Best of space

Journey into space to decode its secrets :
Our Space has been a mystery for long and the journey to decode its secrets has intrigued many. Ever wondered why our heavenly bodies looked so spectacular and breathtaking. Telling us the story are the stunning photos of celestial objects, many of which are several light-years away. Track the recent research on this field, which has been a total enigma for all of mankind. From the recent comets, to striking craters to the 'Eye of the God' - here's an attempt at unraveling the mysteries of the universe...


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China indicates interest in buying maglev train technology

Beijing - China on Wednesday signalled its interest in acquiring the technology for a German-developed magnetic-levitation, or maglev, train.

"We would greet the sale of the magnetic train technology from the German developers to Chinese firms," said the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning agency.

It added that it hoped China could win the technology at an "attractive price."

However, the German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp, which developed the Transrapid system with Siemens, rebutted speculation that it might sell the propulsion technology or a license to China after high costs last month killed a maglev track that had been planned between downtown Munich and its airport.

China is home to the only Transrapid track in commercial service. The track runs between downtown Shanghai and the city's airport.

Xie Weida, deputy director of the Railway Institute at Shanghai's Tongji University, who was involved in the development of the Shanghai line, warned that the cost of such know-how would be extremely expensive but would allow China to produce maglev trains itself and market them internationally.

An expansion of the Shanghai line is planned, but it has been put on hold because of protests by residents. Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng recently ruled out a completion of the expansion by the Shanghai-hosted World Expo 2010 as originally planned.

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Security Safer by Design

Every Mac is secure — right out of the box — thanks to the proven foundation of Mac OS X. Apple engineers have designed Leopard with more security to protect your personal data and make your online life safer.

Safe and easy.

The security features built into Leopard are unobtrusive, easy to use, and accessible to everyone. And Apple responds quickly to any threat, providing timely software updates that make installing the latest security enhancements one-click simple.

Secure from the open source.

Apple engineers use a variety of approaches to identify potential security threats and proactively protect the OS against them. Since the core of Leopard is open source, Apple gets the benefit of a worldwide community of security researchers who help to further improve security on the Mac. Apple also works with a number of security organizations, including CERT/CC, FIRST, the FreeBSD security team, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Danger-free downloads.

Sometimes innocent-looking files contain malicious applications in disguise. That’s why files downloaded using Safari, Mail, and iChat are screened to determine if they contain applications. If they do, Leopard alerts you, then warns you the first time you open one. You decide whether to open the application or cancel the attempt. And Leopard can use digital signatures to verify that an application hasn’t been changed since it was created.

DIY encryption.

The Disk Utility tool in Leopard helps you create encrypted disk images using 128-bit or even stronger 256-bit AES encryption. Safely email documents, files, and folders to friends and colleagues, save the encrypted disk image to CD or DVD, or store it on your Mac or a network file server.

Connect with confidence.

The VPN client in Leopard offers increased compatibility with the most widely used VPN servers on the Internet. So connecting to corporate networks securely — without additional software — is fast and easy.

Safe to share.

New sharing preferences in Leopard show you which folders your Mac is sharing and give you more control over who can access shared folders. Add users from your Address Book, create new file-sharing accounts so friends and family can securely access your files, or tie into a corporate directory to add users from your network. Sharing options abound in Leopard.

Sandbox tested.

Sometimes hackers try to hijack an application to run malicious code. Sandboxing helps ensure that applications do only what they’re intended to by restricting which files they can access, whether they can talk to the network, and whether they can be used to launch other applications. Helper applications in Leopard — including the software that enables Bonjour and the Spotlight indexer — are sandboxed to guard against attackers.

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MultiCore-Fire on all cylinders

Today’s Mac computers offer astounding performance with up to eight cores of processing power. How do you take full advantage? Simple — with Leopard. A rearchitected system, finely tuned key applications, and powerful new tools for developers make Leopard the perfect OS for your multicore Mac.

Why multicore matters.

For decades, faster processors meant better application performance but hotter, power-hungrier chips that were far from mobile-friendly. New multicore processors help solve the power problem, but don’t necessarily improve application performance. That’s where Leopard comes in, providing powerful tools that make it easy to reap the benefits of multicore computing.

Multiple cores, multiple efficiencies.

The new Leopard scheduler is very efficient at allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. So Leopard spends less time managing tasks and more time performing computations. A new multithreaded network stack speeds up networking by handling network inputs and outputs in parallel.

Multicore apps in Leopard.

Apple engineers have updated several applications in Leopard — including Mail, Address Book, and Font Utility — to be fully multicore ready. Each of these apps breaks up processor-intensive actions into a series of more manageable steps that execute one by one on single-CPU computers and in parallel on newer, multicore systems. Cocoa uses the same technology to speed up Spotlight searches and Dictionary lookups.

Smooth operator.

How did Apple engineers pull this off? By using NSOperation, a breakthrough new API that optimizes applications for the world of multicore processing. Independent chunks of computation (operations) are added to NSOperationQueue, which dynamically determines how many operations to run in parallel based on the current architectures. So there’s no need to hand-code the complexities of threading and locking. You simply describe the operations in a program along with their dependencies. Cocoa takes care of the rest.

Pass it on.

To support the message-passing model popular in scientific computation — which has long needed to distribute calculations across multiple processes — Leopard includes the popular open source OpenMPI implementation of the MPI 2.0 standard. OpenMPI works with Xgrid, seamlessly supports both PowerPC- and Intel-based Mac computers, and makes it easy to add drivers for low-latency interconnects. And Xcode for Leopard includes the various MPI “compilers” (preprocessors) that streamline the process of writing MPI-compliant programs.

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Core Animations-Drag and Drop

Welcome to the next level in computer animation. No, it’s not a feature film — it’s your desktop. Core Animation is a framework that makes it simple for Mac developers to add visually stunning user interfaces, graphics, and animations to applications. Without any advanced graphics techniques, you can create fluid, stutter-free effects and experiences as groundbreaking as Time Machine and the new Dock.Order from depth.
Using Core Animation, Mac developers can create snazzy animations in their programs using different media types, such as text, 2D graphics, OpenGL renderings, and video, simultaneously. These items are placed on layers, and a scene can contain a few layers or thousands of layers, each with its own content. Core Animation can add different effects to layers, then composite and render them in real time. When content changes, Core Animation updates it automatically.
Two heads are better than one.

Core Animation performance benefits from multiple cores in the latest Intel-based Mac computers. When developers use Core Animation in an application, the framework can take advantage of processor threads. On a multicore Mac, that means the application runs on one core, and Core Animation graphics tasks run on the other.
Shift from manual to automatic.

No need to create animations by managing individual elements on a frame-to-frame basis. Just describe the start state, the end state, and any interim states or keyframes, and let Core Animation do the rest. You can also describe how your animation should react to user input, and it adjusts accordingly. Core Animation opens up the power of Apple’s graphics technologies and proven aesthetics to every developer. You’ll be seeing its effect in a new generation of amazing apps to come.

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Mobile Phone Signal And Battery Meters

Why does the first bar of the battery life take 36 hours to go away, and the other 3 seem to vanish in 10 minutes? How do my calls get dropped when I CLEARLY have full bars? Read on m'friend.

Battery Meters

We're in a world that sends robots to outerspace, has cured innumerable diseases, and FINALLY allows us to play Super Monkey Ball using accelerometers on a portable device - you'd think we'd be able to measure the amount of charge on a battery. Truth is, we can - and accurately too. But you'd never know it in your every day life...36 hours to dissipate all the power, but plug it in for 10 minutes and miraculously it appears that you're back to full strength? How can that be? We all know it's not actually back to full (or >80% as the bars would suggest), so what is actually going on? Marketing.

Like everything else, that battery meter is controlled by software, and that software is controlled by humans - at least for now. In related news...

Signal vs. Noise

We all know AT&T's pitch, "More Bars in more Places," but what does that really mean? We've also all had calls dropped only to look down at the phone to notice "full bars." The issue is that the meter only tells one half of the story.

When your phone is on standby and you're likely to look at the meter, those "bars" are the combination of two factors: the raw signal strength received from the cell tower, and the signal to noise ratio (the SNR) - essentially, how well the tower can hear your phone based on how much other noise (data) you are competing with. The SNR is by far the most significant component in determining call quality, but because the SNR is constantly changing the phones display a blend of the two measurements, and are set to give far too much weight to the signal strength of the tower.

When you are actually on a call, your phone and the tower are in in two-way communication, and the meter reads more precisely, but you're generally not looking down at the meter at those times.

When you see full bars, what you're seeing is that your phone is hearing the the local signal loud and clear, but what is not shown is if the tower can hear your phone shout back. Throughout your call, the amount of data being sent to your tower can change frequently, and when a deluge hits, it's as though you're pissing into a waterfall. In this case, you're not actually being lied to, just selectively informed. More marketing.

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Homeland Security: We can seize laptops for an indefinite period

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has concocted a remarkable new policy: It reserves the right to seize for an indefinite period of time laptops taken across the border.

A pair of DHS policies from last month say that customs agents can routinely--as a matter of course--seize, make copies of, and "analyze the information transported by any individual attempting to enter, re-enter, depart, pass through, or reside in the United States." (See policy No. 1 and No. 2.)

DHS claims the border search of electronic information is useful to detect terrorists, drug smugglers, and people violating "copyright or trademark laws." (Readers: Are you sure your iPod and laptop have absolutely no illicitly downloaded songs? You might be guilty of a felony.)

This is a disturbing new policy, and should convince anyone taking a laptop across a border to use encryption to thwart DHS snoops. Encrypt your laptop, with full disk encryption if possible, and power it down before you go through customs.

Here's a guide to customs-proofing your laptop that we published in March.

It's true that any reasonable person would probably agree that Customs agents should be able to inspect travelers' bags for contraband. But seizing a laptop and copying its hard drive is uniquely invasive--and should only be done if there's a good reason.

Sen. Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, called the DHS policies "truly alarming" and told the Washington Post that he plans to introduce a bill that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches.

But unless Congress changes the law, DHS may be able to get away with its new rules. A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled that an in-depth analysis of a laptop's hard drive using the EnCase forensics software "was permissible without probable cause or a warrant under the border search doctrine."

At a Senate hearing in June, Larry Cunningham, a New York prosecutor who is now a law professor, defended laptop searches--but not necessarily seizures--as perfectly permissible. Preventing customs agents from searching laptops "would open a vulnerability in our border by providing criminals and terrorists with a means to smuggle child pornography or other dangerous and illegal computer files into the country," Cunningham said.

The new DHS policies say that customs agents can, "absent individualized suspicion," seize electronic gear: "Documents and electronic media, or copies thereof, may be detained for further review, either on-site at the place of detention or at an off-site location, including a location associated with a demand for assistance from an outside agency or entity."

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Battles and Bids Over Pay by Touch

Pay By Touch, with revenues of approximately $70 million and at its height some 750 employees, has grown mainly through acquisition. Between 2005 and 2007, it bought at least six companies, including rival biometrics firm BioPay, and CardSystems Solutions, an Arizona-based credit-card payment processor. In December, 2006, Pay By Touch paid $100 million in cash and stock to acquire original loyalty marketer S&H Solutions, the 110-year old company behind S&H green stamps.

With its fingerprint payment technology slow to pay off, Pay By Touch this year started focusing on other lines of business. It signed grocers including Ohio's Dorothy Lane Markets and Harps Food Stores of Arkansas to a loyalty marketing program aimed at offering personalized coupons and deals to consumers who scanned their fingerprints with an in-store kiosk. Consumers who joined the program received personal offers and coupons based on purchasing history. Another line of business aimed at using fingerprints to help make check-cashing more secure had gained some traction with small banks.

Control Battles

But the company still needed more cash to fund operations. Last February, Pay By Touch raised $163 million from three hedge funds—Plainfield, Och-Ziff Capital Management (OZM), and Farallon Capital Management. Plainfield secured its portion of the loan, worth about $50 million, with Pay By Touch shares owned personally by company founder Rogers. Those shares amount to a 20% ownership stake in Pay By Touch but carry "supermajority" voting rights that give the holder control of 64% of the voting shares, enough to control the company.

The loan agreement calls for Plainfield to assume control of Rogers' shares in the event of a default. On Oct. 15, Plainfield's court complaint declared Pay By Touch in default because it failed to deliver its 2005 audited financial results by an Aug. 31, 2007, deadline. That set off a volley of lawsuits and legal moves. Having assumed Rogers' voting power, Plainfield created a new board of directors for Pay By Touch, reinstating two directors that Rogers had suddenly fired on Oct. 11, and a third who had resigned on Oct. 12.

On Oct. 18, Pay By Touch's Delaware lawyers disputed the validity of Plainfield's action, citing a technicality in the company's bylaws. Plainfield then issued a new order that would have seated Plainfield's new board on Nov. 1. But late on the night of Oct. 31, four Pay By Touch employees filed an involuntary petition aimed at forcing the company into bankruptcy. Rogers has also sought personal bankruptcy, in a case filed in the same court on the same day. Rogers didn't respond to an e-mail seeking comment, and Pay By Touch declined to make him available for an interview.

Usually a bankruptcy filing stays other pending litigation, but the judge in the bankruptcy case has allowed the Delaware case to proceed. A Delaware judge has issued a status quo order, forcing the company into management under the care of a temporary custodian and a temporary board of directors. A trial over control of the company in Delaware is set for Dec 21.

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New DNS exploit now in the wild and having a blast

About two weeks ago, we covered the release of a DNS security fix meant to patch a vulnerability in the system that matches domain names with IP addresses. The flaw had been discovered by security researcher Dan Kaminsky some months earlier but, at the time, details on the exploit were being kept secret. That information has since leaked thanks to an accidental blog post by someone at Matasano Security. Fast forward four days, and hackers, enterprising little children that they are, have released an exploit aimed squarely at the vulnerability.

This would be less of an issue if the widely released patch from two weeks ago had been fully deployed, but a number of companies or ISPs don't seem to have gotten the memo. Accordingly to Kaminsky, some 52 percent of DNS servers are still vulnerable to the attack. This is a marked improvement from the 86 percent vulnerability rate in the days immediately following the patch's release, but it's still far too high, especially with dangerous code now squirreling its way across the Internet. Patch deployment is not an instant process, even if the company is on the ball, but we'll hopefully see the number of patched DNS servers skyrocket in the next few days.

Some publications have dubbed the attack Metasploit, but that term refers to the open-source Metasploit Framework that was used to develop it. As for the exploit itself, it's a new variation on a classic DNS poisoning theme. It disrupts the normal translation functions of a DNS server, causing it to redirect users to websites other than the ones they intended to visit. A poisoned DNS server, for example, could send someone to www.RussianMalware.com when they had actually typed www.google.com into the address bar. DNS poisoning isn't new—vulnerabilities have existed for over a decade—but the one Kaminsky discovered increases the power of a successful attack.

Kaminsky has now detailed the methodology of a standard DNS poisoning attack and provides additional information on the vulnerability he discovered. As he describes it, a DNS lookup request is essentially a race between a good guy and a bad guy, each of whom possess certain advantages. The good guy knows when the race begins, and he knows the secret code that's been sent along with that request in order to verify that the response coming back is actually authentic. The bad guy doesn't have this code, but he actually decides when the request goes out, and he knows about the request before the good guy does.

Normally, the good guy wins the vast majority of these races, and the bad guy is forced to race again and again in an attempt to guess the right authentication value before the good guy provides correct information. What Kaminsky discovered, and what the new hack exploits, is a vulnerability in the recursive nature of the DNS system. DNS is designed to "bump" your request along until it reaches a server that can answer the client's request. If you ask www.DNSTarget.com for a location it doesn't know, DNSTarget.com can refer you to A.DNSTarget.com, B.DNSTarget.com, and so on, until it finds the requisite information. A.DNSTarget.com is what's called an "in-bailiwick" relative to DNSTarget.com—the information that comes back from that server is automatically trusted and passed on.

Therein lies the problem. Instead of launching an attack straight at www.dnstarget.com and losing 99 percent of the time, the bad guy attacks one of the recursive in-bailiwick servers and then feeds it false information. The in-bailiwick server communicates that data back to DNSTarget.com, which then caches the response—that way, it doesn't need to look the information up again. Problem is, the server has cached poisoned information and doesn't know it. Until that information drops out of the server's cache, the bad guy has effectively won the race.

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Digital Domain First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

AFTER scanning his textbooks and making them available to anyone to download free, a contributor at the file-sharing site PirateBay.org composed a colorful message for “all publishers” of college textbooks, warning them that “myself and all other students are tired of getting” ripped off. (The contributor’s message included many ripe expletives, but hey, this is a family newspaper.)

All forms of print publishing must contend with the digital transition, but college textbook publishing has a particularly nasty problem on its hands. College students may be the angriest group of captive customers to be found anywhere.

Consider the cost of a legitimate copy of one of the textbooks listed at the Pirate Bay, John E. McMurry’s “Organic Chemistry.” A new copy has a list price of $209.95; discounted, it’s about $150; used copies run $110 and up. To many students, those prices are outrageous, set by profit-engorged corporations (and assisted by callous professors, who choose which texts are required). Helping themselves to gratis pirated copies may seem natural, especially when hard drives are loaded with lots of other products picked up free.

But many people outside of the students’ enclosed world would call that plain theft.

Compared with music publishers, textbook publishers have been relatively protected from piracy by the considerable trouble entailed in digitizing a printed textbook. Converting the roughly 1,300 pages of “Organic Chemistry” into a digital file requires much more time than ripping a CD.

Time flies, however, if you’re having a good time plotting righteous revenge, and students seem angrier than ever before about the price of textbooks. More students are choosing used books over new; sales of a new edition plunge as soon as used copies are available, in the semester following introduction; and publishers raise prices and shorten intervals between revisions to try to recoup the loss of revenue — and the demand for used books goes up all the more.

Used book sales return nothing to publishers and authors. Digital publishing, however, offers textbook publishers a way to effectively destroy the secondary market for textbooks: they now can shift the entire business model away from selling objects toward renting access to a site with a time-defined subscription, a different thing entirely.

The transition has already begun, even while publishers continue to sell print editions. They are pitching ancillary services that instructors can require students to purchase, just like textbooks, but which are available only online on a subscription basis. Cengage Learning, the publisher of Professor McMurry’s “Organic Chemistry,” packages the new book with a two-semester “access card” to a Cengage site that provides instructors with canned quizzes and students with interactive tutorials.

Ronald G. Dunn, chief executive of Cengage Learning, says he believes the printed book is not about to disappear, because it presents a large amount of material conveniently. Mr. Dunn predicted that textbook publishers were “headed for a hybrid market: print will do what it does best, and digital will do what it does best.”

Whether students will view online subscriptions as a helpful adjunct to the printed textbook or as a self-aggrandizing ploy by publishers remains to be seen.

As textbook publishers try to shift to an online subscription model, they must also stem the threat posed by the sharing of scanned copies of their textbooks by students who use online publishing tools for different purposes. The students who create and give away digital copies are motivated not by financial self-interest but by something more powerful: the sweet satisfaction of revenge.

Mr. Dunn says that online piracy is “a significant issue for us.” His company assigns employees to monitor file-sharing sites, and they find in any given month 200 to 300 Cengage textbook titles being shared. The company sends notices to the sites, demanding that the files be removed and threatening legal action.

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The Future of Biotechnology

[This lecture is based on interviews with 150 of the world’s top scientists, many of them Nobel Laureates or directors of major scientific laboratories, about their conception of the science of the next 20 to 50 years. Many of these predictions are contained in my book, Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century. Of course, errors will be made, but the predictions in this article are not mere idle speculation, but reflect a fairly accurate description by the experts in biotechnology about the evolution of their field.]

Back in the 1980s, when the idea of the Human Genome Project was first proposed by a handful of biologists, the overwhelming reaction was negative, with scientists arguing that it would be prohibitively expensive and would consume too much time and resources. Only a handful of genes had been sequenced, at great expense, and many felt that a crash project to sequence the entire human genome would be impractical and adversely affect funding for other worthwhile projects.

Today, we realize that many of these pessimistic predictions were incorrect in part because of Moore’s Law. The biology of gene sequencing has now been automated and roboticized, with the power of computers doubling every 18 months and results being shared instantly on the internet. This is one of the most important factors driving the ever-accelerating pace of biotechnology. This, in turn, has translated into a new Moore’s Law for biotechnology: that the number of genes which are sequenced doubles every year. This means that the cost of sequencing a DNA base pair went down from $5 per base pair to a few cents today. Within 20 years, we may have personalized DNA sequencing and also an “encyclopedia of life” in which all major life forms are decoded.

This new Moore’s Law, in turn, allows one to make rough predictions about the progress of biotechnology into the next 20 years. Although predictions mentioned here are inevitably based on incomplete information, they will hopefully serve as a useful guide to make plausible projections for the future.

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Nabbed for speeding? GPS data could get you off the hook

As anyone who has ever gotten a speeding ticket knows (full disclosure: I never have... knock on wood), you often have very little ammo to fight back against the reading that the all-knowing radar gun spat out. But thanks to more sophisticated and affordable technology, that could be changing. GPS data was able to get a California teen off the hook for allegedly going 17 miles per hour over the speed limit, simultaneously casting doubt on the accuracy of police radars and giving hope to tech-savvy drivers.

The story started out simply enough. 18-year-old Shaun Malone was caught by a police radar going 62 in a 45 mph zone last summer. Under most circumstances, most people would assume that this was all simply true—it's not unheard of for teenagers to speed, after all. Malone's parents knew differently, though. It turns out that they had installed a GPS device from Rocky Mountain Tracking in his car in order to monitor his driving behavior.

But this was far more sophisticated than your everyday "turn left at the stop light" kind of GPS device—it tracked his speed, sending signals every 30 seconds, and was even capable of sending e-mail alerts to Malone's parents if Shaun ever exceeded 70mph. (I'm thanking my lucky stars right now that my parents didn't have access to this technology when I was a teenager.) According to the data from Shaun's GPS device, he and his parents argued that he was going exactly 45mph at almost the exact time the police radar clocked him going 62.

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P&G backs out of drug development deal with ARYx Therapeutics

Singapore, July 7, 2008: Fremont, California-based biopharmaceuticals company ARYx Therapeutics has said that American major Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals has backed out of a collaboration agreement between the companies.

P&G utilized a one-time thirty-day cancellation option linked to the completion of a Thorough QT (TQT) study to end the collaboration agreement between the companies covering the late-stage development and commercialization of ATI-7505, a prokinetic agent in Phase 2 clinical trials for chronic constipation and functional dyspepsia.

"We are surprised P&G would cancel our collaboration after receiving the results of the TQT study given that we achieved a successful result at the study's primary endpoint, and are disappointed in their decision to return the rights to ATI-7505 to us. We have been informed by P&G their decision is based on their view of certain commercial and technical criteria, and that the program no longer fits into their future plans. This decision by P&G does not in any way diminish our confidence in ATI-7505, and we believe the results from the TQT study, along with continued positive clinical and preclinical data, will allow moving ATI-7505 into late-stage development once the program is in the hands of a new partner," said Dr. Paul Goddard, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of ARYx Therapeutics.

As part of thed eal, according to a company release, the results from the just-completed TQT study qualified ARYx for the Tier 1, or highest, milestone payment from P&G. The collaboration agreement provides P&G a thirty-day option period from the lock of the database for the TQT study to cancel the collaboration or agree to pay ARYx the milestone payment provided for under our collaboration agreement. P&G has exercised their option to cancel the agreement effective immediately. However, P&G has also been very supportive in agreeing to a transition plan for handing the program back to ARYx to allow it to pursue an optimal partnering package.

As part of the transition plan, the on-going phase 2 studies in chronic constipation and functional dyspepsia will be terminated in an orderly method. No new patients will be enrolled and those currently on therapy will be withdrawn from the studies over the coming weeks, the release added.

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Detect Spy Cameras

Malaysia declared free from deadly bird flu virus

Malaysia has been declared free from avian influenza, three months after the deadly virus was detected in poultry from a village in the central Selangor state, a minister announced Monday.In June, the H5N1 strain of bird flu was discovered after a poultry rearer from the Paya Jaras Hilir village in Selangor, next to the capital Kuala Lumpur, reported that 60 of his chickens had suddenly died over three days.

Health ministry officials immediately screened villagers and conducted checks on all birds and poultry.

“The prompt action by the Veterinary Services Department to stamp out the bird flu outbreak according to the protocol had been effective,” said agriculture minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

Following three months of surveillance and laboratory tests that have not shown any traces of the virus, the country had fulfilled conditions set by the World Organisation for Animal Health and has been “declared free from the disease”, Muhyiddin was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

Following the outbreak in June, a total of 4,226 chicken, ducks and other birds were culled, incurring a cost of 39,939 ringgit ($11,735) in compensation paid out to the livestock owners, he said.

Muhyiddin said the government was still taking preventive measures against the virus, such as conducting checks on poultry farms, prohibiting the import of chicken, ducks and other birds from countries affected by the disease and intensifying checks at border checkpoints to curb smuggling.

“The government has so far spent almost 10 million ringgit ($2.9 million dollars) in compensation to the affected poultry rearers.

“Almost 80,000 birds were culled since the first bird flu case was detected in 2004,” he said.

Following news of June’s outbreak, neighbouring Singapore stopped import of poultry and eggs from the affected area.

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Is agricultural biotechnology safe?

Many of us are concerned by the possible risks of agricultural biotechnology. For example, when you grow transgenic crops, can their modified genes alter wild varieties of similar wild plants? The latest issue of the California Agriculture magazine carries several articles focusing on transgenic crops, fish and animals. And some discoveries are alarming: "one of the world’s most important crops, sorghum, spontaneously hybridized with one of the world’s worst weeds, johnsongrass, even when they were grown up to 330 feet apart; furthermore, the two plants are distinct species with different numbers of chromosomes." Read more for selected excerpts of these three important research papers.

California Agriculture is a peer-reviewed journal reporting research, reviews and news from the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources of the University of California. Its latest issue contains several articles about transgenic crops, fish and animals which show that "crop transgenes wander in the environment" and asks the question: "But is this is cause for worry?"

Here is a link to the abstracts of this July-September 2006 issue.

Let’s start with the paper about transgenic crops, "When crop transgenes wander in California, should we worry?" (PDF format, 10 pages, 1.08 MB). Here is the introduction of this article from Norman C. Ellstrand.

The movement of transgenes into populations for which they are not intended remains a primary concern for genetically engineered crops. Such gene flow in itself is not a risk. However, we know that the transfer of genes from traditionally improved crops into wild populations has already resulted, on occasion, in the evolution of weeds more difficult to control, as well as an increased extinction risk for rare species. Just like traditional crops, genetically engineered crops could occasionally create the same problems.

Before going further, do you have an idea of what kind of genetically enhanced products exist today? Below is a picture that will show you that there are many food products genetically engineered (Credit: Stephen Ausmus, USDA-ARS).

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Biotechnology: The Invisible Revolution

Jado initiates phase II trails of lead RAFT modulator in urticaria

04 Jul 2008 - JADO Technologies GmbH, a developer of RAFT intervention therapeutics, announced the start of a Phase II study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of oral TF002, a formulation of miltefosine, in patients with antihistamine resistant urticaria. TF002 exerts anti-inflammatory activity via RAFT modulation. RAFTs are sub-compartments in the lipid membrane of cells that play a role in the complex physiological processes, such as immune and inflammatory response.
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"The start of this systemic trial continues JADO's product development strategy in allergy. Having identified that miltefosine acts via a RAFT mechanism, we want to ensure that we continue to capture the value of the product in the allergy field with our formulations," noted Charl van Zyl, CEO of JADO. "We have made excellent progress with our studies and believe data from this study will continue to support our multi-faceted development program for TF002."

The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study will enroll a total of 75 patients in 7 German centers. The primary end-point of the study is urticaria symptoms assessed by urticaria activity score (UAS) at the end of treatment.

JADO is investigating topical and oral versions of TF002 in Phase II trials in several allergy indications. Proof of concept with the topical formulation in a Phase II study of atopic dermatitis has been achieved. The company and academic collaborators also recently published in Science proof of concept for its Alzheimer's RAFT inhibitor program.

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Biotechnology & Gene Therapy

Intel says to prepare for 'thousands of cores

Intel is telling software developers to start thinking about not just tens but thousands of processing cores.
Intel currently offers quad-core processors and is expected to bring out a Nehalem processor in the fourth quarter that uses as many as eight cores.

But the chipmaker is now thinking well beyond the traditional processor in a PC or server. Jerry Bautista, the co-director of the Tera-scale Computing Research Program at Intel, recently said that in a graphics-intensive environment the more cores Intel can build the better. "The more cores we have the better. Provided that we can supply memory bandwidth to the device."

On Monday, an Intel engineer took this a step further. Writing in a blog, Anwar Ghuloum, a principal engineer with Intel's Microprocessor Technology Lab, said: "Ultimately, the advice I'll offer is that...developers should start thinking about tens, hundreds, and thousands of cores now."

He said that Intel faces a challenge in "explaining how to tap into this performance." He continues: "Sometimes, the developers are trying to do the minimal amount of work they need to do to tap dual- and quad-core performance...I suppose this was the branch most discussions took a couple of years ago."

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