If you had to wear a knee brace every day you’d definitely want to wear one of these. Funny how these simply wonderful ideas elude us for so long : By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Talk about a knee-jerk reaction. Scientists in the United States and Canada said on Thursday they have developed a…
Category: science
Machines learn to lie
Scientists in Switzerland have created learning robots that can lie to each other about food sources. The team at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Federal Institute of Technology created the little experimental learning devices to work in groups and hunt for “food” targets nearby while avoiding “poison.” Imagine their surprise when one generation…
another kind of tag
It would be an interesting first day on the job : sign the paperwork, W-2 and whatever else, and then roll up your sleeve for a microchip injection. Sounds like sci-fi, but it’s happened, and now a handful of states are making sure their citizens will never be forced to have a microchip implanted under…
Enjoy your Space, er, stay…
“Galactic Suite,” the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes. Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay. During that time guests would see…
Google Maps : test
[gmap name=’mymap’ lat=’44.995883′ lng=’-93.251953′ zoom=’10’ desc=’Minneapolis!’ width=’400′]
Don’t look into the straw…
Did you know our primitive brains weren’t wired very well to read this paragraph? Scientific research conducted by Walker Reading Technologies, a small Minnesota startup that has been studying our ability to read for the last ten years, has concluded that the natural field of focus for our eyes is circular, so our eyes view…
Humanoids making progress
this is interesting to follow. have you seen the Asimo commercial? = c
Alas, a threat to Google? Nah…
The evolutionary path of the computer is curiously cyclical. In the 1970s, companies relied upon mainframes, with multiple users sharing a single central computer through “terminals.†But by the early 80s, the ascendancy of the personal computer had pushed this setup to obscurity, essentially re-orienting the relationship to keep most of a computer’s processing and…
we Like Sheep
Scientists have created the world’s first human-sheep chimera – which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs. The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells – and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer. Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the…
VisuWords
remember the brain? the technology has evolved into many cool applications, not the least of which is VisuWords. check it out! = c
how to move up the food chain
Since the 1960s scientists have known that chimpanzees are able to make and use toolsâ€â€Âbehavior once thought to be an exclusively human trait. Now National Geographic-funded researcher Jill Pruetz has observed toolmaking behavior that further blurs the line between the apes and humans: chimps in Senegal sharpening sticks into crude spears and thrusting them into…
Lucas’ network infrastructure trumps world
Given the cult-film status of 1971’s THX 1138 in the George Lucas universe, it should come as little surprise that the total capacity of Lucasfilm’s giant data center is 11.38 petabits per second. Granted, that number–which represents the value one would get by adding up the bandwidth capacity of all the company’s 1 gigabit per…
Speaking of Orwell…
Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past.  George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
humanity : doomed to run before it walks
Rumor has it NASA wants to build a colony on the moon. Is this another example of our culture getting ahead of itself? Do we always do this? Most of us still are unable to RTFM on things that have been around for decades much less something that’s not been yet attempted. We’re cloning living,…
Symmetry
“There are thousands of other striking instances of animal asymmetry. The akita dog in Japan with a tail that curls one way on males, the other way on females, the tendency of dolphins to swim counterclockwise around tanks, the asymmetric sex organ of the male bedbug, a fungus called laboulbeniales that grows only on the…
John Henry hear this
In the continuing quest to see if humans can outpace their electronic creations, the humans have lost another, perhaps decisive, round. A six-game chess match between Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, the world champion, and Deep Fritz, a souped-up version of commercially available chess software made by Chessbase, ended today in victory for the computer, which…
Growing up with Newsweek
Newsweek loves to feature articles about Autism. People love to buy Newsweek and read articles about Autism. If the following cliche’ is true [about Autism] then most of the world is Autistic only they don’t know it yet: Work is play and play is work Sound like anyone in YOUR neighborhood? When was the last…
no more dishpan hands
Stanford scientists plan to make a robot capable of performing everyday tasks, such as unloading the dishwasher. By programming the robot with “intelligent” software that enables it to pick up objects it has never seen before, the scientists are one step closer to creating a real life Rosie, the robot maid from The Jetsons cartoon…
Kansas gives birth to METEORITE!!!
Oct. 17, 2006  Scientists were excited when they pulled a 154-pound meteorite from deep below a Kansas wheat field, but what got them most electrified was the way they unearthed it. The team Monday uncovered the find 4 feet under a meteorite-strewn field using new ground-penetrating radar technology that someday might be used on…
Youth goes marching on…
don’t wanna get caught texting in class??? NPR : Teens Turn ‘Repeller’ into Adult-Proof Ringtone = c
Coffee makes us yes men?
Australian researchers say a caffeine hit improves our ability to process information and increases the extent to which we listen to and take on board a persuasive message. They tested this by quizzing people about their attitudes to voluntary euthanasia and abortion before and after either the equivalent of about two cups of coffee or…