Articles by A. J. S. Rayl

Courtesy of Steven Rock HEADING OFF RUNOFF: Trees planted in Amana, Iowa, to protect stream from agricultural run-off Humankind has passed a remarkable environmental milestone: People now consume more of Earth's natural resources than the planet can replace.1 In light of this, pollution abatement technologies, coupled with development of renewable energy resources, seem destined to become big business during the 21st century. What is unfolding is a multidisciplinary, biology-led wave of

Photo: Courtesy of NASA ON THE HORIZON: New technologies will protect the health of astronauts on long space flights. Researchers at the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) are developing technologies to identify and monitor anticipated and unanticipated microorganisms in space--technologies, they suggest, that could also help to more efficiently diagnose medical conditions down here on Earth, as well as help detect biological hazards in this post-Sept. 11 world.1-3 Geo

Image: Courtesy of Leoncio A. Vergara, UTMB, Marguerite Sognier & Nasa/JSC Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering Lab SPACE-AGE CELL CULTURE: This 3-D human rhabdomyosarcoma cell aggregate was grown in a disposable High Aspect-Ratio Vessel (HARV) in Synthecon's Rotating Cell Culture System. Biotechnology advances at a furious pace, yet for the most part, cell culture remains fixed in the past. Over the last decade, however, a new technology has emerged that models the microgravity of space--

Photo: Courtesy of Yale University Library Charles Lindbergh Seventy-five years ago, Charles A. Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in what aviators still deem the greatest solo flight of all time. Although his influence is indelibly stamped on virtually all aspects of commercial aviation, another Lindbergh legacy may be emerging in the realm of life sciences. Recently, on the anniversary of the aviator's return home to Little Falls, Minn., a group of scientists, engineers, and environmen

Image: Corbis ENDANGERED BELUGAS: One challenge for researchers is to find out how chemicals are getting into the lipids and tissues of animals such as the beluga whales who reside in the St. Lawrence Seaway. During the last 50 years, millions of pounds of chemicals have dispersed into the environment in a multitude of forms: industrial wastes, abandoned chemical weapons, fertilizers, pesticides, cleaners, furniture treatments, and the list goes on. Now, a small cadre of environmental re

What happens when astronauts on extended missions become really angry at a crewmate, or seriously melancholy? In the small, isolated confines of a spaceship what can they do? A team of researchers under the auspices of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI)--a consortium of institutions studying health risks related to long-duration space flight--is creating a smart medical system designed to help distant space farers resolve or mitigate biopsychosocial upsets. The researche

Frontlines Image © 2002 Nature Publishing Group Seeing cancer in real time? Researchers at University of California's Jonsson Cancer Center in Los Angeles have developed the first viral 'searchlight' that can hunt down prostate metastases, including those too small to appear on conventional detection scans (J.Y. Adams et al., "Visualization of advanced human prostate cancer lesions in living mice by a targeted gene transfer vector and optical imaging," Nature Medicine, 8:891-7, August 2

Like some coevolutionary SWAT team, John Thompson, Bradley Cunningham, and colleagues have headed out every spring and summer for the last decade to the wilds of western Idaho and bordering areas in Oregon and Washington to camp out and infiltrate the world of the prairie starflower, Lithophragma parviflorum, and a little gray moth known as Greya politella. Now, their published rare case study in coevolution describes how the two species have coevolved in a variety of habitats, from open grass

Every human being has asked at least once, "Why do we have to age and die?" Leonid Gavrilov and Natalia Tuchnina (now Gavrilova), decide to really pursue the answer. They first met at a conference in 1975 when they were both fourth-year chemistry students at Moscow State University. Then, seven days after their first date, a smitten Gavrilov proposed, promising he would discover how to stop aging if she would marry him. The couple went on a quest to find a general theory that could explain what

When space shuttle Atlantis last launched from Cape Canaveral this month, more than 200 students and teachers from across the nation had particular reason to be excited. They had helped prepare the nearly 300 protein and viral samples which the space shuttle delivered to the International Space Station (ISS). Students and perhaps even a politician or two have taken part in space experiments in the past, but this experiment takes the concept of lab assistants to new heights. As principal investi

Just three weeks before E.T. flew back into movie theaters to celebrate his 20th anniversary, a group of interdisciplinary scientists, science fiction authors, teachers, and others interested in the real quest for extraterrestrial life assembled in the Silicon Valley for the 19th annual CONTACT conference (www.cabrillo.cc.ca.us/contact). This year, as part of the conference, 12 scientists from various fields coalesced around the theme "Is life rife in the Universe?" in a day-long symposium at th

With a little help from a group of Weddell seals, a team of marine scientists has uncovered new information about the two ecologically most important fish species living far beneath the ice pack in the dark, frigid waters of Antarctica's McMurdo Sound.1 Behavioral ecologist Lee A. Fuiman of the University of Texas, Austin, biologists Randall W. Davis of Texas A&M University, Galveston, and Terrie M. Williams of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and their team at McMurdo equipped each

A team of marine scientists report that a novel method for combating ship ballast corrosion may also be a cost-effective way to stem the tide of invasive species that are wreaking havoc on local marine ecosystems around the world.1 The process involves pumping bubbling nitrogen gas into ballast water to remove oxygen, which, in turn, prevents oxidation and rust in the tanks. The depletion of oxygen transforms the ballast water environment into one that is toxic to most aquatic organisms, which a

The presentations and posters at the recent American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) annual meeting offered up reams of data that pointed to a commanding future of discoveries. But, as the geneticists and students checked in and got their badges, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks cast an ominous shadow that could not be ignored. ASHG president Huntington F. Willard addressed it head-on: "Let the clearest and loudest message of this week be that at a time when others would take away freedom of thou

As the pace of scientific discovery continues at breakneck speed, the gap widens between the public's and scientists' understanding of science. And, with research revealing that barely half of U.S. high school seniors meet even basic science requirements,1 the prospects for the situation improving in the near future appear bleak. The myriad scientific findings in the last decade have stimulated and increased media coverage, but the lament among scientists about the media, says Nobel laureate Sir