Scientists say new medical diagnostic chip can sort cells anywhere with an inkjet

Thursday, February 9, 2017

On Monday, scientists from the Stanford University School of Medicine announced the invention of a new diagnostic tool that can sort cells by type: a tiny printable chip that can be manufactured using standard inkjet printers for possibly about one U.S. cent each. Lead researchers say this may bring early detection of cancer, tuberculosis, HIV and malaria to patients in low-income countries, where the survival rates for illnesses such as breast cancer can be half those of richer countries.

Existing methods tend to identify cell types using fluorescent or magnetic labels, which take time to attach, but this platform uses the phenomenon of dielectrophoresis: because different kinds of cells have different levels of receptivity to electrical fields, a trait called polarizability, when an electric potential gradient is activated around the chip, different cells are pulled in different directions at different speeds. This allows doctors to diagnose cancer by determining the number of tumor cells in a patient’s blood sample. Different chips can be printed to diagnose different diseases.

Physically, the scientists say, the system has two parts. Cells are held in a clear microfluidic chamber made of silicone. The chip itself is an electronic strip that can be printed onto flexible polyester. Most lab-on-a-chip devices must be manufactured by professional staff in specialized facilities called clean rooms and can take weeks, but the chip component of this system can be made almost anywhere in as little as twenty minutes. The chips cost approximately one U.S. cent to produce (US$0.01) and can be reused. For comparison, a standard flow cytometry machine can cost US$100,000 to purchase.

“Enabling early detection of diseases is one of the greatest opportunities we have for developing effective treatments,” said lead author and electrical engineer Dr. Rahim Esfandyarpour. “Maybe $1 in the U.S. doesn’t count that much, but somewhere in the developing world, it’s a lot of money.”

Senior author Dr. Ron Davis of the Stanford University Genome Technology Center compared this invention to that of low-cost genome sequencing, which helped lead to personalized medicine.

The findings appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005File:JacobZuma.jpg

Today at about 1600 UTC/GMT, South African President Thabo Mbeki announced in a special session of parliament that he has taken action he feels is necessary, that is to “release [his deputy president], Jacob Zuma, from his responsibilities as deputy president of the republic and member of the cabinet”.

Zuma was implicated in corruption arising from his relationship with his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, who was convicted of corruption and fraud earlier this month. Shaik was found guilty by Durban High Court of two counts of corruption and one of fraud and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

The President has called this one of his toughest decisions. Opposition leader of the Democratic Alliance immediately praised the president for holding “principle over politics”, and, while deeply saddened, former president Nelson Mandela supported Mbeki’s decision. Jacob Zuma was the favourite of the ruling African National Congress party to succeed Thabo Mbeki as president.

Following this ordeal, the government of South Africa has reaffirmed its dedication to the reduction and eventual elimination of corruption in all areas of politics.

UPDATE (July 7)

The African National Congress held a meeting of it’s National General Council over the weekend of 2-3 July. Zuma attracted a lot of favourable attention, mostly from people who wished to defeat policy initiatives that included relaxing some of the legal constraints on employers. He was reinstated as ANC deputy president and, in a first for the party, granted a salary (details not revealed). It now appears that Jacob Zuma’s political future is closely tied to that of the “left wing” of the ANC.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

The third Test between Australia and India commenced on Wednesday at the WACA in Perth.

India won the toss, and Indian captain Anil Kumble elected to bat. India quickly made a half century in nine overs. Shortly after, the first wicket fell with Virender Sehwag caught behind by Adam Gilchrist for 29 runs. About half an hour before lunch with three more overs, the next wicket fell when Gilchrist also caught Wasim Jaffer.

India were 2/74 at lunch, and played well during the afternoon, losing no wickets. Rahul Dravid was dropped on 11 runs by Michael Clarke, and went on to share a partnership of 139 runs with Sachin Tendulkar as India reached 2/177 at tea.

In the last session India put on 120 runs, losing four wickets, including two just before stumps. Brett Lee trapped lbw Tendulkar (71), while Sourav Ganguly fell for just nine runs soon afterwards. Dravid reached 93 runs before being caught by Ricky Ponting, and V. V. S. Laxman was dismissed for 27 runs shortly before the close of play. India finished the day on 6/297.

Brett Lee was the leading wicket taker, tallying 3 wickets.

Australia lead the four match Test series 2-0, after a controversial second Test prompting India to threaten to pull out of the tour.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

One of the most important arguments in the run-up to the Iraq war made by Colin Powell in his United Nations speech and President Bush in his State of the Union address was that Iraq had an active biological weapons program and possessed mobile biological weapons labs. According to an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the main source for this information was an Iraqi defector codenamed Curveball who was a source for the German central intelligence agency BND.

Several German intelligence officials responsible for Curveball have now told the LA Times that the Bush administration and the CIA have repeatedly exaggerated his claims and ignored warnings of the BND that the source was unreliable. Recounting his reaction after seeing Powell’s United Nations speech one German intelligence officer said: “We were shocked. Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven…. It was not hard intelligence.” This corroborates reporting by the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit from 2003 and 2004 based on statements of unnamed senior German intelligence officials.

Nine months earlier, in May 2002, a fabricator warning was posted in Curveball’s file in U.S. intelligence databases. Powell was never warned that his United Nations speech contained material that both the DIA and CIA had determined was false, even though several people present at Powell’s CIA meetings were fully aware of this.

At this time German intelligence officers would not let the CIA meet directly with Curveball, but allowed a CIA doctor to draw blood samples. Questioning the validity of Curveball’s information in front of his CIA supervisor, the doctor was advised to “Keep in mind that this war is going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn’t say and the Powers That Be probably aren’t terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he’s talking about.”

Shortly after Powell’s UN speech and several days before the invasion, United Nations weapons inspectors attempted to directly verify several key claims made by Curveball, but concluded that they were unsustainable. The White House insisted on its WMD claims based on Curveball’s information.

Even after the invasion, when more and more of Curveball’s accounts were shown to be pure fabrication, the CIA and the Bush administration relied on Curveball’s information. When U.S. forces discovered trucks with lab equipment and Curveball claimed that these were identical to the ones he has been reporting about, the CIA rushed to publish a White Paper claiming that these trucks were part of Saddam Hussein’s secret biological weapons program and Bush claimed publicly that “We found the weapons of mass destruction.” Several days later, twelve of the thirteen WMD experts who analyzed the trucks agreed that the equipment was not suited for biological weapons production, with the only dissenting voice coming from the author of the original White Paper.

The White Paper remains posted on the CIA website to this date, and President Bush has not yet retracted his statement that Iraq produced “germ warfare agents” made in his State of the Union address or his postwar assertions that “we found the weapons of mass destruction.”

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

A compilation of brief news reports for Wednesday, February 3, 2010.

The Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas day with hidden explosives is cooperating with investigators and providing fresh intelligence after the U.S. enlisted the help of his family, an administration official said. His family persuaded him to cooperate.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has been providing information to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents questioning him, the official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.

The official declined to provide details on what kind of information Abdulmutallab was providing.

Related news

• “Failed bomb aboard Delta flight” — Wikinews, December 26, 2009

Sources

• Evan Perez. “Abdulmutallab Resumes Talking to Federal Agents” — The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2010
• “Bomb plot accused ‘co-operating'” — UKPA, February 2, 2010

One person died and 41 were injured, including three nurses who are critically injured, in a major fire at Park Healthcare Hospital in Somajiguda, a suburb of the Indian city Hyderabad, on Tuesday morning.

The fire engulfed a major portion of the five-storey hospital’s first floor, along with some medical equipment and furniture on the other floors.

City police commissioner A K Khan said that a criminal case had been registered against the hospital management. “It is also being determined whether safety standards were followed by the hospital,” he said.

Sources

• “Major fire at city hospital; one patient dead” — The Hindu, February 2, 2010
• “Major fire at Hyderabad hospital; one patient dead” — PTI, February 2, 2010

Chinese authorities say they are preparing to launch a crackdown on melamine-laced milk after the scandal over tainted products, which made hundreds of thousands of children ill two years ago and damaged China’s brand reputation overseas, resurfaced.

China has dispatched inspectors to sixteen provinces to urge local governments to thoroughly investigate cases concerning food safety.

The decision comes after milk products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine were removed from sale in Shanghai and the provinces of Shaanxi, Shandong, Liaoning and Hebei, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.

Related news

• “Contaminated baby’s milk induces wave of child illness in China” — Wikinews, September 22, 2008

Sources

• Edward Wong. “China Begins Emergency Check of Dairy Products” — The New York Times, February 2, 2010
• Cara Anna. “Beijing begins emergency sweep for tainted milk products” — The Boston Globe, February 3, 2010

At least twenty-six people have been killed in Karachi, Pakistan after four days of ethnic killings, according to police officials. The officials said that nine people were killed on Monday in the city’s Orangi western neighbourhood, which has a majority ethnic Pashtun community.

The Sindh government has awarded special powers to the Pakistan Rangers under Section 5 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 and imposed Section 144 in the limits of 26 police stations for a month.

At least forty people were killed as ethnic clashes erupted across the city in early January.Home minister of Sindh province, Dr Zulfiqar Mirza has called upon the Army to restore peace and order.

Sources

• Salis bin Perwaiz. “Rangers given control of 26 police stations” — The News International, February 3, 2010
• “Deadly ethnic violence hits Karachi” — Al Jazeera, February 2, 2010
• Zamir Sheikh and Nisar Mehdi. “Army asked to take over Karachi” — The Nation, February 3, 2010

Thursday, March 2, 2006

Last week, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced it had launched seven lawsuits against operators of websites it claims had been “facilitating the distribution of copyright works”.

In its announcement, the MPAA said it had commenced legal action against the following BitTorrent tracking sites: isohunt.com, bthub.com, and torrentbox.com, which are all owned by the same person; torrentspy.com; niteshadow.com as well as ed2k site ed2k-it.com and Usenet search engines nzb-zone.com, binnews.com, and dvdrs.net.

Despite the announcement on its website and in the media, the MPAA has failed to notify the administrators of the sites involved directly. Joe from Binnews told Wikinews he only found out about the MPAA’s actions after reading it on several news sites. He said, “At first, I double read the article making sure we were not being punk’d. But then I was shocked that we had to read about it publicly first. As of today (February 25), we have yet to get anything (from the MPAA)”.

“Descds”, an administrator of dvdrs.net told Wikinews that the first he knew of the action being taken against the site was when he was approached by the press and users of his site. He said, “We haven’t been informed by the MPAA and quite frankly are outraged by the method they have adopted to file these lawsuits. In actual fact we would still be none the wiser had our members and members of the press not have contacted us.”

“When we found out about the filed lawsuit we was first worried (after all we are only a small site with limited funds), then shocked and finally outraged. Had the MPAA contacted us anytime in the sites history regards their concerns we would have happily worked with them to gain a resolve,” he said.

Descds also said that despite attempts to contact the MPAA he has received no response.

When asked by Wikinews how they felt about discovering the MPAA’s lawsuits both administrators said they would have appreciated being notified before the announcement was made public.

Binnews told Wikinews, “We do feel they should have notified first. We do not even have a confirmation this is for real.”

Dvdrs said, “We have stated many times had the MPAA personally contacted us we would have happily listened to their issues and acted accordingly. We are doing nothing wrong legally on our site and to be made look like an established piracy ring is an outrage. We have worked extremely hard on site to keep within international laws and they have publicly destroyed everything we have worked towards in the last two years. We are receiving negative PR and this is totally unacceptable.”

Wikinews has discovered that both Binnews and dvdrs.net have procedures in place for dealing with alleged copyright infringement under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Despite this, both sites deny ever being contacted by any organisation with a “takedown” notice.

When asked if Binnews ever received a takedown notice, Binnews replied, “Nope, we have never received a notice from anyone. My cell phone is tied to the site, we have proper DMCA guidelines on the site and no one has contacted us.”

When asked the same question, Dvdrs said, “No never. We would actively respond to any DMCA request quickly and efficiently. We fully support the law and would never try to evade anything within its scope. Had a DMCA been issued by any member, our site would have immediately deleted the offensive file.”

When asked how they would deal with a DMCA takedown notice, Binnews said, “We would act quite quickly. An email sent to the alert system is tied into all of “staff” members, my cell phone and my email.”

According to Dvdrs, they would be equally as compliant. “We would immediately delete the offending file on our server and conduct a thorough research into any files that may also be connected to the one mentioned. We would also respond to the request personally with a follow up email expressing our actions,” they said.

Wikinews asked the administrators if they thought their sites were any different to conventional search engines like Google and Yahoo. Binnews replied, “No, you can go to any search engine and find just about anything.”

Dvdrs also shares Binnews’ position telling Wikinews, “No. We index what is already readily available on commercial, tax paying, US based registered companies hard drives. All we are doing is pointing to files not on our network, much the same way google or any search bot operates. We do not host these files and without the premium paid service of third parties our marked up text based XML files are useless. We have never hosted illegal files and only offer information.”

Dvdrs has expressed that if the MPAA deems them illegal they should also target those who are actually hosting the files. Descds said, “We feel that should the MPAA deem us illegal then they must also target premium paid Usenet Providers who act as the transit for these files. Ironically both Easynews and Usenetserver offer both indexing and carrier for these files and yet have received no such lawsuits filed.”

“We also find it ironic still that Newzbin, creators, instigators and promoters of the NZB format and un-arguably the biggest Usenet Indexing site in the world have received no lawsuits filed. We feel that we are being rail roaded and are not at all happy about it.”

On the other hand, Binnews was surprised that the MPAA did not target ISPs and Usenet providers in the first instance. “Cut the head off and there is nothing for us to index and report on. If the ISPs acted in a proper manner and did what they are more than capable of, we would not be assisting people in combating piracy on their networks,” they said.

Despite being outraged with the MPAA and its actions, Descds said that despite being outside of US juristiction he is happy to assist the MPAA in anyway necessary. “We would like it known for the record that we are actively trying to reach a resolve regards this action by the MPAA. We have contacted them and said openly many times we would welcome their input and act accordingly. Should they feel that NZBS are illegal we will remove those sections immediately and await a legal judgement on their legality. DVDRS is not a pirate network and to call us such has insulted our member base.”

“I would also like it noted that although we host in the US i am actually a UK citizen who currently does not have to adhere to their communications and judgements. However, such is our resolve that I would happily comply should communication between us take place. We can offer little more to help this but hope that the MPAA retract their statement that we are an organised pirate network and restore our good name. Should the MPAA decide to not communicate with us and continue their legal actions we will instruct our attorneys and contact legal bodies like the EFF for help on this matter,” he added.

Binnews also had this to say of the MPAA’s lawsuit: “Binnews does not host any files, the claim that we read “BinNews.com offers files for over 3,000 movies” is 100% completely false. We do not host any files, never have and never will. We provide a legitimate service to copyright holders. No where on our site does it say, “join us, we can give you free movies.” We do not even have pre-made nzb files.”

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

In February 2017, the Iranian Chess Federation announced two teenage chess players, Dorsa Derakhshani and her younger brother Borna Derakhshani, were banned from representing the national team. The federation announced their decision although Dorsa Derakhshani had previously decided and informed the chess federation she did not wish to play for Iran.

Dorsa Derakhshani is currently 21 years old and holds the International Master (IM) as well as Woman Grand Master (WGM) titles. Her brother, Borna, plays for the English Federation and holds the FIDE Master title.

Dorsa Derakhshani was banned since she did not wear a hijab, an Islamic headscarf, while competing at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival in January 2017. Under the laws of Islamic Republic of Iran, hijab is a mandatory dress code. Her brother Borna Deraskhsani was banned for playing against Israeli Grand Master (GM) Alexander Huzman at the same tournament. Iran does not recognise the existence of Israel, and previously, Irani athletes have avoided playing against Israeli athletes.

Mehrdad Pahlavanzadeh, the president of the country’s chess federation, explained the decision to ban the players saying, “As a first step, these two will be denied entry to all tournaments taking place in Iran and in the name of Iran, they will no longer be allowed the opportunity to be present on the national team.” ^{((fa))Farsi language: ?????? ????? ?? ??? ??? ?? ??? ????? ?? ?? ???? ???????? ?? ?? ????? ? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ??????? ????? ??????? ? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? ?? ??????? ????.} He further stated, “Unfortunately, something that should not have happened has happened and our national interest is paramount and we have reported this position to the Ministry of Sports.” ^{((fa))Farsi language: ????????? ?????? ?? ????? ????????? ?????? ??? ? ????? ??? ?? ?? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ? ?? ??? ???? ?? ?? ????? ???? ?? ????? ?????.}

IM Dorsa Derakhshani, who currently studies at Saint Louis University in the United States and plays for the United States Chess Federation, discussed her chess career, time in Iran and the 2017 controversy, and her life in Saint Louis with a Wikinews correspondent.