Reader blogs
"By Jove, it's the reward circuitry!"
A dedicated member of the "to each his own taste" club, I'm all for freedom of speech. However, my website happens to discuss the highs and lows of sexual satiety in terms of the highs and lows of the typical addiction cycle. To my surprise (and theirs, I'm sure), men from all over the world showed up in my site's forum complaining of addiction to porn/masturbation.
In the 1950s, Metropolis and Teller pioneered molecular dynamics (MD) as a method to derive the thermodynamic and transport properties of bulk molecular liquids. Submicron ensembles comprising a few hundred atoms with periodic boundary conditions were used to derive the bulk liquid properties.
A recent study by Yeh, Xing, and Shapley over at The Center for Neural Science, New York University made a fascinating discovery about the primary visual cortex of the macaque monkey and it's preference for black over white stimuli similar to that of humans. Here's a snippet from their abstract.
Space
When we contemplate the evolution of the universe from big bang to the present time one wonders at the different forms of our universe from the inception of time. Can any one come out roughly with the number of forms sprung from the same universe? At each point in time, we have discovered a new form being evolved. What are these forms and how significant they assume in their evolution of 13 billion and odd years?
I wrote in my first blog ‘Modern Cosmology’ at http://www.rsridharan.blogspot.com/ that how do we combine all the different factions of the universe into a single format. Some of my friends in different science forums ridiculed at me although some others appreciated and even wondered at my blog. To those who are yet to discern my point in my first blog, here is the simple answer. When we go back from the present to the beginning of the universe, we can see that all different aspects of the present day Universe were once combined into a single point in time! This is what I meant. Isn’t that true and so simple?
And so we begin our journey from the start of the time to the present day evolution.
At the end of April this year, a 90 minute film was released directed by a man called Brent Leung. This film was titled ‘House of Numbers’, and is shot in a documentary format with the claim of ‘objectively investigating whether HIV exists, and whether HIV causes AIDS’. The narrative soothingly reassures the audience that an objective and balanced approach is being taken, whilst the presentation in fact hugely attempts to lead viewers to a conclusion questioning scientific fact. The film gives credence to entirely invalidated arguments, and demands debate over subject matter long since resolved. Continue reading at Blue-Genes.net
Enlisting in the army is a significant life-changing decision, especially for someone who's middle-aged. Apparently there's an age cap of 42 for active duty. The reasoning behind this seemingly arbitrary number is that it allow for a 20-year military career before retirement. However, perhaps they should look toward a younger cutoff point in light of a recent study investigating the effects of sleep deprivation on arousal levels of middle-aged rats. But before we continue with this line of argument, lets define what being middle-aged really means.
When HIV was discovered as the causative agent of AIDS in 1984 (and has since been repeatedly proven, despite denialists claims - see Ben's post) scientists were relieved: "It's a virus! Phew, viruses are something we can deal with. Alright, somebody go cook up a vaccine: problem solved". According to wikipedia, senior figures in the US health system claimed that a vaccine would be ready in as little as two years. 25 years later HIV is getting the better of us like no other disease, and the vaccine front has seen failure after failure. Continue reading for a brief analysis of the latest HIV vaccine study: even better continue reading at Blue-Genes.net where this post was born and bred.
"Good" is a notoriously difficult word to define. A pretty common and reasonably uncontroversial definition of a good paper, though, is one that has significantly advanced human knowledge. The question is how do we measure that?
Carbon nanotubes, photovoltaics and the "hydrogen economy" -- not exactly household concepts yet. But they are technologies at the forefront of the growing worldwide demand for "green" energy and manufacturing. And lasers are critical to this global revolution.
For scientists working in the field of HIV and AIDS, discussion of denialists can be at best tiring and at worst infuriating. This isn’t because a (‘good’) scientist can’t engage in a meaningful debate about their field with an honest dissident. It is because denialists of established science are not truly interested in objective examination of evidence. This may sound harsh, but it is important to realise that we’re not talking about any issues which have real controversy. The issue that I’m particularly talking about, the fact that HIV is the causative agent of AIDS, has over 25 years of medical science behind it, and is the subject of tens of thousands (1) of peer-reviewed research papers. The evidence is as irrefutable as that demonstrating that the earth orbits the sun, albeit perhaps less accessible to your average layperson. As this article is written by Ben Vincent, the newest contributor to Blue-Genes, you should give him a grand welcome by travelling over to Blue-Genes.net and reading the rest of it there!
A common strategy to stop tumor growth is to cut the tumor's blood supply, usually by inhibiting angiogenic factors such as the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). However, recent evidence suggests that anti-angiogenic therapy could also enhance tumor growth and invasiveness in the long-term [1].
I've updated my Science Shelf book review archive with two interesting titles, Pluto Confidential and Rising Plague.
Waiting for a concert to begin at our local county fair, my husband and I checked out a reptile exhibit that included an animal trainer with a live alligator resting calmly on his lap. As we stroked the gator, I asked the trainer why it was so tame. "I pet it daily. If I didn't, it would quickly be wild again, and wouldn't allow this," he explained.
