 |
SEPTEMBER |
Newsletter |
|
Issue
46 |
Included in this months issue:
Universal Vaccination Could Put An End To All Flu
Please join me in congratulating our very own Hannah Russell is passing her A levels with flying colours and securing her place at Sussex University in Brighton. Hannah will be reading Development Studies BA with the hope of working for the United Nations in the future.
Well done Hannah, and good luck!
Universal Vaccination Could Put An End To All Flu
It is not a nice way to die. As the virus spreads through your lungs, your immune system goes into overdrive. Your lungs become leaky and fill with fluid. Your lips and nails, then your skin, turn blue as you struggle to get enough oxygen. Basically, you drown.
Flu can kill in other ways, too, from rendering you vulnerable to bacterial infections to triggering heart attacks. Of course, most flu strains, including (so far) the 2009 pandemic virus, cause only mild symptoms in the vast majority of people. But with 10 to 20 per cent of people worldwide getting flu every year, that still adds up to a huge burden of illness - and even in a good year some half a million die.
What if it needn't be this way? Many once-common diseases, from smallpox to polio, have been eliminated, or nearly so, just by vaccinating children. If only we could develop a vaccine that was effective against all strains of flu, we might prevent both annual epidemics and occasional pandemics like the one now under way.
Recent work suggests it is possible to create just such a vaccine. In fact, the effectiveness of one potential universal vaccine will be tested in people for the first time in September. Could we be on the brink of beating flu?
By Debora MacKenzie
Hearing Scheduled For 'Word' Injunction Appeal
A federal appeals court has scheduled a hearing for next month to decide whether to uphold a ruling that would force Microsoft to stop selling Word in its current form.
A US district court judge last week issued an injunction that would halt sales of any version of Word that includes a custom XML function that was found by a jury to infringe on a patent from Canada's i4i.
In May, that jury also ordered Microsoft to pay $200m (£120m) in damages, an amount the judge hiked to more than $290m at the same time he ordered the injunction, which he scheduled to go into effect 60 days after the 11 August ruling.
By Ina Fried
Bill And Melinda Gates Foudation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world's largest. Thanks to the high profile of its founders and the amount of money it controls -- some $37 billion -- it has become a source of endless fascination and discussion in the nonprofit world. The attention it receives is the envy of its more-established peers in the world of institutionalized philanthropy, while new philanthropists look to it partner with it as a path to instant credibility.
The foundation's goal is to give everyone an equal opportunity to thrive, by reducing or eliminating obstacles like poor health and nutrition and weak educational systems. Most of its spending -- it has committed more than $14 billion to date -- is directed toward three broad issues: global health, global development and programs in the United States that largely have to do with improving education.
Taken from The New York Times Online
Innovation: Are We Ready For The Autonomous Age?
Next time you ride an escalator, spare a thought for Bumper Harris – the one-legged chap supposedly employed by London Underground in 1911 to spend all day riding the newly installed escalators at Earl's Court station to prove to nervous passengers that they were safe.
Today we're more likely to think of automation as cool than threatening, if we think of it at all. But public unease may return as machines programmed to follow instructions give way to "autonomous systems" that can learn, make decisions and take action by themselves.
So the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering argues in a report issued today, calling on the media and on government to improve public awareness of the complex social, ethical and legal questions that autonomous systems raise.
By Sumit Paul-Choudhury
The Kitchen Software Cook-Off
Recipe software is a great solution for home chefs who want to organize their recipes and learn to cook new dishes. There are a lot of programs out there to choose from, but BigOven's software is relatively inexpensive, and it features some unique social networking options.
By Deborah Yao
Blackberry 'Fastest Growing Firm'
The maker of the Blackberry mobile phone, Research in Motion (RIM), is the world's fastest-growing company, according to business magazine Fortune.
Canada-based RIM has come top of the magazine's latest annual guide to the 100 fastest-growing businesses.
In second place was US chipmaker Sigma Designs, with Chinese internet business Sohu.com coming in third.
Fortune rates a firm's growth on a combination of its profits, turnover and investment return over three years.
Taken from BBC Technology News
'Duke Nukem 3D': Too Hot to Handle?
"Duke Nukem 3D" is more than 10 years old, but it still holds up today as a great FPS game. Now the whole thing has been ported, apparently unabridged, to the iPhone and iPod touch. Though the iPhone version offers a great deal of customization in terms of play control, it's still difficult to get a handle on using a touchscreen, and it seems to put a lot of pressure on the iPhone 3G's processor.
By Paul Hartsock
Poor HP Earnings Dim Hopes for Tech
Investors looking for evidence that the tech sector has rounded recession's corner were disappointed by results released Aug. 18 by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). The world's largest maker of computers said profits tumbled 19% and that while business conditions are becoming more stable, pricing battles are likely to erode profit further. "We're encouraged by the stability we're beginning to see in the market but not yet ready to call it a turn," Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd told analysts on a conference call discussing the results.
HP, one of the first tech companies to offer a glimpse into July demand, said fiscal third-quarter sales slid 2.1%, to $27.5 billion, amid slumping demand for computers and printers, particularly in Europe, and as consumers slaked their thirst for so-called netbooks, stripped-down machines that provide Web access but cost far less than traditional notebooks and other computers. Profits fell to $1.64 billion, or 80¢ a share.
By Cliff Edwards
Inflatable Heat Shield Tested In Space For First Time
An inflatable heat shield was successfully tested on Monday, demonstrating for the first time that these light, flexible devices could be used to protect spacecraft on their way through planets' atmospheres.
Other spacecraft use solid heat shields that either drop away as the spacecraft near the surface, as happened with the Mars rovers, or gradually erode in the atmosphere.
But these solid shields are heavy, and their weight limits the mass of the spacecraft they are designed to protect, since both must launch on the same rocket. Their physical size is also limiting, since the shields must be small enough to fit inside a launch rocket.
Balloon-like shields can in theory sidestep these issues, since they are lightweight and can inflate to relatively large sizes after being folded up during launch. These weight and size savings allow for heavier spacecraft payloads.
By Lisa Grossman
|
||
 |
Registered Address |
|
