Image via WikipediaPSI - Consumer - Products
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
PSI - Software Security Scanner
Image via WikipediaPSI - Consumer - Products
Friday, July 23, 2010
Spicy peppers may hold a key to weight loss...
Image via WikipediaI've always liked hot peppers but not for weight loss. I've used 'em to fight off colds and just for the joy of it. Back in college we used to buy those cheap frozen burritos and the hottest peppers we could find. Then at the first signs of a cold we'd pile on the peppers and sweat and burn the cold out! Seemed to work, but we always paid for it the next day (if you know what I mean :).
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Beekeeping - An Introduction and a Different Approach
Image via WikipediaThis is a great site to learn the basics about Beekeeping if you're interested or even just curious. They put together short beekeeping lessons that are useful and easy to read. They also have a site where you can buy beekeeping equipment from.
Different Approach:
Last Tuesday I went to the Holland Beekeeping association and heard Mel Disselkoen talk about an alternative method of beekeeping. Not a different type of hive just a different philosophy on what to do with the bees and when to do it. It was very interesting and I'm going to do some more reading on his site: http://www.mdasplitter.com/
Tour de France 2010
Tour de France 2010
Keystone Bike Park
Check out this sweet video of a couple downhillers going thru the Keystone bike park. I'd love to learn how to do this with out risking my life to learn it!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Insulin Signaling Helps Make Queen Bees
Image by Max xx via FlickrThere has for always been a question of how a female bee larva becomes a queen vs a worker bee. We've known that the bees feed a larva royal jelly and place the larva in a special cell but they've never know why this causes the larva to develop into a queen, until now:
Insulin Signaling Key to
Caste Development in Bees
Caste Development in Bees
What makes a bee grow up to be a queen? Scientists have long pondered this mystery. Now, researchers in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University have fit a new piece into the puzzle of bee development. Their work not only adds to understanding about bees, but also adds insights into our own development and aging.The study, which appeared in the June 30 online edition of Biology Letters, shows that a key protein in the insulin signaling pathway plays a strong role in caste development among bees.
A female bee can become either a worker or a queen. Queen bees are larger and live longer than workers. Queen bees are also fertile while workers are essentially sterile. A queen has only one role—to lay eggs—while workers tend the hive, care for the queen and larvae, and forage for food.
"The incredible thing is that both of these types of female honeybees emerge from the same genome," says Florian Wolschin, an assistant research professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is the lead author of the study. "So how does that happen?"
Workers determine the fate of the larvae by what they feed them. The amount and composition of food that the larvae receive determine whether they become workers or queens. People have known this for many years, but exactly what happens inside the cells to create this split isn't completely clear.
Wolschin, Gro Amdam, an associate professor, and Navdeep S. Mutti, a postdoctoral research associate, found that the insulin signaling pathway plays a role in caste development. Insulin is a hormone found in humans and many other animals, and insulin-like peptides have been discovered in bees. Insulin moves glucose—sugar—from the bloodstream into the body's cells where it can be used.
The researchers suppressed one of the key proteins in this pathway in honeybee larvae. The protein, called the insulin receptor substrate (IRS), has been linked to growth, development and reproduction in mice. The researchers fed the altered larvae a queen's diet, but they developed into workers, not queens.
IRS is only one component of the process that decides a bee's ultimate fate. Wolschin says several other molecules are known to play a role, including DNA methyltransferase, juvenile hormone and a protein called TOR.
"Those are all very important and fundamental mechanisms," says Wolschin. "One single part cannot alone be responsible. It has to be the interplay between different mechanisms that finally results in the divergence of queens and workers."
The researchers are now looking at the interconnections between several of these factors. "We want to see if maybe there's a hierarchy involved. Several of the components are probably 'upstream' of other processes. So they serve as mass regulators and switches," says Wolschin.
Honeybees are vitally important to our economy through pollination of crops as well as production of honey, wax and royal jelly. Understanding bee biology is crucial to maintaining this industry in the face of problems like colony collapse disorder.
Wolschin adds that bees also provide an important model system that can help us understand our own biology. For example, scientists have successfully reversed many signs of aging in worker bees.
"That is pretty unique," says Wolschin. "You don't have other model organisms in aging research that can do that."
A female bee can become either a worker or a queen. Queen bees are larger and live longer than workers. Queen bees are also fertile while workers are essentially sterile. A queen has only one role—to lay eggs—while workers tend the hive, care for the queen and larvae, and forage for food.
"The incredible thing is that both of these types of female honeybees emerge from the same genome," says Florian Wolschin, an assistant research professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is the lead author of the study. "So how does that happen?"
Workers determine the fate of the larvae by what they feed them. The amount and composition of food that the larvae receive determine whether they become workers or queens. People have known this for many years, but exactly what happens inside the cells to create this split isn't completely clear.
Wolschin, Gro Amdam, an associate professor, and Navdeep S. Mutti, a postdoctoral research associate, found that the insulin signaling pathway plays a role in caste development. Insulin is a hormone found in humans and many other animals, and insulin-like peptides have been discovered in bees. Insulin moves glucose—sugar—from the bloodstream into the body's cells where it can be used.
The researchers suppressed one of the key proteins in this pathway in honeybee larvae. The protein, called the insulin receptor substrate (IRS), has been linked to growth, development and reproduction in mice. The researchers fed the altered larvae a queen's diet, but they developed into workers, not queens.
IRS is only one component of the process that decides a bee's ultimate fate. Wolschin says several other molecules are known to play a role, including DNA methyltransferase, juvenile hormone and a protein called TOR.
"Those are all very important and fundamental mechanisms," says Wolschin. "One single part cannot alone be responsible. It has to be the interplay between different mechanisms that finally results in the divergence of queens and workers."
The researchers are now looking at the interconnections between several of these factors. "We want to see if maybe there's a hierarchy involved. Several of the components are probably 'upstream' of other processes. So they serve as mass regulators and switches," says Wolschin.
Honeybees are vitally important to our economy through pollination of crops as well as production of honey, wax and royal jelly. Understanding bee biology is crucial to maintaining this industry in the face of problems like colony collapse disorder.
Wolschin adds that bees also provide an important model system that can help us understand our own biology. For example, scientists have successfully reversed many signs of aging in worker bees.
"That is pretty unique," says Wolschin. "You don't have other model organisms in aging research that can do that."
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Photography – Exposure vs. Brightness
Lightroom – Exposure vs. Brightness | Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips
This is a great article which really shows the difference between these two sliders in Photoshop Lightroom. I've always wondered what the difference was but never really tested it out. I have normally used the exposure slider, primary out of ignorance of the differences. I may have to do a little more experimenting next time I need to raise or lower the "brightness" of the image. Take a look.
This is a great article which really shows the difference between these two sliders in Photoshop Lightroom. I've always wondered what the difference was but never really tested it out. I have normally used the exposure slider, primary out of ignorance of the differences. I may have to do a little more experimenting next time I need to raise or lower the "brightness" of the image. Take a look.
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