“Preliminary findings suggest a link between Morgellons Disease and Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium extensively manipulated and used in making GM crops; has genetic engineering created a new epidemic?”

Vitaly Citovsky is a professor of molecular and cell biology at Stony Brook University in New York (SUNY). He is a world authority on the genetic modification of cells by Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium causing crown gall disease in plants, that has been widely used in creating genetically modified (GM) plants since the 1980s because of its ability to transfer a piece of its genetic material, the T-DNA on its tumour-inducing (Ti) plasmid to the plant genome ….

Citovsky’s team took scanning electron microscope pictures of the fibres in or extruding from the skin of patients suffering from Morgellons disease, confirming that they are unlike any ordinary natural or synthetic fibres.

They also analysed patients for Agrobacterium DNA. Skin biopsy samples from Morgellons patients were subjected to high-stringency polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for genes encoded by the Agrobacterium chromosome and also for Agrobacterium virulence (vir) genes and T-DNA on its Ti plasmid. They found that “all Morgellons patients screened to date have tested positive for the presence of Agrobacterium, whereas this microorganism has not been detected in any of the samples derived from the control, healthy individuals.” Their preliminary conclusion is that “Agrobacterium may be involved in the etiology and/or progression” of Morgellons Disease.

… Agrobacterium not only infects human and other animal cells, it also transfers genes into them. It was SUNY professor Citovsky and his team that made the discovery some years ago. Until then, the genetic engineering community had assumed that Agrobacterium did not infect animal cells, and certainly would not transfer genes into them.

Agrobacterium was found to transfer T-DNA into the chromosomes of human cells.

… Since the discovery in the 1970s that Agrobacterium can transfer genes into plants causing crown gall disease, the soil bacterium has been developed into a vector for inserting desirable genes into the plant genome to create transgenic (GM) plants.

… By the late 1990s, the Agrobacterium vector system became very widely used, and many GM crops created were commercially released.

… Transgenic plants with contaminating Agrobacterium “have a ready route for horizontal gene escape, via Agrobacterium, helped by the ordinary conjugative mechanisms of many other bacteria that cause diseases, which are present in the environment.” In the process, new and exotic disease agents could be created.

- Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins @ GlobalResearch.ca: Link.

See Also

Morgellons @ Wikipedia

Morgellons Watch: “Resources for Morgellons investigators. Skeptical analysis and discussion.”

“A new study provides the first inventories of microbial capabilities in nine very different types of ecosystems, ranging from coral reefs to deep mines.”

The microbial study produced … evidence that viruses — which are known to be ten times more abundant than even microbes — serve as gene banks for ecosystems. This evidence includes observations that viruses in the nine ecosystems carried large loads of DNA without using such DNA themselves …. The viruses probably transfer such excess DNA to bacteria during infections, and thereby pass on “new genetic tricks” to their microbial hosts. The study also indicates that by transporting the DNA to new locations, viruses may serve as important agents in the evolution of microbes.

- Science Daily: Mar. 14, 2008: Link.

“[P]articles of inorganic dust can become organised into helical structures. These structures can then interact with each other in ways that are usually associated with organic compounds and life itself.”

This may give a whole new meaning to the term smart dust ….

V.N. Tsytovich of the General Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Science, in Moscow, working with colleagues there and at the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany and the University of Sydney, Australia, has studied the behaviour of complex mixtures of inorganic materials in a plasma. Plasma is essentially the fourth state of matter beyond solid, liquid and gas, in which electrons are torn from atoms leaving behind a miasma of charged particles.

Until now, physicists assumed that there could be little organisation in such a cloud of particles. However, Tsytovich and his colleagues demonstrated, using a computer model of molecular dynamics, that particles in a plasma can undergo self-organization as electronic charges become separated and the plasma becomes polarized. This effect results in microscopic strands of solid particles that twist into corkscrew shapes, or helical structures. These helical strands are themselves electronically charged and are attracted to each other.

Quite bizarrely, not only do these helical strands interact in a counterintuitive way in which like can attract like, but they also undergo changes that are normally associated with biological molecules, such as DNA and proteins, say the researchers. They can, for instance, divide, or bifurcate, to form two copies of the original structure. These new structures can also interact to induce changes in their neighbours and they can even evolve into yet more structures as less stable ones break down, leaving behind only the fittest structures in the plasma.

So, could helical clusters formed from interstellar dust be somehow alive? “These complex, self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter,” says Tsytovich, “they are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve”.

[Link]

Abtract

Complex plasmas may naturally self-organize themselves into stable interacting helical structures that exhibit features normally attributed to organic living matter. The self-organization is based on non-trivial physical mechanisms of plasma interactions involving over-screening of plasma polarization. As a result, each helical string composed of solid microparticles is topologically and dynamically controlled by plasma fluxes leading to particle charging and over-screening, the latter providing attraction even among helical strings of the same charge sign. These interacting complex structures exhibit thermodynamic and evolutionary features thought to be peculiar only to living matter such as bifurcations that serve as `memory marks’, self-duplication, metabolic rates in a thermodynamically open system, and non-Hamiltonian dynamics. We examine the salient features of this new complex `state of soft matter’ in light of the autonomy, evolution, progenity and autopoiesis principles used to define life. It is concluded that complex self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter that may exist in space provided certain conditions allow them to evolve naturally.

Article @ New Journal of Physics.

Via Boing Boing: “The experiments took place under simulated plasma conditions, representative of space and also the primordial Earth.”

Via Times Online: “Dust ‘comes alive’ in space”

As Above, So Below

A rock falls from orbit, reaching the earth as a meteorite. Can organic compounds survive the journey?

[T]he unmanned Foton M3 mission will carry 35 ESA experiments in life and physical sciences, including a rock experiment designed by Professor John Parnell, Chair in Geology & Petroleum Geology, from the University of Aberdeen.

… “The objective behind this is to look at the rock’s behaviour when it is exposed during re-entry through the Earth’s atmosphere — when temperatures are extreme. This will tell us something about the likelihood of life being transferred between planets on meteorites.

“The Orkney rock is a very robust material but it will be interesting to see if organic matter in the rock is robust enough to survive the harsh conditions endured during re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.”

[University of Aberdeen: Link]

Via Universe Today: “One of most intriguing, and controversial, theories astrobiology is the concept of Panspermia. This idea proposes that life on Earth might have began on another planet, or maybe even out in interstellar space. ”

Via Futurismic: “Centauri Dreams pours water, or rather radiation, on the plausibility of panspermia.”

Origins of Panspermia Theory

This concept has drifted around the universe of space science since at least as long ago as 1864, when William Thomson Kelvin told the Royal Society of Edinburgh “The hypothesis that life originated on this earth through moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world may seem wild and visionary; all I maintain is that it is not unscientific.” He repeated the assertion in 1871 at the 41st Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, using the less colorful term “seed-bearing meteoritic stones.”

In 1903, in the German journal Umschau, Svante Arrhenius removed the meteors from the equation. Instead, he wrote, individual spores wafted throughout space, colonizing any hospitable planet they lit on. Arrhenius named the theory panspermia.

Source: Space.com

Terrence McKenna on Panspermia

As I understand the Crick theory of panspermia, it’s a theory of how life spread through the universe. What I was suggesting … is that intelligence, not life, but intelligence may have come here in this spore-bearing life form. This is a more radical version of the panspermia theory of Crick and Ponampurama. In fact I think that theory will probably be vindicated. I think in a hundred years if people do biology they will think it quite silly that people once thought that spores could not be blown from one star system to another by cosmic radiation pressure.

Link: interview with Terrence McKenna, by David Jay Brown & Rebecca McClen, High Times Magazine, April 1992

Catching Space Dust: Aerogel

Although aerogel is classed as a solid, 99% of the substance is made up of gas, which gives it a cloudy appearance.

… In 1999 [NASA] fitted its Stardust space probe with a mitt packed full of aerogel to catch the dust from a comet’s tail. It returned with a rich collection of samples last year.

Link

The Andromeda Strain: I’m reminded of Michael Crichton’s novel, where the goal of Project Scoop was to collect micro-organisms from near-earth orbit for use as biological warfare agents. Scoop returned with an organism that used radiation as food.

Robert Wise directed the 1971 movie version. Film critic Ryan Harvey offers this assessment:

“The original 1969 novel established Michael Crichton as the new king of the airport bookstore thriller and set the stage for most of his novels since with its cold data-heavy style and minimal characterization. … The Andromeda Strain’s antiseptic approach to a scientific crisis remains potent and believable today. Wise’s cinematic version perfectly transfers the icy journalistic style of the book to the screen, even preserving Crichton’s pages worth of computer-printed documents.”
[Link]

Tardigrades: Itty Bitty Critters in Space? It’s possible that tardigrades could survive extended travel across space.

Tardigrades are small animals. The biggest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 mm, the smallest below 0.1 mm.

Tardigrades are one of the few groups of species that are capable of reversibly suspending their metabolism and going into a state of cryptobiosis. Several species regularly survive in a dehydrated state for nearly ten years …. Tardigrades have been known to withstand the following extremes while in this state:

* Temperature — tardigrades can survive being heated for a few minutes to 151°C or being chilled for days at -200°C, or for a few minutes at -272°C. (1° warmer than absolute zero).

* Radiation — as shown by Raul M. May from the University of Paris, tardigrades can withstand 5,700 grays or 570,000 rads of x-ray radiation. (Ten to twenty grays or 1000-2000 rads could be fatal to a human).

* Pressure — they can withstand the extremely low pressure of a vacuum and also very high pressures, many times greater than atmospheric pressure. It has recently been proven that they can survive in the vacuum of space. Recent research has notched up another feat of endurability; apparently they can withstand 6000 atmospheres pressure, which is nearly six times the pressure of water in the deepest ocean trench.

* Dehydration - tardigrades have been shown to survive nearly one decade in a dry state.[5]

Source: Wikipedia.

“The insulation is created by pouring a mixture of insulating particles, hydrogen peroxide, starch, and water into a panel mold …. Mushroom cells are then injected into the mold, where they digest the starch producing a tightly meshed network of insulating particles and mycelium. The end result is an organic composite board that has a competitive R-Value — a measurement of resistance to heat flow — and can serve as a firewall.”

Student inventor Eben Bayer … has developed an environmentally friendly organic insulation. The patented combination of water, flour, minerals, and mushroom spores could replace conventional foam insulations, which are expensive to produce and harmful to the environment.

… Bayer’s knowledge of the Earth and fungal growth lead him to develop a novel method of bonding insulating minerals using the mycelium growth stage of pleurotus ostreatus mushroom cells.

“The insulation is created by pouring a mixture of insulating particles, hydrogen peroxide, starch, and water into a panel mold,” Bayer says. “Mushroom cells are then injected into the mold, where they digest the starch producing a tightly meshed network of insulating particles and mycelium. The end result is an organic composite board that has a competitive R-Value — a measurement of resistance to heat flow — and can serve as a firewall.”

… Bayer’s process resulted in a new energy-saving, cost-effective, environmentally friendly class of insulation that could replace traditional synthetic insulators such as foam and fiberglass. This spring he began working with fellow classmate Gavin McIntyre … [they] will be forming a company called Greensulate to commercialize the technology.

Beyond insulation applications, the duo envision modifying the growing mixture slightly to include reinforcing materials that could be used to create strong, sustainable “growable” homes. Examples of this application include inexpensive structural panels that could be grown and assembled on-site in developing nations where usable housing is scarce and generally hard to obtain, or in disaster areas where temporary housing is essential.

[Link]

Via Boing Boing.

Tattoo of DNA double helix.

Note the careful attention to base pairs.

Excellent work!

Via This Blog Sits at the.

In their recent email, the Organic Consumers Association reports:

Creekstone Farms has won one of the most bizarre court cases the USDA has brought upon itself in recent years.

Early last year, after the discovery of another case of Mad Cow Disease in the U.S., foreign markets tightened their ban on U.S. beef based on the fact that the USDA requires such a small percentage of meat to be tested for this fatal disease. In an attempt to maintain sales with customers overseas, Kansas-based Creekstone Farms announced it would voluntarily test all of its meat for Mad Cow Disease.

Surprisingly, the USDA responded to Creekstone, saying it was illegal for them to have such high quality food safety testing. This action left Creekstone and its lawyers scratching their heads trying to figure out where in the law books it states that it’s illegal to test food for safety beyond what is required by law. Creekstone took the USDA to court and last week a federal judge ruled against the USDA. The results of the case will likely create a domino effect in the industry where more meatpackers will voluntarily choose to increase testing for Mad Cow Disease in order to allure international and domestic customers.

[Organic Consumers Association]

Google: Creekstone Farms

Common soil bacteria modified to store data

… Keio University researchers [created] artificial bacterial DNA that can carry more than 100 bits of data within the genome sequence. The researchers claimed that they encoded “e= mc2 1905!” on the common soil bacteria, Bacillius subtilis. The bacteria-based data storage method has backup and long-term archival functionality.

While the technology would most likely first be used to track medication, it could also be used to store text and images for many millennia, thwarting the longevity issues associated with today’s disk and tape storage systems … The artificial DNA that carries the data to be preserved makes multiple copies of the DNA and inserts the original as well as identical copies into the bacterial genome sequence. The multiple copies work as backup files to counteract natural degradation of the preserved data, according to the newswire. Bacteria have particularly compact DNA, which is passed down from generation to generation. The information stored in that DNA can also be passed on for long-term preservation of large data files.

[SlashDot]

Using PS3 idle time to research protein folding diseases

The Folding@home (FAH) initiative, a joint project spearheaded by Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) and Stanford University Associate Professor of Chemistry Vijay Pande, will enable PlayStation 3 consoles to assist in medical research …. Pande’s team will use a chain of networked PS3s to seek out information related to protein folding.

In researching the causes behind Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and various types of cancer, some top scientists have narrowed their research down to the process of protein folding. Misfolds are related to diseases such as the latter, and since protein folding takes place in roughly 10 one-millionths of a second, it takes complex computer simulations to attempt to study the process.

…. The power of the PS3’s Cell processor is significantly faster than the PCs that scientists use. As a result, a network of some 10,000 PS3s can handle a workload that would take nearly 200,000 PCs in other circumstances. What normally takes from five years to a decade for research could be slashed down to a few months. How does it work? Just like other @home programs, FAH uses idle PS3 consoles that are connected to the Internet to simulate and process a protein strand. Stanford uploads one to a PS3, which it begins to work upon. After the strand has been processed, the data goes back to Stanford’s servers. Eventually, with enough systems breaking down data, a scientist can analyze all of the findings at a significantly faster pace than with PCs.

…. For those interested in seeing the process at work, FAH runs a highly detailed visual simulation of a protein strand. The PS3 is able to render strands in several different ways … gamers can zoom in, out, and around each molecule of the protein. In addition, a map of the world can be seen behind the protein strain. Yellow illumination on the map indicates which geographic regions have the most gamers volunteering their PS3’s processing power to aide the project.

[Sterling McGarvey: GameSpy | March 15, 2007 ]

Genetic scientists develop prion-free cattle
Cattle appear immune to BSE

Scientists have created prion-free cattle that appear to be immune to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

Twelve prion-free Holstein bulls were developed through genetic engineering by Hematech Inc., a pharmaceutical research company [a division of Kirin Pharmaceutical] based in Sioux Falls, S.D. .

Three of the animals were slaughtered for testing, and the remaining cattle are now two years old and healthy. A report about the research was published Dec. 31 in the online version of the scientific journal Nature Biotechnology.

“By knocking out the prion protein gene and producing healthy calves, our team has successfully demonstrated that normal cellular prion protein is not necessary for the normal development and survival of cattle,” said James M. Robl, Hematech president. “We anticipate that prion protein-free cows will be useful models to study prion disease processes in both animals and humans.”

… Researchers “knocked out” the prion gene in the transgenic Holsteins, then exposed some of them to the prions associated with BSE, and found the disease didn’t take hold.

Researchers from ARS, Hematech and the University of Texas evaluated the live cattle and conducted post-mortem examinations on slaughtered animals. At least three more years of testing is needed, ARS said.

Abnormal prions are associated with a group of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. In cattle, the best-known disease is BSE, also called mad cow disease. In humans, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is associated with abnormal prions. BSE in cattle and vCJ in humans result in irreversible brain degeneration.

Mutant prions are also associated with scrapie in sheep and chronic wasting disease in elk and deer.

The December 2003 discovery of BSE in a Canadian-born Holstein cow at a Mabton, Wash., dairy caused a media uproar and resulted in the loss of major U.S. export markets, although it appeared to have little impact on domestic consumer beef purchases. Scientists believe that people can contact vCJD from eating beef from BSE-infected cattle. Worldwide, about 180 human deaths have been linked to BSE.

[Peggy Steward: Capital Press]

The new “TC Cow” from Hematech Inc - discussion @ Rancher.net

Oldtimer: “You have to wonder why Hematech scientists, the USDA scientists, many of the major Laboratories and Universities around the world are putting so much effort into developing ways to cure or eradicate BSE and other TSE’s if they are such a miniscule problem as so many on this board would like us to believe they are.”

Kathy: It isn’t about disease control … it is about CONTROL. If you can’t grow your own food, without interference from government, ie: telling you what to grown, when to grown it, how much to grow, then you are not in control, they are … the only relevant change that will result from all this Genetic manipulation … is CONTROL of the cattle business …. It is a sad fact that there is more concerned about BSE than the use of chemical, biological and depleted weapons by our own governments.

Kathy: Nothing like a 2 year old article to help set up some questions. So Hematech started with 150 embryos, and reports on 8. Even Chris Clark of the University of Saskatchewan Western Veterinary College has the ability to read and see that the research is high-lighting the biological importance of the healthy prion protein as a scavenger and neuroprotector.

[Bull Session! @ Ranchers.net]

Scientist questions value of BSE-immune cows

Chris Clark, an infectious disease expert at Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, said it is possible to produce a cow that is immune to BSE but he doesn’t know how useful it would be.

First scientists would have to figure out what the prion protein does and what happens if it disappears.

“I know some of the British research groups are coming to the theory that they think that the prion protein may be important for what they call a scavenger probe,” said Clark.

“What it may do is allow cells to kind of remove the natural waste materials that are produced by cellular metabolism and allow it to be recycled to prevent things accumulating.”

[cbc.com - June 2004]

Potentially Pathogenic Virus Found in Mad Cow Cells

The alternative view that a virus causes spongiform encephalopathies of the brain, such as “mad cow” and Creutzfeldt-Jakob (CJD) disease, rather than prion proteins, which are normally produced throughout life, is bolstered in a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers.

The report published online January 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides evidence that a virus causes these diseases, which are manifested by devastating holes, or sponge-like spaces, in the cerebral cortex. The conclusions counter the now conventional view that abnormally folded prion proteins are infectious, and instead suggests that abnormal prion proteins are late stage footprints left by the virus.

The lead author, Laura Manuelidis, M.D., professor and section chief of neuropathology, infected cell lines with either scrapie or CJD agents …. Manuelidis and her co-authors found an abundance of 25 nm virus-like particles. They also found that the particles did not bind antibodies for the prion protein, indicating they were not composed of prion protein. The development of the particles was independent of pathological changes or neuronal specialization, and preparations with an abundance of these particles correlated with high levels of infectivity, whereas the presence of prion proteins did not.

“… there is a reasonable possibility these are the long sought viral particles that cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathies,” Manuelidis said. “The abnormal protein is probably not infectious, but is a pathological result an infectious virus binding to this host protein. Highly infectious cultures are ideal for fundamental molecular studies of this virus, as well as rapid therapeutic, preventive, and vaccination approaches.”

Co-authors include Zhoa-Xue Yu, Nuria Banquero, and Brian Mullins. The work was supported by a National Institutes of Health grant and by a U.S. Department of Defense grant.

[Yale.edu - February 2007]

See Also

Creating Prion-Free Cows @ SlashDot

The Expanding Universe of Prion Diseases -

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy @ Wikipedia

GENET Archive