Nate Edel's blog
Doctors grow organs from patients’ own cells
Seven living with bladders from new process
[…]Scientists grew new bladders from the patients’ own cells, which were then transplanted back into the patients’ bodies.
Cool. Once again, the future is now… all I want to know is when they going to be able to make some lab-grown replacement arteries? The way I’m going, I may need ’em one of these days…
AMERICAblog takes a break from political stories noting a CNN story on a “creepy” new furry lobster, and asks the question I’ve borrowed for my title.
Two quick notes:
1) WordPress 2.0 is out. I plan to upgrade when I get back to the states; I’m not convinced it’s really going to be an improvement, but I need to keep up to date with the security patches, so there’s not much choice. Hopefully my old style/theme will still work. If not, expect a very bland defauly style until I have more time…
2) ReiserFS sucks for news spools, even with “notail” on, at least on RAID1. I’d wondered if that was it, and it appears to be the case. My leafnode spool runs to about 1.5 million articles, and 9GB; when I put in the mirrored drives, I put it on it’s own file system and switched it from ext3 to ReiserFS. I noticed then that it took about 6 hours every day to run texpire, which seemed long – but I hadn’t been checking since it had been growing. Well, “notail” sped it up a bit but it still took several hours…. so I got fed up, and with the wireless here, migrated it back to ext3. On ext3? (with dir_index on, data=”ordered”, and commit=60) it took a whopping 12 minuts… or a 40:1 improvement.
Ok, this is just a test to see how well posting works from my little PDA thingee. So far I am not terribly impressed with how this site looks on the mobile screen but logging I and bringing up the post form works OK and the miniature keyboard is not half bad – if a little slow.
Anyone know about optimizing these thing for both desktop and PDA user? Does anyone out there with a Treo or Blackberry want to comment on the way the site appears on your device?
Update looking on the PC – one bad typo “botb” and one extra line break. Not too bad. Can we say “blogging through boring meetings?” anybody?
I bought a new PocketPC/Phone device this weekend, and switched to Sprint:
PPC 6700 from Sprint
All-you-can-eat mobile IP access (email and web, mainly) is a very, very cool thing.
I still need a memory card for it (it’s got about 40mb of free storage on it’s own… *sigh* I remember when that would have seemed like a lot), and if I were *really* hardcore, I’d be posting this from it rather than my laptop. But hey, I’m getting there.
Breast implants may soon carry MP3 players!
Breast implants may soon carry MP3 players!
Asian News International
London, October 14, 2005Music may one day be very close to a woman’s chest, with BT futurology which manufactures computer chips that store music, creating a MP3 player that can be implanted into a woman’s breasts.
Both true for me, and a good songto boot. (*)
Congratulations to Peter and Jane, whose wedding I was at this past weekend. I’m not sure whether it’s appropriate to post a photo or two here, but I may.
Also, for lack of a better place, here’s some interesting science news:
The key to fresh water: imitation spleen proteins
Burlingame, Calif.–The human spleen doesn’t get a lot of good press, but the Electronic Power Research Institute has come up with a spleen-inspired molecule that could expand the world’s water supply.
(* Does someone know a good spam/adware-free lyrics site? My usual approach to just finding the first on google tends to produce sites that are fine for me, but look like they’re full of crapware if you don’t have a good blocker. Also, geez, how many people have covered that song… the original WAS the Boomtown Rats one, right???)
Air Force testing new transparent armor
by Laura Lundin
Air Force Research Laboratory Public Affairs10/17/2005 – WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) — Engineers here are testing a new kind of transparent armor — stronger and lighter than traditional materials — that could stop armor-piercing weapons from penetrating vehicle windows.
The Air Force Research Laboratory’s materials and manufacturing directorate is testing aluminum oxynitride — ALONtm — as a replacement for the traditional multi-layered glass transparencies now used in existing ground and air armored vehicles.
Remember Star Trek IV? Well, once again we’re living in the future… they’ve got transparent aluminum now. Via a post on rassf;
There was planned downtime this weekend. The server now has mirrored hard drives, using the software RAID1 driver. And a hopefully much faster news spool on its own partitition, but that is a separate issue most of you are unlikely to see (if you actually know me in person and don’t already have one, do feel free to ask for an account…)
E-nose to sniff out hospital superbugs
22 September 2005
From New Scientist Print Edition
Paul MarksAN ELECTRONIC nose that sniffs out infections could help hospitals tackle outbreaks of the antibiotic-resistant superbug MRSA.
Culture tests routinely used to identify MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) take two or three days to complete. This hampers attempts to manage outbreaks as infected patients remain untreated and at risk of infecting others.
Sometimes, living in the future is very cool.
via the Daily Illuminator
Check out Hitachi’s Get Perpendicular animation. Make sure your sound is on, and your tolerance for Schoolhouse Rock take-offs high.
via Lawrence You on the SSRC mailing list.
Humanoids With Attitude: Japan Embraces New Generation of Robots
TOKYO — Ms. Saya, a perky receptionist in a smart canary-yellow suit, beamed a smile from behind the “May I Help You?” sign on her desk, offering greetings and answering questions posed by visitors at a local university. But when she failed to welcome a workman who had just walked by, a professor stormed up to Saya and dished out a harsh reprimand.
“You’re so stupid!” said the professor, Hiroshi Kobayashi, towering over her desk.
Cyber-receptionist Ms. Saya greets Hiroshi Kobayashi, her inventor, at the Tokyo University of Science. “She has a temper,” the professor cautions.
“Eh?” she responded, her face wrinkling into a scowl. “I tell you, I am not stupid!”