I have written here about a pretty cool low cost clay+solar refrigeratorinvention by an Indian. It was indeed ingenious of him to develop a refrigerator that could be deployed across most of the world.
But here is a picture of another low-tech refrigerator - from Naran, Pakistan this time. The photo is posted here really only for fun…. but now I wonder if it also speaks for the general lack of technology innovations getting reported out of Pakistan. Regardless, kudos to the creativity of this person….(photo courtesy: ATP; credits: Shoukat Raza).
Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain
Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show.
By Denise Gellene
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 10, 2007
Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.
In a simple experiment reported todayin the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.
Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.
The results show “there are two cognitive styles — a liberal style and a conservative style,” said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research.
Ok - this I just don’t get. Somebody explain how this is possible. I am not suggesting that this company does not have a simply awesome technology and potential market upside, but how do you go to a $470million valuation within months? Is there some term-sheet gimmickry going on that I am naive about? Maybe this transaction is set up this way, specifically targeted to catch the attention of press and media?
Regardless, I wish them well. They have a great set of investors, and I believe they must have done their due-diligence.
Amyris Biotechnologies Inc., an Emeryville, Calif.-based synthetic biology company that developers renewable hydrocarbon biofuels, has closed the first tranche of a $70 million in Series B funding. DAG Ventures led the deal, and was joined by return backers Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and TPG ventures. The company raised $20 million in Series A funding last year, and named for BP executive John Melo as CEO. VentureWire quotes Melo as saying that the Series B round came with a post-money valuation of $470 million. www.amyrisbiotech.com
AMYRIS BIOTECHNOLOGIES ANNOUNCES $70 MILLION SERIES B ROUND
Prominent Investors Include DAG Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and TPG Ventures
Strong Endorsement of Technology Pioneer at Forefront of Developing No-Compromise Biofuels
Emeryville, CA - September 19, 2007 - Amyris Biotechnologies, an innovator in the development of renewable hydrocarbon biofuels, today announced that it closed the first tranche of its $70 million Series B funding. Duff Ackerman & Goodrich Ventures (DAG Ventures) led the financing and was joined by existing Series A investors, including Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and TPG Ventures. The Series B funding will be used to further the development and scale up of its technology for the production of three transportation biofuels: bio-gasoline, bio-diesel, and bio-jet, and to support business initiatives to enable Amyris to bring its biofuels to market as early as 2010.
A dear friend, who is herself pregnant with a baby girl, just sent this. How cute is this? … Watch and enjoy. It will make you smile, esp. if you have ever tried dancing dabke yourself. Click on image below (in center) to play the video.
Sometimes you read published work and wonder “why didn’t I think of this?”. As I was leafing through a recent issue of the Chemical and Engineering News (also in Nature), I came across a news item referencing a Angew. Chem. Int. Edn paper, and I had the same reaction. Shoot…I was this close!
For my Ph.D. work, I made soot using a variety of sources, including candle soot, and then studied the impact of oxidation on them. I took my research in the direction of studying soot oxidation having a dramatic impact on the lifetime and interactions of soot in the atmosphere. Some of Mario’s students followed up the work with a more carefully study on the mechanisms that may be active in soot oxidation.
But here is a clever piece of work done by Liu et al. with oxidized candle soot.
(Nanowerk Spotlight) There you are - a romantic dinner for two, soft jazz music in the background, exquisite French cuisine served on finest porcelain. You are sniffing that 1986 Bordeaux you kept for this special occasion. The expensive floral bouquet that is the centerpiece of the table is warmly lit by several candles. “Wait!” you think, “wouldn’t the soot from these candles make a great source of fluorescent carbon nanoparticles?” Or so works the mind of a nanoscientist. This is why they make great discoveries in nanotechnology while you and I just waste a few hours on dinner. Researchers actually have just demonstrated that fluorescent nanoparticles can be prepared from a common carbon source - candle soot. The whole process is so simple it could be carried out in a freshman chemical laboratory. So chances are the dinner actually was a midnight snack over pizza and diet coke, the music was Talib Kweli, and the mood was decidedly unromantic.
It hasn’t been long since carbon nanoparticles, also called carbon dots, a new class of carbon-based nanomaterials with interesting photoluminescence properties, were isolated (for example, see our Spotlight from March “Single fluorescent nanodiamonds as cellular biomarkers”); and only recently have they been developed and used as a biological probe without fluorescence dye labeling (unlike that of carbon nanotubes) for in vivo applications. More…
“These carbon nanoparticles are either nanodiamonds or materials derived from carbon nanotubes and the laser ablation of graphite” Dr. Chengde Mao explains to Nanowerk. “Unlike fluorescent semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots), the fluorescent carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) have only been poorly studied up to now because of the lack of preparative methods and separation techniques. We have now developed a method for efficiently preparing and isolating fluorescent CNPs from a common carbon source, namely, candle soot.” Mao, an Associate Professor in analytical chemistry at Purdue University, and his team chose the following approach: 1) The preparation of fluorescent CNPs from the combustion soot of candles by means of an oxidative acid treatment and 2) the purification of the fluorescent CNPs by using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.
I know the title of this post is provocative. But it does convey what I feel currently. There is a political circus going on in Pakistan, and one exiled prime-minister after another, and one US diplomat after another, is making their rounds in encumbering a nation of 140 million with their insincere views. While the political situation is being readied for a show-down in October, political lackeys and power-hungry sycophants are lining up to be awarded a favor or two for their impassioned political speeches. From a distance, it all looks like a circus, with the same clowns and monkeys changing their appearances for the acts to make their audience clap in appreciation.
Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif(pictured here) are two former Prime-Ministers of Pakistan that are very familiar to Pakistanis of my generation. They, in many ways, represent the very reasons why my generation lost faith in Pakistani democracy. Each ruled for 2 or more terms in the office, each time they came into power a new band of idiots looters followed in tow, and they each left country disgraced and corrupted. And now, when the nation once again yearns for democracy, the very same people who ruined it previously are seen brokering with each other for power in a democratic setup.
But let me be clear, do not speak for a majority of Pakistan. When I speak to people back home, they appear confused. In a nation of 140 million, they are astounded that no other person(s) has been able to rise to the national level as a leader? Is that so because anybody aspiring to do so was either fired from the political parties, or sent to jail? That almost seems like the problem in Palestine.
The bureaucracy and agencies of the government, as slow and tedious as they may be, should still get credit when they attempt to do something to make lives easier for the citizens. For example, we have praised PTCL in the past for providing an online service to pay phone/electric/gas utility bills online.
Now it is reported in The Daily Times that Pakistan Railways is attempting an outsourced process of selling train tickets. As per the report train tickets will now be available for purchase at post-offices, at least in a few parts of Pakistan. I have myself stood in long lines to buy tickets, and have dealt with black-market re-sellers that scalp tickets on festive occasions such as Eid on key train routes.
ATP has written often about delightful train journeys and stations across Pakistan (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here). I myself have wonderful memories of train travel with my family through Sindh, Punjab and to India via the Samjhota Express - despite all the hassles involved in the process. Maybe this step towards modernization of the system will encourage more people, especially the youth, to see more of Pakistan by taking the train. Read the rest of this entry »
This is bound to be an interesting discussion on the nature, role, and power of the Israel Lobby in the USA. Lots of very harsh and extreme charges flying either way. But American democracy and freedom of speech at its best…
Debating ‘The Israel Lobby’
Aired: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 10-11AM ET
By host Tom Ashbrook:
A-list scholars Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer are out with a new book that has sparked furious denunciation. It’s called “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” It says the deep U.S. embrace of Israel is no longer in America’s national interest, but goes on anyway because of a sprawling, well-funded, well-placed world of pro-Israel lobbyists. It says that lobby drove the U.S. to war in Iraq.
These are incendiary charges. The authors have been denounced as sloppy, defamatory, and anti-Semitic. They’ve also been credited with airing a tough issue.
This hour On Point: Walt and Mearsheimer make their case and former chief Mideast envoy Dennis Ross pushes back.
=================
GUESTS:
. Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and co-author, with John Mearsheimer, of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”
· John Mearsheimer, professor of political science and co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago
· Dennis Ross, Middle East envoy for presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, currently a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of “Statecraft: And How to Restore America’s Standing in the World” (2007)
· Aaron David Miller, advisor to six U.S. secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations, currently a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington and author of the forthcoming “America and the Much Too Promised Land: The Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace”
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Posted by Bilal Zuberi
Sometimes you read published work and wonder “why didn’t I think of this?”. As I was leafing through a recent issue of the Chemical and Engineering News (also in 
(
I know the title of this post is provocative. But it does convey what I feel currently. There is a political circus going on in Pakistan, and one exiled prime-minister after another, and one US diplomat after another, is making their rounds in encumbering a nation of 140 million with their insincere views. While the political situation is being readied for a show-down in October, political lackeys and power-hungry sycophants are lining up to be awarded a favor or two for their impassioned political speeches. From a distance, it all looks like a circus, with the same clowns and monkeys changing their appearances for the acts to make their audience clap in appreciation.
The bureaucracy and agencies of the government, as slow and tedious as they may be, should still get credit when they attempt to do something to make lives easier for the citizens. For example, we have 
This is bound to be an interesting discussion on the nature, role, and power of the Israel Lobby in the USA. Lots of very harsh and extreme charges flying either way. But American democracy and freedom of speech at its best…
