uses of technology

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

We knew CrunchBase was big. We knew because there are 2 million people using the startup database each month. We knew because more than 120k people have contributed 1.6MM data points on companies, entrepreneurs, fundings, exits and more. What we didn't know, however, was what the investment community thinks about CrunchBase.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/O0N8a1Kw7lw/

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Physicists, biologists unite to expose how cancer spreads

Monday, April 29, 2013

Cancer cells that can break out of a tumor and invade other organs are more aggressive and nimble than nonmalignant cells, according to a new multi-institutional nationwide study. These cells exert greater force on their environment and can more easily maneuver small spaces.

The researchers report in the journal Scientific Reports that a systematic comparison of metastatic breast-cancer cells to healthy breast cells revealed dramatic differences between the two cell lines in their mechanics, migration, oxygen response, protein production and ability to stick to surfaces. The researchers discovered new insights into how cells make the transition from nonmalignant to metastatic, a process that is not well understood.

The resulting catalogue of differences could someday help researchers detect cancerous cells earlier and someday prevent or treat metastatic cancer, which is responsible for 90 percent of all cancer deaths, according to the study. It was conducted by a network of 12 federally funded Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers (PS-OC) sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. PS-OC is a collaboration of researchers in the physical and biological sciences seeking a better understanding of the physical and chemical forces that shape the emergence and behavior of cancer.

"By bringing together different types of experimental expertise to systematically compare metastatic and nonmetastatic cells, we have advanced our knowledge of how metastasis occurs," said Robert Austin, professor of physics and leader of the Princeton PS-OC, along with senior co-investigator Thea Tlsty of the University of California-San Francisco.

Researchers with the Princeton PS-OC, for instance, determined that metastatic cells, in spite of moving more slowly than nonmalignant cells, move farther and in a straighter line, Austin said. The investigators studied the cells' behavior in tiny cell-sized chambers and channels etched out of silicon and designed to mimic the natural environment of the body's interior.

"The mobility of these metastatic cells is an essential feature of their ability to break through the tough membrane [the extracellular matrix] that the body uses to wall off the tumor from the rest of the body," Austin said. "These cells are essentially jail-breakers."

The tiny silicon chambers were built using Princeton's expertise in microfabrication technology ? typically used to create small technologies such as integrated circuits and solar cells ? and are an example of the type of expertise that physicists and engineers can bring to cancer research, Austin said. For the current study, the Princeton team included physics graduate students David Liao and Guillaume Lambert, and postdoctoral researchers Liyu Liu and Saurabh Vyawahare. They worked closely with a research group led by James Sturm, Princeton's William and Edna Macaleer Professor of Engineering and Applied Science and director of the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM) where the microfabrication was done.

The Princeton PS-OC also includes collaborators at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of California-Santa Cruz.

The nationwide PS-OC program aims to crack the difficulty of understanding and treating cancer by bringing in researchers from physics, engineering, computer science and chemistry, said Nastaran Zahir Kuhn, program manager for the PS-OC at the National Cancer Institute.

Other notable findings from the paper include that metastatic cells recover more rapidly from the stress of a low-oxygen environment than nonmetastatic cells, which is consistent with previous studies. Although the low-oxygen environment did kill many of the metastatic cells, the survivors rebounded vigorously, underscoring the likely role of individual cells in the spread of cancer. The study also looked at total protein production and detected proteins in the metastatic cells that are consistent with the physical properties such as mobility that malignant cells need to invade the extracellular matrix.

"The PS-OC program aims to bring physical sciences tools and perspectives into cancer research," Kuhn said. "The results of this study demonstrate the utility of such an approach, particularly when studies are conducted in a standardized manner from the beginning."

For the nationwide project, nearly 100 investigators from 20 institutions and laboratories conducted their experiments using the same two cell lines, reagents and protocols to assure that results could be compared. The experimental methods ranged from physical measurements of how the cells push on surrounding cells to measurements of gene and protein expression.

"Roughly 20 techniques were used to study the cell lines, enabling identification of a number of unique relationships between observations," Kuhn said.

For example, a technique known as atomic force microscopy indicated that metastatic cells are softer than nonmalignant cells whereas a different technique, traction force microscopy, suggested that metastatic cells exert more force on their surroundings, Kuhn said. Together these two findings may indicate that metastatic cells can exert force to stick to, migrate on and remodel the tough extracellular matrix that surrounds the tumor, while remaining flexible enough to squeeze through small spaces in that membrane.

###

Princeton University: http://www.princeton.edu

Thanks to Princeton University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127975/Physicists__biologists_unite_to_expose_how_cancer_spreads

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The health and wellness fair provides tips for students | The ...

Amanda Brail -?New Reporter -

Dr. Diane Morgenthaler, director of the Wellness Center at SCSU, said that if one was to judge the success of the Annual Health and Wellness Fair in terms of attendance then it could be considered a wild success.

?It just seems to be growing every year,? she said. ?Based on how many students keep coming back it seems like they really enjoy it.?

The Health and Wellness Fair brought vendors from across the New Haven area to the Adanti Student Center Ballroom at Southern on Wednesday April 25 to show students the available options they have to stay healthy.

Nicole Martins, a senior public health major, who helped set up the event, contact the vendors, and get together the giveaways; said she has seen how much students really enjoy the event first-hand.

?It?s a really big event ? the biggest that the Wellness Center puts on all year,? she said.

?There are a lot of incentives and giveaways to make the students want to come and that really seems to work.?

Martins said that she believes the event is a success, because it is so ?interactive.?

According to her, food vendors were giving out free samples to students, the participating Zumba group was allowing students to come dance with them, and The Girl Spot, a group of pole-dancing instructors offering classes, were letting people try out some moves.

As for giveaways, she said, Bickram Yoga New Haven was giving away free classes and hoodies and Healthy Coffee was giving out gift baskets of organic coffees and teas.

Morgenthaler said the surveys given out to students at the Health and Wellness Fair have helped them better understand what students want out of the event.

?Based on the suggestions we?ve gotten it seems like students really enjoy the more exercise related areas,? she said.

?Fortunately, we take those surveys with heavy consideration and we are expanding on outside vendors every year.?

She said that the Wellness Center and Health Services try to get vendors from a variety of areas including ?fitness, nutrition, and general mental health.?

?We just want to give all of the vendors an opportunity to share as much information as possible with the students,? said Morgenthaler.

?We want to make students more aware of options for healthy living on and off campus.?

photo courtesy | southernct.edu
Diane Morgenthaler, the Wellness Center Director, provided information to students on how to stay healthy at the Health and Wellness Fair on April 25.

Brigitte Stiles, director of Health Services at SCSU said that she was a part of the first event in 2005 that combined the efforts of the Wellness Center and Health Services.

It is now both the Wellness Center and the Health Services biggest event.

?We just thought it would make sense for it to be a group effort,? she said, ?and based on the attendance of the last few years students really seem to like it.?

Stiles said the main message she wanted students to get from attending the event was how to still eat right, sleep right, and manage their sexual health despite the stresses of college.

?It?s really about general safety concerns,? she said.

Martins, also a student worker for the Wellness Center, said that she hopes the Health and Wellness Fair shows students that there are fun ways to keep active and stay healthy.

She said, ?I just hope that this shows students that staying active and healthy is a lot easier than you may think.?

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Source: http://thesouthernnews.org/2013/04/30/the-health-and-wellness-fair-provides-tips-for-students/

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NASA probe gets close-up views of large hurricane on Saturn

Apr. 30, 2013 ? NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole.

In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane's eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are traveling 330 mph(150 meters per second). The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon.

"We did a double take when we saw this vortex because it looks so much like a hurricane on Earth," said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "But there it is at Saturn, on a much larger scale, and it is somehow getting by on the small amounts of water vapor in Saturn's hydrogen atmosphere."

Scientists will be studying the hurricane to gain insight into hurricanes on Earth, which feed off warm ocean water. Although there is no body of water close to these clouds high in Saturn's atmosphere, learning how these Saturnian storms use water vapor could tell scientists more about how terrestrial hurricanes are generated and sustained.

Both a terrestrial hurricane and Saturn's north polar vortex have a central eye with no clouds or very low clouds. Other similar features include high clouds forming an eye wall, other high clouds spiraling around the eye, and a counter-clockwise spin in the northern hemisphere.

A major difference between the hurricanes is that the one on Saturn is much bigger than its counterparts on Earth and spins surprisingly fast. At Saturn, the wind in the eye wall blows more than four times faster than hurricane-force winds on Earth. Unlike terrestrial hurricanes, which tend to move, the Saturnian hurricane is locked onto the planet's north pole. On Earth, hurricanes tend to drift northward because of the forces acting on the fast swirls of wind as the planet rotates. The one on Saturn does not drift and is already as far north as it can be.

"The polar hurricane has nowhere else to go, and that's likely why it's stuck at the pole," said Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University in Hampton, Va.

Scientists believe the massive storm has been churning for years. When Cassini arrived in the Saturn system in 2004, Saturn's north pole was dark because the planet was in the middle of its north polar winter. During that time, the Cassini spacecraft's composite infrared spectrometer and visual and infrared mapping spectrometer detected a great vortex, but a visible-light view had to wait for the passing of the equinox in August 2009. Only then did sunlight begin flooding Saturn's northern hemisphere. The view required a change in the angle of Cassini's orbits around Saturn so the spacecraft could see the poles.

"Such a stunning and mesmerizing view of the hurricane-like storm at the north pole is only possible because Cassini is on a sportier course, with orbits tilted to loop the spacecraft above and below Saturn's equatorial plane," said Scott Edgington, Cassini deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "You cannot see the polar regions very well from an equatorial orbit. Observing the planet from different vantage points reveals more about the cloud layers that cover the entirety of the planet."

Cassini changes its orbital inclination for such an observing campaign only once every few years. Because the spacecraft uses flybys of Saturn's moon Titan to change the angle of its orbit, the inclined trajectories require attentive oversight from navigators. The path requires careful planning years in advance and sticking very precisely to the planned itinerary to ensure enough propellant is available for the spacecraft to reach future planned orbits and encounters.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Images and two versions of a movie of the hurricane can be viewed online at: http://go.nasa.gov/17tmHzo .

For more information about Cassini and its mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130430101417.htm

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California woman accused of planting poisoned juice at Starbucks

By Laila Kearney

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A northern California woman has been arrested on suspicion of spiking orange juice bottles with a deadly dose of rubbing alcohol and stocking the bottles at a Starbucks coffee shop, law enforcement officials said on Tuesday.

Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, was arrested at her San Jose home on Monday night and booked into the Santa Clara County Jail on charges of attempted murder and poisoning, San Jose Police Sergeant Jason Dwyer said.

Behbehanian is accused of carrying two bottles of tainted juice into a Starbucks outlet in San Jose on Monday, pulling them from her bag and placing them in the display case of a cooler stocked with various beverages.

A customer saw the woman and what appeared to be her suspicious behavior and alerted the store's employees, but police say Behbehanian fled the shop when she overheard the conversation between the customer and employees. Another Starbucks patron followed Behbehanian outside and recorded the woman's license plate as she drove away, Dwyer said.

San Jose police and firefighters were called to the coffee shop, which was quickly evacuated. Hazardous materials inspectors tested the contents of the two bottles in question and found they contained a mixture of orange juice and isopropyl alcohol, or rubbing alcohol.

"According to the fire department, both of the bottles contained a lethal dose of alcohol," Dwyer said.

The store closed early to aid in the investigation, and all of the bottled drinks in the display case were destroyed, Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson said. All nearby Starbucks stores also were directed to check the seals on beverage bottles in their inventory as a precaution, but no evidence of additional tampering was found, he added.

"We're immensely grateful to the vigilant customer who did the right thing by immediately alerting our store partners after witnessing the suspicious behavior," Hutson said.

Dwyer said a motive for the alleged tampering was under investigation. He said he could not release additional details about the case.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Bob Burgdorfer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/california-woman-accused-planting-poisoned-juice-starbucks-223641304.html

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Volkswagen brand earns fall by more than half

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) ? Volkswagen's namesake brand saw operating earnings slip by 45 percent in the first quarter, as it joined the ranks of European carmakers suffering a tough first quarter.

The brand earned 590 million euros before interest and taxes, compared to 1.08 billion euros in the same period a year earlier.

Audi, Volkswagen AG's luxury mainstay and a key driver of earnings, dipped to 1.31 billion euros from 1.41 billion euros a year ago.

The company's other brands include Bentley, Porsche, SEAT and Skoda. VW reported detailed earnings Monday after releasing key figures last week. The group as a whole saw net income fall 38 percent to 1.95 billion euros.

CEO Martin Winterkorn called it "a good start to the year" but added that "the coming months will be anything but easy."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/volkswagen-brand-earns-fall-more-half-145916783.html

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