From Eurekalert.org:

CAMBRIDGE, MA–MIT researchers have developed a computer modeling approach that could improve a class of drugs based on antibodies, molecules key to the immune system. The model can predict structural changes in an antibody that will improve its effectiveness.

The team has already used the model to create a new version of cetuximab, a drug commonly used to treat colorectal cancer, that binds to its target with 10 times greater affinity than the original molecule.

The work, which will appear Sept. 23 in an advance publication of Nature Biotechnology, results from a collaboration using both laboratory experiments and computer simulations, between MIT Professors Dane Wittrup and Bruce Tidor. more>>>

Watch the video closely this is rather clever…

From Coginitive Daily:

From New Scientist Blogs:

Imagine a virtual reality (VR) recreation of a traumatic event that gets more intense when it detects you aren’t scared.

Put that way, it sounds like torture. But it could actually be a boon for therapists using VR to help people with post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s an idea being developed by a team led by Kresimir Cosic at University of Zagreb, who presented details at the recent CyberTherapy 2007 conference. more>>>

From The Decatur Daily:

The Barna Group, an organization of pollsters that specializes in religious issues, conducted a survey and found about 5 million adults in the United States refer to themselves as atheists.

Their poll also found a number of additional people who say they have no religious faith or that they are agnostic. Combine these folk with the 5 million atheists, and the number of Americans detached from any sort of religious life rises to about 20 million. more>>>

This is an all too obvious quote from the story:

It could be that certain expressions of faith have made God too small to be embraced by those who experience the universe as vast and great.

From PopGadget:

Researchers at the Tokyo University of Science and the Musashino Red Cross Hospital are developing a robot capable of reproducing oral movements necessary to produce human speech. The prototype robot, an artificial mouth with a tongue made of silicone and a lower jaw driven by artificial muscles, can mimic tongue and lower jaw movements for reproducing Japanese vowel sounds. The movements are controlled by a computer program based on magnetic resonance imaging of oral movements of the human mouth during speech. The team is next working on building lips and a palate necessary for enunciating consonants, with the ultimate goal of developing a robot that can be used for speech therapy and for teaching foreign languages.

Microsoft is impeding technological progress…just look at Vista…I rest my case. I’ve NEVER purchased a copy of Windows in my life. To be nice, I spent $150 on that piece of shit just to be legal with Windows and of course what happened? It wouldn’t even run on my computer!!!! It is so strict with drivers and so utterly bloated that its fat ass would barely install onto a 20gb partition. I HATE WINDOWS VISTA PLEASE JUST GIVE ME A REAL ALTERNATIVE. I tried Linux and it was light enough to run from a CD-ROM! I couldn’t stay with it because I’m a video editor and there isn’t much video editing support behind Linux…plus there were some drivers that just weren’t available for the hardware I have. It’s a shame…a crying shame!

From PCWorld:

A pro-business think tank in Europe has recommended unbundling Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system from sales of new PCs in order to give customers more choice when buying a new computer. more>>>

From CBCNews:

A rugged low-cost laptop designed for kids in the developing world will soon be available to North Americans. For $400, they will net one computer to keep and one to give to a needy child. more>>>

From physorg.com:

Researchers in California are reporting new evidence explaining pomegranate juice’s mysterious beneficial effects in fighting prostate cancer. In a study scheduled for the Sept. 19 issue of ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication, Navindra Seeram and colleagues have found that the tart, trendy beverage also uses a search-and-destroy strategy to target prostate cancer cells. more>>>

From blogs.guardian.co.uk:

September 23, 2007 4:52 PM

Some say they were travelling down a dark tunnel towards a bright, warm light. Others say they saw their body in the hospital bed from above or experienced a mystical oneness with the universe.

Are these “near death experiences” real or just the product of disorganised activity in the dying brain? The psychologist Susan Blackmore thinks she can find out.

Dr Blackmore says that we could find out what is going on inside the brains of dying patients by scanning their brains with fMRI or PET.

What happens when we die? Surely everyone wonders about this very human question, and it’s certainly caused much dissent between religion and science. While most scientists think that death must be the end of personal consciousness, most religious believers expect their soul or spirit to survive.

Brain scanning would allow scientists to answer some basic questions for the first time, she says.

…we would be able to test theories about how near death experiences and mystical experiences are generated in the dying brain, and answer questions about the timing of the experiences. Perhaps even this would not resolve the final question once and for all, but it would certainly bring us a lot closer to knowing what happens when we die. more>>>

I slept in my car outside of Tulsa Raceway Park Saturday night. I wanted be there early in the morning to shoot footage for Racing Heart, an independent feature documentary I am producing, directing, and editing on my own. I wanted to catch the sun rise over the raceway in the early morn.

I was there, and got a great shot of the raceway silhouetted against the rising sun in the background. It’ll make for a great transition between scenes.

After that I spent ten grueling hours shooting pretty much everything that occurred that day during the Import Faceoff show. It was a blast.

I woke up this morning very, very sore. My feet, legs, and arms feel like spaghetti. My Canon XHA1 HD camera coupled with the Steady Stick stabilizer together weigh about ten pounds, and I didn’t put the thing down all day. You have to understand that I hold the thing in the air, I hold it from below, to the sides…all to get a variety of shots.

All in all I got some GREAT footage for the film. Rain cut the races short after the first elimination round. No matter, the racing team I’m filming got a payout because they were in the top eight. It was their first payout this year after installing a new turbo earlier in the season that threw their car out of whack all summer.

You can check out a page I created with more info HERE.

NEWS RELEASE:

BAE Systems has developed a new concept warship, the UXV Combatant, designed to operate in a future battle space dominated by land, sea and air unmanned vehicles.

Using a proven naval hull form to launch, operate and recover large numbers of small unmanned vehicles for extended periods, the UXV plays the role of mother ship – a permanent base and control centre for the futuristic unmanned land, sea and air vehicles before, during and on completion of their missions. The 8000-tonne vessel, an evolution of the multi-role warship, is not expected to enter service until post 2020.

The design provides a cost-effective solution to the evolving challenges facing the modern navy. Features will include:

* Flexible and efficient twin flight decks
* Variable ski jump
* Rotary aviation facilities
* Below-deck hangar
* Smart munitions more>>>

I wish to thank Michael Anissimov for granting me an interview. After a little game of email tag we finally got there!

It’s a humble beginning for what I hope will become a leading podcast in the Singularity arena. After the interview with Michael last night I just couldn’t help myself. I had to get it out to you folks right away. Well, my impatience is your education and entertainment….click ‘play now’ and enjoy! (If you want to download it for your iPod or other mp3 player just click ‘download’) As always, comments are welcome!

Any person or organization wishing to sponsor the Podcasting the Singularity audio podcast with a spot in the ‘cast should contact me (Chris Williamson) via email: bloggingthesingularity|a|gmail.com

Podcasting the Singularity #01: A Conversation with Michael Anissimov [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

From the Telegraph:

Cancer sufferers could be cured with injections of immune cells from other people within two years, scientists say.

US researchers have been given the go-ahead to give patients transfusions of “super strength” cancer-killing cells from donors.

The work raises the prospect of using cancer-killing immune system cells called granulocytes from donors to significantly boost a cancer patient’s ability to fight their disease, and potentially cure them.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week gave Dr Cui permission to inject super-strength granulocytes into 22 patients.

Dr Cui said: “Our hope is that this could be a cure. Our pre-clinical tests have been exceptionally successful.

“If this is half as effective in humans as it is in mice it could be that half of patients could be cured or at least given one to two years extra of high quality life.

“The technology needed to do this already exists, so if it works in humans we could save a lot of lives, and we could be doing so within two years.” more>>>

From Discovery News:

Sept. 20, 2007 — Our closest galactic companions are not companions at all — just strangers passing us in the night. New measurements of the speeds of the Magellanic Clouds show that the cloudy apparitions of Southern skies may be zooming past the Milky Way and not its little siblings after all.

New 3-D measurements of both the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud put their speeds at close to the escape velocity from the Milky Way. That suggests they’re rather new arrivals and may not even stick around.

The speeds of the lesser galaxies were worked out by first establishing the precise positions of very distant and powerful quasars in the deep background sky behind the vastly closer Magellanic Clouds. With the quasars providing an unmoving frame of reference, observations with the Hubble Space Telescope allowed astronomers to directly measure changes in positions of stars in the Magellanic Cloud. more>>>

From AZCentral:

Students at Carl Hayden Community High School were stunned when a baby shark appeared in one of their fish tanks.

More amazing was that the mother shark had been in the alone for nearly four years.

Teacher Fredi Lajvardi and his Phoenix science students investigated and discovered the birth is a rare event.

“As far as we know, we are third case worldwide,” Lajvardi said.

This type of birth is known as parthenogenesis, in which an unfertilized egg develops into a new pup, said Lajvardi, program manager for the Carl Hayden Center for Marine Science.

“The mother’s gene divides in half and recombines with its own collection of genes to create a new individual, Lajvardi said. “Normally it would recombine with the father’s half of the gene. But because there is no father, the mother provided the other half.” more>>>