A rare Martian meteorite that could help unravel the mysteries of Mars has arrived at the Natural History Museum in London today, obtained with the support of a donor.
Selected by tristanhambling
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Most Topular Stories
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Mighty Martian meteorite lands at UK's Natural History Museum
PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories8 Feb 2012 | 3:35 pm -
How to map the 100 billion neurons in the brain
KurzweilAI » News8 Feb 2012 | 5:21 amSebastian Seung needs your help in untangling the brain's connections (credit: eyewire.org)MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung believes mapping of of the human brain’s 100 billion neurons can be done — one cubic millimeter of brain tissue at a time.Even more than our genome, our connectome shapes who we are, says Seung, who outlines his vision for connectome research in a new book, Connectome. “Clearly genes are very important, but because they don’t change after the moment of conception, they can’t really account for the effects of experience,” he says.A streambed of… -
South Korea is a leader in Nuclear power and Japan considers restarting and Germany temporarily restarts some reactors
Next Big Future8 Feb 2012 | 4:24 pm1. South Korea's reactors are capable of giving technology powerhouses like the US and Japan a run for their money. As of today, a total of 21 nuclear power plants have been built around the country, the sum of which provide South Korea with 18,716MW of power, accounting for nearly 23.9 per cent of its total energy capacity and 31 per cent of total electricity consumption. The South Korean government expects this number to increase to 60 per cent by 2035, with the additional nuclear reactors currently under construction and 10 more in the pipeline. A model of the nuclear power plant to be… -
The big data era's flux and pulse
Broader Perspective5 Feb 2012 | 8:28 pmBig data is an important contemporary trend but what does it actually mean?What is big data? Big data refers not just to the absolute size of a body of information (which currently can be on the order of terabytes, petabytes, and exabytes), but its usability and manageability. Some of the defining parameters of big data are its large size, high velocity activity (incoming, processing, outgoing), heterogeneous nature (a variety of structured and unstructured data types like video and images), and requirement for real-time analytics.What is the process of working with big data? The process of… -
PETA names plaintiffs in their suit against SeaWorld: Five orca whales
Sentient Developments8 Feb 2012 | 12:26 pmBack in October I covered the story of PETA's intent to sue SeaWorld under U.S. slavery laws. Well, it appears that they're going to be able to go through with it thanks to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller who is considering their complaint. PETA has named five killer whales as plaintiffs in their lawsuit; they are making the case that the whales deserve the same constitutional protection from slavery as humans. The five wild-captured orca plaintiffs in question are Tilikum and Katina, at SeaWorld Orlando; and Kasatka, Corky, and Ulises, at SeaWorld San Diego. This is the first time a U.S.
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PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories
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Mighty Martian meteorite lands at UK's Natural History Museum
8 Feb 2012 | 3:35 pmA rare Martian meteorite that could help unravel the mysteries of Mars has arrived at the Natural History Museum in London today, obtained with the support of a donor. -
Tai Chi program helps Parkinson's disease patients
8 Feb 2012 | 2:50 pmAn Oregon Research Institute (ORI) exercise study conducted in four Oregon cities has shown significant benefits for patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease. In an original article published in the February 9, 2012 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), ORI scientist Fuzhong Li, Ph.D. and colleagues report that a tailored program of twice-weekly Tai Chi training resulted in improved postural stability and walking ability, and reduced falls in the participants. -
Guilty verdict in theft of Motorola secrets for China
8 Feb 2012 | 2:40 pmA former software engineer for Motorola was found guilty Wednesday of stealing trade secrets from the US technology firm just before she tried to leave the country for China, the Justice Department said. -
Groupon fails to turn profit as revenue grows
8 Feb 2012 | 2:40 pmDaily deals site Groupon on Wednesday issued its first earnings report as a publicly traded company, saying it failed to turn a profit despite revenue nearly tripling from a year earlier. -
Drug costs, not volume, causes regional differences in Medicare drug spending
8 Feb 2012 | 2:40 pmThe cost of medications through Medicare's subsidized prescription drug program varies from region to region across the United States largely due to the use of more expensive brand-name drugs and not because of the amount of drugs prescribed, according to a study led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH). The authors said that more efficient prescribing practices could have saved the Medicare program and its beneficiaries $4.5 billion.
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KurzweilAI » News
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How to map the 100 billion neurons in the brain
8 Feb 2012 | 5:21 amSebastian Seung needs your help in untangling the brain's connections (credit: eyewire.org)MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung believes mapping of of the human brain’s 100 billion neurons can be done — one cubic millimeter of brain tissue at a time.Even more than our genome, our connectome shapes who we are, says Seung, who outlines his vision for connectome research in a new book, Connectome. “Clearly genes are very important, but because they don’t change after the moment of conception, they can’t really account for the effects of experience,” he says.A streambed of… -
Wolfram Alpha Pro to be launched today
8 Feb 2012 | 5:09 amThe biggest change to Wolfram|Alpha since its launch nearly three years ago will be our next release, and we wanted you to be aware that it’s coming, says the Wolfram Alpha blog.“We’re not going to let you know the details just yet, but what you’re going to find is a dramatic enhancement of functionality. You’ll be able to personalize your interaction with Wolfram|Alpha in ways that only our combination of algorithms, presentation tools, and data representation could make possible.“You’ll still be able to use Wolfram|Alpha as you have in the past if you choose, but we… -
How to create ultra-low-cost solar cells from agricultural waste
8 Feb 2012 | 4:56 amNanostructured titanium oxide and zinc oxide photoanodes and schematic of an ideal ultra-low cost biophotovoltaic arrangementWithin a few years, people in remote villages in the developing world may be able to make their own solar panels, at low cost, using otherwise worthless agricultural waste as their raw material.That’s the vision of MIT researcher Andreas Mershin. He says the process has been simplified to the point that virtually any lab could replicate it — including college or even high school science labs — allowing researchers around the world to start exploring the… -
Watson’s new job: IBM salesman
8 Feb 2012 | 4:45 amIBM’s Watson is having its biggest impact by pulling in new customers for existing business products as IBM persuades them to organize their data into formats that an AI like Watson can better understand.IBM has created a slogan, “Ready for Watson,” to help sell its products that way.At the heart of Watson is a system known as DeepQA. This is not yet for sale, although trials are underway in both health and financial services. IBM will announce an implementation of Watson in finance, too. -
A therapist in your pocket
8 Feb 2012 | 4:35 am(Credit: iStockPhoto)Are you depressed, checking e-mail and Facebook, or home alone ruminating for hours?Cheer up. Scientists are inventing web-based, mobile and virtual technologies to treat depression and other mood disorders at a new National Institutes of Health-funded Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine center.In the works: a virtual human therapist to prevent depression, a medicine bottle that reminds you to take antidepressant medication and tells your doctor if the dosage needs adjusting, and a web-based social network to help cancer survivors relieve sadness…
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Next Big Future
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South Korea is a leader in Nuclear power and Japan considers restarting and Germany temporarily restarts some reactors
8 Feb 2012 | 4:24 pm1. South Korea's reactors are capable of giving technology powerhouses like the US and Japan a run for their money. As of today, a total of 21 nuclear power plants have been built around the country, the sum of which provide South Korea with 18,716MW of power, accounting for nearly 23.9 per cent of its total energy capacity and 31 per cent of total electricity consumption. The South Korean government expects this number to increase to 60 per cent by 2035, with the additional nuclear reactors currently under construction and 10 more in the pipeline. A model of the nuclear power plant to be… -
Magnetic Recording hundreds of times faster than current hard-drive technology
8 Feb 2012 | 3:14 pmUniversity of York - An international team of scientists has demonstrated a revolutionary new way of magnetic recording which will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology. The researchers found they could record information using only heat – a previously unimaginable scenario. They believe this discovery will not only make future magnetic recording devices faster, but more energy-efficient too.Experimental images showing the repeated deterministic switching of nano islands. Initially the two nano islands have different magnetic… -
Details about the Ten Times Energy Production from Cold Fusion Demo at MIT
8 Feb 2012 | 2:56 pmThe graph distributed at the JET Energy MIT open cold fusion/LANR demonstration of the NANOR CF/LANR technology (see 2nd graph below) actually quite clearly showed, and still shows, a thermal output power of the NANOR closer to 78 milliwatts than 18 milliwatts. Steve Krivit's attacked the MIT demo. "Swartz Makes Misleading Claim of LENR Excess Heat". Steve Krivit misread the graph at claimed the peak power output was 18 milliWatts. However, Steve indicated that did not matter because the power levels are very low compared to claims by Rossi. Of course, Steve also says that Rossi claims are a… -
Broader Unemployment rates going back to 1900
8 Feb 2012 | 2:42 pmNelson Andrews compared historical versions of unemployment statistics with the modern U3 and U6 versions, published as "Historical Unemployment in Relationship to Today". Based on that research, he was able to generate a mathematical formula to calculate U3 and U6 unemployment for the entire period since 1900. He found that at the peak of the Great Depression, U3 was 25.2%. U6 was 37.6%. Note - in the 1980s U6 peaked at about 20%. So this last recession peaked at 17.5%. This last recession had unemployment peak lower than the recession of the 1980s. If we are not calling the 1980s recession… -
Recession versus Depressions in regards to unemployment and economic contraction
8 Feb 2012 | 12:59 pmThis is to clarify the terminology, classifications and history of economic recessions and depression in the USA. Wikipedia discusses the terminology of an economic depression. Several Latin American countries had severe downturns in the 1980s: by the Kehoe and Prescott definition of a great depression as at least one year with output 20% below trend, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico experienced great depressions in the 1980s, and Argentina experienced another in 1998–2002. This definition also includes the economic performance of New Zealand from 1974–1992 and Switzerland from 1973…
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Broader Perspective
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The big data era's flux and pulse
5 Feb 2012 | 8:28 pmBig data is an important contemporary trend but what does it actually mean?What is big data? Big data refers not just to the absolute size of a body of information (which currently can be on the order of terabytes, petabytes, and exabytes), but its usability and manageability. Some of the defining parameters of big data are its large size, high velocity activity (incoming, processing, outgoing), heterogeneous nature (a variety of structured and unstructured data types like video and images), and requirement for real-time analytics.What is the process of working with big data? The process of… -
Craigslist 2.0: task outsourcing to local crowd labor
29 Jan 2012 | 2:49 pmIn the time, reputation, and fun hungry modern world, new tools like task outsourcing are emerging to provide these qualities, offering better ways for the invisible hand to meet in your meatsphere neighborhood.The concept is that the crowdsourcing workplace meets Craig’s list in a local listing service with a reputation economy and badging/leveling up.At least two startups offer task outsourcing services, TaskRabbit, which has accepted 1,000 reputation-garnering runners into their network to run tasks on demand, and Zaarly, where a consumer names their price for anything and obtains it… -
Design and the disruptive startup: dynamic pivoting
22 Jan 2012 | 10:50 amIn the mashup world of life, business, and web 2.0, spurred on by the Apple-ification of the world (iLife - as a concept not a product), one new idea is applying design to business models, and really by extension, applying design to everything.Unfortunately, this does not mean as one might think, applying aesthetic principles, conceptually and literally, to business, business models, or any life context, adding beauty to function, and thereby function to function, and questioning the right proportionality of form and function.Rather, at present applying design to business models means more… -
Terahertz information compression era
15 Jan 2012 | 8:44 pmInformation compression eras is an important area of futuretech: the progression from analog to digital and the developing friction for the next era.Analog and digital are modes of modulating information onto the electromagnetic spectrum with increasing efficacy.The next era could be characterized by the even greater effectiveness of electromagnetic spectrum control, particularly moving to multidimensional attribute modulation. Already DNA is a potential alternative encoding system with four and maybe eight combinations instead of the 1s and 0s of the digital era. Terahertz networking… -
Personal social CRM
8 Jan 2012 | 11:53 pmThe new social CRM (customer relationship management) is personal social CRM. Social CRM is when businesses try to access the social network interactions of their customers for the purpose of extending business relationships. An example would be a customer tweeting something about a product, which a customer advocate notices and posts in the company’s online help forum. The company’s marketing staff is flagged and then responds by retweeting or other appropriate measures.Personal social CRM is applying these corporate social CRM principles to managing interactions within one’s own…
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Sentient Developments
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PETA names plaintiffs in their suit against SeaWorld: Five orca whales
8 Feb 2012 | 12:26 pmBack in October I covered the story of PETA's intent to sue SeaWorld under U.S. slavery laws. Well, it appears that they're going to be able to go through with it thanks to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller who is considering their complaint. PETA has named five killer whales as plaintiffs in their lawsuit; they are making the case that the whales deserve the same constitutional protection from slavery as humans. The five wild-captured orca plaintiffs in question are Tilikum and Katina, at SeaWorld Orlando; and Kasatka, Corky, and Ulises, at SeaWorld San Diego. This is the first time a U.S. -
Changizi: Humans, Version 3.0
6 Feb 2012 | 6:01 pmThe next giant leap in human evolution may not come from new fields like genetic engineering or artificial intelligence, writes Mark Changizi, but rather from appreciating our ancient brains:Simply put, none of these scenarios are plausible for the immediate future. If there is something next, some imminently arriving transformative development for human capabilities, then the key will not be improved genes or cortical plug-ins. But what other way forward could humans possibly have? With genetic and cyborg enhancement off the table for many years, it would seem we are presently stuck as-is,… -
Researchers: Sugar Should Be Regulated As Toxin
3 Feb 2012 | 6:56 pmThe work of Gary Taubes, including his NYT article, Is Sugar a Toxin?, is having a rather profound effect in the dietary zeitgeist. And now this: Researchers say sugar should be regulated as a toxin:A spoonful of sugar might make the medicine go down. But it also makes blood pressure and cholesterol go up, along with your risk for liver failure, obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Sugar and other sweeteners are, in fact, so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated as strictly as alcohol by governments worldwide, according to a commentary in the current issue of the journal… -
Boosting the brains of animals
1 Feb 2012 | 7:00 pmAvatar Polymorph has penned a neat article for H+ Magazine: The Ethics of Boosting Animals from Sentience to Self-Aware Consciousness.On the question of why:What would be the arguments used in favour of such a radical realignment of life, with immortal (by choice) AIs, humans, hybrids and animals? Secondarily, is it legitimate to use the Homo sapiens, mammalian template as a model for creating self-aware consciousness, culture and language? In addressing these questions I take the brain as the seat of consciousness, and ignore any religious belief in a ‘soul’. The first argument is… -
Why Dyson Spheres make the Fermi Paradox worse
1 Feb 2012 | 4:51 pmAnders Sandberg and Stuart Armstrong are currently putting together a paper explaining why the presence of Dyson Spheres would actually deepen the mystery that is the Fermi Paradox. Armstrong recently gave a talk on the subject, titled "von Neumann probes, Dyson spheres, exploratory engineering and the Fermi paradox." Sandberg writes:It is based on a paper we are writing together that analyses how much harder the Fermi question (because it is not really a paradox, just a question with answers we tend to dislike/disagree on) becomes once you take modern ideas about self replication and…
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Accelerating Future
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Sentient Developments Podcast Rebooted
20 Jan 2012 | 6:41 pmThis was sent to me by George Dvorsky: Transhumanist-themed podcast: George Dvorsky’s Sentient Developments After a three year hiatus, George Dvorsky has rekindled his futurist-themed podcast, Sentient Developments. The show serves as a counterpart to his blog of the same name and covers similar topics, often in more detail and with accompanying clips and interviews for added depth and insight. The Sentient Developments Podcast, which runs weekly, deals with a number of issues familiar to the readers of AF. As an explicitly transhumanist-themed podcast, Dvorsky deals directly with the… -
Machine Morality Addressed in New York Times Op-Ed by Colin Allen
4 Jan 2012 | 8:21 pmFrom the New York Times Opinionator blog: A robot walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have a screwdriver.” A bad joke, indeed. But even less funny if the robot says “Give me what’s in your cash register.” The fictional theme of robots turning against humans is older than the word itself, which first appeared in the title of Karel Čapek’s 1920 play about artificial factory workers rising against their human overlords. Just 22 years later, Isaac Asimov invented the “Three Laws of Robotics” to serve as a hierarchical ethical code for the robots in his stories: first, never harm a… -
Tyler Cowen at Singularity Summit 2011
20 Dec 2011 | 2:08 am -
Peter Thiel at Singularity Summit 2011
20 Dec 2011 | 2:07 am -
Max Tegmark at Singularity Summit 2011
20 Dec 2011 | 2:04 am
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Open the Future
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The Future Isn't What It Used to Be (TL;DR version)
17 Jan 2012 | 12:34 pmTechnology foresight has been stuck for the last 10-20 years; we need to be paying more attention to social-cultural futurism. -
The Future Isn't What It Used to Be
17 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pmForesight is not about making predictions. Rather, it's a tool for identifying dynamics of change, in part by exploring the implications of those changes. This is a point I've made often enough that even I'm sick of it -- but it remains an idea that not enough people understand. It's next to useless to say "X will happen;" it's much more valuable to say "here's why X could happen." One of the trickier aspects of this formulation of foresight is the need to keep an eye on how the dynamics of change themselves are evolving. It's easy to get locked into a particular idiom of futurism, calling… -
Our tools don’t make us who we are. We make tools because of who we are.
3 Jan 2012 | 10:15 amCyberculture legend RU Sirius, editor at the Acceler8or webzine, interviewed Joel Garreau and myself about the Prevail project. (Short summary for those who missed the earlier post: Prevail is an Arizona State University-sponsored non-profit organization looking to build collaborative knowledge about transformative technologies and culture.) In a series of back-and-forth email among the three of us, we discussed everything from the logic of transhumanism to the power of the Occupy movement. In one of his comments, Joel gives one of the best summaries of the Prevail perspective I've yet seen:… -
The Future is a Virus (my Swedish Twitter University "talk")
12 Dec 2011 | 12:33 pmNot literally, of course. But if we think about the future as something that infects us, we gain a new perspective on our world. Human civilization has a weak immune system when it comes to futures. We can sometimes recognize when something big is imminent, and act. We rely on clumsy, inefficient tools like finance, religion, even "look before you leap" to make us look forward and consider our choices. So more often than not, we're taken by surprise, shocked when something big happens "out of the blue." We haven't prepared for big changes. Our immune system needs to be strengthened. But how… -
Swedish Twitter University
7 Dec 2011 | 2:54 pmOn Monday, December 12, I'll be doing a session of Swedish Twitter University. #STU06 - Jamais Cascio: “The Foresight Immune System” If accurate predictions are impossible — and they are — why should we think about the future? In 25 tweets we’ll explore why foresight work remains important and what role it should play in our thinking about the world. Hint: it does for civilization what a vaccination does for our bodies… The concept is that I will prepare 25 tweets, each an individual thought (so not broken up over multiple entries), on my topic. There's an…
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New Scientist - Online News
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Shark-eating shark snapped in Australia
8 Feb 2012 | 10:11 amA tasselled wobbegong shark has been photographed eating another shark for the first time -
Nerve probe controls cyborg moth in flight
8 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amHalf-moth, half machine, a new generation of remote-controlled insects could one day be used as spies -
Today on New Scientist: 8 February 2012
8 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amAll today's stories on newscientist.com, including: US bat killer strikes in Europe and anonymous leaks emails from Syrian President's office -
Forensic failure: 'Miscarriages of justice will occur'
8 Feb 2012 | 9:30 amOur survey of UK forensic scientists reveals that many are concerned that closure of the Forensic Science Service will lead to miscarriages of justice -
US bat killer strikes in Europe
8 Feb 2012 | 9:10 amWhite nose syndrome has been reported in a single bat in the Czech Republic, but the case seems to be an exception in an area where most bats remain immune
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ScienceDaily: Latest Science News
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January 2012 fourth warmest for contiguous United States, but Alaska extremely cold
8 Feb 2012 | 12:34 pmDuring January, warmer-than-average conditions enveloped most of the contiguous United States, with widespread below-average precipitation. The overall weather pattern for the month was reflected in the lack of snow for much of the Northern Plains, Midwest, and Northeast. This scenario was in stark contrast to Alaska where several towns had their coldest January on record. -
DNA sequencing helps identify cancer cells for immune system attack
8 Feb 2012 | 12:23 pmDNA sequences from tumor cells can be used to direct the immune system to attack cancer, according to scientists. The immune system relies on an intricate network of alarm bells, targets and safety brakes to determine when and what to attack. The new results suggest that scientists may now be able to combine DNA sequencing data with their knowledge of the triggers and targets that set off immune alarms to more precisely develop vaccines and other immunotherapies for cancer. -
Transformational fruit fly genome catalog completed
8 Feb 2012 | 12:23 pmScientists searching for the genomics version of the holy grail – more insight into predicting how an animal’s genes affect physical or behavioral traits – now have a reference manual that should speed gene discoveries in everything from pest control to personalized medicine. -
Fasting weakens cancer in mice
8 Feb 2012 | 12:22 pmNew study finds that short fasting cycles can work as well as chemotherapy, and the two combined greatly improve survival. -
Some formerly cohabiting couples with children keep romantic relationship
8 Feb 2012 | 12:22 pmWhen low-income cohabiting couples with children decide to no longer live together, that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of their romantic relationship, a new study suggests.
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Slashdot
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The Zuckerberg Tax
8 Feb 2012 | 4:16 pmHugh Pickens writes "David S. Miller writes that when Facebook goes public later this year, Mark Zuckerberg plans to exercise stock options worth $5 billion of the $28 billion that his ownership stake will be worth and since the $5 billion he will receive will be treated as salary, Zuckerberg will have a tax bill of more than $2 billion making him, quite possibly, the largest taxpayer in history. But how much income tax will Zuckerberg pay on the rest of his stock that he won't immediately sell? Nothing, nada, zilch. He can simply use his stock as collateral to borrow against his tremendous… -
Jedi Master's Hand-Made Lightsaber Stolen
8 Feb 2012 | 3:52 pmFirst time accepted submitter psiogen writes "Flynn Michael, an instructor at New York Jedi, an organization that teaches 'practical knowledge of how to use a lightsaber, left his custom-crafted blade for only a few imperial minutes, but when he returned, it was gone. Fromthe article:'“Who steals somebody’s lightsaber? It’s like stealing someone’s toy out of the sandbox,” said Michael, the founder of New York Jedi, a stage combat performance group. “I finally got my uber custom saber, and then some jerk walks out with it."'"Read more of this story at… -
US Air Force Buys iPads To Replace Flight Bags
8 Feb 2012 | 3:31 pmredletterdave writes "Following the precedent set by commercial airliners, the U.S. Air Force plans to buy up to 18,000 iPads for its Air Mobility Command (AMC), replacing heavy flight bags with light and efficient Apple iPad 2s for the crews that fly cargo aircraft. The devices will reportedly be used by the crews on the C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster aircraft. There are several benefits to using electronic flight bags instead of physical versions. For one, the iPad can instantly update charts electronically, while the AMC would require flying charts get reprinted every 28 days to stay… -
Selling Used MP3s Found Legal In America
8 Feb 2012 | 2:50 pmbs0d3 writes "After some litigation; ReDigi, a site where people can sell used MP3's has been found legal in America. One of the key decisions the judge had to make was whether MP3's were material objects or not. 'Material objects' are not subject to the distribution right stipulated in "17 USC 106(3)" which protects the sale of intellectual property copies. If MP3's are material objects than the resale of them is guaranteed legal under the first sale' exception in 17 USC 109. Capitol Records tried to argue that they were material objects under one law and not under the other. Today the judge… -
If You're Fat, Broke, and Smoking, Blame Language
8 Feb 2012 | 2:28 pmFirst time accepted submitter derekmead writes "A Yale researcher says that culture differences how much money we save, how well we take care of ourselves, and other behavior indicative of taking the long view, are all based on language. His study argues that the way a language's syntax refers to the future (PDF) affects how its speakers perceive the future. For example, English and Greek make strong distinctions between the present and the future, while German doesn't, while English and Greek speakers are statistically poorer and in worse health than Germans. (The study includes a broader…
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Mind Hacks
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goCognitive 2.0
4 Feb 2012 | 5:30 amWe’ve reported before on the Univeristy of Idaho’s goCognitive project. It’s a enticing collection of videos and demonstrations, including many guest spots by the glitterati of cognitive neuroscience. The site has more free video content in cognitive neuroscience than before – and it is more easily accessible as well. Check it out -
Dressing psychologists as wizards in court
4 Feb 2012 | 1:53 amFrom overlawyered.com we hear that in 1995, New Mexico state senator Duncan Scott introduced a legislative ammendment providing that When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies during a defendant’s competency hearing, the psychologist or psychiatrist shall wear a cone-shaped hat that is not less than two feet tall. The surface of the hat shall be imprinted with stars and lightning bolts. Additionally, a psychologist or psychiatrist shall be required to don a white beard that is not less than 18 inches in length, and shall punctuate crucial elements of his testimony by stabbing the air… -
A treasure hunt for the mysteries of mind and brain
21 Jan 2012 | 6:22 amI’ve published a couple of free ebooks recently: Explore your blind spot shows you how to reveal the gap we all have in our visual experience of the world, and discusses what it means about consciousness that this gap is kept hidden from us most of the time. Control Your Dreams, co-written with Cathryn Bardsley and illustrated beautifully by Harriet Cameron, tells you how to have lucid dreams, those dreams where you realise you are dreaming and can take control over reality. Both books are written as treasure hunts – travel guides, but for exploring inner space. When you start… -
The peak experiences of Abraham Maslow
19 Jan 2012 | 4:48 pmThe New Atlantis has an in-depth biographical article on psychologist Abraham Maslow – one of the founders of humanistic psychology and famous for his ‘hierarchy of needs’. Maslow is stereotypically associated with a kind of fluffy ‘love yourself’ psychology although the man himself was quite a skeptic of the mumbo jumbo that got associated with his work. The association is not so much because of Maslow’s focus on self-actualization, a goal where we use our psychological potential to its fullest, but because of his association with the ‘human… -
Gimme Shelter
16 Jan 2012 | 5:44 pmThe Rolling Stones launched their career in a social therapeutic club, designed to help troubled youth with communication skills. The club became legendary in rock ‘n roll history but its therapeutic roots have almost been forgotten. Eel Pie Island is a small patch on the River Thames famous for the underground club that earned a place in 60′s history for hosting the cream of jazz bands and rock n’ roll outfits. Less well known, is the story of how the club was created as a therapeutic environment to help troubled youth. Its place in music history has been recounted many…
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2020 Science
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The Tale of Rhino Banana(TM)
4 Feb 2012 | 1:42 pmA product of the A World Of Surprises project with James King and a bunch of extremely talented public health and science students. The task was to explore the confluence between mundane and catastrophic risk, which the team does beautifully. Love the technique, and the subtle touches (note the progressive effect of Rhino Bananas on their creator). And the news/web mockups are priceless. Brilliant! [Make sure you watch to the quote at the end] Many thanks to: Chad Warhola Janae Adams Anirudha Rathnam Sarah Kang Alejandro Mendoza (Needless to say, this is a bit of speculative fiction!) -
Exploring speculated catastrophe and mundane reality
4 Feb 2012 | 1:33 pmCredit: James King Last semester, speculative designer James King worked with myself and a small group of science and public health students at the University of Michigan to explore how a fusion of science and creative art can lead to new insights and modes of communication. The exercise was part of the A World of Surprises project – a project James is working on as the Witt Artist in residence at the UM School of Art and Design. Part of the aim was to take these science-grounded students out of their comfort zone, expose them to some radical new ideas and perspectives, and see what… -
National Academy publishes new nanomaterials risk research strategy
25 Jan 2012 | 3:38 pmThe US National Academy of Science today published its long-awaited Research Strategy for Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials. I won’t comment extensively on the report as I was a member of the committee that wrote it. But I did want to highlight a number of aspects of it that I think are particularly noteworthy: Great progress so far, but it’s time to change gears. Something we grappled with as a committee was what the value of yet another research strategy was going to be. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that the US federal government… -
Mind the Science Gap – Helping science students connect with a non-science audience
21 Jan 2012 | 2:33 pmCross-posted from the Scientific American Incubator blog: Studying for a Masters degree in Public Health prepares you for many things. But it doesn’t necessarily give you hands-on experience of how to take complex information and translate it into something others can understand and use. Yet as an increasing array of public health issues hit the headlines, from fungicide residues in orange juice to the safe development of new technologies, this is exactly where public health professionals need to be developing their skills. And it’s not only in the public domain: the ability to… -
2012 World Economic Forum Global Risk Report
11 Jan 2012 | 11:52 amCross-posted from the Risk Science Blog The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report is one of the most authoritative annual assessments of emerging issues surrounding risk currently produced. Now in its seventh edition, the 2012 report launched today draws on over 460 experts* from industry, government, academia and civil society to provide insight into 50 global risks across five categories, within a ten-year forward looking window. Global Risk Landscape 2012. Source: World Economic Forum Global Risks 2012, Seventh Edition As you would expect from such a major undertaking, the report has…
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Institute For The Future
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Reinventing Energy Futures: Four Visions
7 Feb 2012 | 8:40 pmattachment: Reinventing Energy Futures - Full Map (PDF) attachment: Reinventing Energy Futures - Mapside Only (image) teaser: Reinventing Energy Futures: Four Visions presents the shifting landscape of our relationship to energy. For most inhabitants of the developed world, energy (or lack thereof) has not been a problem during their lifetimes. Energy is a technology so successful it has become invisible; the most significant, and most silent, enabler of a modern way of life. But all that is changing. (Click to enlarge) image: AltEnergyLogo3.jpg… -
Snacks, Choices, and the Future of Eating
7 Feb 2012 | 8:24 pmteaser: Over the past few years IFTF’s Global Food Outlook research has focused on food choices and how the values people hold, the contexts that surround them, and people’s behaviors themselves, will change in the coming decade. Most recently we have been researching a more specific subset of these questions, with a focus on snacking among American women. What will they eat that is not part of a traditional meal, and more importantly, why? Over the past few years IFTF’s Global Food Outlook Program research has focused on food choices and how the values people hold, the contexts… -
Food Futures, Food Choices: Ongoing Research and Public Release
7 Feb 2012 | 7:13 pmteaser: This year Global Food Outlook will continue exploring how the complex global food web impacts everyday peoples’ experience of eating, and how everyday peoples' food choices, collectively, impact the global food web and the larger environment. In June, we will release our food futures research agenda for 2012 and 2013, this time focusing on the intersections of food and emerging technologies. This year Global Food Outlook will continue exploring how the complex global food web impacts everyday peoples’ experience of eating, and how everyday peoples' food choices,… -
The Re-working of "Work"
24 Jan 2012 | 11:27 amteaser: The nature of work and careers is poised to change dramatically in the coming years. While there have been a number of shifts in the ways that we work over the last generation, the Institute for the Future’s research increasingly suggests that a qualitative shift, perhaps an order of magnitude greater than the outsourcing revolution, could now be taking shape. The very idea of “work” is being re-worked. Recent Press IFTF made Fast Company's list of 5 innovative nonprofits developing responses to the changing world of work Fast Company's Education Writer Anya Kamentetz… -
Vivian Distler, May 1965 - December 2011
20 Jan 2012 | 9:15 pmteaser: IFTF has lost a dear colleague and a bright node in its network community in December. Vivian Distler, a Director of Research and Collaborative Networks at IFTF, has passed away. Her colleagues on the Health Horizons team and across the Institute and its broader community will miss her insights, her laughter, her friendship, and her caring. IFTF has lost a dear colleague and a bright node in its network community in December. Vivian Distler, a Director of Research and Collaborative Networks at IFTF, has passed away. Her colleagues on the Health Horizons team and across the…
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Ethical Technology
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Russell Blackford: Freedom of Religion
8 Feb 2012 | 9:41 amIn his new book, “Freedom of Religion and the Secular State”, Russell Blackford argues that religious freedom is more than a crude quid pro quo arrangement - “We won’t persecute you if you don’t persecute us.” Instead, it goes to the heart of what we think state power is really for. Do we think it’s to give citizens spiritual guidance, or is the state an essentially secular institution? That question lies at the heart of many intransigent hot-button issues that cause so much angst in current societies. What, if anything, should we do about the burqa? -
Jason Silva on Psychedelic Rapture, Ecstatic Awe and Technology
8 Feb 2012 | 5:57 amLUCID NYC is like TED at a Bar… Jason Silva speaking at LUCID NYC, which he describes as “like TED at a bar” - he talks about inspiration, techno-rapture, the mind-expanding aspects of technology and rapturous AWE. -
David Brin Must the Rich be Lured into Investing? Who are the Real “Job Creators?”
8 Feb 2012 | 5:30 amWhy should Mitt Romney and the fabled “one-percent” pay only a 15% marginal tax on investment income ... half the rate charged to a dentist or auto mechanic on wages earned from work? This was not the case until recent Republican Congresses slashed taxes on passive, unearned dividends and capital gains. The rationale for that immense tax cut for (mostly) rich investors was simple and alluring - that super-low rates would entice more of the rich to invest in companies within the U.S., helping them to increase their productive capacity and hire more workers. Moreover, the… -
Hank Pellissier I Want a God-Like Brain
8 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amIs the human brain a magnificent, near-miraculous organ? Or a flawed, forgetful, feeble-minded, under-achieving blob? My POV is the latter. Brain 1.0 is laughably dysfunctional, teeming with weaknesses even in our finest specimens. Memories are dust in a hurricane, logic is lunatic, empathy thinner than the neocortex on a sociopathic toddler. I want Brain 2.0. Are you with me? Eager for an upgrade? I believe far-reaching ambition should be applied to the acquisition of superlative mental strength, i.e., “god-like” cognitive powers. Humungous intellectual… -
SENS5 - Collective advantages of Life Extension
7 Feb 2012 | 4:07 amA longer, healthier life is positive for the whole society, and a catalyst for non-violence. This speech by Didier Coeurnelle gives a quick description of positive political, economical and sociological aspects of a world with a largely delayed senescence: lower health costs, lower level of violence, higher level of happiness.
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the Foresight Institute
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DNA motor navigates network of DNA tracks
31 Jan 2012 | 10:16 amThe structural DNA path toward productive nanosystems has achieved another step forward with the demonstration that a DNA origami scaffolding can be used to program a DNA motor to navigate a network of tracks. A hat tip to PhysOrg.com for reprinting this news release from Kyoto University “DNA Motor Programmed to Navigate a Network of Tracks“: Kyoto, Japan — Expanding on previous work with engines traveling on straight tracks, a team of researchers at Kyoto University and the University of Oxford have successfully used DNA building blocks to construct a motor capable of… -
Will 3D printers lead toward nanofactories?
29 Jan 2012 | 8:03 pmThe coming era of atomically precise manufacturing will provide digital control of the structure of matter for a very wide range of possible products and will make possible personal manufacturing of most products. Steps toward digital control of the structure of matter and personal manufacturing, although on a scale much less precise than atomic and for a much more limited range of products, are to be seen with today’s rapidly developing 3D-printing technology. Rival technologies were on display a few weeks ago in Las Vegas. From BBC News “CES 2012: 3D printer makers’ rival… -
Panel recommends research to manage health and environmental risks of nanomaterials
28 Jan 2012 | 8:35 pmForesight’s principal focus has been the development of advanced nanotechnology for atomically precise manufacturing, but the incremental development and application of current nanotechnology is also a major interest. Meeting the challenges of incremental nanotechnology development and application includes adequately addressing any potential environmental, health, and safety issues (see Foresight’s “Nanoparticle safety” policy brief.). We therefore note with pleasure that an expert panel of the National Academy of Sciences has recommended that the potential health and… -
Crowd-sourced protein design a promising path to advanced nanotechnology
24 Jan 2012 | 10:17 amLess than four years ago we asked here whether online gamers playing Foldit could help perfect the de novo design of proteins that do not exist in nature. Four months ago we reported that Foldit players had succeeded where scientists had failed in solving the structure of an important viral enzyme. Now Scientific American reports that Foldit players have topped scientists in redesigning a protein—the challenge we suggested less than four years ago. From “Online gamers achieve first crowd-sourced redesign of protein“: Obsessive gamers’ hours at the computer have now… -
Foresight co-founder among panelists discussing role of technology in human existence
23 Jan 2012 | 9:35 amForesight Institute Co-Founder and Past President Christine Peterson was among four panelists addressing the role of technology in human existence for a Stanford University Continuing Studies series. From a report in The Stanford Daily by Marshall Watkins “Bay Area thinkers ponder ‘life’“: Christine Peterson, co-founder and president of The Foresight Institute, a public interest group seeking to educate the community on forthcoming technological advances, emphasized the increasingly prominent role that nanotechnology has come to play. Peterson noted that nanotechnology…
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Nanotechnology Now Recent News
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Early Study Suggests Nanodiamonds Safe for Implants
8 Feb 2012 | 5:07 pmNanodiamonds designed to toughen artificial joints also might prevent the inflammation caused when hardworking metal joints shed debris into the body, according to an early study published this week i... -
Will bubble-powered microrockets zoom through the human stomach?
8 Feb 2012 | 5:07 pmScientists have developed a new kind of tiny motor which they term a "microrocket" that can propel itself through acidic environments, such as the human stomach, without any external energy source... -
Nanoink announces launch of contract services program for live single cell assay work: Service offering expected to advance research programs involved with toxicity assessment, high content screening, and cell-cell communication
8 Feb 2012 | 5:07 pmCHICAGO, Ill. - February 7, 2012 - NanoInk's® NanoFabrication Systems Division announced today that it introduced a new contract services program dedicated to the development of live single cell array... -
Industrial Nanotech, Inc. Enters Nuclear Power Plant Industry
8 Feb 2012 | 5:07 pmIndustrial Nanotech, Inc. (Pink Sheets:INTK), an emerging global leader in nanotechnology based energy saving solutions, today announced that the Company has made its first sale to a nuclear power fac... -
Innovation promises expanded roles for microsensors
8 Feb 2012 | 5:07 pmModeling, Analysis, and Experimental Validation of a Bifurcation-Based Microsensor Vijay Kumar, Student Member, ASME, Yushi Yang, Student Member, ASME, J. William Boley, Student Member, IEEE, ASME,...
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Scientific American - News
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Fasting Might Boost Chemo's Cancer-Busting Properties
8 Feb 2012 | 11:30 amCancer treatment can be brutal for patients. Many of the tools we have-- chemotherapy , radiation--are big, blunt weapons that deal punishing blows to healthy tissues along with cancerous ones. So the hunt has been on for more and more finely targeted therapies that will attack malignant cells yet minimize damage to patients' bodies. [More] -
Sight Seen: Gene Therapy Restores Vision in Both Eyes
8 Feb 2012 | 11:00 amGene therapy has markedly improved vision in both eyes in three women who were born virtually blind. The patients can now avoid obstacles even in dim light, read large print and recognize people's faces. The operation, researchers predict, should work even better in children and adolescents blinded by the same condition. [More] -
Success Is Official: Russian Team Breaches Buried Antarctic Lake
8 Feb 2012 | 11:00 amIt's official. Russian scientists announced today that they have reached Antarctica's Lake Vostok, an ancient, liquid lake the size of Lake Ontario buried beneath more than 2 miles (3 kilometers) of ice for at least 14 million years. [More] -
Custom-Designed Proteins Could Counteract Chemical Weapons
7 Feb 2012 | 3:00 pmCustom-designed proteins made with the aid of computers could fight chemical weapons such as nerve gas and help decontaminate toxic-waste sites, scientists say. [More] -
Popular Opinion on Climate Change Traced to Political Elites
7 Feb 2012 | 2:15 pmIt seems the general public just can't make up its mind about the existence of man-made climate change. Rather than steadily increasing or decreasing over the last decade, the U.S. public's concern over our warming planet has jumped up and down, according to Gallup polls. But what exactly is driving this seesawing of opinions on climate change? [More]
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NYT > Science
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Drilling Reaches Lake Vostok, Long Trapped Under Antarctic Ice Sheet
8 Feb 2012 | 3:24 pmScientists said Wednesday they had reached the waters of a lake that has been sealed off for millions of years. -
Green Blog: Surplus Renewable Energy: An Update
8 Feb 2012 | 3:05 pmFrom interregional sharing to the development of batteries, the energy secretary offers ideas for coping with a sudden oversupply of power to the grid. -
Norton D. Zinder, Researcher in Molecular Biology, Dies at 83
8 Feb 2012 | 2:23 pmDr. Zinder helped lay the basis for molecular biology in the 1950s and ’60s. -
Green Blog: From 2 Satellites, the Big Picture on Ice Melt
8 Feb 2012 | 1:28 pmResearchers calculate that from 2003 to 2010, the world's glaciers and ice caps lost about 150 billion tons of ice each year. -
Joy Reidenberg, Anatomist, Builds a Following on ‘Inside Nature’s Giants’
8 Feb 2012 | 12:23 pmA chance call made Joy Reidenberg, a researcher at Mount Sinai School of Medicine who has performed hundreds of dissections on various mammals, a TV celebrity.
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TechCrunch
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Addressgate: After The Path Fallout, Whose Address Book Is It Anyway?
8 Feb 2012 | 3:39 pmEditor’s note: Guest author Keith Teare is General Partner at his incubator Archimedes Labs and CEO of newly funded just.me. He was a co-founder of TechCrunch. Just.me is a stealth company in the mobile space and as such Keith’s opinions on this issue are likely to reflect his product focus. Addressgate seems like an appropriate name for what is dominating Silicon Valley headlines: Path’s mobile app uploading all of your contacts. Today Michael Arrington suggested that Path delete the data gathered and start over, and now Path CEO and founder Dave Morin has decided to do just that,… -
Here’s What Facebook Stock Looks Like
8 Feb 2012 | 3:38 pmIn a few months time, here’s what the world will be fighting to get its hands on, or get rid of depending on your confidence in Facebook’s business plan. The image of a Facebook stock certificate was included in the amended S-1 Facebook filed today with the SEC. It’s sure to become coveted by Scripophiliacs, or people who collect historic stock certificates, alongside those from Google, Apple, and Yahoo pictured below. At first glance, the designs in the certificate’s margins appear similar to the insignia found within the Facebook hoodie Mark Zuckerberg has worn. -
Andrew Mason’s First Earnings Call: “Stop Sending Me Pole-Dancing Deals”
8 Feb 2012 | 3:13 pmGroupon CEO Andrew Mason just finished his first post-IPO earnings calls with Wall Street analysts. (We covered it live and looked at the numbers). “We believe we are on the cusp of a sea change” in behavior, he noted. “We’re about to see what technology can do for local commerce.” Listening to the call, I’d say his performance was mixed. He sounded a little nervous at first, but warmed up to the task just as he did during the IPO roadshow, joking with the analysts that one of the most requested features Groupon hears from customers to “stop sending me pole-dancing… -
Facebook As A Mobile Platform: 60 Million Mobile Users Visit Third-Party Apps Each Month
8 Feb 2012 | 3:04 pmFacebook is huge on mobile — as an application developer. But questions have circled for years around how it can be a real mobile platform on top of operating systems controlled by Apple and Google. But we got a little more data on what it’s already accomplishing on the platform front, today at the Inside Social Apps conference here in San Francisco. Facebook product director Carl Sjogreen said on stage that out of the 425 million monthly mobile users that it currently counts, 60 million are going to third party apps. And this isn’t just once a month apiece — this is… -
Gumroad Gets $1.1 Million From Chris Sacca, Max Levchin And Others To Turn Any Link Into A Payment System
8 Feb 2012 | 2:43 pmGumroad, the buzzy one-man startup launched by Pinterest and Turntable app designer (and 19-year-old college dropout) Sahil Lavingia, officially launches today with over $1.1 million in seed funding from investors Accel Partners, Chris Sacca, Max Levchin, SV Angel, Josh Kopelman, Seth Goldstein, Naval Ravikrant, Collaborative Fund and Danny Rimer. To use the Gumroad, sign in with Facebook or Twitter Auth and submit any link in the entry form, whether it be to a blogpost, Spotify playlist, Instagram, invite for an iPhone app, research paper or whatever you can come up with you crazy character!
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NYT > Technology
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Is This Living Room Big Enough for My TV?
8 Feb 2012 | 4:10 pmHuge televisions, once an expensive oddity, are now the affordable norm. -
State of the Art: Android Phones Go on a Power Trip - State of the Art
8 Feb 2012 | 3:51 pmIn a world crammed with Android phones, HTC, Samsung and Motorola introduce three new models, each of them Verizon 4Gs. -
Apps to Help Singles Flirt Their Way to Romance
8 Feb 2012 | 2:40 pmMany matchmaking apps exist, and now more apps to help singles flirt their way to romantic attachment are also popping up. -
Cisco Posts Better-Than-Expected Profit
8 Feb 2012 | 1:42 pmImproved demand for business products lifted results for the maker of computer networking equipment. -
For Multitaskers, Multiple Monitors Improve Office Efficiency
8 Feb 2012 | 1:31 pmIn a new tactic for countering the data assault, offices are giving workers a second computer screen and sometimes a third.
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Wired Top Stories
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Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gregory Brothers, ACLU Team for Video on Photographers' Rights
8 Feb 2012 | 4:10 pmBenjamin Franklin kicks an informative and hilarious rhyme about transparency and First Amendment protections for pro and amateur photographers in the latest video from Joseph Gordon-Levitt?s open collaborative production company, hitRECord. -
Researchers Build Hard Drive of Future With Lasers
8 Feb 2012 | 4:00 pmA team of researchers from across Europe and Asia has demonstrated a way of using laser heat to store data rather than magnetic fields, potentially increasing the speed of your hard drive by 100 times or more. Tom Ostler -- a physicist at the University of York, which led the research project -- tells Wired that this could not only allow allow your machine to save files much faster, but also reduce the machine's power consumption by avoiding traditional magnetic storage techniques. -
Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
8 Feb 2012 | 3:48 pmTim Berners-Lee, who invented the Web, testified Tuesday in a Texas courtroom, fighting to keep the web's most basic interactivity from being subject to licensing fees from a patent troll. If the fight fails, any website with interactive features may have to pay up to a little known firm called Eolas and the University of California. -
Court Revives Challenge to No-Fly List
8 Feb 2012 | 3:47 pmA federal appeals court on Wednesday revived a Malaysian woman's legal fight against the United States' no-fly list, ruling she may challenge her two-hour airport detention on allegations she was wrongly singled out as a suspected terrorist. The detention sparked a legal odyssey that continues today, one questioning whether federal authorities may detain people on watchlists in U.S. airports with impunity. -
Black Hole Eats Asteroids, Burps Out X-Rays
8 Feb 2012 | 2:31 pmThe supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy may be constantly snacking on asteroids. A new study finds that an asteroid at least 12 miles wide falling into the black hole would account for the regular bright x-ray flares seen through telescopes.
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BBC News - Technology
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VIDEO: A380 wing crack checks to be extended
8 Feb 2012 | 4:30 pmAircraft maker Airbus has been ordered to check all A380 superjumbo planes currently in service after cracks were found in wing components. -
Groupon reports unexpected loss
8 Feb 2012 | 2:32 pmIn its first set of results as a public company, Groupon reports an unexpected loss of $42.7m (£27.0m), when a small profit had been expected. -
Cisco sees profits rise over 43%
8 Feb 2012 | 2:32 pmUS technology giant Cisco says rising quarterly sales show that its cost-cutting plans are bearing fruit. -
Lovefilm boss moves to Mothercare
8 Feb 2012 | 9:11 amSimon Calver is to become the chief executive of Mothercare after seven years as head of online movie rental firm Lovefilm. -
Apple seeks revised patent rules
8 Feb 2012 | 8:27 amA letter from Apple's legal team reveals that the firm wants Europe to revise rules covering patents that are essential to industry standards.
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ReadWriteWeb
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Nginx Continues Growth, Adds Commercial Offerings
8 Feb 2012 | 4:30 pmAccording to the Netcraft Web Server Survey for February 2012, Nginx was "the only server to experience a non-negligible market share increase this month" by picking up 0.27 percentage points. Good news for the upstart Web server, just as the brand-new company behind Nginx takes the wraps off its commercial packages. Nginx has had quite the growth spurt over the past year. In February of last year Nginx had 7.57% of the market, or about 21 million domains hosted with Nginx. Microsoft had 20.04%, or about 57 million. Apache was at 60.10%, with more than 171 million domains. Sponsor… -
Do Your Users Get You? Test Them With Solidify
8 Feb 2012 | 3:59 pmZURB launched yet another free and handy design application to help anyone test Web products they're working on. This one is called Solidify. It takes care of one of the most annoying parts of building an interface: testing clickable prototypes. Solidify lets you build a working test of your design and give it to users to see if it makes sense to them. It also gives you analytics on how your testers performed. Along with the new app, ZURB opened a new apps page showcasing all the great Web design helpers it has made, many of which we've covered on ReadWriteWeb. ZURB's tools let you make… -
Google Confirms Motorola Licensees Pay 2.25% Per-Unit Royalties
8 Feb 2012 | 3:45 pmIf all goes according to plan, the same company which last year asserted that patents were essentially legal weapons in an unfair war against the Android operating system, will find itself the owner of one of the largest technology portfolios anywhere in the world. Today, Google took steps to assure many of Motorola Mobility's (MMI) existing licensees that it would adhere to that company's existing reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) licensing practices for mobile technologies. This after Apple sent a letter to a European Telecommunications Standards Institute last November 11 - as first… -
Akamai Invests in Obliterating America's Broadband Speed Deficit
8 Feb 2012 | 3:30 pmLast week, my colleague David Strom reported on the latest annual "State of the Internet" report from content delivery network Akamai. The report showed that while Americans are finally experiencing faster average broadband speeds on a quarter-by-quarter basis, those speeds only began eclipsing those of Sweden in the second half of 2010, and still have about 40% of gap to close if it hopes to achieve par with Japan - which, at this rate, it might do in about a decade. If Web connection speeds are, as Google has said so often in touting the performance of its Chrome Web browser, essentially a… -
Add Change Tracking to Online Text Editing with Ice.js
8 Feb 2012 | 3:01 pmIf you're looking to add change tracking to a Web app, you might want to take a look at Ice from the CMS group at the New York Times. Ice (or Ice.js) is an implementation of change tracking for any content-editable element on the Web. It can track changes (inserts, deletes) from multiple users, and has some optional plugins for converting "smart" quotes and creating em-dashes. Sponsor Hands-on experience is probably the best way to get an idea what Ice.js can do. The current demo shows a plain content-editable element with Ice.js as well as a TinyMCE instance using Ice.js as a plugin. The…
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BBC News - Science and Environment
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VIDEO: Nepal national park breeds crocs
8 Feb 2012 | 10:30 amA breeding centre in Nepal's Chitwan National Park is preparing endangered Gharial crocodiles for release back into the wild. -
VIDEO: 'I carried Mars rock in hand luggage'
8 Feb 2012 | 9:39 amThe Natural History Museum in London has acquired its largest Martian meteorite, which could hold new clues to life on Mars. -
VIDEO: Converting solar energy into new fuels
8 Feb 2012 | 2:25 amResearchers in Glasgow are working on a way to remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and put oil back under the North Sea. -
VIDEO: Skydiver: My mum's still scared
7 Feb 2012 | 9:42 amAn Austrian adventurer planning the highest skydive in history has announced he will make the attempt later this year. -
VIDEO: How plants warn each other of danger
7 Feb 2012 | 3:15 amProfessor Iain Smith shows how researchers have captured the process by which plants alert each other to potential threat.
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NYT > Research
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Studied: Blogging as Therapy for Teenagers - Studied
7 Feb 2012 | 9:23 pmResearchers find blogging provides a therapeutic value for teenagers. -
Vital Signs: Fructose Consumption Increases Visceral Fat, Study Reports
7 Feb 2012 | 12:20 pmFructose consumption may increase cardiovascular risk factors because it increases visceral fat, the kind that accumulates around internal organs. -
Vital Signs: When Watched and Cheered On, I.C.U. Workers Wash Hands More
7 Feb 2012 | 12:00 pmAfter the installation of cameras and boards announcing compliance rates, hand washing at an I.C.U. soared, a study shows. -
Vital Signs: Low-Protein Diets May Be Costly to Lean Body Mass
7 Feb 2012 | 11:50 amOn a low-protein diet, the body is forced to get its protein from lean body mass, a study shows. -
Personal Health: Giving City Streets Built-In Safety Features
7 Feb 2012 | 9:25 amSafer road designs can slow motor vehicles and separate them from pedestrians and cyclists, and also enhance the physical activity and health of residents.
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Brains On Purpose™
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Valentine's Day news: Love is more than just chemicals in the brain--P.S. So is conflict
7 Feb 2012 | 10:51 amUnderstanding love by taking a look at the brain is a bit like understanding a car's driver by looking under the hood of the car he's driving. Such an attempt at comprehending love would be ultimately futile. It's not cognizant of the human spirit. Not wise. Not accurate. Unfortunately some conflict professionals are now reducing conflict to the brain, too.... -
Wah, wah, wah: Excellent example of why people don't listen, even if you have good information
1 Feb 2012 | 8:42 amThe blog post is titled "Meet Me Halfway" (Scientific American) and its author writes about one kind of two-way communication: The speaker gives information and the listener, well, listens. The blogger then gives us some interesting neuroscience-related information about the way the brains of speakers and listeners can synchronize. And then she writes about scientists having much good information for... -
Are character and personality overrated? Yes, says author of new book SITUATIONS MATTER
31 Jan 2012 | 12:38 pm[T]he people around us are not who we think they are, and we usually fall into the trap of thinking we know their inner workings better than we really do.--From review of Situation Matters According to Professor Sam Sommers, we are not very consistent and predictable. In this review (Tufts Now), you will find a link to a short animation... -
Lecture on metaphor and embodied cognition
31 Jan 2012 | 6:22 amClick to watch a lecture by Professor Raymond Gibbs on metaphor and embodied cognition. -
Rescuing the amygdala from the swamp of pop culture
27 Jan 2012 | 3:11 pmComing on the heels of my blog post Clearing up confusion: The amygdala is not the same as the reptile brain & it's probably not reserved for fear is a news release from Association of Psychological Sciences with more information which I hope will continue the cleaning up of the amygdala's reputation in the media. And clear up its role...
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NYT > Health
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Study Explores Electrical Stimulation to Aid Memory
8 Feb 2012 | 3:22 pmA small study shows promise that could lead to clues to encoding memory and treating neurological diseases. -
Well Blog: Blood Levels of Trans Fats Are Declining in Americans
8 Feb 2012 | 2:57 pmA new report shows that since 2000, levels of trans fats in Americans' bloodstreams have plummeted nearly 60 percent. -
After Outcry, Karen Handel Resigns From Komen
8 Feb 2012 | 1:20 pmKaren Handel’s resignation came just days after the cancer foundation reversed its decision to cut funds to Planned Parenthood. -
Boehner Vows to Fight Contraception Rule
8 Feb 2012 | 1:09 pmThe speaker said House Republicans would push to change the administration’s rule that religious institutions must offer insurance plans that cover birth control. -
Obama Addresses Ire on Health Insurance Contraception Rule
8 Feb 2012 | 1:07 pmFacing criticism from religious-affiliated institutions, the Obama administration promised on Tuesday to explore ways to make a new health insurance requirement more flexible.
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WSJ.com: Today's Most Popular
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ObamaCare's Great Awakening
8 Feb 2012 | 4:07 pmHHS tells religious believers to go to hell. The public notices. -
Fun With Studying
8 Feb 2012 | 11:07 amThe iBooks 2 app offers educational textbooks on the iPad that are, for now, focused on high-school students, writes Katherine Boehret. -
Robert Reilly: Romney's Businessman Pitch Won't Work
8 Feb 2012 | 9:53 amIf you can't articulate the cause for which you are fighting in moral terms, you will lose. -
Energy Boom Lifts Economy
8 Feb 2012 | 8:50 amThe benefits of the newest energy boom are extending far beyond the traditional oil patch. It's revving up the U.S. economy. -
Duke, North Carolina Top Basketball's Alumni Loot Index
8 Feb 2012 | 8:24 amWhat if you tried to measure the success of every college basketball team by a more practical measure: how much money its alumni have earned by playing the sport professionally?
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Technology Review RSS Feeds
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A 3-D Printed Jawbone
8 Feb 2012 | 11:57 amLast June, an 83-year-old woman received an unusual implant. I’ll set aside, for the moment, the question of whether 3-D printing can revolutionize manufacturing--a topic that Christopher Mims and Tim Maly have already taken up quite effectively in these web pages--and instead point my finger again to one incontrovertible fact: that the technology is yielding incredibly interesting applications. The latest? An 83-year-old Dutch woman has received a 3-D printed lower jaw. -
How Networks of Biological Cells Solve Distributed Computing Problems
7 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pmComputer scientists prove that networks of cells can compute as efficiently as networks of computers linked via the internet Distributed computing is all the rage these days. The idea is to break down computational tasks into convenient chunks and distribute them across a network to a number of computers. The benefits are clear, such as easy, on-demand access to huge computing resources. -
Turing's Enduring Importance
7 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pmThe path computing has taken wasn't inevitable. Even today's machines rely on a seminal insight from the scientist who cracked Nazi Germany's codes. When Alan Turing was born 100 years ago, on June 23, 1912, a computer was not a thing—it was a person. Computers, most of whom were women, were hired to perform repetitive calculations for hours on end. The practice dated back to the 1750s, when Alexis-Claude Clairaut recruited two fellow astronomers to help him plot the orbit of Halley's comet. Clairaut's approach was to slice time into segments and, using Newton's laws, calculate the… -
Watson's New Job: IBM Salesman
7 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pmThe Jeopardy-playing computer pays its way by helping to sell products. IBM's Watson supercomputer reached a milestone in artificial intelligence last February when it beat two Jeopardy! champions. Millions watched, and while some experts dismissed it as a publicity stunt, IBM said Watson would soon be helping doctors diagnose illness, and hinted at talks with gadget companies about Watson helping consumers with questions. -
Venture Capital, Disrupted
7 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pmFor a new generation of technology company founders, money is the easy part. Silicon Valley's venture capitalists make their money by funding ideas that disrupt established industries. But these gatekeepers of the technology business are now being challenged themselves.
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New Scientist - The Human Brain
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Mind control could be future of warfare
7 Feb 2012 | 9:28 amWars may be fought through manipulation of people's minds, and technology such as mind-machine interfaces, warns the Royal Society -
Zap your brain into the zone: Fast track to pure focus
6 Feb 2012 | 3:23 amWhether you want to smash a forehand like Federer, or just be an Xbox hero, there is a shocking short cut to getting the brain of an expert, says Sally Adee -
Clint Eastwood helps reveal secrets of brain evolution
5 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amBrain scans of humans and monkeys while they watched a cowboy movie show that areas that are functionally similar aren't always in the same place -
Weak will comes from tired mental muscles
1 Feb 2012 | 7:21 amSelf-controlled people have better lives – but for the rest, lack of willpower is more like physical fatigue than moral failure, says Roy F. Baumeister -
Orchid children: How bad-news genes came good
1 Feb 2012 | 3:11 amThe set of genes that help create our most grievous frailties may also underlie our greatest strengths – and sometimes the choice is settled in childhood
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LiveScience.com
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Bacterial 'Glue' is One of Nature's Stickiest Substances
8 Feb 2012 | 3:12 pmThe tiny water bacterium Caulobacter crescentus secretes a sugary substance so sticky that just a tiny bit could hold several cars together. -
Teen Pregnancy Rate Hits 40-Year Low
8 Feb 2012 | 1:16 pmTeenage pregnancy, birth and abortion rates have steadily decreased over the last two decades. -
Is It Possible to Reanimate the Dead?
8 Feb 2012 | 1:07 pmFrankenstein's monster is probably not a possibility, but scientists are getting better at bringing people back to life. -
Small Twisted Galaxy Warped by Galactic 'Stealth Merger'
8 Feb 2012 | 12:38 pmA newfound galaxy looks like it was slammed into head-on. -
Pakistan Whale Shark's Death a Mystery
8 Feb 2012 | 12:36 pmVideo of a dead whale shark in Pakistan raises questions.
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ScienceDaily: Biotechnology News
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DNA sequencing helps identify cancer cells for immune system attack
8 Feb 2012 | 12:23 pmDNA sequences from tumor cells can be used to direct the immune system to attack cancer, according to scientists. The immune system relies on an intricate network of alarm bells, targets and safety brakes to determine when and what to attack. The new results suggest that scientists may now be able to combine DNA sequencing data with their knowledge of the triggers and targets that set off immune alarms to more precisely develop vaccines and other immunotherapies for cancer. -
Transformational fruit fly genome catalog completed
8 Feb 2012 | 12:23 pmScientists searching for the genomics version of the holy grail – more insight into predicting how an animal’s genes affect physical or behavioral traits – now have a reference manual that should speed gene discoveries in everything from pest control to personalized medicine. -
New 'cell assay on a chip:' Solid results from simple means
8 Feb 2012 | 10:28 amA research engineer combined a glass slide, plastic sheets and double-sided tape to build a "diffusion-based gradient generator", a tool to rapidly assess how changing concentrations of specific chemicals affect living cells. -
Timing capability added to living cell sensors
8 Feb 2012 | 10:27 amIndividual cells modified to act as sensors using fluorescence are already useful tools in biochemistry, but now they can add good timing to their resume. -
Molecular path from internal clock to cells controlling rest and activity revealed
7 Feb 2012 | 5:28 pmThe molecular pathway that carries time-of-day signals from the body's internal clock to ultimately guide daily behavior is like a black box, says a researcher. Now, new research is taking a peek inside, describing a molecular pathway and its inner parts that connect the well-known clock neurons to cells governing rhythms of rest and activity in fruit flies.
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Holy Kaw!
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Why Congress is way richer than you [infographic]
8 Feb 2012 | 4:28 pmVia Online Schools. Depressing infographics. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
The bookcase that’s always ready for more
8 Feb 2012 | 4:19 pmThe thing about bibliophiles is that, before you know it, the bookcase is full and it’s time to drag in a few more boards and cinder blocks to accommodate the newcomers. With the REK, such worries are a thing of the past, as the system accordions out when more space is needed and collapses into a handy rectangle when it’s time to pack up shop and move on to greener pastures. Unfortunately, the price is listed as “on request” meaning the 99% is out of luck, but perhaps it’ll inspire you to hit the workshop for a little DIY action if you can drag your nose out of… -
How Harvard spends student tuition [infographic]
8 Feb 2012 | 3:24 pmVia Online Universities. (H/T Muhammad Saleem) The scoop on education. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Lizard shortage offers rare evolution test
8 Feb 2012 | 1:01 pmA devastating 2004 hurricane that wiped out a Caribbean lizard population offered an unprecedented opportunity to put an evolutionary theory known as the “founder effect” to the test. The founder effect describes the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. “Founder effects are very hard to study,” says Thomas Schoener, a professor of evolution and ecology at University of California, Davis and a co-author of the study. “One must be in exactly the right place at the… -
Petty controversy: The Oscars diss the Muppets
8 Feb 2012 | 12:48 pmAcademy Awards producers outrage Kermit lovers with a proposal to shorten the telecast by scrapping Best Original Song performances It's an odd year for the Oscars' Best Original Song category. Thanks to the Academy's ever-changing and increasingly labyrinthine rules, only two songs earned nominations. At first, critics weren't too troubled by the abbreviated list, since it included the comically existential Muppets ballad "Man or Muppet," written by Flight of the Conchords' Bret McKenzie and performed by Jason Segel and Walter the Muppet. But alas, producers are planning to scrap the Best…
