Genetibase - Software for your Scientific Success

With the current boom in information technology, we see its application in almost every aspect of our life. “Bioinformatics” is the subject, which deals with the application of information technology in the field of biology, for example usage of computing power for drug designing, protein modeling, sequencing genomes and proteins and so on. Pathway curation is one branch/part of bioinformatics. A pathway is a representation of a set of related reactions in a given context, i.e. glycolysis, Krebs cycle or apoptosis [1].

Because of extensive research, with tools like High-throughput genomics and DNA microarrays, researchers have accumulated high volumes of data that are often too large for manual assessment. Mathematical and statistical analysis can be done to structure the large data volumes. Based on various computational algorithms, the tool generates pathways along with pictorial representations for easy understanding.

Significant biological reactions are more lucid when projected on pathway diagrams rather than being represented in the form of a large set of tabular data. Generally a biological pathway diagram is used to describe molecular biology processes in a graphical way.

This new area of pathway representation has created the role of a “Biocurator”.

Biocurators (also called scientific curators, data curators or annotators) are also recognized as the “museum catalogers of the Internet age”. As a Biocurator He/She should be able to capture and integrate the knowledge from various sources such as databases and scientific literature into a pathway. The Biocurator should also support the data with relevant annotations and make this scientific data accessible to the scientific community.

Multiple programs should be able to access the pathway diagrams and information in a sharable format to facilitate its use in research tool. Apart from this in a pathway diagram the pathway entities (like proteins, small molecules, lipid molecules etc) and the relation between the entities have to be made explicit. To make a pathway user friendly various proteins/metabolites involved in the pathway should be connected to a database entry. This entry should be linked to the experimental evidence from scientific literature which details about the function and interactions of these particular proteins/metabolites with other proteins in the pathway. The types of modifications (for e.g., phosphorylation, glycosylation, acetylation etc) taking place during any biological process can also be represented with proper experimental support from scientific literature. The pathway should be treated as an interacting network wherein the reactions between metabolites or gene products are represented. The pathway, in general shows various reactions taking place gradually in response to external stimuli. This ultimately leads to either activation or repression of a set of genes resulting into phenotypic changes which is of a common interest to researchers, academicians, doctors etc.

The collaboration between authors, journals and biocurators will facilitate the exchange of data between journal publications and databases and in turn make the signaling pathways, metabolic pathways, disease pathways etc a readymade tool to every biologist. Combined effort of Biocurators, researchers, academic institutions and funding agencies will promote Biocuration as a professional career. A better understanding of the pathways will help the pharmaceutical companies to design new drugs and academicians and research personals to carry out research in new areas.

References

[1] Waagmeester AS, Kelder T, Evelo CT. The role of bioinformatics in pathway curation. Genes & nutrition 2008 Dec;3(3-4):139-42.

Health Informatics and Information Management at Saint Louis University Doisy College of Health Sciences

.NET application development has simplified development and customisation of various enterprise level applications. Usually referred to as .NET framework, this product comes as a part of Microsoft’s Windows Operating System. The .NET framework comes bundled with a lot of advantages, which makes it widely used tool for .NET application development.

.NET was rolled out in around 2002 and since then number of versions were developed each time added with several features and capabilities. Currently .NET version 3.5 is being used. Further development is still being continued and is believed to have advanced support facilities for Parallel Programs, Distributed Systems, LINQ Engine Parallel Implementation, and Task Parallel Library. .NET application development involves using chunks of functionalities from the pre-coded libraries. The .NET framework is a set of huge library that encompass various programming needs like user interface design, web development, data access, database connections, networking among many other algorithms. Thus the advent of .NET programming has simplified and made .NET application development very extensive. Let’s look at some important features of .NET framework:

Easy deployment – .NET framework facilitates easy installation of the .NET application taking care that no performance issues arise due to any of the earlier installed software and that it fits in with the new requirements without any much hindrances.
No language dependency – .NET application development in any .NET language is supported by each other’s instances, as .NET framework is built on a Common Type System.
Enhanced Security – .NET applications has a common security prototype for all the applications and effectively handles exposure to destructive software tools or utilities.
Portability -.NET application development became popular as it made using the same application on different platforms easy. Thus it can be easily implemented with third party tools running on different platforms.
Interoperability – .NET applications can work together with older versions of the application. .NET application development provides the feature of developing and executing programs out of .NET structure.
Base Class Library & Common Runtime Engine – these are the two most important aspects in .NET application development. The engine favors runtime interpretation and compilation. The library consists of classes that collectively bring together many common functions required in .NET application development.

Though it may seem the .NET application development got simplified with the easy to use features of the .NET framework, there are some drawbacks that one must considered. The shortcomings will help in understanding the scalability of the .NET framework. A significant drawback is the over utilization of system resources. Also the lapse time in .NET applications is slightly greater than in the applications developed in other environments because of the garbage collection, which result in temporary suspension of memory. Other drawback is that .NET framework is not pre-installed in earlier versions of Windows, thus a fresh requirement may be required in some cases.

www.dedroidify.com http www.dedroidify.com Any model we make does not describe the universe it describes what our brains are capable of saying at this time. All perception is gamble. We believe what we see and then we believe our interpretation of it we dont even know we’re making an interpretation most of the time. Translator: “She wants to know what Quantum Physics is…” *takes sip* RAW: “WHAT?” Translator: “Quantum Phsyics, explain it simply she asks” RAW: “Explain Quantum Physics simply …

Vision Statement, Administrative Details Introduction Taxonomy of Chemical Species Origins of Modern Chemistry View the complete course at: ocw.mit.edu License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA More information at ocw.mit.edu More courses at ocw.mit.edu

Biology to Molecular Biology Changing scenario in Medicine

Dr.T.V.Rao MD

The greatest achievements in the Medical sciences are attributed to developments in Diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of several diseases. Today progress in the world is mainly contributed by control of Infectious diseases. We are heading to cross roads, many of the past technologies are giving way to several microbes, they escape our present methods of detection and resistant to several drugs we use to eliminate them. We the scientific communities have no options left, except to search for new paths in science and newer technologies. Till recently the Science made best progress with phenotypic methods, however in the recent past Molecular methods have dominated all other forms of technologies. The division of Bioinformatics changed the advances in Science which is bringing together the fields of Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Biotechnology, and Genetics under the fold of computers and soft ware advances in computer technology.

The discoveries of Watson-Crick in basic understanding of Bacterial DNA (Genome) made us rich to know about ourselves. Many commercial establishments, with help of Scientists, are targeting majority of diseases, important fields being AIDS, Mental illness, Autoimmune diseases, Obesity, Alzheimer’s diseases, Heart diseases, Parkinson’s disease and emerging trends on Multidrug resistant tuberculosis ( MDR ). The molecular medicine made the physicians know the realities of the disease before taking heroic decisions

Need of Molecular biology in Microbiology

All the great achievements with discovery of pencillin are diluted with, onset of pencillin being inactivated with genetic alteration of Staphylococcus aureus,gaining resistance. The progress of dealing with gram-negative bacteria is hampered with production ßlactamase making the Cephalosporins being not useful in several infections. The major antibiotic therapies are throttled with Genetic mutation in Microbes. The present system of identification is limited as there is a grwoing list of unknown and less known Microbes emerged by human activities as mass migration and aforestation. The Medical profession is challenged with onset of AIDS in 1981, made a bottle neck in progress of developing countries. Major advances in Medicine as Transplantation made the people venerable to less known infections, however genome based studies still in infancy to locate the infection and find appropriate solutions.

Role of Molecular Biology identifies less known Infections

The emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases with selected Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes along with several viruses, yeasts, moulds, dimorphic fungi pose a ever growing challenge to clinical Microbiologists. On many occasions the traditional and age old techniques rarely help for survival and saving a life. Newer generation of Physicians and Microbiologists await newer technologies in particular Molecular Biology techniques in life saving circumstances

How to Implement Molecular Biology

It is true that molecular biology is in infancy, many in the developing countries cannot afford. However we have to impress on the new generation of Doctors and Scientists and Microbiologists and educate and teach about using the newer technologies.

Email doctortvrao@gmail.com

Genetic researchers have made substantial advances in understanding the root causes of common diseases and the history of human evolution, according to a series of reports published in scientific journals this week.

Chief among these accomplishments is the work of an international consortium of more than 200 scientists from Canada, China, Japan, Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States published in the October 27 issue of the journal Nature.

The team studied DNA samples from four different parts of the world and concluded that genetic variants located physically close to each other are inherited collectively as groups, called haplotypes. The comprehensive catalog of all of these blocks is known as the “HapMap.”

“Built upon the foundation laid by the human genome sequence, the HapMap is a powerful new tool for exploring the root causes of common diseases,” says David Altshuler, MD, PhD, director of the program in Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

“Such understanding is required for researchers to develop new and much-needed approaches to understand the still-elusive root causes of common diseases, such as diabetes, bipolar disorder, cancer and many others,” he adds.

Altshuler and Peter Donnelly, PhD, of the University of Oxford in England are the corresponding authors of the Nature paper.

Greatest Information in Most Efficient Manner

It has been known for a long time that diseases run in families, with perhaps half the risk of any given common disease explained by genetic differences inherited from one’s parents. Inheritance also can play a role in different responses to a drug or to an environmental factor.

Because the underlying causes of these common diseases and therapeutic responses remain largely unknown — and because knowing this information is necessary for successful development of new approaches to prevention, diagnosis and treatment — identifying the genetic contributors to human health is a fundamental goal of biomedicine.

A new genomics-based approach to human genetics was proposed nearly a decade ago to catalog common human DNA sequence variations comprehensively and to test them systematically for their association to disease in human populations.

Although it is theoretically possible to capture all of this information by sequencing every individual human genome, this is neither technically nor financially feasible.

“The data from the HapMap project allows scientists to select the particular DNA variants that provide the greatest information in the most efficient manner, lowering the costs and increasing the power of genetic research to identify the origin of disease,” says Mark Daly, an associate member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Daly led the Boston team’s statistical and analytical work, and was a member of the writing group for the Nature paper.

Millions of SNPs a Day

Moreover, the HapMap project helped spur a remarkable advance in the technology for testing genetic variations in DNA, making it possible to undertake comprehensive studies in large patient samples.

A single nucleotide polymorphism, or SNP (pronounced “snip”), is a small genetic change, or variation, that can occur within a person’s DNA sequence.

“When we started doing this work a number of years ago, determining the genotype of a SNP in a patient cost nearly a dollar, and we could do hundreds a day,” notes Stacey Gabriel, director of the Broad Institute’s Genetic Analysis platform and an author of the Nature paper.

“Today the prices have dropped in many cases to a fraction of a penny per genotype, and we can do millions a day,” Gabriel notes. “This is the difference between not being able to do the studies, and getting them done rapidly and well.”

Tag SNPs

The HapMap provides excellent power to capture most human variation and link it to disease or other traits, according to a related paper published in the November issue of Nature Genetics.

Paul de Bakker, Roman Yalensky and their colleagues demonstrated this finding by developing and evaluating methods to select “tag SNPs” that capture the genetic variation in each neighborhood with a minimum amount of work.

Using these tags, scientists can compare the SNP patterns of people affected by a disease with those unaffected far more efficiently than previously has been possible.

“Compared to directly genotyping all common SNPs in the genome in all individuals of a disease study, we observe that selected tag SNPs based on HapMap can save genotyping costs by almost an order of magnitude without losing much power to detect a true association,” says de Bakker, a postdoctoral fellow in Altshuler and Daly’s group at the Broad Institute.

The widely used tool for tag SNP selection was developed by de Bakker and colleagues.

Previous Computer Models Too Simplistic

Another important observation revealed by the availability of the HapMap data is that previous computer models of human genetics are too simplistic and can lead to false conclusions about the role of genes or genetic loci in different diseases.

Stephen Schaffner, Altshuler and their colleagues at the Broad Institute describe the limitations of these prior models in a paper published in the November issue of Genome Research. They also provide the entire scientific community with updated models that more closely approximate reality, based on the empirical data generated by the HapMap Consortium.

“Better computer models can be valuable tools in understanding the nature of human DNA variation, past changes in human populations size, and evolutionary selection,” says Schaffner, a computational biologist in Broad’s program in Medical and Population Genetics.

Candidates for Natural Selection

The public availability of HapMap’s genome-wide variation data set also makes it possible for scientists to make systematic examinations of potential natural selection sites in the human genome, as well as to re-evaluate previous claims for such selection.

Pardis Sabeti, Eric Lander and their colleagues at the Broad Institute, together with Stephen O’Brien and his colleagues at the National Cancer Institute, used the HapMap data to examine a prominent reported case of natural selection related to HIV infection.

A genetic variation in a T-cell receptor called CCR5-?32, which confers strong resistance to infection by HIV and has been implicated in resistance to the bubonic plague, did not arise recently in the human population, they report in the November issue of PLoS Biology.

“With the benefit of greater genotyping and empirical comparisons from the HapMap, we were able to show that the pattern of genetic variation seen at CCR5-?32 does not stand out as exceptional relative to other loci across the genome and is consistent with neutral evolution,” says Sabeti, a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute.

“In fact, the CCR5-?32 allele is likely to have arisen more than 5,000 years ago, rather than during the last 1,000 years as was previously thought,” Sabeti adds.

In addition to allowing the re-examination of previous claims of selection, the HapMap data give scientists a new way to identify novel candidates for natural selection.

Attainment of Goal

The successful completion of the HapMap has its roots not only in the completion of the human genome sequence in 2001, but also in the massive effort to characterize and catalog the millions of SNPs across the genome.

Based on these initial data, the haplotype structure of the human genome was recognized as early as 2001, leading directly to the formation of the International HapMap Consortium. Finally, methods for identifying the influence of natural selection on the human genome were described in 2003.

Altshuler, Lander, Gabriel, Daly and many other Broad Institute scientists led or contributed significantly to all of these efforts, in addition to their role in the completion of the HapMap and demonstrations of its utility, as outlined above.

In October 2002, the International HapMap Consortium set the ambitious goal of creating the HapMap within three years. The Nature paper marks the attainment of that goal with its detailed description of the Phase I HapMap, consisting of more than 1 million SNPs.

The consortium also is nearing completion of the Phase II HapMap, which will contain nearly three times more SNPs than the initial version and will enable researchers to focus their gene searches even more precisely on specific regions of the genome.

In line with the Broad Institute’s commitment to building critical resources for the scientific community, HapMap data are freely available in several public databases, including the HapMap Data Coordination Center (http://www.hapmap.org) the NIH-funded National Center for Biotechnology Information’s dbSNP (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/SNP/index.html) and the JSNP Database (http://snp.ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp) in Japan.

This clip provides an introduction to Biology. More information can be found at www.cerebellum.com.

The present era has seen an upsurge of scientific explorations and with the progress of the passage of time technological innovations have improved considerably. One of the most significant technological innovations of the present century is computers and with the coming of the internet, the whole mode of communication has revolutionized greatly and today any information or data is just a click away. The internet has thus made transfer and retrieval of information quiet easy and this has facilitated the way for the introduction of online education. The term online learning or e-learning refers to the process by which knowledge is imparted by a group of experienced tutors to interested students over the internet by means of interaction via emails, chats and blogs and various other software devices. In case of online education, several reputed universities and educational institutions of the world have introduced many of their flagship courses online and in those who undertake to study the course are offered a degree upon the completion of the course. In this way it is possible for various individuals who have access to a computer to gain the opportunity to study under reputed educational institutions. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the premier institutions in the world and its fame is widespread all over the world and meritorious students from different parts of the world dream of being a part of its prestigious alumni. The OpenCourseWare is an initiative introduced by MIT in their bid to make available the various course materials of its undergraduate and post-graduate courses online for free to interested candidates. It is doubtless that such course materials will be highly in demand among the student community and this institute is considered to be one of the finest in the world. Till November 2007, about 1800 courses have already been made accessible online and it is estimated that towards the end of this year all the course materials will be available. Apart from MIT, this endeavor was financially aided by Andrew. W. Mellon Foundation and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

It was in the year 1999 that this idea had dawned in the minds of the scholars associated with MIT that it should make some sort of contribution to online learning and hence it was decided that its course materials should be made accessible online. The MIT OpenCourseWare comprises of various interactive and collaborative demonstrations in Java apart from providing video lectures by professors of the institute. Most of the course materials provide analytical problems and exams often provided with solutions.

Today, there are many traders who are using ever more complex mathematical formulas, to find order in the market and predict Forex price movement. There are many theories but which is the best? Let’s find out…

Lets first define what a mathematical theory is; it’s an objective formula which works ALL of the time.

Now you will see theories such as Gann, Elliot and Fibonacci, as well as numerous Forex Robot vendors, telling you, they have complex mathematical theories that work but it’s obvious they don’t – why?

Because if there really was such a theory that worked all of the time, we would all know the price in advance and there would be no market. None of the so called mathematical theories work all of the time, so by definition there not mathematical.

The Way to Win at Forex

The way to trade Forex markets is to see them for what they are, a market of odds not certainties. If you want to win at Forex trading, you need to trade the odds and this means doing the following. You need to use a simple system which will be more robust than a complicated one and you need to forget prediction and simply trade the reality of price change.

With a simple system trading the odds and with robust money management, you can won’t achieve perfection and win every trade but you will make a lot of money, if you run your profits and cut your losses and trade with discipline.

For hundreds of years, traders have been looking for perfection in Forex trading but it’s a fruitless search. To win at Forex simply concentrate on making money and your time will be much better spent!

Despite all the obvious popularity of games of dice among the majority of social strata of various nations during several millennia and up to the XVth century, it is interesting to note the absence of any evidence of the idea of statistical correlations and probability theory. The French humanist of the XIIIth century Richard de Furnival was said to be the author of a poem in Latin, one of fragments of which contained the first of known calculations of the number of possible variants at the chuck-and luck (there are 216). Earlier in 960 Willbord the Pious invented a game, which represented 56 virtues. The player of this religious game was to improve in these virtues, according to the ways in which three dice can turn out in this game irrespective of the order (the number of such combinations of three dice is actually 56). However, neither Willbord, nor Furnival ever tried to define relative probabilities of separate combinations. It is considered that the Italian mathematician, physicist and astrologist Jerolamo Cardano was the first to conduct in 1526 the mathematical analysis of dice. He applied theoretical argumentation and his own extensive game practice for the creation of his own theory of probability. He counseled pupils how to make bets on the basis of this theory. Galileus renewed the research of dice at the end of the XVIth century. Pascal did the same in 1654. Both did it at the urgent request of hazardous players who were vexed by disappointment and big expenses at dice. Galileus’ calculations were exactly the same as those, which modern mathematics would apply. Thus, science about probabilities at last paved its way. The theory has received the huge development in the middle of the XVIIth century in manuscript of Christiaan Huygens’ «De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae» («Reflections Concerning Dice»). Thus the science about probabilities derives its historical origins from base problems of gambling games.

Before the Reformation epoch the majority of people believed that any event of any sort is predetermined by the God’s will or, if not by the God, by any other supernatural force or a definite being. Many people, maybe even the majority, still keep to this opinion up to our days. In those times such viewpoints were predominant everywhere.

And the mathematical theory entirely based on the opposite statement that some events can be casual (that is controlled by the pure case, uncontrollable, occurring without any specific purpose) had few chances to be published and approved. The mathematician M.G.Candell remarked that «the mankind needed, apparently, some centuries to get used to the idea about the world in which some events occur without the reason or are defined by the reason so remote that they could with sufficient accuracy be predicted with the help of causeless model». The idea of purely casual activity is the foundation of the concept of interrelation between accident and probability.

Equally probable events or consequences have equal odds to take place in every case. Every case is completely independent in games based on the net randomness, i.e. every game has the same probability of obtaining the certain result as all others. Probabilistic statements in practice applied to a long succession of events, but not to a separate event. «The law of the big numbers» is an expression of the fact that the accuracy of correlations being expressed in probability theory increases with growing of numbers of events, but the greater is the number of iterations, the less frequently the absolute number of results of the certain type deviates from expected one. One can precisely predict only correlations, but not separate events or exact amounts.

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Dr Nick Lane (UCL Genetics, Evolution and Environment) is the first UCL Venture Research Fellow. His research examines the mystery at the heart of biology: the origins of complex life.

This is a clip from a lecture I gave at Oxford University back in 1992. They gave me an award and a fellowship in the Oxford Union Society. The first American comedian to receive such an honor. That’s how they got me to work for nothing. Enjoy!

‘Mathematics is the queen of all sciences’ – those are the words of Carl Friedrich Gauss the greatest mathematician of all time.

Mathematics is an important tool for science. Math is most widely used in other sciences. Physics, Chemistry, astronomy, engineering rely most heavily upon mathematical ideas.

Students who consider studying Physics or Chemistry will need a relatively strong Math background.

Mathematics in Physics

Physics is the natural science which explores concepts like mass, energy, matter and its motions. Strong foundation in Algebra, Trigonometry, Geometry, and calculus is essential for physics. Mathematical methods are absolutely necessary to deal with important concepts in physics.

The following are some examples.

(1) Electromagnetic theory is the branch of physics that studies the group of forces associated with electric charges. Vector Analysis is very important for the understanding and developing of Electromagnetic theory.

(2) Group theory is useful in Spectroscopy, Quantum mechanics, Solid state physics, and Nuclear physics.

(3) Fourier techniques are important for the analysis of all linear systems in physics.

(4) Matrix Analysis is necessary for understanding Quantum Mechanics.

(5) Complex numbers are used extensively in physics to describe Electromagnetic Waves and Quantum Mechanics.

Mathematics in Chemistry

Chemistry is the natural science which explores the composition and properties of substances. Math is essential for chemistry. The necessary mathematical background for the study of chemistry includes basic algebra, some trigonometry, and calculus.

The following are some examples.

(1) Being able to balance chemical equations is a very important skill for chemistry students. It’s a simple mathematical exercise. Balancing a chemical equation refers to establishing the mathematical relationship between the amounts of reactants and products involved in the chemical reaction.

Let’s go more in detail.

A chemical equation is a statement that describes what happens in a chemical reaction.

In a chemical equation, we place the reactants (substances undergoing chemical reaction) on the left side of the equation and the products (substances produced in a chemical reaction) on the right side of the equation. We have reactants and products separated by an arrow and the arrow always points in the direction of the products.

Consider the reaction of carbon with oxygen gas to produce carbon-dioxide.

C + O2 —> CO2                    (2 is subscript)

The above equation is already balanced, because, it has an equal number of atoms of each element in the reactants and the product. One carbon atom (C) and two oxygen atoms (O) on the left side of the equation and it’s the same on the right side too.

Let’s look at one more example.

Sodium chloride is the common salt. Sodium and chlorine form sodium chloride.

Na + Cl2 —> NaCl                 (2 is subscript)

The above equation is NOT balanced. It has two chlorine atoms on the left side, but, only one on the right side of the equation.

Let’s balance this chemical equation.

2Na + Cl2 —> 2NaCl             (2 is subscript only in Cl2)

It works! Notice that now there are equal number of atoms of each element in the reactants and the product.

Chemical equations can be balanced conveniently using matrices or simultaneous equations.

A number of fields of chemistry use a significant amount of Math.

(2) Electrochemistry is a branch of chemistry that studies the chemical action of electricity and the production of electricity by chemical reactions. Diffusion in electrochemistry is completely based on differential equations.

(3) Biochemistry is the study of the chemical processes in living organisms. Even biochemistry has important topics which depend heavily on binding theory and kinetics.

Advanced ancient vedic mathematics system, and sacred geometry, explained briefly by Jain.

Heralding a new age in the cosmos, Norwegian Kristian Birkeland predicted that the universe likely consisted of an exotic component that would later be called dark matter. His comments about this subject matter appeared in a description of the Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition (1902-1903). Birkeland’s ideas about the Expedition were published in the fateful year of 1913 which would see the rise of the socialist Federal Reserve System and the Income Tax in the United States of America, two key components of the communist manifesto. Evolutionary processes were in motion throughout all fields of endeavor. Economics, politics, science and the hearts and minds of men and women were in the balance whilst relativism not truth held sway over the modern imagination. Cosmology would suffer from the same ‘evolutionary’ mindset and Birkeland wrote as much:

“We have assumed that each stellar system in evolutions throws off electric corpuscles into space. It does not seem unreasonable therefore to think that the greater part of the material masses in the universe is found, not in the solar systems or nebulae, but in “empty” space.”

In this fashion, Birkeland predicted that because of the ‘evolutions’ present within the cosmos most of the matter in the universe must be found in ‘empty’ space rather than that which is observable in stellar objects. It is currently believed that only four percent of the universe is of this ordinary visible stellar type. Further, about a quarter of the universe is made up of the ubiquitous dark matter with the rest of the cosmos being filled with the even more bizarre dark energy. It was Fritz Zwicky, a swiss astrophysicist working for Caltech, who would further the concept of dark matter through the aegis of the Virial Theorem.

This mathematical relation is a formula which bounds the energy of a set of particles. In another dark year in the steady evolution to slavery since 1933 saw the removal of gold from the accounts of american citizenry, Zwicky used the Virial Theorem in an attempt to ascertain the validity of the dark matter hypothesis. He focussed his attention on the Coma galactic cluster and his analysis provided prima facie confirmation for the existence of dark matter. By evaluating the amount of movement of those galaxies at the periphery of the cluster he was able to approximately surmise the aggregate of all the matter therein.

He was astonished to learn that this sum total of mass is different from a separately computed estimate. This other value was obtained by analyzing the sum total of galaxies and the brightness of the Coma cluster. Juxtaposing this value with the periphery computation he observed that there was a discrepancy of at a minimum four hundredfold. Since the galaxies were insufficiently massive to cause the computed orbital velocities there must be some other mechanism to explain this phenomena. This conundrum became in the scientific lexicon the missing mass problem. Zwicky had established the need for the existence of an invisible source of mass hitherto unknown which must provide the necessary gravitational effect for the cluster.

Thus, it is a fact of the current state of cosmology that the greatest set of evidence for dark matter comes from this galactic gravitational data. Scientists have even made galactic curves describing the rotational properties of stars versus the distance from the galactic center. When the gravitational data is plotted it can be shown that only a small portion of the observed speeds are explicable by classical computations. In other words, there is a scarcity of visible mass in the observed galaxies to attribute the sum total of gravitational effects to visibly observable stars planets and galaxies. Thus, the simplest way to explain this galactic mystery of insufficient mass is to hypothesize a non-detectable type of mass known as dark matter which can be the cause for the gravitational effects.

As more and more data is collected on these and other aspects of the universe, formulae and cosmological postulates are generated describing the results so obtained. Fulfilling the requirements of the aforementioned aspects leads some scientists to propose several different types of dark matter. The four main types of dark matter are called 1- baryonic dark matter; 2- warm dark matter; 3- cold dark matter and 4- hot dark matter. Dark matter ranges from the known to the predicted, from black holes to brown dwarfs to the massive compact halo objects (MACHOs), the neutrino, axions, WIMPS or weakly interacting massive particles and the esoteric neutralino. However, there is an alternative explanation for the gravitational effects which originally created the dark matter concept.

If an incomplete understanding of gravitation is factored into the picture, then it can be asserted that the dark matter interpretation is incorrect because some other cause is generating these phenomena. Several different contending theories have been developed to describe the observed galactic data. In particular, one of the main competing explanations is given by scalar tensor theories which try to combine the teachings of quantum mechanics with gravity. Amplifying these ideas leads to a variety of exotic ideas which challenge our most fundamental notions of physics and astronomy. Other concepts go even further and have been the subject of interest for astronomers like Dr. Riccardo Scarpa since these allow for a cosmology without the inclusion of the enigmatic dark matter.

Dr. Scarpa works at the European Southern Observatory in Santiago Chile using the Very Large Telescope Array at Paranal. With all of his experience in this field, it is interesting to note some of his most recent comments on the superfluous dark matter:

“Dark matter is the craziest idea we’ve ever had in astronomy. It can appear when you need it, it can do what you like, be distributed in any way you like. It is the fairy tale of astronomy.”

In view of these comments one should ask if another scientific idea might be on the verge of collapsing. Indeed, astronomers are routinely using these other theoretical principles on a daily basis in infrared observatories around the world. Thus, it is very likely that we are simply wrong about all of this dark matter. It is within all probability that the only dark matter that we will ever find is that ignorant dark matter between our ears.

Please see www.molsoft.com for more information or www.molsoft.com/gui for additional tutorials and help. … biology chemical spreadsheet plots icm abagyan molsoft cheminformatics drug design PDB sequence swissprot uniprot protein structure DNA computational chemistry molecular graphics

Researchers Jung Soh and Mei Xiao of the Sun Center for Excellence in Visual Genomics at the University of Calgary discuss how their development of a 3D model of human anatomy at a genetic level can help doctors and patients visualize the progression of disease and how to treat it.

Epocrates is an app that helps medical doctors get access to the latest knowledge on diseases and diagnosis. It also checks to make sure they are prescribing the right drugs and that there aren’t bad interaction effects between drugs if they are prescribing multiple drugs. Here co-founder Jeff Tangney talks to me about the company. In a separate video, to come shortly, we get a demo and talk to a Stanford Hospital doctor who is using the system.

Your child went to school and your problems began? Your child hates mathematics? Then let me share my experience how I overcame this parenting challenge.

I would like to share my experience with other mothers. My 8 year old son never liked mathematics even after I tried really hard for the last 6 years to develop love for the precise sciences in him. Obviously, you might call it a BIG statement, especially considering the young age of Andre. Still, I am sure, that the earlier you will start, the better your child will understand the subject. Beginning at the very tender age of 2, I began to teach my son to count. For our counting, I used any handy materials such as apples, pencils, toys and even cups, when we were at home. And, while walking outside, we counted birds, trees and cars. I admit that my son loved to count so-called real objects, something he could see or touch. Indeed, he enjoyed these kinds of creative games. But the moment I would open a book or try to explain to him the easiest rules of adding or subtraction, the struggle would start. He would nag, making any excuse not to sit with me, tell me he is bored, or that he cannot understand, etc. etc.

I was trying my best, putting all my possible efforts in introducing him to maths, but sad to say, it looked rather like a waste of my time and a real failure. All my hard work brought NO result at all.

The school-year was about to commence soon. But even there the mathematics was the hardest and the most disliked school subject for him. And at home we played teacher and learners to do his homework. I was the teacher and my son and one of his toys, which he liked the most, were my pupils. Andre was pretty keen to play this game and in no time, almost effortlessly, used to complete all his homework. All, except one – mathematics!

Obviously, my main worry was mathematics – how my son will overcome his dislike of this school subject? One month passed by. According to his school programme, he would be exposed to the first mathematical rules soon. But Andre didn’t want to hear the very word mathematics! Leave alone any rules! No matter what I tried – Andre stayed indifferent to mathematics and extremely stubborn in his unwillingness to cooperate not only with me, but with teachers too. He simply didn’t want to accept mathematics in his life.

There must be some solution, I thought. I am sure that there are many parents who are going through the very same struggle. Let me do some research. Surely I will come across something useful that other people use for their children’s education, I encouraged myself.

Needless to say, the easiest and fastest research that can be performed in today’s time is on the internet. I began to search any relevant online resource on mathematics for kids. Many websites were read, many stories and even books were downloaded. But with which one to start? How to select the one from so many?

The answer came by itself: All kids love pictures. Indeed, books with colourful pictures will attract any child, therefore, an appealing cover of the book stands a greater chance. Something that is bright and amusing, and relevant to the math subject – this is what I was looking for. Putting myself in the shoes of my son, I began to look at the pictures. Most of the stories were just in plain text. It immediately reduced the number of literature from what I had to choose from. Then, looking at the illustrations, I decided to stop at the stories from the book Kind Mathematics. Drawings were about digits, and in funny forms of digits. Last but not least, I was very impressed with the book’s title: Kind Mathematics. Kind, kindness – this is what we all need!

I printed out the first 3 stories that I successfully (and free!) downloaded from the website. Later the same day, when time came for our home school play, I showed the pages to Andre. I also printed the pictures separately – especially to busy him while I was reading.

And… It worked. The amazing illustrations instantly grabbed his attention, and it gave me a chance to read him the first story. Then, the second story – about adding numbers. I carefully selected this story which explains some simple rules of maths to see whether this methodology was going to work for Andre. He was listening and looking at pictures. He showered me with questions while I was reading the stories to him. So, without changing the topic, I read the third story.

To my surprise he didn’t ask me to stop. On the contrary, he even took some previously- read pages with pictures, trying to figure out ‘who is who’ in the pictures.

There were some questions and activities after the stories. The questions were in a playful form but required good attention – through the nature of the answers one could determine whether the child was really listening to the story. For the first 2 questions he wasn’t sure what to say* but readily answered the rest of questions and agreed to draw digits from 1 to 5, as it was required. Later I discovered the reason why he didn’t find the answers for the first questions – they were about something that happened in the beginning of the first story, when he was looking at the pictures.

In other words, it was our very introduction to this methodology, and it proved to be effective. I cannot deny this! Even in my seemingly very difficult situation it worked. So I ordered the book. It arrived soon. Even from the cover of this book one would never say that it is about mathematics – it looks much more like a book of play. I opened the book and read its contents page. Wow! Many stories on all that I tried so hard to teach my son. Even more than I ever expected!

Slowly, step by step, we read all the stories, usually 1 or 2 per day. For Andre it actually became the most awaited time – he enjoyed the stories, pictures, the story play-form, questions and activities.

Maths can be fun too. Now, even I agree with this. Funny personages from the Kingdom of the Queen Kind Mathematics were teaching my Andre about everything from A to Z. About everything in the mathematics kingdom: from the very introductory lesson until lessons on how to multiply and divide.

Dear Mother and Father, grandmothers and grandfathers. Do not pressurize your little child. If he or she doesn’t like something then perhaps it is we who didn’t find the right solution – the correct method how to introduce something new into their lives. Do your research, have patience and trust in your children. And there are many books that are of great assistance for education, for teachers in schools and for parents who have chosen home-schooling.

Find the correct one for you and your child and follow its teaching method. Children’s minds, in some ways, are like sponges – it can absorb new information if it will be interesting enough, and if we approach them with a teaching methodology which looks at their perspective of life.

Children enjoy creative games and entertaining stories. They love to look at the drawings and to sketch themselves. Our great grandmothers knew this and that is why they used to spend hours reading their wise stories and educational fairytales. Play and learn – this is indeed the best method that can work. With all children, no matter which country, nationality, social status or religion they are. It always worked in the past, it is working excellently at present, and indeed, it will work in the future too.

Educate your kids, but at the same time do not deprive them their childhood. School subjects can be fun too!