Using the hair of a woolly mammoth preserved in the Siberian tundra, scientists have reconstructed 80 percent of the mammoth genome, raising the possibility of one day resurrecting the beast.

If this is successful, genes for some of the most famous scientists in history can also be reverse-engineered. This technology therefore can allow Einstein, Darwin and other such prominent scientists to live again.

Wonder what will be their reaction to our modern world?

Reference: Wired Science

Photographs from Life photo archive

Google’s philanthropic arm - Google.org is about to release a movie titled “The Final Inch” to document the historic effort to eradicate this disease from the planet. Once we succeed this will be second disease after small pox to be found only in history books (and/or some covert lab, somewhere in the world).

The Final Inch is a 38-minute film about the historic global effort to eradicate polio. Here, the story told is as much about the messengers as the message. You’ll meet Munzareen Fatima, one of the thousands of community “foot soldiers” across India working to sway reluctant families to vaccinate their children, and Dr. Ashfaq Bhat, who travels into the backwaters of India’s Ganges Basin by boat and foot to detect emerging cases of polio. Martha Mason and Mikail Davenport bring us into their lives and describe the paralyzing challenges of childhood polio, reminding us how endemic polio once was in the United States.

Filmed in high-definition (HD) in cinematic style — wide open shots to give a strong sense of place — The Final Inch captures their stories, and we hope it is both a tribute and an inspiration of hope. With a final push, this is a disease that can, and should, be eradicated finally.

Via Google.org

The movie airs on HBO in 2009. Check out the film trailer:

What would this graph look like?

Enter Google app with voice search. Just say the term as if you are talking with the phone and the application recognizes the search and outputs the results.

[YouTube Video]

I wonder how well it would do if I searched for Bannayan-Zonana-Riley Syndrome!

(This app is yet to be released on the iTunes app store)

Update: November 17, 2008

Google search application has launched on the app store (iTunes Link).

Unfortunately, it did not work for Bannayan-Zonana Riley Syndrome. However, it was pretty good at recognizing most common diseases although it searched for “no motivation” a couple of times when I was searching for “adenoma sebaceum.” I did finally get it right.

Amazing!

Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computers, once defined creativity as “just connecting things.” Sleep assists the brain in flagging unrelated ideas and memories, forging connections among them that increase the odds that a creative idea or insight will surface.

Also a sleep deprived brain is unable to absorb, process and remember new information. This is why it is bad to stay up all night studying just before exams or preparing the night before for your major project/presentation.

Therefore, if you are sleep deprived, it is better to sleep like this…

…than this!

Here are a couple of videos on cholesterol explaining why is cholesterol important to the body, how it causes disease and what lifestyle changes are required to decrease excess cholesterol.

What does high cholesterol do? (Time 4:11 min)

Lifestyle changes for high cholesterol (Time 7:40 min)

Coronary artery bypass grafting is performed for severe disease as in involvement of all 3 coronary vessels or left main coronary artery.

The currently available treatment - highly active anti-retroviral treatment (HAART) is very effective in giving people a few more decades to live. However, HAART has 2 major problems:

1. It is not a cure and the medications have to be taken lifelong
2. The side effects of treatment at times may be as bad as cancer chemotherapy

Therefore, it is of imperative importance that we find a cure for this deadly disease which is safer (ideally without side effects) and does not need to be taken over a protracted period of time.

Mortality data of HIV/AIDS in the world and US:

Video: BLOODLINE: AIDS and Family is a short documentary movie by Kristen Ashburn and takes an intimate look at the harsh reality of the AIDS pandemic in Africa (available for online viewing on Mediastorm Project website).

Video: HIV 101 - This is a 10 minute video explaining HIV and AIDS (YouTube Link)

The electric car has not come of age, because more than half of the electricity in this country (USA) is currently generated with coal - the dirtiest of fossil fuels.

- Comment in Time Magazine (Oct 13, 2008 issue)

Ten years later - we may be asking the same question. Again.

Google Search : Ciguatera Poisoning