{{This Wednesday, June 18, 2014 photo shows Harley-Davidson’s new electric motorcycle at the company’s research facility in Wauwatosa, Wis.
The company plans to unveil the LiveWire model Monday, June 23, at an invitation-only event in New York.}}
Category: Science &Technology
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Facebook Briefly ‘Crashes’
{{Facebook’s website was inaccessible for many of its 1.3 billion users for around 15 minutes this morning.}}
People trying to log on to the site were faced with a message saying: “Something went wrong. We’re working to get it fixed as soon as we can.”
The short shutdown drew attention across the web with many taking to Twitter to ask what all the fuss was about.
Facebook apologised for the problem but did not say what caused it.
“Earlier this morning, we experienced an issue that prevented people from posting to Facebook for a brief period of time. We resolved the issue quickly, and we are now back to 100%. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.”
It is not yet clear how many countries were affected.
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‘Super’ Banana to Face First Human Trial
{{Rwandan farmers are expected to benefit from a newly improved super banana variety that has been developed by Australian scientists.}}
The New super banana variety is expected to be available in Africa including Rwanda by 2020.
According to the Australian reseachers, a super-enriched banana genetically engineered to improve the lives of millions of people in Africa will soon have its first human trial, which will test its effect on vitamin A levels, Australian researchers said Monday.
The project plans to have the special banana varieties — enriched with alpha and beta carotene which the body converts to vitamin A.
The bananas are now being sent to the United States, and it is expected that the six-week trial measuring how well they lift vitamin A levels in humans will begin soon.
“Good science can make a massive difference here by enriching staple crops such as Ugandan bananas with pro-vitamin A and providing poor and subsistence-farming populations with nutritionally rewarding food,” said project leader Professor James Dale.
The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) project, backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, hopes to see conclusive results by year end.
“We know our science will work,” Professor Dale said.
“We made all the constructs, the genes that went into bananas, and put them into bananas here at QUT.”
Dale said the Highland or East African cooking banana was a staple food in East Africa, but had low levels of micro-nutrients, particularly pro-vitamin A and iron.
“The consequences of vitamin A deficiency are dire with 650,000-700,000 children world-wide dying … each year and at least another 300,000 going blind,” he said.
Researchers decided that enriching the staple food was the best way to help ease the problem.
While the modified banana looks the same on the outside, inside the flesh is more orange than a cream colour, but Dale said he did not expect this to be a problem.
He said once the genetically modified bananas were approved for commercial cultivation in Uganda, the same technology could potentially be expanded to crops in other countries — including Rwanda, parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Tanzania.
“In West Africa farmers grow plantain bananas and the same technology could easily be transferred to that variety as well,” he said.
AFP
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Morocco to Become ‘Big Solar Power Developer’ in North Africa
{{A KPMG report has claimed that Morocco is showing great promise as a renewable energy developer in North Africa}}
The government of Morocco has decided to decrease its dependency on fossil fuels and focus on increasing its production of renewable energy, stated the report.
Production of concentrated solar power (CSP) is in particular a popular option and Morocco is receiving financial aid from the World Bank for these endeavours.
In a statement made in January 2014, the World Bank said, “In a region that has recently come to be associated with social upheaval and anemic growth, Morocco often stands out as an exception.
Over the last decade the country has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty and sustaining economic growth.
Policies focussed on steady public finance consolidation and manageable budget deficits opened up the fiscal space for sustained investment and social expenditures.
“Following the 2011 demonstrations, a new constitution was ushered in, accompanied by the launch of a number of reform programmes aimed at responding to popular demands for more voice and accountability.”
In its mission to promote awareness of green energy, Morocco is hosting a solar boat in the Marchica lagoon.
PlanetSolar is a boat that has travelled the world using solar energy and the initiative aims to show that one can rely on solar power alone, and thereby reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
PlanetSolar is currently in Atalayoun, in the Marchica lagoon of Morocco – showing the Moroccan authorities’ desire to promote the use of renewable energies within the framework of a comprehensive development plan for the Marchica lagoon, stated reports.
The German Aerospace Centre, in a report in 2005, stated that if just 0.3 per cent of North Africa were to be fully supplied with solar power-generating facilities, there would be sufficient energy to power the needs of the European Union countries.
Morocco alone receives 3,000 hours of sunlight every year, ie, at least eight hours of sunlight everyday. Its proximity to the Sahara desert makes the country a viable candidate for harnessing solar power.
One of the major CSP projects coming up in Morocco is the Ouarzazate project in south Morocco, comprising five solar plants. The contract for the first phase of 160MW has already been awarded to Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power.
This project is expected to cover 18 per cent of Morocco’s power needs upon completion in 2019, KPMG said.
However, compared to the recommened but costly CSP model, the photovoltaic (PV) model works better for Morocco, according to the KPMG report. PV solar panels can be installed easily on rooftops, even in underdeveloped areas.
{africanreview}
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African Tech Start-Ups Dream of Silicon Savannah
{{Young techies hunched over laptops in small offices across Africa want to create their own versions of California’s Silicon Valley and some are beginning to attract investors prepared to take a risk in the hope of high returns.}}
One such start-up, a South African social photography app called Over, last month beat 19 others from around the world to win funding from U-start, an advisor that matches mainly European investors with fledging businesses.
Italy-based U-start has 3.8 billion euros ($5.2 billion) under management and aims to allocate as much as 15 percent of that to technology firms in Africa over the next couple of years.
“We are convinced that there are great business ideas that have the chance to become global players, not just local ones,” said U-start Chief Executive Stefano Guidotti.
Still in their infancy, Africa’s technology start-ups matter for the continent because they have the potential to help solve problems in basic services such as education and health.
In Ghana, for example, a mobile app by social enterprise m-Pedigree verifies whether medicines are genuine. Fake medicine is a scourge in Africa and people often have no way of telling whether they are buying the real thing or not.
Africa has nearly 90 technology hubs, research bases often funded by international firms such as Microsoft, Google and Intel, to incubate early-stage firms in cities such as Abidjan, Accra and Addis Ababa.
But while developers have plenty of ideas, many lack the technical or business skills needed to make money from them.
readon http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFKBN0ER1HK20140616
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ECOWAS to Develope Renewable Energy in West Africa
{{The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has announced that it is working on a common agenda to develop renewable energy across West Africa.}}
In order to implement renewable energy projects faster, governments of the different West African nations will adopt a common strategy to speed up the adoption and development of different forms of green energy.
Mohammed Wakil, minister of power for Nigeria, said, “We met and agreed to pursue a common agenda that will see various countries working faster to implement renewable energy projects.
This will build on the commitment of the respective country heads who have signed the renewable energy declaration.”
This decision to combine resources and ideas to develop green energy was taken at the United Nations’ Sustainable SE4ALL conference, held in New York and attended by the heads of power departments of 100 countries.
Though at the national level, various African governments were working independently to achieve the most out of renewable energy, Wakil noted that the new initiative would guide and propel faster action in the energy sector overall.
“We all agree on the need to speed up programmes in the sector and exchange ideas. We all accept the importance of green energy and its beneficial effect.
More importantly, we all see the potential of renewable energy as complementary to conventional energy generation,” Wakil said.
With a 170mn-strong population, Nigeria is keen to develop renewable energy to provide citizens with better access to power.
Wakil revealed that the Nigerian government is also working on the National Policy on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (NREEEP).
Other initiatives that have been launched include the National Rural Electrification Strategy and Implementation Plan (NRESIP) and Operation Light-Up Rural Nigeria (OLRN).
{africanreview}
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Mozilla to Sell ‘$25’ Firefox OS Smartphones
{{Mozilla, the organisation behind the Firefox browser, has announced it will start selling low-cost smartphones in India within the “next few months”.}}
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, the firm’s chief operating officer suggested the handsets, which will be manufactured by two Indian companies, would retail at $25 (£15).
They will run Mozilla’s HTML5 web-based mobile operating system, Firefox OS.
The firm already sells Firefox-powered phones in Europe and Latin America.
The current handsets, which are sold via eBay, retail at £59.99 in the UK, or $69.99 in the US.
The announcement comes as mobile manufacturers increasingly attempt to break into emerging markets, where smartphones are less widespread, mainly due to their high costs.
Mozilla, which currently works with mobile manufactures ZTE and Alcatel, among others, has partnered with two of Indian based low-cost handset makers, Intex and Spice, to develop the low-price phones.
They will be powered by chips from Chinese company Spreadtrum.
“The platform will give us an edge in upgrading buyers from feature phones to smartphones while making it affordable for the mass market,” said Intex’s head of mobile business, Sanjay Kumar Kalirona.
Mozilla, which is a not-for-profit foundation, also announced a deal with Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s largest mobile phone operator, to support Firefox OS devices.
{wirestory}
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Cancer Patients May Get Treatment With Single Gene Test
{{A new way of evaluating tumors may soon help cancer patients identify the underlying genetic link to their disease – and the best possible treatment – all in a single test.}}
Researchers are set to begin clinical trials using a more comprehensive testing method that looks for all of the known genes that may be active in a tumor.
The new method could guide patients to the right drug earlier, potentially replacing current tests known as companion diagnostics that only look for a specific biological trait or “biomarker.” The presence of a biomarker can predict whether a new class of drugs called targeted therapies will work on particular tumors.
Results of these broader tests could even be used to quickly identify which patients might benefit from experimental drugs being tested in clinical trials. U.S. health officials see it as the future direction of cancer diagnostics.
“We really are moving away from this one drug, one biomarker, one companion diagnostic,” said Dr Richard Pazdur, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s oncology chief.
In advanced melanoma, for example, about half of patients’ tumors have a mutation in the BRAF gene. Roche makes a drug called Zelboraf that blocks that pathway, at least for a time. To get Roche’s drug, patients need to be evaluated with an FDA-approved companion diagnostic test. One of the tests is also made by Roche.
In many cases, the FDA requires single-biomarker companion diagnostics as part of the drug approval process, but the broader testing model opens the door to additional players in the diagnostics space, including U.S.-based Foundation Medicine Inc and Thermo Fisher’s Life Technologies.
In a trial starting later this month, for example, patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lung could be recommended for one of five experimental treatments based on which genes are active. Foundation Medicine’s next-generation sequencing platform will be used to screen some 6,000 lung cancer patients over five years.
The Lung Master Protocol trial, also known as Lung-MAP, will take place in some 400 research centers. It is a public-private partnership between the National Cancer Institute, Amgen Inc, AstraZeneca Plc and its U.S.-based biotech arm MedImmune, Roche’s Genentech unit and Pfizer Inc.
A similar effort called the National Lung Matrix trial being organized in Britain by AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Cancer Research UK is set to start taking patients in July or August.[ID:nL6N0N63N5] Pazdur said a conference this fall will also discuss plans for a trial in metastatic breast cancer.
“This is a new paradigm in many, many ways,” said Ellen Sigal, chairperson and founder of Friends of Cancer Research, which is organizing the U.S. lung cancer trial. “We’re revolutionizing not only the genetic testing but how patients get into a trial.”
{{One tissue , Many Tests}}
Dr Mace Rothenberg, senior vice president of clinical development for Pfizer’s cancer business, said having a single test looking for a single biological marker made sense when there were only a few targeted cancer drugs, which exploit specific weaknesses in patients’ tumors.
“In the past 10 years, we’ve now identified many more potential targets of drugs, and these molecules are involved in critical functions of a cancer cell,” he said. “Now it becomes very relevant that we be able to go beyond that one tissue, one test to one tissue, many tests.”
In non-small cell lung cancer, for example, there are more than a dozen different molecular abnormalities that are known to influence tumor growth.
Dr Vince Miller, Foundation Medicine’s chief medical officer, said as more of the drugs win approval, doctors might need to run five to eight tests, all from a tiny scrap of tumor.
“Tissue scarcity was becoming a very real issue,” he said.
It’s an issue that Dr. Tadd Lazarus, chief medical officer at Germany’s Qiagen NV, knows about personally.
Lazarus’ father is battling his second round of lung cancer, and biopsies must be done using a long needle, a process that produces only a tiny tissue sample. “You get a fixed amount of tissue and you have to maximize it,” he said.
The German diagnostics company has three companion diagnostic tests on the U.S. market, including one recently approved for Amgen’s colorectal cancer drug Vectibix.
Qiagen has also invested in a new testing platform from PrimeraDx, a privately held Boston-area company. Under an expanded partnership with Eli Lilly and Co, the companies plan to use the new platform to analyze both DNA and RNA biomarkers, targeting multiple molecular pathways active in common cancers.
Roche’s Genentech is developing companion tests for about half of the experimental medicines in its pipeline, and is evaluating tests that can look at more than one target at a time, said spokeswoman Holli Dickson.
wirestory
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Facebook Reveals Image Messaging App
{{Facebook has revealed a new photo-messaging app after accidentally releasing it on Apple’s app store.}}
Known as Slingshot, the app’s features include sharing photos and videos with friends and sending “reaction shots”.
Like Snapchat, all images are deleted once sent and users can scribble or type over their photos.
Facebook has confirmed Slingshot’s existence, but it is not known when the app will be officially released.
Reporters from The Verge and TechCrunch took screengrabs of the app’s promotional material before it was removed by Facebook.
The images appear to reveal many of Slingshot’s features, the more unusual of which include an unlocking mechanism, whereby photos received from friends must be unlocked by sending a photo back to the original sender.
It is thought that the back and forth “slinging” of images is why the app is called Slingshot.
“Earlier today, we accidentally released a version of Slingshot, a new app we’re working on,” confirmed Facebook in a statement.
The company did not reveal when the app would be made available, stating: “It’ll be ready soon and we’re excited for you to try it out.”
In 2012 Facebook bought photo-sharing network Instagram for $1bn.
A year later, it was reported that Snapchat rejected a $3bn bid from Facebook, revealing the social media giant’s apparent continued and serious interest in photo-messaging services.
Previously Facebook attempted and failed to create a successful image-messaging app called Poke, which was recently abandoned and had been described by some as a “blatant copycat app.”
However, unlike Poke, Slingshot has a number of unique features not found in rivals such as Snapchat, which could make it a strong competitor.
Another similar app and potential rival is Taptalk, which is reportedly admired among some Facebook engineers.
Taptalk provides a comparatively minimalist and simplified approach to image messaging, allowing users to send personal pictures or videos by tapping or holding their friend’s profile picture.
It has also been noted that Slingshot’s icon is strikingly similar to Taptalk’s.
BBC
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Smartphone Screens to Be Shatterproof Soon
{{Scratch-resistant screens aren’t doing enough to protect our precious smartphones from ugly bumps and falls. Now, scientists from the University of Akron say they have developed a film that would protect screens from shattering.}}
They’ve developed transparent electrodes that, when layered on polymer surfaces, are just as transparent as current technology (indium tin oxide) but much more durable.
According to the scientists that developed the new material, you can bend them over 1,000 times without breaking, and they also hold up against peeling.
As you might imagine, cost was a consideration throughout the whole development process. Not just the cost of the project, but the cost that they eventual customer will have to pay for it.
Importantly the technology is quite cheap. In fact, the university believes that it should be less expensive to make this film than the touchscreen tech in use today as it can be mass-produced in large rolls.
Let’s hold thumbs that this will offer greater protection for our smart devices and comes to market sooner than later.