After our initial homebrewing success, we decided we wanted to step up our game! Brewer’s Best has a line of homebrew kits perfect for newbies like us who want a bigger challenge than those straight extracts, but aren’t quite ready venture out on our own with an all-grain recipe. We chose an imperial pale ale and got to brewing!
Qui sotto le ultime news di settembre 2009:
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Chi giunge a Milano dalla barriera est è però a conoscenza dell’effetto imbuto che l’A4 presenta appena dopo il casello, tanto che gli svincoli di Sesto San Giovanni e Viale Certosa suonano come una minaccia per gli automobilisti. Aspi si è attivata per continuare il percorso di miglioramento innescato dalla quarta corsia anche su questo tratto: «L’operazione tra Sesto San Giovanni e viale Certosa consiste in un intervento che porterà ottimi risultati sulla viabilità milanese, esattamente come è stato per la corsia dinamica nel tratto dell’A14 che attraversa Bologna – continua Castellucci – L’opera interessa un tratto di 9 chilometri con un investimento previsto di 65 milioni di euro. Attualmente è in corso il progetto definitivo e mi auguro che tutto l’iter per autorizzarlo possa concludersi entro la metà del prossimo anno». |
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Should Taxpayers Back New Nuclear?
National Journal (blog) Should Congress do more to accelerate deployment of new nuclear power plants, and other low- or zero-carbon technologies? Only if we want to meet growing … and more » |
LAS VEGAS—What if you could connect your laptop to an HDTV or business display, without the hassle of fumbling around with HDMI cables or having your range be limited by the length of one. AT CES 2010, Intel allowed exactly that with its Wireless Display technology (or WiDi), and this could very well be the hottest sleeper technology of the year.
via Intel Wireless Display (WiDi): The Hottest Sleeper Technology – Reviews by PC Magazine.
Luke Timmerman wrote:
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals CEO John Maraganore had a snappy greeting ready for our first conversation of 2010.
“Happy RNA Decade,” Maraganore said.
For the sake of his Cambridge, MA-based company (NASDAQ: ALNY), Maraganore is wagering that this will be the decade in which scientific seeds of RNA-based therapies start to fulfill their potential. The decade-long vision is that RNA interference, microRNA therapies, RNA activation, and other treatments like them will emerge as new classes of therapy that can hit specific molecular targets, and regulate disease processes that targeted antibody drugs or conventional small-molecule chemicals can’t. And, oh yes, Alnylam is seeking to be one of the trailblazers of RNA, if not the dominant player.
While Maraganore was clearly in the mood to think big, and long-term, about RNA-based technology when we talked, he knows that the biotech investment world that gathers today at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco is more interested in what Alnylam is going to do this quarter, and this year, rather than the rest of the decade. So we talked about both the short term and long term.
To keep things in perspective, it’s been a little more than a decade since the discovery of RNA interference, which can turn off specific genes. That discovery has given birth to new ideas on how to turn on desirable genes (RNA activation), ways to turn off whole biological networks (microRNA), and ways to regulate long-non coding RNA. While those technologies have excited researchers in the lab and produced reams of scientific papers, no RNAi drug has yet navigated the long, difficult journey to become an FDA-approved product.
But this will be the decade that sort of progress materializes, Maraganore predicts.
“This feels a lot to me like the ’90s,” Maraganore says. “Most people would agree looking back that the ’90s were the antibody decade. I would say this is going to be the RNA decade.”
It’s a bold statement, given that history says new pharmaceutical technologies tend to boom, then bust, before they finally reach their potential and boom again. The technique to engineer …Next Page »
Dit jaar worden volgens het instituut 62.000 huizen gebouwd. Dat zijn er 10.000 minder dan vorig jaar. In 2009 daalde de woningbouwproductie al met vijf procent.
Er is wel een lichtpuntje. De aanleg van wegen en de bouw van waterwerken zal dit jaar stabiliseren. Het is het enige onderdeel van de bouw waar de vraag redelijk op peil blijft.
© ANP
Third on the list of the Huffington Post’s Top 10 Medical Research Trends to Watch in 2010, is “the Health Internet,” the brain child of Children’s Isaac Kohane and Ken Mandl.
Last fall, a group of leading thinkers and entrepreneurs from a variety of sectors gathered to discuss an idea that originated with Harvard’s Isaac Kohane and Ken Mandl — the development of an “iPhone-like platform” for health information technology (HIT), a more open and flexible approach than the architecture currently being contemplated, and one that holds greater promise for creating a consumer-oriented “Health Internet.” Obama Administration officials pledged at the meeting to have a pilot effort launched that could have real-time patient data accessible online this year.
The Children’s Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP) has been instrumental in connecting the public with health care issues through technology. CHIP created HealthMap, a website, blog and an iPhone app that tracks disease outbreaks in real-time. We featured their weekly H1N1 tracking updates over the last several months here on Thrive.
Product Description
Ds Laboratories presents a Haircare blend created for Men and Women from the Ds Laboratories recipe with a Nia Helio Hydrating Shampoo 6 Oz For Unisex. Come Now to buy the Ds Laboratories Nia Helio Hydrating Shampoo 6 Oz For Unisex with your satisfaction… More >>
Andrew Lloyd Webber is grateful to be alive after receiving an all-clear in his battle against prostate cancer.
“It is a huge relief. We have arrived at the end of a long journey at the best possible outcome. In my case, I will be 62 next year and I have five children. Most importantly, I am alive, my children have a father,” he says.
The legendary composer is recovering quickly after finishing treatment and surgery to remove his prostate gland at a clinic in London last year.
Lloyd Webber’s cancer diagnosis came after an E. Coli infection began aggravating his prostate. The theater star is now urging fans to get regular check-ups, championing early detection as the best weapon against the disease.
“If that infection had been found and cured, I could have been blissfully unaware that I had a cancerous tumour that was on the verge of breaking loose around the rest of my body. I could have thought my frequent trips to the bathroom were due to a weak bladder. I have been lucky…..”
Hair Loss is growing rapidly nowadays. It is a fact that a few years ago there were no “official” natural hair loss treatments. But nowadays, the field of medical enterprises understands that there are a lot of people that prefer natural hair loss treatments. Those people prefer not to use chemical substances for stopping hair loss.
Recently the problem of hair loss has become a major issue to many people in the world. To redeem people from this problem many medications have arrived to treat the loss of hair. This treatment may not be suitable to a few but it works for many people who are opting for it. In most cases the usage of Zulvera herbal shampoo has been successful. This product is being used as a shampoo for hair loss treatment.
There are many reasons for the hair loss one of the prime reasons is the hereditary. Besides there are many other reasons like over dosage of medication, improper care of hair, sickness, usage of cheap hair care products, sickness and stress. To overcome such type of loss, treatment is required. There are many ways to treat the loss or falling hair. Zulvera the herbal shampoo is also one among them. The different types of treatment and their usages are given below.
Hair loss treatment- Different types and usages
Different type of treatments is given for different types of hair losses. The different types of treatment are as follows.
Hair loss through inheritance
There are many persons nowadays who are facing this type of problem. The other type may be temporary but the hair loss through inheritance is a permanent nature and to defend such type of loss, treatment is mandatory. The treatments are Androgenetic Alopecia. The aim of the treatment is to prevent the loss of hair and raise the growth of the hair. This also covers the portion of baldness in the scalp. To maintain the treated hair special hair tonic like Zulvera herbal hair care tonic may be used.
Surgery and hair transplantation
This is another method of treatment. In this method of surgery, the scalp which has more hairs will be grafted to the area where the hair growth is less or bald. The grafts contain minimum of one hair to thirty hairs. Another type of surgery for the bald head is the scalp reduction. In this type of treatment the major areas of the bald scalp will be removed and the scalp with thick hairs will be stretched to the areas of the removed scalp and stitched or pasted over it so that the baldness is not visible.
A complementary treatment to diet is massaging. You can massage your scalp, ask your partners to do it or use an electric massager. The massage is an easy to use yet not proven natural treatment. It stimulate blood flow to the hair follicles
Exercising is another treatment which was not proven to stop loss. Yet, exercise resolves blood pressure and delivers blood and oxygen to all body parts. Natural doctors believe that it is a good treatment.
For a free Hair Loss Treatments Course or for information on the preventative product Provillus, just visit http://provillusreview.org
Its not like we need much more proof, but sceptics would be happy to have more confirmation that Microsoft’s premier online gaming social network is coming to Windows Mobile devices.
The service will be called Xbox LIVE Games, which suggests that it will include much more than simply Gamer cards, but actually involve the delivery of entertainment software to the handsets.
Kotaku, who was tipped to this promotional material, did not have any more detail to add, but we should all find out more at Mobile World Congress soon.
Week after Christmas
Twas the week after Christmas, and all through the house
Nothing would fit me, not even a blouse.
The cookies I’d nibble, the eggnog I’d taste
All the holiday parties had gone to my waist.
When I got on the scales, there arose such a number!
When I walked to the store (less a walk than a lumber).
I’d remember the marvellous meals I’d prepared;
The gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared…
The wine and the rumballs, the bread and the cheese
And the way I’d never said, "No thank you, please."
As I dressed myself in my husband’s old shirt
And prepared once again to battle the dirt…
I said to myself, as I only can
"You can’t spend a winter dressed like a man!"
So…away with the last of the sour cream dip,
Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip.
Every last bit of food that I like must be banished
‘Till all the additional ounces have vanished.
I won’t have a cookie, not even a lick,
I’ll want only to chew on a long celery stick.
I won’t have hot biscuits, or scones, or a pie,
I’ll munch on a carrot and quietly cry.
I’m hungry, I’m lonesome, and life is a bore…
But isn’t that what January is for?
Unable to giggle, no longer a riot
Happy New Years to All and to All a Good Diet …
By Mr. Fish
Printing out lithium polymer batteries may seem out of the box and weird, but that’s exactly what a bunch of Japanese researches are working on. Trust the Japanese to come up with some real innovative ideas. Led by Advanced Materials Innovation Center (AMIC) of Mie Industry and Enterprise Support Center (MIESC), these researchers are currently designing and chiseling out a sheet shaped battery. This can be used as a flexible solar battery. Due to the fact that it is printed, the battery can save out on thickness, enlarged and laminated. Two types of batteries have been prototyped with output voltages of 4V and 2V with a thickness of 500μm and an undisclosed battery capacity. Using the roll-to-roll method, thin batteries can be manufactured by reducing the thickness of flexible substrate. The group plans to get these batteries produced commercially with specific applications by 2011.
[Techon]
Robert Kuttner: The Case Against Bernanke
I have argued that Democratic legislators ought to hold their noses and vote for a badly flawed health bill. To kill the bill would hand a huge victory to the Republican right. But the Bernanke re-nomination is another story. It is not a signature, make-or-break initiative of the administration. Bernanke’s defeat would be a repudiation of President Obama’s close alliance with Wall Street — but it would be extremely salutary for him and for us. It might even get the president’s attention for the proposition that his presidency and America’s economic future depend on an entirely different strategy of economic recovery.
Jack Schimmelman: Americans Dream
When I was 5 years old, living in the Bronx, New York, I had my favorite candy store. One day I was standing at the…
Howard Schweber: Perry v Schwarzenegger Begins Tomorrow!
Tomorrow (Monday, January 11), is the beginning of the trial in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the highly publicized case challenging the constitutionality of…
Supreme Court Could Slash Campaign Finance Laws
WASHINGTON — Possibly coming soon to your TV screen: election-season Super Bowl-style ads promoting congressional and presidential candidates, paid for by some of the nation’s…
Caroline Myss: From the Audacity of Hope to Hopelessness
Exactly who is in charge of policy decisions in this nation — the administration or a single would-be terrorist bomber?
General Motors’ Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has officially confirmed that the Cadillac Converj Concept will enter production and will use the same Voltec technology as the Chevrolet Volt.
Speaking at a Society of Automotive Analysts meeting Sunday, Lutz declined to give any official date on the production Converj, but said it would appear after 2012.
“You’ll see it when you see it,” he said. “We have to slot it into the product lineup.”
Who is GM targeting with the Converj? Lutz said that the Detroit automaker is looking at those folks living in congested U.S. coastal areas who are willing to pay high prices for fuel-efficient luxury vehicles.
Click here for more news on the Cadillac Converj.
Refresher: The Cadillac Converj Concept is powered by GM’s Voltec-system along with 4-cylinder engine that produces 161-hp with a maximum torque of 273 lb-ft. The Converj can travel up 40 miles on battery-power alone. Top speed is rated at 100 mph. GM says that it takes less than 3 hours to recharge the battery at 240V and about 8 hours from a 120V outlet.
Cadillac Converj Concept:
– By: Omar Rana
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)
Monica Crowley revives dubious claim that waterboarding KSM resulted in “actionable intelligence”
On the January 10 edition of The McLaughin Group, Monica Crowley revived the dubious claim that “[w]aterboarding extracted a lot of very critical, actionable intelligence from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,” echoing the oft-repeated conservative claims that 2004 CIA documents prove enhanced interrogation techniques were effective and that the Bush administration’s interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) resulted in the thwarting of an attack in Los Angeles. In fact, a 2004 CIA inspector general’s (IG) report of the CIA’s interrogation program stated that “[t]he effectiveness of particular interrogation techniques in eliciting information that might not otherwise have been obtained cannot be easily measured”; KSM reportedly said he “gave a lot of false information … in order to make the ill-treatment stop”; and the Bush administration said the L.A. attack was thwarted in February 2002 — more than a year before KSM was captured.
Echoing previous falsehoods, Crowley asserted waterboarding resulted in “actionable intelligence” from KSM. Crowley revived previously debunked claims about the use of enhanced interrogations on the January 10 edition of the syndicated The McLaughin Group:
CROWLEY: Waterboarding extracted a lot of very critical, actionable intelligence from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
ELEANOR CLIFT (Newsweek contributing editor): That’s not true.
CROWLEY: That is true.
IG report: “The effectiveness of particular interrogation techniques in eliciting information that might not otherwise have been obtained cannot be so easily measured.” From the “conclusions” section of the 2004 CIA IG report on “Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities”:
The Agency’s detention and interrogation of terrorists has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world. The CTC Detention and Interrogation Program has resulted in the issuance of thousands of individual intelligence reports and analytic products supporting the counterterrorism efforts of U.S. policymakers and military commanders. The effectiveness of particular interrogation techniques in eliciting information that might not otherwise have been obtained cannot be so easily measured.
IG report: “[T]here is limited data on which to assess [EITs’] individual effectiveness.” From the IG report:
Inasmuch as EITs have been used only since August 2002, and they have not all been used with every high value detainee, there is limited data on which to assess their individual effectiveness. This Review indentified concerns about the use of the waterboard, specifically whether the risks of its use were justified by the results, whether it has been unnecessarily used in some instances, and whether the fact that it is being applied in a manner different from its use in SERE training brings into question the continued applicability of the DoJ opinion to its use. Although the waterboard is the most intrusive of the EITs, the fact that precautions have been taken to provide on-site medical oversight in the use of all EITs is evidence that their use poses risks.
IG report details reasons why “[m]easuring the overall effectiveness of EITs is challenging.” From the IG report:
Determining the effectiveness of each EIT is important in facilitating Agency management’s decision as to which techniques should be used and for how long. Measuring the overall effectiveness of EITs is challenging for a number of reasons including: (1) the Agency cannot determine with any certainty the totality of the intelligence the detainee actually possesses; (2) each detainee has different fears of and tolerance for EITs; (3) the application of the same EITs by different interrogators may have different results; and [REDACTED]
IG report: “Some participants” in CIA program judge that assessments that “detainees are withholding information are not always supported by an objective evaluation.” From the IG report:
Agency officers report that reliance on analytical assessments that were unsupported by credible intelligence may have resulted in the application of EITs without justification. Some participants in the Program, particularly field interrogators, judge that CTC assessments to the effect that detainees are withholding information are not always supported by an objective evaluation of available information and the evaluation of the interrogators but are too heavily based, instead, on presumptions of what the individual might or should know.
Separate CIA reports on the intelligence detainees provided do not discuss the effectiveness of interrogation techniques. As The New York Times noted, the partially declassified CIA memos on “Khalid Shaykh Muhammad: Preeminent Source on Al-Qa’ida” and “Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against Al-Qa’ida,” do not contain reference “to any specific interrogation methods and do not assess their effectiveness.”
Washington Post: KSM said he “gave a lot of false information … in order to make the ill-treatment stop.” From an August 29 Washington Post article:
Mohammed, in statements to the International Committee of the Red Cross, said some of the information he provided was untrue.
“During the harshest period of my interrogation I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop. I later told interrogators that their methods were stupid and counterproductive. I’m sure that the false information I was forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop wasted a lot of their time,” he said.
Salon’s Greenwald: It is “patently clear” that CIA reports don’t back claims about effectiveness of EITs. From Glenn Greenwald’s August 29 blog post on Salon.com:
That the released documents provide no support for Cheney’s claims was so patently clear that many news articles contained unusually definitive statements reporting that to be so. The New York Times reported that the documents Cheney claimed proved his case “do not refer to any specific interrogation methods and do not assess their effectiveness.” ABC News noted that “the visible portions of the heavily redacted reports do not indicate whether such information was obtained as a result of controversial interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding.” TPM’s Zachary Roth documented that “nowhere do they suggest that that information was gleaned through torture,” while The Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman detailed that, if anything, the documents prove “that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations.” [emphasis in original; Greenwald, 8/29/09]
ABC says reports “do not indicate whether such information was obtained as a result of controversial interrogation techniques.” ABCNews.com reported that the CIA had released two memos that “former Vice President Dick Cheney requested earlier this year in an attempt to prove his assertion that using enhanced interrogation techniques on terror detainees saved U.S. lives.” The article added that the “documents back up the Bush administration’s claims that intelligence gleaned from captured terror suspects had thwarted terrorist attacks, but the visible portions of the heavily redacted reports do not indicate whether such information was obtained as a result of controversial interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding.” [ABCNews.com, 8/25/09]
Newsweek: The “newly declassified material does not convincingly demonstrate” that EITs “produced … useful information.” Newsweek reported that the CIA reports show that “the CIA’s interrogations of suspected terrorists provided U.S. authorities with precious inside information about Al Qaeda’s leadership, structure, personnel, and operations.” However, the article added that “the newly declassified material does not convincingly demonstrate” that “the agency’s use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ — including sleep deprivation, stress positions, violent physical contact, and waterboarding” was what “produced this useful information. In fact, though two of the newly released CIA reports offer examples of the kind of details that detainees surrendered, the reports do not say what information came as a result of harsh interrogation methods and what came from conventional questioning.” Newsweek also reported that “based on this evidence, it is impossible to tell whether waterboarding and other brutal methods really were more effective than nonviolent techniques in extracting credible, useful information from Abu Zubaydah or other detainees.” [Newsweek, 8/25/09]
Los Angeles Times: Documents offer “little to support the argument that harsh or abusive methods played a key role.” The Los Angeles Times reported that the CIA documents “are at best inconclusive” as to the EITs effectiveness and offer “little to support the argument that harsh or abusive methods played a key role.” [Los Angeles Times, 8/26/09]
As Slate.com’s Timothy Noah has noted, the claim that the interrogation of Mohammed thwarted an attack on the Library Tower in Los Angeles conflicts with the chronology of events put forth on multiple occasions by the Bush administration. Indeed, the Bush administration said that the Library Tower attack was thwarted in February 2002 — more than a year before Mohammed was captured in March 2003.
Noah explained:
What clinches the falsity of Thiessen’s claim, however (and that of the memo he cites, and that of an unnamed Central Intelligence Agency spokesman who today seconded Thessen’s argument), is chronology. In a White House press briefing, Bush’s counterterrorism chief, Frances Fragos Townsend, told reporters that the cell leader was arrested in February 2002, and “at that point, the other members of the cell” (later arrested) “believed that the West Coast plot has been canceled, was not going forward” [italics mine]. A subsequent fact sheet released by the Bush White House states, “In 2002, we broke up [italics mine] a plot by KSM to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast.” These two statements make clear that however far the plot to attack the Library Tower ever got — an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush’s characterization of it as a “disrupted plot” was “ludicrous” — that plot was foiled in 2002. But Sheikh Mohammed wasn’t captured until March 2003.
How could Sheikh Mohammed’s water-boarded confession have prevented the Library Tower attack if the Bush administration “broke up” that attack during the previous year? It couldn’t, of course. Conceivably the Bush administration, or at least parts of the Bush administration, didn’t realize until Sheikh Mohammed confessed under torture that it had already broken up a plot to blow up the Library Tower about which it knew nothing. Stranger things have happened. But the plot was already a dead letter. If foiling the Library Tower plot was the reason to water-board Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, then that water-boarding was more than cruel and unjust. It was a waste of water.
Indeed, in the White House press briefing Noah cited, Townsend specifically noted that Mohammed was not captured until well after the individuals planning the Library Tower attacks concluded they had been “canceled”:
TOWNSEND: Khalid Shaykh Muhammad was the individual who led this effort. He initiated the planning for the West Coast plot after September 11th, in October of 2001. KSM, working with Hambali in Asia, recruited the members of the cell. There was a total of four members of the cell. When they — KSM, himself, trained the leader of the cell in late 2001 or early 2002 in the shoe bomb technique. You all will recall that there was the arrest of the shoe bomber, Richard Reid, in December of 2001, and he was instructing the cell leader on the use of the same technique.
After the cell — the additional members of the cell, in addition to the leader, were recruited, they all went — the cell leader and the three other operatives went to Afghanistan where they met with bin Laden and swore biat — that is an oath of loyalty to him — before returning to Asia, where they continued to work under Hambali.
The cell leader was arrested in February of 2002, and as we begin — at that point, the other members of the cell believed that the West Coast plot has been canceled, was not going forward. You’ll recall that KSM was then arrested in April of 2003 — or was it March — I’m sorry, March of 2003.
In addition to the senior FBI official that Noah mentioned, several other American counterterrorism officials also reportedly expressed doubts that the Library Tower plot ever advanced beyond the initial planning stages and ever posed a serious threat, as Media Matters for America documented in February 2006.
The Hymini Biscuit uses wind energy and solar energy to charge batteries. Alright, we aren’t talking about energy capturing snacks here. The Biscuit is a device that uses alternative sources of energy to juice two AA batteries. The solar panel on this device captures the solar energy, while a little fan uses wind energy to charge up the batteries. That’s not all; these AA batteries are connected to a USB port at the side that can be used to power up your USB devices, including phones. A brainchild of a Taipei based company know as Miniwiz, the Hymini Biscuit can also be used as a normal charger when out of the sun by simply connecting it to a wall socket using an AC adapter.
This handy device is great for outdoor use when the sun shines generously enough. Costing just $50, the Biscuit can be purchased online.
[Cnet]
We all love those bulbous juicy grapes and the sparkling wine they are used to make. With John Conover’s efforts in making the Cade winery as green as possible, drinking wine and eating grapes has never felt better! The winery uses energy from the sun in the process of making wine and growing grapes. This is one of the few wineries who will soon receive a Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification in the Napa Valley. Some wineries also plan to recycle water and use it more efficiently. The water used to rinse barrels and tanks will be recycled. Roger Boulton, is currently helping in the creation of a winery at the University of California that will be certified with the Platinum LEED, the highest level of certification of this type. This winery will use solar power on a large scale, especially during harvest season and will use rain water collected for cleaning processes. With wineries turning green, we can sip on our glasses of wine without causing an adverse effect to our environment.
[AbcNews]
