Astrophysicists Map Milky Way's Four Spiral Arms
ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2009) — A research team that has developed the first complete map of the Milky Way galaxy's spiral arms. The map shows the inner part of the Milky Way has two prominent, symmetric spiral arms, which extend into the outer galaxy where they branch into four spiral arms.
"For the first time these arms are mapped over the entire Milky Way," said Iowa State University's Martin Pohl, an associate professor of physics and astronomy. "The branching of two of the arms may explain why previous studies -- using mainly the inner or mainly the outer galaxy -- have found conflicting numbers of spiral arms."
The new map was developed by Pohl, Peter Englmaier of the University of Zurich in Switzerland and Nicolai Bissantz of Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany.
As the sun and other stars revolve around the center of the Milky Way, researchers cannot see the spiral arms directly, but have to rely on indirect evidence to find them. In the visible light, the Milky Way appears as an irregular, densely populated strip of stars. Dark clouds of dust obscure the galaxy's central region so it cannot be observed in visible light.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Cosmic Background Explorer satellite was able to map the Milky Way in infrared light using an instrument called the Diffuse IR Background Experiment. The infrared light makes the dust clouds almost fully transparent.
Englmaier and Bissantz used the infrared data from the satellite to develop a kinematic model of gas flow in the inner galaxy. Pohl used the model to reconstruct the distribution of molecular gas in the galaxy. And that led to the researchers' map of the galaxy's spiral arms.
The Milky Way is the best studied galaxy in the universe because other galaxies are too far away for detailed observations. And so studies of the galaxy are an important reference point for the interpretation of other galaxies.
Astrophysicists know that the stars in the Milky Way are distributed as a disk with a central bulge dominated by a long bar-shaped arrangement of stars. Outside this central area, stars are located along spiral arms.
In addition to the two main spiral arms in the inner galaxy, two weaker arms exist. These arms end about 10,000 light-years from the galaxy's center. (The sun is located about 25,000 light-years from the galactic center.) One of these arms has been known for a long time, but has always been a mystery because of its large deviation from circular motion. The new model explains the deviation as a result of alternations to its orbit caused by the bar's gravitational pull. The other, symmetric arm on the far side of the galaxy was recently found in gas data.
The discovery of this second arm was a great relief for Englmaier: "Finally it is clear that our model assumption of symmetry was correct and the inner galaxy is indeed quite symmetric in structure."
Other scientific groups are already interested in using the new map for their research. A group from France, for example, hopes to use it in their search for dark matter.
My Comment: By now it should be clear that one just can’t look out of the window and see the laws and structures of the universe. Except that you can do exactly that, if you know what you’re seeing. What you’re seeing is a fractal structure. The same can be said about books that are considered holy, that you can’t just pick them up, read the words, and understand what you’re reading. Except that you can, if you know that you are reading about a description of a fractal structure—the universe. It takes some serious thought and study to see that the Torah is describing a fractal universe, beginning with the four rivers of Eden. And because of the time needed to get from the illusion that you’re reading about a garden and only a garden—to understanding that you’re really beginning to read about something quite a bit bigger and quite a bit smaller than that garden, as well as that garden, I can only comment on the Torah. There just isn’t enough time to begin to talk about the Vedas, or Lao Tzu, or any other book or writings by a sage. That’s for others. But since there is so much controversy today about the first several sections of Genesis—I’ll weigh in that it may mean what is says, but that it’s hard to know what it means.
Showing posts with label Torah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Torah. Show all posts
Monday, March 1, 2010
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Is Science on the Way to Discovering Chi?
DNA Is Dynamic and Has High Energy; Not Stiff Or Static As First Envisioned
ScienceDaily (July 14, 2009) — The interaction represented produced the famous explanation of the structure of DNA, but the model pictured is a stiff snapshot of idealized DNA. As researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Houston note in a report that appears online in the journal Nucleic Acids Research, DNA is not a stiff or static. It is dynamic with high energy. It exists naturally in a slightly underwound state and its status changes in waves generated by normal cell functions such as DNA replication, transcription, repair and recombination.
DNA is also accompanied by a cloud of counterions (charged particles that neutralize the genetic material's very negative charge) and, of course, the protein macromolecules that affect DNA activity.
"Many models and experiments have been interpreted with the static model," said Dr. Lynn Zechiedrich, associate professor of molecular virology and microbiology at BCM and a senior author of the report. "But this model does not allow for the fact that DNA in real life is transiently underwound and overwound in its natural state."
DNA appears a perfect spring that can be stretched and then spring back to its original conformation. How far can you stretch it before something happens to the structure and it cannot bounce back? What happens when it is exposed to normal cellular stresses involved in doing its job? That was the problem that Zechiedrich and her colleagues tackled.
Their results also addresses a question posed by another Nobel laureate, the late Dr. Linus Pauling, who asked how the information encoded by the bases could be read if it is sequestered inside the DNA molecular with phosphate molecules on the outside.
It's easy to explain when the cell divides because the double-stranded DNA also divides at the behest of a special enzyme, making its genetic code readily readable.
"Many cellular activities, however, do not involve the separation of the two strands of DNA," said Zechiedrich.
To unravel the problem, former graduate student, Dr. Graham L. Randall, mentored jointly by Zechiedrich and Dr. B. Montgomery Pettitt of UH, simulated 19 independent DNA systems with fixed degrees of underwinding or overwinding, using a special computer analysis started by Petttitt.
They found that when DNA is underwound in the same manner that you might underwind a spring, the forces induce one of two bases – adenine or thymine – to "flip out" of the sequence, thus relieving the stress that the molecule experiences.
"It always happens in the underwound state," said Zechiedrich. "We wanted to know if torsional stress was the force that accounted for the base flipping that others have seen occur, but for which we had no idea where the energy was supplied to do this very big job."
When the base flips out, it relieves the stress on the DNA, which then relaxes the rest of the DNA not involved in the base flipping back to its "perfect spring" state.
When the molecule is overwound, it assumes a "Pauling-like DNA" state in which the DNA turns itself inside out to expose the bases -- much in the way Pauling had predicted.
Zechiedrich and her colleagues theorize that the base flipping, denaturation, and Pauling-like DNA caused by under- and overwinding allows DNA to interact with proteins during processes such as replication, transcription and recombination and allows the code to be read. And back to the idea of the "perfect spring" behavior of the DNA helix - "This notion is entirely wrong," said Zechiedrich. "Underwinding is not equal and opposite to overwinding, as predicted, not by a long shot, that's really a cool result that Graham got."
Support for this work came from the Robert A. Welch Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Keck Center for Interdisciplinary Bioscience Training of the Gulf Coast Consortia. The computations were performed in part using the Teragrid and the Molecular Science Computing 85 Facility in the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research and located at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
My Comment: Slowly, tiny step after tiny step, is Western Science getting closer to ‘discovering’ what the ancient cultures have long known, that a Life Force or Chi exists?
ScienceDaily (July 14, 2009) — The interaction represented produced the famous explanation of the structure of DNA, but the model pictured is a stiff snapshot of idealized DNA. As researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Houston note in a report that appears online in the journal Nucleic Acids Research, DNA is not a stiff or static. It is dynamic with high energy. It exists naturally in a slightly underwound state and its status changes in waves generated by normal cell functions such as DNA replication, transcription, repair and recombination.
DNA is also accompanied by a cloud of counterions (charged particles that neutralize the genetic material's very negative charge) and, of course, the protein macromolecules that affect DNA activity.
"Many models and experiments have been interpreted with the static model," said Dr. Lynn Zechiedrich, associate professor of molecular virology and microbiology at BCM and a senior author of the report. "But this model does not allow for the fact that DNA in real life is transiently underwound and overwound in its natural state."
DNA appears a perfect spring that can be stretched and then spring back to its original conformation. How far can you stretch it before something happens to the structure and it cannot bounce back? What happens when it is exposed to normal cellular stresses involved in doing its job? That was the problem that Zechiedrich and her colleagues tackled.
Their results also addresses a question posed by another Nobel laureate, the late Dr. Linus Pauling, who asked how the information encoded by the bases could be read if it is sequestered inside the DNA molecular with phosphate molecules on the outside.
It's easy to explain when the cell divides because the double-stranded DNA also divides at the behest of a special enzyme, making its genetic code readily readable.
"Many cellular activities, however, do not involve the separation of the two strands of DNA," said Zechiedrich.
To unravel the problem, former graduate student, Dr. Graham L. Randall, mentored jointly by Zechiedrich and Dr. B. Montgomery Pettitt of UH, simulated 19 independent DNA systems with fixed degrees of underwinding or overwinding, using a special computer analysis started by Petttitt.
They found that when DNA is underwound in the same manner that you might underwind a spring, the forces induce one of two bases – adenine or thymine – to "flip out" of the sequence, thus relieving the stress that the molecule experiences.
"It always happens in the underwound state," said Zechiedrich. "We wanted to know if torsional stress was the force that accounted for the base flipping that others have seen occur, but for which we had no idea where the energy was supplied to do this very big job."
When the base flips out, it relieves the stress on the DNA, which then relaxes the rest of the DNA not involved in the base flipping back to its "perfect spring" state.
When the molecule is overwound, it assumes a "Pauling-like DNA" state in which the DNA turns itself inside out to expose the bases -- much in the way Pauling had predicted.
Zechiedrich and her colleagues theorize that the base flipping, denaturation, and Pauling-like DNA caused by under- and overwinding allows DNA to interact with proteins during processes such as replication, transcription and recombination and allows the code to be read. And back to the idea of the "perfect spring" behavior of the DNA helix - "This notion is entirely wrong," said Zechiedrich. "Underwinding is not equal and opposite to overwinding, as predicted, not by a long shot, that's really a cool result that Graham got."
Support for this work came from the Robert A. Welch Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Keck Center for Interdisciplinary Bioscience Training of the Gulf Coast Consortia. The computations were performed in part using the Teragrid and the Molecular Science Computing 85 Facility in the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research and located at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
My Comment: Slowly, tiny step after tiny step, is Western Science getting closer to ‘discovering’ what the ancient cultures have long known, that a Life Force or Chi exists?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Jumping Genes
ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2008) — They can be found in plants, animals and even in humans – inactive remains of jumping genes, transposons. Researchers are striving to develop active transposons from these remains, using them as tools to decode gene function. At the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Germany, researchers have now succeeded in reconstructing the first active transposon of the Harbinger transposon superfamily.
In the laboratory, the artificial transposon developed by Dr. Ludivine Sinzelle, Dr. Zsuzsanna Izsvák, and Dr. Zoltán Ivics also shows cut-and-paste transposition in human cells and promises to serve as a useful experimental system for investigating human gene function.
Transposons comprise about half of the human genome. “They are molecular parasites, similar to fleas, only that they are in the genome of the host and not on its back,” Dr. Zoltán Ivics explained. They jump, move, and proliferate through the host, without whom they could not survive. In most cases, transposons do not fulfill any function in the human genome. “However, not all are superfluous,” Dr. Ivics went on to say. “More than 100 active genes, including some associated with the immune system, have been recognized as probably derived from transposons.”
To reconstruct an active transposon, Dr. Ivics’ team compared the DNA of various inactive Harbinger transposons, one of the largest superfamilies of transposons. Based on these results, they developed an artificial jumping gene. “We were very lucky,” Dr. Ivics said. “The very first experiment was successful.”
New tool for basic research
In the cell lab, the MDC researchers inserted the transposon into the human cell by means of a gene shuttle. Via a cut-and-paste mechanism, the artificial transposon excises itself from its transport vehicle and inserts itself into the genome of the cell. If the transposon jumps into an important gene and deactivates it, it may impair important processes in the cell. As a result, researchers can draw conclusions about the function of the gene.
Moreover, in the course of evolution, transposons have been responsible for the emergence of new genes. Thus, through computerized gene analysis, Dr. Ivics’ research team has discovered two new elements related to the Harbinger transposon. In a new project, Dr. Ivics aims to elucidate just what role these play in the human body.
Over the long term, scientists hope to use such transposons in gene therapy as well. With the aid of a transposon, an intact copy of a gene could be incorporated into the genome of a patient to repair a defective gene. “But until this can happen, there is still a lot to be done,” Dr. Ivics pointed out. “The new gene should not just jump in anywhere.”
My Comment: The Torah hints at the existence of DNA when Jacob breeds Laban's sheep. It cross-references the allusion during the lengthy Midrashic discussions of the effect of the anointing oil on David, before he became king, when David's appearance quickly changes to fit into King Saul's armor. And sometimes life throws another cross reference your way outside of scripture--when my neighbor, the microbiologist looked at a picture of the windings of the shel yad tefillin and said in a quite surprised manner--that is exactly the way DNA is wound into a cell." If nothing else, this aritcle shows the ancient Chinese axiom that there is no end to smallness. Not to mention it shows the mind-bending complexity that goes into just one second of existence.
The fact is, both Torah scholars and scientists have a ways to go before anyone can claim to fully understand either the Torah passages or the workings of DNA. The proof will be when our civilization can address and heal chronic diseases. Don't be surprised to hear the same conclusions said in two different ways.
In the laboratory, the artificial transposon developed by Dr. Ludivine Sinzelle, Dr. Zsuzsanna Izsvák, and Dr. Zoltán Ivics also shows cut-and-paste transposition in human cells and promises to serve as a useful experimental system for investigating human gene function.
Transposons comprise about half of the human genome. “They are molecular parasites, similar to fleas, only that they are in the genome of the host and not on its back,” Dr. Zoltán Ivics explained. They jump, move, and proliferate through the host, without whom they could not survive. In most cases, transposons do not fulfill any function in the human genome. “However, not all are superfluous,” Dr. Ivics went on to say. “More than 100 active genes, including some associated with the immune system, have been recognized as probably derived from transposons.”
To reconstruct an active transposon, Dr. Ivics’ team compared the DNA of various inactive Harbinger transposons, one of the largest superfamilies of transposons. Based on these results, they developed an artificial jumping gene. “We were very lucky,” Dr. Ivics said. “The very first experiment was successful.”
New tool for basic research
In the cell lab, the MDC researchers inserted the transposon into the human cell by means of a gene shuttle. Via a cut-and-paste mechanism, the artificial transposon excises itself from its transport vehicle and inserts itself into the genome of the cell. If the transposon jumps into an important gene and deactivates it, it may impair important processes in the cell. As a result, researchers can draw conclusions about the function of the gene.
Moreover, in the course of evolution, transposons have been responsible for the emergence of new genes. Thus, through computerized gene analysis, Dr. Ivics’ research team has discovered two new elements related to the Harbinger transposon. In a new project, Dr. Ivics aims to elucidate just what role these play in the human body.
Over the long term, scientists hope to use such transposons in gene therapy as well. With the aid of a transposon, an intact copy of a gene could be incorporated into the genome of a patient to repair a defective gene. “But until this can happen, there is still a lot to be done,” Dr. Ivics pointed out. “The new gene should not just jump in anywhere.”
My Comment: The Torah hints at the existence of DNA when Jacob breeds Laban's sheep. It cross-references the allusion during the lengthy Midrashic discussions of the effect of the anointing oil on David, before he became king, when David's appearance quickly changes to fit into King Saul's armor. And sometimes life throws another cross reference your way outside of scripture--when my neighbor, the microbiologist looked at a picture of the windings of the shel yad tefillin and said in a quite surprised manner--that is exactly the way DNA is wound into a cell." If nothing else, this aritcle shows the ancient Chinese axiom that there is no end to smallness. Not to mention it shows the mind-bending complexity that goes into just one second of existence.
The fact is, both Torah scholars and scientists have a ways to go before anyone can claim to fully understand either the Torah passages or the workings of DNA. The proof will be when our civilization can address and heal chronic diseases. Don't be surprised to hear the same conclusions said in two different ways.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Keynote
This blog isn’t about truth, nor is it about my truth. It’s about a discussion that I believe is quietly taking place within many people, a discussion with science on the one side and religion on the other side. It’s not necessarily an amicable discussion, our own thoughts, the give and take tete a tete in our minds. If there is any reflective relationship between our collective thoughts and society, then that dialogue is so brutal it may not even rise to the level of dialogue. Somewhere inside of us is a good old fashioned bar room brawl designed to get the other side to simply shut up.
This would be one of those psychological dynamics that takes place against our will, the same way that plumbing happens to occasionally back up, or that car wrecks occasionally happen. We would like our plumbing to be as open as the London Tube in the wee hours of the morning, our car to run silkily smooth without the need for repair, but we’re just not there yet. We know that a world of greatly reduced friction is possible, although technologically, we can’t yet live that life.
I’m going to try to facilitate a peaceful discussion between science and religion. It’s a discussion that can’t possibly end, for both are in a process of discovering the nature of the universe, and for those who say that religious texts aren’t discovering the universe, the texts are giving us the ultimate answers—then science is busy discovering the universe, the religious folks are busy trying to understand the texts. And this amounts to the same thing, everyone trying to discover the universe to their satisfaction. If you are the type of person that takes such an investigation seriously, then there is no end, there is always more to know.
So where can this meeting take place? And what shape of table shall be used?
I will let the scientists decide this, and they have, as they have published a wealth of books and been the subject of some marvelous television shows depicting quantum physics, medicine, cosmology—that is, they seem to be filling the water barrel with something I suspect we are hard wired thirsty. They don’t fill up the barrel with jargon or high ended math. They are making the complex concepts accessible to everyone with the use of metaphor. I was watching a show about the formation of the moon, and the scientist was using the metaphor of roller derby. So the meeting shall take place in a world of metaphor, all sitting at a table made of metaphor.
The odd and not so surprising thing, the world of literature, and religion is also made of metaphor. And if you think of the world in holographic or fractal terms, then everything you see can be a metaphor for something greater. In science alone, biology can be a metaphor for chemistry, chemistry and be a metaphor for quantum physics, and quantum physics can provide metaphors for cosmology and relativity. It’s not much of a jump from physics to baseball, and from baseball to spirituality—and all of these metaphors are incestuous, they can be used any which way for each other.
For instance, the Torah will speak of miracles, that is, things which don’t usually occur in nature, things which seem impossible, but have nevertheless occurred. This isn’t very different from the scientific anomaly. And so the parting of the Red Sea was an anomaly, the water from the rock another anomaly. With miracles, there is no asking why because there is no why—but with anomalies, asking why is the first step. It begins the process of investigation, which for Jews begins at the Seder, with the four questions. Jews should be investigating with the same ferocity as they do in the labs of MIT.
In other words, if you look closely, the scientific process isn’t very different from the religious process—you ask a question, you try to answer the question. Some answers not only change how you see things, they change how you see yourself, and then those answers change your world.
If you love a good metaphor, then you’ll fall into this process easily. It will be fun. And because the science world is so much like the old American West, a wide open frontier to be settled, the news and posting will come from there. But if I post it, then that means I’ve seen the same thing, described metaphorically, in some religious text---OR that the new discovery itself is a metaphor from something else.
I’ll just be like Philip Marlowe’s stream of consciousness, giving you the raw material, and then leaving you to your quiet moments with a bottle of Old Taylor and a cigarette to figure out the connections.
This would be one of those psychological dynamics that takes place against our will, the same way that plumbing happens to occasionally back up, or that car wrecks occasionally happen. We would like our plumbing to be as open as the London Tube in the wee hours of the morning, our car to run silkily smooth without the need for repair, but we’re just not there yet. We know that a world of greatly reduced friction is possible, although technologically, we can’t yet live that life.
I’m going to try to facilitate a peaceful discussion between science and religion. It’s a discussion that can’t possibly end, for both are in a process of discovering the nature of the universe, and for those who say that religious texts aren’t discovering the universe, the texts are giving us the ultimate answers—then science is busy discovering the universe, the religious folks are busy trying to understand the texts. And this amounts to the same thing, everyone trying to discover the universe to their satisfaction. If you are the type of person that takes such an investigation seriously, then there is no end, there is always more to know.
So where can this meeting take place? And what shape of table shall be used?
I will let the scientists decide this, and they have, as they have published a wealth of books and been the subject of some marvelous television shows depicting quantum physics, medicine, cosmology—that is, they seem to be filling the water barrel with something I suspect we are hard wired thirsty. They don’t fill up the barrel with jargon or high ended math. They are making the complex concepts accessible to everyone with the use of metaphor. I was watching a show about the formation of the moon, and the scientist was using the metaphor of roller derby. So the meeting shall take place in a world of metaphor, all sitting at a table made of metaphor.
The odd and not so surprising thing, the world of literature, and religion is also made of metaphor. And if you think of the world in holographic or fractal terms, then everything you see can be a metaphor for something greater. In science alone, biology can be a metaphor for chemistry, chemistry and be a metaphor for quantum physics, and quantum physics can provide metaphors for cosmology and relativity. It’s not much of a jump from physics to baseball, and from baseball to spirituality—and all of these metaphors are incestuous, they can be used any which way for each other.
For instance, the Torah will speak of miracles, that is, things which don’t usually occur in nature, things which seem impossible, but have nevertheless occurred. This isn’t very different from the scientific anomaly. And so the parting of the Red Sea was an anomaly, the water from the rock another anomaly. With miracles, there is no asking why because there is no why—but with anomalies, asking why is the first step. It begins the process of investigation, which for Jews begins at the Seder, with the four questions. Jews should be investigating with the same ferocity as they do in the labs of MIT.
In other words, if you look closely, the scientific process isn’t very different from the religious process—you ask a question, you try to answer the question. Some answers not only change how you see things, they change how you see yourself, and then those answers change your world.
If you love a good metaphor, then you’ll fall into this process easily. It will be fun. And because the science world is so much like the old American West, a wide open frontier to be settled, the news and posting will come from there. But if I post it, then that means I’ve seen the same thing, described metaphorically, in some religious text---OR that the new discovery itself is a metaphor from something else.
I’ll just be like Philip Marlowe’s stream of consciousness, giving you the raw material, and then leaving you to your quiet moments with a bottle of Old Taylor and a cigarette to figure out the connections.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)