New 'cell assay on a chip:' Solid results from simple means

ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2012) ? The great artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci once said that "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) research engineer Javier Atencia certainly believes in the wisdom of what da Vinci preached; he has a reputation for creating novel microfluidic devices out of ordinary, inexpensive components. This time, he has combined a glass slide, plastic sheets and double-sided tape into a "diffusion-based gradient generator" -- a tool to rapidly assess how changing concentrations of specific chemicals affect living cells.

Atencia's latest innovation offers a simple and inexpensive way to expose an array of cultured cells to a chemical gradient -- a solution where the chemical concentration changes gradually and predictably across the array. Such gradients are a rapid, high-throughput way to evaluate the effect on cell growth or toxicity.

There are two distinct advantages to the new NIST system over traditional microfluidic cell assay devices. The first is that the gradient is created by diffusion -- the gentle movement of matter from one point to another by random molecular motion. Conventional microfluidic systems usually mix fluids by pumping them in a circular motion or by twisting and folding them together. Diffusion greatly reduces the risk of cells being swept away or damaged by shearing forces in the test fluid.

The second big advantage is simplicity. The gradient generator is built in layers, with each section precisely positioned with an alignment tab. The base is a glass slide, upon which is attached a strip of double-sided tape cut to have a row of four micrometer-sized channels. Atop this goes a polystyrene strip cut to have two lines each of four tiny circular "wells" where each pair lines up with the ends of the channel below it. The next layer is another strip of double-sided tape, this time with a Y-shaped canal cut into it to serve as the flow path for the chemical gradient. Finally, a Mylar strip cut to have an identical Y-canal serves as the cover.

The hinged cover allows access to the wells for adding test cells. Once done, the cover is lowered and affixed, sealing the gradient generator. Fluid flow in and out of the system is accomplished using another Atencia innovation, magnetic connectors. Kept at constant pressure, this flow assures a steady-state stream through the device and creates a diffusion gradient in each buried channel. Cells in the channels are simultaneously exposed to a range of chemical concentrations from high to low.

To test the device, Atencia and his colleagues loaded it with cells genetically engineered to produce large amounts of green fluorescent protein (GFP) and then introduced cycloheximide (CHX), a chemical that shuts down ribosomes, the cell's protein factories. Cells exposed to the toxin quickly stop synthesizing GFP, decreasing fluorescence by an amount directly related to the concentration of CHX.

This is exactly what the researchers observed in the gradient generator assays. The cells were exposed three times to CHX, and each time, the level of GFP fluorescence increased as the concentration of CHX in the gradient decreased, and vice versa.

In his previous microfluidics creations, Atencia turned a simple plastic dish into a "microfluidic palette" for exposing cells to multiple chemical concentrations in a single chamber and then merged donut-shaped magnets and plastic tubes to make a leak-free connector for getting fluids into and out of a microchannel.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Javier Atencia, Gregory A. Cooksey, Laurie E. Locascio. A robust diffusion-based gradient generator for dynamic cell assays. Lab on a Chip, 2012; 12 (2): 309 DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20829B

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120208132846.htm

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SportsCareerAdvice.com ? Answers Archive ? In the event it may ...

Economic mobility could exclusively always be known along with working hard, technology, as well as a well-liked ? nevertheless efficient ? service or product. However together with a business, these a few frequently acquire clouded by using acquiring practically way too many opportunities. It is simple to acquire disappointed any time researching the actual mind-boggling quantity of company settings widely available online. Nevertheless by using e-books, lots of small business owners tend to be finding financial liberty and will be offering long-lasting merchandise regarding value. E-books are electric books that might consist of artwork, photos, seem, in addition to information associated with virtually any theme. They are able to in addition include inbound links to several web pages with regard to promotions or perhaps illustrations. It is quite affordable to make the e-book, yet somehow persons enjoy studying these people daily. E-books usually are well-liked online as they are commonly affordable or perhaps cost-free and provides tips and also tips about a number of topics. The particular subjects could be anything at all via ?how in order to earn money online? to be able to ?how to begin a house business. inch E-books could also handle far more certain topics including ?how to produce cash using an ideas business? or perhaps ?cross-stitching methods for the beginner. inch The probabilities for e-book themes will be endless. Starting a great e-book organization signifies you?re providing e-books available for sale on the web to the distinct potential audience. You can sell off only one or even a handful of e-books, and also you can even offer hundreds of these individuals. The choice can be your own property, but obviously, the more e-books people present, greater possibilities you will have to make the rewarding salary. Any time buying a new portable computers, there are several items that you look at before doing ones obtain. Not surprisingly, the value is just about the key analyzing components while choosing which portable computer to get, nonetheless, there may be another issue that needs to be regarded sometimes prior to plus your laptop or computer staff look at cost. You should carefully examine the notebook computer pc?s technical specs ? see exactly what it?s got ?inside? ? to help you create whether it is especially made for the easily transportable processing tasks of which in store. SLI (Scalable Website Slot) is actually an exclusive technological innovation manufactured by NVIDIA, a good known entire world boss around illustrations or photos finalizing systems. NVIDIA is liable for one of the most commonly used pr?-r?glable Design Digesting Items (GPUs) around Pcs worldwide currently. Your Design Running Component or perhaps GPU can be a specialist graphics-rendering unit. Great visuals image resolution (visible realistic look) plus rapidly images rendering include the leading positive aspects the GPU offers above bundled graphics. We have this particular a couple of e book thoughts that we feel working on. Today, I will be not only a publication writer neither ?m We worthwhile on them. To bring a new work of fiction out of inception in order to book can take 2-3 ages. In this quick publishing world, number of editors and real estate agents are able to work with a brand new article author judging by an outline and also small sample. You need to be capable to demonstrate can certainly deliver what we promise. We keep getting the concept out as well as global My spouse and i go on time for it.

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Romney battles Santorum, Paul in GOP caucuses

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign rally in Loveland, Colo., Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign rally in Loveland, Colo., Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks in Colorado Springs, Colo., Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks at the Colorado Energy Summit in Golden, Colo., Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, signs a campaign poster during a campaign stop Monday, Feb. 6, 2012, in St. Cloud, Minn. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

(AP) ? Republican front-runner Mitt Romney battled Rick Santorum and Ron Paul on Tuesday in political caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado, hoping to extend his winning streak in the race for the presidential nomination.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich mounted no significant campaign in either state, looking ahead to primaries elsewhere.

Romney prevailed in both Minnesota and Colorado in 2008, the first time he ran for the nomination, but the GOP has become more conservative in both states since then under the influence of tea party activists.

There were 37 Republican National Convention delegates at stake in Minnesota and 33 more in Colorado.

In addition, Missouri held a non-binding primary on Tuesday. The state picks its delegates at caucuses next month.

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, campaigned aggressively in all three states, seeking a breakthrough to revitalize a campaign that has struggled since his narrow first-place finish in the Iowa caucuses a month ago.

Paul, a Texas lawmaker, has yet to win a primary or caucus.

Romney began the day the leader in the delegate chase, with 101 of the 1,144 needed to capture the nomination at the Republican National Convention this summer in Tampa. Gingrich had 32, Santorum 17 and Paul nine.

Taken together, the number of delegates at stake Tuesday was the largest one-day total yet in the Republican race to pick a rival for President Barack Obama. Even so, the campaigning was a pale comparison to the Iowa caucuses or primaries last month in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.

Television advertising was sparse; neither Colorado nor Minnesota hosted a candidates' debate, and there was relatively little campaigning by the contenders themselves until the past few days.

The same was true in last weekend's Nevada caucuses, which Romney won on the heels of a Florida primary victory days earlier. The same pattern holds in Maine, where caucuses finish on Saturday.

Not until primaries in Michigan and Arizona on Feb. 28 is the campaign likely to regain the intensity that characterized the first few weeks of the year. Then it roars back to life with a 10-state Super Tuesday on March 6 with 416 convention delegates at stake.

Santorum, in particular, hoped to seize the relative lull to redeem the promise of his Iowa victory.

He campaigned more aggressively this week than any of the other contenders, and he spent the day hopscotching from Colorado to Minnesota to Missouri in hopes of nailing down a victory in one of the states. Touting himself as a true conservative ? a slap at Gingrich ? he sought to undermine Romney's electability claim at the same time by predicting the former Massachusetts governor would lose to Obama.

Romney responded by assailing Santorum as an advocate of congressional earmarks ? shifting the criticism he had leveled at Gingrich when the Georgian seemed a more imposing threat.

In the hours before the caucuses convened, the front-runner sought to lower expectations.

"Mitt Romney is not going to win every contest," Rich Beeson, the campaign's political director, wrote in a memo for public consumption.

"John McCain lost 19 states in 2008, and we expect our opponents will notch a few wins, too," Beeson wrote. McCain, the Arizona senator, won the Republican nomination four years ago.

In fact, Colorado and Minnesota were among the states that McCain failed to win, and he lost them to Romney.

In the four years since, the GOP has become more conservative in both. That posed a challenge for Romney, who runs as the Republican most likely to defeat Obama and is still trying to establish his credentials among tea party activists suspicious of a one-time moderate who backed abortion rights.

Two years ago in Minnesota, establishment candidates for governor were swept aside in the primary, and tea party-backed insurgents for governor and the Senate in Colorado won the party nominations.

In all three cases, Democrats won in the general election that fall.

Gingrich spent the day campaigning in Ohio, one of the primary states on March 6.

His campaign went into a downward spiral after he won the South Carolina primary in an upset. The former speaker was routed in the Florida primary to Romney, then finished a distant second in Nevada over the weekend.

___

David Espo reported from Washington.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-02-07-US-GOP-Campaign/id-230d481d484e4e4780bc6654ad49c0ff

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The Magic Mouse's Evil Twin Still Yearns For Your Gentle Touch [Mouse]

We didn't exactly walk away impressed with Logitech's unorthodox Cube mouse, but the company's just-announced M600 features a more traditional form factor, bearing a striking resemblance to Apple's Magic Mouse as it also sheds buttons for a touch-friendly surface. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/gfl5YgwtJzc/the-magic-mouses-evil-twin-still-yearns-for-your-gentle-touch

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Is education really a worthy investment?

Contemporary education is a dead end. Huge amounts of money ? public, private, charitable, debt, savings, earnings ? are invested. The output is small, dubious and perhaps even negative.

Several of the ?Capitalism in Crisis? thinkers ? even those who should have known better ? thought the government needed to invest more money in education.

Skip to next paragraph Bill Bonner

Bill has written two New York Times best-selling books, Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt. With political journalist Lila Rajiva, he wrote his third New York Times best-selling book, Mobs, Messiahs and Markets, which offers concrete advice on how to avoid the public spectacle of modern finance. Since 1999, Bill has been a daily contributor and the driving force behind The Daily Reckoning (dailyreckoning.com).

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Kenneth Rogoff, for example, concludes that ?improved education alone will not resolve the flaws inherent in today?s capitalism, but it [is an] essential first step down any path to a solution.?

Oh? We never quite figured out the connection. The problem in a nutshell is that developed countries have too much debt and not enough growth. And their debt is growing faster than their output. How then does spending more on non-productive behavior increase GDP output or decrease debt?

Contemporary education is a dead end. The industry has been taken over by zombies. Huge amounts of money ? public, private, charitable, debt, savings, earnings ? are invested. The output is small, dubious and perhaps even negative.

We know that in some fields, such as economics, the more instruction a person has, the less he knows. Economics ? as taught in many universities ? is a value-subtracting discipline. As to other fields ? politics, sociology, literature, gender studies ? we are suspicious.

We have also noted that despite huge increases in per capita, inflation adjusted spending over the last 40 years, test scores have not increased. This suggests that the money was wasted.

But our suspicions run deeper. We suspect that ? outside science and engineering ? most education, from the first grade to a PhD, is at best a costly luxury?at worst, a big waste of time and money.

Here is evidence, a letter from a former slave to his former master, written only a few years after the War Between the States came to an end. We don?t know, but it is unlikely the former slave had any formal education. But you will notice that today?s typical university graduate could not match his clear thinking or his polite, funny, sarcastic style:

Dayton, Ohio,
?August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin?s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy ? the folks call her Mrs. Anderson ? and the children ? Milly, Jane, and Grundy ? go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, ?Them colored people were slaves? down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor?s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams?s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve ? and die, if it come to that ? than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

Regards,

Bill Bonner
?for The Daily Reckoning

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on dailyreckoning.com.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/5p9crQJyRgg/Is-education-really-a-worthy-investment

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Depression Symptoms In Women | Articles Tunnel

Here are the facts about depression symptoms in women. In the U.S. about 15 million people experience depression each year. The majority of them are women. Unfortunately, nearly two-thirds do not get the help they need

.

Depression symptoms in women are very common. In fact, women are twice as likely to develop clinical depression as men. Up to one in four women is likely to have an episode of major depression at some point in life.

What exactly is depression?

Depression is a substantial and pervasive mood disorder. It results in sensations of dismay, hopelessness, helplessness, and questioning your self worth. Depression might be minor to medium with indication of apathy, reduced desires for food, problems sleeping, bad self-esteem, and slight lethargy. Or it might be much more serious.

Depression symptoms in women

Symptoms of depression in women include:

? persistent gloomy, troubled, or ?drained? mood, stress

? loss of desire or enjoyment in pursuits, including sexual intercourse

? restlessness, frustration, or abnormal crying

? feelings of shame, worthlessness, vulnerability, hopelessness, negativity

? sleeping too much or too little, early-morning awakening

? appetite and/or weight-loss or overindulging and excess weight

? decreased energy, fatigue

? thoughts of loss or committing suicide, or suicide effort

? difficulty paying attention, remembering, or making judgements

? persistent bodily signs and symptoms that don?t react to treatment, like head aches, digestive problems, and persistent pain.

Why are depression symptoms in women more common than men?

Before adolescence, the rates of depression is about the same in girls and boys. However, with the onset of puberty, a girl?s risk of developing depression increases dramatically to twice that of boys.

Experts believe that the increased chance of depression symptoms in women may be related to changes in hormone levels that occur throughout a woman?s life. These changes are evident during puberty, pregnancy, and menopause as well as after giving birth or experiencing a miscarriage. In addition, the hormone fluctuations that occur with each month?s menstrual cycle probably contribute to premenstrual syndrome, or PMS, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD ? a severe syndrome marked especially by depression, anxiety, and mood swings that occurs the week before menstruation and interferes with normal functioning of daily life.

What increases the chances of depression in women?

According to the National Institutes of Health, factors that increase the risk of depression in women include reproductive, genetic, or other biological factors; interpersonal factors; and certain psychological and personality characteristics. In addition, women juggling work with raising kids and women who are single parents suffer more stress that may trigger symptoms of depression. Other factors that could increase risk include:

? family history of mood disorders

? history of mood disorders in early reproductive years

? loss of a father or mother earlier than age 10

? loss of personal support system as well as the chance of such a loss

? ongoing emotional and personal tension, like the loss of a job, partnership stress, separation or divorce

? physical or sexual mistreatment growing up

? use of specified medications

Women may also get postpartum depression following the birth of a child. A number of people experience seasonal affective disorder in winter.

If you think that you, or perhaps a family member, could be struggling with depression please visit your doctor as quickly as you can. As severe a predicament as depression could be, it will react nicely to treatment methods. Do not be part of the over fifty percent that do not look for help. There isn?t any reason you cannot feel much better soon.

Learn more about depression symptoms in women and in men. Visit Control Stress and browse though our many articles on stress reduction, depression and anxiety, and sleep issues.

Source: http://articlestunnel.com/health-fitness/depression-symptoms-in-women

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North Korea's New Killer Drone Is Made In the USA [Weapons]

That red thing flying next to the F-16 is an MQM-107D Streaker, a target drone that was developed in the 1970s for the USAF and the Army. The North Koreans have bought several of them from Syria, and they are now using them to build unmanned attack drones loaded with high explosives. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/mzuJeixjgsk/north-koreas-newest-killer-drone-comes-from-the-usa

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Do U.S. Bankruptcy Laws Offer Unfair Aid to Domestic Companies ...

The redemptive benefits of bankruptcy for individuals who use it wisely are viewed by many as a positive force for the American economy. Allowing individuals to discharge debts in bankruptcy gives them an opportunity for a second financial chance.

Companies in the United States, however, may see even bigger benefits from bankruptcy than individual consumers, according to a recent report from NASDAQ.com.

In fact, some experts are now arguing that American bankruptcy laws help domestic businesses gain a competitive advantage over their international competitors

Corporate Bankruptcy Laws in the United States

According to the NASDAQ report, bankruptcy law in the United States may be excessively kind to American businesses:

  • Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Chapter 11, which is the main form of corporate bankruptcy, has been viewed by one economics professor as ?the darling of the international business world? because of its lenient nature towards American businesses.
  • Chapter 11 benefits. Sources indicate that, when American companies file bankruptcy, they are able to reduce their debts without taking much risk. In bankruptcy, U.S. corporations are often able to shed union contracts, pension obligations, and other similar burdens. In contrast, companies that go broke in England are often required to fire all their top officials.
  • Bankruptcy as business planning. Because of these features, some observers argue that companies in the U.S. use bankruptcy as a sort of business strategy to reorganize their finances in times of trouble. Many companies know that they may emerge from bankruptcy in a stronger financial position than they were before they filed.

The article discussing the issue also observed that many of the most famous American companies have sought bankruptcy protection, including the recent filing of the parent company of American Airlines.

Are These Bankruptcy Laws Good or Bad?

So, if the U.S. Bankruptcy Code allows companies to shed debts without making much of a sacrifice in bankruptcy court, is this a positive development for the country as a whole?

Some say no, given the real human costs that employees of bankrupt companies encounter when they lose their pensions, or lose certain benefits in the contracts.

However, the ease with which companies can file bankruptcy may promote more entrepreneurship amongst U.S. citizens, which, theoretically, could create more jobs.

The relative merits of the forgiving U.S. bankruptcy system can be debated, but one thing is for sure?many companies abroad would love to see their countries adopt a similar system.

Source: http://www.clearbankruptcy.com/blog/do-u-s-bankruptcy-laws-offer-unfair-aid-to-domestic-companies/

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Reinvention: The rewards of trying again

First-time wonders deserve our awe and applause. But almost every good thing in life -- from careers to ideas, products to poetry -- is more reinvention than invention.

Who doesn?t love an invention? Think of the light bulb, which had never shined in all of history until Thomas Edison switched it on on Dec. 31, 1879. Think of lasers, helicopters, microchips, elegant equations like E = mc?, and even modest wonders like batteries, Velcro, and air conditioning. We honor inventors, enrich them, ask them about the meaning of life.

Skip to next paragraph

Reinvention isn?t in that league. The tip-off is the ?re,? meaning it?s been done before. If invention is the dazzling hit, reinvention usually begins as a miss. But a miss that is taken back into the workshop, rethought, reworked, and brought out for a second, third, or fourth try can change the world. The light bulb, for instance, only stayed lit after it hadn?t at least 6,000 times. Each?time, Edison and his co-workers took stock of what went wrong, made improvements, and tried again. His invention was a serial reinvention.

For many workers in the wake of the 2007-09 recession, reinvention has not been by choice. Nor has it been easy. But here?s what re-invention always is: necessary.?

For one thing, economic survival depends on reinvention. Job security has all but vanished in most industries. Owning a home or shoveling money into a 401(k) is not the path to financial security it once was believed to be. That?s bad news. The good news is that so many people have experienced financial setbacks, layoffs, or job shifts in recent years that it is clear that failure is not about character flaws.

Failure can be an opportunity. Saying that, of course, is easier than living through it, especially if you?re out of work, in debt, or clinging to a job you don?t like because you need the money. But as you?ll see in our cover story, reinvented careers can be the ones in which people learn more about who they really are and make a go of something they really love.?

The key seems to be to stop mourning the past, honestly assess your skills, envision where you want to be, gain new skills, and then go for it. You may not end up where you think you should, but you will be learning with every step.?

As Abraham Maslow, who developed the famed ?hierarchy of needs? ? a pyramid that everyone climbs from basic requirements like food and water to an apex of creativity and achievement ? put it: ?One?s only failure is failing to live up to one?s own possibilities.?

Besides, people who have seemed touched by greatness still have lives to live. Like athletes and musicians, most inventors are highly productive in their youth. At 25, Albert Einstein experienced a ?year of wonders.? Working as a patent clerk, he achieved conceptual breakthroughs that revolutionized modern physics. Einstein led a long and useful life, and some of his most profound discoveries happened long after he was 25. But the sum of his brilliance during that one year was never repeated.

I once asked an octogenarian physicist about his year of wonders. Among other things Martin Deutsch, who taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had discovered positronium, an elemental form of matter. ?In 1951 and ?52, I had a great creative outburst that I?ve never had again,? he told me. ?It was a virtuoso performance.??

His colleagues thought he would win the Nobel Prize. He was not bitter that he did not. Instead he reinvented himself as a teacher and was satisfied that ?there are people who have become what they have become because of what I have taught them.??

At the end of our conversation, he pointed out a spruce tree in the corner of his garden. He had rescued it when his neighbor threw out a bunch of potted plants. Day after day it had sat there, refusing to turn brown. ?It wanted to live,? he said.

Martin Deutsch died in 2002. His students are pushing physics forward in the 21st century. And that spruce, which didn?t make it as a potted plant, flourished.

John Yemma is the editor of The Christian Science Monitor. To comment on this column or anything else in the Monitor, please e-mail editor@csmonitor.com.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/kt1z27kYjSw/Reinvention-The-rewards-of-trying-again

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