Thursday

Med/Tech/Science

We all need to say Ahhhh?

G:There is a new study on Lancet saying tonsil testing is the most reliable way to for vCJD. Accurate it maybe, but how easy is it to get people to part with their tonsil (no matter if it is just a part or the whole)? (it sounds pretty invasive).. If they only do tests on removed tonsils (say someone who got an inflamed tonsil and have to go to the hospital to get it removed).. won't that limit artifically limit the number of subjects hence the significance of the study?

MP3 creator complains about proprietory formats.

G: I would say DuH! To gain traction in adoption, manufacturers/spec writers should create specs which gives consumers a compelling reason to upgrade. I mean sound quality from tape to CD was compelling enough.. The file compression between CD to MP3 is impressive enough. Now if manufacturers want people to adopt copy protection systems.. they should make the next gen specs more compelling. You don't see car manufacturers touting how bad the SUV mileage is, they tout compelling factors like more room, better view.. etc. I am pretty happy with just simple CD quality stereo, granted there are advantages of 2+ audio source.. but unless we invent something that replaces headphones, I just can't see it going to be taken up greatly.

I guess the problem is how to you improve the crappy music made by "instant idols"?!

Wednesday!

Med/Tech/Science

Godspeed SpaceShipOne!

G: Now this is something that doesn't happen everyday! It is so interesting that the person behind the Xprize is Anousheh Ansari. An EE who came from Iran.. too bad there aren't any Iranian/Persian entrants or even Asian.. I think Ms. Ansari could play a big role in improving education for women in the Muslim world.

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MOJAVE, Calif. - Michael Melvill, who earned commercial astronaut's wings by piloting SpaceShipOne's history-making flight earlier this year, was selected to fly the first X Prize flight Wednesday.
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Maggots approved for medical use

G: First leeches,now maggots.. I guess finally Western medicine realises the limitations of just cutting people open and or prescribing pills! Yah!?

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Even so, hundreds of U.S. doctors have jumped on the low-tech maggot-therapy bandwagon, and the nation's leading producer of medical maggots has had to double production less than a year after the Food and Drug Administration approved the animals as bona fide medical devices. It seems that maggots, long neglected by medicine, have come back from the dead.
"

Tuesday

Med/Tech/Science
Clones may aid work on motor neuron disease

G:Interesting concept. A good idea actually but I wonder how accurate would be the clone. However I think it will be good tool to settle those age old "nature vs nurture" arguments. When we decide to do humans, would we face simliar arguments as to Tucker's clone in Enterprise's Similtude?

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The British scientist who created Dolly the sheep has applied for a licence to clone human embryos in the search for treatments for motor neuron disease. If approved, the research should give experts a far better picture of what happens to the dying brain cells that characterize this condition.
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Monday

BC Local

Unpopular B.C. leaders have much to ponder before vote

G: Honestly even though his policies are unpopular. Gordon Campbell did us all a favour in cutting back things, instead of leaving the next few generations to pay it off. (speaking as a young healthy university educated male). Although he seems to be aloof and is not very imaginative I think he has proven himself to be a pretty good manager. Something that his rivals can't say at this time.

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VICTORIA (CP) - Premier Gordon Campbell is unpopular with almost two-thirds of British Columbians, but that doesn't mean voters are gravitating to NDP leader Carole James because she's becoming unpopular too.
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Med/Tech/Science

This year's Laskers!

G: Congratulation! Dr. Matthew S. Meselson for discovering messenger RNA. Dr Charles D. Kellman for discovering keyhole surgery. Dr. Elwood V. Jensen for discovering how hormones move into the cell, into the nucleus and activate the gense in the DNA. Dr. Pierre Chambon and Dr. Ronald M. Evans shows there is a family of receptor proteins.

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A founding father of molecular biology, a surgeon who developed the standard operation for removing cataracts and three researchers who unmasked an elaborate genetic control system within the cell are the winners of this year's Lasker awards for medical research.
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Eye in the Sky

G: Twinkle Twinkle little star, how I wonder who are you AND what you are looking!?
Now this is a bit freaky. I guess the movie "Enemy of the State" is coming true! Though from the article it seems environmental crime is still okay.. so I guess it is fine for people to dump their oil and antifreeze into streams!;-)

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BETHESDA, Md. -- In the name of homeland security, America's spy imagery agency is keeping a close eye, close to home. It's watching America.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, about 100 employees of a little-known branch of the Defense Department called the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency -- and some of the country's most sophisticated aerial imaging equipment -- have focused on observing what's going on in the United States.
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Interesting Interview with Craig Barrett

G:An interesting insight to the world's leading processor manufacturer.. though a bit skimpy on the details. They seems to think in transistor counts rather than market acceptance.. eg Montecito/Itanium. Favourite quote: unfortunately quote from a fortune cookie: "The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms." Also a factoid Intel's commutor airline is called Intel Shuttle.

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Last month, Barrett sat down with a group of Chronicle editors and reporters. The following interview has been edited for space and clarity. It is also available online at sfgate.com/chronicle/ontherecord, with a separate video interview of Barrett by Chronicle staff writer Matthew Yi.
"

Saturday!

Med/Tech/Science

Head of Canada's new public health agency named

G: Canada gets its own CDC!

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WINNIPEG - Prime Minister Paul Martin introduced Dr. David Butler-Jones on Friday as Canada's first-ever chief public health officer as part of a national plan to prepare for health crises.

Butler-Jones was the former chief medical officer in Saskatchewan from 1995 to 2002. He was also a member of the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health, which called for a national public health body.

"

New Noninvasive Test for BSE

Original link (invalid)



G: Interesting way to test for Mad cow via secondary characteristics, rather than popping open the person's brain. I wonder what's the S/N ratio is?

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THE world's first test for the human form of mad cow disease has been perfected in Manchester and is set to be available to doctors next year.

Experts at the Manchester Royal Infirmary have invented a simple, painless heart test which takes just ten minutes to find out whether patients have the fatal brain-wasting condition variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, known as vCJD.

After two years of successful human and cattle trials on the heart-rate monitor, it is now being developed by a firm who say that it could be put into action as early as next year.
"

Further Reading:
TSEnse Diagnostics

Saturday morning

World Politics
How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

G: One more interesting aspect to the upcoming election?

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Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president
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Med/Tech/Science

Bad Air and Water, and a Bully Pulpit in China


G: I applaud Mr. Pan for not being a ostrich in the sand. Perhaps this type of thinking is the reason why Toyota has decided to assemble the Prius in China?

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FOR the untold thousands of bureaucrats in the Chinese Communist Party, a cardinal rule of political self-preservation might be this: best not stand out too much, certainly not in public. A government official marching too far ahead of the parade of acceptable opinion runs the risk of finding himself dangerously alone.

So it is always a surprise to see what comes out when Pan Yue opens his mouth, as he did one afternoon this summer at his office at the State Environmental Protection Administration. The afternoon sky was clotted with the usual soup of haze and pollution as Mr. Pan ticked off one doomsday statistic after another.

Acid rain, he says, now falls over two-thirds of China's land mass. Of 340 major Chinese cities surveyed last year, 60 percent had serious air pollution problems. In China's seven major waterways, pollution is so severe that vast stretches are not suitable for fish.

"Problems that were supposed to be future problems are now problems in the present," warned Mr. Pan, 44, as he smoked a cigarette.

If he is blunt in identifying the problems, he sounds almost radical in offering a solution: China must change the way it is developing to prevent an environmental crisis and a depletion of natural resources. Environmental protection must become a national priority. And, for good measure, public participation must be encouraged - the sort of language that in China usually means more democracy.

"The pressures China is now facing simply can't be sustained, the population and resource pressures," Mr. Pan said. "They cannot be ignored."

Well known for years in intellectual circles, the outspoken Mr. Pan has become a national figure in a country where environmental awareness is rising, even as environmental degradation is widespread and severe. His job as a deputy director of China's top environmental agency, if low on the totem pole of power in China, has given him a bully pulpit to help put environmentalism on the agenda - apparently with the silent blessing of higher leaders.
"

Burp vaccine cuts greenhouse gas emissions

G: Topic that is near and dear to Samson and Johns' hearts!

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You cannot stop a sheep belching or farting, but you can make sure its eructations are less damaging to the environment.

Belches and, to a far lesser degree, farts from sheep, cows and other farm animals account for around 20% of global methane emissions. The gas is a potent source of global warming because, volume for volume, it traps 23 times as much heat as the more plentiful carbon dioxide.
"

Friday!

Med/Tech/Science
California approves new low emission standards

G: Too little too late? 2009 is still 5 years from now!

The regulation will require a roughly 30 percent reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other emissions linked to climate change trends, phasing in from the 2009 to the 2016 model year. Previous domestic air-quality regulations have focused on a different kind of emission, the smog forming particles that have been particularly troublesome in California.

Report of First Birth for Cancer Survivor in a Tissue Implant

G: This must be driving the neo conservatives insane!

32-year-old woman in Belgium has become the first woman ever to give birth after having ovarian tissue removed, frozen and then implanted back in her body, doctors are reporting.

The patient had the tissue removed in 1997 in hopes of preserving her fertility because she had Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer, and was about to undergo chemotherapy with drugs likely to damage her ovaries and cause infertility. She and her doctors hoped that once she was cured, the ovarian tissue could be thawed and returned to her abdomen to produce eggs.

Browsing/neat sites:

Most financial sites contain 'phishing' flaws

G: Use Spoofstick to guard against phishing anglers.

Nine out of 10 financial and commercial websites contain flaws that could allow computer crooks to swindle users out of their cash, according to a new report.

A study released by UK-based computer consultants Next Generation Security (NGS) on Thursday, reveals that 90% of the 100 plus web applications audited by the company in the past year were potentially vulnerable to an advanced “phishing” scam.


G: Nasa World Wind A pretty cool 3D world viewer with zoom in/out capability..