Want more accurate DNA sequence results? Get your whole family sequenced at once. The family that sequences together stays healthy together? An article in MIT's Technology Review reports on a family that got their 4 genomes sequenced to learn more about their DNA.

In November 2009, the West family embarked on an unusual family project. Parents John and Judy and teenagers Anne and Paul each had their genomes sequenced, and enlisted a team of scientists at Stanford University to interpret the meaning of the combined 24 billion letters of DNA in those genomes.

Since the technology used to do DNA sequencing makes errors the errors are easier to detect if different copies of the same chromosome carried by siblings and parents get sequenced and compared.

By comparing intergenerational genomes, scientists can identify likely errors by looking for spots where the child's genome differs from the parents'. Last year, Leroy Hood and collaborators sequenced a family of four in an attempt to identify the genetic variations underlying a rare condition called Miller syndrome, inherited by the two children. They estimated that errors are 1,000 times more prevalent than true mutations.

Your cost per genome is going to be below $10000 and falling. In 2012 expect to pay below $5k per genome. Want to start at a lower cost? For a couple hundred dollars per person you can get about a million genetic variants tested and get interpretation reports for a year. I'm about ready to finally take the plunge on the DNA testing option.

The great hope for electric vehicles (EVs) is for a rapid decline in the costs of batteries. An article in the Pro section of the Wall Street Journal reports on skepticism from the US National Academies of Science and Toyota that a rapid battery cost decline is possible. Recommend you read in full if you are seriously interested in the debate about the prospects for EV battery costs.

The Academies and Toyota Motor Corp. have publicly said they don't think the Department of Energy goals are achievable and that cost reductions are likely to be far lower. It likely will be 20 years before costs fall 50%—not the three or so years the DOE projects for an even greater reduction—according to an Academies council studying battery costs. The council was made up of nearly a dozen researchers in the battery field.

Even in lithium batteries other minerals make up a substantial portion of total costs. So just cheaper manufacturing will only go so far. On the other hand, costs of copper or cobalt or other minerals are kind of like once-in-a-lifetime costs for car buyers because at the end of a battery's useful life it can be recycled to extract out the most valuable minerals. So the trade-in value of an old battery will partially offset the cost of a replacement battery.

While Johnson Controls claims they can cut battery costs by 50% in the next 5 years they probably aren't the low cost leader. So 50% off their current (unrevealed) costs might be much less than 50% off the cheapest current producer. It is noteworthy that GM has given electric vehicle battery production contracts to two companies, neither of which is Johnson Controls.

If the National Academies council is correct then this does not bode well for our ability to adjust to Peak Oil. The Nissan Leaf's battery costs $15,600 according the article. The range varies greatly. In the US EPA range test it went 73 miles with very hot and cold weather cutting into range. Turn off the AC or heater, keep your speed down and 100 miles or higher range become achievable, at least in moderate temperatures. At the latter link note that Ford will include active heating and cooling of their Focus EV battery to enable it to maintain a higher range in winter and summer. So 100 miles range in a compact EV might be possible with a battery that is in the $15k price range.

Suppose 100 miles from a $15k battery becomes possible in the next couple of years. Well, one way to get to work when oil hits $200 per barrel would be to trade off range to save money. Only buy enough battery for 50 miles range or even 20 mile range if your commute is short. Then recharge daily. Such lower EVs would be useful only for local errands and commuting. But they'd keep people going to work even with $8 gasoline.

Perhaps bigger batteries could be rented only for longer trips. Downsizing even further would allow for longer range and/or lower costs. Even smaller commuter cars or electric scooters would be a better fit for many.

Smaller batteries in PHEVs (pluggable hybrid electric vehicles such as the Chevy Volt) are another option. A 20 mile electric battery range in a PHEV could be supplemented with added gasoline range in the rarer situations where people with relatively short commutes need to go farther.

Also see Gail Tverberg's coverage of the same story. I'm not as pessimistic as Gail because I think we've got other options for keeping ourselves mobile such as even smaller commuter EVs with more limited range, electric scooters, electric bikes, and other cheaper options. Note that the evidence from Europe for the potential of mass transit suggests mass transit is going to remain a minor contributor for human transit.

While genetic modification of crops elicits considerable opposition in Europe the opposition is much less in the United States. An Iowa State economist says in a survey he did consumers indicate they would pay more for crops genetic engineered to contain more antioxidants.

AMES, Iowa - Consumers are eager to get their hands on, and teeth into, foods that are genetically modified to increase health benefits - and even pay more for the opportunity.

A study by Iowa State University researcher Wallace Huffman shows that when consumers are presented with produce enhanced with consumer traits through intragenic means, they will pay significantly more than for plain produce.

By "intragenic" they mean genes that are transferred within species. Most of these sorts of transfers could be done with conventional breeding programs, albeit with much longer time spans than the amount of time it takes to do genetic manipulations in a lab. Our major food crops are products of conventional breeding that concentrated combinations of genetic variants that already existed more rarely in wild plants. So the intragenic genetic modifications probably won't create crop strains any more radical than the foods we already eat.

People are willing to pay more for food that has more antioxidants in them.

"What we found was when genes for enhancing the amount of antioxidants and vitamin C in fresh produce were transferred by intragenic methods, consumers are willing to pay 25 percent more than for the plain product (with no enhancements). That is a sizable increase," said Huffman, distinguished professor of economics.

We already eat apple sauce fortified with vitamin C, milk fortified with vitamin D, and grains fortified with a variety of vitamins. Genetic engineering will shift food fortification into the genes. This has already been done with golden rice which has genes added to make it produce beta carotene which is a precursor which the body converts to vitamin A. The goal with golden rice is to reduce blindness in poor countries caused by vitamin A deficiency.

My main concern with genetic engineering for food fortification involves the choice of nutritional targets. Which vitamins should be boosted? I expect little benefit from fortification for most antioxidant vitamins. But prospects look better for benefit from the non-vitamin antioxidants (update: more accurately, some compounds that up-regulate detoxifying enzymes and repair enzymes). My suggestion: Measure antioxidant levels of wild berries and other wild crops. Then genetically engineer production crops to have the same levels. So, for example, farmed blueberries would contain the same levels of polyphenols as wild type.

Also, I would want genetically enhanced fortified strains to be so labeled.

A near doubling of the length of time large scale climate can be predicted.

Is it possible to make valid climate predictions that go beyond weeks, months, even a year? UCLA atmospheric scientists report they have now made long-term climate forecasts that are among the best ever — predicting climate up to 16 months in advance, nearly twice the length of time previously achieved by climate scientists.

The granularity still falls far short of predicting temperatures of specific cities on specific days or when it will rain. But on a larger scale the predictions work. This has utility. Just known whether, say, summer will be more or less rainy could help guide crop choices.

Forecasts of climate are much more general than short-term weather forecasts; they do not predict precise temperatures in specific cities, but they still may have major implications for agriculture, industry and the economy, said Michael Ghil, a distinguished professor of climate dynamics in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and senior author of the research.

The study is currently available online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and will be published in an upcoming print edition of the journal.

"Certain climate features might be predictable, although not in such detail as the temperature and whether it will rain in Los Angeles on such a day two years from now," said Ghil, who is also a member of UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. "These are averages over larger areas and longer time spans."

Climate prediction over a few year time span can help guide water usage policy. Start stashing away more water in underground reservoirs before a drought even starts. Choose low water crops on low rain years - or do not even plant at all. Store more food before a drought.

What are the limits to prediction? How many things can't be known in advance due to, for example, chaotic events in the sun?

People who have recently been ill react most strongly to disfigured faces.

Now a study in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, offers intriguing new evidence of the connection moving in the other direction: from physiological to psychological immune reactions. "When people have been recently sick, and therefore recently activated their physiological immune systems, they are more likely to pay attention to and display avoidance of disfigured faces"—which they read, like a rash or a sneeze, as a sign of contagion, says University of Kentucky psychologist Saul Miller. Miller conducted the study with Jon K. Maner of Florida State University.

I am fascinated by the myriad factors below our conscious awareness which alter how the mind functions. If this result is correct then a recent bout of sickness will cause a mind to look more intently at faces that show signs of disease. So how else does, say, a cold or flu or bacterial infection alter how we perceive the world around us even once the immune system has beaten back the invading pathogens?

To put it another way: Just how many ways does human DNA program the development of the mind to alter cognition in response to illness, diet, and sensory inputs?

Two experiments showed that the recently ill more vigilantly pay attention to and avoid others who might make them sick. In the first, faces, some disfigured and some normal, were displayed on a screen. When they disappeared, either a circle or square appeared, and the person had to press a key, as quickly as possible, indicating which shape they saw. When the face appeared in a different portion of the screen, the participant had to shift her attention to it. A longer lag in switching meant more attention was paid to the face. After 80 trials, participants answered a questionnaire about whether they had been ill—"feeling a little under the weather," "had a cold or flu recently," for instance—and if so, when, from today to a year or more ago. Other questions measured feelings of vulnerability to disease and germs. The results: Independent of their conscious worries, those who had more recently been ill paid more attention to the disfigured faces than to the normal faces. Those who hadn't been ill showed no difference in reaction time.

In the second experiment participants had to push a joystick—a tested indication of avoidance—in response to a disfigured face and pull (showing approach) for normal face. Everyone was quicker to push away the disfigured one or pull the normal one. But those who'd been sick were even quicker than normal in avoiding the "sick" face, and the sicker they'd been, the faster they pushed. The not-ill people showed no difference.

A much larger scale study that compared people who had similar levels of illness might turn up super responders (react most severely to sick-looking faces) and very weak responders. Such a study could be used to look for genetic variants that influence our subconscious response to sick people.

Electric vehicles need better (cheaper, higher energy density, faster charging) batteries to take off. A lithium titanium dioxide design might solve at least the charge time problem. 50% charged in 6 minutes and expected to be long-lasting.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sept. 8, 2011 -- Batteries could get a boost from an Oak Ridge National Laboratory discovery that increases power, energy density and safety while dramatically reducing charge time.

A team led by Hansan Liu, Gilbert Brown and Parans Paranthaman of the Department of Energy lab's Chemical Sciences Division found that titanium dioxide creates a highly desirable material that increases surface area and features a fast charge-discharge capability for lithium ion batteries. Compared to conventional technologies, the differences in charge time and capacity are striking.

"We can charge our battery to 50 percent of full capacity in six minutes while the traditional graphite-based lithium ion battery would be just 10 percent charged at the same current," Liu said.

Compared to commercial lithium titanate material, the ORNL compound also boasts a higher capacity – 256 vs. 165 milliampere hour per gram – and a sloping discharge voltage that is good for controlling state of charge. This characteristic combined with the fact oxide materials are extremely safe and long-lasting alternatives to commercial graphite make it well-suited for hybrid electric vehicles and other high-power applications.

Fast charging would make trips in electric cars more practical.

It has a complex production process and it is not clear whether it will turn out to be scalable.

The rare genetic condition congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) boosts androgen hormone exposure in the womb. Women with CAH have stronger interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers than women who have normal hormone levels. CAH does not appear to influence male career interests.

Teacher, pilot, nurse or engineer? Sex hormones strongly influence people's interests, which affect the kinds of occupations they choose, according to psychologists.

"Our results provide strong support for hormonal influences on interest in occupations characterized by working with things versus people," said Adriene M. Beltz, graduate student in psychology, working with Sheri A. Berenbaum, professor of psychology and pediatrics, Penn State.

Berenbaum and her team looked at people's interest in occupations that exhibit sex differences in the general population and are relevant to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers. The researchers studied teenagers and young adults with congenital adrenal hyperplasia -- a genetic condition -- and their siblings who do not have CAH.

This shouldn't be too surprising. Sex hormones alter brain development. But it reminds me of an interesting question: When the capability to intentionally alter fetal hormonal environment becomes pretty refined and powerful what will people do with this capability?

There's a legal angle to this: Suppose prospective parents 10 or 20 years from now decide to alter the womb environment in a female pregnancy in order to temporarily induce the conditions that CAH causes. Suppose they'll be able to do this without a doctor's help. Will prosecutors try to bring charges against them? If so, for what?

Imagine instead that prospective parents decide to reduce the level of hormones for a male fetus in order to create a feminized son. Again, legal grounds for charges to be brought? Should it be illegal to substantially alter the degree of masculine or feminine qualities developed in a fetus?

Do you believe parents should be free to create combinations of cognitive attributes that are currently quite rare? Is that cruelty to their future child and future adult? Consider that some combinations of attributes would be very hard to live with. Someone so altered might not be able to, for example, find someone to form a romance with who would have compatible desires.

If you've got cells low on Lon they will accumulate garbage proteins that cause trouble.

When the body fights oxidative damage, it calls up a reservist enzyme that protects cells – but only if those cells are relatively young, a study has found.

Biologists at USC discovered major declines in the availability of an enzyme, known as the Lon protease, as human cells grow older.

A protease is an enzyme that breaks down peptides (pieces of protein). So this enzyme does not neutralize free radicals. It breaks down proteins damaged by chemicals that rampage thru the cell doing damage. Without enough Lon (and other proteases as well) damaged pieces will accumulate in a cell. This has a number of undesirable consequences such as taking up space that would get used by functional proteins. Also, the damaged proteins will in some cases do wrong things such as generate reactive species that do even more damage. Aging is a vicious cycle where damage causes even more damage.

Would a drug be capable of boosting Lon activity? Is that even the right response to the problem found by these researchers?

The finding may help explain why humans lose energy with age and could point medicine toward new diets or pharmaceuticals to slow the aging process.

The researchers showed that when oxidative agents attack the power centers of young cells, the cells respond by calling up reinforcements of the enzyme, which breaks up and removes damaged proteins.

As the cells age, they lose the ability to mobilize large numbers of Lon, the researchers reported in The Journals of Gerontology.

A cell that does not have enough Lon protease has likely accumulated a lot of damage. The low Lon protease might even be the result of damage to mitochondria where the cell loses the ability to generate enough energy. It would not surprise me if the cell basically turns off optional systems like Lon when energy levels drop too lo. So just trying to boost Lon might not work.

If boosting Lon is either not practical or useful then what? I see two options: Fix the root cause of low Lon. If the root cause is damaged mitochondrial DNA then send in gene therapy to fix the mitochondria. Another option: Try to kill cells that do not make enough Lon. Then neighboring cells or stem cells could divide to replace them. That's an approach that would need selective control so that you don't die due to an organ suddenly failing due to excessive cell loss. Also, cell therapies would be needed to replace cells in organs that have limited repair capability (e.g. the heart).

Thousands of spinning stellar time bombs could be scattered all over the Milky Way Galaxy.

In the Hollywood blockbuster "Speed," a bomb on a bus is rigged to blow up if the bus slows down below 50 miles per hour. The premise - slow down and you explode - makes for a great action movie plot, and also happens to have a cosmic equivalent.

New research shows that some old stars might be held up by their rapid spins, and when they slow down, they explode as supernovae. Thousands of these "time bombs" could be scattered throughout our Galaxy.

"We haven't found one of these 'time bomb' stars yet in the Milky Way, but this research suggests that we've been looking for the wrong signs. Our work points to a new way of searching for supernova precursors," said astrophysicist Rosanne Di Stefano of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

We need to identify all the spinning white dwarfs in our neighborhood and try to calculate when each will explode and potentially damage our ozone layer.

The specific type of stellar explosion Di Stefano and her colleagues studied is called a Type Ia supernova. It occurs when an old, compact star known as a white dwarf destabilizes.

Back in 1998 some astrophysicists claimed a supernova would have to be within within 10 parsecs (30 light years) of Earth to cause us a problem and no star that close to Earth poses will go supernova in the next several million years. But if the original report above is correct in arguing that past methods of searching for supernova precursors aren't good enough then perhaps some nearby supernova precursors haven't been identified.

The 10 parsec minimum distance for a supernova threat might be overly optimistic too. In 2006 supernova SN 2006gy exploded with a light intensity 100 greater than the typical supernova and such a supernova could cause us problems at a greater distance.

Suppose astrophysicists some day discover a supernova precursor nearby due to explode in some decades or a couple of centuries from now. Could we prepare any space-based protection against the ozone loss? Or would we want to make UV shields closer to ground or move more of our civilization underground in preparation?