments. Here's a couple of excerpts:

First of all, despite coming from a Catholic family, I don't believe in God. And while this doesn't exactly mean I therefore believe that marriage is 'just a piece of paper', it does remove one of the traditional main impetuses towards embracing the state.

Second - well, it has just always seemed like such an impossibly huge thing to be doing.

You don't have to believe in God to be daunted by the prospect of plighting your troth to someone for ever. I've watched a million friends get hitched and I've never come to see it as a mechanical or soulless experience.

At some point during every service I find myself become overwhelmed by the enormity of the undertaking. Not just at assembling unboned chicken breasts for 90 people, but promising yourself to someone else for life. For life. For life.

It always seemed to me the most grown-up thing you could possibly do. I know having children should have taken that pole position, but a lot of my friends got pregnant at school (well, not at school - at the nightclub round the corner) so childbearing has always been, in my mind, more firmly linked with adolescent idiocy and haphazard condom application than maturity and decision making.

Marriage, on the other hand - that's different. Among my friends, it is only those who take the matter seriously who have bothered. I've never been to a wedding where people are sitting in the back pews muttering 'Of course, it'll never last' because the couple at the front are 17, met three days ago in Faliraki and haven't sobered up yet.

. . .

I first met Christopher at a mutual friend's book launch. After a few glasses of wine, I was chatting to a group of fellow guests when I noticed a man standing by the window. He caught my eye for many reasons.

First, there were the clothes - an ancient pair of blue cord trousers, a frayed red gingham shirt and a green (probably) velvet (originally) jacket. He had a shock of thick, prematurely grey hair and a furious face.

When he caught me looking at him, he raised his glass so unsmilingly that my first thought was to wonder whether you could be hit in the face by a face.

My second thought was to raise my glass in turn, go cross-eyed and stick my tongue out so far that I almost licked my shoulder.

A moment later he was by my side. 'I've been looking for a woman who would realise that I can't help my terrible face all my life,' he said. 'I hoped I was beaming at you over there,' he said, frowning ferociously, 'but I wasn't, was I?' 'No,' I said.

'What about now?' he said, still frowning in a manner that would have killed any small child in the vicinity. 'Not really.' From such unpromising beginnings did our relationship grow.

. . .

The desire to get married, I realised, grows out of a desire to mark the difference in quality of this relationship from all the others.

And from there, it is but a small step to all-out madness. Within, I think, seven minutes of us arriving home from New York, my mother and sister arrived with 18 bags of paper, Europe's entire supply of lever arch files and a gleam in their eyes that boded ill for all of my hopes of a lowkey affair.

'We've printed out the internet,' said my sister with a demonic grin. 'Let's get to work.'

There's more at the link. Recommended, heart-warming and frequently very funny reading.

Peter

Now that's a dam!

I was amazed to read of a gigantic beaver dam in Canada.

This woodland construction is actually the world's biggest beaver dam. It is so big that it spans twice the width of the Hoover dam and can even be seen from space.




The enormous edifice measures 2,790ft (850 metres) in length and shows the skill of the big-toothed furry animals.

The mammals use trees, mud and stone to make a type of moat where they can use their swimming skills to evade any predators.

The families live in lodges on the dams and spend their days adding to and repairing the incredible structures.




The dam was spotted by experts monitoring the size and spread of the beaver dams in north America.

It is located on the southern edge of Wood Buffalo National Park in Northern Alberta, Canada.

There's more at the link, including more photographs.

It's astonishing to think that a few families of relatively small animals can be so industrious as to build a dam that big! Shows what hard work and singleness of purpose can accomplish, I guess.

Peter

The Nashville floods

I've moved to Tennessee, as some readers know, and thought I'd left hurricane season behind in Louisiana: but this weekend demonstrated that Tennessee has some pretty wild weather of its own! We had torrential rain Saturday and Sunday, easily equivalent to what a minor hurricane would dump. The only blessing was that we didn't have the high winds to go with it. Here's a radar image from Weather Underground showing cumulative rainfall over last Saturday and Sunday.




As you can see, there are some big patches where 15+ inches were recorded; and the highest rainfall metered at one station was 26.6"! That's hurricane-quantity rain in anyone's book!

Today was fine and sunny, and things have begun to dry out in places. Other areas, unfortunately, are still experiencing rising water, as the downpour drains off into rivers, which continue to rise and inundate low-lying areas. Here are a few photographs taken during and after the rainstorm, showing its dramatic impact. They were e-mailed to me by friends, apart from one that I took myself.

It got real dark, real quick . . .

No, that's not a time-exposure, that's really how hard it was raining!

A lot of cars went slip-sliding away in torrents like this. Several people drowned.

A timely announcement?

Lots of houses like this one, flooded out and probably beyond economical repair.
Because many areas weren't in traditional flood plains, few owners had flood insurance.

As a friend commented on seeing this one: "No s***, Sherlock!"

At least the overflowing rivers brought the fish within easy catching reach!

Lots of roads like this one. Many motorists were stranded far from home,
and had to spend at least one night with friends or in emergency shelters.

Er . . . yep, you might say that!

Funny to see ducks sheltering from the rain beneath a gazebo - while swimming!

This is a mile or so from my home.

So is this.

The commuter trains won't be running for a while.

Waterfront homes, going cheap!

The damage is truly massive. I've no idea what the clean-up and repair costs will be, but they're bound to be in the multiple billions of dollars. The rivers are still in flood, many only cresting tonight, and they'll only start to drop tomorrow: so there are many areas where rescue workers and damage assessment crews can't even get access yet.

Miss D. is going to be heartsore, too: the Cornelia Fort airport, where she'd hoped to base her light aircraft, is completely under water, and all the planes on it (except one) are submerged. TV images are surreal: hangars submerged to their roofs; a Cessna 172 with only its wings and the tips of the tail and propeller above water; a Beechcraft showing only the latter, its low wings invisible beneath the muddy soup; a twin-engine aircraft (the exception mentioned above) that's been towed as far as possible up a rise, but not far enough. Water's swirling around its undercarriage and the base of its engines.




I suspect most of the aircraft based there are write-offs. I hope their insurance covers flood damage!

It's been a wild weekend. We'll see how the recovery goes.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #347

Today's Doofus is from England.

It's the sort of silly sea tale that couldn't be made up.

The 32ft Myra Two motor cruiser had to be guided to safety by coastguards yesterday after its captain ran aground as he attempted to sail out of the River Thames.

It turned out the hapless mariner and his passenger had no maps, emergency flares or radio - and had been using a car sat-nav system to help guide them through the treacherous waters.

. . .

A source said: 'Leaving port with no radio, no maps and no flares is bad enough, but using a sat-nav system designed for cars is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard in my life.

'Sat-navs are for roads, not the sea - and if the captain of a vessel doesn't know that he should not be in control of a boat.'

There's more at the link.

I'd love to know what a boat skipper would do when his GPS tells him to turn right at the next traffic light!



Peter

Feel-good story of the week!

I have to admit to uttering an "Awwww!" or two (or three) over this story.

These extraordinary images show the trust and understanding developed between children and orphaned elephants calves rescued from a forest.

The one-year-old elephants live in Arignar Anna Zoo in Chennai, southern India, where they are cared for by a team of mahouts - a person who works with the animals - and their children.

The youngsters are carried home from school on the elephant's backs, shower together, play football and even sleep curled up with them.




Zoo staff believe without this friendship and love the orphaned elephants would have died soon after being rescued.

Mahout Rajan, 25, said his four-year-old daughter Lavindya has a special bond with the orphans.

"When she says 'stop' the calf obeys her," he said.

"She is very gentle with them and they will wrap their trunks around her to show their love. Such is the bond the calves will only go to sleep when the children cuddle up and pat their backs."

This extraordinary emotional bond between child and elephant has been developing over the past year since the zoo took in its first orphan.

Rangers found Sharon wandering alone in the forest and brought her to the zoo. Now the 14-month-old orphan has a fixed routine along with the three other baby elephants Narsima, Urigam and four-month-old Giri.

Their day starts with a morning bath, and it's not just the elephants who get a scrub down.

The children join in too, and 14-month-old Urigam can't resist grabbing the bucket with his trunk and pouring water over gorgeous Lavindya.

Lying in the small pool, the youngsters splash cooling water over the elephants and tickle their tummies with a scrubbing brush.

"Every morning at 7am they wait at the place where the kids have a bath before going to school," said Rajan.

"They are so punctual and they adore showering with the children." Breakfast follows bath time and once again the children are quick to help feed the orphans a mix of milk, coconut water and glucose.

The mahouts feed the elephants every three hours with their favorite snacks of water-melon, bananas and sugarcane, to build up their strength.

Fed and washed, the youngsters head off to school but out here in the bush there is no school bus to collect the students.

Instead Lavindya, Nandini, 4, Nandgopal, 8, and Anu, 6, hop onto the elephants backs and trundle through the scrubland to their village school. The elephants carefully carry their school bags in their trunks.

There's more at the link, including more photographs.

Call me a soppy sentimentalist if you like, but I love stories like this - particularly because I've worked with orphaned elephant calves in South Africa, and know just how intelligent and social they are.

Peter

"Pixie Dust": magical therapy or quack nostrum?

There's a new report about the material known as 'pixie dust' and its healing properties. I remember when this stuff first hit the headlines in 2008, and was immediately debunked by 'experts' as not having been proven to have any therapeutic effect, despite the headlines. The new report seems pretty positive.

A powder nick-named "Pixie Dust" is being used to save the limbs of war heroes who have been wounded in Afghanistan.

Surgeons have already used the dust to save several soldiers so badly mutilated that they were at risk of amputation.

Made from pig bladders it has the ability to help the human body grow new tissue to replace large areas of a leg or arm destroyed by blast damage.

. . .

Pig bladders contain a substance called extra cellular matrix, which is made up largely of collagen.

Scientists have already used powdered pig bladders [to] help grow replacement human bladders.

But researchers working for the American military realised the substance might also help hundreds of wounded soldiers.

Professor Steve Wolf - one [of] the US's top plastic surgeons - is carrying out a trial in Houston, Texas on victims of the Afghan fighting and has already treated several young soldiers whose limbs were so badly damaged they were unable to walk or faced amputation.

He said: 'The word has got around about how this substance from pig bladders has got this magic ability to grow new tissue. Then one day one of the patients used the phrase 'pixie dust' to describe it and the name stuck.

'We don't quite know how it works which adds to its magical qualities. We think that it attracts cells in the body that have the ability to multiply and gives them a chemical signal to make new tissue.'

. . .

Corporal Hernandez, a 25-year-old marine, was wounded in 2008, in an incident in which a colleague died.

He said: 'The surgery that Dr Wolf performed has been fantastic. Within a few weeks of the operation last year I was doing things with the leg I hadn't done for months.

'It was so quick that you could almost see it growing and filling the hole where I was blasted.

'Before I had the sheets made from pigs bladder put into my leg I could barely use it. I had to crawl upstairs or take the elevator and I was either on sticks or in a wheelchair. It was pretty much useless.

'I had only 10 per cent strength in my injured leg compared to my good leg which was one reason why they'd wanted to amputate.

'After the operation it was up to 25 per cent. Now my leg is back to 35 per cent strength and I'm able to get out on my mountain bike and I can walk as far as I want.

'The Extra Cellular membrane had not only made muscle but also built nerves. I could feel my limb tingling as the new tissues grew.'

'Professor Wolfe has said there's a good chance I might be able to go back to active duty.'

He had a gaping, crater-like wound, in his thigh right down to the bone and doctors had no way of replacing the muscle and other tissue that had been blown away.

Professor Wolf operated and instead of using powered bladder he used it in sheet form putting layers of it into the large wound in leg Corporal Hernandez's leg.

Magically over a period of several weeks new tissue and muscle grew until the wound was filled.

Professor Wolf said: 'This was an amazing result. It was quite a sight to see the body regenerate in this way because in the past we have not been able to replace muscle and tissue once it has been lost.'

There's more at the link.

I note that the Wikipedia article on extra cellular matrix has a cautionary label [in the 'medical applications' section] saying that it sounds like an advertisement for the stuff - with which I agree. I really don't know where to get unbiased, solid, scientific information. If anyone has a good source, please post it in Comments.

Do any readers have any experience with this stuff, either on the receiving end, or as a therapist involved in its use? Is it really the 'magic bullet' that the article above would have us believe, or is there room for doubt? Please let us know in Comments.

Peter

When justice is not only blind, but deaf and dumb as well!

I'm astonished to read of a miscarriage of justice in Holland that's only just been corrected. It has implications for judicial systems all over the world, which is why I'm highlighting it here. The Globe & Mail reports:

Ms. [Lucia] de Berk ... has lived a Kafkaesque nightmare for the past nine years, sentenced to life in prison for crimes that Dutch prosecutors admitted may never have occurred.

She was convicted of murdering seven patients and attempting to kill three others while she was working in three Dutch hospitals between 1997 and 2001. She served six years in prison, two of them under constant observation on a psychiatric ward, before she was publicly exonerated earlier this month.

While in jail, she suffered a stroke that left her partially paralyzed. She still has no use of her right hand.

Throughout her trials and appeals, Ms. de Berk, who is now 48, insisted she is innocent. Legal scholars and a support committee campaigned for her release, and the case is the subject of books and documentaries.

“In the beginning, when it all starts, you don’t believe it’s going to last as long as it does,” she says. “So after you’re first in prison, you think this is such a mistake and they’re going to find that out.”

With each twist and turn of the legal process, her hopes were revived and then dashed. “After the first three months, they say more investigations have to be done, so you think, okay, I can last another three months,” she recalls. “And then there would be something else. And that’s how you hang on.”

The case against Ms. de Berk began after a hospital investigation of the death of an infant on her watch. It ultimately turned on faulty statistical probabilities.

An expert witness for the state testified that the chances were one in 342 million that so many suspicious deaths would take place during the shifts of one particular nurse. But his data and method of calculating the odds were eventually discredited, as prosecutors finally conceded when they asked for the dismissal of all the charges against Ms. de Berk last month.

On April 14, a court granted the acquittal. In their ruling, the judges said that there was no evidence that any of the patients she had been accused of killing had died of anything other than natural causes.

Ms. de Berk was in the courtroom to hear the decision, although the Dutch Attorney-General had called her to his office two weeks earlier to inform her and to apologize personally. He later apologized in public.

There's more at the link.

This leaves me open-mouthed with astonishment. Am I to understand that Ms. de Berk was convicted, not on the basis of forensic evidence or the testimony of eye-witnesses, but solely on the grounds of statistical probability - and flawed statistics at that??? What sort of justice system would even dream of convicting anyone on such grounds? Surely they'd heard the old saw that there are "lies, damned lies, and statistics"?

I've never heard of any other court case where guilt or innocence was decided solely on the basis of statistics, and by the evidence of a single 'expert' witness (who turned out to be anything but expert!). Does any reader know of a similar incident? If so, please let us know in Comments. Meanwhile, one can only wish Ms. de Berk well as she gets used to her freedom again, and trust that she'll receive a handsome payout from the Dutch government for her wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

Peter

A miniature aircraft with a difference!

The Biomimetics & Dextrous Manipulation Laboratory at Stanford University has come up with what they call the 'Perching Project'. It's trying to produce a series of MAV's (micro aerial vehicles) for reconnaissance and surveillance. The vision of the designer is stated thus:

A flock of small, unmanned air vehicles flies quietly into a city, maneuvering among the buildings. They communicate as they search for places to land, not on streets or flat rooftops but on the sides of buildings and under the eaves, where they can cling, bat or insect-like, in safety and obscurity. Upon identifying landing sites, each flier turns toward a wall, executes an intentional stall and, as it begins to fall, attaches itself using feet equipped with miniature spines that engage small asperities on the surface. Using its propeller in combination with its limbs, the flier can creep along the wall and reorient for a better view. With opposed pairs of spines, the flier clings tenaciously to resist gusts of wind and ride out inclement weather. The fliers stay attached for hours or days, consuming little power and emitting no sound as they monitor the area. When finished, they launch themselves with a jump and become airborne again, ready for their next mission.

Ares reports on the project:

Stanford's testbed is a Flatana RC aeroplane with a powerful electric motor (giving an aerobatic capability that comes in handy), Paparazzi autopilot, three-axis inertial sensors, and an ultrasound sensor to detect the wall. The jointed landing legs have a foam "hip", short balsa/carbon "femur" and long carbonfiber "tibia". Each of the feet has five microspines, or "toes".

On sensing the wall, the aircraft pitches up to reduce speed and shuts down the motor to protect the propeller. The highly compliant, highly damped suspension both absorbs the remaining kinetic energy and directs the forces to the feet to engage the microspines on small bumps or pits in the brick, concrete, stucco or wood, allowing the aircraft to cling to the vertical surface.




To take off, the microspines are retracted electrically, the aircraft drops, the motor starts and it hovers briefly before transitioning to forward flight.




For a more efficient MAV with lower thrust-to-weight ratio, Stanford is looking at using a pigeon-inspired jump maneuver to get the aircraft off the wall and airborne.

Work is already being done on MAVs that can land and crawl on horizontal surfaces, but Stanford wants to develop the capablity to maneuver on sloped and vertical surfaces to reposition the vehicle. An example of a flying/crawling MAV is the Micro Air-Land Vehicle (MALV) developed by the University of Florida by equipping its hand-launched micro-UAV with "Whegs" (wheeled legs) developed by Case Western Reserve University.

The way ahead is shown by the SpinyBot developed by Stanford and now under development by Boston Dynamics as the RiSE climbing robot, which has six legs tipped by micro-claws.

There's more at the link.

The video below shows how the MAV works, including a fascinating close-up look at its 'toes' that grip the wall upon landing.

It's a very interesting development . . . also a bit creepy. In the not too distant future, if one sees what one thinks is an insect settling on a wall nearby, it might not be an insect at all - it might be relaying audio and video data back to a controller!

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #346

Today's Doofus is from Pittsburgh.

The afternoon service at Poale Zedeck synagogue on Tuesday had drawn to a close, and some of the congregants lingered to listen to the rabbi speak in what should have been a tranquil moment.

"We heard what sounded like a bomb," said Marcia Robkin, who rushed to the doors with dozens of other temple-goers, fearing the worst. Maybe the landmark synagogue at Phillips and Shady avenues in the heart of Squirrel Hill had been targeted, they thought. Maybe it was a hate crime.

Outside, they saw a smoke-billowing car halfway up the steps, metal handrails, a lantern, and a concrete wall in ruin, and two men darting up Shady Avenue. So they chased after them.

They were further mystified after they managed to capture the struggling driver.

"He said, 'You're not going to believe this, but I'm the messiah,' " said Michael Cohen, one of several men who tackled Adam Disabato to the ground and held him there until police arrived. "He was in a seemingly religious state of mind, but I'm not quite sure he knew where he crashed into."

. . .

Mr. Disabato, 30, of Squirrel Hill, remained jailed Wednesday on charges of institutional vandalism and a plethora of traffic crimes. The passenger, Steven Bradford, wasn't charged. Mr. Bradford told police the two were en route to a relative of Mr. Bradford's in Wilkinsburg, and that he repeatedly told Mr. Disabato to slow down.

Moments before he struck the synagogue, police said, Mr. Disabato hit a moving car while trying to make a right turn onto Forward Avenue. Witnesses said he backed up and sped off, then turned north onto Shady.

. . .

Mr. Disabato defended his actions to his captors, saying he was mentally ill, that he was God and that "he was sent by God to do this purposeful act," police wrote in his criminal complaint. He talked about Osama bin Laden and religious propaganda, and said he and a friend were "hanging out at my apartment, and I got a call from God telling me to do this," the complaint says. "I'm not crazy," he said. "I'm just doing God's work."

Police called the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force but did not consider the crash a hate crime as of Wednesday. Police who questioned Mr. Disabato asked him if perhaps he wanted to change his story to a more reasonable one.

"Isn't it true that when people say they are God, they get off with an insanity plea?" he said, according to the complaint. "I'm not crazy and I don't hear voices. I just got a feeling sent by God to drive real fast for some reason."

There's more at the link.

Uh-huh. Good luck using that excuse in court!

Peter

A new long-range sniper record

The ranges at which enemies can be engaged with modern sniper rifles seem to get longer and longer as the technology improves. The previous record was held by a Canadian sniper, Corporal Rob Furlong, equipped with a McMillan Tac-50 rifle in caliber .50 BMG. In 2002 he hit a Taliban opponent in Afghanistan at the remarkable range of 2,430 meters (2,657½ yards, or 7,972½ feet) with his second shot.

Corporal Furlong's record has just been broken by a British sniper. The Times reports:

A BRITISH Army sniper has set a new sharpshooting distance record by killing two Taliban machinegunners in Afghanistan from more than 1 miles away.

Craig Harrison, a member of the Household Cavalry, killed the insurgents with consecutive shots — even though they were 3,000ft beyond the most effective range of his rifle.

“The first round hit a machinegunner in the stomach and killed him outright,” said Harrison, a Corporal of Horse. “He went straight down and didn’t move.

“The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and turned as my second shot hit him in the side. He went down, too. They were both dead.”

The shooting — which took place while Harrison’s colleagues came under attack — was at such extreme range that the 8.59mm [.338-inch] bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target after leaving the barrel of the rifle at almost three times the speed of sound.

The distance to Harrison’s two targets was measured by a GPS system at 8,120ft (2,707 yards, or 2,475 meters), or 1.54 miles. The previous record for a sniper kill is 7,972ft, set by a Canadian soldier who shot dead an Al-Qaeda gunman in March 2002.

. . .

Harrison and his colleagues were in open-topped Jackal 4x4 vehicles providing cover for an Afghan national army patrol south of Musa Qala in November last year. When the Afghan soldiers and Harrison’s troop commander came under enemy fire, the sniper, whose vehicle was further back on a ridge, trained his sights on a Taliban compound in the distance. His L115A3 long-range rifle, the army’s most powerful sniper weapon, is designed to be effective at up to 4,921ft and supposedly capable of only “harassing fire” beyond that range.

L115A3 Long Range Rifle (click image for a larger view)

“We saw two insurgents running through its courtyard, one in a black dishdasha, one in green,” he said. “They came forward carrying a PKM machinegun, set it up and opened fire on the commander’s wagon.

“Conditions were perfect, no wind, mild weather, clear visibility. I rested the bipod of my weapon on a compound wall and aimed for the gunner firing the machinegun.

“The driver of my Jackal, Trooper Cliff O’Farrell, spotted for me, providing all the information needed for the shot, which was at the extreme range of the weapon.”

Harrison killed one machinegunner with his first attempt and felled the other with his next shot. He then let off a final round to knock the enemy weapon out of action.

Harrison discovered that he had set a new record only on his return to UK barracks nine days ago. The previous record was held by Corporal Rob Furlong, of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, who was using a 12.7mm McMillan TAC-50 rifle.

Tom Irwin, a director of Accuracy International, the British manufacturer of the L115A3 rifle, said: “It is still fairly accurate beyond 4,921ft, but at that distance luck plays as much of a part as anything.”

There's more at the link.

I'm particularly impressed with this feat of marksmanship because of the caliber used. The .338 Lapua Magnum is a much smaller and lighter round than the .50 BMG which has dominated ultra-long-range marksmanship up to now. It's designed specifically for long-range sniper work, but had been regarded by many US marksmen as simply not as good as the larger round for such tasks.

Cartridge size comparison, from left to right:
5.56x45mm. (.223 Remington) - standard US infantry M4/M16 round
.338 Lapua Magnum (as used in the British L115A3 Long Range Rifle)
.50 BMG (as used in US long-range sniper rifles such as those from Barrett or McMillan)

Corporal Harrison's achievement is likely to make many of them reconsider their options, particularly because rifles built for the smaller round are a lot lighter and less bulky than those made to absorb the recoil of the heavier .50 BMG round. This makes them much easier to carry for extended periods.

Congratulations to Corporal Harrison on his remarkable marksmanship.

Peter

I never knew fishing could be so entertaining!

The well-known angler and TV personality, Bill Dance, has apparently not always been so suave and debonair in front of the cameras. Here's a few out-takes of shots that went wrong.

Kudos to Mr. Dance for letting these make it out of the cutting-room!



Peter

Doofus Of The Day #345

Here's a hint to would-be blackmailers and extortionists: it pays to check out your target carefully before putting your plans into action. Today's Doofus, from Wisconsin, found that out the hard way.

An Appleton woman's attempt to extort $500,000 from an upscale Grand Chute restaurant was "crazy and outlandish," her defense attorney said Friday at her sentencing.

Debbie Miller will spend nine months in jail and four years on probation instead of collecting hush money after planting a rat in her lunch.

. . .

She pleaded no contest in January to a felony extortion charge and a misdemeanor for obstructing police. She planted the dead animal in her food April 17, 2008, before asking for the money in exchange for keeping quiet about the incident. She threatened to alert the media if the money wasn't paid.

Police arrested Miller nearly three months later after an investigation conducted by the restaurant's insurance company.

. . .

At the urging of one of their cooks, restaurant owners Bob and Jessica Doller kept the rat after the extortion attempt. Insurance investigators sent it for testing and determined that it was a domestic white rat that had been cooked in a microwave. The restaurant doesn't use microwaves.

Police determined that Miller purchased the rat days before the incident.

There's more at the link.

Uh-huh . . . checking on the ovens and cooking tools used by the restaurant might have brought Ms. Miller more success; but I'm glad she didn't bother to do that. I hope she enjoys the prison food. Based on my experience as a prison chaplain, I can assure her that it's rather more likely to contain rats (and cockroaches, and inmate kitchen assistants' body fluids, and other nasties) than your average restaurant meal - and her chances of suing for redress and compensation are pretty minimal!

Peter

About not judging books by their covers . . .

Via BoingBoing, we're introduced to a British Web site called, intriguingly, 'Good Show, Sir'. It documents the weird and wacky covers sported by many science fiction and fantasy novels. Some of them are real laugh-out-loud oddities. Here are a couple to whet your appetite, with the Web site's comments in italics beneath them.

According to the author, this cover was commissioned for another book
but somehow ended up on hers. It’s very loosely appropriate:
there is a sword, and there is a hero, but he is quite explicitly gay.

I was going to talk about his lack of spacesuit, or his overabundance of cleavage,
or the protruding rock in space. Then I noticed that one of the strange
ghost-images was smoking a cigar, and all words failed me.

There are plenty more at the link. Go read, and enjoy!



Peter