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Cancer drug reverses Alzheimer's in mice

An anticancer drug, bexarotene, reverses the physical and cognitive effects of Alzheimer's in mice in three days (Photo: Aaron Logan)

Studies of the anticancer drug bexarotene have shown that, in mice, the drug quickly reverses the physiological, cognitive, and memory deficits which are characteristic of Alzheimer's. More than half of the amyloid beta plaques associated with Alzheimer's were cleared from the brain within hours, and normal behavioral patterns which had been blocked by the plaques were restored within 72 hours.
Alzheimer's is a devastating degenerative disease that kills the person before it kills the body. The most common form of dementia, it usually begins with disturbance of short-term memory. As the disease progresses, additional symptoms can comprise confusion, trouble with language, mood swings, irritability, aggression, and long-term memory loss. Eventually bodily functions are lost, leading to the ultimate symptom of death. It is a disease of families, as great burdens are generally taken up by a sufferer's caregivers. Tens of millions of people worldwide suffer from Alzheimer's, a number which is expected to quadruple by 2050.
In the search for treatments for Alzheimer's, extensive use is made of genetically engineered mice. Such mice are engineered to express mutant human genes for the amyloid beta precursor protein APP, as well as enzymes that control APP cleavage. The result is that amyloid beta peptides, which are coexistent with Alzheimer's in humans, are also present in the mouse models.
In such mutant transgenic mice, diffuse deposition of amyloid beta in the brain is observed by six months of age, and the deposition is progressive. By nine months of age all mutant transgenic mice exhibit plaques in the brain, along with the characteristic deficits associated with Alzheimer's - at least so far as we can read cognitive deficits and neurological symptoms in mice.
In the Case Western studies, a team lead by Professor of Neurosciences Gary Landreth has long been studying the mechanism of Alzheimer's in humans. Recently one of his graduate students, Paige Cramer, suggested studying the effects of bexarotene on Alzheimer's mouse models. As part of this study, mice were given mega-doses of the drug, which is FDA approved to treat cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Within 72 hours, the mice's ability to form new memories and construct nests was restored, and 75 percent of amyloid beta plaques had been removed from the brain. No candidate drug has previously exhibited such dramatic activity toward the neurodegeneration associated with Alzheimer's.
Landreth's group intends to carry out a preliminary human trial of bexarotene in the next few months. This is made possible because the drug is already FDA approved as an anticancer drug, so safety of the drug has already been approved, at least at doses used for cancer treatment. This first human study will focus on such doses. Although much smaller than the mega-doses used in the study, we have no idea what might be effective and tolerable doses in treating human Alzheimer's, so future clinical studies will work up from what we presently know about bexarotene toxicity.
It is important to note that previous potential Alzheimer's treatments have had encouraging results in mouse models without producing a similar effect in humans with Alzheimer's. All physicians who have commented publicly on the study have emphasized that use of the drug as a treatment for Alzheimer's is premature to the point of folly.
Physicians are receiving a huge influx of calls from caretakers and relatives requesting that bexarotene be used off-label as a Hail Mary pass to treat their loved ones who suffer from Alzheimer's. The drug is extremely expensive, costing roughly US$100 per day in the dosage used for cancer treatment. This dose is far smaller than the mega doses used in Prof. Landreth's study, which might presently cost two or three thousand dollars per day. Despite the cost and cautions, there is little question that the efficacy of bexarotene as a treatment for Alzheimer's will be known long before the medical profession and the FDA concur on the use of bexarotene as an Alzheimer's treatment.

Source: Case Western University

App removes wandering people from photos

The Remove app is designed to remove bystanders from photos taken by mobile devices

It's kind of a funny thing, when you think about it ... even though it's normal to see other people milling about in public places, when we take photos of those places, we often don't want any of those people in our pictures. Ordinarily, this means standing around and waiting, then blasting off a shot in the split second when no one is within your frame - except perhaps the person you're taking a photo of. Swedish photography company Scalado, however, has now developed an alternative for use with mobile devices. It's called Remove, and appropriately enough, it removes those pesky "other people" from your photographs.
Remove works by initially taking a burst of shots in succession. By comparing those shots with one another, it is then able to identify which objects are stationary (the scenery, and/or your posing subject) and which ones are moving (those dang people). It then highlights the moving objects on a preview screen, and allows you to select which ones to remove. The end product is a composite photo, with the offending humans taken out.

Although a certain unwanted person may be blocking the background in one shot, that same bit of background will be visible in another shot - this little fact allows the app to fill in the background when it removes the person. Needless to say, Remove can't help you with bystanders who are standing still ... perhaps if it had a feature that used your device's speaker to yell "Hey buddy, get outta my shot!"
The app is presently still in the prototype stage, but a full version should be ready for a demonstration later this month, at the 2012 Mobile World Conference in Barcelona. It is reminiscent of a system being developed at the University of California, San Diego, that is able to remove pedestrians from Google Street View images.
The video below demonstrates how the app is to be used.
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/flNomXIIWr4?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Source: Scalado via New Scientist

Vibration "invisibility cloak" could protect buildings from earthquakes

Mathematicians are proposing a cloaking system, which could allow buildings to be rendered invisible to earthquakes (Photo via Shutterstock)

While "cloaking" technology may have once been limited exclusively to the realm of science fiction, regular Gizmag readers will know that it is now finding its way into real life - just within the past few years, scientists have demonstrated various experimental cloaking systems that prevent small objects from being seen, and in one case, from being heard. Such invisibility systems involve the use of metamaterials, which are man-made materials that exhibit optical qualities not found in nature. These are able to effectively bend light around an object, instead of allowing it to strike the object directly. Now, mathematicians from the University of Manchester are proposing technology based on the same principles, that would allow buildings to become "invisible" to earthquakes.
A team led by Dr. William Parnell is proposing that buildings in earthquake-prone regions could be surrounded with pressurized rubber at their bases. This could theoretically keep the elastic waves traveling through the ground from registering the presence of the building, instead simply passing around either side of it.
"We showed theoretically that pre-stressing a naturally available material - rubber - leads to a cloaking effect from a specific type of elastic wave," said Parnell. "Our team is now working hard on more general theories and to understand how this theory can be realized in practice ... If the theory can be scaled up to larger objects then it could be used to create cloaks to protect buildings and structures, or perhaps more realistically to protect very important specific parts of those structures."
While building rubber bumpers around all the buildings in one town might be a little over-ambitious, it has been suggested that the technology could be focused on structures such as electric pylons, nuclear power plants, and government offices.

Source: University of Manchester

Logitech enters the button-free mouse market with the Touch Mouse M600

Logitech has announced the new M600 Touch Mouse, where the familiar clicky buttons and scrollwheel are replaced by a touch-sensitive upper surface

There's no doubt about it, we live in a touch-enabled world. Everywhere you look there's a smartphone, tablet, laptop or computer obeying the fingertip commands of users. Separate input peripherals like keyboards and mice have also had their keys and buttons replaced by a smooth, touch-enabled surface. Although somewhat late to the party (Apple introduced its Magic Mouse as far back as 2009), Logitech is about to release its own Windows 7 mouse called the M600.

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The upper surface of the polished-stone-like surface of the 111.3 x 64.3 x 29.2 mm (4.38 x 2.53 x 1.14-inch) M600 is delightfully free of clicky buttons and scrollwheel. Input commands are activated by swiping or scrolling with the fingertips, and Logitech promises chop-free, fluid scrolling similar to the experience you might have on a modern smartphone's touchscreen display, courtesy of its Flow Scroll software (downloaded free from the product page).

As you might expect, the mouse wirelessly connects with a Windows 7 computer or laptop via the included Logitech Unifying receiver (one of which can handle up to six device connections), and laser-grade optics are said to offer precision tracking on virtually any surface. Users can program the mouse for left-handed use if desired and can power the device with one AA-sized battery for up to three months of operation, or two AA-sized batteries for twice that at the expense of a little weight.
Logitech says that the M600 will be available later this month for a suggested retail price of US$69.99, which is quite a bit more expensive than Speedlink's similarly capable CUE touch mouse.

Source: Logitech M600

Hot Gadgets That Rocked CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2012

Posted by ravi kumar

The hot gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) of 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada, are difficult to choose from, and the coverage of the event has featured more than enough electronics that are truly drool-worthy for gamers, TV lovers, movie buffs and even fitness fans. Whether you're in the market for a revolutionary gadget purchase or you simply want something to add to a wish list, here my favorite products of CES 2012. 

Sony Playstation Vita - Few electronics consumers can argue that the Sony Playstation Vita (PS Vita) is one highly anticipated and rather spectacular addition to portable, handheld gaming. The graphics on this portable device are truly impressive, and the implementation of a touch screen promises to deliver interactive gaming in an on-the-go format.The PS Vita is available on February 22nd, 2012, starting at $249. 

Samsung Galaxy Note - The Samsung Galaxy Note is a 5.3-inch android for AT&T with a stylus "S Pen" that makes it feel more like a tablet-phone hybrid. Demonstrations of artists sketching impressive caricatures and designs immediately caught my attention, and the more I research the Galaxy Note the more I want one. Everything you need in a smartphone is here -- mobile output, 8MP camera, light-weight design and app-friendly -- plus an intuitive scheduler and advanced memo feature, both enhanced by the digital "S Pen" accessory. Popular Electronics currently has a $699.99 price tag for this hot smartphone. 

Canon EOS C300 - A product is worthy of professional cinematography crews, the Canon C300will "mark the beginning of a whole new system for the motion picture industry." It is capable with all Canon EF and EF-S lenses, and the combination of the Super 35mm Canon CMOS sensor and the success of the Canon brand in the DSLR industry makes it easy to predict success for this revolutionary device. The $20,000 price tag might make most electronics consumers cringe, but it's tough to say no to a total resolution of 3840×2160 and 1080p images. 


 
 
LG 55" OLED 3D TV - The OLED 55" 3D TV certainly won't be cheap, considering 15" versions of LG's 3D HDTV technology have hit the shelves with a $2,500 price tag in recent years, but this OLED TV is the elusive unicorn of the HDTVs at CES. With a vivid, unrivaled picture and swift response times, this LG TV blows everything else out of the water -- 3D or not. No release date for this product has been announced, and it won CNET's Best of Show award for CES 2012. 


 
Basis Band: This amazing gadget monitors and tracks your stress level (via the Galvanic Skin Response), calories burned, activity level, and even the quality of your sleep. What sets the Basis Band apart from the similar products is its ability to be worn 24/7 for continuous monitoring. Considering the battery is reported to last a few weeks, the $199 price tag for the Basis Band seems even more a reasonable fitness purchase and less of an electronics splurge. You can reserve your Basis Band via pre-order now. 

Quantum computer with separate CPU and memory represents significant breakthrough

By Brian Dodson

The UCSB von Neumann quantum computer. The small black squares are the superconducting qubits, and the meandering lines are the memory resonators. (Photo: Erik Lucero)

To date, quantum computers have been implemented so that programming their operation was, in essence, hardwired into their essential structure. Although many useful demonstrations of quantum computing have resulted from such special-purpose devices, they are basically one-problem computers which cannot easily be reprogrammed or scaled to attack larger problems. As early models of practical quantum computers, they don't make the grade.

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The basis of essentially all practical classical computers is the Von Neumann architecture, which comprises a central processing unit (CPU) to do calculations, a memory which holds both data and CPU instructions, and an interface which allows the input and output of the CPU to change the information in memory. This architecture is easily scalable to nearly any size and capacity desired.
Recently, John Martinis' research group at the University of California at Santa Barbara has created the first general-purpose programmable quantum computer.
Their quantum computer uses superconducting circuits to form quantum computer equivalent of a Von Neumann architecture.
The result is the first universal (general purpose) quantum computer. To illustrate the importance of this design, the UCSB circuit, which has two qubit registers and two entangled memories, has been used to simulate a three-qubit logic gate. Such ability to solve problems having more active information than the capacity of the CPU is enabled by implementation of the Von Neumann architecture.

How quantum computers work

The irreducible carrier of quantum information is the qubit, named in analogy to the classical bit. But whereas the bit is a simple on-off signal, a qubit is in essence a unit vector whose direction is described by a pair of angles, θ and Φ. These angles describe the superposition of pure quantum states which makes up the quantum information in the qubit. While a bit defines a single binary parameter (+ 1), a qubit defines a continuous complex variable.
When a quantum operation is carried out on a qubit, these angles change, thereby changing the quantum information in that qubit. All quantum computation in the end reduces to combined rotations of quantum states.

Superconducting circuitry

There are a number of reasons that superconducting circuitry was chosen for implementation of the UCSB Von Neumann quantum computer. Superconducting structures which can store a qubit of information are easily constructed using standard microfabrication techniques. Additionally, such structures couple easily to MHz and GHz radio waves, which provides effective control of the computer operations using well understood electronics.
A larger physical dimension, however, implies there are likely to be more ways in which superconducting qubits can lose coherence through unintentional environmental interactions. This does lead to shorter coherence times than are achieved in other physical implementations of qubits, about 4 microseconds for the UCSB circuitry.
However, the key parameter is how many quantum operations can be made within the coherence time. In the case of the UCSB computer, several hundred operation cycles can be carried out without losing quantum coherence. While encouraging, the number of coherent quantum operations must be significantly increased to support a large-scale superconducting quantum computer.
The low-level organization of the UCSB quantum computer is called Resonator/zero-Qubit architecture (RezQu). This consists of a set of superconducting qubits (in the current example, two qubits). Each of the superconducting qubits is capacitatively coupled to a dedicated memory resonator, as well as to a common resonant quantum information bus. The bus is used to couple qubits during computational operations, while the memory resonators are used for storing the current state of the qubits. When a qubit is passed into its memory resonator, the qubit is placed in the ground state.
Using their new architecture, the UCSB group was able to implement the three-qubit Toffoli OR phase gate with 98% fidelity. Universal quantum computation can be carried out using combinations of this Toffoli gate and simple qubit rotations. However, it does not currently appear that 98% fidelity represents a sufficiently small error to permit conventional error-correcting codes to function properly. Thus, the UCSB Von Neumann quantum computer is potentially capable of universal computation, limited only by memory resources and quantum coherence time, but requires increased fidelity to fulfill this potential.
The Paper entitled Implementing the Quantum von Neumann Architecture with Superconducting Circuits is published online in the journal Science.

Sources: UCSB, physicsworld.com

Tablet PC by Milagrow

Milagrow announces a breakthrough with the potential to replace all desktop, laptops or other tablets for your computing, information, networking and entertainment needs. Milagrow TabTop™ PC. Power-packed with the latest features, Full HD, HDMI, USB Host, USB 2.0, SD Card, LAN connectivity and fully loaded with over 50 applications for various needs, Milagrow TabTop™ PC is perhaps the most powerful, fully loaded Tablet ever launched.

Detailed Specifications of Milagrow TabTop™ PC

credits: milagrowhumantech.com