I've got to get back to the Gym...

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Herpes learns how to play nicely...

Or, integration steps of a former parasite:

The conventional view of herpes virus infections is that they are either active and harmful, or at best silent and for the time being harmless. But new work on mice suggests a third option: there may be a direct benefit for chronic herpesvirus infection. Latent infection with the murine HV68 confers prolonged cross-protection against a variety of bacterial pathogens, including Listeria and the plague bacillus. The protection is a result of systemic macrophage activation triggered by -interferon. The latent virus thereby sets the level of innate immunity. Not only is latency an active immunologic state, but this activity provides symbiotic benefit.

Taken from Nature's latest issue.

Something that Carl Zimmer will likely write about.

Subscription day.

Inspired by PZ, I subscribed to MySpace and Facebook, although I doubt I'll ever use any of them. Most importantly, I subscribed to the Nature Publishing Group website, just to be part of their Nature Network.

So, if you check the tag for ADME, I'll be there.

And I'll be there for Docking and Scoring too.

Let's see how it turns out. Certainly, this one will be my main blog. Don't have time for another one, for sure.

Still, it is a very nice idea 'cause at the meetups it is possible to meet scientist and like-minded from all fields, and not just your own playground or university. I foresee lots of discussions, and hopefully there will be a Brussel section to which attach for me.

Whoah! Is the whole net like this?

If I look at my blog's visits, more than half come from Firefox!!! This doesn't fit with my idea of Firefox still being minoritary. Is it that my readers are more technically minded than the average internet user? Well, kudos to you for making a good choice, then.

I Just want to visit this place:

courtesy of Botany Photo of The Day

Yeay, that's what I am talking about...

Coturnix has a nice post about a favourite childhood book series of his, but most specifically on the pyramidal scheme of information dissemination used by the three detective boys in the books to gather information. Every boy would phone up to five friends, and they would answer the question or in turn phone five more, and so on.

This comes just right with my discovery of Yahoo Answers, which sucks when you want some scientific knowledge but rocks when, like this morning, you want to know what kind of shirt color I can match to a brown suite and black shoes and belts.

For Science, seed is much better, as are many other places.

Pyramid schemes are a very efficient method of disseminating information, although they came at the price of disseminating it to a majority of people who most certainly do not know the answer asked for.

In the book that I am reading, "The wisdom of the crowds", the same thing is pointed out for decision making: although aggregating individual decision in a collective one is a very good way of finding the right solution to a problem, in practical terms this isn't always possible. It's often better if the decision is left to a group of 'expert' at the condition that they be diverse enough, and they do not influence each other by being aware of the decisions made by others at different times (a phenomenon known as 'cascade').

That's the limit of what's called partecipative democracy, i.e. a political system where every decision is taken through a vote by the citizens. The parliamentary alternative is not necessarily better, and if the theory underlying the book is correct, it would be better for us to randomly select our representatives than to elect them. this way, we'd get a better cut of the population. Now, I am not one hundrd per cent sure but I believe this is how it happened in at least one country of the past, where the member of the "senate" were drawn and had the civic duty of leaving their jobs (I believe with compensation for it). Much like the juries system in the US. May be it was Athens? I don't remember.

Anyway, all this seems to be ticking together, I really love when I find myself involved in such synchronicities.

Yahoo Answers Again and Again...

I am having a blast

I recently registered to yahoo! Answers website. I just needed to find out whether or not my mobile phone would support a given bluetooth protocol.

The website is quite useless for that kind of thing, and seems overrun by teenager looking for answers (duh!) to either existential, or very stupid questions. some even try to make their homework this way, a very dangerous practice. I would never trust an answer given on such a website. Here's why. I have a wicked sense of humour, so it didn't take me long to end up, jumping from one question topic to another, in the "religion" subsection.

And there started the fun, when I saw silly flamebait questions such as:

Muslims- do you support your anscestors killing hindus and breaking their temples down?

If your a mother/father what are your kids reactions to them finding out that your either gay/bi/trans, etc?

Bible want to shave women if they do not cover head. Does bible interested in undershave also?

Is death the end of conversation ?

O Christians, how you pay the royality of each edition of bible if it is word of god?

Glorious Quran is universally one and purest word of God. Why each bible differs with other one?

Isn't this great? I started writing puny answer to each and every one, until... I hit the daily limit!!! LOL!

Now I can stop and go on to more serious business, such as actually doing some paid work, or finish writing up my thesis. time to grow up. ghep.

new piccie of the month widget on the side bar...

Thanks to John Orcutt at Oregon's Trail for the idea.

I will start with one of the most beautiful spots in my island: The Stintino beach, on the extreme northwest of Sardinia, once fishermen village and now holidays' hotspot.

google maps link. (hopefully, one day I will manage to directly link google's map piccies.

BlogRoll

Check out Tet Zoo for yet another of Darren's nice pieces on lizards.

He also muses on some huge pig of Georgia, too.

Pharyngula has been absent for quite a while from these pages, but now's back with a vengeance: from there, a cool movie about insect being slo-mo thrown pies and juices at while flying/walking. Plus, the tragedy of an astronomer incompetent enough to believe in ID.

Secret Sex Lives of Animals is now in my permanent blog roll, go and check Kate's piece on bedbug piercing each other during sex, strangely reminiscent of Dr Tatiana's piece on the same subject. She also has more soft porn on Panda (from the BBC).

But the grand stand is for Carl Zimmer, who has two wonderful posts (no, full articles) on Papilloma Viruses evolution and on the completion of the 'Possum genome and what can we learn from it about our own place in natural history.

Wonderful wonderful job everyone. Kudos!!! I really enjoy your writings!

Nothing much to write about.

Slow start of the week, this one...

Am trying to wrap my head around the CV paper, but in fact my thesis is at the prime place. tonight I am due for a couple of hours (at least) of tireless corrections. The idea is to get it done by the end of this week, helped by the fact that thursday and friday are off-work.

Then, there's the move to the new apartment with the lady, which will take up most of my energies.

On the first of June we should be done with cleaning up our old apartments, and possibly putting up the furniture in the new one. The 2nd I am off to Amsterdam for a gawdy trip with my work colleagues, and the day after I'll try to cycle some 40km with my gf's workmate, and nientepopodimeno che Eddy Merckx!

Oh, don't think it's done yet, 'cause the 5th of June I'll be showing off what I've done to a Janssen consociate in Mechelen, Tibotec, where I do hope of landing a permanent position, sooner or later.

Ah ah haven't finished yet: first draft of the paper is due for the 22nd of May, the day after I leave for a week-long course in Oxford, where I'll also meet up some sardinian colleague who've settled up there.

Sounds like a plan. I wonder if I'll manage to squeeze in some holidays for July.
:-P

28 (insert period of time) later

I loved 28 days later, by Danny Boyle. I was living in England at the time, so it made much more of an impression. Although, not quite as much as his funny sibling Shawn of the Dead. The idea of few survivors in a wasteland seems to work particularly well in England, I don't know why.

Oldest thing I can remember with this subject is The death of grass by John Christopher. Then, of course, 1984 by George Orwell, V 4 Vendetta by Alan Moore. There's more probably, but can't think of any right now. Something from Greg Ballard may be - although he's never been in my favorites' list. Oh yes, let's not forget the greyish Children of Men. Oh yes, The Day of the Triffids

Anyway I was disheartened when I discovered that the Americans were shooting 28 weeks later. It did seem like a foolish follow-up - Quite frankly, I though it was going to be crap.

But then, I read the NY Times review of the movie, surprisingly positive, and I understood (once more) that I seem to be unable to catch analogies - and here the focus of the movie is to show the relationship between the american occupation troops and the surviving UK population, being reintroduced in the de-populated cities. and what will happen if those undefended people turn out to be re-infected, once again, in a situation parallel to the one in Iraq where everybody could be a suicide bomber.

Clever uh?

May be I'll give the movie a shot. If it's only half as scary as the previous one, It'll be well worth it.

A final word: God I wish that someone made a movie out of the death of grass.

spiderman 3 really doesn't take off.

It's still stuck at 6.8 on the imdb. Well, at least it's not down to 5.3 as Ghost Rider is.. Still, it is definitely below what attained by the first two installments. Actualy, the second one went better than the first one - I would agree, with the exception that the bad guy did suck - but all spidey's bad guys suck, I think - Unless he fights someone else's enemies, like Victor Von Doom. Well, I am getting curious now, may be this weekend I will shell out those 12 euro to go ad watch it. After all, movies like this should be seen on a big screen.

BANG!!!

Some stars really go with a bang, suggest this new research reported by the NY Times:

The cataclysm — a monster more than a hundred times as energetic as the typical supernova in which the more massive stars end their lives — might be an example of a completely new type of explosion, astronomers said. Such a blast — proposed but never seen — would explain how the earliest and most massive stars in the universe ended their lives and strewed new elements across space to fertilize future stars and planets.

“It is quite possibly the most massive star that has ever been seen to explode,” said Nathan Smith of the University of California, Berkeley, who estimated the star as “freakishly massive,” about 150 times the mass of the Sun.

And here comes the scary part:
The star bears an eerie resemblance to one in our own galaxy, Eta Carinae, which has been burbling and bubbling in the last few centuries as if getting ready for its own outburst. The observations suggest that the troubled and enigmatic star, thought to weigh in about 120 solar masses, could blow up sooner than theorists had thought. Mario Livio a theorist at the Space Telescope Science Institute who was not involved in the research, said the death of that star could be “the most spectacular star show in history.”

Well, let's hope it doesn't happen before we've got ourselves out of the cradle-Earth. Such an explosion may sterilize completely the planet. Ouch! Well, there's no reason to worry about something we can't avoid. Yet. One day, I foresee people prodding almost exploding stars like children prod sleeping dogs with sticks. Hopefully, the star will not chase us to destruction.

if (prenatal_diagnose == down) then abort()

as described on the NY Times, almost 90% of unborn children diagnosed as having down syndrome are subsequently aborted by the parents. This seemingly puts at risk the remaining down, as their dwindling numbers will mean decreased visibility, therefore less money spent on support programs and such. May be, though, we'll have more money for those few children who are born with the condition? which one is the right choice, in your view?

I am internally fighting over this. Quite frankly, I don't think I have the balls to raise such a child. We discussed this over a couple of times with my GF and I'd rather abort. She would rather not - on the other side, she said she would not force me to be parent this way. So, my personale choice is quite clear. I'd rather have a healthy children, than a down one. However, I see the point in the agenda of the already born down's parents. Less down children will mean less visibility, therefore less money going toward research programs. Support program will continue to exist, yes, but research is a different thing. A drug needs a minimum investment to be made, and if the market is lower, the rice will be higher. same can be said for new techniques and such. therefore, a decrease of 90% in the newborn downs strongly puts to risk the improvement of thos who already are there, who will get no more new treatment as their numbers do not justify the expense any longer. I am surprised by the high percentage too. 350000 in the whole of US means almost one every thousand people is down. That's a lot more down I use to see. May be in Italy they are kept away from the view?

Anyway, lots of food for my mind. and yours.

Featured in the (bad) press

Uh Oh, The NY Times has a very nasty piece on the American branch of J&J and AM GEN who've apparently been paying (a lot) doctors to prescribe their anti-anemia treatments (EPO, a.k for its role in cycling doping).

Here's how the trick works.

Doctors buy from the company 9M US$ worth of drug. They prescribe it to the patients. Insurance or Medicare pays (let's say) 10M US$, to cover the drug's and all other costs. The company who sold the drug, though, send the doctors a rebates worth 2.7 M US$. Profit!!!

Frankly, I am disgusted of these practices, especially knowing that the company I work for (one of the two) prizes itself so much over his own credo. Now, I know this kind of practices are legal in the US, still this does not make them morally acceptable. Bleagh.

Do Penguins topple when Planes fly over?

I found this while looking for a penguin gif:

On November 2nd timothy of Slashdot asked if penguins topple when planes fly over? The British Antarctic Survey has organized a the first expedition to explore this theory and came back with news now.

The short answer: No, penguins don't fall over.

In November the BBC released a story covering a research project that took UK scientists to the South Atlantic. They wanted to discover if there is any truth in the tale that many aircraft pilots told the public.

Pilots often reported that when they were flying over a colony of penguins the birds were watching the planes, but instead of moving their bodies to follow the aircrafts they only moved their heads which lead them fall backwards over. This was said to happen to the entire colony of penguins and not just to some individuals.

If this was true, it could lead to a serious problem. Penguins only live in colonies around the antarctic and there aren't that many. If the aircrafts disturb their breeding pattern future of penguins is uncertain. The research project was acknowledged by fears that breeding patterns of the birds may be disturbed and interupted by aircraft activity such as jets and helicopters from aircraft carriers.

From the beginning of this research project there was no evidence that penguins actually fall over. All the scientists knew about were myths of aircraft pilots who supposedly watched entire colonies topple.

The researchers from the British Antarctic Survey went to South Georgia, an island belonging to the Falklands, in order to observe a colony of King Penguins. With help of the Navy and their ice patrol vessel HMS Endurance the scientists let helicopters fly over the colony of penguins and watched the birds.

The results were different from what pilots formerly reported. The birds did not fall backwards over or watched the helicopters. Instead the penguins went quiet and some moved away from the disturbing noise. Though, after the helicopters were gone the penguins moved back to their regular places. Please read the entire report.

Frankly, I can't believe they really went to check!!! LOL

more info here.

Paper time

I have finally started to write up last year' pice of research into a paper. The intro is done, mostly, and a quick draft of the data retrieval and preparation is in progress. Of course the lion's share, results and discussion, are still in my mind, in a yet unshapely form.

Want to know what I am going to talk about? In general, Cardio Vascular safety issues in Early Drug Discovery. More specifically, my in silico modelling of the Guinea Pig Right Atrium Assay.


Hopefully, when I'll submit it to J. Med. Chem., where I believe it belongs, and which has a nice Impact Factor, it will get accepted for publication. Finger crossed.

Can't Bloody Sleep.

No way of sleeping, after three o'clock tonight. must be the emotion of finally getting back my whole thesis corrected. Now I only have to incorporate the final changes, one or two tables/ graph and off I go, toward a luminous future.

First though, I have to use the company's facilities to shave and shower myself. see you later!

Filling up my sci-fi bag

I am buying these books. That is, I will if the server at play.com stops hitching up.

The Time Ships - Stephen Baxter

Exultant - Stephen Baxter

The Swarm - Frank Schatzing

Enjoy your evening!