Another striking example of how teams with a strong philosophy, chemistry, situational hitting, and relief pitching win in the playoffs- not bloated payrolls -came this past week in Major League Baseball. The heavily favored Dodgers, Angels, Nationals, and Tigers were quickly eliminated in favor of the Cardinals, Royals, Giants, and Orioles. If big money was the key to winning in the playoffs, different teams would have won. The Dodgers have a payroll which tops the majors with $235 million, yet they lost to the Cardinals who paid players $111 million. The Giants were salaried at $154 million because of players who have won two World Series in the last four years. The Nationals were $20 million less. The Angels payroll was $155 million and they lost to Kansas City, who paid $92 million. Detroit had a payroll of $162 million, and they lost to the Orioles with $107 million. So, something besides payroll was at work in these playoffs. Teams like San Francisco and St. Louis are built around strong philosophies. St. Louis calls it The Cardinal Way. This is the fourth straight year the Cards are in the NLCS. They have strong a farm system. They have heavy team … Continue reading →

Another striking example of how teams with a strong philosophy, chemistry, situational hitting, and relief pitching win in the playoffs- not bloated payrolls -came this past week in Major League Baseball. The heavily favored Dodgers, Angels, Nationals, and Tigers were quickly eliminated in favor of the Cardinals, Royals, Giants, and Orioles. If big money was the key to winning in the playoffs, different teams would have won. The Dodgers have a payroll which tops the majors with $235 million, yet they lost to the Cardinals who paid players $111 million. The Giants were salaried at $154 million because of players who have won two World Series in the last four years. The Nationals were $20 million less. The Angels payroll was $155 million and they lost to Kansas City, who paid $92 million. Detroit had a payroll of $162 million, and they lost to the Orioles with $107 million. So, something besides payroll was at work in these playoffs. Teams like San Francisco and St. Louis are built around strong philosophies. St. Louis calls it The Cardinal Way. This is the fourth straight year the Cards are in the NLCS. They have strong a farm system. They have heavy team … Continue reading →

Using light-emitting proteins in two different ways let researchers peer within living cells STED microscopy can painstakingly create a high resolution image by scanning a sample in nanometre-wide strips.Click here to enlarge Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The2014 chemistry Nobel prizehas been given to three pioneers of biomedical imaging, whose work has enabled nanoscale features within cells to be captured in exquisite detail.Eric Betzigof Howard Hughes Medical Institute, US,Stefan Hellof the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany, andWE Moernerof Stanford University, US, will share the prize for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy. The techniques they developed enabled extremely high resolution images to be produced using optical microscopy. Their work circumvented the problem of the diffraction limit the inability of light microscopy to distinguish between structures smaller than half the wavelength of visible light or about 200nm. This advance allowed nanoscale structures including individual molecules to be visualised within cells while they are still alive, something that isnt possible with techniques such as electron microscopy. Most of the processes in chemistry and biochemistry take place at length scales that are much smaller [than the wavelength of light], saidSven Lidin, of the chemistry Nobel prize committee, speaking at … Continue reading →