From TIME
Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success?
Monday, Sep. 28, 2009
We should still have a lot of faith in the power of Wikipedia, yet this article from TIME should make us step back and start pondering how Wiki has impacted our life.
There is no doubt that Wikipedia is one of the most informative tools since the emergence of Internet. Yet when people are enjoying the wealth of knowledge they have gained from Wiki, they need to appreciate the notion that the ‘authors’ of Wikipedia are merely volunteers, not necessarily people working in the respective fields – no offense. True, there are proofreading mechanisms taking place through the pages, but given that you have a decent knowledge of a certain field, you will never believe how easy you can spot out inaccuracies in any of the pages. Indeed, I feel that Wikipedia is best used as a tool to facilitate one’s learning process - serving as a ‘starting point’ for further information research. Indeed the most useful part of a Wiki page is often its reference section, as that gives us a lot of sane by pointing to sources which have a stronger potential to be accurate (e.g. a key web page or a good journal article). We have heard too many of this inside jokes where students research on the Wikipedia pages to write essays, and those who cite Wikipedia as a sort of reference will be clearly discredited by any educated individual. It is a weird thing - but some people seem to have the assumption that they will be labeled as ‘hip’ by referencing sources in Wikipedia. The irony is here – since the advancement of Internet, people seem to be a bit out of league with their critical thinking skills.
Wikipedia has often misused as a platform for insidious defamatory purposes. Certain types of pages, such as those about politics, living people and sensitive issues are infamous for their opinioned content and inaccuracies.
Wikipedia represents part of the establishment of the Internet Age. We are all helping to shape its future, and with luck, it should serve as a reliable and precious information mine for all of us.
by Ed Law ^o^ 27/9/2009
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Saturday, 26 September 2009
Retweet this: Twitter valued at $1 billion - taken from msnbc.com
Retweet this: Twitter valued at $1 billion
Internet darling receives a $100 million infusion despite lack of revenue
updated 8:00 p.m. ET Sept. 25, 2009
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33021947/ns/business-us_business/
Internet darling receives a $100 million infusion despite lack of revenue
updated 8:00 p.m. ET Sept. 25, 2009
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33021947/ns/business-us_business/
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Know your job, D.C.
From the Economist
A potential anti-cancer therapy
Identifying the enemy within
Sep 22nd 2009
From Economist.com
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/tm/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14490433&source=hptextfeature
A lovely crossover of molecular biology (in this case, cancer and immunology) with materials science– an interdisciplinary favour. Using an implant with GM-CSF, which attracts a dendritic cell, a type of antigen presentation cell. The dendritic cell carries its duty by presenting a bacterial / viral antigen to a cytotoxic (killer) T cell and carries out the execution. The result is clearly ‘ encouraging’ because it serves to teach the dendritic cell, which is not quite good at dealing with cancer cells, the way to do that. A further development of this biodegradable materials will be to target other important diseases such as inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
By Ed Law 23/9/2009 ^o^
A potential anti-cancer therapy
Identifying the enemy within
Sep 22nd 2009
From Economist.com
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/tm/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14490433&source=hptextfeature
A lovely crossover of molecular biology (in this case, cancer and immunology) with materials science– an interdisciplinary favour. Using an implant with GM-CSF, which attracts a dendritic cell, a type of antigen presentation cell. The dendritic cell carries its duty by presenting a bacterial / viral antigen to a cytotoxic (killer) T cell and carries out the execution. The result is clearly ‘ encouraging’ because it serves to teach the dendritic cell, which is not quite good at dealing with cancer cells, the way to do that. A further development of this biodegradable materials will be to target other important diseases such as inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
By Ed Law 23/9/2009 ^o^
Medical TWEETments
From TIME
Are Med-Student Tweets Breaching Patient Privacy?
By ALICE PARK Wednesday, Sep. 23, 2009
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1925430,00.html
Take a non-medic’s advice. Read and understand the first sentence in this TIME article – this will be the single most informative statement for anyone who uses the internet for whatever reasons.
Chances are, you have been reading these sorts of articles regularly on all these important magazines. Forget how Barack Obama used Twitter for his presidential campaign and health-care issues, or how Perez Hilton / Ashton Kutcher have become so ‘hip’ by having flocks of followers on their Tweeter. The sets of our private lives (via our social-networking pages) and our work life have been overlapping more than ever since the day it became cool to use Facebook, have MySpace and Tweeting around. And now, it appears the issue is getting serious – because some medics (students presumably) may not have observed the regulations and somehow exploited the confidentiality of their patients through witless statements or disposals through their Facebook and Twitter.
These types of incidents are not novel: in a recent NEWSWEEK article, US military has considered banning the use of the social websites, lest that important information may be leaked through one of two tweets or silly posts.
The speed and efficiency of social websites can not be underestimated. Yet the misuse of these pages has aroused important issues that requires detailed discussions. We are at a transitive state where this type of trend starts to entangle with our daily or even professional life, and there will be important ethical issues to consider. The situation is very much reminiscent of the dawn of genetic engineering - people who are not in the field will start to ask a lot of questions and wonder how it might have affected them. Indeed, these types of issues concerning privacy should serve as important topics in bio-ethics, for which all of us should be aware of.
That is a long way to go for the development of social websites. But one thing is obvious: your personal page (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace…) represents your online CV. Anyone, including your boss, a potential employer, your FRENEMY, or a no-body , may get access to any of your information, including those you don’t mean to share for real. I am no big brother, but I am sure someone is WATCHING you.
By Ed Law 23/9/2009 ^o^
Are Med-Student Tweets Breaching Patient Privacy?
By ALICE PARK Wednesday, Sep. 23, 2009
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1925430,00.html
Take a non-medic’s advice. Read and understand the first sentence in this TIME article – this will be the single most informative statement for anyone who uses the internet for whatever reasons.
Chances are, you have been reading these sorts of articles regularly on all these important magazines. Forget how Barack Obama used Twitter for his presidential campaign and health-care issues, or how Perez Hilton / Ashton Kutcher have become so ‘hip’ by having flocks of followers on their Tweeter. The sets of our private lives (via our social-networking pages) and our work life have been overlapping more than ever since the day it became cool to use Facebook, have MySpace and Tweeting around. And now, it appears the issue is getting serious – because some medics (students presumably) may not have observed the regulations and somehow exploited the confidentiality of their patients through witless statements or disposals through their Facebook and Twitter.
These types of incidents are not novel: in a recent NEWSWEEK article, US military has considered banning the use of the social websites, lest that important information may be leaked through one of two tweets or silly posts.
The speed and efficiency of social websites can not be underestimated. Yet the misuse of these pages has aroused important issues that requires detailed discussions. We are at a transitive state where this type of trend starts to entangle with our daily or even professional life, and there will be important ethical issues to consider. The situation is very much reminiscent of the dawn of genetic engineering - people who are not in the field will start to ask a lot of questions and wonder how it might have affected them. Indeed, these types of issues concerning privacy should serve as important topics in bio-ethics, for which all of us should be aware of.
That is a long way to go for the development of social websites. But one thing is obvious: your personal page (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace…) represents your online CV. Anyone, including your boss, a potential employer, your FRENEMY, or a no-body , may get access to any of your information, including those you don’t mean to share for real. I am no big brother, but I am sure someone is WATCHING you.
By Ed Law 23/9/2009 ^o^
Sunday, 13 September 2009
The Stumbling BLOG
See how the process of live blogging whoops an or-else table-turning chemical reaction into ... submission.
The stir all started when a publication appeared on an important chemistry journal, JACS (Journal of American Chemical Society), in which it suggested sodium hydride (NaH), a rather unlikely contender, as an intriguing OXIDIZING agent, converting an alcohol into a ketone (albeit a rather limited scope as theauthors observed). In layman's term, it sounds as if the 'black has now become white'. Even any people in the field with minimal vigilance can feel this eye-popping sensation, and people withthe least curiosity about things will wonder how that just happened.
Yet the table is turned just as fast as it takes for the reaction to set up - the mastermind behind the chemistry blog, Totally Synthetic, ran a number of test reactions to explore the generality of this special reaction immediately. No less than 5 groups around the world followed suit and engaged in a number of experimental trials to see how sodium hydride did this little trick, presumably after learning this discovery from the JACS website / RSS feeds. A lot of comments were then exchanged at the blog, and they started to discover certain flaws in the results of this publication - sodium hydride seems to have lost its magic! As it turned out, sodium hydride is NOT the magic after all- it is likely the air that somehow found its way into the reaction flasks which aided in the oxidation of the alcohol group and scored the goal. The question is - How does the table turned over again in such a short duration and efficient manner? It is all about blogging.
It seems the side-show of the circus has attracted more attention in this particular case - it is through the live blogging which makes the whole process of 'peer review' so efficient this time. Clearly in the internet age, we are now in a position to sneak-peek'ASAP articles' even before the hard copies (the book itself) come out , thanks to the enormous journal databases on the web. Fancy the favor of being a sexy web chick? Tweet the way to your journal base then- indeed a number of important journals like those on RSC and Angewandte are now on Twitter. What we can learn from this incident is the notion that a novel form of paradigm is evident- the advance of online publications and communications can indeed serve as a 'preliminary' peer review process, and live blogging may act as a nice platform for many constructive discussions and criticisms. We all need to be ready to change, but at this stage a 'cautious optimistic' attitude would be appropriate.
Ironically , if the 'shock factor' of the article title wasn't that high, it may not even attract the siren after all!!
^o^ Ed Law 13/9/2009
Explore the detailed coverage at: RSC CHEMISTRY WORLD Sep Issue P.6
The stir all started when a publication appeared on an important chemistry journal, JACS (Journal of American Chemical Society), in which it suggested sodium hydride (NaH), a rather unlikely contender, as an intriguing OXIDIZING agent, converting an alcohol into a ketone (albeit a rather limited scope as theauthors observed). In layman's term, it sounds as if the 'black has now become white'. Even any people in the field with minimal vigilance can feel this eye-popping sensation, and people withthe least curiosity about things will wonder how that just happened.
Yet the table is turned just as fast as it takes for the reaction to set up - the mastermind behind the chemistry blog, Totally Synthetic, ran a number of test reactions to explore the generality of this special reaction immediately. No less than 5 groups around the world followed suit and engaged in a number of experimental trials to see how sodium hydride did this little trick, presumably after learning this discovery from the JACS website / RSS feeds. A lot of comments were then exchanged at the blog, and they started to discover certain flaws in the results of this publication - sodium hydride seems to have lost its magic! As it turned out, sodium hydride is NOT the magic after all- it is likely the air that somehow found its way into the reaction flasks which aided in the oxidation of the alcohol group and scored the goal. The question is - How does the table turned over again in such a short duration and efficient manner? It is all about blogging.
It seems the side-show of the circus has attracted more attention in this particular case - it is through the live blogging which makes the whole process of 'peer review' so efficient this time. Clearly in the internet age, we are now in a position to sneak-peek'ASAP articles' even before the hard copies (the book itself) come out , thanks to the enormous journal databases on the web. Fancy the favor of being a sexy web chick? Tweet the way to your journal base then- indeed a number of important journals like those on RSC and Angewandte are now on Twitter. What we can learn from this incident is the notion that a novel form of paradigm is evident- the advance of online publications and communications can indeed serve as a 'preliminary' peer review process, and live blogging may act as a nice platform for many constructive discussions and criticisms. We all need to be ready to change, but at this stage a 'cautious optimistic' attitude would be appropriate.
Ironically , if the 'shock factor' of the article title wasn't that high, it may not even attract the siren after all!!
^o^ Ed Law 13/9/2009
Explore the detailed coverage at: RSC CHEMISTRY WORLD Sep Issue P.6
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