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Nanogen, Inc. (Nasdaq: NGEN) announced today that it has received stockholder approval on the third of the three proposals presented at its special meeting of stockholders on February 1, 2008. During the special meeting, stockholders approved two of the proposals but insufficient votes were obtained to approve Proposal #1, in which the board of directors was seeking approval to ratify the company's debt financing of August 2007. Accordingly, the meeting was adjourned until February 11th to provide shareholders with additional time to vote on the proposal. Today the company announced it has received the necessary votes to approve this proposal.
As stated in the February 1st announcement, approval of all three proposals is an important component of the company's restructuring activities and will provide the company with increased financing flexibility until positive cash flow is achieved. The company expects to achieve cash flow breakeven in late 2008 based on its current revenue and expense projections for the year.
Michigan Today - February 2008
U-M Researchers identify cells that cause nervous system disease
February 4, 2008
Microscope image of mouse Schwann cells, shown in red with the cell nuclei stained blue.
Two teams of University of Michigan researchers have tracked down the cells responsible for neurofibromatosis type1, a disfiguring, incurable condition and one of the most common hereditary disorders.
"We now know what cells to target. And that's a big step toward new therapies," said Sean Morrison, director of the U-M Center for Stem Cell Biology and leader of one of the research teams. The other group was headed by Yuan Zhu of the U-M Medical School.
Neurofibromatosis type 1, or NF1, is a peripheral nervous system condition that afflicts one in 3,500 Americans. Symptoms normally begin to appear by age 10. Though most cases are mild, the disease can lead to disfigurement, learning disabilities, blindness, skeletal abnormalities, loss of limbs and, occasionally, lethal malignancies.
NF1 causes benign tumors to grow around peripheral nerves; in 3 to 5 percent of the cases, the tumors later become malignant. The most common NF1 tumors are called neurofibromas.
Researchers have long wondered which of the body's cell types triggers the formation of neurofibromas: Is it the Schwann cells, which form the protective myelin sheath around nerve fibers, or is the true culprit the stem cells that give rise to Schwann cells during fetal development? The answer has implications for the development of drug therapies.
The two U-M studies demonstrate that a special type of Schwann cell is likely to blame, not stem cells. Both reports will be published Feb. 5 in the journal Cancer Cell.
"People have increasingly focused on the link between stem cells and cancer," said Morrison, a U-M Life Sciences Institute researcher and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. "What we're saying here is that it's not always the stem cells. The mature cells, even in the nervous system, can give rise to these cancers."
In 1990 two teams—one led by former U-M geneticist Francis Collins—discovered that NF1 is caused by one enormous gene on chromosome 17. NF1 is the most common neurological disorder caused by a single gene.
The NF1 gene makes a large and complex protein called neurofibromin, which acts as a molecular brake to prevent nervous system cells from overmultiplying. A mutation to the NF1 gene can release that brake and set in motion the runaway freight train of uncontrolled cell division that results in tumors.
Over the years, Morrison's lab has developed specialized tools that allow researchers to track and study neural crest stem cells, which give rise to the peripheral nervous system—the vast network of nerves that branch out from the brain and spinal cord. Neural crest stem cells usually disappear before birth, once they've completed their mission.
In the current study, Morrison-lab scientists Nancy Joseph and Jack Mosher tried to determine if deleting the NF1 gene can somehow cause neural crest stem cells to persist beyond birth and form neurofibromas in mice.
The researchers studied seven mouse models that had various mutations of the NF1 gene and other genes known to contribute to the formation of neurofibromas and their cancerous counterparts, malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors.
"The surprise was that we didn't see neural crest stem cells persist after birth in regions where the tumors formed, even with the NF1 deletions," Joseph said. "That argues against a stem cell origin."
The Morrison lab's study, when combined with work done in Zhu's lab, led U-M researchers to conclude that Schwann cells, not neural crest stem cells, proliferate to form the tumors.
In fact, Zhu and his colleagues were able to show that a specific type of Schwann cell, called a non-myelinating Schwann cell, is the likely source of potentially cancerous neurofibromas.
"One of the difficulties of NF1 is that it is hard to predict when tumors will grow and which tumors will turn malignant. You don't want to use a very aggressive therapy because some tumors will never grow," said Zhu, an assistant professor of molecular medicine and genetics at the U-M Medical School and a member of the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.
In addition to pinning down the cell type, Zhu's lab determined how non-myelinating Schwann cells start overmultiplying. They found that nerve damage and inflammation were among the two earliest events in tumor initiation.
"With this insight into the initiation of the disease, we can develop strategies to prevent the tumors from forming," Zhu said.
Joseph and Mosher were the lead authors of the Morrison lab's Cancer Cell paper. Funding sources included the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Children's Tumor Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Huarui Zheng and Lou Chang were the lead authors of the Zhu lab's paper. Their work was supported by grants from the American Cancer Society, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center and the U-M Biological Sciences Scholars Program.
Pray tell, is $3.90 your target? Do you plan to sell when that target is reached, or to adjust the target?
This is from litigation that began some years ago.
Apparently rather few people signed the necessary paperwork, so the payouts have been quite substantial.
What are you basing your opinion on?
Shall I order a crane to stand by?
Yes it is. There is still a pending reverse split for NGEN. I do not see much movement until after that, which could be down.
How are you guys going to explain all that to homeland security?
Ask MNFats
I had something more fashionable in mind.
Yeah, thigh high boots, for stomping.
Bring a stack of 'em. We can peddle them on the train and cover our expenses. This could easily supplement, if not surpass, the take from my accordion music.
Brilliant!! Pick one up for me too.
I do not think Mr Google sees it that way.
TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)----Alvarion Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALVR), the world's leading provider of WiMAX(TM) and wireless broadband solutions, today announced that NGI, one of the main ISPs in Italy, has deployed its BreezeACCESS(R) VL and BreezeNET(R) B to offer high speed broadband wireless services in Northern Italy. The new network provides extended voice and data services to Lombardia, Veneto and Piemonte regions, covering approximately 15,000 km2.
BUSINESS WIRE
Posted: 2008-01-29 08:02:46
Sancon Helps China To Develop a Green Economy
According to China National Resources Recycling Association and energy experts, China's import of recycled raw material grew from 1-2 million tons per year in the early 1990's to over 50 million tons per year in 2007, demonstrating its thirst for resource materials. China's fast growing economy currently requires 50 percent more energy per unit of output than the global average, five times more than the United States and 10 times more than Japan. While global natural resources continue to increase in demand and price, China will need to develop its own resources recovery and green energy market to continue its economic growth.
Sancon Resources Recovery Inc. is a fast growing environmental services company that has found its niche in China's effort to "Go Green". Sancon started its business in Melbourne, Australia in 2002, offering waste management and industrial solid waste recovery services to large industrial and consumer companies. It expanded into China in 2006 due to the background of its CEO Mr. Jack Chen, a China-born waste expert with many years of operating experiences in recovered resources trading. Since Sancon began its China expansion, it has launched a network of waste recovery plants around China, offering environmental services to fortune 1000 companies. These companies often require quality waste management services on a national wide scale. Sancon recently opened its sixth waste recovery plant in the city of Xiamen in the south eastern part of China, in addition to other five plants located around China.
Mr. Jack Chen, CEO of Sancon commented: "We are facing enormous opportunities here in China for the next decade. The new proposed green economy would be only feasible with companies like Sancon, realizing and supplying China's recycled raw materials for its manufacturers. Our services will also help our clients to reduce energy usage and landfill costs. With our investments and plants built out in the last two years, Sancon is now able to service as many as 30 Chinese cities in waste recovery with its logistic operations. Sancon today is perhaps the only environmental service company in China with such wide scope of coverage and high service standards. Sancon is well positioned to help China's effort of going green and claim a leadership position in the industry."
Re:
Tuesday Tuesday...
Not sure I can trust that one either.
Monday Monday
Can't trust that day
Go for it. Let us know what you find out.
Am surprised that there was not one question on FDE drives.
Seagate CC at 2:30 Pacific Coast time
1-877-223-6202
ID = 28131131
Damn, why didn't I think of that?
I had a 20k bid to sell at .05. Rembrandt took 1000 to maintain the .05 close. I estimate that that cost Rembrandt at least $10 for the trade, or some 20% of the total cost.
That trade also cost me some 20% of the return. I believe this company will move a lot higher in the not too distant future, but this kind of manipulation is not to my taste.
Oh ye of little faith....
That's easy to resolve. Buy some at end of the day at $.23.
Taste test seems to confirm that drinkers do enjoy costly wine more
(01-15) 04:00 PST Washington --
Apparently, raising the price really does make the wine taste better.
At least that seems to be the result of a taste test. The part of the brain that reacts to a pleasant experience responded more strongly to pricey wines than cheap ones - even when tasters were given the same vintage in disguise.
Antonio Rangel and colleagues at California Institute of Technology thought the perception that higher price means higher quality could influence people, so they decided to test the idea.
They asked 20 people to sample wine while undergoing functional MRIs of their brain activity. The subjects were told they were tasting five different Cabernet Sauvignons sold at different prices.
However, there were actually only three wines sampled, two being offered twice, marked with different prices.
A $90 wine was provided marked with its real price and again marked $10, while another was presented at its real price of $5 and also marked $45.
The testers' brains showed more pleasure at the higher price than the lower one, even for the same wine, Rangel reports in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In other words, changes in the price of the wine changed the actual pleasure the drinkers experienced, the researchers reported. By manipulating prices, "We can change how wine tastes without changing the wine," Rangel said. "It's mind blowing."
On the other hand, when tasters didn't know any price comparisons, they rated the $5 wine as better than any of the others sampled.
"We were shocked," Rangel said in a telephone interview. "I think it was because the flavor was stronger and our subjects were not very experienced."
He added that wine professionals would probably be able to differentiate the better wine - "one would hope."
George Loewenstein, professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, who was not involved in the study, said the findings support other research on consumer behavior.
"People pay high prices for water from Italy and we know that water tastes about the same wherever it comes from," he said. "Price is one of the many attributes that people pay attention to, and it affects how we perceive things as a consumer."
The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.
It was a graphic that ran at the opening of the market. Barely caught it, but it did say Dell-Intel and dual-core. May run on the hour, but that is just a guess. Intel earnings today after the close of the market.
Dell - Intel ads running this morning on CNBC!!!
Life would indeed be dull without you!!
Ok, I am adding Barbaresco to my shopping list!!
Ok, whopee. I'm off to the stare for 2 bottles and a pint of cognac. I sure hope I can find it.
Gosh! How far into the 2nd bottle before she winks?
Wow, Really?
I'd buy that wine just for the poster.
Can anybody here summarize the CC?
CC at 11AM EDT
1-866-682-6100
2000 May 2, EMBASSY tm Enabled Devices to Deploy This Year - Hitachi Europe and Wave Systems Announce Alliance to Develop Secure Smart Commerce Solutions.
(IHub #68211, 2/4/05)
Proxy came in today for proposed reverse split and more dilution.
Significant breaches of data security due to recklessness or impropriety should be made a criminal offence, a committee of MPs said Thursday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080103/wl_uk_afp/britainpoliticsdatajustice;_ylt=Am22CfaZaxGvYW3HwgwF7j10bBAF
A Timeline of the Human Transformation to Robot from:
http://www.timelinesdb.com
1890 Jan 9
Id:12925 Karel Capek, Czech writer and playwright, was born. He is best remembered for his play R.U.R. which contained the first use of the word "robot."
1950
Id:63062 Isaac Asimov published “I, Robot,” a book of short stories. In the book he wrote the Three Laws of Robotics, which were designed to prevent robots from harming people.
1981 Jul
Id:63064 Kenji Urada (37), Japanese factory worker, was killed by a robot’s hydraulic arm becoming the 1st recorded victim to die at the hands of robot. Details of the accident were revealed for the first time on December 8, 1981, following a government investigation.
1981 Jul
Id:80119 Kenji Urada (b.944), Japanese factory worker, was killed by a robot’s hydraulic arm becoming the 1st recorded victim to die at the hands of robot. Details of the accident were revealed for the first time on December 8, 1981, following a government investigation.
1984 Jul 21
Id:74934 In Jackson, Michigan, a male die-cast operator (34) was pinned by a hydraulic Unimate robot. He died after 5 days. This was the 1st documented case of a robot killing a human in US.
1986
Id:71214 Honda began a robot program at a fundamental research center outside Tokyo.
1995 Apr 1
Id:48437 Aaron, a computer-driven robot began painting a new 25 sq. ft canvas on a daily basis. It was designed and programmed by Harold Cohen, a San Diego computer scientist. The event was scheduled to start in Boston at 300 Congress St. and go to May 29.
1996 Dec 26
Id:47715 Honda Motor Co. announced the first human-shaped robot that can move independently and do basic tasks. It stood 6 feet and weighed 462 lbs. and took 10 years of engineering.
1997 Jul 5
Id:43635 NASA scientists brainstormed to fix problems that left Mars Pathfinder's robot rover stuck aboard the lander.
1997 Nov 24
Id:84264 Space-walking astronauts from the shuttle Columbia grabbed a spinning satellite with their hands, enabling the cockpit crew to use the shuttle's robot arm to return it to the cargo bay.
1998 Jan 6
Id:39059 A NASA Lunar Prospector, the 3rd robot mission of the Discovery Program, first scheduled for Jan 5, was launched.
1999
Id:55679 Japan’s Sony Corp. began selling the robotic dog AIBO. Production of the robot dog was cancelled in 2006 as part of a restructure program.
2000 May 3
Id:33359 In the southern Philippines 2 hostages died as the military clashed with rebels under Commander Robot (Ghalib Andang) at Talipao. On Basilan Island 15 hostages, 9 children and 6 teachers, were rescued and 4 were killed when government troops engaged the rebels. At Zamboanga, Mindanao, the MILF took some 100 hostages and at least 4 people were killed.
2000 Aug 31
Id:34127 It was reported that computer scientists had created a robot to design and build other robots almost entirely without human help.
2000 Nov
Id:34831 Honda introduced its 4-foot bipedal Asimo robot.
2001 Apr 19
Id:30325 The space shuttle Endeavour went into orbit with 7 astronauts on an 11-day mission to install a billion-dollar robot arm on the Int’l. Space Station.
2001 Apr 22
Id:30337 Two spacewalking astronauts, including Canadian Chris Hadfield, installed a massive Canadian-built robot arm on the international space station.
2001 Apr 23
Id:30344 A US robot spy plane completed the 1st unmanned trans-Pacific flight from California to Australia.
2001 May 1
Id:30404 The space shuttle Endeavour landed at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mohave Desert following the installation of the billion-dollar robot arm on the Int’l. Space Station.
2002 May 8
Id:26555 In Israel a suicide bomber detonated himself prematurely. Israeli sappers used a robot to drag the man, still alive, across a road for inspection.
2004 Dec 15
Id:22011 A walking, talking child-size robot from Honda Motor Co. managed an easy, although comical, jog in the Japanese automaker's latest quest to imitate human movement.
2004
Id:44861 Qatar offered the Swiss robotics firm K-Team SA a $1.37 million contract to design a robot jockey for camel racing. A 59-pound robot was set to premier in October 2005.
2005 Feb 17
Id:17148 Researchers demonstrated a robot that used a “passive-dynamic design” to learn walking step by step like a toddler.
2005 Oct 9
Id:68440 A driverless Volkswagen won a $2 million race across the rugged Nevada desert, beating four other robot-guided vehicles that completed a Pentagon-sponsored contest aimed at making warfare safer for humans [see Oct 8].
2005 Nov 2
Id:49435 In California authorities arrested Jeanson James Ancheta (20) for conspiracy to cause damage to a computer, accessing a computer to conduct fraud and money laundering among other charges. He had used robot viruses to commandeer machines to “disseminate spam, hawk fake goods, and send “phishing” emails to steal bank and other personal information.” Ancheta faced a maximum of 50 years in prison.
2005 Nov 12
Id:50042 Japan’s Hayabusa probe successfully released its Minerva surface-exploring robot, but Minerva appeared to start drifting away from the asteroid's surface. The space agency said it is targeting actual landings on the potato-shaped asteroid Itokawa on Nov. 19 and Nov. 25. The asteroid was named after Hideo Itokawa, founder of Japan’s space program. Hayabusa was the 1st spacecraft to use an ion engine as its main propulsion device.
2005 Dec 16
Id:52493 Sony Corp. unveiled an upgrade of its 23.5-inch humanoid robot QRIO, which can now recognize boxes and play with them like building blocks.
2006 Nov 17
Id:69766 An Israeli newspaper reported that Israel is using nanotechnology to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets.
2007 Jun 26
Id:78541 A Japanese robot maker unveiled what it called the world's first prototype of an artificial hand with "air muscles" that can do even delicate work like picking up a raw egg.
2007 Nov 29
Id:84456 ZMP of Japan began selling a two-legged walking robot that runs on Microsoft's new robotics software, a product the companies said will make it easier to transfer technology from one robot to another.
Today's Sunday SF Chronicle featured 2 major articles relating to data security: one mostly concerned with Google and online privacy, and the other (link below) regarding California state policy on data theft, with the focus on Joanne McNabb, head of the state Office of Privacy Protection.
I sent an e-mail to the writer of the article asking for more coverage on solutions to the problem along with a link to my timeline of Wave Systems as one example of current corporate efforts to address such problems. I will post if there is any response. I suspect every state has a person with a role similar to McNabb. I wonder if they are all familiar with the Dell-Seagate-Wave triumvirate?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/30/BU0EU2U1K.DTL