19 Handy Twitter Mashups and Tools Posted By Thomson Chemmanoor
December 8th, 2008
Twitter mashups and tools put a unique spin on the way we use Twitter. By “mashing” information from Twitter with other applications, you get an unmatchable user experience that can be both fun and useful. Enjoy these top 19 Twitter mashups.
1) Twitter Burner.com - Tweetburner is a twitter mashup that allows you to create tiny URLs and also allow you to track how many times they where clicked on it. Ideal for someone who lets out a lot of links on twitter.
2) Twalala.com - Get ready to take control of your twitterstream. twalala is a client for Twitter that allows you to control what you see, and more importantly, what you don’t see in your twitterstream. Using twalala, you can filter tweets out of your stream by keywords and phrases or mute individuals who get a bit too chatty. Finally, Twitter with a mute button.
3) Twitspy.com lets you see what people are posting on Twitter in realtime by spying on the Twitter public timeline. Twitspy also tracks website links within tweets.
4) Twitterstats.com - In your Tweets, Graphin’ Your Stats! Weekly Stats. Graph your Twitter Stats including. Tweets per hour; Tweets per month; Tweet timeline;
5) Twittervision.com is a web mashup combining Twitter with Google Maps to create a real time display of tweets across a map.
6) mail2twitter.com is a free service that allows you to post tweets through e-mail, and the most important, from any email-enabled mobile device.
7) TwitterCounter.com -Add a daily updating TwitterCounter to your blog so everybody can see how popular you are
8) Twit Pic.com, Share photos with your friends on twitter with twitpic. No signup required, just login using your twitter account.
9) Twittercal.com - It’s a free service that connects your Twitter account to your Google Calendar. Add events in a snap from your favorite Twitter client.
10) Geotwitter.org - This mashup uses the Google Maps API and Twitter API. The most recent updates are fetched from the public timeline and mapped once every minute. If you have any comments suggestions or ideas feel free to leave a note on our blog.
11) TwitterFox is a Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends’ tweets of Twitter. (previously known as TwitterNotifier)
12) TwittyTunes is a FoxyTunes companion Firefox extension - it allows you to post your currently playing songs to Twitter with a click.
13) Twitbin.com - Send and receive messages to all your fellow twitterholics, right from your firefox browser.
14) TwitterBar - allows you to post to Twitter from Firefox’s address bar. A small unobtrusive grey icon sits to the right of your address bar; clicking on it will post your tweet, and you can hover your mouse over it to see how many characters you have left.
15) StockTwits.com is an open, community-powered investment idea and information service for financial investors.
16) Twitterholic.com - Provides a list of the 100 best twitterers based on their followers, the people they follow and the number of their updates
17) TwitterFeed.com - Feed your blog to twitter, post RSS to twitter.
18) TwitterBuzz.com shows you what people using Twitter, a micro-blogging service, are linking to.
19) Twitter Map - Provides users with the ability to update their locations on a Google Map and send a tweet with it
These great Twitter mash-ups and tools represent some of the best ways twitter data can be used to create a great twittering experience.
Article is not in anyway written by me... Its originally from: digitallabz.com
Key to 'curing' obesity may lie in worms that destroy their own fat: McGill researchers
Usual metabolic process goes awry in recently discovered mutation, burning lipids instead of storing them - Public release date: 8-Dec-2008
Contact: Mark Shainblum - mark.shainblum@mcgill.ca = 514-398-2189
This release is available in French.
A previously unknown mutation discovered in a common roundworm holds the promise of new treatments for obesity in humans, McGill University researchers say. Their study was published Dec. 3 in the journal Nature, and was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
In lean times, a normal Caenorhabditis elegans worm goes into a form of suspended animation called "dauer" that slows its metabolism and allows it to survive for extended periods without food.
"When they go into dauer, these worms radically alter their metabolism," said Dr. Richard Roy, a cancer researcher at McGill's Department of Biology specializing in the control of cell division. "They shut down everything energy-consuming, which includes foraging, cell division and reproduction."
Unlike other "hibernating" organisms, C. elegans maintains a degree of mobility during dauer by stocking up on energy in the form of fats – or lipids – which they store in special cells or reserves.
"This allows them to live up to six months without eating, instead of the two weeks they would otherwise have," Roy explained. A worm with the newly discovered mutation, however, will usually die within a week of going into dauer
"These mutants somehow cannot shut down the process of cell division, which is why we noticed them in the first place," Roy said. "However, that's not what kills them. They cannot adjust their metabolism correctly. They store up their six-month lipid reserves, but as soon as they shift into dauer they use them up within a few days. This is because they lack an enzyme that blocks the activity of a very important triglyceride lipase. Without this regulation the lipase burns up all the fat it encounters and destroys the worm's energy reserves."
This discovery was a near-accidental by-product of Roy's regular line of research, searching for cells that abnormally disobey cellular signals in a cancer context, and he gives graduate student and study first author Patrick Narbonne much of the credit.
"Patrick was absolutely brilliant. He was so observant that he noticed these animals were dying way too early, and he also realized that they were not dying because of the cell-division issue."
Roy and Narbonne believe this discovery, which will require considerable additional research, may have significant long-term implications for human health.
"I think we should start looking at the enzymes involved in this cascade, particularly in obese individuals. They are likewise accumulating lipids, but in a reverse situation to C. elegans, this enzyme isn't recognizing it, or something is blocking its function. We're making the case that we can uncouple this enzyme from its normal regulation. If we could develop drugs to do that selectively in fatty tissue, we'd be able to chew up all the fat."
"This study fascinates me," said Dr. Robert Sladek, one of Canada's most prominent diabetes researchers, affiliated to the McGill Department of Human Genetics and the McGill and Genome Quebec Innovation Centre. "It will be exciting to see whether this pathway that controls energy storage and lifespan in worms plays a similar role in humans. The implications for patients with obesity and diabetes might be quite far-reaching."
ABOUT McGILL UNIVERSITY: McGill University, founded in Montreal, Que., in 1821, is Canada's leading post-secondary institution. It has two campuses, 11 faculties, 10 professional schools, 300 programs of study and more than 33,000 students. McGill attracts students from more than 160 countries around the world. Almost half of McGill students claim a first language other than English – including 6,000 francophones – with more than 6,200 international students making up almost 20 per cent of the student body.
ABOUT THE CANADIAN CANCER SOCIETY: The Canadian Cancer Society is a national community-based organization of volunteers whose mission is to eradicate cancer and to enhance the quality of life of people living with cancer. It is the largest national charitable funder of cancer research in Canada. Last year, the Society funded close to $49.5 million in leading-edge research projects across the country. To know more about cancer, visit the website at www.cancer.ca or call the toll-free, bilingual Cancer Information Service at 1 888 939-3333.
Article is not in anyway written by me... Its originally from: eurekalert.org
December 8th, 2008
Twitter mashups and tools put a unique spin on the way we use Twitter. By “mashing” information from Twitter with other applications, you get an unmatchable user experience that can be both fun and useful. Enjoy these top 19 Twitter mashups.
1) Twitter Burner.com - Tweetburner is a twitter mashup that allows you to create tiny URLs and also allow you to track how many times they where clicked on it. Ideal for someone who lets out a lot of links on twitter.
2) Twalala.com - Get ready to take control of your twitterstream. twalala is a client for Twitter that allows you to control what you see, and more importantly, what you don’t see in your twitterstream. Using twalala, you can filter tweets out of your stream by keywords and phrases or mute individuals who get a bit too chatty. Finally, Twitter with a mute button.
3) Twitspy.com lets you see what people are posting on Twitter in realtime by spying on the Twitter public timeline. Twitspy also tracks website links within tweets.
4) Twitterstats.com - In your Tweets, Graphin’ Your Stats! Weekly Stats. Graph your Twitter Stats including. Tweets per hour; Tweets per month; Tweet timeline;
5) Twittervision.com is a web mashup combining Twitter with Google Maps to create a real time display of tweets across a map.
6) mail2twitter.com is a free service that allows you to post tweets through e-mail, and the most important, from any email-enabled mobile device.
7) TwitterCounter.com -Add a daily updating TwitterCounter to your blog so everybody can see how popular you are
8) Twit Pic.com, Share photos with your friends on twitter with twitpic. No signup required, just login using your twitter account.
9) Twittercal.com - It’s a free service that connects your Twitter account to your Google Calendar. Add events in a snap from your favorite Twitter client.
10) Geotwitter.org - This mashup uses the Google Maps API and Twitter API. The most recent updates are fetched from the public timeline and mapped once every minute. If you have any comments suggestions or ideas feel free to leave a note on our blog.
11) TwitterFox is a Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends’ tweets of Twitter. (previously known as TwitterNotifier)
12) TwittyTunes is a FoxyTunes companion Firefox extension - it allows you to post your currently playing songs to Twitter with a click.
13) Twitbin.com - Send and receive messages to all your fellow twitterholics, right from your firefox browser.
14) TwitterBar - allows you to post to Twitter from Firefox’s address bar. A small unobtrusive grey icon sits to the right of your address bar; clicking on it will post your tweet, and you can hover your mouse over it to see how many characters you have left.
15) StockTwits.com is an open, community-powered investment idea and information service for financial investors.
16) Twitterholic.com - Provides a list of the 100 best twitterers based on their followers, the people they follow and the number of their updates
17) TwitterFeed.com - Feed your blog to twitter, post RSS to twitter.
18) TwitterBuzz.com shows you what people using Twitter, a micro-blogging service, are linking to.
19) Twitter Map - Provides users with the ability to update their locations on a Google Map and send a tweet with it
These great Twitter mash-ups and tools represent some of the best ways twitter data can be used to create a great twittering experience.
Article is not in anyway written by me... Its originally from: digitallabz.com
Key to 'curing' obesity may lie in worms that destroy their own fat: McGill researchers
Usual metabolic process goes awry in recently discovered mutation, burning lipids instead of storing them - Public release date: 8-Dec-2008
Contact: Mark Shainblum - mark.shainblum@mcgill.ca = 514-398-2189
This release is available in French.
A previously unknown mutation discovered in a common roundworm holds the promise of new treatments for obesity in humans, McGill University researchers say. Their study was published Dec. 3 in the journal Nature, and was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
In lean times, a normal Caenorhabditis elegans worm goes into a form of suspended animation called "dauer" that slows its metabolism and allows it to survive for extended periods without food.
"When they go into dauer, these worms radically alter their metabolism," said Dr. Richard Roy, a cancer researcher at McGill's Department of Biology specializing in the control of cell division. "They shut down everything energy-consuming, which includes foraging, cell division and reproduction."
Unlike other "hibernating" organisms, C. elegans maintains a degree of mobility during dauer by stocking up on energy in the form of fats – or lipids – which they store in special cells or reserves.
"This allows them to live up to six months without eating, instead of the two weeks they would otherwise have," Roy explained. A worm with the newly discovered mutation, however, will usually die within a week of going into dauer
"These mutants somehow cannot shut down the process of cell division, which is why we noticed them in the first place," Roy said. "However, that's not what kills them. They cannot adjust their metabolism correctly. They store up their six-month lipid reserves, but as soon as they shift into dauer they use them up within a few days. This is because they lack an enzyme that blocks the activity of a very important triglyceride lipase. Without this regulation the lipase burns up all the fat it encounters and destroys the worm's energy reserves."
This discovery was a near-accidental by-product of Roy's regular line of research, searching for cells that abnormally disobey cellular signals in a cancer context, and he gives graduate student and study first author Patrick Narbonne much of the credit.
"Patrick was absolutely brilliant. He was so observant that he noticed these animals were dying way too early, and he also realized that they were not dying because of the cell-division issue."
Roy and Narbonne believe this discovery, which will require considerable additional research, may have significant long-term implications for human health.
"I think we should start looking at the enzymes involved in this cascade, particularly in obese individuals. They are likewise accumulating lipids, but in a reverse situation to C. elegans, this enzyme isn't recognizing it, or something is blocking its function. We're making the case that we can uncouple this enzyme from its normal regulation. If we could develop drugs to do that selectively in fatty tissue, we'd be able to chew up all the fat."
"This study fascinates me," said Dr. Robert Sladek, one of Canada's most prominent diabetes researchers, affiliated to the McGill Department of Human Genetics and the McGill and Genome Quebec Innovation Centre. "It will be exciting to see whether this pathway that controls energy storage and lifespan in worms plays a similar role in humans. The implications for patients with obesity and diabetes might be quite far-reaching."
ABOUT McGILL UNIVERSITY: McGill University, founded in Montreal, Que., in 1821, is Canada's leading post-secondary institution. It has two campuses, 11 faculties, 10 professional schools, 300 programs of study and more than 33,000 students. McGill attracts students from more than 160 countries around the world. Almost half of McGill students claim a first language other than English – including 6,000 francophones – with more than 6,200 international students making up almost 20 per cent of the student body.
ABOUT THE CANADIAN CANCER SOCIETY: The Canadian Cancer Society is a national community-based organization of volunteers whose mission is to eradicate cancer and to enhance the quality of life of people living with cancer. It is the largest national charitable funder of cancer research in Canada. Last year, the Society funded close to $49.5 million in leading-edge research projects across the country. To know more about cancer, visit the website at www.cancer.ca or call the toll-free, bilingual Cancer Information Service at 1 888 939-3333.
Article is not in anyway written by me... Its originally from: eurekalert.org
