“While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay
Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens
in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing
censors (however briefly). This is the first talk from
TED@State, produced in cooperation with the US State
Department.”
I’m not impressed by the talk,
but it will probably interest some.
“Copernicium has been chosen as the name of a
new element added to the periodic table, in honour of
the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.”
—
“With the symbol Cp, it has been named in honour
of Copernicus who deduced that the planets revolved
around the Sun, and finally refuted the belief that
the Earth was the centre of the Universe. The International
Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) will officially
endorse the new element's name in six month's time in
order to give the scientific community "time to
discuss the suggestion".”
Periodic table. Image: webelements.com The extended periodic table has two
further periods, periods 8 and 9.
“Ununbium in the extended periodic table”
What a lack of imagination.
Why not un-un-un-bium, or Lehrer-ium,
or unbumunbumbium?
Ununbium must have been named by Germans!
“The periodic table added its 112th official
element Wednesday, when scientists in Darmstadt, Germany,
announced they had received official approval for ununbium
from an international body of chemists. But the discovery
of the new element wasn't news to anyone - it was first
announced back in 1996, when the Darmstadt scientists
claimed to have created two atoms of the stuff in a
400-foot particle accelerator. It's just taken 13 years
of formal reviews and appeals for their colleagues around
the world to believe them. How did the most basic question
of science - what are the fundamental materials that
make up our universe? - turn into the science equivalent
of a Supreme Court decision?”
“Ununbium is a temporary IUPAC systematic element
name for a chemical element in the periodic table that
has the temporary symbol Uub and the atomic number 112.
“Element 112 is the latest superheavy element to be
officially recognised by IUPAC. The most stable isotope discovered
to date is 285112 with a half-life of ~30 s. In
total, about 75 atoms of ununbium have been detected using
various nuclear reactions. An unconfirmed isotope, 285m112,
has a possible half-life of ~9 minutes, and would be one of
the longest-lived superheavy isotopes known to date.
“Recent experiments strongly suggest that element
112 behaves as a typical member of group 12, demonstrating
properties consistent with a volatile metal.”
[Quoted from wapedia.mobi]
twitter - a major new research tool advancing the facility of the net
the continuing demise of dinosaur
press
I have been vaguely aware of Twitter
being disparaged around the fossil media, until I eventually
had time to check it out for myself. In fact,Twitter is
an immensely important innovation, far more useful and
effective than the fossil media, or services such as Google
news.
While it may be a new and useful addition to social
networking,, its real advance is to bring citizen-driven interactive
communication another step towards maturity.
Let me explain. The overwhelming majority of the fossil media’s
content, including assumedly scientific magazines/journals,
is in fact comprised of lazy hacks reproducing government, corporate
and university press releases, usually altering a few words
and carefully leaving out the original
sources. Thus, a great deal of Google news is hundreds
and thousands of repetitions of news items supplied by news
service stringers, usually stuffed with inaccuracies and innumeracies.
Twitter, on the other hand, may be often repetitious, but has
the great advantage of being limited to 140 characters per entry.
This forces the writer to put links to articles they think may
be of value. Thus you are not limited by the self-promotion
of the fossil media. Further, being so limited in length, messages
are forced to meaningful content and, even where trivial and
shallow, they are very easily scanned over and ignored.
All this makes research far quicker and more efficient.
The issue on which I decided to try out Twitter was the
protests against the Iranian dictators, and I confess
myself to be absolutely delighted, another great step
forward towards citizen education and communication. When
I last looked, Twitter messages (usually called tweets)
on the Iran fracas were coming in at a rate of about eighty a minute.
more technically
Enthusiasts are already using specialist software for organising
and reading Tweets. One desktop application is Tweetdeck,
which enables users to read and arrange their and other
people’s tweets offline.
TwitterSearch
enables the finding of treads, such as #iran, without
having to sign in to Twitter. Links to “trending
topics” are provided below the search box.
Twitpics
is the means to uploading pictures to a Twitter feed.
Transgenic marmoset offspring. Marmosets,
the world’s smallest monkey, were chosen for their
small size and associated economics.
Credit: Hideyuki Okano/Keio University; Erika Sasaki/CIEA
“...a transgenic marmoset (Callithrix jacchus)
containing the self-inactivating lentiviral vector CAG-EGFP.
A team from seven Japanese institutions has generated
transgenic marmosets in which the integrated transgene
is transmitted through the germline and expressed in
the offspring. This new non-human primate model, amenable
to gene manipulation with transgenic technologies, should
be invaluable for biomedical research into disease mechanisms
and for developing therapies in gene therapy and regenerative
medicine.” [Quoted from Nature]
“The first [hurdle] was tweaking standard gene-transfer
procedures. To add a new gene to a fertilized egg, researchers
typically inject a virus carrying that gene into the
space between the egg and a protective membrane surrounding
it; the virus then transfers the gene into the egg cells.
Okano and his team made this process more efficient
by placing the egg and its membrane in a chemical soup
that caused the egg to shrink, creating a void within
the membrane that they could then fill with more virus
particles carrying the GFP gene.
“The second improvement hinged on good timing.
Once a gene is added to a fertilized egg, the resulting
transgenic embryos must then be quickly placed in the
wombs of surrogate monkeys who are at an optimal time
in their menstrual cycles. Researchers have found that
they can control the reproductive cycles of marmosets
more effectively than those of other monkeys. That meant
Okano's team could relatively easily have an adequate
number of surrogates ready to receive embryos at just
the right time.
“The researchers injected the gene for GFP into
91 marmoset embryos. They then implanted these embryos
into 50 surrogate mothers, some of whom received multiple
embryos. Four of the surrogates produced a total of
five live offspring, all carrying the GFP gene as shown
by exposing the skin to ultraviolet light, which causes
it to glow, and by using more sophisticated genetic
methods to confirm the presence of the gene. One of
those marmosets grew up, apparently healthy, and eventually
produced a baby also carrying the GFP gene, Okano's
team reports in tomorrow's Nature.” [Quoted from
sciencemag.org]
“In a series of experiments, the rooks (a member
of the crow family) quickly learnt to drop a stone to
collapse a platform and acquire a piece of food, and
subsequently showed the ability to choose the right
size and shape of stone without any training.
“Not only could they use stones to solve the
task, but they were flexible in their tool choice, using
and modifying sticks to achieve the same goal. When
the correct tool was out of reach, they used another
tool to get it, demonstrating the ability to use tools
sequentially. In further tests, the rooks were able
to use a hook tool to get food out of a different tube
and even creatively bent a straight piece of wire to
make the hook to reach the food.”
“After proving that the machine worked, Lipson's
team set it to work on the complex problem of metabolism
in biological cells. The computer produced some equations,
which the scientists are still trying to make sense
of.” [Quoted from guardian.co.uk]
“For centuries, scientists have attempted to
identify and document analytical laws that underlie
physical phenomena in nature. Despite the prevalence
of computing power, finding natural laws and their corresponding
equations has resisted automation. A key challenge to
finding analytic relationships automatically is defining
algorithmically what makes a correlation in observed
data important and insightful. We have developed a technique
for extracting the laws of nature from experimental
data by identifying invariant and conservation equations.”
[Quoted from cornell.edu]
double
filament bulbs
“Once the first filament burns out:
* Remove the bulb from the socket (as you do for a regular bulb)
* Push the tiny metal strip to the other side.
* Screw the bulb back into the socket.
“This completes electrical circuit for the second filament instead
of driving to buy a new bulb.”
I have been using the compact fluorescents for years.In
my view, they are a ginormous improvement - they last for several years,
they use far less current.
I’m told by the advertising that they keep improving.
Some complain about the light quality. I prefer it considerably, much
better/cleaner than yellow light. I think the ones who complain just don’t
like change.
I’ve looked at LEDs recently. They look OK (to
me) for decoration, but not for serious light sources (yet?) unless you
like burning money.
I’ve recently purchased movement detector light.
You can get those with LEDs, or even small photovoltaic generators with
battery storage. This last looks like an over-technical ‘solution’
to me - too many things to break, and far more wasteful than a simpler
device.
“For years, parents have been limited to traditional methods
of keeping track of their children's movements: standing in the playground,
watching from the window, or asking them to phone home when they visit
a friend's house. But now anxious mothers and fathers are being offered
a distinctly hi-tech method of monitoring their child's every movement
- tracking them by satellite.
“Launched this week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in
Las Vegas, the Num8 watch from British company Lok8u is said to be the
first tracking device specifically designed to help parents keep tabs
on wayward offspring.”
Or drop it in a person’s handbag or suitcase.
Next, a miniature version.
“The £149 Num8 looks much like any ordinary digital wristwatch,
but it houses a GPS chip similar to that contained inside a satnav unit.
This constantly keeps tabs on the location of the child - it is accurate
to within 3 metres - and beams it back to Num8's website for monitoring.
“Relatives can receive text messages about the watch's location
direct from the device, pinpointing the street address of their youngster
at the touch of a button.”
“The researchers injected the gene for GFP into
91 marmoset embryos. They then implanted these embryos
into 50 surrogate mothers, some of whom received multiple
embryos. Four of the surrogates produced a total of
five live offspring, all carrying the GFP gene as shown
by exposing the skin to ultraviolet light, which causes
it to glow, and by using more sophisticated genetic
methods to confirm the presence of the gene. One of
those marmosets grew up, apparently healthy, and eventually
produced a baby also carrying the GFP gene, Okano's
team reports in tomorrow's Nature.” [Quoted from
“Once the first filament burns out:
compact
fluorescent lamp with reuseable ballast [base section]