Enhancing Access to Genomic Medicine

Credit: Technology Review

From Technology Review:

A startup aims to calculate the value in the onslaught of genetic tests.

Per Lofberg wants to bring genomic medicine to the masses by overcoming one of the field's biggest barriers--getting insurers and other payers to cover the growing numbers of genetic tests reaching the market. To achieve that, he founded Generation Health, a health benefit management company that aims to sift through the data on these tests, which range from those that predict an individual's risk of heart disease or cancer to those that determine how well a patient metabolizes a certain drug. Lofberg's goal is to find the ones that provide the greatest medical utility and economic value.

Read more ....

Dumb Code Could Stop Computer Viruses In Their Tracks

From New Scientist:

ON THE day a new computer virus hits the internet there is little that antivirus software can do to stop it until security firms get round to writing and distributing a patch that recognises and kills the virus. Now engineers Simon Wiseman and Richard Oak at the defence technology company Qinetiq's security lab in Malvern, Worcestershire, UK, have come up with an answer to the problem.

Their idea, which they are patenting, is to intercept every file that could possibly hide a virus and add a string of computer code to it that will disable any virus it contains. Their system chiefly targets emailed attachments and adds the extra code to them as they pass through a mailserver. A key feature of the scheme is that no knowledge of the virus itself is needed, so it can deal with new, unrecognised "zero day" viruses as well as older ones.

Read more ....

Decoded Corn Genome Promises Higher Yields, Better Biofuels, New Plastics

Corn, Illinois: Randy Wick/Flickr

From Popular Science:

With its annual output of over 330 million tons a year feeding animals, running cars, and decorating South Dakota tourist attractions, maize is clearly Americas most important crop. That's why the newly published complete corn genome could drastically change the food, automotive and plastic industries. Already, scientists have identified genes that could boost yield, change the cell wall to make more biofuel, or raise the nutritional value of this vital cereal.

Read more ....

Building a Better Alien-Calling Code

From Wired Science:

Alien-seeking researchers have designed a new simple code for sending messages into space. To a reasonably clever alien with math skills and a bit of astronomical training, the messages should be easy to decipher.

As of now, Earthlings spend much more time searching for alien radio messages than broadcasting news of ourselves. We know how to do it, but relatively little attention has been paid to “ensuring that a transmitted message will be understandable to an alien listener,” wrote California Institute of Technology geoscientist Michael Busch and Rachel Reddick, a Stanford University physicist, in a study filed online Friday on arXiv.

Read more ....

Scientists Find Molecular Trigger That Helps Prevent Aging and Disease

New research has unraveled a molecular puzzle to determine that within certain parameters, a lower-calorie diet slows the development of some age-related conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, as well as the aging process. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 23, 2009) — Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine set out to address a question that has been challenging scientists for years: How does dietary restriction produce protective effects against aging and disease? And the reverse: how does overconsumption accelerate age-related disease?

Read more ....

Color E-readers Inspired By Butterflies

The full grown morpho rhetenor butterfly, a native to South America.
Credit: University of Southhampton.

From Live Science:

Full-color displays for e-readers could really take off soon — on the wings of butterflies.

Qualcomm MEMS Technologies new Mirasol is the first full color, video-capable display on a prototype e-reader. Built on the concept of the iridescence of a butterfly’s wing, the new technology reflects light rather than transmitting light the way LCD screens do.

The display is readable in sunlight and offers unprecedented energy savings for longer battery life. E-readers may just be the beginning for Mirasol displays as consumers seek color in every device they use, better visibility in bright light, and days or even weeks worth of battery life.

Read more ....

Why Do Human Testicles Hang Like That?

From Scientific America:

Earlier this year, I wrote a column about evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup’s “semen displacement hypothesis,” a convincing hypothesis presenting a very plausible, empirically supported account of the evolution of the peculiarly shaped human penis. In short, Gallup and his colleagues argued that our species’ distinctive phallus, with its bulbous glans and flared coronal ridge, was sculpted by natural selection as a foreign sperm-removal device. As a companion piece to that work on our phallic origins, Gallup, along with Mary Finn and Becky Sammis, have put forth a related hypothesis in this month’s issue of Evolutionary Psychology. This new hypothesis, which the authors call “the activation hypothesis,” sets out to explain the natural origins of the only human body part arguably less attractive than the penis--the testicles.

Read more ....

Shuttle Astronauts Conduct 3rd Spacewalk

From Voice of America:

Robert Satcher and Randy Bresnik ventured into open space Monday for the walk that lasted nearly six hours. The two worked to attach a new oxygen tank at the orbiting outpost and installed a unit to conduct experiments.

Two U.S. astronauts from the shuttle Atlantis have conducted a third and final spacewalk at the International Space Station.

Robert Satcher and Randy Bresnik ventured into open space Monday for the walk that lasted nearly six hours. The two worked to attach a new oxygen tank at the orbiting outpost and installed a unit to conduct experiments.

Read more ....

Report: Wikipedia Losing Volunteers

From CNET:

Wikipedia's exponential growth over this decade is due to the efforts of the millions of volunteers who write, edit, and check its entries. But could that volunteer effort now be in danger?

Volunteers have increasingly been quitting Wikipedia en masse for a variety of potential reasons, according to Monday's Wall Street Journal.

Read more ....

Computers Can't Answer Everything

Image: Information hookup: The social search engine Aardvark helps users find other people who can answer questions for them. Credit: Aardvark

From Technology Review:

A startup says natural language processing works best with human intelligence.

Providing answers to tricky questions has become big business online. But community question-and-answer sites can get clogged up with outdated answers, and it's fiendishly difficult to create software that can automatically understand a question and provide the best answer.

Damon Horowitz, chief technology officer and cofounder of the San Francisco-based Aardvark, will outline a different approach when he speaks at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York today.

Read more ....

LHC Smashes Protons Together For First Time

The LHC's first collisions occurred on 23 November in the ATLAS detector,
as reconstructed here (Image: CERN)

From New Scientist:

The Large Hadron Collider bashed protons together for the first time on Monday, inaugurating a new era in the quest to uncover nature's deepest secrets.

Housed in a 27-kilometre circular tunnel beneath Geneva, Switzerland, the LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, designed to collide protons together at unprecedented energies.

Read more ....

Rat Brain Modelers Denounce IBM's Cat Brain Simulation As "Shameful and Unethical" Hoax

Rat vs. Cat Someone smells a rat

From Popular Science:

The Blue Brain project leader says that IBM's simulated brain does not even reach an ant's brain level.

IBM's claim of simulating a cat cortex generated quite a buzz last week, but now the head researcher from the Blue Brain project, a team who working to simulate their own animal brain (a rat's), has gone incandescent with fury over the what he calls the "mass deception of the public."

Read more ....

Climate Emails Stoke Debate

Hacked e-mails have raised questions on climate change data. Photo from The BBC

From The Wall Street Journal:

Scientists' Leaked Correspondence Illustrates Bitter Feud over Global Warming.

The scientific community is buzzing over thousands of emails and documents -- posted on the Internet last week after being hacked from a prominent climate-change research center -- that some say raise ethical questions about a group of scientists who contend humans are responsible for global warming.

The correspondence between dozens of climate-change researchers, including many in the U.S., illustrates bitter feelings among those who believe human activities cause global warming toward rivals who argue that the link between humans and climate change remains uncertain.

Read more ....

IBM Reveals The Biggest Artificial Brain of All Time

From Popular Mechanics:

IBM has revealed the biggest artificial brain of all time, a simulation run by a 147,456-processor supercomputer that requires millions of watts of electricity and over 150,000 gigabytes of memory. The brain simulation is a feat for neuroscience and computer processing—but it's still one-eighty-third the speed of a human brain and is only as large as a cat's. Will we ever get to truly capable artificial intelligence? PM reports from IBM's Almaden research center to find out.

Read more ....

Ghostly Bones of Galactic Feast Revealed

From Wired Science:

A new infrared image of the galaxy Centaurus A reveals the gassy, ghastly bones of a galaxy that it consumed several hundred million years ago.

The parallelogram of stars leftover from the collision had been obscured by dust. But using new processing techniques in the near-infrared part of the spectrum, European Southern Observatory astronomers were able to glimpse the leftovers of the cosmic dinner.

Read more ....

Physicists Move One Step Closer to Quantum Computing

Photo: This is postdoctoral researcher Greg Fuchs in the lab of UCSB's Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation. (Credit: George Foulsham, Office of Public Affairs)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 23, 2009) — Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have made an important advance in electrically controlling quantum states of electrons, a step that could help in the development of quantum computing. The work is published online November 20 on the Science Express Web site.

The researchers have demonstrated the ability to electrically manipulate, at gigahertz rates, the quantum states of electrons trapped on individual defects in diamond crystals. This could aid in the development of quantum computers that could use electron spins to perform computations at unprecedented speed.

Read more ....

Why Kids Ask Why

From Live Science:

A child's never-ending "why's" aren't meant to exasperate parents, scientists say. Rather, the kiddy queries are genuine attempts at getting at the truth, and tots respond better to some answers than others.

This new finding, based on a two-part study involving children ages 2 to 5, also suggests they are much more active about their knowledge-gathering than previously thought.

"Even from really early on when they start asking these how and why questions, they are asking them in order to get explanations," lead researcher Brandy Frazier of the University of Michigan told Live Science.

Read more ....

How Long Can a Nuclear Reactor Last?

OLDIE BUT GOODIE: Extending the life span of aging nuclear power plants could be essential to meet the nation's energy needs. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/GREUDIN

From Scientific American:

Industry experts argue old reactors could last another 50 years, or more.

Could nuclear power plants last as long as the Hoover Dam?

Increasingly dependable and emitting few greenhouse gases, the U.S. fleet of nuclear power plants will likely run for another 50 or even 70 years before it is retired -- long past the 40-year life span planned decades ago -- according to industry executives, regulators and scientists.

Read more ....

High-Fliers Swear A 5am Start Is The Key To Success

Photo: Yawn chorus: Is 5am a productive time to begin the day?

From The Daily Mail:

But how do you do it all, I asked my high-powered friend Fiona, who had just reeled off her latest long list of projects. 'Oh, I get up at 5am,' she said. 'So by breakfast time, I've cleared emails, been through the diary and can hit the ground running.'

That did it. For years, I've heard people proclaim the advantages of early rising. Yoga teachers, life coaches and exercise gurus swear by its benefits for the body.

Over-achievers find it's the best time to get things done because their brains are fresh and ready for action.

Anna Wintour, the editor of American Vogue, famously rises at 5am to fit in an hour's tennis before her 6am blow-dry each day.

Read more ....

Sophisticated Hunters Not To Blame For Driving Mammoths To Extinction

Giant animals such as the woolly mammoth were already facing extinction by the time humans had developed more lethal weapons. Photograph: Corbis/Royal BC Museum, British Columbia

From The Guardian:

Woolly mammoths and other giant ice-age mammals faced extinction 2,000 years before deadly speartips were invented.

Woolly mammoths and other large, lumbering beasts faced extinction long before early humans perfected their skills as spearmakers, scientists say.

The prehistoric giants began their precipitous decline nearly 2,000 years before our ancestors turned stone fragments into sophisticated spearpoints at the end of the last ice age.

Read more ....