CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2012-10-16 03:28:16 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

For Students:
Dropbox is offering 3GB of free space just for being a student. All you have to do is authenticate a .edu email address. Dont worry, the free space can be applied to any dropbox account you have and doesn't have to go to a .edu acct.

Every sign up gets your school closer to winning the Space Race competition, where the winning school will have lots of free space distributed to its students. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Help me out by using this link. It will give me an additional 500 mb referral bonus.

https://www.dropbox.com/spacerace?r=NTU1MTE4ODQ1OQ

Cheers!!

2012-06-28 19:07:36 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 4 +1s)

Imagine choking on food, and instead of looking for someone to give you the heimlich, you reach into your pocket and inject oxygen into your blood. The growing market demand for tiny-sized instruments has made this technology feasible. Oxygen injections are not a new idea, but past methods have proven unsafe and noneffective. Proven to work in rabbits, nanoparticle-bound oxygen can be injected into the blood and instantly diffused within red blood cells. I expect human trials to be underway soon.

2012-06-14 00:17:17 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

LA Subway Adventure: Universal City Station

2012-06-13 06:51:10 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Had a chance to snap a couple pics during the short time I was in Vegas this weekend.

2012-06-07 01:54:16 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Contribute

http://www.google.com/mapmaker

2012-05-28 18:48:47 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

The da Vinci robot has been the model for medical innovation, ushering a new era of robotics-assisted surgeries. But has this movement done anything but drive up price? The evidence against this is limited. We as both consumers and providers need to objectively compare current medical treatments to administer only efficient proven therapies. Cost can no longer hide in the shadows of ignorance. Cost is becoming a factor in medical intervention options more than ever, and this is good for everybody, even innovation.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/in-medicine-falling-for-fake-innovation/?partner=rss&emc=rss

2012-05-21 18:02:14 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2012-05-20 03:10:02 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

When tires have reached the end of their lifespan they are often piled in a junk yard for many years. This presents a problem for urban communities because it provides an excellent breeding ground for anopheles mosquitoes, the same mosquitoes responsible for the transmission of malaria. New research has shown that the addition of VectoBac insecticide to the water used when manufacturing tires has significantly reduced the amount of mosquito growth within discarded tires.

http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/5/1/95

2012-05-20 02:57:54 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Consumers are outraged after claims against Kashi's natural products surfaced. While Kashi's cereal flaunts a stamp of "all natural," the scientific laboratory Cornucopia Institute has found that 100% of the grains inside the box were genetically modified organisms or GMOs. The grains were genetically modified to withstand high levels of weed killer  While there is no clear guidelines to what qualifies as all-natural, Kashi first defended themselves by claiming no fault in describing "all-natural" as minimally processes with no additional add-ins and then attempted to discredit the Cornucopia Institute. Kashi has now been accused of "green-washing", meaning that they are taking advantage of health-conscience consumers by falsely badging foods in order to sell them more expensive. 

This was not an isolated incident and consumers have united to illuminatec... more »

2012-05-19 22:30:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

http://9gag.com/gag/4216442

2012-05-19 15:57:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Facebook has stunned the world with its record setting ipo, but it has had an equally large impact in the science world as well. Neuroscience researchers have been using Facebook to study social interactions and have found that we are intrinsically more social than we perceive. We are set to think about people by default and it is only when we are actively processing information (like studying intensely) that we forget. However, it only takes 2 second to return to our social thoughts. People are even more fearful of social threats than physical ones in many cases. Facebook's emergence has changed our understanding of social interactions and research shows that Facebook (or any other social website) interaction activates dopamine receptors (responsible for pleasure) just as a real social meeting, but doesn't provide the same stimulation of oxytocin or serotonin release (responsible for the calming... more »

2012-05-15 21:23:04 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The drug “crenezumab” which is in late stage clinical trials is entering patient trials and marks the first large-scale effort to treat alzheimers in patients who have not yet shown symptoms. The $100 million trial seeks to show the reduction of alzheimers symptoms by reducing the clumping of amyloid and would offer support for using amyloid as a treatment marker. This trial and other prevention trials are expensive because notable results and developments may take years before they surface.

2012-05-13 20:26:58 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

SceneTap is a new company that has newly installed cameras in 25 San Francisco bars that detect facial features. It does this to profile people and is now being used in web and mobile applications that allow random observers to "find out, in real-time, the male-to-female ratio, crowd size, and average age of a bar’s patrons" says SceneTap. This means that there is now an app to find out how popular a bar is before you actually get there, or if the latest club on the other side of town is worth the taxi.

I dont know if I should be excited or scary, but it is interesting none-the-less. Let me know what you think.

2012-05-03 18:37:19 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Old news: citric acid rots the teeth. You feel it every time you drink a soda and science has shown that it leaves a honeycomb pattern of erosion that affects the long term wear on the teeth. A recent study by the SIU school of Dentistry has shown that energy drinks rot your teeth significantly more than sports drinks. Sugar is no longer the only culprit for enamel loss- people should take a serious look at acid content. In the future, health regulators need to carefully examine the role of a nutrition label. Should it only provide energy content? There is already a section for vitamins, how about one for caffeine and acid? I think people will benefit from knowing the amounts of potentially harmful substances in their consumables.

2012-05-01 17:12:59 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

With facebook's addition of an organ donor notification option, people will be able to publicly announce their donor status. This update by Facebook was added specifically with the intention of encouraging its users to donate their organs after death and for users to encourage each other. This may change the dynamic of organ donations overnight. I am interested to clarify the broad legal and moral implications of informalizing this process, but i am a large advocate of simplicity in every area - including traditionally labored government processes. 
Additionally, Facebook profiles will become key when families try to determine whether to allow organ harvesting based on pre-death intentions. I am not sure if Facebook status updates and "likes" should be legitimized, but this issue will certainly become more prevalent in the future

2012-04-27 18:38:39 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I defended against a #zergrush on Google Search.

2012-04-24 17:47:32 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Learn to read Korean in 15 minutes

2012-04-23 16:17:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

A new study shows that the pain reliever Tylenol (acetaminophen), helps people cope with social rejection. If this effect carries to other pain relievers such as Advil or if it is consistent among other cultures is still unknown, but the link of physical pain to psycho/social pain is interesting.

2012-04-13 17:37:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Researchers are targeting Notch with hopes of promoting neuron growth to repair neurodegenerative disease damage.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=helping-neurons-heal

2012-04-11 16:51:58 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

A great article for novice portraiteers as well as people who simply want to look better in photographs.

http://improvephotography.com/3654/portrait-posing-tips-by-dustin-olsen/

2012-04-09 18:15:06 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Facebook will buy Instagram for $1 billion. Why this enormous acquisition? People can speculate, but I believe that photos are becoming a more common and pronounced form of sharing. With the dramatic rise in smartphone usage and the improvements in camera hardware, photos will soon reign as the premier choice of sharing. While the mobile version of Facebook has (in my eyes) remained a disappointment, the non-mobile version has continued to succeed. Facebook has incorporated steady updates and recently integrated a full-sized photoviewer from G+. I wonder what will come next?

2012-04-09 17:15:18 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

The McGurk Effect:
When your senses compete during conflicting stimuli, your brain chooses one and overrides the other. Eye sight is given priority over hearing.

2012-04-08 03:11:58 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

In celebration of Titanic 3D, here are pictures from the original voyage.

2012-04-01 17:22:30 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Happy April Fool's. A collection of jokes from our favorite websites.

2012-03-27 18:27:00 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Intake of white rice significantly increases your risk of developing type-2 diabetes in a dose-dependent manner.

A new cohort/ meta-analysis from the Department of Nutrition at Harvard University have shown a dose-dependent link between the consumption of white rice and an increased relative risk of developing type-2 diabetes. Listed below are the major points of this paper:
1. Western rice intake is about 1-2 servings/ week. Asian rice intake is about 2-3 servings/ day. (serving = 158 g of cooked rice)
2. For each serving of rice consumed/ day, the risk of contracting type-2 diabetes increases linearly by 11%. (RR=1.11, P< 0.001)
3. The dose-dependent relationship between rice consumption and diabetes was different between cultures. Asian populations (Chinese and Japanese) show a much higher risk of diabetes per each serving of rice than western populations. (Pooled relative... more »

2012-03-24 00:53:18 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

At the Sacramento International Airport.

2012-03-22 07:51:42 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Imagine implanting a dissolvable surgical-mesh tube sprinkled with the patient's own stem cells and watching it becoming a functional blood vessel. Doctors at Yale have done just that: they have created a heart blood vessel in a pt with a serious heart defect. You may think that the stem cells morphed into vessel tissue which served as the scaffold for additional growth, but you'd be wrong. The stem cells, in a method that is still not fully understood, promoted regeneration without direct integration. The most interesting finding was that repeating the experiment in mice, but sprinkling human stem cells (just as in the last patient), promoted new vessels completely from mouse tissue without a trace of the human stem cells.

Does this mean that stem cells share tremendous similarity across species? Do stem cells simply coordinate growth when transplanted, or can they do more? What is... more »

2012-03-22 07:31:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Is it good or bad see those who have been laid-off pursue a career in healthcare? In a profession where the most important task is to deal with the unique needs of a patient, I hope that these incoming nurses will adapt from a routine tasks to a variable ones. I do not lack confidence in this new trend though, I am very excited for the change in demographic. The most surprising fact was that nursing schools are rejecting many applicants despite the stark need for field nurses.

2012-03-19 17:54:28 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

All you can eat McDonalds in the Philippines. I can only imagine the angio-horror which will ensue.

2012-03-18 20:24:58 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Open-Access

More and more researchers have hit their boiling points as they fail to access their own articles, read new publications, and obtain dated original articles without substantial financial fees. This has not been a new trend, but recent developments have sparked a fire fueled by over 8,000 researchers banning together to boycott Elsevier. This sudden backlash was more directly targeted to Elsevier’s support of the Research Works Act (RWA) which, like current highly publicized bills such as SOPA and PIPA, seeks to retract open access to certain information. RWA particularly targets open access to research articles funded specifically by the National Institutes of Health. Opposition sites the origin of the funding, believing that the tax dollars collected from the masses make the research property of all. No one can attest to research’s dependence of funding, but is the money fallingint... more »

2012-03-11 04:04:42 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Bike Adventure: this time I had the opportunity to see the LA Department of Transportation.

2012-03-11 03:18:19 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Should medical schools adopt an "interest-based curriculum" where students only learn what they want to learn and then learn the basics and general information from real experience and real cases? It works for kids who are home schooled (many of whom are well above their school-going counterparts, though household education and family status might prove confounding) so why shouldn't it work for medical students? In all honesty, I believe in the current curriculum, but would like to see a more progressive stance on several areas such as grades, patient interaction policies, and mandated research commitments. What do you think?

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/03/medical-education-learn-homeschooling.html

2012-03-08 20:30:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2012-03-08 20:05:02 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

This time, I found myself at the famous Union station and Olvera Street, a place bustling with culture and history.

2012-03-08 19:58:51 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Medical school interview: Dartmouth
Good bye Boston

2012-03-08 20:12:30 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Adventure run: This time I found myself in front of the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

2012-03-08 04:18:14 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

If you are allergic to meat, you might be allergic to a certain cancer medication as well.

Food allergy is a serious issue affecting over 4% of kids and adults. Examples of the most common allergies include peanuts and seafood, but an emerging reactivity to red meat has caught the eye of several investigators. Hypersensitivity to red meat was once thought to be a reaction to cat products or fish products within contaminated pork or beef. Research suggests allergic people produce a specific type of IgE that is targeted specifically to galactose- alpha 1,3- galactose (alpha-gal), a disaccharide present within mammalian but not primate meat. This has been a concern when attempting to transplant animal organs, though scientists have developed enzymes that degrade the alpha-gal to circumvent the problem. In this new study, they discuss patients’ allergy to the anti-cancer medication Cetuximab ands... more »

2012-03-02 22:58:23 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

A recent advancement in a developing story of Celltex and its stem scandal has been the retraction of an online article in Slate magazine. Facing opposition against its illegal and illegitimate stem cell treatments , Celltex has put lives at risk by offering and administering stem cell treatments which have real side effects with no proven benefits.

2012-03-02 02:59:24 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I never understood how pharmacists got so good at handwriting recognition. Pharmacists who cannot find a job in the saturated market, go work for the CIA.

2012-02-26 17:41:33 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

What does a mermaid wear to math class?


An Alge-Bra

2012-02-24 22:21:55 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

March 3rd is Free Pretzel Day. Get yours at your local Auntie Annes

2012-02-24 05:29:02 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Why do astronauts crave spicy food? The answer isn't hard to believe. Because of the weightless environment of space, fluid begins to accumulate in the head causing congestion leading to a loss of smell. This olfactory deprivation changes the food that we like and the tastes that we crave, which is why astronauts reach for the strong spice of chili peppers. New research is now being done at Cornell to find the best meal selections for smell-deprived astronauts.

2012-02-24 05:21:58 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

If anyone wants a shot to be in a NASA research study where you spend time in a Mars analogue, try out this application! Due by Feb 29

2012-02-20 20:17:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

An amazing weekend in the desert

2012-02-20 06:27:42 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Scientists found a new mushroom species and named it Spongiforma squarepantsii after the cartoon character Spongebob Squarepants.

2012-02-16 23:02:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

A microchip can now deliver doses of medication automatically. Could this be the end of self-medication? The implications of a jump in successful treatment regimens are huge.

2012-02-14 02:10:03 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Just in time for valentines day.
A scarred heart, often the result of a heart attack, was once thought irreparable. New research has shown that cardiac stem cells will actually reverse scar tissue damage, but it doesn't work how you think. People thought that the stem cells would just multiply until they differentiated into functional heart muscle, but what actually happens is much more amazing. The stem cells, by some unknown pathway, stimulate existing heart muscle to repair itself. The newly referbished heart is fixed almost entirely by existing heart cells and not the stem cells.
I guess these two different heart cells need each other; who needs love when you have science?

http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20120213/scarred-hearts-healed-after-heart-attack?src=RSS_PUBLIC

2012-02-12 18:32:25 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

A new review study from BMJ stated that consumption of cannabis (pot, marijuana, etc.) up to 3 hours before driving doubles your risk of getting into an accident. Still, it is noted that this is nothing compared to the increased risk accompanying alcohol consumption.

2012-02-12 18:25:57 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

For those who don't know, here are the latest developments for the contraception mandate. On Feb 10th, Obama updated his mandate, which originally stated that all employers must provide free contraceptives or birth control to its employees, to allow exemptions for churches or religiously-affiliated organizations to shift the cost of providing this free contraceptive service to the employee's insurance. In which case, the employee will still be able to get free birth control, but the insurance company (and by association non-religious insurance payers) will have to pay the bill.

2012-02-07 01:01:44 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

My brother and I are trying to launch an educational Youtube channel. We are working with high school teacher to deliver the most informative, simple, and fun learning tools.

Your Views and Likes would be greatly appreciated.