Let me correct myself. It seems that in this case they will be actually inserting the DNA into an unfertilized egg in an attempt to study the development of the disease. That said, many of these diseases also have an autoimmune aspect that can be triggered later on in development and as with any science there are numerous factors that can not be controlled for. Therefore we have to take the results at face value and not read too much into them, as is quite often the case.
They are not creating embryos, they are attempting to create pluripotent cells, from skin cells, in an attempt to replace malfunctioning neurons. There is not an entire organism involved here as they are not using gametes (eggs or sperm) in these experiments. This is where the term "cloning" becomes confused, in that many people think it always refers to the duplication of a whole organism (such as Dolly) where it simply means to insert foreign DNA into a cell.
I have used the Epson 2400 with transparency adapter and could not even fathom scanning "thousands" of slides with it. From my experience a scan took about 3 minutes. Thats almost 2 days of solid scaning for a thousand slides.My scanner is hooked up to windows and uses the Epson color correction software and gives adequate results (far from the professional results you mention). As such, I would not throw away the slides and use the digital files as replacements though. You will not get away from the blurry, scratched images that this scanner will produce.What you need to do is look into a real slide/negative scanner such as a Minolta Dimage or the like, with digital ice dust and scratch removal built into the scanner itself. For the amount of slides you mention you would also be wise to look into an autofeeder. I am not sure about Linux support for these types of scanners, but you may want to think about investing in a new G5 and Photoshop (you can run Gimp if you dont want to shell out for Photoshop, but Photoshop is superior and well worth the money if you are doing lots of photo manipulation). However, if you are really serious about the professional side of things then you are going to need to shell out some cash, linux and an epson flatbed are not going to cut it for you. Alternatively, find a photo studio with the scanner and pay them to do it for you.
A vaccine is a suspension of attenuated or killed microorganisms (bacteria, viruses or rickettsiae), administered for the prevention, amelioration or treatment of infectious diseases.
Re:Welcome to capitalism
on
HIV Vaccine
·
· Score: 1
Yes, I think that fame also plays a role here as well. I have found that altruistic behaviour in humans is quite a rare event.
Re:Mixed feeling
on
HIV Vaccine
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Actually drug prices in Canada are regulated by The Patented Medicines Price Review Board (PMPRB), which is a government agency that oversees the pharmaceutical industry. This agency negotiates the final price for prescription drugs with pharmaceutical companies.
Re:hold on there
on
HIV Vaccine
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You are confused on this point. Dendrites are the tree like extensions that project out from a neuron (these are not cells, but are a part of a cell). Dendritic cells (which they are using in this study) are antigen-presenting cells (APCs) from your immune system and have nothing to do with the nervous system (They are also sometimes referred to as Helper T Cells).
90% drop misleading
on
HIV Vaccine
·
· Score: 5, Informative
While this study (Nature Medicine Advance On-line publications Subscription required) shows promise, it is only a preliminary trial that included 18 participants. Sixteen of the participants were female and two were male. The figure stated in the/. article, of a 90% total drop in viral load, is not quite accurate. The article states that the patients plasma viral load levels were decreased by 80% (median) over the first 112 days following immunization. It then goes on to say that a prolonged suppression of viral load (up to 1 year after inoculation) of 90% was seen in only 8 individuals.
From my analysis of the HIV RNA expression data from this paper, after 1 year, eight of the patients had viral loads reduced by 90% or better, two patients had their viral loads reduced between 80% and 90% six patients had viral loads that were reduced somewhere between 10% and 50% and two of the patients actually had an increase in plasma HIV RNA levels.
While this is a cute idea, it is hardly a biodegradable cellular telephone. Based on what I could glean from the press release, all that is biodegradable is the plastic case. Biodegradable plastics have been around for a while now and this seems to be more of a marketing gimmick than anything else. Cell phone manufacturers, like Nokia, have had recycling programs for old cell phones in place for a few years now. These recycling programs deal with almost the entire cell phone and not just the plastic case (which could always be recycled anyways by taking apart the phone and pitching it into the recycle bin (if your municipality supports this)).
There have to be better ways to clog up a spammers smtp server directly. An example I can think of is teergrube and uses up the offending servers available TCP/IP ports for sending out email. The disadvantage is that it is a server side solution only and must be implimented by your mail host. It also requires a number of mail servers, running as teergube mail hosts to have an effect on a spammers smtp server. However, if you run your own mail server here is a good site for getting exim, and spamassasin configured and running and from there setting up teergrubing.
Actually, I have set up Mail.app to check my Gmail account and it works perfectly (Gmail only began offering this within the past few weeks), however Gmail did not offer pop access immediately to all of its users. I think the point of my comment is being misinterpreted. I meant this as an example of some OS X deficiencies and Gmail happened to be one, while it may no longer be a problem it was at one point and there will undoubtedly be a problem, like this, for some future technology.
I actually mentioned the Konfabulator widgets that act as Gmail notifiers. Thanks for pointing out my omission, as there are obviously an abundance of Gmail notifiers available to those such as yourself.
I have been using a mac since OS 6 was first introduced. I currently own an iBook G4 and while it does not support an extended desktop there is a firmware hack that will provide you with this capability if you have a vid card with enough RAM.
That said I do have 2 pcs at home, one running windows XP and the other running Debian. For some of the more obvious annoyances between my mac and windows pc (fink and apple's X11 actually give me most of the capabilities of my Debian box):
1) many websites (large corporations, including many banks) are optimized for windows and will not display properly in Safari or IE for mac (no longer supported by Microsoft). This can be overcome if you happen to run Microsoft's Virtual PC, which will run XP and therefore a compatible IE.
2)I do not like iPhoto's categorizing my digital photos. I have yet to find a good program for the mac (I use Firehand Ember on my PC)
3)Which brings me to another point, there is a lot more shareware out there for Windows (however, if you are proficient with Unix, many of these types of applications have already been written for Unix and can be compiled on OS X given a little time).
4)If you need to have all the shiny new software out there, then the mac is not for you. An example is Gmail. It only recently began supporting Safari and there is still no Gmail notifier for OS X (although there are some nifty Gmail widgets out there for Konfabulator).
5)Upgrading is more often than not a problem. Don't think that you can head off to CompUSA and buy a new video card for your new G5 tower. Memory is really the only readily upgradeable component in an apple (and this is only a recent addition). Many apples leave you stuck with what you bought (I do not really see this as a big problem as I like to upgrade to a completely new system every 2 years or so anyways).
6)People will salivate all over your new computer. So if you have OCD don't buy a new mac.
If you are heavy into windows and need to use Microsoft Access or other windows only apps extensively, don't think that virtual PC will be your savior if you buy a mac. In this case stick with Windows for these things. However, if you are just waffling because you can not think of what you "might" be missing, just jump in and go buy a new 1.33GHz iBook, you will not be disappointed. I myself will always use a macintosh, not being a PC gamer and now that I have the command line and X11 I may never use anything else.
A re-issue is probably already in order as OS 10.4 is on the verge of appearing. I refuse to call it Tiger.
Sequencing is only the beginning
on
Thanksgiving Bits
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Sequencing is only the first small step required in such lofty goals as improving a turkey's meat quality or introducing disease resistance. The actual tough part (which the article does not mention) is identifying the genes that code for the protein, or more likely proteins, that are involved in producing a desirable trait. If it were as simple as sequencing an animals genome, a task which an automated sequencer and computer can almost do by themselves, then we would already be well on the way to curing all of the genetic diseases that currently plague the human race. I can tell you that this is a goal we are far from accomplishing for humans, let alone turkeys. And remember this is the genetic sequence from only one or two turkeys and hardly represents the diversity of all turkeys on the face of the planet, an issue that also arises in discussion of the human genome project. The genetic sequencing of all these organisms we hear of in the media, while extremely useful for researchers (myself included), is not the holy grail for our understanding of how biology actually works.
Hardly apples to oranges. According to the law, the software is not yours and therefore you can not do as you wish with it. The CD, manual and cardboard box are physical entities and are yours to do with as you wish. According to the law, the book is yours and you can write in it, tear out the pages or use it to heat your house. The key difference here is that the ideas are not yours and you can not use them as you wish, without the authors permission. Software is not a physical thing, neither are the words in a book as they flow into your head through your eyes. You buy a book to read, that does not mean that you can rent it out after you are finished. This is where the idea of property becomes blured and why if the world were a perfect place and people did not copy software, or books, or movies, or music we would not have ELUAs or DRM, or photocopiers and printers that do not copy money.
That is assuming that the courts would even hear the case and that everyone who had a legitimate copy of HL2 and was denied a new key by valve (probably not that many) would have to show up.
By all rights, should you be able to walk down the street and throw a brick through any window you see fit. Your "rights" are spelled out by society as a whole and the law states that you purchase a license to run software and do not own the code. Therefore you can not do anything you want with it.
I think that many of you are missing the point here. It is not now, or has it ever been a big secret with software licensing in the US, that you do not own the software but are only being licensed to use it by the company that produced it. If you do not like a particular ELUA then do not purchase the software. If there is no choice, like you really need to use Photoshop (even though you have to activate it now) then bite the bullet or use GIMP. I would hardly say that Halo2 falls into the category of "I need this software in order to feed my family".
The way I see it, if you purchase the software legally then you should have no problem with activating it online. I know that there are going to be some issues with broken servers, bankrupt companies and re-activation in 5-10 years time, but perhaps this is the risk you must take when purchasing these software titles. Hopefully some day soon a genius programmer will finally think of a way to deal with software piracy in an effective way.
As for this "I was uninformed of the licensing requirements" argument. Remember the old adage "Buyer Beware".
I would not get my hopes up for getting a carbon nanotube sweater for Christmas this year or next year or the year after that...
In the foreseeable future these nanotube yarns would be used to replace metal wires in applications where increased flexibility and pliability are required they could also be used for such things as capacitors or batteries. The authors of the article (Mei Zhang, Ken R. Atkinson and Ray H. Baughman, Science, 306, 5700, p1358-1361, 19 November 2004) state that the small yarn diameters (about 20 micrometers for the four ply yarn), could eliminate the uncomfortable rigidity sometimes found for metal wire-containing conducting textiles that provide radio or microwave absorption, electrostatic discharge protection, textile heating, or wiring for electronic devices.
Although a bulletproof, electrically conductive vest that could withstand temperature extremes from +450C to -196C does sound quite appealing.
Good idea but would seem to be a problem logistically. All the photos of electric cars I have ever seen have a ton of batteries. I have read about proposed battery switching stations and they would have to use a forklift to remove a 'battery pack'. This combined with the different car manufacturers and battery packs would be a nightmare. Then the owner of the battery exchange is stuck with a bunch of dead batteries after about 20 months of use.
The title was originally meant only for the race cars. The Hummer, while being environmentally friendly, was added to the story. That said, perhaps the title should have read Environmentally friendly race cars and millitary vehicles, oh my!
Slashdot Mirror
Let me correct myself. It seems that in this case they will be actually inserting the DNA into an unfertilized egg in an attempt to study the development of the disease. That said, many of these diseases also have an autoimmune aspect that can be triggered later on in development and as with any science there are numerous factors that can not be controlled for. Therefore we have to take the results at face value and not read too much into them, as is quite often the case.
They are not creating embryos, they are attempting to create pluripotent cells, from skin cells, in an attempt to replace malfunctioning neurons. There is not an entire organism involved here as they are not using gametes (eggs or sperm) in these experiments. This is where the term "cloning" becomes confused, in that many people think it always refers to the duplication of a whole organism (such as Dolly) where it simply means to insert foreign DNA into a cell.
I have used the Epson 2400 with transparency adapter and could not even fathom scanning "thousands" of slides with it. From my experience a scan took about 3 minutes. Thats almost 2 days of solid scaning for a thousand slides.My scanner is hooked up to windows and uses the Epson color correction software and gives adequate results (far from the professional results you mention). As such, I would not throw away the slides and use the digital files as replacements though. You will not get away from the blurry, scratched images that this scanner will produce.What you need to do is look into a real slide/negative scanner such as a Minolta Dimage or the like, with digital ice dust and scratch removal built into the scanner itself. For the amount of slides you mention you would also be wise to look into an autofeeder. I am not sure about Linux support for these types of scanners, but you may want to think about investing in a new G5 and Photoshop (you can run Gimp if you dont want to shell out for Photoshop, but Photoshop is superior and well worth the money if you are doing lots of photo manipulation). However, if you are really serious about the professional side of things then you are going to need to shell out some cash, linux and an epson flatbed are not going to cut it for you. Alternatively, find a photo studio with the scanner and pay them to do it for you.
From Cancer Web's On-line Medical Dictionary:
A vaccine is a suspension of attenuated or killed microorganisms (bacteria, viruses or rickettsiae), administered for the prevention, amelioration or treatment of infectious diseases.
Yes, I think that fame also plays a role here as well. I have found that altruistic behaviour in humans is quite a rare event.
Actually drug prices in Canada are regulated by The Patented Medicines Price Review Board (PMPRB), which is a government agency that oversees the pharmaceutical industry. This agency negotiates the final price for prescription drugs with pharmaceutical companies.
You are confused on this point. Dendrites are the tree like extensions that project out from a neuron (these are not cells, but are a part of a cell). Dendritic cells (which they are using in this study) are antigen-presenting cells (APCs) from your immune system and have nothing to do with the nervous system (They are also sometimes referred to as Helper T Cells).
While this study (Nature Medicine Advance On-line publications Subscription required) shows promise, it is only a preliminary trial that included 18 participants. Sixteen of the participants were female and two were male. The figure stated in the /. article, of a 90% total drop in viral load, is not quite accurate. The article states that the patients plasma viral load levels were decreased by 80% (median) over the first 112 days following immunization. It then goes on to say that a prolonged suppression of viral load (up to 1 year after inoculation) of 90% was seen in only 8 individuals.
From my analysis of the HIV RNA expression data from this paper, after 1 year, eight of the patients had viral loads reduced by 90% or better, two patients had their viral loads reduced between 80% and 90% six patients had viral loads that were reduced somewhere between 10% and 50% and two of the patients actually had an increase in plasma HIV RNA levels.
While this is a cute idea, it is hardly a biodegradable cellular telephone. Based on what I could glean from the press release, all that is biodegradable is the plastic case. Biodegradable plastics have been around for a while now and this seems to be more of a marketing gimmick than anything else. Cell phone manufacturers, like Nokia, have had recycling programs for old cell phones in place for a few years now. These recycling programs deal with almost the entire cell phone and not just the plastic case (which could always be recycled anyways by taking apart the phone and pitching it into the recycle bin (if your municipality supports this)).
There have to be better ways to clog up a spammers smtp server directly. An example I can think of is teergrube and uses up the offending servers available TCP/IP ports for sending out email. The disadvantage is that it is a server side solution only and must be implimented by your mail host. It also requires a number of mail servers, running as teergube mail hosts to have an effect on a spammers smtp server. However, if you run your own mail server here is a good site for getting exim, and spamassasin configured and running and from there setting up teergrubing.
Actually, I have set up Mail.app to check my Gmail account and it works perfectly (Gmail only began offering this within the past few weeks), however Gmail did not offer pop access immediately to all of its users. I think the point of my comment is being misinterpreted. I meant this as an example of some OS X deficiencies and Gmail happened to be one, while it may no longer be a problem it was at one point and there will undoubtedly be a problem, like this, for some future technology.
I actually mentioned the Konfabulator widgets that act as Gmail notifiers. Thanks for pointing out my omission, as there are obviously an abundance of Gmail notifiers available to those such as yourself.
Gmail does not offer pop access to all its members at this time.
I have been using a mac since OS 6 was first introduced. I currently own an iBook G4 and while it does not support an extended desktop there is a firmware hack that will provide you with this capability if you have a vid card with enough RAM.
That said I do have 2 pcs at home, one running windows XP and the other running Debian. For some of the more obvious annoyances between my mac and windows pc (fink and apple's X11 actually give me most of the capabilities of my Debian box):
1) many websites (large corporations, including many banks) are optimized for windows and will not display properly in Safari or IE for mac (no longer supported by Microsoft). This can be overcome if you happen to run Microsoft's Virtual PC, which will run XP and therefore a compatible IE.
2)I do not like iPhoto's categorizing my digital photos. I have yet to find a good program for the mac (I use Firehand Ember on my PC)
3)Which brings me to another point, there is a lot more shareware out there for Windows (however, if you are proficient with Unix, many of these types of applications have already been written for Unix and can be compiled on OS X given a little time).
4)If you need to have all the shiny new software out there, then the mac is not for you. An example is Gmail. It only recently began supporting Safari and there is still no Gmail notifier for OS X (although there are some nifty Gmail widgets out there for Konfabulator).
5)Upgrading is more often than not a problem. Don't think that you can head off to CompUSA and buy a new video card for your new G5 tower. Memory is really the only readily upgradeable component in an apple (and this is only a recent addition). Many apples leave you stuck with what you bought (I do not really see this as a big problem as I like to upgrade to a completely new system every 2 years or so anyways).
6)People will salivate all over your new computer. So if you have OCD don't buy a new mac.
If you are heavy into windows and need to use Microsoft Access or other windows only apps extensively, don't think that virtual PC will be your savior if you buy a mac. In this case stick with Windows for these things. However, if you are just waffling because you can not think of what you "might" be missing, just jump in and go buy a new 1.33GHz iBook, you will not be disappointed. I myself will always use a macintosh, not being a PC gamer and now that I have the command line and X11 I may never use anything else.
A re-issue is probably already in order as OS 10.4 is on the verge of appearing. I refuse to call it Tiger.
Sequencing is only the first small step required in such lofty goals as improving a turkey's meat quality or introducing disease resistance. The actual tough part (which the article does not mention) is identifying the genes that code for the protein, or more likely proteins, that are involved in producing a desirable trait. If it were as simple as sequencing an animals genome, a task which an automated sequencer and computer can almost do by themselves, then we would already be well on the way to curing all of the genetic diseases that currently plague the human race. I can tell you that this is a goal we are far from accomplishing for humans, let alone turkeys. And remember this is the genetic sequence from only one or two turkeys and hardly represents the diversity of all turkeys on the face of the planet, an issue that also arises in discussion of the human genome project. The genetic sequencing of all these organisms we hear of in the media, while extremely useful for researchers (myself included), is not the holy grail for our understanding of how biology actually works.
Hardly apples to oranges. According to the law, the software is not yours and therefore you can not do as you wish with it. The CD, manual and cardboard box are physical entities and are yours to do with as you wish. According to the law, the book is yours and you can write in it, tear out the pages or use it to heat your house. The key difference here is that the ideas are not yours and you can not use them as you wish, without the authors permission. Software is not a physical thing, neither are the words in a book as they flow into your head through your eyes. You buy a book to read, that does not mean that you can rent it out after you are finished. This is where the idea of property becomes blured and why if the world were a perfect place and people did not copy software, or books, or movies, or music we would not have ELUAs or DRM, or photocopiers and printers that do not copy money.
That is assuming that the courts would even hear the case and that everyone who had a legitimate copy of HL2 and was denied a new key by valve (probably not that many) would have to show up.
Such is life, No?
By all rights, should you be able to walk down the street and throw a brick through any window you see fit. Your "rights" are spelled out by society as a whole and the law states that you purchase a license to run software and do not own the code. Therefore you can not do anything you want with it.
I think that many of you are missing the point here. It is not now, or has it ever been a big secret with software licensing in the US, that you do not own the software but are only being licensed to use it by the company that produced it. If you do not like a particular ELUA then do not purchase the software. If there is no choice, like you really need to use Photoshop (even though you have to activate it now) then bite the bullet or use GIMP. I would hardly say that Halo2 falls into the category of "I need this software in order to feed my family".
The way I see it, if you purchase the software legally then you should have no problem with activating it online. I know that there are going to be some issues with broken servers, bankrupt companies and re-activation in 5-10 years time, but perhaps this is the risk you must take when purchasing these software titles. Hopefully some day soon a genius programmer will finally think of a way to deal with software piracy in an effective way.
As for this "I was uninformed of the licensing requirements" argument. Remember the old adage "Buyer Beware".
I would not get my hopes up for getting a carbon nanotube sweater for Christmas this year or next year or the year after that... In the foreseeable future these nanotube yarns would be used to replace metal wires in applications where increased flexibility and pliability are required they could also be used for such things as capacitors or batteries. The authors of the article (Mei Zhang, Ken R. Atkinson and Ray H. Baughman, Science, 306, 5700, p1358-1361, 19 November 2004) state that the small yarn diameters (about 20 micrometers for the four ply yarn), could eliminate the uncomfortable rigidity sometimes found for metal wire-containing conducting textiles that provide radio or microwave absorption, electrostatic discharge protection, textile heating, or wiring for electronic devices. Although a bulletproof, electrically conductive vest that could withstand temperature extremes from +450C to -196C does sound quite appealing.
Perhaps the governments of the world should be investing money into building more and steeper downhill roads!
Good idea but would seem to be a problem logistically. All the photos of electric cars I have ever seen have a ton of batteries. I have read about proposed battery switching stations and they would have to use a forklift to remove a 'battery pack'. This combined with the different car manufacturers and battery packs would be a nightmare. Then the owner of the battery exchange is stuck with a bunch of dead batteries after about 20 months of use.
The title was originally meant only for the race cars. The Hummer, while being environmentally friendly, was added to the story. That said, perhaps the title should have read Environmentally friendly race cars and millitary vehicles, oh my!