2016年1月30日 星期六

Zika virus, ZIKV

There’s a New Weapon to Fight Zika: The Mosquito

As the Zika virus explodes across Latin America, genetically engineered, bacteria-infected and sterilized mosquitoes are being tested to supplement standard prevention methods like insecticides and the removal of standing water.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zika_virus
茲卡病毒英語Zika virus, ZIKV,又譯寨卡病毒),是黃病毒科中之黃病毒屬,經由斑蚊(尤其是埃及斑蚊)的傳播而使受蚊叮咬的人罹患茲卡病毒感染症[1]。該病毒最早在西元1947年於烏干達的茲卡森林中的獼猴體內分離出來,因而得名。依據基因型別分為亞洲型和非洲型兩種型別,在中非東南亞印度等都有發現的紀錄。過去只有少數人類病例的報導,直到西元2007年在密克羅尼西亞聯邦雅蒲島爆發群聚疫情,才對此疾病有較多的認識。
2015年起茲卡病毒疫情於中南美洲快速擴散,其中巴西甚至出現超過4,100例新生兒小頭畸形,懷疑與茲卡病毒相關,世界衛生組織與美國政府都提出緊急因應措施[2]

History

In 1947, scientists researching yellow fever placed a rhesus macaque in a cage in the Zika Forest (zika meaning "overgrown" in the Luganda language), near the East African Virus Research Institute in Entebbe, Uganda. The monkey developed a fever, and researchers isolated from its serum a transmissible agent that was first described as Zika virus in 1952.[17] It was subsequently isolated from a human in Nigeria in 1954. From its discovery until 2007, confirmed cases of Zika virus infection from Africa and Southeast Asia were rare.[42]

巴西至今已有50萬至100萬人感染,疫苗還在研發中,但隨即在8月份就要迎來奧運,上千萬旅客與運動員們將湧入里約熱內盧.....

起源非洲、肆虐美洲的「茲卡病毒」(Zika…
STORM.MG


2016年1月29日 星期五

Tracking Jupiter on clay tablets, Science in Action. Ancient Babylonians 'first to use geometry'


Written in clay, are these the earliest maps of the stars?


Tracking Jupiter on clay tablets – how Babylonians used geometry to…
BBC.IN


Shu-shiao Yen 
世界報考古:「巴比倫人運用幾何學觀測木星」
巴比倫科學家早就可以用幾何學觀測天體。柏林洪堡大學的科學家Mathieu Ossendrijver在科學期刊"Science"上說,他們可以用幾何學估算木星的軌道。這個技術在歐洲,要到14世紀才能用算術做得到。
科學家依據的是3個知名、2個尚未公布的械板來推測,都放在大英博物館裡。這些板子年大約在西元前350至50年機。其中4片,有提到以平面方式估算木星運行軌道的圖形。
儘管沒有一塊板子提到計算方法。但是根據文本,平面計算是梯形的。
新的詮釋顯示,巴比倫的天文學家有時候會提到這些幾何運算法。」Ossendrijver說。在5塊板子上,有紀錄每天木星運行的位置及他們的軌道。類似的運算,在歐洲一直要到1400年以後才出現。
但是現在還在討論,是否巴比倫人只能計算出木星運行而已?還是可以藉由幾何學推測其他行星?「這是一位天文學家的重大發現?還是他與其他同仁一起合作的?」Ossendrijver提問。
他說現在還搞不清楚,是否他們也運用到其他行星上。現在仍無法解答,也許需要其他板子一起推論。



http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35431974

Vier uralte Tafeln erzählten Forschern etwas über frühe Beobachtungen…
WELT.DE|由 ANTONIA LANGE 上傳

Ancient Babylonians 'first to use geometry'


Babylonian tabletImage copyrightMathieu Ossendrijver
Image captionFive Babylonian tablets revealed that these ancient people were using sophisticated geometry

Sophisticated geometry - the branch of mathematics that deals with shapes - was being used at least 1,400 years earlier than previously thought, a study suggests.
Research shows that the Ancient Babylonians were using geometrical calculations to track Jupiter across the night sky.
Previously, the origins of this technique had been traced to the 14th Century.
The new study is published in Science.
Its author, Prof Mathieu Ossendrijver, from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, said: "I wasn't expecting this. It is completely fundamental to physics, and all branches of science use this method."
Stargazers
The Ancient Babylonians once lived in what is now Iraq and Syria. The civilisation emerged in about 1,800 BC.
Clay tablets engraved with their Cuneiform writing system have already shown these people were advanced in astronomy.


"They wrote reports about what they saw in the sky," Prof Ossendrijver told the BBC World Service's Science in Action programme.
"And they did this over a very long period of time, over centuries."
But this latest research shows they were also way ahead when it came to maths.
It had been thought that complex geometry was first used by scholars in Oxford and Paris in medieval times.
They used curves to trace the position and velocity of moving objects.
But now scientists believe the Babylonians developed this technique around 350 BC.

Babylonian tabletImage copyrightMathieu Ossendrijver
Image captionThe Babylonians detailed their use of trapezoids to track the planet Jupiter

Prof Ossendrijver examined five Babylonian tablets that were excavated in the 19th Century, and which are now held in the British Museum's archives.
The script reveals that they were using four-sided shapes, called trapezoids, to calculate when Jupiter would appear in the night sky, and also the speed and distance that it travelled.
"This figure - a rectangle with a slanted top - describes how the velocity of a planet, which is Jupiter, changes with time," he said.


"We have a figure where one axis, the horizontal side, represents time, and the other axis, the vertical side, represents velocity.
"The area of trapezoid gives you the distance travelled by Jupiter along its orbit.
"What is so special is this type of graph is unknown from antiquity - so making figures of motion in this rather abstract space of velocity against time - this is something very, very new."
He added that there was evidence that the Greeks used a "more straightforward" form of geometry, which dealt with the spatial relationships between the Earth and the planets rather than the concepts of time and velocity.
Prof Ossendrijver told the BBC that it was unclear how common this technique was.
"It could be that there was an earlier tablet, written by a genius, by one individual, who came up with this new way of doing astronomy.
"It could also be that in fact this is a method that was more widely applied by different scholars. We don't know."

2016年1月27日 星期三

中國科學家培養「轉基因」猴子用於自閉症研究

上海科學家給猴子植入誘發自閉症的人類基因,由此培育出的猴子也表現出了類似自閉症的行為特徵。科學家希望通過「自閉症」猴子更多地了解這種疾病與潛在治癒方法。
猴子能夠幫助科學家更好地理解自閉症大腦的運作方式,以及大腦深度模擬、基因療法或藥物療法的作用。因為猴子的生命週期長於小鼠,所以猴子從嬰兒期就可以觀察其自閉症的發展情況,為研究提供更多的機會。
CN.NYTSTYLE.COM

TetraScience helps scientists monitor and manage experiments remotely平價掃地機器人


壹週刊提供




全球第二大掃地機器人廠隱身在土城的小巷弄裡,學工業設計的燕成祥,原本是美國Honeywell空氣清淨機的代工廠。但大客戶一朝抽單,他只好轉向研發掃地機器人,也曾踩到專利報廢數千萬元,秉持「省才是賺」哲學,將成本降到最低、以一台不到對手二十分之一價格的平價機搶佔市場。


"To put it simply, TetraScience is bringing the Internet of Things to scientists. And with TetraScience’s technology, scientists can then monitor and manage experiments remotely, while collecting the data they need."
TetraScience is getting ready for something big. Read on to find out more.
It’s quite a feat for a startup to keep quiet about the launch of its products. It’s even more impressive when these said products have been used in some of the most prestigious hospitals...
BOSTINNO.STREETWISE.CO


北科大的運動時尚布料技術

作者:鄧凱元 2016-01-27 Web Only

忠孝東路上,隱藏在學校中的實驗室,竟藏著全球運動與時尚內衣品牌的秘密。2年來由產業界出考題,北科大研究團隊負責找答案,成功研發出關鍵技術,幫助台灣廠商在運動時尚市場打下一城。



最新與關鍵的技術就是塗在布料上的潑水透濕薄膜,能夠讓衣服表面像蓮花一樣,出淤泥而不染,不僅能快速排掉水分,排出後薄膜還能把水分鎖在布料外層,不會回透進內層與皮膚再接觸,這布料已經打進Under Armour、露露檸檬、維多莉亞秘密的供應鏈中。

為什麼北科大的技術,能夠協助傳統紡織廠獲得國際大廠的青睞?

第一是產業界要先找出考題,傳統上,如果貼身衣物要快速排汗,降低潮濕衣物黏在身上的不適感,所採用的是兩種化學纖維混紡的單向導濕技術。但這樣的技術有個缺點,染色過程要經過繁雜的加工程序,因此不僅單價高,排汗效果也有限。

出了考題之後,由學術實驗室解決,忠孝東路上的北科大研究團隊突破了這個問題,塗佈研發中心成員,北科大教授芮祥鵬拿起滴管,當場示範新技術的排汗效果。他在內衣的內層布料上滴下幾滴水,水珠迅速從表面透出,翻到另一面,水珠已經暈開成一元硬幣大小。關鍵技術的秘密就是蓮花。

「水珠停留在內層的時間越短,外層暈開的面積越大,越能保持內層乾爽,」芮祥鵬解釋,團隊仿製蓮花葉上的絨毛,在內衣與身體接觸的布面塗上一層薄膜。薄膜就如絨毛,可以達到撥水的效果,搭配刻意不塗滿的薄膜,讓汗水從空隙中快速穿過布料,搭配國內內衣廠商研發出的中空布料,汗水排出後就會留在衣物外層,不再與肌膚接觸。





這個「你出問題我解答」的學術界與產業界共同合作出來的新技術,成本只有原來的十分之一,吸濕排汗效果也比現有的技術好上3倍。國內已經有3家供應Under Armour、露露檸檬、維多莉亞秘密的廠商使用這項技術。

這次的突破也扭轉了過去傳統的刻板印象,象牙塔裡的實驗室出來的技術直接打入國際供應鏈的關鍵,並且與產業緊密結合,有別於學術型大學專攻基礎研究,芮祥鵬的實驗室轉了個彎,由產業界出考題,他們負責找答案,例如打入維多莉亞秘密的這塊布料,就是由業者自行研發新材質,芮祥鵬的團隊則負責研發吸濕排汗的新技術。目前,與他們合作的國內紡織與染料大廠,有宏遠、興采、永光化學、福盈、富喬等上市櫃公司。甚至有來自日本的廠商,跨海把產品送來他們的實驗室打樣。

芮祥鵬說,表面塗料的開發期短,較快容易看到成果,下一步他們也要投入纖維與原料開發,就是要幫台灣廠商,擺脫紅色供應鏈的追趕,站穩運動時尚王國的地位,而這種產業界出考題學校實驗室找答案的合作模式,也讓台灣學術界與產業界找了一種能夠更緊密合作的方法。

- See more at: http://www.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=5074192&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Daily#sthash.jb91XUUc.dpuf

睡眠時間與BMI的關係呈U字型


「睡眠不足で肥満になる」と聞いたことのある人も多いのでは。しかし、実際は睡眠時間は長くても肥満になる傾向にあります。
http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO95863080X00C16A1000000/…
多くの疫学調査からはっきりしているのは、睡眠時間と肥満は一般的に「U字型」の関係にあるということ。つまり、睡眠時間が短くても長くても肥満傾向が強くなることが分かっている。
NIKKEI.COM

2016年1月26日 星期二

For Gadget Geek in the Oval Office, High Tech Has Its Limits

For Gadget Geek in the Oval Office, High Tech Has Its Limits

President Obama’s Fitbit device was visible on his left wrist during a meeting in Paris in December.
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Obama’s Fitbit device was visible on his left wrist during a meeting in Paris in December.
WASHINGTON — In this always-on, always-connected world, what good is a Fitbit with no GPS or an iPad that can’t connect to the cloud?
Hint: Ask President Obama.

相关文章

Mr. Obama is the first true gadget geek to occupy the Oval Office, and yet his eagerness to take part in the personal technology revolution is hampered by the secrecy and security challenges that are daily requirements of his job.
What counts as must-have features for many people — high-definition cameras, powerful microphones, cloud-connected wireless radios and precise GPS location transmitters — are potential threats when the leader of the free world wants to carry them around.
And so using the latest devices means more than merely ordering one on Amazon for delivery to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It means accepting the compromises imposed by White House technology experts, whose mission is to secure the president’s communications, and by the Secret Service agents who protect him.
“I am not allowed, for security reasons, to have an iPhone,” Mr. Obama conceded at a youth summit in 2013.
He has not given up, though. Mr. Obama is the first commander in chief to regularly carry a specially secured BlackBerry. He reads briefings and checks scores from ESPN on an iPad (the first of which was given to him by Steve Jobs before its public release). And recently he has been seen wearing the Fitbit Surge, a fitness band packed with all the latest technology, on his left wrist.
Still, from the experiences of others inside the White House, it is easy to conclude that Mr. Obama is not having a typical out-of-the-box experience with his electronic toys.
James E. Cartwright, a retired Marine general who served as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during part of Mr. Obama’s first term, was one of the administration’s earliest tech adopters. Eager for a better way to have information at his fingertips in top-secret meetings, General Cartwright was dazzled by the possibilities when the first iPad was unveiled early in 2010.
“If nothing else, in the physical sense, not having to have large binders and four lieutenants to carry them for me,” General Cartwright said of his decision to carry his briefing documents on an iPad. “As soon as people saw it, the race was on: ‘How do I get one?’”
But it wasn’t that easy, he recalled. The general’s iPad was essentially a prototype modified at his direction by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the military’s high-tech lab that helped develop weather satellites, the Internet, GPS, and stealth technology.
The agency made physical alterations to the iPad, removing the cameras, wireless chips, location sensors and microphones. Briefing documents were loaded onto the device every morning via a secure cable. Anything General Cartwright wanted to save came off the device the same way in a process he called “store and dump.”
“What I ended up with was a pretty dumb iPad,” he said. “It wasn’t connected to anything. Anything was removed that could transmit.”
The president has acknowledged that his BlackBerry is enhanced with security features that ease fears of his emails being hacked or intercepted. Even so, his communications are severely limited — only a small number of designated people are even allowed to send him email.
When Mr. Obama posted his first message from the @POTUS Twitter account in May, he borrowed an iPhone from a staff member instead of using his secure BlackBerry.
Such precautions are seen as vital in an era when cyberattacks from the nation’s adversaries are common. Chinese hackers are suspected of having breached millions of records at the Office of Personnel Management, and officials believe Russian hackers penetrated an unclassified White House email system — though apparently not Mr. Obama’s BlackBerry.
Mr. Obama is not the first person inside the White House to take precautions against high-tech dangers.
In 2007, Vice President Dick Cheney disabled the wireless abilities of his defibrillator, which had been implanted to regulate his heartbeat. His fear: that terrorists could have hacked the signal in an assassination attempt, not unlike the dramatic plot twist that killed the vice president in Showtime’s “Homeland” a few years ago.
But Mr. Obama is the first committed early adopter of personal technology to serve as president. In 2014, he told his helicopter pilot to wait while he ran back into the Oval Office. “I forgot my BlackBerry,” the president told reporters, holding the phone up. When Mr. Obama filmed a short video preview before his State of the Union address this year, his BlackBerry could be seen on the desk behind him, and his new Fitbit was clearly visible.
Those close to him say he envisions an ultra-high-tech presidential library when he leaves the White House. And in long dinners with Silicon Valley titans, he has talked extensively about ways to better use personal technology to increase voter turnout and improve civic engagement.
Mostly, though, Mr. Obama is just intent on being plugged in the way most Americans are these days. In a town hall exchange in 2011 with Jorge Ramos of Univision, Mr. Obama seemed amused that Mr. Ramos did not think he had his own computer.
“I mean, Jorge, I’m the president of the United States,” he said. “You think I’ve got to go borrow somebody’s computer?”


歐巴馬有一顆極客的心,但更怕黑客

去年12月巴黎會議期間,奧巴馬總統左手腕上的Fitbit手環明顯可見。
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
去年12月巴黎會議期間,奧巴馬總統左手腕上的Fitbit手環明顯可見。
華盛頓——在這個時刻在線、永遠互聯的世界,沒有GPS功能的Fitbit,無法連接雲端的iPad,能有什麼用?
給你個提示:問問奧巴馬總統。
奧巴馬是第一位真正痴迷電子設備的美國總統,但他參與個人技術革命的巨大熱情,被自己日常工作所需的保密性和安全性所阻礙。
對於很多人來說,高像素攝像頭、高性能的麥克風、雲端連接的無線收音機、精確的GPS定位信號傳送器是必不可少的功能,但當這位自由世界領袖也想隨身攜帶這些東西時,卻會給他帶來潛在的威脅。
所以對他而言,使用最新的設備,不是從亞馬遜下訂單,讓對方送到賓夕法尼亞大道1600號那麼簡單,他還必須接受白宮技術專家和特勤局(Secret Service)特工要求他做出的妥協,前者的任務是確保總統的通訊安全,後者則保護他人身安全。
「出於安全因素考慮,我不能使用iPhone,」奧巴馬曾在2013年的一次青年領袖峰會上承認這一點。
但是,他並沒有放棄。奧巴馬是首位經常攜帶一部經過特殊安全處理的黑莓手機的美國三軍統帥。他會在iPad上閱讀簡報,偶爾看一眼ESPN頻道上的體育比賽結果(他的第一個iPad是史蒂夫·喬布斯送給他的,當時產品還沒有正式發佈)。最近有人看到他左手腕上帶着一個Fitbit Surge,一種採用了大量最新技術的健身手環。
不過,以白宮其他高層人士的經歷來看,我們很容易地得出如下結論:在他的電子「玩具」上,奧巴馬沒有過典型的開箱即用體驗。
曾在奧巴馬第一任期內擔任參謀長聯席會議(Joint Chiefs of Staff)副主席的退役海軍上將詹姆斯·E·卡特賴特(James E. Cartwright),也是美國政府內最早使用這類科技產品的人之一。卡特賴特上將渴望在絕密會議中能以更理想的方式隨時取閱一切信息,所以當2010年初iPad面世時,這種設備所帶來的可能性令他大為傾倒。
「撇開其他不談,單就物理感受而言,不用再看巨大的活頁夾,也不需要找四個副官為我拿着這些東西,」卡特賴特說的是他的簡報文件,他當時決定把它們都放到iPad里隨身攜帶。「但凡有人看見它,就肯定會爭着要:『我怎麼才能弄一個?』」
但他回憶,這一點並不容易實現。卡特賴特上將的iPad實際上是由國防高級研究計劃局(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)按照他的指示改造過的,該機構是美國軍隊的高科技實驗室,幫助進行氣象衛星、互聯網、GPS和隱身技術等方面的研發。
它對iPad進行了硬件改造,去掉了攝像頭、無線芯片、定位傳感器和麥克風。簡報文件每天早上通過一根安全線纜傳送到這個設備上。卡特賴特想要保存的任何東西,都要經過一個名為「存儲和丟棄」的過程以同樣的方式從設備中取出。
「所以我最後用上的是個挺不智能的iPad,」他說。「它不能和任何東西相連。裡面所有可以傳輸信號的零件都被摘掉了。」
奧巴馬總統也承認,他使用的黑莓手機經過安全升級,可以消除他的郵件被黑客盜取或攔截的擔憂。但即便如此,他的通訊還是受到極大的限制,甚至只有一小部分特定的人被允許向他發送郵件。
去年5月,奧巴馬在其Twitter賬戶@POTUS上發佈的第一條推文,是借了一位工作人員的iPhone發佈的,而不是使用他自己的黑莓手機。
在一個經常遭敵對國網絡攻擊的時代,這樣的謹慎被認為是必不可少的。美國懷疑中國黑客盜取了美國政府人事管理辦公室(Office of Personnel Management)數百萬僱員的記錄。還有一些官員認為,白宮一個機密郵件系統遭到了俄羅斯黑客的入侵,不過顯然不是奧巴馬使用的黑莓手機。
奧巴馬不是第一個針對來自高科技的威脅採取預防措施的總統。
2007年,當時的副總統迪克·切尼(Dick Cheney)去掉了放置在他體內的除顫器的無線功能,這個小儀器可以使他的心臟正常搏動。他的擔憂是:恐怖分子可能會試圖獲取這個除顫器的無線信號以便謀殺他,就像幾年前Showtime電視劇《國土安全》(Homeland)里副總統被暗殺的驚人橋段一樣。
但奧巴馬是第一個積極嘗試採用個人科技產品的總統。2014年,他讓直升機飛行員等一下,然後跑回橢圓形辦公室。「我忘帶黑莓手機了,」總統舉起手機對記者說。今年發表國情咨文演講之前,奧巴馬拍攝了一段簡短的視頻,你可以看到他身後桌子上的黑莓手機,他的新Fitbit也清晰可見。
據了解他的人說,他打算在離開白宮後,開設一個超高科技的總統圖書館。在與硅谷巨頭共進豐盛晚餐的時候,他也泛泛地談到如何更好地利用個人技術來提高選民投票率,促進公民參與度的方式。
但總的來說,奧巴馬只是想與大多數美國人時下的生活方式保持一致。2011年他在一個市政廳會面中與Univision的豪爾赫·拉莫斯(Jorge Ramos)交談,拉莫斯沒有想到奧巴馬有自己的電腦,這似乎讓他覺得很好笑。
「我說,豪爾赫,我可是合眾國總統,」他說。「你以為我還得去借別人的電腦嗎?」
翻譯:常青、土土
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