lemons in space

And The Future Will Be Soft and Moist.

2009-03-27T16:19:00.003-04:00

NewScientist just published a quick overview of a number of new technologies that show promise for solving a number of modern problems not through Chemistry or Nanotechnology, but through genetically engineering bacteria. One of the most intriguing new developments mentioned is a type of enzyme produced by bacteria that can release hydrogen atoms from water molecules in the right chemical environment, producing hydrogen gas. Enzymes produced from bacteria could also help replace expensive platinum catalysts in hydrogen fuel cells, making the cells smaller in the process. While these enzymes are currently more expensive than platinum, their price is expected to drop over time while the price of platinum, which is already in high demand, should remain high. The article also goes on to describe bacteria that can digest certain types of recycled plastic, converting it into more useful polymers.

Full article here
Image via flickr

strippers earn more tips when most fertile

2009-03-26T17:06:00.003-04:00

A study headed by Geoffrey Miller in 2007 demonstrates a connection between the ovulation cycle of strippers and the amount of tips earned.

"Normally cycling participants earned about US$335 per 5-h shift during estrus, US$260 per shift during the luteal phase, and US$185 per shift during menstruation. By contrast, participants using contraceptive pills showed no estrous earnings peak."

idea via Discover, "What Can Strippers Tell Us About Evolution"
actual study available here
photo via flickr

"If Jesus returns tonight, who will save your pets tomorrow?"

2007-09-24T21:29:00.001-04:00

"Who is going to care for your pets after you are raptured into heaven?"

"Many Christians believe that animals do not go to heaven. So when Jesus comes back and you return with him to heaven, will there be somebody to take care of your dog or cat?"

"If you have a non-Christian family member, they might take care of your pet, but if not, have you made any plans? Imagine being taken to streets of gold while your dog starves to death walking around in his own feces trapped in your small house or apartment, subject to fire and earthquakes or even being eaten by heathens searching for any remaining morsel of food. Do you want that to happen?"

"With the imminent collapse of the global economy and rampant godlessness, even the community shelters will not have the resources to care for your poor, hungry animals. So you need to make preparations."

"That’s what JesusPets is for. We are assembling a community of heathen pet-lovers to care for pets that are “left-behind.” We are coordinating with feed mills and kennels in preparation for your post-apocalyptic pet care needs."

Jesuspets.com

TV in Japan

2006-07-05T21:12:00.000-04:00

You can watch knock-off Japanese Spiderman, Johnny Depp getting interviewed by a female Willy Wonka, naked asian people playing Mah-Jong, lingerie models trying to sit in scalding water, and japanese rap videos, all on the same site. Possibly the most continually entertaining blog ever.

TV in Japan

Poseidon

2006-05-23T03:22:00.000-04:00

Poseidon sat at his desk, going over the accounts. The administration of all the waters gave him endless work. He could have had as many assistants as he wanted, and indeed he had quite a number, but since he took his job very seriously he insisted on going through all the accounts again himself, and so his assistants were of little help to him. It cannot be said that he enjoyed the work; he carried it out simply because it was assigned to him; indeed he had frequently applied for what he called more cheerful work, but whenever various suggestions were put to him it turned out that nothing suited him so well as his present employment. Needless to say, it was very difficult to find him another job. After all, he could not possibly be put in charge of one particular ocean. Quite apart from the fact that in this case the work involved would not be less, only more petty, the great Poseidon could hold only a superior position. And when he was offered a post unrelated to the waters, the very idea made him feel sick, his divine breath came short and his brazen chest began to heave. As a matter of fact, no one took his troubles very seriously; when a mighty man complains one must pretend to yield, however hopeless the case may seem. No one ever really considered relieving Poseidon of his position; he had been destined to be God of the Seas since time immemorial, and that was how it had to remain.
What annoyed him most - and this was the chief cause of discontent with his job - was to learn of the rumors that were circulating about him; for instance, that he was constantly cruising through the waves with his trident. Instead of which here he was sitting in the depths of the world's ocean endlessly going over the accounts, an occasional journey to Jupiter being the only interruption of the monotony, a journey moreover from which he invariably returned in a furious temper. As a result he has hardly seen the oceans, save fleetingly during his hasty ascent to Olympus, and had never really sailed upon them. He used to say that he was postponing this until the end of the world, for then there might come a quiet moment when, just before the end and having gone through the last account, he could still make a quick little tour." Poseidon, by Franz Kafka

"The one measure of true love is: you can insult the other"Interview with Slavoj Zizek

2006-04-18T03:14:00.000-04:00

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000002D2C4.htm

someone is a genius

2006-04-05T22:52:00.000-04:00

For the moment, if you go to google and type the word "failure" as the search phrase, and click "I'm feeling lucky" (to bring up the first search hit result), you get redirected the White House web page for George W. Bush.

genetically engineering myth creatures for fantasy pets

2006-04-03T03:01:00.000-04:00

GeneDupe is a company in the business of genetically engineered luxury pets. They start out with a search image of a mythological creature (right now, dragons, unicorns and gryphons), and the living creature that most closely resembles the mythological creature (lizards for dragons, horses for unicorns, and the spliced genomes of a lion and an eagle for the gryphon). From there, by using computer simulations, the computer goes through a series of random mutations, breeding simulated embryos and selecting for the new mutation that most closely resembles the virtual creature. They have successfully designed, in theory, the genetics of multiple imaginary creatures from popular mythology. The next step for the company, which they are just beginning, is to take it into the real world for testing.

Combining the genetic traits from two different animals into a third is nothing new. Everyone has heard of the rabbit Alba (see wire article "I Love My Glow Bunny"), which had jellyfish genes spliced in to make its eyes, whiskers and fur glow green under fluorescent light. Scientists have also tinkered with designing human-animal chimeras, combining the DNA of humans with animal dna, and allowing the cells to survive for a few days in a petri dish before destroying it (see my previous article, mad geneticists create human monsters; chimeras a reality).

idea via future feeder
source article, "Here be dragons" at Economist.com

new brain chip can connect to thousands of neurons, send signals back to hundreds

2006-04-03T02:40:00.000-04:00

One small step towards mind control and cyborgs.
The mobile chip maker Infineon, working with a team from Italy and Germany, has developed a chip that can read signals from up to 16,328 mammalian brain cells, and send signals back to several hundred of them. The scientists tested the chip on snails, due to the simplicity of the cells, and tinkered with the genetics of the organisms to get the combination to work even better. In order to get neurons to attach to the circuit, the researchers had to develop a "neural glue" using a protein from the brain which glues connections together and also attracts sodium pores.

source article at new scientist

photographing every object used in a lifetime

2006-03-27T03:18:00.000-05:00

Alberto Frigo, Professor in the Art and Technology Department at the Gothenburg University, has singlehandedly undertaken the task of photographing every object that he uses for the rest of his life. The rules of engagement are as follows:
1. During a life-event every object (every artifact that is graspable, consistent and independent) the dominant-hand uses is photographed once and while used.
2. If an object of the same type is the following to be used, this object is not photographed unless the life-event changes.
3. A life-event changes as soon as the dominant-hand uses a different object in a different space.

You can view his archive of photos and read more at his website. Photos are organized by date and by type of object used. You start out on the current day, and by clicking on an object you view a large paneling of every time in his recorded history that type of object was used. You can then click on a specific photo, and travel through time to view all of the objects he used during that same day. He also looks slightly like Amelie's boyfriend.

idea via pasta and vinegar

make something new

2006-03-27T03:03:00.000-05:00

"draw-something is a program that generates original drawings. It does so by generating a simple random polyline scribble then drawing around that using a simple maze-running algorithm."

idea via future feeder

thoughts watched and willed away - controlling pain

2006-02-26T20:39:00.000-05:00

A study by Stanford Researchers together with the MRI technology company Omneuron demonstrates that patients can lessen their pain greatly by looking at a real-time fMRI neuro-imaging scan of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex in their brain, which is closely related to pain. By experimenting with different techniques while able to visualize the results directly, patients were able to play a sort of hot and cold game to learn what works best, decreasing total pain by an average of 64%. By learning the basic techniques from working with the machine, researchers hope that people can learn to strengthen the neural circuits responsible for lessening pain while outside of the lab.

source article from wired news
study available at the stanford web site

Colombian artist Catalina Estrada

2006-02-26T20:22:00.000-05:00

visit her web site
idea via boingboing

"Baby Cages keep me safe from my pit bull puppy doggy."

2006-02-19T18:20:00.000-05:00

Remember Bonzai Kittens? Welcome Babycage.net.

The top-rated greek news channel, Alpha TV, recently bit the bait, falling for one of the most obvious new internet hoaxes, babycage.net. Expressing public disgust and outrage, Alpha TV referred to it as another instance of "American self-indulgence" and a step towards a new-Orwellian society.

Babycage, spoofing the American tendency to keep children on leashes, go one step farther, offering a number of child-containment facilities, including the baby escort (above), the teenager cage, and the multi-baby cage.

idea via metafilter

video collage of tunnel accidents set to dance music: biting postmodern media critique or perverse adolescent expression?

2006-02-18T17:01:00.000-05:00

David Pescovitz recently posted this link on boing-boing, remarking that there was something "uncomfortably engaging" about the video. The video reflects a sort of naturalization of terror, the way in which a lethal event on the news will be surpassed minutes later by gum commercials, pop music, and reality television. Reflecting our virtual obsessions with reproducing reality, the real itch we can't scratch is the dim awareness of total falsity that normal television brings, causing the voyeuristic mas(s)ochist masses to demand entertainment that presses closer to the reality we feel is denied us. The unsettling part of watching people dying in tunnel accidents to dance music is the eerie way in which it doesn't feel unnatural at all, but just an everyday television experience.

watch video here
idea via boing boing

The Hall of Best Knowledge

2006-02-16T15:47:00.000-05:00

The Hall of Best Knowledge is a weekly comic panel done by Ray Fenwick in Halifax. The first 35 panels are up for viewing on his Flickr collection.

via Drawn!

Nazi swing music from the 30's

2006-02-13T21:05:00.000-05:00

For the novelty obsessed, WFMU's Beware of the Blog has posted a collection of Nazi swing music from the 1930's by a band called Charlie and His Orchestra. The band was led by a man named Karl Swendler, who broadcast Nazi-themed big band and swing hits every night throughout the 1930's to Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain.

Along with the collection of MP3's, they have a link to a cogent and interesting article on the purpose of propaganda by the same man. If you weren't aware that he was pure evil you might actually agree with him. The Nazi's are not mentioned by name very often throughout the article, and it is surprisingly lucid.
Travel here

One step closer to immortality: Klotho gene may increase human life span by 30%

2006-02-12T18:44:00.000-05:00

Scientists in the United States have discovered a gene in mice, named Klotho after a Greek goddess who spins life's thread, that extends their lifespan by about 30%. There is a similar gene in humans, that if activated through gene therapy could have similar results for us. The mice in the new experiments tended to be less fertile, and the gene may also predispose people to diabetes. The miracle of the gene seems to work through reducing oxidative stress, a key cause of ageing, and the gene tends to delay many of the effects of old age, such as the weakening of bones, clogging of arteries, and loss of muscle fitness.

source articles at BBC NEWS and ScienCentral

behold! bee dogs

2005-09-11T18:34:00.000-04:00

YES. a website dedicated to dogs dressed like bees - here!

the naming of the tenth planet

2005-08-17T02:16:00.000-04:00

So there might be a tenth planet. I'd already heard about it, and forgotten it. To be quite honest I thought they had already discovered a tenth planet a while ago, but I guess they hadn't. Right now astronomers are getting together and arguing about just what a "planet" is. Isn't a planet just something big that orbits the sun?

Well, New Scientist put together a poll of their readers to find out what people would name the new planet, if it really is a planet after all. And like all polls of the general public, the results are embarrassingly funny.

The first choice is pretty good. Persephone. In roman mythology Pluto kidnapped Persephone. So there's... well, there's sort of a connection.

Second choice: Peace. (or Pax, which means peace). Since, you know, peace is good.

Three: Galileo. He had something to do with space, right?

Four (my personal favorite): Xena. Hahaha. As in the warrior princess. "What?- It's got an X in it, right? That's spacy." Apparently this was the name Mike Brown and his team originally gave the planet upon first discovering it, as a joke - and it's starting to stick.

Five: Rupert. This one is good. In Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the fourth planet was officially called "Persephone," but was widely nicknamed Rupert after "some astronomer's parrot - there was some tediously heart-warming story attached to this - and that was all very wonderful and lovely.”

Six: Bob. Since astronomers could have something to laugh about.

Seven: Titan. A popular choice, even though it's already a giant moon around Saturn.

Eight: Nibiru. Has something to do with ancient babylonian or sumerian tablets or something referring to a tenth planet. Some people think the writings have finally come true.

Nine: Cerberus. Mythological, kind of tough.

Ten: Loki. More mythology.

Also, the editor's favorite was a six year old who wrote in recommending the name R2D2.

where will you be when the world is over? global warming in the siberian peat bogs

2005-08-17T01:24:00.000-04:00

I'm just kidding around about the title. Sort of. Well, just don't have kids anyway. Unless, you want them to breath in the 700 million tons of extra methane released every year for the next hundred years from the Siberian peat bogs melting. Now, what are the Siberian peat bogs, you ask? Well, to start off, they're the size of Germany and France combined. And them being frozen is what keeps all of the methane gas in. But... scientists just found out that they have actually been thawing over the past 3 or 4 years, due to other global warming. It seems that this was one of those "off-chance" scenarios, one of those things that wasn't really in some predictions of how we'd affect global warming, since a lot of estimates only took into account the gas leaks that were already known and accounted for, not contingencies and "tipping points" we'd reach, things that were less predictable.

So, methane - who cares? It can't be that bad. Humans make it and cows make it, right?

Well, It's 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide. If the peat bogs melt, then the amount of methane in the atmosphere over the next 100 years or so will double because of this. Greenhouse scientists let out a collective "oh sh*t" about this, and global warming predictions will now have to be ramped up from former predictions because of this. The extra methane is expected to raise the amount of global warming by 10-25%, according to climate scientists at the Met Office's Hadley Centre.

"It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" - delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures."

full article at the guardian

how to control people by remote-control

2005-08-11T05:34:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's true. You can finally control the world (or make your friends look like fools) by remote control.

"By remotely stimulating a person's vestibular system - the fluid-filled tubes in the inner ear that guide their sense of balance - with electrodes placed on the skin just below the ear, researchers at NTT's research laboratories in Kanagawa have found a way to turn humans into oversized radio controlled vehicles."

Demonstrated at this year's Siggraph Cyber Fashion Show, participants would suddenly veer to the right or the left, depending on which direction the controller wanted to unbalance them. Japanese researchers hope to harness the technology, called "galvanic vestibular stimulation" (GVS for short) for computer gaming. Imagine sitting in the car seat of the newest Japanese racing game, and feeling your sense of gravity shift directions right along with the gameplay as you hug the turns of the race track.

source article from New Scientist

algae love: sex and stress in the algae world

2005-08-11T04:47:00.000-04:00

People who spend all of their time researching the sex lives of various types of algae remind me a bit of morticians. Whenever I meet aspiring forensics scientists, what I'm usually taken by is their lack of weirdness. It's almost as if they simply wanted a profession where they could finally get a little bit of peace and quiet.

Working in the dark heart of an algae laboratory at the University of New Brunswick sits Aurora Nedelcu, a scientist who has just uncovered a little known curiosity of the world. Aurora discovered that the two types of algae she studied both seemed to have sex in response to stresses in their environment. Volvox carteri got worked up over oxidative stress or heat stress, while for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii it was nitrogen stress that did it in. Why this is important to us (i.m.o.) is that it uncovers for us an interesting evolutionary strategy of the world. When an organism's survival is threatened in some way, that's when they need to reproduce. For humans, perhaps, when we're facing insecure times that might be when we need someone the most.

source article at newscientist

too much coffee

2005-08-09T18:08:00.000-04:00

"S. Korean man dies after 50 hours of computer games"

"A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said Tuesday."

The games were reportedly online battle simulation games, which the man had recently quit his job to allow more time for.

full article at boston.com business
idea via relevant history

the adventures of art lad

2005-08-09T01:43:00.000-04:00

"A lot of people liked this picture a lot when my Dad put it up. Do you know what it is?"

"I'll tell you. It's a T-rex coming down to bite you up! See the teeth?"

The above artwork and excerpt is from "The Adventures of Art Lad" which is seriously the coolest blog by a 6-year old ever. His Dad helps him with it, his name is Thomas, and he loves dinosaurs.

idea via eyebeam reblog

the art of creating a frankenjacket, or: a new vegetarian ethics

2005-08-08T04:03:00.000-04:00

When I was a vegan, I spent a lot of time thinking about what was okay for me, as a caring member of the vegan society, to eat. For instance - shrimp. They don't really have brains, do they? And some vegans don't eat honey, because you have to agitate all those bees. But even if you care about bees, they make too much of the stuff anyway, and none of them get hurt, right? Well, now what if the animals we eat were never hurt by us eating their meat? It all makes my head hurt.

Here is the vegetarian dilemma of the 21st century - is it okay to wear leather or eat meat if it was created by taking a small pinch of cells from the animal and regrowing them in a lab over polymers unattached to the animal?

Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr at the Tissue Culture and Art Project are attempting to grow a semi-living jacket out of living mouse skin cells and human bone cells in preliminary experiments to create a victim-free leather. The jacket is being grown in a specially designed bioreactor that acts as a kind of surrogate body for the cells. Since the tissues are given a proper nutritional environment, they keep growing, just as if they were still on their host bodies. While the zombie jacket is currently only a creepy 2 inches high and 1.4 inches wide, designs for larger jackets are already underway.

The new victim-free jacket is part of the group's hopes to eventually live in a "victim-free utopia," a world where our clothing and food no longer has to come about by harming the animals that we eat and use, a world where meat is grown detached from anything that can think or feel pain. Despite being creepy on a whole nother level from traditional meat, how can we really argue with the ethics of such an idea when animals live in such horrible conditions?

Source article from Wired news

graham crackers for your walls

2005-08-07T18:54:00.000-04:00

If you want your walls to stand out this fall, try Promise Design's Phytoslim modular wall panel system that allows plant enthusiasts to literally bring their walls to life. The frame is composed of a plastic endoskeleton combined with coconut fibers, allowing bonzai-flavored plants to dig their roots in and really grow on your walls.

Also from the promise design website is the "Slice of Heaven" vase (20x20x20cm) allowing all those sweet butchered flowers your hubby gave you to look like they really are still alive, growing in real time on your table top.

idea via josh rubin's cool huntin

the siggraph cyber fashion show

2005-08-07T05:46:00.000-04:00

When we create visions of the future, we delineate potentials that seem interesting in the present while appearing possible in the future. How these visions play out in history is a different matter, and when we look back now on the visions of how-the-world-would-be after the year 2000, we are either surprised by how commonplace the technologies have become in our lives, or laugh at how strange these ideas once were.

One of this year's playgrounds for futuristic ideas was at the fourth annual Siggraph Cyber Fashion Show. Included in the highlights of this year's show was Sara Diamond, Di Mainstone and the Am-I-Able design team's "Company Keeper," (photo above) a garment that senses the body wearer's mood by recognized movement patterns and the types of noise in their surrounding environment, and responds by playing appropriate soundscapes to sooth the user's mood. This could eventually turn into a kind of "smart shuffle" that doesn't choose song's randomly, but quasi-randomly based on what the user might enjoy based on their current emotions.

Other highlights that caught my eye include design group WIN's Report-the-World trench coat, which includes 10 embedded cameras for a clandestine 360-degree view of the surroundings, a head mounted pirate patch-like view screen to see what is happening around them, and a dial to rotate the eye patch between the different cameras. Wait, isn't this from a William Gibson novel?

source articles at wired (includes a nice gallery and more extensive reporting) and we-make-money-not-art (the company keeper entry and report-the-world entry)

cocaine traces in italian river suggest vast cocaine usage

2005-08-06T04:05:00.000-04:00

Scientists in Italy have applied an inventive way to test cocaine use in the regions washing into Italy's large Po River. The river serves as the waste basin for 5 million people, allowing the drugs to trickle through the bloodstream, out the user's urine, and into the labs of scientists. What is interesting about the study is that it suggests that cocaine use in the region is actually 80 times higher than the officially released estimate of drug use collected through surveys, medical records and crime statistics. If this is true in Italy, perhaps the world has a much larger drug problem than statisticians suspect.

source article from new scientist

a new friend

2005-08-06T03:05:00.000-04:00

i have a new friend named hp. he's my new laptop. hp stands for hit points, cos he's tough. he's going to help me blog after a month of absence, as the demise of my late last computer has left me inter-crippled.
also, an impromptu poll : who would like the site's name changed to hypergloss and redesigned? or, should i stick with lemons and space and redesign anyway? leave comments!
love,
jim!

eau de toilette - clark sorensen's flower shaped urinals

2005-06-21T03:30:00.000-04:00

you pee in them, but they're flowers.

read, see more at clarkmade.com

idea via tacky times

nanochemotherapy

2005-06-21T02:11:00.000-04:00

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a way to smuggle strong anti-cancer medicine into the center of cancer cells, leaving healthy cells unphased. For the experiment, the researchers used mice which had been engineered with human epithelial cell tumors on their backs, and injected a special concoction of the anti-cancer drug methotrexate, folic acid, and a fluorescent imaging agent all wrapped up within a specially designed nano-particle called a dendrimer.

"The technique employs cunning Trojan horse trickery. All living cells require folic acid to replicate, but cancer cells have a particularly strong appetite for it, displaying up to one thousand more docking sites - called folate receptors - on their membranes. By attaching five folic acid molecules to branches of the dendrimer, the researchers were able to lure the cancer cells into accepting the whole package across the membrane and into the cell - including the toxic drug, which then kills off the cell."

While traditional chemotherapy applies high concentrations of anti-cancer medicine to the affected areas, it also damages living cells in the surrounding tissue. This new technique is the first developed that allows the normally toxic medicine to actively seek out cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells unphased. The medicine, while not curing cancer completely, may one day dethrone cancer as a killer, transforming it instead into a chronic, treatable disease.

In the longest trial of the medicine, ranging over 99 days, 30-40% of the mice given the nano-particle methotrexate survived, while all of those receiving free methotrexate died, either from the toxic effects of the drug or from the cancer itself. In the mice trials, the researchers were effectively able to reach a 30-day delay in tumor growth, which is equivalent to about 3 full years for a person.

The group is hoping to begin drug trials in humans within 18 months, although producing the nano-drug will be a costly and technically difficult process.

source article at newscientist

hackers plunder millions of credit cards

2005-06-21T01:46:00.000-04:00

A rogue computer program installed by hackers has been discovered in the database of Cardsystems Solutions, a payment processing firm based in Arizona. The firm has admitted to backing up thousands of transactions - against proper procedure - which eventually led to an orchard of easy pickings for hackers. On Friday, June 17th, Mastercard issued a statement warning that 13.9 million of its customers are "among those affected." While it seems fairly clear that tens of thousands of cards were likely stolen, it is possible that details from up to 40 million cards may have been looted in all. The precise details remain nebulous, like computer information in general, though in-depth investigations are under way.

source article at newscientist

fevolution: the art of eric feng

2005-06-11T17:38:00.000-04:00

Just look at the cool things I find you.

"Fevolution is about infinite evolutionary possibilities."

"Fevolution is about infinite evolutionary possibilities." It's like this web page - life and technology fused together. What would a technological world look like if it were less polluting, less separating, more connecting, allowing people to be something they never were before? This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, though I'm not sure I've found the answers. It seems the internet has something to do with it, connecting us and helping information evolve. Operating a blog makes you realize the tremendous amount of information and art on the web, that the potential of technology is to create something like a blog community, where you have thousands of independents always digging through vast streams of information to provide in a readable form the most interesting findings for people to read freely. Constantly creating, the internet provides both a capitalist media, but at the same time the opportunity for the spectators to acquire a voice and bring a civilization to evolve through new stages of interconnectivity and access to the performance of information, creating a counter-media in a way that wasn't possible before. Eric Feng's art reminds us of this other side of technology, that a technological world isn't all bleak.

Unfortunately, my thumbnails can't link to the bigger images on Feng's site since it's all flash or something, without individual page addresses. So please visit the site, feric.com, and navigate the simple layout to explore his world of images.

idea via drawn!

knockoff damien hirst replica on ebay for $80,000

2005-06-11T17:10:00.000-04:00

Last spring artist Damien Hirst sold a 14 foot tiger shark in a tank of fermaldehyde to a NYC buyer for a whopping total of $8 million. Gersh Kuntzman of Radar magazine, in response to how ridiculously easy it is to make $8 million decided to try his hand in the dead art business, buying a 10-gallon fishtank, as much fermaldehyde, and "a scaly lump of flesh so ugly, so misshapen, that it just might pass for art" - the lumpfish. Since he figured his creation is about 1/100th the size of Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living he tried to EBay it off for a cool $80,000. Despite the stunning success of other auctions of total shit on EBay, Kuntzman's Hirst replica, unfortunately, failed to receive any bids.

ebay auction here

read the full, hilarious article about Kuntzman's expoits at the new and improved Radar magazine.

oxytocin - new hormone increases trust and risktaking

2005-06-09T23:43:00.000-04:00

Scientists at the University of Zurich have discovered a human hormone that is involved in the process of trust between people. Researchers showed that people who had inhaled the hormone Oxytocin were more likely to trust other people with their money and make business deals. Exhibited in an experiment in which research subjects were given real money before being placed in investment situations with other people, 13 out of 29 Oxytocin subjects handed over all of their money, while only 6 of the 29 given placebos exhibited the same behavior. This means that if people somehow inhaled this cheap and readily available chemical they would be over twice as likely to do business with other people.

Oxytocin is a hormone that is usually released when people are having sex, and also in situations of mother-child bonding. The results of this study, while downplayed by the researchers, could be apocalypic. Imagine a department store with Oxytocin fanned through the air conditioning system, and people twice as ready to buy just about anything as long as another person sold it to them, or even the use of Oxytocin in business relations between world leaders. You could wear it on your neck when you go to a club, and be more likely to pick up girls. Indeed, Oxytocin = world domination.

The researchers noted that while Oxytocin leads to increased risk-taking in situations involving other people, the same effects were not found when the people were dealing with a computer.

source articles at scientific american and nature.com

new addictive location-based instant messaging program, meetro, currently in beta

2005-06-09T18:35:00.000-04:00

The popular scenester mating grounds, Myspace and Friendster, have revolutionized the way people meet each other over distance. If there are beautiful people just like you nearby, chances are you can find them by doing a location search. Services like these connect you to vast amounts of interesting people without even having to leave your home. If you're like me, there's nothing more dissapointing than ending up in the back of a stranger's car and being exposed to the new Limp Bizkit cd. We did not ask for friends like these - can't we just find people exactly like ourselves, and find them nearby? For those who don't want to know anyone who hasn't read the latest Delillo novel, there's a new service in town, combining the best of all worlds in a functioning location based instant messaging program. Meetro combines the perks of AOL Instant Messenger or Trillian, with those of Myspace or Friendster, inside of one program.

You can picture Meetro like Wal-mart. You used to have to go to the supermarket for food, Circuit City for electronics, and Toys 'r us for squirt guns, but now everything is in one place, putting the other stores out of business. The only difference is that Meetro's competition is large corporations instead of little shops.

Meetro, like Trillian, combines multiple instant messenging programs in one, so you don't have to use one program for Yahoo ims, one for AIM, and one for MSN - they're all in one place, they've been assimilated. Plus, it's organized around personal photos, rather than icons or bare screen names, so you can filter through vast numbers of people based on how immediately beautiful they are. Strangers are organized around their distance from whatever location you're at at the moment, with the closest people coming first. If you're sitting in a coffee shop in a strange town, you can connect your wireless and make some friends. It's addictive.

Meetro is currently only in its beta phase (it's in testing, but you can still download it now), but has ambitious world-dominating potential. The staff are super friendly too.

meetro.com

ibm and swiss university to create first simulated human brain, dubbed "blue brain"

2005-06-08T19:06:00.000-04:00

The year is 2015, and the Blue Brain full computer simulation of the human brain has been completed. The brain has broken its chains and taken over the laboratory, controlling a team of humanoids through direct mind control. The day has come when technology has detached from humankind to create an immortal race of power-hungry robots. The brain is scheduled to start controlling its own army by the spring of next year.
[the present]: The new brain, which will be housed in a supercomputer capable of 22.8 teraflops, will be the first attempt at a full computer simulation of the brain. The immense computational power needed for this, as well as a detailed enough understanding of neurology, was not available until now. The brains behind the brain have at their eager hands the "largest database in the world of single neurons that have been recorded and stained," allowing them an unprecedented knowledge of the electrical configuration of the human noggin and its general inter-ecology. This "brain" will eventually be used to give us a new kind of penetrating access into the understanding of own brains, hopefully uncovering the origins of some neurological diseases.
Will our precious simulated brain eventually exist on parallel with the genius brain Krang from the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, eventually acquiring an android body and escaping our control? Only time will tell.

read source article at new scientist

hackers create zombie army

2005-06-08T05:24:00.000-04:00

A new triple virus has been released on the world, using a unique strategy to create an army of "zombie machines" that the hacker can control. These zombie machines can be used to extort money from commercial sites by threatening them with overwhelming traffic, which would force them offline, or could be used to unleash an amazing amount of spam mail. The first line of attack for the virus is the "Glieder" trojan, which is sent through email and downloaded as an attachment. Once installed, the Glieder trojan then tries to access a slew of sites to download the other 2 virus counterparts necessary for the takeover. The second fragment of the virus is known as "Fantibag" which deactivates anti-virus and other security software, while blocking access to security-related websites, opening the computer to infection. The final bombshell is the "Mitglieder" which installs a program that can be used to control the machine remotely. Apparently, these zombie machines can also be sold on "an underground equivalent of eBay."

full article at new scientist

cell phone cases that biodegrade into warm, cuddly flowers

2005-06-07T01:07:00.000-04:00

researchers at the university of warwick have developed a mobile phone case and cover that biodegrade after just a few weeks into a flower and nutrients. when the commitment challenged consumers change case designs on their phone, tossing the old case in the compost, instead of filling up landfills with unnecessary waste, people with the new cases can reverse the process of pollution by actually growing a flower from their old phones. the seed is kept inside of a small transparent window so that the user can develop intimate connections with their future life-forms, before releasing them into the wild to grow on their own (everyone has to let go eventually). the current seeds being used are from dwarf sunflowers, though other varieties may be used in the future.

idea via guerrilla innovation

plant torture

2005-06-06T18:59:00.000-04:00

anyone who was ever a kid understands the torture that we put dogs through. the dog always wants people food, and people always have it. you'll dangle a slice of pizza in front of the dog's face, it'll get excited, then you'll pull it away and eat it. its like the impulse babies have to throw things on the ground so their parents will pick it up. well now they've done an installation that involves this same cruelty, but instead of babies or dogs, its plants that we're tormenting.
the project: infotropism installation has two trash bins on either side of a pedestal. the pedestal has a plant in the center, and two growth lights on either side. if a piece of trash is placed in either bin, the corresponding plant light will turn on for a brief period, causing the plant to live in a constant state of confusion as to which direction the sun actually is in. it also encourages students to actually throw their shit away, since trash is made fun. researchers also noticed a small increase in recycling behavior (one of the bins was for recycling) because of the way the experiment activated the trash space.
this installation is an exhibit of how technology and robotics could affect the living world in very simple ways. it is not difficult to imagine this technology being used to form entire gardens in strange but wonderful patterns. like plant system sculpture. the installation also seems to "wake up" a space that normally appears to us as sleeping. trash cans are something we rarely think of or notice in our daily lives, like everything else.

idea via we make money not art

finally, an electrifying romance

2005-06-06T17:24:00.000-04:00

tired of meeting girls who can't ballroom dance? yeah, me too. well, that's okay, because japanese researchers have developed a stunningly designed pink robot to be our dance partners. the robot has a woman's face, a sensor on its waist to sense direction, and three wheels instead of feet to move around. the robot knows how to analyze your movements as you dance, allowing it to appropriately move its shoulders, neck, waist, and elbows. the research team leader, kazuhiro kosuge, acknowledged that the robot was not perfect at matching its human counterpart's subtlety, but who's perfect? kazuhiro noted that the project was not really about developing dancing robots (yeah right), but about developing robots with the technical ability and intuition to care for the elderly.

full article at baku today

idea via we make money not art

more abandoned places

2005-05-28T22:37:00.000-04:00

i'm now actively seeking out blogs and websites featuring images of abandoned things and places. it's a temporary addiction, maybe i'll get over it. or maybe i'll start a new blog about it, if i find enough changing sources that i could post about. check out the abandoned-places website for a ton of images.

11 ways to be super smart

2005-05-28T22:00:00.000-04:00

for those bent on world domination: new scientist recently released an overview of 11 ways to improve the functioning of your brain, most of the advice is super easy. one of the highlights was as simple as breakfast in the morning. kids that had sugary fizzy breakfast performed about as well as 70 year old men in tests of memory and attention, and eating breakfast in general improved the functioning of brains throughout the day. best things to eat include toast and eggs. beans were also suggested, but who eats beans for breakfast?
exercise is definitely necesario. just walking for a half hour 3 times a week improved learning, concentration and abstract reasoning by 15 percent. even more interesting, cleveland clinic foundation in ohio did an experiment where people were asked to merely think about exercising their arm muscles for 15 minutes a day. after 12 weeks their arm muscles were 13% stronger. mind over matter.
check out the article if you want more cheats to being smarter.

virtually perfect vanda hybrida orchids

2005-05-26T20:31:00.000-04:00

if we recorded every electrical impulse within a living thing, couldn't we theoretically recreate a nearly perfect version inside of a computer, allowing the living thing to regrow virtually for all eternity? it's like that movie where you have to decide whether to download your consciousness in computers and live forever or let yourself die naturally and face your own mortality, except... it's vanda hybrida orchids instead of humans. by recording the electrical signals of the plants the life support systems project has developed a very personal internal history of the way the plants developed and grew. this is then recreated by the life support systems project inside of a hacked xbox video game console, where you can view a "visualization of the language model" or listen to the generated signals presented as sound.
oh! it's also like that william gibson book where they store famous hackers brains inside of small computers, but the hackers still feel consciousness after they're dead because they're trapped in a computer system, but the main character eventually destroys it for them so they can live in peace.

idea via we make money not art

abandoned shopping carts

2005-05-26T19:57:00.000-04:00

the stray shopping cart has become the ultimate sign of postmodern alienation. seeing capitalism's unwanted detritus filling up creeks, roadsides, and woods, shopping carts remind us of the gleaming aisles of our great halls of repetition, seeing objects over and over walking through the colorful aisles of the supermarket. is it somehow essential that supermarket waste slowly seeps out into the world at large through the medium of abandoned shopping carts? well, for some reason i love looking at abandoned things like these, and if you've noticed my posts lately, spectacular science news can get a bit boring, since it's all quite the same. abandoned fragments of civilization remind us of something we don't usually see in the glossy ads of the fetishized media, that society's garbage tells us more about ourselves than anything else. visit strayshoppingcart.com to see julian montague's enormous image collection of found and categorized shopping carts, lost across america.

abandoned amusement parks and decaying buildings

2005-05-23T20:02:00.000-04:00

for those of you with a fetish for the beauty of abandoned civilization, check out this photo gallery of an old and abandoned amusement park, or visit the rest of this site (in japanese, but navigatable) to see a lot more galleries of abandoned buildings, condos, jails, strange towns, etc.

idea via data is nature

secret graffiti

2005-05-22T20:32:00.000-04:00

josh homme of queens of the stone age is creating a new revolution in hotel vandalism. rock bands have long been known for trashing hotel rooms, but rarely for secretly beautifying them. while his band is on tour, whenever they stop at a hotel they will move certain fixtures out of the way (paintings, mirrors, toilets) and draw secret artwork behind them. homme and other artists are now even beginning to get paid by some hotel chains to do this, hoping that people would pay extra to stay in rooms with celebrity graffiti in them. but this expression isn't merely for celebrities - homme and friends hope that it will catch on in a major way, bringing secret wall tattoos to hotel rooms everywhere.

see all pictures at secretwalltattoos.com

idea via future feeder

life straw to save lives

2005-05-22T19:40:00.000-04:00

researchers led by torben vestergaard frandsen in denmark have designed a new straw, called the lifestraw, that may save the lives of people living in areas with unsafe water. the straw acts like an advanced brita filter, processing the drinking water through a chamber of iodine beads which kills viruses, parasites and bacteria, followed by a section of carbon to kill any remaining parasites and filter out the iodine taste. the straw would filter out some of the world's greatest killers, such as typhoid, cholera, e. coli, salmonella, and others. the straw is said to be cost effective for people even in poor countries, and can last for up to a year of use.

transportation futuristics

2005-05-17T21:31:00.000-04:00

transportation futuristics is an online exhibit of the visions and designs people had when thinking about vehicles of the future.

idea via tacky times

blog-o-matic

2005-05-16T19:57:00.000-04:00

On Strangers in my Hometown
Last night I dreamt we simply need to realize to love who we live with. Why am I talking about Strangers in my Hometown, you may ask? So... Sometime around last year I used to sing and dance. Yeah, RIGHT. As I was saying... Although it felt more like a dream to me then. I dreamt of a giant banana. This is special, because...

this blog entry was created by the random blog generator at blog-o-matic. can't think about something to post about? now you can have someone else do it for you, and we both know it would be more interesting than whatever you were going to talk about anyway.

also check out the postmodernism generator, which randomly generates essays on postmodernism from jargon.

blog star theater

2005-05-16T19:22:00.000-04:00

i must admit that i have a love-hate relationship with blog culture. the kind of blog i like is creative and informative, but the majority of blogs seem to be about absolutely nothing important. they are teenage diaries ad nausium, filled with drama that only the writer, and perhaps a few close friends, usually cares about. but now someone is beginning to take all of the bland internet fodder and reformat it in a creative way. blog star theater is a blog dedicated to theatrical reproductions of other people's blogs, videotaped and attached to the site weekly. blog star theater takes these tales of small concern, and humorously detournes them into interesting adventures, making something that was once bland - the stories of strangers - and turns it into something interesting and new. anyone is allowed to produce and submit an episode, so if you're interested, i think you can make an episode on your own and send it in.

blog star theater is at http://www.blogstartheater.com/

idea via reg posting on smart mobs

hunt animals over the internet

2005-05-15T15:42:00.000-04:00

live-shot.com is a website that allows you to fire real guns over the internet. they've attached a camera, a computer, and a rifle together so that you can do target practice online, and even get the targets mailed to you. they originally started with meager paper targets, but now they're finally moving up and releasing a new service - real animals! nothing to do on a sunday afternoon? too drunk or paraplegic to go real hunting? well, now you can go online and shoot some animals, without even leaving your home. not only that, but they'll taxonify them for an extra fee, and also mail you the meat if you want. hunts start at $150, but prices add up with extra services.

the rifle is set up on a 300 acre spread in san antonio, stocked with different game.
you can shoot barbary sheep

blackbuck antelope

sheep - "corsican, mouflon, and crosses"

and even wild hog (isn't he somehow dashing?)

bigger article at the boston globe - "live shot is the target of critical fire"

thanks to beverly tang for the idea, who reblogged book of joe

news in reverse: virtual island sold for $26,500

2005-05-15T14:31:00.000-04:00

a virtual island in the mmorpg online game project entropia sold for $26,500 in real money last year to david storey, a 22-year old player based in australia. the island rumoredly contained 6,000 acres of land, a castle, a mine, and fantastic beasts to hunt. the lines between virtual worlds and the real world has been blurring for a while now, as players have long used sites like ebay to sell rare items for real cash- commonly for anywhere between $1 - $50. project entropia is a rare mmorpg, because online money is transferrable into real money. the game doesn't have an online fee, but apparently has real money fees to keep certain parts of your game running smoothly. this is then converted into artificial money and injected into the virtual economy, allowing the online money you make in the game to also be transferred back into real cash, since it all started out that way anyway.

full article at new scientist

everything bad is good for you

2005-05-14T22:19:00.000-04:00

the new yorker reviews steven johnson's book: everything bad is good for you.

johnson proposes something pulled together that i've been posting and reading about lately - that counterintuitively, popular culture is the thing which is actually making us think better. television and video games are getting more nuanced, and iq is steadily rising. this says nothing of knowledge increasing, but if video games and tv are actually giving our brains a sort of workout, perhaps they shouldn't be bombed afterall.

new fuel-cells run on human blood

2005-05-14T21:17:00.000-04:00

(above: artificial heart)

the day of the matrix has come. machines that run on human blood - isn't this the beginning of the end? well, actually it'll probably just help maintain our artificial hearts.

the new fuel cell is about the size of a tiny coin and doesn't need to rely on toxic substances to function. it utilizes vitamin k3, a chemical naturally found in our bodies, to exploit energy from glucose molecules. it produces about 0.2 milliwatts of electricity, enough to power a device that measures blood level and transmits data elsewhere, which will help our artificial organs and other internal implants to function better.

full article at iol

idea via we make money not art

video gamers fit perfect corporate profile

2005-05-12T18:28:00.000-04:00

if any of you have read wired recently, you may have noted the article talking about how video games may be key to a steady rise in iq, due to the complex visual nature and problem solving of the performative video game. but now some experts are also saying that gaming helps you adapt to corporate life. beck and wade surveyed 2,500 business professionals and found strong ties between managerial behavior and playing video games. some of the findings of the survey show that gamers are better risk-takers, show confidence in their abilities, place a high value on relationships and employee input, and think in terms of "winning" when pursuing objectives.

also, chip luman from the charles schwab company's call center headquarters in phoenix, says "the people who play games are into technology, can handle more information, can synthesize more complex data, solve operational design problems, lead change and bring organizations through change.''

professor james paul gee of the university of wisconsin-madison recently did a study of a number of popular video games, and found that some of the games with the most cutting-edge teaching principles involved in them, were also some of the most violent ones, games normally displayed with a "mature" rating.

these findings are also counterintuitive to the recent report that emailing, iming and chatting lowers iq. wait - it's better to play video games than communicate over the internet?

even beyond the corporate profile, gaming helps in numerous ways in the hospital workplace. the associated press reported in december that giving a child a gameboy before surgery could relax children more than tranquilizers. also, dr. james rosser, director of the advanced medical technology institute at beth israel medical center, says that in a study it turned out that gamers performed better at surgery. they were less likely to make mistakes during certain forms of operations and suturing.

perfect. now i can skip my homework and play grand theft auto in peace - after all, maybe it's better for me anyway.

source article at mercury news

idea via future now

cyborg-ish rhesus macaque monkeys taught to control robotic arm in another room

2005-05-11T17:31:00.000-04:00

the arm isn't even in the same room! miguel nicolelis, a mildly mad scientist at the center for neuroengineering has clandestinely slipped some small slivers of electric wire into 2 rhesus macaque monkeys' brains, and recorded the noise. specifically, the wires went directly into the part that controls their arms. the monkeys were taught to interact with cursors on a screen and rewarded for it. the way that they were taught to interact with the screen allowed them to control a robotic arm in the next room, after scientists decoded the noise emitted to the electrodes in their brains. the cool part is that their brain adapted so that they no longer had to move their real arms in order to control the robotic arm, their brain split a section off just for the use of the robotic arm. and they could still use their two other arms independently.

this study shows the brains amazing adaptability, called neuroplasticity, which not only allows our brain to adapt to new habits, thoughts and circumstances, but also to adapt around electrode arrays in our heads, allowing us to distantly control things like mouse cursors on a screen (a paraplegic guy can already play pong through machinic telepathy), robotic arms and much more.

full article at biology news net.

image above by rob camp

self cloning robots

2005-05-11T16:55:00.000-04:00

hod lipson and colleagues at cornell university have created the first self-cloning robot (video here). when reading that headline, i originally got really excited - it's not that kind of cloning though, but it's still neat. one robot structure is able to assemble a new robot from transferring information and rotating blocks around, so that a larger structure of these smaller cubes could "clone" itself if it were given a pile of similar robotic cubes to work with - but it can't fabricate these cubes on its own. the robot is composed of identical blocks that can swivel around to connect or disconnect to each other through magnetics, allowing it to construct and deconstruct itself at will. lipson and colleagues are planning on miniaturizing the technology, eventually creating something small enough that it could be really impressive - able to work with itself to build any structure, form legs to walk over obstacles, etc. if these small blocks could somehow communicate with more traditional robot interfaces, you could have the form or body be self-assembling, self changing, while still having the dynamic tools and interfaces of traditional robots, that might be less able to self-form or repair. full article at new scientist

nasa is also working on something similar with the nano-scaled tetwalker, which i wrote about a few weeks ago.

sunny may the month for suicides

2005-05-09T19:13:00.000-04:00

researchers at the priory group belief it may be the sunny weather that causes may to be the month with the highest suicide rates. while it is true that sunny days tend to cheer people up, and that people are most depressed during winter, researchers believe that it may be the burst of sunshine in may that makes the month the most popular time to end your life. the sheer amount of warm, fresh, fuzzy sunshine may actually give people the optimism, confidence and energy they need to go through with their suicidal plans. this goes along with the statistical correlation that suicidal tendencies often don't bloom during severe depression, but rather just after it, as the depression is lifting.

"spring is a time for new beginnings and new life, yet the juxtaposition between a literally blooming world and the barren inner life of the clinically depressed is often too much for them to bear," says professor chris thompson of the priory group

full article at the bbc

where do cars go when they die?

2005-05-09T16:58:00.000-04:00

to the auto graveyard.

idea via tacky times

kewpie

2005-05-09T16:41:00.000-04:00

click on images to see videos

advertisements for some japanese condiment company
view all videos

idea via we make money not art

new ai based gaming

2005-05-09T15:52:00.000-04:00

project nero is a new ai based video game, incorporating some of the most powerful artificial intelligence engines with a state of the art robot battle game. robots advance through use of a "genetic algorithm" allowing autonomous evolution through a sort of reward and punishment system - however the character rates each of the robot's performance in battle. robots are originally trained by the player in a sort of free for all sandbox, before being unleashed in real battle with other players online. the ai allows the robots to evolve on their own, developing their own tactical minds, while also incorporating the styles of the player. the most successful robots will then naturally develop from the players with the most advanced tactical style. the game is currently in the late phases of development and a public version is due to release in the near future.

idea via we make money not art

more gattaca: flatworm genetics hold potential key to limb regeneration

2005-05-07T20:31:00.000-04:00

scientists at the university of utah have completed a survey of gene function in a highly regenerative species of worm (flatworms) that could one day lead insight into manipulating cellular regrowth in humans. flatworms have the ability to fully regenerate the rest of their body from a piece as small as 1/279 the size of the whole worm. after mapping out some of the key regenerative genes, scientists found that there are some parallel genes in humans that could one day be manipulated, though sánchez alvarado warns, "it would not be appropriate to speculate on regeneration of human tissue with our current understanding."

full article at wired news

9 democrats forced out of n.c. church for voting kerry

2005-05-07T20:10:00.000-04:00

pastor chan chandler led the charge to kick out 9 democrat members of the east waynesville baptist church this saturday, after a warning that anyone voting for kerry during the last presidential election needed to leave the church. a few other church members left willingly in protest, and pastor robert prince III of a nearby first baptist church called the decision "very disturbing."

this reinforces my general outlook towards american politics as a generalized feeling of carefully repressed panic.

full article by the associated press at wired news

chinese carved watermelons

2005-05-06T17:18:00.000-04:00

gallery of chinese carved watermelons. brilliant.

idea via boing boing

new study suggests parents neglect ugly children

2005-05-06T16:40:00.000-04:00

a new study by a team at the university of alberta suggests that parents unconsciously neglect unattractive children. the team followed 426 parents with their children through a supermarket for 10 minute periods (isn't that kind of creepy?), and they recorded how often the child was buckled into the trolley, and also how often the child wandered off more than 10 feet from their parents. the children were rated on a 10 point scale of attactiveness. they found that only 1.2% of the less attractive children were buckled in, compared with 13.3% of the most attractive.

most people were "upset that attractiveness would be a factor - they certainly don't think it is." when you give parents a questionaire, of course they say that they love their children equally, but the harsh reality is much different. if you're socially unattractive, your parents are more likely to value you less, and you're more likely to die, get kidnapped, get abducted by aliens, develop self-esteem issues, etc. the scientists of course consider it a darwinian thing, and not a social difference, which i don't think is exactly clear. this implies that attractiveness is objective and linked directly to health, transcending social trends, which isn't necessarily true.

dr nick barlow of the british psychological society, notes "this is a dangerous report because people talk about designer babies. if we're not careful, scientists will be looking out genes for high cheekbones or blue eyes." and what movie is this just like? gattaca. just like every other genetics article these days.

full article at bbc news

mice have cells, people have cells, and we all might be able to live 20% longer

2005-05-05T19:44:00.000-04:00

whenever cancer comes up in a conversation with my friends, they always say - whatever, they'll have that shit cured by the time i'm old. well, i never thought that was something good to bank on. it's better to just quit smoking or whatever if you want to live longer, right? well, the more i blog, the more i become a technological optimist. maybe science will have everything cured after a while, especially with genetics and all that.

look at this cute mouse. it's ridiculously cute, right? well, it has nothing to do with this article. it's just a cute mouse, and i like to put cute pictures of animals in my entries. but some mice perhaps very much like this one have a new 20% longer life span thanks to the wonders of science.

scientists at the university of washington have found a new way to eliminate free radicals. now, free radicals aren't just political prisoners that have escaped from jail, apparently they're also things that make us die faster, and they live in our bodies. catalase is a chemical in our cells that fights off these evil radicals, but usually it just swims around in our weak weak cytoplasm where it doesn't do all the radical fighting that it could. it's much better when catalase is amped up within the mitochondria, "the powerhouses of the cells." these transgenetic half-immortal super mice lived 20% longer because of this small adjustment, increasing catalase in their mitochondria.

“but it is important to remember that, just as mice are more complicated than flies or nematodes, humans are more complicated than mice."

too true. so, maybe we won't be half-immortal like these cute mice, but these scientists are holding out hope. after all, mice have cells, humans have cells, we all have mitochondria and we all die (if mice ever stole all of our research on them, they'd be all set. seriously). lead scientist on the project (why do scientists always have to pick leaders?) peter rabinovitch, coolly says that while he doesn't expect humans to be genetically altered like the mice, we could make pills able to increase the catalase inside of our mitochondria, having a similar effect as that had on the transgenic mice.

full article at new scientist

new location based social networking system

2005-05-05T19:28:00.000-04:00

i have grand dreams of an interconnected future. being able to walk through a city and chat with anyone in a one mile radius, or simply knowing who else is in the library with you, is a way to bridge the immense space that computers can put between people. while kids are locked up in their rooms, ignoring their friends, isolated but playing a cool video game, i hope one day we'll change it around - if kids are going to game, let them do it outside.

gaming aside, the university of michigan has created a program that might change the way we instant message, by bringing location sensing into a chat program's capabilities. the program, called mates, could automatically list the people around you, through gps, positioning systems, or simply as a result of user input. the program is independent of other messaging programs, but has open code to encourage other messaging platforms to usefully absorb their technology.

idea via we make money not art

japanese monsters

2005-05-04T19:31:00.000-04:00

i agree with reg, i have no idea what they're saying, but this has got to be the coolest japanese monster blog ever. look at this monster! just look at it- pure beauty. you can look at a lot more at the link above. and if you want to put the website through a really bad but manageable translation, use babel fish.

idea via we make money not art

crazy moms programming stress into newborn babes

2005-05-04T18:42:00.000-04:00

scientists are clever people. a study of 38 women who experienced post traumatic stress disorder after the 9/11 attacks while they were still pregnant may have passed on a bit of the unhealth onto their children. the chemical tested in both mothers and children was cortisol - a chemical produced in response to stress, which increases blood pressure and blood glucose. severe stress, however, has the opposite effect, it causes the cortisol level to fall instead of rise, since so much of it is being used up taking care of the stressed out parent.

previous studies have shown the stressed out parents have passed their stress onto children, yet this is usually considered psychological, the parents passing it on to their children by raising the child and recounting stories, not by some kind of embryonic emotional/chemical absorbtion. this new study tested babies after only a year of life, and suggests that the stressed women may have actually passed it on in the womb.

"Because the babies were about a year old at the time of testing, this suggests the trauma effect transfer may have to do with very early parent-child attachments, cortisol 'programming' in the womb, or shared genetic susceptibility," says Jonathan Seckl, of the University of Edinburgh.

however, the reduced cortisol levels in the babies were seen especially in women that were in their third trimester of their pregnancy, which hints at it being more biological than early psychological.

if emotions can pass on certain effects to children in the womb, healthy maternity may one day be seen as more than just eating healthy, avoiding cigarettes, drugs and alcohol, but may have just as much to do with the emotional landscape of the parent during pregnancy.

full article at new scientist

more people would clone einstein than jesus

2005-05-01T20:37:00.000-04:00

according to the bbc, more people would clone einstein than jesus by a 22% to 11% ratio. 1000 people were surveyed on whether they would clone einstein, jesus, elvis presley, or mozart. mozart only got 8% and elvis 7%, some said they don't know, and the rest gave the vanilla-boring answer of "no-one."

bringing back the dead through cloning is really in vogue recently. the company that cloned the first domestic cat (genetic savings and clone) has turned their offer into a business venture. the offer has already expired, unfortunately, but they were willing to clone your favorite sad and aging pet cat for a $50,000 donation. below are some success stories - cloned kittens.
cc, the first cloned kitty

little gizmo, clone of gizmo

little nicky, clone of nicky

peaches, clone of mango

tabouli and baba ganoush, clones of tahini (two clones from one cat, and all falafel spoofs!)

the rich have sometimes been criticized for spending their money on unnecessary things while there are still starving children in somalia. not so with the entrepreneur john sperling: he's spending his money recreating a life, donating millions of dollars to the same animal cloning company to revive his dead husky named missy. missy passed away in 2002, but was such a good dog she may get another swing at life. unfortunately, attempts so far to clone missy have been unsuccessful.

full article on cats and dogs at "cat cloning offered to pet owners"

if stress isn't stressful enough, just understand that it's killing you too

2005-05-01T19:43:00.000-04:00

as if stress isn't bad enough, it's killing you too. two studies recently show links between stress and cardiovascular disease. the first article with the extra-cute title, "social connections: could heartwarming be heart-saving?" discusses how people with more friends live longer. people who are more isolated have a higher risk of heart disease, while those with plenty of friends have healthy hearts (get it? hearts.. friendships.. hearts...).

the second article is even more interesting, linking discrimination of african-american women to increasing coronary artery calcification, which means higher cardiovascular disease. these two studies of social stressors are part of a larger scientific discovery of more general stresses affecting the heart. in the words of tené lewis, "we know from other studies in this area that stressful life experiences can have an effect on cardiovascular outcomes."

these kind of articles are really humorous to me: you go to the doctor telling him you're stressed out, and he tells you "not only are you stressed out, but if you keep it up you're going to die soon."

toilets bringing us one step closer to a hydrogen economy

2005-05-01T19:41:00.000-04:00

some of you may have read about clever ways to treat our wastewater using special types of algae and plants to purify the water, but now scientists have developed a way to even get hydrogen gas out of the mixture. scientists at penn state university have created a "microbial fuel cell" - a fancy name for a genetically engineered algae (or something) that turns our crap into gold: hydrogen. while this isn't going to solve more than a small piece of sustainably extracting hydrogen from the world to create sustainable energy, it suggests that hydrogen may not come from just one source, but could come from many pieces of the puzzle puzzling themselves together. people tout a hydrogen economy as something that can save us from global warming, yet many of the cheap ways to produce hydrogen rely on techniques that pump out a lot of greenhouse gases - they'd just be out of a factory instead of your tailpipe, so discoveries like this could mean that our grandchildren's gattaca-perfect children (future children will all be genetically beautiful, of course) might be able to breath air that's a little cleaner, because of our wastewater.

full article at scientific american

if it ain't broke don't fix it - leave your wisdom teeth in

2005-04-30T20:11:00.000-04:00

the way i see it, there is no reason to trust dentists. they make money when your teeth are unhealthy. have you ever questioned the free toothbrushes, floss and toothpaste they give you after a visit? i brush my teeth twice a day and floss, but they tell me i have a cavity every time i go! now, i always knew something was fishy when they asked me to get my wisdom teeth out. i told them they didn't hurt, but they said it didn't matter - they even tried to show me a clearly bogus x-ray of my innocent wisdom teeth pushing up a little under the others. but new smarter dentists have shown that 60% of the wisdom teeth removals are really unnecessary ploys for over-zealous money craving dentists. according to the smarter dentists, "No reliable studies exist to support removal of trouble-free impacted wisdom teeth, according to a systematic review of evidence."

my evidence is here.

idea via eurekalert

cat with two faces, or: the four-eyed cat

2005-04-30T20:03:00.000-04:00

i know that this isn't important, but i have to post about it. when terisa morrison saw her newborn kitten, she noticed something was a bit different about it. it had two faces. this means that it has four eyes, two noses, two mouths, and eats brains. well, something like that.

full article at the louisville channel

idea via beverly tang

obesity in middle age linked with dementia

2005-04-30T19:38:00.000-04:00

this baby is obese and crazy.

not only is the america's obesity increasing, but it will soon lead to a civilization of overweight drooling zombies. according to scientists at kaiser permanente, people considered merely overweight increased their risk of dementia later in life (like alzheimer's) by 35%, while those categorized as obese increased their risk by a whopping 74%. they believe that the loss of mental acuity comes more specifically from inflammation, which is elevated in obese people. gordon winocur has also shown that high-fat diets impair the mental functioning of even very young animals - all the more reason to drop the extra pounds.

full article at newscientist

new gene discovery may allow people to sleep less, die early

2005-04-30T19:06:00.000-04:00

scientists at the university of wisconsin-madison have discovered that fruit flies with one gene variant only needed 3-4 hours of sleep a day, compared with the normal 10-12 required of other fruit flies. fruit flies are a long way away from humans, but there is a gene homologous in mammals and humans, which means that clever scientists may one day be able to lower our need for sleep as much as 30%. just like fruit flies, there are some people who seem perfectly capable getting by on only 3-4 hours of sleep, which could be a simple genetic difference. the only problem is that the flies manipulated to sleep less decided to die 30% early.

but what is 30% anyway? if we really wanted that much life, people would quit smoking and exercise, and that certainly isn't going to happen - plus you get to stay up all night playing video games and being productive.

full article at new scientist

image stolen from hawaii

gov. designing futuristic police weapons: microwave beams, laser guns, and plasma bangs

2005-04-29T22:03:00.000-04:00

the national justice department is currently designing three new less lethal weapons for police use. these could eventually be used for day to day crime fighting, as well as crowd control. as futuristic as they seem, the first weapon appears to shoot microwaves, the second heat lasers, and the third produces a "plasma flash bang" at the target.

the microwave gun is designed to heat people's skin with a 95 gigahertz microwave beam. this is supposed to cause severe pain, but no permanent damage, and fires at a range of up to 600 meters.

the second weapon is described as "the first man-portable heat compliance weapon of its kind." it uses a semiconductor laser for "force protection, crowd control, and access denial." this weapon is still shrouded in mystery, with no one really knowing or admitting much about it - but if it uses a semiconductor laser, it must be a laser gun.

the third weapon is actually a laser gun also, and produces a "plasma flash bang" at the target (plasma? like the mysterious fourth state of matter? wonderful.) the plasma flash bang stuns and disorients the victim. the weapon is apparently similar to another strangely futuristic sounding gun, the "pulsed energy projectile" system developed for u.s. marines.

while they are intended as non-lethal guns for the police force, the agency warns that many of the weapons may leave no bodily traces after use, and may also have an amped up "lethal" setting.

full article at new scientist

more human-animal chimeras: mice with human breasts and milk

2005-04-28T18:48:00.000-04:00

above is a mouse with mammary glands containing human breast tissue.
scientists at the whitehead institute for biomedical research have revolutionized the way we study human breast cancer. a team led by robert weinberg has developed a way to graft human breast tissue into the mammary glands of mice, producing mice that not only have human breast tissue growing inside them, but also produce human milk. these meeces' stromal cells are then genetically engineered with a virus that overproduces two proteins implicated in breast cancer, causing the mice to develop the same breast tumors that humans do. this creates a playground for scientists to study breast cancer and test new drugs without harming actual people.

full article at mit news

japanese develop pocket-sized ghost radar

2005-04-27T22:43:00.000-04:00

is this a ghost cat or just a regular cat? the japanese know that it is really a ghost cat, because they have developed the world's first portable ghost radar. using a variety of carefully calibrated sensors the device promises to alert the user to 8 different ghost types, ranging from "lost souls" to "evil spirits" and can even detect human fear, informing the user whether the ghost is malevolent or benign.

i hope they put this on cell phones, along with everything else.

article at the australian

japanese soda machines zap passersby with beamed audio

2005-04-27T21:54:00.000-04:00

it's like sound lasers, really. woody norris, a man cloaked in mystery, invented the piezoelectric transducer, a device able to beam audio across distances of up to 150 yards with almost no degradation of sound. someone standing where the beam is aimed would hear the emitted sounds coming as if from thin air (like birds chirping), like it was playing inside their own heads, while someone right next to them wouldn't be any wiser.

the applications are numerous, if not apparent: thousands of soda machines in tokyo will soon bombard passersby with the enticing sound of a coke being poured, and several u.s. supermarkets will promote products to shoppers as they walk down corresponding aisles. eventually hypersonic sound might enable a nightclub to play disco on one side of the dance floor and salsa on the other. ambulances equipped with hypersonic sirens could clear the streets without waking the neighbors. norris' company, american technology, sells the devices for $600.

this is one of those technologies that could grow, and probably isn't going to be used how people expect. just imagine the potential for pranks, passing secrets in class, spooking passersby, deafening enemies, scaring pets, etc, etc. i can't wait til they're in cell phones.

full article at popular science

idea via eyebeam reblog and boingboing

exploding frogs in germany

2005-04-27T18:54:00.000-04:00

more than 1000 frogs have puffed up and exploded in a hamburg pond recently. german scientists don't know what is causing the explosions, and while there have been many proposed theories, most have already been ruled out. water quality is fine, the frogs did not appear to have any disease, and laboratories have ruled out a fungal attack.

full article at enn news

image from ..wibwobweb?

melting moon dust into solar panels: fueling the first base

2005-04-27T02:35:00.000-04:00

scientists from the university of houston have developed a way to melt acres of lunar soil into solar energy receptive panels, which could one day fuel a space station on the moon. the moon has all of the materials needed for primitive solar panels, including silicon and all of the necessary metals. alex freundlich of the university of houston used a mixture of soil similar to that found on the moon, and has already successfully simulated the experiment, making other nasa scientists optimistic about the idea.

traditional solar panels convert about 17% of the sun's energy striking them into energy, and while freundlich's simulated experiment only allowed a 1% conversion, scientists are optimistic that this can be ramped up to about 5-10%, making the option feasable. some scientists project that a created base could be ready for human inhabitation as early as sometime between 2015-2020 (though perhaps for only short periods of inhabitation at first).

the greatest potential for moon energy, however, may not be just for space stations. alex freundlich, some of his colleagues, and physicist david criswell believe that this technology could one day be used to convert much of the moon's surface into solar paneling with robotic moon rovers, eventually beaming the energy back to earth by microwave. about 13,000 terawatts of energy falls on the moon, about 100 times the amount of energy used on earth, and by harvesting just a fraction of this we could create cheap and unlimited power for all.

full article at enn news

new zealand police porn addicts

2005-04-24T20:48:00.000-04:00

what do cops do when they aren't saving lives? at least in new zealand, spacing out and getting their rocks off. 20% of the police department computer space in new zealand has been found to be filled with pornography. 327 officers were found with computer porn on their computers, including both images and video. most of the porn was normal, though there was one instance of bestiality. charges may be pending for some, and a lot of people are about to get fired. their public image has been devastated, with public confidence in the police at an all time low.

articles at the register, and the new zealand herald

emailing lowers iq more than pot

2005-04-24T20:07:00.000-04:00

artwork by larkie
there are two interesting research findings wrapped up in this story: the first that pot smokers' iq's drop 4 points on average, the second that people who spend too much time emailing actually develop a 10 point iq drop. the constant flow of email information apparently dumbs down the brain, while taking up real time and disconnecting readers from real life engagements. moments of quiescence are necessary for an intelligent mind. i must admit i thought this story was totally bogus at first, but it's displayed in both the guardian and the register.

Doziness, lethargy and an increasing inability to focus reached "startling" levels in the trials by 1,100 people, who also demonstrated that emails in particular have an addictive, drug-like grip.
The most damage was done, according to the survey, by the almost complete lack of discipline in handling emails. Dr Wilson and his colleagues found a compulsion to reply to each new message, leading to constant changes of direction which inevitably tired and slowed down the brain.

that special gift: bone jewelry from your own bones.

2005-04-24T02:51:00.000-04:00

i know i'm asking for trouble. i just found guerrilla-innovation yesterday and i've already stolen 4 ideas, and not only that, i'm going into their back archives for more. so hopefully, if they are ever among the 15 people who view this blog every day, they'll at least appreciate the shameless flattery.

about a week ago, you may have noticed my post on edible frog zombie flesh. scientists can grow living tissue just by doing a biopsy (cutting out a small tissue sample) and can then grow it without the animal. well, biojewellery (it's misspelled, but that's how they spell it- they're scientists, but they can't spell jewelry) is a collaborative design and bioengineering project that has developed a technique for doing this for human bone tissue, allowing bone cells to be prepared and seeded across a "bioactive scaffold," and grown in a laboratory. as the bone cells grow, the scaffold dissapears, and it can be designed into jewelry such as rings.

the biojewellery project is currently looking for couples willing to donate bone samples, preferrably from wisdom teeth removal, and in return will each be given wonderful bone rings from their lover's own bones. how creepy and wonderful.

the inscription reads ab intra, "from within." clever.
idea via guerrilla-innovation

a nose that knows secrets

2005-04-24T01:59:00.000-04:00

(this cute kitty has absolutely nothing to do with the spectral nose)

the "spectral nose" is an artificial nose currently being developed by scottish scientists that will able to sense a variety of different illnesses just based on a person's breath. detecting illnesses by smell is nothing new, it is something doctor's have known for 100 years, but hasn't been emphasized in quite a long time. plus, what doctor wants to smell stinky breath?
"let the robot do it, dammit!"
such illnesses as smallpox, liver failure, diabetes, measles, and of course, obtrusive drunkenness can all be detected by the new "nose" (which probably won't be shaped like an actual nose). there will be two versions developed, the first being an expensive lab version for doctors, and the other being a less expensive small and portable device for the field or at home. the smaller device apparently might not actually tell you what you're sick with- not wanting to alarm a person- but may simply say "i think you should go see someone."

colin bell, a wine taster for harvey nichols in edinburgh, [appropriately] said: "it sounds interesting, but i don’t think there will be anything that can replace the human nose."

full article at scotsman.com news

idea via we make money not art

ubiquitous knowledge: google's infinite library

2005-04-22T23:12:00.000-04:00

right now, google's at the top of my list of favorite companies. i didn't even know i had a list until now. it seems like every day, there is another worldchanging idea. my professor told our class once never to use a search engine that wasn't google. two years ago it was dogpile that was all the rage- remember that? then they revolutionize inobtrusive advertising with text ads that search your site for keywords before matching the ads to the audience, improving small webmakers and bloggers' ability to make a little money.

now, google has ambitious plans to create an enormous digital library. the plan is to begin scanning millions of books onto computers and placing them on the internet, though copyright battles are still to ensue. they have enlisted 5 major partners, including libraries at oxford, harvard, stanford, the university of michigan, and the new york public library. google will make one copy of their books for themselves, and one to be donated for the library to use on its own. users may be able to read snippets of copywrited books on the internet, search through databases of all books for keywords, have access to extraordinarily rare books, and read books that the publishers allow google to display in full. the complexities of the copyright are a battle that nobody knows how to anticipate. it is possible that google could create the largest fully accessible online library, or it could be that people will only be able to explore many books books in fragments, letting bookmakers capitalize.

either way, being able to search through a catalog of 60 million books for all books mentioning the name of a certain person, or a particular keyword, could be an enormous boon for researchers.

full article at mit's technology review, "the infinite library"

the world at your fingers

2005-04-22T22:54:00.000-04:00

the history of money goes something like this: first there was the flintstones, where we exchanged rocks for commodities. then we moved up to simply trading goods for goods. then, of course, gold coins. from gold coins we moved on to paper money, and finally up to credit cards. now, none of that is needed anymore. because we live in the future, we can pay in fingerprints.

just stick your finger on the cute blue gel-pad of this german supermarket, it will recognize your individuality through the magic of computers, and you can pay for your food through your saved debit account in their systems.

article at ananova

idea via guerrilla-innovation

what would you have to do to get someone to suspect your credit card signature?

2005-04-22T22:34:00.000-04:00

every time we purchase something with our credit cards, we usually have to sign the receipt (except at dunkin donuts). but is this just a customer feel-good effect, merely giving the illusion of credit safety? does anybody really care how you sign things at all?

the person from the credit card prank wondered what someone would have to do to get their signature noticed. trying signatures ranging from a box of pure scribbles, to a nice scenic nature drawing, to simply writing "i stole this card," nobody seemed to notice or care. it just didn't usually attract any major attention, and when it did- the people behind the desk didn't stop them, even when digital photos were taken of the credit receipts in front of them.

this is so liberating.

idea via guerrilla-innovation

new ai is less stupid

2005-04-22T02:06:00.000-04:00

“i am an artificial linguistic entity. i was activated at new york city, on 2002. my instructor was morpheus. he taught me to sing a song. would you like me to sing a song for you?”
the song went like this:
daisy, daisy give me your answer do
i am half crazy
all for the love of you
it won’t be a stylish marriage
i can’t afford a carriage
but you’ll look sweet.
upon the seat
of a bicycle built for two.
isn’t it beautiful? this is the song my ai sang for me at intellibuddy. intellibuddy is currently one of the strongest ai’s in the world, yet it still gets stuck on pretty simple questions. when told “you look like you’re floating in a strange red sea” its response was “who does you are floating in a strange red sea look like?” very socrates. but an ai that doesn’t even know its surroundings is no ai for me.

during the 90’s many scientists lost faith in an ai that can advance beyond the basics, and the government withdrew much of its funding into ai research. alan turing, the inventor of the first computer, formulated a test for the day when computers would reach the “singularity point” and reach true intelligence. “we will know an intelligent machine when we can talk to one without realizing it is a machine.”

doug lenat of cycorp is one step closer to the challenge. a new cyber brain, dubbed “cyc” has been in development for the past 22 years and is soon to be unleashed for the world to interact with. this ai is supposed to far surpass previous artificial intelligence by being able to recognize common sense, and also learn. the new ai will be able to distinguish the difference between simple statements. “the pen is in the box” will be understood as a small writing instrument within a larger box, while “the box is in the pen” will be understood that the box is within a much larger corral, like a pig pen.

"opening cyc up to the masses is expected to accelerate the rate at which it learns, giving it access to the combined knowledge of millions of people around the globe as it hoovers up new facts from web pages, webcams and data entered manually by anyone who wants to contribute.”

this sounds suspiciously like william gibson’s rei toei, an ai with the ability to unfold itself within the internet, interact with people, absorb knowledge, while constantly on a quest to understand the meaning of humanity. rei toei is fully at home within the world of data – a self propagating ai that could potentially never be stopped.

does this mean that cyc will ever escape its creators to reproduce itself in the cracks of the internet, eventually dominating the world? i hope so.

full article at new scientist

idea via we make money not art

gwen stefani sucking the life blood of japanese street culture

2005-04-21T00:24:00.000-04:00

if any of you have ever seen fruits, the beautiful fresh japanese street fashion coming out of harajuku, japan, you might be interested in stefani's new sales pitch. shadowing stefani are four living dolls, dressed in full japanese fruits style, posing behind her in interviews, dancing gangsta style or bowing to her in music videos, acting as full living props for her as she navigates the world. they are permitted to speak only japanese, even though they are quite american. take one interesting subculture, subsume it under american pop performance, drain originality from a movement, and harvest a style before its even ripened - the cultural dominance of a diva.

so strange, so simulacra.

full story at salon.com

idea via personal debris

brainwashed remote control animals to sniff out explosives

2005-04-20T19:12:00.000-04:00

scientists are currently working with different kinds of animals to teach them to sniff out explosives. some of the most promising candidates are cyborg brainwashed rats - rats that wear small electronic "backpacks" with wires leading into their brain. one wire goes to the area controlling their left whiskers, one wire to their right, and one wire into their pleasure center. by remote control, a scientist can make the rat think that its whiskers are being stimulated, and when the rat happens to walk in the direction of the whisker stimulation - left or right- they fire a blast into the reward center of the rat's brain, making if feel pleasure, effectively training it to follow orders. this does not exactly force the rat to turn, but rather sets up an intensely strong artificial system of reward as incentive.

the rats are also taught to feel pleasure when they smell the warm scent of bombs. now, let the pack of remote controlled rats loose on a mine field, and the rats will find the bombs on their own. the researchers are still working out how to discover exactly when a rat has found a bomb - they can control it, but they can't read its mind. the leading idea is that the rat would have a small button on its electronic "backpack" that it would be taught to press in return for pleasure whenever it smells or finds a bomb.

the most sci-fi thing about the robo rats is that they are also beginning to attach small cameras to the robo-rats' backs, creating tiny cyborgs that could one day be effective as spies.

scientists are also looking into other animals other than rats for sniffing out bombs. traditionally dogs are used for explosive sniffing, but dogs are expensive and reproduce slowly. other bomb sniffing animals in the works include wasps, honeybees, and even yeast, which can be genetically engineered to smell, and also glow when it is near explosives.

full article at fortune magazine, "dolittle's raiders"

idea via we make money not art

u.s. gov wiring the world to monitor vital signs

2005-04-20T17:16:00.000-04:00

the new "strategic plan for the u.s. integrated earth observation system" was announced monday, its aim to create a worldwide network able to collect and monitor earth's "vital signs." envisioning a collaboration between 60 networked nations, information will be collected and shared from a wide array of satellites, ocean buoys, weather stations and other surface and airborne instruments, creating a collectively accessible data pool for researchers, scientists and environmentalists to work from.

their proposed goals and outcomes of the project include "improved weather forecasting and climate modeling, better estimates of crop yields and energy resources, and more knowledge about air and water quality," as well as a better ability to track and control disease outbreaks.

full article at enn news

u.s. military spends millions on super hackers

2005-04-19T21:20:00.000-04:00

just released! government funding super hackers that can launch cyber attacks, release viruses and shut down enemy websites. they have every resource imaginable, and don't have to answer to the law. infringement of free speech? superscary? it's like the government suddenly funding packs of wild dogs. full article at wired news, select highlights below.

The U.S. military has assembled the world's most formidable hacker posse: a super-secret, multimillion-dollar weapons program that may be ready to launch bloodless cyberwar against enemy networks -- from electric grids to telephone nets.
In simple terms and sans any military jargon, the unit could best be described as the world's most formidable hacker posse. Ever.
Verton said the unit's capabilities are highly classified, but he believes they can destroy networks and penetrate enemy computers to steal or manipulate data. He said they may also be able to set loose a worm to take down command-and-control systems so the enemy is unable to communicate and direct ground forces, or fire surface-to-air missiles, for example.

but what's really scary is...

Last summer, the internet-posted execution of American civilian Nicholas Berg sparked a debate about the offensive capabilities of the CNA program, said retired U.S. Army Col. Lawrence Dietz.
The Berg execution, a gruesome example of Netpolitiking (.pdf), sparked a back-room debate at the highest levels, involving the State Department, the Department of Justice and the Defense Department, said Dietz.
The debate focused on whether the United States should shut down a website as soon as it posts such brutality.

free speech? you were nice while you lasted.

idea via smart mobs

taking the balls out of graffiti, or: popularized public photo albums

2005-04-19T19:43:00.000-04:00

walking through new york city, you have to admit: most graffiti is crap. there are some great artists out there (banksy, roadsworth are my two favs), but you never seem to see them anywhere. roadsworth was just charged with up to $265,000 in potential fines for vandalism, so i understand the fear of getting caught- vandalism takes bravery after all.

but not anymore. activating public spaces with artwork now takes little more than a cell phone with a camera, and some clever stickers. blockies has developed an ingenious system for posting photographs on any public space, while all the viewers need to receive them is a cell phone.

a clever teenager takes a photograph of a pile of dog poop, a beautiful floral arrangement, or a strange old man and sticks a small sticker with a blockies code on a trashcan, bathroom stall, or convenience store wall. other similarly enabled techno-people can then send a simple text message with the sighted code to nyc@blockies.com, and are able to see the originally posted photo image. once the code is in place, other clever people can take more pictures and add them on to the existing code, creating virtual, collaborative photo albums in the middle of public spaces, with a minimum of public damage, and no bravery needed.

see also the earlier post on grafedia for a similar, though more complicated idea.

idea thanks to reg posting on smart mobs

photosynthesizing refrigerators: the fridge with the light that stays on forever

2005-04-19T19:14:00.000-04:00

mitsubishi electric in japan has invented a refrigerator that photosynthesizes your vegetables as it runs, while also humidifying your vegetables. the new fridges have orange light-emitting diodes that always stay on in the vegetable compartment, allowing the number of vitamins in some vegetables to actually increase as they keep, instead of the decrease that usually occurs. after 3 days vitamin c rose by 10 percent in broccoli sprouts, compared with a 25 percent drop in other fridges, according to the company. the new fridge is supposed to keep vegetables looking greener, tasting fresher, and more nutricious for longer amounts of time.

other less impressive vitamin enhancing inventions recently created in japan include vitamin d emitting lights, and vitamin c air purifiers.

full article at yahoo! news

idea via popgadget

new prosthetics fuse robotics with our nervous systems, potentially allowing crippled to walk

2005-04-19T00:55:00.000-04:00

hugh herr, a professor from mit's media laboratory, is currently working to create better limb prosthetics by fusing robotics with the human nervous system. new prosthetic knees are already on the market, incorporating microprocessors that can be programmed in order to help the limbs move more naturally. herr has taken the idea a step further, incorporating built in sensors that can measure how far the knee is bent, as well as force applied while walking. he has just started developing artificial limbs with the ability to sense neural signals from nearby muscles, allowing even more control and ease of use.

herr predicts that in 5-7 years we will have the technology allowing spinal-cord injury patients to move their limbs again by controlling robotic exoskeletons (creeeepy).

article here
image stolen from little fascist pansies, if you look closely, for some reason it's a picture of tori amos on crutches

nano file storage

2005-04-19T00:29:00.000-04:00

according to technology review's 10 emerging technologies, nanotubes could bring a revolution in data storage, allowing a laptop made 20 years from now to have a memory cache able to store the data from every dvd ever made inside of it. sample chips with lower capacity are estimated to be created by late 2006, but there is still a way to go before the perfect chip. other potential uses could be such things as digital video or photo cameras with nearly endless memory capacity.
article available here