Oxus Research   Frontier Level Research

There’s a fascinating new story doing  the rounds at the moment about the huge scientific research centre – Heimholtz Research, which has withdrawn from a project due to political pressure.  In many ways this sounds quite controversial in itself, a research body being pressurised into not researching something!  However many might believe this is understandable due to the topic concerned.

The research in question was focussed on developing technologies to help reduce the environmental damage caused by exploiting the vast oil sand reserves in Canada. If you’ve not heard of these it refers to the loose sand or shale that are saturated with a dense and very thick form of petrol (also known as tar or bitumen).  These are found in huge quantities in Canada and contain a substantial amount of oil.

These deposits have been known about for many years, however the extraction was always too expensive to be viable commercially.  Now rising oil costs and the introduction of new technologies have made the extraction commercially viable but not ethical in many peoples opinion. 

Protestors claim that tar sands cause numerous environmental problems including vast amounts of deforestation to clear the areas and access to the deposits.  They also point out that the mining of tar sands releases over three times as much CO2 as normal oil production.  Many estimates point towards mining of these tar sand deposits becoming the biggest single contributor in North America to climate change.

Scary stuff, it i sthis sort of press that has led Helmholtz to withdraw from the research project.  The argument is of course does the withdrawing of technical expertise help in any way, should researchers be drawn into political and environmental battles.  their role after all was to help minimize the environmental impact of a the project.  It may be the problems for Helmholtz may be due to  the upcoming EU designations of companies involved in producing high pollution oil reserves.

At the very best scenario it was seen as a huge risk to the companies reputation.  On numerous TV documentaries the involvement was highlighted – check out the online versions of ARD and ZDF.  If you’re outside the country you’ll need a German proxy to access these shows (and of course speaking German would help).

It’s a very stark example of how research companies need to be careful about what projects they get involved with especially highly commerical and contorversial ones.

One of the biggest attractions of the several top diet companies that provide a diet meal delivery service is the sheer convenience of losing weight through a diet that you really have very little to do in order to make it work. It is probably why they have grown on popularity by leaps and bounds as greater numbers of people work longer hours to make ends meet in an economically uncertain world. Let’s take a look at why this way of dieting has grown in stature and what makes it such a compelling way to lose weight for its many customers.

Diets For Lazy Dieters!

If you take the Nutrisystem diet as a prime example of the way in which this type of easy and convenient dieting system works, you will see that when you take all the hard work out of a diet, the dieter who has almost nothing to do other than to eat the food and watch their weight drop tends to be more successful than many people on more complex, hands on diets.

They make it easy for the dieter in every sense by making sure there is virtually nothing to do except take each meal as it is required, take it out of its packaging and either heating it up for a hot meal, or eating it as is in the case of cold meals or breakfasts. All the meals are delivered to your home, meaning you don’t have to go to the store to buy any stuff. You don’t need to prepare, measure or weigh food portions or count calories. You don’t have to cook any meals! How convenient is that!

Reviews by the Boat Load!

It doesn’t take a lot of figuring out that the great number of reviews of Nutrisystem that can be found online are a gauge of how popular this particular brand actually is. And they are not alone in a multi-million dollar industry that is continually growing as the numbers of overweight people carries on growing in proportion.

Even taking into consideration the meals and their size, which is smaller than what most people are used to, it is still a great way to diet and lose weight. It teaches the body to get used to eating less, which is what it has to do in order to reverse the weight gain trend and turn it into a net loss.

Losing weight ought never to be a chore. It should be as simple and enjoyable as possible for the person to stick to the program. This kind of dieting does exactly that.

There can’t be many people whether scientists, academics or just causal researchers who don’t turn first to the internet for looking up information.  Of course the internet is definitely packed with excellent well researched and documented infomration, unfortunately there’s a lot more that is merely opinioniated, innaccurate or simply gibberish.   The good stuff is out there but there are two mainn challenges about using the internet for research - 

1) How to find the good stuff.

2) How to ignore the bad stuff.

Now this might sound quite simplistic and in some ways it is, but these two issues stand before anyone who is about to pop their search query into Google.  THey do encapsulate more specific problems such as everyone’s tendency to naturally find, believe and gravitate towards opinions that agree with our own.  Reserachers call this behaviour confirmation bias and it’s a problem for everyone from the school child to the world reknowned scientist.

It’s more than just spotting a link that seems to justify your position.  It’s actually a tendency to ignore information that may be accurate purely because of your preconceived beliefs.  In essence you are merely researching a position you want to prove and ignoring everything else, and that isn’t research.

Be careful where your internet searches lead you, there is nothing worse in online research than ending up referencing questionable sources of information.  Poorly document and cited articles that make jumps in logic or citing evidence that doesn’t even support an assertation.  Needless to say there’s an awful lot of this sort of information online, and I mean a LOT! 

Think carefully about how your online research proceeds, it’s often quite a linear process which depends on where you start your searches.  For instance if I was to start using Google in the UK, I’d probably follow a different path than if I’d started from the USA.  If you don’t believe me, fire up a US VPN or proxy service and complete two research threads  - there’s information about how to get a different IP address here - http://www.proxyusa.com/usvpn.  What you’ll find is that the geographic element that search engines introduce tends to put you on a slightly alternate trail, you might end up looking at the same sites but you might well be on completely different ones.  This is an area that is worth considering.

One of the most difficult aspects of research I always think is when your conclusion is completely the wrong one.  Of course I don’t mean factually ’wrong’ but rather when you arrive at an answer that nobody believes could be right.  I thought about this after reading about a survey published in the  Journal of American Medical Association - which looks at BMI and life expectancy.

Of course it’s one of those studies where we know the answer before they begin – being obese will lower your life expectancy.  However this is not what they found, in fact the survey announced that peope who were overweight were even likely to live longer.    This conclusion is bound to be unpopular and various groups have already been criticising as ’a load of rubbish’ or a ’horrific message’ to put out. 

It has to be said that if you read the study properly there are lots of caveats – firstly being severely obese did cut life expectancy.  Also of course it was only measuring deaths so you could spend those extra years alive with all sorts of miserable conditions caused by being overweight.  But it does illustrate the pressure that reserearchers are under to ’come up with the right conclusion’.  Any researcher knows that expecting a certain conclusion can seriously flaw any piece of research before you start.

At the moment the researchers are now trying to defend their conclusions from people who have decided it must be wrong.   There are of course lots of likely explanations, but again we shouldn’t look at findings and specifically look for reasons why it doesn’t match exactly what we expected.  This atttitude will seriously skew any research.

Here’s a quote from the National Obesity forum for example -

“It’s a horrific message to put out at this particular time. “We shouldn’t take it for granted that we can cancel the gym, that we can eat ourselves to death with black forest gateaux.”

Which seems to imply that the researchers should stop actually looking at the results if it doesn’t match some accepted world view.  When any piece of research like this is posted you’ll notice different attitudes in various countries too.  It’s interesting to see how nationality effects how you react to controversial information too.  I use a inexpensive proxy server to allow me to check how the News headlines in different countries react – watch these headlines on the BBC, NBC, ABC and perhaps a Canadian or French channel to see the contrast in reporting.

If you ever study journalism at a decent college or University, there’s one simple rule you are told about using the internet.  Never trust a single website for your information and most certainly not the first one you read.  Unfortunately the internet has become synonymous with the expression ’lazy journalism’ and people are happily copying and pasting innaccuracies that naturally appear over the internet.

A rather embarrassing example of this has just been illustrated in a report completed by the Lord Justice Leveson in his high profile report on the press.  If you have never heard about this – it’s an inquiry into the press and it’s culture, practices and ethics.  The report cost millions to complete and has been critical of the press and it’s frequent innacurate reporting.  Unfortunately Mr Leveson looks like he’s been rather careless himself.

In the section regarding the History of the Press, he details the founding members of the British Newspaper – The Independent.  He manages to get two of the correct however, the third founder is stated as Brett Straub who is nothing to do with the paper.  Funnily enough, Wikipedia also has a similar mistake with the real founders name – Matthew Symonds being replaced by Brett Straub.

The article was modified by a user located in Pomona, California last year.  A quick look at social networking profiles finds one Brett Straub from Pomona who describes himself as ’a lazy bum’.  Whether the two are the same we’re not entirely sure, but the Wiki article has now been corrected.  Unfortunately it wasn’t corrected quick enough as it’s now been pasted into one of the UKs most high profile reports of the decade.  The irony is not lost on the journalists slated in the report I’m sure.

It is a vital lesson on using the internet as your sole source of research.  It’s difficult to sort out what’s right and what’s wrong online, appearing on a web siite is no guarantee of accuracy.  Wikipedia attempts to track and block IP addresses from people who deliberately edit articles innaccurately.  However even this is difficult as many people can use proxies to create a completely false IP address - http://www.theninjaproxy.org/tv/a-fake-uk-ip-address/.  

The internet is probably the biggest development in the world of research ever, but it’s still simply another source.  Unless you can verify that information is correct from another source then you should treat it with caution – particularly sites like Wikipedia which can potnetially be edited by anyone.

Due no doubt partly to the media people are apt to think of scientists as busy trying to push the boundaries of our knowledge by doing such things as accelerating sub-atomic particles around a big tunnel in Switzerland or searching for microbes in the Arctic Circle. When the average person imagines a scientific genius he or she normally thinks of Einstein. Often we think the great minds are mavericks like Tesla that were misunderstood and ridiculed during their lives.

This is all partly true. However, the majority of research in engineering and science is not about radical new paradigms and ways of doing things. Rather it is about improving on existing systems; on finding new sources for resources; of making resources go farther.

One such example is the case of the electrical motor. With Edison’s DC current it was found that a drive shaft would not do a 360 degree rotation because current had to be turned on and off around the casing of the shaft to create the right electromagentic conditions for movement. The solution was braided copper brushes that made contact as the drive shaft rotated thus transferring current.

It was found that the solution could be greatly improved by using carbon blocks instead. Graphite has a higher electrical resistance and allows for a more regular transference of power as the shaft rotates. Although not brush like anymore these pieces of carbon were still called ’brushes’.

Much work has been done using different compositions of graphite in carbon brushes. Also in adding metalic elements to the carbon brushes. These varying compositions all affect the performance of different types of engine. Thus, today we are able to manufacture carbon brushes that fit a multitude of engines. Research is now underway to make liquid metal brushes.

It is important that scientists and engineers work on improving our exisiting technologies as well as trying to build completely new types of technology. Perhaps, the media needs to do more in changing stereotypes to address this dual need.

Further research: types of carbon brush

If there is one vital step that a person should always take before committing to any form of weight loss diet, it is that of doing the necessary research to ascertain whether their potential choice is a good one or not. Far too many people skip this step and blindly sign up for a diet program on the strength of a television commercial or a vague report they may have read in a glossy magazine or newspaper. This leads to a great number of failed diets which could have succeeded had the dieter only known what they were getting into before they got their credit card out of their wallet.

Researching a diet is not such a difficult or lengthy task as long as you know where to look for the right kind of information. That can only happen after you have defined your own criteria of what constitutes a preferable diet program for your personal needs. It may be that you need to investigate a shortlist of the easiest diets for losing weight, the least expensive diet programs or perhaps the most convenient kind of diets. Knowing what you want is a first step to being able to discover if what you want is available and how much it will cost you in terms of money, time and dedication.

From that point you can continue your researches using the Internet to read customer reviews and expert opinions from a variety of websites to learn about all the advantages and disadvantages of your selected diet program while also getting a feel for it from the opinions of past and present customers. This information is invaluable in helping you to ascertain whether your chosen diet program is going to be the right one for you and if it will fulfil all your needs from a nutritional standpoint as well as provide sufficient variety of foods to keep your interest throughout the diet to its conclusion.

If everything checks out, then you have found your diet. More importantly, you will have found a diet that you will in all likelihood succeed at.

The past is there waiting to be discovered. This is the narrative of archaeology. It has taken us many years to refine archaelogical techniques to preserve the records from the past and to use what we find under the ground to try to come up with descriptions about what life in pre-histroical times was like and what were the major influences that created and destroyed ancient civilizations.

Whereas much archaeological work has been done in Egpyt and the Middle East, less has been undertaken in South Asia and East Asia. This is surprising because there is a long history in these parts from which to work from. Indian and Chinese history goes back to 3,000 BC.

Recently, I undertook to study the archaelogical site discovered on the small Andaman Island belonging to Thailand called Koh Kho Khao. There is a site called Thung Tuk on the south of the island that has been discovered. It was an ancient village. At Thung Tuk on Koh Kho Khao there has been discovered a strange selection of artifacts. There was a Ganesh statue uncovered as well as Tang Dynasty pottery and Persian glass fragments. Thus, three major civilizations had an impact on the small Thai island.

The discoveries at Thung Tuk have led archaeologists to theorize that the island was an important base for several waves of immigration of peoples moving from Asia down into South East Asia.

Sadly, the dig was disrupted by the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 that claimed many lives on the island and along the Andaman coast in such places as Khao Lak and Phuket.

Despite the recent economic downturn, companies specializing in health and fitness still invest a lot of money into research and development of new products and solutions to improve health and wellbeing. Fitness companies churn out new and improved versions of equipments each year. Some weight control pills are now approved by FDA, which means they went through a lot of testing to ensure that those pills are safe. Product research involves a lot of money, which is the main reason why BIG companies always seem to release a new product  every year. It’s either that or a new version of an earlier product, but in most cases it is both.

Why product development is still vibrant in the health industry

The health niche is a huge one, dominated by the weight loss industry. With the rising number of overweight and obese people, there is a huge market of people looking to lose weight, be it through exercise, diet or both. The fitness equipment sector alone is a multi-billion dollar market. This is the main reason why there are constant supply of fitness equipments that come in different forms: an ab machine and a door gym are just a few examples.

What this means for you

This industry is where money is at. So if you’re looking to invest your money, find a company that solves health problems. A startup company is even better, provided that they have a promising product that will really address a real issue. Getting into the game early on will more than quadruple your investment once the product hits of.

Electric shaver manufacturers have been affected by the economic downturn as much as any other business in recent years. I think it’s fair to say that they have suffered their fair share of nicks and cuts due to the recent recession. Much of this pain has been caused because the products they make are considered discretionary goods and these goods have seen significant declines due to falling disposable income and consumer confidence levels.

A recent report by IBISWorld market research suggests revenues have fallen to $195 million in the five years to 2011, an annual rate of decline of 2.7%. During that same period, overall domestic demand has risen 0.3% per year, and as consumers start to regain confidence, it is expected that discretionary goods will start to benefit from some of this increase.

Another factor affecting the electric shaver market has been the rising penetration of cheap Chinese imports into a market traditionally dominated by large American and European manufacturers. The demand for cheaper products has resulted in intense price competition between manufacturers which has not been good for the US based companies. So while the Chinese are not renowned for making the best electric shaver, they do make products that most people can easily afford to buy. Overall imports have risen by a shade under 2% since 2006, but the Chinese imports account for a large proportion of this figure, and their sales have increased by almost 5% during the same period.

There is good news on the horizon though, thanks to the first signs of the green shoots of recovery, it is forecast that the electric shaver market will expand by 2.5% a year for the next 5 years. And because of this, research budgets are set to increase considerably which should see some innovative new features for many years to come.

Many people are researching heart rate monitors and looking for the ‘best one’.  The problem with that research is that there is no best heart rate monitor.  In fact, the best heart rate monitor depends on your situation.  Your fitness goals, your budget, and your current fitness level are just a few factors.  There might not be a “best heart rate monitor” but there will be a heart rate monitor that is the best one for you.

After a little careful research you can find the perfect heart rate monitor for your needs.  Here are a few factors you need to consider in your research:  cost, features and whether the heart rate monitor is uses  a chest strap or is strapless.   Cost:  Heart rate monitors comes in a wide range of prices.  They range from $40 to almost $400 dollars.  Obviously the higher the cost, the wider range of features.  If you are a beginner, you obviously don’t need to spend a lot of money.

Features:  One of the bigger differentiators in the feature sets of heart rate monitors is whether you can download your data to your computer.  Once you decide if you need that feature, you can pick the side of the price range you will be on.

Strap or strapless:  Heart rate monitors which use a strap are more accurate and more reliable  Strapless heart rate monitors allow you take your pulse by simply putting your finger on the watch face  

Heart rate monitors are not complicated- they just take some research.

A power of attorney is a legal document that allows a person, named the grantor, to appoint certain powers to another individual. These powers can cover a wide range of duties in a wide range of situations, from ensuring important financial directives are safely and correctly executed to protecting your children in case of a medical emergency under someone else’s care.

A power of attorney is set up using a power of attorney form. There are five different types that can be set up:

(1) Springing Power of Attorney

(2) Medical Power of Attorney

(3) Durable Power of Attorney

(4) Limited Power of Attorney

(5) General Power of Attorney

Durable power of attorney is the most frequently used type of this legal document and is used in situations in which the principal (the one setting up the powers) loses his or her ability to make important decisions or becomes incapacitated. The other types of power of attorney are null and void when the principal becomes mentally incompetent, but the durable power of attorney retains its powers in all situations.

There is much that can be said about the powers that can be appointed with a power of attorney, and we hope to follow up on these in future articles. Until then, you can find additional power of attorney information on LegalZoom.com.

An essential piece of equipment in any modern research is one or more high quality laboratory refrigerators. Unlike the typical residential kitchen refrigerator, lab fridges have much more rigorous and demanding performance requirements. For this reason it is important to consult laboratory refrigerator reviews before purchasing one for your R&D center.

One brand that is well regarded in this market is Thermo Scientific, who make a wide selection of Lab refrigerators. At the low end, best suited for non-critical tasks, is their ES series lab fridges. Designed for general storage they are not much more sophisticated than residential units.

They do include basic scientist targeted features such as low and high temperature alarms however. Also standard with these models is door locks for securing your samples.

Perhaps some of the best lab fridges around are the Thermo Scientific Jewett high performance line. While not cheap, these include many premium features and offer solid worry free performance.

Forced air circulation ensures consistent temperatures throughout the unit. The industrial grade compressors offer low failure rates, which is critical for important samples. Thick insulation helps maintain temperatures in case of a power outage, and a seven day graph provides a temperature history so you can look back and verify that no spoilage can have occurred.

Of course, there are other brands apart from Thermo Scientific that also have excellent lab refrigerator reviews. A couple of good lineups worthy of consideration are the products from Labrepco, Tovatech and TemPure scientific.

When it comes to choosing a quality lab fridge for your research purposes, a quality product from any of these brands offerings will serve you well. Do be sure to avoid the cheapest offerings however, as they can be a false economy if they result in weeks or months of research being lost due to a malfunction!

The panda is one of the most beloved animals in the world. Last year (2011) when 2 new pandas arrived in Uneno Zoo in Tokyo there were record lines all year to see the animals. Pandas look cute and their gentle seemingly vegetarian ways endear them to millions. And yet pandas are not vegetarians – rather they are omnivores. Unlike other bears that are nearly all exclusively carnivore.

The panda has developed a range of equipment to deal with eating bamboo. It is a very tough plant that does not easily digest. Pandas have specially adapted hands and teeth to rip up the bamboo and eat it. Moreover, the panda has developed a keratin layer in its eosphagus to prevent the stomach being damaged by ingesting bamboo. A panda will typically spend 14 hours a day foraging and eating bamboo. Bamboo makes up over 90% of a panda’s diet.

For this reason pandas and bamboo are intricately related. If you remove the food source of the panda it will die. There are two things that can do this. One is humans and the other is the bamboo itself. Humans have discoverd that bamboo is a great renewable reosurce that can be used to make a great many useful consumer items. Comsumers must be sure not to buy bamboo if they think it is taken from a high place where pandas might be living.

Bamboo flowers only once every 60 to 100 years. When it does all the bamboo flowers at the same time. It produces an abundance of seeds and then it dies. Thus, the main source of food for the pandas is taken away and replaced with a plague of rats attracted by all the seeds. The result is that many pandas starve to death.

It is conserving panda habitat and researching the affects of bamboo gregarious flowering that will save the panda, not zoos.

Those religions that are now regarded as ‘pagan’ came before the main organized religions of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. Hinduism is slightly different as it has evolved over thousands of years and still contains traces of religious beliefs that probably go back to the very dawn of man.

Many of the main religions around the world have interesting regional differences that reveal lot of local culture. For example, Tibetan Buddhism still aspects of the earlier Bon religion. In Japan people don’t see the contradiction of worshiping both Buddha and Shinto gods. In Buddhist temples you can often see statues of Shinto gods, often as ‘guardians’ to the Buddhist temple.

In China there is a strong ‘pagan’ aspect to Taosim. The Tao or way is often equated with a force of nature as well as an ideal to aspire to. Pagan religions tend to pantheistic and to also invest significance to primary apsects of nature such as the sun and the moon. In Chinese symbolism the sun is the male and the moon is the female. The sun is the ying and the moon is the yang.

In other countries literature reveals that the moon is associated with inconsistency. It constantly changes. It fits the rhythm of female menstruation. In Western culture the moon is a force that can incite madness. The word lunacy is a good example of this cultural vestige. The Romantic poets also invested the moon with the association with the much vaunted imagination.

In Thailand spirit worship is mixed in with Buddhism in common forms of worship. They have taken the worship of the moon a new step forward by inventing the Full Moon Party. There are moon parties now all over Thailand where tourists gather. The first and still the biggest is the Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan island. It is held on Haad Rin Sunrise Beach and often attracts over 20,000 people who go a bit mad under the full moon. This madness, however, is probably caused by alcohol rather than any lunar influence.

It is likely that moon parties were common in the world pre-history, and it should come as no surprise that they are making a come back. At the same time the ideology of environmentalism is growing in importance. This ideology fits in very well with the reverence that paganism afford to nature.

Further research: the Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan