Cattle graze in a pasture against a backdrop of wind turbines which are part of the 155 turbine Smoky Hill Wind Farm near Vesper, Kan.
Credit: Charlie Riedel/AP
In normal times, a months-long slide in energy prices would be enough to rattle a man who makes wind turbines for a living. Yet amid a worldwide glut of cheap fossil fuels, business is blowing strong for Vestas Wind Systems and its CEO, Anders Runevad.
The company posted record gains in 2015 and inked major deals to build wind farms in the United States, Europe, Africa and Asia. That boom in turbine sales was part of a global surge for wind and solar energy, which occurred despite oil, coal and natural gas selling at bargain rates.
“We’re seeing very good momentum across the board globally,” […]
- Saiyong Zhu, Holger A. Russ, Xiaojing Wang, Mingliang Zhang, Tianhua Ma, Tao Xu, Shibing Tang, Matthias Hebrok, Sheng Ding. Human pancreatic beta-like cells converted from fibroblasts. Nature Communications, 2016; 7: 10080 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10080
Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have successfully converted human skin cells into fully-functional pancreatic cells. The new cells produced insulin in response to changes in glucose levels, and, when transplanted into mice, the cells protected the animals from developing diabetes in a mouse model of the disease.
The new study, published in Nature Communications, also presents significant advancements in cellular reprogramming technology, which will allow scientists to efficiently scale up pancreatic cell production and manufacture trillions of the target cells in a step-wise, controlled manner. This accomplishment opens the door for disease modeling and drug screening and brings personalized cell therapy a step closer for patients with diabetes.
“Our results demonstrate for the first time that human adult skin cells can be used to efficiently and rapidly generate functional pancreatic cells that behave similar to human beta cells,” says Matthias Hebrok, PhD, director of the Diabetes Center at UCSF and a co-senior author on the study. “This finding opens up the opportunity for the analysis of patient-specific pancreatic beta cell properties and the optimization of cell therapy approaches.”
In the study, the scientists first used pharmaceutical and genetic molecules to reprogram skin […]
Cruz campaign official says Christians must take over public schools to stop ‘deception of the seed’
Cynthia Dunbar
Credit: Liberty.edu
The co-chair of Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign in Virginia cited some bogus statistics to argue that Christians must take over public education to stop the deception of children.
Cynthia Dunbar, who brags that she tried to correct a “biblically illiterate society” during her tenure the Texas State Board of Education, now works at Liberty University and serves as co-chair of the Texas Republican’s campaign in Virginia.
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She took part recently in a “ProFamily Legislator’s Conference,” along with a number of conservative lawmakers, sponsored by anti-LGBT pseudo-historian David Barton — who heads the pro-Cruz Keep the Promise PAC, reported Right Wing Watch.
In a speech broadcast last week on Barton’s “Wallbuilders Live” program, Dunbar explained her obsession with the Genesis passage in which God vows to create hostility between Eve and the serpent who deceived her.
“It’s what I call the seed policy,” Dunbar said. “If you think about it, every major social issue you’re encountering as legislators actually directs back to what […]
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore holding up a copy of the U.S. Constitution. Credit: Butch Dill/AP
In a notably provocative legal order Wednesday, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore issued an order directing Alabama probate judges to not issue any marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Moore, himself an ardent opponent of marriage equality who has previously promised to resist the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling, explained in his order that it remains unclear if Obergefell applies beyond the four states directly involved in that case. He noted that the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and a district court of Kansas have both ruled that Obergefell did “not directly strike down the provisions” of other states’ bans on same-sex marriage, and thus a case brought by the Alabama Policy Institute (API) seeking to uphold Alabama’s ban remains unsettled.
Neither of these cases, however, support Moore’s suggestion that Obergefell is non-binding. The Eighth Circuit’s opinion does state that Obergefell does not directly apply to Nebraska, but it made this statement as part of a discussion about why that court retains jurisdiction over the case permitting it […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
