Pharmacy quiz

Imagination and Jannat

Nintendo Wii and surgery

Viruses could have their own immune system

Stress and crabs

AIDS and emotional disturbance

Memory and depression

Proper Sleep improves memory

Tip for a healthy heart

Remember ALLAH

Stress and Chronic Back pain

General mechanism of cancer

Plants and bees

Children performance

Height of Hazrat Adam (A.S.) and the present day man

Russian Meteor

Number of drugs for HER-2 positive breast cancer

Alcohol and cancer

Tip for Happiness

"Zombie" cells

Japanese scientists have developed robot to practice dentistry

Scientists from Japan have developed a robot, dubbed simroid, to practice dentistry. This robot comes with artificial intelligence and sensors that will cause the robot to behave like a human.

"It was impossible to practise correct bedside manner -- you know, before we encountered patients for real. So we developed this robot not just for technical practice, but so we could also study how we should adjust our behaviour." Akira Hamura, co-developer and professor of general dentistry, Nippon Dental University Hospital, said.

"We wanted to get it as near to a real human being as possible. When it's sitting still, talking to someone or opening it's mouth up wide, what we were after was to be as close as possible as genuine flesh and blood." Yukihiko Isokawa, Morita Manufacturing Group, Research and Development group leader, said.

Further Reading:

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How we can make the bird flu?

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have finally published the research relating to the preparation of the bird flu and how it can be spread to mammals. They have published their findings in the Wednesday issue of the Journal Nature.

This research is one of the two controversial researches that was in debate since August.

Second research is expected to appear soon in the journal Science.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Mars could be habitable as reports are suggesting

Researchers have reported in the journal Science that the environment of Mars could be habitable for the life. They have hypothesized after the evidences of water flows, zinc deposits and veins of gypsum in the rocks.

“The rover discovered evidence for low temperature liquid water and environments that would be conducive for life,” said Scott M. McLennan, Professor of Geochemistry at Stony Brook University and one of the members of the team of the research.

He added, “If we found this on Earth there would be no question that you could find evidence of life,”

Further Reading:

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Pakistani students' problems during education

Some of the problems faced by students in the current educational setup are as follows;

1. Focus on basic education only
2. Poorly updated curriculum
3. Inappropriate examination system
4. Costly education
5. Unstable educational policies

Further Reading:
SayPeople

iPad users have another news from Logitech

Logitech has announced a solar powered case with Bluetooth facilitated keyboard for iPad.

"Now that people are seemingly inseparable from their tablets, using them for everything from sending emails to watching videos, they want accessories powered to meet their needs," said Alexis Richard, director of product marketing at Logitech. "The Logitech Solar Keyboard Folio is a smart partner for your iPad. Its sleek built-in keyboard uses light to charge and it provides hassle-free protection for your iPad – both for the front and back. It gives you an ideal way to use and protect your tablet without adding bulk."

This case is available for preorders from the company.

Further Reading:

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Positive Thoughts

XPS 13 by Dell has been announced

Dell has launched its new Ultrabook XPS 13 with extra slim body and longer battery life.

From SayPeople,

XPS 13 is 18mm thin, i.e. 0.77 inches, while 6 mm at it’s thinnest with dimensions of 12.4 x 8.1 x 0.7 in. It has three pounds of weight which can goes up to reasonable 3.6 pound after addition of the AC adapter. It has a 13.3 inch of display, in a footprint similar to an 11 inch laptop, with 1366x768 pixels. It has 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD with a 1.6 GHz Intel core i7 processor. It has a battery life of up to 8 hours and 53 minutes.

It will be available from $999.

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Canon's new EOS 5D Mark III camera

Canon has revealed new EOS 5D Mark III camera on March 2. This new camera comes with an update to full-frame 5D Mark II dSLR.

The camera has 22.3 MP CMOS sensor. It supports high ISO ranging from 100 to 25600 (expandable to 102400). This camera features wireless file transfer and Speedlite 600EX-RT is the Canon’s first flash unit.

The Camera will be available in the later part of this month at $3,499 body-only.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Sleep gets better with age

Article first published as Older Adults Get Better Sleep on Technorati.

Researchers have found that sleep gets better with age. Although, people in their 40's feel some difficulty in sleeping, sleep actually improves, when people pass their 50's.

"This flies in the face of popular belief," says Dr. Michael Grandner, lead author of the study. "These results force us to re-think what we know about sleep in older people — men and women."

Researchers from Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania surveyed more than 150,000 older people on telephone. They have asked them about their sleep. They have also asked them about the education, depressed mood, race, income and general health.

Researchers have observed that sleep may be affected by poor health but old age is not the single factor affecting the sleep. They found in the survey that sleep problems decrease with age and the least complaints about sleep were found in the people with more than 70 years of age.

Researchers have concluded that advancing age was not associated with increased self-reported sleep disturbance or self-reported tiredness/lack of energy. These results suggest that the often-reported increase in sleep problems with age is a nonlinear phenomenon, mediated by factors other than physiologic aging.

Flu medicine is found to be helpful in serious brain injury

Article first published as Severe Brain Injury Can Be Rapidly Treated With a Flu Medicine on Technorati.

Researchers have successfully confirmed that a flu medicine, amantadine, is efficient in treating the brain injury.

Their findings are consistent with observational reports suggesting the acceleration of recovery in patients who are receiving amantadine and the deceleration or loss of function after treatment is discontinued.

Researchers worked on 184 patients, who were in minimal conscious state for 4-16 weeks after severe brain injury. They divided the patients in two groups, one receiving the drug, amantadine, while the other received the dummy medicine i.e. placebo, for 4 weeks. Researchers have found that the group, which received the flu drug showed rapid improvement. They were better able to follow commands and reliably saying yes or no. They were also better able to use a spoon or hairbrush.

Researchers have discovered that very few, i.e. 17% of, patients of amantadine group remain in the “vegetative state” as compared to the other group, in which 32% remain in “vegetative state”.

Researchers have also given directions for future studies. Future research should focus on determining the pathophysiological characteristics of patients who have a response to amantadine, the most effective dosage and duration of treatment and timing of its initiation, and the effectiveness of amantadine in patients with nontraumatic brain injuries.

This research has been published online in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Zynga has rolled out on a new platform

Article first published as Zynga’s New Individual Platform for Social Gaming on Technorati.

Zynga, the leading provider of social games on Facebook, has announced a separate platform for the social gaming.

The new platform is Zynga.com, which according to the company will allow “new ways to play and more people to play with”. The new platform will also allow the third party developers to make the games to be played by the players of Zynga.

“We built Zynga.com to give our players more ways to connect with each other and play great social games whether built by Zynga or other talented developers,” said Mark Pincus, founder and CEO, Zynga. “Together with our platform partners, we look forward to bringing more play to the world on our platform.”

Although, Zynga gets 96% of its revenue from the world No. 1 social networking site through the sale of virtual goods to its customers on games such as CityVille, FarmVille and MafiaWars, but now it has planned to develop a separate identity.

Zynga will allow the players to login through Facebook ID and play games with not only their existing friends but also with other players, i.e. zFriends.

“Zynga.com was created based on listening to players and understanding what they want and need to make their play time more fun and meaningful,” said Manuel Bronstein, general manager of Zynga.com. “We are excited to give players a way to connect with other people who love to play the same games in a destination that is all and only about games. We will continue to listen to player feedback and provide even better ways for them to connect and play together.”

Further Reading:

Zynga

Arctic sea ice is removing rapidly

Researchers from different countries including Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., U.S. have found that the rapid removal of prennial Arctic Sea Ice is the result of mercury accumulation in  fish.

Researchers have found that the removal of perennial sea ice leads to accumulation of saltier ice, leading to bromine reaction resulting in the change of gaseous mercury to a toxic pollutant.

"Shrinking summer sea ice has drawn much attention to exploiting Arctic resources and improving maritime trading routes," Nghiem said.

"But the change in sea ice composition also has impacts on the environment," he said. "Changing conditions in the Arctic might increase bromine explosions in the future.”

From SayPeople,

Researchers are trying to find out the reason of the Arctic’s loss of one million square kilometers of perennial sea ice over the past decade. It has been suggested that this is due to the changing wind patterns over that time period. 

It has been found that in March 2008, there was a 50 year low record of year-round perennial sea ice, shrinking by an area equivalent to the combined size of Arizona and Texas. 

Ngheim said that the bromine explosion could be increased, “if sea ice continues to be dominated by younger saltier ice, and Arctic extreme cold spells occur more often”.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

AMD has taken SeaMicro

Article first published as AMD Acquires SeaMicro, Enhances Cloud Based Computation on Technorati.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc. announced yesterday that it has reached an agreement to acquire SeaMicro for $334 million, of which $281 million will be paid in cash.

The strategy behind this acquisition is to improve cloud based computation while using the energy efficient and high bandwidth microservers of SeaMicro.

“By acquiring SeaMicro, we are accelerating AMD’s transformation into an agile, disruptive innovator capable of staking a data center leadership position,” said Rory Read, president and CEO, AMD.  “SeaMicro is a pioneer in low-power server technology.  The unmatched combination of AMD’s processing capabilities, SeaMicro’s system and fabric technology, and our ambidextrous technology approach uniquely positions AMD with a compelling, differentiated position to attack the fastest growing segment of the server market.”

AMD has reported that a range of different processors and platforms will be launched, by combining the technologies of both the companies helping to reduce the cost consumption, energy utilization, and data center complexity while enhancing the performance. First AMD Opteron processor-based solutions combined with SeaMicro technologies will be revealed in the second half of this year.

IDC predicted that cloud data centers would be the fastest growing part of the server market through 2015 and SeaMicro technologies give pronounced benefits in cloud environments and large data centers.

“Cloud computing has brought a sea change to the data center--dramatically altering the economics of compute by changing the workload and optimal characteristics of a server,” said Andrew Feldman, SeaMicro CEO, who will work as general manager of AMD’s newly created Data Center Server Solutions business. “SeaMicro was founded to dramatically reduce the power consumed by servers, while increasing compute density and bandwidth.  By becoming a part of AMD, we will have access to new markets, resources, technology, and scale that will provide us with the opportunity to work tightly with our OEM partners as we fundamentally change the server market.”

Further Reading:

AMD

New privacy policy by Google

Article first published as New Privacy Policy by Google; Views From Around the World on Technorati.

Google is moving to the new privacy policy from March 1, 2012. In this privacy policy, Google would combine 60 privacy policies for different services into one and the data collected from one Google service will be shared to its other services, websites and products such as Gmail, YouTube and Blogger. Moreover, users will be able to make a comprehensive profile with this new privacy policy.

Fox News has reported that the new privacy policy will allow the company to get even more personal information of its 1 billion users around the world. However, that information will help the search giant to develop more powerful search engine and to improve many other features by the company.

Allan Chiang Yam-wang, Privacy Commissioner in Hong Kong, said that although the new privacy would help Google to get better advertising by understanding the internet users’ web browsing habits but users should have a choice to share their data.

"There is no problem them enhancing the efficiency of their advertising service, but they also need to maintain the autonomy of individual customers" he said. "For example, if I do not want to combine all my data in your services, is there any convenient means for me to opt out?"

Last week privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, in Canada, told Google to explain clearly the privacy issues as there may be some defects in the policy, which must be considered. In a letter to Stoddart, Google has reported that users have not to worry about the new privacy policy.

European regulators warned Google on Tuesday that the new privacy policy by the company is violating the privacy rules and they told them to delay the launch of the privacy policy. France’s data protection agency (CNIL) officials said on behalf of European Union members to the Google chief executive Larry Page,reported that it will investigate the new policy and would send questions by mid-March. “Google’s new policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection.” The CNIL has

In all these circumstances, users are searching for something to be protected, so Abine may give some solution to the internet users around the world. It is a browser add-on to control privacy online. Moreover, Google has also reported how to keep the data security online.

Fleas were very large in size in Jurassic era

Researchers have found the fossils fleas of Jurassic era in China and have found that those were very large as compared to the present day fleas.

The present day fleas are of the size of 1-10 mm but the primitive fleas of Jurassic and Cretaceous era were 8-21 mm long. They have no jumping specializations and were lacking in smooth jaws of modern fleas as they were armored with saw-like projections in siphoning mouthparts.

“The mouthparts are certainly overkill for piercing the hides of early mammals and birds,” says Engel. “It really appears as though they were specialized for working their way into some heavy hides, such as those on dinosaurs.”

George Poinar, a palaeoentomologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, agrees that without jumping legs, the fleas “would have to crawl or run to find a host”. He adds that “they could have attacked dinosaurs or possibly pterosaurs”.


Further Reading:
SayPeople

Facebook's usage of Yahoo's technology

Article first published as Yahoo! Warns Facebook Over Patent Issues on Technorati.

The New York Times has reported that Yahoo has warned Facebook over utilization of many of the technologies already filed by Yahoo in 10 to 20 patents.

Yahoo has reported that some of the companies, who utilized the technologies in the Yahoo’s patents, have resolved the issues related to patents by licensing them and Facebook has also to resolve the issue by giving the licensing fees or Yahoo will sue against Facebook.

Yahoo stated that Facebook’s ads, news feed, messaging services and privacy controls are working on some of the technologies mentioned in Yahoo’s patents.

Representatives of the two companies have met on Monday.

"Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property," the company said.

“Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property,” a Yahoo spokesman said in an e-mailed statement (to The New York Times). “We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights.”

Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, said in a statement: “Yahoo contacted us the same time they called The New York Times and so we haven’t had the opportunity to fully evaluate their claims.”

I think meeting of the representatives of two companies is best thing, as negotiation can lead to better solution as compared to patent fight.

Source:

The New York Times

New level of Quantum computation

Article first published as Reaching New Horizons in Quantum Computation on Technorati.

IBM researchers have developed ways to overcome certain errors in quantum computation.

IBM researchers worked on the superconducting 3D qubits utilizing microfabrication techniques. Qubits are the basic units of information in quantum computing. They also worked on the 2D qubits to develop a “Controlled NOT gate” or CNOT gate, which is building block of quantum computation.

“The superconducting qubit research led by the IBM team has been progressing in a very focused way on the road to a reliable, scalable quantum computer. The device performance that they have now reported brings them nearly to the tipping point; we can now see the building blocks that will be used to prove that error correction can be effective, and that reliable logical qubits can be realized,” observes David DiVincenzo, professor at the Institute of Quantum Information, Aachen University and Forschungszentrum Juelich.

Researchers are considering this as a major leap in quantum computing.

“In the past, people have said, maybe it’s 50 years away, it’s a dream, maybe it’ll happen sometime,” said Mark B. Ketchen, manager of the physics of information group at I.B.M.’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. “I used to think it was 50. Now I’m thinking like it’s 15 or a little more. It’s within reach. It’s within our lifetime. It’s going to happen.”

IBM researchers will present this research at the annual meeting of American Physical Society taking place from February 27 – March 2, 2012 in Boston, Mass. Researchers will present that how close they are in solving the problems in quantum computation both by elevating the lifetime of the qubits of information and by improving the pace of computation.

Further Reading:

IBM

Image: Silicon Chip having three qubits (Credit: IBM)

iPad's trademark is the issue in Californian Court

Proview, the manufacturer of LED lights from China, has sued against Apple now in California's superior court about the trademark of iPad.

In 2000, Proview launched iPAD, i.e. Internet Personal Assistant Device, but that was not a market hit. The company is stating that the trademark is its property.

The press release reads: "The complaint provides evidence that the December 23, 2009 agreement that Proview Taiwan entered into was fraudulently induced by the concealment and suppression of material facts by Apple's agents, and that, as a result, the 2009 agreement is void. Once the agreement is voided for fraud, the iPad trademarks in the European Union, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam will revert back to Proview Taiwan."

"Among the many allegations in the U.S complaint are fraud by intentional misrepresentation, fraud by concealment, fraudulent inducement, and unfair competition," Proview said.

Further Reading:
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Fossils of tallest and fattest penguin have been reconstructed

Scientists have successfully reconstructed the bones of 25 million years old penguin. They have found that those Kairuku pnguins were the tallest and fattest of all the known penguins.

"Kairuku was an elegant bird by penguin standards, with a slender body and long flippers, but short, thick legs and feet," said co-author Dr. Dan Ksepka, from North Carolina State University, US.
"If we had done a reconstruction by extrapolating from the length of its flippers, it would have stood over 6ft tall. In reality, Kairuku was around 4ft 2ins tall or so."


Further Reading:
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Nokia's new 41 MP sensor embedded smartphone

Article first published as Nokia’s "Smart Smartphone" Features 41 MP Sensors and Pixel Oversampling Technology on Technorati.

Nokia has announced a new "smart smartphone", dubbed Nokia 808 PureView, having high resolution 41 megapixel sensors with high performance Carl Zeiss optics and new pixel oversampling technology. With the release of this phone Nokia has shown that how much the company likes to focus on camera.

"Nokia PureView imaging technology sets a new industry standard by whatever measure you use," said Jo Harlow, executive vice president of Nokia Smart Devices.  "People will inevitably focus on the 41 megapixel sensor, but the real quantum leap is how the pixels are used to deliver breath-taking image quality at any resolution and the freedom it provides to choose the story you want to tell."

This device has 4-inches of display and support full HD 1080p video. Nokia Rich Recording allows the audio recording at CD-like levels of quality. With the Dolby headphone technology, personal surround sound experience can be achieved. The operating system in the phone is Symbian Belle. The device has 1.3 Ghz single-core chip and 360-640 (nHD) resolutions. There is 512 MB of RAM and 16 GB of storage , which is expandable by using microSD.

The phone is expected to reach the shelves in Europe at 450 Euros in the next quarter.

Further Reading:

Nokia

Roche has extended tender offer for Illumina

Article first published as Roche’s Extension of Tender Offer and its Response by Illumina on Technorati.

Roche, Swiss Pharmaceutical Company, has announced the extension of tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Illumina Inc., a company working for life sciences tools and systems, at $44.50 per share, to 6:00 p.m., New York.

Roche started the tender offer on January 27, 2012. The offer was $44.50 per share in cash or an aggregate of about $5.7 billion on a fully diluted basis.

The company has reported that at the end of February 24, 2012, almost 102,165 shares had been tendered including 44,152 shares to be delivered within the next three working days of NASDAQ.

Illumina responded to the extension of the Roche’s tender offer as,
City time, on March 23, 2012, while all the terms and conditions are same. Previously, the offer was ending at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, at the end of the day on February 24, 2012.

The extension by Roche was expected. An extremely low number of shares have been tendered, consistent with our view – and that of our stockholders – that Roche’s offer does not reflect Illumina’s unique leadership position, business performance and future prospects.

We remain focused on continuing to develop breakthrough products that expand existing markets and create new ones. The potential of our industry is enormous, with major new markets emerging in medical diagnostics, reproductive health and cancer management.

Roche invested about 8 billion Swiss francs in R&D in 2011 and over 80,000 people were working for Roche in the world in 2011. Company shows interest in Illumina to expand the business of diagnostics.

Intel's processor in Orange's smartphone

Article first published as Intel Powered Smartphone Unveiled by Orange on Technorati.

The world was looking for other companies to work in partnership with Intel Corporation to produce smartphones and Orange, a brand of France Télécom, took the lead.

Orange has revealed Intel Atom chip, codenamed Medfield, processed smartphone, codenamed as Santa Clara, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012. The phone will be available at “affordable” prices in the mid of this year. However, the company would change the name by “three to four months” when the phone will be launched.

"When we started working with them (Intel) it was a bit of a bet, there was no such product on the market, but we were willing to make that bet because we had a relationship with them and we also wanted to bring innovation — it's not about bringing the same thing as just anybody else," Patrick Remy, vice president of devices at Orange, said.

The device has a 4-inch display having Intel Atom Z2460 processor with HSPA+ connectivity. The smartphone also supports Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. It has an 8-MP camera with the facilitation of taking 10 pictures in less than second and capturing HD videos. The phone has less weight than iPhone 4S and weighs 117 gm or 4.1 ounces with dimensions of 123 mm x 63 mm x 9.99 mm. The phone operates on Android 2.3 version i.e. Gingerbread and has the ability to be upgraded to Android 4.0 version i.e. Ice Cream Sandwich.

"With Intel we have the price positioning that will allow us to address more than 60% of our customer base," said Yves Maitre, Orange's senior vice president of mobile multimedia and devices. "It really is in the middle range in terms of price, but is a high-end phone in terms of features, quality and speed."

"We firmly believe that all our customers should benefit from the smartphone revolution, and we remain committed to delivering innovative content and services across a wide range of devices to help customers stay connected and get more from their phone," Yves Maitre, senior vice president of mobile multimedia and devices at Orange, said in a statement.

Drought was the cause of Mayan destruction

Mayan civilization is renowned for their knowledge of math, language and astronomy. They were eliminated by 1000 C.E.

This research has been done by researchers from Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico and the University of Southampton in Britain.

The study was led by Professors Martín Medina-Elizalde of the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico and Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton in the UK. Professor Rohling says: “Our results show rather modest rainfall reductions between times when the Classic Maya civilization flourished and its collapse – between AD 800-950. These reductions amount to only 25 to 40 per cent in annual rainfall. But they were large enough for evaporation to become dominant over rainfall, and open water availability was rapidly reduced. The data suggest that the main cause was a decrease in summer storm activity.”

Further Reading:
SayPeople