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HP today announced new inertial sensing technology that enables the development of digital micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers that are up to 1,000 times more sensitive than high-volume products currently available.

A MEMS accelerometer is a sensor that can be used to measure vibration, shock or change in velocity. By deploying many of these detectors as part of a complete sensor network, HP will enable real-time data collection, management evaluation and analysis. This information empowers people to make better, faster decisions, and take subsequent action to improve safety, security and sustainability for a range of applications, such as bridge and infrastructure health monitoring, geophysical mapping, mine exploration and earthquake monitoring.

The HP sensing technology enables a new class of ultrasensitive, low-power MEMS accelerometers. Up to 1,000 times more sensitive than high-volume, commercial products, sensors based on this technology can achieve noise density performance in the sub 100 nano-g per square root Hz range to enable dramatic improvements in data quality. The MEMS device can be customized with single or multiple axes per chip to meet individual system requirements.

The sensing technology is a key enabler of HP’s vision for a new information ecosystem, the Central Nervous System for the Earth (CeNSE). Integrating the devices within a complete system that encompasses numerous sensor types, networks, storage, computation and software solutions enables a new level of awareness, revolutionizing communication between objects and people.

“With a trillion sensors embedded in the environment – all connected by computing systems, software and services – it will be possible to hear the heartbeat of the Earth, impacting human interaction with the globe as profoundly as the Internet has revolutionized communication,” said Peter Hartwell, senior researcher, HP Labs.

In a pilot study of two patients monitored for two years, an international team of researchers slowed the onset of the debilitating brain disease X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) using a lentiviral vector to introduce a therapeutic gene into patient’s blood cells. Although studies with larger cohorts of patients are needed, these results suggest that gene therapy with lentiviral vectors, which are derived from disabled versions of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), could potentially become instrumental in treating a broad range of human disorders

Other Gene Therapy Success and Progress
Lungs too damaged for use in transplant operations may be salvageable through a gene-based technique, doubling or tripling the supply of organs.

The flawed lungs could be removed from donors’ bodies after death and repaired using the gene IL-10, which lowers inflammation. 1800 people in the US are awaiting lung transplants.

Gene Therapy helps treat a form of blindness The condition is known as Leber’s congenital amaurosis and there are 2000 people in the US who have it.

A number of companies are developing gene therapies and 320 trials are under way or cleared to begin by U.S. regulators, said Karen Riley, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman. Genzyme Corp. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, will begin a human trial using gene therapy next year to treat macular degeneration, the leading form of age-related vision loss, said John Lacey, a Genzyme spokesman

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have shown that a highly specific intrabody (an antibody fragment that works against a target inside a cell) is capable of stalling the development of Huntington’s disease in a variety of mouse models.

Research in monkeys suggests that genetically delivering dopamine avoids some side effects and helps with Parkinson’s.

In the new trial, reported today in the journal Science Translational Medicine, Bechir Jarraya and colleagues at the Molecular Imaging Research Center in Fontenay-aux-Roses, France, mimicked Parkinson’s in monkeys by giving them a neurotoxin that causes movement problems characteristic of the disorder. The researchers then injected three genes involved in dopamine production into the brains of the monkeys, as well as specially designed probes to measure dopamine levels in the brain, monitoring the animals for up to three and a half years. The gene therapy restored concentrations of dopamine in the brain, corrected movement problems, and prevented dyskinesias–without any severe adverse side effects. An early stage human clinical trial using the same dopamine gene therapy approach is now underway.

The Modified HIV Gene Therapy

The healthy ALD protein was expressed in about 15 percent of blood cells, yet surprisingly this low level was sufficient to slow brain disease in ALD. “This percentage of correction will not be sufficient for all diseases,” warns Aubourg. “There is a lot of work to be done to make this gene therapy vector more powerful, less complicated, and less expensive. This is only the beginning,” he said.

Gene therapy is not without serious risks. Like other retrovirus vectors, the HIV-derived lentivirus vector is tasked with inserting the therapeutic gene in the chromosomes of the patients’ cells. In a worst case scenario, this action could disturb the biology of the cells and patients could end up with leukemia; this outcome has occurred in past gene therapy trials. “The HIV-derived lentivirus vector basically has this same risk, although the design of the vector makes patients less prone to this side effect,” said Aubourg.

Wrong Diagnosis has statistics on ALD

Prevalance Rate: approx 1 in 20,000 or 0.00% or 13,600 people in USA

Wikipedia on Adrenoleukodystrophy

Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) (also known as “Addison-Schilder Disease,” “Siemerling-Creutzfeldt Disease,” and “Schilder’s disease”) is a rare, inherited disorder that leads to progressive brain damage, failure of the adrenal glands and eventually death. ALD is one disease in a group of inherited disorders called leukodystrophies. Adrenoleukodystrophy progressively damages the myelin, a complex fatty neural tissue that insulates many nerves of the central and peripheral nervous systems, eventually destroying it. Without myelin, nerves are unable to conduct an impulse, leading to increasing disability as myelin destruction increases and intensifies.

FURTHER READING

NY Times: For Gene Therapy, Seeing Signs of a Resurgence

Intel will use its upcoming Intel Developer Forum to highlight several key developments in its product roadmap — starting with smaller, more efficient chip designs and specialized applications for its Nehalem line.

* Intel will show off “Westmere,” the first processors built using a 32 nanometer (nm) manufacturing process.
* CPU manufacturing shrank from 65nm to 45nm to 32nm and next to 22nm.
* The next chip architecture will come in 2010, in the form of the new architecture codenamed “Sandy Bridge,” which will also be disclosed at this month’s IDF. Intel’s roadmap is process shrinkage and then better architecture and then process shrink etc… (tick-tock)
* This new-generation high-k metal gate transistor formula will give Intel “a 3+ year advantage in addressing leaky and energy inefficient transistors,” according to a blog post from Intel spokesman Bill Kircos Intel has shipped >200 million 45nm CPUs using high-k+ metal gate transistors.
* For the first time, Intel has developed a full-featured SoC process technology to complement the CPU-specific technology. This version is for our smarter System on Chip (SoC) product efforts, which emphasize lower power transistors
* Intel NMOS transistors now have 19% performance improvement over their 45nm counterparts and our PMOS transistors now have a 28% performance improvement over their 45nm counterparts.
* Another IDF highlight: Nehalem-based chips codenamed “Jasper Forest” and designed for the embedded and storage sectors. This family of products will bring Nehalem to the embedded market, offering integrated PCI Express (PCIe) and an integrated I/O hub in a dual-processor Xeon processor.
* Nehalem will allow for much faster and denser storage and communications solutions such as IPTV, VoIP, NAS, SAN and wireless radio network controllers

The UK Register has information on the Sun Sparc Roadmap. The 16-core “Rock” UltraSparc-RK processor for Sun’s once-and-never “Supernova” line of servers is not on the roadmap. The one-page roadmap is one given Sun’s customers – and presumably also Fujitsu’s customers – have been shown about the future Sparc processor lineup.

June 2009 Sun Roadmap

A long way off in late 2010 or early 2011, the Sparc Enterprise server lineup gets a speed boost to 3 GHz with the Jupiter-E chips.

After that, in 2012, Sun has made no commitment to the kicker line of Fujitsu “Advanced Product Line 2″ servers coming from Fujitsu. These APL2 machines are presumably to be based on the “Venus” eight-core Sparc64-VIII processor, which has a Sparc64-VIIIfx variant aimed at supercomputers. That Sparc64-VIIIfx chip will be used in a 10 petaflops massively parallel machine being built by Fujitsu and paid for by the Japanese government under the 1.2bn Project Keisoku effort.

All of this is subject to change, and some of it most certainly will once Oracle takes control of Sun.

Fox will reboot the Fantastic Four Movie Franchise.

No word yet if this reboot will bring the FF into the same movie continuity shared by Iron Man, the Hulk and Nick Fury, as has been established in the “tags” following Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk.

This is good as the Fantastic Four movies desperately need to be rebooted.

There rumors that Doctor Who will meet Blackadder.

It would be good if this happens. Doctor Who should meet Blackadder, Mr Bean and Dr House. The actor, Hugh Laurie, in House appeared in Blackadder. The Blackadder actor, Rowan Atkinson, played Blackadders and Mr Bean. Just one throw away episode.

OTHER HIGH ALTITUDE WIND PROJECTS

* Sky WindPower, S. Diego
* MagennPower, Ottawa
* Laddermill, Delft University

The winds in high-altitude jet streams hold roughly 100 times more energy than all the electricity being consumed on Earth, according to a study by Stanford environmental and climate scientists Cristina Archer and Ken Caldeira.

High-altitude winds hold a huge energy potential waiting to be harnessed. “If you tapped into 1 percent of the power in high-altitude winds, that would be enough to continuously power all civilization,” Caldeira said. In comparison, similar solar cells would cover roughly 100 times more area than a high-altitude wind turbine, he said.

Archer and Caldeira found the highest wind densities over Japan, eastern China, the eastern coast of the United States, southern Australia and northeastern Africa. Included in the analysis were assessments of wind energy above the world’s five largest cities: Tokyo, New York, São Paulo, Seoul and Mexico City. “New York … has the highest average high-altitude wind power density of any U.S. city,” Archer said.

In order to capture the energy in these jet streams, manufacturers are developing a variety of kite turbines that convert kinetic energy in wind to electricity. Manufacturer Sky WindPower designed a model consisting of a single tethered kite of four connected turbines, each with spinning rotors. The kite transfers the electricity back to a hub on the ground through its tether.

Another model, being developed by Kite Gen, looks like a rotating carousel, based on the ground, with several kites tethered to it. Each kite’s flight pattern is controlled from the ground to capture the most wind, and as the kites circle in the air, they catch the wind and tug on their tethers. The tension triggers a pulley system that converts the energy of motion to electricity.

Though sky-high currents offer huge potential, kite fliers face the challenge of a fluctuating wind. “While the winds at high altitude are much more consistent than the winds at the surface, they’re still not consistent enough,” Caldeira said. For example, if you flew a kite turbine in your backyard to power a house, at some times the wind would blow and at other times, it wouldn’t, he said. As a result, there would be gaps in the flow of electricity.