New study done over time suggests that both long- and short-term exposure to diesel and other fuels and pollutants, when combined with higher levels of stress, are causing we humans to experience more respiratory illnesses–and making people with asthma significantly worse.

One study did tests for toxicity of particulate matter in Seattle, Denver, Mesa and other cities. It tested for short-term exposure effects on mortality, hospitalization, inflammation, cardiac function and asthma control–and for long-term effects on artherosclerosis and cardiac incidents. Another tested multiple U.S. and European cities.

As the populations of big cities around the world grow ever larger, the traffic congestion ever worse, and the resulting particulate matter ever denser, we humans have to start thinking hard about whether we want to control our populations by making more people get sick, have heart attacks, etc. (this approach will really add up in costs to society), or whether we want to start thinking about new ways of looking at how we get around and how we manufacture.

Those little paper masks from the medical supply store aren’t the most attractive fashion statements–and we won’t be able to see each other smile.

NanoWeek is kicking off in Cleveland, Ohio, this month–and the NanoAppSummit is October 17 to 19 at the downtown Wyndham Hotel. Today the promoters announced that interested parties can attend educational seminars about nanotechnology, the hottest new science this side of stem cells. Here’s the curriculum:

• Nanotechnology 101- What You Need to Know
Case Western Reserve University
• Nanofabrication techniques
Pennsylvania State University
• Nano-Characterization Tools and Techniques
FEI Corporation
• NanoMaterials and Nanopolymer Basics
University of Akron
• Ethical Considerations in Nanotechnology
Office of Naval Research & Kent State University
• NanoPhotonics Applications
Ohio State University and the Center for Multifunctional NanoMaterials and Devices (CMPND)
• Measurement Considerations in Nanoscale Systems
Keithley Instruments

Nanotech University is designed for business executives, research and development leaders, product and marketing specialists, and venture capitalists interested in investing in nanotechnology start-up and portfolio companies. Read more and register here.

The Nano-App Summit takes place during NANO Week–review other activities here.

I’ve been away from using the Freeze Framer for “achieving heart coherence” for the past couple of weeks–too much running around. Earlier it had occurred to me that a biofeedback mechanism like this might be useful for helping terminal cancer patients overcome anxiety–one of many symptoms common to dying patients.

But I realized that this exercise takes solid concentration and the ability to focus your attention on a couple of things at once–the very things that would likely be difficult for anyone in pain or heavily medicated as many dying patients may be. And I realized that if I get afraid to do it–because I feel insecure about my performance–how would people so intensely engaged in facing the greatest challenge of their lives ever be able to focus?

But I still wish they could do some research.

It starts out ominously. “By day three, he knew the monkeys were going to die.”

Ebola virus vaccine research has taken tremendous patience–and a lot of monkeys’ lives. This Washington Post story describes the drama of how scientists whose passion for finding an answer keeps them doggedly pursuing this dangerous research–wearing clumsy protective blue plastic suits pumped full of non-deadly air and working with gloved hands. No conversation. Just follow the procedures.

The description of watching the monkeys succumb to the horrible virus is painful to read. I cannot but imagine that the researchers feel the same sadness as you or I might, and sometimes must struggle in their hearts over killing these fellow creatures.

But perhaps some of them may be like the Indian in the opening scene of–I think it was–The Last of the Mohicans. As the movie opens, the camera is the eye of the Indian brave out hunting. It follows along as a deer moves through the nearby trees. When the deer pauses to listen, the camera watches as the brave raises his bow and draws back the arrow. He steadies his aim, and we hear his thoughts speak a reverent prayer:

“Forgive me, my brother. I bless you and thank you for sharing your flesh to sustain me.”

Heart patients with specific arrangements of certain alleles have a higher risk of death from using beta-blockers.

Wow. Talk about personalized medicine. I put this in the same category as stem cells. Working with nature–in this case to customize your medical treatment according to your genotype–is bound to be more effective than beating the hell out of people’s bodies with chemicals, radiation, and harsh procedures.

And treating as if it were results in charging lots of money for pouring essentially useless hormone medications into bodies that are basically behaving exactly as they are meant to do, according to this report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Well, that might be oversimplifying it a tiny bit–but not much. This multi-year study concluded that there’s no basis for saying that estrogen therapy for menopausal women had any significant improvement on quality of life.

I am perhaps a bit old-fashioned in thinking that we are never going to find the fountain of youth and that we do more harm than good by treating nature as if it were mistaken.

Doing some research for a project while I’m in Chicago, I discovered and wrote about a website that the City put up that sounds an awful lot like the way Cleveland sounds on the subject of attracting more businesses. So I pursued it a little further and found that Chicago and Illinois are just as anxious as every other state to get bio business, too.

The iBio (Illinois Biotechnology Industry Organization) group works with national BIO to give members purchasing power of up to 75% off normal prices for such needs as laboratory, business and technology equipment, employee investment and insurance options, and news distribution and relocation services–e.g., even for office stuff they can get 45% off furniture and 50% off other catalog items at Office Depot.

Not a bad deal–and a real help for emerging and startup bio ventures.

As a huge fan of CSI (it’s the only good thing in reruns during the dinner-to-after-dinner hours when I generally turn on the TV), I always enjoy the science of forensics. This one caught my eye–fingerprints under attack as reliable evidence. So I’m reading away, and then under the secondary heading, I find this: The guys who “read” fingerprints can be heavily influenced by external factors–according to research that duped examiners “into thinking matching prints actually came from different people.”

The study “suggests that subjective bias can creep into situations in which a match between two prints is ambiguous. So influential can this bias be that experts may contradict evidence they have previously given in court.”

Wow. Here we go again with the old quantum physics teaching–as always giving new meaning to “what you see is what you get.” It’s getting to be old hat anymore–what you see turns out to be exactly what you decide to look for…no more, no less, no different.

So this doesn’t make fingerprinting archaic; it just means another stake in the heart of the idea that there’s objective truth about “the facts.”

More women are choosing cesarean section (surgical) birth as opposed to vaginal delivery. Why? Often because they just don’t want to disrupt their schedule–somebody can’t take off work, the boss will be on vacation so you can’t be gone, etc. But the risks can be quite serious:

“Some obstetricians say that women are not aware of the risks involved. For mothers, they include hemorrhaging, infections and future pregnancy problems. Babies are at risk for surgical cuts, asthma and breastfeeding difficulties…”

Asthma? That’s a major health problem that can be frightening and incredibly inconvenient at best, and terrifying and life-threatening–even fatal–at worst. And yeah, we can’t predict who will get it and who won’t, but to avoid that one extra risk to your child’s health and life, it’s gotta be worth at least the inconvenience of messing up your schedule.

Sometimes in our modern world we appear to have the cart dragging the horse around…

Another amazing use for one of my favorite substances to write about, nitric oxide. It’s been receiving accolades in such varied uses as treating impotence and preventing artheriosclerosis. Now scientists are finding that nitric oxide may help women stay fertile longer–a huge plus for today’s generation of women who want to have it all–education, career success, and family–and often delay trying to get pregnant well into the 30s.

While working on a project involving in vitro fertilization, I got intimately acquainted with the difficulties many women encounter around fertility. This research has focused on mouse eggs, which are known to age rapidly if not fertilized quickly–and the article says “results suggest that nitric oxide could help prevent chromosome errors during early embryonic development…[that] can lead to Down syndrome, spontaneous miscarriages and other problems associated with pregnancies later in life.”

Great news–and of course, they also have to make sure that exposing to NO to extend fertility doesn’t introduce its own set of abnormalities. In science, as in tabletop puzzles, we can never trust that the piece will stand alone.