Computer Science / Engineering posts
- August 22, 2012
- 06:45 PM
- 510 views
Sensor detects glucose in saliva and tears for diabetes testing
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
Researchers have created a new type of biosensor that can detect minute concentrations of glucose in saliva, tears and urine and might be manufactured at low cost because it does not require many processing steps to produce.... Read more »
Emil Venere. (2012) Sensor detects glucose in saliva and tears for diabetes testing. Purdue University News. info:/
- August 22, 2012
- 10:43 AM
- 234 views
Video Tip of the Week: G-nome Surfer for table-top genome browsing
The other day a tweet came over my “genome” search column that intrigued me: RT @oshaer: Our paper on a tabletop interface for collaborative exploration of genomic data is finally available online: http://t.co/VQMD67wi Tabletop interface? Wha? Ok–I had to check this out. And, in fact, this group has software that will let you explore eukaryotic [...]... Read more »
Shaer O., Strait M., Valdes C., Wang H., Feng T., Lintz M., Ferreirae M., Grote C., Tempel K., & Liu S. (2012) The design, development, and deployment of a tabletop interface for collaborative exploration of genomic data. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 70(10), 764. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2012.05.003
- August 19, 2012
- 12:29 PM
- 400 views
How to Build a Neuron: Step 1
by TheCellularScale in The Cellular Scale
There are many reasons to try to build a neuron, but fully building a model neuron is an extensive process with many steps. Today we will discuss the very first step in the neuron-building process: determining the activity and shape of the neuron. Biocytin filled cortical neurons (source)To determine the shape of neuron, you have to stain it somehow. There are several ways to do this, but we will focus on the biocytin filling method. To determine the activity of a neuron, ........ Read more »
Marx M, Günter RH, Hucko W, Radnikow G, & Feldmeyer D. (2012) Improved biocytin labeling and neuronal 3D reconstruction. Nature protocols, 7(2), 394-407. PMID: 22301777
- August 17, 2012
- 06:20 AM
- 433 views
What is the collective noun for a group of Systems Biologists?
by Duncan Hull in O'Really?
What happened was, I was looking for a Creatively Commons licensed picture of Pedro Mendes to upload to commons.wikimedia.org. That’s not the footballing Pedro Mendes who played for Rangers, Spurs, Pompey and Porto but the systems biologist Pedro Mendes who plays for Virginia Tech and Manchester. Thankfully, another systems biologist, Michael Hucka kindly pointed to his impressive collection of pictures, taken at various events over the years which include some shots of Pedro. Looking at t........ Read more »
Lander Arthur D. (2010) The edges of understanding. BMC Biology, 8(1). DOI: 10.1186/1741-7007-8-40
Kitano Hiroaki. (2002) Systems Biology: A Brief Overview. Science, 295(5560), 1664. DOI: 10.1126/science.1069492
Ideker Trey, Galitski Timothy, & Hood Leroy. (2001) Systems Biology: A new approach to decoding life . Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, 2(1), 372. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.genom.2.1.343
- August 16, 2012
- 03:30 PM
- 242 views
Studying the Effects of Confinement on Cell Division
by Hector Munoz in Microfluidic Future
On Microfluidic Future I like reviewing advancements in therapeutic or diagnostic devices because I’m really drawn to those areas of research. Every once in a while, however, I take interest in research for the sake for knowledge, like the Root Chip. I recently came across an article from Dino Di Carlo of UCLA that describes a microfluidic device used to study cancer cells. The article, “Increased Asymmetric and Multi-Daughter Cell Division in Mechanically Confined Microenvironments&........ Read more »
Henry Tat Kwong Tse, Westbrook McConnell Weaver, & Dino Di Carlo. (2012) Increased Asymmetric and Multi-Daughter Cell Division in Mechanically Confined Microenvironments. PLoS ONE, 7(6). info:/
- August 15, 2012
- 09:15 PM
- 348 views
LMAYQ: Can Odor be recorded?
by TheCellularScale in The Cellular Scale
Let Me Answer Your Questions: part 2, in which I answer your very important questions via google search terms. Part 1 and all subsequent LMAYQ posts will be archived in the LMAYQ index.by LikariousSo let's get to it, what fascinating questions are you asking google? 1. "Can odor be recorded?" This likely brought someone to my post "You can't trust your receptors:smell" in which I discuss the EOG (electrolfactogram) where you can record the electrical activity of a smell receptor while........ Read more »
Nakamoto T. (2005) Study of odor recorder for dynamical change of odor. Chemical senses. PMID: 15738143
- August 15, 2012
- 05:05 AM
- 600 views
Geoengineering: taking control of our planet’s climate?
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
Concerns about the likely consequences of continuing climate change have greatly increased interest in geoengineering – whether the Earth’s climate could be deliberately modified to counteract global warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In November 2010, the Royal Society hosted a Discussion Meeting: ‘Geoengineering: taking control of our planet’s climate’ that critically assessed many of the schemes currently being considered. The meeting also too........ Read more »
Andy Ridgwell, Chris Freeman, & Richard Lampitt. (2012) Geoengineering: taking control of our planet's climate?. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 13 , 370 (1974), 4163-4165. DOI: 10.1098
- August 10, 2012
- 12:34 PM
- 363 views
Promoting incompetence
by sedeer in Inspiring Science
From Dilbert’s PHB to The Office, the incompetent manager is such a popular trope that it’s in danger of becoming …Continue reading »... Read more »
Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, & Cesare Garofalo. (2009) The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study. Physica A 389 (2010) 467-472. arXiv: 0907.0455v3
- August 9, 2012
- 04:47 PM
- 308 views
Building the tallest sandcastle
by Cath in Basal Science (BS) Clarified
The Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) opens in Toronto next Friday (can’t wait!) and they hold an international sand sculpting competition every year. I’m always impressed by the size and detail [...]... Read more »
Pakpour M, Habibi M, Møller P, & Bonn D. (2012) How to construct the perfect sandcastle. Scientific reports, 549. PMID: 22870378
- August 9, 2012
- 11:00 AM
- 339 views
RULETOOL v2: L-systems and turtle graphics
by Alejandro Mosquera in amsqr
An L-system or Lindenmayer system is a parallel rewriting system, namely a variant of a formal grammar.I have implemented a simple L-system class with HTML5 Canvas or WebGL output. Feel free to explore the predefined models or create your own.... Read more »
Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, Aristid Lindenmayer. (1990) The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants. Springer-Verlag. pp. 101–107. DOI: 10.1016/S0168-9452(96)04526-8
- August 9, 2012
- 02:14 AM
- 534 views
“The beetle shows us how”
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
Insects are experts when it comes to adhesion on dry surfaces. However, in nature, plants may be covered by water for quite a long period of time, especially after rain. The bionic expert Professor Stanislav Gorb of Kiel University, Germany, and the material scientist Professor Naoe Hosoda of the National Institute for Material Science in Japan, discovered the remarkable ability of the terrestrial leaf beetle to walk underwater. Picking up the beetle’s locomotion mechanism, they designed a........ Read more »
Kiel University Press, Text: Claudia Eulitz, & Translation: Ann-Christin Wimber. (2012) “The beetle shows us how”. Proceedings of the Royal Society B . info:/
- August 7, 2012
- 10:13 AM
- 229 views
The Adventures of Ned the Neuron!
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
I've been itching to announce this for months, but I've been biting my tongue. Now I can finally let the neuron out of the bag.Ladies and gentlemen I'm proud to introduce to you a joint project between my wife Jessica Voytek and our friend Erica Warp: The Adventures of Ned the Neuron! To get the important pitch out of the way first, please go contribute some money to their Kickstarter campaign to help them get started if you want to help. Also, please consider following their company o........ Read more »
Voytek JB, & Voytek B. (2012) Automated cognome construction and semi-automated hypothesis generation. Journal of neuroscience methods, 208(1), 92-100. PMID: 22584238
Warp E, Agarwal G, Wyart C, Friedmann D, Oldfield CS, Conner A, Del Bene F, Arrenberg AB, Baier H, & Isacoff EY. (2012) Emergence of patterned activity in the developing zebrafish spinal cord. Current biology : CB, 22(2), 93-102. PMID: 22197243
Marriott G, Mao S, Sakata T, Ran J, Jackson DK, Petchprayoon C, Gomez TJ, Warp E, Tulyathan O, Aaron HL.... (2008) Optical lock-in detection imaging microscopy for contrast-enhanced imaging in living cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(46), 17789-94. PMID: 19004775
Wyart C, Del Bene F, Warp E, Scott EK, Trauner D, Baier H, & Isacoff EY. (2009) Optogenetic dissection of a behavioural module in the vertebrate spinal cord. Nature, 461(7262), 407-10. PMID: 19759620
- August 3, 2012
- 03:47 AM
- 328 views
Where did all the BBC programme metadata go? The infax catalogue online
by Duncan Hull in O'Really?
Over at @BBCSport and @BBC2012 there are some Olympian feats of big data wrestling going on behind the scenes for London 2012 [1]. While we all enjoy the Olympics on a range of platforms and devices, a team of twenty engineers is busy making it all happen. It’s great that the BBC, unlike other large organisations, can talk openly about their technology and share hard-won knowledge widely.... Read more »
Loasby Karen. (2006) Changing approaches to metadata at bbc.co.uk: From chaos to control and then letting go again. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 33(1), 26. DOI: 10.1002/bult.2006.1720330109
Butkus Andrius, & Petersen Michael. (2007) Semantic Modelling Using TV-Anytime Genre Metadata. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 234. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-72559-6_24
- August 1, 2012
- 01:48 AM
- 397 views
Holistic Design Factors in Space Colonies
by Jason Carr in Wired Cosmos
Assuming that we never achieve FTL travel, generational colony ships may become a necessary method used to traverse great distances. Inherent in the term generational, individuals will live their entire lives on these massive spaceships as will their descendants. In other words, these space ships will be the only home many generations of inhabitants will [...]... Read more »
Apostolos Papanikolaou. (2010) Holistic ship design optimization . Computer-Aided Design, 42(11), 1028-1044. info:/10.1016/j.cad.2009.07.002
Cooper RA. (2008) Quality-of-life technology. A human-centered and holistic design. IEEE engineering in medicine and biology magazine : the quarterly magazine of the Engineering in Medicine , 27(2), 10-1. PMID: 18472458
- July 31, 2012
- 06:25 PM
- 220 views
Who should make the first move?
by eHarmony Labs in eHarmony Labs Blog
When it comes to online dating, who should make the first move? You or them? ... Read more »
Rosen, L. D., Cheever, N. A., Cummings, C., & Felt, J. (2008) The impact of emotionality and self-disclosure on online dating versus traditional dating. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(5), 2124-2157. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2007.10.003
- July 27, 2012
- 03:36 PM
- 379 views
Capturing carbon dioxide emissions
by Cath in Basal Science (BS) Clarified
You may already be familiar with various technologies that minimize the generation of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions like hybrid-electric vehicles, biodegradable plastics, or even solar panels. But what happens when [...]... Read more »
Yasutaka Kuwahara, Dun-Yen Kang, John R. Copeland, Nicholas A. Brunelli, Stephanie A. Didas, Praveen Bollini, Carsten Sievers, Takashi Kamegawa, Hiromi Yamashita, & Christopher W. Jone. (2012) Dramatic Enhancement of CO2 Uptake by Poly(ethyleneimine) Using Zirconosilicate Supports. J. Am. Chem. Soc. DOI: 10.1021/ja303136e
- July 27, 2012
- 11:58 AM
- 385 views
Cell Phone Anxiety: Extended Edition
by Mitchell Harden in Mitch's Blog
Yesterday I posted some research about cell phone anxiety. You may have noticed that while I referenced a science journal article I didn't talk much about the results. Indeed, the only results I listed were descriptive (basic counting that describes a behavior) and qualitative (as opposed to quantitative). This is because of some fundamental flaws with the data as described in the article. So for those of you interested in such things here is the extended review enumerating three big problems I ........ Read more »
Dorothy Skierkowski. (2012) To text or not to text? The importance of text messaging among college-aged youth. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), 744-756. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.11.023
- July 26, 2012
- 01:54 PM
- 430 views
Cell Phone Anxiety
by Mitchell Harden in Mitch's Blog
Earlier I wrote about cell phone rudeness in the classroom. In that post I mentioned that asking students to go without cell phones is like asking them to go without friends. That statement generated a lot of interest from faculty and students int he comments, on facebook, and in person so I thought I would share a little bit of research that backs up my statement.In a recently published article (see below for reference) Dorothy Skierkowski and Rebecca Wood tracked college-aged youth's anxiety ........ Read more »
Dorothy Skierkowski. (2012) To text or not to text? The importance of text messaging among college-aged youth. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), 744-756. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.11.023
- July 25, 2012
- 03:30 PM
- 541 views
Red-Eyed Rump Shaker
by Miss Behavior in The Scorpion and the Frog
A photo of a red-eyed treefrog taken by Carey James Balboa at Wikimedia.At night, male red-eyed treefrogs gather on saplings over Central American forest ponds to show off their stuff for the ladies, producing self-advertising “chack” calls. Despite the fact that they gather in groups, they defend their calling territories from flirtatious male competition. Females assess the available males and usually mate with a single male, who mounts her and clings on for dear life in a behavior called........ Read more »
Caldwell MS, Johnston GR, McDaniel JG, & Warkentin KM. (2010) Vibrational signaling in the agonistic interactions of red-eyed treefrogs. Current biology : CB, 20(11), 1012-7. PMID: 20493702
- July 24, 2012
- 06:27 AM
- 388 views
Buddy-cops! Why evolution favours the odd couple
by John Ankers in Too Many Live Wires
Inside our cells, the battle with viruses has a lot in common with 1980s action-comedy Lethal Weapon. Both feature an unlikely pair of heroes. Each partnership - proteins and LA cops alike - has a reliable, straight-laced, by-the-book one and a loose canon, maverick one.
New research suggests that whether they're crime fighting or fighting an infection, the odd couple always gets the job done.... Read more »
Ratushny AV, Saleem RA, Sitko K, Ramsey SA, & Aitchison JD. (2012) Asymmetric positive feedback loops reliably control biological responses. Molecular systems biology, 577. PMID: 22531117
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