Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Capitalism and the cost of drugs
Nearly 100 cancer physicians had published a report in Blood that the prices of drugs for cancer that typically cost about $100,000 per year are unsustainable and something needs to be done to manage that for the patients. The article is worth a read and compares a UK study which typically puts as a life…
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Deuterium based drugs
The news story today is about Concert Pharmaceuticals partnering with Celgene to develop Concert’s deuterated compounds. Concert and Auspex are two pharmaceutical companies pursuing the deuterated compound as a unique drugs but the science is a bit of a mystery. Hydrogen and its isotope Deuterium exists in nature and thus any compound will exist in…
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Culturomics and Computational Lexicology data mining techniques.
Computational lexicology methods try to understand human behavior, cultural norms through analysis of texts. These methods try to enlist the usage of words through the years and conclude what has changed in human behavior over the years. There have been various studies done, one in particular in which Harvard scientists showed that nearly 50% of…
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Differential interference contrast microscopy
Looking at samples under a microscope that are unstained typically shows nothing. Without a stain to show the sample, most specimens would look invisible and transparent. However, one technique that has been used in microscopes for a very long time is called differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy and is dependent on a very simple principle.…
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Baxter robotics – a robot for everyone
For most people the concept of robotics is scary. It means automatic machines that take engineers to program and then they operate like automatons performing repeated functions over and over again till they are stopped. If you are in the way of the operations, then it means destruction to you! However, a new company “rethink…
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Lean startup
There are many ways to start a company and the traditional approach has been to complete the business plan, have all the ideas and business plan and then jump in. However, with the lean startup methodology the idea is to fail often and quickly before the company invests too many of its resources. The idea…
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Windows recovery programs
Almost all versions of computers need to be backed up. The two that have been very robust and offer good backup and cloning solutions are: Reflect Disk Imaging: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/download.html These are the ones that offer very good flexibility as well as allow you to make bootable disks.
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Army technology
The army comes up with cool new technology that is obviously great for tires but this material could also make up instrumentation that will be light and flexible. An unbreakable spectrophotometer! {youtube}2wAvxQfusWU{/youtube}
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Simplicity in microfluidics – Slip Chip. Enabling mobile diagnostics.
Microfluidics involves complicated design and mechanics of fluid motion. Microfluidics enables many reactions to take place in miniscule volumes. This enables efficiency as well as minitiaturization with the consequential advantage of speed and low waste of reagents. However, one persistent problem has been the pumps that are required to pump liquid through these minor chambers.…
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Neurology – Quantifying the human brain
10,000 Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers” reported studies that it takes about 10,000 hours for any person to become an expert based on studies conducted in various laboratories. This is a big number. Consider an 8 hour day with a 40 hour week specializing in only one area. With 50 weeks that equates to…
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