Under the Radar: January 2007

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Most paper copies of books are about to become trash and will become rare

All out of copyright books will one day be available on sites such as Project Gutenberg, which already has 20,000 books for free

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

so it will no longer be necessary to buy literature as a paperback, unless you want to scribble in the margins.

Books still in copyright are being scanned by Google at an amazing rate. They hope eventually to scan all books in English. The search will allow you to see parts of text around the terms you search for, but not the entire text. You can then go and buy the full text either in paper form, or as is more likely soon, in electronic form. (As long as the Earth is not hit by a huge electromagnetic storm from the Sun, this is a good thing.)

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8209-2557728,00.html

Therefore, over the next few decades, you can expect to see the numbers of books dwindle... and you will be able to pick up used books for a song if you really want paper copies...

World map replay of Storm Worm spreading

New email trick: Make the subject line something topical like the "recent severe storms in Europe", "A killer at 11, he's free at 21", etc. When you open the email and click the attachment, a program is installed on your computer which will later allow the cybercriminals to steal information from your computer or use your computer to churn out huge numbers of spam emails.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH8cS1AkqiI

Here comes internet TV

Big screen TVs have their place. But if you are thinking of getting a set for the bedroom, you may want to wait just a little while more to see what Joost has to offer later in the year... you may decide you want a computer instead. They promise nearly HiDef quality of any TV channel that allows its content to be broadcast... and since these are the people who brought you Skype, it will all be free! And more or less on demand rather than waiting for specific broadcast times. Imagine watching various stations around the country (and maybe even in other countries if there are no rights problems). By the way, I think this will revolutionize education...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16725531/site/newsweek/

Kiwi!

Very cute animation about flightless New Zealand bird.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs

Stunning animation of the molecular machines in cells

This is a great animation of the molecular machines in your cells and the movement of cells in your body. The animation is simplified because if everything were really shown, you wouldn't be able to see what is going on. Cells are not little masses of goo with things sloshing about inside; they are highly organized with protein guideways and little robots to produce, package, and transport materials around the cell. In a few years, it will be much easier to learn cell biology and biochemistry because you will be able to envision what is happening through 3D simulations like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H1S9d5h-Ps

Carbohydrates and cholesterol

There have long been suggestions that at least some cholesterol problems are due not to eating cholesterol, but are due to eating large amounts of sugar and starch. Here is further evidence.

http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=2950B6AFD1A54045C0659AE2368893C8

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Cheap, long-tested drug kills most cancers

The catch? Companies don't think they can make money on it.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn10971-cheap-safe-drug-kills-most-cancers.html

You will note that one of the effects is to increase the activity of mitochondria, and that this effect is similar to one of the main effects of resveratrol!

How resveratrol works. Click on the arrows in the diagram at the bottom right.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/18/magazines/fortune/Live_forever.fortune/index.htm

Vitamin B9, folic acid, improves brain function

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10989-folic-acid-supplements-rejuvenate-older-brains.html

Superferry to begin Oahu-Kauai, Oahu-Maui service in July

http://www.thehawaiichannel.com/news/10796853/detail.html

http://www.hawaiisuperferry.com/

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Kadomatsu

Kadomatsu ("gate pine") are New Year decorations, temporary abodes for the gods that come to visit. They are always placed in pairs at the main entrance to a residence or business establishment, and they may be simple pine branches tied to a gate or may be much more elaborate and expensive arrangements containing pine, bamboo, and plum blossoms in front of a business.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Mars 2020: Springtime

The more you know about Mars landers, the funnier this is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjiGH9QNiU0

Daylight Saving Time will start a MONTH earlier than last year!

Daylight Saving Time is scheduled to start March 11 in 2007... a whole month earlier than ever before!

Totally cool clouds

http://pic1.funtigo.com/valuca/?g=25544746&cr=1

JAXA plans largest lunar mission since Apollo

JAXA (Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency) plans to launch the SELENE lunar mission in 2007. See the site... and send your name and a message to the Moon in the "Wish Upon the Moon Campaign"!

http://www.jaxa.jp/missions/projects/sat/exploration/selene/index_e.html

JAXA Vision 2025

JAXA (Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency) vision for 2025, including Asia-Pacificwide instant earthquake and tsunami warnings.

http://www.jaxa.jp/2025/img/mov/JAXA2025e.mpg

JAXA deploys giant satellite allowing point-to-point communication

After the 2004 Niigata quake, communications were disrupted for quite some time because the mountains blocked wireless signals and the wired systems were damaged. It was very difficult to determine where the damage was most severe and the kind and amounts of aid necessary. http://www.hinet.bosai.go.jp/topics/niigata041023/index_e.html

JAXA (Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency) has successfully deployed and is in the final stages of testing the 120-foot KIKU No. 8 satellite. This satellite will allow direct point-to-point communication throughout Japan using small handsets, vastly improving search and rescue operations and disaster management.

http://www.jaxa.jp/countdown/f11/index_e.html

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

What the net might be like in a few years

Many webpages will go from looking like a 2D sheet of paper to a 3D interactive world. Here are some examples.

http://www.eternalegypt.org/EternalEgyptWebsiteWeb/HomeServlet?ee_website_action_key=action.display.views&language_id=1

It is still clunky and slow, but you can image how it will be in a very short time. Tutankhamun's tomb is spectacular.

Other possible developments can be found here.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/12/28/23418.aspx

Global Warming + El Nino = A Hot 2007?

2006 was the hottest year in the UK since 1659. We are in a moderate El Nino now, but should it intensify as it did in 1997, the five-year drought in Australia would become much worse, Indonesia would see drought and huge forest fires, and California would have extremely heavy rains.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2116873.ece

New vaccine for all strains of Influenza A

A new flu vaccine is being tested and may be on the market in about five years. It would be effective against all strains of influenza A, would produce immunity for years, and is produced by cultured bacteria instead of using chicken eggs, so it will be fast and cheap to make!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20987519-2,00.html

Monday, January 1, 2007

Where the gods dwell

http://www.photoglobe.info/earth_from_space/spc_mount_olympus.html

A hundred useful sites on the net

A few of these sites are specific to the UK, but the rest you should at least know about. Bookmark this page and click on a few links from time to time. Some of the sites, like Snopes, are just plain fun!

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1975939,00.htmlhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Happy New Year!

ISBN-13: 978-0295985350

みなしご元禄津波
The Orphan Tsunami of 1700

One winter's night in the year 1700, a mysterious tsunami flooded fields and washed away houses in Japan. It arrived without the warning that a nearby earthquake usually provides. Samurai, merchants, and villagers recorded the event, but nearly three centuries would pass before discoveries in North America revealed the tsunami's source.

The Orphan Tsunami of 1700 tells this scientific detective story through clues from both sides of the Pacific. The evidence uncovered tells of a [magnitude 9 earthquake off the coast of the Pacific Northwest] a century before Lewis and Clark...

You can see a summary at
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/

http://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Tsunami-1700-Japanese-Earthquake/dp/0295985356/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204357404&sr=1-1

Video simulation of the megaquake.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=72698052150208427&q=pacific+northwest+megaquake&total=1&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Map of simulation of the megaquake.
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/supercomputer/02-08Virtual90Megaquake.asp

A tsunami is unlike any "wave" you have ever seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jixyBvjJZQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl8giZ66j7o

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)

Liberal, optimistic, exhilarating. The most spectacular lectures you will ever see.

www.ted.com

Try these to start

The best presentation ever... legendary... your view of the world will change in many ways... and there will be hope...
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92

The World Now Eats (and Dies) Like Americans
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/10

Extremely graphic... even made me queasy... but you cannot understand the light without knowing the darkness...
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/142

The Law of ACCELERTING Returns

You have probably heard of the Law of Diminishing Returns: more effort gets you only marginal increase in reward (for example, if you exercise for half an hour a day, you get most of the health benefits; if you exercise for an hour a day, you get almost all of the health benefits; and exercising for two, three, or four hours a day will give very little added health benefits).

However, there are situations in which reward does not diminish (at least for a long while) and actually speeds up over time. People tend to see progress in technology as proceeding in a linear fashion, so they expect the 21st century (barring something truly unfortunate) to progress something like the way the 20th century did. But according to Ray Kurzweil, the technical progress in the 21st century will be more like 1,000 times that of the 20th century.

Here is an example. Cost to read the DNA of one person
in 1990: 3 billion dollars
in 2005: 2 million dollars
in 2006: 200,000 dollars
target for 2010-2015: 1,000 dollars

Being able to read your DNA will allow medical treatments to be tailored specifically for you, vastly improving outcomes.

This BBC Horizon program is, granted, sensational infotainment, but it is probably the most efficient introduction to this topic.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3882715179234602208&q=human+v2.0&hl=en

The article below is very long, and there may be parts that are difficult to follow, but look over the entire article because it is a map of the world we are already living in, and it shows what looms up the road.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

Step 1: Slow the ageing process

Something that humans have seen only once is about to happen again: functional lifespan will vastly increase.

This happened the first time in the 20th century with improvements in public health, sanitation, nutrition, vaccination, and pharmaceuticals. Someone from the 19th century would not believe how low our risk of death is, how free of disability and pain we are, and how long we live now. Things are hardly perfect, but to all humans who lived before the early 1900s, the world we live in now would be an unbelievable paradise.

In the next leap, we will not only live even longer, but disease and disability will often be delayed by years if not decades. If we can just make it through the next 15 years or so, the interventions will be unbelievable. It is quite possible that many of us, even those in middle age, will live to see the dawn of the 22nd century, looking and feeling like 40. I am not joking.

So, how do we improve our chances of getting there? Doing basic things to take care of your health is obvious, but there are other things that can be done.

We have known for 70 years how to slow the ageing process and delay the onset of the diseases of old age: eat less. Or more exactly, reduce the number of calories while maintaining adequate amounts of protein, fats, vitamins, and other nutrients. The difference is shocking, and it has been shown in animals from ameba to monkeys without exception. Basically, when calories are low, cells turn on genes that fix damage, so you age more slowly. Fasting at least once a month seems to produce most of the desired effect.

If you have not seen this New York Times article, take a look at the monkeys.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/health/nutrition/31agin.html?ex=1163480400&en=193a4a4fe169ec69&ei=5070

The monkeys are both about 25 years old. The one on the right ate a normal diet and is old, frail, gray, scruffy, and has the shrunken skull of an old monkey (like a 90 year old human). The one on the left ate a diet with the same nutrients, but with about 30 percent fewer calories. The contrast is shocking. The monkey that ate fewer calories still looks young and healthy (like a 60 year old human).

So, step one is avoid excess calories, especially from sugar, white bread, white rice, and white potatoes.

But the amount by which you have to reduce calories is quite difficult for most people to maintain. Is there another way we can turn on the damage repair genes? The answer seems to be yes.

Throughout human evolution, we have always eaten plants that were far from perfect. They were drought stressed, attacked by fungi, and attacked by insects. Ironically, this seems to have been good for us. When plants are attacked or do not receive enough water, they produce huge numbers of chemicals to defend themselves. In seasons when there were a lot of these chemicals in plants, animals eating the plants used that as a signal that hard times may be coming, so their cells turned on the damage control genes to protect what the cells already had. We also did not have steady supplies of food, so whenever we didn't eat for a day, again the damage control genes turned on. Specifically, unnecessary molecular tags are removed from the DNA, returning gene expression to the way it was when we were younger. In modern life, all the plants we eat are completely protected from fungi and insects and are watered carefully. All the stress response chemicals that they would normally produce are not there. We never go for a day without eating. Therefore, our damage control genes are never turned on, so the molecular tags on our DNA become more and more different from the way they were when we were young, our gene expression becomes more abnormal, and we age at a high rate.

If we consume chemicals that plants make in response to stress, it turns on the damage control genes, and voila, the effect is the same as caloric restriction, although it is unclear what dose is necessary. One chemical that has been shown to turn on damage control genes is resveratrol, which is found in the skin of grapes, especially when the grape plants are stressed by drought or fungus infection, and is found in many other plants as well. Since people who drink red wine made from grapes harvested and processed in the French way seemed to have extremely low levels of heart disease, researchers tried screening red wines from France to find out if there were compounds which produced the effect. Resveratrol is the most potent found so far. When given to laboratory animals, it slows ageing by 20% and even much more, and it decreases risk of cancer by up to 70%. Further evidence comes from numerous studies showing that consumption of 3 glasses of red wine per week is associated with 70% reduction in colon cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and other cancers.

I have been taking resveratrol for two years now, and I think the effects are apparent. When I stopped for 6 months because I ran out, the skin started to look old and wrinkled. Resveratrol is easily destroyed by exposure to air, heat, and light. I take the one from Longevinex at
http://www.longevinex.com
because it seems to be the most biologically active. It costs about a dollar a day, which is much cheaper than a glass of wine, though much less fun, so I do both.

These results are not obscure, but you may not have heard about them. Do a Google search for any of these topics and you will find thousands of hits.

So, step 1, let's at least do simple basic things to slow the ageing process and delay the onset of serious diseases of old age. You may be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. 万歳！

Under the Radar