Photomania blog

 Photomania group on read.cash: https://read.cash/c/photomania-and-other-photo-editing-apps-4f1f

Here are examples of posts with different filters or not edited photos: 

1) ARTi filters: https://read.cash/@Swca.ch/arti-art-effects-app-ff95656e

An app on google play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.photo.artboard

Let it bee : Pictures from Uptrennd posts

 With Uptrennd closing, moving my pictures here.

Population of bees and other insects is unfortunately declining. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/insects-dying-off-sign-of-6th-mass-extinction-2019-2?r=US&IR=T

https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/how-to-save-the-bees/

Uptrennd pictures

With Uptrennd discontinuation as of May 31st, here are some of my images from Uptrennd posts:

Some more post on read.cash

• Sunday Snowy Photowalk
• Winter 2021 ❄️ images
• Snow ❄️ with Photomania colours

Pictures are processed with Snapseed, reduce size android apps.

From Pythagoras to Blockchain

220 and 284  = The first pair of Amicable numbers. 

Amicable pairs were discovered or known already by Pythagoreans. There are several formulas to calculate Amicable pairs discovered from around 860 by Thābit ibn Qurra and further researched by Amicable Eastern and Western matematicians.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amicable_numbers

There is no universal function or formula to describe them all. But there is a project on BOINC to compute these numbers. There are around 1.2 milliards pairs discovered by now; kept in a database for a futher research by matematicians.

Around 450 new pairs was discovered on my laptop with BOINC Amicable pairs project so far.

Unfortunately, this project is not running on a mobile phone as it is requring a lot of resources. It can be run on a laptop and better on GPU. 

Good news  = if you like to join this Amicable effort, it is enough to join for a week with a powerful PC and discover one or more new Amicable pairs.

More good news = Amicable pair is a Gridcoin project that earns GRC either by solo mining or with a GRC pool. There is always a way to donate these coins if it is not an intention to earn with this project. Gridcoin blockchain is good to developing crowd  science and maybe worth participation too. 

Ready to join?

https://sech.me/boinc/Amicable/join.php

More information:

• https://read.cash/@Swca.ch/220-284-amicable-boinc-gridcoin-project-6529c327
• https://read.cash/@Swca.ch/220-284-amicable-boinc-gridcoin-project-6529c327
• https://gridcoin.us/

Uptrennd | From Pythagoras to Blockchain

Publish0x Banner

2key.io & Smart links

There is an interesting use case of 2key's smart links technology and video conferencing with Zoom.

It appears conference host can get paid for organizing a call or a training via Zoom smart session. Here is a link to the main page of this technology (no referral link)

https://www.2key.network/zoom-smartsession

I learned about it from the interview velow. There are more use cases, vision and technology behind 2key discussed:

https://2key.me/2KeyInterviewSmartlinksCryptoDefiErezBenKikiAlexandreRaffin/moto/TgUjR

This is a referral smart link. You may open it and listen to the interview or register with 2key and be a referrer : distribute these links and receive 2key tokens for referring. 

Leisure Infrared photography with FLIR

 Thermal imaging has a lot of use cases in diagnostic of buildings, healthcare, security and protection. 

Here are my images that are done with non-professional camera. 

The lead image to this post is a Flir camera, that is to be plugged directly to a phone. Below and on read.cash blog are images of birds.

https://read.cash/@Swca.ch/flir-thermal-images-of-birds-6e0cbf75

These are cows - pretty even distribution of a heat

There are some more images of trees, computers or coffee below. 

The only problem with my camera is that charge is lasting for 5 minutes. Then I need to re-charge. Battery was not good from the beginning but it is an old camera too. I hope newly cameras and those integrated in a mobile phone are better. 

• https://read.cash/@Swca.ch/flir-thermal-images-of-trees-9cd1e552
• https://read.cash/@Swca.ch/heating-at-home-with-folding-at-home-banano-788d4eee

The last article shows laptops computing proteins with the Banano team.

Now time for a coffee ...

Uptrennd | Leisure Infrared photography with FLIR

White, red, black and other currants

 

Trees from Uptrennd blog

 .....with Uptrennd closure, copy my tree images and collages in t
his post. 

Cryptocurrences (GRC, BAN) posts on read.cash

On-line and free courses about blockchain and cryptocurrences.(Edx, Coursera, Khan Academy)

Gridcoin, Banano with BOINC and Folding@home

1. Discover and earn free Gridcoin - GRC
2. BAN, GRC and exchanges
3. Gridcoin & Wallet 5.1 Update
4. BOINC projects with Gridcoin and Grcpool.com
5. Folding with Banano for Science & BAN
6. Start with Banano (BAN)

Gridcoin to reward volunteers to compute for science with BOINC

Gridcoin rewards computations with BOINC and compensated part of electricity cost.

BOINC client can be installed on a PC or Android phone to participate in a research of scientific projects in life science, physic, math and other fields.

Grcpool has to be used to select projects and connect to BOINC client to manage project progress and compute gridcoin rewards.

Gridcoin.us is an internet page of the Grindcoin project and Price of the coin can be found as follows:


https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/gridcoin-research

Although Gridcoin does not compensate electricity cost of computing, this is still rewarding and add some positivity in scientific contributions by volunteers.

Donate mobile phone or a PC power to the scientific research

World Community Grid perform scientific research by sending computational tasks to a distributed network of private devices.

BOINC installation is required and Android app can be easily installed via Google play.

BOINC app is very handy and has a lot of customisation in relation to the usage. It can be set up to be used only when screen is inactive, or phone is charging, or at a specific battery level. If is a please to use BOINC app.

Other research projects can be added.

It may be practical to use second mobile or even an old device - mobile or a tablet, for a test. Most economical, however, is to use a regular devise which is anyway switched on and working to get use of it's iddle time.

If you like to join me in this research  journey, please register with a referral link below.


 

Scientific computing with BOiNC is not profitable but may earn some GRC to add some fun and measure progress.

• https://read.cash/@Swca.ch/boinc-isnt-it-amazing-e735bee6
• https://read.cash/@Swca.ch/222-amicable-pairs-are-discovered-by-my-computer-and-boinc-b0152011
• https://read.cash/@Swca.ch/222-amicable-pairs-are-discovered-by-my-computer-and-boinc-b0152011

F@H Project 16804

 Now my laptop computes Project 16804 which is not related to COVID and here is a short description: 

Simulation of a potassium ion channel inactivation and conduction. Potassium ion channels are crucial proteins of the membranes of excitable cells like neurons or cardiac cells. ...

https://stats.fold ingathome.org/project?p=16804

What are potassium ion channels?

Potassium channels are proteins within a cell membrane to transport potassium. Cell membrane is a border between inside and outside, that regulates transfer of ions or other substances with often help of proteins . 

• Cell inside is generally charged negative but rich in potassium (K), 
• Cell outside is generally positive and rich in Natrium (Na).

Electric impulse in neurons and muscle cells is generated on a cell membrane and potassium ion channels play important role in this signal activity.

This is about what my computer was busy about. I hope scientist will find something new, publish it and help people with diseases related to electric activity of cells or potassium transport. 

Wanna fold with me? Click here

https://foldingathome.org/start-folding/

#citizenscience #foldingfirst #folding@home #F@H

Uptrennd | F@H update: Potassium ion channels

F@H update - project 14702

 After completing project 13850, my laptop runs project 14702.

Description of the project on F@H page is this:

These projects are CPU projects to simulate COVID-19 proteins to learn about their dynamics and function. These supplement high-priority GPU projects of the main protease as well as the COVID-19 receptor binding domains. All can be considered potential drug targets.

So this is about to design anti COVID-19 drugs targeting 2 molecules : the main protease and virus receptor binding domains. What is that? Let us get a little bit more details. 

1. The main protease.

Protease is an enzyme that cuts proteins. 'ase' is a common ending of enzyme names and more on this is here.

Covid-19 main protease is a peptide and an enzyme that human or other host cell produces based on COVID RNA genome.

So potential dugs against the main protease will obviously work after virus RNA is inserted into the cell and starts it's pathologic activity.

2. Receptor binding domains

Receptor is a peptide that receives and transmits signals. Many of receptors are located in the cell membaine and acessible on the cell membrane surface. These are getting signals and virus can also bind to these. More reading on this here.

Binding domains are parts of protein that are binding to the target. More on this here.

 So I assume that potential drugs against RBD will act differently and protect host cell from virus infection.

If you have questions, comments or corrections, please post below.

List of F@H projects

https://apps.foldingathome.org/psummary

References

https://stats.foldingathome.org/project?p=14702

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6489/409

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6083867/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3630917/

Uptrennd | F@H update - project 14702

F@H Project 13850

 Continuing education with Citizen Science and Folding@home

​​​​​​​​Anyone can join citizen science community and participate in a scientific research. 

I am currently running COVID-19 related project 13850 on my laptop. The F@H software runs in the background. It does not slow down my work despite requiring some computer resources (CPU).

Here is a description of the project:

"These are simulations of NSP9 from SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, which may participate in viral replication by acting as a ssRNA-binding protein. Its funciton is poorly understood in both viruses."

https://stats.foldingathome.org/project?p=13850

I do not have any idea on what ssRNA and NSP9 are. Let us check it together. 

1. ssRNA

Nucleic acids - DNA and RNA are bimacromolecules that contain information code which is translated from DNA and/or RNA into proteins that form and regulate our body.

DNA stores information in the form of double helix presumably in all life cells. Viruses however can store genetic data either in DNA or in RNA. And in addition to that, viruses can store genetic information in the form of either in double helix, or in a single strand.

Viruses having double helix of DNA are double-stranded DNA or dsDNA. Viruses with single helix are single-stranded: ssDNA or ssRNA.

So the first finding is  that ssRNA simply means single stranded RNA. 

2nd question: what is NSP9?

NSP stands for a nonstructutal protein. 

The nonstructutal proteins are coded in RNA of a virus but protein itself is not part of a virus particle. If I remember correctly, RNA virus requires host cell to use cell resources for the replication. So I assume that nonstructutal proteins are produced by host cell based on information in virus genome. Number 9 seems to be a number. There are NSP1, 2 and so on. Please see references below.

As written in folding@home project 13850 description, NSP9 function is poorly understood. 

I can again only assume that any knowledge on NSP9 function can help to develop new medicaments to stop virus replication in human bodies. This is purely my speculation not based on any further reading. 

As soon as my laptop completes 13850 task and starts to compute next project, I will try to discover something new.

If you find it cool, please join me with folding@home and feel free to have any questions or corrections below. 

Additional reading and references:

• https://www.pnas.org/content/101/11/3792


• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14962394/


• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Bowman%20GD%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=16608854


• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_(biology)


• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation_(biology)


• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_nonstructural_protein


• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive-sense_single-stranded_RNA_virus


• https://www.swca.ch/2020/05/folding-at-home-with-foldingathomeorg.html


• https://foldingathome.org/

Video is taken by me and compressed with video compressor

#CitizenScience #Folding@home #F@H

Uptrennd | Continuing education with Citizen Science and Folding@home

Folding@home with unused laptop resources for science

Protein Folding, or how to predict the 3D structure of proteins from 1D sequence, is a key task in molecular biology which is not yet resolved.

Folding@home is an oldest citizen science project i know. The project has started in October 2000 and now approaches its 20th anniversary.

Anyone can fold at home with a personal computer. The Folding@home software will run in the background, eat some free resources and fold the proteins for several projects including Oncology and COVID-19.

It does not slow down my laptop as i writing this post running The Folding@home in the background.

Software installation is here: https://foldingathome.org/start-folding/
Scientific part & publications of results: https://foldingathome.org/category/science/
Competing (donating resources) teams: https://stats.foldingathome.org/teams

How to learn about Blockchain?-> try it!

Photomania.net

The best way to learn about Blockchain is to try it.


Option with NANO:
1. Get free NANO wallet, f.e. https//natrium.io/

2. try NANO faucets to get some free NANO

https://getnano.co.uk/

https://nano-faucet.org/

https://www.freenanofaucet.com/

https://tetraloom.com/nano/

Playnano.online

http://bdragonfly.org/

Option to try with Ethereum and get free ERC-20 tokens:

1. Create free Ether wallet on Ether website or with Ether app . Make sure to back up passwords and keys.
2. Earn some tokens with Publish0x or Brave browser (if you have a website) .
3. Transfer tokens to Ether or other wallet.

More free ERC-20 tokens with:
Uptrennd - 20 1up tokens daily for reading.  Earn by writing posts and commenting. Welcome bonus with referral link: https://www.uptrennd.com/signup/Njg2MzA


Bitcoin or DOGE with watching adds:
CoinTiply - hight payout threshold, may require some time if watching adds only. There are options to advertise.
DOGE Telegram tip bot. Boring but there is option to advertise. Payout is 4 DOGE and good to test a wallet.

Other coins:
Getzen faucet- Horizen blockchain. Daily free coins to Horizen wallet

Bitcoin cash - weekly payout, low threshold. Perfect to test a wallet.

Free litcoin - weekly payout, low threshold. Perfect to test a wallet.
LBRY - LBC coins to watch and post video or text content.
Tezos faucet - once a week to test Tezos blockchain
BCH tipbot - boring but option to advertise

Free coins on exchanges: 
Atomars - DOGE, BAN, TRX and other coins free.
Atomic wallet - 10AWC welcome bonus plus 5AWC for joining with referral (17K1PD). 10 USD amount in coins is required for this airdrop. Do not forget to stake AWC for passive income.
Graviex exchange - some free coins incl. DOGE

This post is not a financial or investment advice. 

Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing: Pros and Cons

Millions of people worldwide have taken the at-home genetic test (1,2). Ancestry tests are very popular, plus there is a growing offering of health-related tests.

There is still a fair amount of uncertainty about test results and the use of personal data. In table below, there is an attempt to summarize arguments in favor or against private testing.  (This is not a recommendation in favor of taking a test). 

Pros	Cons
Useful information (Ancestry, Relatives, Health).	Privacy. Others can use your information in the way you do not know or do not want.
Some tests can be done anonymously (without providing personal details).	Privacy. Anonymous tests sound impossible.
Help Scientific research / Benefit from scientific results	Privacy. Possible discrimination (5), possible psychological Implications
Financial incentive for sharing data	Privacy. Not clear regulation / GDPR

Intriguing part of the decision making around taking or not taking DTC tests is that individuals can be still identified by DNA, even if not taking DNA tests. Either genetic databases or DNA markers can be used to learn about anonymous DNA and locate an individual.

Literature:

1. More than 270 Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing services are examined, their business models are classified in January 2020 publication of J Med Internet Res.: 'Valuable Genomes: Taxonomy and Archetypes of Business Models in Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing'. Comprehensive list of 448 DTC genetic companies is available @ publication site: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7001042/bin/jmir_v22i1e14890_app1.xlsx

2. More than 26 million people have taken an at-home ancestry test. The genetic genie is out of the bottle. And it’s not going back. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612880/more-than-26-million-people-have-taken-an-at-home-ancestry-test/

3.Opportunities and challenges of Distributed Ledger Technology in genomics: a call for Europe are summarized in the article of Eur J Hum Genet. Opportunities are : flexibility and access advantaged to data exchange for research, Increased security, further democratization of data. Challenges are: size of genomic data set, uncertain regulatory especially GDPR, awareness of public towards genetic data.

4. A Ledger of Me: Personalizing Healthcare Using Blockchain Technology  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6668357/

5. What is genetic discrimination? https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/testing/discrimination

6. A Systematic Review of the Psychological Implications of Genetic Testing: A Comparative Analysis Among Cardiovascular, Neurodegenerative and Cancer Diseases https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6295518/

7. Anonymous DNA Testing Is Here. But Who Wants It? https://elemental.medium.com/anonymous-dna-testing-is-here-but-who-wants-it-c642845fee1d

8. What is anonymous sequencing? https://nebula.org/anonymous-sequencing/

9. Facial recognition from DNA using face-to-DNA classifiers https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10617-y

10. Identification of Anonymous DNA Using Genealogical Triangulation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/531269v1

11. Gene theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_theft

12. The law of genetic privacy: applications, implications, and limitations
https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/6/1/1/5489401

Dog Aging Project -> Nominate your dog

The Dog Aging Project is a long-term biological study of aging in dogs, centered at the University of Washington.

https://dogagingproject.org/

The project engages the general public to register their dogs in the studies, and therefore the project is an example of citizen science..... A small subset of those dogs (approximately 500) will be enrolled in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the pharmaceutical rapamycin, which has shown signs of extending longevity in species such as mice.

• Can We Increase the Lifespan of dogs? Studies in progress! Part 1
• Part 2 Dog Longevity: How old was the oldest dog?
• The companion dog as a model for human aging and mortality
• A randomized controlled trial to establish effects of short-term rapamycin treatment in 24 middle-aged companion dogs
• The Dog Aging Project: Translational Geroscience in Companion Animals