Did Dr. Richard B. Hoover Just Discover Alien Life?

So the methane organisms discovered in that hostile little lake in California weren't such a big deal after all. No harm, no foul—they were at the very least interesting. Interesting, but nothing like this: Dr. Richard Hoover, as astrobiologist with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, claims he's found alien life.

Real alien life. Not weird Earthbound extremophiles or hints of the building blocks of life that are really just errant specks of dust on the lens of a telescope. Life, and not of this Earth.

If Dr. Hoover's paper detailing the find holds up to scrutiny, we can finally, truly say it: We are not alone.

In fact, if Dr. Hoover's paper holds up to the incredibly thorough peer review currently taking place around it, life may in fact be pretty boring and downright common in the grand scheme of the universe.

So what, exactly, did Dr. Hoover find? It's pretty mind-blowing, actually: Contained within nine extremely rare meteorites called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites he discovered what he believes are the fossils of common bacteria that's both similar and nothing like what exists on our planet. In addition to being extremely rare, these meteorites are also some of the oldest in our solar system.

"The exciting thing is that they are in many cases recognizable and can be associated very closely with the generic species here on earth," said Hoover in an interview with Yahoo News. Some of the fossils, however, are quite odd. "There are some that are just very strange and don't look like anything that I've been able to identify, and I've shown them to many other experts that have also come up stump."

More specifically, Hoover claims to have discovered traces of filaments and remnants of algae-like organisms called cyanobacteria. Another find was similar to a bacterium called Titanospirillum velox. They were very Earth-like and unremarkable save for one important difference: They lacked nitrogen.

This caveat is important, as the lack of nitrogen indicates the samples are "the remains of extraterrestrial life forms that grew on the parent bodies of the meteorites when liquid water was present, long before the meteorites entered the Earth's atmosphere," he said.

Hoover is being incredibly open about his paper. As stated above, peer scrutiny has already begun, to the tune of 100 experts who have started dissecting his work in advance of its official publication. A broader, more general invitation was issued to a further 5,000 scientists as well, making this one of the most vetted scientific papers ever. This vetting is a good thing, as Hoover has made claims like this before with other meteorites that ultimately did not pan out.

Should the paper hold up, however, the game is well and truly changed. We are not just "not alone," we are common.

Update: Counterclaims calling the journal a joke and the science suspect have already begun.

Update 2: Bad Astronomy, a blog I read often due to its insightful author and spot-on commentary, debunks this news even more. Sigh.

The Devastating Health Impacts of a Nuclear Crisis

The Japanese authorities have announced that radiation levels surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are increasing to potentially harmful levels. New Scientist investigates the health risks associated with nuclear power plant explosions.

How do nuclear accidents impact health?

Apart from the damage caused by fires and explosions, accidents also release radioactive materials which can cause radiation sickness. Radiation exposure above a certain threshold, usually only received by workers and emergency teams in a stricken plant, causes acute radiation syndrome within hours of exposure. Depending on the dose of radiation this ranges from skin rashes, vomiting and diarrhoea, to coma and death.

Radiation damages DNA, especially as it assembles in dividing cells. That means tissues which contain many dividing cells, such as the gut lining, skin and bone marrow, are most at risk of damage. High enough doses also damage brain cells and such doses are invariably fatal.

Less severe damage can be treated, however. Gut damage disturbs fluid balance and can lead to blood infection; marrow damage means no blood cells are produced for clotting and fighting infection. If those problems can be managed, people can be kept alive long enough for gut and marrow to regenerate. A cloned human hormone that boosts white blood cell production sometimes helps; there is little else.

Fears of nuclear terrorism have recently inspired more funding for research into new treatments, most aiming to limit cell death in damaged tissues.

What radioactive elements are being released at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant?

As nuclear cores melt down, reacting nuclear fuel creates many different radioactive elements, all with different toxic effects. Results from previous accidents at nuclear power plants suggest that inert gases such as xenon and krypton are likely to be released, together with iodine-131, two isotopes of caesium, and possibly strontium, tellurium and rubidium.

What effect do these elements have on the body?

Exposure to any radioactive material is bad: the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission assumes that exposure to anything higher than normal background levels increases health risks.

Xenon and krypton are not retained by the body so they have little effect.

Iodine-131 and caesium are more damaging, however. Iodine is actively taken up by the thyroid gland to make hormones. If iodine-131, which emits beta particles, is taken up, this can damage DNA and cause thyroid cancer.

Following the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion in Ukraine in 1986, more than 6000 people developed thyroid cancer, probably after drinking contaminated milk as children, according to an investigation by the UN released in February. For unknown reasons iodine-131 does not seem to affect adults.

These cancers can be prevented if children are given pills containing the non-radioactive isotope of iodine soon after exposure. These saturate the thyroid with safe iodine and stop it taking up the radioactive kind. Most children did not get these pills after Chernobyl. They are now being distributed in Japan.

Vast amounts of caesium-137 were distributed across 40 per cent of Europe's surface after Chernobyl. Environmental levels remain elevated in wildlife, with restrictions still in place on eating some sheep farmed in the UK, and game and mushrooms from elsewhere. However, exposure to environmental caesium-137 from Chernobyl has never been linked conclusively to any direct health effects in people, although researchers are divided over whether there is no effect, or just not enough data to say.

How do the nuclear reactor explosions happening in Japan compare to previous nuclear disasters?

The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. However, so far it seems more likely to resemble the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident in Pennsylvania in 1979 which, like Fukushima, lost coolant and had a partial meltdown.

So far, the release of radioactivity at Fukushima appears to be closer to what happened at TMI than at Chernobyl. The huge plume of smoke from Chernobyl spread radiation over most of Europe and forced evacuation within a 30-kilometre radius. The gases that escaped TMI, in contrast, might have travelled as far as New York state, but most stayed within 15 kilometres of the plant.

US authorities have found little evidence of any health damage after TMI. But Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Project, a pressure group, claims that deaths from disease have been 26 to 54 per cent higher among young people who were fetuses or babies living downwind of the accident than among local but less exposed people.

He blames the absence of a solid conclusion on poor data on where radionuclides went, and who was exposed to how much. The same arguments will dog Fukushima, unless the data collection is better this time.

Now This Is How You Retrieve Two Massive Solid Rocket Boosters from the Ocean!

I still can't believe this is the first up-close, 480p video of NASA retrieving the space shuttle's two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) from the Atlantic Ocean, and yet it is! The SRBs are, in a word, massive. And they float!

Obviously, right? How else would NASA retrieve these two huge towers of propulsion from the ocean once the space shuttle no longer needs them to achieve orbit around the Earth?

Once the boosters are retrieved by the two teams (Liberty Star and Freedom Star) and a gaggle of divers, they are sent to Utah to be refurbished and stored.

This particular pick-up followed the final launch of Discovery on February 24. Listen for the loud "plunk-plunk" when the second boat gets set to begin the retrieval process.

Qatar Will Use $500,000 Artificial Clouds for the World Cup

When I heard that World Cup 2022 was going to be in Qatar, I was confused like everyone else. Isn't it deathly hot over there? But they've got a solution: to make artificial clouds (something Bill Gates has wanted to do) to cool down the temperature.

Apparently, the artificial clouds, developed by scientists at Qatar University, are made from a "lightweight carbon structure carrying a giant envelope of material containing helium gas." There are four solar-powered engines that will move the "cloud" (via remote control) to block the sun and make the temperature playable. This is cool! But this will also happen in 2022, a whole 11 years from now where we'll likely be using an iPhone 16 (which hopefully by then, will have its own artificial cloud) and seeing a dominant US soccer team win the damn thing. One or the other, at least.

Why Are Millions of Spiders Invading Thousands of Trees and Why Is It Good News?

These huge trees are fully covered with thousands of spiderwebs, something never before seen in Sindh, Pakistan, where this photo was taken. Yes, it's a eewrifying image, but it has had a surprisingly positive effect on the population of this heavily punished part of the world. How, you scream?

These spiders usually crawl on the ground but, when the massive July 2010 floods took over one fifth of the 307,374 square miles of Pakistani land, they escaped to the trees. The water is taking a long time to recede, so they thought it may be a good idea to adapt to the situation, establish camp and have a big party up there. The results is thousands of cocooned trees all around.

Gross? It is. But the United Kingdom's Department for International Development thinks that the massive spiderwebs are a blessing and the eight-legged furry beasties are Bill Gates' new best friends. It seems that these giant sticky pompoms are capturing mosquitoes by the truckload. According to the people in these areas, the mosquito levels are extremely low for this time of the year. Even more so taking into account the vast amount of stagnant water, which acts as a nursery for those bloody winged buggers. As a result, the risk of a malaria plague is a lot lower than what everyone was expecting.

In other words: Thank you, spiders! P.S. If I see any of you around my house, however, I'll smash you faster than Doctor Octopus.

Degradable Nanoparticles Bludgeon Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

MRSA Cells With and Without Nanoparticles MRSA bacteria before, left, and after, right, incubation with a new biodegradable polymer nanoparticle. Cell destruction is clearly visible. The bottom two images are magnified with respect to the top images.

A new breed of biodegradable nanoparticles can glom on to drug-resistant bacteria, breaching their cell walls and leaking out their contents, selectively killing them. The polymer particles could someday be used in anything from injectable treatments for drug-resistant bacteria, to new antibacterial soaps and deodorants, according to inventors at IBM. After their work is done, the particles break apart, flushing away with the invaders they destroyed.

The nanoparticles, which IBM says are relatively inexpensive, were effective against bugs that have been evolving to resist antibiotics, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Preliminary results suggest the particles could also be effective against yeast, fungus and small bacteria like E. coli, IBM says. Research on the new particles is reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature Chemistry.

Antibiotics kill microorganisms in various ways, including interfering with their DNA or interacting with their ability to rebuild their cell walls, explains James Hedrick, advanced organic materials scientist and master inventor at IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. But some of the bugs survive the onslaught, leading to new generations of bacteria that won't succumb to the drugs.

A new class of positively charged plastic micro-machines, including IBM's nanoparticles, take a somewhat more physical approach.

"These are designed to slice the cell membrane, to rip the membrane up and eliminate the contents," Hedrick said. "It's kind of like the way a virus would work - a virus drills a pore, empties the contents and hijacks it. This is drilling in little holes, and all the contents leak out."

Transmission electron micrographs show it works: As the images show, the cell walls have been ruptured and everything inside is gone. The best part is that bacteria cannot evolve resistance because it's a physical attack, not a chemical one.

These particles are special because they self-assemble in water and are biodegradable, unlike other nanoparticle treatments. They're made of amphiphilic polycarbonate material, meaning some of the particles are water-loving and some are water-phobic. When exposed to fluids - like serum or blood - the polycarbonate self-assembles into clumps about 200 nanometers in size. Another part of the clump is positively charged, designed to match the negatively charged surface of microbes, Hedrick said.

Cell walls are dynamic barriers, constantly morphing and changing as they divide. When something binds to their surface, the walls' synthesis is interrupted. Penicillin, for instance, binds to an enzyme that helps build the walls. Hedrick and collaborators at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore say the charged particles interact with the cell walls to destabilize them.

"These particles are cationic (positively charged), so they are attracted to the microbial membrane surface, and it begins to disrupt that dynamic assembly process of the membrane," Hedrick said.

The authors also report that the particles can be used at relatively low concentrations. Hedrick said they're not sure what makes the particles so effective, but it's probably because they can each kill multiple cells, moving on to new targets after the membranes are so disfigured that static no longer binds the cells and nanoparticles together.

"A little of the polymer goes a long way," Hedrick said.

After a few days of this, enzymes start breaking apart the chains that hold the particles together, said Bob Allen, senior manager at IBM-Almaden's Advanced Materials Chemistry department.

"Think of the enzyme as a pair of scissors - it will go through and snip it. It's just a weak link that allows you to have a degradable system," he said.

The particles degrade to molecules of alcohol and carbon dioxide, which are removed just like anything else in the bloodstream.

IBM believes the particles could be a new way to treat drug-resistant bacteria, especially MRSA, which is frequently associated with hospital infections. The company says antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a fertile field for its polymer research labs - chemists do focus primarily on electronics, but chip-scale research translates well to research in health care, water purification, and energy, Allen said.

Hedrick and Allen cautioned that they're not clinicians and they don't know how the particles would be used. But they were optimistic about the possibilities.

"The applications are going to be very diverse, whether we're talking about wound healing or dressing, skin infection, and quite possibly injections into the bloodstream," Hedrick said. "But this is way early in the discovery process to be going there."

Resourceful Nebraskan Moron Sucks Change from Laundry Machines with Backpack Vacuum

This is an odd convergence of ingenuity and idiocy: a man tried to clean out (tee hee) the coin coffers of an apartment laundry room with a backpack-mounted vacuum cleaner. He netted $20! And was then arrested.

The saddest part of this story? The local news report's claim that he "no longer has the vacuum." Well now he's just going to have to steal one of those too! Also noted is his prior criminal record, including the theft of "an artificial Christmas tree from the Salvation Army and 32 pallets from Super Saver." This man is clearly the Lex Luther of petty, strange, Midwestern crime. He even sort of looks like a supervillain.