Chump Ville Online

According to a recent article I found on www.physorg.com

Medical College of Georgia researchers are seeking to refine cancer treatment with an anti-inflammatory plant derivative long used in Chinese medicine.

Celastrol, derived from trees and shrubs called celastracaea, has been used for centuries in China to treat symptoms such as fever, chills, joint pain and inflammation. The MCG researchers think it may also play a role in cancer treatment by inactivating a protein required for cancer growth.

That protein, P23, is one of many proteins helping the heat shock protein 90. Scientists are just beginning to realize the potential of controlling inflammation-related diseases, including cancer, by inhibiting HSP90.

Source

This is great news, I also read somewhere else that they treated a dog with a tumour the size of a pop can using the same medicine mentioned above, the dog made a healthy recovery afterwards and suffered no side effects.

Bruce Schneier is literally the king when it comes to knowledge on computer security. He is a cryptographer, computer security specialist, and writer. He has a master’s degree in computer science from the American University in Washington, DC. He has taken part in the creation of some of the worlds best cryptographic algorithms, such as Helix, Blowfish, Threefish, and MacGuffin. If anyone knows what they are talking about when it comes to computers and security its this guy.

Recently he published an essay on the whole Chinese hacking thing.
Here is a link to his essay I HIGHLY suggest you read it, its informative to say the least.
Link

Under a requirement taking effect soon, every computer sold in China will have to contain the Green Dam Youth Escort software package. Ostensibly a pornography filter, it is government spyware that will watch every citizen on the Internet.

Green Dam has many uses. It can police a list of forbidden Web sites. It can monitor a user’s reading habits. It can even enlist the computer in some massive botnet attack, as part of a hypothetical future cyberwar.

So I have been doing a lot of reading on Cochlear implants and found some interesting bits of information that people looking to get them might also want to know.

Cochlear implants are one way of restoring hearing back into the ears of profoundly deaf people; they were a game changer when they were first made available. Cochlear implants differ from hearing aids because they work not by amplifying sound but by creating an electric field stimulating the auditory nerves inside the Cochlea. Cochlear implants work first by sound being captured by an external device containing a microphone, battery, sound processor, and transmitter. The device is located externally behind the ear so it is out of sight, the sound information is usually sent from the external device to the Cochlear implant via radio frequency. Once the implant receives the sound information it is then sent to the “electrode array” which is located inside the cochlea. Since the cochlea winds around the auditory nerve the electrode array being inside the cochlea can then stimulate the auditory nerves via an electrical field. The device can be tweaked to make the sound more clear to the user as everyone’s ear is different. This is not a device that works right out of the box. Being an implant it has to be placed surgically inside the recipient’s cochlear, this is risky because if later there are new ways to restore natural hearing to someone who has had the operation done, it would likely not be possible as the nerve cells inside the cochlear would most likely be damaged. Though recent improvements in the implant technology are aimed to minimize the damage done the risk is still apparent.

Cochlear Implants are a double edged sword, if you get the implants your hearing is improved, however the surgery and implantation process may irreversibly damage the nerve cells within the cochlea which usually results in a permanent loss of most residual natural hearing. However, if you don’t get the Implants you will continue to be deaf but your Cochlear can possible be restored later (if science advances allow) to its normal state and allow for normal hearing.

Cochlear implants don’t always work perfectly either, some patients after getting the implant can only tell the difference between simple sounds like a car horn or a door bell while others are able to understand speech. Results vary based on a variety of conditions.

Some people in the deaf community claim that cochlear implants are for the “lazy” and that they are the easy way out, for the people who don’t want to do speech therapy, learn how to talk or learn sign language. When it comes down to it though, the choice is made by the deaf person. But what if the deaf person is a child, born deaf or a young victim of meningitis? Should the parents take the risk of cochlear implants to ensure their child grows up with normal speech skills and that their brain is properly developed? Or should the parents wait for science to invent new ways for their child to regain hearing? That decision is up to the parents and should not be rushed. It is important that at a young age the brain develops properly to recognise speech and sounds other wise the “hearing” part of the brain may be used or taken up by other processes.

An example of promising developments that may be worth waiting for are the new and exciting developments in stem cell research that claim to eventually be able to restore hearing to deaf people.

Here is a quote from an article worth reading into if you want to do more research; it is called “Feasibility of treating hearing disorders with stem cells” by Karen Watters

The recent isolation of adult stem cells from the mouse utricle that have the capacity to differentiate into cells from all three germ layers”and more importantly, into inner ear hair cells”offers a viable option for the treatment of hearing loss. The finding that embryonic stem cells are also capable of differentiating into hair cells further expands the possibility that we may someday develop restorative treatment of sensorineural hearing loss.

Quote from The Ear Nose & Throat Journal

Though these developments may take a while to come into practice they offer hope to those looking to gain full natural hearing. Unfortunately for now, the limits of science and research offer up tough decisions, should you wait for scientific advances that may never come in your lifetime and continue to live with deafness? Or should you take the risk and irreversibly lock your self into Cochlear Implants?

-Disclaimer
I am by no means a medical expert so this article should be taken with a grain of salt. Even though I did my research thoroughly I suggest you talk to an expert about this issue before making any decisions based on the information I have provided. I am merely trying to explain some of the issues and processes of Cochlear Implants in a simple and non-technical fashion.

Ok so what is Wolfram Alpha? Wolfram Alpha is one of the most amazing websites I have ever used, basically it lets anyone find anything about almost everything. Its like statistics, mathematics, physics, molecular biology and everything else combined into something amazing. The website idea was though up by Stephen Wolfram who is a British physicist.

Ok so Wolfram Alpha I guarantee you will be amazed when you are done reading this write up.

Here are a few examples of what this website is capable of:

For example if you type in “The mass of the moon divided by the mass of Jupiter” it will give you the actual answer “3.8687×10^-5″.

One thing that blew me away was I checked the logs of one of my computers that was calculating the folding process of the protein Calmodulin in water, I typed in Calmodulin into the website and it gave me some really amazing results. First off it showed me that Calmodulin is a protein, then it shows me the DNA sequence, the molecular weight, the ribbon structure and the atomic structure. The amazing thing is that this is not hand typed in by a bunch of people, I randomly found this protein name searched it and it gave me so much amazing information, I think this website has potential beyond what we can comprehend at this time.

Another example is I typed in “Goog GMC” which are the stock abbreviations of Google inc and General Motors Corporation, now what it gives me are side by side graph comparisons of the price of the stock, market cap, revenue etc.

Try typing in “water at 220 degrees centigrade”

Or “The Length of the Golden Gate Bridge”

The possibilities of this website are nearly endless, again I really think this website will gain use by people playing around with it, typing in random things like the GDP of a country or the average temperature in may in New York etc.

Ok so I can ramble on about how amazing this website is or you can go check it out your self, try different inputs play around with it tell people about it and find a use for it.

What is Folding @ home? Well well Folding @ home is a very simple program created by some great programmers from Stanford University, it allows you to contribute to medical science by helping scientists learn more about “Protein Missfolding” basically when a protein carries out its function or “folds” it can sometimes missfold which can cause diseases like “Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.”

It takes super computers and millions of dollars to do simulations of proteins folding however the science community does not have the money nor the resources to do such work, but you can help!

You can help scientists learn more about why and how protein missfolding occurs by running a piece of software. They call the software Folding @ home because you are simulating proteins folding by using your Processor and or video card (if you have a powerful enough one).

How does this work? Well Supercomputers are really just a bunch of cheap computers combined into one giant machine, kinda like getting 100 people to do one job instead of just 1 person. So what Stanford has come up with is a way to do their protein simulations on your computer with out affecting its performance or security. Now you might be saying, well how can that be if my Processor is running at 100%? Well what they do is use your “Idle CPU cycles”.

I will explain how this works by using government roadwork projects as an example, So when you see some road workers fixing the road there are usually 4 out of 10 of the workers standing around doing nothing, now say you take those 4 that are standing around and get them to do other work since they aren’t needed at that moment for the roadwork project you can get them to do science for the time being and then when their needed at the road works project they go back to filling in the pothole.

Basically you don’t even notice that your computer is crunching away simulating proteins folding, you can continue to browse the web and check your email with out any difference or impact on performance.

Whats the cost? Well besides your power bill being a bit higher from your processor being used at full capacity 24/7 there is no other cost to you as a user, think of that slightly higher power bill as donating money to help scientists cure and learn about diseases.

Sounds good how do I get involved? Head over to Stanford Universities website for Folding @ home where you can read more about it and download the client, there are instructions on how to get it working on their site in the FAQ section.

Personally I have 4 computers and one PS3 right now chugging away folding proteins. I also have a folding team set up, the team ID is 111659 the stats and leader boards are a great way to motivate people to contribute by activating that competitive spirit everyone has!

Oh I almost forgot to mention that if you have a playstation 3 you can contribute to Folding @ home with that too! All have to you do is make sure the PS3 is internet connected and go to the network menu then go down and hit install “Life with Playstation” you can set it to automatically launch by hovering over the icon once its installed and hit the triangle button then set it to launch after a set period of inactivity. Then your done your PS3 should start crunching away once you launch the program.