Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Made in China = Toxic ???

OK, we all remember the made in China toxic toothpaste, the toxic chinese dog food, the lead paint on toys...

Well, here's the latest episode...
Reuters | Japan firms recall China foods after 10 fall ill
毎日jp | 中国産ギョーザ:千葉、兵庫で中毒症状10人 殺虫剤混入
Yahoo奇摩新聞 | 大陸水餃含殺蟲劑 日10人中毒

News on toxic Chinese stuff are showing up about every other month, if any news agency wants to, they could easily compose a "Toxic China" series. Is China trying to kill every one else on earth? No, they just don't care a crap about your health as long as they get your money. If they don't clean up their act fast, people will soon be equating "Made in China" to "toxic", and then those very 3 words would be just as scary as the toxic skeleton mark.

ニウースはここ:

Some one is saying this is "food terrorism"(食品テロ)...

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Pheromones

戀愛動畫看多了,有個奇怪的想法...

如果有人可以把費洛蒙的signaling pathway (從recepter到腦,還有腦中對pheromone的反應network) 全找出來,一定可以出一篇Nature的 XD

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

YATTA !- はっぱ隊

好久沒介紹音樂了,拿我國中時代的歌來歡樂自嗨一下吧!

はっぱ隊(綠葉隊)唱的 「YATTA!」在過了幾年後,在ニコニコ動画又紅回來了...... 總之只要很歡樂的東西都可以在ニコニコ上紅起來吧XD


給沒註冊ニコニコ者看的youtube版:

Monday, January 21, 2008

Really Interesting New Gene...

There are funny names for Biological substances from time to time, such as the most famous one: JAK (Janus Kinase), which some people just call: Just Another Kinase...

But this one is hilarious, I really had to point it out.

I was reading a review of ubiquitination, when I came upon the line that said that there are 2 kinds of the E3 ligase that is responsible of ubiquitination, one of them has the RING-finger domain, while "RING" stands for:

Really Interesting New Gene

Okay, so literally, the new gene really is very interesting...

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

マック本・空気...... 嫁

麥書・空氣」發表了。


恩,很輕,很炫,我買不起。(當然這東西擺明不是賣窮人的)

Steve Jobs 發表時,說它最厚的部份比市面上最棒的輕薄筆電:Sony Vaio TZ 最薄的部份還要薄。

おい!作弊!

人家 TZ 還有光碟機、讀卡機、VGA port、可抽換式電池、eithernet網路線插孔、防摔結構設計,你MacBook Air (MBA)統統沒有還在那自誇?一個是在輕薄的同時還能全功能的電腦,另一個是為了輕薄不擇手段砍東西的筆電。

搞清楚狀況吧
空気嫁

要比,也去比早已停產好幾年的 Vaio 505 Extreme 吧,無光碟設計的筆電請找同類來比較。雖然 505 Extreme 還是比較厚,但同樣沒光碟機的機型比起來也比較公平。另,Vaio的擴充性還是比較高。USB比 MBA 多一個,Firewire/iLink/IEEE1394、還多了PCMCIA槽、eithernet網路線插孔、可抽換式電池,厚度還是只比MBA后一點點。另,拜碳纖維殼之賜,Vaio 505只有780g,MBA卻要1.36Kg,這就是材料科技啊!(茶)

若Sony被點名,火了,來個505復刻升級版,一定很有趣。蘋果的鋁合金槓上Sony的碳纖維殼!(我承認,以單車愛好者來說,個人覺得碳纖維比較炫)

---

另,我發現這麥書空氣的USB槽可以收藏。

恩,很炫。以Apple的品質來說,也許一年內就跟我之前那台 Sony Clie NX73 的可收納CF卡槽一樣壞掉:
多くのデータを保存・活用。CFメモリーカード対応
打開後收不起來了,關起來卡不住又自動開了......。準備敗的人,請準備好膠帶......

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

●REC

While I was at the local Best Buy today, there was a big display of some digital audio player (will, an MP3 player), with big speakers connected, playing music loudly. I walked by and spotted a guy standing there, apparently enjoying the music, as shown by his facial emotions, and shaking his head with the beat.

Well, do you really love that music that much to just stand there the whole time and listen?

Then I saw in his hands......

an iPhone, carefully pointed at the speaker the whole time...

Oh, recording, huh? Seriously, that sound quality would be really crappy, wouldn't it? At least I know I would never do something like that because of the sound quality.

Monday, January 07, 2008

最近は......

It's been some time since I last posted about my self lately.


DSC02245
Originally uploaded by intellidryad
I made a trip to LA right before Christmas and really had a nice time. Got some really great photos, which I originally planned to use to write about the trip. Yet, I am not in the mood of story telling at this time, so, anyways enjoy the photos:
Santa Monica
Getty Center, LA
Got some really nice photos of sea gulls at Santa Monica. I guess I have improved slightly (since the last time I went) on making the decision of what to capture, and when. So I've got birds in flight this time around.

The Holidays were spent with family, and then got infected with the flu from the kids of cousins, so that was that.

Next on it's grad school interview after interview. What a difference from last year. I like it how one of the program chairs said to me: "This phone call is to let you know you are invited to our interview, go celebrate for a while, and I'll tell you the details next week!" Well, other then happy to be half way in the admission door, it's exciting because I get to meet many other wonderful scientists, because I get to let others know how exciting my previous lab works were, and also because I get to travel to several different campuses and cities, and I really love the feeling of traveling around. No matter how funny and interesting the anime on ニコニコ動画 is, no matter how pretty the scenery and girls are in those anime, they could never hold a candle to the diverse beauty of real world travels.

Most of all, I am happy that my non-productive, time-killing, sitting at home days are almost over; I am jumping out of the intron of my life genome, and back onto the exons!

How IFNs work

From JGV Direct
REVIEW: Interferons and viruses: an interplay between induction, signalling, antiviral responses and virus countermeasures

by Richard E. Randall and Stephen Goodbourn (pdf download)

Here's the latest paper I've been reading. Through out the courses that I have taken in college, I learned how viruses infect cells, and how our immune system works. Yet, of the immunology that we have learned, it's mostly aimed on the systems aimed on bacteria, parasites, and the ourselves (thus allergies), as these are the areas where most research studies have traditionally focused. As I am most interested in virology, the lack of info in courses on immunology against viruses seems like a gapping hole that I could not find a satisfying answer to in text books.

Now this review is the best that I have seen on the interferon (IFN) systems work against viruses. Although it's so comprehensive that most people might not understand all the things mentioned, it's really a very exciting read, and just by reading the parts that I could understand, I have already learned a lot. Here's some notes on the basics of the IFN response pathway:

Inducing INF activation


virus (dsRNA)
↓ ↓
IRF-3 & I-κB/NF-κB phsophorylated
↓ ↓
↓  I-κB ubiquitinated
IRF-3, NF-κB enters nucleus

c-jun/ATF-2, IRF-3, NF-κB bind INF-βpromoter
↓↑(enhance)
INF-β→IRF-7→INF-α

*INF-α promoter only has IRF binding sites, no NF-κB site
*IRF-7 preexist in lymphocytes ->direct production of INF-α


INF downstream effects


INF-α/β(type-I)
  ↓
common heterodimeric receptor ( IFNAR1 & IFNAR2 genes)
 ↓   ↓
Tyk2  JAK1
 ↓   ↓
STAT2⇔STAT1(STAT complex)
  ↓
+ IRF-9 to form the ISGF (STAT1/2 /IRF-9 complex)
  ↓
bind IFN-stimulated response element (ISRE), present in promoters of most IFN-responsive genes

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Basic notes on Herpesviruses

Double strand DNA
Rely on host enzymes for genome expression & replication

Human Herpes Virus:
HHV1 | Herpes simplex 1 (oral herpes)
HHV2 | Herpes simplex 2 (genital herpes)
HHV3 | Varicella-zoster (chickenpox => shingles)
HHV4 | Epstein-Barr (NPC, Hodgkin’s (HD) & Burkitt’s lymphoma)
HHV5 | Cytomegalovirus
HHV6 | ?
HHV7 | ?
HHV8 | Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KS, PEL, Castleman's disease)