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I, computer!

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:19:01 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: it's alive...

BURNT PANCAKE PROBLEM

How many flips does it take to get these pancakes sorted? A colony of E. coli may be able to sort it out.

Scientists have built the first living computer and tasked it with solving an important problem: flipping pancakes.

Researchers genetically engineered the bacterium E. coli to coax its DNA into computing a classic mathematical puzzle known as the burned pancake problem. Molecules of DNA have the natural ability to store and process information, and scientists have been performing computations with bare DNA molecules in lab dishes since the mid-1990s. But the new research, reported online in the Journal of Biological Engineering, is the first to do DNA computation in living cells.

“Imagine having the parallel processing power of a million computers all in the space of a drop of water,” says Karmella Haynes, a biologist at Davidson College in North Carolina. “It’s possible to do that because cells are so tiny and DNA is so tiny.”

Tags: evolution, computers, bacteria

Extinct thylacine genome brought to life

Tue, 20 May 2008 01:47:37 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Known as the Tasmanian Tiger, it was one of the few marsupial predators that were in Australia before the arrival of the west. The other is the Tasmanian Devil, which survives, but is threatened by a disease that causes ulcers.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Stephen Pincock

A genetic fragment of Australia's extinct Tasmanian tiger has been brought back to life by Melbourne researchers.

From extinction to gene expression ... a mouse foetus expressing the thylacine gene, shown by the blue staining

Dr Andrew Pask and Professor Marilyn Renfree from the University of Melbourne have inserted part of a gene involved in bone growth from the fabled animal into mice, and confirmed that it functioned.

"We've brought a fraction of this extinct genome back to life," Pask, at the Department of Zoology, says. "No one has done this in a living organism before."

The Tasmanian tiger or thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) was a large, meat-eating native Australian marsupial that was hunted to extinction in the wild in the early 1900s.

Last of the Tasmanian tigers at the Hobart Zoo

The last-known animal died in captivity in the Hobart Zoo in 1936.

The latest breakthrough

published this week in the journal PLoS One, is the culmination of nine years of effort

Global Peace Ratings

Tue, 20 May 2008 16:06:13 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.visionofhumanity.org

Global Peace Index 2008

Country

Rank

Score

Iceland

1.176

Denmark

1.333

Norway

1.343

New Zealand

1.350

Japan

1.358

Ireland

1.410

Portugal

1.412

Finland

1.432

Luxembourg

1.446

Austria

1.449

View all Rankings | View Regions

An annual study ranking nations in terms of how peaceful they are has given poor marks to the US... more

Financial Times: FT.com - James Blitz - 20/05/2008

The Global Peace Index is a ground-breaking milestone in the study of peace. It is the first time that an Index has been created that ranks the nations of the world by their peacefulness and identifies some of the drivers of that peace. more

Tags: peace, international

New technology detects lying when calling in sick

Tue, 20 May 2008 09:42:21 GMT

clipped by: shandora

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

The technology offers the prospect that someone phoning in for a sickie on Monday morning will speak not to a sympathetic secretary, but to a computer set up to check whether their voice is steady and reliable.

One trial in Harrow, North London, saved the borough £420,000 in false benefit claims.

The Harrow system, developed by Capita and Digilog UK, is called Voice Risk Analysis. It is designed to make thousands of checks on a voice during a call.

If it picks up changes in a caller's voice that suggest they are under pressure - as is likely to happen if they are lying - it gives prompts to the operator, secretary or manager taking the call.

They can then encourage the caller to change their mind about being sick.

Lawrence Knowles, managing director of software and outsourcing firm Midland HR said that the system would soon be a useful tool in reducing sickness absence.

Man Fired for Posting "Dilbert"

Mon, 19 May 2008 16:12:38 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug
clipper's remarks: n the strip, Dilbert and another character are shown having the following exchange:

"Why does it seem as if most of the decisions in my workplace are made by drunken lemurs?"

"Decisions are made by people who have time, not people who have talent."

"Why are talented people so busy?"

"They're fixing the problems made by people who have time."

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

David Steward was fired from the Catfish Bend Casino because management found the cartoon "very offensive," human resources director Steve Morley had testified during a hearing on unemployment benefits in December 2007. The casino had challenged his claim for the financial assistance.

"Basically, he was accusing the decision-makers of being drunken lemurs," Morley testified at the time. "We consider that misconduct when you insult your employer."

Scott Adams has written a series of comics inspired by Steward’s experience.

"I know good comic fodder when I see it," he said, "and any chance to mock the humorless is worth the effort."

Steward recalls sharing the comic with coworkers amid news that the casino was to close.

"We were all laughing about it,"

Everybody said, 'Well, why don’t you put it on the bulletin board; maybe it'll cheer some of them up

I was told that I’m not a team player. 'We’re going to let you go.'"

Xenophobia - victims being 'necklaced'

Tue, 20 May 2008 06:57:37 GMT

clipped by: michellezm
clipper's remarks: "In horrific attacks, mainly around Johannesburg, women have been raped and men beaten to death. Shops and homes have been looted and dozens of shacks burned to the ground."

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

South Africa has been rocked by scenes of hatred and savagery as poor township blacks turn on the migrants they claim have taken their jobs.

More than 20 have been killed and thousands forced to flee by gangs wielding guns, clubs and machetes.

Most horrifying of all, for a country which thought the worst was behind it, has been the return of necklacing, the appalling method of killing which involves putting a petrol-filled tyre around a victim's neck and setting it ablaze.

Savagery: Police try to save a man who was set on fire by a mob attacking immigrants in Reiger Park, near Johannesburg

In the violent 1980s and 1990s, necklacing was a common sentence imposed by 'people's courts' on collaborators with the apartheid regime and criminals.It was frequently carried out in the name of the now-ruling African National Congress and was alleged to have been endorsed by Nelson Mandela's then wife, Winnie.

Now necklacing is being used against Zimbabweans and Mozambicans

Green tea may help snorers sleep easy

Tue, 20 May 2008 12:06:58 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: One of my biggest problems is that my dog Lani snores. She doesn't like tea. I like green tea with Jasmine. I'm going to make a cup when I've posted this. It's that time of day. The chemicals in green tea may protect the snorers from damage caused by free radicals that are in excess as a result of sleep apnoea, but they still can't help anyone who is listening. These catechin polyphenols help sufferers, and no doubt victims of oxygen deprivation. A compound using them as an active ingredient may also be used as part of the first aid kits that assist CPR, in drowning and heart attack victims. I don't know if that's on the agenda, but the quicker an overload of free radicals can be neutralized, the better. It may in many cases reduce some of the serious brain damage in survivors. (You'd have to check that with a pharmacologist)

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Amy Norton

Compounds found in green tea may help ward off the neurological damage that can come with the breathing disorder sleep apnoea, an animal study suggests.

Researchers found when they added green tea antioxidants to rats' drinking water, it appeared to protect the animals' brains during bouts of oxygen deprivation designed to mimic the effects of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA).

The findings suggest that green tea compounds should be further studied as a potential OSA therapy, the researchers say in a recent edition of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

OSA is a common disorder

causing repeated stops and starts in breathing throughout the night

Dr David Gozal and colleagues at the University of Louisville

looked at

green tea compounds called catechin polyphenols

Catechin polyphenols act as antioxidants

they help neutralise cell-damaging particles called oxygen free radicals.

Free radicals are normal

but in excess they lead to a state known as oxidative stress.

It's Still A Man's World

Tue, 20 May 2008 13:24:55 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

It's true -- the media have obsessed over Clinton's pantsuits, her laugh, her steely demeanor, her eyes misting over in New Hampshire, things that you'd hardly imagine meriting a story if the candidate were Sen. Harry Reid. But if you think Clinton has been bedeviled by a double standard, wait till you see what women directors are up against in Hollywood.

What really puts female directors behind the eight ball is that the film genres studios are most eager to make -- rowdy guy comedies, horror and superhero films -- are rarely of interest to women.

f a woman director gets a reputation as being difficult or has a flop, she's always going to be in worse shape, career-wise, than a Michael Mann or David Fincher.

Still, that pathetic 6% figure sticks in your craw

Tehran Opens Controversial Women-Only Park

Tue, 20 May 2008 03:36:56 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: So what do they do in this park which we can't see?

Clip Source: www.rferl.org

In an official ceremony in Tehran this week, Mayor Mohammad Baqir Ghalibaf opened a new, sex-segregated park designed exclusively for women's leisure and sport.

In the new park, called "Mothers' Paradise," women can walk, jog, and engage in other athletic activities without having to cover their heads.

Men can reportedly not see inside the park since it is surrounded by green walls and covered by bright-colored materials.

Some Tehran residents welcomed the launch of the park as an opportunity for women to act freely. Many others, however, criticized it as yet another step in what they call widespread discrimination against women.

Tags: women, iran