Sunday, January 29, 2012
Water and Power from Salt Water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiKa4nOkHLw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
EKG Basics textbook: best
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0135002389/ref=aw_cr_item_title?qid=1327837790&sr=8-1-spell
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Anti-Aging Bacteria Testing : Bacillius F
Interesting article about anti-aging bacteria: Bacillius F
A hardy type of bacteria recently discovered in the permafrost of Siberia could help slow down the aging process, Russian scientists claimed on Tuesday.
The species of bacteria — given the name Bacillius F — was found in laboratory tests to have shown signs of slowing down the process of aging on mice, theRussian Academy of Sciences said.
The Siberian branch of the RAN said Bacillius F lags 3 million years behind similar bacteria in evolutionary terms, according to the characteristics of proteins and some other factors.
"Taking into consideration the unusual living environment, one can only marvel at the resilience of these bacteria," it said.
It added that the organisms found in Russia's northern region of Yakutia — home to the coldest inhabited area on the planet — reproduce at just 5 degrees Celsius.
"We just thought: Since the bacteria were found in the permafrost where they were successfully preserved they will possibly have mechanisms of retaining viability," added Nadezhda Mironova, senior research scientist at the Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"This is what happened," she was quoted as saying.
Injections of the bacteria into mice have helped boost the natural defenses of the animals as they grew older.
"Bacillius F injections have favourably affected the quality of being of the aging animals," the Russian scientists said.
"First and foremost, this concerns immunity and the speed of its activation."
Experiments have shown that metabolism in the tested mice have increased by 20 to 30 percent, the scientists said, adding that the bacterium may also reduce instances of senile blindness but not the emergence of tumors.
The Russian Academy of Sciences did not say how many mice were tested, adding more animals were needed for the experiments to be more reliable. The mice from a test group lived longer than those in a control group however, it said, calling the results "impressive."
Cheap Vaccine Partnerships across borders
The Gates Foundation gathered together partners in making cheap vaccines for Africa.
The partnership involved:
The success of the campaign also depended upon an innovative vaccine development model spanning four continents. Partners in this effort ranged from the Meningitis Vaccine Project, to funders like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to the Serum Institute of India Ltd., which committed to making the vaccine for less than $0.50 (U.S.) per dose. Finally, critical to the rollout was the GAVI Alliance, which supports the introduction of vaccines in the developing world.
The partnership involved:
The success of the campaign also depended upon an innovative vaccine development model spanning four continents. Partners in this effort ranged from the Meningitis Vaccine Project, to funders like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to the Serum Institute of India Ltd., which committed to making the vaccine for less than $0.50 (U.S.) per dose. Finally, critical to the rollout was the GAVI Alliance, which supports the introduction of vaccines in the developing world.
Bicycle Water Pruifier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-U-mvfjyiao
Pit Latrine Pump for Poor countries:
http://vimeo.com/20800577
Pit Latrine Pump for Poor countries:
http://vimeo.com/20800577
Global Alert and Response (China) from WHO
Global Alert and Response (China) from WHO:
http://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/country/chn/en/
http://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/country/chn/en/
Sana: Mobile Phone Medicine in Poor Countries
http://project.vodafone-us.com/past-competitions/2010-competition/2010-winners/sana/
Sana (formerly MocaMobile)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sana is a multidisciplinary group based out of MIT with a mission to revolutionize healthcare delivery in rural and undeserved areas. Sana has developed an innovative open source platform that allows mobile phones to capture and send data for an electronic medical record and links community health workers with physicians for real-time decision support.
Sana also will receive the mHealth Alliance Award—with benefits totaling $50,000, including participation in Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society’sGlobal Social Benefit Incubator Program (GSBI™), a highly competitive program that connects innovators with a Silicon Valley support network and provides instruction on how to achieve maximum sustainability and impact in social enterprises.
Project Site: http://www.mocamobile.org
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Eye Exam on your Cell Phone
Eye Exam on your Cell Phone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N4xbKtL3o_o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N4xbKtL3o_o
David Laggis: The End of Illness-Book
David Laggis: The End of Illness-Book
by Kit Frymier on Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 11:52pm
David Laggis- (Lance Armstrong and Steve Job's doctor)
The End of Illness-Book
http://www.amazon.com/End-Illness-David-B-Agus/dp/1451610173
Genetic Testing for Disease:
http://www.navigenics.com/
High Capacity Water Purifier for poor countries: from Dean Kamen - famous inventor of Segway
http://www.esquire.com/features/dean-kamen-1208-3
Segway creator unveils his next act
Inventor Dean Kamen wants to put entrepreneurs to work bringing water and electricity to the world's poor.
San Francisco (Business 2.0) - Dean Kamen, the engineer who invented the Segway, is puzzling over a new equation these days. An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water, and an estimated 1.6 billion don't have electricity. Those figures add up to a big problem for the world—and an equally big opportunity for entrepreneurs.
To solve the problem, he's invented two devices, each about the size of a washing machine that can provide much-needed power and clean water in rural villages.
"Eighty percent of all the diseases you could name would be wiped out if you just gave people clean water," says Kamen. "The water purifier makes 1,000 liters of clean water a day, and we don't care what goes into it. And the power generator makes a kilowatt off of anything that burns."
So much so in fact that Quadir's startup, Cambridge, Mass.-based Emergence Energy, is negotiating with Kamen's Deka Research and Development to license the technology. Quadir then hopes to raise $30 million in venture capital to start producing the power machines. (With the exception of the Segway, which Kamen's own company sold, Kamen has typically licensed his inventions to others.)
The electric generator is powered by an easily-obtained local fuel: cow dung. Each machine continuously outputs a kilowatt of electricity. That may not sound like much, but it is enough to light 70 energy-efficient bulbs. As Kamen puts it, "If you judiciously use a kilowatt, each villager can have a nighttime."
A satellite picture of the earth at night shows swaths of darkness across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. For the people living there, a simple light bulb would mean an extension of both their productivity and their leisure times.
"We have 200,000 rural entrepreneurs who are selling telephone services in their communities," notes Quadir. "The vision is to replicate that with electricity."
During the test in Bangladesh, Kamen's Stirling machines created three entrepreneurs in each village: one to run the machine and sell the electricity, one to collect dung from local farmers and sell it to the first entrepreneur, and a third to lease out light bulbs (and presumably, in the future, other appliances) to the villagers.
Kamen thinks the same approach can work with his water-cleaning machine, which he calls the Slingshot. While the Slingshot wasn't part of Quadir's trial in Bangladesh, Kamen thinks it can be distributed the same way. "In the 21st century, water will be delivered by an entrepreneur," he predicts.
The Slingshot works by taking in contaminated water – even raw sewage -- and separating out the clean water by vaporizing it. It then shoots the remaining sludge back out a plastic tube. Kamen thinks it could be paired with the power machine and run off the other machine's waste heat.
Compared to building big power and water plants, Kamen's approach has the virtue of simplicity. He even created an instruction sheet to go with each Slingshot. It contains one step: Just add water, any water. Step two might be: add an entrepreneur.
"Not required are engineers, pipelines, epidemiologists, or microbiologists," says Kamen. "You don't need any -ologists. You don't need any building permits, bribery, or bureaucracies."
Kamen's goal is to produce machines that cost $1,000 to $2,000 each. That's a far cry from the $100,000 that each hand-machined prototype cost to build.
Quadir is going to try and see if the machines can be produced economically by a factory in Bangladesh. If the numbers work out, not only does he think that distributing them in a decentralized fashion will be good business -- he also thinks it will be good public policy. Instead of putting up a 500-megawatt power plant in a developing country, he argues, it would be much better to place 500,000 one-kilowatt power plants in villages all over the place, because then you would create 500,000 entrepreneurs.
"Isn't that better for democracy?" Quadir asks. "We see a shortage of democracy in the world, and we are surprised. If you strengthen the economic hands of people, you will foster real democracy."
Lights, water, freedom. Now that's entrepreneurial.
To solve the problem, he's invented two devices, each about the size of a washing machine that can provide much-needed power and clean water in rural villages.
Light in the darkness
Kamen is not alone in his quest. He's been joined by Iqbal Quadir, the founder of Grameen Phone, the largest cell phone company in Bangladesh. Last year, Quadir took prototypes of Kamen's power machines to two villages in his home country for a six-month field trial. That trial, which ended last September, sold Quadir on the technology.So much so in fact that Quadir's startup, Cambridge, Mass.-based Emergence Energy, is negotiating with Kamen's Deka Research and Development to license the technology. Quadir then hopes to raise $30 million in venture capital to start producing the power machines. (With the exception of the Segway, which Kamen's own company sold, Kamen has typically licensed his inventions to others.)
The electric generator is powered by an easily-obtained local fuel: cow dung. Each machine continuously outputs a kilowatt of electricity. That may not sound like much, but it is enough to light 70 energy-efficient bulbs. As Kamen puts it, "If you judiciously use a kilowatt, each villager can have a nighttime."
A satellite picture of the earth at night shows swaths of darkness across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. For the people living there, a simple light bulb would mean an extension of both their productivity and their leisure times.
Entrepreneurial power
The real invention here, though, may be the economic model that Kamen and Quadir hope to use to distribute the machines. It is fashioned after Grameen Phone's business, where village entrepreneurs (mostly women) are given micro-loans to purchase a cell phone and service. The women, in turn, charge other villagers to make calls."We have 200,000 rural entrepreneurs who are selling telephone services in their communities," notes Quadir. "The vision is to replicate that with electricity."
During the test in Bangladesh, Kamen's Stirling machines created three entrepreneurs in each village: one to run the machine and sell the electricity, one to collect dung from local farmers and sell it to the first entrepreneur, and a third to lease out light bulbs (and presumably, in the future, other appliances) to the villagers.
Kamen thinks the same approach can work with his water-cleaning machine, which he calls the Slingshot. While the Slingshot wasn't part of Quadir's trial in Bangladesh, Kamen thinks it can be distributed the same way. "In the 21st century, water will be delivered by an entrepreneur," he predicts.
The Slingshot works by taking in contaminated water – even raw sewage -- and separating out the clean water by vaporizing it. It then shoots the remaining sludge back out a plastic tube. Kamen thinks it could be paired with the power machine and run off the other machine's waste heat.
Compared to building big power and water plants, Kamen's approach has the virtue of simplicity. He even created an instruction sheet to go with each Slingshot. It contains one step: Just add water, any water. Step two might be: add an entrepreneur.
"Not required are engineers, pipelines, epidemiologists, or microbiologists," says Kamen. "You don't need any -ologists. You don't need any building permits, bribery, or bureaucracies."
The price of freedom
Still, even if some of the technical challenges have been solved ("I know the technology works and I'd fall on my sword to prove it," insists Kamen), the economic challenges still loom.Kamen's goal is to produce machines that cost $1,000 to $2,000 each. That's a far cry from the $100,000 that each hand-machined prototype cost to build.
Quadir is going to try and see if the machines can be produced economically by a factory in Bangladesh. If the numbers work out, not only does he think that distributing them in a decentralized fashion will be good business -- he also thinks it will be good public policy. Instead of putting up a 500-megawatt power plant in a developing country, he argues, it would be much better to place 500,000 one-kilowatt power plants in villages all over the place, because then you would create 500,000 entrepreneurs.
"Isn't that better for democracy?" Quadir asks. "We see a shortage of democracy in the world, and we are surprised. If you strengthen the economic hands of people, you will foster real democracy."
Lights, water, freedom. Now that's entrepreneurial.
Tuberculosis Detection using a Rats Nose
Tuberculosis detection using a Rats Nose
https://www.engineeringforchange.org/news/2011/12/07/rats_are_on_the_front_lines_of_the_tuberculosis_fight.html
https://www.engineeringforchange.org/news/2011/12/07/rats_are_on_the_front_lines_of_the_tuberculosis_fight.html
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