Technology

The light-producing enzyme in the firefly is the key to rapid pathogen detection // Source: cri.cn

submitted by Luis Kun

Homeland Security News Wire - March 22, 2012

A new device, employing the same chemical which lights up fireflies, can easily detect food contamination; the researchers who developed the system hope it will soon be used to test for other diseases, including HIV-AIDS.

Food contamination can now be detected easily by a new device based on the chemical which lights up fireflies.

The Bioluminescent Assay in Real-Time (BART), jointly invented by Professor Jim Murray of the Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences and Dr. Laurence Tisi of Lumora, allows users to test rapidly and simply for food poisoning bacteria. Professor Murray and his partners at technology company Lumora Ltd. hope to develop the system to test for other diseases, including HIV-AIDS.

submitted by Samuel Bendett

We've saw about 10,000 English tweets in the first hour and 23,000 in the second. Third hour is down, will be about half the rate of the second hour if sustained.

Recurring themes include words like rattle, suffer, long slow roller, hard, saddened, worried, awful, hate, bad.

I'm seeing a fair bit of "help us report" tweets, which is coming from a tweet that said "earthquake preparedness helps us report none to minor damage and no victims so far," from Mexico City.

English-language tweets from Mexico are making up 8 percent of the total. 55 percent are from the U.S.

Spanish tweets - 488 in the first hour, 1,400 in the second and current rate will product about 1,000 in the third hour.

Most common words in the Spanish tweets are disfrutar and malo.

Spanish tweets are coming almost 50/50 from Mexico and the U.S.

Almost 75 percent of the Spanish tweets were from men, v. a close to 50/50 split for English.

submitted by Albert Gomez

by Zak Stone - good.is - January 6, 2012

More than 25 million Kenyans have mobile phones, making apps a logical way to disseminate essential information about health. MedAfrica, a new smartphone app, has positioned itself as the go-to service for wired Kenyans in search of reputable health care. The app operates like a mobile yellow pages for medical services, providing basic listings of professionals in the area. Additional features include a symptom checker for patients to compare their ailments with different diseases and make decisions about seeking medical attention.

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