Milan's Website - a site about KDB+/Q and K4 ... updated: May 19, 2012 - 13:55 C.E.T.

[+] K update: Tower of Hanoi as recursion in a recursion .. [2011-10-21]

21 {k+:1;x {@[x;y;:;(m@(2*a~j)+"i"$d . j) . j:x@y]}/ o}\s .. if disc-count even

[+] K update: Quartic equation completely rewritten (under specials) .. [2012-03-24]

PhysOrg [17-5-2012]:"We had not expected to find fossils from such a large range of dinosaur species in this area. The fossils we have collected range from tiny, cat-sized killers to Australia's version of T. Rex, a nine-metre-long predator with powerful arms and razor-sharp claws"

IRINnews [17-5-2012]: GAMBIA: there had been huge declines in the main food crops: rice (-79%), groundnut (-67%) and early millet (-53%). "Coupled with this production drop, food prices have gone higher than normal, surpassing the high food prices experienced during the 2008 global food crisis. The drop in production combined with rising prices suggests that seed insecurity will increasingly become a challenge for farmers"

BBC [17-5-2012]: False killer whales belong to a group of species known as "toothed whales", which includes dolphins, sperm whales and killer whales. These mammals hunt using echolocation - producing high-frequency buzzing or clicking sounds and decoding the echoes they produce to locate prey.

BrisbaneTimes [17-5-2012]: In a clinical trial that could lead to treatments that prevent Alzheimer's disease, people who are genetically guaranteed to suffer from the disease years from now - but who do not yet have any symptoms - will for the first time be given a drug intended to stop them from developing it, US health officials have announced.

ChinaDaily [10-5-2012]: Dirty underground water remains a serious problem for Chinese cities as a majority of monitored sites reported "bad or extremely bad" water quality in 2011, China's Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) said Thursday.

Independent [9-5-2012]: Zinc can inhibit replication of rhinoviruses, a key cause of the common cold. But, unlike in adults, there was no apparent effect from taking zinc in children.

Boston [9-5-2012]: Rheumatoid arthritis occurs when the immune system attacks the body's own joints and tissue. It differs from traditional arthritis, which is caused by long-term deterioration of bones and joints. Federal health advisers said Wednesday that a first-of-a-kind drug from Pfizer appears to be safe and effective for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, though they recommended follow-up studies to gauge the pill's long-term side effects.

Examiner [9-5-2012]: A few states including Washington and Colorado are going to be voting on legalizing marijuana for all uses. Now other states are working on their version of the bill to be voted on in an upcoming election.

TimesOfIndia [9-5-2012]: "Air India is almost bankrupt. (It) is not able to pay salaries for months, not paid to airport authority and oil marketing companies .. "

BBC [5-5-2012]: Now a study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface shows that Oetzi's remarkable preservation extends even to the blood he shed shortly before dying. The find represents by far the oldest red blood cells ever observed.

IRINnews [5-5-2012]: Tuberculosis (TB) is the third greatest killer in Egypt, after Hepatitis C and Bilharzias, according to Amir Bassam, deputy chairman of parliament's Health Committee. "Although most tuberculosis patients are poor, poverty itself is not the problem," said Ahmed Attia, head of local NGO Egyptian Society for Fighting Tuberculosis. "The problem lies with the living conditions this poverty brings to people." In 2011, 25.2 percent of Egyptians became poor, up from 21.6 percent in 2009, according to the state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS). More than half of these poor people lived in Upper Egypt, it added.

DnaIndia [5-5-2012]: The researchers found that damage to enamel was evident after only five days of exposure to sports or energy drinks, although energy drinks showed a significantly greater potential to damage teeth than sports drinks. In fact, the researchers found that energy drinks caused twice as much damage to teeth as sports drinks.

CanberraTimes [5-5-2012]: A garlic ingredient is 100 times more powerful than two popular antibiotics at fighting one of the leading causes of food poisoning, say scientists. The compound, diallyl sulphide, is able to pierce a protective "biofilm" employed by the food bug that makes it hard to destroy.

TimesOfIndia [28-4-2012]: Certain neurons in pigeon brains encode the direction and intensity of Earth's magnetic field, providing the common birds with an internal global positioning system (GPS), a new study has claimed.

CNN [28-4-2012]: "Soft drinks and sugar-containing beverages are the low hanging fruit in public health today, Many children are consuming 300 calories per day or more, just in sugar-containing beverages. Compare the challenge of giving up three glasses of sugary beverages, versus getting them to do two hours of moderate physical activity."

FOXnews [28-4-2012]: Green tea is full of antioxidants called catechins; a subgroup known as EGCG may ward off everything from cancer to heart disease; Black tea has high concentrations of the antioxidant compounds known as theaflavins and thearubigins, which have been linked to lower levels of cholesterol ..

newScientist [25-4-2012]: The earlier find has anatomical features suggesting shared heritage with Indonesians and south Asians. Other skeletons found in cenotes in the area with similar features may date to around 14'000 years ago. Such finds imply that not all early Americans came from north Asia. This deals yet another blow to the idea that the Clovis people crossing an ancient land bridge between Siberia and Alaska were the first to colonise the Americas. Clovis culture dates to around 13'000 years ago.

dailyMail [20-4-2012]: The last missing pages from a supposedly 'magical' Book of the Dead from an Egyptian priest, Amenhotep, have been found after a century-long search - in a museum in Queensland.

BBC [20-4-2012]: Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater. They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface.

physOrg [20-4-2012]: Understanding the details of this mechanism could help scientists improve existing drugs, according to the researchers. Few new antibiotics have been developed in the past 40 years, and many strains of bacteria have become resistant to the drugs now available.

IRINnews [20-4-2012]: Forced child labour remains rampant in Central Africa, where poverty fuels the trafficking of children from poorer countries to oil-rich states such as Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo, according to experts. Child trafficking is defined by the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation. This definition is especially important in West and Central Africa where it often occurs with the consent of the parents and sometimes, of the children themselves, notes a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) report.

statesMan [20-4-2012]: "Consumers are beginning to understand the cost of eating cheap meat .. "

Telegraph [4-4-2012]: Still, the inescapability of tinnitus can be very disheartening. Beethoven famously complained: 'My ears whistle and buzz all day and night. I can say I am leading a wretched life.' It is useful to know that while the techniques of cognitive behavioural therapy have no effect on the subjective loudness of the 'whistling and buzzing', they do have a positive effect on the way people cope with it, a review has found.

dnaIndia [4-4-2012]: Yet, despite decades of effort, no one knows what this 'dark matter' really is. Many scientists think it's likely that the mystery will be solved with the discovery of new kinds of subatomic particles, types necessarily different from those composing atoms of the ordinary matter all around us.

Examiner [4-4-2012]: Pennsylvania is a current UFO ALERT 3 rating, with a high number of UFO sightings nationally. Pennsylvania had 30 reports in March 2012, the 5th highest reporting state - while California had 71 reports in March - the highest reporting state in the nation.

bostonHerald [4-4-2012]: A report in today's Science Translational Medicine shows that tiny nanoparticles, laced with potent doses of a cancer-fighting drug, have been able to safely and effectively target then shrink cancerous tumors, all while keeping the body's other healthy cells intact. The clinical trial involved 17 people with advanced or metastatic tumors who had already gone through traditional chemotherapy. They were all given nanoparticles laced with docetaxel, a drug most commonly used to treat lung, prostrate and breast cancers. Data shows that many of the trial participant's tumors shrank, even when they received lower doses than those usually administered.

foxNews [30-3-2012]: Rooibos is especially rich in the super-antioxidant compound quercetin. A titan among the antioxidants, quercetin imparts benefits to the heart, helps to reduce the risk of various types of cancers, fights viruses and is significantly anti-inflammatory. Inflammation is part of all known chronic degenerative diseases. The anti-inflammatory activity of quercetin means that it helps to reduce the risk of many types of health disorders. Additionally, rooibos is a source of two comparatively rare antioxidants, aspalathin and nothofagin.

foxNews [30-3-2012]: New research has revealed that women who have been infected with two different strains of HIV have more effective antibody responses than those who have only been infected once. The double infection response was even found to stop replication of the virus. The condition is known as "HIV Superinfection" occurring when a person receives two strains of HIV from two different sexual partners - and now it could be the key to fighting the disease in the future.

chinaDaily [30-3-2012]: The 500-meter Aperture Spherical radio telescope (FAST) will enable astronomers to get a jump-start on surveying neutral hydrogen in the Milky Way and other galaxies, detecting faint pulsars, looking for first shining stars and listening out for possible signals from other planets.

BBC [30-3-2012]: After six weeks, colonies exposed to the pesticide were lighter than the others, suggesting that workers had brought back less food to the hive. But the most dramatic effect was on queen production. The naturally-fed hives produced around 14 queens each - those exposed to the pesticide, just two. The French research group investigated the impact of a different neonicotinoid, thiamethoxam, on the number of bees able to make it back to the colony after release.

newStrackIndia [23-3-2012]: "Our study confirms our hypothesis that people with autism have higher perceptual capacity compared to the typical population. This can only be seen once the task becomes more demanding, with more information to process. In the more challenging task conditions, people with autism are able to perceive significantly more information than the typical adult .. "

newStrackIndia [23-3-2012]: "Venice appears to be continuing to subside, at a rate of about 2 millimeters a year," said Yehuda Bock, a research geodesist with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, Calif., and the lead author of the new article on the city's downward drift.

newScientist [23-3-2012]: FOSSIL feathers provided the definitive proof that birds descended from dinosaurs. There is one extinct beast that doesn't fit the picture, though. It is called Longisquama insignis, and it lived 230 to 240 million years ago - just before the dinosaurs evolved, and 70 to 80 million years before the first fossils of feathered dinobirds. Why, then, did Longisquama sport what look suspiciously like feathers? Longisquama's skeleton is too incomplete to work out its exact evolutionary position, but Buchwitz says the little reptile was probably part of the lineage that gave rise to pterosaurs, crocodiles, dinosaurs and birds. Many of these groups later evolved their own skin appendages, including filaments on pterosaur wings, quills on the tails of some plant-eating ornithischian dinosaurs, and the proto-feathers of theropod dinosaurs. Longisquama shows that evolution was experimenting with the genes that gave rise to feathers long before any of these animals appeared on the scene.

Plusnews [23-3-2012]: Globally, an estimated 200 children die from tuberculosis every day despite the availability of cheap drugs to prevent and treat this highly infectious condition, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) has said. Every year at least 500,000 babies and children become infected with TB worldwide, and according to WHO an estimated 70,000 die of it. The organization noted that most developing countries still use a diagnosis method developed 130 years ago - the patient coughs up a sample of sputum, which young children are generally unable to produce - and even if a child with active TB succeeds in providing a sample, it often contains no detectable bacteria.

Telegraph [23-3-2012]: In the latest study a laboratory at Universite Blaise Pascal in France studied bees infected with a disease known as nosemosis and bees exposed to an insecticide known as fipronil. Neither of the case studies resulted in many deaths. However when the bees were exposed to both the disease and the insecticide, in any combination, a large number died.

IOL [9-3-2012]: The mice developed osteoporosis after eight weeks on the diet, which had levels of vitamin E significantly higher than those found in a mouse's natural diet, according to the study, published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Huffingtonpost [9-3-2012]: Across Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and northern Senegal malnutrition rates hover between 10 and 15 percent, and in some areas rates have risen beyond the emergency threshold level of 15 percent. Over 1 million children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition.

Gulfnews [9-3-2012]: Computer models by Nikolai Maximenko, a senior researcher at the University of Hawaii, predict that the one million to two million tonnes of flotsam still in the ocean have already spread over an expanse thousands of miles wide. It is estimated that 1 per cent to 5 per cent of the debris could make it to the West Coast and would first reach Hawaii's Midway Atoll.

Newscientist [9-3-2012]: Early analysis suggests that the gorilla lineage splintered off from other great apes about 10 million years ago, some 3 million years before chimps and humans split. It's no surprise, then, that chimps and humans have more in common: the sequences found in 70 per cent of great ape genetic material are more closely related in chimps and humans than in gorillas and either species.

BBC [2-3-2012]: Modern trees in Scandinavia were thought to descend from species that migrated north when the ice melted 9000 years ago. But research suggests some conifers survived on mountain peaks that protruded from the enormous ice sheet, on islands and in coastal areas.

Yahoo [2-3-2012]: But, now, the ocean is acidifying at least 10 times faster than it did 56 million years ago, according to Hoenisch. Ocean acidification may also have occurred when volcanoes pumped massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the air 252 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, and 201 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic period, they found. Both are associated with mass extinctions.

theIndependent [2-3-2012]: Scientists believe that schizophrenia and other mental illnesses including depression and Alzheimer's disease may result from inflammatory processes in the brain. Minocycline has anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects which they believe could account for the positive findings.

Guardian [2-3-2012]: The research shows that tetrahydrocanabinol (THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana) impairs working memory by inducing a form of synaptic plasticity that weakens neuronal connections. This could lead to new THC-related drugs that have therapeutic value but do not cause this unwanted effect. More interestingly, though, the findings provide direct evidence that hitherto neglected non-neuronal cells called astrocytes are critical for brain function and play a direct role in cognitive function.

NyTimesBlogs [25-2-2012]: Moving the body demands a lot from the brain. Exercise activates countless neurons, which generate, receive and interpret repeated, rapid-fire messages from the nervous system, coordinating muscle contractions, vision, balance, organ function and all of the complex interactions of bodily systems that allow you to take one step, then another.

Telegraph [25-2-2012]: Recent scientific studies on dolphins' brains have shown they are more intelligent than chimpanzees, and they communicate with each other in a similar way to humans. They are also able to recognise themselves in a mirror, to learn and teach one another new types of behaviour, and are capable of thinking about the future, research shows. Isolating dolphins and orcas in tanks at amusement parks is morally wrong because the animals are even more socially driven than humans, they added, while killing them is tantamount to murder.

huffingtonPost [25-2-2012]: The biggest problem our industry faces is the supply of antibiotic-free meat and poultry [in] keeping up with the increasing demand. We can have an antibiotic-free food system. It does cost more to raise animals in conditions that would not require the use of antibiotics to keep them healthy -- but not much more. Estimates from independent consumer agencies and the National Academy of Sciences found that if restrictions on antibiotics were put in place, it would increase the cost of meat and poultry less than $1 per month for consumers. We should also take into account the hidden costs of maintaining current practices. Fighting antibacterial resistance in humans is estimated to add as much as $26 billion to U.S. healthcare costs every year."

medicalXpress [25-2-2012]: More Americans died in 2007 of hepatitis C infection, which causes incurable liver disease, than from the virus that causes AIDS, US health authorities said this week

IRIN [17-2-2012]: Madagascar: The country's political turmoil has scared off most of the tourists who were a major source of income for people in Antalaha, and environmentalists agree that Masoala can only be saved if the standard of living in the area around the park improves. "The inhabitants of these villages here all cut wood. Before, they used to work as tour guides or in the hotels ..."

PraguePost [17-2-2012]: The dispute between Budvar and AB (Anheuser-Busch) is more than 100 years old, but it became especially entrenched in the past 35 years as both companies began aggressively staking out territory in the export market. In 2007, the two parties reached an agreement under which Budvar could export as Budweiser in most of the EU but would go by the name Czechvar in North America. In exchange, AB would sell its product as Bud in most of Europe but would retain the Budweiser label in most other major international markets.

indiaTimes [17-2-2012]: Omega 3 fatty acids are critical for normal brain function and they have been increasingly studied as potential treatments for medical and psychiatric disorders.

FoxNews [17-2-2012]: It may seem like a dream diet: Substitute beer for food for two weeks, and never have to worry about a hangover.

NewScientist [11-2-2012]: Until recently, Neanderthals were thought to have been incapable of creating artistic works. That picture is changing thanks to the discovery of a number of decorated stone and shell objects - although no permanent cave art has previously been attributed to our extinct cousins.

Zeenews [10-2-2012]: Geologists at Yale University in the US predicted that the Americas and Asia will drift northward, closing off the Arctic and Caribbean Oceans, to merge around the North Pole and form a supercontinent called Amasia.

Zeenews [10-2-2012]: The research effort is the first comprehensive satellite study of the contribution of the world's melting glaciers and ice caps to global sea level rise and indicates they are adding roughly 0.4 millimeters annually ...

BBC [10-2-2012]: "With the stroke of pen, European fisheries ministers are wiping out millions of pounds and thousands of jobs each year by allowing overfishing to continue .. "

NewScientist [10-2-2012]: Lake Vostok has been isolated from the surface for millions of years, and many hope it contains bizarre new life forms. At present, however, that seems unlikely. The drillers have already sampled wedges of accretion ice - lake water that has naturally frozen onto the underside of the ice sheet - and although some researchers claim it contains bacteria, others write this off as contamination.

Timesofindia [3-2-2012]: "This means that overall the planet absorbs about the same amount of energy from its star as the Earth absorbs from the Sun: so that would give the planet the right temperature, if it has a rocky surface and a wet atmosphere, to host liquid water .. ". The planet, GJ 667Cc, which 22 light-years away, circles a relatively cool star (GJ667C), has an orbital period of 28.15 days and a minimum mass of 4.5 times that of Earth, according to an UNSW statement.

Dailymail [3-2-2012]: Alzheimer's disease spreads in a predictable pattern like an infection, going from one brain cell to another along linked circuits known as synapses, researchers say. The team used mice that were genetically engineered to accumulate deposits of tau in a key memory center of the brain known as the entorhinal cortex, which is where that toxic protein starts to deposit in people. They found that as the mice aged, the abnormal human tau (Tau proteins are proteins that stabilize microtubules. They are abundant in neurons of the central nervous system, but when tau proteins are defective, and no longer stabilize microtubules properly, they can result in dementias such as Alzheimer's disease.) spread along a linked pathway, traveling from the entorhinal cortex to the hippocampus to the neocortex, areas of the brain needed to form and store memories.

IRIN [3-2-2012]: Dethier said the main reason for the ARV (Antiretrovirals) crisis was the end of six years of World Bank funding in 2011. International health financing mechanism UNITAID, which provides funding for paediatric and second-line ARVs, is also ending its funding to the DRC in December 2012; the cancellation of Round 11 funding by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is only likely to worsen the situation. "But look at the indicators: more than one million people are living with HIV, 350'000 of whom qualify for ARVs but only 44'000 - or 15 percent - are on ARVs."

IRIN [3-2-2012]:Child trafficking is defined by the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation. This definition is especially important in West and Central Africa where it often occurs with the consent of the parents and sometimes, of the children themselves, notes a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) report.

PraguePost [27-1-2012]: Members of the Czech Speleological Society diving on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula have discovered a previously hidden connection between two caves in the K'oox Baal cave system, making the system the fourth-longest underwater cave in the world at more than 56.5 kilometers. At the end of the Ice Age, some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, the ocean level rose more than 100 meters, and the caves were flooded by salt- and freshwater.

Yahoo [27-1-2012]: In the CDC study, the researchers checked national hospital discharge records for 1988 through 2008, looking for patients aged 40 and older who had lost a toe, foot or leg to diabetes. They found that though the number of people with the disease more than tripled over those two decades, foot and leg amputations fell after 1996.

Yahoo [27-1-2012]: Chile: In Antofagasta, a combination of factors led to a huge increase in drinking-water arsenic by the late-1950s: naturally high arsenic levels in the environment, heavy mining and a move to make two rivers the area's main drinking-water sources. "Our observation shows that bladder cancer appears in high rates in the population that was exposed to arsenic during childhood" in the 50s and 60s ..

IRIN [20-1-2012]: Sri Lanka: One in every five children younger than five is malnourished nationwide and one in six newborns has a low birth weight, one cause of infant deaths, according to a recent study from the Colombo-based Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). But the situation is worse for children of tea estate workers, with one in three classified as underweight and 40 percent of babies born with too-low weight, IPS noted.

IRIN [20-1-2012]: Ethiopia: At least 385'000 school-children need "emergency education assistance this school year", Alexandra Westerbeek, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) communication manager in Ethiopia, told IRIN. "Between June and July 2011, the drop-out rate had reached 50 percent in some of these areas, although it is now showing a stabilizing trend .. "

BBC [20-1-2012]: Many dementia patients also suffer from depression and drugs known as selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are frequently prescribed. Dr Carolyn Sterke recorded the daily drug use and records of falls in 248 nursing home residents over a two-year period.

IRIN [17-1-2012]: Medical literature has recorded 21 cases labelled TDR-TB (Totally Drug Resistant Tuberculosis) in Germany, Italy, Iran and now India. "It is very likely that many countries will have a handful of [such] cases - in eastern Europe probably even more ..". Drug-resistant TB develops when patients do not complete the recommended six-month antibiotics treatment correctly or take sub-standard drugs, which then increases treatment time and costs.

newScientist [14-1-2012]: To understand why, think of black holes as points in the four dimensions we experience - three of space and one of time. These become "black strings" when extended into a fifth dimension of space. Black strings are unstable and break up into smaller black holes like a stream of water splitting into droplets. Lehner showed that at the point where a smaller black hole pinches off from the stream, the black hole's radius is zero, which means its density is infinite. In other words, it is a naked singularity. Lehner showed this will happen any time you have a black string.

newScientist [14-1-2012]: Famous for having the largest wingspan of any living bird, populations of the wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) have crashed in recent decades. On the Crozet Islands in the southern Indian Ocean, home to the largest breeding population of the albatross, the number of birds dropped by 54 per cent between 1976 and 1980. After briefly stabilising, the population of 2000 breeding pairs is once more in decline. ..

newScientist [14-1-2012]: The Indian report is the first since then. Udwadia blames the emergence of totally untreatable TB(tuberculosis) on poor management of the MDR(Multidrug-resistant) strain. "Years of mismanagement of MDR-TB at government and private care levels resulted in amplification of the level of resistance till we finally ended up with this untreatable strain .. "

WN [8-1-2012]: Building the pipeline would hasten the extraction of exceptionally dirty crude oil, using huge amounts of water and heat, from the tar sands, which would then be piped across the United States, refined, and burned as fuel, releasing a vast new volume of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere ...

khaleejTimes [7-1-2012]: China is regularly affected by crippling dry spells. Last spring, authorities said a drought along the Yangtze river had affected more than 34 million people, leaving livestock without water and parching a major grain belt.

chinaDaily [7-1-2012]: Lian said that China's export growth is likely to drop to 10 percent, compared with the expected 20.5 percent for 2011, because of weak external demand, but it will not see negative growth because "Made in China" products are still competitive in the global market.

newStrackIndia [7-1-2012]: Proton therapy, a type of external beam radiation therapy, is a safe and effective treatment for prostate cancer, two new studies have claimed.

Quote of the week:

Force has no place where there is need of skill.(Herodotus,ancient Greek historian, 484 BC - approx. 425 BC)

Webcam picture of the day or week: SanBenedetto, Italy (click to enlarge)

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