The new dive center, to open this summer, will be bigger than any other on the archipelago.
See original here:
Monthly Archives: June 2012
Islands pedestrian hit by car dies
Find your new home: Minimum price 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000 45,000 50,000 60,000 70,000 80,000 90,000 100,000 110,000 120,000 130,000 140,000 150,000 160,000 170,000 180,000 190,000 200,000 225,000 250,000 275,000 300,000 325,000 350,000 375,000 400,000 425,000 450,000 475,000 500,000 550,000 600,000 650,000 700,000 800,000 900,000 1,000,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 3,000,000 Maximum price 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000 45,000 50,000 60,000 70,000 80,000 90,000 100,000 110,000 120,000 130,000 140,000 150,000 160,000 170,000 180,000 190,000 200,000 225,000 250,000 275,000 300,000 325,000 350,000 375,000 400,000 425,000 450,000 475,000 500,000 550,000 600,000 650,000 700,000 800,000 900,000 1,000,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 3,000,000 Location e.g Hamilton
Read more:
Health care: The self-employed owner
James Schoenhard, 43, hopes the health law survives, and with it the individual mandate. It won't affect him directly. He carries health insurance as owner of Schoenhard Lawn Care in Sioux Falls.
Excerpt from:
Health care: The pre-existing condition
Jennifer Lee, 35, is uninsurable. She has little money and suffers ailments from asthma to cellulitis, depression, anxiety and a chromosome disorder called digeorge syndrome.
More:
Health care: The small business
Jeremy Seefeldt, 35, employs almost 50 people in two Sioux Falls stores as owner of Boss' Pizza and Chicken. He buys insurance for his five managers for $330 apiece or $1,700 total every month. He pays 100 percent of the bill.
Read more here:
Health care: The insurer
Somebody has to pay for this stuff. 'The quick answer is, insurance companies. But ultimately, premiums will reflect that.' Kirk Zimmer is talking about the Affordable Care Act and its many parts to expand health insurance.
View original post here:
Electronic health records have own merit
Regardless of how the vote goes on health-care reform, providers can benefit from converting patient records to electronic health records by receiving incentives under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Read the original here:
Hiltzik: An eco-stadium? Promises, promises
Feelings of betrayal dividing friends, lovers, and political allies have provided grist for Shakespeare and Verdi, among other great scrutinizers of the human condition.
It's intriguing to ponder what they would have made of the breakup between the Natural Resources Defense Council and Anschutz Entertainment Group, the would-be developer of a downtown Los Angeles football stadium.
Last September, the NRDC's Los Angeles office did the stadium developers a big favor by throwing its weight behind a gift bill streamlining the environmental review process for the stadium project, and only for the stadium project. The bill, SB 292, eliminated one whole level of court review otherwise provided for by the California Environmental Quality Act. For this project alone, litigation would have to start at the Court of Appeal level, rather than in the lower courts, and the judges would face tight deadlines. That was a big giveaway to the developers, for whom time is money.
The NRDC's involvement in the stadium project grows out of its interest in promoting mass transit and energy efficiency in urban communities, and therefore in seeing that the stadium be "green" in its construction and operational phases, and not encourage more automobile traffic. But its dalliance with the developers roiled environmentalists, many of whom are concerned about the impact of the huge project and anticipated going to court, if necessary, to make sure their views would be heard. The NRDC explained that it had negotiated several safeguards into SB 292, including the commitments from AEG.
"It was our assumption that some form of this would pass whether we liked it or not," NRDC Senior Attorney David Pettit, director of its Southern California air program, said at the time. "So we made the decision to be at the table rather than just say no. At the end of the day, we got what we wanted."
Plainly, NRDC now feels it did not get what it wanted. Earlier this month, Pettit complained in a letter to the city that the draft environmental impact report submitted by AEG for the stadium project lacks numerous commitments the builders had made to the group.
Studies that AEG promised to conduct of alternatives to bringing fans to the stadium by car were missing, for instance. Promises AEG made to the Clinton Global Initiative, a climate change program sponsored by the former president, were mysteriously scaled back; AEG told the Clinton group it would recycle 90% of solid waste produced during construction, NRDC says, but the draft report promises only 50%.
"We also have concerns about air quality, health risk, green construction practices and sustainability relating to the project," NRDC wrote.
"The letter does accurately portray that we're disappointed in what we see in the [draft environmental impact statement]," Pettit told me last week, "when you compare it to what AEG promised to do in connection with SB 292." This sounds like a tactful way of saying "we got rooked," though Pettit says he still favors the stadium project.
But he also acknowledges that the absence of some studies AEG had committed to conducting for the report means leaving the public in the dark about many of AEG's environmental plans. That's something that Pettit thought he had negotiated into SB 292 in return for shutting the courthouse door to the public at the ground floor.
View original post here:
Policemen Undergo Stress Management Seminar
MANILA, Philippine --- Even Robocop, they say, needs an overhauling for optimum performance.
And not a cyborg like the popular superhero cop, members of the Philippine National Police, particularly those assigned in the field, underwent overhauling through the conduct of stress management seminar, an official said.
What made the stress management seminar special, according to Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz, Jr., is that the lecture was done a member of the Chaplain Service of the Delano City Police in California, Rev. Joseph Wright, who is dubbed as an expert on the field.
Cruz, the acting director of the Police Community Relations Group (PCRG), said the lecture which was done on Friday is vital to the several policemen who attended it as police works are faced with various pressures both from the community and within the organization.
The basic stress management learned from the lecture would be of great help to the PNP since its members touch base with the community, said Cruz.
The activity also endeavors to reduce the impact of trauma to individuals especially police officers by providing early intervention and allowing for early effective expression of crisis experience, he added.
Cruz said the PNP was lucky to have personally received lectures from Wright who has been conducting psychological and spiritual lectures not only in the United States but also in other parts of the world.
Wright, who used to be a staff sergeant of the United States Air Force, is one of the five chaplains from the Delano City who are well-trained as Critical Incident Management counselors.
The conduct of stress management was first earlier raised for the members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines amid incidents in the past of running berserk even inside the camp.
Some critics also raised the importance of stress management to fight the tendency of maltreating arrested suspects. It was recalled that the recent US State Department revealed that torture and other human rights issues still haunt the PNP.
See the original post:
Kuwait warns against wearing bikinis on beaches
Manama, June 3 (ANI): Kuwait security officials have warned that wearing bikinis at public beaches is an act of indecency.
Link:
Litchfield Hills Astronomy Club Holding Venus Transit Event at White Memorial June 5
The Litchfield Hills Amateur Astronomy Club is to host a Star Party on Tuesday, June 5, at White Memorial in Litchfield
Arare event -- a Venus transit -- will occur. The planet Venus will pass between Earth and the sun. The last Venus transit was in 2004 and the next one will be in 2117. There will not be a talk; the group will meet at the observatory at WMCC at 5:30pm. At about 6:03pm EDT Venus will start to cross the disc of the Sun. Although it will takesix hours to pass all the way across, we'll only see the first two hours because of sunset. Do not bring binoculars or a telescope unless you have a proper solar filter. (Club members will have telescopes with the proper filters.) If the weather is cloudy or rainy, the event is cancelled.
There is no charge. Children must be accompanied by an adult.
For more information, see the club's web site: http://lhaac.shutterfly.com/calendar or contact the club secretary at lhaacsec@gmail.com.
Arare event -- a Venus transit -- will occur. The planet Venus will pass between Earth and the sun. The last Venus transit was in 2004 and the next one will be in 2117. There will not be a talk; the group will meet at the observatory at WMCC at 5:30pm. At about 6:03pm EDT Venus will start to cross the disc of the Sun. Although it will takesix hours to pass all the way across, we'll only see the first two hours because of sunset. Do not bring binoculars or a telescope unless you have a proper solar filter. (Club members will have telescopes with the proper filters.) If the weather is cloudy or rainy, the event is cancelled.
There is no charge. Children must be accompanied by an adult.
For more information, see the club's web site: http://lhaac.shutterfly.com/calendar or contact the club secretary at lhaacsec@gmail.com.
View original post here:
Litchfield Hills Astronomy Club Holding Venus Transit Event at White Memorial June 5
Timescapes 4k: a time lapse of super hi-res beauty | Bad Astronomy
Listen, I dont usually hawk stuff on this blog. When I do urge you to give up your hard-earned lucre, I only link to stuff that I really like, and from people I really support.
Having said that: go buy this video.
Tom Lowe is an amazing photographer, and his time lapse videos are simply astonishing (see Related Posts at the bottom of this post). I could throw lots of words around, but why waste your time? Just watch the trailer for his new video, Timescapes 4k:
[Make that full screen and turn your speakers up.]
Stunning. Jaw-dropping. Mind-blowing. Drop-dead gorgeous. Seriously, wow.
The whole thing was shot in very hi-def (4096 x 2304 pixels) on a Red camera Ive seen this camera at work, and the video from it is breath-taking. Tom uses this to its full potential, creating a time lapse movie that, seriously, has set a new standard of beauty and awe for the genre.
Its not just land and skyscapes, either. His shots of people are enthralling. I love the dancing native American the sparks from the fire make that scene and for some reason the rodeo dude is strangely compelling shot in slow motion. The people dancing at an outdoor concert are surreal, too.
You can order the video from Toms website, and its available on iTunes, too.
Related Posts:
Read the original:
Timescapes 4k: a time lapse of super hi-res beauty | Bad Astronomy
Watch Venus transit with astronomy club
On June 5, as Venus passes between Earth and the sun for the last time this century, members of the Big Sky Astronomy Club will make their telescopes available for the public.
At 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at Flathead Valley Community College, club president Mark Paulson will give a presentation on the significance of this celestial event and what to expect.
Afterwards, anyone can safely view the transit of Venus through telescopes that have special solar filters in place. Venus will be seen as a small dark circle against the bright backdrop of the sun.
The transit begins at 4:05 p.m. and will be in progress as the sun sets at 9:35 p.m.
People are reminded never to look directly at the sun, especially with unfiltered binoculars or telescopes. Even a brief glimpse can cause permanent blindness.
The best method for viewing the transit is through telescopes equipped with solar filters, since the telescope will magnify the image and the filter will prevent eye damage. Other options for safely viewing the transit include pinhole projectors, specially made filters, or watching on TV or online.
Following closely on the heels of the Ring of Fire solar eclipse, the Venus transit promises something much more rare a precise alignment of the sun, the Earth, and another planet. Venus transits usually occur in pairs that are separated by more than 100 years. The upcoming transit had a partner event in 2004, with previous events occurring in 1874 and 1882.
The next Venus transit is not until 2117.
The Big Sky Astronomy Club offers other opportunities for viewing the night sky through telescopes. The club is hosting events at Lone Pine State Park on July 14 and Logan Pass in Glacier National Park on July 20 and Aug. 17.
More information about the astronomy club and the transit can be found at http://www.bigskyastroclub.org or http://www.transitofvenus.org.
See more here:
The Early Space Age (Fortune, 1959)
Editor's note: Every Sunday, Fortune publishes a story fromour magazine archives. This week, Elon Musk's company SpaceX celebrated the landing of the Dragon capsule, the world's first commercial spacecraft, marking a new era in space exploration in which private companies will step in to help NASA push the final frontier. This week's classic turns to 1959, ten years before the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon. Companies were starting to build the crafts that would enable U.S. astronauts to fly. Then as now, scientists and government officials debated the costs and benefits of space travel and the possibility of discovering life.
"...Suppose when we get to the moon we find sitting in the middle of a crater a strange little marker bearing a carefully chiseled but totally incomprehensible inscription," one scientist told Fortune writer Bello; "Then space would really get exciting."
The space business, not counting missiles, already amounts to a billion dollars a year. U.S. industry is at work on rocket engines of awesome power, and on a vehicle to carry a man to the moonand back.
By Francis Bello
FORTUNE -- Anyone who has wondered what it was like to live in the era that followed Columbus' voyage to America now has his chance to find out. Then, as now, thoughtful men disputed the merits of pressing into the unknown, argued that the possible fruits could not justify the cost, warned that the hazards to life and limb were immense. And then as now, the young, the venturesome, and the insatiably curious plunged ahead. "What we are witnessing," says one prominent member of the President's Science Advisory Committee, "is another irresistible urge of the human race. The justifications given for going into space have no more relevance than the desire for spices had for the discovery of America."
Privately, and sometimes openly, many scientists deplore the fact that enormous funds are going into space when there are so many unfinished problems, both scientific and human, lying much closer at hand. One persuasive answer to this viewpoint is offered by Herbert F. York, the young physicist who is Director of Defense Research and Engineering. "Everyone would agree," he says, "that we should be trying to raise the standard of living in India, and building dams in the Middle East. But no one is asking us to choose between dams and space--we could easily afford both. The space effort isn't a plot; it's something that appeals to a great many people for a great many reasons."
No one has responded to space more spontaneously and enthusiastically than U.S. industry. And the vigor of the response is out of all proportion to the money to be made in the space business, at least. in the foreseeable future. Companies have been setting up "space" and "astro" divisions (see box, page 88) with much the same exuberance with which they created atomic and nuclear divisions five or six years ago. (This article is not concerned with military missiles except as they can be used as power stages for space propulsion.) Space, however, is much less hedged about with secrecy than the atom was in 1953 and 1954, and it offers a far wider range of technical challenges. Moreover, the investment needed to make a useful contribution to space technology, especially its electronic aspects, is far smaller than that needed to contribute to nuclear technology. For example, the instruments that James Van Allen used to detect the great belts of radiation that now bear his name were built in a basement of the physics department at the State University of Iowa.
The Space Age has already created sharp geographical rivalries. Southern California, particularly Los Angeles, sees an opportunity to be to space what Pittsburgh is to steel and Detroit to the automobile. California's claim to be the heartland of the space industry is only slightly diluted by the presence of Patrick Air Force Base at Cape Canaveral in Florida, of Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, and of Martin's Titan ICBM plant near Denver. Canaveral can be explained away as an accident of geography that provided a matchless pattern of islands for down-range tracking stations. (And, of course, California's Vandenberg Air Force Base and the Pacific Missile Range will eventually rival Canaveral in size and importance.) The selection of Redstone Arsenal as the home of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency can be explained largely by its proximity to Canaveral and to the Pentagon. And as for Martin in Denver--at least this old Baltimore outfit had to come two-thirds of the way to the Coast.
The cosmic testing range
Progress in space technology will dramatize a nation's total technological capabilities in a way that nothing else ever could. In the momentous years ahead, the world may compare U.S. and Soviet industrial and scientific resources less and less in terms of steel, oil, and electric-power production, and more and more in terms of the number, weight, and complexity of vehicles the two countries have been able to thrust into outer space.
Original post:
Transit of Venus 2012: How to Safely Photograph a Rare Sky Sight (Photo Guide)
Venus Transit in Hydrogen-Alpha
There is an art to photographing major solar events like the 2012 transit of Venus across the sun on June 5-6, 2012. Here's a look at how to snap effective sun photos with telescopes, cameras and even smartphones.
Here, Paul Hyndman captured a stunning view of Venus crossing the face of the sun in hydrogen-alpha light on the morning of June 8, 2004 from Roxbury, Connecticut. He used an Astro-Physics 105-millimeter Traveler telescope fitted with a Coronado Solarmax90/T-Max and 30-mm blocking filter, a TeleVue 2X Powermate lens, and an SBIG STL-11000M CCD camera.
This still from a NASA video shows the position of Venus on the sun's disk in Pacific Daylight Time on June 5, 2012 during the last transit of Venus for 105 years.
Veteran space photographers Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre led two tour groups to Italy for the 2004 transit Edwins group was stationed at the Astronomical Observatory of Rome near Monte Porzio while Imeldas group was at the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo. For the photo above, Edwin used a Takahashi FC-60 apochromatic refractor and his trusty Nikon Coolpix 990 digital camera to document Venuss passage across the suns disk in white light.
WARNING: Never look at the sun directly with your naked eyes or through telescopes, binoculars, telephoto lenses, or cameras. Doing so can result in serious eye injury called solar retinopathy. Always use a filter (shown above) that is specifically designed for viewing or photographing the sun, and make sure its mounted securely on the front of your camera lens or telescope.
World visibility of the transit of Venus on 5-6 June 2012. Spitsbergen is an Artic island part of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway and one of the few places in Europe from which the entire transit is visible. For most of Europe, only the end of the transit event will be visible during sunrise on 6 June.
To mount your digital SLR camera securely to your telescope, use a standard T-adapter and a T-ring that mates to your particular camera brand (check your local camera store for availability). In this setup, the authors use the DSLRs mirror-lockup feature and a cable release to trip the shutter, thereby minimizing camera shake. They also use a right-angle 2.5X magnifier to help achieve sharp focus.
Your automatic point-and-shoot camera is great not only for taking photos of birthday parties and family vacations but also pictures of Venus in transit through a solar-filtered telescope. Simply insert an eyepiece with a wide field and long eye relief into the telescope focuser and hold your camera lens close to the eyepiece as steady as you can. Use the cameras built-in LCD screen to center the sun and compose your shot. Zoom in as needed.
You can even use your cell-phone camera to take decent shots of the transit through a solar-filtered telescope and share them immediately with other people. This view of the sun speckled with small sunspots was captured by the authors on May 13 using their Samsung Droid Charge smartphones built-in 8-megapixel camera in auto-focus/auto-exposure mode. The phone was held by hand over the eyepiece of a 3-inch refractor fitted with a metal-coated glass solar filter.
Read the original post:
Transit of Venus 2012: How to Safely Photograph a Rare Sky Sight (Photo Guide)
Tonight! Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler’s Jewish Clairvoyant: An Illustrated Lecture and Screening with Mel Gordon, Author of "Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler’s Jewish Clairvoyant" at Observatory
Tonight at Observatory! Mel Gordon is one of our all-time most fascinating and charismatic speakers, and an inspiring historian of all things fringe, forgotten, and perverse. His lectures are simply not to be missed. Hope to see you at Observatory this evening!
Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant: An Illustrated Lecture and Screening with Mel Gordon, Author of "Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant"
An illustrated lecture and screening of "lost footage" with Mel Gordon, author of Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant and Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror
Date: Sunday, June 3 (please note date change from Monday, June 4)
Time: 8:00
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
"Historians digging into the archives to reconstruct the chronicle of the Twentieth Century will have to deal with this strange phenomenon of Erik Jan Hanussen, born Herschmann Steinschneider in the humble home of a poor Jewish actor in Vienna. It will be their task to unravel a complex maze of reality and legend, myth and romance, to reach the core of the true personality of Steinschneider, alias Hanussen, and his influence on one of the most significant chapters of European history, the ascent and reign of Adolf Hitler." --Pierre van Paassen, Redbook Magazine, "The Date of Hitler's Fall," May 1942
When Pierre van Paassen, the prominent Dutch author and foreign correspondent, wrote the above for McCall's Redbook Magazine, the "amazing exploits of Erik Jan Hanussen" were still hot international filler. What could have been more titillating than the true and enigmatic story of a Jewish mystic who helped usher in the Third Reich before becoming one of its first victims?
Tonight, join Mel Gordon--author of Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant--for an illustrated lecture on the amazing story of Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant featuring a special screening of "lost" film footage from Hanussen's 1919 "Hypnosis: Hanussen's First Adventure," a Caligari-like story of sex magic and the occult, and other documentary sources. Books will also be available for sale and signing.
Mel Gordon is the author of Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant, Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror, Voluptious Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, and many other books. Voluptious Panicwas the first in-depth and illustrated book on the topic of erotic Weimar; The lavish tome was praised by academics and inspired the establishment of eight neo-Weimar nightclubs as well as the Dresden Dolls and a Marilyn Manson album. Now, Mel Gordon is completing a companion volume for Feral House Press, entitled Horizontal Collaboration: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946. He also teaches directing, acting, and history of theater at University of California at Berkeley.
More here.
Source:
http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
Tonight! Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant: An Illustrated Lecture and Screening with Mel Gordon, Author of "Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant" at Observatory
Tonight at Observatory! Mel Gordon is one of our all-time most fascinating and charismatic speakers, and an inspiring historian of all things fringe, forgotten, and perverse. His lectures are simply not to be missed. Hope to see you at Observatory this evening!
Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant: An Illustrated Lecture and Screening with Mel Gordon, Author of "Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant"
An illustrated lecture and screening of "lost footage" with Mel Gordon, author of Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant and Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror
Date: Sunday, June 3 (please note date change from Monday, June 4)
Time: 8:00
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
"Historians digging into the archives to reconstruct the chronicle of the Twentieth Century will have to deal with this strange phenomenon of Erik Jan Hanussen, born Herschmann Steinschneider in the humble home of a poor Jewish actor in Vienna. It will be their task to unravel a complex maze of reality and legend, myth and romance, to reach the core of the true personality of Steinschneider, alias Hanussen, and his influence on one of the most significant chapters of European history, the ascent and reign of Adolf Hitler." --Pierre van Paassen, Redbook Magazine, "The Date of Hitler's Fall," May 1942
When Pierre van Paassen, the prominent Dutch author and foreign correspondent, wrote the above for McCall's Redbook Magazine, the "amazing exploits of Erik Jan Hanussen" were still hot international filler. What could have been more titillating than the true and enigmatic story of a Jewish mystic who helped usher in the Third Reich before becoming one of its first victims?
Tonight, join Mel Gordon--author of Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant--for an illustrated lecture on the amazing story of Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant featuring a special screening of "lost" film footage from Hanussen's 1919 "Hypnosis: Hanussen's First Adventure," a Caligari-like story of sex magic and the occult, and other documentary sources. Books will also be available for sale and signing.
Mel Gordon is the author of Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant, Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror, Voluptious Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, and many other books. Voluptious Panicwas the first in-depth and illustrated book on the topic of erotic Weimar; The lavish tome was praised by academics and inspired the establishment of eight neo-Weimar nightclubs as well as the Dresden Dolls and a Marilyn Manson album. Now, Mel Gordon is completing a companion volume for Feral House Press, entitled Horizontal Collaboration: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946. He also teaches directing, acting, and history of theater at University of California at Berkeley.
More here.
Source:
http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
Computer-designed proteins programmed to disarm variety of flu viruses
ScienceDaily (June 1, 2012) Computer-designed proteins are under construction to fight the flu. Researchers are demonstrating that proteins found in nature, but that do not normally bind the flu, can be engineered to act as broad-spectrum antiviral agents against a variety of flu virus strains, including H1N1 pandemic influenza.
"One of these engineered proteins has a flu-fighting potency that rivals that of several human monoclonal antibodies," said Dr. David Baker, professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington, in a report in Nature Biotechnology.
Baker's research team is making major inroads in optimizing the function of computer-designed influenza inhibitors. These proteins are constructed via computer modeling to fit exquisitely into a specific nano-sized target on flu viruses. By binding the target region like a key into a lock, they keep the virus from changing shape, a tactic that the virus uses to infect living cells. The research efforts, akin to docking a space station but on a molecular level, are made possible by computers that can describe the landscapes of forces involved on the submicroscopic scale.
Baker heads the new Institute for Protein Design Center at the University of Washington. Biochemists, computer scientists, engineers and medical specialists at the center are engineering novel proteins with new functions for specific purposes in medicine, environmental protection and other fields. Proteins underlie all normal activities and structures of living cells, and also regulate disease actions of pathogens like viruses. Abnormal protein formation and interactions are also implicated in many inherited and later-life chronic disorders.
Because influenza is a serious worldwide public health concern due to its genetic shifts and drifts that periodically become more virulent, the flu is one of the key interests of the Institutes for Protein Design and its collaborators in the United States and abroad. Researchers are trying to meet the urgent need for better therapeutics to protect against this very adaptable and extremely infective virus. Vaccines for new strains of influenza take months to develop, test and manufacture, and are not helpful for those already sick. The long response time for vaccine creation and distribution is unnerving when a more deadly strain suddenly emerges and spreads quickly. The speed of transmission is accelerated by the lack of widespread immunity in the general population to the latest form of the virus.
Flu trackers refer to strains by their H and N subtypes. H stands for hemagglutinins, which are the molecules on the flu virus that enable it to invade the cells of respiratory passages. The virus's hemagglutinin molecules attach to the surface of cells lining the respiratory tract. When the cell tries to engulf the virus, it makes the mistake of drawing it into a more acidic location. The drop in pH changes the shape of the viral hemagglutinin, thereby allowing the virus to fuse to the cell and open an entry for the virus' RNA to come in and start making fresh viruses. It is hypothesized that the Baker Lab protein inhibits this shape change by binding the hemagglutinin in a very specific orientation and thus keeps the virus from invading cells.
Baker and his team wanted to create antivirals that could react against a wide variety of H subtypes, as this versatility could lead to a comprehensive therapy for influenza. Specifically, viruses that have hemagglutinins of the H2 subtype are responsible for the deadly pandemic of 1957 and continued to circulate until 1968. People born after that date haven't been exposed to H2 viruses. The recent avian flu has a new version of H1 hemagglutinin. Data suggests that Baker's proteins bind to all types of the Group I Hemagglutinin, a group that includes not just H1 but the pandemic H2 and avian H5 strains.
Recognizing the importance of new flu therapies to national and international security, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency funded this work, along with the National Institutes of Health's National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The researchers also used the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratories in Illinois, with support from the Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences.
The methods developed for the influenza inhibitor protein design, Baker said, could be "a powerful route to inhibitors or binders for any surface patch on any desired target of interest." For example, if a new disease pathogen arises, scientists could figure out how it interacts with human cells or other hosts on a molecular level. Scientists could then use protein interface design to generate a diversity of small proteins that they predict would block the pathogen's interaction surface.
Genes for large numbers of the most promising, computer-designed proteins could be tested using yeast cells. After further molecular chemistry studies to find the best binding among those proteins, those could be re-programmed in the lab to undergo mutations, and all the mutated forms could be stored in a "library" for an in-depth analysis of their amino acids, molecular architecture and energy bonds. Advanced technologies would allow the scientists to quickly thumb through the library to pick out those tiny proteins that clung to the pathogen surface target with pinpoint accuracy. The finalists would be selected from this pool for excelling at stopping the pathogen from attaching to, entering and infecting human or animal cells.
Read the original:
Computer-designed proteins programmed to disarm variety of flu viruses
'Nano technology' [program can pay off big for IRSC students
FORT PIERCE A new partnership at Indian River State College's Brown Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship between its nanotechnology lab and NanoProfessor will take the college to the cutting edge of tomorrow's technology.
So said Kevin Cooper, director of advanced technology at the newly named NanoProfessor Advanced Materials Lab, which officially will be teaching about new-age nano technology studies starting in the fall.
What is nano technology? Nano technology is extremely small scale, said Dean Hart, chief commercial officer of NanoInk Inc. and the NanoProfessor and Nano Science education program in Skokie, Ill.
"Nano-scale is one billionth of a meter, so when you talk about nano technology applications, it's looking at normal biology, physics and material science it's how those sciences work on a very, very small scale," Hart said.
That's 80,000 times smaller than a human hair, according to an IRSC brochure.
IRSC is the first college in the Southeastern United States to offer students access to a fully nano-instrumentation equipped laboratory with an expert-driven curriculum, and student-teacher support materials.
Cooper said IRSC will be offering technician certificates starting in the spring of 2013 that will qualify graduates to seek four-year degrees in fields such as materials science, biology, physics and medicine at large universities.
Cooper said there already is ongoing undergraduate nano research at the Fort Pierce lab where student researchers have been working in partnership with industry clients; they are expecting to have their first publication in the fall.
The new nano program will not only introduce new degrees, but provide real-world research opportunities for students while fostering partnerships with universities and industry. It will provide lab space for scientists and those promoting economic growth in the nano fields.
What is nano research at IRSC looking at now?
Originally posted here:
'Nano technology' [program can pay off big for IRSC students
Gaining health to reduce care
The goal for one of the newest doctors in town is to ensure her patients no longer need her.
Rayme Geidl is a family physician and a board-eligible bariatric doctor. She started working on the Palouse last August and began practicing bariatric medicine at Moscow Medical in April.
I dont want to just give patients a pill, Geidl said. I want to show them how we can give them a strategy to actually reverse the problem.
Bariatrics is known for weight loss, be it surgical or lifestyle. Geidl focuses on the lifestyle.
When patients come in, she first makes sure theyre on the same page. If simply losing weight is their goal but their medical data is clean, Geidl isnt the best option.
But patients who want to feel better, have more energy or increase their longevity - those patients, Geidl can work with. She can help people reduce medications related to diabetes, high blood pressure, joint pain or anything else that could be related to obesity.
I was seeing a lot of patients struggling with metabolic issues and body composition, and I realized I couldnt help them very well, Geidl, a Troy native and University of Idaho graduate, said. I didnt have the training. ... I was feeling inadequate as a doctor. I could prescribe medicine, and that could help make testing numbers better, but I wasnt solving the problem. I wasnt healing them, which is what I want to do.
So during her medical residency in Spokane, Geidl, who attended the University of Nevada medical school, began to investigate nutrition and bariatrics.
First, she attended continuing education conferences on nutrition beginning in 2008, then began to connect with bariatrics doctors - not surgeons - across the country through the American Society of Bariatric Physicians.
Its not a new idea, she said. I wanted to teach people and give them what they need and a strategy to reverse the problem. Im practicing the best medicine in my life because my patients dont need me.
Read the original here:
Gaining health to reduce care