Georgi’s Blog

We’re in Bulgaria

We have arrived in Bulgaria alive. Only one bag is missing and we were delayed only 3-4 hours. I need to have some sleep. Tomorrow for more…

Good news for diabetics

Cell magazine ( one of the top three science magazines ) has published an article called “TRPV1+ Sensory Neurons Control b Cell Stress and Islet Inflammation in Autoimmune Diabetes”. In few words they are able to reduce diabetic progress and recover insulin production. It is expected in an year or two to have a cure for diabetes.

SUMMARY
In type 1 diabetes, T cell-mediated death of
pancreatic b cells produces insulin deficiency.
However, what attracts or restricts broadly
autoreactive lymphocyte pools to the pancreas
remains unclear. We report that TRPV1+ pancre-
atic sensory neurons control islet inflammation
and insulin resistance. Eliminating these neu-
rons in diabetes-prone NOD mice prevents
insulitis and diabetes, despite systemic persis-
tence of pathogenic T cell pools. Insulin resis-
tance and b cell stress of prediabetic NOD
mice are prevented when TRPV1+ neurons are
eliminated. TRPV1NOD, localized to the Idd4.1
diabetes-risk locus, is a hypofunctional mutant,
mediating depressed neurogenic inflammation.
Delivering the neuropeptide substance P by
intra-arterial injection into the NOD pancreas
reverses abnormal insulin resistance, insulitis,
and diabetes for weeks. Concordantly, insulin
sensitivity is enhanced in trpv1 mice, whereas
insulitis/diabetes-resistant NODxB6Idd4-con-
genic mice, carrying wild-type TRPV1, show re-
stored TRPV1 function and insulin sensitivity.
Our data uncover a fundamental role for insulin-
responsive TRPV1+ sensory neurons in b cell
function and diabetes pathoetiology

link

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Beta

This Friday adobe released the first beta of Phosothop. The best news for us Mac users is that it is now unibin. Here is the difference:
Radial Blur with 100 on Best and spin

Using this image:

http://joro.geodar.com/images/ps3.jpg

Photoshop CS2: 103 seconds
Photoshop CS3: 70 seconds

MacBook 2.0GBz white, 1.25GB ram, 100GB hdd 5400rpm

Vacation time is comming

The plan is to fly away from New York this comming Tuesday and to arrive in Sofia the next day. But before that, I have to go to work today, tomorrow I have to get our i-20s signed, to pay part of my school bill, to prepare the luggage, to go to my last final for the semester and if everything is allright on Wednesday be in Plovdiv renting a nice place! Why rent? I’ll write about that when I go home. That’s enough for now

Bulgaria part of the European Union

James Kim

I don’t know how many of you have watched cnet reviews, but for those of you who are, I’m sure you’ve seen some audio gadget reviewed by James Kim. About 11 days ago his family and him went on a vacation for the weekend and decided to go trough a snowy road to enjoy the wilderness. Unfortunately their car got stuck in the middle of nowhere. Two days ago, his wife and his two kids were found along the car, but he was missing - gone to look for help after 8 days in the car with little food and water. Today his body was found…

link

Tai Show East

Last night we went to Tai Show East - japanese restaurant right next to us. The environment was pretty nice and they have special sections with small room-like places to eat where you take your shoes off before you get in and you sit on the ground. Next time we will ask for one of these :).
We ate several things and they were all good. Of course, our waitress had a heavy accent, but it was understandable. In the middle of the restaurant there is a huge coral aquarium, that was great to look at.

Loooong weekend

This weekend I worked a lot. Sat and Sun I was all day at work and only Sun morning I managed to fix some pancakes. My chef’s knife arrived on Fri. It is very light and extremely sharp. At first the handle looked too long, but later when I played with the knife a little it was alright. The blade has a perfect shape for the various cutting techniques. With the knife I got a magnetic bar to mount all my knives on the wall. It is very nice and it even has similar pattern, as the knife handle.

Here I would like to express my disappointment. I had a paper to write for my economics class discussing an economist, a school of economy or compare two of my choice. Because there is a presentation of the paper I thought that it will be interesting for everyone to write and present about the gift economy. Unfortunately, after the professor read the paper, he asked me to write about something else because this topic was too futuristic. And today I wrote about something completely different. Also today I was told that I should not present on my first work but only my second one… I wanted so much to talk about the free/open software economy…

I love to cook

Since I was little, I like to cook and recently I notice that I enjoy it even more now. Since Friday I am “in the zone”. That night I made beef tape soup(BG style), Sat and Sun I worked all day, Mon I made pasta with pork meat souse, Tue I made BG style pizza with lots of stuff on it (corn, mushrooms, peas, peppers, meat, egg, feta cheese, muenster cheese, and a ton of herbs), last night we made pork chops in hunters sauce ( bg style sauce ) from Ivan Zvezdev’s book.

That’s why I got a good chef’s knife. Global G-2 which wasn’t that expensive after using my gift certificate from amazon. It will come today or tomorrow.

Turkey Day

One week ago was turkey day and everything was closed. Silvia & Emo invited us to have dinner at their place and we decided to go. The weather was nasty, but that didn’t stop us. We even made baklava the night before to bring over there. Ofcourse we ate turkey, but stuffed with rise and livers - BG style. It was very good. The night was pleasant and we left around 11:10- 11:20. We came back home at around 1:40. There are a few pics but I have not downloaded it from the camera.