Scientists Create Live Frankenmice From Tissue Frozen For 16 Years

Teruhiko Wakayama and his colleagues at the Center for Developmental Biology in Japan report on 3rd of this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the successful cloning of mice using genetic material from bodies frozen for 16 years. Till then, cloning had been possible only with the use of live, intact cells.
Wakayama and his team used two methods of nuclear transfer to create these Frankenmice. In one case, nuclei from both brain and blood cells in the frozen mice were injected—still frozen—into female reproductive cells that had their nuclei removed. Those cells were than allowed to advance into the marula/blastocyst stages and the resulting embryonic stem cells were removed and used to create clones. In a another case, the reproductive cells were immediately placed in surrogate mice to be carried to term. Both methods produced live, healthy clones.

It has been more than a year since the cloned mice were created and although it is uncertain how long they will live, they are still spinning in their exercise wheels. Clones were made from genetic material that had been frozen for one week, one month, three months, and 16 years, and it looks like the length of time in the freezer has no effect on the success of the cloning.

It was previously thought that “most if not all” cells from mammals would be ruined if frozen, unprotected, but these new results open up the possibility for protecting endangered species through catalogs of frozen tissue to use in the future. Such “frozen zoos” are already in progress.

And while Wakayama can’t say for sure, it even raises the prospect of "resurrecting” extinct animals that have left frozen remains.

Beware of new Obama malware

It steals your passwords and other information and sends them to a server in Ukraine

It sounds like campaign propaganda, but President-elect Barack Obama is a Trojan horse.

Obama’s name and purported links to his Election Night acceptance speech have proliferated in malicious software spreading around the World Wide Web since 5th Nov, Internet security firms report.

One spam message, subject line “Obama Wouldn’t Be First Black President,” directs readers to a link said to show his Tuesday speech. To watch, the user has to download a "new" flash player, adobe_flash9.exe. F-Secure Weblog warns that the “player” is really a virus out to steal confidential information on your computer and upload it to a server in Ukraine.

The security firm Sunbelt Software has picked up the same Obama spam with different subject lines, among them: “Obama's Win Reshapes the Race,” “USA Election 2008 Results,” “Election Center 2008 - Election Results,” “Election 2008: Time lapse of U.S. counties,” “Obama win preferred in world poll,” “The new President's cabinet?” and “Can Obama win popular vote but lose election?”

Another email comes embedded with links to video that installs the file BarackObama.exe. Clicking the video may infect your computer, CNET reports.

The best way to avoid the virus: delete all suspicious emails without opening them. F-Secure chief security advisor Patrik Runald tells the Washington Post’s Security Fix blog that consumers should be on the lookout, because the hackers are successfully exploiting intense public interest in Obama and anti-virus software isn't catching all of the viruses. In a scan by Virustotal, only 14 of 36 anti-virus products picked up the malicious software.

"This is not a big surprise, but it was done relatively quickly [after the election]," Runald told Security Fix. "I'd say this will be fairly successful, given that a lot of people are interested in the election, obviously."

FINALLY, RESERVOIR DOGS

After long time there is a Kannada film that is not woven around either rowdyism no romance. Dinkar, in his second film has brought together seven of former screen villains including his brother Dharsan. The film is first Kannada remake of Quentin Tarantino's reservoir dogs that has been already remade thrice in Hindi. Seven men and two woman from various background team up to steal the centerpiece of Mysore Dasara; the golden howdah (ambari). As with the reservoir dogs, the film is more about what happens between the nine protagonists after the heist is committed.
The first half of the film is all about how the nine managed to steal the golden howdah weighing about 750kgs, from the Mysore palace for an antique collector. This part is also the most loose with Dinkar failing to create suspense or high tension. It is only in the second half that the film manages to hold one's attention. Here again, Sourav's character as the inspector turns out to be damp squib. One can only imagine what a kishore or Prakash Rai in this role would have contributed to the film. But some excellent stunt sequence by Ravivarma and camera work by Krishna Kumar make up for many of the other inadequacies.
A few inconsistencies have to be ignored, if you want to enjoy the film. Not all the seven sons are actors, and it shows. In spite of these, Navagratha is watchable just for how it breaks the monotony in Kannada films of late.
The film is also a tribute to the fathers with all seven being given screen names inspired by their father's famous characters.