Mini-Microscope Could Lead to Cell-Sorting Implants | Wired Science from Wired.com

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/mini-microscope.html --- Imagine a microscope implanted into your body that could automatically sort out cancerous cells based on how they looked.

In this direct comparison, Yang's image (bottom) clearly provides similar resolution as the optical microscope image (top). Pictured is C. elegans, a common worm often used in genetic studies. The quality of the output combined with the system's low cost has drawn raves from other researchers.


Yang's tiny, cheap microscope could have nearly immediate applications. In the very short-term, Yang envisions a system for identifying diseases in the Third World that could cost a mere $100 and come embedded inside a cellphone or custom device for field work.

"Because we can build [the microscope] very compactly, we can imagine building an entire system that is the size of an iPod," he said.

All of these applications could come into being very soon. Yang's lab is currently negotiating with semiconductor companies to mass produce his devices. Right now, it takes two days for one of his grad students to assemble one.

Once they enter manufacturing, however, they'll be able to make hundreds of the devices, and that's when high-throughput optical microscopy could become a reality. Working with image processing software designers, they're hoping to come up with autonomous systems for finding ad imaging cells.

"We're working on using software to automatically identify cells of interest," said Yang. "All you'd have to do is drop blood in."

Slashdot | Ohio Researchers Advance Heat Reclamation Technologies

Its a neat link between the 2 articles  [arstechnica and csmonitor]

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/27/2111248&from=rss --- "Researchers at Ohio State University claim to have synthesized a new material capable of delivering electricity directly from heat, at an efficiency far better than existing thermoelectric materials. Scott at ArsTechnica has an interesting take: 'Merge this with the new MIT solar dish and you're in business!'"

Slashdot | Thirst For Coltan Fueling African Conflict

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/25/199234&from=rss --- "According to an article put forth by the Toward Freedom website, the metallic ore known as columbite-tantalite or coltan for short is fueling conflict in central Africa. The relevance to us who read news for geeks: Coltan is in quite a few consumer electronics; the article references the Sony Playstation series."

More detailed article here :
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/Articles/TheStandardColtan.asp

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Against the Odds: Vijender Kumar

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7482661.stm --- Although he is a boxing champion, Vijender Kumar is an oddity in India, a virtual one-sport country where cricket is religion. The son of a bus driver who worked overtime to pay for his coaching, Vijender is India's unsung champion boxer.  "My blood boils when everybody goes gaga over cricket," says the 22-year-old, one of five boxers in India's modest Olympics contingent to Beijing this summer.

Op-Ed Columnist - So Popular and So Spineless - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Seems to be making a valid point. But isn't it in a very narrow fashion? To me it seems to a problem of power corrupting. Any country trying to aim for economic might, will tend to bend rules to achieve certain goals. Friedman makes it seem as if the US is in the best position to handle economic might and power since they have been in this seat for so long.

[NYT - Friedman] --- So, yes, we're not so popular in Europe and Asia anymore. I guess they would prefer a world in which America was weaker, where leaders with the values of Vladimir Putin and Thabo Mbeki had a greater say, and where the desperate voices for change in Zimbabwe would, well, just shut up.

Mandela: His 8 Lessons of Leadership -- Printout -- TIME

Interesting lessons. I don't know much about Mandela, but now I am more curious.

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1821467,00.html --- I've always thought of what you are about to read as Madiba's Rules (Madiba, his clan name, is what everyone close to him calls him), and they are cobbled together from our conversations old and new and from observing him up close and from afar. They are mostly practical. Many of them stem directly from his personal experience. All of them are calibrated to cause the best kind of trouble: the trouble that forces us to ask how we can make the world a better place.

Google using market prediction for management decisions

Can they really be so efficient ? Or is this one team who just exploring these methods. In any case I think its a sign of the efficiency within.

[Bloomberg] --- The day after a company's stock rises, employees are more optimistic about the projects they're working on. You can bet on it. And at Google Inc., they do. That's what researchers found in the behavior of employees on an internal trading system the company designed. Using a faux currency called the Gooble, 2,000 workers have wagered on about 370 subjects, from the success of the company's Gmail service to the quality of a new ``Star Wars'' movie. Academic studies show these so-called prediction markets work as financial modeling tools. Google managers use the results as a reference in strategy meetings and crunch the data to see how employees behave. After finding traders got bullish about meeting goals following a climb in the stock, Google started examining how productivity and optimism are connected.

BBC NEWS | From clearing excrement to New York modelling

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7489296.stm --- In all, 36 scavengers from India have been invited by the UN to attend a conference to mark the UN's International Year of Sanitation. The women were brought up from early childhood for the demeaning work. Scavengers are invariably from the lower-caste, "untouchable" (Dalit) community. They carry the human excrement in pots on their heads. They can also be found clearing rubbish from the streets and open drains outside homes.

Part of my infinite ignorance package was that I wasnt aware of the sanitation problem in India. I saw it every day while I lived there but it never struck me. Anyways I had also never heard of dry toilets and the dalits having to manually clean it. The lethal combination of caste-ism and sex-ism leaves this job for lower caste women.

India together has this article on manual scavenging.
A 2002 report prepared by the International Dalit Solidarity Network - which includes the Human Rights Watch (United States), Navsarjan, (Ahmedabad, Gujarat), and the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights - says that the government estimates that there are one million Dalit manual scavengers in India. Manual scavengers are exposed to the most virulent forms of viral and bacterial infections that affect their skin, eyes, limbs, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. Tuberculosis is rife among the community, according to the report.

I have seen septic tanks being used in rural India but never found out how they worked. Wiki explains.

Side note: I wonder why leaders like Gandhi became popular in India. Was it blind faith in someone produced some results? How come his principles never become part of our decision process as a community. The US (since this is the only other country I have seen) inspite of achieving independence about 200 years ago still speak of the "founding fathers" in the political and social debates.  How come we cant remember the revolution we concluded 50 years ago ? Is it because of millennia of history before 1947? There are other western countries with history books just as thick, they dont have this issue. Is it western philosophy v/s eastern philosophy, one focussing on logic and human life, and the other on after-life.