qCOVET

Here is a great video of Scott Galloway (NYU Prof) on Angela's transition to Apple (2013) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDnwfjwfkxo

Great story.

I wonder how many of the young kids currently crying in the arms of their Syrian parents and hoping to survive political games, voyage across deadly waters and, kicks and blows in foreign lands, would be future graduates of Harvard, if given the opportunity.

This is really sad. Here is an article for Startup founders and how to cope w/ stress and protect their mental health: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-startup-founders-can...

Thank you. Great answer!

I vaguely remember from my academia days that there was another protein of immense interest that led to centrosomal aggregation of proteins - a precusor to Alzhemier and it was called something like - alpha-synuclein. Is that a subset of amyloid family ? or different ?

Very interesting - thank you for sharing.

Summary for others:

Protein misfolding and aggregation inside the cell was known to contribute to Alzheimers. This article points to the possibility of misfolded and aggregated proteins of Alzheimer patients triggering (or seeding) misfolding and aggregation of otherwise 'healthy' proteins in non-alzheimer patients. Much like the mad cow disease.

A cyber security company that does this

"the box has Apache, pushing PHP, running as root."

is not a cyber security company .. lol

Thanks op for the link .. great pictures!

India's historical legacy is absolutely breath taking. From the beautiful palaces in Jaipur, to the ultimate gift of Love in Agra, India's rich heritage tells stories of architectural break throughs, scientific explorations, mathematical discoveries and heart wrenching sagas of love.

I used to live in India in early 1990s and I can't wait to go back and visit this beautiful land of kind and generous people, where Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christians are united by the fabric of 'Jai Hind' and where the whole nation comes to a stand still when a game of cricket is being played...lol

When I look at these architectural gems, I wonder how it might have been when it was busy with life. I am sure these structures served as focal points of communities and unfortunately now lie in absolute ruins of dilapidation and neglect.

I believe University of Waterloo is one of the few that does full ownership of work by Prof (I could be wrong) .. and year after year, they beat the biggest Universities in Canada for being ranked as the #1 in entrepreneurship, tech commercialization and innovation. I think its the subsequent economic impact that counts, rather than sequestering innovation for the sake of a few bucks in 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 ownership model.

https://uwaterloo.ca/research/waterloo-commercialization-off...

Many of the big giants of tech world have set up offices all around uWaterloo and enjoy a symbiotic relationship w/ the research faculty.

I think he is a rebellious entrepreneur who found himself confined in a space that does not align with who he is. I have been in his shoe and can clearly see why he chose to write that. He could have quietly vanished and worked as a 'research assistant' or some low level job at a biotech company (cuz he doesn't have the relevant work experience) or perhaps (like a friend of mine with 4 publications) in a janitorial wholesale place. But he is a fighter and I wish him the best in whatever journey he is going to embark on.

As a post doc, it becomes extremely hard to switch career and this guy is struggling to make sense of his life, especially now that he is going to be a father.

circRNA guys who posted on HN, should hire him.

I absolutely agree with everything in this post. When I was a post doctoral fellow, my principal investigator would publish at least one paper a month. She was celebrated in the department.

(a) The papers were published in journals like - Journal of Green Donkey Testicles, Journal of differentiation of dying mouse ... Journals that I had never heard of, had no impact and every tiny bit of an experiment that was conducted in the lab, would get published, without a full picture.

(b) Much of the data was turned into data by turning everything into being 'statistically significant' . I would do experiments and I would see no freaking difference between control and experimental, yet, through the magic of statistics, she would find the difference. It was lame and depressing.

(c) Above is an isolated example. There are countless smart, diligent and hard working professors who continue to push the boundaries of science (ex. my amazing PhD prof, whom I dearly love and admire). Unfortunately, their time is plagued by writing grants after grants, fighting inter-departmental politics, dealing with Chair of the department on regular basis ... basically stuff that distracts them from having the time to relax, think and innovate.

(d) Commercialization of innovations in schools and universities are butchered by the IP policies, where by the University would take 1/3, the commercialization office would take 1/3 and the poor researcher is left with the rest. This kills innovation + tech commercialization and the desire of a researcher to be an entrepreneur.

This was already shared 6 days ago by user midko ..

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10143929

I don't know much about circRNAs so excuse my naiveness - I wonder if it could be used for gene replacement therapy in the future? Something like, if there is a stop codon somewhere in the middle of a gene, the small piece of circRNA, contains the correct version of that stop codon and is introduced into the cell. Next thing you know, that stop codon is by passed, as the transcription or translation machinery builds an entire good sequence using the DNA and the good code circRNA. Also, since they are resistant to degradation, they might be good shuttle vehicles for tiny 'good copy' exons.

From the author - Clay Christensen himself:

"Consider the hegemony of Detroit’s Big Three—General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. At one time, they dominated the auto industry, producing bigger, faster, safer, more comfortable cars with more and more features. But these improving products also “create a vacuum underneath them,” Christensen says, “and disruptive innovators suck customers in with fewer features and a cheaper price.” Toyota, Honda, and Nissan disrupted the Big Three’s marketplace by introducing smaller, lighter, less safe, and less comfortable but reliable cars that needed few repairs and got good gas mileage—at a significantly lower price. Within a few years, they had garnered a large share of the market. Says Christensen: “The leaders get killed from below.”

A Toyota car, is a Toyota car that was designed to be a car..it was not designed for some other purpose and re-purposed for transportation.

Reference: http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/07/disruptive-genius

This is a great example of Clay Christensen's Disruption. The cheap phone manufacturers, will emerge as big winners in the long run and push the current high-end manufacturers to either compete at their price point, or have their market share shrink dramatically.

Ref: http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/

re: your comment 'how do you stop anything in the brain - cut the brain out ?'

No, you can still design chemicals and peptides that could cross the blood brain barrier via adsorptive endocytosis, saturable transporters and trans-membrane diffusion.

Drug Delivery to the Brain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_delivery_to_the_brain

Modes of Transport: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2697631/

I started a not to be named University entrepreneurship program. I drew similar pictures and it looked beautiful, as if the ecosystem was bursting with activity. But the reality was different. It lacked excitement, it lacked visibility, it lacked engagement and above all it lacked entrepreneurial culture (which I see as gluon or higgs boson of a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem).

So at the heart of this beautiful map, I created a cultural hub .. a space that was founded and run by students, who elevated the excitement and visibility of entrepreneurship. To top it up, I elected a student women entrepreneur to lead it. It had interesting implications:

1. Entrepreneurial ecosystems tend to be male dominated. By creating a community of student entrepreneurs, lead by a female student, it created a 'safe zone' for other women entrepreneurs to come forward and engage.

2. Much of what we did at the space, was to encourage trying new things, new ideas and celebrating every tiny milestone of a student. I started a FB page, where every student activity was documented and celebrated.

3. In less than 2 years, I helped start over 60 new ventures. Some died or would have died or will die and a few get accepted into top incubators..and others are at limbo... but the process helped students to learn important lessons in entrepreneurship. It is best to do it while still a student.

4. The space helped connect all the dots in the picture (drawn in the article). It brought the organizations closer to the students and helped create visible linkages. It helped movement of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial ideas easily across those linkages and removed redundancies in the ecosystem.

5. I gained a lot of visibility in the media and it didn't go well with the fossils of University who claimed entrepreneurship as their own and turned my exciting job into a political game and a living hell. Non of it leaked to my students, but being an entrepreneur myself, I already had many other projects that I was working on ... so I left the University and aside from championing my students from the sidelines now, I find utmost excitement in pursuing my own tiny startup. I am broke, but I am happy and every day take pride in the work I did, to create the nucleus of a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem in one of the top Universities, that would act as a cascading feeder to the community for many generations to come.

If you wish to learn a bit more ..

Consider the DNA to be the basic hardware of life ... there has to be software layers that control how, when, where and how much information is to be decoded from the DNA. One layer of abstraction is epigenetics - DNA strands being modified by various (ex. methyl) groups, that regulate how the information is copied. Depending on where these methyl groups are on the gene, copying of DNA will greatly vary.

To add another layer of abstraction, scientists are discovering the importance of RNAs .. in particular small or micro RNAs in regulating how, when, where information is decoded from the DNA. These tiny RNA molecules travel and impact regions of the DNA that was previously considered barren wastelands or vestiges of our evolutionary past.

To study them, it is a very tough undertaking. They are easily degraded and also, they are expressed at various time points. So imagine, you try to collect all RNA from cells during the day .. but what about the ones that are expressed at night that regulate the circadien clock? Or what if you collect it at a time when cells are undergoing division and you miss on the RNAs that are responsible for suppressing cell division ..

Furthermore, how much of an RNA present in the cell, adds additional complications. How do you quantify how much at what time ... (for science geeks: qRT and northern is a good estimate :)

Furthermore x2, an RNA that can be positively regulating one region in the DNA (aka gene :) .. might be negatively regulating another region.

Hopefully with the current research, it would be much easier to get a very detailed catalog of all RNA molecules and over time, build a comprehensive tool kit to better treat genetic diseases.

Here is the documentary if you don't want to read the blog post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuGI6pQFZC0

That is what I thought ... ahah

I think Universities need to actively promote common spaces where researchers and graduate students from different faculties could meet and talk about different ideas.

These common and fertile space would allow for collision of ideas to take place and help new innovations emerge.

Much like the english tea houses of the renaissance, Universities need these spaces to help transform ideas and research work into commercial success stories that would have a global and positive impact on humanity.

Author Steven Johnson: 'Where good ideas come from' - http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_com...

Note: For the sake of innovation, I very much support Beer Gardens and I hope it gets funded centrally in every University ~_~

ya but when polygraphed .. you are aware that you are getting polygraphed. but secretly scanned from an adjacent room... that my friend is in the realm of science fiction...lol

as @kenbellows said ... it is not a wormhole.

It is an illusion of a wormhole. It is not creating a real path in the space-time. It is a magnetic phenomenon that makes it look as if two points got connected and a magical tunnel was established. Pretty cool experiment, though.

Authors suggest that this illusionary wormhole could also be used to making smaller MRI machines and patients don't have to go through the claustrophobic experience of current machines. Super Awesome .. Giant machine in one room and the patient is sitting on a couch in the other room, and being scanned.

Oooh wait - what if police investigation rooms get designed this way, such that as they ask you questions and from the other room, they are actually scanning your brain for changes in the signal pattern ?? - Crazy idea. Aight, I am re-pivoting as of now. Scanning as a Service...lol

oooh .. very interesting. Thanks for that !

Here is another piece of story that is not in the article.

When Alexander tried to enter Afghanistan he was met with fierce resistance. Didn't matter what he did, he couldn't quench the uprisings and could not conquer the country. After losing a lot of men, he wrote to Aristotle for advise. Aristotle asked Alexander for a sample of Afghan soil to be shipped to him. Upon receipt of the soil samples, Aristotle laid them under the Court carpet and very soon started noticing that men of the court started fighting and killing each other. They became defiant to authority and that led Aristotle to the conclusion, that there is something unique and bizarre w/ the Afghan soil that makes men fight to the end ... and in a way .. remain as an unconquerable nation. He wrote back to Alexander to with draw from Afghanistan, and which he did.

To this day, from Alexander to British to Russia .. Afghanistan has remained pretty defiant to foreign occupation. We will see how long the US will stay there.

[note: The above story was passed onto us Afghans for generations and other than referencing my grandpa who is no longer w/ us, I unfortunately can't provide any references. So take it w/ a grain of salt.]

I live in Alberta and feeling the pain. In my opinion, the only industry that might be doing well in Canada is lumber (mainly, BC). With high USD, lumber exporters are making good money and with low crude, they spend less on their machinery.

The entire service industry in Alberta is in chaos and it impacts the whole country. We were the biggest contributors to the over all GDP and employment growth in Canada. Unfortunately businesses are now putting their equipment up for auction, people are losing their jobs and not sure what might happen next.

I am optimistic though - in periods of down turn and recession, people tend to get more entrepreneurial and find ways to bring innovation to their work. For long term prospect, this recession may be helping us in diversifying our portfolio and minimizing our dependency on just one industry.

I am by no means an expert but here are my thoughts based on my experiences in the field.

(a) In my opinion, Technical analysis is just B/S and keeps people busy thinking that they can draw lines all over the chart and predict the market movements by looking at moving averages or formations such as 'head and shoulders'.

(b) Fundamental analysis works long term but the market is irrational. Also the analysis doesn't include black swans (Nassim Taleb)

(c) What am I looking at right now:

I am interested in super cheap ETFs or ETNs that people start to ignore or short to the point of death. Ex. UWTI. I am assuming that at some point, the short positions need to be filled again and when general public starts to ignore them, that is when the big players move in and collect it all for cheap.

I am always intrigued by the topic of turbulence and its implications in weather prediction. One of the key challenges of weather prediction is our inability to understand / predict atmospheric turbulence...most importantly 'chaotic turbulences'.

Details (European Research Council): http://erc.europa.eu/succes-stories/understanding-turbulence...

Since we are on the subject of cancer - allow me to pen down a few thoughts for those interested in the subject.

(a) You already know that ...Cancer could be caused by hundreds of different mutations in the genome that would disrupt a cell cycle control pathway. Which means it becomes increasingly difficult to find a single bullet solution to all cancers.

(b) You already know that ... Even if you find a way to target cancer cells, how do you differentiate between good cells vs. bad cells

(c) You may kindda know that... Researchers are trying hard to find specific markers on the cancer cell membrane, to differentiate them from good cells and target them for destruction. The WASP venom thing is another idea ... but venoms have been known to target calcium/calmodulin channels. So nothing too fancy.

(d) You may not know that... The most promising research in cancer therapy is to disrupt metabolic pathways of cancer cells. You see, doesn't matter what pathway led to the cause of cancer ... but they all need food to divide. If you could terminate their food supply, disrupt a metabolic pathway .. then there is a chance of stopping them...as a generic bullet for all cancers, irrespective of what mutation caused it. Furthermore, the metabolic pathway of cancer cells and normal cells are distinguishable.

Read more: Warburg effect and a paper that was published this year: http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150626/SLU-researchers-fi...

I hope not ...

I don't know if you could hide it from competition - it can be unminified ex with: http://jsbeautifier.org/ I have tried this before and it worked.