Found Blogger actually has official sharing buttons!! LOLX
http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2010/06/official-sharing-buttons-on-blogger.html
Go Design > Page Elements. Click on 'Edit' under 'Blog Posts'.
Monday, October 31, 2011
How to add the official Twitter's Tweet button to Blogger
Learnt to add the Tweet button to blog. Haha, gotta keep up with the generation man. Was contemplating whether to add a counter beside the Tweet button. Might be too embarrassing to see them lower than 10. But then again, might be interesting to see what entries actually get tweet-ed the most. Haha. So I will let the numbers stay there for a while.
Step 1:
Go to this page: http://twitter.com/goodies/tweetbutton
to create your code to embed the button.
Step 2:
Copy that code
Step 3:
Go back to Blogger > Design > Edit HTML. Check the box "Expand Widgets Template".
Search the code for this:
data:post.body
Paste the code AFTER this line. If you paste it before, the button appears in between the entries.
Find a suitable position on your HTML code by experimenting: cut and paste the code into certain segments of the HTML code, like after "Post Labels", "Author" etc. to obtain an optimal position for your tweet button.
Apparently you can also customize messages. Got the know-how from this page:
http://www.betatemplates.com/2010/08/blogspot-how-to-add-official-twitter.html
Step 1:
Go to this page: http://twitter.com/goodies/tweetbutton
to create your code to embed the button.
Step 2:
Copy that code
Step 3:
Go back to Blogger > Design > Edit HTML. Check the box "Expand Widgets Template".
Search the code for this:
data:post.body
Paste the code AFTER this line. If you paste it before, the button appears in between the entries.
Find a suitable position on your HTML code by experimenting: cut and paste the code into certain segments of the HTML code, like after "Post Labels", "Author" etc. to obtain an optimal position for your tweet button.
Apparently you can also customize messages. Got the know-how from this page:
http://www.betatemplates.com/2010/08/blogspot-how-to-add-official-twitter.html
Sunday, October 30, 2011
The Personal Genome Project
http://thepersonalgenome.com/
Interesting videos on the PGP and 23andMe cofounders.
“The potential to discover what contributes to red hair, freckles, pudginess, or a love of chocolate—-let alone quantifying one’s genetic risk for cancer, asthma or diabetes—-is both exhilarating and terrifying. It comes not only with great promise for improving health through personalized medicine and understanding our individuality but also with risks for discrimination and loss of privacy.”, Science, Vol. 318, 21 December 2007, p1842.
Steven Pinker's article to the NY times on sequencing his genome:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html?pagewanted=all
Interesting videos on the PGP and 23andMe cofounders.
“The potential to discover what contributes to red hair, freckles, pudginess, or a love of chocolate—-let alone quantifying one’s genetic risk for cancer, asthma or diabetes—-is both exhilarating and terrifying. It comes not only with great promise for improving health through personalized medicine and understanding our individuality but also with risks for discrimination and loss of privacy.”, Science, Vol. 318, 21 December 2007, p1842.
Steven Pinker's article to the NY times on sequencing his genome:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html?pagewanted=all
Types of Bulbs
 |
| blue IKEA desk lamp |
I was looking for a bulb size that fits my IKEA cheap lamp. I had a previous purchase before, it was an incandescent light bulb, which is very energy-inefficient, and too bright for my liking. I am worried about my eyes, which I just did my LASIK on. It turns out, there are SO many kinds of bulbs. So I had wanted to get a fluorescent bulb. But a warning sign says that this lamp takes only Type R bulbs 25W 120V, which only are available as incandescent bulbs. |
| http://www.elightbulbs.com/catalog_search_help_incandescent_bulb_base_types.cfm Incandescent bulb types. Life-size type R and PAR20 (circled) are shown below. |
Why is that so? I did a search on the very informative website (above), and noticed that incandescent light bulbs are typically the conventional bulbs we see, and fluorescent ones are usually the longer kind. I reckon it's due to limitations imposed by the way fluorescence works. There are also fluorescent compact versions which I used for the bulbs in the living room (see last image below).
This website provides an extremely good overview of bulbs. I bought also a variety of bulbs just to try them out, so that I know which to get in the future (or try more bulbs LOLX they all fit into the living room lamp anyway). Easily available from Amazon.
BTW, the above figure for incandescent bulbs is not drawn to scale. For comparison, see image below:
 |
| Type R (left) and Type PAR20 (right) |
 |
| Type R (right) and compact fluorescent spiral (hidden within) |
 |
| Type PAR20 (left) and compact fluorescent spiral |
Saturday, October 29, 2011
The World's Ugliest Music
Turns out that this piece of TEDx video provided some extra trivia for me:
1) SONAR: if the sound reflects back to you at high frequency, the object is moving towards you, low frequency away.
2) Piano has 88 notes.
3) Beautiful music has repeated motifs.
The last point - I wonder if this is a recurring motif in itself in the universe, that the desirables are often conserved and reiterated. Then maybe not: rarities are considered gems.
Life Length: The Teleological design of Telomeres
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/19life.html?pagewanted=all
Always a pleasure to learn about the exciting research and/or work Nobel Laureates are STILL doing. It does legitimize the prize that they receive, doesn't it?
Ada Yonath
Roger Tsien
Sidney Altman
Steven Chu
I have heard them speak about their current research - simply awesome...
It just makes me remember why I am here in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates
Always a pleasure to learn about the exciting research and/or work Nobel Laureates are STILL doing. It does legitimize the prize that they receive, doesn't it?
Ada Yonath
Roger Tsien
Sidney Altman
Steven Chu
I have heard them speak about their current research - simply awesome...
It just makes me remember why I am here in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates
Personal Genomics
The raving about personal genomics has been ongoing for a while now that sequencing has become increasingly common. I have been thinking about different applications of personal genomics. It seems the most direct impact is clinical.
1) For the first time, science is being directly in touch with the masses, through companies such as 23andMe, Genetic Alliance are reaching out to the public at a large scale. People are getting in touch with microarrays, DNA, SNPs, genomic mutations - technical jargons - thought to be associated solely with just scientists. At this interface, the interplay between scientific ethics, communication, education and journalism is gaining importance. A great summary of the "Personal Genomes" conference at Cold Spring Harbor 2011 at Finchtalk gives a good summary of an outlook of this.
2) Pharmacogenetics is translational. Elucidating individual genomes means a more customized healthcare at the population and individual level. But medical informatics at the hospitals has not caught up to this. The deluge of data with just selected sequences is giving the clinicians and informaticians at the hospitals a hard time, let alone integration of full sequence data. While basic and translational research might have caught up, we would have to wait before medicine can fully utilize these information. A recent excursion to the Yale-New Haven Hospital jolted me to the fact that this is more than a technological affair, especially when healthcare becomes an enterprise.
3) Genome information is the first level of the central dogma. The primary sequence and the most fundamental, and the first to be done at high throughput. The next milestone, should be the full integration of this first level of information into healthcare. At least variability of drug dosing must be incorporated.
4) I have never thought I would be surprised by adamant resistance to knowing about your genetic material until I come here. I realize things are getting tricky with religion and insurance companies. At the other end of the spectrum, there are the apathetic people, who did their profiling and do not really care. It's scary because this nonchalance, if persists, kills the interest of the general public in the long run. When that happens, the use of such a fantastic clinical tool seems like a farce of the educated.
5) Is there anything about personal genomics that might be important beyond just being clinically relevant? The ability to distinguish maternal and paternal parts of a genome at high resolution allows a different scientific perspective of variability in the genome. But can we glean anything further? Interplay with the different other omes: transcriptome and proteome and metabolome?
M has an entry of the summary of the NIH Proteome Meeting that he spoke at: http://blog.gerstein.info/2011/10/summary-of-data-integration-session-at.html. That should be the next frontier that science is going to in clinical research - where CSI's instant mass spectrometry comes alive. Or perhaps science fiction might be gaining the most out of this.
EDIT: new science blog entry on CSHL conference on PG
http://scienceblogs.com/digitalbio/2011/10/genomes_with_benefits.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fdigitalbio+%28Discovering+Biology+in+a+Digital+World%29
1) For the first time, science is being directly in touch with the masses, through companies such as 23andMe, Genetic Alliance are reaching out to the public at a large scale. People are getting in touch with microarrays, DNA, SNPs, genomic mutations - technical jargons - thought to be associated solely with just scientists. At this interface, the interplay between scientific ethics, communication, education and journalism is gaining importance. A great summary of the "Personal Genomes" conference at Cold Spring Harbor 2011 at Finchtalk gives a good summary of an outlook of this.
2) Pharmacogenetics is translational. Elucidating individual genomes means a more customized healthcare at the population and individual level. But medical informatics at the hospitals has not caught up to this. The deluge of data with just selected sequences is giving the clinicians and informaticians at the hospitals a hard time, let alone integration of full sequence data. While basic and translational research might have caught up, we would have to wait before medicine can fully utilize these information. A recent excursion to the Yale-New Haven Hospital jolted me to the fact that this is more than a technological affair, especially when healthcare becomes an enterprise.
3) Genome information is the first level of the central dogma. The primary sequence and the most fundamental, and the first to be done at high throughput. The next milestone, should be the full integration of this first level of information into healthcare. At least variability of drug dosing must be incorporated.
4) I have never thought I would be surprised by adamant resistance to knowing about your genetic material until I come here. I realize things are getting tricky with religion and insurance companies. At the other end of the spectrum, there are the apathetic people, who did their profiling and do not really care. It's scary because this nonchalance, if persists, kills the interest of the general public in the long run. When that happens, the use of such a fantastic clinical tool seems like a farce of the educated.
5) Is there anything about personal genomics that might be important beyond just being clinically relevant? The ability to distinguish maternal and paternal parts of a genome at high resolution allows a different scientific perspective of variability in the genome. But can we glean anything further? Interplay with the different other omes: transcriptome and proteome and metabolome?
M has an entry of the summary of the NIH Proteome Meeting that he spoke at: http://blog.gerstein.info/2011/10/summary-of-data-integration-session-at.html. That should be the next frontier that science is going to in clinical research - where CSI's instant mass spectrometry comes alive. Or perhaps science fiction might be gaining the most out of this.
EDIT: new science blog entry on CSHL conference on PG
http://scienceblogs.com/digitalbio/2011/10/genomes_with_benefits.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fdigitalbio+%28Discovering+Biology+in+a+Digital+World%29
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Using Windows 7 as a Wi-Fi Hotspot
Make it easier. Go to this page.
http://lifehacker.com/5369381/turn-your-windows-7-pc-into-a-wireless-hotspot
http://lifehacker.com/5369381/turn-your-windows-7-pc-into-a-wireless-hotspot
Monday, October 24, 2011
Miranda on BBC
Type "Miranda" in Google and you will come up with lots of hits. Miranda Cosgrove just got involved in an accident (don't know who she is actually; but she is born in 1993, so young!), Miranda Lambert (singer) and Dr Miranda Bailey (from Grey's Anatomy, one of favorite characters). Wonder why Miranda is such a popular name.
But I am going to just zoom in on Miranda of the BBC sitcom - wait for it ---- Miranda... It's really about the life of a 6 feet tall, slightly overweight British lady who frequently gets mistaken for a man and her funny and clumsy behavior, especially in front of handsome men. She has feelings for her college crush, Gary Preston, played by Tom Ellis - undeniably charming and has feelings for Miranda too! He JUST happened to be the chef in the restaurant round the corner of her joke shop. Yes, joke shop that sells chocolate willies (seriously).
That's just a very rough synopsis. It is not giving justice to the amount of humor (even if a lot of them are British) that is packed in those episodes. They kept me laughing and rocking about the chair the whole time. "Such fun" indeed!! Really entertaining! Most importantly, it's only half an hour per episode - I can watch during mealtimes. They are onto season 2 but season 3 is expected to be out only in 2012. Highly recommended! One of the funniest shows I have watched.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
iPhone iOS5: Contacts Wiped and Viber does not work...
Recently upgraded my iPhone OS to iOS5. Took quite a bit of time.
A few changes on the design of the interface. The messaging is definitely much better, in the sense that now it doesn't slam the entire message right across the screen and pause what I am doing. The messages and texts are now placed somewhat less conspicuously at the top and stack up as more come in.
Another great feature is the camera and the music activation at LOCK screen when you DOUBLE-CLICK the home button. There is a pictorial explanation here if you do not know what I am talking about:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/10/14/camera-lock-screen-ios-5/
I find the Newsstand quite useless though and you can't really get it out of the way by grouping or deleting the icon.
iMessage works like a Whatsapp now. I would still use Whatsapp for international anyway.
I do realize though my contacts were supposedly wiped. And Viber doesnt work either.
Solution:
1) I edited one of the entries in the Contacts, save it - all the contacts came back. Then I changed back that edit I made in the first place. This website here gives you FIVE ways to recover your contacts:
http://www.seangw.com/wordpress/index.php/2011/10/ios-5-upgrade-lost-my-contacts/
2) I reinstalled Viber. It works again. But I realize if the person you are calling doesn't have an updated version of Viber, you can't call him either.
A few changes on the design of the interface. The messaging is definitely much better, in the sense that now it doesn't slam the entire message right across the screen and pause what I am doing. The messages and texts are now placed somewhat less conspicuously at the top and stack up as more come in.
Another great feature is the camera and the music activation at LOCK screen when you DOUBLE-CLICK the home button. There is a pictorial explanation here if you do not know what I am talking about:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/10/14/camera-lock-screen-ios-5/
I find the Newsstand quite useless though and you can't really get it out of the way by grouping or deleting the icon.
iMessage works like a Whatsapp now. I would still use Whatsapp for international anyway.
I do realize though my contacts were supposedly wiped. And Viber doesnt work either.
Solution:
1) I edited one of the entries in the Contacts, save it - all the contacts came back. Then I changed back that edit I made in the first place. This website here gives you FIVE ways to recover your contacts:
http://www.seangw.com/wordpress/index.php/2011/10/ios-5-upgrade-lost-my-contacts/
2) I reinstalled Viber. It works again. But I realize if the person you are calling doesn't have an updated version of Viber, you can't call him either.
Friday, October 21, 2011
My alcohol flush
Some people would know that I never had an alcohol reaction until I went for an exchange in Germany a couple of years ago (after that huge dose of alcohol from my birthday party LOLX). That rash breakout lasted two weeks...
Since then, I have been trying to find out why am I getting an alcohol reaction now?! It's really kind of weird. Because red wine's fine, most white wine is ok. Radler is the only beer-mix that I can withstand for beer, before breaking out the next day. And the rashes (thankfully) is only limited to my torso that is hidden usually behind clothes. So, it's probably not the alcohol per se, perhaps the LEVEL of alcohol, or some other substance.
Just something somewhat related. Recently did 23andme. I was told rs671 gives rise to a variation of ALDH2 - ALDH2*2 - which is a mutation of G>A that results in an alcohol flush reaction. Each copy of A is an ALDH2*2. I have a genotype of GG.. This is expected since I do not have past history of having a flush in any way.... Not even now, since the reaction I described above occurs only A DAY after I drink... An actual flush reaction (see image below) occurs typically almost immediately. I have friends who turn red like lobsters.
http://spittoon.23andme.com/2009/03/24/researchers-warn-that-physicians-need-to-ask-about-alcohol-%E2%80%9Cflushing%E2%80%9D-to-reduce-esophageal-cancer-risk/#more-3170
"In the body, alcohol is first converted into acetaldehyde, a potentially cancer-causing toxin, and then into a harmless substance called acetate. An enzyme called ALDH2 is responsible for the crucial detoxifying step. But a genetic variation known as ALDH2*2, most commonly found in people with Asian ancestry, can render the enzyme unable to convert acetaldehyde into acetate."
Since then, I have been trying to find out why am I getting an alcohol reaction now?! It's really kind of weird. Because red wine's fine, most white wine is ok. Radler is the only beer-mix that I can withstand for beer, before breaking out the next day. And the rashes (thankfully) is only limited to my torso that is hidden usually behind clothes. So, it's probably not the alcohol per se, perhaps the LEVEL of alcohol, or some other substance.
Just something somewhat related. Recently did 23andme. I was told rs671 gives rise to a variation of ALDH2 - ALDH2*2 - which is a mutation of G>A that results in an alcohol flush reaction. Each copy of A is an ALDH2*2. I have a genotype of GG.. This is expected since I do not have past history of having a flush in any way.... Not even now, since the reaction I described above occurs only A DAY after I drink... An actual flush reaction (see image below) occurs typically almost immediately. I have friends who turn red like lobsters.
http://spittoon.23andme.com/2009/03/24/researchers-warn-that-physicians-need-to-ask-about-alcohol-%E2%80%9Cflushing%E2%80%9D-to-reduce-esophageal-cancer-risk/#more-3170
"In the body, alcohol is first converted into acetaldehyde, a potentially cancer-causing toxin, and then into a harmless substance called acetate. An enzyme called ALDH2 is responsible for the crucial detoxifying step. But a genetic variation known as ALDH2*2, most commonly found in people with Asian ancestry, can render the enzyme unable to convert acetaldehyde into acetate."
What's wrong with your hand (rhetoric)
I need to put up my hand - ask MORE questions or make MORE comments on the spot.
It's this hardwired mechanism in the twenty years of my SG education that is costing me dearly: fear of failing, fear of asking questions that make you seem stupid, basically fear of being "wrong".
But what's wrong with being "wrong"? It just shows that you are thinking... even though it might be in the wrong direction.
Ok, I am going to start kicking the habit. It's part of my own resolution and definitely part of my own training.
I would rather look stupid now, than later. Hack. It doesn't actually matter, does it?
ripping this image off XL's page:
http://monpetitbateau.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/relighting-my-fire/
瀟灑，坦然，豁達
It's this hardwired mechanism in the twenty years of my SG education that is costing me dearly: fear of failing, fear of asking questions that make you seem stupid, basically fear of being "wrong".
But what's wrong with being "wrong"? It just shows that you are thinking... even though it might be in the wrong direction.
Ok, I am going to start kicking the habit. It's part of my own resolution and definitely part of my own training.
I would rather look stupid now, than later. Hack. It doesn't actually matter, does it?
http://monpetitbateau.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/relighting-my-fire/
瀟灑，坦然，豁達
Favorite season
I am falling in love with fall after 2 yrs of New England autumn :)
Cooling yet sun-filled and always the correct combination of hues. A pity that it's always so short. But perhaps that's how the heart grows fonder .
Cooling yet sun-filled and always the correct combination of hues. A pity that it's always so short. But perhaps that's how the heart grows fonder .
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Ginger supremacist?!
What the hell is a Ginger supremacist?!? lolx...
http://www.fox.com/glee/full-episodes/1332133/
But the new episode of Glee is really much better than the other episodes so far in the season.
http://www.fox.com/glee/full-episodes/1332133/
But the new episode of Glee is really much better than the other episodes so far in the season.
Windows 7 VS Vista
Stumped when M asked me what is the difference between Windows 7 and Vista, when you look at it?!
Speed is definitely the main difference I felt, between the two. W7 is MUCH faster to start up - less than a minute - Vista takes AGES. Same applies for Microsoft Apps as well, especially EXCEL. But then again, it could be that it's on 64-bit. Also, speed can be relative thing, even though for a gizmo-insensitive guy like myself, the change in speed from 7 to Vista was quite palpable.
It was 12 midnight in the office, so I rambled something about the gadget bar in Vista not being customizable, until I found a site that taught me how to modify the registry to get rid of it. Talking about trivial lolx
Anyway found this more thorough comparison:
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/windows-compared-windows-7-vs-vista-vs-xp-615167?artc_pg=6
Speed is definitely the main difference I felt, between the two. W7 is MUCH faster to start up - less than a minute - Vista takes AGES. Same applies for Microsoft Apps as well, especially EXCEL. But then again, it could be that it's on 64-bit. Also, speed can be relative thing, even though for a gizmo-insensitive guy like myself, the change in speed from 7 to Vista was quite palpable.
It was 12 midnight in the office, so I rambled something about the gadget bar in Vista not being customizable, until I found a site that taught me how to modify the registry to get rid of it. Talking about trivial lolx
Anyway found this more thorough comparison:
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/windows-compared-windows-7-vs-vista-vs-xp-615167?artc_pg=6
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Biologically Useful Numbers
http://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/
This is an extremely useful site!
I am always forgetting numbers like the diffusion limit of enzyme reaction rate in a cell especially (10^8 - 10^9 per M per sec). I had to stick something on my desktop to remember. LOLX...
Cite this pretty recent paper: Milo et al. Nucl. Acids Res. (2010) 38 (suppl 1): D750-D753.
The Gerstein Lab @ Yale also has a good compilation of Genome Statistics:
http://info.gersteinlab.org/Genome_Statistics
Proteins compilation:
http://biosite.se/ViewPage.aspx?PageID=33
This is an extremely useful site!
I am always forgetting numbers like the diffusion limit of enzyme reaction rate in a cell especially (10^8 - 10^9 per M per sec). I had to stick something on my desktop to remember. LOLX...
Cite this pretty recent paper: Milo et al. Nucl. Acids Res. (2010) 38 (suppl 1): D750-D753.
The Gerstein Lab @ Yale also has a good compilation of Genome Statistics:
http://info.gersteinlab.org/Genome_Statistics
Proteins compilation:
http://biosite.se/ViewPage.aspx?PageID=33
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Genome-Transcriptome-Proteome Triad
The buzz has mostly been about the three entities separately. I was trying to squeeze out a proposal for my research project for a fellowship application. Was doodling on a piece of paper.
Drawing first genetic interactions: epistasis, linkage. Then RNA interactions, among themselves, where for example you can have 22-nucleotide microRNAs (miRNA) interacting with messenger RNAs (mRNA) or you can also have RNAs regulating genes (pretty good symposium review: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088955/). Finally, proteome can be regulated by RNAs, such as tRNA, and they can also regulate the genes via transcription factors. Basically, I drew some edges and nodes on a scrap piece of paper.
The same day, I stumbled upon this article in ScienceDaily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111013121514.htm
Drawing first genetic interactions: epistasis, linkage. Then RNA interactions, among themselves, where for example you can have 22-nucleotide microRNAs (miRNA) interacting with messenger RNAs (mRNA) or you can also have RNAs regulating genes (pretty good symposium review: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088955/). Finally, proteome can be regulated by RNAs, such as tRNA, and they can also regulate the genes via transcription factors. Basically, I drew some edges and nodes on a scrap piece of paper.
The same day, I stumbled upon this article in ScienceDaily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111013121514.htm
Four Cell papers, published back to back. I haven't read the papers but four independent studies showing the influence of non-coding RNAs and its networks in cancer, on four different ncRNAs: long coding, miRNA, mRNA and a new ceRNA (pronounced SIR-na, competing endogenous RNA)... It shows that it seems quite a big deal. But I thought it's quite obvious for the levels in the central dogma to be interconnected. Perhaps the novelty lies in the context.
I am working on ncRNAs for now too. So might actually good to take a look at the papers.
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