Artificial blood developed for the battlefield

by Lin Edwards

from: http://www.arpa.mil/

Bags of blood collected during donation. Image: Wikipedia.

(PhysOrg.com) -- US scientists working for the experimental arm of the Pentagon have developed artificial blood for use in transfusions for wounded soldiers in battlefields. The blood cells are said to be functionally indistinguishable from normal blood cells and could end forever the problem of blood donor shortages in war zones and difficulties in transporting blood to remote and inaccessible areas.

The blood is made from hematopoietic stem cells from discarded human umbilical cords, which are turned into large quantities of red blood cells by a method called "blood pharming" that mimics the functions of bone marrow. Pharming is a method of using genetically engineered plants or animals to create medically useful substances in large quantities. Using this process the cells from one umbilical cord can produce about 20 units of blood, which is enough for over three transfusions for injured soldiers in the field.

The blood is being manufactured for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by Ohio company Arteriocyte, which has already submitted samples of O-negative blood to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for evaluation and safety testing. The company received funding of $1.95 million in 2008 to find a way of making large quantities of artificial blood.

Don Brown of Arteriocyte said the method works but the production needs to be scaled up to produce enough blood. Scaling up would also bring the costs per unit (around a pint) down from the current $5,000 to $1,000 or less. The scaling up could involve improving the technology to produce more units from each umbilical cord, or finding a way to make the culture chambers that mimic bone marrow more efficient and therefore cheaper.

Mr Brown said that in war zones it can take three weeks for donated blood (which mostly comes from donations made in the US) to reach patients. It must be used within a week or two to avoid the risk of organ failure or infection that can occur if the blood is stale. There are mobile blood banks in the field, but if there are many injured soldiers, there is often not enough fresh blood available.

Human trials of the "pharmed" blood are expected to start in 2013, but the blood could be available for military use within five years. It could also eventually be used in hospitals to make up for shortages of blood. The artificial blood is O-negative, which can be used on all patients, regardless of their blood type.

© 2010 PhysOrg.com

Launch of secret US space ship masks even more secret launch of new weapon

Michael Evans, Pentagon Correspondent 

From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/

The X-37B sits on top of an Atlas V rocket

Somewhere above earth is America’s latest spaceship, a 30ft craft so classified that the Pentagon will not divulge its mission nor how much it cost to build.

The mysterious X37B, launched successfully by the US Air Force from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, using an Atlas V rocket, looks like a mini-Space Shuttle — but its mission is top secret.

It is officially described as an orbital test vehicle. However, one of its potential uses appears to be to launch a surge of small satellites during periods of high international tension. This would enable America to have eyes and ears orbiting above any potential troublespot in the world.

The X37B can stay in orbit for up to 270 days, whereas the Shuttle can last only 16 days. This will provide the US with the ability to carry out experiments for long periods, including the testing of new laser weapon systems. This would bring accusations that the launch of X37B, and a second vehicle planned for later this year, could lead to the militarisation of space.

US defence officials, who would not say how much the project had cost, insisted, however, that it was “just an updated version of the Space Shuttle activities”.

Thursday’s launch was more about testing the craft, a new generation of silica tile and a wealth of other advances that make the Shuttle look like yesterday’s space technology.

Nasa’s X37B programme began in 1999 and ran until September 2004 when it was transferred to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency before being taken over by the US Air Force.
The flight of the X37B is being managed by the US Air Force Space Command’s 3rd Space Experimental Squadron.

“This bird has been through all of the shake, rattle and roll, the vibration tests, the acoustic tests that any spacecraft would go through,” said Gary Payton, Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space Programmes.
With all the focus on the launch of the secret X37B, another space launch by a Minotaur IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force base in California received less attention.

It was carrying the prototype of a new weapon that can hit any target around the world in less than an hour.
The Prompt Global Strike is designed as the conventional weapon of the future. It could hit Osama bin Laden’s cave, an Iranian nuclear site or a North Korean missile with a huge conventional warhead.

Mystery of lost US nuclear bomb

Declassified US government video of Thule clear-up

By Gordon Corera BBC News security correspondent, northern Greenland

The United States abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland following a crash in 1968, a BBC investigation has found.

Its unique vantage point - perched at the top of the world - has meant that Thule Air Base has been of immense strategic importance to the US since it was built in the early 1950s, allowing a radar to scan the skies for missiles coming over the North Pole.

The Pentagon believed the Soviet Union would take out the base as a prelude to a nuclear strike against the US and so in 1960 began flying "Chrome Dome" missions. Nuclear-armed B52 bombers continuously circled over Thule - and could head straight to Moscow if they witnessed its destruction.

Greenland is a self-governing province of Denmark but the carrying of nuclear weapons over Danish territory was kept secret.

'Darker story'

But on 21 January 1968, one of those missions went wrong.

Pilots recount Thule crash

We reunited two of the pilots, John Haug and Joe D'Amario, 40 years on to tell the story of how their plane ended up crashing on the ice a few miles out from the base.

In the aftermath, military personnel, local Greenlanders and Danish workers rushed to the scene to help.

Eventually, a remarkable operation would unfold over the coming months to recover thousands of tiny pieces of debris scattered across the frozen bay, as well as to collect some 500 million gallons of ice, some of it containing radioactive debris.

A declassified US government video, obtained by the BBC, documents the clear-up and gives some ideas of the scale of the operation.

It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them William H Chamber Former US nuclear arms designer

The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons had detonated but without setting off the actual nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew.

The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been "destroyed".

This may be technically true, since the bombs were no longer complete, but declassified documents obtained by the BBC under the US Freedom of Information Act, parts of which remain classified, reveal a much darker story, which has been confirmed by individuals involved in the clear-up and those who have had access to details since.

The documents make clear that within weeks of the incident, investigators piecing together the fragments realised that only three of the weapons could be accounted for.

Even by the end of January, one document talks of a blackened section of ice which had re-frozen with shroud lines from a weapon parachute. "Speculate something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary," the document reads, the primary or secondary referring to parts of the weapon.

By April, a decision had been taken to send a Star III submarine to the base to look for the lost bomb, which had the serial number 78252. (A similar submarine search off the coast of Spain two years earlier had led to another weapon being recovered.)

But the real purpose of this search was deliberately hidden from Danish officials.

One document from July reads: "Fact that this operation includes search for object or missing weapon part is to be treated as confidential NOFORN", the last word meaning not to be disclosed to any foreign country.

"For discussion with Danes, this operation should be referred to as a survey repeat survey of bottom under impact point," it continued.

'Failure'

But the underwater search was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the documents recount something approaching panic setting in.

US 'abandoned nuclear bomb'

As well as the fact they contained uranium and plutonium, the abandoned weapons parts were highly sensitive because of the way in which the design, shape and amount of uranium revealed classified elements of nuclear warhead design.

But eventually, the search was abandoned. Diagrams and notes included in the declassified documents make clear it was not possible to search the entire area where debris from the crash had spread.

We tracked down a number of officials who were involved in dealing with the aftermath of the incident.

One was William H Chambers, a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory who once ran a team dealing with accidents, including the Thule crash.

"There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components," he told the BBC, explaining the logic behind the decision to abandon the search.

The US was flying so-called Chrome Dome missions over Greenland

"It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them."

The view was that no-one else would be able covertly to acquire the sensitive pieces and that the radioactive material would dissolve in such a large body of water, making it harmless.

Other officials who have seen classified files on the accident confirmed the abandonment of a weapon.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the investigation, referring back to previous official studies of the incident.

But the crash, clear-up and mystery of the lost bomb have continued to haunt those involved at the time - and those who live in the region now - with continued concerns over the environmental and health impact of the events of that day in 1968.