10
Oct 11

Hack a Soda Bottle into a Solar Light

The video above shows how a man in an impoverished urban area in the Philippines created a solar light to brighten the densely-packed windowless homes that are dark inside even when the sun is shining brightly. The method involves making a roof cutout to support the bottle and filling the bottle with water and a little bleach. This solution can also help add some light to garden sheds and any other type of small outbuilding without electricity.

Once a cutout is made in the metal roofing material the soda bottle is attached and a sealant is applied. Then the bottle is filled with water and a teaspoon or so of bleach to kill any bacteria in the water.

The Filipino man serves as an example that life hacking can exist anywhere. Because of one bright idea he has a business and hundreds of people have a cheap way to bring light into their lives. Video by Marlon Bucsit.

Via: LifeHacker


09
Oct 11

Steampunk Blunderbuss


09
Oct 11

Very Cool Steampunk Outfit


09
Oct 11

Offbook: Steampunk, A Mini Documentary by PBS Arts

PBS has created this wonderful documentary about the Steampunk world. I’m fascinated by the originality, the creativeness, and the mystery evoked by the Steampunk participants.

Via: pbs.org


08
Oct 11

Tumours grow their own blood vessels

For some tumours at least, a lack of host blood supply is not a problem.

Finding explains failure of drugs that target host vasculature.

Alla Katsnelson

Tumours don’t just rely on their host’s blood vessels for nourishment — they can make their own vasculature, according to two independent studies from the United States and Italy. The findings offer an explanation for why a class of drug once heralded as a game-changer in cancer treatment is proving less effective than had been hoped.

Almost four decades ago, Judah Folkman, a cell biologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, proposed that tumours were dependent on the blood vessels surrounding them, and that choking off that blood supply would kill the cancer1. Bevacizumab (Avastin), the first drug to block blood-vessel growth, was approved in 2004, but it and other ‘angiogenesis inhibitors’ have proved disappointing in the clinic, extending patients’ lives for at best a few months.

Continue reading →


08
Oct 11

This Is the Future of the Fight Against Cancer

Those tiny black dots are nanobots delivering a lethal blow to a cancerous cell, effectively killing it.

Look close. You may be staring at the end of cancer.

Those tiny black dots are nanobots delivering a lethal blow to a cancerous cell, effectively killing it. The first trial on humans has been a success, with no side-effects:

It sneaks in, evades the immune system, delivers the siRNA, and the disassembled components exit out.

Those are the words of Mark Davis, head of the research team that created the nanobot anti-cancer army at the California Institute of Technology. According to a study to be published in Nature, Davis’ team has discovered a clean, safe way to deliver RNAi sequences to cancerous cells. RNAi (Ribonucleic acid interference) is a technique that attacks specific genes in malign cells, disabling functions inside and killing them.

The 70-nanometer attack bots—made with two polymers and a protein that attaches to the cancerous cell’s surface—carry a piece of RNA called small-interfering RNA (siRNA), which deactivates the production of a protein, starving the malign cell to death. Once it has delivered its lethal blow, the nanoparticle breaks down into tiny pieces that get eliminated by the body in the urine.

The most amazing thing is that you can send as many of these soldiers as you want, and they will keep attaching to the bad guys, killing them left, right, and center, and stopping tumors. According to Davis, “the more [they] put in, the more ends up where they are supposed to be, in tumour cells.” While they will have to finish the trials to make sure that there are no side-effects whatsoever, the team is very happy with the successful results and it’s excited about what’s coming:

What’s so exciting is that virtually any gene can be targeted now. Every protein now is druggable. My hope is to make tumours melt away while maintaining a high quality of life for the patients. We’re moving another step closer to being able to do that now.

Hopefully, they will be right.

via…

 


06
Oct 11

Dreariness – Project Flickr: In the Sky

Welcome to Seattle…

I usually love shooting the sky and clouds, but the greyness in Seattle is so drab right now! This is a shot of where I think the sun would be if I could see it.

Shot out of desperation for Project Flickr!


06
Oct 11

Hank Williams Jr: Good Riddance

(CBS/AP)
BRISTOL, Conn. – Are you ready for some football? Hank Williams Jr. isn’t anymore.
The country singer and ESPN each took credit for the decision Thursday morning to ax his classic intro to “Monday Night Football.”

The network had pulled the song from the game earlier this week after Williams made an analogy to Adolf Hitler while discussing President Barack Obama on Fox News on Monday morning.

Continue reading →


06
Oct 11

Seattle: Home of the 78-minute summer

Two women seek shelter under an umbrella from the steady drizzle at the Bite of Seattle on July 17, 2011.

Scott Systek, KOMO News:   While Sea-Tac Airport only reports temperatures on the hour, the University of Washington Atmospheric Sciences Department keeps a minute-by-minute log of the weather station atop their roof on the Seattle campus. And since the UW is in the heart of Seattle, while the airport is more like the lower-left shin, I figure this could be an accurate representation of what a true Seattle person would have felt this summer.

The mission: Find out how many minutes it’s been at 80 degrees or warmer this year– what I would call a true warm summer day in Seattle.

The answer: 78 minutes.

Or, breaking it down: 12 minutes on July 2, and 66 minutes on July 6.

Continue reading →


06
Oct 11

And then there is this…

Someone at the Board of Trade is getting cheeky with the Occupy Chicago protests. This photo was taken by someone at the protests. It shows offices at the Board of Trade Building eight stories up with “We Are The 1%” taped to the windows. If only someone could hurl rocks that high.

via…