Lifeboat Foundation

With 2700 locations across 10000 U.S. communities, YMCA is becoming a major hub for healthy living — From vaccinations and diabetes prevention programs, to healthy aging and wellness — Siva Balu, VP/Chief Information Officer — The Y of the U.S.A.

Mr. Siva Balu is Vice President and Chief Information Officer of YMCA of the U.S. (Y-USA), where he is working to rethink and reorganize the work of the organization’s information technology strategy to meet the changing needs of Y-USA and Ys throughout the country.

Continue reading “Siva Balu — VP / Chief Information Officer — YMCA of the U.S.A. — People, Potential, & Purpose” »

Batteries and fuel cells often rely on a process known as ion diffusion to function. In ion diffusion, ionized atoms move through solid materials, similar to the process of water being absorbed by rice when cooked. Just like cooking rice, ion diffusion is incredibly temperature-dependent and requires high temperatures to happen fast.

This temperature dependence can be limiting, as the materials used in some systems like fuel cells need to withstand high temperatures sometimes in excess of 1000 degrees Celsius. In a new study, a team of researchers at MIT and the University of Muenster in Germany showed a new effect, where ion diffusion is enhanced while the material remains cold, by only exciting a select number of vibrations known as phonons. This new approach—which the team refers to as “phonon catalysis”—could lead to an entirely new field of research. Their work was published in Cell Reports Physical Science.

In the study, the research team used a computational model to determine which vibrations actually caused ions to move during ion diffusion. Rather than increasing the temperature of the entire material, they increased the temperature of just those specific vibrations in a process they refer to as targeted phonon excitation.

O,.o yikes!

Rural Australia has taken a battering over the last few years, with drought, fires and floods — and many farms in New South Wales are now having to deal with a plague of mice.

Continue reading “Mouse plague deals fresh blow to Australian farmers — BBC News” »

LONDON — An illegal bitcoin mine has been found by police in the U.K. who were looking for a cannabis farm.

The mine — located in an industrial unit on the outskirts of the English city of Birmingham — was stealing thousands of pounds worth of electricity from the mains supply, West Midlands Police said Thursday.

Police searched the unit in Sandwell on May 18 on the back of intelligence that led them to believe it was being used as a cannabis farm.

Circa 2016

Accumulated evidence from genetic animal models suggests that the brain, particularly the hypothalamus, has a key role in the homeostatic regulation of energy and glucose metabolism. The brain integrates multiple metabolic inputs from the periphery through nutrients, gut-derived satiety signals and adiposity-related hormones. The brain modulates various aspects of metabolism, such as food intake, energy expenditure, insulin secretion, hepatic glucose production and glucose/fatty acid metabolism in adipose tissue and skeletal muscle. Highly coordinated interactions between the brain and peripheral metabolic organs are critical for the maintenance of energy and glucose homeostasis. Defective crosstalk between the brain and peripheral organs contributes to the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Here we comprehensively review the above topics, discussing the main findings related to the role of the brain in the homeostatic regulation of energy and glucose metabolism.

In normal individuals, food intake and energy expenditure are tightly regulated by homeostatic mechanisms to maintain energy balance. Substantial evidence indicates that the brain, particularly the hypothalamus, is primarily responsible for the regulation of energy homeostasis.¹ The brain monitors changes in the body energy state by sensing alterations in the plasma levels of key metabolic hormones and nutrients. Specialized neuronal networks in the brain coordinate adaptive changes in food intake and energy expenditure in response to altered metabolic conditions ( Figure 1 ).^{2, 3}.

It is said that 10 to 15% of the world’s agricultural production loss is caused by diseases, which is equivalent of the food for about 500 million people. And since 70–80% of this plant disease is caused by filamentous fungi, protecting crops from filamentous fungi is an important issue in effectively feeding the world population. In order for pathogenic fungi to infect plants, they must break through the epidermal cells of the plant and invade the interior. In other words, plant epidermal cells act as the first barrier to stop the attack of pathogenic fungi in the environment. So what kind of defense functions do epidermal cells have?

Interestingly, it was known that the epidermis of plants contain small chloroplasts that are not so involved in photosynthesis. However, it was unclear what function it had. Why are there small chloroplasts in the epidermis of plants that do not contribute much to photosynthesis?

Assistant Professor Hiroki Irieda of the Faculty of Agriculture, Shinshu University and Professor Yoshitaka Takano, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, found that small chloroplasts in the epidermis of plants control the entry of fungal pathogens. The duo discovered that the small chloroplasts move inside the cell dramatically to the surface layer in response to the fungal attack and is involved in such defense response. Furthermore, the duo found that multiple immune factors involved in the defense response of plants are specifically found in the epidermal chloroplast, which contributes to the enhancement of resistance to the invasion of pathogen filamentous fungi.

What is really going on with Virgin Galactic, Get the inside scoop from the initial developer of the engine technology who worked for Burt Rutan on SpaceShipOne and also worked SpaceShipTwo-Tim Pickens, See why he, and I are concerned about Virgin Galactic.
Tim Pickens is an entrepreneur, inventor, innovator, engineer and educator. He specializes in commercial space, technical product development and solutions, and business consulting and strategy for space and technical companies. He is known for applying a lean philosophy to develop creative solutions and innovative partnerships to provide responsive, low-cost products and services for government and private industry. Pickens’ 25+ years of experience in the aerospace industry, specializing in the design, fabrication and testing of propulsion hardware systems, has earned him a reputation as one of the industry’s leaders in these areas. Early in his career, Pickens served as propulsion lead for Scaled Composites on SpaceShipOne, winner of the $10 million Ansari X Prize. He also worked for small hardware-rich aerospace companies in Huntsville, and later supported the Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo venture.

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3D printed food is no longer the domain of sci-fi fantasy. It’s here and it’s real: but is it really a big deal, or is it just a passing fad?

In science fiction television shows and movies such as those in the Star Trek universe, the food synthesizers or replicators were electronic devices that took base elements and transformed them into any type of food that was desired. This seemingly miraculous device could only exist in the world of science fiction — at least for now. However, thanks to the advances in 3D printing, it is now possible to create food that mimics the taste, shape, and color of familiar dishes.

Over the past few years, 3D printers have become more commonplace in commercial industries and are used to create all types of items that range from small models and jewelry up to large construction items used to create buildings. But what about 3D printed foods? Is it the future of gastronomy, or just a quirky fad?

Continue reading “What’s the Deal with 3D Printed Food?” »

Circa 2010

Researchers have discovered a possible new species of bacteria that survives by producing and ‘breathing’ its own oxygen. The finding suggests that some microbes could have thrived without oxygen-producing plants on the early Earth — and on other planets — by using their own oxygen to garner energy from methane (CH₄).

“The mechanism we have now discovered shows that, long ago, these organisms could have exploited the methane sources on Earth and possibly on other planets and moons by mechanisms that we didn’t know existed,” says Mike Jetten, a microbiologist at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and part of the team that conducted the study, which is published in Nature today¹.

Continue reading “Methane-eating microbes make their own oxygen” »