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Customers Rapidly Adopting Big Data Solutions — Driven By Marketing, Sales and More — Reports New Microsoft Research

By Guest PostFebruary 11, 2013Technologyany data, big data, big data customers, big data infographic, big data trends, eron kelly, global enterprise, microsoft corp., microsoft news center, msft, nasdaq, small data, solutions, sql server

New findings headline weeklong series on the Microsoft News Center showcasing big data customers, industry perspectives, solutions and more.

REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 11, 2013 — More than 75 percent of midsize to large businesses are implementing big data-related solutions within the next 12 months — with customer care, marketing and sales departments increasingly driving demand, according to new Microsoft Corp. research released today. (more…)

‘Finally American’: Poet Discusses Impact of Inaugural Poem

By Guest PostFebruary 11, 2013Culture, Politicsamerican holiday, ancestors, building bridges, cuban immigrants, cultural negotiation, cutting sugar cane, elizabeth alexander, emotional historian, ezra stiles college, finally american, idealized america, impact, inaugural poem, inauguration platform, james taylor, math whiz, mathematics, miami beach, natural bent, new haven residents, one today, podium, poet, poetry, president barack obama, richard blanco, san giving, second inauguration, stephen pitti, sub genre, venus, vice president, washington mall, working class, writing a poem, yale professor

Is the inaugural poem a new sub-genre of poetry? According to two practitioners of the form, the answer might be “yes.”

Poet Richard Blanco and Yale professor Elizabeth Alexander, two of only five poets in history to have created works for a presidential inauguration, came together on Feb. 5 for a poetry reading and dialogue about their unique shared experience. Blanco read his work “One Today” at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, while Alexander read her “Praise Song for the Day” at Obama’s first. Their discussion was hosted by Ezra Stiles College master Stephen Pitti. (more…)

UCLA Findings Buck Conventional Wisdom about How Stress-Response Protein Works

By Guest PostFebruary 11, 2013Health, Scienceage related, biomarker, cell stress, cell types, chaperones, class of molecules, clouding, conventional wisdom, environmental conditions, epithelial cells, eye institute, eye lens, fibroblast cells, gene, heart muscle degeneration, heat shock factor, heat shock factor4, heat shock protein, hsf1, hsf4, infection, inflammation, jules stein, macular degeneration, monitor for diseases, multiple sclerosis, stress response protein, toxins, transcription factors, ucla researchers, zhe jing, αb crystallin

UCLA researchers, in a finding that runs counter to conventional wisdom, have discovered for the first time that a gene thought to express a stress-response protein in all cells that come under stress instead expresses the protein only in specific cell types.

The research team, from the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA and the UCLA Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, focused on αB-Crystallin, one of a class of molecules known as heat shock proteins, which are involved in the folding and unfolding of other proteins, helping them recover from stress so they can do their job. (more…)

MU Scientists Build Harness for Powerful Radiation Cancer Therapy

By Guest PostFebruary 11, 2013Healthactinium, alpha emitter, alpha particles, beta particles, bone cancer, cancer cells, cancer patients, cancer site, cannon balls, david robertson, gold nanoparticle, gold plated nanoparticle, groundbreaking work, healthy organs, human clinical trials, knoxville, low energy, mark mclaughlin, national laboratory, oak ridge, radiation cancer therapy, radioactive particles, radiopharmaceuticals, radium 223 chloride, tissues, treatments for cancer, tumors for treatment, university of missouri, university of tennessee

Scientists at MU, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville created a gold nanoparticle that can transport powerful radioactive particles directly to tumors for treatment.

We’ve all heard that “it’s not wise to use a cannon to kill a mosquito.” But what if you could focus the cannon’s power to concentrate power into a tiny space? In a new study, University of Missouri researchers have demonstrated the ability to harness powerful radioactive particles and direct them toward small cancer tumors while doing negligible damage to healthy organs and tissues. The study is being published this week in PLOS ONE, an international, peer-reviewed and open-access publication. (more…)

Tendency to Fear is Strong Political Influence

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Politicsanti immigration, baseline fear, brown political scientist, common focus area, congress, emotional factors, Environment, factors, forces, genetic liability, immigration, immigration and war, kenneth s kendler, level, lindon j eaves, michael c neale, out group opinions, penn state university, peter k hatemi, political attitudes, political campaigns, political influence, political preferences, pro segregation policies, provocation, rational arguments, rose mcdermott, segregation, social phobia, tendency to fear, threat, trait based fear, virginia commonwealth university

Fear can play a role in influencing political attitudes on hot-button issues like immigration, according to new research co-authored by Brown political scientist Rose McDermott. The study, published in the American Journal of Political Science, shows that individuals who are genetically predisposed to fear tend to have more negative out-group opinions, which play out politically as support for policies like anti-immigration and segregation.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — It’s no secret that fear is a mechanism often used in political campaigns to steer public opinion on hot-button issues like immigration and war. But not everyone is equally predisposed to be influenced by such a strategy, according to new research by Rose McDermott, professor of political science, and colleagues published in the American Journal of Political Science. (more…)

NASA Curiosity Rover Collects First Martian Bedrock Sample

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Scienceamerica, analytical laboratory, avi okon, bedrock, chemin, chemistry and mineralogy, chimra, curiosity rover, drill area, drill systems engineer, first martian bedrock, gale crater, in situ, jet propulsion laboratory, john grunsfeld, john klein, jpl, louise jandura, mars, martian rock analysis, NASA, pasadena, rocks on mars, sam, sample, sample analysis, sample on mars, scott mccloskey, sky crane

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Curiosity rover has, for the first time, used a drill carried at the end of its robotic arm to bore into a flat, veiny rock on Mars and collect a sample from its interior. This is the first time any robot has drilled into a rock to collect a sample on Mars.

The fresh hole, about 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) wide and 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) deep in a patch of fine-grained sedimentary bedrock, can be seen in images and other data Curiosity beamed to Earth Saturday. The rock is believed to hold evidence about long-gone wet environments. In pursuit of that evidence, the rover will use its laboratory instruments to analyze rock powder collected by the drill. (more…)

Jurassic Park molecules?

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Science3d architectures, alpha helices, amino acids, animal bodies, autoimmune disorders, beta strands, biochemist, biofuels, bundles of protein, burckhard seelig, chains, copies of genes, diversity, dna sequences, early life, earth, enzyme shapes, enzymes, fa an chao, fossil enzymes, gianluigi veglia, helixes, human dna, jurassic park, molecules, NASA, pcr, pieces of rna, sea anemones, sequencing rna, sponges, starfish, symmetric, university of minnesota, useful function, years of evolution

Enzymes evolved in the lab hold commercial and scientific promise

Whether big, small, slimy, or tall, most animal bodies are symmetric.

Except for sea anemones, starfish, sponges, and the like, animals have bilateral, or right-left, symmetry. Us included.

The bilateral body plan became the norm over eons of evolution. But what about molecules? Have any evolved common structures like a body plan? (more…)

A Boost for Analyzing Biological Sequences

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Scienceanalyzing sequence data, best parameters, biological molecules, biologists, computational biologists, computational model, dan deblasio, detect, DNA, evolutionary past, guessing game, improved software, john kececioglu, model, parameter advising, parameter values, parameters, phenomena, predict missing data, proteins, run alignment software, software tools, species, ua computer scientists, university of arizona

UA computer scientists John Kececioglu and Dan DeBlasio are developing improved software that provides biologists with much more accurate results when analyzing sequence data.

Imagine trying to construct a brick building with fewer than the requisite number of bricks and without a detailed blueprint.

Welcome to the world of computational biologists.

When biologists study proteins, DNA, or other biological molecules that are represented in the computer as sequences, they rely on known information but also must predict missing data. Given that reality, major challenges exist to having accurate results. (more…)

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