Clipmarks | tabsey's clips

The Da Vinci Tower - Video of The World's 1st Dynamic, Shape-Shifting Architecture

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:33:14 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Won't be the likes of me that will be able to get closer than a documentary.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The innovative Da Vinci Tower (also known as Dynamic Architecture Building), a proposed 68-story tower in Abu Dubai, United Arab Emirates, will have unique independently rotating floors, which will result in a constantly changing shape of the tower. Each floor will rotate a maximum of one full rotation in 90 minutes.

The entire tower will be powered from turbines and solar panels, and five other buildings in the vicinity will also be provided with electricity. The turbines will be located between each of the rotating floors.They will generate 1,200,000 kilowatt-hours of energy from the movement of the floors, and the solar panels will be located on the roof. Construction of the Da Vinci Tower is expected to be completed in 2009. The video is about 7 minutes.

Da Vinci Tower Video

Tags: architecture

How does gene therapy work?

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:27:57 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Interesting.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Gene therapy is the addition of new genes to a patient's cells to replace missing or malfunctioning genes. Researchers typically do this using a virus to carry the genetic cargo into cells, because that’s what viruses evolved to do with their own genetic material.

The treatment, which was first tested in humans in 1990, can be performed inside or outside of the body. When it’s done inside the body, doctors may inject the virus carrying the gene in question directly into the part of the body that has defective cells. This is useful when only certain populations of cells need to be “fixed.” For example, researchers are using it to try to treat Parkinson's disease, because only part of the brain must be targeted. This approach is also being used to treat eye diseases and hemophilia, an inherited disease that leads to a high risk for excess bleeding, even from minor cuts.

Tags: science

Can HGH Reverse Brain Damage in Drug Addicts?

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:22:33 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Couldn't clip all the relevant stuff. More at the website.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Abuse of opiates such as heroin, methadone and morphine destroy brain cells, reducing attention span and memory. But new research shows there may be a way to regain some lost patience and recall.

Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that brain cells targeted for early death by continued opiate use may be salvaged by injections of synthetic human growth hormone (HGH). HGH is a chemical naturally secreted by the pituitary gland at the base of the brain that stimulates cell growth and reproduction. The scientists say their findings open the door to new ways to treat and prevent damage from abuse of opiates in addicts as well as patients undergoing chronic pain management.

Tags: drugs, hgh

Architecture For Fundamental Processes Of Life Discovered

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:18:15 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: The pic is of Yeast cells (Sacharomyces cerevisiae) seen using DIC microscopy.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (May 14, 2008) — A team of Canadian researchers has completed a massive survey of the network of protein complexes that orchestrate the fundamental processes of life. In the online edition of the journal Science, researchers from the Université de Montréal describe protein complexes and networks of complexes never before observed -- including two implicated in the normal mechanisms by which cells divide and proliferate and another that controls recycling of the molecular building blocks of life called autophagy.

These processes are implicated in diseases such as cancers and autophagy has recently been shown to be involved in degenerative neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases. The discovery will fill gaps in basic knowledge about the workings and evolutionary origins of the living cell and provide new avenues to explore in linking these fundamental processes to human disease.

Tags: science

UK releases classified UFO files.

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:05:34 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Files on something that didn't exist.

Clip Source: space.newscientist.com

Eight UFO-related files have so far been made public - the four-year project will ultimately release 160 files

The UK is making decades' worth of classified files relating to UFOs freely available to the public.

On Monday, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) began a four-year-long project to transfer the files to the UK's National Archives, which will post them for public perusal. The announcement comes about one year after France made its UFO files available online.

The project is a response to massive public interest and numerous Freedom of Information (FOI) requests about UFOs, or Unidentified Flying Objects, that have been filed over the years. Nick Pope, a former UFO investigator at the MOD, called the release "a great day for open government and freedom of information".

When complete, the National Archive will contain some 160 UFO-related MOD files from the 1950s to 2007, representing the single largest release of records in the ministry's history.

Rejected abductee

Tags: aliens, want, to, grill, you, literally, cept, patriots

‘Billion Tree Campaign’ blossoms to seven times its size, UN agency says

Wed, 14 May 2008 12:16:28 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Opening paragraph wouldn't clip, so this is it. 13 May 2008 – A grassroots campaign to plant trees around the globe has announced that it is raising its target from 1 billion trees to 7 billion trees, the United Nations announced today.

Clip Source: www.un.org

Primary school pupils planting trees at a Wilderness Education Centre in Kenya

The campaign, which is under the patronage of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Kenyan Green Belt Movement founder Professor Wangari Maathai and Prince Albert II of Monaco, also announced today that in 18 months it has seen two billion trees planted, double its original target.

The campaign was launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in 2006 as a response to the threat of global warming.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said today: “Having exceeded every target that has been set for the campaign, we are now calling on individuals, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments to evolve this initiative on to a new and even higher level by the crucial climate change conference in Copenhagen in late 2009.”

Tags: climate, control

Prisons for Profit

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:53:27 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: More at the source, with links, if you want to do a little research of the prison system in America.

Clip Source: www.truthout.org

Should incarceration be incorporated?

Corporations are running many US prisons, but are they putting profits before prisoners? America passed a grim milestone this year: One in every one hundred Americans is now behind bars. This week, NOW on PBS investigates the government's trend to outsource prisons and prisoners to the private sector and examines the controversy it's causing. We travel to Colorado, where the debate over prison privatization is boiling over.

See the video RIGHT NOW at: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/419/index.html

Exclusively on NOW Online:

In Your State: Prison Costs

Use our interactive link below to find your state's prison population, how much corrections cost your state, and the ratio of corrections to higher education spending. http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/419/states-prisons.html

Tags: privatisation, is, supposed, to, save, money

Chemical used in plastic products a threat to babies

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:59:36 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Even babies bottles are made from plastic.

Clip Source: mdn.mainichi.jp

A potential hormone-damaging chemical used in plastic products could affect fetuses and newborn babies even though it meets safety standards, a study has found.

Researchers at the National Institute of Health Sciences have found the chemical substance -- bisphenol A -- could disrupt the central nerve system of fetuses and children, after they conducted experiments on rats.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is looking into consulting the Food Safety Commission of the Cabinet Office over the finding.

According to researchers at the institute, they administered different amounts of bisphenol A to five groups of mother rats every day since the sixth day of their conception until 20 days after they gave birth to baby rats.

They then compared the estradiol cycle of their offspring with their counterparts born from rats that were not administered with bisphenol A to see how the chemical substance affected baby rats through the placenta and breast milk of the mother rats.

Tags: medical, babies, are, lab, rats