Toward simple confusion
Check out this page showing the most popular netflix rentals in several major cities in the US. In the New York area, some of the top movies appear to be Body of Lies, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Twilight. I think the ability to see into Netflix queues is a little bit of an invasion of privacy, but considering how general the info is, I don’t think its too bad.
Check out this article discussing prions and the fact that they do mutate and evolve like viruses. Prions are degenerate proteins responsible for diseases such as “mad cow disease”, technically termed bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (CJD).
In the classic sense, prions, which are misfolded versions of the brain protein PrP, cannot mutate because they do not contain DNA or RNA. They can, however, give rise to variants with different properties, possibly due to differences in the folding, or shape, of the proteins. In the study, published December 31 in Science Express, researchers estimated the rate at which prion mutants can appear in cultured human nerve cells. In addition, the study suggests that once variants appear, they persist at low levels, giving rise to a heterogeneous prion population.
Check out this article about how cell phone radiation may help protect against alzheimer’s disease.
The authors say previous studies have linked a possible increased risk of Alzheimer’s with “low-frequency” electro-magnetic exposure like the energy waves generated by power and telephone lines.
They say mobile phones emit “high frequency” electro-magnetic waves that are very different because they can have beneficial effects on brain function, such as increasing brain cell activity.
So the questions is would you rather die of brain cancer from prolonged cell phone usage, or live a demented final years of your life having alzheimer’s?
Found this article on wired.com titled Human Genome Is Part Bornavirus.
“Our whole notion of ourselves as a species is slightly misconceived,” says Robert Gifford, a paleovirologist at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, affiliated with Rockefeller University in New York City. Human DNA includes genetic contributions from bacteria and other organisms, and humans have even come to rely on some of these genes for basic functions like fighting infections.
In the new study, Japanese researchers found copies of the bornavirus N (for nucleoprotein) gene inserted in at least four separate locations in the human genome. Searches of other mammalian genomes also showed that the gene has hitched rides in a wide variety of species for millions of years.
“Clearly they provide a fossil record of bornavirus that was previously only available for retroviruses,” says John Coffin, a virologist at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston who coauthored the study. “It tells us that virus evolution doesn’t proceed the way many people have viewed it.”
Check out this article about how freezing your hard drive can give you that extra time you need to save your data.
The running theory goes, your hard drive might be chugging it’s last death, clicking away its final moments, but there’s a chance you can save your data by freezing whatever parts are loosening up or losing contact together. You see, your hard drive contains a lot of moving parts. After spinning for so long, it’s only natural things can vibrate and get loose. Metal also expands as it gets hotter. Freezing the metal might just force everything back together again.
It sounds so ridiculous, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to prove that it can work, provided it’s a hardware problem and not a software problem.
A friend sent me this article titled Women Who Don’t Live Alone Add More Weight. Bottom line is that if your a women in a relationship, chances are you have gained at least 4lbs. If you have a baby, the number goes up..
After adjusting for other variables, the 10-year weight gain for an average 140-pound woman was 20 pounds if she had a baby and a partner, 15 if she had a partner but no baby, and only 11 pounds if she was childless with no partner. The number of women with a baby but no partner was too small to draw statistically significant conclusions.
The internet is overflowing with information and people trying to publish themselves and interact with their friends. Decided to do a little searching, and i stumbled on a World Map of Social Networking.
Notables would be Facebook for the US and many other countries, Orkut for Brazil, and QQ for China.
While I’m not normally a big fan of the economist, I found this article about Women in the workforce:
Female power to be a pretty interesting read.
THE economic empowerment of women across the rich world is one of the most remarkable revolutions of the past 50 years. It is remarkable because of the extent of the change: millions of people who were once dependent on men have taken control of their own economic fates. It is remarkable also because it has produced so little friction: a change that affects the most intimate aspects of people’s identities has been widely welcomed by men as well as women. Dramatic social change seldom takes such a benign form.
The article talks about a good deal about the progress women have made in the workforce. However, there are some limitation caused by the biological differences between men and women:
This no doubt owes something to prejudice. But the biggest reason why women remain frustrated is more profound: many women are forced to choose between motherhood and careers. Childless women in corporate America earn almost as much as men. Mothers with partners earn less and single mothers much less. The cost of motherhood is particularly steep for fast-track women. Traditionally “female” jobs such as teaching mix well with motherhood because wages do not rise much with experience and hours are relatively light. But at successful firms wages rise steeply and schedules are demanding. Future bosses are expected to have worked in several departments and countries. Professional-services firms have an up-or-out system which rewards the most dedicated with lucrative partnerships. The reason for the income gap may thus be the opposite of prejudice. It is that women are judged by exactly the same standards as men.
The article focused on the rights and power of women in the workforce, and also the life decision of career or family, but I think the article neglects the changing attitude regarding kids in industrialized societies. Having a kid puts your life on hold. This is more true for women, since we place the duty of childrearing on women. So regardless of your goals for your career, if your life is about you, what you can do, and the adventures you can find, its a hard sell to put your life on hold to nurse the next generation.