Technofender

Bloggerwave is an European company, dedicated to the trading of specialized advertisement options: blog reviews of services and products.

Aiming at the European and US market, the site offers some flexibility to bloggers and advertisers. For the blogger, the fixed prices issue is very advantageous, as there is no commission to be taken of - as in other services.

For the advertisers, the chance to generate buzz and increase the backlinks for a specified keyword is almost worthless, as day after day, thousands and maybe millions of potential customers will visit their sites and see for themselves, what the blogger is talking about.

UltraSound Tech is a risingly popular technique in the field of Medicine. Basically, ultrasound is any sound produced at a frequency of 20 Khz, beyond the umbral of human hearing.

In the Nature, ultrasonic waves are common among some marine mammals, such as the dolphins and whales and also in the case of the bats. These animals use ultrasound as a way of recognizing the terrain and geoposition themselves in their environments.

The application of ultrasound techniques to the medicine, has been recognized as of practical use. In fact, although the technique is relatively new and non-conventional, the interest in the potential applications of ultrasound is growing steadily.

Recently, there has been a rising offer of a new form of technical institute: the Ultrasound Technician School. At Medical Career Training Website, there is a comprehensive list of such schools,  together with some others that offer an academic training in Alternative Medicine, which is also of growing interest.

Also, at the website, there is a list of featured articles, some of them reinforcing the concepts of Alternative Medicine and UltraSound Tech School, which offer some relevant data supporting the benefits of the new techniques.

Rather than opposing to the conventional points of view, supported bravely by the Medical Associations, there is a strong chance for the rising of these avant-garde techniques to become a fully recognized part of the Compendium of Medical Science.

Edmund Scientific is a complete, vertical portal dedicated to the professional and non-professional Sci&Tech-stuff customers. Highly organized in structured categories, it offers its clients and visitors many interesting products, most of them related to a set of specific disciplines and some also of general interest.

One key feature of Edmund Scientific is the good user-experience that it provides. Usually, it’s hard to find a verticalized shopping portal dedicated to Sci&Tech stuff that might be at least relatively easy to browse. If there is something impressive and relevant in Edmund Scientific is the way that information is organized and how few clicks away lies a product that a potential customer searches for.

Another outstanding characteristic of Edmund Scientific is the catalog of products. I found - when browsing the catalog - interesting and useful items as Metal Detectors, Dissecting Sets, Stethoscopes, Optic Microscopes, Solar Panels, Astronomy Software, Small Electric Engines and many amusing items for gift. And if you are wondering if the site is only for Geeks, then you might probably want to browse the catalog previously filtered by age segment. In fact, I found a few items for my own kids at very reasonable prices.

The site encourages the people to review their items, and from what I saw the reviews are mainly positive. Edmund’s Scientifics also provides basic, useful information related to the technologies being browsed at an article level. For instance, if you choose to see the details of a Levitron Antigravity Top- a magnetic gadget - it provides a couple of links related to the topic.

What I would suggest - in feedback - is that the items descriptions would include the period of warranty, it’s rather important for us - the customers -to know that specific detail. Another suggestion is the inclusion of the Wish List support. Personally - as the Geek that I am - I will be more than pleased if I can put a few items of Edmund’s Scientifics in my Wish List.

Finally, I believe that what Edmund’s Scientifics would get high benefits of, is a Weblog. A weblog associated to the main site would help to portrait much better the experiences of bloggers with the products and would allow to portrait some specific items in a much better way.

And the prices? I’d better not tell you, but encourage you to take a look at www.scientificsonline.com. What I can promise is that you won’t be dissapointed. Not at all.

It seems that space travel makes the germs even more virulent and infectious. During the Space Shuttle Mission STS-115, September 2006, there was included a carefully wrapped culture of Salmonella spp. The bacteria responsible for the infectious dyarrhea caused by the ingestion of poisoned food.

The results were amazing. The mice infected in the lab with the space-traveled germ were three times more likely to get sick and died sooner than the ones infected with the non-spaced-traveled samples.

Wherever humans go, microbes go — you can’t sterilize humans. Wherever we go, under the oceans or orbiting the earth, the microbes go with us, and it’s important that we understand … how they’re going to change.
Professor Cheryl Nickerson, associate professor at the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at Arizona State University.

The researchers put some cultures of identical strains of salmonella in special containers for the space flight and kept some cultures at the Lab on earth, keeping them at similar conditions of temperature than the ones in space.

The researchers found that - after the whole travel - 167 genes had changed in "Spacer" Salmonella.

Researchers don’t even have a clue of why. In the words of Nickerson: "We do not know with 100 percent certainty what the mechanism is of space flight that’s inducing the changes".

Space Shuttle - Atlantis Mission launched to space.
It carried the containers with the culture of Salmonella used in the research.
Courtesy of CNN.

It seems nertheless, that the Salmonella reacts to the change in the environment caused by the microgravity. Low gravity causes a slow fluid shear. When Salmonella detects the change in the inner environment, it changes its genes - as part of the well known strategy of natural selection - to survive.

The consequences for the future make the previous research something worth to be studied sakefully. It might output some interesting data to know in advance how to treat the diseases caused by microorganisms.

Via: CNN - Science

Dark matter is and has been an elusive topic in Astronomy and Physics for the last seven decades. It has gravity but does not interact in any other usual way with the "normal" matter which composes the gases, stars and people.

Dark matter has always been evidenced indirectly, as many scientists and their calculations point to the fact that there is not enough normal matter in the galaxies to justify their gravity. It seems as if dark matter is composed of a specially elusive particle that interacts with normal matter only by affecting its gravity.

But, recent discoveries on the few stars inside some small galaxies - dwarf galaxies - around the fringes of the Milky Way, point to them as dark matter distilleries - 1000 times more dark matter than normal one.

Plans for the future include the use of the Large Haldron Collider - the best and most powerful particle accelerator ever built - of CERN to produce dark matter particles. The Collider is scheduled to start working next year.

Discovery of Dark Matter Dense - Dwarf Galaxies

Marla Geha and Josh Simon worked with the Telescope at Keck Observatory, Hawaii, gathering light from 814 stars in eight dwarf galaxies, and split the light into spectra.

As you may possibly know, the speed at which the star moves changes the way it’s transmitted, that’s a measurable effect. Analyzing the spectra is always possible to know the speed at which the light source - the star - is moving.

Susprisingly, the team found that the stars were heavily slow movers - snail stars. Compared to the 220 Km/s of the Sun, these stars moving at 4-7 Km/s were extremely slow. The reason, as suggested by the team is the abnormal concentration of dark matter that opposes the movement of the stars.

Census of Dwarf

Finding the dwarf galaxies is not an easy task, and certainly might seem like looking for a needle in a haystacks, as the Principal of the Observatory suggests. It’s needed a surveyor capable of looking at vast spaces and identifying very subtle differences in patterns of stars. Then, you need a high quality telescope with spectroscope to analyze the light from the stars.

Bullock & Johnston, syndicated from the Discovery News.

Dark Matter Distilleries
A simulated image of stars distributed around our galaxy, the Milky Way. The bright point-like objects are dwarf galaxies like those recently discovered.

What makes it more difficult is that these galaxies have little stars due to the higher concentration of dark matter compared to the normal one.

Genesis of Dwarf Galaxies

There are two theories according to Dr. James Bullock of the University of California at Irvine. First, they were normal galaxies made of normal and dark matter, with lots of stars that were "dead" and its normal matter escaped away. The second theory is that they were always full of dark matter and short of the normal one, so, they never had the chance to produce many stars.

One interesting pick is that all these galaxies HAVE EXACTLY THE SAME MASS. That and many other misteries still to be unveiled, will surely explain a lot about the origin of the galaxies - in general.

Via: Discovery News

Craig Venter, the well-known DNA researcher, recently surprised the world when showing at stage with Tim O’Reilly at the Web 2.0 Summit.

A geneticist in a Web 2.0 Conference? Apparently, information technology and genetics are positively converging.

According to Moore’s Law, the capacity of computer chips - and related devices - grows exponentially year after year, and has been so since the 1950s. And the trend will probably continue for the coming decades, as was calculated in 2001.

The sequencing of Venter’s DNA cost about 70 million dollars. Currently, the cost has reduced to 300000 USD, and soon it will cost only 100000. According to Venter, DNA sequencing is an issue of information processing. That correlates the Moore’s Law to genetics.

In the near future, it will be possible to include the genome sequencing - and the likelihood to develop various diseases, be athletic, smart, etc - in the standard medical examinations.

And the implications and possibilities in medicine will be inmense by far. First, it will help the insurance companies to assess the risk of a person, in quantitative terms related to the probability to develop cancer, diabetes, obesity, blindness and a lot of chronic diseases.

But, the implications go far beyond that. There’s also the information privacy issue. Probably, some people won’t feel comfortable with sharing their DNA info with the world.

Nevertheless, Venter votes for the transparency in genomics. Tim O’Reilly even joked with the idea of "Googling a date’s DNA". At first sight, it looks odd, but it would be beneficial. Specially, if someone is planning to have children.

It makes my mind on the way to some businesses that would benefit by large with the democratic management of Genomics Data Banks. Pharmaceutical Industry, for example, would be able to lead their production cycles knowing in advance which diseases would be present more frequently by region and indexed by time.

And what about those women seeking for a donor to provide his sperm for an in-vitro fertilization? The choice could become very specific, by using very specific search criteria to narrow the result list. Did you ever want your son to be 6 feet tall, blue eyes and athletic, with a low tendency to suffer from Cancer, Diabetes and so on? It will be possible in the future.

Via: Webware

Since ages, possibly centuries, the man has ever wondered if there are any other planets in the Universe with similar characteristics to the Earth. What is more, many sci-fi authors have theorized - in its own special way - about the terraformation and interplanetary travels that would lead to the formation of colonies in other worlds.

At La Hueca, I read about the recent discovery of a planet with climatic and atmospheric conditions similar to the Earth’s. Fortunately, it’s located in a Constelation relatively close to us, just 20 light years away. In astronomical terms, it must be considered a short distance. Pitifully, the current technology status does not allow us to move there in a reasonable timespan.

Gliese 581-C, from the Constelation of Libra, spins around a red dwarf star - Gliese 581 - of a dimmer bright compared to the Sun, with surface temperature ranging from 0 to 40 degrees (Celsius scale) and atmospheric conditions that might probably be considered Earth-alike.

Gliese 581-C y its red dwarf star.
Syndicated from The Guardian UK.

The planet is located nearer to the star than the Earth to the Sun. In fact, it completes an orbit at about 13 days, but its star has a temperature of only 3000 Celsius, which is very little when compared to the Sun, 6000 Celsius.

The discovery is the result of 3-years-long effort taken by the scientific team of European Southern Observatory at La Sila, Chile in order to accomplish the task of finding other planets which might be habitable for the human beings.

"We wouldn’t be surprised if there is life on this planet"
Stephane Udry, an astronomer of the Project at Geneve Observatory, Switzerland.

I can just wonder how happy Sagan and Asimov would be if they could acknowledge the discovery of Gliese 581-c. If Isaac Asimov were alive, he would surely like to baptize the planet as "The World of Dawn".

Seen at La Hueca, "Segunda" Tierra, encontrada a sólo 20 años luz de distancia.
Link: The Guardian, Uk. ’Second Earth’ found, 20 light years away.

Synthetic Biology is an emerging field. Much work still is to be done, but the progress already made points out to an exciting sci pathway.

Whether the applications of the Synth-Bio are conducted towards the production of new pharmaceutical products, or to the manufacturing of specialized biocomponents - that might help to reduce the contamination - it really, really has possibilities.

In a recent research conducted by Dr. Pamela Silver at the Harvard Medical School (HMS) a new milestone was reached.

As every engineer knows, the design must be strongly tested before going on to the manufacturing issues. That makes it very close to the Maths models. In fact, if a new structure is to be built, an engineer would test the design FIRST, against some complex mathematical models that would output the resistance to pressure, tangential effort and aome other physical factors. After that, the process of building - let’s say a bridge - would include some considerations.

Silver et al, achieved successfully at inducing a memory loop in yeast cells and producing a new mathematical model that predicted - with a certain degree of accuracy - the behaviour of the cells.

The experiment was about including a pair of genes - synthetic - with the ability to produce transcription factors.

Transcription Factors are capable of regulating the activity of specific genes, forcing them to synthetize (or otherwise disable) a specific protein.

The first gene reacted to the presence of Galactose, producing a transcription factor, which in turn, activated the second gene. Then, the second gene reacted by producing a transcription factor, which at the end reactivated itself (the second gene). This caused a feedback loop, that was maintained by the presence of Galactose.

But, when the Galactose was extracted from the medium, then the first gene stopped producing its transcription factor, but the second gene continued producing its own.

The new cells - as expected - kept producing the second gene transcription factor and the experiment was successful.

“Essentially what happened is that the cell remembered that it had been
exposed to galactose, and continued to pass this memory on to its descendents,” says Ajo-Franklin, a co-worker of Dr. Silver. “So after many cell divisions, the feedback loop remained intact without galactose or any other sort of molecular trigger.”

Most important is that the construction phase was guided by the mathematical model. That has profound implications in the future of the Synthetic Biology.

If "black boxes" are to be constructed then it’s positively compulsory to be backed-up on the Mathematical models. Accuracy is needed as to foresee a future when black boxes would be plugged into living cells, knowing exactly what the results will be. The same way a Computer Technician plugs a memory chip into the appropriate mainboard slot of the PC.

Via: Hardvard News

In the 16th Century, Ferdinand Magellan - a portuguese seaman - was on his journey through the southern hemisphere when he hazed at the sky and saw some strange clouds. Since then, these "clouds" - which in turn are galaxies - were known as the Magellan Clouds.

And ever since until recently, the scientific community was convinced that those galaxies were no more than mere satellite galaxies to ours - the Milky Way.

But, in recent studies conducted by Dr. Gurtina Besla at the Hardvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the conclusions tend to point out to another direction.

During the study, the 3D velocities of both the Magellan Clouds - the LMC and SMC - were measured concisely and it turned out that the speed was anomalously high. In fact, two probable explanations were issued to explain the high speed of MCs.

1. The Milky Way as far more dense than ever calculated before, which - by means of gravity effect - would explain the phenomenon.
2. The LMC and SMC are not satellites of the Milky Way, but they are close neighbours approaching our galaxy.

The experimental data proved to the second theory. Once the parabolic orbit was calculated, it showed that the Galaxies are on their first visit to our Galaxy.

The conclusion has led to many puzzling questions. First, our Galaxy has a significant "warp" that extends up to 10000 light years above and beyond the equatorial plane. Until recently, the origin of this "warp" was attributed to the passes of the Magellan Clouds before. As there has not been a "before", further research will - or should - be conducted to explain the phenomenon.

Second, the Magellan Clouds are a mistery by themselves. It’s believed that the Magellan Stream - a stream of hydrogen which covers about 100 degrees from the standpoint of an Earth observer - was formed either due to the tidal interaction between the clouds and the Milky Way or because of the increasingly higher gas pressures when passing next to the Milky Way. No previous pass, then the explanation is unsustainable.

Last but not least, the commonly-accepted mechanism for the formation of the stars in the clouds should be revised. In the history of the star formation of the Magellan Clouds, there has been periods of bursting of stars and then again a new star bloom. In the past, it was attributed to the passes of the clouds close to the Milky Way, but now, it seems factible to think of the interactions between the two galaxies - SMC and LMC - as the main factor to produce these consecutive periods of star breeding and burst.

Though their looks are of a couple of glowing clouds in the sky, to the naked eye, the Large Magellan Cloud (LMC) and Small Magellan Cloud (SMC) are true galaxies. LMC is located at about 160000 light years away from the Earth and is only a tenth of the size of the Milky Way. SMC is located at twice the distance from the Earth, and is only a hundredth of the size of our Galaxy.

Via: Hardvard News

I recently started to use Google Apps, and I found it really startling. A few years ago, at about 1998, I was surprised to see the Yahoo search page with a small logo: "Powered by Google".

It was odd at the beginning. Well, why would a first-class search engine, as Yahoo would require another company to lend their search engine power? And as a matter of fact, many users - the curious one, as your loyal servant - started to use that Goog-whatever page to search for results.

And the story began. Now, about a decade after, the Big "G" is definitely one of the big monsters of the Internet. With tens of thousands - and perhaps, more - of servers and a huge corporation behind, Google Search Engine is THE ONE.

Since 2005, Google started to expand its business scope, now, it’s not nonly about Searches. Currently, Google provides a comprehensive portfolio of services for the end users.

Gmail, GTalk, GCalendar, Google Docs and a few others are becoming more and more focused, and massively used among the Internauts.

And Google has reunited all those services for free, in a suite of online applications: The Google Apps.

Google Apps is a concept that comprises almost all of the Office Duties in one place. The add-on is that anyone with his/her own domain can make a good use of it.. for Free.

Although, at first it started to rise speedily through the SMB niche, now, Corporate eyes are focusing into the power, flexibility, ease and low-cost of the Google Apps Solution.

The key point that still bothers the CIOs, and which restrains the full adoption of the G-solution, seem to be - still - the lack of confidence in the backup and/or sharing of their corporate data with the G-team.

It doesn’t matter how clear the policy of Google Inc. is, when and about the confidentiality and security of the data. It still grows a terrible fear inside the CIOs mind to keep the information AWAY from home.

But, out of this whereabout, Google Apps is a good solution, here are some of the key features, which makes it extremely advantageous.

As a matter of fact, this article was written and posted from Google Docs.