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Posts tagged with "Health"

Why we could all do with a siesta

Friday, 2. June 2006, 03:26:43

The Spaniards may have been right all along – a siesta after a hearty lunch is natural, new research suggests.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have for the first time uncovered how brain cells or 'neurons' that keep us alert become turned off after we eat.

The findings – published in the scientific journal Neuron this week – have implications for treating obesity and eating disorders as well as understanding levels of consciousness.

"It has been known for a while that people and animals can become sleepy and less active after a meal, but brain signals responsible for this were poorly understood," said Dr Denis Burdakov, the lead researcher based in Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences.

"We have pinpointed how glucose – the sugar in food – can stop brain cells from producing signals that keep us awake.

Dr Burdakov's research has shown exactly how glucose blocks or 'inhibits' neurons that make orexins – tiny proteins that are vital for normal regulation of our state of consciousness.

"These cells are critical for responding to the ever-changing body-energy state with finely orchestrated changes in arousal, food seeking, hormone release and metabolic rate to ensure that the brain always has adequate glucose."

Malfunction of orexin neurons can lead to narcolepsy, where sufferers cannot stay awake, and obesity; there is also evidence that orexin neurons play a role in learning, reward-seeking and addiction.

"We have identified the pore in the membrane of orexin-producing cells that is responsible for the inhibiting effect of glucose.

"This previously unknown mechanism is so sensitive it can detect minute changes in glucose levels – the type that occurs between meals for example.

"This may well provide an explanation for after-meal tiredness and why it is difficult to sleep when hungry.

"Now we know how glucose stops orexin neurons 'firing', we have a better understanding of what may occur in disorders of sleep and body weight.

"This research perhaps sheds light on why our European friends are so fond of their siestas."

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-06/uom-wwc060106.php

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We are not entirely human

Friday, 2. June 2006, 03:07:54

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - We may not be entirely human, gene experts said on Thursday after studying the DNA of hundreds of different kinds of bacteria in the human gut.

Bacteria are so important to key functions such as digestion and the immune system that we may be truly symbiotic organisms -- relying on one another for life itself, the scientists write in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Their findings suggest that studying bacteria native to our bodies may provide important clues to disease, nutrition, obesity and how well drugs will work in individuals, said the team at The Institute for Genomic Research, commonly known as TIGR, in Maryland.

"We are somehow like an amalgam, a mix of bacteria and human cells. There are some estimates that say 90 percent of the cells on our body are actually bacteria," Steven Gill, a molecular biologist formerly at TIGR and now at the State University of New York in Buffalo, said in a telephone interview.

"We're entirely dependent on this microbial population for our well-being. A shift within this population, often leading to the absence or presence of beneficial microbes, can trigger defects in metabolism and development of diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease."

Scientists have long known that at least 50 percent of human feces, and often more, is made up of bacteria from the gut. Bacteria start to colonize the intestines and colon shortly after birth, and adults carry up to 100 trillion microbes, representing more than 1,000 different species.

They are not just freeloading. They help humans to digest much of what we eat, including some vitamins, sugars, and fiber. They also synthesize vitamins that people cannot.

"Humans have evolved for million of years with these bacteria. And they provide essential functions," Gill said.

GERM SURPRISE

Gill and his team sequenced the DNA in feces donated by three adults. They found a surprising amount of it came from bacteria.

They compared the gene sequences to those from known bacteria and to the human genome and found this so-called colon microbiome -- the entire sum of genetic material from microbes in the lower gut -- includes more than 60,000 genes.

That is twice as many as found in the human genome.

"Of all the DNA sequences in that material, only 1 to 5 percent of it was not bacterial," Gill said.

"We were surprised."

They also found a surprising number of Archaea, also known as archaebacteria, which are genetically distinct from bacteria but which are also one-celled organisms often found in extreme environments such as hot springs.

The donors were healthy adults. None had taken antibiotics for a year, as these drugs are known to disturb the bacteria in the body.

Gill said his team hopes now to make a comparison of the gut bacteria from different people.

"The ideal study would be to compare 20 people, 30 people from different ethnic backgrounds, different diets, drinkers, smokers, and so on, because I think there are going to be distinct differences," Gill said.

These bacteria almost certainly help break down drugs that people take and studying the effects of different populations of the microbes might provide clues to treating different people with various medications.

The next study will focus on the bacteria in the mouth, Gill said. There are at least 800 species in the mouth and maybe more, Gill said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060601/sc_nm/bacteria_dc

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The Ethical Dilemmas of Immortality

Wednesday, 24. May 2006, 08:27:40

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Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Tue May 23, 12:00 PM ET

For John Harris, saving a life and delaying its end is one and the same. Using this logic, Harris, a bioethicist at the University of Manchester, England, figures that scientists have a moral duty to extend the human life span as far as it will go, even if it means creating beings that live forever.

"When you save a life, you are simply postponing death to another point," Harris told LiveScience. "Thus, we are committed to extending life indefinitely if we can, for the same reasons that we are committed to life-saving."

But the loss of a child and the passing of an elderly person are not the same thing at all, says Daniel Callahan, a bioethicist at the Hastings Center in New York. The first is premature, while the latter comes, hopefully, at the end of a well-lived life.

"The death of an elderly person is sad, because we lose them and they lose us, but it's not tragic," Callahan said. "One can't say this is a deranged universe to live in because people die of old age."

This is just one of several ethical and moral arguments that have cropped up in recent years as labs around the world aim at the dream of immortality, or at least to extend lives well beyond the century mark. Among other debates:

* Will everyone have an equal chance to drink from a fountain of youth?
* If people live longer but are miserable for decades, will views on suicide and euthanasia change?
* In an immortal society, how do you make room for new generations?

A world of 112-year-olds

The life expectancy for the average American is 77.6 years. Extending life spans will be an incremental process, most experts say. But there is great promise.

A 1990 study by University of Chicago biodemographer Jay Olshansky and colleagues calculated that even if the risk of death from cancer in the United States were reduced to zero, average life expectancy would increase by only 2.7 years. If the risks from heart disease, stroke and diabetes were also eliminated, life expectancy would increase by another 14 years, the researchers found.

In contrast, repeated experiments have shown rodents fed 40 percent fewer calories live about 40 percent longer. For reasons that are unclear, this "caloric restriction" regimen also postpones the onset of many degenerative diseases normally associated with aging.

If these effects can be replicated in humans, the average person could live to be 112 years old and our maximum life span could be extended to 140 years, says Richard Miller, a pathologist who does aging research at the University of Michigan.

The moral imperative

Furthermore, if rodent experiments are any guide, the future's elderly will be fitter, Miller said, with the average 90-year-old resembling today’s 50-year-olds in mind and body.

For these reasons, Miller believes aging research could have a far greater impact on improving public health than trying to cure diseases individually.

“If you’re really interested in increasing healthy lifespan, aging research is more likely to get you there in a quick and cost-efficient way than trying to conquer one disease at a time," Miller told LiveScience.

If extending life also prolongs health, as animal studies suggest, then the argument for anti-aging research being a moral imperative is strengthened, says Harris, the University of Manchester bioethicist.

"It is one thing to ask, 'Should we make people immortal?' and answer in the negative. It is quite another to ask whether we should make people immune to heart disease, cancer, dementia, and many other diseases and decide that we should not,” Harris contends.

But even if humanity decides to green-light anti-aging research on moral grounds, other thorny ethical issues remain, ethicists say. Uppermost among these is the problem of social injustice.

Who will have access?

Most scientists and ethicists agree that life-extension technology will likely be very expensive when first developed, so only a small number of wealthy individuals will be able to afford it. Existing social disparities between rich and poor could become even more pronounced.

The fortunate few who could afford the therapy would not only have significantly longer lives, but more opportunities to amass wealth or political power and to gain control of economic or even cultural institutions, critics say.

Harris points out, however, that the modern world is already rife with similar injustices. The average life expectancy of people in the United States, for example, is about 78 years, but only 34 years in Botswana, Africa. Developed nations also have access to medicines and life-saving procedures, such as organ transplants, that are beyond the reach of poor nations. Yet Americans don’t typically consider themselves wicked because they have access to things like kidney transplants while people in other countries don’t.

Similarly, Harris says, the fact that only the rich would have access to life extension technology is not a good enough reason to ban it. For one thing, denying life-treatments to one group of people will not save another. Secondly, new technologies often start off expensive but become cheaper and more widely available with time.

"Injustice may be justifiable in the short term because that is the only way to move to a position where greater justice can be done," Harris told LiveScience. "That’s true of all technologies.”

Centuries of torment

Another thing to consider is the effect longer lifetimes will have on some of our cherished values, ethicists say. For example, in the United States, the right to life is considered something that every person is entitled to, and both suicide and euthanasia are considered culturally and socially unacceptable.

But in a world where human lives are measured not in decades, but in centuries, or millennia, these values might need to be re-examined. One reason: Immortality will not mean invincibility. Diseases and wars will still kill, strokes will still maim and depression will still be around to blunt the joys of living.

The question of when, if ever, is it okay for someone to end their own life or to have someone else end it for them is already a topic of fierce debate. An answer will become even more essential if by telling someone they must live, we condemn them to not just years, but decades or centuries of torment.

Generational cleansing

Also, Earth can support only so many people. If everyone lived longer, generations would have to be born farther apart to avoid overcrowding.

To ensure ample generational turnover, Harris says, society might need to resort to some kind of "generational cleansing, which would be difficult to justify.” This would involve people collectively deciding what length is reasonable for a generation to live and then ensuring individuals died once they reached the end of their term.

Such actions would require radical shifts in our attitudes about suicide and euthanasia, Harris said. People would either have to stop thinking that saving lives is important, or they’ll have to stop thinking that there is something wrong with deliberately bringing about death at a certain point.

“We've grown up with a certain set of expectations about life and death, and if those expectations change, a lot of other things will have to change as well,” Harris said.

* SPECIAL REPORT: Toward Immortality
* Life Expectancy in America Hits Record High
* Dying Wishes Vary by Culture and Gender
* Thoughts of Mortality Turn Pacifists into Killers
* Hang in There: The 25-Year Wait for Immortality
* Ray Kurzweil Aims to Live Forever
* The Truth on Longer Life Spans
* Top 10 Immortals

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060523/sc_space/theethicaldilemmasofimmortality

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Chronic tinnitus and its impact on demanding cognitive tasks

Friday, 24. March 2006, 14:53:05

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Date: 10/03/2006

Individuals with chronic, moderate tinnitus do more poorly on demanding working memory and attention tests than those without tinnitus, according to research conducted at the University of Western Sydney.

However, on less complex tasks, no significant differences were found, suggesting that tinnitus has no effect on tasks that involve more involuntary, automatic responses.

The study, Tinnitus and Its Effect on Working Memory and Attention, which appeared in the February issue of the 'Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research', adds to the growing body of research on the relationship between tinnitus and cognition, demonstrating an association between tinnitus and reduced cognitive function.

The research has important implications for helping people with tinnitus approach new or difficult tasks that require strategic and conscious control.

"We wanted to learn more about the ways in which chronic tinnitus disrupts cognitive performance," says Susan Rossiter, a former research Masters student at the MARCS Auditory Laboratories at the University's Bankstown Campus.

"Our goal is to use this knowledge to develop management strategies that will help minimize this disruption."

"Ms Rossiter's research project was our first foray into tinnitus," says fellow researcher, Associate Professor Catherine Stevens of the MARCS Auditory Laboratories. She adds, "Our most recent research has also investigated other important variables such as depression and hearing loss."

Dr Gary Walker, Honorary Adjunct Fellow at the MARCS Auditory labs adds, "Our ultimate goal is to use this knowledge to develop management strategies that will help minimize disruption."

Thirty-eight people participated as subjects. Nineteen, who were ages 34-63 years, came from English-speaking backgrounds, and had constant, moderate to severe tinnitus made up the experimental group. The control group also had 19 participants. They matched individuals in the experimental group by age, educational level, occupation, and verbal IQ.

Tinnitus is the perception of sound in the absence of auditory stimulation. Described as a "ringing in the ears" or "buzzing" or "whooshing" sound, it can be temporary, intermittent, or permanent.

Although its exact cause is often unknown, tinnitus can be a symptom of hearing loss, allergies, or exposure to loud noise or ototoxic medicines. Past research has shown that it can be accompanied by anxiety, insomnia, problems with auditory perception, and poor general and mental health.

The 'Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research' is published by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. The ASHA is the US professional, scientific, and credentialing association for more than 120,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists.

Source: http://apps.uws.edu.au/media/news/index.phtml?act=view&story_id=1501

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Next Gen Contact Lenses During Night Only

Thursday, 16. March 2006, 09:34:10

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The concept of OrthoKeratology dates back to ancient China where it was discovered that sleeping with small bags of sand on your eyes improved your vision the following day.

OrthoKeratology (Ortho-K) is a non-surgical process which reshapes (flattens) the cornea of the eye using custom made contact lenses during the night to reduce refractive errors (nearsightedness and astigmatism). The patient would take the lenses out in the morning and they are able to see the rest of the day without any glasses or contact lenses.

Accelerated Ortho-K uses reverse geometry contact lenses. Flattening the cornea reduces the focusing power of the eye. If the amount of corneal flattening is accurately controlled, it is possible to bring the eye into correct focus and compensate for myopia (nearsightedness). After the contact lens is removed, the cornea retains its flattened shape for part or all of the remainder of the day. A retainer lens must be used each night to maintain the corneal flattening, or the myopia will revert to the pre-treatment level. Ortho-K is also successful for some degrees of farsightness by steepening the central cornea.

ortho-k.net

Source: http://pojkrummet.blogspot.com/2006/03/next-gen-contact-lenses-during-night.html

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Stumbling Links For March

Thursday, 9. March 2006, 09:11:09

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Scuba Diving:
Jean-Michel Cousteau at LIDS
Hand signals used by divers approved by RSTC
ARSBC - The Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia, ARSBC, is a non-profit society based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Our mission is to create environmentally- and economically-sustainable "artificial reefs" in British Columbia and around the world for the enjoyment of Scuba Divers, and for the protection of environmentally- and historically-sensitive marine habitats. Since 1991, the ARSBC has sunk 6 ships and one Boeing 737 in B.C.
TURTLE LIVE - Live webcast Of Turtle napping spot.
Live webcasts Of Orca's - They will also notify you at key times when orca are near the camera and mics.
Aquaskipper - Fly above the water with the most popular product from Inventist! Your hopping motion causes the hydrofoil to propel you forward while giving you lift. Since the hydrofoil has very little drag in the water, you can move at speeds of up to 17 mph. With the AquaSkipper, you can ride on waves, try new tricks, and race your friends. Any way you use it, the Aquaskipper fun and a great way to exercise.
Tank of the Month - February 2006 - Reefkeeping.com - Don't personally like Saltwater Tanks...but all I got to say is WOW!
Sea Slugs Madness - Nice Site!
World first? - Diving instructor captures images of divers interacting with killer whales.
Something Fishy - How Humans Got So Smart
Ocean Was a Hot Tub in Dino Era

Kids:
TRAINING TOILET PAPER - Paw prints show kids how much toilet paper to use. Kids follow the prints to the puppy and tear off the right amount.
Adobe Digital Kids Club - Lessons and activities
The MINI-MIZER - Build a Lego You!
StoryNory - Free download of children stories.

Mind:
Simple ways to make yourself far cleverer - Doing 'brain exercises' such as watching Countdown, playing Sudoku or taking a shower with your eyes closed can make us all up to 40 per cent cleverer within seven days, according to research by a BBC programme this week.
A Theory on the Deja Vu Phenomenon - A physiological explanation of the deja vu phenomenon may exist. The optical and neural paths from the two eyes may be slightly different. Or, alternately, a "newer" and "older" brain processing method might be responsible.
Sleep position gives personality clue - If you want an insight into somebody's true personality, then try to catch a glimpse of the way they sleep.
What's Your IQ?

Health:
Strange afflictions - Ever felt the urge to eat dirt or attack the alien impersonating your brother? Megan Gressor can explain why.
Over-the-counter (OTC) Medicines - familydoctor.org
New England Journal Of Medicine - NEJM Handhelds : PDA Home
If I am feeling chest pain, should I call 911?

Odd:
International Earth-Destruction Advisory Board - The International Earth Destruction Advisory Board (IEDAB) is an independent scientific institution which monitors the current status of the Earth and the number of times it has been destroyed. In the event of the Earth being destroyed it will be the IEDAB's job to relay this information to people who need to know and provide advice on how to proceed.
Top 10 Strangest Lego Creations
How to Stop Time
Spirit Project - Palmistry
Tricks of the Trade - Professional secrets from those in the know.
Awesome - A Site about Cool Shit
Aquada - Now this is a cool car!
The Micropolitan Museum - the Institute for the Promotion of the Less than One Millimeter
proudly presents...
Portable Telephone
The Witching Hours - Medieval Through Enlightenment Period European Witch History
The Final Curtain
Nessie on the Net - The Ultimate Loch Ness Monster Live Cam, Scotland
Doodles, Drafts Designs
Sacred Destinations — a catalogue and travel guide to more than 1,500 (and counting!) sacred sites, holy places, pilgrimage destinations, historical religious sites and religious buildings and artifacts around the world.
Statistics - We've all been in this situation before – the meeting's in 5 minutes, and your boss asked you to find a statistic online to prove a point. Like that the tobacco consumption in Brazil is decreasing, or that most seniors prefer cats to dogs. Whatever it is, we're now here to help you create valid-looking statistics in an instant!
The Forbidden Knowledge - Conspiracy Theory
World's most expensive cars 2006
Instructables - step-by-step collaboration.

Fun:
Cityscape - is a game where you have been assigned to create a new city in a recently discovered region that's prime for development. Using the 18 urban aspects at your disposal, you are able to build your city, but only those who build them in the proper order will achieve the highest ranking: a teeming Cityscape.
Skip Intro
Extreme Survival Quiz - Test your survivial acumen in some extreme circumstances.
So You Wanna Build a Macquarium + Glow in the dark Fish = It's a good match!
Monty Python's Silly Walks Generator - ROFL!
Plane Banner Generator - Cool!
Play Free Online Games - Role Playing Games
How to Fold Paper Into a Secret Note Square - Some people have trouble opening this type of note, so it's perfect for passing secret notes to your friends.
Sketch Swap - Draw One to Get One.
Origami - Cool!
Mystic Pig - Ask the Pig...he knows...lol
The Cleaning Hunk
WALL OF MEMEORY - Walls last a very long time. If you want to remember something forever, scratch it into the wall of memory.
Brittlelactica - Got Milk?

Internet:
Google's Domains - Google this google that, you hear google everywhere. Yes, it is a very useful search engine, but don't you get tired of typing w.w.w...g.o.o.g.l.e...c.o.m every time? the domain name gets boring :smile: So, what to do? Google owns a lot of funny names that point to their site!
Nothing for Sale Site - Name your own price.
Chatzy - Chatzy is a free private chat service. Fill out the form to create a chat room immediately - only for you and the people you invite!
FeedYes.com gives rss feeds to websites without feeds - Just type the url of any page, and FeedYes gives you the feed.
Kaboodle - Collect, Save items from across the web onto a single page.
AjaxTrans - Real time translation as you type!
StanaPhone - Free and unlimited calls to any other Stanaphone subscriber, anywhere in the world.
Email graphic traceroute - Paste an email with full headers (we need the 'Received' lines -- we don't need your email addresses, digg). The app will (we hope) trace the path your email message took as it passed through various servers, on Google maps.
Way Back Machine - The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.
Find out what Google thinks of you.
Project IP - In addition to your IP address projected above, Project IP lists just about everything a webserver can find out about your computer.
Amazing Webpage Emailer - Very neat toolbar which lets you email a web page, without the adverts and rubbish, with the proper formatting and even if it’s locked behind passworded doors. Fast too. Plug-ins for IE, Firefox and Netscape. They do ask you for your email address while sending though, so be prepared.
Mailnation Email - Free 1000GB Email Services.
Ning -The new free and easy way for you to create your own Social Web Apps - so let the fun begin!
Zeitgeist - Search patterns, trends, and surprises.
Searchdon - Make Personal Search Engine with Famous Themes
How to protect your privacy and security when browsing the web
Comparison Of Web Browsers - From Wikipedia
Wikipedia - What Wikipedia is not

Photography:
Tiltomo - Here you can play with our Visual Search code using two sample databases from flickr.
World In Motion VR - Take a unique trip to some of the most amazing places on Earth with World in Motion VR.
Drop Shot - Video Sharing
JP Trenque - Photography
Lomography - Yup Yup Yup...lol
MyHeritage - MyHeritage.com is one of the world's first services to apply advanced face recognition technology to personal photos and family history; and it's free!
Things that make you go aahh - And awwwwww.....lol
Snowflake and Snow Crystal Photographs - These pictures show real snow crystals that fell to earth in Northern Ontario, Alaska, Vermont, the Michigan Upper Peninsula, and the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. They were taken by Kenneth G. Libbrecht using a specially designed snowflake photomicroscope.`
BubbleShare - Your photos + Your voice = Your Story

Science:
Rainbows - Rainbows have many forms. Multiple bows, bows that cross, red bows, twinned bows, coloured fringes, dark bands, spokes and more. Find out about them here.
Live Science
Encyclopedia Smithsonian
"Lost World" - Found in Indonesia Is Trove of New Species
The Transparent Butterfly

Geography:
Paleogeography and Geologic Evolution of North America
GeoNames
Sacred Destinations — a free online travel guide to the history, significance and features of over 1,100 sacred sites, holy places, pilgrimage destinations, historical religious sites and places of worship around the world.
Saharan Prehistory & Rock Art - Really Nice Site!
World History - Interesting....
Stone Pages - Web guide to Megalithic Europe :Over the last 14 years we have personally visited and photographed all 529 archæological sites you will find in these pages (117 in the six national sections and 412 in our Tours section), creating the first Web guide to European megaliths and other prehistoric sites, online since February 1996
The Roman Empire

Astronomy:
Nordlys - Of all naturally occuring heavenly phenomena, few come close to a night
with a magnificent northern lights display. Flickering curtains of dancing
light against the dark skies, northern lights is certainly one of the most
spectacular of nature's phenomena.
How to discover asteroid impacts - The story of the discovery of two impact craters.
Virtual Reality Moon Phase Pictures
Comet dust sparks scientific intrigue - Samples hint at ancient origins, with tentative signs of organic compounds.
Solar System Simulator

Free Downloads:
Desk Projection v1.0.6 - Allows you to project a transparent image of your choice on top of your desktop using alpha blending. I can be controlled either through a tray icon or with comand line arguments.
NoSleep! v2.18 - Allows you to temporarily deactivate the screen saver and any standby feature directly from the system tray. NoSleep! is minimal in size, yet provides remote control capabilities, a full (un)installation routine and - as a bonus feature - Swatch Internet Time.
TheBeat v1.07 - Displays the Internet Time from Swatch as a system tray icon (near Windows' own clock).
fd's Flickr Toys - Helping you do fun things with your digital camera since 2005. ;-)
OldVersion.com
Torrents sites - WEB OF KNOWLEDGE
Open Source Windows - Free and open-source software is good for you and for the world. This is the best Windows software that we know of. No adware, no spyware, just good software.
Peer to Mail - Store and Share files on any Web-Mail account!
Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager (Standard)- Use this application to backup and restore presentation, pictures, songs and applications from and to USB Flash Drive devices and take them with you. Use USB Flash Drives to store personal data, to keep your network configuration and to share information with your friends. Microsoft USB Flash Drive.
List of open source software packages - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Assassin II - When malicious software invades your system, the most invasive ones will ensure that they are malignant. Some malware can even startup with the system in Safe Mode and regenerate using a new set of credentials. Thus, your everyday scanner will fail to remove these processes. However, Assassin v2.0.0 has been equipped with the necessary features one will need to terminate and remove almost any hostile process from ones system within minutes and all without rebooting or changing the system configurations.
FastKake - Will create a set of handy and useful shortcuts which will give you full control of your Windows operating system and simplify your computing life.
Public Domain Torrents - Lot's of Free Movies and Legal too.
tinySpell - Spell checker.
Outlook Express Tweaker 1.01 - Some useful Outlook Express settings are not exposed in its Options dialog and the only way to change them is to tinker with registry. That is if you don't have OE Tweaker. Once you get this handy utility customizing the hidden Outlook Express settings becomes a snap.
Sun Clock 6.5 - world map is subtly different every day. As the seasons change watch the polar sea-ice expand and contract, the snow cover on land extend and recede, and the vegetation of the Amazon jungle, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere change in intensity. Using satellite imagery taken throughout 2004 the annual cycle is simulated.
Nullsoft Beep - is an application that makes your computer sound like computers sound in the movies. It requires Windows 95 or later with DirectX 3 or later.

Portable Apps:
Portable USB Drive Apps - Wiki Wiki Wiki
Dirk Loss' Win-Tools
Portable Freeware
SysInternals
Tinyapps
del.icio.us tag usb

Government:
RFID Tags in New US Notes Explode When You Try to Microwave Them - This article has been linked all over the Internet. We want to make it clear that $20 bills will only 'pop' or 'explode' in certain microwaves. We've had E mails saying they do, they don't, 'you're all kooks' etc etc. What is confirmed is the public policy to embed US and European money with high tech tracking devices as part of the hulking surveillance society.
Immigration and Nationality Act (8 USC)
Ellis Island - Passanger Records

Dogs:
Mystic Dog - Dog Horrorscopes
Doggles - Sun Glasses For Cool Dogs.
Peta Catalog - 'Songs to Make Dogs Happy' CD :Hehehe...should get Sitara one of these...lol
Making Bath Times Fun for You and Your Dog

Gadgets:
HAL - Control Your Home by Voice From Anywhere!
LAZER SCISSORS - Laser Scissors You can cut a straight line! Just aim the pin-point laser and follow the line. No marking, no crooked cuts.
Tiny USB IrDA Adapter - Talk about small!

Computer:
Images: Windows Vista - Here's the new stuff.
Browser Security Test - How did you do ?

Books:
BRAVE NEW WORLD - Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
Blurb Home

Food:
Monterey Bay Aquarium: Seafood Watch Program - All Seafood List

Music:
Find Music You'll Love - Pandora
Star Trek Music
Desktop Blues

Mobile Phone:
Skweezer - Is both a mobile-optimized browser and a fully functional Web portal, with features such as e-mail, contacts list, RSS reader, and more.
Gadget17 - Series 60 Freeware

RSS:
FeedYes - gives rss feeds to websites without feeds.
Feed43 - Your favorite site doesn't provide news feeds? This free online service converts any web page to an RSS feed on the fly.
FeedBlitz - RSS, Blogs, XML, readers and aggregators can be confusing. Adding email services to your blog isn't. Email RSS feed and blog subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz.

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Link Dump For Febuary

Monday, 27. February 2006, 02:43:17

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Computer:
The VerticalMouse 2 - Boy oh boy are there some wacky input devices on the market today, and it seems they get even kookier when they're ergonomic.
Laptop inventions - Interesting laptop inventions.
XP On Your Thumb Drive - Fred Langa offers a step-by-step and illustrated guide on how to boot XP from an ordinary USB drive.
Create Your Own IM BOT

Scuba Diving:
Bluetrek X2 Bluetooth Water-Resistant Headset - The Bluetrek X2 is an earpiece that’s not quite so delicate as most, called the first water resistant and weatherproof Bluetooth headset by its manufacturer.
Antarctic Krill Provide Carbon Sink In Southern Ocean - New research on Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), a shrimp-like animal at the heart of the Southern Ocean food chain, reveals behaviour that shows that they absorb and transfer more carbon from the Earth's surface than was previously understood.
World Ocean Observatory
BubbleRIngs.com - A Bubble Ring is like a smoke ring, except it exists underwater, and it is made of pure, clean air. Bubble rings are created by swimmers, scuba divers, dolphins, humpback whales, and the RingMachine invention.

Gadgets:
Sfera Alarm - For those who have a hard time getting up in the morning, here’s a sadistic new way to assure that they’ll pay heed to that blaring alarm clock at the crack of dawn.
Top 10 Strangest IPod Accessories
Make - Technology on your time.
Knock Code Technology will open your door without keys

Health:
Ginkgo Biloba Extract - More Than Just For Memory?
Unintelligent Design - A monstrous discovery suggests that viruses, long regarded as lowly evolutionary latecomers, may have been the precursors of all life on Earth

Animals:
Three New Species Of Lemurs Identified -Researchers have identified three new species of lemurs, the small, big-eyed primates native to the island of Madagascar.

Astronomy:
New Map Of Milky Way Reveals Millions Of Unseen Objects - Nearly 400 years after Galileo determined the wispy Milky Way actually comprises myriad individual stars, scientists using NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer have done the same for the "X-ray Milky Way."
Apollo Chronicles - The Mysterious Smell of Moondust

Odd:
Earth Hurtles Toward 6.5 Billion - The planet's population is projected to reach 6.5 billion at 7:16 p.m. EST Saturday, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and its World Population Clock.
The Toy Will Bring You Joy
Cow Abduction.com

Internet:
Live Thumbnails - Watch 'em Grow
What is passclicks? - Passclicks is a new way to login to websites without users having to remember thir old style textual password
SuprGlu - Piecing Your Web Together. Do you already use services like del.icio.us, flickr, blogger, typepad, etc? SuprGlu is a new way to gather all your content from those sites.
You can turn off the internet here
How to Send an Email to Undisclosed Recipients
Test Your Browser's Security Now
NSA eavesdropping - How it might work
How Do I Avoid Getting Tracked While I am Online?
www.DNSstuff.com

Games:
Magic Cube 4D Applet

Gardening:
Virtual Garden

Photogrpahy:
The Bodyscapes Galleries
GRAFFITI ARCHAEOLOGY
Ashes and Snow

Politics:
World Public Opinion - Others report what the world does. We report what the world thinks.

Free Downloads:
Copy Path - Copy Path is a tiny utility that allows you to right click on any file and copy the full system path to your Windows Clipboard. Many people may not find this a big help, but if you deal with network files and such all day at work, like I do, you may find this little tool is a real timesaver.
Desktop Earth - Desktop Earth is a wallpaper generator. It will generate a high-resolution, accurate representation of the Earth.
John's Background Switcher
World Wind - lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.
Gmail Skins - is a Firefox extension that lets you change the look of your Gmail inbox (amongst some other things).
Listible - Windows opensource and/or freeware.

Dogs:
Fido's First Cell Phone
Tick-Busting Robot Nabs Pests

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