Last night while waiting for my bus, I was listening to the BBC and heard something about plants being able to defend themselves and that there defense can be detected in the atmosphere in the immediate vicinity of the stressed plants.

It seems now we know how plants defend themselves in harsh environments infested with bacteria, fungus, predatory insects and other problems. They produce their own "aspirin". It seems this will enable farmers to monitor their crops and predict much more accurately their expected crop yields. They can now more selectively or aggressively yet efficiently deal with problems to avert massive yield failures arising from external problems.

What this study/discovery (see links below) may mean is that bio-pharmaceutical companies and pesticide manufacturers might seem some of their own "yields" reduced as organic farming takes greater hold in India (where Monsanto/Dow-like/-made) chemicals are widely suspected of ruining otherwise viable crops through ruination of the soils and seedlings....)

(Personally, it might be quite nice if we've stumbled upon a mechanism of Nature that is meant to show us (once again) how to live in better harmony with our environment.)

Plants produce aspirin-like chemical
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Plants_produce_aspirin-like_chemical/rssarticleshow/3499950.cms

Aspirin Agent Aids Plants Against Virus
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/life_sciences/report-27302.html

Study Shows Aspirin Blocks "Plant Pain"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/08/980806090010.htm

""We all recognise its bitter taste and pain-killing abilities, but the importance of the active ingredient of aspirin, called salicylic acid, is even greater", says Dr John Carr of the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge. "We now know that salicylic acid is used by plants to fend off attacks by viruses, bacteria and fungi".

The parent molecule of aspirin turns out to be made by all plants, not just willow trees and meadowsweet, and is used as an alarm signal when the plant is attacked. The acid acts as a messenger to help mobilise resources from uninfected parts of the plant, resist the microbes and respond even more effectively against further attack.

"Salicylic acid stimulates the plant cells to produce chemical defences called enzymes which directly attack the bacteria and fungal cells, but these defences cannot affect viruses", says Dr Carr. "We have now discovered that salicylic acid triggers three other distinct mechanisms to fight off viruses. It stops the viruses copying themselves, it stops the virus moving through the plant and it triggers a self destruct mechanism in the viruses' genetic material, called RNA". "

[Update: Apparently, two others made submissions to the firehose on this very topic:

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=1184051

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=1183867

]

Yet, no commentary added. Many topics are discussed here on /., yet this one is not? (Yet?)

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/224601/dell-sales-warning-sparks-tech-fears.html

"Dell has warned its shareholders of weakening demand, adding to worries that the credit crunch will hurt corporate and consumer spending.

"It sounds like things are really starting to slip everywhere," warns Cross Research analyst Shannon Cross. "Both consumer and corporate end-demand are slowing. The question is how long it lasts."

"Dell and others in the industry have exposure to the financials, and that impacted them," she adds. "When you see these failures on Wall Street and the concerns that people have about banks, I think it does cause people to pull back a little on their spending."

Dell shares fell 11% following its warning. Other tech stocks that ended lower include computer memory chip maker Micron Technology, which fell 7.8%, and storage maker Seagate, which fell 8.2%."

Makes me wonder who in Washington to believe about the country's economic woes. Some think we are going to emerge soon, while others say it could be 24 months more.

For lack of Journal Topic for VirtualBox (there is WINE, but not VMWare, QEMU, no PCLOS... either), I selected "Sun Microsystems"

This morning I found at:

http://lddubeau.com/avaktavyam/2008/09/10/virtualbox-and-scim-problem-with-the-host-key/comment-page-0/#comment-8294

what appears to be a reasonable workaround/solution for why VirtualBox's Host+(Key) feature was not working. I am glad to have found it. I will try to apply it to my situation, as I am experiencing that the host key is not responding desirably on my system.

I am running PCLinuxOS 2007. I tried in vain to update another disk to Mandriva 2008.1, but it seems for the 3rd magazine in a row since March I've been bitten by the bad DVD burn problem. I was attempting to install to test my 3DConnexion Space Navigator. Giving upon that, i simply used kpackage/drakpackage to attempt to update the VB 1.5.2 to VB 1.5.6 and to VB 2.0 for Mandriva and the package installers refused to cope with older files in /usr/lib/virtualbox... despite multiple reboots after renaming the subfolder containing the 1.5.2/offending libs/so files... So....

Giving up on that DVD, I returned to my laptop the PCLOS disk. I uninstalled VB 1.5.2, installed VB 2.0 for PCLOS nicely without any fails or errors. Without rebooting, i successfully started VirtualBox. Serendipitously, in noticed and fiddled with the USB and related filters and, VOILA! My 3DConnexion Space Navigator and software worked. VB 2.0 is JUST what I was waiting for, as prior VB releases didn't recognize my USB ports.

My next step is to get the VB 2.0 additions (apparently not set up?) so that i can regain ~1400x900 desktop resolution.

THANKS to SUN!

http://www.sun.com/software/products/virtualbox/features.jsp

I really REALLY love Mandriva, as do i love PCLOS. I am finding it quite vexing, if not downright enraging that for 3 times in a row that i've been burned by what appears to be a buggy DVD burning process on the part of Mandriva's vendor/contractor. This is inexcusable. I searched Google, tried maybe 8 different kernel switch options. Tried various little seemingly-pointless tricks that worked a few months ago, but which did not work today. One i did NOT try was wiping the /, /usr, and /var partitions (worked before, so I am wondering if the installer is croaking on finding an existing Linux or other OS partition, and instead of offering upgrade, croaks and spews a bogus error or wrong error message...).

No, i don't have properly working NDISwrappers (tho i was at Borders), and I was not at the library (where i do connect via CAT-5), so i was not inclined to download 1.6+ GB of files that might have obviated/averted the error messages seen in the Alt+F4 screen.

Another trick that months ago had mixed success was the act of copying the /media/ to a local partition and trying to install that way. What I WISH Mandriva would *do* is at least a TWO-STAGE install:

1. Set up the partitions/file system, root and one account, graphics, firewall, and bootloader, and CORE/CRITICAL libs

2. REBOOT NOW, for frack's sake, NOW, not at the end of the 2-hour select-install-fine-tune stage, to ensure that no gotcha's will appear later

3. Resume install, and at this point, make package selection

4. Fine-tune

5. NO REBOOT at this stage

It's curious how PCLinuxOS seems to have been in limbo since late 2007/early 2008 as regards freshened files. No marketing/campaign regarding updates the way Mandriva has. Makes me wonder if there is a tiff tween Texstar and Mandriva.

But, it was very, VERY nice of Sun/VirtualBox to have an RPM explicitly suited to PCLinuxOS (even though their site (not the compatibilities page) doesn't list PCLinuxOS). Thanks to them, I have my SpaceNavigator working, though the filters seem to have disabled my Dynex mouse, though my laptop's trackpad works just fine.

This AM, I stumbled upon:

http://thevirtualengineer.blogspot.com/2008/09/ptc-is-for-sale.html

and then recalled another website that suggested that Google may be interested in on-line gaming. Well, if Google are interested in net-based games, and if they are willing to plunk down some serious cash, they might consider looking at PTC:

http://www.ptc.com/products/disciplines/cad/

If Google can harness the collaboration features of the CoCreate product, and get it before it's arch rival does, then it might be possible to adapt that technology to enable a whole new environment of gaming (without specialized, expensive consoles, or, instead, with specialized, low-cost consoles/appliances) as well as collaborative CAD development world.

http://www.ptc.com/products/cocreate

Gartner last year issued a comment:

http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=540712

Update on United Airlines Story
http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/update-on-united-airlines-story.html

"Aggregators like Google News were today the subject of news - this time pertaining to a 2002 story regarding United Airlines. For those of you who are interested in the nuts and bolts of why this was indexed by Google News, here are the details:

On Saturday, September 6th at 10:36PM Pacific, the Google crawler discovered a new link on the Florida Sun-Sentinel website in a section of the most viewed stories labeled "Popular Stories: Business." The link appeared in that section sometime after Googlebot's last crawl at 10:17PM; because the crawler saw this new link appear, it followed it to an article titled "UAL Files for Bankruptcy.""

More at:

Google crawler blamed for UAL stock dive
http://www.silobreaker.com/DocumentReader.aspx?Item=5_900776456

Tribune, Google trade blame in United Airlines stock fiasco
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-moneyblog9-2008sep09,0,1609687.story

The scary thing is that anyone skilled enough can plant stories to short stock. However, today's United losses, while at a 75% dive, were mostly paper losses, and the dive was corrected almost to the pre-dive levels.

http://www.kqed.org/quest/blog/

"AC seems mundane because it's ubiquitous - but because it's ubiquitous, its impact is astonishing. If you took air conditioning out of the picture, there might not be such thing as the California energy crisis. We could put dozens of power plants offline. In terms of global warming, it would be like taking hundreds of thousands of cars off the road, permanently."

"So, it comes as no surprise that a number of Californians are putting serious energy into making air conditioning work better. At the top of that list is California Energy Commission Commissioner Art Rosenfeld, the efficiency guru who, perhaps more than any other person, can be credited for California's remarkable efficiency gains over the last 30 years. We also hear from AC inventor and entrepreneur John Proctor. And thanks also go to Jeff Scalier, of Antioch-based Blue Star Heating and Air Conditioning, who introduced me to his very satisfied customer, Al Mason, and whose mother I hope enjoys the CD we send her.

If you want to retrofit your central AC system to tailor it to California climate (and make it 20 percent more efficient) a number of Bay Area installers are ready to do it. Here are some of them, courtesy of Proctor Engineering:"

Also, in the audio report, you can learn that AC units were pretty much designed very inefficiently (for production costs?) with a "one-size-fits-all" approach. So, the AC units in California are working just as hard as those in, say, Florida, where it may be 100 degrees with 40%-80% humidity, and harder than those in the Midwest part of the country.

http://www.kqed.org/quest/radio/air-conditioning-reinvented

http://ezinearticles.com/?Memory-Loss,-Nerve-Damage-Caused-by-Vitamin-B12-Deficiency:-Pernicious-Anemia&id=143283

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7595423.stm

"Pernicious anemia is due to lack of vitamin B12, which causes progressive nerve damage, forgetfulness, loss of ability to concentrate and abnormal sensations such as burning, itching and loss of feeling. However, many people with pernicious anemia do not have abnormally low blood levels of vitamin B12.

Many people cannot correct their B12 deficiency with diet because they cannot absorb enough B12 from their food.
Almost always, those with a deficiency can a cured by taking a 1000 microgram pill of vitamin B12 once a day. They usually do not need to take injections. Low levels of B12 are also associated with stomach diseases and infections such as Helicobacter pylori."

--
"A vitamin found in meat, fish and milk may help stave off memory loss in old age, a study has suggested.

Older people with lower than average vitamin B12 levels were more than six times more likely to experience brain shrinkage, researchers concluded.

The Oxford study looked at a group of people between 61 and 87, splitting it into thirds depending on the participants' vitamin B12 levels.

Even the third with the lowest levels were still above a threshold used by some scientists to define vitamin B12 deficiency.

"The best way to reduce your risk of developing dementia is to keep active, eat a balanced diet, don't smoke and visit your GP to get your blood pressure and cholesterol checked." "

http://ezinearticles.com/?Memory-Loss,-Nerve-Damage-Caused-by-Vitamin-B12-Deficiency:-Pernicious-Anemia&id=143283

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7595423.stm

"Pernicious anemia is due to lack of vitamin B12, which causes progressive nerve damage, forgetfulness, loss of ability to concentrate and abnormal sensations such as burning, itching and loss of feeling. However, many people with pernicious anemia do not have abnormally low blood levels of vitamin B12.

Many people cannot correct their B12 deficiency with diet because they cannot absorb enough B12 from their food.
Almost always, those with a deficiency can a cured by taking a 1000 microgram pill of vitamin B12 once a day. They usually do not need to take injections. Low levels of B12 are also associated with stomach diseases and infections such as Helicobacter pylori."

--
"A vitamin found in meat, fish and milk may help stave off memory loss in old age, a study has suggested.

Older people with lower than average vitamin B12 levels were more than six times more likely to experience brain shrinkage, researchers concluded.

The Oxford study looked at a group of people between 61 and 87, splitting it into thirds depending on the participants' vitamin B12 levels.

Even the third with the lowest levels were still above a threshold used by some scientists to define vitamin B12 deficiency.

"The best way to reduce your risk of developing dementia is to keep active, eat a balanced diet, don't smoke and visit your GP to get your blood pressure and cholesterol checked." "

In case anyone wants to know: (updated as of 1847 PST)

As of time 1829 PST (and as early as 1815 PST) the microsoft site seems to be down, DDOSsed, or otherwise taken out.

Has anyone a clue what is up? My sysadmin came by my desk and asked if I wanted a good laugh. I said, sure, and he said, "Try to get to a microsoft site. I tried from three computers and couldn't get to their site."

So, I tried from Internet Exploder, and fail. Tried Google. Got there. He said he could get to any site other than ms. I tried my mobile phone, and it showed ms' site, but some pages were blank unless I turned off "show images".

Is silverlight turning to mercurochrome to them?

As of time 1829 PST (and as early as 1815 PST) the microsoft site seems to be down, DDOSsed, or otherwise taken out.

Has anyone a clue what is up? My sysadmin came by my desk and asked if I wanted a good laugh. I said, sure, and he said, "Try to get to a microsoft site. I tried from three computers and couldn't get to their site."

So, I tried from Internet Exploder, and fail. Tried Google. Got there. He said he could get to any site other than ms. I tried my mobile phone, and it showed ms' site, but some pages were blank unless I turned off "show images".

Is silverlight turning to mercurochrome to them?

http://matadorpulse.com/is-vladimir-putin-the-new-chuck-norris/

WHooa... Polynomial or quadratic equations here?

I could NEVER flex like that... would crack my spine, and cause me a colostomy...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/shropshire/7585098.stm

"A man who chose "Lloyds is pants" as his telephone banking password said he found it had been changed by a member of staff to "no it's not"."

""But what really incensed me was when I was told I could not change it back to 'Lloyds is pants' because they said it was not appropriate.

"I asked if it was 'pants' they didn't like, and would 'Lloyds is rubbish' do? But they didn't think so.

"So I tried 'Barclays is better' and that didn't go down too well either.

"The rules seemed to change, and they told me it had to be one word, so I tried 'censorship', but they didn't like that, and then said it had to be no more than six letters long." "

----

So, this is my position/question:

Why the HELL was a low-level functionary employee able to "see" the true password of a customer? The frackin password should have been a reduced or hashed form so that even if an IT person can copy and paste it in a local system, they could not know the contents and be able to type it in at a point of sales station or an ATM, or on any sites that reject copy-paste-in passwords...

Not new news, but interesting, nevertheless...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93956323

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Cattle shown to align north-south

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7575459.stm

"Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction.

Wild deer also display this behaviour - a phenomenon that has apparently gone unnoticed by herdsmen and hunters for thousands of years.

In the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say the Earth's magnetic fields may influence the behaviour of these animals.

The Earth can be viewed as a huge magnet, with magnetic north and south situated close to the geographical poles.

Many species - including birds and salmon - are known to use the Earth's magnetic fields in migration, rather like a natural GPS. "

"It's hard to imagine the scope and breadth of the Great Garbage Patch that lies in the North Pacific Gyre in the Pacific Ocean between the West Coast and Hawaii. It's estimated to be about double the size of Texas. Most people think of it as an island of trash, but that's not accurate. It's floating debris - about 80 percent of it plastic, according to Charles Moore of Algalita Marine Research Foundation - that is caught between ocean currents. And that debris is getting thicker and thicker in the water."

http://www.kqed.org/quest/blog/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/algalita-junk.php

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/pollution/trash-vortex

http://saveourshores.org/news/pelagic-plastic-stories-north-pacific-gyre

Filed under "Biotech" since, astonishingly, there is no "Nanotechnology" Journal Topic drop-down.

Diatoms Nanotechnology - Transformation

http://www.pulseplanet.com/dailyprogram/dailies.php?POP=4285

"Nanotechnology has the potential to transform our world with new kinds of materials and devices made out of nanoparticles - tiny bitsof matter. An innovative way is being developed to create nanomaterials - using microscopic organisms called diatoms. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.....

'There are three benefits in using diatoms to make nanostructured semiconductor materials. First, the process is environmentally friendly and doesnt use any toxic chemicals. Second, the process is simple. We let the living diatom, with a little help from us, do all of the work. And, third, diatoms have the ability to make new nanostructural designs that cant be duplicated by man at present.' "

But, what about the diatoms?

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/chromista/diatoms/diatomlh.html

http://www.sinauer.com/detail.php?id=8172