Well it’s been getting more press lately in the UK, vitamin D is something we’re lacking, particularly if your in Scotland it seems. Deficiency in vitamin D is being linked with a range of diseases including diabetes and MS. This is interesting as vitamin D has been shown in some litrature to be linked to calcification of vascular tissue. A small intellectual leap could show a correlation between this and the disputed findings that purport that some MS suffers share a common defect, namely narrowing of the veins to the brain.

I’m no doctor or scientist but I find it entirely credible that these factors are directly linked.

i.e. Long term deficiency in Vitamin D (and others – nothing happens in a vacuum) allows for changes in vacular tissue (probably a lack of the vitamin(s) and lifestyle (results in higher blood pressure) triggers endothelial cells to turn into osteoblasts.

Higher pressure exerted on vacular cells induces change to bone like cells (piezo electric effect? – topic for another day)

This change over an average human’s life, then reduces blood flow and the bodies ability remove (toxins) resulting in Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency, or CCSVI for short.

End result – potential for MS and other neuro-degenerative diseases to develope.

Just a thought.

I think I might go buy a supplement or two. =)

This was a subject that just popped into my head and I thought I’d put down my supposition on why this disease occurs. I can’t think of a treatment right now but understanding the why is one step closer to beating ME as far as I am concerned.

Now the way I look at it this, this disease which results in lethargy, muscle weakness, headaches etc. basically an inability for the person affected to perform simple daily activities, is a dibilatating disease.

So we need to look at the base, the root for all energy prodcution. In humans the process is respiration. So what is a common denomenator in respiration? Oxygen. Where or what uses Oxygen? Cells (duh?)

OK, within all cells what sub-component directly or indirectly react with O2 as part of the respiration process?

Answer – Mitochondria?

Mitochondria are interesting beasts, they are to all extents, domesticated bacteria, that produce ATP that is combined with other compounds and oxidized to produce energy for the host cell. In our case this occurs in all cells (i think) including neurons.

So what can affect this process? Well it’s not a big leap to see that mitochondria could be infected by Bacteriophages.

Bacteriophages are viruses that can infect bacteria. They have 2 methods of replication one resulting in the destruction of the host cell the other not. A destructive phage could be the cause but I’d put my money on a non-destructive phage that has inserted viral DNA into the mitochondria and affected the structure or function of infected mitochondria with respect to ATP production, creating a lysogenic cell.

So how can you treat this? Is this supposition even plausible or correct? I honestly don’t know. However the reason for looking at this subject and asking myself the question is a simple one. Family.

My mother has been diagnosed with …, well no-ones sure but after a trip to Florida last year, she became ill a month or so after returning from the holiday. Symptoms then elevated to fitting and memory issues. Currently with treatment this is still a problem for her she’s lethargic to a degree and she also has Foreign Accent Syndrome. This is the kind of affliction you hear associated with a stroke. However everything form the tests currently taken suggest not.

The doctor’s still hold the belief that stress could be a cause but have currently diagnosed her with some form of neurological disease.

Funny that this only appears at the age of 50 and after a trip to a forgeign country and an illness within a month of returning…stress my arse.

Personally, I have the feeling that this is due to some form of infection. It’s a long shot but I think it possible my mother’s health problems are the direct result of a bacteriophage, resulting in neurodegeneration.

The next step? More research, it helps to have an agile and open mind. I could well be entirely wrong, which I have to always bear in mind.

Well it’s been an exciting week, scientists have put up a problem for scrutiny and investigation. Their experiment at CERN has apparently highlighted an anomoly with regards to neutrinos and their apparent ability to break the speed of light! If this is true then it will be an amazing discovery and will require a major rethink of the standard model of physics.

However, being true scientists they are being cautious and asking for external verification of their findings as they appear to be wrong when compared to our current understanding of the fundemental prinicples that govern matter and energy.

Well I thought I’d have a look at the info. available and look at the issue with a different perspective. What I have come up with is an 7.277405557680840656771959219868e-8 error that is not far off the 6e-8 error published by the scientists conducting the experiment.

How did I reach this figure? It’s really quite simple. If you consider that neutrino’s, by their very nature abhore interating with just about anything and pass though ordinary matter (atoms, moecules, us, the Earth etc.) then the results make sense.

All you have to do is calculate the different speed that the transmitter and reciever are moving at. By looking at the latitudes of both I calculated there was a 21.817113m/s or therabouts difference between the speed of the transmitter at CERN and the reciever at Gran Sasso. if you divide this discrepancy by the speed of light you get 7.277405557680840656771959219868e-8 approximately (my calcs may be off a little due to rounding errors).

Now the error reported in the speed of light for the neutrinos was 6e-8 and I got 7e-8. Not bad for 20 mins work. This could however mean that neutrinos ignore spacetime, I think. However the speed of light would not have been broken. It would mean that neutrinos simply move at the speed of light with no time dialation?  I’ll need to look at that some other time, I am most likely ‘off’ on this assumption. We all know what assume makes don’t we?

Here’s hoping I am simply wrong, it’s highly likely given I am not a maths wizz, I just look at problems from a different angle to most folks on the planet.

Afterall a re-write of the laws of physics would be an awesome developement and think of the far-reaching possibilities!

Well I had better go mow the lawn while the sun is shining. Enjoy the weekend and have a go at trying to solve this problem, SCIENCE needs YOU! =)

This is something I have been pondering since the Quake off the coast of Japan and the subsequent damage to their nuclear power stations. My coffee break idea came from the recollection that Carbon has the highest melting point of any element. Thinking this through, the form of carbon, diamond to be precise, seemed the nautal coice of material to use to manufacture nuclear fuel rod casings. The problem lies in the difficulty in manufactuing large amounts of solid diamond.

So what if you combined or recreated the properties of pykrete with carbon?

Say take carbon nanotubes and CVD diamond synthisis?

Just an idea.

There’s been some exposure of the last year to the fact that our love of gadgets has a flaw, that flaw is the use of rare earth metals that are required to make our favourite technological devices.

One issue that has been discussed is the scarcity of metals used in the construction of touchscreens. It’s rarity is pushing up costs and manufacturers are looking for a solution.

Graphene has been proposed amongst others as an alternative for Indium tin oxide (ITO, or tin-doped indium oxide) but it has it’s drawbacks as the manufacturing process hasn’t been developed to allow for economical manufacture.

So, what can be done?, well here’s a solution I devised over a decade ago now. I tried to sell this at the time to the company I worked for, but they weren’t interested. What was the idea? Ah well, let me explain…

In a nutshell it is simple; combine (FITR) Frustrated total internal reflection with a modified design of LCD or flat panel display.

Take a standard LCD display and modify the design to include infra-red photosensors that are evenly dispersed between the cells of the screen. Then above the LCD screen add a sheet of glass. Shine infra-red light of a specific frequency though the side of the glass and use the photosenors to detect the reflected infra-light that would occur upon a user touching the glass.

Hey presto! You get a true multi-touch touchscreen and reduce the depth of the display while saving on the amount of rare earth metal used in the construction.

You’d think this would be obvious but it seems the sometimes the wood cannot be seen for the trees.

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