Month: September 2006

Enzymes and Quantum Tunneling

In April, Seed Magazine published a fascinating article about a group of researchers who discovered a bit more about how enzymes use quantum tunneling to speed up chemical reactions.

Researcher David Leys told Seed,

Our present understanding of the physical basis of enzyme catalysis is still unable to explain the many orders of magnitude by which a reaction is “speeded up” by enzymes, nor why attempts to create artificial enzymes have so far been disappointing. Our work reveals that not only active site structure, but also motions are an essential part of the enzyme’s repertoire.

Apparently, it had been previously believed that the enzyme used a more long-range motion to perform the quantum tunneling, but the new research found that instead the enzymes used very subtle, shorter-range actions to perform the quantum tunneling.

According to Seed,

This new discovery, announced in the April 14 issue of Science could have serious implications for medicine, as it may allow scientists to develop drugs that can target or mimic enzymes.

Source:

Researchers explain how enzymes use quantum tunneling to speed up reactions. Maggie Wittlin, Seed, April 18, 2006.

Performance Enhancing . . . Contact Lenses?

As I’ve said before, I really don’t understand what the big deal over performance enhancing drugs in sports is. The Associated Press recently reported on a series of performance enhancing contact lenses being produced by Nike and Bausch&Lomb that illustrates the fuzzy thinking surrounding anything that conveys a benefit in athletic competition.

According to the Associated Press,

The lens — large enough to extend a ring around the iris — comes in two colors: amber and grey-green.

The amber lens is for fast-moving balls sports, such as tennis, baseball, football or soccer. Grey-green is better for blocking glare for runners or helping a golfer read the contour of the ground.

This, of course, immediately brings a reaction that — assuming the lenses actually live up to Nike’s hype — it might be unfair if some people use these sorts of lenses while others don’t,

Jerry Diehl, assistant director of the National Federation of State High School Associations in Indianapolis, said his group doesn’t believe the lenses provide the competitive advantage that Nike claims.

The federation allows the lenses and puts them in the same category as sunglasses or corrective lenses. The NCAA also allows the sports lenses because it considers them similar to sunglasses.

But Diehl said he’s worried about the perception of an unfair advantage.

‘If one affluent team can get this, it forces everybody else to go out and do that,’ Diehl said. ‘Is it really something that makes a difference? In this instance, at this juncture anyway, it doesn’t seem to be any better or any worse than allowing what is already under the rule.’

But affluent teams and athletes already have a myriad of advantages. They have access, in general, to better training facilities, better training programs, better coaching, and so on.

And, of course, it is no more “fair” (whatever that means) that Ted Williams supposedly had 20/10 vision than that someone may potentially use specially tinted lenses — or performance enhancing drugs such as steroids.

Life ain’t fair and neither are athletic competitions.

Source:

New contact lenses give athletes an edge. Associated Press, June 4, 2006.

Toshiba Announces 200gb 2.5 inch Hard Drive

Back in 2004, Toshiba was the first to announce a 100gb 2.5″ hard drive. It is now racing with Fujitsu and other hard drive makers to be the first to release a 200gb 2.5″ drive sometime before the end of the year.

According to CNET,

The increase in capacity comes from a couple of different engineering tweaks. The drive combines perpendicular data storage platters. Perpendicular platters store data in vertical columns and thus can hold more data than traditional longitudinal platters.

Additionally, the new drive comes with so-called tunnel magneto-resistive (TMR) recording head technology, rather than the giant magneto-resistive (GMR) recording head technology. To date, Toshiba has released perpendicular drives with GMR heads and longitudinal drives with TMR heads, but not a perpendicular TMR drive.

More, please.

Sources:

Fujitsu Plans 200GB Laptop Hard Drive. PC World, March 27, 2006.

Toshiba touts data density record with new drive. Michael Kanellos, CNET, June 4, 2006.

Phantom of the Paradise

Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise has to be one of the 5 or 6 strangest films I have ever seen.

The film is a rock n’ roll sendup of “The Phantom of the Opera” along with plenty of satire and critiques of the music industry and its attendant cultural contributions. And it’s just plain f—ing weird. Weird as in it is one of those films you can’t tell whether its pure dreck or genius — or maybe both.

BrianDepalma.Net has a long article about the film.