Rolling off brandtacticians there’s this from Henry Ford:

“If I’d listened to my customers I’d have made a faster horse.”

We could conceivably create a pesticide that is only toxic to insects, not humans.

Current pesticides, developed shortly after WWII, target an amino acid called serine, causing a chemical imbalance in the brains of insects eventually killing them. Serine is not unique to insects, which is why serine-based insecticides affect both humans and animals. The theory has been that these pesticides are used in low doses that humans can tolerate, but pests cannot.

The key [to a safe pesticide], according to the study’s author, Yuan-Ping Pang, Ph.D., director of Mayo Clinic’s Computer-Aided Molecular Design Laboratory, was in identifying an insect-specific enzyme that could be used as a direct target for a new insecticide that would not affect humans and animals.

They used a powerful terascale supercomputer – one trillion operations per second. Dr. Pang designed a three-dimensional model of the enzyme.

“We now have a blueprint that will enable the development of a new generation of pesticides that will not be toxic to humans. Ultimately, the idea would be that we would be able to eat apples without washing them — even though it may be covered with pesticides,” says Dr. Pang.

via Agnet Oct. 13/06 — II

The unlucky roots of Friday the 13th

The day Friday and the number 13 have been associated with bad luck for thousands of years, but it is only in recent history that the two have been amalgamated.

It’s got a lot to do with women and a goddess named Frigg.

The Mayor of London is in the news a lot. Here’s a group he started that aims to make London the creative capital of the world. [via]

Already a fifth of all jobs, London at least has targets and tasks.

The Mayor’s vision for London is based on three interlocking themes:

• strong and diverse economic growth
• social inclusivity where all share in London’s success
• fundamental management and use of resources.

“Not everyone knows that Heroin was invented by the German pharmaceutical company Bayer, makers of Aspirin.

It was viewed a safe alternative to morphine.

During the testing many researches found that together with pain killing the drug made them feel elated, euphoric and heroic. So the new drug was called Heroin.

It was banned in Germany only in 1969.”

Konstantin blogs from Russia:
Konstantin’s blog follows advertising in the Russian market, providing interesting commentary and insight – “News, musings and rants on marketing and advertising in Russia”.

American Know-How Delivers Record Opium Crop

Congress outlawed the sale of heroin and cocaine in 1914. Prior to then, drugstores sold narcotics as popular cures and tonics. “Heroin” was actually Bayer’s trade name for its over-the-counter cough medicine. Coca-Cola, a fountain drink, was invented by an Atlanta druggist; its kick came from the coca leaf.

In ninety-three years, narcotics have gone from quaint drugstore notions to ubiquitous small-town evils.

“American Know-How Delivers Record Opium Crop” appeared in the September 8, 2006 issue of the West Virginia State Journal and in the September 10, 2006 issue of the Clarksburg (WV) Exponent-Telegram.

Screw HDTV.

Screw Core-Duo.

Sell the house and build an office that’s fit for the human brain.

Your Second Life is Ready

Bumping into sites is like following intuition.
Or walking along the beach.

Here’s a neat summary of the necessary skillset in the advertising sector:

“I think I’m starting to believe that the fundamental skillset of great [advertising] planners is actually relatively uncomplicated.

It’s really easy ;-) you just have to be a brilliant, interesting and challenging human being with an amazing capacity to express yourself. Oh yeah, and be completely ego-less, and be able to take shit from multiple directions simultaneously.”

10 tips & some advice here.

Yeh sure. Really easy. We all qualify. Yup. But not to worry.

The reputed agency Brand Tacticians in the UK offers relief:

How to do great creative work
Without being clever or talented

Plus, they’ve posted this snippet:

Today the Financial Times reports that nearly one quarter of US baby boomers are insulted by the advertising messages that companies are sending them, according to a survey by a WPP research group. As a result, many said that they were actually less likely to buy a product. Only 25%?

I suppose that’s the very best “brilliant, interesting and challenging human beings with an amazing capacity” can achieve.

Developed by members of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, this freely available tool offers a unique opportunity to hear and see a variety of animal sounds in real time. Users can listen to a particular sound while watching the animal that makes it and viewing dynamically generated waveforms and spectrograms of the sound itself.

This is part of the 2006 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge

Marylane at Neat New Stuff I Found This Week says,

“New visualization techniques are turning out to be extraordinarily powerful tools not just for displaying and clarifying scientific principles but for advancing further research – and the images are nifty besides. You can also view slide shows of previous years’ winners.”

Researchers collected data from 42 manufacturing facilities and determined the lower in the ranks a company allows employees to make decisions, the higher the company’s overall manufacturing performance.

The finding is part of the largest empirical study ever performed of pharmaceutical manufacturing and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s monitoring policies, which also found that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry might be wasting more than $50 billion every year.

Conventional wisdom holds that harmful bacteria on fruits and vegetables are the remnants of contamination skulking on the exterior of the plants — easily washed away by conventional surface sterilization techniques.

But University of Florida microbiology experts believe the recent rash of spinach-related E. coli infections may be linked to swarms of the pathogen lurking inside the leafy greens.

“When I was a graduate student, we were taught that the insides of plants were sterile,” said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia. “…but assuming E. coli is getting into the plant — yes, this will be a big problem to address.”

The problem, UF researchers say, would be twofold. The first is the question of how to keep dangerous bacteria out of water and soil in the first place. The second is how to eliminate a pathogen if it does infiltrate crops. [story]

America’s ports could be a weak link in America’s economy.

Michael Maloni, Ph.D., co-author of a 2005 container port capacity survey, says that port traffic is growing exponentially, container volume may double in ten years, and problems are already emerging.

Boxing the economy
The idea of a truck driver from North Carolina, Malcolm McLean, 50 years ago, began the transportation of merchandise in containers and created a true revolution in world commerce. In the 60’s MacLean created the company Sea-Land and passed away almost forgotten in 2001. [link]

“The Box that Changed the World” at Amazon

“Without the container, there would be no globalization”.
The Economist, March 2006

Pouring a bandage onto a bleeding wound seems like medicine from science fiction, but…

MIT’s remarkable new peptide compound rapidly forms a transparent, nanofiber-rich meshwork that stops bleeding instantly, allows wounds to begin healing quickly, promotes tissue regeneration, and breaks down harmlessly within the body.

Surgery can be performed through it, enabling faster, more accurate, and safer operations. It does not require removal, because its breakdown products can be used by cells in the healing process.

…this disruptive technology is real.

This post follows the very provocative news that eating chicken can lower our resistance to germs and may be propelling the arrival of Superbugs.

This study found that 20% (up to 50% in some hospitals) of staph infections are resistant to antibiotics.

They’re creeping past hospitals, beating our medicines and ramping up the need for new drugs.

Superbugs, which are resistant to antibiotics, are more common than we thought in Canada, said researchers of a new study of 19 intensive care units across the country.

“The problem with antibiotics is we create resistant superbugs,” said Dr. George Zhanel, a University of Manitoba medical microbiology professor yesterday.

“The big worry is we are going to enter shortly in a state … where we will have patients who are essentially untreatable.

“This is a time called revenge of the killer microbes.”

Farmers are concerned with how much corn will be produced for livestock. One of the largest swine producers is expressing concern over the potential impact of grain ethanol production on feed and food supplies.

“If you put corn in your tank through ethanol, it’s not available for you to eat and sustain yourself….”

Big Sky Farms CEO Florian Possberg suggests it’s great to have fuel in the car to make it run, but if we get to the point where it’s a choice between putting it in your tank and having something to eat, it’s going to be interesting times.

Iowa has exported roughly 40 percent of their corn crop, but by 2008 they could be a net importer.

Over 100 US mid-west ethanol plants are in business or about to begin business.

Annual ethanol production by 2012 may reach 7.5 billion gallons

“If American corn production increases by an average of 15 bushels per acre per year, with the additional ethanol plants coming on stream within the next five or ten years, the United States could be short of corn for internal purposes, much less exports, so it’s a pretty simple issue.”

“…government policy needs to keep in mind that, yeah, it’s important that we have fuel. It’s also important that we have the grain stocks to feed our population, so it needs to be in proper balance.”

The Food Allergen Labelling and Consumer Protection Act has identified as major food allergens eight foods or food groups which account for roughly 90% of all food allergies. [story]

1. wheat
2. eggs
3. fish
4. crustacean shellfish
5. tree nuts
6. peanuts
7. milk
8. soybeans

The European allergen labelling legislation came into force with twelve allergens. Action may follow on fructose and molluscs… [story]

1. gluten cereal (i.e. wheat, rye, barley, oats…)
2. eggs
3. fish
4. crustaceans
5. nuts
6. peanuts
7. milk
8. soybeans
9. celery
10. mustard
11. sesame seeds
12. sulphur dioxide and sulphites

Peas, kiwi and apple are seen as allergens in other parts of the world.