Newly discovered cell mechanism uses amplified nitric oxide to fight Clostridium difficile

Posted by Biomechanism

“Research involving Case Western Reserve featured in the Aug. 21 online issue of Nature Medicine.” 

Groundbreaking research encompassing Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Case Medical Center, has uncovered a natural defense mechanism that is capable of inactivating the toxin that spreads Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, an increasingly common bacterial infection in hospitals and long-term care settings. The research has immediate implications for developing a new form of treatment for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

People in good health usually don’t get C. difficile disease. You might get the disease if you have an illness that requires prolonged use of antibiotics. Increasingly, the disease can also be spread in the hospital. The elderly are also at risk. Treatment is usually with antibiotics.

The newly discovered mechanism involves a nitric oxide (NO)-based molecule, S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO), which binds to the toxins secreted by C. diff  bacteria to deactivate them and prevent them from penetrating and damaging cells. The mechanism encompasses S-nitrosylation (SNO), a protein modification that attaches NO to cysteine residues in enzymes and other proteins.

“We’ve discovered a natural defense against C. diff that is based on nitric oxide, a ubiquitous molecule that is often produced by immune cells to kill pathogens,” says Jonathan Stamler, MD, director of the Institute for Transformative Molecular Medicine and the Robert S. and Sylvia K. Reitman Family Foundation Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Innovation at the Case Western Reserve University Cardiovascular Center and University Hospitals Harrington-McLaughlin Heart & Vascular Institute. “Understanding how this mechanism deactivates toxins provides a basis for developing new therapies that can target toxins directly and thereby keep bacterial infections, like C. diff, from spreading,” he says.

Dr. Stamler discovered the molecule GSNO, as well as the nitrosylation mechanism for control of protein function, in his previous research. He is one of the senior investigators studying how the protein modification inhibits the virulence of C. diff toxins. The resulting research findings appear in the Aug. 21 online issue of Nature Medicine.

In addition to Dr. Stamler, investigators from the University of Texas in Galveston, the University of California, Tufts University and the Commonwealth Medical College collaborated on the research. The University of Texas researchers first determined that NO helped protect cells against C. diff and approached Dr. Stamler to determine if SNO was also involved.

C. diff is the most common cause of hospital-acquired infectious diarrhea and life-threatening inflammation of the colon. It originates when normal, competing bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract are wiped out by the use of antibiotics. This allows C. diff bacteria to grow out of control.

The C. diff bacteria secrete a toxin that cleaves or cuts itself to generate a fragment that can penetrate cells, damaging them and resulting in a hemorrhagic injury to the gastrointestinal tract. The toxin is activated when inositolhexakisphosphate (InsP6), a substance prevalent in leafy vegetables and the gastrointestinal tract, binds to it, enabling the toxin to change shape and cleave itself.

The research shows that upon activation, GSNO, a NO donor molecule, binds to the toxin and nitrosylates it. This can only occur when InsP6 binds to the toxin.

The change in shape that results when InsP6 binds to the toxin is what enables the GSNO to target and inactivate the toxin by directly binding to the active site. There, the GSNO can nitrosylate (SNO) the cysteine to inactivate the toxin. These findings are especially significant as they suggest that GSNO has evolved to recognize shape changes in the toxins it targets.

Prior to this, researchers knew GSNO could produce SNO in many classes of proteins but there was little to no precedent for it binding to toxins or explaining how this SNO modification protects against infectious agents, Dr. Stamler says.

“The new research suggests GSNO, and S-nitrosylation, more generally, may have a universal function in protecting cells against microbial proteins, many of which have a design that is conducive to being s-nitrosylated by GSNO,” Dr. Stamler says. “In this regard, GSNO-like molecules may represent a new class of antibiotics that can be developed, exploiting the shape changes in numerous bacterial proteins.”

In their work, researchers also noted that increased levels of GSNO in the gut of C. diff-infected animals and increased levels of SNO-toxin in stools of patients, directly correlated with deactivation of the toxin, further confirming that the natural mechanism works to reduce disease activity in people. This provides a basis for measuring how much nitric oxide, a key molecule in cell immune activity, has bound to toxins to make SNO and limit the spread of bacteria.

The current treatment of C. diff is difficult and the infection often recurs. Resistance to antibiotics is also a serious worry. The researchers are currently developing a new class of anti-toxin treatment based on these findings. One advantage of such antitoxins, says Dr. Stamler, is that resistance won’t occur. The researchers hope that the new treatment can enter clinical trials very rapidly.

The Help Official Trailer (2011) HD

'The Help' Trailer HD

The Help Trailer 2011 -- Starring Emma Stone [HD]

en

The Help | trailer #1 US (2011)

The Help - Official Trailer [HD]

e

Denver Official Guilty! Dog Video www.facebook.com/guiltydog

Newly Discovered Icelandic Current Could Change North Atlantic Climate Picture

Northern part of Denmark Strait showing the location of the newly discovered deep current in relation to the known existing pathway of dense water. (Credit: Graphic by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Science Daily  — An international team of researchers, including physical oceanographers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has confirmed the presence of a deep-reaching ocean circulation system off Iceland that could significantly influence the ocean's response to climate change in previously unforeseen ways.

Crucial to this warm-to-cold oceanographic choreography is the Denmark Strait Overflow Water (DSOW), the largest of the deep, overflow plumes that feed the lower limb of the conveyor belt and return the dense water south through gaps in the Greenland-Scotland Ridge.

The current, called the North Icelandic Jet (NIJ), contributes to a key component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as the "great ocean conveyor belt," which is critically important for regulating Earth's climate. As part of the planet's reciprocal relationship between ocean circulation and climate, this conveyor belt transports warm surface water to high latitudes where the water warms the air, then cools, sinks, and returns towards the equator as a deep flow.

For years it has been thought that the primary source of the Denmark Overflow is a current adjacent to Greenland known as the East Greenland Current. However, this view was recently called into question by two oceanographers from Iceland who discovered a deep current flowing southward along the continental slope of Iceland. They named the current the North Icelandic Jet and hypothesized that it formed a significant part of the overflow water.

Now, in a paper published in the Aug. 21 online issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, the team of researchers -- including the two Icelanders who discovered it -- has confirmed that the Icelandic Jet is not only a major contributor to the DSOW but "is the primary source of the densest overflow water."

"In our paper we present the first comprehensive measurements of the NIJ," said Robert S. Pickart of WHOI, one of the authors of the study. "Our data demonstrate that the NIJ indeed carries overflow water into Denmark Strait and is distinct from the East Greenland Current. We show that the NIJ constitutes approximately half of the total overflow transport and nearly all of the densest component.

The researchers used a numerical model to hypothesize where and how the NIJ is formed. "We've identified a new paradigm," he said. "We're hypothesizing a new, overturning loop" of warm water to cold.

The results, Pickart says, have "important ramifications" for ocean circulation's impact on climate. Climate specialists have been concerned that the conveyor belt is slowing down due to a rise in global temperatures. They suggest that increasing amounts of fresh water from melting ice and other warming-related phenomena are making their way into the northern North Atlantic, where it could freeze, which would prevent the water from sinking and decrease the need for the loop to deliver as much warm water as it does now. Eventually, this could lead to a colder climate in the northern hemisphere.

While this scenario is far from certain, it is critical that researchers understand the overturning process, he said, to be able to make accurate predictions about the future of climate and circulation interaction. "If a large fraction of the overflow water comes from the NIJ, then we need to re-think how quickly the warm-to-cold conversion of the AMOC occurs, as well as how this process might be altered under a warming climate," Pickart said.

"These results implicate local water mass transformation and exchange near Iceland as central contributors to the deep limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, and raise new questions about how global ocean circulation will respond to future climate change," said Eric Itsweire, program director in the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research.

The Research Council of Norway also funded the analysis of the data.

Pickart and a team of scientists from the U.S., Iceland, Norway, and the Netherlands are scheduled to embark on Aug. 22 on a cruise aboard the WHOI-operated R/V Knorr to collect new information on the overturning in the Iceland Sea.

"During our upcoming cruise on the Knorr we will, for the first time, deploy an array of year-long moorings across the entire Denmark Strait to quantify the NIJ and distinguish it from the East Greenland Current," Pickart said. "Then we will collect shipboard measurements in the Iceland Sea to the north of the mooring line to determine more precisely where and how the NIJ originates."

In addition to Pickart, authors of the Nature Geoscience study include Michael A. Spall, and Daniel J. Torres of WHOI, lead author Kjetil Våge, a graduate of the MIT-WHOI joint program now with University of Bergen, Norway, Svein Østerhus and Tor Eldevik, also of the University of Bergen, Norway, and Héðinn Valdimarsson and Steingrímur Jónsson -- the two discoverers of the NIJ -- of the Marine Research Institute in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Common Cause of All Forms of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Discovered

Artist's view. The basis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a broken down protein recycling system in the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain. (Credit: © CLIPAREA.com / Fotolia)

Science Daily  — The underlying disease process of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS and Lou Gehrig's disease), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that paralyzes its victims, has long eluded scientists and prevented development of effective therapies. Scientists weren't even sure all its forms actually converged into a common disease process.

The basis of the disorder is a broken down protein recycling system in the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain. Optimal functioning of the neurons relies on efficient recycling of the protein building blocks in the cells. In ALS, that recycling system is broken. The cell can't repair or maintain itself and becomes severely damaged.

But a new Northwestern Medicine study for the first time has identified a common cause of all forms of ALS.

The discovery by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers, published in the journal Nature, provides a common target for drug therapy and shows that all types of ALS are, indeed, tributaries, pouring into a common river of cellular incompetence.

"This opens up a whole new field for finding an effective treatment for ALS," said senior author Teepu Siddique, M.D., the Les Turner ALS Foundation/Herbert C. Wenske Professor of the Davee Department of Neurology and Clinical Neurosciences at Northwestern's Feinberg School and a neurologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. "We can now test for drugs that would regulate this protein pathway or optimize it, so it functions as it should in a normal state."

The discovery of the breakdown in protein recycling may also have a wider role in other neurodegenerative diseases, specifically the dementias. These include Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia as well as Parkinson's disease, all of which are characterized by aggregations of proteins, Siddique said. The removal of damaged or misfolded proteins is critical for optimal cell functioning, he noted.

This breakdown occurs in all three forms of ALS: hereditary, which is called familial; ALS that is not hereditary, called sporadic; and ALS that targets the brain, ALS/dementia.

In related research, Feinberg School researchers also discovered a new gene mutation present in familial ALS and ALS/dementia, linking these two forms of the disease.

Siddique has been searching for the causes and underlying mechanism of ALS for more than a quarter century. He said he was initially drawn to it because, "It was one of the most difficult problems in neurology and the most devastating, a disease without any treatment or known cause."

Siddique's efforts first showed in 1989 that molecular genetics techniques were applicable to ALS, then described the first ALS gene locus in 1991, which led to the discovery of SOD1 and engineering of the first genetic animal model for ALS.

ALS affects an estimated 350,000 people worldwide, including children and adults, with about 50 percent of people dying within three years of its onset. In the motor disease, people progressively lose muscle strength until they become paralyzed and can no longer move, speak, swallow and breathe. ALS/dementia targets the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain, affecting patients' judgment, the ability to understand language and to perform basic tasks like planning what to wear or organizing their day.

"These people in the prime of their lives and the peak of their productivity get this devastating illness that kills them," Siddique said. "The people who get ALS/dementia, an even more vicious disease, have a double whammy."

Broken Down Recycling System

Feinberg School scientists found the cause of ALS by discovering a protein, ubiquilin2, whose critical job is to recycle damaged or misfolded proteins in motor and cortical neurons and shuttle them off to be reprocessed.

In people with ALS, Feinberg researchers found ubiquilin2 isn't doing its job. As a result, the damaged proteins and ubiquilin2 loiter and accumulate in the motor neurons in the spinal cord and cortical and hippocampal neurons in the brain. The protein accumulations resemble twisted skeins of yarn -- characteristic of ALS -- and cause the degeneration of the neurons.

Researchers found ubiquilin2 in these skein-like accumulations in the spinal cords of ALS cases and in the brains of ALS/dementia cases.

The scientists also discovered mutations in ubiquilin2 in patients with familial ALS and familial ALS/dementia. But the skein-like accumulations were present in people's brains and spinal cords in all forms of ALS and ALS/dementia, whether or not they had the gene mutation.

"This study provides robust evidence showing a defect in the protein degradation pathway causes neurodegenerative disease," said Han-Xiang Deng, M.D., lead author of the paper and associate professor of neurology at the Feinberg School. "Abnormality in protein degradation has been suspected, but there was little direct evidence before this study." The other lead author is Wenjie Chen, senior research technologist in neurology.

About 90 percent of ALS is sporadic, without any known cause, until this study. The remaining 10 percent is familial. To date, mutations in about 10 genes, several of which were discovered at Northwestern, including SOD1 and ALSIN, account for about 30 percent of classic familial ALS, noted Faisal Fecto, M.D., study co-author and a graduate student in neuroscience at Feinberg

Nitrogen in the Soil Cleans the Air: Nitrogen-Containing Soil Is a Source of Hydroxyl Radicals That Remove Pollutants from the Atmosphere

Science Daily  — Eutrophication harms the environment in many ways. Unexpectedly, nitrogen fertilizer may also be positive for the environment. And even acidic soils, promoting the destruction of forests, can have a positive effect. Researchers from the Biogeochemistry Department at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz found out that nitrogen fertilizer indirectly strengthens the self-cleaning capacity of the atmosphere.

Our air partly cleans itself as pollutants are being oxidized by hydroxyl radicals and washed out by rain. Now, researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Mainz and colleagues in Beijing have discovered the origin of a bulk part of the nitrous acid that is acting beside ozone as a source of hydroxyl radicals. According to their studies, large quantities of the acid are released into the atmosphere from soil. In nitrogen-rich soils the acid is formed from nitrite ions produced through microbiological transformations of ammonium and nitrate ions. The more acidic the soil is and the more nitrite it contains, the more nitrous acid is released. Through this pathway some of the nitrogen in fertilized soil escapes into the air.

The new study shows that nitrous acid is formed in fertilized soil and released to the atmosphere, whereby the amount increases with increasing soil acidity. In the air, nitrous acid leads to the formation of hydroxyl radicals oxidizing pollutants that then can be washed out. Previously, this nitrogen-effect has not been taken into account by geoscientists. The gap has now been closed by the Max Planck researchers.

In the latest issue of the journal Science, the Mainz researchers describe how they demonstrated the existence of this previously unnoticed pathway in the nitrogen cycle. They measured the concentration of HONO -- a chemical term for gaseous nitrous acid -- that escaped from a defined volume of arable soil. They added nitrite to a soil sample and varied its water content. The quantity of released HONO closely matched the researchers' estimates based on acid/base and solubility equilibria. Based on these findings they can also explain why previous studies had measured high levels of HONO in the air above fertilized agricultural soil.

The source of the high concentrations of HONO observed in the lower atmosphere had long been a mystery. "Soil is a complex system involving interactions between countless chemicals and biological organisms," says Hang Su, the lead author of the paper. "Before us, no one seems to have investigated the soil-atmosphere exchange of nitrous acid."

The fact that soil emits HONO is not just locally, but also globally significant for air quality and the nitrogen cycle. "Next, we plan to work across disciplines with soil and climate researchers to quantify the effect in different types of soil and under different environmental conditions," adds research group leader Ulrich Pöschl. The findings will then be incorporated into a global model.

The Max Planck researchers suspect that soil-based HONO emissions could strongly increase especially in developing countries due to more extensive fertilization, soil acidification, and climate-related rise in temperature. This is expected to produce more hydroxyl radicals, which increase the oxidizing power of the air.

உயிரினங்கள் முதன் முதலில் செவ்வாய் கிரகத்தில் தான் தோன்றியது: நிபுணர்கள் தகவல்

அவுஸ்திரேலியாவின் மேற்கு பகுதியில் உள்ள பில்பாரா மாகாணத்தின் கடைகோடி பகுதியில் ஸ்டெரெலி ஏரி உள்ளது. அங்கு சுமார் 3 கோடியே 40 லட்சம் ஆண்டுக்கு முந்தைய புதை படிவங்கள் கண்டெடுக்கப்பட்டன. வெஸ்டர்ன் அவுஸ்திரேலியா பல்கலைக்கழகம் மற்றும் ஆக்ஸ்போர்டு பல்கலைக்கழக நிபுணர்கள் அவற்றை ஆய்வு செய்தனர். அப்போது அதில் நல்ல முறையில் வளர்ச்சி அடைந்த நோய் ஏற்படுத்தும் பாக்டீரியாக்கள் இருந்தன. ஆனால் புதை படிவத்தில் இருந்து கண்டுபிடிக்கப்பட்ட இந்த பாக்டீரியாக்கள் 3 கோடியே 40 லட்சம் ஆண்டுக்கு முன்பு வாழ்ந்தவை. அப்போது பூமியில் உயிர் வாழ்வதற்கான ஆக்சிஜன் இல்லை. கடல் நீரால் மட்டுமே பூமி சூழப்பட்டு இருந்தது. கடும் வெப்பமாகவும் இருந்தது. உயிர் வாழக்கூடிய தட்ப வெப்ப சூழ்நிலை இல்லை. எனவே உயிரினம் செவ்வாய்கிரகத்தில் தான் தோன்றியிருக்க வேண்டும் என நிபுணர்கள் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர். புதை படிவம் கண்டெடுக்கப்பட்ட பில்பாரா பகுதி செவ்வாய் கிரகத்தில் இருந்து விழுந்த வண்டல் மண் சார்ந்த பாறைகளாக இருக்கலாம். அவை மண்ணில் புதையுண்டு படிவங்களாக மாறியிருக்கிறது என்றும் கருதப்படுகிறது.

10 SOCIAL NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENTREPRENEURS

Did you know that social networking has huge benefits for businesses. Get on board with the latest technology! These sites will help you expand and build wealth!

Practical Ecommercehighlights these networks…

Biznik. Biznik is for sharing your ideas, not posting your resume. Biznik members meet online and in person, because nothing beats the power of a face-to-face meeting to build lasting business relationships. After you establish your profile city, Biznik shows you local members in your area and events you can attend for local networking. Basic membership is free; Pro is $10 per month for enhanced profile; ProVIP is $24 per month for enhanced visibility.

Cofoundr. This is a basic social network for entrepreneurs. Post your question or message, get answers from followers, and follow other entrepreneurs.

Dreamstake. Dreamstake provides entrepreneurs with the opportunity to network with like-minded individuals and launch their ideas. Features include mentoring, funding support, talent matching, and legal. The network has over 4,500 members.

Entrepreneur Connect. This is a social network started by Entrepreneur Magazine. Create a profile and explore the idea-sharing community. Create or join professional groups. Create a blog and have it featured on the home page.

Focus. Post questions to business experts, receive research and analysis of business trends, and participate in a variety of events, including roundtables and webinars.

Go BIG Network Go BIG Network claims to be the biggest community of startup companies. Create your business plan and meet investors. Members of Go BIG can either search profiles of other members to contact, or post a request to let members know what they are looking for.

LinkedIn. The largest social network for professionals, LinkedIn has over 100 million users. The “On Startups” group alone has nearly 200,000 members. LinkedIn offers many resources for entrepreneurs. Brand yourself as an entrepreneur, find service providers or partners, and participate with your LinkedIn network to strengthen your profile.

PartnerUp. This is an online community focused on the needs of small business owners and entrepreneurs. You can find commercial properties, locate partners to join your team, find accountants and marketers to grow and maintain your business, and get answers from people with relevant experience.

Perfect Business. This site provides an online video center, business plan software, and access to expert investors to pitch your ideas to and get feedback. Build your network as you launch your business.

Ryze. This is smaller business professional’s social network whose prime focus is to help like-minded entrepreneurs find one another. Ryze helps people make connections and grow their networks. You can dialog to grow your business, build your career and life, find a job and make sales. Or just keep in touch with friends.

HOW TO BUILD WEALTH WITHOUT INHERITANCES

It’s easy to want wealth. It’s also easy to believe it’s unattainable. However, this is not necessarily true. Believing you can achieve wealth is half the battle. The other half is making intelligent decisions. Here is some advice if you want to join the millionaire club!

Alaska USA recommends…

1. Actively manage your money.

A study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that households in which someone thought “a lot” about retirement had twice as much wealth heading into retirement as households with little or no planning.

Similarly, research for “The Millionaire Next Door” revealed that more high-wealth accumulators say they spend “a lot” of time planning their financial future, and place the management of their assets before other activities. In this case, “a lot” means 8.4 hours per month, or just about two hours a week.

Income differences alone have little to do with disparities in wealth.

“You shouldn’t spend your time checking stock prices constantly. That’s just not productive,” says Tyson, who observes that the tendency to incessantly track portfolio performance is more common in our 24/7 news coverage atmosphere. Instead, he suggests spending your hours researching and learning how to invest, even if you hire a financial adviser.

“How are you going to make good choices about hiring a professional if you don’t educate yourself [about what to look for and how to judge performance]?” asks Tyson.

Investors also will need to spend some time monitoring the performance of their investments and reallocating their portfolio if necessary.

Tyson also says it’s good to try to learn to do your own taxes, even if you have a tax preparer do the work, because “it helps you learn about the system and take advantage of incentives and tax breaks.”

If you haven’t done so already, spend a few of your first money management hours calculating your net worth. Your net worth is the value of all your assets minus all your liabilities. It’s the best snapshot of your wealth-building progress. Your net worth work sheet is something you’ll update annually.

Some other basic tasks to start with include tracking expenses for one to three months, designing a spending plan (also known as a budget), and writing down your short-, medium-, and long-term financial goals.

2. Think like an investor, not just a saver.

Nobody ever accumulated wealth just by saving. To build the kind of wealth that gives you independence and security, you have to be an investor. Putting your savings into things that become more valuable over time, such as securities (stocks and bonds) and real estate has, historically, been the best way to build wealth over the long run.

Your net worth is the best snapshot of your wealth-building progress.

If you equate investing with insider tips and day-trading (the hyperactive buying and selling of stocks), you might be surprised to learn that investing success is within reach of even newcomers to the market.

“Many people have the attitude that only the insiders get wealthy,” says Tyson. While he acknowledges that experience can help, Tyson explains that the people who make money in the stock market buy and hold a diversified portfolio. You can easily achieve that with a good mutual fund having minimal expenses.

An advocate of keeping it simple, Tyson cites index funds as good options for investors looking for stock market returns with lower investment expenses and risk relative to individual stocks or specialized mutual funds. Index funds are mutual funds whose investment objective is to achieve the same return as a particular market index, primarily by investing in the stocks of companies that are included in that index.

For example, says Tyson, Vanguard, a large mutual fund company, offers index funds that track the entire U.S. stock market—they hold shares of thousands of stocks—that have returned 9% to 10% a year over the long term.

Regardless of where you put your savings, your long-term investment strategy should be to achieve adequate growth so that, ultimately, you can live on the income your fortune produces and never have to dip into the principal.

That kind of financial security is totally within your grasp if you adopt the strategies of those who have achieved wealth by way of work and wise money management. By shifting your thinking and behavior to that of a wealth-builder, you’ll never again have to trust your fortune to fate. That’s a good thing because, as the research shows, most millionaires rarely, if ever, buy lottery tickets.

SAINATH---- Compilation of photos of Saibaba & Shirdi

13-Year-Old Designs Super-Efficient Solar Array Based on the Fibonacci Sequence

By Rebecca Boyle

Aidan Measures a Spiral Pattern Young Naturalist Awards

Plenty of us head into the woods to find inspiration. Aidan Dwyer, 13, went to the woods and had a eureka moment that could be a major breakthrough in solar panel design.

On a bleak winter hiking trip to the Catskill Mountains, the 7th-grader from New York noticed a pattern among tree branches, and determined (as naturalist Charles Bonnet did in 1754) that the pattern represented the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. Aidan wondered why, and figured it had something to do with photosynthesis.

In a pretty innovative experiment, this intrepid young scientist set about duplicating an oak tree, comparing its sunlight-capturing abilities to a traditional rooftop solar panel array. Guess what he found?

First he determined the ratios representing the spiral pattern of the leaves and branches on an oak tree, using a cylindrical double-protractor tool of his own design. Then he copied the pattern using a computer program, and built an oak tree-shaped solar array out of PVC pipe. He next built a flat-panel array mounted at 45 degrees, like a typical home rooftop array, and attached data loggers to each model to monitor voltage.

You can read Aidan’s award-winning essay here, which walks you through his experiment design and his results. But the short story is that his tree design generated much more electricity — especially during the winter solstice, when the sun is at its lowest point in the sky. At that point, the tree design generated 50 percent more power, without any adjustments to its declination angle.

PVC Oak Tree:  Young Naturalist Awards

He determined the tree’s Fibonacci pattern allowed some solar panels to collect sunlight even if others were in shade, and prevented branches on a tree from shading other branches.

Now Aidan is studying other tree species and improving his PVC model to determine how it could be used to make more efficient solar arrays. He’s applied for a patent, too. Aidan’s design won him a 2011 Young Naturalist Award from the American Museum of Natural History. Not to mention the admiration of anyone who has tried to get a kid to appreciate nature.

The Recession's Toll on the Green Economy

Home energy-monitoring systems have wilted, green job growth is lackluster, and we're left to worry about the state of green tech

By Rebecca Boyle

PowerMeter Google's PowerMeter is being retired Sept. 16. Google

Household energy management systems apparently can't catch on despite their promise to save money and energy use. Do consumers just not want to know how much power theirelectronics guzzle on a daily basis?

Cisco Systems is the latest tech giant to abandon its foray into home energy management systems, on the heels of announcements earlier this summer by Microsoft and Google. Cisco’s networking prowess was supposed to help connect the various software systems used to control heating, cooling, ventilation and other environmental factors in a home or building, but the company is moving away from that project, according to Adam Aston over at GreenBiz.

The news emerged in an investor call last week, GreenBiz reports. Cisco’s own words on the subject require some kind of MBA jargon translator, but the gist is that Cisco is moving away from household energy-monitoring products, and will maintain a mere toehold in the industrial product market.

Previously, Google announced it was retiring its PowerMeter service in September, and Microsoft announced its Hohm project will transition away from households to commercial buildings. Both programs are web-based tools that let individuals monitor their home’s energy consumption, analyzing usage and recommending changes that could save energy. But consumers have been indifferent — in each case, weak consumer demand drove the tech firms’ decisions.

A reviewer at GreenTech Media who attempted to use these products suggests their own abilities may be to blame here. Maybe it's not that consumers don't care about energy efficiency, it's that recommending an 18-cent-per-hour savings is just not that awesome.

Not everyone is getting out of the home-energy business — there are several other companies selling consumer energy monitoring systems, Panasonic, Intel, Apple and GE among them. But still, the departure of the above-mentioned giants is probably not a good sign. Perhaps it’s hard to convince people there's some value in learning about the nitty-gritty details of their own power use. Or maybe it's a symptom of something worse — that green trends suffer when a listless economy sends old-energy prices into a rollercoaster spiral.

This possibility is reflected in the less-than-impressive growth in the “green jobs” sector, which was supposed to lift America out of the recent recession. The New York Times’ Bay Citizen project surveyed the field and found some rather disappointing numbers in job growth, job training programs and even something as simple as weatherization projects.

Without consumer interest, corporations see little profit motive for going green, apparently even with government incentives. Many federal and state efforts, including several funding injections through the 2009 stimulus program, have “largely failed,” the Times says. Take, for example, California, which was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes. Two years later, the state has spent about half that money and created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter.

“Companies and public policy officials really overestimated how much consumers care about energy efficiency,” Sheeraz Haji, chief executive of the market research firm Cleantech Group, told the Times.

I'm not sure I buy the argument that consumers don't care about energy efficiency, but it's clear companies see it that way. What can be done about this disconnect? Tell us what you think in the comments.