I get lots of text messages, more than I would like really. I have received a few that had directions or other important details that I would like to print out. I wouldn't want to print them on the wall though like the printer contraption that designer Liat Segal has invented will do. It uses servos and markers to make the message in a series of dots and dashes as the user pulls it across the wall. It is a cool device, but very strange. The brains of the device is an Android smartphone. link
I get lots of text messages, more than I would like really. I have received a few that had directions or other important details that I would like to print out. I wouldn't want to print them on the wall though like the printer contraption that designer Liat Segal has invented will do. It uses servos and markers to make the message in a series of dots and dashes as the user pulls it across the wall. It is a cool device, but very strange. The brains of the device is an Android smartphone. link
Get this: According to the 2010 Census report, ten of America's 100 largest cities have names that starts with a "C". How many can you name in five minutes? That's the challenge of today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. I only got five of them (and would have never come up with the other five). Maybe you will get them all! Link
Lots of great skiing mountains also double as hiking trails in the warmer months. However this area in Austria has got to be the only place this doubles as a hiking spot and a great place to scuba dive.
Located at the foot of the Hochschwab Mountains, in Tragoess, Styria, Green Lake is one of the most bizarre natural phenomena in the world. During the cold winter months, this place is almost completely dry, and used as a country park where hikers love to come and spend some time away from urban chaos. But as soon as temperatures rise, the snow and ice covering the mountaintops begin to melt, and the water pours down, filling the basin below with crystal-clear water.
Link
(YouTube link)
Tommy doesn't want to share his bone with Lulu, despite the fact that Lulu wouldn't have taken it anyway. She's already stuffed! -via Arbroath
Ray guns have been featured in everything from War of The Worlds t Star Wars, yet it seems a hand held ray gun is still a thing of science fiction. Here however is a history of the imaginary device as it appears in different books and movies.
The ray gun is but one invention that, in the optimistic futurism of the early-to-mid 20th century, seemed to be just around the corner, like personal jet packs, food in pill form, and machines that launder your washing and hand it back to you neatly wrapped up in Celophane (thanks, Lost In Space).
Link
What if you could put your baby on hold for twenty years? Would you do it? Scientists have now been able to achieve just that.
http://singularityhub.com/2010/10/14/embryo-frozen-for-20-years-is-now-a-bouncing-baby-boy/
Imagine being born at the age of 20. Doctors at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Virginia have made history by implanting a 20 year old frozen embryo and having it successfully brought to term.
http://singularityhub.com/2010/10/14/embryo-frozen-for-20-years-is-now-a-bouncing-baby-boy/
Some day devices will be readily available to help wheel chair bound people walk again. Watch the video at the link to see a paralyzed man walk with the help of an exoskeleton.
A 22-year-old paraplegic college graduate, paralyzed since a 2007 car crash, used an exoskeleton to walk across the stage Saturday to receive his diploma.
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-05/video-robotic-exoskeleton-helps-paralyzed-college-student-walk-across-stage-graduation
James Zwerg was a Freedom Rider who went to Montgomery, Alabama in 1961. As soon as he stepped off the bus, a mob grabbed him and beat him to a pulp. A photograph taken of Zwerg in the hospital was published nationwide and around the world, bringing awareness of what was happening in the American South. But although he became a hero in the Civil Rights movement, his parents never forgave him for his activism.
Six months of therapy helped, but Zwerg has spent the fifty years since then coming to grips with his experience, his family's rejection, and the spiritual letdown he experienced after his time with the Freedom Riders. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: WGBH)
See also: the documentary Freedom Riders from PBS. Link
His parents' rejection erased the closeness Zwerg once felt with them. "I had a lot of anger toward them," he says. "How can they treat me this way? This was the most meaningful period of my life. How could they not understand that?"
Zwerg took out his anger on himself and on others. After the beating, he returned to college but had trouble being close to anyone. "The two people I loved the most hurt me, so, by God, I wasn't going to love anybody," Zwerg says. "I might meet a girl who I felt was special. One minute, I'd tell her that I loved her, and the next, I told her I didn't want to see her again."
Zwerg began to drink heavily during his senior year, and at one time he contemplated suicide. Depressed, he put on his jacket and walked to a pier near campus.
He still doesn't remember what happened next. "I remember going out to the pier, but I do not remember coming back," he says. "I awoke the next day in my room, and when I put on my jacket, a straight-edge razor was in a pocket. I didn't remember putting it there."
Six months of therapy helped, but Zwerg has spent the fifty years since then coming to grips with his experience, his family's rejection, and the spiritual letdown he experienced after his time with the Freedom Riders. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: WGBH)
See also: the documentary Freedom Riders from PBS. Link
A female poodle fell out of the sky onto the grounds of Shorncliffe Nursing Home in Sechelt, British Columbia.
May showed signs of longtime neglect, including rotted teeth and claws that were growing into her paw pads. She is recovering after medical intervention by the SPCA, but the Society needs donations to pay for her care. http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Hungry+eagle+inadvertently+swoops+poodle+away+better+life/4793134/story.html -via Arbroath
(Image credit: SPCA)
How she came to be flying over the nursing home is explained by the deep talon marks in her back and sides, showing she was probably the unwilling passenger of a hungry eagle that had picked her up but eventually found her 18 pounds too much to hold on to.
May, her ribs broken, her body lacerated, was found by nursing staff May 2 and delivered to the Sunshine Coast SPCA.
The fall injured her, says BC SPCA official Lorie Chortyk, but the whole unnerving ordeal likely saved her life.
May showed signs of longtime neglect, including rotted teeth and claws that were growing into her paw pads. She is recovering after medical intervention by the SPCA, but the Society needs donations to pay for her care. http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Hungry+eagle+inadvertently+swoops+poodle+away+better+life/4793134/story.html -via Arbroath
(Image credit: SPCA)
Will Carlough grew up with Star Wars (as did many of the internet generation) and was an avid fan. He discusses the process of recovery in an essay at Slate.
Read how each of the stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, relate to his continuing recovery from Star Wars fandom. Link
In high school, I read more Star Wars novels than I did regular books—somewhere around 15—and I own three copies of each of the films' soundtracks. I even won an award from almighty Lucasfilm itself for the hours I spent making a Star Wars fan movie.
It's been a rough dozen years for us Star Wars fans. The release of The Phantom Menace split the community in half, the gushers (people who loved it) and the bashers (people who didn't). If you can't tell from my equating fandom with alcoholism, I am a basher. Each of the next two movies, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, was worse than the last, and it became increasingly hard to identify as a fan. After all, the whole franchise was based on six feature films, and I hated half of them (and only sort of liked Return of the Jedi).
Read how each of the stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, relate to his continuing recovery from Star Wars fandom. Link
Scientists and health officials are pretty certain that the smallpox virus exists in only two places in the world: at the CDC in Atlanta and in a government laboratory in Russia. The World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated in 1979, and the two remaining supplies are for research only. This week, the 64th World Health Assembly will take up the question of whether these two stores of the virus should be destroyed.
A list of pros and cons for keeping smallpox around are listed at 80beats. Link -via Carl Zimmer
Now, public health officials are divided on how to ensure that the disease stays eradicated. Some say our best bet is to keep the remaining samples of the virus safe and continue to study them, then destroy them at a later date; others say the safest course is to destroy them now, once and for all.
A list of pros and cons for keeping smallpox around are listed at 80beats. Link -via Carl Zimmer
(vimeo link)
This video from Bruton Stroube Studios is "designed to showcase food in a beautiful and unusual way." But really, it's just fun to see flying food! A second video showing how it was done is posted at Stroube's site. Link -Thanks, James McKenzie!
The following is an article from the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
by Steve Trimberger
With the loss of Pluto, the number of major planets in our solar system has dropped to eight. If the current trend continues, then come April 13, 3703 the solar system will no longer have any major planets. My analysis, below, suggests several possible causes, for the loss of major planets.
The Solar System’s Major Planets
Major planets have been the objects of study for thousands of years. Their positions and numbers have been accurately reported and have been subject of numerous observations by literally billions of observers. In this study, we analyzed published reports of the number of major planets and used statistical analysis software to identify trends in the data. These trends show a disturbing result, specifically, that the number of planets in the solar system has been decreasing since the middle of the nineteenth century. Extrapolation leads to the conclusion that the solar system will have no planets by the end of the next millennium.
Table 1. Reported Numbers of Planets in the Solar System
Historical Observed Planet Count
Table 1 shows the number of reported planets by various researchers. The reports in table 1 are selected from the literature and are representative. The planet counts have been confirmed extensively in numerous publications as well as by huge numbers of anecdotal accounts. The data are irrefutable, although, as noted in table 1, the dates of some of the early data points are estimates. Sensitivity analysis shows that the conclusions in this paper are not particularly sensitive to variations in these dates.
Continue reading
by Steve Trimberger
With the loss of Pluto, the number of major planets in our solar system has dropped to eight. If the current trend continues, then come April 13, 3703 the solar system will no longer have any major planets. My analysis, below, suggests several possible causes, for the loss of major planets.
The Solar System’s Major Planets
Major planets have been the objects of study for thousands of years. Their positions and numbers have been accurately reported and have been subject of numerous observations by literally billions of observers. In this study, we analyzed published reports of the number of major planets and used statistical analysis software to identify trends in the data. These trends show a disturbing result, specifically, that the number of planets in the solar system has been decreasing since the middle of the nineteenth century. Extrapolation leads to the conclusion that the solar system will have no planets by the end of the next millennium.
Table 1. Reported Numbers of Planets in the Solar System
Historical Observed Planet Count
Table 1 shows the number of reported planets by various researchers. The reports in table 1 are selected from the literature and are representative. The planet counts have been confirmed extensively in numerous publications as well as by huge numbers of anecdotal accounts. The data are irrefutable, although, as noted in table 1, the dates of some of the early data points are estimates. Sensitivity analysis shows that the conclusions in this paper are not particularly sensitive to variations in these dates.
Hot Dog Hat - $7.45
Are you at a loss of what to get your Dad this Father's Day? He needs the Hot Dog Hat from the NeatoShop. No Father's Day cookout is complete without a grown man wearing a plush Hot Dog on his head.
Is Dad more of a burger fan? Not to worry the NeatoShop has you covered. The Hamburger Hat is available for all the burger loving Dads.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Headwear!
All you need to do is turn off the lights to unleash this little girl's dreams -or you might call them nightmares. Link -Thanks, Richard Schumann!
