The Sunday Drivers

Drivers, engineer watched Nev. Amtrak crash unfold

The wreckage of a truck is seen at right at the site of a collision between an Amtrak westbound train and a truck on U.S. 95 about 4 miles south of Interstate 80 on Friday, June 24, 2011, 70 miles east of Reno, Nev. The truck driver and one person on the train were killed said Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Lopez. An unknown number of other people on the train were injured and were being taken by ambulances to the hospital NEVADA APPEAL OUT; NO SALES SPARKS, Nev.—Two truck drivers and a train engineer watched helplessly as a semitrailer skidded the length of a football field before it smashed through crossing gates and into two double-decker cars of an Amtrak train at a highway crossing, killing at least six people.

The drivers were part of a three-truck convoy that saw the gates come down and the warning lights go off as the California Zephyr approached, National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener said Saturday.

They stopped, but the driver of the big rig in the lead did not, he said.

Investigators on Sunday planned to look over the scene for any clues as to why the truck driver plowed through the railroad crossing on Friday. It's expected to take Emergency workers investigate at the site of a collision between an Amtrak westbound train and a truck on U.S. 95 about 4 miles south of Interstate 80 on Friday, June 24, 2011, 70 miles east of Reno, Nev. The truck driver and one person on the train were killed said Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Lopez. An unknown number of other people on the train were injured and were being taken by ambulances to the hospital NEVADA APPEAL OUT; NO SALES ((AP Photo/The Reno Gazette-Journal, Marilyn Newton) NEVADA APPEAL OUT; NO SALES) up to a year to pinpoint the cause of the crash.

The Churchill County Sheriff's office said Saturday that six people had died in the crash. The truck driver and train conductor were among the dead.

The conductor, 68-year-old Laurette Lee of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., came from a railroad family. Her great-grandfather and grandfather worked for railroad companies, her brother is an Amtrak dispatcher and her nephew is an Amtrak conductor, Lee's friends and family told the San Jose Mercury News.

Weener said 28 people were unaccounted for in the crash, but that the figure was "spongy" because some passengers may have gotten off the train before the crash or walked away from the scene without checking with officials.

A Sunday Driver meets Sonic the Hedgehog

Is so called as it it controls transport of (molecular) cargos down axons. Axons are the long parts of nerve cells, for example you have very long axons running the length of your back that you use to control your legs. As they are so long they need a transport system to move things up and down your back. I guess some geneticist with a sense of humour saw some cells with a mutation in the sunday driver ), modelling the chains this molecule forms as part of its function inside the cell. People are interested in this gene for several reasons, including its role in breast cancer. Its name comes from the fact that mutations in it cause the hairs on fruit flies to point in random directions, to become dishevelled.

Pavarotti is not really a gene, it is a mutation. I was at another conference a while ago and biologists referred to “pavarotti”. I could not understand how this mutation affected singing but so I asked about it. It causes cells to become very fat. Some biologists are so harsh.

Sonic hedgehog is what is called a morphogen and is essential in the development of your body from the fertilised egg you started life as. Morphogens are molecules that allow cells to talk to each other a space dependent way so that the cells in what will be your brain know they need to become nerve cells and the cells in your toes know they need to become muscle, bone etc cells. This gene is named after the cartoon character Sonic the Hedgehog of course.