23skidoo

Termite Guts Could Solve Energy Crisis

2005-04-14T16:18:00.000-04:00

The way termite guts process food could teach scientists how to produce pollution-free energy and help solve the world's imminent energy crisis. Speaking at the Institute of Physics conference Physics 2005 in Warwick today, Nobel laureate Steven Chu urged scientists to turn their attention to finding an environmentally friendly form of fuel. In an impassioned plea to some of the world's brightest minds, he explained how he's leading by example, and encouraged others to join the effort which "may already be too late." Chu, who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997, has begun studying termite guts – one place in nature where a key hurdle for carbon-neutral energy supply has already been solved. Termite guts take indigestible cellulose, which makes up the bulk of all plant material grown on earth, and convert it to ethanol, which even today is a versatile and popular fuel.

Chu described how he decided to leave the richly-funded precincts of Stanford University to become Director of the Lawrence Berkeley Labs to kick-start the effort. He has been cajoling his new colleagues, including 56 members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, to realise the gravity of the problem and shift the focus of their research. And, he says, it's beginning to work.

The US already subsidises farmers to grow corn to turn into ethanol, but $7bn in the past decade has been wasted because the process isn't carbon-neutral. "From the point of view of the environment," explains Chu, "it would be better if we just burnt oil."

"But carbon-neutral energy sources are achievable. A world population of 9 billion, the predicted peak in population, could be fed with less than one third of the planet's cultivable land area. Some of the rest could be dedicated to growing crops for energy. But the majority of all plant matter is cellulose – a solid, low-grade fuel about as futuristic as burning wood. If scientists can convert cellulose into liquid fuels like ethanol, the world's energy supply and storage problems could both be solved at a stroke."

This is where the termite guts come in. A billion years of evolution have produced a highly efficient factory for turning cellulose into ethanol, unlike anything which humans can yet design. By exploiting these tricks, says Chu, we can use biology as a solution to a pressing world problem.

Nuclear fission may be the holy grail, but in the 50 years since it was first proposed, the predicted time-to-market has grown ever more distant. Solar and wind power look appealing, but mankind has not yet discovered how to store electricity on a large scale. Ethanol – a chemical fuel which would release no more carbon than it took to produce, would be the solution.

Immense funding is made available to cure the "diseases of rich people" such as cancer and heart disease, says Chu. "If we can't cure cancer in 50 years," he says, "it will be tragic but life will go on. But if we can't develop carbon-neutral fuel sources, life will change for everyone."

Open Access Scientific Journals

2005-02-24T01:01:00.000-05:00

This is a really cool idea. The importance of creating a more autonomous scientific community has been overlooked through the years by many (at least to my knowledge), and this effort is not only very worhwhile, but could be potentially very powerful.

Via Mind Hacks:

The development of science needs the free flow of information, so scientists can both build on and test the work of others, and so the public can make informed democratic decisions about the role of science in society.

Most scientific journals are run by publishing companies that own the articles they publish. In fact, the results from the majority of publically funded science appears in these journals.

Why is so much science owned by private companies ? Part of the reason is that scientists jobs often depend on how many publications they produce, and there is a hierarchy of journals, so publishing in some journals (typically the more established and privately owned ones) counts for more in a scientist's career.

Many scientists would like to publish in open access journals but don't want their careers to suffer or to be out of a job.

The following suggests some ways in which you can support open access journals to boost their value in the science community, prevent career dilemmas, and help open up scientific research for the benefit of all.

More of this article

Directory of Open Access Journals

more sillyness

2005-02-16T20:12:00.000-05:00

I don't quite know what to say about this.

Link

Whats This?

2005-02-08T18:15:00.000-05:00

CDL Presents: MapHub

2005-02-08T15:32:00.000-05:00

I just got this email from the Hactivist Newslist. The project sounds really cool. I wish I lived in Pittsburgh (for the moment, anyway).

Wednesday, February 9th, 8pm at the Quiet Storm Coffeehouse (5420 Penn Ave) the Carbon Defense League will introduce its new project MapHub. MapHub is a web-based, multi-user interactive map. By contributing information about people, places, events, and notes you can help document the unseen narrative and history around Pittsburgh.

We want to solicit your feedback on the system and to brainstorm about how MapHub might be used by various communities and organizations around Pittsburgh.

We also need your help to contribute to the first MapHub project entitled "HEARD: a sonic landscape of Pittsburgh." Using a cell phone, individuals can call in and record audio from around the city. These audio recordings are then placed on an interactive online map that anyone can access to playback the sounds. This sonic landscape of Pittsburgh will be included as part of an installation in an international exhibition entitled "Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy" in Karlsruhe, Germany from March through July 2005.

Please join us at 8pm on Wednesday, February 9th, at the Quiet Storm Coffee House (5420 Penn Ave). We will conduct a demo and workshop for using the MapHub system to collect field recordings for contribution to the sonic landscape of Pittsburgh.

Visit the MapHub website

Apes tolerate injustice if they are close to the beneficiary

2005-01-28T11:10:00.000-05:00

"Chimpanzees will tolerate unfair treatment, as long as it benefits someone they know well, say US researchers. This is the first time such behaviour has been demonstrated outside the human race.

Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal, primatologists at Emory University in Atlanta, gave chimpanzees a piece of plastic and rewarded them for giving it back. If a subject is given a paltry payoff, such as a cucumber slice or celery stick, and it can see another getting a grape, the short-changed ape refuses to cooperate.

But the strength of each chimpanzee's response depends on its social life. Those that had lived together for more than 30 years ignored the unequal treatment; whereas animals from a group formed eight years ago and pairs of chimpanzees reacted strongly, the researchers report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B1."

More...

Behold: TV Carnage

2005-01-28T10:50:00.000-05:00

TV Carnage is an amazing series of tapes full of nonsense, wonder, bad 80s commercials and Fabio being attacked by geese. Essentially, these guys compile the most rediculous TV footage they can find for your amusement. I can only imagine how many hours they had to watch just to make these things. Some content includes:

*Don Johnson and Mean Joe Green talking seatbelts.
*News reports on a child actor that broke into drugstores for pills.
*Steven Seagal on etiquette
*A local news report featuring an elderly citizen flipping out and taking on the cops
*Performances by unknowns that will inspire you to reconsider living
*80’s infomercials
*80’s action that will have you pumping your mesh-gloved fist in the air

Very highly recommended.

More...

Three Storms to Converge and Wreak Havoc in Mid. US

2005-01-07T13:55:00.000-05:00

Via DarkPlanet

The "Pineapple Express," a series of warm wet storms heading east from Hawaii, drenching Southern California and the far Southwest, which already are beset with heavy rain and snow. It could cause flooding, avalanches and mudslides.

An "Arctic Express," a mass of cold air chugging south from Alaska and Canada, bringing frigid air and potentially heavy snow and ice to the usually mild-wintered Pacific Northwest.

An unnamed warm, moist storm system from the Gulf of Mexico drenching the already saturated Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi valleys. Expect heavy river flooding and springlike tornadoes.

All three are likely to meet somewhere in the nation's midsection and cause even more problems, sparing only areas east of the Appalachian Mountains.

"You're talking a two- or three-times-a-century type of thing," said prediction center senior meteorologist James Wagner, who's been forecasting storms since 1965. "It's a pattern that has a little bit of everything."

Also, an amusing bit about the Meteorologist conventions:

The American Meteorological Society will meet next week in usually tranquil San Diego, which should be hit with the predicted storms and accompanying flooding in time for the group's gathering.

In 1987,when the meteorologists met in San Antonio for their convention, the city had ice storms. In 1993, when they gathered in Anaheim, Calif., it rained for 4.5 out of five days and triggered mudslides. Atlanta got rare snow during the meteorologists' 1996 convention. And in 2003 in Long Beach, Calif., heavy rain greeted them.

More...

Meat House

2005-01-04T16:30:00.000-05:00

I have no idea what this means. The website associated with it is down, and I don't speak russian(?), which aside from the words "Meat House" is all over the sign. Notice the Mcdonald's golden arches. And what is that diagram trying to convey? Is this a prank? Is it an anti-Mcdonald's flier? I may never know...

Designer Ecosystems

2005-01-03T16:27:00.000-05:00

via EurekAlert!

Just read this interesting article over at Eurekalert about the birth of a new feild of Ecology: the study of Designer Ecosystems, or the study of man-made habitats on an ecological level. It seems to me that many feilds of science have needed to adopt this way of thinking in order to really understand how humans effect their environment. In turn, this new feild of science has the potential not only to analyze our impact on our surroundings, but also to find new and specific ways to tailor our way of life to both ourselves and our environment. Think of the possibilities...

Also, it is good to see that there are yet more people in the scientific world that are challenging the notion that humans and their creations are not natural. Its difficult to understand anything about ourselves if we refuse to see that we are, in every manifestation, a part of nature. The study of Designer Ecosystems may open up a channel in which we can analyze our part in nature, and potentially find innovative ways to change some of our more destructive natural tendencies into those more beneficial to the entirety of the ecosystem.

"It's not what people generally think – they think there's either nature or there are cities," said Charles Redman, director of ASU's Center for Environmental Studies, and one of the project's principal investigators. "That's what this is all about – there is nature in the city. The city is part of nature."...

While the team's interest is in doing fundamental ecology research, there are also some important applied science issues behind the project. "What we really want to know is whether we can have a sustainable urban ecosystem in this kind of environment and setting. What are the elements of it that are warning signs of vulnerability, of some kind of event that could cause collapse? How do our institutions and the systems we have set up stand up against various kinds of stress? Is the urban ecosystem resilient?" Grimm asked.

"People in ecology are beginning to talk about designer ecosystems – systems that have been heavily influenced by humans. What we're doing is pioneering this," Grimm said.

More...

Complexification

2005-01-03T01:33:00.000-05:00

Complexification is an extraordinary website of the algorithmic artwork of Jared Tarbell. The image on the left is just one of the many amazing peices on the site to be seen.

"Happy Place (the image to the left) renders the resulting configuration of a system of nodes connected together at random. Connections between nodes are considered friendships.

Nodes move about the stage with only two goals in mind:
A. Move close to friends but not closer than some minimum distance.
B. Distance self from non-friends as much as possible."

While you're there, be sure to check out the series entitled "offspring" (image to the right). Conceptually, I think this peice is one of my favorites. In case you're too lazy to check it, here's a little blurb about it:

"Offspring is a visualization of the pair bonding process of a theoretical robot colony.

Each robot is assembled, ages through youth, comes into a reproductive stage, and eventually dies of fatigue. If a robot is lucky enough to find a mate during it's reproductive stage, baby robots may be assembled.

Visually, the Offspring image is a historic graph of robot colony size and distribution. Males of the population are represented by single horizontal lines while Females are shown as double lines. The vertical position of the line indicates the robot's time of assembly, and the horizontal position of the line shows it's location in an abstract physical space. Faint diagonal lines connect parent and child. In this manner, older generations of robots are shown on the bottom of the image while their descendents are supported above them."

Survival Research Laboratories: Ten Years of Robotic Mayhem

2005-01-02T21:09:00.000-05:00

It's hard to find words to describe this awesome compilation of SRL footage from through the years. All I can say, really, is that you should see it. Really.

Buy it at Amazon...

More on SRL...

Look What I Got For Christmas!!!

2004-12-26T19:01:00.000-05:00

From Maybe Logic Academy:

Crowley 101
Taught by Robert Anton Wilson

An inquiry into the ideas and theories of Aleister Crowley - RAW style. This course will not practice or discuss at length any rituals, spells, invocations etc. It is a exploration of the psychology and philosophy of Crowley's work with some modern perspective on what's behind all the Crowley hubbub.

Course will include instructor-led forum discussions, additional readings, weekly study questions and instructor-led group online-chat sessions.

Thanks Agatha!

More courses from Maybe Logic Academy

Mars May Not Be A Dead Planet

2004-12-25T19:59:00.000-05:00

Via The Guardian

Mars, the red planet, may not after all be the dead planet. New research today by European scientists suggests that volcanoes on Mars last erupted only 2 million years ago and could erupt again.

And dramatic photographs by a high-resolution stereoscopic camera aboard the European spacecraft Mars Express, in the journal Nature, suggest that glacial ice could survive on the western scarp of Olympus Mons, the biggest volcano in the solar system.

Last week, Nature's US rival Science named the confirmation of water on Mars as the scientific breakthrough of 2004. But the revelation that Mars could be geologically "alive" is even more dramatic.

More...

End Life

2004-12-13T19:29:00.000-05:00

miqel.com

A Chicken Poop Event

2004-12-08T23:55:00.000-05:00

As luck would have it, I stumbled upon this information today. As a part of an annual Fish Fry fundraiser for a children's shelter, a chicken poop event was held. I provide you with the exciting details.

"There was a raffle, a live auction and eve(n) a chicken poop event. 144 numbers were placed on a board and surrounded by a wire cage. The blocks were sold for $2.00 a piece. A live chicken was placed inside the cage and everyone waited patiently until the chicken pooped on a square. The winner received $100.00. This raised over $370.00"

More...

Mars Simulation Chamber Built to Test Interplanetary Greenhouses

2004-11-30T22:54:00.000-05:00

Researchers have built "a room-sized chamber in which the researchers can test models of greenhouses that could one day be built on the Red Planet.

"Our goal is to address some of the basic engineering questions associated with these greenhouses, and to do that, we need to test them in the conditions one would find on Mars," said Inka Hublitz, an agricultural and biological engineering graduate student and one of the creators of the UF/IFAS "Mars simulation chamber."

The chamber, housed in a basement laboratory in Frazier Rogers Hall, consists of an industrial sized freezer with a custom-built vacuum chamber inside. When it's in operation, the chamber is filled with the same mixture of gases found in the Martian atmosphere, and at the same pressure — about one percent of the pressure found on Earth at sea level. And the temperature can be brought down to 30 degrees below zero — a balmy temperature in Martian terms, but within the ranges found on the Red Planet.

The chamber is just one element of an ongoing UF program that explores ways astronauts might grow plants on long trips into space. If humans venture to Mars or establish a permanent base on the Moon, the researchers say, it's likely they'll take a garden with them. Spaceborne gardens could be used to recycle waste generated by astronauts on a Mars mission or Moon base, turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, and provide more food than astronauts would be able to carry with them, UF researchers say."

More...

Naked Canadian Hides in Plane's Wheel Well

2004-11-11T14:10:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES -- Officials are thinking about strengthening the fences at Los Angeles International Airport.

A naked man from Canada climbed over an eight-foot barbed-wire fence Monday, ran across the tarmac and scrambled into the wheel well of a departing jet. It didn't take off and firefighters were able to talk him into coming out.

An LAX spokeswoman said the 31-year-old man claimed he did it because Qantas Airways had refused to sell him a ticket on a flight to Australia. Qantas said he tried to pay with just a credit card receipt.

He was booked on a trespass charge and is described as mentally unstable.

Very Tight Clothing

2004-11-03T20:55:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if this is a fetish or just a weird hobby. Either way, this guy likes really tight clothes.

More...

China Shuts Down 1,600 Internet Cafes

2004-11-02T20:02:00.000-05:00

China has closed 1,600 Internet cafes and fined operators a total of $12 million for letting children play violent games and for other violations, the government said Saturday.

The announcement came amid a campaign launched in March to reduce or eliminate sex and violence in Web sites, video games and other material that Communist leaders consider harmful to public morality.

Investigators have inspected 1.8 million Internet cafes looking for unlicensed operations or those that let children play violent games meant for adults, the Ministry of Culture said.

China encourages Internet use for education and business but bans sexually oriented content on Chinese Web sites and tries to block access to foreign sites deemed pornographic or subversive.

More...

Virus Protection

2004-10-20T23:06:00.000-04:00

Link

Lost Apes of the Congo May Be Found

2004-10-07T17:50:00.000-04:00

"An elusive new species of great ape, known to locals as the "lion killer", may have been discovered in remote forests of the Congo.

The creatures are far larger and more aggressive than normal chimpanzees and have provoked much debate among experts. Some believe that the lion killers are a previously unknown species and should join the other great apes: the chimp, bonobo, gorilla and orang utan.

But others say they are unusually aggressive chimps with odd gorilla-like characteristics.

Legends of lost apes of the Congo basin go back more than a century and inspired the 1980 novel Congo by Michael Crichton. In the 1990s, Karl Ammann, a Swiss photographer, travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo to track them.

Locals told him about giant apes with a reputation for killing lions, New Scientist magazine reports today. Their ridged skulls were typical of gorillas but they behaved like chimps, and unlike either they made permanent nests.

Last year Shelly Williams, an independent primatologist affiliated to the Jane Goodall Institute in Maryland, in the United States, became the first scientist to see the creatures close up and is sure that they are a new species.

"We could hear them in the trees, about 20 feet away," she said. "My tracker made a sound of an injured duiker [antelope] and four came rushing through the brush towards me.

"If this had been a bluff charge, they would have been screaming to intimidate us. These guys were quiet. And they were huge. They were coming in for the kill. I was directly in front of them, and as soon as they saw my face, they stopped and disappeared.""

More...

Creepy Flash Video

2004-09-24T16:42:00.000-04:00

This might be old news, but I just came across this weird flash video that I thought was worth posting.

A Minute of Your Time...

Dinocephalosaurus orientalis- Newly discovered dinosaur fossils resemble Loch Ness monster

2004-09-23T16:33:00.000-04:00

Beijing - The finding of a dinosaur fossil in southern China has given new clues to the evolution and hunting practices of a long-necked aquatic protorosaur that lived about 230 million years ago, United States journal Science said on Thursday.

A team of scientists concluded that the marine reptile hunted for fish, squid and other prey in shallow seawater, using a relatively stiff, 1,7-metre neck twice the length of its body and a small head armed with short fangs, the magazine said.

Chun Li of the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered the fossil in limestone formations in China's Guizhou province, giving the reptile its Latin name Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, which means "terrible-headed lizard from the Orient".

It loosely resembles popular images of the Scottish Loch Ness Monster, according to descriptions and a diagram in the magazine.

Chun and the other scientists were most excited by the possible breakthrough in understanding why protorosaurs, whose fossils were found in Europe much earlier, developed such long necks.

More...

Kids dressed as ninja's stab old lady

2004-09-22T10:16:00.000-04:00

Grandmother, 61, in critical condition

An 18-year-old dressed in a ninja costume and his girlfriend attacked her sleeping grandmother with swords early yesterday morning, Metro police said, almost killing the Nashville woman.

On a dead-end road off a dead-end road off Lebanon Pike west of Donelson, a wrapper from a 12-inch-by-30-inch trauma dressing and a bloody washcloth were the only remaining signs of the vicious attack.

They lay in the yard of a gray brick duplex, 248 and 250 Hickorydale Drive, where 61-year-old Patsy Fowler ran about 2:30 a.m. after being stabbed several times as she slept in her home next door.

Several wounds went right through her body, police affidavits said. She also was stabbed in the face, causing many of her teeth to be smashed out.

More...

Quantum teleportation acheived in "real world" conditions

2004-08-23T13:18:00.000-04:00

In a step towards realizing the promise of quantum communication and computing, researchers have successfully teleported photons underneath the river Danube in Austria.

Rupert Ursin and colleagues at the University of Vienna in Austria connected two labs on opposite sides of the famous river with an 800 meter-long optical fiber laid under the water, then transferred the properties of one particle to another.

Significantly, say the researchers, the experiment took place under "real world" conditions, which is very important for the realization of quantum-based applications.

More...(via Better Humans)

Alien device found at mysterious Tunguska blast site, Siberia

2004-08-12T13:59:00.000-04:00

"MOSCOW - Russian scientists claim to have discovered the wreck of an alien device at the site of an unexplained explosion in Siberia almost a hundred years ago, the Interfax news agency reports.

The scientists, who belong to the Tunguska space phenomenon public state fund, said they found the remains of an extra-terrestrial device that allegedly crashed near the Tunguska river in Siberia in 1908.

They also claim to have discovered a 50 kilogram rock which they have sent to the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk for analysis.

The Tunguska blast, in a desolate part of Siberia, remains one of the 20th century's biggest scientific mysteries.

On June 30, 1908, what is widely believed to be a meteorite exploded a few kilometres above the Tunguska river, in a blast that was felt hundreds of kilometres away and devastated over 2,000 square kilometres of Siberian forest.

But the exact nature of the body that exploded and its origin remain a mystery which has spurred countless theories and controversies."

Link

Nanotechnology to supercharge internet: 100 times faster

2004-08-11T23:30:00.000-04:00

"Until now, engineering researchers have been unable to capitalize on theoreticians' predictions of the power of light to control light. The failure of real materials to live up to their theoretical potential has become known as the "Kuzyk quantum gap" in molecular nonlinear optics. "Molecular materials used to switch light signals with light have, until now, been considerably weaker than fundamental physics say they could be," says Sargent. "With this work, the ultimate capacity to process information-bearing signals using light is within our practical grasp."

To breach the Kuzyk quantum gap, Carleton University chemistry professor Wayne Wang and colleague Connie Kuang designed a material that combined nanometre-sized spherical particles known as "buckyballs" (molecules of carbon atoms resembling soccer balls) with a designed class of polymer. The polymer and buckyball combination created a clear, smooth film designed to make light particles pick up each other's patterns.

Sargent and U of T colleague Qiying Chen then studied the optical properties of this new hybrid material. They found that the material was able to process information carried at telecommunications wavelengths – the infrared colours of light used in fibre-optic cables. "Photons – particles of light – interacted unusually strongly with one another across the set of wavelengths used for communications," says Sargent. "Calculations based on these measurements reveal that we came closer than ever to achieving what quantum mechanical physics tells us is possible.""

More... (via Eurekalert!)

Japanese funk/hip-hop/melodic band

2004-08-11T18:02:00.000-04:00

More...

Kool Keith's Latest Project: Dieslel Truckers

2004-08-11T17:34:00.000-04:00

"As one of the original members of the Ultramagnetic MCs, Keith has been laying his critical beatdowns on the industry since 1988. A true originator, Keith has started several trends with his eccentric and off-the-wall styles. For the Diesel Truckers, he has repartnered with long time collaborator Kutmasta Kurt, the Funky Redneck."

More...

Squid sex

2004-08-10T19:40:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure how truthful this article is, but it is amusing and if true, has interesting prospects.

"Is the giant squid the swinger of the deep seas? Although scientists know less about these fabled creatures than they do about dinosaurs, they have new clues to at least one intriguing aspect of squid life. Squid love, it turns out, starts with a 5-foot-long penis and may include homosexuality, cannibalism, even group sex...

..."In the freezer, we have 40 to 50 kilograms of squid gonad," he says. "We're going to squirt out a soup of male and female gonads, and hopefully one will be attracted . . . and come up to the camera." The squid could attempt to mate with the camera, he says. Or, one hopes, with another squid. "

More...

Modernity may not be a solely human invention

2004-08-10T19:02:00.000-04:00

Francesco D’errico, a researcher at the University of Bordeaux, asserts that humans may not have invented modernity, and that our extinct Neanderthal ancestors had been practicing modern behaviors such as symbolic burials, the use of blades, pigments and other such things once thought to be exclusive to human behavior.

"The most important implication of believing that cultural modernity emerged in more than one species is that it largely eliminates the dichotomy that Western thought has traditionally detected between the natural world and human culture. The archaeology of early modern and Neanderthal populations suggests that we are not the chosen people who received from God the light, the divine mandate to go forth, multiply, and eliminate their subhuman neighbours."

that's pretty intense.

More...

Strange worms discovered on bones of whale carcasses

2004-08-03T13:09:00.000-04:00

Weird bone-eating worms that feed off whale carcasses on the ocean floor are the latest new species to be dredged from the deep sea, according to an international team of scientists.

But that's not their only unusual habit. Dwarf males live inside the females.

The two new species of bone-eating tubeworms are only 0.2 to 0.5 millimetres across and represent a new genus Osedax, which means 'bone devouring'. The researchers said they were the first known marine worms to live off whale bones.

More...

"Godz Xtreme Power Park", Columbus, OH

2004-07-28T19:05:00.000-04:00

Looks like they're really hard up for ways to convert the troubled youth these days.

Rediculousness...

Useless Inventions; In the spirit of Chindogu

2004-07-27T21:02:00.000-04:00

The concept of chindugu, or the art of useless inventions, has been around for a long time. The idea was born in the late 1980's when amateur inventor kenji kawakami discovered that a not-quite-usable idea for a new gadget or product could nonetheless be enjoyable if one were to create a prototype and take delight in the way it misses its mark. Though Chindogu is surely old news, I decided to post about it anyway because it is still really cool.

the 10 tenets of chindogu

1. a chindogu cannot be for real use.
iIt is fundamental to the spirit of chindogu that inventions
claiming chindogu status must be, from a practical point of
view, (almost) completely useless. if you invent something
which turns out to be so handy that you use it all the time,
then you have failed to make a chindogu.
try the patent office.

2. a chindogu must exist.
you are not allowed to use a chindogu, but it must be made.
you have to be able to hold it in your hand and think:
'I can actually imagine someone using this. almost.'
in order to be useless, it must first be.

3. inherent in every chindogu is the spirit of anarchy.
chindogu are man-made objects that have broken free from
the chains of usefulness. they represent freedom of thought
and action: the freedom to challenge the suffocating historical
dominance of conservative utility; the freedom to be (almost)
useless.

4. chindogu are tools for every day life.
chindogu are a form of nonverbal communication understandable
to everyone, everywhere. specialized or technical inventions,
like a three- handled sprocket loosener for drainpipes centered
between two under-the sink cabinet door (the uselessness of
which will only be appreciated by plumbers), do not count.

5. chindogu are not for sale.
chindogu are not tradable commodities. if you accept money
for one you surrender your purity. they must not even be sold
as a joke.

6. humor must not be the sole reason for creating a chindogu.
the creation of chindogu is fundamentally a problem-solving
activity. humor is simply the by-product of finding an elaborate
or unconventional solution to a problem that may not have
been that pressing to begin with.

7. chindogu is not propaganda.
chindogu are innocent. they are made to be used,
even though they cannot be used. they should not be created
as a perverse or ironic comment on the sorry state of mankind.

8. chindogu are never taboo.
the international chindogu society has established certain
standards of social decency. cheap sexual innuendo, humor
of a vulgar nature, and sick or cruel jokes that debase the
sanctity of living things are not allowed.

9. chindogu cannot be patented.
chindogu are offerings to the rest of the world, they are not
therefore ideas to be copyrighted, patented, collected and owned.
as they say in spain, 'mi chindogu es tu chindogu'.

10. chindogu are without prejudice.
chindogu must never favor one race or religion over another.
young and old, male and female, rich and poor, all should have
a free and equal chance to enjoy each and every chindogu.

More

NZ researchers find chemical that generates new brain cells

2004-07-24T02:41:00.000-04:00

WELLINGTON, July 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Researchers have opened the wayto a "smart pill" by finding a chemical that generates new brain cells, New Zealand Herald reported Saturday.

A New Zealand-American team led by Auckland University's Professor Matthew During has made "super-smart" rats by injecting them with a gene that makes the chemical

Circumstantial evidence suggested that injecting extra VEGF-expressing genes might generate new brain cells and boost intelligence in humans.

"Knowing this, we can now think about not just educational ways,but potentially pharmacological ways in which we could direct improved brains, improved memories," Dr During said.

"We could genetically make a super-smart human by putting this gene into the hippocampus," he said.

More...

Virtual reality significantly reduces pain-related brain activity

2004-07-23T18:38:00.000-04:00

Virtual reality appears to dramatically change how the brain physically registers pain, not just how people subjected to pain perceive the incoming signals, according to a new study by a group of University of Washington researchers.

The work, which used a specialized type of magnetic resonance imaging to track pain-related brain activity, showed drops of as much as 97 percent in such activity in some brain centers. The study marks the first time that scientists have documented a link between virtual reality and pain reduction in terms of an actual physiological response.

"What this study shows is that virtual reality is not only changing the way people interpret the incoming pain, it is changing the actual activity in the brain," said Hunter Hoffman, director of the VR Analgesia Research Center at the UW's Human Interface Technology Laboratory, a facility affiliated with the university's College of Engineering.

The findings support those of an earlier study by Hoffman and Dave Patterson, a psychologist and pain expert at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, in which patients were asked to rate their levels of pain while being treated for severe burns, both with and without virtual reality. Patients immersed in a virtual world during the often-excruciating therapy reported a 40-percent to 50-percent drop in pain.

More...(via EurekAlert!)

Accused hacker faces 144 charges

2004-07-22T19:51:00.000-04:00

Scott Levine, 45, from Boca Raton, FL., was accused of accessing the systems of Acxiom Corp., and is being charged with 144-counts of conspiracy, unauthorized access of a protected computer, access device fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice. Charges were filed in U.S. District Court in Little Rock, Ark. Scott never used the 'stolen' data, however he apparently cost Acxiom $7 million in damages.

more...

Vibrations in Africa a sign of reversal of Earth's magnetic field

2004-07-21T16:54:00.003-04:00

Southern Africa is Experiencing strange vibrations from below the earths surface, which is being recognized as a sign of the reversal of Earth's magnetic field. This reversal occurs approximately every 500,000 years, and is expected to occur again soon. Satellites in low earth orbit over Southern Africa are showing signs of radiation damage as a result of Earth's weakening magnetic field above our planet. The Magnetic field is expected to continue to weaken until it disappears, and then re-appears with the North and South poles switched. The change is expected to be devastating to migratory animals such as Loggerhead Turtles that use the earth's magnetic field to migrate each year.

More...

Bush Lebowski

2004-07-21T16:54:00.002-04:00