Quirks & Quarks for September 8, 2001

It's About Time! Inside the fourth dimension.

There was a time when time was a relatively simple thing. People were born, grew up, grew old and died. Days, seasons and years past. Then along came Newton and told us there was nothing in the laws of the universe that forced time to march forward. And Einstein developed this further with the idea that time could be stretched or shrunk, depending on how you looked at it. Now physicists are looking at the nature of time itself.

Dr. Paul Wesson, from the University of Waterloo thinks our whole notion of time may be wrong. He's looked at Einstein's equations, and thinks time is just an illusion we create to make sense of the universe. He says that all the events in the universe are all occuring at the same time, there's no past, or future.

Dr. Lawrence Shulman, a professor of physics from Clarkson University in New York state has a different view of time. He does think it's flowing forwards, with small pockets of backwards time existing within our universe. He's done the calculations and found that backward and forward time can exist side by side.

Dr. Ronald Mallet, a physicist at the University of Connecticut also thinks time can flow backwards. He's in the process of designing a time machine, using light to twist time and space.

Dr. Amanda Peet from the University of Toronto says time is a really difficult problem for physicists. It's an important one though, it's one of the things we're going to have to come to terms with if we want to understand what makes the universe run.

Skin Stem Cells

Dr. Freda Miller from the Montreal Neurological Institute and McGill University leads a research team that has discovered stem cells in skin that can make neurons, fat and and muscle cells.

These adult stem cells may not normally make these tissues, but can be encouraged to do so easily, leading to the hope that they can be cultivated and used for transplants and to fight disease.

Their discovery was published in the September 2001 edition of the journal Nature Cell Biology

Tech Talk -- Diabetes Contact Lens and Self-cleaning Glass

Producer Jim Lebans describes a contact lens that changes colour depending on sugar levels in tear fluid. This could replace the painful blood tests that diabetics must do to monitor their blood sugar levels.

And researchers at an English company, Pilkington plc, have invented self-cleaning window glass. A coating on the glass acts as a catalyst to break down dirt, and helps water sheet to wash the residues away.

Medical Ethics Column: Research independence

Next week, 12 of the world's most prominent medical journals will get together and announce a new policy designed to protect scientific independence.

The policy will demand that scientists who want their studies published in the journals must sign a declaration, stating that they had complete and independent access to all the data that was collected for their study.

The policy is intended as a challenge to the big pharmaceutical companies who fund much of the drug research today. Our medical columnist, Dr. Miriam Shuchman, looks at the ethical issued that are raised.

Question of the week: Cool testes

Howard Valentine of Sidney, B.C. wrote us with a chilling question. "Why do most mammals (whales being an exception) require their testicles to be air-cooled if they are to function normally in spermatogenesis?"

For the answer, we consulted Dr. David Mortimer, a fertility expert and president of Oozoa Biomedical in Vancouver.

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