Author Archives: curiouscat

Wakamaru Robot

Another human like robot from Japan (by Mitsubishi): Wakamaru

Unlike conventional robots operated by human instructions, “wakamaru” acts spontaneously, based on his own and his owner’s daily life schedules that he stores. His autonomous behavior is composed of time, place, and behavior, three elements. He uses to approach people and move around according to the time of day, thereby blending in with its owners’ lifestyles.

Read more about the technology behind the robot.

Proton Treatment Could Replace x-ray

MIT proton treatment could replace x-ray use in radiation therapy:

Scientists at MIT, collaborating with an industrial team, are creating a proton-shooting system that could revolutionize radiation therapy for cancer. The goal is to get the system installed at major hospitals to supplement, or even replace, the conventional radiation therapy now based on x-rays.

The fundamental idea is to harness the cell-killing power of protons — the naked nuclei of hydrogen atoms — to knock off cancer cells before the cells kill the patient. Worldwide, the use of radiation treatment now depends mostly on beams of x-rays, which do kill cancer cells but can also harm many normal cells that are in the way.

IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Program

IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Program (IBM broke link – how hard it is to just keep links alive?)

IBM Ph.D. Fellowships are awarded worldwide. IBM Ph.D. Fellows are awarded tuition, fees, and a stipend of $17,500 (US) for one academic year. IBM Ph.D. Fellowships are awarded annually but may compete annually to be renewed for up to three years, based on the Award Recipient’s continued exceptional academic standing, progress and achievement, and sustained interaction with IBM’s technical community. All Award Recipient’s wishing for an award renewal must be renominated to compete for an award renewal.

Students must be nominated by a faculty member. They must be enrolled full-time in a college or university Ph.D. program, and they should have completed at least one year of study in their doctoral program at the time of their nomination.

Open for nominations approximately September 19 through October 31, 2006.

Update this link seem to work now (hopefully they will have less pointy haired bosses in charge from now on but who knows…).

Science of the High Jump

Science of the sporting life:

high jumper seems to translate the horizontal velocity of the run-up into vertical motion over the bar, but what actually happens is more related to springs, Dapena says. “The fast run-up makes the muscles of the takeoff leg stretch very quickly after the takeoff foot is planted on the ground, and this stimulates those muscles, which can then make larger forces.”

To get the fastest vertical acceleration, your foot must push against the ground for as long as possible. And that requires the runner to, as Dapena says, run with “the butt scraping the ground.” Still, there’s a tradeoff — if you run too low, your overly flexed knees will create a puny push-off.

Open Access Legislation

25 provosts from top universities jointly released a letter supporting current legislation to require open publication of scientific research. Good.

Open access can also match the missions of scholarly societies and publishers who review, edit, and distribute research to serve the advancement of knowledge. Sharing the fruits of research and scholarship inevitably leads to the creation of more research and scholarship, thus highlighting the need for publishing professionals to manage the selection and review of the highest quality research, both publicly and privately funded. Open access to publications in no way negates the need for well-managed and effective peer review or the need for formal publishing.

via: e3 Information Overload, Rallying Behind Open Access:

The Federal Public Research Access Act would require federal agencies to publish their findings, online and free, within six months of their publication elsewhere.

It seems to me most grants for scientific research should require open publication. I can imagine exceptions, but it seems to me that the expectation should be for open publication, in this day and age, and only allow non-open publication with a good reason.

For public funded research this open access expectation seems obvious. For private foundations in most cases I would think open access publication makes sense also. What business model is used to allow open access is not important, in my opinion. The important factor is open access, how that is accomplished is something that can be experimented with.
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If I were making the decision for a university I would have expectations that we publish openly.

Continue reading →

Cancer cell ‘executioner’ found

Cancer cell ‘executioner’ found:

Healthy cells have a built-in process which means they commit suicide if something is wrong, a process which fails in cancer cells.

The University of Illinois team created a synthetic molecule which caused cancer cells to self-destruct.
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They found the molecule PAC-1 did trigger the transformation, and cancer cells from mice and from human tumours could be prompted to self-destruct – a process called apoptosis.

Beneficial Bacteria

Sick of Getting Sick? Embrace Your Inner Bacteria!, NPR:

Over there, one type of bacteria has settled into a tidy corner of your intestine and is helping to synthesize vitamin K from last night’s dinner. That’s an important blood-clotting substance. And without the help of a neighboring microbe, the broccoli you downed would be no more digestible than a fallen log.

Right this minute, in the moist, warm grottos throughout your body, encounters with friendly bacteria are teaching your immune cells how to recognize dangerous invaders. The ability to distinguish friend from foe is crucial to keeping you healthy. And by acting as a thick ground cover, these benign bacteria crowd out truly noxious germs — salmonella, say, or dangerous versions of E. coli.

The title of NPR’s article is a bit misleading as the focus of the story is really on the potential harm from antibiotics. Bacterial Evolution in Yogurt provides some additional information on the benefits of bacteria. Here are more good bacteria articles:: Friendly bacteria ‘target ulcers’ – Over-sixties advised to boost daily diet with ‘good’ bacteria – USC researcher underscores the benefits bacteria can provide – Bacteria Added to Gum, Toothpaste and Deodorant – How ‘good’ bacteria could counter overuse of antibiotics

via: Take care of those microbes in your gut

Bell Labs Graduate Research Fellowship Program

The Bell Labs Graduate Research Fellowship Program (link broken by idiots) is designed to increase the number of minorities and women in the fields of science, math, engineering and technology. Fellowships are awarded to women and members of a underrepresented minority groups who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

The program is primarily directed to graduating college seniors, but applications from first-year graduate students will be considered in the following fields: Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Communications Science, Computer Science/Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Information Science, Materials Science, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Operations Research, Physics and Statistics.

Update: Why are huge companies not even able to follow the most basic web usability concepts. It is amazing to me how incompetent these people are. This link works (even just looking at the url you can tell this is likely to die soon – I have yet to see a well planned web site that uses such a completely lame url) – for who knows how long. Would someone please hurry up and replace idiots that can’t follow the simple web practices with someone who does and let those who don’t copy textbooks by hand or whatever they are able to do.

Research Career in Industry or Academia

In, Working in Industry vs Working in Academia, a computer scientist (software engineering) shares their experience and opinion on research career options. He discusses 4 areas: freedom (to pursue your research), funding, time and scale, products (papers, patents, products).

In academia, you’re under a huge amount of pressure to publish publish publish!
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In industry, the common saying is that research can produce three things: products, patents, and papers (in that order). To be successful you need to produce at least two of those three; and the first two are preferred to the last one. Publishing papers is nice, and you definitely get credit for it, but it just doesn’t compare to the value of products and patents.

Civil Engineers: USA Infrastructure Needs Improvement

Experts warn U.S. is coming apart at the seams by Chuck McCutcheon:

The American Society of Civil Engineers last year graded the nation “D” for its overall infrastructure conditions, estimating that it would take $1.6 trillion over five years to fix the problem.

“I thought [Hurricane] Katrina was a hell of a wake-up call, but people are missing the alarm,” said Casey Dinges, the society’s managing director of external affairs.

It will take much longer than 5 years: there is no way over $300 billion is available each year to catch up. Infrastructure is not an exciting area to invest in but just like skipping preventative maintenance on equipment will cost organizations more in the long run, failing to invest in maintaining the infrastructure will cost more.

“Infrastructure deficiencies will further erode our global competitiveness, but with the federal budget so committed to mandatory spending, it’s unclear how we are going to deal with this challenge as we fall further and further behind in addressing these problems,”

These “grade” evaluations are a bit flaky: what does a D mean for the USA (they define it as “poor” which still doesn’t mean much)? Still, it is clear the ASCE sees a need for improvement. Related: 2005 ASCE report – Concord Coalition