PAGASA readies activities for Astronomy Week on Feb. 17-21

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A Star Party contest for high school students will highlight the government's celebration of National Astronomy Week on Feb. 17 to 21, state astronomers said.

PAGASA acting administrator Vicente Malano said the Star Party contest is open to 12 public and private high schools and will be held Feb. 21 at PAGASA in Diliman, Quezon City.

"The contest will be open to high school students, both public and private from Metro Manila. The maximum number of contestants is six students who should be members of their school Science Club and one Science adviser," Malano said.

He said the winner will take home P20,000 while the runner-up will get P15,000. The third placer gets P10,000 while the nine others will get consolation prizes of P2,000 each.

PAGASA said National Astronomy Week is observed every third week of February.

"This year, the occasion will be celebrated on 17-21 February 2014 with the theme 'Building Bonds: Connecting People through Astronomy,'" Malano said.

PAGASA is mandated by Presidential Proclamation No. 130 to head the annual celebration.

Other activities lined up for National Astronomy Week include:

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PAGASA readies activities for Astronomy Week on Feb. 17-21

Mile Markers

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KEY WEST

Looking at the stars

Larry Halstead, an amateur astronomy for more than 20 years, will return to the Key West Library for three Wednesday evening programs about astronomy.

The programs are free and open to the public and take place from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Library Auditorium, 700 Fleming St. Weather permitting, following each session time will be devoted to actual observation at a nearby open area using your eyes, binoculars and a good amateur telescope.

On Jan. 22, the program covers an introduction and basic astronomy; Jan. 29, telescopes and how they work; Feb. 5 observing tips, etiquette and special topics.

KEY WEST

Sunrise Canal dredging

City commissioners Tuesday will consider approving a $53,000 contract to dredge 375 cubic yards of submerged material from the Sunrise Canal in New Town.

Originally dug at 9 feet, the Sunrise Canal "is obstructed and the canal water quality has deteriorated due to its inhibited ability to flush," city engineer Birch Ohlinger wrote in a memo to city staff.

Commissioners meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Old City Hall, 510 Greene St. The city has already received the permits to dredge. Of five bids received, city staff recommends the lowest one, from Florida Dredge and Dock of Tarpon Springs.

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Mile Markers

Playing Rygar arcade (pt 1) using human level artificial intelligence – Video

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Playing Rygar arcade (pt 1) using human level artificial intelligence
This video shows a robot playing an arcade game called Rygar. There are no sound in the video because I wanted to show the viewers what the robot is thinking...

By: electronicdave2

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Playing Rygar arcade (pt 1) using human level artificial intelligence - Video

Genetic Medicine – The University of Chicago Department of …

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The Section of Genetic Medicine was created in May 2005 to both build research infrastructure in genetics within the Department of Medicine and to focus translational efforts related to genetics. I am proud to have been chosen to lead this new section. My expertise is in quantitative human genetics with a long-standing research program focused on understanding the genetic component to complex phenotypes, including diabetes (MODY, type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes), asthma and related phenotypes, psychiatric disorders (autism, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorders, Tourettes Syndrome, and schizophrenia) and speech disorders such as stuttering. Yves Lussier M.D., a talented physician scientist with substantial expertise in medical informatics and bioinformatics, joined the section in January 2006 and is already building his research program. Among his research interests are systems medicine and phenomics. In the summer of 2006, two new faculty will join our section with diverse but complementary research interests in genetic and genomic science.

Among the first of the initiatives in which the Section of Genetic Medicine has contributed in is beginning the Translational Research Initiative of the Department of Medicine (TRIDOM ) sample collections. Protocols have been approved for sample collections in Department of Medicine outpatient clinics, and initial efforts are underway in several of the clinics to collect samples. The early efforts have been very rewarding nearly 70% of patients offered the opportunity to participate in the studies have agreed to do so! If we can continue to achieve high participation rates as we increase the number of clinics in which samples are collected, we will indeed have a very rich sample resource for Department of Medicine scientists to tap for their research needs. Look for more information about TRIDOM protocols and other resources available through the Section of Genetic Medicine on this website in the future.

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Agnosticism – New World Encyclopedia

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From New World Encyclopedia

Agnosticism is the philosophical or religious view that the truth value of certain claims particularly claims regarding the existence of God, gods, deities, ultimate reality or afterlife is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently unknowable due to the subjective nature of experience.

Agnostics claim either that it is not possible to have absolute or certain knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of God or gods; or, alternatively, posit that while certainty may be possible for some, they personally have not come into possession of this knowledge. Agnosticism in both cases involves some form of skepticism.

Agnosticism is not necessarily without a belief in God or gods. Rather, its belief is that the existence of God or gods is unknowable. It is important to note that, contrary to the more popular understanding of agnosticism merely as an agnostic attitude towards the divine, agnosticism is in fact quite a constructive project in two ways. First, as understood originally by Thomas Huxley who coined the term, it involves a serious philosophical process for approaching the question of the existence of God. Second, agnosticism can religiously issue in awareness of one's ignorance, which in turn can lead to a profound experience of the divine.

The term agnosticism comes from a conjunction of the Greek prefix "a," meaning "without," and gnosis, meaning "knowledge." Thus, the term refers quite explicitly to the agnostic's deficit in knowledge regarding the divine. The term "agnostic" is relatively new, having been introduced by Thomas Huxley in 1869 to describe his personal philosophy that rejected gnosticism, by which he meant all claims to occult or mystical knowledge[1] such as that spoken of by early Christian church leaders, who used the Greek word gnosis to describe "spiritual knowledge." Agnosticism is not to be confused, however, with religious views opposing the Gnostic movement, that is, the early proto-Christian religious sects extant during the early first millennium.

In recent years, use of the word agnosticism to refer to that which is not knowable or certain is apparent in scientific literature in psychology and neuroscience.[2] Furthermore, the term is sometimes used with a meaning resembling that of "independent," particularly in technical and marketing literature, which may make reference to a "hardware agnostic"[3] or "platform agnostic."[4]

The Sophist philosopher Protagoras (485-420 B.C.E.) seems to have been the first among many thinkers throughout history who suggested that the question of God's existence was unknowable.[5] However, it was Enlightenment philosopher David Hume who laid the foundations for modern agnosticism when he asserted that any meaningful statement about the universe is always qualified by some degree of doubt.

Building on Hume, we see that the fallibility of human reasoning means that a person cannot obtain absolute certainty in any matter save for trivial cases where a statement is true by definition (as in, "all bachelors are unmarried" or "all triangles have three angles"). All rational statements that assert a factual claim about the universe which begin with the statement "I believe that..." are simply shorthand for the statement "based on my knowledge, understanding, and interpretation of the prevailing evidence, I tentatively believe that..." For instance, when one says, "I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy," said person is not asserting an absolute truth but rather a tentative belief based on an interpretation of the evidence assembled before him or her. Even though one may set an alarm clock at night, fully believing that the sun will rise the next day, that belief is tentative, tempered by a small but finite degree of doubt, since there is always some infinetesmal measure of possibility that the sun might explode or that that person might die, and so on.

What sets apart agnosticism from the general skepticism that permeates much of modern Western philosophy is that the nature of God is the crux of the issue, not whether or not God merely exists. Thus, the nature and attributes of God are of foremost concern. Agnosticism maintains as a fundamental principle that the nature and attributes of God are beyond the grasp of humanity's finite and limited mind, since those divine attributes transcend human comprehension. The concept of God is quite simply too immense a concept for a mere human being to wrap her or his mind around. Humans might apply terms such as "omnipotent," "omniprescent," "infinite" and "eternal," to attempt to characterize God, but, the agnostic would assert, these highly obsfucatory terms only underscore the inadequacy of our mental equipment to understand a concept so vast, ephemeral and elusive.

Agnostic views may be as old as philosophical skepticism, but the terms "agnostic" and "agnosticism" were created by Thomas Huxley to place his beliefs alongside those of the other dominant philosophical and religious creeds of his time. Huxley perceived his beliefs to be fundamentally different in one important way from all these other positions, whether they were theist, pantheist, deist, idealist or Christian. In his words:

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Agnosticism - New World Encyclopedia

Stem cell therapy following meniscus knee surgery may reduce pain, restore meniscus

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Jan. 16, 2014 A single stem cell injection following meniscus knee surgery may provide pain relief and aid in meniscus regrowth, according to a novel study appearing in the January issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS).

More than one million knee arthroscopy procedures are performed each year in the U.S. primarily for the treatment of tears to the meniscus -- the wedge-shaped pieces of cartilage that act as "shock absorbers" between the thighbone and shinbone in the knee joint.

In the first-of-its-kind study, "Adult Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSC) Delivered via Intra-Articular Injection to the Knee, Following Partial Medial Meniscectomy," most patients who received a single injection of adult stem cells following the surgical removal of all or part of a torn meniscus, reported a significant reduction in pain. Some patients?24 percent of one MSC group and 6 percent of another?experienced at least a 15 percent increase in meniscal volume at one year. There was no additional increase in meniscal volume at year two.

"The results demonstrated that high doses of mesenchymal stem cells can be safely delivered in a concentrated manner to a knee joint without abnormal tissue formation," said lead study author C. Thomas Vangsness, Jr., MD. "No one has ever done that before." In addition, "the patients with arthritis got strong improvement in pain" and some experienced meniscal regrowth.

Specific Study Details The study involved 55 patients, ages 18 to 60, who underwent a partial medial meniscectomy (the surgical removal of all or part of a torn meniscus) at seven medical institutions. Patients were randomly placed in one of three treatment groups: Group A patients (18) received a "low-dose" injection of 50 million stem cells within seven to 10 days after meniscus surgery; Group B patients (18), a higher dose of 100 million stem cells; and the "control group (19)," sodium hyaluronate only. Patients were assessed to evaluate safety, meniscus regeneration through MRI and X-ray images, overall condition of the knee joint and clinical outcomes through two years. While most of the patients had some arthritis, patients with severe (level three or four) arthritis, in the same compartment as the meniscectomy, were excluded from the study.

Key Study Findings

"The results of this study suggest that mesenchymal stem cells have the potential to improve the overall condition of the knee joint," said Dr. Vangsness. "I am very excited and encouraged" by the results. With the success of a single injection, "it begs the question: What if we give a series of injections?"

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Stem cell therapy following meniscus knee surgery may reduce pain, restore meniscus

Can you reverse the aging process?

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Tired of waiting for a magic potion that will make you look and feel 20 years younger? Hang on. Scientists have discovered what causes the body to age and are busy working on ways to reverse the aging process. Dr. Olivier Meyer, who is a medical doctor, a native of Switzerland and a resident of Thailand, spoke at the Sunday, January 5 meeting of the Pattaya City Expats Club. His topic was about Anti-Aging Medicine. He said that the goal of anti-aging medicine is not just adding time to life, but also giving better life to time.

Some people at 90 years of age are fit and have no or few chronic diseases, whereas for others getting old is a challenge, Dr Olivier stated. He said that when he went to medical school, we did not know what causes aging. However, some ground breaking research at Harvard Medical School in the first decade of this century changed that. Scientists discovered that the chromosomes in the cells in our body are capped at both ends by something called telomeres, and that it is the shortening of these telomeres over time that leads to aging.

Dr Olivier Meyer, Swiss doctor practising in Pattaya mainly to expats, was PCECs speaker for the 5th of January. Dr Oliviers talk was about Anti-Aging Medicine, the goal of anti-aging medicine being not just adding time to life, but also giving better life to time.

The scientists also discovered a natural enzyme in cells called telomerase that can prevent telomeres from shortening, except that that the telomerase is repressed by a protein in the cells. Researchers are using a process called telomerase activation to rejuvenate organs in animal experiments. There is a good chance that in the future telomerase activations will be used in humans to slow the aging process.

Not unsurprisingly, there were many questions from the members of PCEC about the methods and benefits of anti ageing regimes.

In the meantime, Dr Olivier said, we already have strategies to combat the effects of aging. He described a three-step process: Step 1: Healthy lifestyles; Step 2: Medical interventions; and Step 3: Use of stem cells.

With respect to health lifestyles, Dr Olivier described several steps we can take, including practice good nutrition, take anti-oxidants, dont smoke, drink alcohol moderately or not at all, get regular exercise, keep your weight under control, and be sure to get good quality and enough sleep.

The second step involves medical interventions, such as keeping chronic diseases under control; having regular check-ups (at least once a year for people over 50); visiting the dentist regularly; taking multivitamins; taking a low daily dose of aspirin to keep the blood thin; and achieving good hormonal balance. He then described the different hormones and their purpose.

Dr Olivier referred to andropause, the male equivalent of menopause. He said that as men age, the decrease in testosterone is more gradual than what occurs in women. Half of the men aged 50-70 will have low testosterone levels. Common symptoms of andropause are lack of energy, depression, diminution of memory; loss of strength; increased body fat; irritability, mood swings, bad sleep; low sex drive; and difficulties getting erections or erections not as strong as usual.

The third step involves the use of stem cells. These cells are able to differentiate into more specialised cells and are one of the bodys fundamental tools and mechanisms for self-repair, Dr Olivier explained. Stem cells improve the immune function and regenerate and repair damaged organs. As we age, however, the bone marrow releases fewer stem cells, giving us less power to repair the damage of ageing. Treatment with stem cells reverses this process.

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Can you reverse the aging process?