Sunday

French Goat might have contracted BSE

This is the first time that BSE was detected but haven't been verified in goats (instead of usually in cows). It is potential frightening but it was not unexpected. Though I think rendered cow are still used to feed other species.. eg chicken etc I wonder how safe is that?

Wednesday

New Prion research center at UofAlberta

This is so weird.. now innovation/important scientific happenings in Canada actually get first mention in a US newspaper?

It is a short mention basically $41Cdn will be spent at the new University of Alberta Center for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases. It seems to be a cross discipline research center.. I think it is a good move for UofA. I wonder when they are going to have a vet school?

Further Reading:
The Official Press Release from UofAlberta

Tuesday

This week's issue of new@Nature seems to be full of results from IVF studies.. I wonder if it a seasonal thing?!

All these years we have blamed the wrong gene!

Looks like they need a new model for Down syndrome. Apparently new mice studies have found that chromosome 21 was not at fault. Think about all the biopsych books that need to be changed! :-)

Using Stem cells to hunt out Brain cancer

It is so interesting that so much stem cell research is coming out of Korea these days. I wonder even if the stem cell research ban gets resolved over the US presidential election, how long (or ever) would it take US to catch up?

New Brain Prosthesis developed

It looks like a neat way to reverse engineer a product, except we are reverse engineering brain tissue! Now if only they can make it so that we can all think smarter! I wonder if that would ever happen.. perhaps we can by parts to hot rod our brain from eBay some time in the future?

News Blend

Low cost medical device for 3rd world

G:That's probably one of the most exciting news I have read for a while. It fortifies my opinion that what we have computationally is enough to do a lot of more good to rest of the world. Instead of adding useless bells and whistles and hope for instantaneous response, we should concentrate on power (and cost) cutting and miniaturization.

Interesting that all their technology are based on either Ipaq or Palm.. Personally I am not that thrilled of ipaqs.. I guess they are more available (hence cheaper) than a lot of the ARM/Linux solutions eg Sharp. (I sure hope they are using mono display ones!)

Further Reading:
DIMAGI
CA:SH

Firefox/Xul as a platform

I have been playing with XUL for a while. I think right now Microsoft is still hell bent on XAML. I think Firefox is a viable option once the uptake / usage hits 50% or so. Kind of like the QuickTime 3.0 vs WindowsPlayer of yore.

Further Reading:
What is XUL
XAML from Microsoft

Neuron piloting device

One of the "really out there" studies of the week. Using rat's neuron to create a chip that can learn how to fly. The question I have is are all neurons the same? Are they the elemental unit for the brain of all creatures? How does the neurons of a rat compare to something like a human? I guess the difference would be scalability.. I guess I have to hit the library soon.

Further reading:
University of Florida's Press Release

Older Fathers = bigger schizophrenic risks for offspring?

Looks like this study have a few problems. I guess it is hard to really judge the validity of the claim unless someone have the access to the stats and make his/her own interpretation.

New Template

I am getting comfortable with Blogger.. now I have modified the template to suit my boring taste!

Weekend

Med/Tech/Science

New drug database being tested by Health Canada in Edmonton and Nova Scotia

G: In a very typical vague CBC kind of way.. we know Health Canada developed this new drug database which is available to Albert's Wellnet.. but no further technical detail or links to it.

Sounds like it is simliar to ePocrates.. but without dosing and is constantly updated.

Related reading:
CBC article on Alberta Wellnet
Alberta Wellnet's Demo

Wednesday

Med/Tech/Science

New Nano Technology to detect Bateria
This new material is so sensitive that it can detect even one cell of E. Coli! I always wonder how much is too much. I mean we ate baterium, virii all the time.. It builds up our immune systems. Are we creating a world as envisionsed by Isaac Asimov? That one group of humans are so ultra clean, they literaaly cannot live with another group who are immune to bacteria/virii in the not so clean environment?

Provincial Wait time online
Apparently Sask. is joining Alberta and going to put their surgical wait time on the web. I wonder if this actually helps? I mean right now there is no provision for patients to voluntarily move from one province to another.

Further Reading and sites:
Sask Surgical Network
Alberta Wait time registry
Story on CBC about Alberta's wait list

Growing the "perfect" jacket
There is a saying in Chinese, that clothes from the sky never have any seams.. It seems like some Australian scientists have done just that! Well not that anyone really want to wear a jacket made out of rats skin.. but then again I think it is more of a thimble than a jacket!

We are not from UFO but from Bacteria?
Interesting concept, it makes sense and is practical now since we have so much more computing and processing power at our disposal. Kind of reminds me of the Bible verseMatthew 10:29-30 "Two sparrows cost only a penny, but not even one of them can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. God even knows how many hairs are on your head."

Tuesday

Med/Tech/Science

Frog mucus repairs sheep cartilage

G:That is an interesting concept.. I wonder who first figure this out? Speaking of which, who first figured out cow milk is drinkable? :-) It seems the frog secretion is a renewable resource, as they secrete the stuff all the time! I think if the frogs themselves are edible.. perhaps the chinese can raise them like they do with "farm chicken".

Monday

Med/Tech/Science:

SpaceShipOne wins the Xprize!

G: I wonder if there are going to be a prize for the first orbital flight or the first interplanet run? Props to the team Rutan and his team at Scaled Composite!

If they don't tell you.. use Genome Model to reverse engineer

G: I think this is useful for products/ companies which have gone out of business... However if a key component is so important for you or your company and the product is so obtuse/ specialized.. won't it be easier to define your own standard?

Further Reading: Protocol Informatics

China turning to Wind power

G: Well it seems like engineers do rule the world.. at least in China. For those who paid attention to the recent very successful Shanghai F1. Wind, dust AND plastic bags were a factor in the race.. I am very happy to see China decides not to follow the US way of reliant on dead and rotten dinosaurs and go with something that is innovating and works! Prius and Wind power! Wow China might get to be self sustaining faster than GWB's US!

Sunday

Med/Tech/Science

Maganese the new diet supplement!?

G: I can just see the diet supplement industry just drooling over this one.. with taglines/infomercials like "Do you want to survive in environments even cockroach can't? then you shuld take Grand Turkey's maganese pills!" Or if you want to look young, tanned and without wrinkles? have you have your maganese today? hahaha

Chinese developed Tadpole robots for blood streams

G: I was thinking about this over the weekend. I think it is more useful to have a drug robot which can open and close the delivery valves + velcro to stick on to sites instead of swimming against the blood flow. I mean the circulatory system pumps blood around the body anyways, if you miss the target site the first them.. then wait till the next round. I also wonder how these magnetic motors affect pacemakers etc?

Friday

Cool Site well at least for the science geek.

PubMedCentral:

G: It is a pretty good repository for free biomedical journals. I hope the list would grow. It uses Open Archives to harvest meta data but doesn't seem to have any external interfaces/specs to the specific system. Oh well.. I guess cgi is a limitation?
Note they seem to be migrating to the dublin core after reading this link.

Further reading:
PubMedCentral /E-Biomed manifesto
Weird Med/Tech/Science

This year's Ig Nobel awards

G: Congratulations to this years winners and work.. including hard hitting topics like Outsourcing prayer from Vatican to India? Karaoke's inventor and the study on the relationship between Country music and suicide?

Further reading:
Ig Nobel website