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Terry

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Heartland poker tour [May. 15th, 2008|07:33 pm]
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My brother just won a satellite tournament, which reserves for him a seat at the tables for the heartland poker tour main event.

If he wins, he is buying the beer. Forever.
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Endothelial cells in a developing vasculature [May. 15th, 2008|04:03 pm]
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From Four-dimensional analysis of vascularization during primary development of an organ, the gonad.
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[May. 14th, 2008|03:10 pm]
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Not-quite-identical twins:
Geneticist Carl Bruder of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and his colleagues closely compared the genomes of 19 sets of adult identical twins. In some cases, one twin's DNA differed from the other's at various points on their genomes. At these sites of genetic divergence, one bore a different number of copies of the same gene, a genetic state called copy number variants.

...

For example, one twin in Bruder's study was missing some genes on particular chromosomes that indicated a risk of leukemia, which he indeed suffered. The other twin did not.
I have a particular interest in copy number variation, if only because it seems very important but is infrequently discussed.
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On the medical front [May. 13th, 2008|11:47 am]
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Retinal cells suspended in jello as a treatment for Parkinson's. Or there's therapeutic cloning (which seems to work in mice).

Studying human aging in fruit flies.

Immune cells caught "red-handed" attacking pancreatic cells in type I diabetes.

Growing human vasculature in mice:

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Movie science [May. 13th, 2008|11:38 am]
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Five science fiction movies that get the science right.

The Depiction of Cloning in the Movies.
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Text me$$aging [May. 12th, 2008|09:33 pm]
"The bottom line is texting is at least 4 times more expensive than transmitting data from Hubble, and is likely to be substantially more than that."
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[May. 12th, 2008|05:44 pm]
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Microwaving ballast water to prevent the introduction of potentially invasive species.

I studied a vaguely similar approach in the early '00s - not long enough to know how well it works.
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Things I have received lately from students [May. 12th, 2008|03:51 pm]
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- The bioengineering honors society Outstanding Faculty Award for 2008(!)

- A collection of fine sodas (as my addiction is plain for all to see)

- A giant stack of projects to grade. Crazy good work this year, in part because I believe our curriculum is doing a better job building upon knowledge gained in previous or concurrent courses (damn hard work was also a factor). Crowd pleasers include: the diffusive dynamics of nasal cocaine administration and several projects comparing various implantable birth control devices.
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Genes, sweets, smoking, and fear [May. 11th, 2008|11:31 pm]
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Mice desire sweets even when they lack the genes to taste them. It may help to explain the correlation between artificial sweeteners and weight gain (though you'll still have to pry my diet coke from my cold, dead hand).

There are also recently discovered genetic correlations that predispose you to lung cancer and fear.
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Addiction roundup [May. 9th, 2008|03:19 pm]
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Brain implant cures drug-induced gambling addiction. On a related note, loss of the gene for Nr-CAM lead mice to embrace risky behavior.

Immune to the high - using the immune system to fight addiction.
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A photo I wish I'd taken [May. 9th, 2008|02:32 pm]
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Taken by [info]seismic.
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Quote of the day [May. 9th, 2008|02:31 pm]
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"There are no switches, everything's a dial."

- Stuart Firestein, discussing biological signaling
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Biomimetics [May. 9th, 2008|01:42 pm]
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Biomimetics: Design by Nature. Photos here - don't miss the lizard that "drinks" with its foot.
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[May. 9th, 2008|01:16 pm]
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"Federal spending is lower in areas where there is less press coverage of the local members of congress."
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foldit [May. 9th, 2008|01:14 pm]
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Foldit - a protein folding game you can play online. You play against other teams to determine the likely structure of real proteins.
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[May. 8th, 2008|11:34 am]
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My latest io9 column: Where is my uterine replicator? is up.

Related - Carl Zimmer reads io9! I'm all twitterpated.
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[May. 7th, 2008|11:06 pm]
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[May. 7th, 2008|01:56 pm]
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A robot jellyfish:



Next thing you know, they'll have mouths and be performing surgery without an anesthesiologist.
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You even underlined it. Twice! [May. 7th, 2008|12:04 pm]
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The latest correlations with happiness [May. 6th, 2008|02:36 pm]
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If you want to be happy, don't have kids. Earn money. Spend some of it on others, and the rest on guns.
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[May. 6th, 2008|01:59 pm]
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Selfishness as second-order altruism:
Selfishness is seldom considered a group-beneficial strategy. In the typical evolutionary formulation, altruism benefits the group, selfishness undermines altruism, and the purpose of the model is to identify mechanisms, such as kinship or reciprocity, that enable altruism to evolve. Recent models have explored punishment as an important mechanism favoring the evolution of altruism, but punishment can be costly to the punisher, making it a form of second-order altruism. This model identifies a strategy called "selfish punisher" that involves behaving selfishly in first-order interactions and altruistically in second-order interactions by punishing other selfish individuals. Selfish punishers cause selfishness to be a self-limiting strategy, enabling altruists to coexist in a stable equilibrium. This polymorphism can be regarded as a division of labor, or mutualism, in which the benefits obtained by first-order selfishness help to "pay" for second-order altruism.
I won't belabor the math because my game theory is next to nonexistent.
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Found on the streets of Las Vegas [May. 5th, 2008|07:26 pm]
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[May. 1st, 2008|07:59 pm]
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The memristor:
The new component is called the “memristor” -- a word blend of "memory" and "resistor". The physical working model and the mathematical model of the component were presented side by side in a paper in the journal Nature, yesterday. Four researchers at the lab, led by R. Stanley Williams, presented the device which retains the history of information passed to it.

The device could make for computers that need no boot-up, never forget, use less power, and associate memories much like the human mind.
If only it was positronic.
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If I disappear next week, send in the marines [May. 1st, 2008|07:58 pm]
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I have been told that I am not to miss the honors society's semi-formal next week, because I will be somehow involved in the proceedings. Preferably not as a pinata.

It will also be the last full week of classes, with students finishing their projects, of which there are so many I have difficulty keeping track.

As a prelude to summer, I'll be in Vegas this weekend practicing my drinking.
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I need your clothes, your boots, and your exoskeleton [Apr. 30th, 2008|12:58 pm]
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It has begun:
Japan's CYBERDYNE, Inc. is hoping to change that with a sleek, white exoskeleton now in the works that it says can augment the body's own strength or do the work of ailing (or missing) limbs.



The company is confident enough in its new technology to have started construction on a new lab expected to mass-produce up to 500 robotic power suits (think Star Wars storm trooper without the helmet) annually, beginning in October, according to Japan's Kyodo News Web site.
A company named Cyberdyne producing a robot suit called "HAL".

What could possibly go wrong?
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Mended webs [Apr. 29th, 2008|10:15 pm]
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"Onanists" [Apr. 29th, 2008|01:16 pm]
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Not my highest scoring Scrabble bingo, but perhaps my personal favorite.
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Not cool [Apr. 28th, 2008|01:48 pm]
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Quote of the day [Apr. 28th, 2008|01:45 pm]
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"It is often said that great achievement requires in one's formative years two teachers: a stern taskmaster who teaches the rules and an inspirational guru who teaches one to break the rules. But they must come in that order. Childhood training in Bach can prepare one to play free jazz and ballet instruction can prepare one to be a modern dancer, but it does not work the other way around. One cannot be liberated from fetters one has never worn; all one can do is to make pastiches of the liberations of others."

- Michael Lewis
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[Apr. 27th, 2008|08:02 pm]
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Curing blindness via gene therapy:
Scientists for the first time have used gene therapy to dramatically improve sight in people with a rare form of blindness, a development experts called a major advance for the experimental technique.

Some vision was restored in four of the six young people who got the treatment, teams of researchers in the United States and Britain reported Sunday. Two of the volunteers who could only see hand motions were able to read a few lines of an eye chart within weeks.
New icon says it all.
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