Graduate student from University of the Philippines, Diliman. Researcher in the field of Bioinformatics. I also data mine genomic data and implement parallel algorithms in CUDA.
I post some of my own photos.
I reblog technology and science updates.
I repost quotes from great people who inspires me.
so..
sudo follow me. }:)
CAPTURED
Toddler received world’s smallest artificial heart as he waited for a transplant
Italian doctors have saved the life of a 16-month-old boy by implanting the world’s smallest artificial heart to keep the infant alive until a donor was found for a transplant.
The tiny titanium pump weighs only 11 grams and can handle a blood flow of 1.5 liters a minute. An artificial heart for adults weighs 900 grams.
Surgeon Antonio Amodeo said the baby had become family and his team wanted to do everything to help him.
“Every day, every hour, for more than one year he was with us. So when we had a problem we couldn’t do anything more than our best,” he said. (Photo: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters)
Harry Potter and the Order of Phlebotomists
A new blood type test has been developed that takes a page right out of Tom Riddle’s diary. Instead of writing on a page and receiving an answer, blood is washed over the paper and the letter corresponding to the blood type is activated.
Antibodies that are specific to each particular blood type are immobilized on the page, and when blood is washed over them, it sticks. The result is an easy-to-read, foolproof check for hospitals and mobile units.
No word on if it can detect mudblood.
(via Monash University)
Totally rad: Scientists create rewritable digital data storage in DNA
“One of the coolest places for computing is within biological systems.” Drew Endy, PhD
Imagine being able to use the DNA of a living cell to store data. Not only would it be an incredible tool for researchers studying cell division, cancer, evolution, aging, and many other biological fields, but also it could lead to a way of storing information without consuming power. Amazingly, a lab out of Stanford’s Bioengineering Department reported this week that it was able to record a single bit of data in this manner.
The team calls its device a “recombinase addressable data” module, or RAD for short.
Alright, already loving the name.
They used RAD to modify a particular section of DNA within microbes that determines how the one-celled organisms will fluoresce under ultraviolet light. The microbes glow red or green depending upon the orientation of the section of DNA. Using RAD, the engineers can flip the section back and forth at will.
Their system seems to be reliable after many cellular divisions, as well as rewrite-able, which is quite a feat in an environment as dynamic as a microbe. Going forward, the team hopes to work towards an 8-bit of genetic programmable data. This may take years, but the scientists are excited by their progress and prospects.
Paper: “Rewritable digital data storage in live cells via engineered control of recombination directionality,” Bonnet, J., Subsoontorn, P. & Endy, D. PNAS,http://dx.doi.org/ … s.1202344109 (2012).
Image: http://www.dna11.com
Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?
You were recently quoted as saying that philosophy “hasn’t progressed in two thousand years.” But computer science, particularly research into artificial intelligence was to a large degree built on foundational work done by philosophers in logic and other formal languages. And certainly philosophers like John Rawls have been immensely influential in fields like political science and public policy. Do you view those as legitimate achievements?
Krauss: Well, yeah, I mean, look I was being provocative, as I tend to do every now and then in order to get people’s attention. There are areas of philosophy that are important, but I think of them as being subsumed by other fields. In the case of descriptive philosophy you have literature or logic, which in my view is really mathematics. Formal logic is mathematics, and there are philosophers like Wittgenstein that are very mathematical, but what they’re really doing is mathematics—-it’s not talking about things that have affected computer science, it’s mathematical logic. And again, I think of the interesting work in philosophy as being subsumed by other disciplines like history, literature, and to some extent political science insofar as ethics can be said to fall under that heading. To me what philosophy does best is reflect on knowledge that’s generated in other areas.
I’m not sure that’s right. I think that in some cases philosophy actually generates new fields. Computer science is a perfect example. Certainly philosophical work in logic can be said to have been subsumed by computer science, but subsumed might be the wrong word—-
Krauss: Well, you name me the philosophers that did key work for computer science; I think of John Von Neumann and other mathematicians, and—-
But Bertrand Russell paved the way for Von Neumann.
Krauss: But Bertrand Russell was a mathematician. I mean, he was a philosopher too and he was interested in the philosophical foundations of mathematics, but by the way, when he wrote about the philosophical foundations of mathematics, what did he do? He got it wrong.
The worst feeling is not knowing whether you should wait or give up |
FOLLOW BEST LOVE QUOTES ON TUMBLR FOR MORE LOVE QUOTES
(via sayingimages)
7 Theories on the Origin of Life (by LiveScience)
Primordial Soup: Life on Earth began more than 3 billion years ago, evolving from the most basic of microbes into a dazzling array of complexity over time. But how did the first organisms on the only known home to life in the universe develop from the primordial soup? Here are science’s theories on the origins of life on Earth.7. Electric Spark: Electric sparks can generate amino acids and sugars from an atmosphere loaded with water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen, as was shown in the famous Miller-Urey experiment reported in 1953, suggesting that lightning might have helped create the key building blocks of life on Earth in its early days. Over millions of years, larger and more complex molecules could form. Although research since then has revealed the early atmosphere of Earth was actually hydrogen-poor, scientists have suggested that volcanic clouds in the early atmosphere might have held methane, ammonia and hydrogen and been filled with lightning as well.
6. Community Clay: The first molecules of life might have met on clay, according to an idea elaborated by organic chemist Alexander Graham Cairns-Smith at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. These surfaces might not only have concentrated these organic compounds together, but also helped organize them into patterns much like our genes do now.
The main role of DNA is to store information on how other molecules should be arranged. Genetic sequences in DNA are essentially instructions on how amino acids should be arranged in proteins. Cairns-Smith suggests that mineral crystals in clay could have arranged organic molecules into organized patterns. After a while, organic molecules took over this job and organized themselves.5. Deep-Sea Vents: The deep-sea vent theory suggests that life may have begun at submarine hydrothermal vents, spewing key hydrogen-rich molecules. Their rocky nooks could then have concentrated these molecules together and provided mineral catalysts for critical reactions. Even now, these vents, rich in chemical and thermal energy, sustain vibrant ecosystems.
4. Chilly Start: Ice might have covered the oceans 3 billion years ago, as the sun was about a third less luminous than it is now. This layer of ice, possibly hundreds of feet thick, might have protected fragile organic compounds in the water below from ultraviolet light and destruction from cosmic impacts. The cold might have also helped these molecules to survive longer, allowing key reactions to happen.
3. RNA World: Nowadays DNA needs proteins in order to form, and proteins require DNA to form, so how could these have formed without each other? The answer may be RNA, which can store information like DNA, serve as an enzyme like proteins, and help create both DNA and proteins. Later DNA and proteins succeeded this “RNA world,” because they are more efficient. RNA still exists and performs several functions in organisms, including acting as an on-off switch for some genes. The question still remains how RNA got here in the first place. And while some scientists think the molecule could have spontaneously arisen on Earth, others say that was very unlikely to have happened. Other nucleic acids other than RNA have been suggested as well, such as the more esoteric PNA or TNA.
2. Simple Beginnings: Instead of developing from complex molecules such as RNA, life might have begun with smaller molecules interacting with each other in cycles of reactions. These might have been contained in simple capsules akin to cell membranes, and over time more complex molecules that performed these reactions better than the smaller ones could have evolved, scenarios dubbed “metabolism-first” models, as opposed to the “gene-first” model of the “RNA world” hypothesis.
1. Panspermia: Perhaps life did not begin on Earth at all, but was brought here from elsewhere in space, a notion known as panspermia. For instance, rocks regularly get blasted off Mars by cosmic impacts, and a number of Martian meteorites have been found on Earth that some researchers have controversially suggested brought microbes over here, potentially making us all Martians originally. Other scientists have even suggested that life might have hitchhiked on comets from other star systems. However, even if this concept were true, the question of how life began on Earth would then only change to how life began elsewhere in space.
