BBC NEWS | Health | Stem cell stroke therapy assessed.
A Glasgow team is to launch a major trial to assess whether stem cells can be used to treat stroke patients
Cells made from a human foetus will be injected into patients’ brains.
It is hoped the cells will regenerate areas damaged by stroke, and increase patients’ movements and mental abilities.
If you are thinking of upgrading your Picasa Web Albums service to paid storage, be advised that Google offers no support at all even to paying customers.
All support links in their website turn around and lead you to their lousy “forums” which generate a few hundred messages per day from other customers in desperate need of support. Your only chance at getting any help for your paid services, even for billing matters, is to post in that lousy forum and expect some other user to try and answer you.
This situation hasn’t changed at all 1 year after I signed up for their paid storage plans. The auto-renewal of that service is also suposed to send you an email 30 days prior to expiration. I have 10 days left to meet the renewal and there’s no notification yet in my gmail inbox. If you happen to be charged automatically, you are probably out of luck to request a refund as you can’t contact the company you are paying for the service.
This is a huge point down for Google’s services. 
DailyTech – U.S., British Grad Students Discover New Type of Laser .
Newly discovered laser is more efficient than traditional laser beams could revolutionize sensing, medical technologies
Bayer filed for stem cell patent before Kyoto Univ team › Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion.
German chemical giant Bayer AG applied for a patent in Japan on June 15, 2007, for a technique to generate induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, from human cells, according to Patent Office data released by Sunday. The application was submitted around three months before a Japanese team led by Kyoto University professor Shinya Yamanaka announced the successful generation of iPS cells from human cells.
The data showed that Bayer submitted patent applications for more than one method, in addition to the technique employed by the Kyoto University team. If the patents are granted to Bayer, patent rights will become complicated and could affect the Japanese government’s policy to promote iPS cell studies, observers said. In June 2006, the Kyoto University team said it succeeded in generating iPS cells, which have the potential to grow into any type of body tissue, from somatic cells in mice without using ova.
Summarized: Bayer files a patent for something they haven’t been able to accomplish > 3 months later Japan is able to do it > Bayer will get the benefits from Japanese work doing nothing. Way to go.
New version up:
# New in v1.21: Bilinear filtering when resizing for the preview; show filesize; Direct Link for TinyPic
Download: http://techsuki.net/tinypic-uploader/
DailyTech – Researchers Create New Memory from Graphene .
Researchers have devised a way to build memory from graphene
Storage in today’s computers is based on rotating magnetic platters or flash memory. Both of these mediums work well, provide large amounts of storage and have been around for a while now. Some scientists don’t believe that flash is the future for storage in computers and electronic devices. In fact, the future of storage could be based on something kids use every day at school — pencil lead or graphite.
A team of researchers at Rice University has found a method of creating a new type of memory from a strip of graphite only 10 atoms thick. Graphite is the basic element in the new type of memory. The scientists describe in a paper published in the online journalNature Materials a storage device that utilizes the conducting properties of graphene. A large clump of graphene is better known as graphite, something school kids doodle with everyday.
Rice professor James Tour says that graphene memory would increase the amount of storage in a two-dimensional array by about five times. He says that this massive improvement is due to the individual bits being able to be made smaller than 10 nanometers. By comparison, circuitry in your average flash memory chip today is 45nm. Another big benefit of graphene memory is that switches can be controlled by two terminals rather than the three terminals used in flash memory today.
DailyTech – Mars Orbiter Indicates Mars Was Habitable .
The latest research indicates Mars was habitable because of a new mineral found on the planet
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found an important mineral on the Martian surface that leads researchers to believe the planet once was hospitable to life.
The MRO found carbonates, which is formed in alkaline water when water and carbon dioxide mix with calcium, magnesium or iron. Carbonates can be found on Earth in locations where life survives, which makes it a significant find on the Red Planet.
DailyTech – Toshiba Takes Its SSDs to 512GB .
Toshiba is the first company to introduce a 512GB SSD built on 43nm MLC NAND technology. The 512GB SSD uses a traditional notebook 2.5-inch form factor and is aimed at the consumer notebook space.
Alongside the 512GB SSD Toshiba has also announced other SSDs using the same 43nm MLC technology including SSDs with 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB of storage. All of the drives use advanced MLC controller technology, which allows them to achieve higher read/write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling.
The 512GB SSD is capable of maximum sequential read speeds of 240MB per second and write speeds of 200MB per second. Along with high-performance, the drives also offer AES data encryption to protect data stored on the drive.
DailyTech – Bullet Trains to Offer Wi-Fi in Japan .
NTT Communications will offer Wi-Fi services on the new N700-type bullet trains that offer the fastest train travel services between Japan’s two largest cities of Tokyo and Osaka. The distance is roughly 341 miles and takes about three hours. The Wi-Fi internet service will be an extension of the company’s HotSpot service, which offers internet accessin places such as stores, restaurants, hotels, libraries and other locations across Japan for a monthly fee.
Connection speeds of roughly 2Mbps (bits per second) will be possible through the service, which will be provided by a wire travelling alongside the bullet train track from which signals can be sent and received wirelessly. NTT Communications will also launch Wi-Fi internet access in waiting lounges on all 17 stations along the route.
The service will be charged at the current standard HotSpot rate, which ranges from 500 Yen ($5.73USD) per day to 1,680 Yen ($19.25USD) for a monthly subscription.
Plans for a wireless internet service on bullet trains were first announced in 2006 but were held back until the new N700 trains were launched to avoid retrofitting of older trains with the Wi-Fi technology.
DailyTech – Mobion Prototype Fuel Cell Charger Announced.
The latest fuel cell charger is from MTI Micro and it’s called the Mobion charger. MTI has announced its prototype Mobion charger and offered up a few details on the device, which isn’t set to hit the market until the end of 2009.
MTI says the Mobion charger is self-sufficient and has a USB port for charging any device that connects via USB like cell phones, GPS devices, and digital cameras. The charger claims to be able to charge your average cell phone over ten times; that would be enough for a full month of use says MTI.
Using the charger a MP3 player would be able to play 10,000 songs or watch over 100 hours of video per cartridge of fuel. The fuel cell cartridge is known as the Mobion Chip and is based on 100% methanol fuel. The Chip demonstrated power of over 62 mW/cm2 and produced over 1800 Watt Hours Per Kilogram of energy from direct methanol fuel feed. The Medis Power Pack is a very similar fuel cell charger, but uses a much bulkier design.
DailyTech – Scientists Find Brain Cell Suicide May Be Alzheimer’s Culprit.
Scientists at the University of Florida may have gained a significant insight into understanding what causes some brain cells to die, triggering these diseases, while others cells remain alive. The studies, performed on mice examined two neighboring regions in the hippocampus; an anatomical region shaped something like a curved kidney bean. The region is thought to be central to the formation of memories, and is one of the first regions affected by brain blood flow problems or Alzheimer’s.
What researchers discovered was that the higher susceptibility to cell death in part of the hippocampus versus the other region was due to the enzyme PHLPP, pronounced “flip”, silences the transcription of a gene that produces a critical protein to cell survival, AKT. AKT inhibits many causes of cell death. The inactivation in essence, amounts to the cell flipping its own kill switch.
Japan tops child welfare table › Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion.
While UNICEF is wasting your donations for such important matters as trying to ban Japanese cartoons, with excuses such as them being harmful for Children (drawings?? rofl), Japan has been declared as the most caring and protective country towards its children.
Japan has come top in a global survey of child development released by Save the Children’s British branch Wednesday. While commending Japan for scoring highest in the table which looked at child health, nutrition and education, Save the Children called on Japan to take the lead in improving the lives of children elsewhere in the world.
Slashdot | Japanese Scientists Claim To Reconstruct Images From Brain Data.
“In a world first, a research group in Kyoto Japan has succeeded in processing and displaying optically received images directly from the human brain. Here’s the Japanese press release for good measure. One step closer to broadcasting your dreams? The research is due to be published today in the US scientific journal Neuron.”
DailyTech – OCZ Unveils Flash Drive with eSATA Connectivity.
OCZ has introduced a new flash drive that does just that. The OCZ Throttle looks like a normal flash drive until the cap comes off and the eSATA adapter is exposed. OCZ promises that the eSATA equipped Throttle is capable of read speeds of up to 90MB/sec and write speeds of up to 30MB/sec.
Faster read and write speeds are great, as long as you have a computer that offers eSATA. However, the majority of computers and notebooks still lack eSATA ports. For this situation, OCZ also equips the drive with a mini USB 2.0 type B port that allows the Throttle to be used with computers lacking the eSATA port needed for full performance.
Versions of the flash drive are available in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB configurations. The higher performance and high capacity options could make the Throttle a viable backup solution for computer users who normally overlook flash drives because of the typically low capacity and slower USB interface.
Recent Comments