In one corner is Dr. Patterson who says that he amputated the man’s member after noticing a life-threatening cancer. In the other corner is Mr. Seaton who noticed that his manhood was missing and claimed that the good doctor had no right to perform the operation without his consent. The cancer in question is Penile Cancer, has caused 320 deaths in the US in 2011 and is very rare (National Cancer Institute).

It’s a testy situation. On the one hand, Seaton’s lawyer, Kevin George claims, “Phillip has changed. He was mutilated. His manhood was taken.” On the other hand, Dr. Patterson’s lawyer, Clay Robinson, says, ”Mr Seaton is here today, able to be in this courtroom… because John Patterson saved his life.”

As of now, Mr. Seaton has successfully lost the suit of $16 million. He plans to appeal the decision, but whether the trucker can make a quick buck will remain to be seen.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14619926

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2029757/Trucker-Phillip-Seaton-loses-16m-penis-amputation-lawsuit-Dr-John-Patterson.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/truck-driver-sues-doctor-over-penis-amputation-2342765.html

http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/202365/20110823/u-s-trucker-sues-over-penis-amputation-done-without-consent.htm

The researchers tested this new compound’s biocide abilities on various surfaces (such as cotton, polypropylene, polyethylene and poly (vinyl chloride) substrate). In order to test its effectiveness against bacteria, they used Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). The bacteria was sprayed on materials with and without the PEI copolymer and in all cases, the newly designed compound killed at least 98% of all bacteria.

	Without Copolymer	With Copolymer
S. aureus
E. coli

This new compound has ground-breaking implications regarding the way we deal with harmful bacteria. It has the potential to eradicate nosocomial infection which will greatly improve health conditions in these institutions as well as preventing deaths in hospitals. It can also improve domestic health by preventing bacteria from colonizing on commonly used surfaces. The other problem is the disposal protocols which will have to be developed  once the product reaches consumers. This research is still in its infancy and questions must be asked about the effect on mammals and ultimately on humans. However, if it is harmless on animals and becomes FDA/Health Canada approved, we could see a drastic improvement in general human health.

Source: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/am200324f

With the success of Windows 7, maybe Microsoft will be able to build on what the majority of people rely on; solid computer OS. By porting this to other devices, who knows? Maybe Microsoft can finally compete with Apple OS and Android. Personally I’m going to follow this closely and see if Windows 8 will really fly or flop.

Dr. Pang and his team previously showed that only three factors were required to convert a fibroblast (cells which make up connective tissue giving out cells and organs structure) into a neuronal cell. These new cells were called induced neuronal (iN) cells. These same factors along with one additional factor were used in this study and confirmed that stem cells were not the only cell types which could be induced to change its function permanently.

The factors found to be successful were a combination of Brn2, Ascl1, Myt1l and NeuroD1. Within even three days of infection of viruses (lentivirus) which contained these factors, changes were observed in the cell morphology (shape) and function. By six days the cells began really behaving like neurons by firing and receiving action potentials along their axons and dendrites. The maturity of these nascent neurons depend on the combination of the three former factors. However to convert adult (not stem) cells into neurons, NeuroD1 is essential. To further test the ability of these cells, the neurotransmitter (NT) GABA was tested for. GABA is involved in toning muscles and is very common in the body. The iN cells not only had GABA, but this NT could also be blocked at will.

The ramifications of this study are extremely powerful. Though the number of cells which were induced is only 8%, this research has the ability to cause ripples in the world of regenerative medicine. Imagine being able to cure spinal cord and brain injuries safely and effectively. This research can open the door to such ground-breaking treatments. Such a process can cure Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Completely treat people who have suffered strokes and MS. Only time will tell how effective this research can be converted into its clinical applications.

Source:http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/pdf/nature10202.pdf

The study was called HPTN 052 and its results were examined by a Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) which concluded that these results be immediately relayed to physicians and patients of HIV. The study was initiated in 2005 and involved over 1700 participants across three continents.

The participants were split into two groups. The first were HIV positive patients who’s CD4 count was between 350-550 cells/cubic millimeter. These patients did not require HIV treatment. The second group had a CD4 count of below 250 cells/cubic millimeter or had AIDS and required immediate treatment with ART drugs. Both groups were given equal amounts of care and counseling.

When the results were obtained it was found that in the second group, there were 27 cases of transmission in contrast to 1 case in the first group. This indicates that if HIV diagnosed patients immediately begin treatment instead of waiting for CD4 levels to fall, the risk of transmission is monumentally reduced.

Though these results give a very positive outlook for people who suffer the burden of HIV, further research is still required to understand how this observation arises, and what can be done to fully eradicate HIV. This study was funded by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Source: http://www.hptn.org/web%20documents/PressReleases/HPTN052PressReleaseFINAL5_12_118am.pdf

Cloud computing is potentially, the answer to all of our local PC woes. While many organizations utilize centralized storage and work access via intranets, Google’s new Chrome OS/PC may just make cloud computing possible for your average Joe.

This much anticipated product will push people to move activity from hard drives to web servers – be this working on documents and databases or watching movies and listening to music. Many prudent end users probably already use syncing services to ensure easy file access and safety – but personally I think the cloud will revolutionize computing/work efficiency and reliability.

Come June 15th, I’m going to try to get my hands on one of these, how about you?

For some it is a day of celebration while for others there is a sense of reflection and relief. Chants of USA-USA were heard throughout the country as well as a Philies-Mets baseball game. At ground zero people came to give their respects and lay flowers at the construction site of the 9/11 memorial.

There is a sense however that this is not over. Al Qaeda is still very much active. Members such as Ayman al-Zawahiri (second only to Bin Laden on America’s most wanted terrorist list) are recruiting and training members through their crusade of hate-mongering and religion perversion. Some fear that retaliation attacks are imminent.

For now, let us celebrate that this man received what he deserved, not just for 9/11 but for all the innocent people he has killed throughout the world in his lifetime.

Sources:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/02/3027767.htm

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3558928/Osama-bin-Laden-dead.html

http://bbc.co.uk

For the last 6 months or so, Ubuntu 11.04 (AKA Natty Narwhal) has been generating a lot of discussion among Linux users especially with the announcement of Canonical’s decision to push Gnome to the back burner and push its own in – house Unity as the default GUI. How does Unity stack up as a desktop environment? Well, it handles quite nicely, but it’s still *no Gnome*.

At first glance, Natty looks polished, smooth, and appeals to the eyes. Unity makes great use of screen real estate and the gradients between windows lend a nice touch and helps the user to quickly differentiate between windows if multiple are open simultaneously. The application icons on the launcher look much more refined and focused as well. Gone are the days of blurry icons and those horrible jarring colors of Unity’s icons in its 10.10 incarnation.

Canonical also listened to feedback and finally implemented keyboard shortcuts within Unity. These short keys closely mirror Windows’ and Gnome’s so transfer of key combinations and function is quite smooth. Related to this is Unity’s new “window snap” feature that allows you to “snap” or resize open windows to take up different portions of the screen. Windows users may have to adjust a bit since there doses not seem to be adequate short keys to snap a window, but a quick mouse drag and drop does the trick.

11.04 also comes with some software improvements. The leaner, faster Firefox 4 comes preinstalled alongside some old favorites like Evolution. Natty also made some changes to the software preinstall lineup with its controversial decision to include Banshee instead of RhythmBox and LibreOffice instead of Sun Java’s OpenOffice. Despite these changes, old and new Ubuntu users should appreciate the better coherence these software changes provide and should have no trouble getting to the down and dirty of their computer uses. The panel also got some redesign love with a new MacOSX – like global menu system, better access to system preferences and settings, and a redesigned notification system that seems to make more intuitive sense than previous Ubuntu releases.

The Ubuntu Software Center also gets some love with a new rating and review feature and some killer cool apps. I’ve had quite a bit of fun perusing the new software packages available to Natty and have already discovered some new favorites.

Unfortunately, Natty fails in very glaring regards. Despite the usual expectations of bugs being present in any new operating system release, Natty seems to suffer from these more so than any other new Ubuntu release before. In fact, upon writing this review, a previous window snapped to the forefront and was stuck in a resize loop that seemed incurable. Natty also suffers from system lockups every now and then that requires a minute or so to subside. Switching between multiple windows and even workspaces rapidly can be a chore too. For instance, switching from a word processor to a web browser and back again will take more time than it should. The launcher handles frequent switches clumsily. Unity does a great job at providing quick software execution, but it just about blows when you have to switch quickly between open programs. The snap feature is very useful for making the multitasking smoother, or, at least, it would be if it actually worked like it should consistently. Occasionally, upon snapping a window to the right or left, it will resize itself and snap to the center. It is little bugs like this that make it a lackluster feature right now.

Unity is different, Unity is new, but it is not bad. In some ways, it provides a better desktop experience Gnome ever could. Launching software is easy and fast. The relationships between the launcher, dash, and desktop use function smoothly and coherently. Unity definitely excels in these regards, but it fails in others. It’s lack of intuitive use for the novice user may present a learning curve for the first few hours, but offers clear advantages once users familiarizes themselves. Unfortunately, Unity still needs work. Switching between multiple applications and even multiple windows of the same app just feels clumsy and can get a tad frustrating. Even the familiar mouse click, switch workspace now feels clunky (though the keyboard shortcut does a nice job of switching). Unity is worth a shot and is by no means horrible, but it’s still no Gnome.

The day began with Blake Fleishacker. The host of the event gave a heartwarming account of his small beginnings in undergrad. He came on stage with a backpack which contained “everything with which to succeed academically” and a guitar case which housed his plush bear affectionately named Teddy (or TED for the event). He told the crowd about spontaneously joining another guitarist in song which they proceeded to play in every corner of the campus. Soon this song was stuck in everyone’s minds and was coined “contagious”. His message to the audience was “Passion is Contagious”. If someone is passionate about something, spreading that passion will incite passion in others.

Ian Keteku followed the host. He is a self-named Travelling Poet. His talk was intermingled with lightening-fast verses and his poetry was flawless. He easily transitioned from phrase to verse and even gave his own thoughts while standing on his head. One memorable quote was, “Do books read human fingers? And if so, what stories would they tell?”. His message for the day was to “Vocalize your passions”. He himself felt that poetry is a perfect example of this and that poetry also allows one to vocalize the passions of others.

Then came Wade David. His talk focused on The Sacred Headwaters. This is an unspoiled region in northwest corner of British Columbia, Canada. There are three rivers here which are born at once and there is only one other location in the world where that occurs, in Mount Kailash in India. He said, “These vast rivers, they are the arteries of life”, referring to the indigenous people of the area. He raised the audience’s awareness that corporations were willing to exploit this region using tax dollars meant to promote environmental promotion.

Ted Hewitt talked about his involvement in improving both the architectural and economic infrastructure in Brazil. His journey began in his early twenties when he hitchhiked to Brazil as a self-described hippie. The next time he went there it was in a government-owned plane alongside the Governor General of Canada. His message was to “Move your passion to a new place”. There are boundless opportunities, and all one has to do is look for and capitalize on them.

Andrew Lockie is a CEO of a non-profit organization. As an MBA graduate, this at first seems counter intuitive. However, this philanthropist claims that profit and non-profit organizations are quite similar except in one fundamental area, motivation. His talk centered on the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. In his words, “effectiveness is what we need and efficiency is how we get there”. Therefore it is important that a non-profit organisation remains effective even when increasing its efficiency.

Drew Dudley was  the former National Chair of Shinerama and every university student will remember the circular blue and orange stickers during orientation week in order to raise money for cystic fibrosis. Charismatic and energetic, Dudley spoke about the alleged “list” that people felt obliged to follow. A kind of “scavenger hunt” where one had to check off all items on the list in order to feel happy or fulfilled. He stressed that there really is no list except the one that you make for yourself. The only obligation that exists is to grab the life one desires. His most memorable quote was, “Work hard for an incredible transcript but make it the most unremarkable thing about you”.

From this point on there were a few talks presented on screen from TED punctuating the live talks. These were given by Janine Benyus on biomimicry, Bill Gates on the importance of balancing state budgets, Salman Khan on the Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) and an alternate teaching method in schools, and Nathan Myhrvold on using lasers to kill mosquitos. These four talks can be viewed on TED.com.

The next speaker was Lou Hood. She created We(e) Press (www.weepress.org), an organization whose goal is to educate the world’s children. She began with a picture book which was illustrated by 24 artists from around the world. She called it “Around the World in the Blink of an Eye”. Its purpose is to teach children about timezones. In order to undertake such a task it was important that today’s forms of modern technology are  in place. It allowed Hood and her colleagues to “[Connect] to the Global Consciousness” and by doing so, create not only a unique book, but also a unique organization.

Adrian Owen, a neurologist, spoke to the audience about regenerative neurology. He said that the traditional description of the vegetative state is “wakeful and unaware”. However the question arises about how do we actually know they are unaware? He gave the story of Kate, a woman who came out of the vegetative state and was actually fully conscious and aware even while seemingly vegetative. Owen and his colleagues used FMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) in order to detect activity in the brain when they instructed the patient to think of something. They equated this activity to either yes or no, so when the patient thought the answer to a question was yes they would think about a certain activity and by so doing, activate a different part of the brain than when their answer was no. Through these techniques, Owen has been able to get a much better understanding of the physical and emotional pressures on someone in the seemingly vegetative state.

Craig Cardiff is an innovative musician and a very prolific indie artist. His music can be described as folk and he has worked with camps for kids going through the prison system. He sang a few original songs including one written just for the the occasion. His message for the audience was “Be open and passionate”. After all, no one can know your passion if you don’t announce it.

Kyra Harris was the youngest speaker at TED^xUWO. However, her age was no indication of her talent at poetry. Her verses were accentuated with pictures drawn by children illustrating their favourite words, or just things they liked. Her theme for this talk was, “To dream big, you have to play small”. After all, if you ask a child what they want to be when they grow up they have a concrete answer, but if you ask someone older, they have no idea.

Chris Bentley gave his  talk on youth suicide in Aboriginal children. It is surprising that in a country so rich as Canada, there is one of the highest rates of suicide among Aboriginal youths. Much of the blame can be pinned on the Canadian government and its historic treatment of these children in residential schools. Bentley believes in the power of sport and has helped these communities begin after school programs so that children have an incentive to both go to school, and remain in school for the entire day. He believes that “change comes from within [and] cannot be imposed” and through this program the number of suicides have been reduced to nil. His take-home message was “Make tomorrow better than yesterday”.

The next speaker was Ray Zahab, a man who needs no introduction. He was a pack-a-day smoker before quitting and subsequently running across the Sahara Desert in 111 days. One of his initiatives is Impossible 2 Possible – I2P (http://impossible2possible.com/home). This program uses youths as ambassadors to travel to un-tapped regions of the world and to share their experience with classrooms across the world through modern video and satellite technology. His message for the audience was “[Give] young people the tools they need – they have no limits to what they can do.”

Dennis Shackel gave an emphatic talk which produced both gasps and laughs. He told the story of the death of his brother-in-law on a mountaineering expedition in New Zealand. It was heart-wrenching when he described his brother sliding down the mountain and avoided grabbing Shackel’s outstretched hand on purpose to prevent Shackel from being dragged down with him. Subsequently he had to spend the night in a t-shirt and shorts in -30 degree celcius. He told the audience three lessons he learned from this experience: Carpe Diem, tragedies are potential blessings, and leadership is a state of mind, it’s a disposition, not a position. His message today was, “Mastery is the art of correction, not protection”.

The next speaker was Bobby Umar who gave a talk about the power of connection. Connection begins with caring and caring arises from passion, awareness and relating. With caring comes communication. Communication involves talking, listening, physicality, honesty, questioning and risk-taking. His final equation showed that it was a combination of caring and communication which ultimately leads to connection. It is this connection that people need to strive for – true connection.

Clark Bryan was the penultimate speaker for the day. He is a gifted musician and a passionate pianist. He spoke about his passion for classical music, or as he called it, “music that stands the test of time”. He talked about artists and composers throughout history who used the piano as the basis for their creativity. Punctuating his talks, he would play excerpts from Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin until finally culminating his performance with a beautiful rendition of Reflets Dans L’eau by Debussy.

Finally the event closed with Ed Jernigan. A professor at the University of Waterloo, Jernigan spends one month every year for the last 27 years in a residence with high school kids. The Shad (Valley) Program as it is called is a chance for these kids to hone their creativity and create something for its own purpose. This program fosters innovation which these kids felt was lost once they entered university. He also began Waterloo Unlimited in 2004, another high school oriented program for students with exceptional potential. He continues to direct Waterloo Unlimited.

Though a long day, each and every speaker brought something new to the table. The energy level in the hall throughout the even was electrifying. However, the exclusivity in purchasing tickets was unnecessary because there were many empty seats on the lower level and the upper level was completely vacant. perhaps in future years the event will be made more public from the start so more people can enjoy these interesting talks.

Overall the event must be deemed a success. During breaks and the lunch, speakers were available for conversations, critiques and curiosity. A white sheet of material was hung on a wall in the basement for people to write their own ideas. Others gave their contact info beneath ideas they felt worth pursuing. TEDxUWO plans to connect those people. Photographers and food were abundant and TEDxUWO plans to make the footage and photos from the event public.

Mixed with laughs and serious words, Lam structured his talk as a series of three stories drawn from his own experience as an undergraduate student, a medical student, and a practicing physician. He began with a lesson; always follow your dream. Surprisingly, for someone of his calibre, it was writing, not medicine which was his calling. In fact medicine was initially his means to an end in order to become a writer. He learned very quickly that the road to become a medical student was not one to be taken half-heartedly. It was his initial failure as a student which led him to discover medicine. He urged that medicine is something to be pursued for its own sake, not as a means to an end.

His second lesson was to ask for help when it was needed. As a medical cleric during his third year of medical school, he had found himself overwhelmed with duties and in hindsight, asking for help would have been a much better decision than attempting everything alone. Books alone can only help so much. It is the interaction between people which leads to true learning. Well that “[and a bit of common sense]”.

His final lesson was to “be passionate”. He told a story of a vacation he took to Costa Rica when in his first year of practicing medicine. He had returned from his colleagues from a camping trip and had rushed out of the shower when the group was hailed by the hotel owner to help a man seriously injured in a motor vehicle collision. On the way to the accident site, he had realized he was still wearing only his towel. Naturally the crowd burst with laughter, but it is important to see the passion he has; to disregard his own state of being and thinking only about helping a patient.

He ended his talk with the story behind his book. He had begun a novel before undergraduate, however returning to it, as an established physician, he felt it wasn’t something he could write at that time. From this realization he dabbled in writing a story regarding medicine. From this exercise came Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. His final message to the audience was never to give up and that life has the ability to throw twists and turns. Even though one cannot enter the medical profession for the purpose of using it as supplementation for a different career, hobbies, and interests will inevitably shape one’s practice. Medicine is like a story for each individual. From the family history to the ultimate treatment and cure, the process by which a patient regains their life is an intimate tale between the physician and the individual. It is that story that he himself tries to relate to and which makes the patient’s time in care rewarding.