Zark's

Tanking BlackBerry

It has not been a long goodbye for Blackberry, but the company once had time to react to the iPhone disruption.  Probably not now. 

Back up against the wall, RIM looks toward BlackBerry 10 tells that the operating system will launch later this year, but phones may not reach the market until the end of 2012.  Of course both Apple and Android will have released another phone by then. 

BlackBerry Just 5% of Recent Smartphone Purchases tells that although almost 50 percent of U.S. cellphone owners have a smartphone, very few and becoming fewer, are Blackberrys.  A rumor appearing on the web is that AT&T and Verizon are considering dropping BlackBerry from their product line.

RIM Weighs Bleak Options tells that the morale at RIM is like a funeral.  With the BlackBerry 10 release so far in the future, even if the product was a success, there might not be enough of RIM left to support it.  Would Microsoft and Nokia be interested in purchasing the company for its patent portfolio? 

Wow!  This is a business case that should scare every businessman in the technology industry.  You must recognize true disruption and react to it.  The problem of course, is recognizing true disruption.  Was the Segway a disruption?  Not like the inventor predicted.  If we were all riding Segways today, another company would have tanked like BlackBerry; one that was displaced by everyone rushing to buy Segways.  Blackberry's management considered the iPhone just another Palm phone, and nothing disruptive.  Boy, were they wrong.

 

Can You Design Your Own Baby?

DNA Purification
Image Credit: National Institutes of Health

In January 2010, Time Magazine proclaimed, "Why Your DNA Isn't Your Destiny."  That is a surprising cover page for a generation that grew up believing that our personal DNA has predestined our life. Researchers have discovered that your DNA isn't the only mechanism that controls how your cells behave. 

You probably remember how DNA produces RNA which subsequently determines which proteins are produced and which are suppressed.  There are ways to influence production and suppression without altering the base DNA.  Epigenetics is the study these mechanisms.  One example is histone proteins which DNA wraps around.  DNA is surprisingly three-dimensional because twists and kinks bring base pairs in contact with each other, changing the proteins that are expressed.  By changing the histones, a cell's protein's expressions are permanently changed because the cell retains this memory when it reproduces for several generations. 

Epigenetic design baby may prove to be a non-starter tells that some futurists were thinking about what they could do through epigenetics for a baby's future or fate.  By changing diet, or providing some appropriate chemicals, parents could shape their baby independent of his/her DNA.  Further, these changes would extend for several generations. 

The latest research suggests though, this is much harder than originally believed.

 

The Oil Imported by the U.S.

Image Credit: U.S. Energy Administration (EIA)

The graphic on the left illustrates that Nearly 69% of U.S. crude oil imports originated from five countries in 2011.  As you can also determine from the graph, the same suppliers have been the top exporters to the nation since January 07. 

The EIA provides the encouraging news that U.S. oil imports fell to the lowest level in 12 years.  Still, it is a big number because we are large nation in land and population.  We are currently importing 8.9 million barrels a day. The nation is producing 5.6 million barrels a day, the highest since 2003.  (The offshore Gulf of Mexico production is 1.7 million barrels a day.)

Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer, contributing about 12 million barrels a day to the world's supply of energy.  From the graphic, you can compute that the U.S. consumes about 10 percent of Saudi Arabia's production.  Canada's share of U.S. imports is increasing because of more efficient transportation by rail. 

The U.S. and Japan appear to be moving away from new nuclear power plants for both cost and philosophical reasons.  A notable exception - India needs nuclear energy, says PM Manmohan Singh.   India is a very energy poor country and lacks other raw material exports to pay for increasingly expensive petroleum.   The Indian PM said that although they were concerned about safety and nuclear proliferation, he has concluded it must be and important component in the nation's energy portfolio.

 

The Supreme Court Throws Out Appeal Decision on Breast Cancer Testing

Breast Cancer
Image Credit: National Institutes of Health

Yesterday I blogged about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Prometheus Laboratories' patents were invalid because they only documented nature.  I made the logical prediction that the Supreme Court would also throw out the Myriad Genetics' patents on breast cancer testing. 

Supreme Court throws out decision allowing human genes to be patented tells the Supreme Court did just that.  Saying that last week's ruling determined that laws of nature are unpatentable, it sent back the appeals case back to the Federal Appeals Court.  (Recall that U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet had invalidated the Myriad Genetics patents because the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes exist within the body's DNA, and therefore could not be patented.  Last year though, an appeals panel overturned the decision with the shaky decision that genes do not appear by themselves in nature, but rather as a connected DNA molecule.) 

Lawyers Offer Predictions for Myriad, Diagnostic Field Based on Supreme Court's Decision Against Prometheus tells that predictably, the biotech companies are predicting the end of the world.  The best guess is that the Appeals Court will come back with the same decision and then the Supreme Court will have to make a direct ruling on the Myriad patents.  But considering their incredulity concerning patents of nature, it is likely Myriad Genetics will suffer the same invalidation. 

In 90 Years Later, Researchers Understand Sulfa Drugs, I blogged how the very first antibiotic drugs were produced devoid of patent protection because coal-tar dye had been patented two decades earlier for dying cloth.  Rather than discouraging investment in pharmaceuticals, the opposite happened - a barrier to entry was torn down and there was lots of innovation and lots of new companies. I believe the Supreme Court's decision was not only correct, but it will improve biotech.

 

Did the Supreme Court Signal a Change for Patents?

It did not receive a lot of press, but the biotech industry is scared.  Court throws out Prometheus drug patent explains that last Tuesday, the Supreme Court invalidated patent claims for a blood test because they were based upon laws of nature, and therefore unpatentable. 

Prometheus' test administers thiopurine to patients and then measures the level of metabolites in the patient's red blood cells.  The Supreme Court ruled the patent claims were based upon laws of nature. The Mayo Clinic decided to use its own test instead of the Prometheus test and the company sued to stop the clinic.  A lower court had originally determined that patent claims were invalid, but Prometheus was successful in appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals.  Mayo then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Myriad Genetics slips on patent concerns tells that Myriad might suffer a similar defeat.  If you recall, Myriad Genetics was successful in also appealing a lower Court's decision invalidating the BRCA1 and BRCA2 patents.  The Court of Appeals ruled that because the two genes are only a part of human DNA and don't occur by themselves naturally, they can be patented. Basically this says that a butterfly cannot be patented, but butterfly wings can be patented.  Sheesh.

Mmm.  In the Prometheus decision, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, "If a law of nature is not patentable, then neither is a process reciting a law of nature, unless that process has additional features that provide practical assurance that the process is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the law of nature itself."  My bet is that the Supreme Court will eventually invalidate the Myriad Genetics patents.

 

 

 

Humans are Wired to Run

Image Credit: CDC/ Amanda Mills

Mmm.  There are two types of people.  Those that run and those that wish they could.

Okay, so that was a slight adaption of a response by the father character, Gus Portokalos, in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. 

Wikipedia speculates that mankind developed the ability to run long distances in order to catch wild animals for food.  (Or perhaps to avoid being eaten.) 

Something that I didn't know - running on the track requires 1.2 times the calories required of walking due to wind resistance.  As you might expect, a treadmill is about the same wind resistance as walking, so no real caloric benefit.

A 'runner's high' is experienced when strenuous exercise pushes the body past a threshold where endorphin production is activated.  Wikipedia describes it as euphoria and happiness.  It is quite a rush.

Runner's High Motivated the Evolution of Exercise, Research Suggests tells of research with dogs, ferrets, and runners. After a long run, ferrets, do not receive the dose of endorphins that dogs and humans receive from a strenuous workout.  They also corroborated other studies that showed the runner's state of mind is happier after a run. 

An interesting observation was that endorphin release seems to be an absolute threshold rather than a relative threshold.  Someone that is out of shape is unlikely to receive an endorphin rush because they cannot reach that level of physical exertion.  In other words, you must be in good athletic shape before you will experience the 'runner's high'.

People Living Alone Are More Depressed

Image Credit: CDC/ Amanda Mills

Remember the song Rainy Days and Mondays by the Carpenters?  Talkin' to myself and feelin' old, Sometimes I'd like to quit ...

The National Institutes of Health tells us that everyone feels blue now and then.  There is not a single cause for depression.  It can be generated by a single event such as a death or illness.  Sometimes continued stress can create depression.  If the 'blues' last for more than two weeks, perhaps you should visit a doctor.

There are several different treatments for depression and the appropriate therapy should be selected.  Anti-depressant drugs have side effects and sometimes the best therapy is interacting with others.

Not surprisingly, People living alone 'are more depressed'.  A Finnish study tracked the use of anti-depressants.  People living alone purchased 80 percent more ant-depressants than those who did not live alone. 

The lead researcher added that the problem could be worse than the statistic shows.  Typically those that are most at risk are the most likely to complete therapy. 

It may well be that we are wired to communicate and socialize with others.  When that outlet is not available, mental health seems to suffer.  WIthout social interaction, people feel isolated and lack of connection to humanity.  The conclusion is, "It therefore essential that people who live alone are given the most appropriate treatment such as talking therapies, ... rather than simply being left to rely solely on anti-depressants."

 

90 Years Later, Researchers Understand Sulfa Drugs

Under a high magnification of 12,483X, this scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicted spores from the Sterne strain of Bacillus anthracis bacteria.

Image Credit: CDC/ Laura Rose

How sulfa drugs work explains they were the first class of antibiotics ever discovered.  Wikipedia tells that in 1932, researchers at Bayer Laboratories had a hunch that coal-tar dyes known to bind to bacteria might be useful in targeting harmful organisms in the body.  The new drug was named Prontosil and it was the first drug that could effectively treat infections within the body.  Ironically, Bayer could not profit from the discovery since the chemical compound was originally patented as a dye in 1906, and since the patent had expired, anyone could produce a sulfa drug. It was the only antibiotic, saving tens of thousands of lives, until the first use of penicillin in 1942.

The NIH researchers have discovered that sulfa drugs work by binding and inhibiting an enzyme named dihydropteroate synthase (DHPS).  The enzyme is necessary for bacterial to synthesize folate, a vitamin.  We get the vitamin from our diet, but bacteria must synthesize it.  As you probably guessed, sulfa drugs kill off bacteria because they cannot survive without the vitamin.  That much was known to researchers, but they didn't quite understand the chemistry. 

DHPS catalyzes a reaction between DHPP and PABA.  The scientists discovered that sulfa drugs fit into the DHPP receptor site instead of PABA.  Fortuitously they also discovered that sulfa-resistant bacteria have mutations near this receptor site.  They hope this knowledge will help them create sulfa drug derivatives that can defeat the sulfa-resistant bacteria.

 

 

Searching for the Dark Stuff

Researchers at Fermi National Lab team stand beside the Dark Energy camera
Image Credit: Reidar Hahn, Fermi National Lab

It has 570 MegaPixels, mirrors almost three feet in diameter, and weighs as much as an elephant (5 tons).  The team knows it affectionately as Dark Energy Camera (DECam). 

The mission is to determine why the universe is expanding.  This seems to defy entropy, which states that over time, things run down.  If nothing else, gravity should be slowing the expansion.  Yet every observation confirms Edwin Hubble's discovery 80 years ago that the universe is not only expanding, but it it is expanding at an accelerating rate.

To understand this phenomena, astronomers must stare at photons that have been traveling for 14 billion years.  The current theory is that dark energy is responsible for the universe expansion, which began at least 5 billion years ago. 

The camera illustrated above is being installed in the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory located 80 km east of La Serna, Chile.  The facility is in the Atacama desert in northern Chile, 7,200 feet above sea level.  The Dark Side of the Universe adds the universe expansion requires energy.  That energy is currently thought be supplied by dark energy.  The theory is that almost 75 percent of the universe is really dark energy.

We can't see it, nor can we directly measure it.  We can only measure its effect upon other objects, such as the universe expansion.  That will be what the Dark Energy Camera is trying to photograph.

 

Airlines (and Nations) Protest Carbon Tax

The EIA explains jet fuel produces 70.88 kg of CO2 for one million BTU.  In comparison, coal produces about 97 kg of CO2, and ordinary gasoline, also 70.88.  Another perspective is that jet fuel produces 12.09 pounds of CO2 per gallon. 

How much CO2 is released by aeroplane computes an Airbus A321 generates 9.074 kg/km.  So for a trip between Washington, DC, and San Francisco, an A321 would produce 78,586 pounds of CO2.  Wow!

Threat of global trade war over airline emission charges explains that Europe's taxation of airlines entering their airspace has encountered headwinds.  The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) requires airlines landing in Europe to purchase carbon credits to offset their emissions.  Particularly offensive is that ETS taxes for the entire trip, not just the mileage over European airspace. 

China has cancelled $14B of Airbus deliveries and other nations such as India and Russia are similarly rattling economic sabers.  So far, 29 nations have signed a protest against the EU law.  But Climate Commissioner Connie Hedgaard is holding firm.  Russia may curb EU flight access as nations retaliate on CO2 adds that non-European nations must pay up by April 2013 for their flights this year, or confront fines or even bans.  For Russia, the tab will be 20 to 25 million Euros a year. 

Mmm.  Like most human conflict, there are two opposing perspectives.  Europe wants to be environmentally responsible and promote alternative travel.  On the other hand, most European cities are close enough that a 2-4 hour train ride can substitute a flight.  Larger nations have different geography and costs.