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New Method To Prevent Aids From Spreading Infection

23. September 2011

HIV cells. (Photo: topnews.com)

Aids or acquired immunodeficiency disease is a abject disease of the human immune system that is caused by the HIV virus. By all accounts, it is one of the most dreaded diseases in the world because, not only does it damage and destroy every working organ of the human body but there is no known cure, which means that all the expensive medical diagnose and treatments the patient has faced so far will not really help in the long run, thus making the patient suffer a slow and painful death. However, a study from the university of Utah suggests that while there may be no absolute cure to it, there may be a way to prevent the Aids cells from spreading infection to the rest of the body.

In order to understand how the researchers plan to prevent the aids cells to spread their infection, it is imperative to first understand the mechanism on which the HIV cells operate in the body. Once an HIV cell hits the bloodstream, it will hijack a cell and take control of its replicating process, which would in turn allow it to replicate and spread infectious cells at its own will. To make matters worse, a lot of HIV cells will be coated with sugar compounds that will enable them to become invisible to the body’s immune system. But Dr Patrick Kaiser and his team have experimented with HIV cells with lectins, which are tiny commonly occurring molecules that tend to have an adhesive properties with sugar.

There researchers realized that a certain type of lectin, which is known as benzoboroxole or BzB, had the affinity to stick to the sugars that coated the HIV cells, which meant that they had some potential anti-viral properties. But since the bond between the lectins and the sugars tended to be weak, the researchers had to improvise by adding polymers, which not only made the bonds stronger but it also increased the anti-viral capacity of the lectin.

This new invention is better than the already present anti-aids drugs as they are expensive and are known to cause some serious side effects on the nervous system. However, the researchers are still in the process of finding the right synthetic lectin which would go best with sugar. This research was carried out by a couple of collaboration from various universities and was funded by eminent organizations like the Bill and Melinda gates organization, the national institutes of health among others.

(rockefellernews/yk)

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Written by Yash Karnad

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Google Announced Multiple Sign-in For Mobile

22. September 2011

Google has updated the Gmail for mobile browsers by adding multiple sign-in and others features. (Photo: droidupdate.info)

The search engine giant and world’s best brand Google has brought a lot of updates in the past few months. They released a new fascinating search tool Google Hotel Finder, and also updated Google Map by adding weather layer, real-time traffic facilities. Google is not only developing the desktop applications but also improving the services in the mobile web applications. Today, Google introduced a series of highly requested features for Gmail in mobile browsers like iPhone, iPad, Smartphone and tablets.

Multiple sign in is very useful for the users who want to access several accounts simultaneously for his personal or business purpose. The facility has been here in the desktop for quite some time. From today, the users can get the multiple account access facility in their mobile devices.

By clicking the account switcher at the bottom of the thread-list and then signing into another account, the users of the mobile browsers can sign into an additional account. Furthermore, Google is adding the auto-correct and other mobile spell-check facilities. By pressing the new signature button and choosing the signature, the users can create new essential signature, according to the GmailBlog.

“Ever forgotten to set your out-of-office auto-reply in Gmail before going on a trip? You don’t have to worry about that anymore, since you can now set your auto-reply using the mobile interface. Simply choose a start and end date and specify your message, just like on the desktop interface,” wrote Dominic Leung, Google’s mobile software engineer.

To provide the new facilities Google has already updated URLs and, as a result, each account can have distinct bookmark. Google advised the users to update the bookmark who have already bookmarked Gmail for their mobile devices. Otherwise, the users have to add a bookmark to their mobiles from mail.google.com.

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As Far As Dementia Is Concerned, Laughter May Be The Best Medicine

22. September 2011

Laughter therapy by clown doctors. (Photo: howstuffworks.com)

Dementia is a disease that is categorized by a sudden and gradual loss of cognitive and mental functions of a person, as he grows older. While the first round of symptoms start of innocently enough with mild lapses in memory and muscular co-ordination, over time they tend to take a more serious tone as the afflicted person may even start forgetting how to speak or react. Dementia can take many forms like the Alzheimer’s for instance, and mostly affects people who have crossed a certain age threshold although it is possible for anybody to get it. Although there is no sure fire cure for this disease, a team of researchers led by Dr Lee Fay Low have embarked on a new study which suggests that laughter therapy may have an unnatural positive effect on these patients.

This study which is known as SMILE, started of by checking the actual effect of laughter therapy on people who are normally depressed. After checking the result, the SMILE study took the liberty of handpicking 36 of Australia’s finest institutes in order to train and appoint a counselor who will function as the ‘laughterboss’ or a person who would be responsible for humor and entertainment for a selected group of people with dementia. Much to the delight of the researchers, they found out that this laughterboss humor therapy technique was responsible for a 20 percent decrease in all dementia associated activities for periods as long as 20-30 weeks or approximately 7 months. However, eventually the patient’s dementia began to resurface after the laughter therapy activities had stopped.

Before you start considering these results to be too flaky and primitive, try keeping in mind that drugs and medicines are not really good cures for mental or mind related disease. Besides, recent studies by eminent institutes have shown that overdosing of these so called medicines can cause grave side effects, especially if the patient is a senior citizen. These side effects can range from mild fever to even coma and death, which arguably makes them more risky than the problem itself. So to make a long story short, laughter is after all the best medicine!

(rockefellernews/yk)

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Written by Yash Karnad

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Written by Romeo Braceros

Twitter Starts Political Advertisement For 2012 US Presidential Election

21. September 2011

Twitter has started early on its quest to ear money from the forthcoming 2012 US Presidential Election with its politcal advertisement tweets. (Photo: tweepi.com)

A year before the actual presidential election in the United States, social media giant Twitter had already started posting political advertisement from possible presidential candidates.

According to reports, a political team is now being assembled by Twitter to monitor the flow of these ads which could become bigger once the official campaign season starts. At the moment, the Twitter management said they will be displaying some promoted tweets from a select few Presidential candidates and national party committees.

The social media company said once their political sales team is fully assembled they will start catering to other candidates. It was learned the political ads team will be led by Peter Greenberger who previously worked at Google.

Twitter and other social media websites are becoming a favorite campaign strategy among political candidates because of its wide reach and effective in sending political messages. Twitter was launched on July 15, 2006 and initially named Twttr. Before the introduction of Twitter, tweeting was only for the birds. But it firstly introduced, the way of tweeting through internet, for the human beings.

(rockefellernews/rb)

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New Robot NAO Can Charge Itself With The NAO Energy Station

21. September 2011

French developers have invented a new robot NAO that has the ability to charge itself. (Photo: sigalonmobile.soup.io)

Day by day, the development of robots is increasing and many scientists have been working for developing the working power of the mechanically smart agent, robot. French developers have invented a new fascinating humanoid robot NAO, which has the ability to charge itself.

The developers have been working on this project since 2005. Using a 500 MHz X 86 CPU and 256 MB of RAM, they developed the brilliant robot NAO. It consists of a wide array of sensors, two cameras, four microphones, an accelerometer and sensor, so that it can stand, sit, recover from fall, and detect obstacles, according to the reports. The new robot NAO is 23-inch tall and only 11 pounds by weight.

NAO can find its charger and charging station, plug itself in, and even can unplug itself when it is charged fully. It also has been programmed to play football, cooperate with others of similar kinds, and help autistic children. If there is no NAO Energy Station (NEST) near to the NAO and its batteries goes down then it can lead a ‘semi-independent’ life.

Though the recent invention has some drawbacks that it has to sit down until it is fully charged and can not run more than 90 minutes after full charging. However, these tiny drawbacks can be omitted by taking some modifications and the developers are working for it.

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Written by Romeo Braceros

Fingertip Sized Digital Camera That Actually Works

20. September 2011

The world's smallest commercially-available camera for gadget lovers who love to take pictures. (Photo: dailymail.co.uk)

A wonder gadget had just been created by manufacturers from New York City.

A digital camera the size of your fingertip is set to sold commercially at $99.95 to gadget lovers around the world soon. What is remarkable is the fact that the 28-gram device can actually take still pictures and video like most normal sized digital cameras.

American firm Hammacher Schlememr are very confident their product will be loved people around the world due to its size and features. Hammacher Schlemmer’s General Manager, Fred Berns, revealed although their product is only slightly larger than a marble it can still take JPEG images with a resolution of 1600 x 1200 and comes complete with auto-focus.

Berns said the camera also connects to a computer via a USB cable, just like regular pieces of photography equipment. Moreover, Berns said the gadget comes with a wrist lanyard that keeps it close to hand and enables ease of portability. Wow those people who love to take pictures and have money at the same time better buy this micro-camera now!

(rockefellernews/rb)

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Scientists Find Possible Link Between Chronic Stress And Cancer

20. September 2011

Breast cancer cells. (Photo: medcitynews.com)

Stress is a type of mental agony that knows no boundaries as all people, regardless of their social standing, tend to suffer from it. While our over competitive society needs some blame for this, different people have different definitions of stress and there seems no escape from it. As all yoga and health experts will tell you, too much mental pressure can cause a great toll on the person’s health in the form of headaches and heart diseases, however to make matters worse, a new study from the university of west Ontario have shown a possible subtle correlation between stress and cancer, explicitly malignant breast neoplasm aka breast cancer.

In order to understand the actual effect of stress on the body’s nervous system, Dr Dwayne Jackson, who is the head researcher of biomedical engineering, and his team decided to test the sympathetic nervous system, or the same mechanism that is responsible for the release of adrenaline the human body. The researchers scanned through some neurotransmitters which are responsible for the body’s flight or fight response and how they react under the influence of the central nervous system. The neurotransmitters in question is mostly neuropeptide Y.

After doing some additional research, Dr Jackson and his team realized that women who had a past history of breast related tumors and cancers showed a greater sensitivity to mental chronic stress than before, which meant that they were at the risk of getting a higher concentration of neuropeptide Y released in their systems. While there is no exact prove as of yet, the researchers suggest that the neuropeptide transmitter may contain certain chemical properties which may prove to be a source of growth and nourishment for the cancer and tumorous cells. However, there may be some truth in the theory as these neuropeptide are known to contribute to cell growth and migration.

Before anyone of you turn into paranoid hypochondriacs, it is important to take not that even though neuropeptide are known to cause cell growth, there is still not enough scientific evidence to prove that stress will directly be responsible for cancerous growth of any kind. Instead, looking at the bright side of this study, we realize that the body may have certain hidden mechanisms that may actually act as a natural defender against cancerous cells, when activated. However, the research is still in progress for the time being.

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Written by Yash Karnad

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Magisto: Automatic Video Editing Service

20. September 2011

Magisto provides a web-based video editing service. (Photo: techcrunch.com)

Video editing is really a hard task! Most of the people do not want to learn new software to do their own video editing, and as a result, the people do not edit videos. We can get everything, we need, on internet, but there is no such service that can automatically edit any unedited video clips to create a meaningful footage. However, today marks the public launch of such an extraordinary service. Magisto is the first incredible video editing service that can automatically turns any unedited video clips into short and amazing movies to share with friends and family. Two award winning Computer-vision experts Dr. Pren Boiman and Dr. Alex Rav-Acha founded Magisto in 2010, which is the brand name of their company SightEra Technologies LTD.

From now, anyone can use this service to make any share-worthy video footage with titles and music from any unedited video clips. For video editing the users can find everything in the site Magisto.com. The users only have to upload their footages, add a title and select music from available tracks. After that, Magisto starts working, automatically finds the best footages, and edit them into a short and amazing video. Users can upload maximum 16 video footages or 600MB at a time.

Magisto Co-Founder and CEO Oren Boiman said, “Kids. Special events. Family vacations. Everybody is shooting hours and hours of video, but nobody knows what to do with it.” He also added, “The average person doesn’t edit videos. It’s hard to do, and most people don’t have the desire or time to learn video editing programs. So they either post long boring videos nobody wants to watch, or they save them on their hard drive – unwatched, unedited, unshared. We made Magisto to give people a way to take their videos and turn them into movies that are fun to watch and easy to share.”

The company has not explained details about the technology, they used for the wonderful service Magisto. They only said that the revolutionary technology is nothing but facial recognition. Magisto can find the difference between people, pets and landscapes. It also can assume the intent of the filmmaker by analyzing the sounds and images on the video.

The company also announced that it has achieved $5.5 million in a Series B funding from the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s private investment arm, Horizons Ventures, with earlier backer Magma Venture Partners participating.

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Researcher Created Super-Powerful Gamma Rays

19. September 2011

Researchers have recently created a super powerful gamma rays that can be used for cancer treatment. (Photo: physorg.com)

Radiotherapy or radiation therapy is a very common treatment for the cancer patients because radiotherapy can control the growth of the cancerous cells by damaging the DNA. The process is nothing but a damage of the malignant cells by ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiations is very high frequency electromagnetic radiations and can be produced by nuclear fission, radioactive decay, nuclear fusion, cosmic rays etc. For such types of reactions mainly ultraviolet rays, X-rays and gamma rays are used. However, recently, new super-powerful gamma rays have been created after a research led by the researchers of the Strathclyde University.

The researchers from the Glasgow University and Institute Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, Portugal, also contributed a lot in succeeding the research. The research paper has been published in the journal of the Nature Physics. The researchers discovered that the developed gamma rays are about thousand times more powerful than the Sun. The rays can be used for several medical treatments like medical imaging, radiotherapy, and radioisotope production for PET (positron emission tomography scanning) etc.

If the ultra-short duration laser pulses interact with ionized gas then the beam produced after the interaction are very much powerful, can pass through 20cm of lead, and would require 1.5cm concrete to be completely absorbed, according to the researchers. The essential apparatus to produce the brightest gamma rays is very much smaller and cheaper than the apparatus used for conventional sources.

The lead researcher of the research, Dino Jaroszynski from Strathclyde, said, “This is a great breakthrough, which could make the probing of very dense matter easier and more extensive, and so allow us to monitor nuclear fusion capsules imploding.” He added, “The large swinging motion and the high energy of the electrons allow a huge increase in the photon energy to produce gamma rays. This enabled the gamma ray photons to outshine any other earthbound source.”

Radiation therapy, as a treatment for cancer, was stated about 100 years ago when for the first time X-ray invented. The new invention, obviously, will bring a revolution in the medical science and cancer treatment.

(rockefellernews/rd)

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