1683 - The Ebola virus

-  1683  -  The Ebola virus is deadly with no known cure.  Recent re-engineering of RNA molecules allows protein molecules to be starved off preventing the virus from replication itself.  The experimental drug has gone from monkeys to people this year because of the spreading Ebola epidemic.
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---------------------  1683  -  Can the Ebola Epidemic be stopped?
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- October, 2014, there are 4 cases of the Ebola virus in patients in the U.S.  It appears very similar to the Flu virus.  Flu symptoms soon become worse.  The virus hijacks cells throughout the body to make copies of itself.  The liver, lungs, spleen, and blood vessels hemorrhage if the virus is not stopped.
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-  In Central and West Africa thousands have become infected.  Up to 90% of these infections are fatal.
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-  How can this virus be stopped?
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-   Science is re-engineering DNA and RNA molecules to prevent the Ebola virus from making the particular protein it needs to replicate itself.  The “SiRNA” drug does not seem to effect other proteins.
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----------------------------  RNA  is ribonucleic acid
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----------------------------  DNA  is deoxyribonucleic acid
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-  The double helical structure of DNA was first discovered in 1953.  This corkscrew of molecules is a near permanent repository of our genetic code and our gene proteins.
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-  RNA contains genetic information too but it is less hardy and more easily degraded, or modified.  Regardless, RNA is intricately involved in almost every cellular process.   RNA  controls the behavior of DNA and protein molecules by increasing or decreasing their activity.
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-  Cells manufacture proteins by copying the genetic code found in DNA and producing long sequences of messenger RNA.  Combining with ribosomes the messenger RNA grows protein molecules by linking specific amino acids together.
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-  All this may sound complicated, but, actually it is easier.  Proteins are 3- dimensional structures that are difficult to characterize.  RNA is basically a 2-dimensional sequence, a linear problem much easier to solve.
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-  Re-engineered RNA treatments may actually cure the Ebola Virus infections.  The modified RNA may prevent the Ebola virus from making a protein thus preventing it from replicating itself.  RNA treatments may likely defeat this disease if we can get to it soon enough.
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-  Other diseases may be treated in a like manner.  The hepatitis-C virus is the leading cause of liver cancer.  In the U.S. this virus is more deadly than the AIDS virus.  In 2013 science found a micro RNA that targets particular liver cells that can remove the hepatitis-C virus.  The thinking is that if micro RNA can block the viral replication long enough the body will cure the  disease.
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-  This is amazing work!  Biologists have identified tens of thousands of molecules that direct and shape the organized chaos that goes on within our body’s cells.   By manipulating RNA science could potentially develop treatments to cure cancer, infectious
 diseases and a wide range of chronic illnesses.
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-  To learn more:  www.nebi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articlesPMC2724769
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-                        http://f1000.com/prime/reports/b/5/47
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
----  email request for copies to:   -------      jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ---------
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 ---- www.twitter.com , ---   707-536-3272    ----   Friday, October 24, 2014  ---
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The Big Bang

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-  1682  -  The Big Bang is not the birth of the Universe.  That belongs to religion.  Science is what we learn through observation and experimentation.  The Big Bang is the birth of the Observable Universe.  We don’t know the rest.  The rest is our Quest for knowledge
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---------------------  1682  -  The Big Bang is Not the Birth of the Universe.
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- The Big Bang is not the birth of the universe.  We don’t know that.  Science uses observation and experimentation to understand stuff.  The Big Bang is our name for the birth of the Observable Universe.  The rest of the stuff is still a mystery.  The biggest mystery of all is that we are here to observe it.  That is religion.
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-  Science has evidence to suggest that we today only can observe 5% of the Observable Universe.   95% is Dark Energy and Dark Matter that we see evidence for but that we cannot directly observe.  We only have theories as to what this “ Dark” stuff is.
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-  Plato was a Greek Philosopher.  He described science as being like prisoners in a cave.  A fire’s flame in the background creates flirting shadows on the cave walls.  These 2- dimensional images are the only reality the prisoners can observe.  How can they possibly understand their Universe when that is all they can see?
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-  Our science today observes 3-dimensions of space and one dimension of time.  Those 4 dimensions create our images on the cave walls.
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-  A discovery in science was how to create holography where 2-dimensional images can be projected to create a 3-dimensional image in space.  Perhaps the 3-dimensional images we see in space are projections of higher dimensions that we don’t see?
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-  To explain what we observe in our Universe we use the Big Bang as a model for the creation of expansion of space and the passage of time.  Our 4-dimensional Universe.  However, in order to get the math to work our we have to assume the Universe expanded 10^78 times in volume in the first few seconds.  ( That is 1 followed by 78 zeros ).  The expansion of space was much, much faster than the speed of light.
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-  We call this event “ Cosmic Inflation”.  It is used to explain why space can be uniform in all directions while the speed of light could not have reached all the places we observe to make them uniform.
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-  The math to explain this comes from a few simple equations containing only 5 independent parameters.  The math matches what we observe today 13.5 billion years after the first few fractions of a second.  One of these fundamental parameters is the density of the Universe as the sum of Ordinary Matter, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy.  We need to explain the ratio of mass-energy that balances gravity’s attractive force with the repulsive force that is expanding the Universe at an ever faster rate.
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-  When the math matches observation it tells us the 25% of the matter creating attraction is Dark Matter that we can not see.  And, 70% of the repulsive force is Dark Energy that we can not explain.  That leaves the Observable Universe that we can see to be only 5% of the mass-energy that is out there.
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-  As the Universe expands it cools.  The hot plasma at the beginning was the temperature of 10^27 degrees.  ( That is a 1 followed by 27 zeros.)  Today the temperature in all directions is observed to be only 3 degrees.  This temperature is uniform in all directions to distances that even light could not have yet reached.  Like a giant sphere where the surface appears flat to a small observer the space appears geometrically flat to all that we can observe.   The Inflation theory was needed to explain these observations.
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-  What caused this inflation to occur?  What caused it to stop?  It took a massive amount of energy.  Were did all this energy come from?  What existed before the inflation started?  Is this a one time event or does it happen all the time?  We don’t know.
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-  How do we get a violent emergence of space and time from an infinitely dense point?  In what universe did this point exist?
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-  There is another mystery that we can reference.  Astronomers can observe the effects of Black Holes.  There is one at the center of our galaxy and at the center of most large galaxies.  Black Holes are the process experienced by giant stars that exhaust all their nuclear fuel and collapse under immense gravity into a single point.  The density of that point is so great as to create a gravitational force from which even light can not escape.  Astronomers fail to learn what is inside a Black Hole because without light no information can escape.
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-  The effects are like shadows on the walls of the cave, but, we can not yet exit the cave to see the light outside.  We continue to search for light, knowledge, that will explain all that we observe.  In the meantime, we just don’t know.  Science is quest for understanding.  Religion is the faith in the mysteries that we will never learn about the real universe and this life that lets us observe it.
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-  Footnote:  When the Universe was 2.8 billion years old its rate of expansion for 2 galaxies separated by 1 million lightyears was 42 miles per second.  151,000 miles per hour was how fast the galaxies were moving away from each other as the space between them continues to expand.
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
----  email request for copies to:   -------      jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ---------
 ---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/  , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com  ---
 ---- www.twitter.com , ---   707-536-3272    ----   Friday, October 24, 2014  ---
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