http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-04-30/windows-7-gets-anime-ad-with-nanami-madobe-mascot
First, an Ad.
Then, AN ANIME
This is how Microsoft is trying to take over Japan!
But failing to Sony because of Vocaloid.
...
MICROSOFT GO BUY INTERNET (I think that's the name of GUMI's company)
30.4.10
Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai
Wow, really? This sounds pretty cool!
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-04-30/ore-no-imouto-ga-konnani-kawaii-wake-ga-nai-novels-get-anime
I should read some of that at baka-tsuki...hopefully they'll have more than one volume up, unlike baka test. Also hopefully first volume would take something like 6 episodes... D:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-04-30/ore-no-imouto-ga-konnani-kawaii-wake-ga-nai-novels-get-anime
I should read some of that at baka-tsuki...hopefully they'll have more than one volume up, unlike baka test. Also hopefully first volume would take something like 6 episodes... D:
ARiA
Well, it doesn't matter if APPEND is out if the good producers aren't using it (yet)...
Still regular Miku, but it's by Toku! And with refia's artwork again!! It's like SPiCa all over! Almost.
stolen from moetron (again) :V
Still regular Miku, but it's by Toku! And with refia's artwork again!! It's like SPiCa all over! Almost.
stolen from moetron (again) :V
29.4.10
Miku APPEND (is out)
This post will be edited and updated as I listen to more variations.
Miku Append-
Dark: First instinct, sounds like Kaai Yuki. I mean, a lot. A little later it starts sounding a bit like Miku again, but I was like "wait, is this really append, or Yuki? :V" EDIT- DARK SOUNDS SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH LIKE YUKI EDIT2- In another "comparison" song it sounds more original and so realistic... not bad.
Soft: This one sounds good. It sounds like an actual improvement of Miku. I think I'm going to like this version of Miku. EDIT- further listening, it's still distinctly Miku. I think there is improvement but maybe not as different as GUMI. Which could be a good thing I think. EDIT2- Actually I think Soft and Sweet sound a lot alike...? o_O Maybe Soft sounds more like Miku than Sweet... maybe the other way around.
EEEEH ABOUT THE SAME, SOFT AND SWEET. :V
Sweet: I don't seem to hear a difference at all... it could be my speakers, or it could be the producer. :V Will edit to confirm this later. EDIT2- WHAT I THOUGHT WAS SOFT AT FIRST TURNED OUT TO BE SWEET. Which sounded soft. And pretty good. Append is doing a good job... Actually it seems that Sweet is more "gentle" than soft.
Solid: Okay, this sounds like some cross between Miku and GUMI. Well, much more Miku. it does get the "Solid" theme across, I think, in that I suppose the voice is more crisp and clear (thereby sounding like a very confident Miku). So, not really GUMI at all. (GUMI seems like a confident character though, so that's why I think it sounds similar) First impressions must wait until the song has steadily progressed!
Light: 100% Miku. It's like this was Miku's default. Possibly even MORE Mikuized than the original Miku... but since you can't really be more original than the original that's probably not true. :V Former Miku fans would probably like this voice the best, since... it sounds just like Miku. CORRECTED: Light actually does have a more heavenly, "angelic" feel to it, as if Miku died and became an angel to sing. See "Vivid".
Vivid: WTF, this sounds exactly like Miku except the volume is slightly raised. IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY EARS??? I mean, even more Miku than "Light". "Light" at least was more... "higher" in a sense? In that she seemed to expressedly show her more lightweight side in her voice. Vivid is just like, the producer telling Miku to sing louder. :V VIVID. IS. THE. SAME. VOICE.
EDIT2- They posted a comparison song. BTW: SWEET + SOFT + DARK = AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG (This means apparently you can stack different modes together to create different kinds of voices... this gives a LOT more variety to Miku than before under the assumption that three of them don't already sound like Miku already...)
ANYONE HAVE ANY DIFFERENT OPINIONS? :V
EDIT3: Self promotion issue I CAN CONFIDENTLY SAY I'M THE FIRST PERSON TO REPORT ABOUT NICO APPEND SONGS SINCE IT CAME OUT. Nevermind that I practically ignored any of the sample songs and had to look into other sources to learn when new append models/pics came out on the official site... :V
EDIT4: Current conclusions:
1. Dark is the best.
2. Sweet and Soft come in as definitely the second best. I think depending on who's using the voice and how, either one can work. From the comparison song, though, My opinion is shifted towards Sweet as being the better one (but then again, I heard some of the (sample?) songs and in those cases Soft sounded better than Sweet, so again it probably depends on the producer and how he uses Miku's voice.)
3. In terms of originality, Solid is better than Light in the sense that it sounds less Miku-ish. However, in my preference (possibly due to all the exposure of Miku songs) I think I like Light better than Solid. The weightless feel is pretty nice to the ears, whereas I think the sense of confidence Miku has in solid may not be quite as appealing, at least not in Miku.
4. Vivid. IS. Miku. (the original) wtf :(
Miku Append-
Dark: First instinct, sounds like Kaai Yuki. I mean, a lot. A little later it starts sounding a bit like Miku again, but I was like "wait, is this really append, or Yuki? :V" EDIT- DARK SOUNDS SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH LIKE YUKI EDIT2- In another "comparison" song it sounds more original and so realistic... not bad.
Soft: This one sounds good. It sounds like an actual improvement of Miku. I think I'm going to like this version of Miku. EDIT- further listening, it's still distinctly Miku. I think there is improvement but maybe not as different as GUMI. Which could be a good thing I think. EDIT2- Actually I think Soft and Sweet sound a lot alike...? o_O Maybe Soft sounds more like Miku than Sweet... maybe the other way around.
EEEEH ABOUT THE SAME, SOFT AND SWEET. :V
Sweet: I don't seem to hear a difference at all... it could be my speakers, or it could be the producer. :V Will edit to confirm this later. EDIT2- WHAT I THOUGHT WAS SOFT AT FIRST TURNED OUT TO BE SWEET. Which sounded soft. And pretty good. Append is doing a good job... Actually it seems that Sweet is more "gentle" than soft.
Solid: Okay, this sounds like some cross between Miku and GUMI. Well, much more Miku. it does get the "Solid" theme across, I think, in that I suppose the voice is more crisp and clear (thereby sounding like a very confident Miku). So, not really GUMI at all. (GUMI seems like a confident character though, so that's why I think it sounds similar) First impressions must wait until the song has steadily progressed!
Light: 100% Miku. It's like this was Miku's default. Possibly even MORE Mikuized than the original Miku... but since you can't really be more original than the original that's probably not true. :V Former Miku fans would probably like this voice the best, since... it sounds just like Miku. CORRECTED: Light actually does have a more heavenly, "angelic" feel to it, as if Miku died and became an angel to sing. See "Vivid".
Vivid: WTF, this sounds exactly like Miku except the volume is slightly raised. IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY EARS??? I mean, even more Miku than "Light". "Light" at least was more... "higher" in a sense? In that she seemed to expressedly show her more lightweight side in her voice. Vivid is just like, the producer telling Miku to sing louder. :V VIVID. IS. THE. SAME. VOICE.
EDIT2- They posted a comparison song. BTW: SWEET + SOFT + DARK = AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG (This means apparently you can stack different modes together to create different kinds of voices... this gives a LOT more variety to Miku than before under the assumption that three of them don't already sound like Miku already...)
ANYONE HAVE ANY DIFFERENT OPINIONS? :V
EDIT3: Self promotion issue I CAN CONFIDENTLY SAY I'M THE FIRST PERSON TO REPORT ABOUT NICO APPEND SONGS SINCE IT CAME OUT. Nevermind that I practically ignored any of the sample songs and had to look into other sources to learn when new append models/pics came out on the official site... :V
EDIT4: Current conclusions:
1. Dark is the best.
2. Sweet and Soft come in as definitely the second best. I think depending on who's using the voice and how, either one can work. From the comparison song, though, My opinion is shifted towards Sweet as being the better one (but then again, I heard some of the (sample?) songs and in those cases Soft sounded better than Sweet, so again it probably depends on the producer and how he uses Miku's voice.)
3. In terms of originality, Solid is better than Light in the sense that it sounds less Miku-ish. However, in my preference (possibly due to all the exposure of Miku songs) I think I like Light better than Solid. The weightless feel is pretty nice to the ears, whereas I think the sense of confidence Miku has in solid may not be quite as appealing, at least not in Miku.
4. Vivid. IS. Miku. (the original) wtf :(
Adamantoise
I LOVE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LaIjDAQpsY
BTW upon reading some guides it seems that if I use a different team its entirely possible to kill ademantoise (probably takes more strategy too... maybe) although since I main vanille I'm not sure if I want to do that...
Maybe will try just for experience but since I like vanille the most and am pretty happy with the arrangement for death spamming I will probably go back to it afterwards.
EDIT: SUMMONING AUTOKILLS THE LEGS
WTF I DID NOT KNOW THAT
ITS NOT LOGICAL EITHER SO HOW COULD I HAVE EVER FIGURED THAT OUT WTF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LaIjDAQpsY
BTW upon reading some guides it seems that if I use a different team its entirely possible to kill ademantoise (probably takes more strategy too... maybe) although since I main vanille I'm not sure if I want to do that...
Maybe will try just for experience but since I like vanille the most and am pretty happy with the arrangement for death spamming I will probably go back to it afterwards.
EDIT: SUMMONING AUTOKILLS THE LEGS
WTF I DID NOT KNOW THAT
ITS NOT LOGICAL EITHER SO HOW COULD I HAVE EVER FIGURED THAT OUT WTF
27.4.10
cherry
Not all good GUMI songs have a 1000 favorites or 100,000 watches.
Although, as a general rule, if the song's favorites is about 10% the amount of watches it got, its not a bad song (varies with opinion of course). Those with a lower percentage are most likely lower quality though, and not worth listening to (no exceptions I've seen so far... then again, I've been avoiding those with lower than 10%, so who knows?)
It's hard though because a lot of GUMI (and other Vocaloid) stuff comes out so you never know...
It's Pokemo-- wait a minute
http://kotaku.com/5525308/like-pokemon-only-for-science
This is actually kind of interesting. When I was younger (like, really young) I used to like those flash-card info things that this one society would send out, and if you applied for their thing they give you cards every month or something. (Sadly they usually handed out mostly mammal type species, even though insects and arthropods vastly outnumber the mammals...)
This is interesting if you make animals into a card game... it could be fun...
WHO WANTS TO PLAY
This is actually kind of interesting. When I was younger (like, really young) I used to like those flash-card info things that this one society would send out, and if you applied for their thing they give you cards every month or something. (Sadly they usually handed out mostly mammal type species, even though insects and arthropods vastly outnumber the mammals...)
This is interesting if you make animals into a card game... it could be fun...
WHO WANTS TO PLAY
AKB48
An AKB48 is fine, too.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-04-27/anime-expo-to-host-akb48-all-girl-idol-group
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-04-27/anime-expo-to-host-akb48-all-girl-idol-group
26.4.10
Drug-making Mice
I LOLed at the title of this article.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100426/full/news.2010.202.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100426/full/news.2010.202.html
24.4.10
未来紀元歴元年
In Chinese I read it as "Fu Lai Ji Wan Li Wan Nian"
...sadly I can't even translate that. D: Future recording end, history end, year? :V
...WHATEVER ITS GUMI, THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS
23.4.10
Art
This person can make some amazing pictures.
http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=27517
TALENT IS NOT DIVIDED EQUALLY IN THIS WORLD
http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=27517
TALENT IS NOT DIVIDED EQUALLY IN THIS WORLD
18.4.10
Sayonara Memories - GUMI
WHY GUMI ARE YOU SO GOOD
THIS IS AN AMAZING REPLICA OF SAYONARA MEMORIES
yes, apparently I'm on a GUMI spree.
THIS IS AN AMAZING REPLICA OF SAYONARA MEMORIES
yes, apparently I'm on a GUMI spree.
Song of the Month
Recently I got the idea of having a "song of the month". The song of the month is basically a song that gets stuck in my head the entire month I find that I really like, and ultimately start listening to for the span of about a month. Sure there are other songs but usually good songs come with a time span of about a month in between, each (imo). Its not just because I decided to choose a good song each month, but really the other way around; it seems that a catchy song happens to come along, oddly, every month or so.
For example, since I just began this, I'll start with some catchy songs I've heard from the start of this year to right now:
January: Kimi no Shira Nai Monotagari (supercell) - From Bakemonogatari
February: SPiCa (ToKu) - Hatsune Miku song (he also did Blue Bird, my favorite GUMI song)
March: Sayonara Memories (supercell) - It actually came out in January but I didn't hear it until around this time :(
April: Yowamushi Monburan (DECO*27) - the GUMI song I posted 3 posts before this one. Or was it two? Not the Ren or the Oppai one, that's for sure. :V
For example, since I just began this, I'll start with some catchy songs I've heard from the start of this year to right now:
January: Kimi no Shira Nai Monotagari (supercell) - From Bakemonogatari
February: SPiCa (ToKu) - Hatsune Miku song (he also did Blue Bird, my favorite GUMI song)
March: Sayonara Memories (supercell) - It actually came out in January but I didn't hear it until around this time :(
April: Yowamushi Monburan (DECO*27) - the GUMI song I posted 3 posts before this one. Or was it two? Not the Ren or the Oppai one, that's for sure. :V
17.4.10
探偵むしめか゛ね ～ さらば怪人256面相
A song by Kagamine Ren.
I'm not a big fan of his voice and I don't like his vocals in this song either, but the video is AWESOME. And worth watching.
And has some GUMI in it. :V
16.4.10
弱虫モンブラン
I admit, I didn't find this myself, I got this from the NotCliche blog D: SHAME ON ME AS A GUMI FAN FOR NOT FINDING THIS FIRST.
It's been a while since there was a good GUMI song, this one really works well! :D
So the Kanji says something like "weak bug" and then there's katakana which I once again can't interpret... :V
15.4.10
The Purpose of Stress
...is to form memories?
According to the latest volume of Nature:
Neuroscience: Stressing memory
J. Neurosci. 30, 5037–5046 (2010)
The emotional arousal associated with a class of stress hormones may be required to form long-term memories, say Benno Roozendaal at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, Marcelo Wood at the University of California, Irvine, and their colleagues.
The authors gave glucocorticoid hormones to rats and mice and tested how well the animals remembered objects and their locations. They found that the hormones improved memory by boosting acetylation, the addition of acetyl groups to nuclear targets.
This modification appears to facilitate some of the gene transcription required to consolidate memories. But promoting acetylation in the absence of the hormone didn't improve memory. The hormone had to first activate receptors on the cell membrane in order to trigger a cascade of events involved in laying down memories.
======
SO STRESS YOURSELF OUT IF YOU WANT TO REMEMBER MORE. Well seeing how detrimental everyone is saying these stress hormones are its probably... expected that they have some other role other than making your lifespan shorter. :V
According to the latest volume of Nature:
Neuroscience: Stressing memory
J. Neurosci. 30, 5037–5046 (2010)
The emotional arousal associated with a class of stress hormones may be required to form long-term memories, say Benno Roozendaal at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, Marcelo Wood at the University of California, Irvine, and their colleagues.
The authors gave glucocorticoid hormones to rats and mice and tested how well the animals remembered objects and their locations. They found that the hormones improved memory by boosting acetylation, the addition of acetyl groups to nuclear targets.
This modification appears to facilitate some of the gene transcription required to consolidate memories. But promoting acetylation in the absence of the hormone didn't improve memory. The hormone had to first activate receptors on the cell membrane in order to trigger a cascade of events involved in laying down memories.
======
SO STRESS YOURSELF OUT IF YOU WANT TO REMEMBER MORE. Well seeing how detrimental everyone is saying these stress hormones are its probably... expected that they have some other role other than making your lifespan shorter. :V
eNose
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/electronic-nose-knows-a-good-sme.html?rss=1
Consequently because the olfactory system is essentially just a bunch of different receptors picking up different chemicals, I think its well known that designing a system that can detect various odors (including those it never encountered before) has been a complex issue. Props to research in this area!
Although the comment on skatole did make me laugh a little. :V
Consequently because the olfactory system is essentially just a bunch of different receptors picking up different chemicals, I think its well known that designing a system that can detect various odors (including those it never encountered before) has been a complex issue. Props to research in this area!
Although the comment on skatole did make me laugh a little. :V
MultiTasking
For whatever reason this reminds me of Sion from Melty Blood.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/multitasking-splits-the-brain.html?rss=1
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/multitasking-splits-the-brain.html?rss=1
14.4.10
Wireless
Have wireless internet? What about wireless electricity?
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/wireless-power-0409.html
Brings a whole new world to drops. "Dammit, my power is lagging! My computer shut down from a lack of power again!!"
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/wireless-power-0409.html
Brings a whole new world to drops. "Dammit, my power is lagging! My computer shut down from a lack of power again!!"
FF and other things
FFXIII and Ragnarok Online: My Minstrel was totally a Paradigm Shifter.
Level 5 Ravager: Epic elemental damage with DS and AV.
Level 4 Synergist: Support with songs like Magic Strings and Impressive Riff, and MC
Level 4 Saboteur: Frost Joke! Status arrows with melody strike! Pang Voice!
Level 2 Commando: Having some aspd I can run in and ram enemies with my instrument while dodging some attacks, plus steal!!
Level 1 Medic: Level 1 heal...
Level 1 Sentinel: I'm agi type so I can dodge, but I'm probably as good of a tank as Hope is with his pathetically low HP...
Unlike how other people usually stick to one or two types of roles in RO, I always thought my minstrel was more of a "jack of all trades" char so I thought the concept of paradigm shift was cool.
*stringstringstring* PARADIGM SHIFT-RAVAGER DS DS ARROW VULCANNNN PARADIGM SHIFT - SABOTEUR Pang Voice FROST JOKE PARADIGM SHIFT - RAVAGER AV FINISHERRRRR
Yeah I'm a geek.
Final Fantasy VI and Vocaloid
Since you can rename everyone in FFVI, who would be what? Disregarding gender since there are only 3 girls in FFVI yet the girls vastly outnumber the guys in Vocaloid:
Terra - Miku (Of course)
Locke - Kaito (Ok, appropriate enough)
Edgar - ? Maybe Rin
Sabin - ? Maybe Ren?
Cid - Gakupo (they both use a sword)
Gao - GUMI (similar color theme, both hyper and cool and awesome!!)
Celes - Luka (the cooooool girl.)
Relm - Kaai Yuki (LOLI)
The old guy (I forgot his name) - Kiyoteru (takes care of Relm!)
Shadow - ? miki? since Relm/old Guy/Shadow go together like the AHS group
Moogle - ?
Umateru (or whatever that yeti thing is) - ?
That guy that lives in a monster's stomach - ?
I'm missing Meiko but that's ok, she doesn't really fit anywhere right now.
Maybe as Umateru :V
Level 5 Ravager: Epic elemental damage with DS and AV.
Level 4 Synergist: Support with songs like Magic Strings and Impressive Riff, and MC
Level 4 Saboteur: Frost Joke! Status arrows with melody strike! Pang Voice!
Level 2 Commando: Having some aspd I can run in and ram enemies with my instrument while dodging some attacks, plus steal!!
Level 1 Medic: Level 1 heal...
Level 1 Sentinel: I'm agi type so I can dodge, but I'm probably as good of a tank as Hope is with his pathetically low HP...
Unlike how other people usually stick to one or two types of roles in RO, I always thought my minstrel was more of a "jack of all trades" char so I thought the concept of paradigm shift was cool.
*stringstringstring* PARADIGM SHIFT-RAVAGER DS DS ARROW VULCANNNN PARADIGM SHIFT - SABOTEUR Pang Voice FROST JOKE PARADIGM SHIFT - RAVAGER AV FINISHERRRRR
Yeah I'm a geek.
Final Fantasy VI and Vocaloid
Since you can rename everyone in FFVI, who would be what? Disregarding gender since there are only 3 girls in FFVI yet the girls vastly outnumber the guys in Vocaloid:
Terra - Miku (Of course)
Locke - Kaito (Ok, appropriate enough)
Edgar - ? Maybe Rin
Sabin - ? Maybe Ren?
Cid - Gakupo (they both use a sword)
Gao - GUMI (similar color theme, both hyper and cool and awesome!!)
Celes - Luka (the cooooool girl.)
Relm - Kaai Yuki (LOLI)
The old guy (I forgot his name) - Kiyoteru (takes care of Relm!)
Shadow - ? miki? since Relm/old Guy/Shadow go together like the AHS group
Moogle - ?
Umateru (or whatever that yeti thing is) - ?
That guy that lives in a monster's stomach - ?
I'm missing Meiko but that's ok, she doesn't really fit anywhere right now.
Maybe as Umateru :V
12.4.10
Hatsune Miku Append
http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/pages/prod/vocaloid/cv01a.jsp
An upgrade to Miku, for those who don't know already.
I haven't heard any of the songs, but I do have a few words on the new character design. First off, I am utterly confused at how her new skirt works. I can't seem... to visualize it? It defies physics! What is it made of! What is its shape! What IS it? :V Maybe when the last image comes out I can figure it out...
Aside from that, I would have to admit that one thing Crypton does well with their vocaloids is make their character icons good (at least this is the case when Miku came out). I mean, I may think GUMI is better but when her first character design came out it seemed god-awful and I totally didn't expect I'd like any of her songs. The original Miku design was very cute, and this one is just... nice, I suppose? The elbow gloves help a lot, yea... the elbow gloves... :V The new Miku certainly has more of a "mature" feel rather than the "cute" feel from the original Miku.
Lets hope the songs that come out live up to the new character design!
EDIT: OH SHI- It looks like the few fanart of Miku APPEND on Pixiv draws her blouse with a slit in the middle... or rather, the "tie" that Miku used to have is now actually just a lift-up middle part of Miku APPEND's blouse? ...Really???
Man I don't know that's just weird, or perverted...:V
An upgrade to Miku, for those who don't know already.
I haven't heard any of the songs, but I do have a few words on the new character design. First off, I am utterly confused at how her new skirt works. I can't seem... to visualize it? It defies physics! What is it made of! What is its shape! What IS it? :V Maybe when the last image comes out I can figure it out...
Aside from that, I would have to admit that one thing Crypton does well with their vocaloids is make their character icons good (at least this is the case when Miku came out). I mean, I may think GUMI is better but when her first character design came out it seemed god-awful and I totally didn't expect I'd like any of her songs. The original Miku design was very cute, and this one is just... nice, I suppose? The elbow gloves help a lot, yea... the elbow gloves... :V The new Miku certainly has more of a "mature" feel rather than the "cute" feel from the original Miku.
Lets hope the songs that come out live up to the new character design!
EDIT: OH SHI- It looks like the few fanart of Miku APPEND on Pixiv draws her blouse with a slit in the middle... or rather, the "tie" that Miku used to have is now actually just a lift-up middle part of Miku APPEND's blouse? ...Really???
Man I don't know that's just weird, or perverted...:V
How To Make Graphene
http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v4/n4/full/nnano.2009.58.html
I'm not a chemical engineer but Graphene has been a hot topic in material science these days! Would be pretty cool if someone can make some of this stuff and play around with it. Tell me if you're interested and I can get you the paper! :V
I'm not a chemical engineer but Graphene has been a hot topic in material science these days! Would be pretty cool if someone can make some of this stuff and play around with it. Tell me if you're interested and I can get you the paper! :V
9.4.10
Another GUMI Song (フリージアの記憶)
I don't know the title to this!!! D:
Something diary I think. *fails at hiragana* Oh well not important! Just put it here since its nice but not worth filling up my 100 favorites with... I think. :V
EDIT: testing to see if this embedding works.
EDIT: WHOOT I CAN EMBED NICO VIDEOS NOW :D
EDIT3: BWAHAHA THAT'S NOT HIRAGANA THAT'S KATAKANA *more epic fail*
Something diary I think. *fails at hiragana* Oh well not important! Just put it here since its nice but not worth filling up my 100 favorites with... I think. :V
EDIT: testing to see if this embedding works.
EDIT: WHOOT I CAN EMBED NICO VIDEOS NOW :D
EDIT3: BWAHAHA THAT'S NOT HIRAGANA THAT'S KATAKANA *more epic fail*
8.4.10
Drug for Tumor Infiltration
Disclaimer: Always take Cancer news with a grain of salt. I myself have been often annoyed how people post something saying "THIS IS THE CURE TO CANCER" with some news which falls into oblivion 2 months later. That being said, it's not bad to read up on some news to see what kind of ideas have been floating around. Gold particles and nanomachines have already been explored, along with various other sorts of chemotheraputic treatments. Here's another one to add to the list.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/new-peptide-helps-cancer-drugs-b.html?rss=1
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/new-peptide-helps-cancer-drugs-b.html?rss=1
7.4.10
Making Research Articles Free
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100407/full/464822a.html?s=news_rss
Ironically, this article itself is NOT free, so I'll post it here.
=====
US seeks to make science free for all
Moves to make research funded by the US government available to everyone could mark a turning point in a publishing revolution. Declan Butler reports.
Declan Butler
The push to open up scientific knowledge to all looks set to go into overdrive. Over the past decade, the accessibility offered by the Internet has transformed science publishing. Several efforts have already tried to harness the web's power to make research papers available for free. Now two parallel efforts from the US government could see almost all federally funded research made available in free, publicly accessible repositories.
Traditional science publishing relies on institutions and libraries buying subscriptions and site licences to academic journals. Some 'open-access' publishers, such as the non-profit Public Library of Science (PLoS), make papers free to readers immediately and try to cover the costs of peer review and publication by charging authors a fee. But author-pays business models are still in their infancy, and the papers they produce account for only a fraction of the literature.
The US government and many other research funders are largely taking a different tack — one that can instantly make huge numbers of scientific articles publicly available after a certain delay. Increasingly, they are making it a condition of funding that when scientists publish in a peer-reviewed subscription journal they must place of copy of their paper in a free, publicly accessible database. Such archives, however, mostly contain the authors' final version of the manuscript rather than the published, version of record available on the publisher's website.
The argument that everyone should have free access to the fruits of taxpayer-funded research has proved popular with lawmakers keen to reap the benefits of investment in science. And distributing results as widely as possible is predicted to produce socioeconomic gains, such as helping doctors keep up with medical research.
"The notion of open government and open access has taken a firm hold," says John Hawley, executive director of the American Society for Clinical Investigation in Ann Arbor, Michigan. "If that means public-access mandates, so be it."
Public access was boosted in late 2007, when the US Congress passed a bill making it compulsory for scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to deposit their papers in the agency's PubMed Central archive within 12 months of publication.
The agency had introduced a voluntary policy in 2005, but the idea flopped when scientists showed little interest in depositing their articles. Since the measure became compulsory, submissions to PubMed Central and use of the archive have skyrocketed (see 'Where freedom grows'). PubMed Central now holds nearly 2 million articles, and on a typical weekday some 420,000 users between them download about 750,000 articles.
In recent years similar mandates have been imposed by research funders in other countries, including the Wellcome Trust — Britain's largest research charity — all the UK government's research councils and the European Research Council.
In the United States, two recent proposals could see a policy similar to that of the NIH soon cover most federally funded research. The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), a bill reintroduced in the Senate in June last year by Joseph Lieberman (Independent, Connecticut) and John Cornyn (Republican, Texas), would apply to all research funded by federal agencies with annual research budgets of more than $100 million, with a few exceptions such as classified research. The House could consider the bill within months.
Meanwhile, a six-week public consultation on whether and how public-access policies might be implemented ended on 21 January. Organized by the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the consultation has sparked intense speculation that President Barack Obama might soon sign an executive order bringing a policy covering similar ground to the FRPAA into force. That order might also dispense with the $100-million budget cap, but, being an executive order, it would be more vulnerable than a federal law to being overturned by a future administration.
Fledgling model
The various public initiatives enjoy wide support among leaders of research agencies, universities, libraries and research charities. A broad consensus on the need to enable public access to all US federal research emerged in a report published in January by the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable, a panel of librarians, academic leaders and publishers convened last June by the OSTP and the House Committee on Science and Technology.
The report recommended that archiving policies should not damage commercial and not-for-profit scholarly publishing businesses. As with the NIH mandate, it says that publishers should be allowed to delay archiving an article for several months or more after it is published, so that they don't lose business from their paying subscribers.
Some publishers aren't satisfied. One panel member, YoungSuk Chi, vice-chairman and managing director of global academic and customer relations for Amsterdam-based Elsevier, dissented from the report, saying that it supports "an overly expansive role of government and advocates approaches to the business of scholarly publishing that I believe are overly prescriptive". In a joint statement to the OSTP, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Washington DC Principles Coalition for Free Access to Science — which represents society publishers — slammed NIH-style mandates as "a means for facilitating international piracy", saying that they would "damage the very institutions that researchers, the public and government itself rely on to peer review, publish, disseminate and preserve scientific information". The statement argued that the government should instead make research results available as summaries, reports and data.
Many of these organizations' members, however, already have policies allowing scientists to deposit their own versions of manuscripts in free public archives, and some allow them to post a copy of the final published version. Many journals, including Nature, also help authors fulfil institutional mandates by depositing articles in PubMed Central on the authors' behalf.
Allan Adler, the AAP's vice-president of government and legal affairs, says that its message is being heard in Washington and that he expects the two US proposals to "get more careful consideration than did the NIH mandate". One member of the AAP has explicitly distanced itself from the organization's stance, however. Mike Rossner, executive director of Rockefeller University Press in New York, wrote to Bart Gordon (Democrat, Tennessee), chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology, on 31 March saying: "We strongly support the efforts of the federal government, such as the NIH mandate and the Federal Research Public Access Act, to provide public access to the results of federally funded research."
Mark Patterson, director of publishing at PLoS's European office in Cambridge, UK, said that although the roundtable's proposals would "significantly improve" access, they don't go far enough. He argues that bills such as the FRPAA should specifically support models in which authors' fees allow articles to become freely available the moment they are published.
For now, mandates seem to be the tool of choice for governments and funders to engineer greater public access, whereas the author-pays method remains a fledgling business model. Publishers such as PLoS and the for-profit BioMed Central, which in 2008 was bought by international publisher Springer, based in Germany, have only recently shown that their author-pays model can be sustainable for at least some forms of journal (see 'Opening up'). But the model has proved unable to generate the investment needed for highly selective journals or for those that provide substantial amounts of editorial added value, such as reviews.
A growing number of funders are paying author fees on behalf of the scientists they support, but this approach is still far from becoming mainstream. In a bid to change that, five large US research centres, including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts, launched the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity in September 2009 to encourage more funders and institutions to pay author fees. This could "reduce the risk to publishers of moving to an open-access business model", says Stuart Shieber, who heads Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication and is one of the drivers behind the initiative.
Matthew Cockerill, managing director of BioMed Central, welcomes the move. "The Compact members are actively thinking about how to bring about a sustainable change in how their scholarly output is communicated, and are beginning to set up the necessary funding channels to facilitate this," he says.
Hybrid vigour
Three more institutions, including Columbia University in New York, signed up to the Compact last December. The funds created by the Compact's founding institutions are small, however, and researchers have so far been slow to tap into them. But some fear that the Compact's policies could slow the transition to greater open access because they explicitly discourage paying author fees to 'hybrid journals'. These subscription journals — such as The EMBO Journal, published by Nature Publishing Group — give authors the option to pay a fee to make an individual article open access.
Shieber says he is open to revising the policy, but adds that it is motivated by a belief that scarce author fees should go first to pure open-access journals. He also notes concerns that some subscription journals are charging open-access fees while also making money from subscriptions. To ease those worries, some publishers, including Oxford University Press and Nature Publishing Group, modify the subscription prices of hybrid journals in response to open-access uptake.
"The hybrid model is far less risky than betting on a full author-pays business model," says Philip Davis, a graduate student in science publishing at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He argues that hybrid journals are a key mechanism to allow subscription-based journals to move to greater open access without jeopardizing their viability. "I'd much prefer a transition in business models, and most hybrid publishing models allow for this transition."
One problem is that little research has been done to explore how a transition to greater open access would best be designed, says Mark McCabe, an economist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "An ideal future does not consist of only open-access journals, but rather a mix of open-access, subscription-based and perhaps hybrid journals," he says.
Patrick Labelle, a librarian at the University of Ottawa, Canada, which is a member of the Compact, is convinced that open access will win out over conventional scholarly publishing. "The rapid pace that we have seen in the past few years by institutions, granting agencies, publishers and researchers is indicative that change is upon us," he says. "Open access will, one day, prevail over traditional publishing models."
Ironically, this article itself is NOT free, so I'll post it here.
=====
US seeks to make science free for all
Moves to make research funded by the US government available to everyone could mark a turning point in a publishing revolution. Declan Butler reports.
Declan Butler
The push to open up scientific knowledge to all looks set to go into overdrive. Over the past decade, the accessibility offered by the Internet has transformed science publishing. Several efforts have already tried to harness the web's power to make research papers available for free. Now two parallel efforts from the US government could see almost all federally funded research made available in free, publicly accessible repositories.
Traditional science publishing relies on institutions and libraries buying subscriptions and site licences to academic journals. Some 'open-access' publishers, such as the non-profit Public Library of Science (PLoS), make papers free to readers immediately and try to cover the costs of peer review and publication by charging authors a fee. But author-pays business models are still in their infancy, and the papers they produce account for only a fraction of the literature.
The US government and many other research funders are largely taking a different tack — one that can instantly make huge numbers of scientific articles publicly available after a certain delay. Increasingly, they are making it a condition of funding that when scientists publish in a peer-reviewed subscription journal they must place of copy of their paper in a free, publicly accessible database. Such archives, however, mostly contain the authors' final version of the manuscript rather than the published, version of record available on the publisher's website.
The argument that everyone should have free access to the fruits of taxpayer-funded research has proved popular with lawmakers keen to reap the benefits of investment in science. And distributing results as widely as possible is predicted to produce socioeconomic gains, such as helping doctors keep up with medical research.
"The notion of open government and open access has taken a firm hold," says John Hawley, executive director of the American Society for Clinical Investigation in Ann Arbor, Michigan. "If that means public-access mandates, so be it."
Public access was boosted in late 2007, when the US Congress passed a bill making it compulsory for scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to deposit their papers in the agency's PubMed Central archive within 12 months of publication.
The agency had introduced a voluntary policy in 2005, but the idea flopped when scientists showed little interest in depositing their articles. Since the measure became compulsory, submissions to PubMed Central and use of the archive have skyrocketed (see 'Where freedom grows'). PubMed Central now holds nearly 2 million articles, and on a typical weekday some 420,000 users between them download about 750,000 articles.
In recent years similar mandates have been imposed by research funders in other countries, including the Wellcome Trust — Britain's largest research charity — all the UK government's research councils and the European Research Council.
In the United States, two recent proposals could see a policy similar to that of the NIH soon cover most federally funded research. The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), a bill reintroduced in the Senate in June last year by Joseph Lieberman (Independent, Connecticut) and John Cornyn (Republican, Texas), would apply to all research funded by federal agencies with annual research budgets of more than $100 million, with a few exceptions such as classified research. The House could consider the bill within months.
Meanwhile, a six-week public consultation on whether and how public-access policies might be implemented ended on 21 January. Organized by the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the consultation has sparked intense speculation that President Barack Obama might soon sign an executive order bringing a policy covering similar ground to the FRPAA into force. That order might also dispense with the $100-million budget cap, but, being an executive order, it would be more vulnerable than a federal law to being overturned by a future administration.
Fledgling model
The various public initiatives enjoy wide support among leaders of research agencies, universities, libraries and research charities. A broad consensus on the need to enable public access to all US federal research emerged in a report published in January by the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable, a panel of librarians, academic leaders and publishers convened last June by the OSTP and the House Committee on Science and Technology.
The report recommended that archiving policies should not damage commercial and not-for-profit scholarly publishing businesses. As with the NIH mandate, it says that publishers should be allowed to delay archiving an article for several months or more after it is published, so that they don't lose business from their paying subscribers.
Some publishers aren't satisfied. One panel member, YoungSuk Chi, vice-chairman and managing director of global academic and customer relations for Amsterdam-based Elsevier, dissented from the report, saying that it supports "an overly expansive role of government and advocates approaches to the business of scholarly publishing that I believe are overly prescriptive". In a joint statement to the OSTP, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Washington DC Principles Coalition for Free Access to Science — which represents society publishers — slammed NIH-style mandates as "a means for facilitating international piracy", saying that they would "damage the very institutions that researchers, the public and government itself rely on to peer review, publish, disseminate and preserve scientific information". The statement argued that the government should instead make research results available as summaries, reports and data.
Many of these organizations' members, however, already have policies allowing scientists to deposit their own versions of manuscripts in free public archives, and some allow them to post a copy of the final published version. Many journals, including Nature, also help authors fulfil institutional mandates by depositing articles in PubMed Central on the authors' behalf.
Allan Adler, the AAP's vice-president of government and legal affairs, says that its message is being heard in Washington and that he expects the two US proposals to "get more careful consideration than did the NIH mandate". One member of the AAP has explicitly distanced itself from the organization's stance, however. Mike Rossner, executive director of Rockefeller University Press in New York, wrote to Bart Gordon (Democrat, Tennessee), chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology, on 31 March saying: "We strongly support the efforts of the federal government, such as the NIH mandate and the Federal Research Public Access Act, to provide public access to the results of federally funded research."
Mark Patterson, director of publishing at PLoS's European office in Cambridge, UK, said that although the roundtable's proposals would "significantly improve" access, they don't go far enough. He argues that bills such as the FRPAA should specifically support models in which authors' fees allow articles to become freely available the moment they are published.
For now, mandates seem to be the tool of choice for governments and funders to engineer greater public access, whereas the author-pays method remains a fledgling business model. Publishers such as PLoS and the for-profit BioMed Central, which in 2008 was bought by international publisher Springer, based in Germany, have only recently shown that their author-pays model can be sustainable for at least some forms of journal (see 'Opening up'). But the model has proved unable to generate the investment needed for highly selective journals or for those that provide substantial amounts of editorial added value, such as reviews.
A growing number of funders are paying author fees on behalf of the scientists they support, but this approach is still far from becoming mainstream. In a bid to change that, five large US research centres, including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts, launched the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity in September 2009 to encourage more funders and institutions to pay author fees. This could "reduce the risk to publishers of moving to an open-access business model", says Stuart Shieber, who heads Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication and is one of the drivers behind the initiative.
Matthew Cockerill, managing director of BioMed Central, welcomes the move. "The Compact members are actively thinking about how to bring about a sustainable change in how their scholarly output is communicated, and are beginning to set up the necessary funding channels to facilitate this," he says.
Hybrid vigour
Three more institutions, including Columbia University in New York, signed up to the Compact last December. The funds created by the Compact's founding institutions are small, however, and researchers have so far been slow to tap into them. But some fear that the Compact's policies could slow the transition to greater open access because they explicitly discourage paying author fees to 'hybrid journals'. These subscription journals — such as The EMBO Journal, published by Nature Publishing Group — give authors the option to pay a fee to make an individual article open access.
Shieber says he is open to revising the policy, but adds that it is motivated by a belief that scarce author fees should go first to pure open-access journals. He also notes concerns that some subscription journals are charging open-access fees while also making money from subscriptions. To ease those worries, some publishers, including Oxford University Press and Nature Publishing Group, modify the subscription prices of hybrid journals in response to open-access uptake.
"The hybrid model is far less risky than betting on a full author-pays business model," says Philip Davis, a graduate student in science publishing at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He argues that hybrid journals are a key mechanism to allow subscription-based journals to move to greater open access without jeopardizing their viability. "I'd much prefer a transition in business models, and most hybrid publishing models allow for this transition."
One problem is that little research has been done to explore how a transition to greater open access would best be designed, says Mark McCabe, an economist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "An ideal future does not consist of only open-access journals, but rather a mix of open-access, subscription-based and perhaps hybrid journals," he says.
Patrick Labelle, a librarian at the University of Ottawa, Canada, which is a member of the Compact, is convinced that open access will win out over conventional scholarly publishing. "The rapid pace that we have seen in the past few years by institutions, granting agencies, publishers and researchers is indicative that change is upon us," he says. "Open access will, one day, prevail over traditional publishing models."
6.4.10
FFXIII Summons
After seeing Vanille's summon a couple of times, I have come to some conclusions about everyone's summon.
Lightning: Most epic and dramatic summoning sequence. It was certainly the one that inspired the "WOAH COOL" kid in me when I first saw it.
Snow: Most H Summons. Well, this was established before the game came out after people figured out how they turned into the motorcycle...
Sazh: Best summon commentary. Well, Sazh is always making the most jokes and useless puns in the game, but I like him because of that, it keeps the game from becoming too serious!
Fang: Most "evil-looking" summon, which I guess is appropriate according to the story? I didn't see anything too special about Fang's summon. Oh, also Fang's summon is the only summon that doesn't seem to turn into a machine of any sort-- no wait I lied, Lightning's doesn't turn into a machine either.
Hope: Appears to be the most powerful summon out of all of them. Which is appropriate enough considering how weak Hope is (in terms of HP and defense).
Vanille: Most H Summoner scenes. Vanille, do you really have to make weird sounds when your summon is doing its finishing move? D:
Lightning: Most epic and dramatic summoning sequence. It was certainly the one that inspired the "WOAH COOL" kid in me when I first saw it.
Snow: Most H Summons. Well, this was established before the game came out after people figured out how they turned into the motorcycle...
Sazh: Best summon commentary. Well, Sazh is always making the most jokes and useless puns in the game, but I like him because of that, it keeps the game from becoming too serious!
Fang: Most "evil-looking" summon, which I guess is appropriate according to the story? I didn't see anything too special about Fang's summon. Oh, also Fang's summon is the only summon that doesn't seem to turn into a machine of any sort-- no wait I lied, Lightning's doesn't turn into a machine either.
Hope: Appears to be the most powerful summon out of all of them. Which is appropriate enough considering how weak Hope is (in terms of HP and defense).
Vanille: Most H Summoner scenes. Vanille, do you really have to make weird sounds when your summon is doing its finishing move? D:
4.4.10
Scientific Railgun
So another typical action anime with superpowered girls (I think this was done with Zettai Karen Children already?) although the flow of the anime was much better than Index. The characters are likable but in the category of "Moe but could be even better moe". In particular Uiharu is so unbearingly cute but I didn't like her character design!! Why couldn't her char design be switched with Saten so she could be the ULTIMATE MOEBOMB OF RAILGUN--
Well, I suppose that's the point of making all the characters evened out. :V Saten is actually a pretty cute character herself (maybe because I like her character design?) and also serves the purpose of being the character most of the audience can relate to. I think the storytelling is really effective in that, I think, many people can know how Saten feels (maybe not necessarily in wanting a super power, but in other factors) and can emphasize with her really well.
Or maybe its just me emphasizing with recent events. Not involving super powers though. Although a super power would be nice.
Also, Railgun has one of the best antagonists (at least for the first half) I have ever seen in anime. This is before we got to know her back-story (since well, that doesn't really make her a "bad guy" anymore) but just her nonchalant way of blowing things up and spreading her power was pretty awesome. And she wasn't arrogant about it at all, it was just something that had to be done, so she does it. She also carefully planned her procedures out so she can do her work while still making sure that the "side effects" of people affected by her project will go away, in that sense separating from those portrayals of mad scientists who do their work just because (I always disliked anime's portrayal of some scientists that way, as if they had nothing else to do but, in addition to doing their research, act like jerks and pick on their victims). That and her whole stripping reasoning makes her one of the best scientist characters I've seen in anime recently. :V
Hmm... other details about the show... Kuroko would be a pretty cool character except her voice is really odd IMO, and I can't get used to it... then again, I thought Mamiko Noto's voice was really odd before and I eventually got used to it thanks to Nogizaka Haruka, but anyway this case and that are different. OH and the lack of a clone army (and maybe Accelerator, he eventually turned out to be a cool guy?) was seriously disappointing :( I MEAN I WAS TOTALLY WATCHING THIS SHOW EXPECTING THEM TO APPEAR BUT INSTEAD EVERYONE ELSE FROM INDEX APPEARED EXCEPT THEM, WTF D:
Hmm... I think I'm missing something... oh maybe commentary about the main character?
...A normal tsundere it seems. ふつうー...┐('～`；)┌
Well, I suppose that's the point of making all the characters evened out. :V Saten is actually a pretty cute character herself (maybe because I like her character design?) and also serves the purpose of being the character most of the audience can relate to. I think the storytelling is really effective in that, I think, many people can know how Saten feels (maybe not necessarily in wanting a super power, but in other factors) and can emphasize with her really well.
Or maybe its just me emphasizing with recent events. Not involving super powers though. Although a super power would be nice.
Also, Railgun has one of the best antagonists (at least for the first half) I have ever seen in anime. This is before we got to know her back-story (since well, that doesn't really make her a "bad guy" anymore) but just her nonchalant way of blowing things up and spreading her power was pretty awesome. And she wasn't arrogant about it at all, it was just something that had to be done, so she does it. She also carefully planned her procedures out so she can do her work while still making sure that the "side effects" of people affected by her project will go away, in that sense separating from those portrayals of mad scientists who do their work just because (I always disliked anime's portrayal of some scientists that way, as if they had nothing else to do but, in addition to doing their research, act like jerks and pick on their victims). That and her whole stripping reasoning makes her one of the best scientist characters I've seen in anime recently. :V
Hmm... other details about the show... Kuroko would be a pretty cool character except her voice is really odd IMO, and I can't get used to it... then again, I thought Mamiko Noto's voice was really odd before and I eventually got used to it thanks to Nogizaka Haruka, but anyway this case and that are different. OH and the lack of a clone army (and maybe Accelerator, he eventually turned out to be a cool guy?) was seriously disappointing :( I MEAN I WAS TOTALLY WATCHING THIS SHOW EXPECTING THEM TO APPEAR BUT INSTEAD EVERYONE ELSE FROM INDEX APPEARED EXCEPT THEM, WTF D:
Hmm... I think I'm missing something... oh maybe commentary about the main character?
...A normal tsundere it seems. ふつうー...┐('～`；)┌
2.4.10
Obesity caused by Bacteria
From a Cell article summary:
Gut Bacteria Go Rogue
Although the nonpathogenic bacteria in our guts are traditionally thought of
as commensal—that is, they derive nutrients from our meals without directly
disturbing our overall health—accumulating evidence indicates that these
microscopic residents contribute significantly to the development of meta-
bolic disorders, such as diabetes and obesity. What transforms these friendly
inhabitants into harmful foes? Wang et al. (2010) now tackle this question
in their new study. They show that Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5), which is
expressed on the surface of intestinal cells in mammals, promotes metabolic
health partially by regulating the composition of the gut microflora. TLR5 is
a critical component of the innate immune system in mammals and specifi-
cally recognizes molecular components of bacterial flagella. The authors
find that engineering mice to lack TLR5 induced symptoms that are similar
to metabolic syndrome in humans, including overeating, obesity, and insulin
resistance. Remarkably, antibiotic treatments that decimated 90% of the gut
bacteria in these mice almost completely resolved their metabolic problems.
Meanwhile, transplanting the gut microflora of the TLR5-deficient mice into
germ-free wild-type mice disrupted the metabolic health of the transplanted
animals, producing symptoms similar to those exhibited by the TLR5-defi-
cient mice. Thus, the composition of the bacterial species that initially
colonizes our guts at birth may have a significant impact
on our metabolic health later in life. Further, metabolic disorders stemming
from the current obesity epidemic may be due, in
part, to the breakdown in communication between the gut microflora
and components of our innate immune system.
======
Ignore weird spacing issues, but its kind of interesting bacteria affect your obesity and overeating habits... Its like they're taking us over!
Gut Bacteria Go Rogue
Although the nonpathogenic bacteria in our guts are traditionally thought of
as commensal—that is, they derive nutrients from our meals without directly
disturbing our overall health—accumulating evidence indicates that these
microscopic residents contribute significantly to the development of meta-
bolic disorders, such as diabetes and obesity. What transforms these friendly
inhabitants into harmful foes? Wang et al. (2010) now tackle this question
in their new study. They show that Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5), which is
expressed on the surface of intestinal cells in mammals, promotes metabolic
health partially by regulating the composition of the gut microflora. TLR5 is
a critical component of the innate immune system in mammals and specifi-
cally recognizes molecular components of bacterial flagella. The authors
find that engineering mice to lack TLR5 induced symptoms that are similar
to metabolic syndrome in humans, including overeating, obesity, and insulin
resistance. Remarkably, antibiotic treatments that decimated 90% of the gut
bacteria in these mice almost completely resolved their metabolic problems.
Meanwhile, transplanting the gut microflora of the TLR5-deficient mice into
germ-free wild-type mice disrupted the metabolic health of the transplanted
animals, producing symptoms similar to those exhibited by the TLR5-defi-
cient mice. Thus, the composition of the bacterial species that initially
colonizes our guts at birth may have a significant impact
on our metabolic health later in life. Further, metabolic disorders stemming
from the current obesity epidemic may be due, in
part, to the breakdown in communication between the gut microflora
and components of our innate immune system.
======
Ignore weird spacing issues, but its kind of interesting bacteria affect your obesity and overeating habits... Its like they're taking us over!
World God Only Knows Anime
Was trying to post this since 2 hours ago but blogger was being stupid!!!
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-04-02/kami-no-mizo-shiru-sekai-manga-gets-anme-green-lit
As I already said in Buzz and FB, I'm hoping Katsuragi Keima is being voiced by Fukuyama Jun because he's perfect for the role. Keima is like the Lelouche of Visual Novels!
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-04-02/kami-no-mizo-shiru-sekai-manga-gets-anme-green-lit
As I already said in Buzz and FB, I'm hoping Katsuragi Keima is being voiced by Fukuyama Jun because he's perfect for the role. Keima is like the Lelouche of Visual Novels!
1.4.10
Even the Scientific Community has a sense of humor
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/science-nature-team-up-on-new-jo.html?rss=1
Then again, not alot of non-scientists can probably understand this. :V
Then again, not alot of non-scientists can probably understand this. :V
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