November 8th, 2007 Administrator
Being a fan of all things science and computers, as well as a fan of research that helps fight things such as cancer, I’m glad to see that Canada is taking some serious action in the fight to cure / prevent cancer. A research team at the Ontario Cancer Institute have decided to utilize the power of IBM’s World Community Grid to analyze research data that resulted from experiments. Analysis will be performed on proteins that were collected from the tests. It was estimated the research would have taken nearly 162 years to completed if the analysis were done on standard computers. But with the combine power of the PCs on the IBM World Community Grid, they have estimated that the completion time will be about two years.
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October 13th, 2007 Administrator
A new plastic has been developed by researchers that are hoping to reduce CO2 emissions with their latest creation. The plastic’s design is based on that of pores found in plants which generally seem to be relatively efficient in performance. Tests with the new plastic have concluded that it is capable of separating carbon dioxide hundreds of times faster than standard plastics that we have available today. With this increased capabilities, it was also found that the purity of the separate gas was four times better than they had been. These qualities could definitely set the plastic up to become a very environmentally sound investment for plants that process water or gas. It’s hard to say how quickly plants will adopt this new creation, but if they have any sense they’ll snatch it up as quickly as possible.
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October 2nd, 2007 Administrator
A release on the sciencedaily.com website discusses the possibility of alzheimer’s being the third form of diabetes. This idea was conceived after determining that insulin brain signaling is important for the formation of memory. As Alzheimer’s disease develops in a person, the insulin brain signaling functionality stops working. Northwestern University scientists are working to further prove this theory in hopes of preventing or maybe even curing Alzheimer’s disease. I’ve personally been lucky enough to have family members that haven’t suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, but hopefully this scientific development will help the countless others that are currently suffering or could potentially suffer from the disease.
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September 4th, 2007 Administrator
I’ve always been a supporter of stem cell research. It could really help out a lot of people in the world and I still don’t see any reasons why people would want to prevent such a thing. Anyways, researchers from Britain have been successful in growing a heart valve by using stem cells that were obtained from bone marrow. They’ve found that developing a heart valve from a person’s own stem cells would eliminate tissue rejection as being an issue.
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June 7th, 2007 Administrator
This post goes out to all of the science geeks that visit the site, because hey, I’m one too. A hole was found on Mars that measures about 330 feet across. It’s thought that because the hole is so dark that it may be quite deep and contain subsurface life. It would be very interesting to see what could be hanging around inside that cave and with any luck, the Phoenix lander will be able to investigate the matter. Check out the Space.com article for more information and even a picture of the hole on Mars.
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