Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Cancer treatment targeting through bacteria
Dr Claudia Gravekamp from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine is exploring the treatment of cancer with bacteria after she observed that the bacteria, Listeria monocytogenes, seemed to be concentrating near the area of tumor. Tumor targeting of drugs or radiation is a very big issue. Currently, there are several drugs that attack cancer cells…
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Unique marketing technique
Property management companies typically manage properties of rich individuals. That management could be something like taking care of the property, managing it or more detailed as in managing the rentals, the renters and engaging repairs as required. Most of them require some kind of agreement which is for a fixed amount. This company has come…
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What forces enable water to move up the tree?
It always is amazing to think about the forces that are required to push water up the really tall trees. The forces involved are enormous and it is amazing that natural phenomenon without massive pumps and large amounts of energy are not involved! The video below seeks to understand the forces that make water move…
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Camouflage and skin responses
It is amazing how camouflage happens instantaneously. There has been a lot of research but the skin responses needs more research into understanding the phenomenon as well as brain processing of complex stimuli. The video below says it all. {youtube}0b4tmbE5jj4{/youtube}
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Complexity and simplicity
Brain achieves a remarkable task to simplify the world and it is important for us to distinguish data from the noise. Take the example of a small piece of forest. This forest has trees, plants and some animals. The trees by themselves have branches, leaves, and other structures that have distinct shapes and sizes. If…
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Neuroscience milestone – Vernon Mountcastle’s discovery of columnar organization of the neurocortex.
Brain neuron organization has been investigated since a long time and it had been very confusing for scientists trying to determine the organization among a mass of neurons. Vernon Mountcastle’s discovery of a column of neuron paved the way for understanding of the brain. In 1957 he made the radical discovery that the columnar pattern…
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Mobile applications for healthcare
Mobile and healthcare has been abbreviated to mHealth and there has been significant amount of work that is being done to make mobile applications that will work in the healthcare space. The applications in the iPhone app store vary from not so useful “Anti-mosquito” and “White noise” to more useful ones like Pedometer and Calorie-counter…
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The fog gun system for bathing.
History: Buckminster Fuller, a scientist from UK was a remarkable inventor, architect and a designer. He was responsible for the Geodesic dome among other designs but the most fulfilling design was the bathing unit, called Dymaxion that was a very unique concept. This design came from his observations while in the navy that exposing soiled…
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Henry Markram’s blue brain project
The human brain project has been recently getting a lot of attention with the US Government carving out funding for the brain mapping project. The interesting thing is that this project has been started by the European Union since 2005. It is called the blue brain project and it is about simulating the human brain.…
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Biggest challenges in the lab 2013
When one thinks about scientific laboratory, the challenges that come to mind are techniques or difficult procedures but according to the survey conducted by lab automation group, here are the top challenges listed as percentage of importance by the applicants. This is interesting because among the major challenges is money. The staffing may also…
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