Tag: August 11, 2007

STEM cells, discovered by Canadian scientists Ernest McCulloch and James Till in the 1960s, are undifferentiated primordial cells from which all human cells originate. They have the ability to renew themselves and differentiate into a diverse range of specialized cells.

WORKING parents will soon be worry-free of their households while they’re away and busy in the office. Thanks to Mobile Eye, ensuring a house’s security is just a video call away.

As one of the newest products of the 3G batch or third-generation devices, Smart Communications’ (Smart) Mobile Eye empowers its users to survey and secure their homes and offices, even while they are away. Like other 3G devices such as laptops and cellular phones, the Mobile Eye makes use of its perks by making supervising possible by a video call.

SCIENTISTS from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have discovered that those who talk excessively on their cellular phones are at risk of developing acoustic neuroma, a hearing disorder caused by tumor growth, according to Anders Ahlbom, director of the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institute, BBC News.

The study observed 750 randomly selected subjects and discovered that after 10 years, 150 subjects that talked on their cellular phones frequently and excessively developed acoustic neuroma in the ears.

IMAGINE a car flying above flooded streets. Sounds futuristic? Not in a few years, thanks to the advancing technology of electrohydrodynamics (EHD) and ionocrafts.

Discovered by Dr. Paul Alfred Biefeld Thomas and Townsend Brown in the 1920s, EHD, also known as the Biefeld-Brown effect, is the observed behavior of ionized air particles.

FOR AL GORE, people are like frogs jumping into a pot of boiling water, a metaphor the former American vice-president deliberately affirmed in his award-winning documentary.

“If a frog jumps into a pot of boiling water, it jumps out again because it senses the danger. But if the same frog jumps into a pot of lukewarm water that is slowly being boiled, it will just sit there until the temperature continues to rise and until it is rescued,” Gore said in his documentary about global warming.

IT WAS October 2004 when some Pre-com Society officers wanted to borrow James Christopher Domingo’s Basic Accounting notes. Ashamed of his penmanship, he decided to modify them, and with eight gel pens and a ream of bond paper, he rewrote all 188 pages.

It was a good thing he did the revision because eventually the rest of the Commerce population, through photocopying and word of mouth, would enjoy the edge of having his notes.

JULY 21, 2007 will go down in history as the day when thousands of avid readers flocked various bookstores as early as seven in the morning to grab their copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final installment of the much-loved series written by J.K. Rowling. According to reliable sources, the last book of the Harry Potter series has sold more than 33,000 copies in the Philippines on its first week of release, and that is just from one leading bookstore. Overall, the Harry Potter series has collectively sold more than 325 million copies worldwide, making author J.K.

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” – John Milton

IN A SOCIETY where the pressure to be thin is so overwhelming, it’s no surprise that thousands of people worldwide resort to unsafe diet pills or worse, develop eating disorders just so they can shed off the extra pounds.

“All things are within reach, but we must do the reaching.” – John Foppe

I HAVE always been inspired by stories of success just like the visionary John Foppe’s phenomenal triumph over the disadvantages of not having arms, of being disabled. In his inspirational talks, one lesson that Foppe persistently wants people to emulate is about being resourceful. Despite life’s adversities, Foppe encourages people to be self-sufficient because “everything we need to succeed is within us and all that is left for us to do is to tap and use these things to our advantage.”

STRUCK BY the brief Varsitarian update on the Magna Carta for UST Students in the June issue, the Central Board (CB), the legislative arm of the Central Student Council (CSC), has written a rejoinder, citing “factual errors and opinionated portions” in the report.

The letter was signed by 19 local council presidents and CSC head Reyner Villaseñor and was published by the Varsitarian in this issue virtually in toto in the mail section on the next page.