Strivectin is best described by the creators themselves as an anti aging cream that happened quite by accident. To me, that sounds weird. There are a bunch of discount strivectin websites doing the rounds too. Technically, Strivectin uses a compound called Palmitoyl Oligopeptide to do the heavy lifting. Klein-Becker is the company that produced and introduced it in the market. Their website says:
After reviewing and verifying the clinical data, an incredible 93% of subjects saw a signifigant, visible reduction in the appearance of stretch marks. The unequivocal, verified results speak for themselves. But there’s more. Clinical observations further document the ability of StriVectin-SD’s independent isolates to dramatically improve the appearance of:
* Indented surfaces
* Smooth surfaces
* Skin firmness
* Irregularities in skin discoloration
Depending on who you ask, the accident is explained as a variation of the following theme. Klein-Becker introduced the product to reduce stretch marks of the kind observed after pregnancy. A few tubes of cream with “topical cream” written on it were passed out to employees, who then tried it on their faces thinking it might be good. Some of them said it made them look 10 years younger, and so the company decided to market it as a age-defying cream that reduces wrinkles. Klein-Becker maintains on their website that clinical trials substantiate their claim, and so maybe it is true. If you search the web, you’ll see a bunch of Strivectin SD reviews, too, all of them presenting the same details. So who’s to be trusted. For what matter, even lotions like Olay’s Regenerist stake their anti-aging claims based on compounds like Palmitoyl Oligopeptide. Here’s what WebMD has to say about these creams:
“I think you’ll get some activity with the creams, but not anywhere near what happens during wound healing,” says Jamal, an assistant professor of dermatology at the NYU School of Medicine in New York City.
Strivectin SD should be available at your local pharmacy. But the intelligent thing to do is to buy Strivectin SD online, since it a lot cheaper. Hell, you can even find it on ebay, as the page I linked to here shows. The claim in that Strivectin is better than Botox since it is a surface treatment (as opposed to a Botox injection) - however, the important question is, isn’t it strange that few, in not no one, knows much about the chemicals that go into popular products, by companies such as Olay, no less? If I were the kind that would like to defy my age, I’d much rather prefer a cream. Since Klein-Becker says it takes as few as 28 days for effects to appear, maybe you could try it out on a non-conspicuous part of your body for as long to find if it works before applying it to your face.
The BoGolight is so named for being “Buy one Give one”. These are unique solar powered LED flashlights that are still bright enough to read by at night.
The flashlight has a solar panel which charges regular rechargeable cells in 8 hours. Once fully charged, it can provide light for upto 4 hours. It has 6 powerful LEDs that light things up enough to read by at night. Like the website says, you can dangle a bogolight from your back pack when camping and it will be charged and ready to go by the time you are ready to pitch camp.
The unique concept behind the light is that when you buy one for use in the US, you can also choose an NGO that works in the developing nation. The NGO gets a free copy of the flashlight and $1. The company also takes care of shipping the light to the organization of your choice. Sounds too good to be true? Well, it almost is - it has received press coverage, even from the NY Times. Learn more about the bogo light and buy one now.
Nasa unvieled the James Webb Space Telescope earlier this week. The telescope is named after a Nasa administrator who was in charge during the moon-exploration Apollo era. It has a huge reflector thrice the size of Hubble’s and will gaze farther into the past of the Universe than anything else ever has. See, the farther a telescope can see, the farther back in time we can go. Light from the earliest events in the Universe haven’t yet reached the earth - they might have reached the extent of the telescope’s reach though - so this telescope will let us peer right back to the very verge of the universe’s creation.
A full-scale model is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in the US capital, Washington DC. The telescope is expected to have a life span of about 10 years, and cost many billions (almost $4.5 billion) to create. It is an infrared telescope and will have a huge sunshield to keep it cool - the cooler the IR telescope the better its resolution. In its final position, the telescope will be over 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth.
I can’t wait for the pictures, if Hubble was good, this can only be better!
Uri Geller tried to take down some youtube videos by invoking the DMCA copyright laws. The trouble is, he wasn’t the “original” producer of the videos or anything like that. So he asked youtube to take down some videos that expose him, while he wasn’t the owner of the content. And guess what, youtube responded to the copyright violation notice (which, again, was unsubstantiated) by taking down the videos.
I have always been a skeptic of the spoon-bending skills of Uri Geller, and thought in a wishful santa-clausy way that maybe paranormal mental faculties exist in some folks. After watching the video I am convinced that it is hogwash. If you see the video of James Randi going after Uri and others, you will see how he makes a ridiculous spectacle of himself on the Johnny Carson show at the height of his fame. He cannot do the spoon mending, or any mind tricks without his props. That makes him, what, a cheapo street magician?
There is this michigan drug rehabilitation center called Narconon stone hawk - don’t even ask me how I ended up on that website - I blame it on Britney Spears and the general trend to resort to drug rehab as a pseudo-publicity stunt. So, then I started reading about how in the hell these centers keep the addicts from the drugs for so long - I thought it must be like a jail. Not quite so, it turns out.
Okay, but we digress - the Narconon drug rehab program uses no drugs or medication to resolve the issues that are caused by drug abuse and alcoholism. How the heck can they cure people without drugs? I mean, on some intuitive level it makes sense that you don’t use drugs to cure problems caused by drugs, but I just wondered how that could be possible, given even smokers use nicotine patches to drop the habit. Turns out that the method they use, which is the “narconon” in the title of this post, is inspired by L. Ron Hubbard - the sci-fi guy! All I am saying to spike your interest is that the treatment involves saunas. Of all the drug rehab programs I have heard or read about, this one is definitely the most interesting.
Scientists have developed a way of converting one blood group into another. They can convert RH Positive blood from one blood group to another. This should fix the O-ve blood shortage problem. The absolutely amazing techniques uses micro-organisms to work on the blood cells and strip them of their “group”-iness. The paper describing the work was published in a Nature journal.
Oh, and by the way when some researcher says “potentially”, be wary:
The technique potentially enables blood from groups A, B and AB to be converted into group O negative, which can be safely transplanted into any patient.
What “potentially” really mean is - “we think it should work, and that it is a neato idea - but you are on your own for now, and can’t really seriously hold us to it.”
That’s enough chit-chat for now - have to get cracking on work now.
Now I see the truth behind my father’s saying that all I need to stop smoking is a strategically placed smack to the head!
Scientists studying stroke patients are reporting that an injury to a specific part of the brain, near the ear, can instantly and permanently break a smoking habit, effectively erasing the most stubborn of addictions. People with the injury who stopped smoking found that their bodies, as one man put it, “forgot the urge to smoke.”
The portion of the brain they are currently investigating is called the “insula”. It appears that in all the subjects, the drive to eat food, or other essential activities remains the same. This was not a controlled experiment where they actually injured people in the head, but rather a followup study that was investigating the after effects of head injuries.
Made With Molecules sells jewelery shaped like molecules. Wonderful gift idea for that science graduate student in your life, or, as in my case, for my significant other who is science-friendly.
Everybodys talking, but no one says a word - John Lennon
In offices and schools all around the developed world, people talk more online and less offline, and so John Lennon turns out to be a visionary ahead of this time.
Donald Knuth stopped using email before a lot of us knew what it was. Yes, he stopped using email in 1990(!) and after using it for 15 years too, no less! Knuth is famous for his multi-series volume on the art of computer programming and algorithms - arguably one of the greatest computer scientists and educators alive. When I read about his not using email, I thought that he had not been using it for a while, and so, naturally, he did not have as big a problem as someone who wanted to stop using email now would.
I predict that in another 20-25 years, text-based email will be defunct. Replaced by portable communication devices and digital secretaries that filter and prioritize things for you, using advanced intelligent systems concepts, such as natural language processing, data mining and neural networks. You will wear or carry a thing barely larger than a cellphone, to which people will be able to send voice/video. You don’t have to see/hear all of it, only the ones deserving your attention.
Technology has always been only one half of the equation - the other, more unpredictable, half has been sociology and to a smaller extent anthropology. The human race moves in unpredictable ways, adopting some technologies and sticking to them for a long, long time instead of thrusting towards the next stage improvement. Sometimes I think about roads and wonder why we humans have covered such a large percentage of our earth with roads, when, eventually we won’t be using them (already aren’t) for but the shortest journeys. Why not use some technology that does not leave such a huge scar on the planet? Something with a smaller footprint.
But I digress - for now, email is essential, unavoidable.
The blur effect you see in the ad is for real - the billboard uses GE Lexan EXL Semi-transparent Resin to blur whats behind the billboard, regardless of weather, season and lighting. See Ian Hart’s page for details. Ian was the guy who designed the ads. The ads take the cake for creative use of polymer technology.
“You can’t whistle because the air pressure in the suit is only 4.3 pounds per square inch, and normal atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi, so there are not enough air molecules blowing by your lips to make a sound.”
Now, suddenly, I don’t want to go to space anymore!
I came across simple.wikipedia.org. Just like en.wikipedia.org and de.wikipedia.org, the “simple” wikipedia aims to explain things in a “simple” language. But saying you want to explain something using simple English doesn’t create a new language called “simple”, folks!
Also, maybe due to it’s immaturity, you can now find gems like, “Electricity is the flow of positive electricity in a metal.” D’oh. That is real simple. If I don’t know what electricity means, I sure can understand that electricity is the flow of positive electricity.
There is a point after which simplifying science degenerates into into insulting the reader’s intelligence. Some people have way too much time on their hands.
FKF Applied Research, with the help of UCLA’s Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, said that Coca-Cola’s “Video Game” ad–a 60-second animated spot that promotes random acts of kindness–scored this year because it elicited the most positive emotions in subjects’ brains.
Interesting research - they monitor brain activity to see which ads elicit the most “positive” response. They say some ads elicit a fear response and will be quickly forgotten - now we are in hot water. Why? Because people like my girl friend get enormously turned on by horror movies and the like. Going by the idea the FKF research folks put forward, the only movies that make a lasting, positive impression are the feel-good, empathy-generating ones, but we all know that Jaws, Omen etc have been huge hits and have been permanently etched into so many memories, world wide.
I think there is no way to tell which ads were more successful, but yes, you sure can find out which ones were terrible failures - those would be the ads that generated a minimal response from any part of the brain.
Now for your viewing pleasure, here is the best ad, according to the human brain:
You must remember that I wrote about an Indian Athlete who failed a sex test. I was left wondering what test it was that could possibly identify a female as a male. I also wondered why the physician doing the test would’nt simply ask the athlete to lower his/her pants.
The reason why the pants stay on is that there were questions regarding whether or not it is humiliating.
So how are the test conducted?
Via slashdot, I got to the World Problems Database arranged by the UIO, where I find this problem listed: Indeterminate sex test.
So, in short, sex is determined via analysis of the athlete’s saliva. The problem description says:
There are a variety of birth defects, affecting perhaps one person in 500, that can cause a discrepancy between chromosome composition and sex. The degrees and physical manifestations vary greatly, but there is little to indicate that it gives an athlete a competitive advantage. One international amateur sporting body has discarded testing and relies primarily on visual examination of a person’s genitals, usually as part of the overall physical
Aha! Though I very much doubt if there are any readers for this blog - I am much happier today. One problem solved, and sealed!
Today I was searching for the name of the phenomenon by which positive affirmations, predictions or personality analysis always seems true. There is no end to the number of personality tests online - ones that aid self-discovery and promote a better understanding of one’s self - you get what I am talking about.
Turns out there is an effect by the name of “The Forer Effect” or the “Barnum Effect”, which is also called the Personal Validation Fallacy. If someone predicts our future, or produces an analysis of your personality based on some questions, you tend to believe it truly describes you, and is tailor-made just for you even if that was not the case.
Bertram Forer, a psychologist, gave a personality test to his students, and then gave them the results - analysis that described the students. He gave the same analysis to all the students, and yet the students rated the analysis at 4.26/5.00 for its correctness! The text of the analysis that he gave the students is as follows:
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.
I would say that is a pretty accurate analysis of my personality too.
This effect also accounts for why horoscope may seem accurately tailor-made for you, when, clearly, that can’t be the case.
The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences has been around for a long, long time and yet it stays handy to lookup that number sequence that shows up in your research data. Born from the AT&T research labs, back when they were still the best
In fact, it is handy to look up your phone number, or date of birth. In my case both yielded a list of papers that references the sequences!
Q: What is the purpose of the OEIS?
A: The main purpose is to allow mathematicians or other scientists to find out if some sequence that turns up in their research has ever been seen before.
If it has, they may find that the problem they’re working on has already been solved, or partially solved, by someone else.
Or they may find that the sequence showed up in some other situation,
which may show them an unexpected relationship between their problem and something else.
Another purpose is to have an easily accessible database of important, but difficult to compute, sequences.
For example, if you’re testing some conjecture about Mersenne primes, you can look up the ones that are known (see A000043),
rather than spending years recomputing them.
They did not burn the spearheads by chance. They brought them from hundreds of kilometers away and intentionally burned them. So many pieces of the puzzle fit together here. It has to represent a ritual…
Torfinn Ørmen, a zoologist who lectures on human evolutionary history at the University of Oslo, says that this is the biggest archaeological discovery in a long time.
“Sheila Coulson’s discovery is going to garner attention the world over. This is the oldest ritual site that we know of and it was in use before physically modern man left Africa”, Ørmen points out. He explains that the San, who are also referred to as Bushmen, belong to the most ancient race of humans. The San, together with the Khoi (or Khoikhoi), separated from the rest of the worlds people about 70,000 years ago. Today they are commonly refered to as the Khoi-San people. The Khoi and the San are quite similar and were displaced by both the Europeans and the Bantu before and during colonization.
“Some researchers believe that modern man descended from the San. What is certain is that the San are a very old people and that they have a very deep connection to this area of Botswana. The Tsodilo Hills are the San people’s most sacred place; they have had a connection to it for thousands and thousands of years”, says Torfinn Ørmen.
The world’s oldest ritual had to do with destruction - destructing spear heads in the name of “God” or nature. Man has come 70,000+ years, without learning much, I might add. The Africans revered a python, an elephant and a giraffe. We revere other stuff.
