What do you do, to avoid the flu?

Not again! I can’t believe I have another sinus infection along with a flu. I had one for the entire friggin’ month of January. I’m on my 3rd day of antibiotics. They knocked out most of the symptoms, but I still have a stuffy nose, a dry cough,  and the red spots in the middle on the bottom of my inner lower eyelids.

I did everything right in February: ate right, exercised almost daily, got enough sleep, took vitamins. I gained about 10 pounds in muscle mass in Feb, and now at the beginning of March, I find myself back in bed. For two days I had a fever, sore throat, was coughing up dark phelm, and had pain behind my eyes. The Azithromycin Z-pack fixed that.  I hope this is not the same bug I had before, because I can’t take another entire month off of work.  Right now I’m using a vacation day to stay home sick. So, obviously, I’m reading everything I can about how to fight and avoid the flu:

- Wash hands frequently
- Wash all bed linens used while fighting the flu bug or cold
- Keep a cold- and flu-free kitchen
- Air the room with fresh air
- Eat a well-balanced healthy diet
- Get plenty of fluids, particularly soup
- Chicken soup seems to contain antibiotic properties.
- Dark grape juice, which contains tannins, is supposed to help kill off viruses.

As far as vitamins, there are guidelines, but they depend on the rest of your diet, your genetics, and other factors.
- Vitamin D (250 to 10000 IU/day)  (one report said people getting 2,000 units per day did not get the flu)

- Antiviral drugs can be offered to anyone who wants to avoid and/or treat the flu.

- Get a flu shot ( FluMist, a nasal flu vaccine, is now available for healthy people between the ages of 2 and 49.)

… more later.

What do you do, to avoid the flu?

Nanotube Radio, World’s Smallest Radio

We have constructed a fully functional, fully integrated radio receiver, orders-of-magnitude smaller than any previous radio, from a single carbon nanotube. The single nanotube serves, at once, as all major components of a radio: antenna, tuner, amplifier, and demodulator. Moreover, the antenna and tuner are implemented in a radically different manner than traditional radios, receiving signals via high frequency mechanical vibrations of the nanotube rather than through traditional electrical means. We have already used the nanotube radio to receive and play music from FM radio transmissions such as Layla by Eric Clapton (Derek and the Dominos) and the Beach Boy’s Good Vibrations. The nanotube radio’s extremely small size could enable radical new applications such as radio controlled devices small enough to exist in the human bloodstream, or simply smaller, cheaper, and more efficient wireless devices such as cellular phones.

…. When a radio wave of a specific frequency impinges on the nanotube it begins to vibrate vigorously. An electric field applied to the nanotube forces electrons to be emitted from its tip. This electrical current may be used to detect the mechanical vibrations of the nanotube, and thus listen to the radio waves.

… Layla by Eric Clapton (Derek & the Dominos) was the first song played on the nanotube radio. The entire received song may be downloaded below. Though there is a significant amount of static noise, the song is easily recognizable. All of this was accomplished with none of the external circuitry to filter or process the signal typically found in macroscopic radios.

Layla (entire song) (WAV 2.82 MB)

Courtesy Zettl Research Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California at Berkeley.

via Nanotube Radio.

If an implanted transducer like this, in someone’s jaw, for example, could turn sound into electrical energy as this seems to be doing, it seems to me you could pass the signal to an amplifier and broadcast everything a person says. Crazy. Something like that might be of interest to a few spy agencies. Do not subvocalize.

Baby Olympian? DNA test screens sports ability

Ava Anderson can’t run — not yet anyway. And the only iron she pumps comes via her tiny spoon. Then again, she’s just 13 months old.

But Ava was born with a genetic blend that will infuse her body with the explosive bursts of a power athlete and the steady engine of marathoner. Someday, this baby may blossom into a multisport, cross-training double threat. That’s not parental conjecture. That’s her DNA profile.

Her mom and dad had her tested.

Like more than 200 other parents to date, Hilary and Aaron Anderson paid $149 to Atlas Sports Genetics — a Boulder, Colo. company — for a sneak peek at their kid’s athletic horizons.

The Andersons received a home-analysis kit to check whether Ava has the inborn knack for strength sports (like sprinting) or endurance sports (like cycling). Then, to get the genetic scoop, they simply brushed the inside of Ava’s cheek with two cotton swabs, sealed the samples in a baggie and mailed them to an Australian lab used by Atlas. Although there are 20,000 strands of human DNA, the lab hunts for variations of just one: ACTN3, which can predict certain athletic skills, some experts believe. Five weeks later, the Andersons heard the verdict.

“She’s a mix,” said Hilary Anderson, who wasn’t surprised by the results given that she is tall and lean and that her husband once trained for the U.S. Olympic weightlifting team. “If she came back all endurance, we’d probably focus more on the long-distance type things. Likewise, if she was all strength, we would direct her toward power sports. This will let her try all sorts of things.” …

via Baby Olympian? DNA test screens sports ability – Kids and parenting- msnbc.com.

These are the old days, the days when we can’t just change our DNA at will for fun.

A 4-year-old boy has won the use of an uninhabited tropical island

A 4-year-old boy has won the use of an uninhabited tropical island, with white sand beaches and clear turquoise waters, in a Taiwan lottery aimed at boosting spending during an economic downturn.

Officials said Yeh Chien-wei, who won the prize at Thursday’s draw, will get exclusive rights to the tiny plot in the Taiwan Strait from May through September.

Penghu County, an offshore archipelago, will provide food, drinks, water and electricity to the boy. He has been quoted in local media saying he wants to play in the sea.

“Penghu has a lot of islands, and that one has water and electricity, so someone can really enjoy it,” said county economic promotion official Lu Yan-chang, explaining why use of the island, which also has a cabin, was offered as a prize.

Counties elsewhere in Taiwan have offered cars, houses and other prizes to encourage locals to spend consumer vouchers worth $103 that the government gave to every citizen in January to encourage spending to help boost the sagging economy.

Penghu, which comprises 64 islands, is known for its beautiful beaches and water sports.
According to the terms of the prize, the boy and up to seven family members can visit the island five times, for trips that last a maximum of three days.
- via Cafeterra

Yes, a 4-year-old playing in the sea sounds safe to me. The seven…oops six family members will have a … oops five remaining family members will have a great old time. Playing. In the sea. Wwahhah. Wahahaha. Wahah. Ha. I should have never watched Lost. Before that, islands like this didn’t seem sinister.

Video: Britain Plots Battle-Bot Future

Britain’s military launched a new, robot-heavy Defence Technology Plan last week. And it’s packed with everything from morphing, unmanned copters to drone swarms to liquid armor.

One of the stars was the Future Protected Vehicle – a “lightweight vehicle designed to achieve the effectiveness and survivability of a main battle tank.” A Ministry of Defence video shows the FPV releasing a miniature spy drone to locate a target, before destroying the thing. It’s clearly similar to the Team Stellar entry which won the MoDs Grand Challenge robot competition last year. Team Stellar’s entry, “Sensing & Autonomous Tactical Urban Reconnaissance Network,” or “Saturn,” included a robotic ground vehicle with a small unmanned aircraft that were networked together. So it’s not surprising that one of the contracts announced as part of the plan is a £1.3m ($1.8m) deal for Team Stellar “to take their integrated Saturn system to the next level of capability.”

Two of the other Grand Challenge competitors also received contracts. Mindsheets is enhancing its Testudo, a small radio-controlled buggy for inspecting IEDs; the idea is to make it more rugged and user-friendly for battlefield use. Meanwhile, Swarm Systems is being funded to take their gaggle of co-operative, hovering micro-air vehicles to the next level.

Other plans are more ambitious. The Novel Air Concept is an unmanned aircraft capable of vertical take-off. If it works as proposed, it’ll have a proposed radius of action of a thousand kilometers, and be capable of operating in heavily defended airspace. The drone will be specifically tailored to carrying out strikes in urban environments, and will be able to deliver “novel payloads” — which may be MoD-speak for directed energy weapons. The aim is to produce a flying demonstrator within three years.

The Novel Air Concept may not end up looking anything like this artists impression, showing it as a stealthy, morphing craft with a retracting nose-propeller. But clearly, the designers have no lack of imagination. …

continued on Wired.com.

Taco Town Video

Here is a link to that super taco video I was telling a friend about. I think it has been pulled from YouTube.  Someone actually made them and possibly died from eating them… according to a myspace blog:

Fish with human faces spotted in South Korea

The “humanoid” carp are attracting attention in the town of Chongju in the centre of the country where they live in a small pond.

They are believed to be hybrid descendants of two carp species – the carp and the leather carp, also known as a tangerine fish.

Both fish are females and more than three feet long. They appear to have distinctive human noses, eyes and lips.

The fish live in a pond behind the home of a 64-year old South Korean man and have been there since 1986 although their looks are only just starting to attract attention.

“My fish have been getting more and more human for the past couple of years,” the owner said.

He added that he knows of other fish with similar features, and as they are both females it will be impossible for them to breed and have fish-faced offspring.

via Fish with human faces spotted in South Korea – Telegraph.

A fish with a human face is making waves in South Korea. The ‘humanoid’ carp are attracting attention in the town of Chongju, where they live in a small pond. They are believed to be hybrid descendants of two carp species

via Telegraph

Well, sort of human looking.  A little bit. Not very much.

A fish that has a pattern resembling a human face on its body was found in a pond in Chongju, South Korea, according to a Local 6 News report. The news of a fish with a human face spread to South Korea through the Internet after a Japanese sports tabloid reported on the unusual fish.A South Korean newspaper then carried an article about the fish in South Korea. The fish is the result of artificial insemination between a carp and ayu sweetfish. As the fish grew larger, the design on the fish reportedly changed to look more like the face of a human being.Rare markings on a fish are considered a good omen in some Asian countries, according to a report.Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

- via clickorlando

Compound may block HIV infection

Researchers have identified a cheap, commonly-used compound that, applied vaginally, can stop monkeys being infected with a primate version of HIV.

The discovery, by the University of Minnesota, raises hopes of a similar microbicidal treatment to block HIV transmission in humans.

Several microbicides have been tested, but results have been disappointing.

The study – focusing on a compound called glycerol monolaurate (GML) – is published online by the journal Nature.

GML is a naturally occurring compound widely used as an antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory agent in food and cosmetics.

Crucially, it is also cheap, and is likely to protect against other sexually transmitted infections too.

Lead researcher Dr Ashley Haase said that if GML proved to be effective in blocking HIV it could potentially help to save millions of lives.

A majority of cases of HIV worldwide are now contracted vaginally, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the pandemic is at its most intense, women account for nearly 60% of new infections. …

After monkeys are exposed to their version of HIV, known as SIV, T-cells from the immune system rush to the scene to try to fight infection.

However, this is actually counter-productive, as the virus merely uses these cells as fuel to aid its expansion throughout the body.

Therefore, blocking this initial immune response – although it seems counter-intuitive – might actually help to stop infection in its tracks.  …

“What is interesting about glycerol monolaurate is that it’s very cheap and it may protect against a broad spectrum of sexually transmitted infections, not just HIV.

“It also looks like the sort of compound that could be made available over the counter, without the need for a prescription, which can only help uptake of any potential microbicide.”

Genevieve Edwards, of the HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust, welcomed the research, but she warned that other precautions should still be taken.

“If we’re able to produce an effective microbicide, it would be a significant step forward in the fight against HIV.

“In the short term, promoting condom use and good sex education are essential to reduce transmission.” via BBC NEWS | Health | Compound may block HIV infection.