Wednesday, May 30, 2012

JANE - Journal / Author Name Estimator

http://www.biosemantics.org/jane/suggestions.php


Have you recently written a paper, but you're not sure to which journal you should submit it? Or maybe you want to find relevant articles to cite in your paper? Or are you an editor, and do you need to find reviewers for a particular paper? Jane can help!

Just enter the title and/or abstract of the paper in the box, and click on 'Find journals', 'Find authors' or 'Find Articles'. Jane will then compare your document to millions of documents in Medline to find the best matching journals, authors or articles.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Vision

"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision." 
-- Ayn Rand

Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA)

http://www.clsa-elcv.ca/


The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) is a large, national, long-term study that will follow approximately 50,000 men and women between the ages of 45 and 85 for at least 20 years.
The ultimate aim of the CLSA is to find ways to improve the health of Canadians by better understanding the aging process and the factors that shape the way we age.
The study takes an integrative approach, examining healthy aging through a number of different lenses. Study investigators will collect a wide range of information about the changing biological, medical, psychological, social, lifestyle and economic aspects of people’s lives.
The study is a longitudinal design, meaning that it will follow people over a long period of time. It is also supplemented with a series of cross-sectional snapshots that will allow for immediate and continual research results.

The CLSA is a strategic initiative of Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Support for the study has been provided by the Government of Canada through the CIHR and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, as well as the provincial governments of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Colon may play role in Parkinson's diagnosis

http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120518/parkinsons-colonoscopy-bowel-brain-120527/20120527/?hub=EdmontonHome

But scientists, led by Dr. Kathleen M. Shannon, a neurologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, have stumbled upon what could be an early warning sign of the disease: abnormal chemicals in the colon that can be found two to five years before Parkinson's symptoms even begin.

CD (Cluster of Differentiation) antibody

http://lymphoma.about.com/od/testsforlymphoma/qt/cd.htm

CD stands for Cluster of Differentiation. CD markers are a group of special molecules on the surface of the cells in our body. Useful for classifying white blood cells.

 Rituxan (Rituximab) - a monoclonal antibody against CD20.

Ali Tehrani's PPT

People to people
Persistence
Teamwork

Sunday, May 27, 2012

sed subtitle fix

From (broken.srt)
00:00:14:267 --> 00:00:20:258

to (fixed.srt)
00:00:14,267 --> 00:00:20,258

cat broken.srt | sed -e 's/\([0-9]*\):\([0-9]*\):\([0-9]*\):\([0-9]*\)/\1:\2:\3,\4/g' > fixed.srt

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Arrogance

"Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive." --Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche

Friday, May 25, 2012

codeml - phylogenetic analyses of DNA or protein sequences using maximum likelihood

http://nebc.nerc.ac.uk/bioinformatics/docs/codeml.html


codeml is a part of the PAML package, which is a suite of programs for phylogenetic analyses of DNA or protein sequences using maximum likelihood (ML).

With the seqtype set to 1, codeml carries out ML analysis of protein-coding DNA sequences using codon substitution models (e.g., Goldman and Yang 1994). With seqtype set to 2, codeml carries out ML analysis of amino acid sequences under a number of amino acid substitution models.

Brain Facts and Figures

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/facts.html



 Average number of glial cells in brain = 10-50 times the number of neurons (New research suggests the neuron-to-glia ratio may be much smaller, closer to 1:1)
(For more information about the number of neurons in the brain, see R.W. Williams and K. Herrup, Ann. Review Neuroscience, 11:423-453, 1988)

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Talks

1. This Monumental Shift - Exploring the Future of Behaviour, Technology, the Web and Canada's Place in it
Leonard Brody, Business and Technology Visionary
https://www.bc.net/atl-conf/display/BCNETCONF2012/This+Monumental+Shift+-+Exploring+the+Future+of+Behaviour%2C+Technology%2C+the+Web+and+Canada%27s+Place+in+it

2. The End of Wonder in the Age of Whatever
Michael Wesch, cultural anthropologist
https://www.bc.net/atl-conf/display/BCNETCONF2012/The+End+of+Wonder+in+the+Age+of+Whatever

To question is to:
- quest
- embrace our vulnerability
- invite connections

Media change - relationship change

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opsound
is a website which aggregates links to music released under Creative Commons licenses. Opsound aggregates links to music hosted on other servers, as well as providing discussion forums and organizing real-world events and concerts.

OpenStreetMaps

https://www.bc.net/atl-conf/display/BCNETCONF2012/Keynotes

Thursday, May 17, 2012

UCLA researchers map damaged connections in Phineas Gage's brain

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/05/17/ucla.researchers.map.damaged.connections.phineas.gages.brain

Poor Phineas Gage. In 1848, the supervisor for the Rutland and Burlington Railroad in Vermont was using a 13-pound, 3-foot-7-inch rod to pack blasting powder into a rock when he triggered an explosion that drove the rod through his left cheek and out of the top of his head. As reported at the time, the rod was later found, "smeared with blood and brains." Miraculously, Gage lived, becoming the most famous case in the history of neuroscience -- not only because he survived a horrific accident that led to the destruction of much of his left frontal lobe but also because of the injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior, which were said to be profound. Gage went from being an affable 25-year-old to one that was fitful, irreverent and profane. His friends and acquaintances said he was "no longer Gage."

Reporting in the May 16 issue of the journal PLoS ONE, Jack Van Horn, a UCLA assistant professor of neurology, and colleagues note that while approximately 4 percent of the cerebral cortex was intersected by the rod's passage, more than 10 percent of Gage's total white matter was damaged. The passage of the tamping iron caused widespread damage to the white matter connections throughout Gage's brain, which likely was a major contributor to the behavioral changes he experienced.

"The extensive loss of white matter connectivity, affecting both hemispheres, plus the direct damage by the rod, which was limited to the left cerebral hemisphere, is not unlike modern patients who have suffered a traumatic brain injury," he said. "And it is analogous to certain forms of degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease or frontal temporal dementia, in which neural pathways in the frontal lobes are degraded, which is known to result in profound behavioral changes."

More than words and looks

"No woman can be handsome by the force of features alone; any more that she can be witty by only the help of speech."
--Unknown

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Neuroscience Science of the Brain

http://neuroscience.utoronto.ca/Assets/UTNP+Digital+Assets/brainbee/Neuroscience-Science-of-the-Brain.pdf

Neuroscience: Science of the Brain is a booklet for older children and the general public. It aims to describe our current understanding of brain function. Each of the twenty chapters focuses on a different aspect of the brain and is written by leading neuroscientists in that field. It is available in over twenty languages.

Published by International Brain Research Organization (IBRO)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Brain_Research_Organization

All one

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ.
--Galations 3:28

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Playing cards

"Each player must accept the cards that life deals him or her. But once in hand one must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game."
--Voltaire

Brain facts

http://www.brainfacts.org/about-neuroscience/core-concepts/


provides information and links to everything Neuroscience

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Best of 2011 Korean Drama OST

http://koreanmusicblog.blogspot.ca/2012/01/kmb-compilation-best-of-2011-korean.html

01. I'm Loving You - Baek Ji Young [Princess Man]
02. 처음 하는 말처럼 _신승훈 [A Thousand Days' Promise]
03. More Than Anyone in the World - Lena Park [Spy Myung Wol]
04. Because I Miss You - CNBLUE [Heartstrings]
05. Dream High - Taecyeon, Wooyoung, Suzy, Joo [Dream High]
06. Thump Thump  – 써니힐 Sunny Hill [Greatest Love]
07. Love Is You (feat. Blue Marble) - 서연 [Me Too, Flower!]
08. Because of You - Beast [My Princess]
09. 느낌이 와 - Navi [49 Days]
10. Confession - Changmin [Paradise Ranch]

Fire and Love

"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your heart or burn down your house, you can never tell."
--Joan Crawford

Avoid USB device from getting disconnected automatically

Avoid USB device from getting disconnected automatically

http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/53445-usb-hard-drive-keeps-disconnecting-disappearing.html

in the device manager (Control Panel > System > Hardware) go to USB root hub properties and disable power management for the hub it will power down USB to save power

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Spreading happiness

"Resolve to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment."
--Sydney Smith


... assuming you meet one new person everyday

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

1000 genomes on Amazon's cloud

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v30/n5/full/nbt0512-376.html?WT.ec_id=NBT-201205

The world's largest data set on human genetic variation, the 1000 Genomes Project, is now available for free through Amazon Web Services.

The 1000 Genomes Project is an international effort initiated in 2008 to collect the genomes of more than 2,600 people from 26 populations around the world (Nat. Biotechnol. 26, 256, 2008).

Human brain shaped by duplicate genes

http://www.nature.com/news/human-brain-shaped-by-duplicate-genes-1.10584?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20120508

James Sikela, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Colorado, Denver, adds that the SRGAP2 duplications are likely to be one of a multitude of genetic changes that moulded the human brain.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

NVidia GeForce 8400 GS Video Card

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/652-63-window-monitor-1680x1050-1920x1080-resolution-here
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=21993&st=20

1. NVIDIA Control Panel > Display > Manage custom timings.
2. Click both "Treat as HDTV" and "Allow modes not exposed by the display"
3. Click [Create...]
4. Under Custom display mode values:
    Horizontal desktop pixels:  1440
    Vertical desktop lines:  900
    GDI Refresh rate:  60
    Bits per pixel:  32
    (don't have "Interlaced" checked)
5. Click [Advanced >>]  (by the way this is where I didn't go when NVIDIA emailed me)
6. Under "Back-end parameters":
    Timing standard:  DMT
    Desired refresh rate:  60
    (the rest of the fields are grayed out)
7. Under "Front-end paramers"
    Scaling type:  Display (none)
8. Click [Test]
9. Click [OK]

Beta driver fix for not being able to save custom resolution
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-301.24-beta-driver.html
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=189757
Use version 258.96?

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/54194-3-resolution-higher-native
"LCDs cannot go beyond native resolution. It is phyiscally impossible since due to the specific number of pixel.

What might be happening is the resolution is being down converted back to native resolution or it sets the "usable" desktop space to 1920 x 1080 (or whatever), but only 1440 x 900 is displayed at a time. You would need to scroll to view the rest of the "usable" desktop space." -- works for CRTs though ...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070901023705AArlQAA

*Your monitor, Model : L196WTQ-BF is the finest 19" currently offered by LG and your NVidia does not even warm up to do this.

MONITOR:
The LG is a great 19" and 1440 x 900 is not stressing it at all. This is the "Native" resolution which means 1440 x 900 is the "optimum" or "perfect" resolution setting for this monitor. Contrary to popular belief, the maximum resolution can be configured considerably higher. With a bit of tweaking my 19" wide LCD and NVidia GeForce-256 displays 1920 x 1200 just fine. Also, using the 32bit color depth setting actually displays the monitor’s max of 24bit.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Picasa - Google photo editing

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/howto-install-picasa-3-5-in-ubuntu.html

Picasa is a software application for organizing and editing digital photos, originally created by Idealab and owned by Google since 2004.”Picasa” is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for “my house” and “pic” for pictures (personalized art).

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Genomic Analysis of Reactive Astrogliosis

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/18/6391.abstract

Reactive astrogliosis is characterized by a profound change in astrocyte phenotype in response to all CNS injuries and diseases. To better understand the reactive astrocyte state, we used Affymetrix GeneChip arrays to profile gene expression in populations of reactive astrocytes isolated at various time points after induction using two mouse injury models, ischemic stroke and neuroinflammation. We find reactive gliosis consists of a rapid, but quickly attenuated, induction of gene expression after insult and identify induced Lcn2 and Serpina3n as strong markers of reactive astrocytes. Strikingly, reactive astrocyte phenotype strongly depended on the type of inducing injury. Although there is a core set of genes that is upregulated in reactive astrocytes from both injury models, at least 50% of the altered gene expression is specific to a given injury type. Reactive astrocytes in ischemia exhibited a molecular phenotype that suggests that they may be beneficial or protective, whereas reactive astrocytes induced by LPS exhibited a phenotype that suggests that they may be detrimental. These findings demonstrate that, despite well established commonalities, astrocyte reactive gliosis is a highly heterogeneous state in which astrocyte activities are altered to respond to the specific injury. This raises the question of how many subtypes of reactive astrocytes exist. Our findings provide transcriptome databases for two subtypes of reactive astrocytes that will be highly useful in generating new and testable hypotheses of their function, as well as for providing new markers to detect different types of reactive astrocytes in human neurological diseases.                    

Brain In Situ

http://www.nibb.ac.jp/brish/Gallery/cortexE.html

mitochondrial function to cancer cell metabolism

http://www.nature.com/nrc/posters/mitochondria/index.html
http://www.nature.com/nrc/posters/mitochondria/mito_poster.pdf

However, mitochondria also have their own DNA and mutations in mitochondrial genes are common and have been shown to be involved in human diseases, such as mitochondrial myopathy.

This poster, covers our current understanding of the contribution of mitochondrial function to cancer cell metabolism.

Controversial research: Good science bad science

http://www.nature.com/news/controversial-research-good-science-bad-science-1.10511?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20120501


Nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons?
Brain scanning or Big Brother?
Climate saviour or climate disaster?
Baby blessing or Brave New World?

Open data

http://www.nature.com/news/open-data-project-aims-to-ease-the-way-for-genomic-research-1.10507?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20120501

Last summer, biologist Andrew Kasarskis was eager to help decipher the genetic origin of the Escherichia coli strain that infected roughly 4,000 people in Germany between May and July. But he knew it that might take days for the lawyers at his company — Pacific Biosciences of Menlo Park, California — to parse the agreements governing how his team could use data collected on the strain. Luckily, one team had released its data under a Creative Commons licence that allowed free use of the data, allowing Kasarskis and his colleagues to join the international research effort and publish their work1 without wasting time on legal wrangling.

The Portable Legal Consent will initially deliver data to Synapse, a computational research environment developed by Sage Bionetworks, a non-profit biomedical research organization based in Seattle, Washington. But the project is also developing tools that will allow researchers outside of Synapse to tap into its databases. The project, part of a groundswell of new consumer- and patient-driven models for conducting science2, approaches consent in a different way to many genomic studies, by informing donors that it is not possible to guarantee full anonymity of their data, not tying the data to specific studies, and asking researchers to respect broad terms of use — by not attempting to identify data contributors and not sharing the data with others who don't agree to the same terms, for example.

Love vs Power

"Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other."
--Carl Jung