Nature's Eye Candy

Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) anther (20x) Confocal / Heiti Paves, Tallinn University of Technology, courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Fluorescent actin protein filaments. / Dennis Breitsprecher, Institute of Biophysical Chemistry at Germany’s Hannover Medical School. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Pleurosigma (marine diatoms) (200x), Darkfield and Polarized Light. / Michael Stringer, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, United Kingdom. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Double transgenic mouse embryo, 18.5 days (17x), Brightfield, Darkfield, Fluorescence (GFP and RFP). / Gloria Kwon, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Insititute. Courtesy of Nikon Small World

Mouse colon (740x), 2-Photon. / Paul L. Appleton, University of Dundee, UK. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Muscoid fly (house fly) (6.25x), Reflected light. / Charles B. Krebs, Charles Krebs Photography, Issaquah, Washington, USA. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Quantum dot nanocrystals deposited on a silicon substrate (200x), Polarized reflected light. / Seth A. Coe-Sullivan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Filamentous actin and microtubules (structural proteins) in mouse fibroblasts (cells) (1000x), Fluorescence. / Torsten Wittmann, The Scripps Research Institute. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Sagittal section of rat cerebellum (40x), Fluorescence and Confocal. / Thomas J. Deerinck, National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, University of California, San Diego. Courtesy of Nikon Small World

Fresh water rotifer feeding among debris (200x), Darkfield. / Harold TaylorKensworth, UK. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Avicennia marina (mangrove) leaf (40x), Fluorescence and Differential Interference Contrast. / Daphne Zbaeren-Colbourn, Bern, Switzerland. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Newt lung cell in mitosis (5 different structures) (240x), Fluorescence. / Alexey Khodjakov, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health. Courtesy of  Nikon Small World.

Endothelial cells (100x), Fluorescence, Double Exposure. / Jakob Zbaeren, Inselspital, Bern, Switzerland. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Mouse fibroblasts (160x), Fluorescence. / Barbara A. Danowski, Union College. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Doxorubin in methanol and dimethylbenzenesulfonic acid (80x), Polarized Light. / Lars BechNaarden, The Netherlands. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Larva of Pleuronectidae (20x), Rheinberg Illumination and Polarized Light. / Christian Gautier, JACANA Press Agency, France. Courtesy of Nikon Small World

Cross-section of very young beech (40x), Brightfield. / Jean Rüegger-Deschenaux, Mikroskopische Gesellschaft, Zurich, Switzerland. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Fossil Fusulinids in limestone (8x), Polarized Light. / Ron Sturm, Construction Technology Laboratories, Inc., Illinois, USA. COurtesy of Nikon Small World.

10-year old preparation of barbital, fenacetine, valium and acetic acid (35x), Polarized Light. / Lars BechDeurne, The Netherlands. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Polyurethane elastic fiber bundle (25x), Polarized Light. / Marc Van Hove, Centexbel, Belgium. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Crystals evaporated from solution of magnesium sulfate and tartaric acid (50x), Polarized Light. / Richard H. Lee, Argonne National Laboratory. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Multiple exposure of a knitting machine needle (10x), Brightfield. / Marc Van Hove, Centexbel, Belgium. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Gold residue and gold-coated bubbles in glassy matrix (20x), Brightfield. / David Smith, Queensland, Australia. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Crystals of influenza virus neuraminidase isolated from terns (14x), Brightfield with Colored Filters. / Julie Macklin and Dr. Graeme Laver, Australian National University. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Live water mount of Hydra viridissima capturing Daphnia pulex (10x), Darkfield. / Steven F. Lowry, University of Ulster at Coleraine, North Ireland. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Formalin-fixed whole mount of a spiral nematode, multiple exposure (160x), Darkfield. / Jon D. Eise

 nback, North Carolina State University. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Inclusions of goethite and hematite in Brazilian agate (30x), Transmitted light with reflected fiber-optic illumination. / John I. Kolvula, Gemological Institute of America. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Suctorian attached to stalk of red algae, encircled by ring of diatoms (125x), Darkfield. / Elieen Roux, Bob Hope International Heart Research Institute. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Silverberry scaly hair whole mount (400x), Brightfield. / Jon D. Eisenback, North Carolina State University. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Collapsed bubbles from an annealed experimental electronic sealing glass (55x), Reflected Light, Nomarski Differential Interference Contrast. / David Gnizak, Ferro Corp., Independence, Ohio. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Larvacean within its feeding structure dyed with red organic carmine which the larvacean syphoned in while filter feeding (20x), Underwater camera with multiple extension tubes. / James M. King, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Stalked protozoan attached to a filamentous green algae with bacteria on its surface (160x), Nomarski Differential Interference Contrast. / Paul W. Johnson, University of Rhode Island. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Gold, vaporized in a tungsten boat, in a vacuum evaporator (55x), Vertical Illumination - Normarski Differential Interference. / David Gnizak, Independence, Ohio. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Crystals of rutile (titanium dioxide) and tridymite (a polymorph of quartz) in a cobalt-rich glass (350x), Combined oblique illumination and reflected light. / James W. Smith, Independence, Ohio. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

From a collection of photos assembled in WIRED SCIENCE

A Conservative With A Conscience

I am including David Brooks New York Times Column from Friday October 8, 2009 to demonstrate that even dedicated Republicans of the Conservative stripe get it about the need for health care reform and the following text illustrates an often overlooked intra-party squabble going on within the conservative wing of the GOP.

Op-Ed Columnist

The Baucus Conundrum 

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: October 8, 2009

"The longer the health care debate goes on, the more I become convinced that the American system needs fundamental reform. We need to transition away from a fee-for-service system to one that directs incentives toward better care, not more procedures. We need to move away from the employer-based system, which is eroding year by year. We need to move toward a more transparent system, in which people see the consequences of their choices.

"I’ve also become convinced that the approach championed by Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, is the best vehicle for this sort of change. The Wyden approach — first introduced in a bill with Robert F. Bennett, Republican of Utah, and now pared down to an amendment to the current bills—would combine choice with universal coverage. 

"People with insurance could stay with their existing health plans. But if they didn’t like the plans their employer offered, they could take the money their employer spends, add whatever they wanted to throw in, and shop for a better option on a regulated exchange. People without insurance would get subsidies to shop at the exchanges.

"Americans would have real choices. The vigorous exchanges would reward providers and insurers that are efficient, creative and innovative.

"But barring a legislative miracle, the Wyden approach was effectively killed in committee last week. The business and union lobbies worked furiously against it. They want to control their employees’ and members’ benefit packages. Many politicians support it in principle but oppose it in practice. They fear that if they try to fundamentally reform the system, voters will revolt.

"So what we are going to get is health insurance reform, not health care reform. We’ll be adjusting and expanding the current system, not essentially changing it.

"At this point people like me could throw up our hands and oppose everything. But that’s not what adulthood is about. In the real world, you often don’t get to choose what your options will be. You have to choose from a few bad options. The real health care choice now is between the status quo and the bill primarily authored by Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, that is emerging from the Senate Finance Committee.

"The Baucus bill centralizes power, in contrast to the free choice approach, which decentralizes it. The Baucus approach aims to reduce costs, expand coverage and improve efficiency by empowering regulators to write a better set of rules. It aims to rationalize the current system from the top down.

"This approach has many weaknesses. It entrenches a flawed system. It creates greater uniformity and rigidity. It redistributes income from the politically disorganized young to the politically organized old. It squeezes people into a Rube Goldberg complex of bureaucracies based on their income level. It will impose huge costs on people as they rise up the income ladder, distorting the whole economy.

"The biggest problem is that it will retard innovation. Top-down systems just don’t innovate well, no matter how many Innovation Centers you put in the Department of Health and Human Services. The bill will retard innovation by using monopoly power to squeeze costs. It will also retard innovation by directing resources toward current care (and current voters) and away from future technologies and future beneficiaries.

"But the Baucus bill has some advantages over the status quo as well. It would insure an additional 29 million people, a social benefit critics never grapple with.

"It is also more fiscally responsible than any other committee bill. It courageously cuts Medicare benefits by hundreds of billions. It raises taxes on the upper and middle classes in many necessary (and covert) ways. The bill will not really be budget neutral, but the authors have taken fiscal responsibility seriously. They’ve earned that good score from the Congressional Budget Office.

"Most impressively, the Baucus bill includes many provisions to make government-run health care more rational. It would bundle payments to hospitals and encourage doctors to work in efficient teams. It would punish hospitals that have to readmit patients. It would create a commission to perpetually squeeze costs. It would improve information technology. It would measure the comparative effectiveness of different treatments. No one knows how much savings would be produced by these changes in payment method, but they could be significant.

"If you asked me to compare the Baucus approach with the Wyden approach, the answer is easy. But if you asked me to compare it with the status quo, the answer is hard. The Baucus bill contains hidden bombs that could lead to a rigid bureaucratic system that still doesn’t address the fundamental problems. On the other hand, it contains hidden experiments that could lead to new models that might spread across the system.

"If I were in Congress, I’d figure there’s an 80 percent chance of something like this passing anyway. I might as well get engaged as a provisional supporter to fight to make it better, or at least to fight off the coming onslaught to make it worse."

10/10/09 President Barack Obama Weekly Radio Address

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10TH, 2009 AT 12:01 AM
Weekly Address: New Momentum for Health Reform
Posted by Jesse Lee
"The President goes through the leading conservative and Republican figures who have come out one after another urging passage of health insurance reform. After a summer of intense debate, cooler heads begin to prevail to make progress for the American people."

read the transcript

Obama sees consensus outside Congress on health care overhaul, obstructionism on Capitol Hill

By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- "President Barack Obama sees both "unprecedented consensus" from outside Congress on his drive to remake the nation's health care system and obstructionism by some on Capitol Hill.

"The historic movement to bring real, meaningful health insurance reform to the American people gathered momentum this week as we approach the final days of this debate," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet video address.

"The consensus "includes everyone from doctors and nurses to hospitals and drug manufacturers" - even Republican governors and former GOP lawmakers, Obama said.

"It does not extend to congressional Republicans, however, as nearly all of them oppose the Democrats' health care proposals.

"The president noted that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole and Bill Frist, all Republicans, and former Health and Human Service chiefs Louis Sullivan and Tommy Thompson, who both served in Republican administrations, have all come out in favor of overhauling health care, even though they differ on some specifics.

"Dole said in an interview on the Fox News Channel late in the week that he has not endorsed any plan but is recommending that congressional Republicans "stay in the game" so they can have more impact on the final legislation through compromise and amendments.

"These distinguished leaders understand that health insurance reform isn't a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but an American issue that demands a solution," Obama said.

"Democrats have made significant strides since Labor Day, when they returned to the Capitol after an August spent absorbing attacks from noisy conservative critics over health care.

"A health care bill soon to emerge from the Senate Finance Committee is the only one judged to meet Obama's conditions for expanding insurance coverage without raising the federal deficit, while also slowing the rise in medical costs.

"Yet Obama said he recognized the issue remains divisive among members of Congress.

"There are some in Washington today who seem determined to play the same old partisan politics, working to score political points, even if it means burdening this country with an unsustainable status quo," Obama said. That "status quo" includes rising health care costs, diminishing coverage and arbitrary decisions by big insurance companies, he said.

"Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell differs with Obama's views on cooperation.

"I've spoken about reform 44 times on the Senate floor on the need for health care reform," McConnell said. "But higher premiums, higher taxes, and more government? That's not reform. And this is precisely the problem Americans have identified with advocates of the administration's health care plans."

"In the the Republican radio address, Sen. George LeMieux of Florida acknowledged deep problems with the health care system, but cautioned "the solution should not be worse than the problem we are trying to solve."

"We in the Congress have a duty to tackle this problem, but the solution we settle upon should not be rushed," LeMieux said in the GOP's weekly address. Democrats maintain Republicans are simply trying to delay action.

"LeMieux said the Democrats' approach would:

-cost $1.8 trillion over 10 years, more than twice the total for the Senate Finance Committee's bill, as projected by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

-add a new tax burden by penalizing those who do not buy health insurance.

-deny millions of people the choice of health plans that best suit their needs by forcing them onto Medicaid.

-take about $500 billion out of Medicare.

"Taking money from a program already in financial trouble is not responsible," LeMieux said. "It's not fair to our seniors who paid into the program, and it's not fair to our children and grandchildren who will be burdened with massive debt obligations."

The preceeding Associated Press story appeared in mywesttexas.news, 10-10-09

White House Photo Chuck Kennedy 10-10-09

"The President goes through the leading conservative and Republican figures who have come out urging passage of health reform. After a summer of intense debate, consensus begins to emerge. "

'Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?' - Steven F. Hayward Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Steven F. Hayward (American Enterprise Institute)

Steven F. Hayward, F.K. Weyerhaeuser fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of "The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980-1989," has taken on the question: "Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?"

I would certainly find it very difficult to disagree with Hayward's contention that conservatism is brain-dead because of the plethora of instances that the right has had to prove the assertion correct.

Hayward reinforces my belief by lamenting that: "During the glory days of the conservative movement, from its ascent in the 1960s and '70s to its success in Ronald Reagan's era, there was a balance between the intellectuals, such as Buckley and Milton Friedman, and the activists, such as Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Weyrich, the leader of the New Right. The conservative political movement, for all its infighting, has always drawn deeply from the conservative intellectual movement, and this mix of populism and elitism troubled neither side.

"Today, however, the conservative movement has been thrown off balance, with the populists dominating and the intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with new ideas. The leading conservative figures of our time are now drawn from mass media, from talk radio and cable news. We've traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites."

William F. Buckley

Hayward pines for the old days; the era dominated by the likes of  the omnifarious "columnist, lecturer, TV host and debater," William F. Buckley Jr, who used "his weekly "Firing Line" show on PBS" to become a well known television personality who showed himself to be a "man of style and ideas who inspired two generations of conservative thinkers and more just a populist shock jock with a funny prep-school accent."

But the contemporary state of what describes itself as conservatism in Hayward's opinion is a mediascape in which the best that its nascent era provided; now dominated by a a group of conservative movement imitators who have "thrown off" the "balance" struck by the founders of the early years "with the populists dominating and the intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with new ideas. The leading conservative figures of our time are now drawn from mass media, from talk radio and cable news. We've traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites."

I cannot disagree with Hayward's observation of conservatism thrown into disarray by its present generation of representatives who may be engaged in activities that are "authentic and laudatory, it is unfocused, lacking the connection to a concrete ideology".

And I agree with Hayward's assessment of the trashy tombs that promote conservatism today: "The best-selling conservative books these days tend to be red-meat titles such as Michelle Malkin's "Culture of Corruption," Glenn Beck's new "Arguing with Idiots" and all of Ann Coulter's well-calculated provocations that the left falls for like Pavlov's dogs. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with these books. Politics is not conducted by Socratic seminar, and Henry Adams's dictum that politics is the systematic organization of hatreds should remind us that partisan passions are an essential and necessary function of democratic life. The right has always produced, and always will produce, potboilers."

Ann Coulter

Hayward contrasts the "frivolous paranoia as the face of conservatism" with what is: "Conspicuously missing, however, are the intellectual works. The bestseller list used to be crowded with the likes of Friedman's "Free to Choose," George Gilder's "Wealth and Poverty," Paul Johnson's "Modern Times," Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind," Charles Murray's "Losing Ground" and "The Bell Curve," and Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man." There are still conservative intellectuals attempting to produce important work, but some publishers have been cutting back on serious conservative titles because they don't sell. (I have my own entry in the list: a two-volume political history titled "The Age of Reagan." But I never expected the books to sell well; at 750 pages each, you can hurt yourself picking them up.)

"About the only recent successful title that harkens back to the older intellectual style is Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism," which argues that modern liberalism has much more in common with European fascism than conservatism has ever had. But because it deployed the incendiary f-word, the book was perceived as a mood-of-the-moment populist work, even though I predict that it will have a long shelf life as a serious work. Had Goldberg called the book "Aspects of Illiberal Policymaking: 1914 to the Present," it might have been received differently by its critics. And sold about 200 copies.

Jonah Goldberg

Of course, it's hard to say whether conservative intellectuals are simply out of interesting ideas or if the reading public simply finds their ideas boring. Both possibilities (and they are not mutually exclusive) should prompt some self-criticism on the right. Conservatism has prospered most when its attacks on liberalism have combined serious alternative ideas with populist enthusiasm. When the ideas are absent, the movement has nothing to offer -- except opposition. That doesn't work for long in American politics."

Hayward correctly summarizes his discontent with conservatism's present dilemma: "The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level, in particular over the meaning and nature of progress. In response to the left's belief in political solutions for everything, the right must do better than merely invoking "markets" and "liberty." Hayward admits that conservatives lack the gravitas of the next William F. Buckley when he admits: "The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level, in particular over the meaning and nature of progress. In response to the left's belief in political solutions for everything, the right must do better than merely invoking "markets" and "liberty." And who does Hayward end up pinning his hopes on for a conservative resurgence? Glenn Beck.

Hayward admits: "Beck may lack Buckley's urbanity, and his show will never be confused with "Firing Line." But he's on to something with his interest in serious analysis of liberalism's patrimony. The left is enraged with Beck's scandal-mongering over Van Jones and ACORN, but they have no idea that he poses a much bigger threat than that. If more conservative talkers took up the theme of challenging liberalism's bedrock assumptions the way Beck does from time to time, liberals would have to defend their problematic premises more often."

Somehow this line of Hayward's argumentation fails to convince that America is sitting on the cusp of a conservative resurgence. Glenn Beck?

Glenn Beck Ranting

Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded to Three Molecular Biologists

A ribosome reads an mRNA sequence and produces protein according to its genetic code.

"Two Americans and an Israeli won a Nobel Prize in chemistry; Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz and Israeli Ada Yonath, Wednesday for creating detailed blueprints of the protein-making machinery within cells, research that's being used to develop new antibiotics."

 From left, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University; and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel will share the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

"Ribosomes are key to life," Malcolm Ritter of The Associated Press explained: "They use instructions from genes to make thousands of different proteins that control what happens in the body. Many antibiotics kill bacteria by attacking their ribosomes, and the detailed descriptions by new Nobelists are being used to develop new drugs." 

"The chemistry prize was awarded for research into how information on strands of DNA is translated into proteins."

"Ribosomes were discovered in the 1950’s by George Palade, who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the makeup of cells, but scientists weren’t able to take a close look at those organelles till the end of the century. Thomas Steitz, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, and Ada Yonath developed tricks for examining the tiny structures with x-rays and electron beams. The high-resolution 3D images they acquired will help chemists develop a host of better medications."

“Scientists around the world are using the winners’ research to develop new antibiotics that can be used in the ongoing battle against antibiotic-resistant microbes that cause so much illness, suffering and death.” said Thomas Lane, president of the American Chemical Society, in a press release."

"Dozens of antibiotics — including tetracycline and clindamycin — work by gumming up the ribosomes inside bacteria. Each of those medications is made up of relatively small molecules that can wedge themselves into crevices in the ribosome, destroying the microbes’ ability to make protein, and thus rendering them helpless.

"Armed with 3D images of antibiotic molecules wedged into ribosomes, medicinal chemists can refine their strategy for fighting bacteria. They can find new weak spots in bacterial ribosomes.

"That approach is a lot like the way that the Rebel Alliance destroyed the first Death Star: by looking at its blueprint and finding a weak spot. Except, in this case the researchers are looking for vulnerable nooks and crannies in a blob of RNA and protein, rather than a thermal exhaust port.

"Dozens of 3D images that show antibiotics sticking to ribosomes are available in the Protein DataBank, and you can look at them yourself with a tool called First Glance.

"Just type the Protein DataBank ID number for the ribosome that you want to look at, and then start exploring.

"Here are some of the best structures:

Ribosome with Clindamycin: 1YJN
Ribosome with Azithromycin: 1NWY
Ribosome with Erythromycin: 1JZY"

Following the announcement, Professor Gunnar von Heijne told senior editor Simon Frantz how the achievements awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry not only provided insights into life at the atomic level, but also provided insights into how to save lives.