CYBERZONE

FLORIDA SETS $15M DATA INTEGRATION PLAN FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT The Florida Department of Law Enforcement this month will begin a $15 million, yearlong effort to integrate the back-end systems of 500 law enforcement agencies across the state so they can share data. The first phase of the Florida Law Enforcement Exchange (FLEX) project is to inventory data housed in the records management systems of the various agencies and create a metadata management layer for the new data exchange system, according to state officials.

http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2006/0,4814,108412,00.html

THE BLOGOSPHER: POPULATION 27.2 MILLION AND GROWING A new blog is created every second and the phenomenon has grown 60 times larger than it was three years ago, says Technorati in its periodic State of the Blogosphere report.  A new blog is created every second and the phenomenon has grown 60 times larger than it was three years ago, according to Dave Sifry, at Technorati. In his periodic "State of the Blogosphere," published most recently on Monday, Sifry said that there are about 27.2 million blogs and 75,000 new ones created each day. At that rate, the blogosphere doubles about every 5.5 months. "There has never in human history been that many communications sources," Jeff Hess wrote on his blog, Have Coffee Will Write.

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=179100780

JPEG PATENT UNDER REVIEW The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has agreed to review a patent held by Forgent Networks on the JPEG compression technique. An organization called the Public Patent Foundation had petitioned the patent office to review the patent. The Public Patent Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to minimizing what it sees as damage that patents cause, and last year it reportedly persuaded Pfizer to narrow its patent claims on Lipitor. The JPEG patent is extremely lucrative for Forgent, especially since the explosion of digital cameras in the past few years. The company has reportedly earned more than $100 million from the patent, which officials from Forgent said could be worth $1 billion. CEO Richard Snyder said his company has thoroughly investigated the patent and is confident it will be upheld. He said there are no "convincing arguments of invalidity" and the company "look[s] forward to an efficient reexamination." The Public Patent Foundation said that when the patent office agrees to reconsider a patent, it makes changes in 70 percent of cases, though that does not always mean the patents are invalidated.  http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6034544.html

SCIENCE ZONE

HAS BYU PROFESSOR FOUND AN AIDS CURE? Compound could be long-sought breakthrough Salt Lake Tribune Researchers, including a BYU scientist, believe they have found a new compound that could finally kill the HIV/AIDS virus, not just slow it down as current treatments do. And, unlike the expensive, drug cocktails 25 years of research have produced for those with the deadly virus, the compound invented by Paul D. Savage of Brigham Young University appears to hunt down and kill HIV. Although so far limited to early test tube studies, CSA-54, one of a family of compounds called Ceragenins (or CSAs), mimics the disease-fighting characteristics of anti-microbial and anti-viral agents produced naturally by a healthy human immune system. Under a study sponsored by Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals, Savage and his colleagues developed and synthesized the compound for Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine. In his Nashville, Tenn., laboratories, Derya Unutmaz, an associate professor of Microbiology and Immunology, tested several CSAs for their ability to kill HIV.

http://www.sltrib.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=3482712

STUDY STRENGTHENS LINK BETWEEN VIRUS AND WEIGHT GAIN New study results bolster the controversial hypothesis that certain cases of obesity are contagious. Over the last 20 years, some research has suggested that certain strains of human and avian adenoviruses--responsible for ailments ranging from the chest colds to pink eye--actually make individuals build up more fat cells. Having antibodies to one strain in particular, so-called Ad-36, proved to correlate with the heaviest obese people, and in one study, pairs of twins differed in heft depending on exposure to that virus. Now researchers have identified another strain of adenovirus that makes chickens plump.

http://cl.exactt.net/?ffcb10-fe6411707d6501797114-fdfb15737467027b72147874-ff3310707762

MORE EFFICIENT HYDROGEN FOR FUEL CELLS A team of engineers from the University of Texas at Austin and Research Triangle Institute has developed a new rubbery material that can purify hydrogen efficiently in its most usable form for fuel cells and oil refining, which uses hydrogen to refine crude oil and produce gasoline. The new family of membrane materials successfully separates hydrogen from carbon dioxide and other gases, which could lower the cost of hydrogen-fueled vehicles, and replace an expensive step in current petrochemical processing. Plasticization, a process that softens materials and dilates them, improved the movement of carbon dioxide through the new membrane for even better separation.

http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20060207A2

BIOTERRORISM PREPARING TO FIGHT THE NEXT WAR A robust biodefense plan must be anticipatory, flexible, and rapidly responsive. It should exploit crosscutting technologies and cross-disciplinary scientific insights and use broadly applicable platforms and methods that offer substantial scalability. Examples include the use of "lab-on-a-chip" technology, based on advances in microfluidics, for rapid, sensitive, point-of-care diagnostics; computational approaches for predicting drug-ligand interactions; genomic tools such as microarrays and genome-wide screening for protective antigens; and automated robotic systems for rapid, high-throughput drug screening and the scale-up of vaccine production.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=/news/news_single.html?id%3D5219

IOWA STATE FIRES UP NEW SUPERCOMPUTER Researchers at Iowa State University will use a recently acquired supercomputer to work on a map of the genome of the corn plant. The $1.25 million IBM BlueGene computer, which was financed by the university and the National Science Foundation, can perform up to 5.7 trillion calculations per second, according to Srinivas Aluru, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Iowa State, allowing research projects to proceed that otherwise would be impractical due to processing needs. Three other universities are also working on the corn genome. Researchers hope that understanding the genome will allow them to engineer a corn plant "that, for example, produces biodegradable plastic or ethanol," said Patrick Schnable, an agronomy professor and director of the Center for Plant Genomics. The supercomputer will also be used in biomedical research to study protein networks.

http://www.newsfactor.com/news/story.xhtml?story_id=0010001JZMRW

THE WATER ZONE

DISINFECTION SYSTEM IN A POUCH A personal water disinfection system uses a small pouch, similar to a teabag that is placed in a container of water. The container is shaken and a disinfectant and colorant are released, and are then removed from the water via the pouch. When the water is color-free, it is ready to drink. The system removes viruses, bacteria, heavy metals, and pesticides.

http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20060207A3

DISINFECTING A LARGE AMOUNT OF WATER A low-power electrolysis technology disinfects a reservoir of water such as a storage tank or pool, or can be placed in a water supply. It uses naturally occurring salts in water to produce a dilute solution of mixed oxidants that disinfect the water. The floating apparatus can be battery or solar powered.

http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20060207A4

BIO BRIEFS

Baltimore--Catonsville biotechnology firm sued in trade secrets battle

http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/2115370

Buffalo--WNY focus shifting to include life sciences

http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/2115371

Jacksonville--Mayo clinic considers local biotech incubator

http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/2115372

Philadelphia--Newsletter recognizes N.J. as up-and-coming biotech hub

http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/2115373

Phoenix--Bio partnership formed to speed research

http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/2115374

San Francisco--Biotechnology group to multiply by dividing

http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/2115375

San Jose--BayBio reorganizing to bolster lobbying for biotech industry

http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/2115376

Washington--MacroGenics nears deal for $40M in new funding

http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/2115377

ASIA-PACIFIC ZONE

CHINA's SATELLITE TELECOM BEING BUILT BY ISRAELI COMPANY Israel-based Gilat Satellite Networks (GILTF) has been selected by China Unicom (CHU) to provide a 1,500-site, high-speed satellite communication network. Gilat's SkyEdge VSAT equipment will be used for rural telecom applications throughout China. Gilat has already deployed nearly 600 sites in the three months since this contract was signed.

http://www.chinatechnews.com/index.php?action=show&type=news&id=3507

WIRELESS ZONE

IN THE HOSPITAL: CELLPHONE CAN BE ADVANTAGEOUS TO YOUR HEALTH Many hospitals ban the use of cellphones because of the risk that they may interfere with the functioning of medical equipment. But a new study suggests that such bans may actually increase the danger to patients.

Using a survey completed by more than 4,000 participants in a meeting of anesthesiologists in 2003, researchers found that interference from cellphones was rare: only 2.4 percent of respondents reported seeing such a problem. At the same time, the researchers found that using cellphones instead of pagers was associated with a 22 percent reduction in the risk of medical error or injury resulting from communication delay.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/health/07prac.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Hotspot Hits

Texas towns get wireless broadband services; SuperBowl's Wi-Fi cameras; Boulder ranks as best college town for free Wi-Fi; and more.

BOSTON CONSIDERING PUBLIC Wi-Fi The city of Boston has joined the list of U.S. cities eyeing wireless Internet access for their residents, and a task force has been asked to devise an implementation plan for the city by this summer.

http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/289535/1423585/8746/0/

SITE CITE

WACKY WEB TALES Wacky Web Tales is a fun and interactive grammar review, similar to the old "MadLibs" game that some of us recall. Students fill in blanks for different parts of speech (adjective, transitive verb) and, when they're done, the program inserts these volunteered words into a story, creating some very funny combinations. A section called "Parts of Speech Help" provides brief definitions and examples to help students remember the job each part of speech plays.

http://techlearning.com/webpicks/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=QWEY0CFC4IZDAQSNDBCCKHSCJUMEKJVN?articleID=177101087&_requestid=144752