Last day at work - new beginnings

Today was my last day of work, in a place that make me grow, despite the dificulties. In the end, no place is perfect in the real world. And as a parting gift i give a red rose to every woman and a fancy pen to every man that worked with me in the past months. Why, would you ask? Because i can. I couldn't help myself to notice their reactions, and just this bit, the way in which you accept an unexpected gift, make me know more about them than i could learn in the whole amount of time of working together. I had so much fun. Fat or skinny, young or old, didn't matter to me, every one of them get their gift, and their reactions varied from: "why?" or "must cost you a fortune to do this" to hug without being able to say a word ( in fact she said after a while that nobody ever did something like that there ). I told them that it was a privilege to work with them and after that i just left. Nobody knew that it was my last day at work there until i told them. But at least something very amusing happen. Being the time to end the shift, everyone was going home smiling, full of hope, holding a rose as a personal trophy and we got even random people on the street noticing that and smiling back.
Who was thinking that one person can generate such a shift in a very solid pattern of daily thoughts through an apparently insemnificative act ?

P.S. This is not only a selfless act, but also a variation of the Stop technique developed by Gurdjieff at the beginning of the 20th century.

Financial independence for people working in Central London

I just heard about some rumors like commuting from Madrid is cheaper than living in London. Is that true? Let's see. As Homes&Property of Evening Standard is saying, an average one bedroom flat in Camden costs 1893 a month to rent, council tax is 111,40 and a zone 1-2 travel card is 123,30, resulting the basic cost of living in London 2128 pounds. A fully furnished air-conditioned apartment (Yes, we got sunny days in Spain) in the heart of Madrid is 532 per month, with no council tax to pay. Booking the flight with budget airlines like Ryanair will cost you on average 900 per month. That is 1725 pounds a month including train travel. 403 pounds less every month, or 4836 extra money in one year. And we are talking about Madrid. Good football, nice food, good exchange rate pound/euro, 6 months of proper summer and Latin women. What would you want more?

P.S. IF you want to move i can tell you this:
Best websites to find a home are Idealista and Fotocasa.
Best budget airlines are Easyjet and Ryanair.

And in just 5 years you will save 38.688 pounds on average 4% return. In 10 years is no less than 74.958. Living in Spain. Working in London. Any thoughts?

(Of course it will be much easier to move to a small city like Bedford,one hour to Central London by train. Where you will pay 500 for rent for a 2 bedroom flat, 55 of council tax and 367 for train (4404 for an yearly train pass) on a monthly basis, making your expenses 922 pounds. This way we will have a whooping 1206 saving per month or 14472 per year. For 5 years is 115.776 pounds (on average 4% return), for 10 years is an incredible 463.104 pounds, more than enough for your early retirement, financial independence, FIRE or whatever is your strategy called. Sometimes is just as easier as that. And 4% return means that you will learn to live with 18524 pounds per year, or 1543 per month. We can go even further. Imagine that your partner is doing the same thing as you. 3086 per month. Add 10 years from now and you can be the one of the few living the dream.)

***Don't forget to buy me a drink when you get there. Ha ha!

Drug addiction and other false identities

Motto: In the end, Love indeed conquers all. (GM)

Drug addiction and other false identities. Or maybe they are real? To understand this we need first to define identity. We got some very specific beliefs, for example ones about a particular friend. Whatever he will do, we will link the meaning of his actions to the way we think and feel about him. This could be true or just another illusion. Some beliefs, however, have more influence on our life, and they can have much further reaching consequences. They can be called global beliefs. An above any of those, is the core belief that is the ultimate filter to all of our perceptions. Some call this Ego; some define it as our Identity. This belief directly controls the consistency of our life decisions. Important idea: what we can or can’t do, what is possible or impossible for us, is not a direct result of our capability, is in fact direct response at our beliefs of who we believe we are. This last phrase only explain the world class violinist experiment (under hypnosis some beginner violinist were convinced that they are in fact world class experts training for 30-40 years, and when they played, they played like a world class ones, some word class violinists were convinces they are absolute beginners, and they played as a beginner when they tried – in conclusion we can reach greatness when we let themselves to, not before, but I close this transgression here). The beliefs that we use to define our own individuality, what make us unique from other individuals and our sense of certainty about who we are, it is what create our Identity and the boundaries and limits within which we live. Our capability is constant, but how much of it we use depends upon the identity we have for ourselves. And here we can mention the Pygmalion effect – the individual and personality that others perceive you to be controls their responses to you. (idea inspired by the movie ‘Pygmalion in the classroom’ where one teacher convinced his class that they are exceptional, despite them being totally average, and the whole class achieved genius like results in very short time).  Another idea in this direction is that we will act consistently with our definition of Self, whether this view is accurate or not. The only problem is that the Pygmalion effect also works very well in reverse (think about how many times you were saying to your child that he is stupid and clumsy at the tiniest mistake and stop doing that in the future). Something repeated enough became a self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is how we went to all this bunch of data to finally reach the subject of addiction, any kind of addiction, but we will insist mostly on drug addiction.

Anyone who believes that they have developed a drug addiction can clearly change. It will be difficult, but a lasting change is possible and can be made. Conversely, anyone who believes himself/herself to be an addict will usually return to the use of the substance he/she is addicted even after weeks or months of abstinence. Why, will you ask? Is because whatever you believe that you are. You don’t have an addiction, you see yourself as an addict. Remember that once anyone has a conviction about anything, he/she will ignore and even defend against any evidence that’s contrary to his/her belief. Unconsciously, this person will not believe that he/she can change long-term and this will control his/her behavior. Also it is a benefit involving the process on maintaining this destructive behavior. You can blame your addiction on something you can’t control, instead of facing the reality that taking drugs, for example, is a conscious decision that you make every day. When you are there, surrendering your identity would be even more painful than the destructive effect of the drugs themselves. When you develop a new way of defining yourself (Christian, Muslim, leader, health nut, “I am the living proof that you can quit drugs”), whatever kind of identity, but one that would never ever consider the use of drugs, that’s when your behavior will change.  The identity change will shift all yours behaviors and allow them to create long term physiological changes that are consistent with the new identity. And going even further, one shift in identity can cause a shift of your entire Master System. In this stage, even if you will be offered drugs for free, you will just say  ‘I am not that kind of person, That’s who I used to be.’.

How we do this? Easy to be said, but hard to be done? No way. It is easier that you can imagine. I will start describing some experiments in order to make you grasp the concept.

Experiment 1: Rat Park – researched by Bruce Alexander, Robert Coambs, Patricia Hadaway and Barry Beyerstein

In the 1960-1980 we had some experiments on rats closed solitary in Skinner box, and was given the possibility to choose between A. water and B. water solution of heroin, cocaine or other class A drugs. The rat will always choose the option B. heroin solution, and will use this until they will die by overdose. What a triumph! This showed the danger and the addiction created by most of the drugs, and everybody acclaimed this research.  Later, a group of researchers from Simon Fraser University, Bruce Alexander, Robert Coambs, Patricia Hadaway and Barry Beyerstein, took a different approach. Here is what Bruce Alexander said about the experiment:

“We compared the drug intake of rats housed in a reasonably normal environment 24 hours a day with rats kept in isolation in the solitary confinement cages that were standard in those days. This required building a great big plywood box on the floor of our laboratory, filling it with things that rats like, such as platforms for climbing, tin cans for hiding in, wood chips for strewing around, and running wheels for exercise. Naturally we included lots of rats of both sexes, and naturally the place soon was teeming with babies. The rats loved it and we loved it too, so we called it “Rat Park”. We ran several experiments comparing the drug consumption of rats in Rat Park with rats in solitary confinement in regular laboratory cages. In virtually every experiment, the rats in solitary confinement consumed more drug solution, by every measure we could devise. And not just a little more. A lot more. Here are the results of one of our first experiments. You will see at a glance that the rats in Rat Park, called the “Social Females” and “Social Males” in this graph, are consuming hardly any morphine solution, but the “Caged Females” and “Caged Males” are consuming a lot. In this experiment the females consumed more than the males, but that gender difference did not hold up in later experiments. It soon became absolutely clear to us that the earlier Skinner box experiments did not prove that morphine was irresistible to rats. Rather, most of the consumption of rats isolated in a Skinner box was likely to be a response to isolation itself. “

Experiment 2: Quitting drugs after Vietnam War – by Archives of General Psychiatry

After the end of war in Vietnam, 15-20% of the American soldiers were using heroin regularly. It was thought to be the most addictive substance ever produced, a narcotic so powerful that once addiction claimed you, it was nearly impossible to escape.

In response to this report, President Richard Nixon took action. In June of 1971 he announced that he was creating a whole new office — The Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention — dedicated to fighting the evil of drugs. He laid out a program of prevention and rehabilitation, but there was something else Nixon wanted: He wanted to research what happened to the addicted servicemen once they returned home. Soon a comprehensive system was set up so that every enlisted man was tested for heroin addiction before he was allowed to return home. And in this population, Robins did find high rates of addiction: Around 20 percent of the soldiers self-identified as addicts. Those who were addicted were kept in Vietnam until they dried out. When these soldiers finally did return to their lives back in the U.S., Robins tracked them, collecting data at regular intervals. And this is where the story takes a curious turn: According to her research, the number of soldiers who continued their heroin addiction once they returned to the U.S. was shockingly low. "I believe the number of people who actually relapsed to heroin use in the first year was about 5 percent," Jaffe said recently from his suburban Maryland home. In other words, 95 percent of the people who were addicted in Vietnam did not become re-addicted when they returned to the United States. This flew in the face of everything everyone knew both about heroin and drug addiction generally. When addicts were treated in the U.S. and returned to their homes, relapse rates hovered around 90 percent. It didn't make sense. According to Wendy Wood, a psychologist at University of Southern California who researches behavior change, throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s scientists believed that if you wanted to change behavior, the key was to change people's goals and intentions. So we are back at square one: our Identity theory.

Experiment 3: Portugal approach on drugs addiction

After a similar approach of drugs like United States, 1% of Portuguese were heroin addicted, and Portugal had the highest number of HIV infection cases in the civilized world. But in 2001, after a careful research, they decided to decriminalize possession and use of drugs, and the results have been remarkable. The drug continuation use decreased for 45 to 25%. Drug use has declined overall among the 15- to 24-year-old population, those most at risk of initiating drug use. Drug induced deaths amongst users decreased from 90% in 2000 to 10% in 2011. HIV infection cases decreased form 142 cases per million population in 2000 to 30 cases per million population in 2008. Of course, not only the attitude towards drugs point to its effectiveness as an unambiguous sign that decriminalization works, as they modified the welfare system providing a guaranteed minimum income, and shifted all the expenses used in the war with drugs towards integration programs and social accommodation for ex-addicted.

In conclusion, must be a truism, but “Love is the answer!” could be our solution too when we deal with drug addiction in our family and social circles.

It is also enlightening to read this:

1. Drugs as a social construct http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/cohen.drugs.toc.html   

2.  Stop treating drug users as criminals! http://drgabormate.com/article/stop-treating-drug-users-as-criminals/

Another definition of being succesfull

As immortal Bob Dylan said:
A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.

Everyone agree?

Financial independence reading list

As i was inspired by Mr. Money Moustache , i am writing my past, present and future reading list for the year 2015. It is a long one, but i hope to inspire you. Let's start!

Investing and finance books:

The intelligent investor - Benjamin Graham
Money - master the game - Tony Robbins
The 100$ startup - Chris Guillebeau
Business adventures - John Brooks
Financial shenanigans - Howard M Schilit
The 4 hour workweek - Tim Ferris
The battle for investment survival - Loeb
The Dhando investor - Pabrai
Contrarian investment - David Dreman
The opposite of spoiled - Ron Liever
Thrive - Ariana Huffington
Splitwille - Jason Zweig
Financial statement analysis - Martin Fridson
The financial number game - Charles Mulford
Zero to one - Peter Thiel
Fastlane millionaire
The richest man in Babylon - George Samuel Clason
The greatest salesman in the world
The only investment guide you'll ever read - Andrew Tobias
Naked economics - Charles J Wheelan
Guide to economics indicators - The economist
The four pillars of investing - William Bernstein
How the economy works - Roger E A Farmer
Scratch beginnings - Adam Shepard
Plenitude - Juliet B Schor
7 laws of money - Mike Philips
Choose yourself guide to wealth - James Altucher
Economics explained - Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow
A random walk down Wall Street - Burton Malkiel
The intelligent asset allocator - William J Bernstein
Toward rational exuberance - B Mark Smith
The little book that beat the market - Joel Greenblatt
Early retirement extreme - Jacom Fisker
I will teach you to be rich - Ramit Sethi
Your money or your life - Joe Dominguez
The millionaire next door - Thomas Stanley and William Danko
The automatic millionaire homeowner - David Bach
Rich dad, poor dad - Robert Kiyosaky


Philosophy

Guide to the good life: the ancient art of stoic joy
The magic of thinking big - David J Schwartz
The life you can save - Peter Singer
Against thrift - James Livingston
Choose yourself - James Altucher
Abundance - Peter Diamandis
The gospel of wealth - Andrew Carnegie
How to be successful in life and make friends - Dale Carnegie
Unconventional succes - David K Reynolds
The most important thing - Howard Marks
Life is what you make it - Peter Buffet
Vagabonding - Rolf Potts
We learn nothing - Tim Kreider
The long tail - Chris Anderson
Linchpin - Seth Godin
Quality - John Galsworthy
Macroscope - Piers Anthony
The art of peace - Morihei Ueshiba
Odd John - Olaf Stapledon


Biographies/Autobiographies/Memoirs/etc

The Snowball - Alice Schroeder (Warren Buffet)
Dreams from my father and the audacity of hope - Barack Obama
The power of myth - Joseph Campbell


Applied math/General science

Struck by lighning - Jeffrey Rosenthal
The selfish gene - Richard Dawkins
What technology wants - Kevin Kelly
Nudge -

Earth 2.0 (Kepler-452B)

As the recent news said on website NASA.gov, hope is that our nephews and nieces will travel to another habitable world, as we will find some alternative fuel for our spaceships, NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another “Earth.”

Earth and Kepler-452B

The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone -- the area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet -- of a G2-type star, like our sun. The confirmation of Kepler-452b brings the total number of confirmed planets to 1,030.

"On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0."

Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth and is considered a super-Earth-size planet. While its mass and composition are not yet determined, previous research suggests that planets the size of Kepler-452b have a good chance of being rocky.

While Kepler-452b is larger than Earth, its 385-day orbit is only 5 percent longer. The planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than our sun, has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter and has a diameter 10 percent larger.

“We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment," said Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who led the team that discovered Kepler-452b. "It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth. That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”

To help confirm the finding and better determine the properties of the Kepler-452 system, the team conducted ground-based observations at the University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory, the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, and the W. M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These measurements were key for the researchers to confirm the planetary nature of Kepler-452b, to refine the size and brightness of its host star and to better pin down the size of the planet and its orbit.

The Kepler-452 system is located 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. The research paper reporting this finding has been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.

In addition to confirming Kepler-452b, the Kepler team has increased the number of new exoplanet candidates by 521 from their analysis of observations conducted from May 2009 to May 2013, raising the number of planet candidates detected by the Kepler mission to 4,696. Candidates require follow-up observations and analysis to verify they are actual planets.

Twelve of the new planet candidates have diameters between one to two times that of Earth, and orbit in their star's habitable zone. Of these, nine orbit stars that are similar to our sun in size and temperature.

“We've been able to fully automate our process of identifying planet candidates, which means we can finally assess every transit signal in the entire Kepler dataset quickly and uniformly,” said Jeff Coughlin, Kepler scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who led the analysis of a new candidate catalog. “This gives astronomers a statistically sound population of planet candidates to accurately determine the number of small, possibly rocky planets like Earth in our Milky Way galaxy.”

These findings, presented in the seventh Kepler Candidate Catalog, will be submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. These findings are derived from data publicly available on the NASA Exoplanet Archive.

Scientists now are producing the last catalog based on the original Kepler mission’s four-year data set. The final analysis will be conducted using sophisticated software that is increasingly sensitive to the tiny telltale signatures of Earth-size planets.

Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

Ethnocentricity

Today's word is a difficult one, but easy to understand in the same time. Ethnocentricity. There is a concept in sociology and anthropology, which means we begin to believe that the rules, values ans beliefs of our culture are the only ones that are valid. This is a very wrong mindset, a limiting one. Everyone around us have different rules and values than we do, and their are not better or worst tha our own. In the end, this is the main cause of the last centuries war, of the extremism or most of the crimes. Once i understood this i realized that i will give my child the experience needed to understand this concept. Being that reading, learning and ultimately living in another culture anytime an occasion rise, i think this is a must. What do you think about?

Ely Lilly, Biogen and other financial mushrooms

In between them two seems that Ely Lilly is the real deal.

Look for a moment at the short version of their research and at few numbers related to their shares.

Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly), incorporated on January 17, 1901, is engaged in drug manufacturing business. The Company discovers, develops, manufactures and market products in two segments: human pharmaceutical products and animal health products. Its products are sold in approximately 120 countries. The Company’s human pharmaceutical business segment sells medicines, which are discovered or developed by its scientists. Its animal health business segment operates through the Company’s Elanco division, which develops, manufactures and markets products for both food animals and companion animals. The Company manufactures and distributes its products through facilities in the United States, Puerto Rico and 11 other countries.
Human Pharmaceutical Products
The Company’s human pharmaceutical products include endocrinology products, neuroscience products, oncology products and cardiovascular products. The Company’s endocrinology products include Humalog, Humalog M ix 75/25 and Humalog Mix 50/50, insulin analogs for the treatment of diabetes; Humulin, human insulin of recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) origin for the treatment of diabetes; Trajenta, for the treatment of type II diabetes; Jentadueto, which is a combination tablet of linagliptin (Trajenta) and metformin hydrochloride for use in the treatment of type II diabetes; Jardiance, which is used for the treatment of type II diabetes (approved in the United States, Europe and Japan); Trulicity for the treatment of type II diabetes (approved in the United States and Europe); Glyxambi, which is a combination tablet of linagliptin and empagliflozin (Jardiance) for the treatment of type II diabetes (approved in the United States); Forteo for the treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women and men at high risk for fracture and for glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis in men and postmenopausal women; Evista, which is used for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women and for the reduction of the risk of invasive breast cancer in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis and postmenopausal women at high risk for invasive breast cancer; Humatrope for the treatment of human growth hormone deficiency and certain pediatric growth conditions, and Axiron, which is a topical solution of testosterone, applied by underarm applicator, for replacement therapy in men for certain conditions associated with a deficiency or absence of testosterone.
The Company’s neuroscience products include Cymbalta, Zyprexa, Strattera, Prozac and Amyvid. Cymbalta is used for the treatment of major depressive disorder, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, generalized anxiety disorder, and in the United States for the management of fibromyalgia and of chronic musculoskeletal pain due to chronic low back pain or chronic pain due to osteoarthritis. Zyprexa is used for the treatment of schizophrenia, acute mixed or manic episodes associated with bipolar I disorder and bipolar maintenance. The Company’s Strattera is used for the treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Prozac is used for the treatment of major depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bulimia nervosa and panic disorder. Amyvid is a radioactive diagnostic agent, which is used for positron emission tomography imaging of beta-amyloid neuritic plaques in the brains of adult patients with cognitive impairment who are being evaluated for Alzheimer's disease and other causes of cognitive decline.
The Company’s oncology products include Alimta, Erbitux, Gemzar and Cyramza. Its product, Alimta, is used for the first-line treatment, in combination with another agent, of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) for patients with non-squamous cell histology; for the second-line treatment of non-squamous NSCLC; monotherapy for the maintenance treatment of non-squamous NSCLC in patients, and in combination with another agent, for the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma. Erbitux is indicated both as a single agent and with another chemotherapy agent for the treatment of certain types of colorectal cancers. It is used as a single agent or in combination with radiation therapy for the treatment of certain types of head and neck cancers. Gemzar is used for the treatment of pancreatic cancer; in combination with other agents, for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer, NSCLC, advanced or recurrent ovarian cancer, and in the European Union (EU) for the treatment of bladder cancer. Cyramza is approved in the United States and the European Union both as a single agent and in combination with another agent for advanced or metastatic gastric cancer, and approved in the United States in combination with another agent as a second-line treatment of metastatic NSCLC.
The Company’s cardiovascular products include Cialis, Effient and ReoPro. Cialis is used for the treatment of erectile dysfunction and benign prostatic hyperplasia. Effient is used for the reduction of thrombotic cardiovascular events (including stent thrombosis) in patients with acute coronary syndrome, including patients undergoing angioplasty, atherectomy or stent placement. ReoPro is for use as an adjunct to PCI for the prevention of cardiac ischemic complications. And i will not speak about their animal health products.

Biogen Inc., formerly Biogen Idec Inc., incorporated on April 1, 1997, is a global biopharmaceutical company. The Company is focused on discovering, developing, manufacturing and delivering therapies for neurological, autoimmune and hematologic disorders. The Company's marketed products include AVONEX, PLEGRIDY, TECFIDERA, TYSABRI, FAMPYRA for multiple sclerosis (MS), ALPROLIX for hemophilia B, and ELOCTATE for hemophilia A, among others. It also collaborates on the development and commercialization of RITUXAN for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and other conditions and for GAZYVA, which is for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Multiple Sclerosis Products
The Company develops, manufactures and markets a number of products designed to treat patients with MS. Its MS products include AVONEX, PLEGRIDY, TECFIDERA, TYSABRI and FAMPYRA. AVONEX (interferon beta-1a) is an intramuscular injectable therapy, indicated for the treatment of patients with relapsing forms of MS. AVONEX is a recombinant form of the interferon beta protein produced in the body in response to viral infection. The principal markets for AVONEX are the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. PLEGRIDY (peginterferon beta-1a) is a subcutaneous injectable therapy, indicated in the United States for the treatment of relapsing forms of MS and in the European Union (E.U.) for relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS). TECFIDERA (dimethyl fumarate) is an oral therapy indicated in the United States for the treatment of relapsing forms of MS and in the EU for people with RRMS. TYSABRI (natalizumab) is a monoclonal antibody, which is a monotherapy for the treatment of relapsing forms of MS. TYSABRI is also used to treat Crohn's disease, an inflammatory disease of the intestines. The principal markets for TYSABRI in MS are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. FAMPYRA (prolonged-release fampridine tablets), is indicated for the improvement of walking ability in adult patients with MS. FAMPYRA is a prolonged-release tablet formulation of the drug fampridine. Its principal markets for FAMPRYA are France, Germany, Spain and Canada.
Hemophilia Products
The Company develops, manufactures and markets products designed to treat patients with hemophilia A and B. Its products for hemophilia A and B include ALPROLIX and ELOCTATE. ALPROLIX [Coagulation Factor IX (Recombinant), Fc Fusion Protein] is a recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid-derived (DNA-derived), coagulation Factor IX concentrate indicated in the United States for treatment in adults and children with hemophilia B for control and prevention of bleeding episodes, perioperative management and routine prophylaxis to prevent or reduce the frequency of bleeding episodes. ELOCTATE (Antihemophilic Factor (Recombinant), Fc Fusion Protein) is a recombinant DNA-derived, antihemophilic factor indicated in the United States for treatment in adults and children with hemophilia A for control and prevention of bleeding episodes, perioperative management and routine prophylaxis to prevent or reduce the frequency of bleeding episodes. It collaborates with Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (Sobi) to jointly develop and commercialize Factor VIII and Factor IX hemophilia products, including ELOCTATE and ALPROLIX.
Genentech Collaboration
The Company collaborates with Genentech, Inc. (Genentech), a wholly owned member of the Roche Group, on the development and commercialization of RITUXAN. The Roche Group and its sub-licensees maintain sole responsibility for the development, manufacturing and commercialization of GAZYVA in the United States. RITUXAN (rituximab) is a monoclonal antibody used to treat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and two forms of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis. GAZYVA (obinutuzumab), in combination with chlorambucil, is indicated for the treatment of patients with previously untreated CLL. FUMADERM (fumaric acid esters) is a prolonged-release tablet formulation for the treatment of adult patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis.
Other
The product candidate FUMADERM (fumaric acid esters) is a prolonged-release tablet formulation. FUMADERM is approved in Germany only for the treatment of adult patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis.
Late Stage Product Candidates
The Company's late-stage product candidates include programs in Phase III development or in registration stage. Its late-stage products include ZINBRYTA, TYSABRI, ELOCTATE, ALPROLIX, GAZYVA and ISIS-SMN. ZINBRYTA is a monoclonal antibody that is being tested in relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS). The Phase III DECIDE clinical trial demonstrated positive top-line results, which investigated ZINBRYTA as a once-monthly, subcutaneous treatment for RRMS. Results showed that ZINBRYTA was superior on the study's primary endpoint, demonstrating a statistically significant reduction in annualized relapse rates when compared to interferon beta-1a (AVONEX). The Company completed patient enrollment in a Phase III study of TYSABRI in secondary progressive Multiple Sclerosis, known as ASCEND. The study involves approximately 875 patients. The Company's product ELOCTATE, a recombinant factor VIII Fc fusion protein (rFVIIIFc), is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of hemophilia A. The Company has completed a Phase III clinical study that examined the efficacy, safety and pharmacokinetics of rFVIIIFc in males 12 years of age and older with severe hemophilia A and a Phase III clinical study that evaluated the efficacy and safety of rFVIIIFc in children with hemophilia A under the age of 12. The product ALPROLIX was approved by the FDA for the treatment of hemophilia B. The Company is conducting a global pediatric study, Kids B-LONG, evaluating the efficacy and safety of recombinant factor IX Fc fusion protein (rFIXFc) in children with hemophilia B under the age of 12.
The Company is conducting Phase III clinical studies in collaboration with the Roche Group for the development of the product GAZYVA, including GOYA, a study investigating the efficacy and safety of GAZYVA in combination with CHOP chemotherapy compared to RITUXAN with CHOP chemotherapy in previously untreated patients with CD20-positive diffuse large B-cell lymphoma; GALLIUM, a clinical study investigating the efficacy and safety of GAZYVA in combination with chemotherapy followed by maintenance with GAZYVA compared to RITUXAN in combination with chemotherapy followed by maintenance with RITUXAN in previously untreated patients with indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and GADOLIN, a study investigating the efficacy and safety of GAZYVA plus bendamustine compared with bendamustine alone in patients with RITUXAN-refractory, indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The Phase III GADOLIN study demonstrated positive results showing that the study met its primary endpoint early when treated with GAZYVA plus bendamustine followed by GAZYVA alone, compared to bendamustine alone.
The Company is collaboration with Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Isis), is conducting a pivotal Phase III study evaluating ISIS-SMN in infants with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). This Phase III study, known as ENDEAR, is a randomized, double-blind, sham-procedure controlled thirteen month study in approximately 110 infants diagnosed with SMA. The study is being conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a 12 milligrams dose of ISIS-SMN with a primary endpoint of survival or permanent ventilation. The Company is also conducting a pivotal Phase III study evaluating the efficacy and safety of ISIS-SMN in non-ambulatory children with SMA. This Phase 3 study, known as CHERISH, is a randomized, double-blind, sham-procedure controlled fifteen month study in approximately 120 children with SMA. The study is being conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a 12 milligram dose of ISIS-SMN with a primary endpoint of a change in the Hammersmith Functional Motor Scale-Expanded, a validated method to measure changes in muscle function in patients with SMA.
The Company competes with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Merck KGaA, Pfizer Inc. Bayer Group, Novartis AG, Sanofi, GenMab, GlaxoSmithKline, Pharmacyclics and Janssen, Gilead, Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie, Amgen, UCB, S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Roche Group, Baxter, Bayer and CSL Behring.

And some almost random numbers about their shares.

LLY.N on New York Stock Exchange

86.76USD
4:02pm EDT
Change (% chg)
$0.38 (+0.44%)
Prev Close
$86.38
Open
$89.01
Day's High
$89.87
Day's Low
$85.62
Volume
1,481,711
Avg. Vol
1,498,417
52-wk High
$90.17
52-wk Low
$60.14

BIIB.O on Nasdaq 

385.05USD

23 Jul 2015

Change (% chg)

$-6.69 (-1.71%)

Prev Close 

$391.74

Open 

$394.17

Day's High 

$396.23

Day's Low 

$384.51

Volume 

2,602,459

Avg. Vol 

1,668,137

52-wk High 

$480.18

52-wk Low 

$290.85
----------------------------------------------------------
Bibliography:
1.NASDAQ
2.New York Stock Exchange
3.Reuters
4.youinvest.co.uk
5.BBC.co.uk

Computer science online at Harvard university

If you are interested to learn about computer science from the teachers from Harvard just apply to this link:

https://courses.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/CS50x3/2015/info

I started already CS50 and it is very interesting, but difficult in the same time. Good luck!

Ely Lilly, Biogen and Alzheimer wonder drug

Today BBC showed us for the entire day about the pharmaceutical company Ely Lilly and his wonder drug that will slow Alzheimer progression 3 times more.
Lets go step by step through this gigantic misunderstanding, or may just not enough research. Hmm, is BBC we are talking about. Really?

First, the results showed a 34% reduction, not a 300%, that just basic math. Two, what the hell are we talking about ? As a professional working directly with Alzheimer patients, i am directly interested in every new research. We got two companies that are leading this kind of research, called Biogen Inc and Ely Lilly & Co. They developed some drugs aiming to clear the amyloid plaque build-ups from the brain, in an effort to slow Alzheimer's cognitive declines. The drug makers said last Wednesday that both drugs showed signs they may do that. Lilly's drug displayed consistently better results the longer patients took its drug, while Biogen's showed it yielded stronger efficacy the higher the dose. But this wonder drug of Ely Lilly is not yet on market, as advertised, Phase 3 of the project will be finished only in 2016. So we are still waiting, and BBC is still doing some extra rating claiming without enough data ( i wonder if they've seen this in The guardian article from yesterday, instead of checking at the source).

Tryptophan, happiness, bad moods and other monkeys

Let's talk a bit about tryptophan. Do you know what it is? Or not? Is the amino acid that is responsible with the release of serotonin. And what is the serotonin, also known as the happiness hormone?

Let's start with the tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid needed for normal growth in infants and for nitrogen balance in adults. It is an essential amino acid, which means your body cannot produce it -- you must get it from your diet. The body uses tryptophan to help make niacin and serotonin. Serotonin is thought to produce healthy sleep and a stable mood. In order for tryptophan in the diet to be changed into niacin, the body needs to have enough:iron, riboflavin, vitamin B6. Food Sources
tryptophan can be found in: cheese, eggs, milk, nuts. peanut butter, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, soy and tofu.

And what is the serotonin? Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) is a chemical found in the human body. It carries signals along and between nerves - a neurotransmitter. It is mainly found in the brain, bowels and blood platelets. It is thought to be especially active in constricting smooth muscles, transmitting impulses between nerve cells, regulating cyclic body processes and contributing to well being and happiness. Serotonin is regarded by some researchers as a chemical that is responsible for maintaining mood balance, and that a deficit of serotonin leads to depression. The word serotonin comes from its discovery when it was isolated in 1948 by Maurice M. Rapport and initially classified as a serum agent that affected vascular tone.

And the good news (or maybe the bad one) is that now you can find even tryptophan suplements, natural or not, organic or not.

Early retirement extreme

And looking around i found a brilliant guy who did what i still have to do for the next 9 years in just 5. It is a bit technical but you can understand it. I could not see to many website like this one in UK, so i need to adapt all this USA oriented knowledge, but anything is good as long as i improve my odds.

The website is called earlyretirementextreme.com , and the guy did it at the age of 30. Impressive, isn't it?

The real Iron Man

Do you know the equivalent of Iron Man and Batman From our real life?

Watch this.

1 extra second

On 30th of June we got one unbelievable gift. At 12:00 pm we received one extra second. The scientists said that all this happen because Earth rotation is slowing infinitesimally.

What is one second?

If you work to make a living, if you stay most of the day with your eyes on the phone screen, if you dream about some far away future without doing nothing, if you live without love, if you worry about things that didn't happen yet, then this one extra second is useless for you. 

But if you are near the love of your life, could mean one more kiss, if you are driving or flying, or you are having surgery in hospital, then one second is the diference between life and death. 

In the end it's all about choices, about having higher standards and mostly about awareness. This is what is changing our perceptions and not one clearly definite time interval, being that one second, one month or one life. 

Change your way of seeing the world around you and you will change your life.