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cnn wrote:In research that further bridges the biological and digital world, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco have created bacteria that can be programmed like a computer.
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Voigt said the ultimate aim is to create intricate computer code that can be read by living cells.
"Johnson, we need that algorithm solved - ASAP!"
"Yes, sir! I'll just go expose myself to something harmless and eas.."
"Most droll, Johnsson. I said ASAP, which means no skimping. Here's a bucket of gonorrhoea. You have half an hour."
on a more serious note, i'm surprised no mention was made of the fact that the power input changes as well... no longer an issue of how much, but rather how to handle the waste.... "Intel CarpIUM VI. With dual channel disposal chutes. Optional freshener extra!"
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so - Bertrand Russel
science daily wrote:UCSF researchers have identified an existing medication that restores key elements of the immune system that, when out of balance, lead to a steady decline in immunity and health as people age.
The team found that extremely low doses of the drug lenalidomide can stimulate the body's immune-cell protein factories, which decrease production during aging, and rebalance the levels of several key cytokines - immune proteins that either attack viruses and bacteria or cause inflammation that leads to an overall decline in health.
obviously, healthier immune system means retarded cell death rate in later years, so you get to play at being old for longer... this is a good thing?
<aside>
this is a horrible example of reporting... thalidomide was a terrible mistake but it did not directly cause birth defects as stated:
First introduced in the late 1950s as a sedative, thalidomide was never approved in the United States, but was withdrawn from the world market in 1961 after causing severe birth defects in infants whose mothers took the drug to reduce nausea during pregnancy.
put simply, thalidomide bound to, and deactivated, a small number of proteins which happened to be suppressing a range of inherited defects.. no corrective proteins meant the minuscule number carrying the defects were exposed to greater risk of being born with the defect apparent, as opposed to simply acting as carriers...
it would therefore be more accurate to use "induced" as opposed to "caused"... the defects were there all along... :/
</aside>
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so - Bertrand Russel
According to the most trustworthy source of information on the internet (Fark to the layman) lenalidomide is a derivative of thalidomide - which is famous for causing horrible deformities in the foetuses of pregnant women taking this drug.
Now I am not nor will I ever be pregnant, but if the drug has negative effects on otherwise healthy humans - foetuses or otherwise - I want no part of it.
"Killer Cure" Rids Man of HIV for First Time
Jason Mick (Blog) - December 14, 2010 6:54 PM
Caustic cancer treatment regimen, combined with a clever genetic trick kicked the pesky HIV virus out for good
Timothy Ray Brown might seem very unfortunate if you knew some aspects of his medical story. A U.S. citizen living abroad in Berlin, Mr. Brown was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.
As the disease spread through his bone marrow, he was forced to undergo grueling chemotherapy and then a stem cell transplant. Then the disease flared up yet again, forcing yet another stem cell transplant.
Finally recovering, he then suffered an unexpected neurological side effect, which left him forgetful and temporarily blind. He had to undergo therapy just to be able to try to walk and talk normally.
But the treatment did something incredible, something that has never before been documented in the modern medical community -- it cured Mr. Brown of the human immunodeficiency virus -- better known as HIV.
Deadly, but Effective
Approximately 1 percent of Caucasians in northern and western Europe have a special mutation that virtually prevents them from being infected with the HIV virus. The mutation, dubbed CCR5 delta 32 homozygosity, causes individuals to lack the CCR5 receptor, which the HIV lentivirus uses to accomplish its infection process.
Physicians treating Mr. Brown's cancer purposefully selected a donor who happened to have this beneficial mutation.
Hopes of a cure seemed faint, though. After all, if the HIV infection in Mr. Brown's former CD4 (T-cell) population had advanced enough, it would have developed the ability to infect using the CXCR4 receptor, rendering the protective mutation useless. And even if the virus had not armed itself with this new ability, no one had ever been cured of the disease.
While Mr. Brown may have been unfortunate by and large medically, he apparently lucked out when it came to his HIV infection.
Taken abruptly off antiretroviral drugs after the transplant, he showed no signs of HIV infection. For the next 38 months he underwent immunosuppressive treatment to protect the graft as it repopulated his intestinal mucosa.
Tissue samples taken during this time period showed spiking levels of the donor T-cells and no trace of infection. Weaning off immunosuppressants, the man's T-cell levels dropped to that of a healthy adult male.
Medical researchers concluded that it was unlikely that the man still had HIV -- after all if he had the disease, it would have likely evolved the CXCR4 infection ability and infected his immunotransplant.
Further evidence the disease was gone was shown by dropping levels of his body's HIV antibodies. And viral load testing (RNA) and tests for viral DNA within cells -- two tests that typically reveal the presence of HIV -- came back negative.
Can Doctors Replicate This Unusual Success?
Mr. Brown's ordeal was chronicled in the German magazine Stern.
The results have also been published in an article in the peer-reviewed journal Blood and a study [PDF] in The New England Journal of Medicine.
As the magazine notes, past attempts to graft "immune" T-cells failed, due to the long lifespans of the victim's infected T-cells. Those long lifespans bought the virus enough time to mutate and overcome the graft's immunity. But in Mr. Brown's case, the chemotherapy killed enough of the infected cells that the mutation was not able to occur.
While the treatment regiment is extremely dangerous, chemotherapy -- long aimed at curing cancer -- may soon be used to cure HIV.
The key remaining obstacle is to develop ways to create CCR5 deficient T-cells.
Mr. Brown was fortunate in that a donor was found who happened to have this mutation. Most won't be that lucky. But researchers are hoping to create stem cells from the patient's various cell lines, differentiate them into T-cells, and finally using gene therapy to knock out the CCR5 receptor DNA.
The resulting treatment may not be correct for everybody. HIV is largely repressible with today's advanced drug regimens. Some may decline to risk their lives to be pronounced "cured".
For those who may someday opt for this route, the resulting treatment will likely be very expensive. Thus South Park's irreverent recent episode "Tonsil Trouble", which depicted NBA-great Magic Johnson being "cured" of HIV via a money transfusion may prove somewhat prophetic.
JUSTICE, n A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
How about we hide that bit about a movie plot? Dont want to see that movie...
JUSTICE, n A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange unconsciously released intelligence regarding the ET presence on Earth during a recent interview on CBS Television's 60 Minutes.
Secret messages encrypted backwards in the voice of Mr. Assange were detected by a Vancouver-based mobile audio lab monitoring his statements through a digital audio mirror filter. The secret messages reflect data from a European Union Times report describing a secret US war against a UFO base in the South Pacific. Since last December's publication of Mr. Assange's remarks confirming the future release of Cablegate UFO information in Britain's Guardian newspaper, the search string 'Wikileaks UFO' is now tasked to military intelligence agencies including the US Navy Network Information Center or NNIC, based in Camp Pendleton, CA as online website visitor logs show. If the EU Times article is correct, recent and highly provocative appearances of UFO’s in sensitive airspace over Jerusalem, Victoria BC, New York and Dallas TX must be re-evaluated in terms of peaceful political public actions from ET’s intent upon sharing the potential resources of the world with human beings.
"Integrity" and "integer" both contain a Latin root meaning "whole; complete." The root sense, then, is that people may be said to be acting with integrity when their beliefs, words, and actions have a sense of unity or wholeness.
...discovery of an excess of the left-handed form of the amino acid isovaline in samples of meteorites that came from carbon-rich asteroids. This suggests that perhaps left-handed life got its start in space, where conditions in asteroids favored the creation of left-handed amino acids.
"Integrity" and "integer" both contain a Latin root meaning "whole; complete." The root sense, then, is that people may be said to be acting with integrity when their beliefs, words, and actions have a sense of unity or wholeness.
Magnetic polar shifts causing massive global superstorms
by Terrence Aym
NASA has been warning about it…scientific papers have been written about it…geologists have seen its traces in rock strata and ice core samples…
Now "it" is here: an unstoppable magnetic pole shift that has sped up and is causing life-threatening havoc with the world's weather.
Forget about global warming—man-made or natural—what drives planetary weather patterns is the climate and what drives the climate is the sun's magnetosphere and its electromagnetic interaction with a planet's own magnetic field.
When the field shifts, when it fluctuates, when it goes into flux and begins to become unstable anything can happen. And what normally happens is that all hell breaks loose.
Magnetic polar shifts have occurred many times in Earth's history. It's happening again now to every planet in the solar system including Earth.
The magnetic field drives weather to a significant degree and when that field starts migrating superstorms start erupting.
The superstorms have arrived
The first evidence we have that the dangerous superstorm cycle has started is the devastating series of storms that pounded the UK during late 2010.
On the heels of the lashing the British Isles sustained, monster storms began to pummel North America. The latest superstorm—as of this writing—is a monster over the U.S. that stretched across 2,000 miles affecting more than 150 million people.
Yet even as that storm wreaked havoc across the Western, Southern, Midwestern and Northeastern states, another superstorm broke out in the Pacific and closed in on Australia.
The southern continent had already dealt with the disaster of historic superstorm flooding from rains that dropped as much as several feet in a matter of hours. Tens of thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed. After the deluge bull sharks were spotted swimming between houses in what was once the quiet town of Goodna.
Shocked authorities now numbly concede that some of the water may never dissipate and have wearily resigned themselves to the possibility that region will now contain a small inland sea.
But then only a handful of weeks later another superstorm—the mega-monster cyclone Yasi—struck northeastern Australia. The damage it left in its wake is being called by rescue workers a war zone.
Posted in the Aus thread but I thought it would be better suited here. What are your thoughts on the points raised in the article?
JUSTICE, n A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
Anakha56 wrote:After the deluge bull sharks were spotted swimming between houses in what was once the quiet town of Goodna.
Bullsharks are a step up in the evolutionary ladder from the usual inhabitants of small Aussie towns
Man, I hate those things, they have been found in rivers over 100km inland here in Aus, and they like eating people.
We have them back home, but most of our rivers are too polluted for them, although they like the Zambezi so much we named them after it in SA.
It all sounds very interesting, but he is not exactly forthcoming with a lot of citations. I always read sentences starting with "Some scientists say" with a frown of suspicion. I am intrigued enough that I will check some of his facts at some point though.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle Intel i5 2500; AsRock Z77 Extreme 4; Asus GTX580; 4x 2GB DDR3 1333; Intel 520 240GB SSD + 2x WD 3TB + 2TB Samsung; Samsung 22X DVD/RW; 23" LG W2343T-PF; Huntkey 700W
guardian.co.uk wrote:Scientists at Oxford University have successfully tested a universal flu vaccine that could work against all known strains of the illness, taking a significant step in the fight against a disease that affects billions of people each year.
<..>
The process of developing a seasonal vaccine takes at least four months and if the flu strain is highly pathogenic – as in 1918 when millions of people died – the delay means more people get sick and die before the vaccine is ready.
<..>
In her trial, Gilbert vaccinated 11 healthy volunteers and then infected them, along with 11 non-vaccinated volunteers, with the Wisconsin strain of the H3N2 influenza A virus, which was first isolated in 2005. She monitored the volunteers' symptoms twice a day, including runny noses, coughs and sore throats, and she calculated how much mucus everyone produced by weighing tissues they used. Though a small study, it was significant in that it was the first vaccine of its type to be tested on people.
<..>
Her results showed that the vaccine worked as planned. "Fewer of the people who were vaccinated got flu than the people who weren't vaccinated," said Gilbert. "We did get an indication that the vaccine was protecting people, not only from the numbers of people who got flu but also from looking at their T-cells before we gave them flu.
not exactly a resounding success.. no detail on how they vetted the test subjects - the strain used was old, so any participant who was exposed to it would have a natural advantage over someone who hadn't...
i'd agree this is probably good news for pensioners but i just know every doctor out there's going to plug this for kickbacks... :/
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so - Bertrand Russel
ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2011) — The human brain works incredibly fast. However, visual impressions are so complex that their processing takes several hundred milliseconds before they enter our consciousness. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main have now shown that this delay may vary in length. When the brain possesses some prior information − that is, when it already knows what it is about to see − conscious recognition occurs faster. Until now, neuroscientists assumed that the processes leading up to conscious perception were rather rigid and that their timing did not vary.
On their way from the eye, visual stimuli are analysed in manifold ways by different processing stages in the brain. It is not until they have passed several processing steps that the stimuli reach conscious perception. This unconscious processing prior to perception usually takes approximately 300 milliseconds. The Max Planck scientists were now able to demonstrate that the timing of this process, far from being rigid, is in fact variable. In an experiment, participants perceived stimuli more efficiently and faster if they knew what to expect.
To investigate this, the scientists showed the participants images with a background of randomly distributed dots on a monitor. During an image sequence, the distribution of the dots systematically changed such that a symbol gradually appeared. Following each image, the participants indicated if they could see the symbol by pressing a button. As soon as the symbol had appeared fully and was clearly recognisable, the scientists presented the same image sequence in reverse order, such that the symbol gradually faded again. During the entire experiment, electroencephalographic (EEG) activity of the participants was measured.
Whereas the participants took relatively long to recognise the symbol in the first sequence of images with increasing visibility, the threshold of awareness in the second, reverse presentation of images was much lower. The participants were able to recognise the letters even at very poor resolution. "Expectations based on previously acquired information apparently help to perceive the object consciously," says Lucia Melloni, first author of the study. Once the participants knew which symbol was hiding in the random field of noise, they were able to perceive it better. The scientists have thus confirmed previous studies, according to which people perceive moving objects better if they already know in which direction the objects will move.
Moreover, the measurements of EEG activity produced astonishing results. "We found that the timing of EEG activity for conscious perception changed depending on the person's expectations," says Lucia Melloni. If the participants could predict what they were going to see, the characteristic EEG pattern for conscious perception took place 100 milliseconds earlier than without prior expectations.
The scientists might thus have found a conclusive explanation for the contradictory results of other neuroscientific research groups. Depending on the study, they had sometimes found very early and sometimes very late EEG activity correlating with conscious perception. "Our research explains this variability in timing. Apparently, the brain does not process the stimuli rigidly and at the same speed; rather, it is flexible," explains Wolf Singer. Processing is thus faster if the brain only has to compare the incoming visual information with a previously established expectation. As a result, conscious perception occurs earlier. In contrast, if the brain has to assess a stimulus from scratch due to a lack of prior information, the processing takes longer.
These results may show that previous EEG studies have been interpreted incorrectly. "Since the interpretation depends heavily on the sequence of events, EEG activity may have been incorrectly allocated to consciousness processes," surmises Wolf Singer, the Director of the Department for Neurophysiology at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt. "In light of these results, it appears necessary to reinvestigate the neuronal correlates of consciousness."
"Because I don't say it...don't mean I ain't thinking it!"
guardian.co.uk wrote:Scientists at Oxford University have successfully tested a universal flu vaccine that could work against all known strains of the illness, taking a significant step in the fight against a disease that affects billions of people each year.
<..>
The process of developing a seasonal vaccine takes at least four months and if the flu strain is highly pathogenic – as in 1918 when millions of people died – the delay means more people get sick and die before the vaccine is ready.
<..>
In her trial, Gilbert vaccinated 11 healthy volunteers and then infected them, along with 11 non-vaccinated volunteers, with the Wisconsin strain of the H3N2 influenza A virus, which was first isolated in 2005. She monitored the volunteers' symptoms twice a day, including runny noses, coughs and sore throats, and she calculated how much mucus everyone produced by weighing tissues they used. Though a small study, it was significant in that it was the first vaccine of its type to be tested on people.
<..>
Her results showed that the vaccine worked as planned. "Fewer of the people who were vaccinated got flu than the people who weren't vaccinated," said Gilbert. "We did get an indication that the vaccine was protecting people, not only from the numbers of people who got flu but also from looking at their T-cells before we gave them flu.
not exactly a resounding success.. no detail on how they vetted the test subjects - the strain used was old, so any participant who was exposed to it would have a natural advantage over someone who hadn't...
i'd agree this is probably good news for pensioners but i just know every doctor out there's going to plug this for kickbacks... :/
you would be suprised how deadly old diseases can be
Magnetic polar shifts causing massive global superstorms
bad astronomy wrote:The article in question is pretty long, and as usual debunking something takes more time and effort than it does to simply say wrong things. So for the TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) crowd: the article makes basic science errors, attempts to link totally unrelated phenomena, states things as facts that are pure conjecture, and generally gets almost everything wrong. Bottom line: his claim of a link between the Earth’s magnetic field and superstorms is totally wrong.
i figured as much given that most of the "magnetic shift will kill us all" pundits are inextricably linked with UFO conspiracy theories and crazies going on about how nostradamus predicted the shifting poles...
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so - Bertrand Russel
lol it wont happen over night it takes a couple centuries to complete a shift. During a shift the magnetic field of the earth weakens allowing more cosmic radiation to hit the earth, it will cause damage to the atmosphere. We will also be in danger from solar flares and coronal mass ejections. The problem is not with our weather or the atmosphere or even the radiation, yes this will have the potential to increase cancer rates and cause more violent storms and greater fluxuations in our weather patterns. The porblem is with electricity, cosmic particles have the power to destroy electrical circuits. I saw on natgeo's Naked science, that if a coronal mass ejection hits the earth now it would destroy almost any electrical system that is active. With the earth's magnetic field being as weak as it is now a CME will send mankind back to the stone age in a matter of 8 minutes.
Unfortunate that the sun's greatest potential for releasing these CMEs is during its period of solar max, where the solar magnetic field is very unstable. According to NASA (again from the Naked science program) the sun will enter this state in 2012 and stay in solar max for the next 11 years. It just so happens that our magnetic field is in the midst of a shift
RiaX wrote:lol it wont happen over night it takes a couple centuries to complete a shift. During a shift the magnetic field of the earth weakens allowing more cosmic radiation to hit the earth, it will cause damage to the atmosphere. We will also be in danger from solar flares and coronal mass ejections. The problem is not with our weather or the atmosphere or even the radiation, yes this will have the potential to increase cancer rates and cause more violent storms and greater fluxuations in our weather patterns. The porblem is with electricity, cosmic particles have the power to destroy electrical circuits. I saw on natgeo's Naked science, that if a coronal mass ejection hits the earth now it would destroy almost any electrical system that is active. With the earth's magnetic field being as weak as it is now a CME will send mankind back to the stone age in a matter of 8 minutes.
Unfortunate that the sun's greatest potential for releasing these CMEs is during its period of solar max, where the solar magnetic field is very unstable. According to NASA (again from the Naked science program) the sun will enter this state in 2012 and stay in solar max for the next 11 years. It just so happens that our magnetic field is in the midst of a shift
sooo.... is there a place I can buy a tin-foil hat for my PC, microwave, televsion and car?
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist that black flag, and begin slitting throats."
- H. L. Mancken
GreyWolf wrote:sooo.... is there a place I can buy a tin-foil hat for my PC, microwave, televsion and car?
nope the only way to save your stuff is to switch it off. Unfortunatly the CME travels at almost the speed of light, so the solar weather team as 8 minutes to warn the world
