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*HOT* Tech News And Downloads, I Would Read This Thread And Post Any Good Info
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Senior Member
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1. February 2007 @ 14:02 |
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excellent article, the onlt thing I had a issue with was that I have used and also read in many sites, that webroots spysweeper was one of the best, if not the best it didn't even make this guy's top 3.
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1. February 2007 @ 16:48 |
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2. February 2007 @ 07:32 |
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Good morning ireland, new is good to read on this cold day :)
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2. February 2007 @ 08:12 |
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arniebear,good afternoon...
Diamond loses its stiffness crown to new material
* 16:22 02 February 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* Tom Simonite
A material that is stiffer than diamond has been created by mixing particles of the mineral barium titanate and molten tin. Diamond was previously the stiffest material known.
The new material was made by a team from Washington State University and Wisconsin-Madison University, both in the US, and from Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany.
They mixed molten tin, heated to about 300ºC, with pieces of a ceramic material called barium titanium - often used as an insulator in electronic components. The particles were each about one-tenth of a millimetre in diameter and were dispersed evenly through the tin using an ultrasonic probe.
Once ingots of the new composite had cooled, rectangular or cylindrical samples 3 centimetres long and 2 millimetres across were tested for stiffness. The response of the samples to bending was tested by gluing one end to a strong support rod and the other to a magnet with a small mirror attached.
Rhythmic force
An electromagnet was used to exert a rhythmic force on the material one hundred times per second. The resistance of the composite to the bending force - called the Young's modulus - was recorded by a light sensor monitoring laser light bouncing off the mirror.
The tests were carried out at a variety of temperatures. Between 58ºC and 59ºC the samples became stiffer than diamond. Some were nearly 10 times as resistant to bending.
"This is very clever," says composite materials researcher Mark Spearing of Southampton University, UK. "They've come up with an interesting material."
The material's stiffness results from the properties of the barium titanate pieces, Spearing says. As the material cools, its crystal structure changes, causing its volume to expand.
Tin matrix
"Because they are held inside the tin matrix, strain builds up inside the barium titanate," Spearing explains, "at a particular temperature that energy is released to oppose a bending force."
Since energy has to be stored in the material to make it super-stiff, the creators have only really measured an "apparent Young's modulus", says Spearing. A true Young's modulus is an inherent property of a material, and would also be more constant across a greater range of temperatures, he notes.
Nevertheless, the new material could still have useful applications, says Spearing, perhaps for making shock-protective casings. "You might be able to make a tune-able damper that transmits force very well under certain conditions but behaves differently and is softer the rest of the time," he says.
Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1135837)
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2. February 2007 @ 08:19 |
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Bird flu can infect people via upper airway: expert
February 2, 2007 03:51:48 AM PST
Leading scientists in Hong Kong have found that the H5N1 bird flu virus can infect cells in the upper airway of humans and need not penetrate deep in the lungs to cause infection.
A study by scientists based in the United States in 2006 suggested that H5N1 could not infect people easily because it had to first lodge itself deep inside the lungs, where it binds more easily to certain receptors called the alpha 2-3.
But in an article published in the January issue of the journal Nature Medicine, scientists from the University of Hong Kong found that the virus could infect the nasopharynx, an area behind the nose and above the soft palate, and the throat.
"On the earlier hypothesis, the virus has to go deep into the lungs to infect anybody but our research suggests that is not the case. The virus can get a foothold in the upper respiratory tract, it doesn't have to get deep down into the lungs," microbiology professor Malik Peiris told Reuters late on Friday.
Using discarded human tissues, Malik found both upper and lower human respiratory tracts could be infected by the virus.
"Even in the upper respiratory tract (where) the alpha 2-3 receptor seems to be lacking, the H5N1 can still infect the cells ... so it raises the question of whether there may be other receptors the virus is using and highlights the point that further study is needed."
However, he said there was no reason to panic.
"It is still not able in most cases to establish infection and has not been able to transmit human to human (efficiently). It doesn't change that situation as such," said Peiris, who has studied the H5N1 since 1997, when it made its first known jump to humans in Hong Kong, killing six people.
The virus re-emerged in late 2003 and has become endemic in several places in Asia. It has since infected 270 people around the world, killing 164 of them, according to latest figures from the World Health Organization.
It has flared up again in recent months, spreading through poultry flocks in Japan, Vietnam and Thailand, killing six people in Indonesia and claiming its first human life in Nigeria.
Although it remains a bird disease, experts still fear it could kill millions once it learns how to pass efficiently among people.
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2. February 2007 @ 08:21 |
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For Drivers, Skin Cancer Is Often One-Sided
February 2, 2007 08:55:26 AM PST
Yahoo! Health: Cancer News
FRIDAY, Feb. 2 (HealthDay News) -- People who spend a lot of time behind the wheel may be motoring their way to an increased risk of skin cancer on the left side of their body, U.S. researchers report.
"Since previous scientific findings have shown an association between one-sided exposure to ultraviolet light (UV) and an asymmetric facial distribution of sun damage, we would expect that skin cancers also would be more prevalent on the left side of the body in drivers who spend a significant amount of time in their cars," Dr. Scott Fosko, professor and chairman of dermatology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.
"Our initial findings confirm that there is a correlation between more time spent driving and a higher incidence of left-side skin cancers, especially on sun-exposed areas in men," Fosko said.
He and his team looked at 898 people (559 men and 339 women) with skin cancer on either side of the body. Of the 53 percent of patients with left-side skin cancers, 64 percent were men and 36 percent were women.
The researchers also found that men, but not women, had a statistically significant number of left-side skin cancers on areas -- arms, hands, neck and head -- that are most often exposed to sunlight/UV radiation while driving.
As of January, Fosko and his team had collected 70 completed questionnaires designed to evaluate the driving habits of dermatology patients. Initial results show a direct link between driving time and left-side skin cancer risk.
The research was expected to be presented Friday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology, in Washington, D.C.
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2. February 2007 @ 08:22 |
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Health Highlights: Feb. 2, 2007
February 2, 2007 08:55:26 AM PST
Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:
Bush Wants Major Medicare and Medicaid Spending Cuts
In his budget next week, it's expected that U.S. President George W. Bush will ask for more than $70 billion in spending cuts from Medicare and Medicaid over the next five years.
The proposals, part of the White House plan to balance the budget by 2012, are expected to spark a fight with the Democrat-controlled Congress, The New York Times reported.
"There is a large area for potential compromise and agreement, but with these latest Medicare proposals, the president is just asking for controversy. He still acts as if Republicans were in complete control and Democrats had lost the election," said Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D., N.Y.), who heads the House Ways and Means Committee.
It's also expected that Bush will propose changes to the Children's Health Insurance Program that could reduce federal payments to states that provide coverage for children with family incomes that are more than twice the poverty level, the Times reported.
In contrast, Democrats want major expansions of the children's health program.
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Fewer U.S. Women Dying of Heart Disease
The number of American women who died from heart disease decreased from one in three in 2003 to one in four in 2004, a drop of nearly 17,000 deaths, the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) said Thursday.
The institute also noted that heart disease deaths in women steadily declined from 2000 to 2004, a type of steady annual decline that had not occurred before. The findings were released to mark National Wear Red Day, part of The Heart Truth program to raise women's awareness about heart disease and encourage them to take action to reduce their risk factors.
"To see such a significant reduction in deaths underscores that the efforts of many individuals and organizations to raise awareness, improve treatment and access, and inspire women to take action are truly saving lives," Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, NHLBI director, said in a prepared statement.
She said significant progress has been made in increasing women's awareness that heart disease is their leading killer. In 2005, 55 percent of women were aware of that fact, compared to 34 percent in 2000, according to survey findings.
"More women are aware that heart disease is their leading killer, and research shows that this heightened awareness is leading them to take action to reduce their risk. They are more likely to step up their physical activity, eat healthier, and lose weight," Nabel said.
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Sexual Problems Offer Clues About Other Health Issues: Study
Doctors need to ask patients about their sex lives because that information may hold clues about serious health problems, says a study published Friday in The Lancet medical journal.
The Canadian and Dutch authors said problems in the bedroom may help give an early alert to doctors about a number of significant medical conditions, including heart failure, diabetes and depression, the Associated Press reported.
The researchers searched medical databases for cases of sexual dysfunction in combination with different kinds of diseases. They concluded that many sexual problems can provide warnings about underlying or looming health issues.
"Sex is a legitimate part of medicine, but it has largely been kept separate from the rest of medicine," study lead author Dr. Rosemary Basson, of the British Columbia Centre for Sexual Medicine in Vancouver, told the AP.
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Drug Makers Lag on Promised Studies of Products: FDA
Drug makers have failed to begin more than 70 percent of promised studies on products already approved for market, according to U.S. government numbers released Thursday, and a watchdog group is sick of it.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration report shows that 899 -- or 71 percent -- of the 1,259 post-market studies committed to by drug makers had not been started as of Sept. 30, 2006. That's a 5 percent increase over last year, when the agency reported 65 percent of 1,231 promised studies were still pending, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. The report also found that only 185 -- or 15 percent --of studies were ongoing, 31 were delayed, and 144 were submitted.
"How can the FDA claim it is committed to improving drug safety when it can't even get drug makers to do the studies they promise?" said Bill Vaughan, senior policy analyst with Consumers Union. "Should consumers really feel safe when two out of three studies aren't being done, and the FDA doesn't even have the authority to get them done?"
While the FDA has no authority under law to require those studies be performed, it approves some drugs with outstanding safety concerns on the promise that the maker will conduct post-market studies to determine if the medication causes any side effects.
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'Neglected' Diseases Need More World Focus: WHO Chief
The international community must pay more attention to "neglected" diseases that affect a billion people in the developing world and cause more suffering and death than high-profile health threats such as bird flu, says Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization.
These diseases don't receive much attention because they don't pose a threat to international health and security, Chan told a health conference in Bangkok, Thailand, CBC News reported.
"They do not flare up in outbreaks with high mortality. They do not grab media headlines. They do not travel abroad or threaten international security," Chan said.
She also noted that these diseases affect populations with low literacy and little political voice, CBC News reported. Pharmaceutical companies have little financial incentive to develop drugs and vaccines for these diseases and poor health care systems hinder the delivery of available drugs, she added.
These "neglected" or "silent" diseases include:
* Lymphatic filariasis -- a parasitic disease that causes swelling in limbs
* Schistosomiasis (snail fever) -- a parasitic disease that leaves people too weak to work
* Trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) -- a parasitic disease that overwhelms the immune system.
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Studies Raise Concerns About Abuse of Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizers
Concerns about the abuse of alcohol-based hand sanitizers are highlighted in case studies published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. The alcohol in these products is not the same as the type found in drinks.
One letter to the journal describes the case of a 49-year-old U.S. prison inmate who became intoxicated by drinking alcohol-based hand sanitizer. The letter said the inmate was described as becoming "red-eyed, loony and combative," after he was seen to drink from a gallon container of Purell hand sanitizer, CBC News reported.
A second letter describes a 43-year-old alcoholic with mysterious chest pains who drank hand wash that had isopropyl alcohol from a dispenser in a U.S. hospital washroom.
The authors of the second letter noted that ingesting about 200 milliliters of isopropanol can prove fatal because it depresses the central nervous system and the heart, CBC News reported.
It may be a good idea to change the labels on alcohol-based hand sanitizers, the authors concluded.
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2. February 2007 @ 08:27 |
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Earth Will Survive Global Warming, But Will We?
By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 01 February 2007
08:16 am ET
The notion that human activity, or the activity of any organism, can affect Earth on a planetary scale is still a hard one for many people to swallow. And it is this kind of disbelief that fuels much of the public skepticism surrounding global warming.
A poll conducted last summer by the Pew Research Center found that only 41 percent of Americans believe the burning of fossil fuels causes global warming. But in a meeting this week in Paris, officials from 113 nations have agreed that a highly anticipated international report will state that global warming was "very likely'' caused by human activity.
The idea that biology can alter the planet in broad and dramatic ways is widely accepted among scientists, and they point to several precedents throughout the history of life.
* How Global Warming Works
* Global Warming's Most Surprising Effects
* What You Can Do
The mighty microbes
Human-caused global warming?also called ?anthropogenic? global warming?is the latest example of life altering Earth, but it is not the most dramatic.
That title probably goes to the oxygenation of Earth?s early atmosphere by ancient microbes as they began to harness the power of sunlight through photosynthesis.
Humans ?are having a strong effect on global geochemical cycles, but it does not compare at all to the advent of oxygenic photosynthesis,? said Katrina Edwards, a geo-microbiologist at the University of Southern California (USC). ?That was a catastrophic environmental change that occurred before 2.2 billion years ago [which] wreaked its full wrath on the Earth system.?
Edwards studies another way life impacts the planet in largely unseen ways. She focuses on how microbes living on the murky ocean floor transform minerals through a kind of underwater alchemy. For example, microbes facilitate a chemical process called oxidation, whereby oxygen in sea water combines with magma oozing up from the ocean floor to change, for example, one form of iron into another.
?These [microbes] are completely off radar in terms of global biogeochemical cycles,? Edwards told LiveScience. "We don't consider them as part of the Earth system right now in our calculation about what's going on, and we don't consider them in terms of how the Earth system will move forward into the future."
These reactions are strongly influenced by life and have been occurring for billions of years, for as long as the oceans have been oxygenated and there have been microbes inhabiting the seafloor, Edwards said.
Creating Earth
On land, microbes, and in particular a form of bacteria called cyanobacteria, help keep soil in place and suppress dust.
?We?d certainly have way more dust storms and it would not be anywhere as nice on Earth if they weren?t around,? said Jayne Belnap, a researcher with the United States Geological Survey.
Scientists believe the tiny critters performed the same roles on early Earth. ?One of the big conundrums for geologists is that, OK, you have this big ball of rock, the soil is weathering out and you have these ferocious winds. What in the world is holding the soil in place as it weathers out of the rocks?? Belnap said in a telephone interview. ?Cyanobacteria are also credited with that function.?
The microbes anchored soil to the ground; this created habitats for land plants to evolve and eventually for us to evolve. ?They literally created Earth in a sense,? Belnap said.
?Cyanobacteria are just like ?it,?? she continued. ?I?ve been telling everybody to make a small altar and offer sacrifices every night. We owe them everything.?
A snowball planet
The mighty microbes also triggered sudden climatic shifts similar to what humans are doing now. Recent studies suggest that the proliferation of cyanobacteria 2.3 billion years ago led to a sudden ice age and the creation of a ?Snowball Earth.?
As they carry out photosynthesis, cyanobacteria break apart water and release oxygen as a waste product. Oxygen is one of the most reactive elements around, and its release into the atmosphere in large amounts destroyed methane, a greenhouse gas that absorbed the sun's energy and helped keep our planet warm.
Some scientists think the disappearance of this methane blanket plunged the planet into a cold spell so severe that Earth?s equator was covered by a mile-thick layer of ice.
Earth might still be frozen today if not for the appearance of new life forms. As organisms evolved, many developed the ability to breathe oxygen. In the process, they exhaled another greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, which eventually thawed out the world.
That was the first biologically triggered ice age, but others followed, said Richard Kopp, a Caltech researcher who helped piece together the Snowball Earth scenario.
A new leaf
When trees first appeared about 380 million years ago, they also disturbed Earth?s atmospheric equilibrium.
Unlike animals, plants breathe in carbon dioxide and expel oxygen. Trees transform some of that atmospheric carbon into lignin?the major constituent of wood and one of the most abundant proteins on the planet. Lignin is resistant to decay, so when a tree dies, much of its carbon becomes buried instead of released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere thins the blanket of gases that keeps Earth warm, and that cooling effect can trigger global cooling, possibly even an ice age.
?There was some glaciation that started around that period that was driven at least in part by the evolution of land plants,? Kopp said in a telephone interview.
Trees also affected the global carbon cycle in another indirect way. As they tunnel through the ground, tree roots break down silicate rocks into sediment and soil. Silicate rock contains large amounts of calcium and magnesium. When these elements are exposed to air, they react with atmospheric carbon dioxide to form calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate, compounds that are widespread on Earth.
The human difference
Though it might seem as if humans are mere fleas along for a ride on the back of an immense animal called Earth, our intelligence, technology and sheer numbers mean our species packs a punch that can shake the world in wild ways.
While we are not the first species to drastically alter our planet, our influence is unique in a number of ways, scientists say.
For one thing, humans have developed large-scale industry, said Spencer Weart, a science historian at the American Institute of Physics. ?We are capable of mobilizing things beyond our own biology,? Weart said. ?I emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide, but my automobile emits far more.?
Another is the rate at which humans are warming Earth.
?Humans are the most common large animal to ever walk the planet,? said Kirk Johnson, a chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. ?Population, plus brain power and technology, is a potent combination and the result is that humans are effecting change at very high rates.?
Belnap agrees. ?I don?t think we?ve fundamentally changed any process. We?ve just cranked up the speed,? she said. ?We haven?t introduced anything new. We?ve just changed how fast or slow it happens, and mostly fast.?
But no matter how high humans cause the mercury to rise and how much damage we do to the planet, Earth and life will survive, scientists say. It just might no longer be in the form we prefer or the form that allows us to thrive.
?What we need to be thinking of as humans causing changes to the Earth system is what the consequences will be to us human beings,? said Edwards, the USC geo-microbiologist. ?The Earth could care less. We will be recorded as a minor perturbation in the Earth system. The Earth will go on. The question is: Will we??
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2. February 2007 @ 08:30 |
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Why Ancient Greeks are Always Nude
By Corey Binns
Special to LiveScience
posted: 02 February 2007
09:16 am ET
Male nudes are the norm in Greek art, even though historians have stated that ancient Greeks kept their clothes on for the most part. New research suggests that art might have been imitating life more closely than previously thought.
Nudity was a costume used by artists to depict various roles of men, ranging from heroicism and status to defeat.
"In ancient Greek art, there are many different kinds of nudity that can mean many different things," said Jeffrey Hurwit, an historian of ancient art at the University of Oregon. "Sometimes they are contradictory."
Hurwit's newly published research shows that the Greeks did walk around in the buff in some situations. Men strode about free of their togas in the bedroom and at parties called symposia, where they would eat, drink and carouse. Nudity was also common on the athletic fields and at the Olympic games. (Because there are so many images of Greek athletes, some lay people have assumed the Greeks were in their birthday suits all the time.)
Battling nudity
However, nudity was often risky for the Greeks.
"Greek males, it is generally agreed, did not walk around town naked, they did not ride their horses naked, and they certainly did not go into battle naked," Hurwit said. "In most public contexts, clothing was not optional, and in combat nakedness was suicidal."
Warriors and heroes are often, but not always, represented in the nude. Artists demonstrated the physical prowess men used to defeat their enemies. But, as Hurwit said, if you can go into battle naked, you've got to be pretty good.
However, heroes weren't the only men disrobed by ancient artists.
Here's looking at you
Hurwit's research, published in the Jan. issue of the American Journal of Archaeology, also found examples of defeated, dying and dead naked men. In these cases, nudity was chosen to represent the subjects' vulnerabilities.
Meanwhile, common laborers were also drawn undressed, illustrating their sweat and muscles to show how hard they worked. Gods and people of higher social class were sometimes?but not always?depicted in the buff to demonstrate their place in society.
Hurwit's research of these nuances of Greek art also offers a glimpse into the cultural source of our civilization today.
"We can try to understand ourselves and our conception of what it means to be a hero and to exceed normal expectations," Hurwit told LiveScience. "The more we know about other cultures, the deeper we will be able to understand our own culture and ourselves."
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2. February 2007 @ 08:32 |
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Deadly Superbugs are Talking About You
By Maria Cheng
Associated Press
posted: 01 February 2007
02:28 pm ET
LONDON (AP) ? Do germs communicate? Many scientists think so and are betting the chatter may hold the key to developing the next generation of drugs to fight killer superbugs.
The conventional wisdom has long been that the carpet-bombing approach is the best way to fight infection. But as evidence of bacterial bonding has mounted in the past decade, researchers are now focusing on antibiotics that will break down the lines of communication.
In the last 20 years, the number of scientists working in this field has jumped from a few solitary researchers to thousands. In Britain, the strategy is one of the top research priorities of a newly formed center dedicated to stopping superbugs.
?Bacteria are a bit like an army going into battle,'' said Dr. Paul Williams, professor of molecular biology at the center at Nottingham University. ?Only when they've got strength in numbers do they tell their troops to start firing.''
The thinking is that if bacterial communication can be interrupted, the microbes might be incapacitated before doing any damage. And by not killing off the bacteria, they won't have the Darwinian opportunity to evolve into resistant strains.
Scientists are still years away from producing a commercially available drug. But if the strategy proves successful, it could open the way for new weapons against superbugs such as the deadly MRSA superbug ? whose infection rate has jumped dramatically in the last two decades.
Researchers refer to the bacterial communication system as ?quorum sensing.'' Just like in a company boardroom, a quorum is needed before any major action can be taken.
Bacteria communicate with each other by sending out a chemical signal that is in turn picked up by special receptors. Williams and his colleagues are developing enzymes to destroy the signal molecules.
Experts are also trying to break into other bacterial social activities. For instance, bacteria congregating to form a ?biofilm'' achieve a type of super-resistance.
?If we can break them up, we can kill them,'' said Dr. Pete Greenberg, a microbiology professor at the University of Washington. Greenberg is working on methods to disable a bacteria that frequently attacks people with cystic fibrosis.
New strategies to fight bugs that don't end up boosting their immunity would be a big boost. Pharmaceuticals companies have been reluctant to invest in traditional antibiotics because many germs can develop resistance within months. The last new classes of antibiotics appeared in the 1990s.
?With only one or two antibiotics that are effective against a major pathogen, we are potentially living on borrowed time,'' warned Dr. Richard James, director of Britain's newly established Centre for Healthcare Associated Infections at Nottingham University.
?Unless we do something to change the situation, we are facing a post-antibiotic apocalypse.''
James, who is not involved in quorum sensing research, believes that it is one of the most promising avenues to developing new antibiotics. ?Perhaps the answer to the problem of increasing bacterial resistance is for us to be even more clever than the bacteria,'' he said. ?We could do this if we have antibiotics that disable the bacteria, which may then allow the host's immune system to kick in.''
Still, there are no guarantees that antibiotics based on quorum sensing will work. For instance, it's uncertain if knocking out communication lines in later stages of an infection would have any impact.
?There are no experiments to show that in a raging infection, a quorum sensing inhibitor could calm it down,'' said Greenberg. ?It might already be too late by the time patients turn up with an infection.''
But with no new antibiotics on the horizon, scientists say new strategies must be attempted.
?Drugs that inhibit quorum sensing are in the unproven category, but there is still a possibility they could work,'' said Dr. Anthony Coates, a professor of medical microbiology at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London. ?Quorum sensing might produce very effective antibiotics, but they might only work on specific species of bacteria,'' he said, adding that further tests on existing compounds is needed.
?The cupboard is running bare, and without any new antibiotics, we have to keep trying.''
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2. February 2007 @ 08:35 |
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New Super-Size TVs: Action Larger than Life
By Lamont Wood
Special to LiveScience
posted: 31 January 2007
07:57 am ET
Don?t want to be squinting at your TV screen during the Super Bowl? Perhaps you?d be happier with one that?s about 4 feet by 8 feet. In close-up shots, the players will be larger than the people in your living room. The effect of wide shots is like looking out a large window.
This experience can be yours for about half the price of a small house in some suburbs.
Panasonic announced a 103-inch (diagonal measurement) flat-panel TV last year that in December officially went on sale in the United States, with a product code (TH-103PZ600U) and a suggested retail price of $69,999.95. They?ve sold several, including one to billionaire Mark Cuban, and two to NBC for use on the set of a sports program. Weighing nearly 500 pounds, they take a fork-lift to move and require professional installation?but you can probably hold out for free delivery [see the TV].
Actually, Panasonic was obviously just trying to one-up Samsung, which had earlier come out with a 102-inch unit. Raising the ante in early January was Sharp, which answered Panasonic by coming out with a 108-inch unit.
* Super Bowl Hightlights Available on iTunes
Where can this end?
Actually, with the Sharp announcement the size war may have ended, Kurt Scherf, home entertainment industry analyst at Parks Associates in Dallas, told LiveScience.
Scherf said the flat-panel TV world is split between competing camps that use LCD and plasma technology, and the plasma camp formerly had an edge in its ability to make larger units. The Samsung and Panasonic units were plasma panels. But the new king of the hill, the 108-inch Sharp unit, is an LCD panel, signaling that the LCD camp has caught up.
?Where mainstream consumers are looking for their TVs is square in the 36- to 50-inch range,? Scherf said. ?The only reason to make them bigger is for validation.?
* Who Invented the TV Dinner?
On the other hand, ?There?s a constant race to make bigger and bigger display panels, because being able to make bigger panels drives down your production costs,? said Steve Wilson, an analyst at ABI Research in Oyster Bay, NY. ?You can chop them up to make moderate-sized TVs, or you can leave them intact and someone might buy one.?
Sharp's unit was on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January.
?What were they talking about at the Consumer Electronics Show? Sharp?s huge TV,? said Eric Haruki, research director at IDC, a market research firm in Framingham, MA.
?Having the biggest creates buzz, and puts your brand on top of my brand?that?s 90 percent of the reason for making them," Haruki said in a recent telephone interview. "But the other 10 percent is a legitimate business venture?they do sell them."
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Senior Member
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2. February 2007 @ 10:22 |
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Last night we finished a 118in install for my sister for the Superbowl...We are ready for Sunday...IT's been a 2 year home theatre project...Its projection...but it's a DWIN...Amazing picture...3,200 watt sound system...10.1 surround...
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 2. February 2007 @ 16:17
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2. February 2007 @ 15:43 |
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On those 70 grand TV's I take two please, lol.
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2. February 2007 @ 18:26 |
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Physicists find way to 'see' extra dimensions Discussion at PhysOrgForum
http://www.physorg.com/news89651914.html
Physicists find way to 'see' extra dimensions
A computer-generated rendering of a possible six-dimensional geometry similar to those studied by UW-Madison physicist Gary Shiu. Image: courtesy Andrew J. Hanson, Indiana University
Peering backward in time to an instant after the big bang, physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have devised an approach that may help unlock the hidden shapes of alternate dimensions of the universe.
A new study demonstrates that the shapes of extra dimensions can be "seen" by deciphering their influence on cosmic energy released by the violent birth of the universe 13 billion years ago. The method, published today (Feb. 2) in Physical Review Letters, provides evidence that physicists can use experimental data to discern the nature of these elusive dimensions - the existence of which is a critical but as yet unproven element of string theory, the leading contender for a unified "theory of everything."
Scientists developed string theory, which proposes that everything in the universe is made of tiny, vibrating strings of energy, to encompass the physical principles of all objects from immense galaxies to subatomic particles. Though currently the front-runner to explain the framework of the cosmos, the theory remains, to date, untested.
The mathematics of string theory suggests that the world we know is not complete. In addition to our four familiar dimensions - three-dimensional space and time - string theory predicts the existence of six extra spatial dimensions, "hidden" dimensions curled in tiny geometric shapes at every single point in our universe.
Don't worry if you can't picture a 10-dimensional world. Our minds are accustomed to only three spatial dimensions and lack a frame of reference for the other six, says UW-Madison physicist Gary Shiu, who led the new study. Though scientists use computers to visualize what these six-dimensional geometries could look like (see image), no one really knows for sure what shape they take.
The new Wisconsin work may provide a long-sought foundation for measuring this previously immeasurable aspect of string theory.
According to string theory mathematics, the extra dimensions could adopt any of tens of thousands of possible shapes, each shape theoretically corresponding to its own universe with its own set of physical laws.
For our universe, "Nature picked one - and we want to know what that one looks like," explains Henry Tye, a physicist at Cornell University who was not involved in the new research.
Shiu says the many-dimensional shapes are far too small to see or measure through any usual means of observation, which makes testing this crucial aspect of string theory very difficult. "You can theorize anything, but you have to be able to show it with experiments," he says. "Now the problem is, how do we test it?"
He and graduate student Bret Underwood turned to the sky for inspiration.
Their approach is based on the idea that the six tiny dimensions had their strongest influence on the universe when it itself was a tiny speck of highly compressed matter and energy - that is, in the instant just after the big bang.
"Our idea was to go back in time and see what happened back then," says Shiu. "Of course, we couldn't really go back in time."
Lacking the requisite time machine, they used the next-best thing: a map of cosmic energy released from the big bang. The energy, captured by satellites such as NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), has persisted virtually unchanged for the last 13 billion years, making the energy map basically "a snapshot of the baby universe," Shiu says. The WMAP experiment is the successor to NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) project, which garnered the 2006 Nobel Prize in physics.
Just as a shadow can give an idea of the shape of an object, the pattern of cosmic energy in the sky can give an indication of the shape of the other six dimensions present, Shiu explains.
To learn how to read telltale signs of the six-dimensional geometry from the cosmic map, they worked backward. Starting with two different types of mathematically simple geometries, called warped throats, they calculated the predicted energy map that would be seen in the universe described by each shape. When they compared the two maps, they found small but significant differences between them.
Their results show that specific patterns of cosmic energy can hold clues to the geometry of the six-dimensional shape - the first type of observable data to demonstrate such promise, says Tye.
Though the current data are not precise enough to compare their findings to our universe, upcoming experiments such as the European Space Agency's Planck satellite should have the sensitivity to detect subtle variations between different geometries, Shiu says.
"Our results with simple, well-understood shapes give proof of concept that the geometry of hidden dimensions can be deciphered from the pattern of cosmic energy," he says. "This provides a rare opportunity in which string theory can be tested."
Technological improvements to capture more detailed cosmic maps should help narrow down the possibilities and may allow scientists to crack the code of the cosmic energy map - and inch closer to identifying the single geometry that fits our universe.
The implications of such a possibility are profound, says Tye. "If this shape can be measured, it would also tell us that string theory is correct."
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison
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xhardc0re
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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2. February 2007 @ 22:43 |
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My rebuttal to the news post about that dimensional stuff can be read here. If anyone tells you that the world is 3D, remember to tell them No it's 4D. They're being a tool LOL
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 3. February 2007 @ 08:42
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3. February 2007 @ 06:14 |
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Wanted: one tropical paradise for file-sharing, freedom
2/2/2007 12:53:59 PM, by Nate Anderson
The dream refuses to die. After The Pirate Bay failed in its quest to buy Sealand, some supporters of the idea believed that the idea of a libertarian paradise was too precious to drop, and they entertained hopes of hoisting the "live free or die" flag over another island, possibly Ile de Caille, a small and uninhabited island off the South American coast.
Thus began the Free Nation Foundation, a group that hopes to form its own country governed by a "philosophy of freedom" where "people could actually live" (as opposed to all those other countries, where living has been outlawed by tyrants).
The failure of the Sealand deal, it turns out, was a good thing. The rusting naval platform "was too small and aesthetically displeasing to support such a goal," according to the group, and the weather in the middle of the English Channel is not the stuff of which vacation fantasies are made.
The Free Nation Foundation is a bit like the Free State Project on steroids. The Free Staters hope to convince 20,000 committed libertarians to pull up stakes and relocate to New Hampshire, a state chosen for its long history of independence, its low tax rate, and its unrestrictive gun laws that allow people to pack heat anywhere except in a courtroom, without even picking up a permit.
The Free Nation Foundation hopes for something similar, but their focus is more global. The idea is that libertarians from around the world will converge on an island paradise where they can live truly free lives, a place where "the only valid restrictions are those upon actions that disallow the freedom of others."
Suggested principles for the place include absolute democracy and the free flow of information?as a group that sprung from The Pirate Bay, we imagine that information will flow very freely. The idea is still in the incubation period, though if it ever comes to fruition, it would be a fascinating sociological experiment (documentary filmmakers, are you listening?). Would it end up like utopia, or Lord of the Flies?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070202-8762.html
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3. February 2007 @ 06:29 |
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Key Found to the Smell of the Sea
Andrea Thompson
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Fri Feb 2, 12:40 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/2007...hesmellofthesea
A trip to the beach means sand between your toes, salt water in your mouth and that aromatic sea air in your nose. But what gives the ocean air that delightful and distinctive smell? Scientists have not known the full story until now.
The smell comes from a gas produced by genes recently identified by researchers in ocean-dwelling bacteria.
Understanding how the odorous gas is produced could be important because it is implicated in cloud formation over the ocean and helps some animals find food.
Knowledge gap
Scientists had long known that bacteria could be found consuming decay products and producing a gas called dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, in places where plankton and marine plants such as seaweed were dying. This pungent gas is what gives ocean air "sort of a fishy, tangy smell," said study author Andrew Johnston of the University of East Anglia.
But while "it was known that quite a lot of bacteria could [produce DMS], no one had thought to ask how," Johnston told LiveScience.
So that's exactly what he and his colleagues set out to do.
The team took samples of mud from the salt marshes along Britain's coast, and isolated a new strain of bacteria. After sequencing its genes and comparing the genetic structure to other known bacteria, they were able to identify the gene involved in the mechanism that converts the plants' decay products, called DMSP, into DMS.
The mechanism responsible "was absolutely not what anyone expected," Johnston said. The study's findings are detailed in the Feb. 2 issue of the journal Science.
Unexpected twist
Scientists had thought that a simple enzyme would be used to break down the DMSP into DMS, but the process turned out to be more complicated as the DMSP proved tougher to breakdown than suspected.
As with many other processes, the bacteria are cleverly conservative: the mechanism stays off until decaying plankton are around. But when a plankton bloom in the ocean is, for example, killed off by a viral attack, the bacteria rush in to reap the benefit.
"The bacteria will only switch on the genes to break down DMSP if the DMSP is around," Johnston said.
Johnston and his team were also able to clone the gene and transfer it to bacteria that lacked it, including E. coli, giving the bacteria the ability to produce DMS gas.
This mechanism is neither the only way, nor the primary way, that bacteria break down the estimated 1 billion tons of DMSP in the ocean, Johnston said, but it is important nonetheless as DMS releases over the open ocean influences cloud formation, which can influence Earth's climate.
Some seabirds rely on DMS as a homing scent to find food. On one occasion during their field research, Johnston and his team opened a bottle filled with the DMS-producing bacteria only to be bombarded by hungry seabirds.
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3. February 2007 @ 06:30 |
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Coins Don't Smell, You Do
By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 24 October 2006
08:20 am ET
Scientists have sniffed out the reason for the musty, "metallic" odor you smell after handling coins or touching metal objects.
A new study finds that the smell of iron is, ironically, a type of human body odor, created by the breakdown of oils in skin after touching objects that contain the element.
"That we are smelling the metal itself is actually an illusion," said study team member Dietmar Glindemann of the University of Leipzig in Germany.
In an experiment, seven test subjects reported smelling the metallic odor after their hands came into contact with iron. Researchers took gas samples from the subjects' skins and traced the smell to 1-octen-2-one, an organic molecule formed when certain oils in skin decompose.
Scientists think it works like this: When touching objects made of iron, perspiration from skin causes the iron atoms to gain two electrons. The doubly negative iron atoms react with oil in skin, causing them to decompose, forming 1-octen-2-one.
Because blood contains iron, rubbing blood over skin produces a similar metallic smell, the researchers said.
"That humans can 'smell' iron can be interpreted as a sense for the smell of blood," Glindemann said.
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3. February 2007 @ 06:31 |
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When a Woman Smells Best
By Sara Goudarzi
Special to LiveScience
posted: 18 January 2006
07:52 am ET
The scent of a woman is more attractive at certain times of the month, suggests a new study that had men sniffing women's armpit odor.
"We were interested whether armpit odor changes across menstrual cycle," said study author Jan Havlieek of the Department of Anthropology at Charles University, Prague. "To test this, we asked a group of women to wear cotton pads in their armpits for 24 hours."
The women didn't wear perfumes, use deodorants, eat spicy or smelly foods, smoke, drink alcohol or use hormonal contraceptives such as the pill. Body odor was collected during three phases: menstrual (at the beginning); follicular (between the first day of menstruation and the onset of ovulation); and luteal (the fertile stage).
"The fresh pads were subsequently rated for their attractiveness and intensity by a group of 42 men," Havlieek told LiveScience.
The most attractive smells, men said, were from the time between the first day of menstruation and ovulation.
The cycle
The typically 28-day menstrual cycle involves the physiological changes that occur in a woman to prepare for a possibility of pregnancy. It is controlled by the reproductive hormone system.
A cycle is divided into four parts and starts on the first day of menstruation, which is the shedding of tissue and blood from the womb. In the follicular phase, a dominant ovarian follicle?which is a sack that contains the ova, or egg?grows, becoming ready to ovulate. The mature egg is then released in the phase known as ovulation around day 12. The cycle ends with the fertile phase.
Although many men would tell you they're always in the mood, Havlieek and colleagues discovered that men find odors during the follicular phase the most attractive and least intense. On the other hand, the highest intensity smells, corresponding to the lowest attractiveness for men, were found during the time of menstrual bleeding.
"Traditionally it's believed that ovulation in human female is concealed and there are no changes in attractiveness across the cycle," Havlieek said.
The study is detailed in the January issue of the journal Ethology.
Further sniffing
Two other studies by different research teams came to similar conclusions. But those investigationsused T-shirts for odor sampling, "making it difficult to pinpoint the source of the smell," said Havlieek, whose team restricted sampling to armpits only.
Finally, the attractiveness of women's faces also changes during the month.
Havlieek's team found that facial images of women in the follicular phase?when the dominant ovarian follicle is getting ready to ovulate?are considered more attractive as compared to images taken in the luteal or fertile phase of the cycle.
The researchers hope to find out which chemical compounds are responsible for the odor changes across a woman's menstrual cycle.
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3. February 2007 @ 06:33 |
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How to Make Body Odor Smell Pleasant, in a Word
By LiveScience Staff
posted: 18 May 2005
12:06 pm ET
If it stinks like body odor and you're trying to sell it, just call it cheese.
That's the message from a new study that finds people perceive a scent differently based on the word that goes with the smell.
Researchers exposed test subjects to the smell of cheddar cheese. Some saw labels that read "cheddar cheese." Others were shown labels that read "body odor." Those who were told they were smelling cheese rated the scent more pleasant.
The study also imaged people's brains during follow-up tests. The results were as complex as, well, the brain.
The cheese label activated a certain part of the brain that processes olfactory information (the signals coming from the nose). When people smelled clean air that was also labeled as cheese, the same brain area was activated, but not as much. When they saw the body odor label, that brain location was not activated, regardless of whether they were sniffing cheese or clean air.
The plucky test subjects also got to enjoy the smell of properly labeled flowers and burned plastic, showing that different parts of the brain note pleasant smells versus unpleasant.
The work was led by Edmund Rolls of the University of Oxford.
It's not clear if words cause people to imagine a smell or if it just affects how their brains process odors. But this much is now clear:
"High-level cognitive inputs, such as the sight of a word, can influence the activity in brain regions that are activated by olfactory stimuli," Rolls and his colleagues write in the May 19 issue of the journal Neuron.
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3. February 2007 @ 06:42 |
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Rare but Real: People Who Feel, Taste and Hear Color
By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 22 February, 2005
7:00 a.m. ET
When Ingrid Carey says she feels colors, she does not mean she sees red, or feels blue, or is green with envy. She really does feel them.
She can also taste them, and hear them, and smell them.
The 20-year-old junior at the University of Maine has synesthesia, a rare neurological condition in which two or more of the senses entwine. Numbers and letters, sensations and emotions, days and months are all associated with colors for Carey.
The letter "N" is sienna brown; "J" is light green; the number "8" is orange; and July is bluish-green.
The pain from a shin split throbs in hues of orange and yellow, purple and red, Carey told LiveScience.
Colors in Carey's world have properties that most of us would never dream of: red is solid, powerful and consistent, while yellow is pliable, brilliant and intense. Chocolate is rich purple and makes Carey?s breath smell dark blue. Confusion is orange.
Scientific acceptance
Long dismissed as a product of overactive imaginations or a sign of mental illness, synesthesia has grudgingly come to be accepted by scientists in recent years as an actual phenomenon with a real neurological basis. Some researchers now believe it may yield valuable clues to how the brain is organized and how perception works.
"The study of synesthesia [has] encouraged people to rethink historical ideas that synesthesia was abnormal and an aberration," says Amy Ione, director of the Diatrope Institute, a California-based group interested in the arts and sciences.
The cause remains a mystery, however.
According to one idea, irregular sprouting of new neural connections within the brain leads to a breakdown of the boundaries that normally exist between the senses. In this view, synesthesia is the collective chatter of sensory neighbors once confined to isolation.
Another theory, based on research conducted by Daphne Maurer and Catherine Mondloch at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, suggests all infants may begin life as synesthetes. In this way of thinking, animals and humans are born with immature brains that are highly malleable. Connections between different sensory parts of the brain exists that later become pruned or blocked as an organism matures, Mondloch explained.
Maurer and Mondloch hypothesize that if these connections between the senses are functional, as some experiments suggest, then infants should experience the world in a way that is similar to synesthetic adults.
In a variation of this theory, babies don?t have five distinct senses but rather one all-encompassing sense that responds to the total amount of incoming stimulation. So when a baby hears her mother?s voice, she is also seeing it and smelling it.
Technology lags
Maurer and Mondloch?s pruning hypothesis is intriguing, says Bruno Laeng, a psychology professor at the University of Tromso, Norway. But he adds a caution.
"At present, we do not have the technology to observe brain-connection changes in the living human brain and how these relate to mental changes," Laeng said in an email interview.
Like other scientists, Laeng also questions whether synesthesia needs such extra neural connections in order to occur. Advancements in current brain imaging techniques may one day allow the pruning hypothesis to be tested directly, he said.
According to another theory that does not rely on extra connections, synesthesia arises when normally covert channels of communications between the senses are exposed to the light of consciousness.
All of us are able to perceive the world as a unified whole because there is a complex interaction between the senses in the brain, the thinking goes. Ordinarily, these interconnections are not explicitly experienced, but in the brains of synesthetes, "those connections are ?unmasked? and can enter conscious awareness," said Megan Steven, a neuroscientist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Because this unmasking theory relies on neural connections everyone has, it may explain why certain drugs, like LSD or mescaline, can induce synesthesia in some individuals.
'Like I'm crazy'
Many synesthetes fear ridicule for their unusual abilities. They can feel isolated and alone in their experiences.
"Most people that I?d explain it to would either be fascinated or look at me like I?m crazy," Carey said. "Especially friends who were of a very logical mindset. They would be very perplexed."
The study of synesthesia is therefore important for synesthetes, says Daniel Smilek, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.
Research is revealing synesthetes to be a varied bunch.
Smilek and colleagues have identified two groups of synesthetes among those who associate letters and numbers with colors, he explained in a telephone interview. For individuals in one group, which Smilek calls "projector" synesthetes, the synesthetic color can fill the printed letter or it can appear directly in front of their eyes, as if projected onto an invisible screen. In contrast, "associate" synesthetes see the colors in their "mind?s eye" rather than outside their bodies.
In Carey?s case, the colors appear in quick flashes right behind her eyes, blinking in and out of existence as quickly as ocean foam. Other times they linger, coalescing and dividing like sunlight on the surface of a soap bubble.
'No mere curiosity'
Other subgroups have also been identified.
The synesthesia of those in the "perceptual" category is triggered by sensory stimuli like sights and sounds, whereas "conceptual" synesthetes respond to abstract concepts like time. One conceptual synesthete described the months of the year as a flat ribbon surrounding her body, each month a distinct color. February was pale green and oriented directly in front of her.
Richard Cytowic, a neuroscientist and author of "The Man Who Tasted Shapes" (Bradford Books, 1998), has watched the scientific shift in attitudes toward the condition in recent years.
"Many of my colleagues claimed that synesthesia was ?made up? because it went against prevailing theory," Cytowic told LiveScience. "Today, everyone recognizes synesthesia as no mere curiosity but important to fundamental principles of how the brain is organized."
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3. February 2007 @ 06:44 |
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The Sexy, Healthy Scent of a Man
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
02:06 pm ET
The scent of a man, at least among mice, can reveal the state of his health and determine whether a female gets pregnant, a new study shows.
The research suggests that other animals, perhaps even you, choose mates in part based on the strength of their immune systems.
Previous research had shown mice prefer to breed with mates whose immune-system genes -- which produce chemicals that help the body fight invading cells -- are different from their own. Such selective sex leads to healthier offspring.
The new study shows how the selection occurs.
Researchers at the University of Maryland examined molecules known as peptides that come from the immune system and end up in urine. Each mouse's disease-fighting peptides are unique, like fingerprints. A female records and remembers the scent of a mate's peptides using its vomeronasal organ, inside the nose.
"Exposure, during a critical period, to urine odor from another male, will prevent embryo implantation, leading to loss of pregnancy, while exposure to the familiar odor will not," said Frank Zufall of the university's School of Medicine.
Spiking the punch
"We can trick this odor memory and the outcome of the pregnancy-block test by adding peptides to urine," Zufall told LiveScience. "In other words, we can switch an unfamiliar urine odor to a familiar one (and vice versa) by spiking the urine with only a few peptides."
Other studies have shown that vomeronasal organs in many animals detect pheromones and other molecules that pack information on sexual and social status. Pheromones were first discovered in the 1950s to be sex attractants in insects.
"We believe that detection of [immune system] peptides via the nose may be of general significance for social behaviors in all vertebrates," Zufall said.
The study was led by Trese Leinders-Zufall and will be detailed in the Nov. 5 issue of the journal Science.
Picky, picky
Similar peptides exist in human immune systems. But our vomeronasal organ has apparently been rendered defunct by evolution, many scientists believe, though there's some uncertainty about this. In fact the question of how and whether scent affects a woman has been widely debated in recent years.
Since discovering powerful sex pheremones in silkworms decades ago, scientists have been hot to learn whether humans could be similarly stimulated. The investigation has proved frustrating.
"Compared to insects, whose behavior is stereotyped and highly predictable, mammals are independent, ornery, complex creatures," notes writer Maya Pines of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Like any animal, we humans are picky. And that provides a line of investigation.
Stinky T-shirts
In 1996, Claus Wedekind, a zoologist at Bern University in Switzerland, conducted what's become known as the stinky T-shirt study. Wedekind had 44 men each wear a t-shirt for two nights straight, then tested how women reacted to the smelly shirts.
Like mice, women preferred the scent of men whose immune systems were unlike their own. If a man's immune system was similar, a woman tended to describe his T-shirt as smelling like her father or brother.
Since then, companies have developed pheremone-based perfumes and cologns, with promises of increased sexual attraction. Researchers don't agree on their effectiveness.
More research is needed to figure out how and to what extent a woman's nose leads her to sex, and how adept she is at picking a healthy partner.
"We cannot rule out that other parts of the human nose are able to detect the peptides," Frank Zufall said. "We can now ask whether these peptides are present in human secretions such as sweat and saliva, whether they can be detected by the human nose, and if so, whether they have any influence on our own social behavior."
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3. February 2007 @ 07:54 |
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FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,FREE,
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OS Support: Windows 2000/9x/XP
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Beta 2... sexy!
FastStone Image Viewer is an image browser, viewer, converter and editor with an easy to use interface and a nice array of features that include resizing, renaming, cropping, color adjustments, watermarks and more.
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 3. February 2007 @ 07:57
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Dimension
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Dimensions)
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For other senses of this word, see dimension (disambiguation).
In common usage, a dimension (Latin, "measured out") is a parameter or measurement required to define the characteristics of an object?i.e. length, width, and height or size and shape. In mathematics, dimensions are the parameters required to describe the position and relevant characteristics of any object within a conceptual space ?where the dimensions of a space are the total number of different parameters used for all possible objects considered in the model. Generalizations of this concept are possible and different fields of study will define their spaces by their own relevant dimensions, and use these spaces as frameworks upon which all other study (in that area) is based. In specialized contexts, units of measurement may sometimes be "dimensions"?meters or feet in geographical space models, or cost and price in models of a local economy.
For example, locating a point on a plane (e.g. a city on a map of the Earth) requires two parameters ? latitude and longitude. The corresponding space has therefore two dimensions, its dimension is two, and this space is said to be 2-dimensional (2D). Locating the exact position of an aircraft in flight (relative to the Earth) requires another dimension (altitude), hence the position of the aircraft can be rendered in a three-dimensional space (3D).
If time is added as a 3rd or 4th dimension (to a 2D or 3D space, respectively), then the aircraft's estimated "speed" may be calculated from a comparison between the times associated with any two positions. For common uses, simply using "speed" (as a dimension) is a useful way of condensing (or translating) the more abstract time dimension, even if "speed" is not a dimension, but rather a calculation based on two dimensions. Adding the three Euler angles, for a total 6 dimensions, allows the current degrees of freedom ?orientation and trajectory ?of the aircraft to be known.
Theoretical physics often experiments with dimensions - adding more, or changing their properties - in order to describe unusual conceptual models of space, in order to help better describe concept of quantum mechanics ?ie. the 'physics beneath the visible physical world.' This concept has been borrowed in science fiction as a metaphorical device, where an "alternate dimension" (ie. 'alternate universe' or 'plane of existence') describes Extraterrestrial places, species, and cultures which function in various different and unusual ways from human culture.
The physical dimensions are the parameters required to answer the question where and when some event happened or will happen; for instance: When did Napoleon die? ? On the 5 May 1821 at Saint Helena (15°56′ S 5°42′ W). They play a fundamental role in our perception of the world around us. According to Immanuel Kant, we actually do not perceive them but they form the frame in which we perceive events; they form the a priori background in which events are perceived.
Spatial dimensions
Classical physics theories describe three physical dimensions: from a particular point in space, the basic directions in which we can move are up/down, left/right, and forward/backward. Movement in any other direction can be expressed in terms of just these three. Moving down is the same as moving up a negative amount. Moving diagonally upward and forward is just as the name of the direction implies; i.e., moving in a linear combination of up and forward. In its simplest form: a line describes one dimension, a plane describes two dimensions, and a cube describes three dimensions. (See Space and Cartesian coordinate system)
[edit] Time
Time is often referred to as the dimensional "fourth time repeated dimension." It is, in essence, one way to measure physical change. It is perceived very differently from the three spatial dimensions in that there is only one of it, and that movement seems to occur at a fixed rate and in one direction according to the Conjunction Theory by Andrew O'Desky in 1973.
The equations used in physics to model reality often do not treat time in the same way that humans perceive it. In particular, the equations of classical mechanics are symmetric with respect to time, and equations of quantum mechanics are typically symmetric if both time and other quantities (such as charge and parity) are reversed. In these models, the perception of time flowing in one direction is an artifact of the laws of thermodynamics (we perceive time as flowing in the direction of increasing entropy).
The best-known treatment of time as a dimension is Poincaré and Einstein's special relativity (and extended to general relativity), which treats perceived space and time as parts of a four-dimensional manifold.
[edit] Additional dimensions
Theories such as string theory and m theory predict that the space we live in has in fact 10 or 11 dimensions, respectively, but that the universe measured along these additional dimensions is subatomic in size. As a result, we perceive only the three spatial dimensions that have macroscopic size.
[edit] Units
In the physical sciences and in engineering, the dimension of a physical quantity is the expression of the class of physical unit that such a quantity is measured against. The dimension of speed, for example, is length divided by time. In the SI system, the dimension is given by the seven exponents of the fundamental quantities. See Dimensional analysis.
[edit] Mathematical dimensions
In mathematics, no definition of dimension adequately captures the concept in all situations where we would like to make use of it. Consequently, mathematicians have devised numerous definitions of dimension for different types of spaces. All, however, are ultimately based on the concept of the dimension of Euclidean n-space E n. The point E 0 is 0-dimensional. The line E 1 is 1-dimensional. The plane E 2 is 2-dimensional. And in general E n is n-dimensional.
A tesseract is an example of a four-dimensional object. Whereas outside of mathematics the use of the term "dimension" is as in: "A tesseract has four dimensions," mathematicians usually express this as: "The tesseract has dimension 4," or: "The dimension of the tesseract is 4."
The rest of this section examines some of the more important mathematical definitions of dimension.
[edit] Hamel dimension
For vector spaces, there is a natural concept of dimension, namely the cardinality of a basis. See Hamel dimension for details.
[edit] Manifolds
A connected topological manifold is locally homeomorphic to Euclidean n-space, and the number n is called the manifold's dimension. One can show that this yields a uniquely defined dimension for every connected topological manifold.
The theory of manifolds, in the field of geometric topology, is characterized by the way dimensions 1 and 2 are relatively elementary, the high-dimensional cases n > 4 are simplified by having extra space in which to 'work'; and the cases n = 3 and 4 are in some senses the most difficult. This state of affairs was highly marked in the various cases of the Poincaré conjecture, where four different proof methods are applied.
[edit] Lebesgue covering dimension
For any topological space, the Lebesgue covering dimension is defined to be n if n is the smallest integer for which the following holds: any open cover has a refinement (a second cover where each element is a subset of an element in the first cover) such that no point is included in more than n + 1 elements. For manifolds, this coincides with the dimension mentioned above. If no such n exists, then the dimension is infinite.
[edit] Inductive dimension
The inductive dimension of a topological space may refer to the small inductive dimension or the large inductive dimension, and is based on the analogy that n+1-dimensional balls have n dimensional boundaries, permitting an inductive definition based on the dimension of the boundaries of open sets.
[edit] Hausdorff dimension
For sets which are of a complicated structure, especially fractals, the Hausdorff dimension is useful. The Hausdorff dimension is defined for all metric spaces and, unlike the Hamel dimension, can also attain non-integer real values [1]. The box dimension is a variant of the same idea. In general, there exist more definitions of fractal dimensions that work for highly irregular sets and attain non-integer positive real values.
[edit] Hilbert spaces
Every Hilbert space admits an orthonormal basis, and any two such bases have the same cardinality. This cardinality is called the dimension of the Hilbert space. This dimension is finite if and only if the space's Hamel dimension is finite, and in this case the two dimensions coincide.
[edit] Krull dimension of commutative rings
The Krull dimension of a commutative ring, named after Wolfgang Krull (1899 - 1971), is defined to be the maximal number of strict inclusions in an increasing chain of prime ideals in the ring.
[edit] Negative dimension
The negative (fractal) dimension is introduced by Benoit Mandelbrot, in which, when it is positive gives the known definition, and when it is negative measures the degree of "emptiness" of empty sets. [2]
[edit] Science fiction
Science fiction texts often mention the concept of dimension, when really referring to parallel universes, alternate universes, or other planes of existence. This usage is derived from the idea that in order to travel to parallel/alternate universes/planes of existence one must travel in a spatial direction/dimension besides the standard ones. In effect, the other universes/planes are just a small distance away from our own, but the distance is in a fourth (or higher) spatial dimension, not the standard ones.
[edit] Penrose's singularity theorem
In his book The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, scientist Sir Roger Penrose explained his singularity theorem. It asserts that all theories that attribute more than three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension to the world of experience are unstable. The instabilities that exist in systems of such extra dimensions would result in their rapid collapse into a singularity. For that reason, Penrose wrote, the unification of gravitation with other forces through extra dimensions cannot occur.
LINK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensions
1) Kaluza-Klein theory is in 5 - dimensions and brings together Maxwell's Electromagnetic Equations and Einstein's General Relativity Field Equations in 4 dimensional Space-Time.
2) 11 dimensions would have 4 unfolded Space-Time dimensions and 7 folded dimensions.
3) 11 dimensions arises out of M-Theory. A string theory requires 10 dimensions to be self consistent. The problem is there are 5 different types of string theories with 10 dimensions. Witten proposed and proved that all these theories can be expressed as one theory in 11 dimensions. The theory is called M-Theory and with it equations in one string theory can be converted into equivalent but different equations in another theory. Since some problems are easier to compute in one theory than another, one can consistently move among the theories where the problem more easily solved.
4) Einstein and not Kaluza that tried to unify all the forces using principles similar to Kaluza-Klein. He did not succeed.
5) Calabi-Yau manifolds arise directly from the symmetries that most exist in the folded dimensions for the strings to be consistent - not generate infinities or contradictions. They are an integral property of the cosmic fabric of space described by the theory.
Now to answer your question given the above corrections - hopeful the question is still relevant. The strings and folded dimensions are on the order of Plank's length - 10^-33 cm for the theory to provide a consistent theory of gravity. This is far too small to be observed within a "lab" any time within the future of mankind.
However there may ways of observing it indirectly and proving the theory. If you are interested I would suggests Brian Greene "The Fabric of the Cosmos" to understand how the theory applies and how it may be tested in the future. It is higly readable and will keep you straightened out ;-)
Source(s):
Kaluza-Klien - http://www.matter-antimatter.com/kaluza-...
String Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/string_theo...
M Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/m-theory...
Edward Witten - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/edward_witt...
Calabi-Yau manifolds - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/calabi-yau...
Plank's Length - http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/...
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 3. February 2007 @ 08:49
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AfterDawn Addict
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3. February 2007 @ 09:57 |
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What is sexsomnia?
Falling asleep after sex is common, but falling, sleeping and staying asleep during sex is another matter. The condition is called sexsomnia.
Sexsomnia occurs when a person is asleep and yet proceeds to initiate sexual activity with their bedmate. Sexsomnia is also known as "somnambulistic sexual behaviour".
The first use of "sexsomnia" for this condition was by Dr C M Shapiro and two colleagues from the Sleep Alertness Clinic of the University of Toronto and the Toronto Western Hospital in a June 2003 article in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Sexsomnia is described as a mix of sleepwalking and adolescent wet dreams.
According to the researchers, amazingly, not all partners of sexsomniacs are distressed or irritated by the novel experience of having an unconscious person make love to them. In fact, some seem to prefer it. The researchers describe sexsomnia as a "distinct variation" of sleepwalking.
The researchers discovered it by interviewing patients referred to their sleep clinic for normal sleep-related problems. According to the Shapiro team, "[o]nly subsequently did the issue of sexual behaviour during sleep emerge", although they noted prior cases of indecent exposure during sleep.
They add: "We anticipate that the number of potential cases is large but sexual behavioUr in sleep is not yet recognised by physicians as a behaviour of note or a problem."
There were 11 case studies, mostly male. One married man, aged 35, had sexual dreams and "enacts these by having intercourse with his wife, who is convinced he is asleep...[he] is only aware of his behaviour from his wife's reports".
Two girlfriends of another man, aged 43, "independently confirmed that he frequently engages in sexual behaviour while asleep". One describes him as a "different person" during these activities - apparently he is a more amorous and gentle lover and more orientated towards satisfying his partner.
By contrast, another man, aged 37, according to his wife is "more aggressive and more amorous. He indulges in behaviours while asleep that he does not undertake when awake...there is no stopping him. But when he once grabbed her neck, she had to slap him."
In the May 2006 Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine, Dr I O Ebrahim of the London Sleep Centre describes a recent sexsomnia case in England "where the defendant was acquitted on three charges of rape on the basis of automatism due to somnambulistic sexual behaviour".
Stephen Juan, Ph.D. is an anthropologist at the University of Sydney. Email your Odd Body questions to s.juan@edfac.usyd.edu.au
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