High Noon on the Moon (1991)

Apollo 16 LM Pilot Charles Duke/NASA

One of the most common questions members of the public ask space educators is, “why does the moon change shape?” The answer is, of course, that our planet’s natural satellite does not change shape; it is always a sphere. What changes is the way light from the Sun strikes the side of the moon we can see.

Earth’s moon, like most other Solar System moons, is a synchronous rotator; that is, the period of time it needs to revolve about its axis once (about 28 days) is equal to the period of time it needs to orbit the Earth once. This is why humans on Earth see only the moon’s Nearside hemisphere. The Farside hemisphere, turned always away from Earth, remained mysterious until 1959, when the Soviet Union’s Luna III spacecraft imaged it for the first time.

For Earthlings, the day/night cycle for the Nearside begins with new moon. The moon is in fact not visible when it is new; that is because it is at the point in its orbit when it is between the Earth and the Sun. This means that the Nearside is not lit by the Sun and the moon is lost in the Sun’s glare. Occasionally it means that the moon crosses over the Sun; new moon is when solar eclipses occur.

As the moon orbits the Earth, the areas the Sun’s light can reach change. Three or four days after new moon, people on Earth who look west in evening twilight will glimpse a slender crescent moon. The horns of the crescent point away from the setting Sun, toward the east. If one looks carefully, one will see that the part of the Nearside not yet lit by the Sun is just barely visible.

This is probably a good place to note that the Earth changes shape as viewed from the Nearside. When the moon is new, the Earth is full. Full Earth is about four times larger and reflects about 75 times as much light as full moon. When the moon is a crescent, the Earth is mostly full. This means that sunlight reflected off the Earth can light the part of the Nearside that direct sunlight has not yet reached.

As on Earth, the Sun on the moon rises in the east. The line of dawn – the dawn terminator – advances westward a little faster than a typical human can comfortably jog. High mountains and crater rims catch the morning Sun’s bright rays first; viewed through even a modest Earth-based telescope, they appear as isolated islands of light amid dark lowlands. As the Sun climbs higher at any given location, light fills in the lowlands and crater floors.

Seven days past new, the Nearside is half-lit. This shape, or “phase,” is called first quarter. For Earthlings, the moon rises at noon, stands in the south at sunset, and sets at midnight.

Fourteen days past new, the Nearside is fully lit by the Sun. The full moon is visible all night; it rises in the east as the Sun sets in the west, stands highest at midnight, and sets in the west as the Sun rises in the east. The full Nearside looks up at a new Earth. The moon is at the point in its orbit where Earth stands between it and the Sun; full moon is when lunar eclipses can occur.

Many people make the mistake of looking at the moon through a small telescope for the first time when it is full. When the Nearside is fully lit by the Sun, all sense of surface relief disappears because all features are lit evenly from directly above. The moon might as well be a billiard ball. If one can stand the bright glare of the full Nearside, then one can examine many high-contrast light and dark areas; many are best seen when the Nearside is fully lit. Of particular interest are the Nearside-spanning whitish-gray rays of the large southern-hemisphere impact crater Tycho.

Twenty-one days past new, the sunset terminator is advancing and night now covers the Nearside’s eastern half. This phase is called last quarter. The moon rises at midnight, stands highest at earthly dawn, and sets at noon.

About 24 days past new, the crescent moon rises just before the Sun. The dark part of the Nearside is again lit by sunlight reflected off the nearly full Earth. A telescope will reveal the advance of the sunset terminator; lowlands will grow dark, then mountains and high crater limbs will slowly shrink and then wink out. If you look at the crescent moon before dawn, take care not to point your telescope at the Sun as it peeks above the horizon and makes the crescent moon fade from view.

Day 28 begins the moon’s eternal day-night cycle all over again. The moon stands between the Sun and Earth, lost in the Sun’s glare. and it is midnight at the center of the Nearside hemisphere.

The crater-pocked small basaltic plain Sinus Medii – Latin for “Central Bay” – marks the center of the Nearside. When the clock strikes midnight in Sinus Medii, it is high noon at the center of the rugged Farside hemisphere. If you stood at the center of Farside – on the lunar equator north of the impact crater Daedalus – the Sun would glare down on you from directly overhead.

Conversely, when it is high noon on Sinus Medii, it is midnight at the center of the Farside hemisphere; that is, exactly the opposite of the situation 14 days earlier. Midnight on Farside is different from Nearside midnight. No full Earth shines down on its rugged landscapes, so they are utterly dark. Only the faint light of stars, planets, and the silvery, powdery Milky Way relieves the blackness.

A careful reader will have noted that the Nearside phases are the opposite of those visible on Earth as viewed from the Nearside. The Farside phases, on the other hand, match those of Earth as viewed from the Nearside.

Changes in the orbital geometry and lighting angles in the Earth-moon system are today mainly of interest to stargazers amateur and professional, but nearly a half-century ago it was different. Apollo missions were blasting off Earth every few months bound for the moon, and lighting conditions were a critical part of landing site planning and mission timing.

Conservative Apollo mission rules dictated that the bug-like Apollo Lunar Module (LM) spacecraft should land only between 12 and 48 hours after sunrise at its target landing site, when the Sun stood between 5° and 20° of the eastern horizon. Landing sites were restricted to the Nearside within about 20° of the equator.

The Apollo mission Commander (CDR) and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) would ignite their spindly-legged spacecraft’s descent engine over the Farside to slow it so that it would intersect the lunar surface on the Nearside at its planned landing site. The LM would then gradually descend with its twin triangular windows pointed toward the sky.

As it neared its planned landing place, it would pitch up to point its descent engine and foot pads at the lunar surface. When their landing site became visible outside the LM windows, the Sun would shine behind the spacecraft so that it would not glare into the astronauts’ eyes. The low Sun angle would cast westward-pointing shadows on the lunar surface. Shadows would make crater floors and boulders stand out, making it easier for the CDR and LMP to dodge them during final descent and touchdown. The shadow of the LM would also become visible, thus enabling the astronauts to gauge the size of features on the lunar surface.

Because of limited supplies of avionics cooling water, battery power, and breathing oxygen, the longest an Apollo lunar surface mission could last was about 72 hours. The period during which Apollo explorers could gain experience with working in lunar lighting conditions thus only spanned from 12 hours – the earliest permitted landing time – to 120 hours – the latest permitted landing time plus the maximum stay-time of 72 hours.

In 1991, Dean Eppler, a geologist in the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Lunar & Mars Exploration Program Office (LMEPO) with an interest in lunar geologic fieldwork, conducted a preliminary study of the effects on surface operations of the whole range of lunar lighting conditions in support of Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) planning. SEI, launched amid great fanfare by President George H. W. Bush on 20 July 1989, aimed to complete Space Station Freedom, return American astronauts to the moon to stay, and then launch them to Mars. “To stay” implied that astronauts would need to land, drive, walk, and work on the moon throughout its day-night cycle at many different locations.

Eppler had help from a spaceflight legend. Captain John Watts Young had joined NASA in 1962 as a member of the second Astronaut Class (“the “New Nine”) and was a veteran of six space missions (Gemini III, Gemini X, Apollo 10, Apollo 16, STS-1, and STS-9), four of which he commanded. He was Chief of the Astronaut Office at JSC from 1974 until 5 May 1987, when he was made JSC Director Aaron Cohen’s Special Assistant for Engineering, Operations, and Safety.

Though his new job was widely seen as punishment for the views he expressed in the aftermath of the 28 January 1986 Challenger accident, Young tackled it with gusto. He delved into a wide range of technical and safety issues and distributed hundreds of memoranda offering advice. Young also made himself available to people such as Eppler (and, incidentally, to this author); that is, to individuals eager to learn from and commit to record Young’s unique body of experience and knowledge.

As Apollo 10 Command Module Pilot (CMP) in May 1969, Young had opportunity to observe the lunar surface from orbit under a range of lighting conditions. He told Eppler that transition from the sunlit part of the moon to the Earthlit part was quick and that the eye adjusted almost immediately. Features on the lunar surface remained almost as visible to the human eye as they were under sunlight, and it was even possible to pick out features inside shadows in Earthlit areas.

The change from the Earthlit part of the moon to the Farside, lit by neither Earth nor Sun, was “dramatic.” Nothing could be seen of the moon’s surface; it betrayed its presence even at a distance of a few tens of kilometers only because it blocked out the stars.

As Apollo 16 CDR, Young piloted the LM Orion to a landing at Descartes, the only Lunar Highland site Apollo visited. Young told Eppler that landing a spacecraft equivalent to the Apollo LM would be possible at an Earthlit site. Landing at a prepared site – that is, one with lights and electronic landing aids – would be easier than landing a helicopter at night.

Young was not the first astronaut to describe the problems of traveling toward the Sun while on the lunar surface. Shadows disappear and with them most craters and boulders. The two images at the top of this post, taken from the same location within moments of each other by Apollo 16 LMP Charles Duke, show this phenomenon clearly.

The top image shows John Young at work near the Apollo 16 Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). As shown by the orientation of shadows, the Sun is located to the upper right. Rocks, footprints, and LRV tracks are made obvious by the shadows they cast. The lower image, taken facing directly toward the Sun, looks very different, but in reality displays a landscape very similar to that in the top image. Rocks and other features cast no shadows and are almost invisible.

Based on Young’s observations and his own calculations, Eppler proposed schedules for operations at various lunar sites. He determined that in Sinus Medii the 5.5 days after lunar sunrise would be optimum for walking and driving. This would also be a good time for safe landings. The Apollo landing period spanned only 1.5 Earth days, but Young told Eppler that the landing period could be safely lengthened.

From 5.5 to nine days after sunrise at Sinus Medii, the Sun would hang within 20° of local vertical, with noon occurring on day seven. The near-vertical lighting angle would mean that terrain features would cast no shadows, making walking, driving and landing difficult. Eppler advised that only “restricted surface operations” occur during the near-noon period. Landings could occur only at prepared sites such as a lunar base landing field with electronic homing aids and bright flashing strobes.

The period from nine to 28 days after sunrise at Sinus Medii would be optimum for surface activity, Eppler found, though lighting conditions would vary greatly. Between nine and 14 days after sunrise, the Sun would lower toward the west and would again would cast shadows useful for astronauts traveling any direction (except west toward the Sun of course). Landers approaching at landing site from the east would have to contend with direct solar glare and loss of shadows. Sunset would occur on day 14, with a half-lit Earth shining high in the sky.

On day 21 – midnight at Sinus Medii – the full Earth would light the landscape as described above. Seven days later, with a half Earth high in the sky, the Sun would rise again. Surface activity could thus take place at Sinus Medii for 24.5 days of the 28-day lunar day/night cycle.

At the center of the Farside, the situation would be very different. Starting 14 days after dawn, the Sun would set and the landscape would be lost in darkness. Only by using artificial lighting could astronauts find their way. Landings would be prohibited except at prepared sites.

Eppler also examined the lighting situations on the east and west equatorial lunar limbs (that is, on the edges of the Nearside at the equator) and at the lunar poles. These closely paralleled the situation at Sinus Medii except that the Earth would sit close to the horizon – in the west in the case of the eastern limb, east for the western limb, south for the north polar region, and north for the south polar region – and, in the case of the two limb sites, would have a different phase at sunset than at Sinus Medii.

The western limb would experience sunset on day 14 under a full Earth. The lighted fraction of the Earth would shrink as night progressed. Between day 23 and day 28 after sunrise, Earth would provide too little light for surface operations without artificial lights. It would be completely dark at sunrise.

The eastern limb would experience sunset under a new Earth that would provide too little light for surface operations without artificial lighting. Eppler expected that the Earth would begin to provide adequate lighting on day 19. On day 21, Earth would be half lit, and it would be full on day 28 as the Sun rose in the east.

The polar regions would experience Earth and Sun phases similar to those at Sinus Medii, except that the Earth and Sun would both lie close to the horizon. Earth would remain in the south for north pole sites and in the north for south pole sites, but the Sun would circle the horizon. Both bodies would cause long, deep shadows, possibly making travel difficult, and moonwalkers would need to take care not to turn toward the Sun without eye protection. In addition, some areas – for example, deep crater bottoms – would be permanently in shadow, and local surface relief – mountains and craters – would periodically cut off line-of-sight radio communications with Earth.

References:

Lighting Constraints on Lunar Surface Operations, NASA Technical Memorandum 4271, Dean B. Eppler, NASA Johnson Space Center, May 1991.

Forever Young: A Life of Adventure in Air and Space, John W. Young with James R. Hansen, University Press of Florida, 2012.

Related Beyond Apollo Posts:

One-Way Space Man (1962) http://ift.tt/1iJSDJX

The Quest to Explore the Moon from Lunar Orbit (1967) http://ift.tt/1iJSE0j

Ludek Pesek’s Ill-Starred Lunar Expedition (1964) http://ift.tt/1k2LY8h

Notorious pathogen forms slimy 'streamers' to clog up medical devices

A group of researchers from the US has moved a step closer to preventing infections of the common hospital pathogen, Staphylococcus aureus, by revealing the mechanisms that allow the bacteria to rapidly clog up medical devices.

In a study published today, 27 June, in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, the researchers have shown that the bacteria colonizes into large groups, called biofilms, using a biological glue, and form thin, slimy, thread-like structures called streamers.

The streamers adhere to a surface and are able to trap passing cells as they flow through medical devices such as stents and catheters, becoming more rigid and eventually clogging up the whole device.

In their study, the researchers, from Princeton University, recreated the physical environments of medical devices with curvy channels, multiple networks and a flowing fluid, and showed that streamers can rapidly expand and create a blockage in a surprisingly short space of time.

Moreover, if the surfaces were coated with human blood plasma, which the bacteria often encounter in infectious sites, the biofilm streamers appeared in the structures even more quickly.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a notorious strain of the bacteria that has developed a resistance to antibiotics, making it particularly difficult to treat in humans.

MRSA is the most widespread cause of hospital-associated infections in the US and Europe, and has a high mortality rate. Patients with open wounds, implanted devices and weakened immune systems are at the greatest risk of infection.

Infections that are associated with medical devices are a primary concern, as the biofilms that the bacteria form have an enhanced resistance to antibiotics.

Co-author of the research Professor Howard Stone, from Princeton University, said: "We have shown that Staphylococcus aureus can create slimy, thread-like biofilm streamers in environments that mimic the physical and chemical conditions of medical devices such as stents and catheters.

"By studying the morphologies and growth dynamics of the bacteria, we believe there is potential to develop novel methods that prevent diseases associated with this notorious pathogen."

In their study, Professor Stone and colleagues investigated how surface geometry, surface chemistry, and fluid flow affected the formation of streamers.

They examined four strains of Staphylococcus aureus by staining the cells with fluorescent dyes and taking high-resolution images as a flow was passed through the microfluidic structures, which contained curvy channels and multiple networks.

Their results showed that the flow of fluid through the structures was the major contributor to the shape of the biofilm streamers, as opposed to movements of the cells themselves, and that the biofilm streamers could form in a number of different complex environments, leading the researchers to believe that the streamers are ubiquitous in natural environments.

Compared to another common pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which the researchers previously studied, Staphylococcus aureus formed and clogged up the channels much more quickly.

"The different dynamics of biofilm formation may result from different mechanisms, and different flows of the biofilm matrix, which are research directions we are currently pursuing," Professor Stone continued.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Institute of Physics . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

How Do You Block a Penalty Kick?

In today’s World Cup match between Brazil and Chile, it came down to penalty kicks. If neither team is ahead after two extra 15 minute time period, each team gets 5 penalty kicks. The team that scores the most of these 5 wins the match. Brazil won. Oh, was that a spoiler? No, it can’t be. Surely you know the score by now.

It seems pretty tough to stop one of these penalty kicks. How about a quick analysis?

How Fast is a Kick?

Of course, there isn’t a perfect side angle view of these penalty kicks. This means that it would be difficult to get a trajectory of the ball. However, I don’t really need that. I only need an estimate of the speed. Since I know the ball starts 12 yards from the goal, I can find the velocity by measuring the time of flight. Yes, these things go pretty fast. I find it’s easiest to use Tracker Video Analysis just to get the start and end time of the kick.

Using this method, I get the following speeds. Note that this is just an estimate because if the ball is kicked at an angle it actually goes farther to goal line than just 12 yards.

• Kick 1: 24.94 m/s


• Kick 2: 39.18 m/s


• Kick 3: 17.9 m/s


• Kick 4: 30.47 m/s


• Kick 5: 39.18 m/s


• Kick 6: 30.47 m/s


• Kick 7: 34.28 m/s


• Kick 8: 24.42 m/s


• Kick 9: 24.93 m/s


• Kick 10: 30.47 m/s

This gives an average kick speed of about 30 m/s. Really, the video I used was mostly on the crappy side so that these numbers cold be off.

Reaction of a Keeper

Really, not the reaction. I am thinking of the acceleration of a keeper (goalie). Here is a plot of the position of a keeper during a kick. In this case, he starts his move 0.2 seconds before the ball is actually kicked.

He seems to have a fairly constant acceleration of about 5.26 m/s². So, if he starts in the center of the goal, how long will it take him to reach one side of the goal? A goal is 7.32 meters wide so this means he must travel 3.66 meters. Since he starts from a speed of zero, I can jsut use one of the kinematic equations.

With a final x position of 3.66 meters and an acceleration of 5.26 m/s², I get a time of 1.18 seconds.

If I used a distance of 12 yards for a ball with the lowest speed of 17.9 m/s, that gives a time of travel at just 0.61 seconds.

How to Block a Kick

Now for the important point. How do you stop these kicks? The answer is simple: guess. Guess which way the ball is going to be kicked and move that way after the kicker has already determined his kick direction. It’s just that simple.

Oh, but what if the keeper had a greater acceleration? Let’s double it and make it 10.52 m/s². This would still give a time of 0.83 seconds to get to the side of the goal. Not good enough.

But maybe guessing would work. According to this site, 85% of the penalty kicks are successful goals. So, if you guess and get just one block you could consider yourself (as a keeper) successful.

Evolution Book For Young Children: Grandmother Fish [Greg Laden's Blog]

In a previous life (of mine) my father-in-law, an evolutionary biologist, kept an oil painting of a fish on the wall of the living room. At every chance he would point out, to visitors or to anyone else if there were no visitors, that he kept a portrait of his distant ancestor hanging in a prominent location, pointing to the oil painting. It was funny even the third or fourth time. It isn’t really true, of course, that this was his ancestor. It was a bass, more recently evolved to its present form than humans, I suspect. But it is true that the last common ancestor of humans and fish was a lot more like a fish than like a human.

I know it is hard to find good books about evolution for kids, and it is even harder to find a book for really young kids. A book needs to be written for the audience, engaging, entertaining, and all that — it needs to be a good book — before it can also teach something. A book that teaches but sucks as a book doesn’t really teach much.

Recently, Jonathan Tweet of Seattle Washington sent me a draft of a book he was working on that is such a thing, a good book that teaches about evolution and targeted to young kids. He had sent the book around to a number of experts for two reasons. First, he wanted to make sure he wasn’t saying anything wrong vis-a-vis evolution. Second, he wanted to make sure he got his facts straight at another level so he could provide useful and accurate footnotes for the adults who might read the book for the kids. I had a comment or two, but really, he already had his ducks in a row and the book, with the notes, was in good shape. It had evolved, as a project, very nicely.

The book is: Grandmother Fish: a child’s first book of evolution. From his blurb:

Grandmother Fish is the first book to teach evolution to preschoolers. While listening to the story, the child mimics the motions and sounds of our ancestors, such as wiggling like a fish or hooting like an ape. Like magic, evolution becomes fun, accessible, and personal. Grandmother Fish will be a full-size (10 x 8), full-color, 32-page, hardback book full of appealing animal illustrations, perfect for your bookshelf. US publishers consider evolution to be too “hot” a topic for children, but with your help we can make this book happen ourselves.

Jonathan made a kick-starter to raise 12,000 to produce the book. He’s already reached that goal and is now edging towards the stretch goal of $20K.

You can visit the kickstarter site HERE. You can download an early draft of the book. Personally, I plan to make this a Christmas gift for several friends and relatives who have kids the right age, assuming it is available by then. You can also see a several videos by the author and illustrator.

You can go to the Kickstarter site now and invest in any one of several different products that will be sent to you.

You may know of Tweet’s other work on Dungeons & Dragons and similar projects.

I recommend the book, strongly. Thank you for writing it, Jonathan.

My zombie story [Pharyngula]

The zombie plague was a dud. When the first cases emerged, scattered around the globe, everyone knew exactly how to put them down: destroy the brain. The world had been so saturated with zombie comic books, zombie TV shows, zombie novels, and zombie movies in the greatest, if unplanned, public health information program ever, that the responses to the outbreaks was always swift and thorough. In fact, most civilian casualties were caused not by the zombies themselves, but by the way everyone had been conditioned by the media to respond to lumbering, moaning, disheveled humanoid forms with instant and brutal violence.

The death of a few dead homeless, mentally ill people, or others who just weren’t perky morning people, was considered a small price to pay for the ruthless efficiency with which the zombie problem was eradicated. There was talk of giving George Romero a Nobel peace prize; Time Magazine ran an issue with “Heroic Humanity” featured on the cover; the public acquired a cocky attitude and brain-smashing weapons of destruction became the hot new fashion accessory. The horror of the worst catastrophe we could imagine, the emergence of an evil twin of our species, corrupt and mindlessly destructive, had been met and dismissed with arrogant ease.

An important lesson was not learned. Zombies were our mirror image, big animals that were short-sighted and heedlessly destructive, and we had easily wiped them out…because big animals are delicate, fragile things with a limited population size, requiring immense amounts of cooperation to survive. Our pride was undeserved. We had discovered how easy it was to kill small groups of bipedal primates. Nature laughed at our trivial accomplishment.

The same plague had been burning through rat populations. Every city, every small town garbage dump, every ship, had been boiling with upheaval in the darkness as the zombie rats spread the infection everywhere. The rats were numerous, and it took three months for the disease to consume them…and then the undead rodents slithered upwards, looking for a new food source. They were ubiquitous and silent and sneaky, and found ways into bedrooms at night, where the smug humans lay with shotguns and pistols and hammers for demolishing large-skulled stupid targets, their doors safely (they thought) barred against 70 kilogram intruders. The little, mindless zombie rats scurried forward, and gnawed.

Homo sapiens was extinct within a year.

(I had this idea for a great and accurate zombie novel that would reveal the true message of the zombie fad — come on, look at yourselves, it’s all about rapacious humans with no restraint — and would also make me millions of dollars. I got up this morning all excited and rushed to start writing it, and then I discovered that I could tell the whole story in five paragraphs. Oops. Is there much of a market for one-page novels? With a totally depressing conclusion?)

Outlander TV Adaptation Won’t Shy Away From Spanking

Elenna Loughlin

Diana Gabaldon is the author of the wildly popular Outlander series, which tells the story of Claire Randall, a World War II-era nurse who finds herself transported to 18th-century Scotland, where she falls in love with a rugged highlander named Jamie. Battlestar Galactica’ s Ronald Moore will bring the series to television in August, and Gabaldon promises that the show will not tone down any of the racy content of the first novel, which includes the hero whipping the heroine with his swordbelt, and a torture scene featuring what she calls “non-consensual buggery.”

“If it’s in the book, we’ll film it the way it is in the book,” Gabaldon says in Episode 112 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “I couldn’t ask for better than that.”

The show is sure to raise eyebrows in much the same way as the wildly popular Game of Thrones , based on the book series by Gabaldon’s friend and fellow Santa Fe resident George R. R. Martin. That’s no accident. The success of Game of Thrones has sent studios scrambling to find another big fantasy book series with adult themes to adapt for TV. Still, as faithful as Outlander promises to be, fans of the books will have to accept that some changes will be made. Gabaldon has urged them to relax about small differences, such as Claire’s eyes being blue not brown.

“It’s the 18th century,” she says. “The lighting is such that 90 percent of the time you can’t even tell what color anybody’s eyes are.”

Listen to our complete interview with Gabaldon in Episode 112 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). Then stick around after the interview as guest geeks John Joseph Adams, Christie Yant, and Wendy Wagner join host David Barr Kirtley to discuss Women Destroy Science Fiction , a special crowdfunded double issue of Lightspeed magazine written and edited entirely by women.

Diana Gabaldon on soldiers reading her books:

“The books are very popular with servicemen and women. A lot of them who are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan will go to a bookstore and pick up the biggest book they can find for the flight, which is often enough one of mine, and when they get to the other side they call their families and say, ‘Send the rest of the series.’ They empathize with Jamie Fraser, you know, he’s a warrior, as they are, and he’s fighting for the same things they are. … But beyond that they are surprisingly interested and involved in the relationships of the main characters. One of them said to me in a letter, you know, you get a weekly phone call, and usually half of it is taken up with just domestic inquiries … and it’s very stilted, and by the time you’re relaxed with each other again the phone call is over, so it’s kind of unsatisfying. He said with the books to talk about you can say, ‘Oh, I’m up to chapter so-and-so. Have you read this yet?’ And if she has then you can say, ‘Well, would you do what she did?’ And the conversation takes place on a much more immediately intimate level, because they can discuss their own relationship in the safe context of the relationship of these characters.”

Diana Gabaldon on historical fiction:

“Cultural concepts are one of the most fascinating things about historical fiction. There’s always a temptation, I think, among some historical writers to shade things toward the modern point of view. You know, they won’t show someone doing something that would have been perfectly normal for the time but that is considered reprehensible today. For instance women drinking alcohol while pregnant. I get a lot of people being just appalled that Claire drinks wine while she’s pregnant, and I’m saying, ‘It was 1743. Everyone drank wine regardless.’ And in fact while Claire comes from 1945, there was absolutely no idea in anyone’s head that drinking alcohol would cause any problems whatsoever. The thought that you ought not to drink while pregnant came much, much later. In fact, I had my first child in 1982, and I was still told by nurses and so forth, ‘Have a glass of wine with dinner. It’ll help you relax.’”

Women Destroy Science Fiction Panel

Christie Yant on reading J.R.R. Tolkien as a girl:

“I read Tolkien when I was 11. I read The Hobbit and the trilogy on a road trip with my family. I identified with the nonhumans in those books, and it never occurred to me why that was. It’s because none of the nonhumans were women, and I felt very nonhuman a lot of the time. … It never occurred to me that I wasn’t reading about girls. It never occurred to me that I wasn’t represented, because I didn’t think I was supposed to be. I was supposed to want to be a boy. … It’s really the internet that’s allowed me to connect with ideas that freed me from what I and others call ‘girl hate.’ I was a girl and a woman who didn’t want to be one, because I believed that we were inferior. I didn’t know the language for feminism. I certainly had never heard of Joanna Russ. I had never encountered these ideas before, and again, I came to it so late in life, I just feel kind of bad for that tiny Christie who would rather have been a hobbit than a person.”

Wendy Wagner on Women Destroy Science Fiction:

“Some of these essays just make you want to go out and be like, ‘If the patriarchy had a physical embodiment, I would break the patriarchy’s kneecaps today.’ … I really wanted to make the nonfiction be about inspiring and empowering women to read and write science fiction, because I love science fiction, it’s the bulk of what I write, and I just want everybody to feel inspired by it and as welcome within it as I want to be welcome. … There’s this essay by Nisi Shawl which is about how to help women writers. It’s just chock full of resources and encouragement and support, and it’s exactly what I wish someone had handed me when I was 19 and thinking, ‘Oh, I’m never going to be a great writer.’ … There’s a great reading list that Stina Leicht put together which is part personal essay about how science fiction helped her as a young person as well as recommendations of great feminist work. … I think there’s just so much positive energy in the reading list. I’m glad I got to put it together.”

Research may yield new ways to treat antibiotic-resistant TB

Scientists in the United States and India have successfully modified the precursor to one of the drugs used to treat tuberculosis, an important first step toward new drugs that can transcend antibiotic resistance issues that experts consider a serious threat to global health.

The findings, reported in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, indicate that a new compound, 24-desmethylrifampicin, has much better antibacterial activity than rifampicin against multi-drug-resistant strains of the bacteria that cause tuberculosis.

Rifampicin and related drugs are important antibiotics, the key to an effective "drug cocktail" that already takes about six months of treatment to cure tuberculosis, even if everything goes well. But two forms of tuberculosis, referred to as "multi-drug-resistant," or MDR, and "extensively drug-resistant," or XDR, have become resistant to rifampicin.

In 1993, resurging levels of tuberculosis due to this antibiotic resistance led the World Health Organization to declare it a global health emergency. Today more than 1 million people around the world are dying each year from tuberculosis, and after AIDS it remains the second most common cause of death by infectious disease.

"We believe these findings are an important new avenue toward treatment of multi-drug-resistant TB," said Taifo Mahmud, a professor in the College of Pharmacy at Oregon State University, and a corresponding author on the new publication.

"Rifampicin is the most effective drug against tuberculosis, and it's very difficult to achieve a cure without it," Mahmud said. "The approach we're using should be able to create one or more analogs that could help take the place of rifampicin in TB therapy."

A combination of genetic modification and synthetic drug development was used to create the new compound, which so far has only been developed in laboratory, not commercial quantities. Further development and testing will be necessary before it is ready for human use, researchers said.

Drug resistance in rifampicin and related antibiotics has occurred when their bacterial RNA polymerase enzymes mutate, Mahmud said, leaving them largely unaffected by antibiotics that work by inhibiting RNA synthesis. The new approach works by modifying the drug so it can effectively bind to this mutated enzyme and once again achieve its effectiveness.

"We found out how the antibiotic-producing bacteria make this compound, and then genetically modified that system to remove one part of the backbone of the molecule," Mahmud said. "Understanding this whole process should allow us to create not just this one, but a range of different analogs that can be tested for their efficacy as new antibiotics."

In human history and before the advent of antibiotics, tuberculosis was one of the great infectious disease killers in the world. At its peak in the 1800s in Europe, it was the cause of death of one in four people. It's still a major concern in the developing world, where drugs are often not available to treat it, and it often causes death in tandem with HIV infection.

As the bacterial strains of this disease that are multi- or extensively-drug-resistant increase in number, so too does the difficulty of treating it. Instead of a six-month regimen, these drug-resistant strains can take 18 months to several years to treat, with antibiotics that are more toxic and less effective.

Collaborators on this research were from the University of Delhi and the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in India. The research has been supported by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust and the Medical Research Foundation of Oregon.

The approach used in this research "holds great potential to generate more rifamycin analogs to combat the threat of MDR strains of M. tuberculosis, and/or other life-threatening pathogens," the researchers wrote in their conclusion.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Oregon State University . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.