I just love downloading mail on a Monday...

Paris - Scientists on Wednesday announced they had created a molecular robot made out of DNA that walks like a spider along a track made out of the chemical code for life. The achievement, reported in the British journal Nature, is a further step in nanoscale experiments that, one day, may lead to robot armies to clean arteries and fix damaged tissues.

The robot is just four nanometres - four billionths of a metre - in diameter. Milan Stojanovic of New York's Columbia University, who led the venture, likens the nanobot to "a four-legged spider". The beast moves along a track comprising stitched-together strands of DNA that is essentially a pre-programmed course, in the same way that industrial robots move along an assembly line.
The track exploits one of the basic characteristics of DNA. A double-helix molecule, DNA comprises four chemicals which pair in rungs. By "unzipping" the DNA, one is left with one side of the strand whose rungs can then be paired up with matching rungs. In other words, the track can be used rather like the teeth in a clockwork mechanism. A cog can move around the teeth, provided it meshes with them.

By using strands that correspond to sequences in the track, the robot can be made to walk, turn left or right as it is biochemically attracted to the next matching stretch. The spider's "body" is a common protein called streptavidin. Attached to it are three "legs" of single-strand enzymatic DNA, which binds to, and then cuts, a particular sequence of DNA. The fourth leg is a strand that anchors the spider to the starting point.

"After the robot is released from its start site by a trigger strand, it follows the track by binding to and then cutting the DNA strands," explained Stojanovic. Once the strand is cut, the leg starts reaching for the next matching stretch of DNA in the track. In this way, the spider is guided down the path set by the researchers. Eventually, the robot encounters a patch of DNA to which it can bind but cannot cut. At that point, it is immobilised. Watching the spider strut its stuff was in itself a technical challenge. The researchers used techniques called atomic force microscopy and single-molecule fluorescence microscopy which showed the molecular robots following four different paths.

Molecular robots have drawn huge interest because of the allure of programming them to sense their environment and react to it.

For instance, they could note disease markers on a cell surface, decide that the cell is cancerous and needs to be destroyed and then deliver a compound to kill it. Other DNA walkers have been developed in the past, but they have never ventured more than a few steps, said Hao Yan, a professor at Arizona State University. "This one can walk about to about 100 nanometers. That's roughly 50 steps." The next step is how to make the spider walk faster and how to make it more programmable, so that it can follow many commands on the track and make more decisions, Yan said.

In a separate study reported in Nature, Nadrian Seeman and colleagues from New York University said they had enabled a nano-scale "assembly line". DNA walkers moved past three kinds of DNA machines that handed them a cargo of gold nano-particles, which are clutched with three "hands". This is the first time that systems of nano-machines, rather than individual devices have been used to perform operations, constituting a crucial advance in the evolution of DNA technology," said Lloyd Smith, a chemist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in a commentary also published by Nature.

Awesome.

Some images might have been stolen from some websites. The story as well, I could never make up this kind of stuff, so I stole it from News24. Thanks.

:(

This game has been under construction for two years now, and approximately one more year remains until completion. Being a huge fan of the game, I thought I`d share with you the official trailer that was put out last week by ArenaNet, the game creators.

I can`t wait to get my grubby paws on this.....

WARNING : This article contains bad words like phlegm, vomit, bile and a few others. So two weeks ago Monday, I get to work and my morning starts off fine, I have things to do and start getting them done. Around 10am I start coughing a little, nothing too bad, just a minor sputter every now and then. By the early afternoon the minor sputters have turned into frequent spells of repeated coughing assisted by hot and cold temperature flushes. I start feeling a bit worried and leave the office around 3:30 to hunt down some medication. By Monday evening the coughing is heading to "Out Of control" status and so Nessie plies me full of Corenza, pain medication and some herbal drops, and I head off to bed to sleep it off. Well there was no way "sleep" was going to be on my agenda for the next 11 hours, as I lay in bed coughing like I`ve never coughed before. By 2am my body is so sore that I feel muscular spasms setting in randomly as my body takes a beating one cough after another. By Tuesday morning 8am I am shriveled up in bed, shivering from fever, every muscle aches, my neck is stiff, my throat feels like it is going to explode, my head is pounding. Nessie plies me full of medication and heads off to work. I spend the rest of the day unconscious, in and out of weird dreams, broken sleep, fever causing me to toss and turn as my body slowly surrenders. This flu is afraid of fuck-all, and is going nowhere in a hurry. Time to lie back and take it like a man.Two more days of this continue, eventually I start spitting up little drops of blood in my phlegm, time to head to the doc for a "WAAAAZZUP AND WTF ??!!??"

The doc checks me out for all of five minutes, mutters something about "I have the flu"...so I`m like "Bullshit, this is not flu, this is that stuff that came from Mexico isn`t it, the pork plague ?" "No, this is just a bad case of the flu...." "Come on doc, I`ve had flu before, it`s never been more than a sniff and its gone, why/how is this different ?" "Well you see, every year we get the flu, sometimes its effect on us is not bad at all, and sometimes it hits real hard...think of this as the Arnold Schwarzenegger of flu....." "........*panic*......." So the doc suggests I get a cortisone injection, which in hindsight I should not have agreed to...here`s why: Those of you who know me know about the paramedic things I got up to, delivering babies, fighting with jellyfishes, ripping dead bodies from wrecked cars, on more than one occasion I`ve happily shoved a 14 gauge needle into the left and right lung of a car crash victim to allow blood to drain from their smashed up lungs and ribs...all very Rambo. But don`t bring a needle near me to give me an injection...I will start shaking at the very thought, my body starts freaking out, I feel my blood pressure start dropping immediately and generally I act like a three year old girl who`s Barbie has just lost its head to Zombie Ken. In short, I turn into a big weenie. Me. Needles. Not a good combo. I head off to the nurses counter where I`m asked if I have any allergies, I say "Yeah, needles", the nurse smiles at me with that "What a pussy" look in her eye, and she heads me into the cubicle to prepare me for my shot. So I start taking off my shirt thinking I`m gonna get it in the arm, the nurse is like "Drop your pants please Mr. Blake..." "........." "This will only take a second, and you wont feel a thing..." "..........." "I don`t like needles, so be gentle, being our first date and all..." "Just don`t go running out of here when I inject you with your pants hanging around your ankles..." she cracks as I see her filling up the tiny syringe with liquid. I think to myself "If she wasn`t holding that weapon of mass destruction in her hands I`d wrap my frikken hands around her throat and...." At this point she injects me with what feels like a tree stump, and then, halfway through the procedure decides it`s a good idea to WIGGLE THE FRIKKEN SYRINGE AROUND A BIT !!!!!!!!!! As jy daai woord 'knyp' ken.......... A microscopic look at my Arnold Schwarzenegger Flu. I`ve highlighted some of the other variants contained in this cocktail of death and destruction. But anyway, I feel this liquid start flowing down my leg, around my back, and of course this is too much for me....I yank my jeans up and head back to the nurses station to get my forms, and this is where it gets really interesting. As I`m standing around, I start feeling a bit dizzy....the nurse hands me my forms and tells me to go pay at the reception at the front of the hospital....she has to point me in the right direction as my senses start getting muddled up. I toodle off down the hallway and suddenly people start turning into weird shapes, noises become muffled, things get a bit blurry....I think to myself "You`re gonna pass out motherfucker, find a place to sit down !!!!" Of course, in this hallway there are no chairs, only pot plants, they don`t look very inviting, so I stumble forward into the main reception foyer and see a whole bunch of chairs to the left, and it`s at this point that my field of vision starts narrowing. The white light. Inner peace. My life flashing in front of my now very blurry eyes. A man standing at the door where the bright light is. "St. Peter, dude, help me...." and I stumble towards the light. As I get nearer I make out its not St. Peter, but Sipho the doorman. I turn left and just as the last bit of light is slowly vanishing, I find a chair and plonk my dizzy ass in it. I sit there for a few minutes and regain my sight, my body is cold from the sweat...I start fanning my face with my folder and think to myself "And they want me to PAY for this ??!!??" After ten minutes I pay and leave, hoping I`ll never have to come back to this place. I drive home, weaving slightly on the road as my body adjusts to this newly injected stuff floating around it. I get home, head upstairs and start throwing up. And that`s what I did for the next two days, everything I shoved into my mouth came hurtling out less than 5 minutes later. Coupled with the nausea, the fever, the coughing, the sore body and the headaches, I am now a 72kg wobbling, sweating, aching mass of vomiting death. It continues like this right through Sunday, but the vomiting has ceased now, so I feel a little relief. On Monday I get to the office, and leave an hour later, coughing, sweating. I lie in bed all Tuesday, having crazy dreams as I lay balled up with the fever, Wednesday I try the work thing again, I last half a day and get sent home. For the next two days its just nausea, vomiting, sweating, headaches, coughing, bile, phlegm, one fucken thing after another, my body feels like shutting down for good, I can`t anymore, I start swearing and cursing at every God out there, in the hope that one of them will send a lightning bolt to end my pain, but they were obviously too busy to care. No lightning bolts :( Weekend rolls on and Saturday morning I start feeling a bit better, I actually eat something and it stays indoors, no vomiting. Woohoo !! I get all excited...thinking I`m getting better....then another pain sets in. With all the 'not-eating' and trickling of phlegm into my system, my stomach ulcers have returned. Oh. Fucken. Joy. Dear. God. Why. Sharp stabbing pains keep me awake for the whole night, now I have to start taking medication to stop acid production in my stomach so the ulcers can heal, man AM I HAVING FUN OR WHAT ?!?!?! Its now Monday evening, two weeks since the bomb dropped, I am upright, I was at work the whole day, eating, not vomiting, no bile, a bit of phlegm, a little cough here and there...but I feel much better, I have eaten two toasted sarmies, a chicken mayo roll, drunk two Super M`s, one cream soda, one Lucozade, eaten a packet of Jelly tots and sucked a few Halls Vitamin C drops....life is peachy again.

This is a rant by Ukrease, to all the big bosses and their worthless fucking retards who work for them, who run our communications services in this f$cked up country. To VODACOM, f$ck you for your crappy cell reception in the area where I stay. I have reported this problem to you and f$ck-all was done about it. To TELKOM, f$ck you for taking four months, since I applied for a phone line, to tell me that there are no more ports available on the exchange. I hope you all burn in hell for the crap service you provide. The end.

Computing as we know it is about to enter a whole new arena. Goodbye keyboard, goodbye mouse, goodbye USB cables, this is amazing.

So this morning around 1am I was downloading mail, and this popped up in my inbox :

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Hi Guys!

I suppose you are all smiles today... and great reason for it. After 6 weeks live, and with 600 active users within the last two weeks in average, Paintball Assault is the official winner of the contest "Develop your Facebook Application in South Africa" organised by Mentez for South African developers. The top prize for the winners is R40,000 in cash.

From all of us at Mentez.... Congratulations and well done!!!

Here are the final rankings http://www.mentez.com/ranking.asp?Lang=ENG&curcountry=ZA

This is just the first phase of this project. The big opportunity for you guys is now to grow your application, reach global audiences, and monetize it with the help of Mentez. From today on we will start working proactively to find suitable and profitable business models for your application, and we will leverage our global network of agencies, partners and resources worldwide to make it happen.

Later on, we will be sending a mass email to all participants registered for the contest to let them know about your success.

If you have any questions you can email me directly.

Congratulations once again!!

Mentez
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To Beast, dude, joo are the PHP CODING GOD !!!!
FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC !!!!!!!!!

And to WSG, for our very cool logo, thank you thank you thank you :)

I also wanna shout out a massive "Thank you and I love you madly" to Nessie for all her understanding and patience over the last three months as Beast and myself coded like demons and zombies to get the app up and running.

*mwah*
I`ll be paying more attention to you now, promise ;)

REDMOND, Wash. - Microsoft Corp. is making an unsolicited $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo Inc., the Internet icon and one the best known Web portals, in a move to boost its competitive edge against Google Inc. in the online services market. More here : MSNBC.COM Thats a load of cash....I wonder what I could do with 1 percent of that...sigh...

Hi, my name is uKrease and I`m a pyromaniac. I was born a pyromaniac, and recall at an early being handed a chemistry set by my Dad. Big mistake Pops.

Less than an hour later I blew a mini crater in the driveway using just a few chemicals from the set, and a few other things I found lying around in the garage. That was just the start of my childhood career. By age ten I had discovered the joys of mixing potassium permanganate with glycerine, how to make my own gunpowder, and let`s not forget fertiliser bombs which were activated using the power supply from my Lima train set, a matchbox, and a few drops of water.

What you are about to see is something that never ceases to amaze me, scenes of massive explosions. Be happy, Father dearest, that I chose a career in computers and not with the local underground mobsters :)

WARNING : DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME !!