Archive for March, 2010

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Leukemia Vaccine to Kill Remaining Cancer Cells Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Leukemia patients taking the drug Gleevec (imatinib mesylate) still had cancer cells present after one year. Human clinical studies of GVAX Leukemia vaccine developed by BioSante Pharmaceuticals, Inc. showed that it was possible to reduce or eliminate the last remaining cancer cells in some chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients taking Gleevec.

Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center investigators used a vaccine made from CML cells. The cancerous potential of the CML cells was halted by irradiating them. The cells were also genetically altered to produce an immune system stimulator called GM-CSF.

The treated cells also carried antigen molecules specific to CML cells that prime the immune system to recognize and kill circulating CML cells.

Cancer vaccines may be a good way to mop up the residual disease according to Dr Levitsky, Professor of oncology, medicine and urology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, in Baltimore, Maryland.

Read the news at BioMed Reports.

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Posted in biopharmaceutical, biotechnology, diseases, genetic modification | No Comments »

Pregnant Mothers, Influenza and Schizophrenia Risk for Babies Monday, March 22nd, 2010

A study of Rhesus monkeys shows that if a mother had an influenza attack while pregnant, its babies were born with smaller brains and other brain changes associated with Schizophrenia in humans. Earlier studies with mice has also indicated such a relationship.

In the study, even a relatively mild flu infection had a significant impact on the brains of the babies. While such a relationship has not been confirmed in humans, it is a good idea for pregnant women to take flu shots to prevent flu attacks during pregnancy.

The study involved infecting pregnant macaque monkeys with a mild flu virus one month before their babies were due. There was a control group of other pregnant monkeys who were not infected.

MRI scans of the brains of babies one year after birth showed no signs of direct viral attack, and no significant difference in birth weight, gestation length and different responses.

However, significant reductions were noticed in brain sizes, and the gray and white matter in specific areas of the brain of the babies born to flu infected mothers. These were changes that are typical in the MRI scans of Schizophrenia patients.

Read the details of the study at: ScienceBlog.

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Posted in cognitive impairment, cognitive science | No Comments »

IBM into Sustainable Environment Sunday, March 21st, 2010

IBM research goes beyond computers and chips into environmental issues. IBM Research and Sanford University scientists has achieved a breakthrough into green plastics. Biodegradable plastics can reduce the accumulation of indestructible garbage on our planet.

Smarter recycling methods can make use of plastic waste and further reduce the accumulation. Developments in green polymer chemistry is also said to open new ways to deliver medicine, in addition to creating environmentally sustainable plastics.

IBM is using its chip, materials and nanotech expertise in other areas too, including DNA sequencing and water filtration. Discoveries made by the company during the development of photoresists for advanced microelectronics is finding new applications.

Essentially the new developments involve the application of organocatalysis to industries such as biodegradable plastics, plastic recycling and healthcare. Use of organic catalysts (instead of metal) can also lead to biodegradable materials made from renewable resources.

The paper on ‘Organocatalysis: Opportunities and Challenges for Polymer Synthesis’ is available at acs.org.

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Posted in environment, nanotechnology | No Comments »

The Kindle Reader instead of a bulky Schoolbag Sunday, March 21st, 2010

The Kindle e-Reader is an electronic device that can store 3500 books, articles and documents downloaded from Amazon website. Tim Wilson, director of Student Activities at College of Education, Seattle University is planning to store study materials in e-book format into Kindle Readers for students of his class.

Upto five graduate student volunteers from Wilson’s class will test the device during the entire quarter. The university, faculty and students hope to learn from the trial and determine whether future courses can be offered with electronic readers.

The Kindle readers, available from Amazon, cost $489 each and are not exactly cheap. However, if enough text books are available in e-book format, students can save money in the long term as e-books cost significantly less than paper text books. Then, of course, there is the prospect of replacing the heavy school bag with a compact device.

On the other hand, students will have to learn new skills for using the device. Taking notes, for example, is more complicated than adding them to the margin of a book using a pen.

Seattle U has been trying out modern technology in teaching. Classes are offered both on-line over the Web and in classrooms. Wilson corrects his students’ papers electronically via e-mail and uses podcasts in a project.

Read the story at su-spectator.

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Posted in education, education delivery, information technology | No Comments »

Analytica 2010 will Showcase the latest in Analytical and Laboratory Work Friday, March 19th, 2010

The 22nd International Analytica Trade Fair for Laboratory Technology, Analysis and Biotechnology will be held during March 23-26, 2010 at New Munich Trade Fair Centre, Munich. Exhibitors offering solutions in chemistry, biochemistry, food chemistry, clinical chemistry and the life sciences will be showcasing their offerings.

The Analytica trade fair is held once every two years. Marketable products and solutions, as well as innovations, will be on offer at the fair. Visitors can also visit the Analytica conference during March 23-25, which will be focusing on the theme “Talking Science – Today’s Knowledge for Tomorrow’s Applications” this year. Conference topics will include ‘measuring fine particles’, ‘toxicology of fine particles’, ‘chemical analysis of art objects’ and ‘how analysis techniques can help to treat diabetes.’

Related events include ‘Finance Day’ revolving around funding and financing opportunities for new companies, and ‘Job Day’ that will bring together companies and potential employees looking for jobs. There will also be a series of presentations on innovations and best practices ‘by industry for the industry’ every day.

Also on offer will be training courses for Basic Quality Management Course for Laboratory Employees, Basics of Gas Chromatography, Key Laboratory Performance Indicators for Controlling and Benchmarking, HPLC Methods Development and Optimization, Hygiene and Monitoring, Basics of Infrared Spectroscopy, Legal Security for Laboratory Directors. The consulting firm Klinkner & Partner will be covering the topics.

Analytica website provides more information for exhibitors, visitors and journalists.

The 22nd International Analytica Trade Fair for Laboratory Technology, Analysis and Biotechnology will be held during March 23-26, 2010 at New Munich Trade Fair Centre, Munich. Exhibitors offering solutions in chemistry, biochemistry, food chemistry, clinical chemistry and the life sciences will be showcasing their offerings.

The Analytica trade fair is held once every two years. Marketable products and solutions, as well as innovations, will be on offer at the fair. Visitors can also visit the Analytica conference during March 23-25, which will be focusing on the theme “Talking Science – Today’s Knowledge for Tomorrow’s Applications” this year. Conference topics will include ‘measuring fine particles’, ‘toxicology of fine particles’, ‘chemical analysis of art objects’ and ‘how analysis techniques can help to treat diabetes.’

Related events include ‘Finance Day’ revolving around funding and financing opportunities for new companies, and ‘Job Day’ that will bring together companies and potential employees looking for jobs. There will also be a series of presentations on innovations and best practices ‘by industry for the industry’ every day.

Also on offer will be training courses for Basic Quality Management Course for Laboratory Employees, Basics of Gas Chromatography, Key Laboratory Performance Indicators for Controlling and Benchmarking, HPLC Methods Development and Optimization, Hygiene and Monitoring, Basics of Infrared Spectroscopy, Legal Security for Laboratory Directors. The consulting firm Klinkner & Partner will be covering the topics.

Analytica website provides more information for exhibitors, visitors and journalists.

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Posted in biotechnology, business, nanotechnology, technology commercialization | No Comments »

Dance, Thinking and Technology Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Dance thinking and technology might be a strange mix at first glance. Yet that is what some troupes are planning to combine in performances scheduled for March in Chicago. The troupes plan to include visual art, technology, science, artificial intelligence and cognitive thinking as elements in their dance performances.

The Seldoms will present “Marchland” at the Museum of Contemporary Art during March 12 to 14. This work reportedly explores endurance, border/boundary and contested spaces. It is described as very high energy, frantic, fast paced, and a bit relentless.

The Wayne McGregor/Random Dance company incorporates animation, digital film, 3-D architecture, electronic sound and virtual dancers into their performances. They present the “ENTITY” at The Dance Center. The work is said to be inspired by the connection between the mental and the physical. Coldplay and Massive Attack collaborator Jon Hopkins and composer Joby Talbo has created a soundscape for the performance.

McGregor reportedly consulted persons working in cognitive science, including psychology, neurosciences, linguistics, human- computer interaction and robotics while coming up with ENTITY. Random Dance, the other partner, has a research department of the company, R-Research. According to the coordinator of R-Research, it is possible to discover stuff in dancemaking that informs science, and stuff in science that informs dancemaking.

Read the news at: Windy City Media Group.

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Posted in cognitive science, culture | No Comments »

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) for all of World’s Children Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

The One Laptop per Child Foundation (OLPC)is reportedly a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help provide every child in the world access to a modern education. A recent report mentions of their activity in Kandahar, in war-torn Afghanistan.

OLPC delivered 774 XO laptops to students and teachers at the Zarghona Ana middle school in Kandahar. The report adds that this brings the total of XO’s distributed by OLPC to 3,700 in Afghanistan, and 1.4 million worldwide.

The Kandahar project involves in addition OLPC, USAID/Afghanistan Small and Medium Enterprise Development (ASMED); the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology; Roshan, Afghanistan’s leading telecommunications provider; and PAIWASTOON, a local private IT company. The project is led by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education.

The XO laptops will have thousands of pages of digital content in the local languages of Dari and Pashto. Also included are acess to 150 educational mini games and interactive versions of curriculum content. Children can take the laptops home, and this means girl students can learn at home without inviting reprisals for going to school.

Read the news at: OLPC.

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Posted in education, education delivery, information technology | No Comments »

Children Exposed to Two Languages do not Suffer Language Contamination Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

There is a common belief that if children are exposed to more than one language during early childhood, their language skills will suffer. They might have difficulty in recalling words needed in a particular language conversation, for example. A kind of language contamination is believed to occur affecting mastery of any language.

Researchers at Dartmouth College, USA, studied childen who were exposed to different combinations of languages from early childhood. They found that the children “grow as if there were two mono-linguals housed in one brain.” This apparently means that the cbildren master both languages as if these were their primary languages.

The researchers looked at 15 bilingual children exposed to two languages from varying ages. There were four groups depending on when intensive exposure to the second language began: at birth, between the ages of two to three, four to six years, and seven to nine years. The children spoke various combinations of languages, including Spanish and French, French and English, Russian and French and sign language and French.

ABC Science Online

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Posted in cognitive development, language, learning | No Comments »

Transhumanism or Human Enhancement through Technology Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Transhumanism is an international movement that supports the use of technology for enhancing human physical and mental capabilities. Members of the movement believe that disability, disease, suffering, aging and involuntary death are neither inevitable nor desirable, and look to technologies like biotechnology to eliminate these.

Transcendentalist ideas of going beyond human limitations have a long history. The quest for immortality, Elixir of Life, Fountain of Youth and such ideas represent such transendentalist yearnings. Even Charles Darwin’s theories were used to suggest that we humans are only at the beginning of evolution and much more can be expected.

By 19th century, the idea of using technology to enhance human capabilities began to receive attention and the trend gained momentum in the 20th. Bionic implants have already become a reality helping the diseased heart to beat and the deaf to hear. Research into cognitive enhancement is beginning to show results.

Another related development is space colonization that allow people to migrate to other hospitable worlds. It can perhaps help improve things back on earth, which is getting increasingly overcrowded in certain areas while the reverse is happening in other areas.

Developments in nanotechnology gave a new dimension to transhumanist ideas. Nanobiotechnology is a field where biotechnology works with nanoscale elements. Nanorobots could be traversing our blood vessels curing diseases and the new properties of materials at nanoscale might lead to better healing of wounds, for example.

The movement is also concerned with the possible dangers of using technology in this manner. There are opponents to this movement such as Francis Fukuyama who considered it the “world’s most dangerous idea”.

Universal access to tranhumanist technologies across classes and borders is a key ethical issue. Unless such access is made possible, the movement can lead to an elite few benefiting from the technologies to the exclusion of the vast majority. It could lead to a nightmare world where the majority become slaves of the elite “superhumans,” a popular theme in horror films.

See the four possible scenarios for transhumanist developments at the Institute for Emerging Ethics and Technologies.

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Posted in bionics, biotechnology, diseases, emerging technologies, transhumanism | No Comments »

How Do You Succeed with Nanotechnology Products? Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

A recent post on Spectrum IEEE discusses the issues of industry selection and business model for nanotechnology business. According to the author, these issues can determine whether the techology finally takes off or not.

Just trying to sell some newly discovered nanomaterial is not likely to succeed. Instead you select an industry where the material has applications and develop the whole application process. In the example cited, the company Nanosys synthesized quantum dot phosphor material, which it subsequently packaged into a form called Quantum Rail.

The Quantum Rail can be easily integrated into the LCD display manufcturing process used today. Nanosys sold the Quantum Rail lighting system to LG for its mobile phone applications.

Another company, Nano-Tex, developed the idea of changing the properties of fabrics at nanoscale into an entire practical process before selling it.

In addition to developing a full process-ready solution the companies in both the above cases selected industries that are not as closely regulated as many others. For example, if they had selected a healthcare application, it is most likely that the processes would still have been under a trial phase.

Read the blog post at Spectrum IEEE.

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Posted in business, nanotechnology, technology commercialization | No Comments »

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