By Suzanne Jacobson 4 Jun 2015 4:38 pmcommentsShare
What would you rather wear: water guzzling cotton, petroleum-based polyester, or a crazy strong wonder material that comes from spider butts?
The correct answer is spider butts — I mean, spider silk. (Before you jump to the comments, I should say that I know that spider silk doesn’t actually come from spiders’ butts; it comes from their “spinning ducts.” But, come on, spider butts is way more fun to say.)
San Francisco-based company Bolt Threads is planning to have spider-silk clothing available as early as next year, according to Bloomberg Business. The company, founded five years ago by a group of graduate students at UC San Francisco, is pitching the nature-made textile as an eco-friendly alternative to some of the gross fabrics that we wear now.
But here’s the catch: Bolt’s spider silk doesn’t actually come from spiders. It turns out those little eight-legged monsters are terrible at textile mass production. Here’s more from Bloomberg:
Scientists, at least those who aren’t arachnophobes, have tried to mass-produce spider silk for decades with little success. Spiders are territorial and cannibalistic—try to farm them, and they end up eating each other. But scientists have long believed that if spiders would only cooperate, fabric made from their silk would be well-suited for use in military and medical equipment, like wound sutures or artificial tendons, as well as in high-performance athletic clothing and other garments.
When the Bolt crew first started out, they actually bought a bunch of spiders from an insect dealer in Florida and let them spin their silk all over the office. (Not surprisingly, that method of production proved untenable.)
Instead, the researchers genetically engineered yeast to produce the same material through fermentation. They can even specify the softness, stretch, and strength of the material, Bloomberg reports. Oh, and they also have a sweet office:
Bolt Threads occupies offices across the San Francisco Bay, in Emeryville. A copy of Charlotte’s Web is in the lobby, and a chandelier made of silkworm cocoons hangs in the conference room. The real action is in a series of interlinked labs, where billions of bioengineered yeast cells ferment, excreting their protein fibers into slurries of water, salt, and sugar. In another room, centrifuges filter out the silk from the liquid. A larger room will hold 200-liter fermentation units for producing silk in greater quantities. Bolt is working with manufacturing partners such as the Michigan Biotechnology Institute in Lansing, which will do larger-scale fermentation in 4,000-liter tanks using Bolt’s process, and Unifi, a yarn manufacturer based in Greensboro, N.C., which will spin Bolt’s fibers into apparel-ready yarn and textiles.
Of course, any plan to mass produce anything raises a lot of questions: How much water and energy will it take to put us all in spider silk tees? Could spider silk have any negative health impacts? Will spiders confuse us all for giant prey caught in giant webs? And most importantly — is there any chance (any chance AT ALL) that a shy, 25-year-old reporter who’s kind of a nerd could get superpowers from wearing spider silk clothing?
Source:
A Bay Area Startup Spins Lab-Grown Silk
, Bloomberg Business.
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It puts the lotion in the basket
By Madeleine Thomason 18 May 2015 4:06 pmcommentsShare
Here’s some The Silence of the Lambs-level horror to ruin your day: One of the most popular cosmetics brands in the world grows human skin, and is actively researching technology to increase its production. Using samples donated by French plastic surgery patients, the cosmetics powerhouse L’Oreal already raises more than 54 square feet of skin per year to test its products, which provides an alternative to animal testing. And now, to help speed up production, the company is turning to 3D printing.
Bloomberg Business has the story:
L’Oreal needs human skin. Lots of it. That’s why the French cosmetics giant earlier this month announced that it’s partnering with bioprinting startup Organovo to figure out how to 3D print living, breathing derma that can be used to test products for toxicity and efficacy. “We’re the first beauty company Organovo has worked with,” says Guive Balooch, global vice president of L’Oreal’s tech incubator.
This isn’t L’Oreal’s first foray into skin production. Looking to avoid animal testing, the company started farming derma back in the 1980s. In Lyon, France, it runs lab facilities the size of three Olympic swimming pools, dedicated entirely to growing and analyzing human tissues.
Unlike the legendary French women who can chain smoke cigarettes, eat a pound of brie a week, and still not age a day past 25, I occasionally turn to cosmetics for a Bardot-esque complexion. (Best believe this quarter-French mademoiselle is starting to see wrinkles.) So thank you, people of France, for all your breast lifts and tummy tucks that made my flawless complexion possible! Mwah.
Source:
L’Oreal’s Plan to Start 3D Printing Human Skin
, Bloomberg Business.
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L’Oreal is about to 3D print human skin — because you’re worth it
Mother Jones
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Muhammad Ali’s winning formula for boxing was to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.” There was plenty of floating, but not much stinging, for former presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday night, during a two-round charity bout in Salt Lake City, against former five-time heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield.
Revealing some prime #grandpabod in bright red satin shorts (remember, he only ate organic on the campaign trail?), and sporting an “I can’t believe I’m doing this but WTF” grin, the former governor’s sparring skills just couldn’t cut it.
The Associated Press captured what’s been dubbed the “Quake on the Lake“:
Romney, 68, and Holyfield, 52, sparred, if you could call it that, for just two short rounds before Romney ran away from the boxer and threw in the towel, giving up a round early in the lighthearted fight that came amid several other fights by professional boxers and an auction.
The two barely threw any punches and largely just danced around, occasionally lightly jabbing each other in the midsection in what was much more of a comedic event than an actual bout.
Let’s be honest: Holyfield, who once famously lost part of his ear in a fight with Mike Tyson, could have knocked out the former governor of Massachusetts with a single punch. But the joyous thing, the meaningful thing, was that he tried. Please proceed, governor:
Romney landed at least one solid jab, it seems:
Kapow! Rick Bowmer/AP
Holyfield then took a fall to make things interesting:
In the end, a ring-side Anne Romney—who always has her boyfriend’s back—threw in the towel on Mitt’s behalf, and Holyfield emerged victorious:
The black-tie affair raised at least $1 million for Charity Vision, a Utah-based nonprofit that helps doctors perform surgeries for the blind in developing countries. That amount of money is apparently equivalent to Holyfield’s net worth, and 1/25 of Romney’s, according to Buzzfeed’s Tale of the Tape.
After the match, Holyfield apparently quipped to Romney: “You know what? You float like a bee and sting like a butterfly.”
And so everyone had an enjoyable time, especially Ann Romney:
Loved being part of Mitt’s posse tonight. #CVfightnight pic.twitter.com/gBc89JFObV
— Ann Romney (@AnnDRomney)
Continued:
Grinning, Sparring, Losing: Mitt Romney’s Surreal Night Inside a Salt Lake City Boxing Ring.
By Amelia Urryon 14 May 2015commentsShare
We live in a time of strange contradictions: Many of us carry around highly sophisticated, GPS- and camera-equipped supercomputers just to play 2048 on the bus, while a lot of science is still limited by rudimentary tools and a lack of information. This is especially true for marine sciences (perhaps in part because water and electronics don’t always play well together). From Wired:
“It’s crazy how behind the times we are,” says Sly Lee, a former biological science technician for the US National Park Service and founder of the Hydrous, a science communication non-profit. “We can decode coral genomes, but we can’t accurately track how fast the corals are degrading.”
Part of the problem with keeping track of coral degradation is that we lack a good yardstick — how do you measure the size of an irregularly shaped, many-branched staghorn colony? How do you track the exact hue from healthy to bleached? At the moment, it usually involves a literal yardstick — scuba diving scientists use measuring tapes to survey huge patches of irregular coral.
So Lee is testing a new way to map individual coral colonies by their size, color, and texture, and create 3D models that scientists can examine cheaply in a lab. Last winter, Lee went to the Maldives — site of a recent large bleaching event — to test his new tool:
Lee dove with a waterproof camera to take nearly 200,000 images of the reefs from every angle. Then he uploaded the photos to Autodesk rendering software, stitching them together into a high-resolution model. Later this year, he’ll return to the same corals, then use the before-and-after visualizations to see exactly how they have fared.
Here’s a video of one table coral modeled in Lee’s software:
Once the software is online and openly accessible, anyone should be able to upload their coral footage to the system. So hello, waterproof casing, goodbye, guestimation.
Source:
3-D Mapping the World’s Corals to Track Their Health
, Wired.
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Mother Jones
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On Thursday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a very important message for anyone planning to swim this summer: Don’t poop in the pool. Also, try not to be in a pool where someone else has pooped. At least, if you can avoid it, don’t swim with your mouth open in a pool if you, or someone else, has pooped nearby.
These are just a few of the ways you can try to avoid getting norovirus—a nasty and highly contagious stomach virus that sometimes makes its way onto cruise ships—as you enjoy all sorts of aquatic activities that are not limited to pools. Lakes have high levels of poop-related-risks it seems, as the CDC announcement describes how some people in Oregon swam in a lake last year and ended up getting the virus, which causes vomiting and diarrhea. The outbreak ended up sickening 70 people, some of whom didn’t even swim in the lake (state health officials found, however, that swimmers were over twice as likely to get sick).
Other important tips include not peeing in the water, not vomiting in the water, and maybe skipping swimming that day if there’s a chance you might do any of those things.
This important message comes in honor of Healthy and Safe Swimming week and is mostly geared toward children (or parents of children) who are not only more at risk for norovirus but are also prime suspects of doing things in water that one shouldn’t do. They also, apparently, are bad at swimming with their mouths closed. Per the CDC’s press release:
“Children are prime targets for norovirus and other germs that can live in lakes and swimming pools because they’re so much more likely to get the water in their mouths,” said Michael Beach, Ph.D, the CDC’s associate director for healthy water. “Keeping germs out of the water in the first place is key to keeping everyone healthy and helping to keep the places we swim open all summer.”
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By Eve Andrewson 14 May 2015commentsShare
For National Women’s Health Week, we’re highlighting women’s health issues in the United States.
Yesterday, after years of Republicans threatening to do so, the House of Representatives voted to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The important thing to remember about abortions is that they are not pleasant things. One does not get an abortion, especially a late-term abortion, for the hell of it — one gets an abortion because she has decided that undergoing an emotionally trying and painful procedure has greater benefits to both her and the fetus than carrying the baby to term.
This particular bill targets women who are most in need, as women who are likely to seek later-term abortions are usually young and low-income. Data from the Guttmacher Institute indicates that nearly 60 percent of women were forced to delay their abortions due to financial and logistical constraints, and 58 percent of women wished they had undergone the procedure earlier in their pregnancy.
From The New York Times:
Representatives Diana DeGette of Colorado and Louise M. Slaughter of New York, Democrats who are the chairwomen of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, said the bill was another attempt by Republicans to erect barriers to medical care for women.
Prohibiting most abortions 20 weeks after fertilization would run counter to the Supreme Court’s standard of fetal viability, which is generally put at 22 to 24 weeks after fertilization.
“Every woman has a constitutional right to make health care choices in the manner she sees fit, and everyone in America should see this cynical attempt to seize control from women for what it is,” Ms. DeGette and Ms. Slaughter said in a statement on Tuesday.
Let’s get this straight: Republicans want to restrict abortions, but they also want to make it harder for women to access birth control. There are few things more dystopian than a state where women are left powerless to make their own reproductive decisions, but at least there’s a glimmer of hope: In January, the White House stated that President Obama would veto a bill like this one. Uteruses around the country salute you, Obama! (No, not like that.)
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House Republicans do their part to commemorate National Women’s Health Week
By Amelia Urryon 13 May 2015commentsShare
It’s a hard time to be an olive. After a rash of terrible weather in 2014 and an actual plague of fruit flies, the latest blight to hit the iconic, enigmatic fruit is an actual blight. From the New York Times:
“It is devastating,” said Enzo Manni, the director of ACLI-Racale, an olive cooperative in the heart of the outbreak area. “It is apocalyptic. I compare it to an earthquake.”
Today, scientists estimate that one million olive trees in the peninsula, known as the Salento, are infected with the bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, a figure that could rise rapidly.
The bacterium is an invasive species that has already taken down citrus trees in Brazil and vineyards in California. The omnivorous pest is now eating its way through the olive-rich “heel” of Italy, which means the rest of us will have a harder time doing so. Olives, like California’s much maligned almond trees, are slow-growing, which means they are an expensive investment up front.
In southern Salento, growers are alarmed but determined to learn how to adapt to the presence of the bacterium. It takes seven years or longer for a new tree to begin producing olives, and farmers were initially furious at reports that the European Commission wanted to cut down a million or more trees, and possibly even healthy plants in proximity.
Growers note that about 10 percent of all olive trees in the southern part of the province are infected — meaning that about 10 million trees are still thought to be healthy.
This is a major threat to the way of life of many families that have been farming olives for generations, but it’s also bad news for anyone who likes to eat well, without putting an undue burden on the planet.
Olive oil is delicious, drinkable, liquid gold — it is also vegan. I firmly believe it is one of the major reasons that Italians get away with eating so many plants (yes, pasta counts) and relatively little meat. When you can eat bread sopped in the ambrosial, green nectar of the gods, as far as I’m concerned, dinner is served.
Source:
Fear of Ruin as Disease Takes Hold of Italy’s Olive Trees
, New York Times.
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By Suzanne Jacobson 11 May 2015commentsShare
Rising seas are about to engulf the oldest city in the U.S., and it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to do anything about it. That’s because the city of St. Augustine happens to be in Florida, where pythons roam free, Mickey Mouse is king, and climate change doesn’t exist.
St. Augustine is home to Spanish explorer Ponce de Lyon’s Fountain of Youth, an old military fortress, and — like any respectable historical site — plenty of brick roads and old-ass buildings. The 450-year-old national landmark also happens to be one of many cities along Florida’s coast getting increasingly worried about rising seas — a curious trend, given the state’s exemption from a certain global phenomenon.
To figure out what the state plans to do about these mysterious rising seas, Associated Press reporters sifted through thousands of state documents and emails. Here’s what they found:
Despite warnings from water experts and climate scientists about risks to cities and drinking water, skepticism over sea level projections and climate change science has hampered planning efforts at all levels of government, the records showed. Florida’s environmental agencies under [Gov. Rick] Scott have been downsized and retooled, making them less effective at coordinating sea level rise planning in the state, the documents showed.
“If I were governor, I’d be out there talking about it (sea level rise) every day,” said Eric Buermann, the former general counsel to the Republican Party of Florida who also served as a water district governing board member. “I think he’s really got to grab ahold of this, set a vision, a long-term vision, and rally the people behind it. Unless you’re going to build a sea wall around South Florida, what’s the plan?”
What’s the plan, indeed, Gov. Scott? The AP found that local officials in St. Augustine and elsewhere are trying to adapt to rising seas but are pretty much on their own:
Cities like St. Augustine have looked for help, but Scott’s disregard for climate change science has created a culture of fear among state employees, records show.
The administration has been adamant that employees, including scientists, not “assign cause” in public statements about global warming or sea level rise, internal government emails show.
For example, an April 28, 2014, email approving a DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] scientist’s request to participate in a National Geographic story came with a warning: “Approved. Make no claims as to cause … stay with the research you are doing, of course,” the DEP manager, Pamela Phillips, warned.
“I know the drill,” responded Mike Shirley, manager of the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve near St. Augustine.
Agency spokeswoman Engel said Phillips was a lower-level staffer whose views didn’t necessarily reflect the entire administration. When asked whether staffers are told not to assign cause, Scott’s office said “the allegations are not true.”
Bigger cities like Tampa and Miami are also up shit creek without a state-issued paddle. According to the AP, South Miami is so worried that it called for the southern half of Florida to secede from the rest of the state, leaving its northern brethren to their own self-destructive devices.
In a place like St. Augustine, rising sea levels will certainly wreak less economic havoc than in a big city like Miami, but wouldn’t the loss of America’s oldest city mean something? Is a band ever the same after losing its original lead?
Source:
Sea rise threatens Florida coast, but no statewide plan
, The Associated Press.
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The oldest city in the U.S. could be totally screwed by rising seas
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