Limit=100,Turns=2,I-Ships=16)
V54:Golden Sword V85:Titanium Stardust
F111[NEON]=74
(Moved)
F144[NEON]=181
(Moved)
F189[NEON]=1
(Captured,Lost by [ZEUS],Gift to [STYX],At-Peace)
F243[NEON]=2
(Captured,Lost by [TROY],Moved)
F136[]=0
(F173[STYX]-->W190)
W174 (149,194,245)
[DOOM] (Metal=77,Mines=5,Population=87,Limit=87,Turns=3)
(F66[DOOM]-->W149)
W175 (13,82,113,222)
[DOOM] (Metal=12,Mines=4,Population=9R,Limit=100,Turns=4,
P-Ships=1)
W176 (140,143,165,238)
[DOOM] (Industry=4,Metal=10,Mines=6,Population=78,
Limit=78,Turns=4,I-Ships=8)
(F70[IRIS]-->W143
F94[IRIS]-->W165)
W177 (85,105,128)
[NEON] (Gift from [DOOM],Metal=24,Mines=5,Population=112,
Limit=112,Turns=1,P-Ships=1)
F2[IRIS]=82
(Moved)
(F203[IRIS]-->W105)
W181 (52,90,211)
[NEON] (Metal=17,Mines=3,Population=53,Limit=53,Turns=4,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=1)
(F169[IRIS]-->W211)
W182 (2,88,138,153)
[STYX] (Industry=1/0,Metal=1,Mines=1,Population=32,
Limit=50,Turns=1,I-Ships=1(Ambush),Plunder=2/2)
F24[NEON]=3
(Moved,Cargo=1)
(F83[NEON]-->W2
F178[NEON]-->W2)
W184 (27,97,203,211)
[NEON] (Metal=10,Mines=5,Population=45,Limit=45,Turns=1,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=1/2)
(F236[NEON]-->W211)
W185 (59,87,222)
[DOOM] (Metal=25,Mines=3,Population=7R,Limit=41,Turns=1,
P-Ships=1,CG-Unload=1)
W189 (85,105,158)
[DOOM] (Metal=18,Mines=3,Population=44,Limit=44,Turns=1,
P-Ships=1)
W192 (20,98,103,116)
[IRIS] (Metal=7,Mines=3,Population=77,Limit=77,Turns=3,
P-Ships=1)
(F8[IRIS]-->W116)
W193 (53,101,197)
[DOOM] (Metal=61,Mines=4,Population=103,Limit=103,Turns=3,
P-Ships=1)
V76:Blessed Moonstone
W194 (27,135,174)
[NEON] (Industry=1/0,Metal=6,Mines=4,Population=132,
Limit=133,Turns=4,I-Ships=2,Plunder=1/2)
W195 (94,130,237,240)
[NEON] (Metal=6,Mines=1,Population=24,Limit=53,Turns=5,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=2/1)
F218[ICON]=4
(Moved,At-Peace) V79:Radiant Moonstone
(F154[DOOM]-->W240)
W197 (29,156,193,228)
[DOOM] (Industry=1,Metal=99,Mines=7,Population=10R,
Limit=82,Turns=4)
F118[IRIS]=12
(Moved)
(F174[IRIS]-->W228
F255[IRIS]-->W228)
W198 (16,40,107,155)
[NEON] C[DEEP] (Gift from [IRIS],Metal=6,Mines=4,
Population=125/96C,Limit=125,Turns=1,P-Ships=1)
(F47[IRIS]-->W155
F103[IRIS]-->W16)
W200 (51,76,141)
[IRIS] (Captured,Lost by [STYX],Mines=1,Population=27,
Limit=58,Plunder=3/1)
F203[IRIS]=36
(Moved,Cargo=3)
F205[IRIS]=3
(AH)
(F62[NEON]-->W51
F161[IRIS]-->W141)
W201 (35,90,129) []
(Industry=1/0,Metal=2,Mines=2,Population=0,Limit=48,
I-Ships=1)
F27[NEON]=10
(Moved)
(F93[ICON]-->W129)
W203 (3,162,184)
[NEON] (Industry=2/0,Metal=7,Mines=5,Population=63,Limit=63,
Turns=2,I-Ships=5,Plunder=1/2)
F123[IRIS]=1
(Moved) V51:Platinum Sword
W205 (32,99,109,216)
[HALO] C[HALO] (Industry=3/0,Population=78C,Limit=78,
CG-Unload=1)
V83:Silver Stardust
(F25[MARS]-->W109
F78[DOOM]-->W99 F87[DOOM]-->W109 F254[MARS]-->W109)
W207 (35,52,90,169)
[DOOM] (Industry=3,Metal=3,Mines=3,Population=10R,
Limit=74,Turns=4,I-Ships=7)
(F5[NEON]-->W90
F27[NEON]-->W90 F160[NEON]-->W35)
W211 (25,163,181,184)
[NEON] (Metal=14,Mines=3,Population=47,Limit=47,Turns=6,
P-Ships=2,Plunder=1)
F236[NEON]=83
(Moved)
(F65[NEON]-->W163
F149[NEON]-->W163 F169[IRIS]-->W163)
W212 (2,88,152,169)
[NEON] (Industry=1/0,Metal=11,Mines=8,Population=5,
Limit=85,Turns=5,I-Ships=1,Plunder=1/2)
F79[DOOM]=1
(Moved,Cargo=1)
F10[NEON]=32
(Moved)
(F232[STYX]-->W152)
W214 (15,59,87,215)
[NEON] (Mines=6,Population=94,Limit=107,Turns=1,P-Ships=1,
Plunder=1/2,CG-Unload=1)
V44:Golden Shekel
(F11[IRIS]-->W15)
W215 (16,44,107,214)
[IRIS] (Industry=1,Metal=13,Mines=7,Population=74,
Limit=74,Turns=4,I-Ships=1)
F193[IRIS]=6
(Moved)
(F18[IRIS]-->W107)
W216 (60,156,205,228)
[MARS] (Metal=7,Mines=3,Population=6,Limit=62,Deaths=56,
Turns=7,CG-Unload=1)
F16[ICON]=1
(R7)
(F87[DOOM]-->W205
F163[MARS]-->W156)
W218 (52,88,115,169)
[NEON] (Mines=6,Population=82,Limit=82,Turns=2,P-Ships=1,
Plunder=1/2)
(F3[NEON]-->W169
F32[NEON]-->W169 F116[NEON]-->W169)
W220 (36,91,172,173)
[TROY] (Industry=4,Metal=5,Mines=5,Population=7R,
Limit=86,Turns=6,I-Ships=13)
(F144[NEON]-->W173)
W222 (77,127,175,185)
[DOOM] (Industry=1,Metal=7,Mines=3,Population=6R,
Limit=88,Turns=3,I-Ships=1)
V11:Platinum Crown
(F241[IRIS]-->W127)
W224 (39,127,236)
[STYX] (Industry=6/0,Mines=3,Population=57,Limit=90,Turns=4,
I-Ships=3(Ambush),Plunder=3/3)
F20[DOOM]=8
(Moved)
F119[IRIS]=4
(Moved,Cargo=8)
F127[]=0
(Lost by [DOOM],Moved)
W225 (64,102,121,251)
[DEEP] C[DEEP] (Metal=28,Mines=3,Population=3C,
Limit=114,Turns=5)
F51[NEON]=8
(AF156)
(F156[ICON]-->W121)
W228 (43,53,197,216)
[CRAY] (Metal=115,Mines=8,Population=117,Limit=158,
Deaths=40,Turns=3,CG-Unload=1)
V59:Radiant Sword
F185[DOOM]=8
(AF237)
F174[IRIS]=5
(Moved,Cargo=2)
F255[IRIS]=23
(Moved,Cargo=2)
F237[ICON]=1
(R5,At-Peace)
F67[]=0
F143[]=0
W234 (54,117,243)
[STYX] (Industry=5/0,Metal=4,Mines=4,Population=8,Limit=72,
Turns=5,Plunder=1)
F137[DOOM]=1
(Moved) V60:Plastic Sepulchre
F241[IRIS]=20
(Moved)
F1[NEON]=155
(Moved)
F210[STYX]=48
(Moved)
W238 (20,108,116,176)
[NEON] (Metal=2,Mines=3,Population=57,Limit=57,Turns=2,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=1/2)
W240 (48,124,195,226)
[NEON] (Industry=1/0,Metal=6,Mines=3,Population=43,
Limit=43,Turns=3,I-Ships=2,P-Ships=1,Plunder=1/2)
F154[DOOM]=11
(Moved)
W241 (136,144,251)
[NEON] (Industry=2/0,Metal=26,Mines=5,Population=82,
Limit=89,Turns=3,I-Ships=6,P-Ships=9,Plunder=1/2)
W242 (18,27,81) [NEON]
(Industry=6/0,Mines=4,Population=54,Limit=54,Turns=5,
I-Ships=9,Plunder=1/2)
W245 (99,109,174)
[NEON] (Metal=59,Mines=6,Population=86,Limit=86,Turns=2,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=2/2)
V31:Platinum Lodestar
(F37[NEON]-->W109
F152[NEON]-->W109)
W253 (5,20,44,103)
[IRIS] (Industry=1,Metal=7,Mines=7,Population=94,Limit=94,
Turns=4)
(F148[IRIS]-->W103)
W254 (42,58,150,223)
[DEEP] C[DEEP] (Metal=5,Mines=5,Population=16C,Limit=97,
Deaths=72C,Turns=4)
F217[NEON]=4
(Moved)
F22[ICON]=4
(Moved)
F164[ICON]=1
(R9)
F129[]=0
(Lost by [DEEP],At-Peace) V19:Radiant Crown
(F35[ICON]-->W58
F91[MARS]-->W223 F231[DEEP]-->W150)
Players you can see
this turn: [CRAY] [OOZE] [TROY] [STYX] [ICON]
[ZEUS]
[DEEP] [MARS] [HALO]
Their scores (not
necessarily in order): 720 1846 2444 7922 9075
9505
9884
9927 10671
Final Results --
Victory-point limit was 9750
(1) Jack Fulmer
[ZEUS]:
Merchant (Score=10671,Keys=2,Ships=40,Artifacts=2)
[STYX]:
Pirate (Score=9884,Worlds=62,Keys=56,Ships=684,Industry=128,
Mines=226,People=1754,Artifacts=12)
[TROY]:
Berserker (Score=9927,Worlds=18,Keys=21,Ships=125,Industry=79,
Mines=78,Robots=141,Artifacts=10)
(2) Gary
Schaefers
[MARS]:
Merchant (Score=7922,Worlds=3,Keys=17,Ships=203,Mines=14,
People=105,Artifacts=2)
[DEEP]:
Apostle (Score=9075,Worlds=41,Keys=7,Ships=82,Industry=57,
Mines=182,People=379,Converts=891,Artifacts=12)
[ICON]:
Berserker (Score=9505,Worlds=11,Keys=39,Ships=333,Industry=40,
Mines=48,People=7,Robots=94,Artifacts=11)
(3) Sven Hassel
[DOOM]:
Berserker (Score=3555,Worlds=38,Keys=31,Ships=436,Industry=130,
Mines=167,People=1288,Robots=374,Artifacts=17)
[IRIS]:
Merchant (Score=7641,Worlds=8,Keys=37,Ships=483,Industry=39,
Mines=34,People=528,Artifacts=5)
[NEON]:
Pirate (Score=3569,Worlds=47,Keys=36,Ships=1009,Industry=54,
Mines=190,People=3331,Artifacts=17)
(4) Maurice
McLey
[NOVA]:
Merchant (Score=90)
[OOZE]:
Apostle (Score=2444,Worlds=2,Ships=1,Mines=4,People=24,
Converts=12)
[EROS]:
Berserker (Score=220)
(5) Ocie Hudson
[LENS]:
Merchant
[CRAY]:
Berserker (Score=720,Worlds=1,Mines=8,People=117,Artifacts=1)
[HALO]:
Apostle (Score=1846,Worlds=2,Industry=3,Mines=4,Converts=207,
Artifacts=2)
Orders=231 <errors
and comments in angle-brackets>:
====================
F51P102 F51P121 W5X
W20X W108X W135X W59G=NEON W198G=NEON W177G=NEON
W69G=NEON F166G=IRIS
F8U F58U F72U F236U F8W103W192W116 F58W97W114W98 F72T3F8
F72T2F58 F72W5
F123T48F236 F123W203 F236W97W184W211 W3B30F236 F70U F183U
F193U W44B33F70
F70W165W176W143 F70T2F183 F183W15W83W87 F193T1F70 F193W215
F11T23F204 F11L
F11W214W15 F204W77W22 V93F11 F135W29 W101B1F135 F105AH F2U
F18U F47U F73U F94U
F196U F240U W140B30F2 F2W40W128W177 F196W40 F240W40W85
F18T4F2 F18W16W215W107
F47W16W198W155 F94T4F2 F94W176W165 F73T8F2 W165B1I
W168B3F134 I168T3F134
F134L F134W34W29 F203L3 F203W105W76W200 F169L4
F169W211W163
W197B1F255 F255W228 F103T1P <P198AC -- Previous> F103W16W165W44
F205T1F161 F205AH
F161W141 W215B1I F241X W222B1F241 F241W127W117W234
P222T2F241 W253B1F148
I253T2F148 F148L F148W103W3 I197T2F255 F174L2 F174W228
F255L2 F103L W5B2I
W15B3F166 I15T4F166 F166L F111W123W173 F62W200W51 F62N1
F32T3P F116T89F178
F116W218W169 F32W218W169 F10W212 F178W182W2 F83T2F24
F24W182 F79L F3L
F144T9F211 F211AH F144W220W173 W108B1I F1X F119X F12X F104X
F179X F181T19F179
F181W117W26 F179W117W26 F12W117 F112W117 F20T20F1 F20W224
F127T20F1 F127W224W236
F83W182W2 F79W212 F3W218W169 F104W117 F112T10F12
F1W117W234 F137T21F1
F111T11F238 F238AH F69W117W26 F137W117W234 F119T10F1
F119W224 V10F69
V60F137 P127T83F1 F119L F110T50F147 F147AF195 F110AF75
F65T1F149 F65W163
F149W163 F51AF156 F154X W8B2F154 I8T9F154 F154W94W195W240
W13B1I W16B2I
F88W34W82 F145W34 F150W34W168 F162W101 F26T10F95 W17B2F206
F68W35 F206W35 W22B4I
F41U F145U F167U F41W133W149W109 W29B30F41 F88T3F118
F145T7F118 F167T1F118
F118W197 W34B1I W47B2I F249T5F31 F249W32 F31R3 F38AF15
W82B3I F37T1P
F37T1F152 W99X F37W245W109 F152W245W109 W107B3I F21AF222
F21T4F26 F132T1F26
F26AF146 F57AP F61AP F132AP F153AP F197AP F95AP W113B1I
I116T9F113 F113W28W73
W133B3I W149B1I F151W109 F76U F122U F124U F187U F5U
F27U F160U F246N1
F246U11 W169B10F5 W169B10F27 W169B10F160 F5W207W90
F27W207W90W201
F160W207W35W96 F124T11F217 F217W17W42W254 F124T11F239
F239W17W42 F246T7F124
F124W17W152W92 F122T4F124 F76T7F124 P174T1F66 F66L
F66W149W109 W176B4I
W207B3I F87W205W109 F185AF237 F78W99W64 <231>
Documents/Basics
of Diesel Engines.doc 1
The basics of
diesel engines and diesel fuels
The
diesel engine has been the engine of choice for heavy-duty applications in
agriculture,
construction, industrial, and on-highway transport for over 50 years. Its early
popularity
could be attributed to its ability to use the portion of the petroleum crude
oil
that
had previously been considered a waste product from the refining of gasoline.
Later,
the
diesel’s durability, high torque capacity, and fuel efficiency assured its role
in the
most
demanding applications. While diesels have not been widely used in passenger
cars
in
the United States (less than 1%), they have achieved widespread acceptance in
Europe
with
over 33% of the total market [1].
In
the United States, on-highway diesel engines now consume over 30 billion
gallons of
diesel
fuel per year and virtually all of this is in trucks [2]. At the present time,
only a
minute
fraction of this fuel is biodiesel. However, as petroleum becomes more
expensive
to
locate and extract, and environmental concerns about diesel exhaust emissions
and
global
warming increase, biodiesel is likely
to emerge as one of several potential
alternative
diesel fuels.
In
order to understand the requirements of a diesel fuel and how biodiesel can be
considered
a desirable substitute, it is important to understand the basic operating
principles
of the diesel engine. This chapter describes these principles, particularly in
light
of the fuel used and the ways in which biodiesel provides advantages over
conventional
petroleum-based fuels.
Diesel Combustion
The
operating principles of diesel engines are significantly different from those
of the
spark-ignited
engines that dominate the U.S. passenger car market. In a spark-ignited
engine,
fuel and air that are close to the chemically correct, or stoichiometric, mixture are
inducted
into the engine cylinder, compressed, and then ignited by a spark. The power of
the
engine is controlled by limiting the quantity of fuel-air mixture that enters
the
cylinder
using a flow-restricting valve called a throttle.
In a diesel engine, also known as
a
compression-ignited engine, only air
enters the cylinder through the intake system. This
air
is compressed to a high temperature and pressure and then finely atomized fuel
is
sprayed
into the air at high velocity. When it contacts the high temperature air, the
fuel
vaporizes
quickly, mixes with the air, and undergoes a series of spontaneous chemical
reactions
that result in a self-ignition or autoignition.
No spark plug is required, although
some
diesel engines are equipped with electrically heated glow plugs to assist with
starting
the engine under cold conditions. The power of the engine is controlled by
varying the volume of
fuel injected into the cylinder, so there is no need for
Six nights a week, Guo Bairong takes
the stage at the Xanadu Lounge at the Sands Macau casino. As players place
their bets at nearby tables, he opens with a popular love song in Mandarin,
closing his eyes as he sways with the music. Slipping into Cantonese, he
launches into another number.
Crowds gather not only to hear his
singing but also to gape: Guo Bairong is also known as Barry Cox, a Caucasian
former waiter and supermarket cashier from Liverpool, England, whose only
formal study of Cantonese was at a British community center.
Mr. Cox's act, sandwiched between
cabaret dance performances like the scantily clad Glamour Girls and authentic
Chinese crooners such as Hua D, is among the spectacles on Macau's emerging
entertainment scene.
Macau's clutch of casinos has quickly
outpaced the Las Vegas Strip in gambling revenue, taking in around $10 billion
last year, compared to almost $7 billion on the Strip. But the former
Portuguese colony has to up its game -- particularly its entertainment roster
-- to compete with its American counterpart as an all-around tourism
destination.
Feb. 23: African-blues singer Cesária
Évora at the Macau Cultural Center Grand Auditorium.
March 15: Canadian singer Céline Dion
at the Venetian Arena.
Until May 11: Chinese acrobatic show
the Four Seasons at the Roman Amphitheater, Fisherman's Wharf.
Summer: Cirque de Soleil, in 10
performances a week at a new theater at the Venetian.
A few years ago, Macau was a sleepy
coastal town. Visitors came for the Portuguese wine, cobblestone streets and
musty antique shops -- and for the gambling. The city became a special
administrative zone when it was returned to China in 1999, making it the only
place in China where casinos are legal.
Within a few years, the Beijing-backed
Macau government ended local tycoon Stanley Ho's monopoly on the territory's
gambling industry, issuing licenses to other companies, including Wynn Resorts,
MGM Mirage and Australia's Crown. About 10.5 million Chinese mainland visitors
came to Macau in 2005 and nearly 15 million are expected next year, according
to the Pacific Asia Travel Association, a trade group.
When the new casinos began opening in
2004, the prevailing logic among casino executives was that the Chinese
visitors mostly come to gamble. Some operators are still unsure what
entertainment to offer, especially performances that guests would have to pay
to see.
Entertainer Barry Cox
"This is a very new market,"
says a Wynn Macau spokeswoman. "No one really knows what people are
looking for here," says Jennifer Welker, the local author of travel guide
"The New Macau." "They're still in that testing phase."
There are now more than 25 casinos,
and many have a mix of gambling, hotel rooms and restaurants. Wynn casino's
current entertainment options are limited to a five-minute water and light show
set to music. At the Crown Macau, there's a spa and eight restaurants, but
there are no live performances. It's a different story at Grand Lisboa, where
there are two shows: a free, daily "Crazy Paris" performance -- a
can-can-style dance act -- and "Tokyo Nights," performed by a troupe
of Japanese dancers.
Strict rules against advertising by
casinos in mainland China make it difficult to promote events there, and a taxi
shortage means travelers arriving on the ferry from Hong Kong often have to
wait in long lines.
Still, many big-name acts are choosing
to play in Macau rather than Hong Kong. Last October, the National Basketball
Association's Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers and the China Men's
National Team played at the Venetian Arena, the 15,000-seat stadium at the
Venetian resort and casino. The Police performed there in early February, and
Celine Dion arrives next month for a one-night-only show as part of her world
tour.
This summer, the Venetian plans to
bring Cirque du Soleil, the acrobatic show that's a fixture in Las Vegas, to
Macau as a permanent show. Cirque will perform in a 1,800-seat theater that is
still under construction.
Outsourcing Wombs to India
A growing number of women in India are
making it their jobs to help others create a family — literally. At a clinic in
Anand, they carry and deliver children from infertile couples around the world.
The clinic matches infertile couples
with local women, cares for the women during pregnancy and delivery, and
counsels them afterward. Surrogacy in the U.S. is nothing new, but the article
suggests outsourcing it could become more common for the same reasons
outsourcing in other industries has been successful: a wide labor pool working
for relatively low rates.
The women’s doctor, Nayna Patel,
defends her work. She says, “There is this one woman who desperately needs a
baby and cannot have her own child without the help of a surrogate. And at the
other end there is this woman who badly wants to help her [own] family,” Patel
is quoted as saying. One young surrogate mother says she will buy a house with
the $4,500 she receives from the British couple whose child she’s carrying;
another says she’ll use the money for her own daughters’ education.
Critics say the couples are exploiting
poor women in India. They fear the practice could change from a medical
necessity for infertile women to a convenience for the rich who want to avoid
the discomfort and risks of pregnancy and childbirth.
As fertility-treatment costs soar --
and more women seek treatment at an older age -- a growing number of Americans
are heading abroad to try to get pregnant.
The Internet has made it easier for
women to connect with fertility clinics in diverse locales such as the Czech
Republic, Israel, Canada and Thailand. And specialized travel services have
sprung up to help people arrange accommodations, set up medical appointments
and even plan sightseeing tours.
The cost of in-vitro fertilization in
many foreign countries is a fraction of that in the U.S., even after factoring
in expenses for travel and accommodations. And some women say they have been
able to get treatment abroad after having been turned away by a U.S. clinic
because of their age.
[photo]
In-vitro fertilization at the Jetanin
Institute in Bangkok.
There are some downsides. Treatments
can take four or five weeks -- too long for many couples to take a break from
their regular lives. It might not be possible to find medical practitioners who
speak fluent English, though some of the travel firms also provide translation
services. And while medical standards are high in many countries, regulations
can vary, including rules for screening egg donors, leaving it to patients to do
due diligence. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration regulates
egg-donor screening, though some states set stricter standards.
"Money was a factor" for
Robyn Bova, 47 years old, in deciding with her husband to travel to the Clinic
of Reproductive Medicine and Gynecology in Zlin, a college town in the Czech
Republic, for IVF treatment in May and again in November after their first
attempt failed. Though initially concerned about everything from the health of
the egg donors to the medical standards, Ms. Bova researched the clinic and
contacted other American women who'd gone there. "I thought, if we get
there and it's horrible, we don't have to go through with it," she says.
Ms. Bova says she was pleased with the
treatment she received and is now 17 weeks pregnant. And during their time in
Eastern Europe, "we had the most incredible trips you could imagine."
Ms. Bova says the total price tag for both trips, including travel, hotels,
food and treatments, was $22,000, or roughly the cost of one round of in-vitro
fertilization in the U.S.
The Bovas booked their overseas
treatment through IVFVacation.com, which was started by Craig and Marcela Fite.
The Ohio couple had traveled to Marcela's native Czech Republic for their own
IVF treatments and decided to serve as middlemen for Americans wishing to do
the same. The couple charge between $1,500 and $2,500 for their services, which
include arranging appointments at the clinic and providing on-site assistance
for driving and translations.
Other such service providers include
IVFThailand.com, a Web site that helps arrange treatments at a fertility clinic
in Thailand. And the CHEN Patient Fertility Association
(www.amotatchen.org/english/homepage/homepage.htm1), an Israeli fertility group
that promotes fertility treatments along with sightseeing tours around the Holy
Land.
"We're just now starting to see
foreign clinics market themselves to U.S. patients," says Barbara Collura,
executive director of Resolve: The National Infertility Association.
U.S. fertility doctors say that while
IVF isn't a high-risk medical procedure, patients going abroad should consider
several things, including the reputation and number of procedures performed,
and the success and complication rates of a clinic -- information the clinic
should be able to provide. Also worth considering: liability and patients'
rights to take legal action if something goes wrong. "There are great and
good hospitals in many countries," says Zev Rosenwaks, director of the
Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at New York Weill Cornell
Center. "One has to look at the overall medical standards and I think it's
much harder to judge from far away."
While Americans have increasingly gone
abroad in recent years for medical procedures ranging from hip replacements to
face lifts, fertility treatments have largely remained an outlier. Concerns
about medical standards and the strong emotions that often surround infertility
have persuaded many people seeking IVF treatment to stick close to home.
But outsize costs and relatively
sparse insurance coverage at home are driving more Americans to seek treatments
abroad. The cost of fertility treatments in the U.S. varies by region and
depends on the procedures needed. A single round of IVF with a woman's own
eggs, including medications, costs on average about $12,000, according to
Resolve, but can run much higher. For IVF using donor eggs, the cost can add as
much as $5,000 to $15,000. Prices have risen steadily in recent years as
more-advanced technology and additional options have emerged.
The in-vitro fertilization process
involves stimulating a woman's ovaries with hormone treatments, extracting eggs
for fertilization, and then implanting embryos in her uterus. Alternatively, a
donor's eggs are used to create an embryo. Insurance plans sometimes cover
aspects of the process, such as the drug treatments, or they might cover a
single round. Only a handful of states, including Massachusetts, require some
form of IVF coverage.
It can be difficult to compare success
rates of women getting pregnant from IVF treatments because of the different
ways statistics are collected. In the U.S., the rate of live single births from
IVF transfer was 40.5% in women under 35, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention 2005 Assisted Reproductive Technology Report. That fell
to 13.1% in women ages 41 to 42. In Europe, 18.6% of IVF transfers resulted in
pregnancies, according to 2003 statistics from the European Society of Human
Reproduction and Embryology, which doesn't break out data by age.
Age restrictions for fertility
treatments vary in the U.S. by clinic and by the individual health of the
patients. For women using their own eggs, the age cutoff is usually early 40s;
if using donor eggs, it's usually late 40s to 50.
Kathy Jackson, a 43-year-old
Minneapolis resident, says she was turned away by local fertility clinics
because they require a woman to be no older than 43 at the time of a birth.
Instead, she has gone twice to the Markham Fertility Centre near Toronto for
IVF. The cost, at about $6,000 for a single treatment using her own eggs, was
half what it is in her area, not including medications, she says.
Ms. Jackson says her Canadian doctor
"was brutally honest with me about my chances, to the point where I cried
after." She says she was told that with her age and medical history, her
chances of getting pregnant were 3% to 5%. Ms. Jackson returned to the Canadian
clinic for her final attempt last month, and just learned that she is not
pregnant.
Rupert Polson and Jennifer Rosendale,
with Olivia and Alliyah, born after IVF treatment in Eastern Europe.
Ofra Balaban of Holon, Israel, founded
the Chen Patient Fertility Association seven years ago following her own
experience with assisted reproductive therapy. She promotes tour packages: A
one-week trip is $7,000, including the $2,500 cost of one round of IVF. But
women need to do some initial preparation, including hormone treatment, in their
own country.
Fertility treatments are cheaper in
many foreign countries, partly because of nationalized health plans. In the
Czech Republic, for instance, citizens up to the age of 39 can get three IVF
treatments for roughly $750 each. Visiting Americans must pay for the service,
but it is still cheaper than in the U.S. http://louis-j-sheehan.com/page1.aspx
When Jennifer Rosendale, 33, and her
husband decided to start a family, she says they were told that IVF near their
home in Shelton, Wash., would cost them roughly $25,000. The hormone-boosting
drugs would cost $3,000 to $5,000 alone, and none of the costs would be covered
by insurance.
Ms. Rosendale at first began looking
online to see if she could purchase the medications more cheaply overseas. But
then she came upon IVFVacation. A year ago, she and her husband traveled to the
Czech Republic. They stayed for five weeks, mixing their fertility treatments
with trips to Prague and Vienna. The price tag for their entire stay: $12,000.
And at the end of October, Ms. Rosendale gave birth to twin girls.
Surgery for a painful, common back
condition known as spinal stenosis resulted in significantly reduced back pain
and better physical function than treatment with drugs and physical therapy,
according to the latest findings from a large federally funded research effort.
The results from the Spine Patient
Outcomes Research Trial, or Sport, echo findings it reported last April
involving degenerative spondylolisthesis, another common spinal problem. A
separate, earlier report from the same study found nonsurgical treatment for
herniated disks worked nearly as well as surgery.
The Sport study, which started in
2000, set out to compare surgical and nonsurgical treatments for several common
back ailments. Paid for by the National Institutes of Health, the trial
involved about 2,500 patients at 13 treatment centers around the country.
Patients were initially divided into surgery and nonsurgery groups, but during
the various related studies, many people randomly assigned to get nonsurgical
treatments decided to get surgery instead, which has led to criticisms of the
studies.
Lead researcher James N. Weinstein,
surgeon and chairman of orthopedics at the Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover,
N.H., said, "I still believe we have too much spine surgery overall,"
but this study shows that where there is a "specific diagnosis of
stenosis, spine surgery will bring a benefit."
The study is likely to be welcomed by
back surgeons who have been stung by questions about the value of back surgery.
Earlier this month, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a
report that showed that despite a 73% increase in spending on back problems in
the U.S. from 1997 through 2005, complaints about back pain continued to rise.
Spinal stenosis involves a narrowing of
a passage in the spine through which nerves pass, and it can result in
debilitating pain in the lower back, hips and legs. The surgical solution
involves enlarging the opening to relieve the pressure on the nerves, in an
operation called a laminectomy that costs $10,000 to $12,000. It is among the
most common operations performed in the U.S.
In the new study, which is being
published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, Sport followed 803
patients, of whom 398 ended up getting surgery. After two years, of those who
had surgery, 63% said they had a major improvement in their condition, compared
with 29% among those who got nonsurgical treatment.
In terms of self-reported pain and
physical function, both groups improved over the two-year period, though the
final scores for patients who had surgery were in the 60-point range, while
scores for those who stuck with nonsurgical treatments, such as physical
therapy, were in the low 40s. Dr. Weinstein said that the new study attempts to
answer some of the criticisms of the earlier study by separating out the
patients who stuck with their random assignment to surgery or nonsurgery
options. He said those randomized patients' results were very similar to those
of patients who selected one course or the other.
Hospitals, schools, public utilities
and other institutions that have issued auction-rate securities to raise cash
are scrambling to get out of this troubled corner of the credit market.
Valley Medical Center, in Renton,
Wash., moved to retire $170 million in auction-rate securities by issuing
tax-exempt, 30-year bonds that will price today.
The Long Island Power Authority, or
LIPA, is looking to get out of all of its $993 million in auction-rate debt
during the next several months, possibly replacing at least some of it with
long-term, fixed-rate bonds. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center also
stepped up efforts to exit the market with the help of funding from local
banks.
Other issuers, including the Port
Authority of New York & New Jersey, New York's Battery Park City Authority
and Brazos Higher Education Corp., said they were evaluating their options.
"We're looking to address this as
quickly as we can," LIPA Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth McCarthy said
in an interview. "You've got to deal with the fact that the market seems
to be pretty much going away."
Auction-rate securities are long-term
bonds that behave like short-term debt. The interest rates are reset in
auctions conducted by Wall Street dealers regularly, from daily to every 35
days.
The securities often are tax-exempt
and are issued by municipalities, museums, student-loan providers and others to
raise cash to fund projects or operations. In normal times, they get to pay
lower interest rates than they would on long-term debt.
The $330 billion auction-rate market
became the latest casualty of the global credit crunch last week when dozens of
auctions on such debt failed to generate enough investor interest, causing
interest rates to soar.
Auctions failed on between $80 billion
and $85 billion of such debt last week, according to J.P. Morgan Securities
analyst Alex Roever. About half of the market, or $100 billion to $150 billion
of such securities, will be restructured in coming months as issuers seek
alternative methods of financing, he said.
Demand has collapsed because many
auction-rate securities are insured by troubled bond insurers. Investors fear
the bond insurance is no longer good, making the auction-rate securities
riskier, even though many issuers of this debt are healthy institutions with
strong credit ratings on their own.
The path of interest rates after
auctions fail can vary, depending on how issuers structured the debt at the
outset. Some rates are capped, or tied to the low London interbank offered
rate. While some rates soared to 20%, others barely budged.
For municipal issuers, the average
interest rate after failed auctions between Feb. 12 and Feb. 15 was 7.3%, up
from between 4.25% and 4.7% in January, J.P. Morgan said. For issuers raising
money to fund student lending, the average rate jumped to 6.3% compared with
last months' average of about 4.75%.
Regulators have worried about problems
in this market before. In May 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission
fined 15 Wall Street firms for improperly propping up demand for these auctions
and thereby painting an artificially rosy picture of how smoothly the market
functioned.
Valley Medical Center, otherwise known
in the auction-rate market as Public Hospital District #1 of King County, WA,
saw interest rates on some of its securities soar to 15% from 3.75% last week,
said Jeannine Grinnell, the hospital's vice president of finance and treasurer.
The hospital was already planning to
issue long-term debt before the market turmoil, and it decided to increase the
amount by $105 million to raise enough cash to retire its volatile auction-rate
securities. Ms. Grinnell said she expects to pay 5.25% on the new bonds, which
will be underwritten by Morgan Stanley.
University of Pittsburgh Medical
Center has offered to buy back $230 million of its debt. The rates on its
various auctions shot up from about 3.9% a month ago to as high as 17.3% last
week, threatening the fast-growing system with an extra weekly interest bill of
more than $600,000.
Those rates came down to 5.4%
yesterday, according to Talbot Heppenstall, the system's treasurer.
The Long Island Power Authority had
its first auction failure Feb. 12. Interest rates on some of its debt, formerly
about 3.4% on average, rose to 4.1% on average, with some moving as high as
4.7%, LIPA said.
The authority started taking action
before then. When its bond insurer, XL Capital, was downgraded by Fitch Ratings
in January, it faced the prospect of soaring rates in an auction failure. As a
result, it filed a notice to redeem $200 million of its $993 million in
auction-rate debt.
Now, it is looking to convert the rest
of its auction-rate securities into other securities, like fixed-rate bonds, in
the next few months.
Higher rates have also affected such
widely known institutions as Deerfield Academy, Georgetown University, Carnegie
Hall and mutual funds run by money managers including BlackRock Inc., Nuveen
Investments Inc. and Pacific Investment Management Co.
Carnegie Hall, the New York fine-arts
performance center, saw its seven-day auctions fail. All of its $41.6 million
of borrowing raised to build Zankel Hall, one of Carnegie Hall's three
performance venues, was raised in the auction-rate market.
Its cost of borrowing increased from
3.2% on Jan. 23 to 3.5%, this week. Spokeswoman Synneve Carlino said that
according to the legal documents associated with its auction-rate program, its
interest costs can't go beyond 3.5%. It doesn't plan to refinance.
Separately, Massachusetts's top
securities regulator asked nine financial-service firms yesterday for
information on their closed-end funds in the wake of woes in the auction-rate
securities market. Secretary of State William Galvin's office is concerned
about failed auctions that have left some investors in certain
"auction-rate" shares issued by closed-end funds unable to sell
because no one is bidding for their funds.
From the Jetsons to James Bond, flying via jet pack has become an icon of the futuristic way to travel. But jet propulsion is actually older than the Flintstones. It's a standard means of locomotion for jellyfish, the earliest animals to swim the seas using muscles. Jellies have been jet-propelling for at least 550 million years, yet only recently have scientists begun to understand how the challenges of moving in fluid have shaped jellyfish evolution.
This Scyphozoan jellyfish, with its
UFO-shaped bell, moves to a slower rhythm than its smaller, rocket-shaped
relatives. New studies link jellyfish means of locomotion to body size and
shape.
iStockphoto
Jellyfish invented muscle-powered
movement, a feat that allowed them to diversify into a number of ecological
nooks and crannies. But jelly muscles are relatively meager and the jet-pack
method of motion requires serious strength. That has presented a mystery about
how some species of jellyfish can get so big. New studies have begun to explain
how enormous gelatinous creatures muster the strength to swim. The answers may
lead to novel designs for underwater vehicles and are prompting scientists to
rethink how to harness energy from wind currents.
If you've seen a jellyfish washed up
on the beach, its brawn probably wasn't the first thing that struck you. Their
bell-shaped bodies are mostly gelatinous goo, surrounded by a network of nerves
and a paper-thin layer of tissue. But on the interior wall of the bell is a
layer of muscle. Contracting this muscle ejects water from the opening at the
base of the bell, propelling the animal on its path.
"There's probably no source of
locomotion that's easier to evolve—it's a pipe with a muscle around it,"
says biomechanics expert Steven Vogel of Duke University in Durham, N.C.
In fact, jet propulsion appears again
and again in animal evolution, Vogel says. Dragonfly larvae make use of an anal
jet, and some squid can blast themselves to speeds of 25 miles an hour. But
while the jet pack allows for a speedy escape, it is inefficient energetically,
releasing a lot of kinetic energy into the water that can't be recovered, says
John Dabiri, an expert in fluid dynamics at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena. He points to more efficient swimmers such as dolphins
or tuna, which glide through the water without a lot of disturbance.
STEADY AS SHE GOES. The spotted
jellyfish, Mastigias papua, uses a combination of jet and paddle to swim.
A. Migotto
And jet propulsion is not the best
strategy for bigger beasts. A large jellyfish must expel a large volume of
water behind it to move forward. Such an expulsion requires brute strength.
Jellyfish don't have those muscular
capabilities. The muscle that lines their interiors is a mere one cell-layer
thick. Making it bigger would take more than calisthenics—it would take a
circulatory system that could supply those muscles with oxygen and nutrients.
"As you get bigger, you have less
and less wiggle room evolutionarily," says Vogel. "Jet propulsion is
fabulous when you are a micron in size and fabulously bad when you are
big."
Yet jellyfish do get big—some, such as
the well-named giant jellyfish (Nemopilema nomurai), can grow to almost 8 feet
across and weigh in at 400 pounds. But when Dabiri modeled the forces required
for jet propulsion and did the math, the numbers said that jellyfish much
bigger than a softball shouldn't even exist.
Then Dabiri took closer notice of a
relationship between the size of a jellyfish and the shape of its bell. The
smaller jellyfish tend to look like thimbles or little rockets, their bells
always taller than wide. http://louis2j2sheehan.us/page1.aspx
The larger jellies had bells shaped
more like UFOs—wider than they were tall. To investigate, he ordered some
crystal jellies, Aequorea victoria, little thimble-shaped creatures small
enough to swim comfortably in a petri dish. As a jellyfish explored its
surroundings, Dabiri's colleagues Sean Colin and John Costello squirted a bit
of harmless fluorescent dye behind the animal, to better see the water's
motion. The small, thimble-shaped jelly zipped around jet-pack style, and the
dye revealed the lost kinetic energy swirling in its wake.
Then the research team filmed some
broad, UFO-shaped jellies known as moon jellyfish, or Aurelia aurita, in
shallow waters of the Adriatic Sea and in a saltwater lake on the Adriatic
island of Mljet. Again, the scientists used dye to visualize the animals'
wakes. The researchers immediately noticed that these jellies didn't zip to and
fro, but meandered, using a leisurely half-jet, half-paddle approach. Like
their rocket-shaped relatives, these broader, flatter jellies moved by
contracting their meager muscles, squeezing water from their bells into a
swirling vortex behind them. But when a moon jellyfish relaxed, postsqueeze,
and water rushed in to refill its bell, the dye revealed a second vortex
forming at the bell's edge. Dabiri realized that this second vortex was
swirling in the opposite direction of that of the first, like water swirling
inward at the edge of a bowl pushed down into a basin of water. The collision
of these opposing, swirling masses of water was providing enough thrust to
propel the moon jellyfish forward.
CONTRAST IN CADENCE. A jellyfish with
a broader bell, left, propels itself by creating two opposing vortices of
water—the first results from a jet thrust, the second forms after the jelly
relaxes in a paddlelike stroke. Rocket-shaped jellies, right, use a purely
jet-pack approach.
R. Rogge
Dabiri crunched the numbers again,
incorporating bell dimensions and the force of the second vortex into his
equations. His new model, published with Colin and Costello in the June 2007
Journal of Experimental Biology, suggests that broad jellies, no matter how big,
should be able to generate enough force to swim, albeit via a gentle, slow
paddle, not a jet. And because of the superior elasticity of a jelly's gooey
cellular matrix, the critter doesn't use extra energy to generate the second
vortex. It's like a spring that's been compressed and wants to recoil, says
Dabiri. "The relaxation phase is essentially for free."
Dabiri is impressed by the fancy
footwork of these broad jellies and by how they've managed with the hand (or
tentacles) that they've been dealt.
"We think of them as blobs on the
beach that don't have the capabilities of complex swimmers," Dabiri says.
In fact, the signature move of the broader jellies, the jet-paddle, is
sophisticated enough to inspire Dabiri to rethink the constraints faced by underwater
vehicles. His graduate student Lydia Trevino is working on modifying propellers
in such a way that they could generate enough force to move an otherwise
cumbersome machine more efficiently in the fluid environment of the sea.
While the two swimming styles of
jellyfish appear to allow for the breadth of sizes seen in jellies today,
scientists such as Allen Collins of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration seem more struck by the fact that Dabiri's equations predict the
limits on jelly bell shapes that are manifest in nature.
"They can't seem to get beyond
what is theoretically possible," says Collins, who is also curator of the
Smithsonian Institution's jellyfish and glass sponge collections at the
National Museum of Natural History.
Before choosing betwixt jet and
paddle, jellies had to become free-floating beasts, a first for their lineage.
Jellyfish belong to a larger group of animals known as Cnidarians, united by
their ability to make stinging, poisonous barbs, a feat they presumably
inherited from a common, ancient ancestor (knidï is Greek for "stinging
nettle"). Corals and anemones are part of this group, as are critters
known as sea fans and sea pens. Like jellyfish, most Cnidarians have a tubular
body with a mouth on one end surrounded by tentacles. But many of these
creatures are anchored to sand or rock. They can't move, by jet or by paddle.
Young jellies are also limited in
terms of purposeful movement. They begin life as small larvae dispersed by
currents and eventually settle on the bottom of the sea. The majority then grow
into polyps, small finger- or pear-shaped lumps. Some species have polyps that
can crawl around a bit, but mostly they stay put, waiting for something tasty
to stumble into their tentacles. This was life in the 'burbs for Cnidarians,
until the day, roughly 550 million years ago, that a polyp ancestor of today's
jellies grew a little bud that broke off and got into the swim of things.
Called medusans, these free jellies are the adult jellyfish that marinelife
fans know and love (or fear). Almost all of today's jellies still begin as
larvae, become polyps, and eventually medusans, free to roam the seas.
It's likely that the first
free-floating jellies were the only swimmers in the ancient seas, says Collins.
There would have been algae and coral larvae and such floating around, and
eventually ancient versions of lobsters and other marine arthropods. But the
highways were basically clear. No sharks. No fish. Certainly no people. The
jellies had the pool to themselves.
But what stroke the earliest jellyfish
used isn't as clear. When Dabiri and his colleagues realized that the same
swimming styles cropped up in distinct groups of jellies, the researchers
wondered whether the first ancient swimming jelly blasted from place to place
via jet pack or gently paddled around. So the researchers looked up the most
recent version of the jellyfish family tree. (The tree was generated using
molecular data by Collins and colleagues published in Systematic Biology in
2006.)
When Dabiri's team plotted swimming
strategies onto the tree, it appeared that both swimming styles have been
invented again and again in jellyfish evolution. But Collins cautions that
jellyfish are understudied beasts. Without surveying all of the species in
every group it is difficult to say if jets or paddles emerged first. Scientists
often look to the fossil record for answers to what-came-first kinds of
questions. And while some fossilized jellies have been found, the record
remains murky.
It is clear that some groups tend to
favor one mode of motion. Among the box jellies (Cubozoans), which are known
for their fierce venom and distinct cube shape, bell size has been restricted
and many of these jellies are small, jet-propelled species. The hydrozoans, a
sister group of the box jellies, show more variation. Hydrozoans called
Trachymedusae have diminutive bells and belong to the jet set. Other hydrozoans
called siphonophores include species like the Portuguese man-o-war that may
grow up to several feet long, but are actually colonies made up of many smaller
bells chained together. While technically too large to jet, siphonophores pull
off jet propulsion through the coordinated thrusts of the individual bells.
The leisurely paddle propulsion also appears
more than once in the greater jellyfish family tree, and different groups have
made use of various body parts to enhance the paddlelike edges of their bells.
Thimble-shaped hydrozoans have a velum, a sort of muscular shelf at the inner
edge of the bell, that boosts propulsive power by providing a stiff collar
through which to blast the water. The larger, flatter paddling hydrozoans known
as Narcomedusans sport a tweaked velum—a flapping paddlelike appendage—that
helps generate the second vortex.
Some of the wispy creatures' body
plans fall between the extremes, or switch as teens, going from UFO-shaped
juveniles to rocket-shaped adults. But it appears that it isn't advantageous to
take the middle road. Examining dining preferences hints at why, say Dabiri and
his colleagues in an upcoming issue of Invertebrate Biology.
Jet-propellers tend to be what
ecologists call ambush predators—they lie in wait for a small creature to swim
by, then ensnare it in a stinging mass of tentacles. Like Agent 007, most of
these jellies appear to employ the jet pack to escape from an enemy rather than
to attack. On the other hand, what's known of the paddling jellyfish suggests
that they are largely cruising foragers—they amble along, capturing
soft-bodied, slow-moving prey such as drifting eggs or tadpole-like creatures.
Of course, jellies may have done it
first, but most animals have since figured out how to generate force by
contracting muscles, points out Edwin DeMont of St. Francis Xavier University
in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. But many creatures use two muscles where jellies
use one. Human biceps and triceps, for example, pair up so that when one
contracts, the other pulls back to rest. The equivalent in jellies is the
springy, postsqueeze expansion of their goo.
"They can't increase that rate—it
is passive," says DeMont. "They've had to capture the fluid processes
in the environment."
From Dabiri's perspective, the ability
to harness these fluid processes is one of the marvels of these graceful ghosts
of the sea. He hopes to do something similar with air currents. Inspired by the
flow dynamics employed by the jet-paddling jellies, he has begun investigating
how to capture the energy of winds whipping through a city. Because this wind
can quickly change direction and strength as it slides down buildings, turns
corners, or blasts down streets, taking advantage of it requires thinking more
like a jelly than a tuna. Dabiri recently received funding from the National
Science Foundation to explore the energy conversion that happens when eddies
and vortices are generated by animals like jellyfish.
"Whether water or air,"
Dabiri says, "it all comes back to the same equations."
Strong though the temptation is to
call the bearded charioteer pictured on the front cover "Ben Hur of
Ur," it would not be quite accurate to do so. For the little statuette
comes not from the famous Chaldean city but was dug up at Tell Agrab, near
Baghdad. Probably, though, Ur's warriors drove to battle in just such jolting
war-chariots behind teams of four scampering donkeys.
Notable are the big copper studs that
circled the wheels, tire fashion, and the driver's not-too-comfortable position
astride a continuation rearward of the chariot pole. It is to be noticed
especially that he is shown standing on the floor of the chariot—he probably
didn't sit down much.
This interesting find, which dates
from about 2800 B.C., was made by an expedition of the Oriental Institute of
the University of Chicago.
Many an American family that would not
buy second-hand furniture or wear second-hand clothes is eating a third-rate
diet. This is apparent from a survey of typical food expenditures made by Dr.
Hazel K. Stiebeling of the U.S. Bureau of Home Economics. The survey included
25,000 representative city, village, and rural families.
Size of the family pocketbook was not
the only or perhaps even the chief factor responsible for the poor nutritional
quality of the family's diet. At every expenditure level above $100 per person
per year, some families were able to provide themselves with very good diets.
The reason more families do not get good diets is chiefly because they do not
know how to select the most nourishing foods for the money.
As might be expected, the tables of
the well-to-do families were more frequently and more liberally supplied with
milk, butter, eggs, fruits, and green and leafy vegetables. These are classed
by nutritionists as the "protective foods" because they protect
against such serious ills as rickets, beriberi, and scurvy and also against
numerous minor degrees of ill health and undernutrition. Families spending less
than $85 per year per person for food, as might be expected, got very poor
diets.
At the median expenditure level,
however, which is $130 per person per year, almost one-half were eating a
third-rate diet and nearly another fifth a very poor diet. At this expenditure
level a little over one-fifth of the families had a first-rate diet.
Three-fourths of the families were at
$100 or more expenditure level, but less than one-third of them were selecting
very good diets.
Ruins of an ancient American trade
town, where Indians turned out cheap pottery bowls for traveling salesmen to
handle, have been unearthed in the tropics in northeast Honduras, by a
Smithsonian-Harvard University joint expedition. The Smithsonian Institution
has just issued a report of the expedition, which took place in 1936.
The town unearthed sheds light on
industrial life of aboriginal America. Evidence that mass production was tried
in those days is found in quantities of broken pottery, some decorated in the
"factory" method of stamping the design.
Indian businessmen of the town lived
well, judging by two house floors unearthed by the expedition. The plastered
floors were stained red. Fragments of plaster, apparently from walls, show
redecoration in successive layers of red, yellow, red, blue-gray, and red.
The town is identified as Naco,
visited by Spanish explorers in 1526. Spaniards found it a flourishing place of
2,000 houses and about 10,000 natives, with Aztec traders from Mexico
bargaining for goods in the shady city square. Ten years later, Naco was
reduced to a pitiable handful of 45 Indians, the rest having been killed,
enslaved, or driven into the hills.
So I’m at Peet’s coffee a while back — Pirillo loves
it,
and talked me into it — and I want to buy some beans. They look good, oily and
dark. I move over to the counter, and the barrista looks up at me and asks if
she can help me.
As I’m about to open my mouth, I notice she’s wearing an unusual
necklace. It’s a simple thing, wire with small beads on it. The shape is odd,
though. The wire has been bent into a pattern, a hexagon with some radial bits
coming out at the vertices.
It’s obviously a molecule. It looks familiar, but I can’t place
it. Suddenly, though, I get a flash of insight.
Where am I
standing?
I smile. I already know the answer… "Is that a caffeine
molecule?" I ask.
Over the course of two seconds her expression changes from open
and helpful to one of surprise and amazement.
"That’s right!" she exclaims. "You’re the first
person to get it!"
Just like that, we bonded. Turns out she’s a biochem major, and
working at Peet’s to make ends meet. We chatted for a while — we scientists
tend to stick together — and she told me she made the necklace herself, which
is cool.
Finally, though, I have to leave. As I turn to go, she tells me
to wait. She reaches down and grabs something. Smiling broadly, she passes it
to me.
It’s a coupon for a free cup of coffee, next time I come in.
Science, babies. It pays.
Some people call Venus our sister planet, but if it is, it’s the
sister that went very, very bad.
The atmospheric
pressure at the surface is a crushing 90 atmospheres. The surface
temperature is 470 Celsius (about 900 F). The atmosphere is almost entirely
carbon dioxide, and it rains sulphuric acid. To paraphrase Chekov, it’s not
exactly a garden spot.*
Through a telescope (and by eye for that matter) Venus is
beautiful and bright, but featureless. In visible light, the best you can see are
very subtle patches on the disk of the planet. The atmosphere is far too thick
to see the surface.
But there’s still a lot to learn from the planet. The European
Space Agency’s Venus Express
orbiter arrived at the hellish planet in April 2006 and set up shop.
It’s equipped with an ultraviolet camera, and when viewed in UV Venus is a
whole ‘nuther place. The chemicals in the atmosphere reflect or absorb UV from
the Sun ,creating beautiful global weather patterns reminiscent of Earth’s. Here’s a
recent UV shot:
As you can see, the story is different in UV than in visible.
Things is, scientists aren’t exactly sure what they’re seeing. The bright
stripes are due to sulphuric acid droplets in the air (yikes… I mean seriously,
yikes). But they’re not sure what’s
causing the darker regions; something is absorbing UV, but it’s unknown exactly
what it is.
And the weather on Venus is weird, too. The science
team was recently amazed to see a bright haze form over the south pole of
Venus, then, over the course of several days, grow to cover the southern half
of the planet. Then, just as quickly, it receded. What could cause such a
thing? No one knows. There are very small amounts of water vapor and sulphur
dioxide in Venus’s atmosphere, located deeper down (below 70 km in height). If
this wells up, the ultraviolet from the Sun can break the molecules apart,
which would reform into sulphuric acid, creating the haze. But why would those
two molecules suddenly well up to the top of the atmosphere in the first place?
Again, no one knows.
The only thing to do is keep looking. Venus Express has been
orbiting the planet for nearly two years now, and that allows the long view, so
to speak. By examining the data taken over long periods of time, scientists can
investigate global properties of the planet and look for trends, connections,
cause and effect. Venus has the same mass, size, and density of Earth, but at
some point in its past it took a very different path than we did. Studying it
carefully will reveal more about the Earth and why things turned out so well
for us.
Sure, when you look into the abyss, sometimes it looks back into
you. But that can be pretty helpful when you want to learn more about the abyss
as well as yourself.
No comments:
Post a Comment