New video game art: Samus Aran!

Oct 23, 2012 09:04 PM

This week's store art features Samus Aran, the main female protagonist of Nintendo's Metroid series. The drawing has Samus in her 'Zero Suit' being carried unconscious. The drawing is set in an arena I saw from Super Smash Brother's Brawl. It's a very high quality drawing and well worth the 99 cent donation.

Store sales have sort of dropped, so I may slow down my drawing pace. I try to draw a little every day, but I sometimes get a little lazy. So if it seems like I am not posting anything, don't worry. I still love unconscious and chloroform art, and it's so satisfying to draw my favorite characters in peril.

Thanks in advance if you make a store purchase!

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( 6 )

strife
Oct 23, 2012

Welcome back Red! Yay I love Samus, what a beautiful unconscious piece here. My new desktop background. :)
Reply

Red
Oct 24, 2012

@strife glad you like it! I'm very happy with how it turned out. I think you were the first to suggest drawing her.
Reply

gytalf2000
Oct 24, 2012

That is a fantastic unconscious pose!

You said that sales had dropped. I wonder if they would go up again if you did a Wonder Woman KO scene. She is probably the most popular heroine here, I figure.
Reply

Red
Oct 24, 2012

@gytalf2000 thanks! I am thinking about doing Wonder Woman, maybe a chloro scene ? got any ideas?
Reply

gytalf2000
Oct 24, 2012

@Red Well, personally, I would really like to see a more physical-type KO like a punchout by a supervillain or a blackjack blow by an ordinary criminal who has managed to sneak up behind the sexy Amazon. But I'm not sure that a hard KO would be as popular as a chloroform scene...
Reply

seckanggi
Oct 27, 2013

Boris Johnson pledged to control the vulgarity of bigness. But his city is alone in Europe in its slavery to 'anything goes' moneyWhen the jokes and buffoonery are dead and forgotten, the towers will remain. The true nature of Boris Johnson's London is taking shape in the form of some 30 bleak glass megaliths dotted at random across the capital. He did <img src="http://img.izismile.com/img/img3/20100825/640/the_most_amazing_640_01.jpg"> not intend them and appears not to have planned them. Like Ken Livingstone, Johnson came to power pledged to end the <img src="http://blog.needsupply.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pretty-in-pink-the-brat-pack-1354109-1069-733.jpg"> "pepper-potting" of London. As with Livingstone, power seized him in the grip of an edifice complex.I cannot find a Londoner who realises what is about to happen on the south bank of the Thames opposite Westminster. Johnson and the planning minister, Nick Boles, <img src="http://media.avclub.com/images/422/422323/16x9/627.jpg%3F7300"> have allowed a Qatari consortium to build a visual wall of towers on a truly Stalinist scale behind the Royal Festival Hall next to Waterloo. It is as if Paris had relocated La DÃ©fense to the Ile de la CitÃ©. I am told these properties will mostly lie empty â€“ useful collateral for the world's migratory money, ever in search of a safe haven.The Shell Centre will be demolished, except for its central 26-storey slab. Four new towers, one even taller than the present one, will cling round it. Behind this cluster will rise a 29-storey stack of glass boxes on the site of Elizabeth House, rumoured to be the largest occupied structure in Europe. This will be dwarfed by <img src="http://dims.vetstreet.com/dims3/MMAH/resize/630x420/quality/90/http://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.prod.vetstreet.com/e7/8486108fda11e1b331005056ad4734/file/goldendoodle-3-645mk070111.jpg"> a tower of luxury flats 100 yards downstream, its 43 storeys just seven fewer than Canary Wharf.This massive scheme will comprise the greatest intrusion imaginable on the London skyline. Sited at the tip of the peninsular loop in the Thames meander, it will block sightlines from Westminster to the City of London and be far more dominant over the horizon than the Shard at Bermondsey, or "new Chinatown" soon to emerge upstream opposite Chelsea at Battersea. The latter will include a 60-storey Nine Elms tower, 10 <img src="http://animal.discovery.com/images/breed-selector/dogs/breeds/greater-swiss-mountain-dog_04_lg.jpg"> more than Canary Wharf, to join the 50-storey ones arising at Vauxhall.Talking towers with London architects is like talking disarmament with the National Rifle Association. A skyscraper seems every builder's dream. At a Royal Institute of British Architects seminar on the subject last April, I faced an audience almost entirely of architects who treated any criticism of tall buildings as nothing to do with aesthetics or urban culture but to do with denying them money. They played the man, not the ball, accusing critics of being elitist, reactionary, heritage-obsessed and enemies of architecture.Of course cities must change with the times, and buildings with them. Like most people, I appreciate some modern buildings and not others, just as I want to protect some buildings and not others. I like Broadgate, the Gherkin and the new King's Cross. I admire Zaha Hadid's Olympic pool and Lord Foster's Millennium Bridge â€“ not to mention Thomas Heatherwick's proposed garden bridge. I would not have saved Bankside power station or listed Goldfinger's bleak Elephant and Castle blocks, as the government did this week.Tall buildings well sited can be exhilarating. I was thrilled by Dubai's Burj Khalifa â€“ <img src="http://dragonartz.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/_graphics-lovely-hearts-preview2-by-dragonart.png%3Fw%3D495%26h%3D495"> located as it is in the desert â€“ and the City of London tower cluster seen from the Monument; Canary Wharf is exciting from Greenwich Park, less so from Poplar. But siting is all. Most London towers are plonked down wherever the money talked.The charm of London still depends on relatively low-rise streets and open spaces. This is not <img src="http://keturahweathers.theworldrace.org/blogphotos/theworldrace/keturahweathers/love2.jpg"> an "accident of history", to be overridden by property speculation at will. It is part of the character of the metropolis. London's neighbourhoods can be revitalised, as are other European cities, to higher densities without the visual bruising of point blocks. It just needs planning.London is alone among Europe's great cities in its drooling slavery to "anything goes" on its skyline, in its refusal to stand up to big money or choose a handsome development from a rubbish one. Its planners can regulate minute details of front doors or wall colours with, we assume, some urban aesthetic in mind. They regulate the foreground but let the background go to hell.I <img src="http://machoarts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Chang_e-cg-girl-by-Ruoxing-Zhang.jpg"> can find no public document indicating where towers should be thought appropriate or inappropriate in London. There is no strategy for their location or <img src="http://photogallery.indiatimes.com/movies/regional-movies/lovely/photo/12416133/Aadhi-in-a-still-from-the-Telugu-movie-Lovely.jpg"> exclusion, only a dwindling protection for "views" of St Paul's. Artist's impressions never indicate surrounding towers. Each planning permission is considered in isolation, frequently on appeal to heavily lobbied politicians.Both the Conservatives in opposition and Johnson when running for office publicly pledged to bring such development under control. In 2007 David Cameron's "quality of life" group condemned Livingstone's "vulgarity of bigness", complaining that the ugly location of his towers was damaging London's appearance, its history and its tourist economy. It compared them with the grandiosity of Stalin <img src="http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/thesouthern.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/a/68/a68fd6aa-7e1b-5609-b509-28227eaec659/50b92dd2dde6c.preview-620.jpg"> and Mussolini. The politicians all changed the minds at the first pop of a lobbyist's champagne.Towers imply civic leadership weak in the face <img src="http://rack.3.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEyLzEyLzA0L2JjLzdmdW5ueXNubHNrLmFWbS5qcGcKcAl0aHVtYgk5NTB4NTM0IwplCWpwZw/787fa99c/335/7-funny-snl-skits-with-presidential-impersonators-videos--7118de379e.jpg"> of commercial pressure. They are not "vital" to the urban economy, least of all in a low-density city such as London. The last rash of speculative towers such as Centre Point in the 1970s mostly lay empty until rented for <img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_6aNirdpVBY/UAAj-dWoguI/AAAAAAAABx8/-TUoScavJbM/s1600/Tough%2BChick%2BSoap--Round%2BLabel.jpg"> government <img src="http://i.animecrazy.net/10.png"> offices. Today's are not built for people to use but as sleeping bank accounts for funk money. The Shard may well stay largely empty, like One Hyde Park and the <img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1B4d-Dtf12c/UEs1PWZZ8lI/AAAAAAAABxQ/2RhB8dO-RH8/s1600/Black-Sad-Sad-Sad-Sad-Sad-Sad-Sad-The-Pictures-are-a-Disaster.jpg"> palaces of Palm Island, Dubai. The rich may own them, but not inhabit them.The truth is, as Leona Helmsley said of taxes, <img src="http://filmmakermagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/happy-sad-face.jpg"> that London planning is "for the little people". The Qatari and Chinese edifices about to rise along the banks of the Thames are pastiches of the Gulf economy. They will cause widespread outrage. People will ask who on earth let them through. Remember the name: Boris Johnson.ArchitectureBuilding and town and country planningLondonPlanning policyThe ShardBoris JohnsonSimon Jenkinsguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds     Interviews with officials in five countries and a review of hundreds of pages of government and court documents provide strong evidence that a Laotian man is a linchpin of <img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4VIFD_h958A/TasyUbeh3NI/AAAAAAAABfU/mDT-Jj32S-Q/s1600/lovely.JPG"> wildlife smuggling operations.It is still unclear how much ammonium nitrate, the chemical linked to last weekâ€™s deadly blast, was stored at a West, Tex., plant that operated in a regulatory patchwork.     Donâ€™t believe what they say. Money can buy happiness. Itâ€™s yours for the price of a ticket to â€œThe Book of Mormon.â€ And if youâ€™re already in possession of one, then youâ€™ve wisely secured a seat in the premier-class cabin of delirium. Read full article >>     The Pakistani military issued a statement criticizing claims by American officials that Pakistan had used the C.I.A. drone program as cover for its own operations in the tribal belt. Finding ways to diagnose cancer earlier could greatly improve the chances of survival for many patients. One way to do this is <img src="http://img.naij.com/n/09/f/extremist-persons01.jpg"> to look for specific proteins secreted by <img src="http://animal.discovery.com/images/breed-selector/dogs/breeds/greater-swiss-mountain-dog_04_lg.jpg"> cancer cells, which circulate in the bloodstream. However, the quantity of these <img src="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/892032/thumbs/o-DOG-DRIVING-CAR-570.jpg%3F5"> biomarkers is so low that detecting them has proven difficult.A new technology developed at MIT may help to make biomarker detection much easier. The researchers, led by Sangeeta Bhatia, have developed nanoparticles that can home to a tumor and interact with cancer proteins to produce thousands of biomarkers, which can then be easily detected in the patientâ€™s urine.This <img src="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs19/i/2007/280/2/f/Dragonfly_by_Akaeya_Lovely.jpg"> biomarker amplification system could also be used to monitor disease progression and track <img src="http://moviegalleri.net/wp-content/gallery/aadi-shanvi-lovely-movie-stills/aadi_shanvi_lovely_movie_stills_5200.jpg"> how tumors respond to <img src="http://image.torrent-invites.com/images/578internet_memes_funny_p.jpg"> treatment, says Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.â€œThereâ€™s a desperate search for biomarkers, for early detection or disease prognosis, or looking at how the body responds to therapy,â€ says Bhatia, who is also a member of MITâ€™s David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She adds that the search has been complicated because genomic studies have revealed that many cancers, such as breast cancer, are actually groups of several diseases with different genetic signatures. The MIT team, working with researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, described the new technology in a paper appearing in Nature Biotechnology on Dec. 16. Lead author <img src="http://rachelmiller1511.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/mom.jpg"> of the paper is Gabriel Kwong, a postdoc in MITâ€™s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and the Koch Institute.Amplifying cancer signalsCancer cells produce many proteins not found in healthy cells. However, these proteins are often so diluted in the bloodstream that they are nearly impossible to identify. A recent study from Stanford University researchers found that even using the best existing biomarkers for ovarian cancer, and the best technology to detect them, an ovarian tumor would not be found until eight to 10 years after it formed.â€œThe cell is making biomarkers, but it has limited production capacity,â€ Bhatia says. â€œThatâ€™s when we had this â€˜ahaâ€™ moment: What if you could deliver something that could amplify that signal?â€Serendipitously, Bhatiaâ€™s lab was already working on nanoparticles that could be put to use detecting cancer biomarkers. Originally intended <img src="http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2008/0801/silhoette_tough_guy.jpg"> as imaging agents for tumors, the particles interact with enzymes known as proteases, which cleave proteins into smaller fragments. Cancer cells often produce large quantities of proteases known as MMPs. These proteases help cancer cells escape their original locations and spread uncontrollably by cutting through proteins of the extracellular matrix, which normally holds cells in place.The researchers coated their nanoparticles with peptides (short protein fragments) targeted by several of the MMP proteases. The treated nanoparticles accumulate at tumor sites, making their way through the leaky blood vessels that typically surround tumors. There, the proteases cleave hundreds of peptides from the nanoparticles, releasing them into the bloodstream.The peptides rapidly accumulate in the kidneys and are excreted in the urine, where they can be detected using mass spectrometry. This new system is an exciting approach to overcoming the problem of biomarker scarcity in the body, says Sanjiv Gambhir, chairman of the Department of <img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DJxssa7CE9A/S8t7Qv65OwI/AAAAAAAAAEI/IxGyB5F-M8o/s1600/_graphics-lovely-hearts-preview3-by-dragonart.png"> Radiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. â€œInstead of being dependent on the body to naturally shed biomarkers, youâ€™re sampling the site of interest and causing biomarkers that you engineered to be released,â€ says Gambhir, who was not part of the research team.Distinctive signaturesTo make the biomarker readings as precise as possible, the researchers designed their particles to express 10 different peptides, each of which is cleaved by a different one of the dozens of MMP proteases. Each of these peptides is a different size, making it possible to distinguish them with mass spectrometry. This should allow researchers to identify distinct signatures associated with different types of tumors. In this study, the researchers tested their nanoparticlesâ€™ ability to detect the early stages of colorectal cancer in mice, and to monitor the progression of liver fibrosis.Liver fibrosis is an accumulation of scarring in response to liver injury or chronic liver disease. Patients with this condition have to be regularly monitored by biopsy, which is expensive and invasive, to make sure they are getting the right treatment. In mice, the researchers found that the nanoparticles could offer much more rapid feedback than biopsies. They also found that the nanoparticles could accurately reveal the early formation of colorectal tumors. In ongoing studies, the team is studying the particlesâ€™ ability to measure tumor response to chemotherapy and to detect metastasis. The research was funded by the National <img src="http://cdn.mdjunction.com/components/com_joomlaboard/uploaded/images/402417_168625089908872_128246517280063_223000_978772664_n.jpg"> Institutes of Health and the Kathy and Curt Marble Cancer Research Fund. A Campaign Against the Arms Trade hackday was maybe more about discussing the data than doing much with itAt a 2011 Amnesty event in Trafalgar Square, the crowd were asked to show solidarity with the people of Egypt by holding up their phones clasped in a two-fingered peace gesture. It felt a little like a T-Mobile advert, but it also reflects the ways in which war has become more "social" in recent years.That's the "social" of social media. War has always been <img src="http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/74090/74090,1210689189,1/stock-photo-lovely-coffee-12542989.jpg"> social, as has the media. And they're both anti-social too. But, from Sallam Pax to the IDF on Instagram, a newer, often personal and increasingly horizontal pattern of conflict communication is emerging. Baudrillard may have been prompted by the various mediations of 1990s conflicts to argue the Gulf War Did Not Take Place, but not only is #OccupyGezi very much taking place for those involved, those of us watching from abroad through the hashtag are connected to the reality in quite powerful ways. How might people campaigning against the arms trade tap into such new sociability? How might they gain new information, connect previous disparate data and share their knowledge more effectively? These were questions posed at a Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) hackday run by Artists and Engineers last weekend, where I found myself sitting with a mix of journalists, programmers, statisticians, campaigners and artists â€“ some with a prior strong interest in arm's trade, most without â€“ listening to them wonder "Arms export licensing data: How we can we Vine that?" and "Identifying a tear gas canister? There's an app for that." We arrived to find King's College London's old Anatomy Theatre decked out in drop-down projection screens. Photos of Gaddafi looking intently into a computer surrounded us and there was a table full of coffee. I chatted to the woman <img src="http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/1353378/81169760.jpg"> next to me about Help Me Investigate while some guys to my right discussed the best cameras to mount on drones. Ian Prichard, CAAT's Research Co-ordinator, ran through the sources of information they use. Government licensing data (from the UK and EU), lists of government meetings and spending, the CIA World Fact book, the World Bank data store, the SIPRI arms transfers database or simply the newspapers. They make freedom of information requests, but these come back with a lot of blacked out passages, and working with MPs to get parliamentary questions can be faster. He also said that the National Archives might sound old, but a lot of the infrastructure is old too, so it can be relevant. Then there is research from other NGOs, the trade press, trade fair brochures (when they can get them), mainstream press and blogs. There's also what Prichard referred to as 'the sharp end', finishing with a photo of tear gas canisters used in Egypt they'd been sent to identify.Another Ian, Mackinnon, lead data wrangler for CAAT, asked us to think about different audiences and what different things they might want from such data. We might look for new ways to share the data to attract a passerby, or help expert researchers with new <img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4VIFD_h958A/TasyUbeh3NI/AAAAAAAABfU/mDT-Jj32S-Q/s1600/lovely.JPG"> ways to look at it (or new ways to collect more). We might aim to take a snapshot â€“ communicate data as we know it â€“ or we might make something that's capable of change over time. We might aim to deal with a single story, or give an overview. Ideas included maps to help give the slightly esoteric information on export data a more human, or at least geographical anchor. CAAT already have a map of arms companies in the UK and an app on UK export licences, but we discussed ways such information could be connected to where the arms went; possibly mixing in maps of conflict or human rights information or, more dynamically, news stories or even a hashtag to connect CAAT's background data to specific events as they happen. We also discussed how 'sharp end' data might be crowdsourced, and it was interesting to learn that a challenge here is communicating to people what bits of information on, for example, a tear gas <img src="http://cdn.motinetwork.net/motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/0809/hilarious-hilarious-air-guitar-idiot-retard-cat-demotivational-poster-1220603476.jpg"> canister, they need to photograph for it to be identifiable. Crowdsourcing might allow CAAT to accrue more knowledge, but it depends on sharing it too.Another mapping exercise could connect information on how much money (including public money) goes into arms manufacturing and what else we might spend it on. We looked at the CND and False Economy animated infographic on Trident, but suspected something for CAAT's data would be less straightforward. We also discussed military-focused research spending, but understood there were gaps in the data here; gaps which might be a powerful message in itself but wouldn't make the cleanest of infographics. You've got to sell a message with this data too. A map of who is doing research on particular topics could easily help scientists and engineers better network with one another if they don't accept CAAT's particular moral argument. There were some more playful ideas, such as a sports manager style game where you take the role of an arms dealer. Invest in time to go to dinner with a minister, sponsor a careers fair, lobby to slacken social responsibility laws, deal with pressure to green the military, play powerful games of export and production and watch profits rise and fall. Such a game offers an unusual chance to play through the details of arms dealing data which can be pretty dry and esoteric on the surface. Similar to <img src="http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/sandman-ride.jpg"> Molleindustria's Oiligarchy, it'd place the player in the shoes of the "bad guys" in order to articulate a critique. As with the IPCC Minecraft (a product of the Stockholm 2011 Green Hackathon) or Red Redemption's Climate Challenge, it could be very explicitly non-fiction in places, highlighting the data sets it draws on. The game idea might subvert common war tropes slightly, but again perhaps relies on the <a href = "http://erggrtr45hy7.com">masteryikol </a> the moral message. Playing the bad guy can be fun. It also raised <img src="http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Fart_761527_2644615.png"> questions of the appropriateness of comedy for what is a very serious topic. That's not to say that <img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DJxssa7CE9A/S8t7Qv65OwI/AAAAAAAAAEI/IxGyB5F-M8o/s1600/_graphics-lovely-hearts-preview3-by-dragonart.png"> dark and/or ironic humour might not be very powerful, just that it has to be thought through; <img src="http://cdn.motinetwork.net/demotivationalposters.net/image/demotivational-poster/0808/there-is-a-fine-line-downy-rtard-funny-pez-hilarious-demotivational-poster-1218350667.jpg"> an issue for those in medical and environmental communications too (the exploding children climate video was offered as a cautionary <img src="http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/16900000/girl-and-the-rain-sad-songs-16929572-500-706.jpg"> tale).Other ideas were more rooted in graphic design and visual arts. For example, considering ways to add a Union Jack and "made in Britain" tag to images of conflict. This was <img src="http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/9000000/Lovely-Baby-sweety-babies-9049984-400-320.jpg"> seen as a chance to subvert patriotic rhetoric surrounding the argument that the arms industry boosts our economy (c.f. <img src="http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/32000000/Cute-Lovely-Taemin-the-group-shinee-32032831-933-640.jpg"> this subvertisement of the "Britain is GREAT" campaign). An interesting point that came up during the discussion of infographics was a desire to move away from a "photojournalism journalism approach, pictures of dead babies". One participant argued that "we need to deal with the horrific by normalising it." The Isotype/ Information is Beautiful aesthetic offers some form of abstraction, which could be powerful and possibly attract new audiences to the cause as well as communicate something larger than single case studies. But is such abstraction really appropriate? Should the horrific be normalised? Another idea was to work the juxtaposition of abstract and detail; an infographic but with a horrifically graphic case study ready to pop up with a mouseover. Again, as with the humour issue, attempts to work an effective balance of abstract, specific, normalised and horrific is something environmental and medical communications consider too, and there aren't straightforward rules. I left feeling the day didn't provide time to do much with the actual data, but still inspired by the interactions between different areas of expertise offered by the event. I attended purely aiming to watch what they were up to, but was surprised to find my experience in philosophy of science, literature and history of art all called upon as a participant. Hackdays differ from each other, and this was maybe more about discussing the data than doing something with it. Such talk is an important step though; it helps you see the limitations of your materials as well as helping you imagine new and productive ways of working with them. It might be that the strongest outcomes of the event happen further down the line, and maybe that's appropriate. The challenges set weren't going to be solved in a day.I doubt I'll be making Vines from the World Bank data store anytime soon, but maybe I'll run a similar event on research <img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DJxssa7CE9A/S8t7Qv65OwI/AAAAAAAAAEI/IxGyB5F-M8o/s1600/_graphics-lovely-hearts-preview3-by-dragonart.png"> spending. Alice Bell is research fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of SussexScience policyAlice Bellguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds     M. Frans Kaashoek, Charles Piper Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; associate director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL); Prime Minister Vlad Filatâ€™s governing coalition failed a no-confidence motion on Tuesday, shattering an alliance that had put the former Soviet republic on a path toward integration with the European Union. With her were her funnyman hubby, Chris Henchy, and their daughters Rowan, 7, and Grier, 5. Schneider Electricâ€™s $5 billion offer for Invensys prompted a jump in the stock price that indicates investors are hoping for a higher offer or even a counterbid from a rival suitor.     Three members of the MIT School of Engineering â€” <img src="http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/2/Open/20th%2520Century%2520Fox/The%2520Girl%2520Next%2520Door/_derived_jpg_q90_600x800_m0/the_girl_next_door10.jpg%3Fpartner%3Dallmovie_soap"> Anant Agarwal, John Hansman, and Edward Merrill â€” are among the 69 new members and 11 foreign associates elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) on <img src="http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/74090/74090,1210689189,1/stock-photo-lovely-coffee-12542989.jpg"> Feb. 7. MIT President Emeritus Charles M. Vest, NAE president since 2007, made the announcement today. Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to â€œengineering research, practice, <img src="http://societyandreligion.com/minecraft/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2012-02-11_104207_1426470.jpg"> or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature,â€ and to the <img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0K4kxnjDMh8/T_RUuICJ88I/AAAAAAAAA58/HmqkN2tm3Gk/s1600/lovely-hump-day.gif"> â€œpioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.â€ Cells grown this way could help researchers develop engineered tissue to treat many of the 500 million people suffering from chronic liver diseases such as hepatitis C, according to the researchers.Lead author of the paper is Jing (Meghan) Shan, a graduate student in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Members of Bhatiaâ€™s lab collaborated with researchers from the Broad Institute, Harvard Medical School and the University of Wisconsin.Large-scale screenBhatia has previously developed a way to temporarily maintain normal liver-cell function after those cells are removed from the body, by precisely intermingling them with mouse fibroblast cells. For this study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the research team adapted the system so that the liver cells could grow, in layers with the fibroblast cells, in small depressions in a lab dish. This allowed the researchers to perform large-scale, rapid studies of how 12,500 different chemicals affect liver-cell growth and function.The liver has about 500 functions, divided into four general categories: drug detoxification, energy metabolism, protein synthesis and bile production. David Thomas, an associate researcher working with Todd Golub at the Broad Institute, measured expression levels of 83 liver enzymes representing some of the most finicky functions to maintain.After screening thousands of liver cells from eight different tissue donors, the researchers identified 12 compounds that helped the cells maintain those functions, promoted liver cell division, or both.Two of those compounds seemed to work especially well in cells from younger donors, so the <img src="http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/32000000/Cute-Lovely-Taemin-the-group-shinee-32032831-933-640.jpg"> researchers â€” including Robert Schwartz, an IMES postdoc, and Stephen Duncan, a professor of human and molecular genetics at the University of Wisconsin â€” also tested them in liver cells generated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Scientists have tried to create hepatocytes from iPSCs before, but such cells donâ€™t usually reach a fully mature state. However, when treated with those two compounds, the cells matured more completely. Bhatia and her team wonder whether these compounds might launch a universal maturation program that could influence other types of cells as well. Other researchers are now testing them in a variety of cell types generated from iPSCs. In future studies, the MIT team plans to embed the treated liver cells on polymer tissue scaffolds and implant them in mice, to test whether they could be used as replacement liver tissues. They are also pursuing the possibility of developing the compounds as drugs to help regenerate patientsâ€™ own liver tissues, working with Trista North and Wolfram Goessling of Harvard Medical School. Eric Lagasse, an associate professor of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh, says the findings represent a promising approach to overcoming the difficulties scientists have encountered in growing liver cells outside of the body. â€œFinding a way of growing functional hepatocytes in cell culture would be a major breakthrough,â€ says Lagasse, who was not part of the research team.Making connectionsBhatia and colleagues have also recently made progress toward solving another challenge of engineering liver tissue, which is getting the recipientâ€™s body to grow blood vessels to supply the new tissue with oxygen and nutrients. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in April, Bhatia and Christopher Chen, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that if preformed cords of endothelial cells are embedded into the tissue, they will rapidly grow into arrays of blood vessels after the tissue is implanted. To achieve this, Kelly Stevens in the Bhatia lab worked with Peter Zandstra <img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_dlkAw43cLC0/SY_fk5bTRuI/AAAAAAAADHw/6hHl2wfj5iw/s800/14-Lovely-Hearts-for-St-Valentines-day-coffee.jpg"> at the University of Toronto to design a new system that allows them to create 3-D engineered tissue and precisely control the placement of different cell types within the tissue. This approach, described in the journal Nature Communications in May, allows the engineered tissue to function better with the host tissue. â€œTogether, these papers offer <img src="http://lovelypackage.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/lovely-package-alchimia-1.jpg"> a path forward to solve two of the longstanding challenges in liver tissue engineering â€” growing a large supply of liver cells outside the body and getting the tissues to graft to the transplant recipient,â€ Bhatia says. President Barack Obama has announced he intends to appoint MIT Professor Esther Duflo to the Presidentâ€™s Global Development Council. Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, and a founder and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).Policy, partnerships, and public inputEstablished by executive order in September 2010 and administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Presidentâ€™s Global Development Council is being shaped to advise the administration on U.S. global development policies and practices, to support new and existing public-private partnerships, and to <img src="http://cdn.lolzbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/When-You-See-It....jpeg"> increase awareness and action in support of development by soliciting public input on current and emerging issues in the field of global development. On Dec. 21, 2012, Obama announced his intent to appoint two chairs and eight members (including Duflo) to the council from a variety of sectors outside the federal government.In making the announcement, Obama said, â€œThese dedicated and accomplished individuals will be valued additions to my <img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e8pDUFUfsaA/UNdUBfMKNMI/AAAAAAAADQ8/zDtxhz8GYiY/s1600/Love-Quotes.jpg"> administration as we tackle the important challenges facing America. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.â€Deborah Fitzgerald, Kenan Sahin Dean of MIT's School of Humanities, Arts,Â and Social Sciences, said she was delighted to learn of Duflo's appointment.Â "Esther combines visionary research with deep compassion and dedication.Â She embodies the MIT mission to serveÂ the world, and I think it is a real creditÂ toÂ this administration that they haveÂ chosen her to help shape America'sÂ policies on global development."Leading a revolution in poverty alleviationDuflo is an internationally renowned economist whose research has helped change the way governments and aid organizations address global poverty. Her revolutionary work applying randomized trials to determine which social policies actually work best to relieve poverty has led to numerous accolades. Most recently she was named one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkersâ€ for 2012 by Foreign Policy magazine.Other awards include the John Bates Clark Medal (2010), a MacArthur Fellowship â€œgenius grantâ€ (2009), and the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award (2011), which she won for co-authoring "Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty" (with Abhijit V. Banerjee, Ford International Professor of Economics at MIT). Duflo is a fellow of the <img src="http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/9000000/Lovely-Baby-sweety-babies-9049984-400-320.jpg"> American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the first holder of the â€œKnowledge Against Povertyâ€ chair at the College de France in Paris.In addition to her MIT research, Duflo is director of the development economics program at the Center for Economic Policy Research and serves as editor of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. She holds an undergraduate degree from Lâ€™Ecole Normale SupÃ©rieure in Paris and a masterâ€™s degree from DELTA, which has since been incorporated into the Paris School of Economics. She earned her doctorate in economics from MIT in 1999. Colombian lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a polarizing bill to allow same-sex marriage in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation, as hundreds of people took to the streets to demonstrate for and against the measure.     Britain seems resigned to male underachievement. There are ways to rebuild masculinity, but most on the right won't like themFor a traditional British conservative take on men's issues, you can't get much more pure than the editor of the Spectator writing in the Telegraph in defence of his chum Boris Johnson. The London mayor made a crass, sexist joke this week about Malaysian girls going off to university to find husbands. Fraser Nelson's article is a familiar rehashing of <img src="http://assets.shitbrix.com/hashed_silo_content/1e2/dd7/140/resized/wtf-when-you-see-it-you-ll-shit-brix-d6dc9a.jpg"> the End of Men narrative, nicely nailed by my Comment is free colleague Sarah Ditum on Twitter: "It's like he read Hanna Rosin but none of the reviews."His analysis falls short on several fronts. The first is a simple matter of reality. Nelson discusses the gender trends in education, employment and relationships for young people up to the age of 30, while completely ignoring that the picture changes profoundly when people have children. Second, while noting that boys at the top are still doing just fine, Nelson never acknowledges that the problems are fundamentally economic and class-based. Above all, for all the <img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Woy1h4DCA6E/UMDYaOzkQvI/AAAAAAAACCw/a2AyOhhuFg8/s1600/d26.jpg"> wailing and gnashing of teeth, neither Nelson nor Johnson can offer a single prescription to heal the malaise.The fundamental problem Nelson identifies is that our society no longer has a pressing need for the attributes of traditional working-class masculinity: brute strength, endurance and courage in the workplace; a provider's role at home. There are two possible solutions to that. The first would be an economic project to revitalise British manufacturing industry, especially heavy industry, which has shrunk by two-thirds over the past 30 years. The second would be a social project to reinvent masculinity and gender roles in keeping with the world we have built.Both of these options are anathema to most conservatives. The right sacrificed the prospects of young working-class men when they abandoned a controlled economy to the whims of the global free market. The coalition government's only notable reactions to the underachievement and alienation of young men has been to rail against deadbeat dads and to offer a pathetic cash bribe to couples as a reward for marriage.There are signs that the mainstream left is beginning to awaken to the issues. Labour MP David Lammy offered an insightful outline of some of the issues on Father's Day, calling on Ed Miliband and leftwing thinktanks to develop policies to make us "the most family-friendly nation in the world" without really spelling out how that could be achieved. Diane Abbott recently spoke about the crisis of masculinity, in a wide-ranging and constructive speech, but <img src="http://img.izismile.com/img/img3/20101117/640/amazing_animal_closeups_640_10.jpg"> inevitably the headlines were grabbed by a paragraph or two portraying (some) young men as savage bundles of machismo, misogyny and homophobia fuelled by pornography, Viagra and Jack Daniel's.For all the furrowed brows, there is little sign of tangible change. The spectacularly unequal outcomes for girls and boys in education are now beyond dispute. Schoolgirls are outperforming their male peers even in science and maths. But when the TES and the Guardian covered this news, it was only with concern that it was not being translated into university admissions and postgraduate achievement. I fully support efforts to get talented women into science, engineering and technology, but where are the similar efforts to inspire boys into medicine, teaching, nursing, pharmacology or any of the other fields where they are falling ever further behind? Our culture, both by omission and commission, seems resigned to male underachievement while simultaneously berating young men for their failings.My elder son finishes primary school next week, and nervously prepares himself to enter the furnace of secondary education. Like all 11-year-olds, he has spent much of the last year being prodded and tested with Sats and other blunt tools like a white mouse in a lab. After one such experiment, he told me proudly of his success. "I scored highest of all the boys," he proclaimed. After due expressions of support, I couldn't resist asking about his other classmates. "Oh yes, lots of the girls scored more than me, but they always do. Girls are just cleverer than boys."It is possible that he has learned this lesson from observing his own mum and dad, which would be an entirely legitimate reading of the evidence, but I suspect there is something more to it than that. Before even leaving primary school he has absorbed a corrosive and pervasive myth about what should be expected from boys and girls. It's my responsibility to correct him on that. It is our collective responsibility to work out where the myth has come from and what we can do to put it right.GenderYoung peopleSocial exclusionSocial mobilityAlly Foggguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its <img src="http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/16700000/Lovely-Baby-sweety-babies-16705862-400-400.jpg"> affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds     Lee Stempniak scored the winning goal in the third period and added an assist in the Calgary Flames' 5-2 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday night. Account <img src="http://moreintelligentlife.com/files/Pretty%2520Woman.jpg"> assignments, executive appointments and miscellaneous news from advertising agencies. Treating every airport passenger as a potential terrorist slows the security system and deters some people from flying, according to a new report. Efforts are ramping up in both the public and private sector to enable high-growth businesses in the UK to scale rapidly and reach their full potential.     The robot is seen as a new tool that can come to the <img src="http://acidcow.com/pics/20100810/the_most_hilarious_gangsters_14.jpg"> aid of humanity in natural and man-made disasters.     U.S. stocks rose, almost wiping out the Dow Jones industrial average's 2010 loss, after better-than-expected earnings at companies from United Parcel Service to Apple and Ford Motor lifted confidence that the economy <img src="http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/14400000/Pretty-Little-Liars-Cast-Instyle-Makeover-Shoot-hanna-marin-14429238-500-632.jpg"> is recovering. ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates â€” The Obama administration said Thursday that the Syrian government has likely used chemical weapons on a small scale against rebel forces, but it stopped short of threatening military action against President Bashar al-Assad. Read full article >>     European Tour prankster David Lynn is having a whale of a time sharing banter with the fans in the United States this year as he showed when finishing joint fourth at the Honda Classic in Florida last
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