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Wednesday, April 5, 2006

According to Dutch researchers, tests performed on cats at Rotterdam’s Erasmus Medical Center by Dutch show that cats could play a key role in transmitting bird flu to humans.

Reports have noted that there are increased deaths in Europe and Asia involving cats that are carrying the deadly disease and also say that cats could play a key role in allowing mutation of bird flu so it can be transmitted between humans.

“Apart from the role that cats may play in H5N1 virus transmission to other species, they may be involved in helping the virus to adapt to efficient human-to-human transmission,” said researchers.

The experiments were performed on eight cats, all of which were exposed to the H5N1 virus in three different ways. In all three cases, the cats became infected. The researchers said that most domestic cats became infected with the H5N1 virus when they came in contact with wild and or domestic birds. In some cases, those cats transmitted the virus to other cats.

However, researchers said that their research was performed experimentally with infected cats and that those experiments did not show a mutation in the virus but did say that “such mutations cannot be ruled out.”

Researchers have strongly suggested that cats be kept indoors, but also said that this measure would be “impossible” in some parts of the world.

Researchers also say that cats need to be included in any precautionary measures against the virus.

“We have to take a number of precautionary measures. We need to keep in mind that mammals can be infected and that they can spread the disease, in principle. The potential role of cats should be considered in official guidelines for controlling the spread of H5N1 virus,” said Dr. Albert Osterhaus, of Erasmus University in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Monday, February 29, 2016

Yesterday Leonardo DiCaprio won his first Oscar, for Best Actor, at the 88th Academy Awards. The award ended DiCaprio’s long wait for an Academy Award — he was first nominated in 1993 and won on his sixth nomination, for his role in The Revenant, which also won Best Cinematography and Best Director.

In his acceptance speech, DiCaprio described The Revenant as “about man’s relationship to the natural world”, and spoke of underprivileged people affected adversely by human activities on nature. He also said “Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow”. He concluded saying “I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so very much.”

DiCaprio was previously nominated for his work in The Wolf of Wall Street, for Best Actor and Best Picture; Blood Diamond, for Best Actor; The Aviator, Best Actor; and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, for Best Supporting Actor.

Kate Winslet, who co-starred with DiCaprio in Titanic, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Steve Jobs, but lost to Swedish actress Alicia Vikander for her role in The Danish Girl. Brie Larson collected Best Actress for her performance in Room.

Mad Max: Fury Road had ten nominations and won six of them: Best Costume Design, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing. Ex Machina won the award for Best Visual Effects. Spotlight won the Best Picture award, and Sam Smith’s song Writing’s on the Wall won Best Original Song for Spectre ahead of the Grammy-winning song Earned It by Canadian singer The Weeknd.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

One of Mexico’s most successful cartoonists, Gabriel Vargas, died yesterday at the age of 95. His death was announced by the National Council of the Arts and Culture. Vargas had been ill for several years before his death, but no cause of death has yet been given.

Vargas’s most successful comic strip was “La Familia Burron” which he started in 1937. The strip looked at a low-income family struggling with everyday life. It sold up to 500,000 copies per week until the 1970s.

Later in his career he won several awards for his work, including Mexico’s National Journalism Prize in 1983 and the National Sciences and Arts prize in 2003.

There was a memorial viewing for Vargas at a funeral home in Mexico City yesterday.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

2007 the 33rd Taipei International Electronics Autumn Show (TAITRONICS Autumn), organized by Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufactorers’ Association (TEEMA), started on October 9 -13 at Exhibition Hall 1 and 3 of Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC), and inconjunction with Taiwan International RFID Applications Show (RFID Taiwan) at TWTC Hall 3 and Taiwan International Photovoltaic Fourm & Exhibition (PV Taiwan) at Taipei International Convention Center (TICC). With the 3-in-1 combination, TAITRA and TEEMA hoped this show will integrate upper and lower companies of electronic manufacturers and companies in Taiwan.

This 3-in-1 show is mainly focused on electronics parts and components, RFID solutions, photovoltaic products, and medias on electrical industry. About 1000 exhibitors exhibited with 2100 booths at TWTC Hall 1 & 3 and TICC. In the theme pavilion section, iF Design Award in Hanover Fairs set “iF Design Pavilion” with lots of awarded 3C products in Taiwan first time, also, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) showed their solutions on home entertainment such as 3D LCD wide screen display and game projector.

Not only ITRI and iF Design, TAITRA and TEEMA also set “Taiwan Innovalue and Branding Taiwan”, “Product Certificates and Testing”, “Cross-Strait Electrical Products”, “Security Products”, and “Broadband Communications” pavilions at this exhibition.

With those pavilions, TEEMA also held lots of seminars and forums on Bluetooth technology, electrical industry, testings and certifications, and International Electrotechnical Commission Quality (IECQ) system. Furthermore, CARTS Asia 2007 is the most welcomed seminar by buyers and exhibitors.

According to TAITRA, this 3-in-1 exhibition opened daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at October 9 to 13, PV Taiwan forum and exhibition will be held only two days on October 11 and 12. For the quality and security issue, minors under 18 ages are not permitted to enter the showground.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

At least fifteen people have been killed as the result of a landslide which occurred in Indonesia on Tuesday. According to BBC News Online, at least sixteen were killed. It is thought that up to seventy people were killed as a result of the landslide, which occurred in a village near to the city of Bandung.

At one point, villagers attempted to dig out surviving victims from the rocks and mud by using their bare hands, as rescue efforts were suspended temporarily due to heavy rain, before recommencing after lifting equipment arrived. At least sixteen dead bodies have been recovered by Wednesday. Roughly five hundred people are contributing to the search and rescue.

Priyadi Kardono, spokesperson for the Disaster Management Agency, stated: “We’ve found fifteen bodies so far and estimate that there are up to 70 people still missing.” He also commented that fifteen other people had been injured, of which two have been hospitalised.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

At least two people have died and at least eight to ten were injured after two semi trucks collided in a truck tunnel on Interstate 5 (Newhall Pass) between Los Angeles and Santa Clarita California, United States, causing the tunnel to be completely shut down on both north and southbound lanes.

At approximately 11:00 p.m. (pacific time), two semi trucks collided and at least 13 other trucks smashed into the wreckage causing a massive fire. Firefighters are using foam to control the flames, which could take several hours to put out.

Officials say that the debris could take a day or more to remove and that a full inspection will have to be done on the tunnel before it can be used again because officials say that the structure of the tunnel has been compromised.

“It has impacted the structural stability of the tunnel,” said John Tripp the Fire Chief for Los Angeles County who also said that there may be more people trapped in the wreckage.

“We’re going to have to do a very methodical search. There could be unfortunately more people that were not able to escape,” added Tripp.

The tunnel is 200 feet long.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

A Russian mathematician, Grigori (“Grisha”) Perelman, who is credited proving the Poincaré conjecture declined to accept the Fields Medal, regarded as the highest honor in the field of mathematics.

The Fields Medal, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of mathematics”, was awarded this year to Andrei Okounkov (Russia/US), Terence Tao (Australia/US) and Wendelin Werner (France) in addition to Perelman. The award was handed out by King Juan Carlos of Spain and is accompanied by a C$15’000 (approximately US$13’400 or 10’400EUR) cash prize (less than the one million Euros that come with the Nobel prize). Nominees have to be under 40 years, because the founder of the award, Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields wanted the medal to be a stimulus for future endeavours.

Perelman submitted two papers in 2002 and 2003 outlining a proof for Thurston’s geometrization conjecture, which in turn, implies a proof for the Poincaré conjecture. Other mathematicians filling in the details have found no flaws in Perelman’s approach yet. In 2003, Perelman made a short tour in the United States to explain his proof of the conjecture. When he went back to the St Petersburg department of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics, he gave up his job, and is reported to be unemployed and living with his mother ever since.

“The reason Perelman gave me is that he feels isolated from the mathematical community and therefore has no wish to appear as one of its leaders.” declared Manuel de Leon, chairman of the Congress, when asked about Grisha’s motivation to decline. Prof. John Ball, retiring president of the International Mathematical Union, added: “The reason centres on his feeling of isolation from the mathematical community.” Perelman’s friend Anatoly Vershik said the reclusive math genius just wanted to be declared correct, and regarded recognition as superficial.

The Poincaré conjecture is widely considered one of the most important questions in topology (a branch of mathematics concerned with spatial properties preserved under deformation like stretching without tearing or gluing). It is one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems for which the Clay Mathematics Institute is offering a $1,000,000 prize for a correct solution.

Observers speculate that he will also refuse this prize. In 1997, he also refused an award by the European Congress of Mathematicians, because he deemed the judges unable to understand his work. A spokesman for the Institute said it would decide on the prize in two years. Richard Hamilton’s “Ricci flow” equation could also earn him a part of the prize, since it formed the basis for Perelman’s papers.

In 1966, German Alexander Grothendieck refused his Fields Medal in Moscow out of protest against the presence of the Red Army in Eastern Europe. But later he accepted it.

The Poincaré conjecture is not an easy thing to explain in plain English. A sphere as we know it is called a two-dimensional sphere in topology (because it’s surface can be approximated by a two-dimensional plane). The four-dimensional analogue of such a 2-sphere is a 3-sphere (which is an example of a 3-manifold).

Now imagine a ball and a donut made of rubber. If you throw a lasso around the ball and pull, you can squeeze it to a single point and slide off the lasso. But you can’t do that with the noose through the hole of a donut, the only way is to cut through the donut. So in topology, there are basically two kinds of objects: objects with or without holes. By deforming objects without holes you can make them look like a sphere, but this is impossible for objects with holes. So basically, Grisha proved that in topology a ball and a banana are the same.

The Poincaré conjecture surmises that if a closed three-dimensional manifold (our multiple-dimension banana) is sufficiently like a 3-sphere (a kind of hypersphere) in that each loop in the manifold can be tightened to a point, then it is really just a three-dimensional sphere.