Tobacco Prevents West Nile Virus

And we all thought tobacco was evil, evil, evil. Well, a team of scientists at Arizona State University have conducted an experiment with a drug produced in tobacco plants that can be used to prevent death in mice infected with a lethal dose of West Nile virus. The study represents an important first step in the development of a treatment for the mosquito-borne disease that has killed 400 people in the US within the last two years. In the study, scientists introduced a gene into a "deconstructed" plant virus vector, then they introduced the vector into the tobacco plants. After about 10 days they were able to extract a substance from the tobacco plant, inject it into laboratory mice that were infected with the virus, and in 90 percent of cases, the mice evaded death and made a full recovery.

Tobacco plants are unique because they are capable of producing a large amount of proteins and seeds, properties that make them ideal candidates for scaling-up production of this type. Although the process has not yet been tested on humans, scientists plan to eventually use it to penetrate living brain matter and hopefully get the same results. According to the researchers, the tobacco plant might one day be associated with more than smoke-related cancer, as it could also help prevent thousands of people from suffering serious neurological complications, and even death.

Daylight Time Linked to Heart Attacks

A study of 42,000 hospital admissions in Michigan has concluded that Daylight Saving Time is responsible for 25% more heart attacks than usual. The impact of moving the clock forward and backward was seen in a comparison of hospital admissions from a database of non-federal Michigan hospitals. It examined admissions before the start of Daylight Saving Time and the Monday immediately after for four consecutive years. An average of 32 patients had heart attacks on any given Monday, but on the Monday immediately after springing the clock forward, there were an average of eight additional heart attacks. Later in the year when standard time returned, heart attack risk fell 21 percent on the Tuesday after the clock was returned to standard time, and people got an extra hour's sleep. The main conclusion of the study suggests that sudden, even small changes in sleep, seem to have detrimental effects.

New Mexico Peanut Butter Dumped 

This is so stupid. Almost a million jars of peanut butter have been dumped in a New Mexico landfill and bulldozed over. Why? Because US retailer Costco refused to take shipment of the stuff and wouldn't let it be donated to food banks or even repackaged and given to prison inmates. Costco wound up with the stuff after acquiring it from a bankrupt processing plant, and because some of the jars were leaking peanut oil, they wouldn't agree to any disposition other than it being dumped because, according to Costco, they were "not merchantable." Yep, that's 2.6 million dollars worth of peanut butter, 25 tons, 950,000 jars, and to top it off, the county had to spend $60,000 just to transport it to the county landfill.

Student discovers Font Change Could Save Government Millions

Suvir Mirchandani, a 14-year-old middle student of Dorseyville Middle School in Pittsburgh, noticed that he was receiving many more paper handouts than when he was in elementary school, and began thinking about the efficiency of that. So, as a science fair project, he analyzed a bunch of figures and determined that if his school switched to Garamond font instead of Times Roman, it could cut down on its the school's ink consumption by 24%.  That would save the school system a total of $21,000 per year. He then repeated his tests on sample pages from the Government Printing Office — which has an annual printing budget of $1.8 billion — and found the exact same results. If both the GPO and state governments switched their font usage to thinner fonts such as Garamond, they could save around $400 million per year in ink alone. Of course a spokesperson for the Government Printing Office one-upped young Suvir by noting that the administration is trying to become more environmentally friendly by moving content to the web rather than printing anything at all. However, Suvir responded in kind, noting that not everything will be moved to the internet, and changing fonts can still save money. It seems that I remember a number of years ago when they said paper was going to become obsolete because of the use of word processors. Yeah, right.

 House Being Built with 3-D Printer

You know about 3D printing, right?  Supposed to be the future way that parts for almost everything will soon be made. Well, some folks in Amsterdam have taken it a step further - they're building a house.  Yup. Dutch architects are now building a full size house using a 20-foot-tall 3D printer.   The project, known simply as the "3D Print Canal House," uses a super-sized version of the popular in-home 3D printer made by Ultimaker. Dutch architectural firm Dus commissioned the machine when it decided to take the scale-model rooms it was already 3D-printing and turn them into the real thing.  The printer is called KamerMaker, which means "room builder," and that's exactly what it does -- construct a series of rooms that can be basically snapped together to form an entire house.  Thus far, the printer has produced a corner of the house with a partial staircase attached. The piece weighed about 400 pounds. The building blocks that are currently being produced, and take about a week each to print, have a honeycombed internal structure that will eventually be filled with a foam that reaches a concrete-like hardness, lending support and weight to the finished house.  The architects see multiple benefits to 3D-printing a house, aside from the possibilities of near-limitless customization. "For the first time in history, over half of the world's population is living in cities," Vermeulen said. "We need a rapid building technique to keep up the pace with the growth of the megacities. And we think 3D printing can be that technique."  Wait a go, guys!

21st Century Public Flunks Survey on Tech Terms

A recent study found that many Americans are lost when it comes to tech-related terms, with 11% saying that they thought HTML — a language that is used to create websites — was a sexually transmitted disease.  The study was conducted by Vouchercloud.net, a coupons website, as a way to determine how knowledgeable users are when it comes to tech terms.  "Technology is a huge interest for our user base, and month after month we see thousands of people visiting our site to look for coupons and deals to use when purchasing their favorite tech products," a company spokeswoman said in a statement. "It seems that quite a few of us need to brush up on our tech definitions."  Besides HTML, there were some other amusing findings:

77% of respondents could not identify what SEO means. SEO stands for "Search-Engine Optimization"
27% identified "gigabyte" as an insect commonly found in South America. A gigabyte is a measurement unit for the storage capacity of an electronic device.
42% said they believed a "motherboard" was "the deck of a cruise ship." A motherboard is usually a circuit board that holds many of the key components of a computer.
23% thought an "MP3" was a "Star Wars" robot. It is actually an audio file.
18% identified "Blu-ray" as a marine animal. It is a disc format typically used to store high-definition videos.
15% said they believed "software" is comfortable clothing. Software is a general term for computer programs.
12% said "USB" is the acronym for a European country. In fact, USB is a type of connector.
Despite the incorrect answers, 61% of the respondents said it is important to have a good knowledge of technology in this day and age.

The study involved 2,392 men and women 18 years of age or older. The participants were not told that the study was specifically looking into their knowledge of tech terms. They were presented with both tech and non-tech terms and were asked to choose from three possible definitions.  "Hence why a mix of both normal and technology-related words were used," the company said in a statement. Although the origin and veracity of the survey have come under question by a journalism ethics website, the firm that conducted the survey, 10 Yetis Public Relations, said it stands by its work and has provided the full survey results.  The survey is "100% genuine, and it's a valid survey," said Leanne Thomas, a senior account executive for 10 Yetis Public Relations.

'Upskirting' Photos Ruled Legal by Mass. High Court

I don't know about this.  Seems to me when I was living in the States, this sort of thing would have been ruled illegal or at least an invasion of privacy or common decency.  The high court of Massachusetts has ruled that a man who took cellphone photos up the skirts of women riding the Boston subway did not violate state law because the women were not nude or partially nude.  Michael Robertson was arrested in August 2010 by transit police who set up a sting after getting reports that he was using his cellphone to take photos and video up female riders' skirts and dresses, a process known as “upskirting.”  This past Wednesday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overruled a lower court and dismissed the charges. The state has a variety of laws designed to protect against Peeping Toms, who seek to scope out their partially nude victims in dressing rooms and bathrooms. But the court decided the state laws do not protect mass transit riders who are clothed, though temporarily revealed. “A female passenger on a MBTA trolley who is wearing a skirt, dress, or the like covering these parts of her body is not a person who is 'partially nude,' no matter what is or is not underneath the skirt by way of underwear or other clothing,” the court said in its ruling.  State law “does not apply to photographing (or videotaping or electronically surveilling) persons who are fully clothed and, in particular, does not reach the type of upskirting that the defendant is charged with attempting to accomplish on the MBTA,” the court said.

The ruling immediately prompted outrage and pledges to correct the law.  “What we have is not that the Supreme Judicial Court is saying this is OK,” Dist. Atty. Dan Conley said. “The statutory language just didn't quite fit the conduct.”  “This action is immoral and reprehensible; don't do it,” the prosecutor said, urging state lawmakers to change the laws' wording by the end of this legislative session.  State Senate President Therese Murray said she was “stunned and disappointed” with the court ruling. She said the state Senate will respond quickly.  “We have fought too hard and too long for women's rights to take the step backward,” Murray said in a statement. “I am in disbelief that the courts would come to this kind of decision and outraged at what it means for women's privacy and public safety.”