{ Serendipity was recently voted the most popular word in the English language. From only a handful of references in the late 1950s, a Google search today reveals 3 million hits. It is also one of the most frequently queried words in the dictionary, typically used in lieu of luck, chance or coincidence. | Continue reading }
photo { Jack Siegel }
A report by scientists from The Netherlands published in The FASEB Journal identifies a compound in human saliva that greatly speeds wound healing. This research may offer hope to people suffering from chronic wounds related to diabetes and other disorders, as well as traumatic injuries and burns.
In addition, because the compounds can be mass produced, they have the potential to become as common as antibiotic creams and rubbing alcohol.
Specifically, scientists found that histatin, a small protein in saliva previously only believed to kill bacteria was responsible for the healing. (…)
“This study not only answers the biological question of why animals lick their wounds,” said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, “it also explains why wounds in the mouth, like those of a tooth extraction, heal much faster than comparable wounds of the skin and bone. It also directs us to begin looking at saliva as a source for new drugs.
photo { Terry Richardson }
Until late last year, when he was elevated to the command of the entire army, the Pakistani spymaster who had been running the I.S.I. was Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. American officials describe this smart and urbane general as at once engaging and inscrutable, an avid golfer with occasionally odd affectations. During meetings, he will often spend several minutes carefully hand-rolling a cigarette. Then, after taking one puff, he stubs it out. (…)
One senior C.I.A. official, recently retired, said that of all the foreign spymasters the C.I.A. had dealt with, General Kayani was the most formidable and may have earned the most respect at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va. The soft-spoken general, he said, is a master manipulator.
photo { Sam Bassett }
Back in 2006, a startup started up that promised to revolutionize the financial information business. It was called Monitor110, and it had a kind of clever idea: it aggregated and analyzed raw content from all corners of the internet and turned it into useful news and information for traders. Like, message board threads and blog comments and Twitters and Flickrs and Tumblrs and what-have-you would all help measure consumer sentiment or whatever sorts of things traders need to know about.
Monitor110 raised millions and millions of dollars and their founders kept saying they’d bury Reuters forever and now, today, they are shuttering because no one wants to give them money anymore. Turns out that 2006 was basically wrong about everything! Crowds are morons and their wisdom is useless noise.
Rapper 50 Cent has sued Taco Bell, claiming the fast-food restaurant chain is using his name without permission in an ad asking him to change his name to 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent.
related { Woody Allen sues American Apparel over billboard }
Though the way antioxidants work in the brain is not well known, Dr Gómez-Pinilla says it is likely they protect the synaptic membranes. Synapses are the junctions between nerve cells, and their action is central to learning and memory. But they are also, he says, the most fragile parts of the brain. And many of the nutrients associated with brain function are known to affect transmission at the synapses.
An omega-3 fatty acid called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), for example, provides membranes at synaptic regions with “fluidity”—the capacity to transport signals. It also provides “plasticity”—a synapse’s capacity to change. Such changes are the basis of memory. Since 30% of the fatty constituents of nerve-cell membranes are DHA molecules, keeping your DHA levels topped up is part of having a healthy brain. Indeed, according to the studies reviewed by Dr Gómez-Pinilla, the benefits of omega-3s include improved learning and memory, and resistance to depression and bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia, attention-deficit disorder and dyslexia.
Omega-3s are found in oily fish such as salmon, as well as in walnuts and kiwi fruit, and there is a strong negative correlation between the extent to which a country consumes fish and its levels of clinical depression. On the Japanese island of Okinawa, for example, people have a strikingly low rate of mental disorder—and Okinawans are notable fish eaters, even by the standards of a piscivorous country like Japan. In contrast, many studies suggest that diets which are rich in trans- and saturated fatty acids, such as those containing a lot of deep-fried foods and butter, have bad effects on cognition. Rodents put on such diets show declines in cognitive performance within weeks.
{ Hollis Brown Thornton, The Earth on the Back of the Giant Turtle, 2008 | acrylic on canvas | Enlarge }
Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital’s chic 16th arrondissement.
Officers admit they are at a loss to know who built or used one of Paris’s most intriguing recent discoveries.
“There were two swastikas painted on the ceiling, but also celtic crosses and several stars of David, so we don’t think it’s extremists. Some sect or secret society, maybe. There are any number of possibilities.”
Members of the force’s sports squad, responsible - among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, “clearly designed to frighten people off,” the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, “like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs”.
There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. “There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous,” the spokesman said.
“The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there.”
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: “Do not,” it said, “try to find us.”
{ The Guardian | Continue reading | Thanks Daniel }
An estimated 300 million Chinese — roughly equivalent to the total US population — read and write English but don’t get enough quality spoken practice. The likely consequence of all this? In the future, more and more spoken English will sound increasingly like Chinese. (…)
The Chinese and other Asians already pronounce English differently — in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. (…) English will become more like Chinese in other ways, too. Some grammatical appendages unique to English (such as adding do or did to questions) will drop away, and our practice of not turning certain nouns into plurals will be ignored.
{ Wired magazine, Aug. 2008 }
{ Jetblue Terminal, JFK, NY }
Falling house prices means that home improvements such as a new kitchen or a loft conversion are a waste of money.
Declining house prices mean that other, previously profitable improvements, such as extensions and new kitchens are now expected to result in negative “net value added” of between minus £13,806 and minus £20,232.
That is they will cost more to implement than they will end up adding to the value of the home. The research undertaken by Abbey showed that estate agents believe that the vast majority of home improvements are now unlikely to add more value to a property than the homeowner spends on the upgrade.
