Strike brings Gladiators, Price is Right to Primetime.

Well, after two and a half months without any writers to speak of, we're really starting to see the studios get desperate. Popular game shows have started returning to America's primetime schedules but I don't think it will cause much of a loss in ratings. Having watched the shows as a child (on daytime and saturday afternoon TV) I am actually interested in watching them on Primetime schedules. I've already seen American Gladiators this past week and have to say it was very well done... A step up from its Saturday afternoon schedule of 15 years ago.

So the Price is Right will be on Friday nights and hosted by Drew Carey, who is no Bob Barker, but who knows... It could be good! I'll certainly give it a chance.

Fred Thomspon drops out of the race!

Though it is an odd place to find such news, the BBC has reported that Fred Thompson has dropped out of the running for the Republican nomination for President after losing in South Carolina. I thought Thompson was confident he'd get the SC vote, but somehow he placed third, and for that reason, he has thrown in the towel.

When I had first heard of Thompson's decision to run for President (though unofficially announced), I actually found myself interested. He did what is believed to be the best job ever of gaining in polls without officially being a candidate. It is my opinion, though, that the Law and Order star and ex-Senator from Tennessee tried to ride the wave a bit too long and the people (as did I) got tired of waiting.

When it came down to it, I was rarely impressed with him in his debates. He has portrayed a firm, fair, and decisive leader in Law and Order, but those were lines that were written FOR him. He has struck me as pretty undecisive in the past, except on issues that might have gotten him the Republican vote.

At any rate, I am somewhat glad he has dropped out, if only because I get to watch him on Law and Order again on NBC, though I am unsure whether he will be allowed to return in new episodes.

One down in the Republican bid... How many left to go??

The World's Best Microscope: TEAM 0.5

As if there weren't enough interesting technology stories this week, Berkeley Lab announced the completed installation of, "the World's Best Microscope...capable of producing images with half‑angstrom resolution (half a ten-billionth of a meter), less than the diameter of a single hydrogen atom," and named TEAM (Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope) 0.5. (version 1 is scheduled to come out next year).

What makes the microscope so great is that it has been corrected to adjust for spherical aberration, creating an intensely clearer image with extremely high resolution. The next version is being created with an additional correction for chromosomal aberration, or aberration caused by the variance of wavelengths of light (differences in color and strength cause light to be refracted at different angles through a lens).

Even though TEAM 1 isn't scheduled to come out until next year, TEAM 0.5 is still the best microscope ever invented, and was built for the Department of Energy, which will allow public use as early as October 2008. The image from the microscope will be transmitted to a screen similar to a high definition flat panel TV, located in what will be the microscope control room.

Reportedly, one will be able to differentiate individual atoms with TEAM 0.5, and researchers have already tested it out, making "a series of images of two gold crystals connected by a 'nanobridge' only a few dozen atoms wide. From each exposure to the next, individual gold atoms could be seen changing positions." (Press Release)

New York Times paints Giuliani as vindictive, vengeful

I read an article in the New York Times this morning on the way to work that, while obviously biased, still served to shed some light on Presidential-hopeful Rudolph Giuliani. I'm certain simply from the language used, that the writers could no longer find themselves objective in their report, but there is definitely enough information to make anybody wonder if Giuliani is the best choice for the leader of the free world.

The article goes in depth and back many years over Giuliani's term as Mayor of New York City. It seems that while he was in office, anybody to cross his path ended up beaten and abused, metaphorically of course. The article references people whose jobs were lost after disagreeing with Giuliani, or even pointing out his flaws or flaws in his administration.

One thing is for sure... Political office will buy you a certain amount of persuasiveness.

Your cellphone to report radiation in your area?

Scientist at Purdue University are working with the State of Indiana to create a network using existing cellphone users that would report back to a data center any radioactive activity in a users' area. The idea is that they could track radioactive substances that could be used in terrorist attacks as they pass multiple cellphone users while transporting radioactive material.

While I think that it is a novel idea, in part, I find myself more worried about the possibility of the government making it mandatory for cellphones to come equipped with the required hardware, which is supposedly very small and lightweight. Whereas I am all for catching terrorists who are trying to blow up my neighborhood, I'm not sure how I feel about being forced to do it. We could eventually find ourselves being subpoenaed when our phones report we've been close to radioactive substances.

Since your cellphone always reports where it is, the system would measure the strength of the radioactive signal versus that of other cellphones around you to pinpoint the location of radioactive sources and track their movements.

Your comments are encouraged.

Ebola virus with no threat?

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have figured out how to disable one of the eight genes found in the Ebola virus to keep it from being able to reproduce. In doing so, they have created a sample of the virus that can be tested in nearly any environment without threat of an outbreak. Though the virus could infect a single cell in a person's body, it is unable to reproduce and spread throughout the body, making it essentially harmless, but extremely useful for testing purposes.

To allow them to perform controlled reproduction of the "sterile" virus, they have introduced the protein that the virus would use for reproduction into the kidney of a monkey, which allows the virus to only reproduce while contained in the kidney. As soon as the virus is removed from the presence of the protein, it can no longer reproduce.

"At present, research on live Ebola virus is confined to the very highest level of biosafety, known as Biosafety Level 4 (BSL 4). Because such laboratories are rare, small and very expensive, basic research that is the basis for any potential drugs or vaccines to thwart the virus has been limited to perhaps half a dozen labs worldwide. The system devised by Kawaoka and his colleagues could provide a way to greatly expand studies of the pathogen and speed the development of countermeasures." (Press release)

Pain-killers... without the side effects.

I never cease to be amazed by the unending list of new discoveries by scientists, researchers, and doctors worldwide. This time, doctors at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York have tested a way to program a virus to deliver a specific gene (the one associated with the pain-killing effects of certain opiates) directly to the pain receptors in a patient suffering from Chronic Pain.

The press release, published on Monday, January 21, 2008, states that doctors are hopeful that this will create a way to relieve pain for up to three months after a single treatment, and without the negative side effects that opiates might normally cause.

If their discovery pans out, perhaps Dr. House will no longer have an excuse to continue his self-imposed Vicodin treatment. (I know... It's only television).

At any rate, the researchers are optimistic about the possibility of future testing in human patients.

(Press Release)

Studying algae to speed up computers?

A press release came out today stating that a research team led by Michael Sussman, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemistry professor and director of the UW-Madison’s Biotechnology Center, discovered which genes are used by diatoms - unicellular algae - to encase themselves in intricately patterned, glass-like shells made of silica.

According to the press release, silica is closely related to the silicon we use to create computer chips today, and diatoms are able to create patterns much smaller than current chip manufacturers are capable of.

Over the past 30 years, chip manufacturers have continued to increase processor speed by "using photolithographic techniques for the past 30 years," explains Sussman. "But they are actually hitting a wall now because they’re getting down to the resolution of visible light."

Using DNA chips designed by some of the researchers involved, they were able to pinpoint which genes in the diatoms were used to create the actual silica shells, and now believe that they can manipulate these genes to begin drastically enhancing the speed of processors used in computers.

Though it may be few years before this new technology hits the streets and begins to affect you and I, it is still a vastly interesting leap in what seems to be an era of scientific breakthroughs.

Read the press release here.

Researchers develop bionic contact lenses!

Researchers at the University of Washington have recently discovered a way to safely create a contact lens that has a digital display for the wearer to view information, such as the Internet, driving controls (speed, direction, etc), or perhaps even vision enhancements.

The press release from the University of Washington reports that their researchers tested the contact lenses for safety in lab rabbits and have found no adverse affects. With hope, we will soon be able to browse the Internet, watch television (with a bluetooth earpiece perhaps?), view things more clearly, or obtain information about our environments with nothing but our contact lens to help us out.

According to the researchers involved, the lens would display the information superimposed over the wearer's normal view, much like we have seen in the Terminator series and the Bionic Woman.

Even better is that the area outside the pupil could be used to place even more electronics, allowing for further improvements:

"There is a large area outside of the transparent part of the eye that we can use for placing instrumentation," Parviz said. Future improvements will add wireless communication to and from the lens. The researchers hope to power the whole system using a combination of radio-frequency power and solar cells placed on the lens, Parviz said.

A full-fledged display won't be available for a while, but a version that has a basic display with just a few pixels could be operational "fairly quickly," according to Parviz. (Press Release)

Obama, half Kenyan, urges peace

I was wondering why I hadn't heard anything about Obama's opinions or feelings on the violence that has ensued over the past few weeks in Kenya. When the reigning President was re-electing by what seemed an impossible margin (more votes than seemed were possible in the country), the opposition revolted. It has been a free for all war, and I continued to find myself wondering why I hadn't heard anything in the news about what Obama thought about his father's country being in a state of civil war.

Well, it simply turns out that I hadn't gone looking for such news. In a search on Google News, I came across an Associated Press article from January 8th reporting that while campaigning in New Hampshire, Obama was also on the phone with the Kenyan opposition leader, Raila Odinga, trying to encourage a peaceful approach to their goal, while also trying to contact the tentatively re-elected President Mwai Kibaki.

"What I urged was that all the leaders there, regardless of their position on the election (to) tell their supporters to stand down, to desist with the violence and resolve in a peaceful way in accordance with Kenyan law," Obama said. He said Odinga "gave me some encouraging signs that he would be willing to have such a meeting." (Associated Press)

Kenya apparently is quite proud of Obama's heritage, having gone so far as to create a beer in his honor, called Senator, though Newsweek reports that most residents simply ask for a cold "Obama" these days.

Caffeine increasing the risk of miscarriage?

I read an interesting article in the New York Times this afternoon; one that concerns me because I have friends who are pregnant or are trying to get pregnant. The New York Times reported on an upcoming study to be published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology published by the National Medical Society. In the study, researchers from the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research worked to discover whether there was any actual link between the intake of caffeine of pregnant women and the liklihood of miscarriage.

After interviewing a number of pregnant or recently pregnant women, the researchers decided that intake of more than 200mg of caffeine a day may very well increase that risk. Some doctors, though, question the reliability of the results.

Critics had maintained that the association was not so much a high dose of caffeine intake that increased the risk of miscarriage, but that women with a healthy pregnancy are more likely (than those about to miscarry), to reduce their caffeine intake due to nausea, vomiting, and aversion to caffeine, Li said. "Therefore, the critics claimed that the observed association was a result of reduction of caffeine intake by healthy pregnant women," he said.

So what's a fatigued mom-to-be supposed to do for her daily energy jolt?

"If you definitely need caffeine to get you going, try keeping it to one cup or less a day. Avoiding it may be even better. Consider switching to decaffeinated coffee and other decaffeinated beverages during your pregnancy," said Tracy Flanagan, MD, Director of Women's Health, Kaiser Permanente Northern California. “Learn to perk up instead with natural energy boosts like a brisk walk, yoga stretches, snacking on dried fruits and nuts."