Positive Psychology News Daily ? Honda and the Joy of Engineering

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Bridget Grenville-Cleave, MAPP graduate of the University of East London, is a UK-based positive psychology consultant, trainer and writer. She is author of Introducing Positive Psychology: A Practical Guide (2012), and The Happiness Equation with Dr Ilona Boniwell. She regularly facilitates school well-being programs and Positive Psychology Masterclasses for personal and professional development. Find her on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter @BridgetGC. Website. Full bio. Her articles are here.

I recently had the privilege of attending an Open University Business School Masterclass and networking event at which Ken Keir, the Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Europe, talked about the way innovation, the? lifeblood of the Honda company, drives its success.

Even though he focused on Honda?s R&D philosophy, explaining for example how,?in recessionary times, the company goes against the tide and invests more in R&D rather than less, by the time we reached slide 5 of the presentation on the Honda strategy, vision, values, and behavior, it was pretty clear to me that here is a company founded on positive psychology principles.

What intrigued me was that Ken Keir didn?t mention positive psychology once. For all I know, he has never even heard of it. However, if you look at how Honda operates strategically, how it works day-to-day as well as the kind of language it uses to describe the business, it?s pretty clear that it?s a strengths-based company through and through.

How did I reach this conclusion?

An Organization Based on Three Joys

Quite simply, Honda is a company which lives and breathes its values.

Back in 1951 the founder, Mr Soichiro Honda, outlined in a Management Policy document the principles on which the Honda Company is based.

It may surprise you to discover that these are:

1. The joy of making
2. The joy of selling
3. The joy of buying

Now many corporate leaders might raise their eyebrows at this point and baulk slightly at the use of the word joy. If you?ve worked in the corporate environment you?ll know how pretty much any mention of emotions is unwelcome, especially positive ones like joy, kindness, and awe. The only time emotion really gets its foot over the corporate threshold is when we?re talking about that rather rational and sanitized topic, emotional intelligence. The difference here is that Honda brings these three values alive. It lives and breathes them in everything it does. You could say that the Three Joys are its raison d??tre.

The Joy of Making

Take the joy of making. Ordinarily engineering isn?t a term which lights many fires, unless you happen to be an engineer. Engineers are not known for their people skills nor their positive emotion. In fact engineering tends to be perceived as a bit dull. Dry even. And definitely dusty. Engineering is a highly technical, specialized domain, dominated by deep-thinking, serious left-brainers.

But just read Soichiro Honda?s explanation of the first joy:

?the joy of producing?is a joy known only to the engineer. Just as the Creator used an abundant will to create in making all the things that exist in the natural universe, so the engineer uses his own ideas to create products and contribute to society.?

So what does this tell us? Firstly, that the joy of making, the engineering that is at the heart of the Honda company, is its strength. Secondly that Honda encourages its engineers to embrace and play to their strengths, rather than try to be something they?re not. Thirdly, Soichiro Honda clearly saw that using this strength in the service of something greater was crucially important to the success of his company. More than half a century later positive psychology research tells us that this is the essence of finding meaning and a key to flourishing.

Mr Honda continued,

?This is a happiness that can hardly be compared to anything else. Furthermore, when that product is of superior quality so that society welcomes it, the engineer?s joy is absolutely not to be surpassed. As an engineer myself, I am constantly working in the hope of making this kind of product.?

Not only does he refer to joy, but also to happiness and hope.

The Joy of Selling

The second joy, the joy of selling, arises naturally from the creation and manufacturing of high quality, high performing, reasonably priced products.

??it goes without saying that the people who engage in selling it will experience joy? What sells well generates profits, as well as pride and happiness in handling those items??

Students of positive psychology will have come across the study by Martin Seligman that suggests that optimistic sales people are more successful at selling. What sales people wouldn?t be passionate and optimistic about selling a product that they knew would delight their customer?

The Joy of Buying

The third joy, the joy of buying, is the sole preserve of the customer, the person who buys a Honda, whether that?s a motorbike, a lawnmower with a Honda engine, or a car. I?m currently driving my 4th Honda, so I can personally vouch for the joy of buying. The way Soichiro Honda describes this third value makes you believe that other people?s happiness is the sole reason the company exists:

?It is neither the manufacturer nor the dealer that best knows the value of the product and passes final judgment on it. Rather, it is none other than the purchaser who uses the product in his daily life. There is happiness in thinking, ?Oh, I?m so glad I bought this.? This joy is the garland that is placed upon the product?s value. I am quietly confident that the value of our company?s products is well advertised by those products themselves. This is because I believe that they give joy to the people who buy them.?

So in these three, deceptively short and simple values, we have a whole positive psychology philosophy, culture, and way of doing business. As Soichiro Honda concluded,

?The Three Joys form our company?s motto. I am devoting all my strengths in order to bring them to reality?

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Learning from Honda: Creating Your Own Company Joys?

So what can we learn from Honda?s Three Joys? I?d suggest the following:
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1. Stick to what you?re good at! Allow, encourage and facilitate all your employees to play to their unique strengths. This assumes that a) you know what their strengths are and b) you need these strengths in your company.

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2. Don?t shy away from positive emotions at work. They have a place in every successful company. If this seems a bit scary, you could start by looking at how to create a more healthy balance of right brain and left brain, feeling and thinking, intuition and analysis. Alternatively, if you had to suggest Three Joys for your company, what would they be and why?
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3. Make meaning important. People want to know how the work they do benefits others, especially customers, clients, patients and society generally. Help them make those connections and find ways to reinforce them.

When I heard Ken Keir speak I was expecting only to find out about Honda?s innovation and creativity. Instead I also discovered a company imbued with positive psychology principles. Every time I drive my Honda I?ll be thinking about the Three Joys. And every time I meet an engineer I?ll be reminded of why you should play to your strengths.

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References

Honda, Soichiro (1951). The three joys. Honda Monthly #4.

Britton, K. (2009). Laugh-o-meters needed at work. Positive Psychology News Daily.

Seligman, M. E. P. & Schulman, P. (1986). Explanatory style as a predictor of productivity and quitting among life insurance sales agents. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(4), 832-838.

Images

Honda the power of dreams courtesy of by S1m0nB3rry

You meet the nicest people on a Honda courtesy of gingerbeardman

My Honda keys

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Source: http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/bridget-grenville-cleave/2012120324787

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Syrian forces pound Damascus suburbs, flights to resume

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces pounded rebel-held suburbs around Damascus with fighter jets and rockets on Sunday, opposition activists said, killing and wounding dozens in an offensive to push rebels away from the airport and stop them closing in on the capital.

The army struck hard after a week of rebel advances, including the capture of two military bases near the capital. Rebels had been planning to push into central Damascus from their strongholds on the outskirts and fighting in the past week has been fierce.

Activists said heavy rocket fire struck towns close to the Damascus airport road, where rebels and the army had been locked in three days of clashes. Some described constant shelling, similar to carpet bombing, in towns like Beit Saham.

"It was frightening because it was the first time we heard continuous shelling. Really powerful explosions, one after the other, were shaking the area. I could see fire coming up from the town," said Samir al-Shami, from the opposition's Syrian Youth Union, speaking by Skype.

"This was the worst day in those people's lives."

In a sign the government had regained some control over the airport, EgyptAir said it was resuming flights to Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo on Monday after a three-day halt in which Damascus airport was effectively closed due to unrest. The airline's head said conditions were stable.

No comment was immediately available from Emirates Airline, which had also suspended its flights indefinitely.

The army's assaults appear to have staved off a rebel advance into central Damascus so far. But neither side has gained ground in recent days, and fighting continued along the outskirts of the city despite heavy shelling by Assad's forces.

But rebels said the area around Damascus airport was not secure, with clashes still erupting along the road. It is difficult to verify opposition reports because the government restricts media access into Syria.

Other activists said the road was in army hands but the area was still unstable due to fighting in nearby towns like Beit Saham, about 1 kilometer away.

"No one controls that road. The army has tanks along the road, but the whole area is exposed to rebel attacks and they could fire on it any time," said one, asking not to be named.

DEADLY ROCKET ATTACKS

Rocket attacks on Sunday killed at least 10 in the town of Deir al-Asafir, 12 km east of Damascus, activists said. Video published by activists from the town showed at least five bodies, one of them a young boy and one an elderly man. The other bodies were wrapped in blood-spattered white sheets.

Syrian security officials and diplomatic sources say the army's goal is to push rebels back and seal off central Damascus from the surrounding suburbs where the opposition is dominant.

Rebels say they want to control the airport because the army has used it to bring in weapons. Western intelligence reports earlier this year said that Iran, Assad's main backer, had been using civilian aircraft to fly military equipment and personnel through Iraqi airspace into Syria.

U.S. officials say the arms flow into Syria has continued due to Iraqi reluctance to check flights, according to a New York Times article. It said only two inspections had occurred since Iraq agreed to a U.S. request in September and that Iran may have been tipped off about the searches.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told reporters in Baghdad on Sunday there was no such request.

"There is no ability to inspect all planes destined to Syria and there was no U.S. request to inspect all aircrafts because they know that this is not possible," he said.

Lebanese troops clashed with Syrian rebels on the border between the two countries on Sunday in what a security source called the first such incident between Lebanon's army and the rebels.

The clash occurred when a Lebanese border patrol spotted the rebel fighters along the border and the rebels opened fire to prevent the patrol from approaching, said a Lebanese military source. He said there were no casualties.

CAR BOMBINGS

In Syria's central city of Homs, a car bomb killed at least 15 people and wounded 24 on Sunday, Syria's state news agency SANA said. It said the blast in the city's Hamra district also damaged many nearby residential buildings. The government and the opposition traded blame for the blast.

There has been a rise in the number of car bombs around the country. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists across Syria, reported four car bombs on Saturday.

The group gave a preliminary death toll for Sunday's fighting of 140.

Violence has risen in Syria particularly since rebels began to contest Assad's control around the capital and Aleppo, Syria's largest city, but foreign powers remain deadlocked.

Western countries support the opposition but Russia, Syria's main arms supplier, and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Assad and reject sanctions.

Assad, whose family has ruled Syria autocratically for four decades, says he is fighting off radical Islamist militants funded by the West and Gulf Arab countries.

State television on Sunday said the army was "eliminating al Qaeda terrorists" in the rebel stronghold of Daraya, a suburb on the southern outskirts of Damascus from which mortar shells have been fired into the capital.

Rebel spokesman Abu Nidal said the army had entered one side of the suburb but that the rebels were still in control of the rest of the area.

(Additional reporting by Suadad al-Salhy in Baghdad; Editing by Roger Atwood)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-rebels-bombed-opposition-open-peacekeepers-000135777.html

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Cycling Science: 7 Fascinating Facts About Bikes

Put a person on a bicycle and they become the most efficient creature on Earth. No other living thing can expend so little energy for so much self-powered travel. And that's just when riding along level ground. When a person rides downhill, the free energy from gravity reduces the demand on the human body even more.

If a cyclist and a pedestrian expend the same amount of energy, the efficiency of the bicycle means the cyclist will be traveling three times as fast. At an average walking pace, the walker uses more than six times the amount of metabolic energy above the resting level compared to the cyclist.

Running is four times as energy-greedy, and neither they nor other self-propelled athletes, even the world's fastest, can keep up with a top cyclist. Usain Bolt ran at 23.35 mph in the 2009 Berlin World Championships, but for less than 10 seconds. Speed skater Jeremy Wotherspoon set a world record of 32.87 mph over a 547-yard course. But no athlete could run or skate the 35.03 miles that Chris Boardman rode in one hour at the Manchester (U.K.) velodrome in 1996.

When it comes to muscle-powered traveling, nothing beats cycling.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/sports/physics/cycling-science-7-fascinating-facts-about-bikes?src=rss

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At CERN: Down in the mouth in paradise

You have by now heard about the discovery of the Higgs boson here at CERN ?? a momentous scientific, technological and human accomplishment.?? It was the last undiscovered particle of the Standard Model.? Particle physicists like to capitalize Standard Model.?? I suppose capitals make clear that this is not just a standard, as in ordinary, model, but THE Standard Model.? (Cue trumpet fanfare.)

Fifty-one years after its basis was explored by Sheldon Glashow, forty-five years after the full theory was proposed by Steven Weinberg (and independently the next year by Abdus Salam), the Standard Model has successfully accounted for or predicted all calculationally tractable experimental results in particle physics.? Okay, with one exception ? the oscillation of one type of neutrino into another.? But that demands only the mildest of extensions to the Standard Model ? the inclusion of right-handed neutrinos.?? And those neutrinos were left out only because in 1967 nobody knew that neutrinos oscillated.? ?To include right-handed neutrinos or not to include right-handed neutrinos?? makes for an awkward soliloquy, and is really not an existential question for the Standard Model.

But I digress.? After 45 years, many billions of dollars, tens ? maybe hundreds ? of thousands of person years of concerted effort, in hundreds of universities and laboratories around the world, we have finally discovered ALL the particles predicted by the most successful theory of science, as measured by the number of decimal places to which its predictions have been tested.? (For the sticklers among you, the particle that was discovered here at CERN this year, and confirmed by scientists at Fermilab, has not officially been confirmed to be the Higgs boson, although many of us would be prepared to eat our hats if it is not the Higgs boson.? Especially those of us who don?t wear hats.)

By the way, this final check-off on the Standard Model particle-hunter?s bucket list was a real find.? The Higgs boson is to the Higgs field what the photon is to the electromagnetic field ? its fundamental excitation; and the Higgs field plays a very special role in the Standard Model ? it gives mass to every fundamental particle that has mass, from quarks and electrons to W and Z bosons. So finding the Higgs was crucial. ? It was also a real challenge. The Standard Model gives no a priori indication of the mass of the Higgs, although precision measurements at past colliders (and careful calculations) suggested that if the Standard Model is the complete story, then the Higgs should have a mass in the neighborhood of 115-170 GeV/c², about 120-180 times the mass of a proton.

And the mass of this new (apparently Higgs) boson is ??(drumroll) ??125 GeV/c²!? Chalk up another success for the Standard Model.? How ? ummm ? exciting?!?? Sure, if you?re over 60 and fondly recall the glory days of the 1960s and early ?70s when the Standard Model became, well the Standard Model.??? Or if you?re an experimentalist who has dedicated the last 10-30 years to designing, building and operating the extraordinary Large Hadron Collider and Tevatron accelerators (where the discovery was made and confirmed respectively), or their monumental detectors ? ATLAS and CMS, CDF and D0.?? Celebrate away. Drink champagne, toast your successes, wonder over Nobel and lesser (but more broadly shared) prizes.? You?ve earned it.? But what about the rest of us?

?If the Standard Model is the complete story.?? What a depressing phrase.?? We were promised that it couldn?t be!? The Standard Model is absurdly fine-tuned, we were told ? balanced on a knife-edge off which it has no right not to tumble. It has an un-natural hierarchy of scales.? It has too many free parameters, and some of them are very, very small. Why, the electron mass is less than 0.00001 times the weak scale (the energy scale governing weak interactions such as the W and Z boson masses), which is itself 10^-17 (that 0.0000000000000001) times the Planck scale (the energy scale governing gravity)!?? And speaking of gravity, the Standard Model can?t accommodate quantum gravity.?? We need Low-Energy Supersymmetry, or Technicolor, or Large Extra Dimensions, or ? One of these MUST be found at the LHC!

Forty years of theoretical work has been based on these expectations. Papers with thousands of citations have been written.? Courses taught.? Textbooks published.

Prizes awarded!? Illustrious careers navigated!? And yet despite all this build up of theoretical expectations, there is no experimental hint of anything outside the Standard Model at the LHC.? Hence the long faces and worried words wherever theorists gather to drink coffee. Hence the disappointment in the eyes of the young experimentalists looking forward to the next accelerator, the next frontier where their mark will be made. It doesn?t even help to have been one of the few Cassandras belatedly warning that the edifice of Beyond the Standard Model theories might be built on sand.?? We want there to be more physics ? more particles, more interactions.? More to discover.

Walk the halls, go to theory seminars, have lunch with a theorist, or an ambitious young experimentalist.? Look for the classic symptoms of grief.

Denial.?? Vigorous debates about whether the fact that the dog did not bark in the night suggests that it is a Chihuahua or a Rottweiler.? My friends ? at some point if there is no barking, we must conclude there is no dog.

Anger. At those of us ?misguided? enough to doubt the imminence or even the necessity of Beyond the Standard Model physics.

Bargaining.? Perhaps BSM physics has not been discovered because we?ve been demanding too much explanatory power from science.? If we just relax our expectations for the predictivity of science, and introduce a multitude of universes in which we occupy a particular one best suited to our existence, then we can let our extensions to the Standard Model be un-natural, many of their properties unpredictable, and explain why they haven?t been discovered yet!

Depression.? Even as the glorious LHC data piles up around us, like platters at a holiday feast, we worry where tomorrow?s meal will come from.? Hurry up somebody.? Find a superpartner! A mini-black hole!? Even a technipion. Discover a dark matter particle!? We?ll even settle for astronomical observations confirming that the dark energy is not just a cosmological constant!? Better still, surprise us with something completely unexpected.?? Because if you don?t, its going to be Standard Model for breakfast, Standard Model for lunch and Standard Model for dinner.

We?re not ready for Acceptance!? At least, sitting here listening to the LHC hum, I can still hope.

Previously in this series:

To Live and Work at CERN

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=2d40072e456084e16c4938365583e0aa

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Holiday Guide: Give the gift of better apps for Android

4 hrs.

Alan Henry , Lifehacker

The gift of a good app can turn a phone someone's frustrated with into a device that they'll fall in love with again. A great mobile app can be a lifesaver, fill a real need in your life, and be well worth a little cash. Here are our favorite (and your favorite) paid apps worth giving to the Android owner (or Android?owner-to-be) on your gift list.

Many of these apps also have free versions that you or the Android?fan on your list may or may not be used to working with, but when it comes down to it, they're all apps where you can get great additional features if you're willing to lay down a few bucks for the pro versions or unlock keys.

TWEAKING AND CUSTOMIZATION

Nova Launcher Prime

Reader In_Sweden?recommended Nova Launcher Prime, and we agree: it's?one of your favorite Android launchers, and it turns your Ice Cream Sandwich device into a brand new device. It supports themes from ADW Launcher, another popular Android launcher, is flexible with how many home screens you configure, supports beautiful animations and gestures, and?comes packed with widgets.?With Nova Launcher Prime, you even get unread message and notification counts for email, voicemail and more. If the Android user in your life is frustrated with a carrier's crappy UI, this is a great gift for them.

Tasker
The ultimate Android tweaking utility, and definitely not for everyone, Tasker gives you total control over your device. If you've ever thought "I wish that would happen when this happens," Tasker is the app to do it. If you have an Android lover on your list and they're ready to get their hands dirty customizing their device, Tasker is a great gift. To get them started, hook them up with our?Tasker tips?and tricks. Then, tell them to install the Tasker App Factory and export some of their profiles so you can enjoy your gift too!

SwiftKey 3
Android's stock keyboard is pretty good, but offering users options is what Android is all about, and SwiftKey is a fantastic keyboard option for beginner and advanced users alike. It's our favorite keyboard, and its word prediction and auto-correction are unmatched among its many competitors. Plus, with SwiftKey Flow on the way, it'll be even more versatile and customizable, so it's worth getting in on the ground floor. SwiftKey comes in phone and tablet versions, so even your friend with a Nexus 7 in the gift pile this year can get some use out of it. Trust us, once you've used a keyboard that's smart enough to scan the apps you use to learn the way you write, you'll never go back.

MEDIA AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Doggcatcher
If the Android user on your list this year loves to listen to or watch podcasts, give them the gift of portability with our favorite podcast manager for Android. It's come a long way since our first recommendation, and while it's still not perfect, it's more than worth the $5 you'll put down on it. It's fast, flexible, supports audio, video and RSS, and lets you create "virtual" feeds???or playlists mixed up of your favorite podcasts so you can watch new downloads in any order you choose. You can tell it to download new episodes only?when you want (at night, over Wi-Fi, etc.), and the app offers variable-speed playback, for those people who prefer to listen at two?or?three times regular speed. Plus, it doesn't hurt that the developer is super-responsive to user inquiries.

Camera ZOOM FX
We think Camera ZOOM FX is the best camera app for Android, and recent updates have only made it better. The app gives you control over your photos that most stock camera apps don't, like white balance, burst shooting, geotagging, and 1-tap uploads to Flickr, Instagram, Picasa or any other service you use. Recent updates have brought in tap-to-focus (a highly requested feature) and editing tools so you can crop or apply photo filters to your shots immediately after taking them. The app even lets you clap to take a photo, or use the stable-shot timer to snap a photo right when you're holding your phone still.

NewsRob
If there's a voracious reader on your list, or just someone who loves their blogs and can't get enough of their RSS feeds, NewsRob is still one of the best Android feed readers around. The free version is probably already on their phone (or should be,) and syncs with Google Reader so they don't have to sift through feeds on their desktop that they already read on their phone or tablet. The Pro version here drops the ads, opens up some filtering options, lets you save articles for offline reading, and more.

Plex
Going mobile doesn't mean that you???or the Android user in your life???has to be without all of the music and movies they have at home. We've shown you how to take your media on the go with Plex in the past, and the app's real strong suit is that it transcodes on the fly and plays virtually anything you throw at it on any supported device. Plus, the app is only getting better, even if you don't have a huge media center set up at home.

PRODUCTIVITY

Astrid Power Pack
Astrid is your favorite to-do app, and for good reason. It's fast, flexible, cross-platform, and just keeps updating with new features and improvements that leave its competition behind. If you're shopping for someone who could use a little organization, Astrid is a great app suggestion, but buying them the Astrid Power Pack ensures they'll get the most out of the service. The Power Pack offers up home screen widgets so they can always see their to-dos without having to open the app, and most importantly it lets them talk to their phone add and manage to-dos with their voice. The Power Pack also includes voice reminders when something is due, so they can't just ignore it.

QuickOffice Pro
Don't let anyone tell you that you can't be productive on an Android phone or tablet. With QuickOffice Pro, the Android user on your holiday shopping list can turn their device from a casual emailing and entertainment machine into something they can get real work done on. QuickOffice Pro supports Microsoft Office documents, including spreadsheets, opens them, edits them, saves them and exports them easily. The app has a built-in file manager to grab email attachments, and even supports reading and annotating PDF documents. Plus, the tablet version isn't just a port of the phone version??it's much larger and well suited to real productivity.

Splashtop Remote Desktop
Sometimes you can't do everything you want to do from your Android device and really need to get to a desktop. For those times, Splashtop Remote Desktop is the answer, and if you're shopping for an IT professional or someone who just loves their Android phone or tablet more than they love their laptop or desktop (especially after hours), do them a favor and give them this app. Splashtop Remote Desktop streams WIndows and Mac desktops to your Android phone or tablet and gives you complete control over them so you can manage them or stream files, music, photos, or movies via Wi-Fi or 3G/4G.

MailDroid Pro
If the only email accounts you use with your Android phone are Gmail accounts, you may not need an additional app, but if you have multiple POP, IMAP, or Exchange accounts you want to use your phone with, you'll need a better mail app than the stock one. MailDroid Pro is a great alternative, and while we pooh-poohed it when compared to our favorite Android mail app, K-9 Mail, the app has come a long way and gotten a complete rewrite and overhaul since we looked at it last. It's still pricey, but that's what makes it a good gift, as reader Philip Pratt?notes. Plus it supports custom rules, enterprise calendars, signatures, customizable alerts for different accounts, Dropbox and more. There's a free version to try first, and once your Android lover wants the ads gone and the pro features, that's when you can give them their gift.

OTHER USEFUL UTILITIES

Sleep As Android
If there's someone on your list that's having a little trouble sleeping, Sleep as Android makes a perfect gift. The app tracks sleep patterns and stages over the course of a night, making sure you wake up gently at the right stage of your sleep cycle so you're refreshed for the day ahead. We've mentioned the app before, and how it can show you your sleep patterns over weeks or months, sleep recordings, and more. The free version keeps a two-week limit on some of the advanced features, while the pro unlock key opens up natural sound alarms, graph history, and more. What better gift to give a friend or loved one than the gift of a good night's sleep?

Titanium Backup Pro Key
Why not give the gift of data security this holiday season? Titanium Backup for root users is free and does a great job of keeping all of your data safe in case your phone dies or needs to be replaced. If you pick up the Pro Key for the Android user on your list, they can automate their backups, and even sync them to Dropbox. Better than that though, they'll never have to worry that the important data on their phone will be lost if their device is stolen, wiped, or damaged.

A special thanks goes out to everyone who provided suggestions! It made putting together these guides a lot easier, and a better fit for you.

More?from Lifehacker:

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/give-gift-better-apps-android-1C7360771

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Genome-scale study identifies hundreds of potential drug targets for Huntington's disease

Genome-scale study identifies hundreds of potential drug targets for Huntington's disease

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Scientists searching for ways to develop treatments for Huntington's disease (HD) just got a roadmap that could dramatically speed their discovery process. Researchers at the Buck Institute have used RNA interference (RNAi) technology to identify hundreds of "druggable" molecular targets linked to the toxicity associated with the devastating, ultimately fatal disease. The results from this unprecedented genome-scale screen in a human cell model of HD are published in the November 29, 2012 edition of PLOS Genetics. The work was is a collaboration between Buck Institute faculty members Robert E. Hughes, Ph.D., Sean Mooney, Ph.D., Lisa Ellerby, Ph.D. and Juan Botas, Ph.D. at the Baylor College of Medicine.

HD is a devastating and incurable progressive neurodegenerative genetic disorder that affects motor coordination and leads to severe physical and cognitive decline. Currently, there are about 30,000 people in North America diagnosed with HD and another 150,000 people at risk for developing the disease. The disease pathology stems from a mutation in the huntingtin gene (HTT), resulting in the accumulation of a toxic protein leading to neuronal cell death and systemic dysfunction. Buck Scientists screened more than 7,800 genes pre-selected as potential drug targets to identify modifiers of HD toxicity in human cells, using technology that silences specific genes prior to analysis.

Lead author Robert Hughes said that among the diverse range of modifiers identified, this study showed that RRAS, a gene involved in cell motility and neuronal development, is a potent modulator of HD toxicity in multiple HD models. "Our data indicates that the pathogenic effects of the HTT mutation on this pathway can be corrected at multiple intervention points and that pharmacological manipulation of RRAS signaling may confer therapeutic benefit in HD," Hughes said. Follow up work on the RRAS pathway is now underway in the Hughes lab and in the lab of Buck faculty member Lisa M. Ellerby, PhD.

Hughes said many molecular hits identified in the screening were validated in human cell, mouse cell and fruit fly models of HD ? and that all the data from the study will be available to the public. "Our hope is that HD researchers will look at these targets and find modifiers relevant to the areas they already work on," said Hughes. "Ideally, pharmaceutical companies already working on some these pathways could build on their current knowledge and expertise by focusing their attention on the challenge to develop therapies for HD."

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"Miller JP, Yates BE, Al-Ramahi I, Berman AE, Sanhueza M, et al. (2012) A Genome-Scale RNA?Interference Screen Identifies RRAS Signaling as a Pathologic Feature of Huntington's Disease. PLoS Genet 8(11): e1003042. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003042". Once the paper has been published, it will be accessible at http://www.plosgenetics.org/doi/pgen.1003042.

Buck Institute for Age Research: http://www.buckinstitute.org

Thanks to Buck Institute for Age Research for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/125620/Genome_scale_study_identifies_hundreds_of_potential_drug_targets_for_Huntington_s_disease

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Bad Boys And Gals Present As More Attractive

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - For a fan base obsessed with a fictional future, the past sure seems to matter. More than 45 years after "Star Trek" took fans boldly into the 23rd century, television writer David A. Goodman has written the first detailed narrative in history-book form of events depicted in the iconic science-fiction TV and movie franchise. "This is the history of the galaxy as it's already been painted by the writers of the original 'Star Trek' series, the sequel series, and the movies up to but not including the (2009 "Star Trek") J.J. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bad-boys-gals-present-more-attractive-120008153.html

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