Nybble Issue No. 208

N Y B B L E   M O N T H L Y   N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2009.03.02 Issue No. 208

Be very careful of what you write online. They say on the Internet, no one knows if you're a dog. Even if you're a dog, whatever you write or post is searchable and archived, and you never know if and when it'll come back to bite you. Heck, I search for my name, and a few posts that I made 10 years ago on a Linux sysadmin forum is still out there.

I was going through my blog stats and looking through the keywords that point to my blog. Mostly, it's my Xbox hacking guide, or the DIY Halloween costume, or the Singapore chicken rice recipe. Today I found a hit on my Fotoexpression article, coming from feblog.com. Fotoexpression is the name of the photography service that I'll be using soon, and feblog.com is their blog site. So apparently, these guys regularly trawl the Internet looking for references to their company.

Fortunately, I didn't write anything negative about them, or else who knows what might happen to my photos.

Like I said, be careful about what you write out there. All your posts are belong to us.

Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the bloggers about it. Thanks.

_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Cellular Army Attacks Cancer
* Wireless Internet using Visible Light
* Coffee Reduces Alzheimer's Risk
* Smallest Writing in History
* World's First Flying Car
* Cheap, Super Efficient Light LEDs
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh

_________CELLULAR ARMY ATTACKS CANCER_________
http://snipurl.com/cw676 [www_newscientist_com]

Implants that sit in the body and reprogram a person's immune cells could be used to treat a range of infectious diseases and even cancer. In a trial on mice with an aggressive melanoma that usually kills within 25 days, the new treatment saved 90% of the group.

Their breakthrough involves implanting cylinders of an FDA-approved biodegradable polymer into the body. The implants release a particular variety of the cell-signaling molecules called cytokines - a sort of molecular perfume that is irresistible to a certain kind of immune-system messenger cell. These dendritic cells are attracted into the pores of Mooney's implant, where they are exposed to antigens -the molecular signatures of the cancer, bacterium or virus being treated - and a danger-signal chemical derived from bacterial DNA. This alert signal makes the dendritic cells flee to the nearest lymph node, where they meet up with the immune system's "killer" T-cells and program them to hunt down the invading cells.

In tests, the researchers implanted cylinders with a diameter of 8.5 millimetres into mice and two weeks later injected the animals with highly aggressive melanoma cells. Mice implanted with 'blanks' - cylinders lacking any chemical additives - developed large tumours within 18 days and had to be euthanised. However, 90% of the mice given the full treatment were cured.

The team thinks modified versions of the material could be effective against a range of cancers and infectious diseases. These might also help reprogram the immune system to combat autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, caused by immune cells destroying insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

_________WIRELESS INTERNET USING VISIBLE LIGHT_________
http://snipurl.com/cw68a [www_sctimes_com]

Inventor John Pederson says visible-light embedded wireless data communication is the next step in the evolution of wireless communications, one that will expand the possibilities in phone and computer use. The connection provides Web access with almost no wiring, better security and with speeds more than eight times faster than cable.

Pederson is unveiling the technology on his 50th birthday at an invitation-only reception at Apollo High School. Pederson graduated from the school in 1977 and has tested some of his projects there. Pederson hopes this one takes off in the form of better cell phone and computer communications. Pederson said the opportunities are endless, and he probably hasn't even considered them all. It could provide real time Global Positioning System tracking to allow governments to inventory and track property. Cell phones and laptops could be used on airplanes because this wireless technology would not interfere with navigation systems. Because light does not travel through walls, cell phones and government and banking information would be more secure. Pederson said he already has spoken to federal Homeland Security officials about possible uses.

The LVX System, as it is called, requires just the plug-in for the box that catches the signal from the chip in the LED light and sends it into the computer. The box is slightly bigger than a deck of cards. To use the technology, cities and states would have to install LED lights with the specialized chips on poles along roadways. Companies that make phones and computers would have to buy the software the Pederson's company provides and install it in laptops. Cellular telephone makers would have to make phones designed to work with light LED lights.

_________COFFEE REDUCES ALZHEIMER'S RISK________
http://snipurl.com/cw6az [news_theage_com_au]

Middle-aged people who drink moderate amounts of coffee significantly reduce their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, a study by Finnish and Swedish researchers showed. The study, which was also conducted in cooperation with the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki, was based on repeated interviews with 1,409 people in Finland over more than two decades. They were first asked about their coffee-drinking habits when they were in their 50s and their memory functions were tested again in 1998, when they were between 65 and 79 years of age. A total of 61 people had by then developed dementia, 48 of whom had Alzheimer's, the researchers said.

It's unclear how moderate coffee drinking helped delay or avoid the onset of dementia, but coffee is known to contain strong antioxidants, which are known to counter Alzheimer's. Some studies have also shown that coffee helps protects the nerve system, which can also protect against dementia. The research showed "insignificant" benefits to drinking more than five cups of coffee a day when it came to protecting against dementia.

_________SMALLEST WRITING IN HISTORY_________
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2009/january28/small-012809.html

Stanford researchers have reclaimed bragging rights for creating the world's smallest writing, a distinction the university first gained in 1985 and lost in 1990. The researchers encoded the letters "S" and "U" (as in Stanford University) within the interference patterns formed by quantum electron waves on the surface of a sliver of copper. The wave patterns even project a tiny hologram of the data, which can be viewed with a powerful microscope. How small is the writing? The letters in the words are assembled from subatomic sized bits as small as 0.3 nanometers, or roughly one third of a billionth of a meter.

Working in a vibration-proof basement lab in the Varian Physics Building, Manoharan and Moon began their writing project with a scanning tunneling microscope, a device that not only sees objects at a very small scale but also can be used to move around individual atoms. The Stanford team used it to drag single carbon monoxide molecules into a desired pattern on a copper chip the size of a fingernail. By altering the arrangement of the molecules, the researchers can create different waveforms, effectively encoding information for later retrieval (using electronic quantum holography).

The true significance of the work lies in storing more information in less space. The assumption has been that basically the ultimate limit is when one atom represents one bit, and then there's no more room—in other words, that it's impossible to scale down below the level of atoms. In Stanford's experiment, the researchers have stored some 35 bits per electron to encode each letter. And they've written the letters so small that the bits that comprise them are subatomic in size. So one bit per atom is no longer the limit for information density.

_________CHEAP, SUPER-EFFICIENT LED LIGHTS_________
http://snipurl.com/cw6be [www_newscientist_com]

UK materials scientists have discovered a cheaper way to produce LED bulbs, which are three times as efficient as fluorescent lamps. Although the ultimate dominance of LED lights has long been predicted, the expense of the super-efficient technology has made the timescale uncertain.

Gallium nitride (GaN) LEDs have many advantages over compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and incandescent bulbs. They switch on instantly, with no gradual warm-up, and can burn for an average of 100,000 hours before they need replacing - 10 times as long as fluorescent lamps and some 130 times as long as an incandescent bulb. The cost of production has kept the LEDs far from homes and offices, however. Gallium nitride cannot be grown on silicon like other solid-state electronic components because it shrinks at twice the rate of silicon as it cools. Researchers from the University of Cambridge included layers of aluminium gallium nitride in their LED design. These layers shrink at a much slower rate during cooling and help to counteract the fast-shrinkage of pure gallium nitride.
A 15-centimetre silicon wafer costs just $15 and can accommodate 150,000 LEDs making the cost per unit tiny. That levels the playing field with CFLs, which many people only ever saw as a stopgap solution to the lighting problem. Researchers say LED bulbs based on this new material could be commercially available within five years.

_________WORLD'S FIRST FLYING CAR_________
http://snipurl.com/cw6c3 [business_timesonline_co_uk]

The world's first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air very soon. If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months' time. Its manufacturer says it is easy to keep and run since it uses normal unleaded fuel and will fit into a garage.

The Transition, developed by former Nasa engineers, is powered by the same 100bhp engine on the ground and in the air. Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank of petrol at a cruising speed of 115mph. Up to now, however, it has been tested only on roads at up to 90mph. The company had already received 40 orders, despite an expected retail price of $200,000 (£132,000). For an airplane that's very reasonable, but for a car that's very much at the high end.

There are still one or two drawbacks. Getting insurance may be a little tricky and finding somewhere to take off may not be straightforward: the only place in the US in which it is legal to take off from a road is Alaska.

_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
Usniff
http://usniff.com/
Torrent aggregator like Pizzatorrent and Speckly.

Torrent2exe
http://www.torrent2exe.com/
Convert your torrents into stand-alone exe files

LCD TV Buying Guide
http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/

Plasma TV Buying Guide
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/

_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
If I follow the instructions on my toothpaste tube, which say "for best results squeeze tube from the bottom and flatten it as you go up," will this give me whiter teeth and fresher breath?

_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
If I know what love is, it is because of you.
~ Herman Hesse

_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
What part of your belt is a keeper?
The loop on a belt that holds the loose end is called a "keeper."
Source: Arcamax Trivia

_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
Three tourists climbed up the tower with London's Big Ben and decided to throw their watches off the top, run down the stairs and try to catch them before they hit the ground. The first tourist threw his watch but heard it crash before he had taken three steps. the second threw his watch and made only two steps before hearing his watch shatter. The third tourist threw his watch off the tower, went down the stairs, bought a snack at a shop up the street and walked slowly back to Big Ben in time to catch the watch." How did you do that?" asked one of his friends.

"My watch is 20 minutes slow."

That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.