Reader's Digest's auto care tips
Seventy-five of 'em.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists
His father was a Presbyterian minister and he graduated from Harvard Div. Has some insight on how a segment of the religious right is twisting scripture to fit imported secular values.
Human study showing reversal of Alzheimer's symptoms within minutes
... improvement within minutes following delivery of perispinal etanercept, which is etanercept given by injection in the spine. Etanercept (trade name Enbrel) binds and inactivates excess TNF [tumor necrosis factor-alpha].Again here.
Tyrannical bosses worse than yours
In 1892, a labor strike impacted the Homestead Works of the Carnegie Steel Company. Frick was staunchly anti-union and thought he would thwart picketing workers by having Pinkerton agents access the grounds via the river. When the agents got close enough, they fired into the crowd which was enough to start a full-blown riot. By the time the chaos was broken up by the state militia, several men were killed and many were wounded.
Sherwin Nuland and his story of electroshock therapy
Meant to recommend his book, How We Die, a while back after finishing it. It's a summary from a doctor's perspective of the more common ways we die. A bit of pathophysiology; the graphic descriptions were illuminating. For the med crowd, there's a consideration of the psychology of life extension on both the patient and care staff side.
Allow me to take this moment to recommend Wit, starring Emma Thompson, about an English prof being assailed by cancer and chemo. Lots of talking to the camera as she shares each step.
It's amazing to hear this surgeon's account of mental illness which did not come out in his personal anecdotes in the book. This important video helps to dispel some of the stigma surrounding ECT and depression in general for those who think that it's just people complaining.
The Turks haven't learned the British way of denying past atrocities
Had heard of Kenya in the 1950s. A bit of detail here.
Controlling that customer service rep
Fairly step-by-step in controlling yourself and not getting wagged.
Super Soaker inventor plans to cut solar costs in half
Johnson, a nuclear engineer who holds more than 100 patents, calls his invention the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Conversion System, or JTEC for short. This is not PV technology, in which semiconducting silicon converts light into electricity. And unlike a Stirling engine, in which pistons are powered by the expansion and compression of a contained gas, there are no moving parts in the JTEC. It’s sort of like a fuel cell: JTEC circulates hydrogen between two membrane-electrode assemblies (MEA). Unlike a fuel cell, however, JTEC is a closed system. No external hydrogen source. No oxygen input. No wastewater output. Other than a jolt of electricity that acts like the ignition spark in an internal-combustion engine, the only input is heat.
Using sunlight to make fuel from CO2
The prototype will be about the size and shape of a beer keg. It will contain 14 cobalt ferrite rings, each about one foot in diameter and turning at one revolution per minute. An 88-square meter solar furnace will blast sunlight into the unit, heating the rings to about 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, cobalt ferrite releases oxygen. When the rings cool to about 2,000 degrees, they're exposed to CO2.
Since the cobalt ferrite is now missing oxygen, it snatches some from the CO2, leaving behind just carbon monoxide -- a building block for making hydrocarbons -- that can then be used to make methanol or gasoline. And with the cobalt ferrite restored to its original state, the device is ready for another cycle.
VideoTrace -- trace a couple of frames and it interpolates a form
The user interacts with VideoTrace by tracing the shape of the object to be modelled over one or more frames of the video. By interpreting the sketch drawn by the user in light of 3D information obtained from computer vision techniques, a small number of simple 2D interactions can be used to generate a realistic 3D model.
Link between genetic flaws and autism
The team found a segment of 25 genes on chromosome 16 that was missing in some of the children in the study. None of their parents possessed the flaw, which suggests - as Wigler has argued all along - that autism can occur as a spontaneous mutation. However, in other children whose DNA was analyzed, there was a duplication of chromosome 16 that also occurred in at least one parent.
More here.
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