|
 Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Public Release: 27-Nov-2002
Drug delivery leaps biotech hurdles
While new biotech drugs are touted as the next medical revolution, it's proving to be extremely difficult to get some of them into the body--and to get them to behave properly once they're in. Packaging and delivering proteins and other large molecules is a major hurdle.
Contact: Julia Rowell
jrowell@frost.com
210-247-3870
Technical Insights
[Eurekalert - Biology]
OK> This is a pure press release, with little juice but it recognizes a problem that many researchers have tried to attack over the last 20 years - taking drugs orally or by injection are not the best or most efficient way to dispense drugs. Each method can create problems with drug half-live, effectiveness, etc. Finding new ways is hard. 10:09:04 PM 
|
|
Public Release: 27-Nov-2002
Nature
Artificial cell gets light-powered nanopump for calcium ions
A team of chemists have found a new way to power artificial cells or liposomes: using an shuttle molecule, calcium ions are transported across the membrane barrier to the interior of the cell. The process is powered and controlled by light, using an artificial reaction center molecule adapted from photosynthesis.
US Department of Energy
Contact: James Hathaway
hathaway@asu.edu
480-965-6375
Arizona State University
[Eurekalert - Biology]
Pumping things in and out of a cell or a liposome holds some tremendous possibilities. I think this is more important than Venter's so-called 'new life' project. The researchers are still a long way from using this pump to move reactive molecules into a liposome and doing something. And the possibilitiy that this could be done with a lot of different molecules is smaller. But such a system holds real possibilities for examining very interesting problems. Some chemical reactions proceed slowly because it is difficult to get the reactants 'close' enough together. Many reactions proceed faster if there is a high concentration of the reactants, but it is sometimes hard to get suffiecient concentrations in solution. But, if you had a liposome filled with one reactant and you pumped in the other, you could potentially get a much higher local concentration of the twoontained inside the liposome than if you just dumped them together. This is one of the main ways that enzymes work. They make a reaction proceed much faster by bringing together reactive intermediates in ways that would take years with the presence of the enzyme. 10:02:10 PM
|
|
Languishing on the Backlist
"Larry Lessig received an analysis of the potential impact of invalidating the 1976 retroactive copyright extension. My gut feeling was that very few creative works from that period remained in print, with an even smaller set in circulation at the local Barnes & Noble or Blockbuster, but it is astonishing to see the numbers.
Of the 300,466 books published in the U.S. from 1927-1956, only 9,240 are currently available from publishers at any price.
[~] Jason Schultz I think the word for those 291,226 out-of-print books is hoard. Where's Beowulf when you need him, or Bilbo?" [Cox Crow] [The Shifted Librarian]
It is not the books. These numbers obviously show that this is not a problem. No one is making much money on these books or they would still be in print. It is talking pictures that is driving this, in particular the talking pictures made by Walt Disney. These are the only ones from this time still seen to a large extent, along with a few others such as the Wizard of Oz. But Disney re-releases movies of this era every 7 years or so, the only studio that does. 9:52:17 PM
|
|
|
BQ"Stem Cell Mixing May Form a Human-Mouse Hybrid. Some biologists argue that the best way to test stem cells for their usefulness in treating diseases is to see how they work in a living animal, such as a human-mouse hybrid. By Nicholas Wade. [New York Times: Science]
We are a long way from having a mouse with a brain made up of only human brain cells. Since cells require signals from other cells to grow properly into organs, I would think that the human cells might have some difficulty in a mouse milieau. A lot of things could prevent these sorts of hybrids from getting to term. 2:32:27 PM
|
|
|
This is what happens when we keep getting people in power with nouns for names ;-) What is neat is that I got this in an email and did a quick google search to find the original. Nice that the creator can get attribution. Read it out loud to get the complete joke. 2:01:30 PM
|
|
|
Great article. I refuse to see Treasure Planet because it is another example of Disney ripping off... I mean, adapting, a previous work. Disney makes a living modifying well known works from the public domain. The only original cartoon it has made recently was 'The Lion King.' Everything else came from a public domain work. It is making a buck by using a public domain work but refuses to ever allow any of its works to enter the public domain. What a great business model! What it needs to do is somehow get the government to make everyone else's works lose copyright after say 50 yearts but not apply this to Disney. That would be a perfect world.
Many of us have been apprectiating John Bloom for quite some time. 11:17:54 AM
|
|
A nest of pirates. I was shocked to discover a nest of pirates yesterday, operating brazenly right here in my hometown. They were gathered in a large nondescript building, reading and talking quietly and in some cases listening to music. Some kind of social club, perhaps? Yes, but with a profoundly subversive theme: "sharing" content. This establishment houses large collections of books, magazines, audiotapes, videotapes, CDs, DVDs. And it "shares" these with its patrons. I watched in amazement as people left the building carrying armloads of these content assets, which they "borrow" without paying a nickel to the copyright holders. It's frightening, really. Who knew?
... [Jon's Radio]
I'm waiting for the RIAA to get involved. I know that the Content Cartel is upset that Amazon makes it so easy to buy a used book. See, every used book represents a lost sale to the copyright holder. Books checked out from the library represent another. As I recall, there was an important court case in the early 1900s that decided that libraries really could check out books without having to pay big royalties. I'll try to dig it up. 10:40:26 AM
|
|
Gifts for Geeks on the Cheap. Looking for gift ideas that will delight your digitally minded friends? Terrie Miller has assembled a list of cool gadgets for under $50 that's bound to keep you on the "most favored" gift-giver list, or can serve as subtle hints to others shopping for you. [O'Reilly Network Wireless DevCenter]
Nice time of year and some of these are pretty nifty. 10:29:42 AM
|
|
|
|
|
