zoltewicz

As the daughter of John Zoltewicz, a longtime professor of organic chemistry at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Susie Zoltewicz grew up hearing about chemical experiments. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us They intrigued her, and so, as a high school student in the 1980s, she decided to do an unusual thing for a teenager: spend more time with her dad than necessary. She joined his lab to work on a project to enter in science fairs and competitions.

"It was a little stressful at times," she says. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us"He was pretty strict." She tried to quit more than once, but then her work started garnering attention at various science fairs. At the time there was some speculation that a particular fluorescent compound could be used in cancer treatment, but the compound broke apart rapidly in water. That would be a problem, because water is a key ingredient in the human body. Zoltewicz's work showed that by incorporating micelles—basically, a detergent called SDS found in laundry soaps—into water solutions with the fluorescent compound, you could make it last longer in the body. Zoltewicz entered her results in the 1986 Westinghouse Science Talent Search and was named a finalist.

HOW IT AFFECTED HER CAREER: Working in the lab—and winning awards—whetted Zoltewicz's taste for research. At Princeton University she studied molecular biology, and afterward, pursued her PhD in developmental biology at the University of California, Berkeley, (where she dedicated her thesis "To my dad, for leading me to science"). Her main focus has been studying how the central nervous system develops in embryos: in frogs as a graduate student, then in mice as a postdoc at Duke University starting in 1997, and later at U.C. San Francisco when her lab moved to the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center there in 1999.

In 2003 she was promoted to an associate research scientist at Gallo. She works on a gene called Oto, mutations in which block head development. In her experiments, "basically what you do to try to understand something is to mess it up and compare it to the normal," she says. So with frogs, for instance, she cut and pasted genes in experiments that sometimes led to the development of two-headed (or no-headed) tadpoles. Although this sounds a bit grim, she notes that there are multiple humans born each year with severe head defects. Many die quickly. "We want to understand why that does happen and prevent it from happening," she says.

Her father—now retired—has watched her career with pride. "The father–daughter to teacher–pupil to fellow scientist progression has caused our relationship to mature and expand through common learning experiences and activities, providing a special bond," he says.

WHAT SHE'S DOING NOW: Zoltewicz's lab at Gallo closed in 2006 (the professor who ran it left to work for Genentech in 2005). So she decided to move back home to Gainesville to take a break before diving back into research. She and her father are now working together again—this time on painting and renovating her house. "It's better than the lab days," she says. "We're getting to know each other as adults and people—and getting to be friends."

planets

There is a lot of new territory out there in the cosmos, but nothing you would want to pitch camp on — yet. http://louis6j6sheehan6esquire.blogspot.com

About a third of all the Sun-like stars in our galaxy harbor modestly sized planets, according to a study announced Monday by a team of European astronomers.

At a meeting in Nantes, France, Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory and his group presented a list of 45 new planets, ranging in mass from slightly bigger than Earth to about twice as massive as Neptune, from a continuing survey of some 200 stars.

All of the planets orbit their stars in 50 days or less, well within the corresponding orbit of Mercury, which takes 88 days to go around the Sun, and well within frying distance of any lifelike creatures.

Among the bounty is a rare triple-planet system of “super-Earths” around the star HD 40307, about 42 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. The planets are roughly four, seven and nine times the mass of Earth and have orbital periods of 4, 10 and 20 days, respectively.

Dr. Mayor called the discoveries “only the tip of the iceberg” in a news release from the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany.

Theories of planet formation, Dr. Mayor said in an e-mail message from Nantes, hold that smaller planets like super-Earths and Neptunes should be numerous. “But evidently it was a nice surprise to see that with our instrument we have the sensitivity to detect that population,” he said.http://louis6j6sheehan6esquire.blogspot.com

Astronomers said the new results indicated that when their instruments got sensitive enough to detect even smaller planets, such planets would be there to be found.

Sara Seager, a planetary theorist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was one of the organizers of the Nantes conference, said in an e-mail message, “We’ve always been hoping that low-mass planets are common — to increase the chance for an Earth analog to exist around a nearby star.”

In a terse statement, Dr. Mayor’s main rivals, a group of planet hunters led by Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said they were doing their own survey, to be completed within a year.

“Our survey will check the Swiss report that 30 percent of stars have super-Earths or Neptunes orbiting closer than Mercury does the Sun,” the group said in an e-mail message.

Dr. Mayor and his team discovered the first so-called exoplanet orbiting a regular star, known as Pegasi 51, in 1995. That planet, about half the mass of Jupiter, circles its star tightly in a four-day orbit. In the years since, some 270 exoplanets have been discovered, many of them like the original, so-called hot Jupiters in lethal scorching embraces of their stars.

Part of the reason that such unusual systems have been found first is that the detection method is biased toward finding large planets close to their stars. Both Dr. Mayor’s and Dr. Marcy’s groups use what is called the wobble method, deducing the presence of a planet by the to-and-fro gravitational tug it gives its star as it orbits. The more massive the planet and the closer it is, the bigger and more noticeable tug it will impart.

The tug perturbs the star’s velocity relative to Earth by as little as a few meters per second in the case of a super-Earth. That shows up as a periodic shift in the wavelength of light from the star.

In recent years, Dr. Mayor’s group has used a special spectrograph known as Harps, for High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, on a telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s site at La Silla, Chile, to detect such small wobbles in stars.

“Detection of planets with masses of about 2 Earth-masses (maybe less!) is possible,” Dr. Mayor said in an e-mail message.

To do much better, astronomers will have to go to space.http://louis6j6sheehan6esquire.blogspot.com

About one in 14 stars harbors a massive giant planet like Jupiter or Saturn, Dr. Mayor estimated. If in fact one in three harbors a Neptune or super-Earth, that is an appealing situation for astronomers and others who would like someday to find someplace livable or even someone living Out There.

Dr. Seager compared the quest to a giant Sudoku game. “Every time we fill in a key number,” she said in an e-mail message, “we take a big step towards finishing: finding the habitable planets and understanding how rare or common our solar system actually is.”

british Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire http://louis1j1sheehan.us

n early 1941 British forces were engaged in Operation Compass, an attempt to drive the Italians out of North Africa. On January 21, 1941 the Australian 6th Division made an assault to capture the Italian garrison of Tobruk which offered one of the few good harbour between Alexandria and Tripoli. http://louis1j1sheehan.us

The Italian troops generally offered little resistance - large numbers surrendered without fighting. The Italian commander, General Petassi Manella surrendered himself after only 12 hours, but he had refused to order the surrender of his forces, which meant that it took a further day to clean up any resistance. Australian casualties were 49 dead and 306 wounded, while capturing 27,000 Italian POWs, 208 guns, 28 tanks, many good quality trucks and a large amount of supplies. http://louis1j1sheehan.usThey also found that the Italians had constructed some impressive defences, including a perimeter of concrete pits.

The Australian commander, Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead divided the 50 kilometres (31 mi) perimeter into three rough sectors. It would be the job of the three Australian brigades to ensure these were not breached. The 26th would hold the western sector, the 20th would hold the south and the 24th would hold the east. The 9th Division was reinforced by the Australian 18th Brigade (detached from the 7th Division) and British artillery units. Morshead also ordered all Italian signal cables to be re-laid. He wanted to know what was happening, and where, so he could adjust his forces accordingly. He also kept a reserve of runners in case the telephone lines were disrupted by the German attack.

By the end of the first week in February Operation Compass had resulted in the Italian forces being driven from Cyrenaica and in the surrender of the Italian Tenth Army.

However, the Allies were unable to take advantage of their victory. With the Italians close to collapse, Winston Churchill commanded the British General Staff to call a halt to the offensive in order to allow many of the most experienced units from Richard O'Connor's XIII Corps to be moved to Greece to fight in the Battle of Greece. XIII Corps was wound down to become a static HQ and O'Connor became commander British Troops Egypt (in Cairo) while Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson became military governor of Cyrenaica. Cyrenaica was left with only the inexperienced and under-strength 2nd Armoured Division and the newly-arrived (and only partly-trained) 9th Australian Division.^[3]

Meanwhile the Germans had started to concentrate in Africa the two divisions of the Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel (see Operation Sonnenblume) in an attempt to prevent total collapse of the Italian forces. The British High command was ignorant to this. Even when German reconnaissance units were spotted in Africa they insisted that there were no Germans forces in North Africa.

[edit]

medical 222 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

how the business works and how the operators of the state’s estimated 500 dispensaries deal with the high risks and high costs of working in a legal gray area (cnbc.com). http://www.myspace.com/louis_j_sheehan_esquire

Medical marijuana is legal in California, but federal law still bans sales. Amid the uncertainty that this creates — including the occasional raid by federal agents — a full-fledged industry has blossomed, taking in about $2 billion a year and generating $100 million in state sales taxes, CNBC reported. http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire.blog.ca

Setting up a clinic “can cost as much as a hundred grand,” Ms. Wells reports. The equipment, the cuttings from which plants are grown and office space all tend to be expensive. And from there, the costs only grow, mostly in the form of legal fees. Many clinics keep lawyers on retainer.

Nonetheless, “this is the business model of the future,” says JoAnna La Force of Farmacy, an herbal remedy shop in Southern California. Ms. LaForce says her business is close to breaking even (medicalmarijuanafarmacy.com).

A slew of ancillary businesses has grown up around medical marijuana. Bill Britt, identified on the Web site as a patient, has found a new career as an expert witness in cases brought against dispensaries and patients, earning $250 to $350 a case.

He gained his expert knowledge by attending Oaksterdam University, a trade school in Oakland, Calif. At Oaksterdam (oaksterdamuniversity.com), students learn everything from “The Politics of Cannabis” to botany to business operations.

Getting into the quasi-legitimate marijuana business is a challenge, says Jeff Jones, chancellor of Oaksterdam’s Los Angeles campus. But, he adds, “The investment is well worth it, except for the federal risk.” http://louis6j6sheehan.blogspot.com

A DISTINCTION, OF SORTS As air travel grows increasingly nightmarish even as it gets more expensive, Patrick Smith, writer of Salon’s Ask the Pilot column, has been singing the praises of Southwest Airlines, the (relatively) cut-rate, bare-bones carrier (salon.com).

Southwest recently took first place in a survey of airline satisfaction conducted by the University of Michigan.

Mr. Smith’s initial explanation was this: “People don’t expect much. Southwest Airlines is nothing if not unpretentious” and has “mastered the art of get-what-you-pay-for satisfaction.”

His readers, though, thought otherwise. Many wrote to say that, though Southwest dispenses with a lot of perks, it offers a basic level of customer service that bigger airlines often do not.

Mr. Smith acknowledged that Southwest’s comparatively small size gave it an advantage in maintaining a consistent level of service. Nevertheless, it is “the last of a nearly vanished breed: an airline with a true personality, that large numbers of fliers have unwavering fondness for.”

BACK ON DRUGS As a test of airport security, a customs officer planted marijuana in the side pocket of a random suitcase at Narita International Airport in Tokyo, the BBC reports (news.bbc.co.uk).

The test failed when the sniffer dogs were unable to detect the pot. But the officer could not remember which bag he had used.

Using an actual passenger’s suitcase is against regulations, and the airport’s customs service has apologized. http://louis1j1sheehan.us

Meanwhile, the marijuana is still out there. “Anyone finding the package has been asked to contact customs officials,” according to the BBC. So far, nobody has spoken up.

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