As soon as you feel your finger vibrate, press the piano key. The Mobile Music Touch system devised by researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology will teach you how to play the piano.

The glove, which looks like a workout glove with a small box on the back, is used with a piano keyboard and vibrates a person’s fingers to indicate which keys to play. While learning to play the instrument, several people with SCI experienced improved sensation in their fingers. [...]

The MMT system works with a computer, MP3 player or smart phone. A song, such as Ode to Joy, is programmed into a device, which is wirelessly linked to the glove. As the musical notes are illuminated on the correct keys on the piano keyboard, the gadget sends vibrations to “tap” the corresponding fingers. The participants play along, gradually memorizing the keys and learning additional songs.

But the research team has ambitions far higher than building a musical education device. They envision it as a tool for helping people with spinal injuries recover sensation:

“Some people were able to pick up objects more easily,” said Markow. “Another said he could immediately feel the heat from a cup of coffee, rather than after a delay.”

Markow believes the increased motor abilities could be caused by renewed brain activity that sometimes becomes dormant in persons with SCI. The vibration might be triggering activity in the hand’s sensory cortex, which leads to firing in the brain’s motor cortex. Markow would like to expand the study to include functional MRI results.

Link -via Walyou | Photo: Georgia Tech

Swedish artist Sebastian Eriksson is only 18 years old, but he's already cutting out a place for himself in the art world. His surreal images are often horrifying, such as this pencil and charcoal drawing entitled Mind Devour. What's happening to the subject? Eriksson writes, "His endless screaming makes his own mind eat him up."

Link -via My Modern Met

(Video Link)"The Fishin' Hole" was whistled for the opening of The Andy Griffith Show, but it does have lyrics. Still, Tookie the parakeet prefers the whistled version.

-via Althouse

Doris Ekblad-Olson, 82, of Colorado is the first person to receive CentraSight, an experimental optical implant:

Ekblad-Olson suffers from "wet" macular degeneration, an end-stage form of the common, chronic disease, where blood vessels are leaking and destroying central vision.

"I can't see the faces of the people across the table from me," she said. "I can't see the food on my plate."

She wants to finish a memoir of teaching seminary in Hong Kong, and being limited to a sliver of peripheral vision makes writing a challenge.

The device, called CentraSight, is placed behind the iris. It projects and enlarges central images onto the still-healthy peripheral portions of the retina.

Link -via VA Viper | Image: Denver Post

What white powder caused these lines? Firefighters in Edmonds, Washington didn't take any chances and sent in a hazardous materials handling team:

"It turns out the white powdery substance is, in fact, flour," Snohomish County Fire District 1 spokeswoman Leslie Hynes said.

A witness told firefighters that a couple of crows were to blame.

The woman was going out for a jog when she noticed the black birds dragging around the bag of white flour.

"She took it away from them, put it in a garbage can and kept running," Hynes said. "Two crows and a two-alarm hazmat incident."

Link -via Nerdcore | Photo: KIRO 7 News

Not everyone is photogenic, but few people do anything about it. According to police, a woman in Barrow County, Georgia called 911 when she saw her mug shot in the local newspaper. It was not up to snuff:

Calling 911 to complain, however, might not have been the smartest move. Fowler, 45, was arrested Sunday and charged with unlawful use of 911 and disorderly conduct.

But there is a silver lining: Fowler got to take an updated mug shot at the Barrow County Detention Center to replace that caused her to snap.

Link -via Dave Barry | Photo: Tim Pearce, Los Gatos

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Aquarius is an underwater research station, currently 63 feet below the surface of the water off the Florida Keys. It has six bunks, a toilet, a shower and a kitchen.

Can you rent it for weddings? Well, no. But there was one among the staff back in 1996. That marriage between Otto and Leanne Ruttan is still going strong, giving Aquarius marriages a 100% success rate!

Official Website -via Gizmodo

Flickr user Enokson found a trove of old posters at his school library in Canada. Do you think Dan the librarian is trying to rescue the young lady? There's a story here, but I don't think it's straightforward.

Link -via Flavorwire

Burkhard Bilger has a fascinating article in the New Yorker about modern strongman competitions. He addresses their history, their competitors and what they physically demand from athletes. One particularly interesting topic is why many champions in the sport don't look extraordinarily strong:

And I remember, as a boy, being a little puzzled by the fact that the best weight lifter in the world—Vasily Alexeyev, a Russian, who broke eighty world records and won gold medals at the Munich and the Montreal Olympics—looked like the neighborhood plumber. Shaggy shoulders, flaccid arms, pendulous gut: what made him so strong?

“Power is strength divided by time,” John Ivy, a physiologist at the University of Texas, told me. “The person that can generate the force the fastest will be the most powerful.” This depends in part on what you were born with: the best weight lifters have muscles with far more fast-twitch fibres, which provide explosive strength, than slow-twitch fibres, which provide endurance. How and where those muscles are attached also matters: the longer the lever, the stronger the limb. But the biggest variable is what’s known as “recruitment”: how many fibres can you activate at once? A muscle is like a slave galley, with countless rowers pulling separately toward the same goal. Synchronizing that effort requires years of training and the right “neural hookup,” Ivy said. Those who master it can lift far above their weight. Max Sick, a great early-nineteenth-century German strongman, had such complete muscle control that he could make the various groups twitch in time to music. He was only five feet four and a hundred and forty-five pounds, yet he could take a man forty pounds heavier, press him in the air sixteen times with one hand, and hold a mug of beer in the other without spilling it.

Link -via Kottke | Photo: Greencolander

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The Enterprise, registry number NCC-1701, was the starship of the original Star Trek television series. The Enterprise, registry number NCC-1701-A was the starship of the movies Star Trek IV, Star Trek V and Star Trek VI. A panel at Comic-Con debated the relative merits of 12 spaceships in different science fiction franchises and decided that these two ships were the best ever. But which one should triumph in the contest? Physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson rose to make the case for the NCC-1701.

-via Geekosystem

In 1562, the German town of Mittenwalde loaned the town of Berlin 11,200 guilders at 6% interest, compounded annually. Mittenwalde would now like to be repaid:

According to Radio Berlin Brandenburg (RBB), the debt would amount to 11,200 guilders today, which is roughly equivalent to 112 million euros ($136.79 million).

Adjusting for compound interest and inflation, the total debt now lies in the trillions, by RBB's estimates. [...]

Schmidt and Mittenwalde's Mayor Uwe Pfeiffer have tried to ask Berlin for their money back. Such requests have been made every 50 years or so since 1820 but always to no avail.

Reclaiming the debt would bring significant riches to Mittenwalde, a seat of power in the middle ages, which now has a population of just 8,800. Red brick fragments of medieval fortifications still dot the leafy town centre.

The people of Mittenwalde should remember the 111th Rule of Acquisition: Treat people in your debt like family...exploit them.

Link -via Boing Boing | Photo: Mittenwalde.de

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The father of psychology spent the last year of his life in Britain. A BBC radio crew visited him at his home on Dec. 7, 1938. He was suffering from jaw cancer and uttering every word was agonizing. But he managed to make the following statement:

I started my professional activity as a neurologist trying to bring relief to my neurotic patients. Under the influence of an older friend and by my own efforts, I discovered some important new facts about the unconscious in psychic life, the role of instinctual urges, and so on. Out of these findings grew a new science, psychoanalysis, a part of psychology, and a new method of treatment of the neuroses. I had to pay heavily for this bit of good luck. People did not believe in my facts and thought my theories unsavory. Resistance was strong and unrelenting. In the end I succeeded in acquiring pupils and building up an International Psychoanalytic Association. But the struggle is not yet over.

Link -via American Digest

These luxurious pancakes by Evil Shenanigans are the right way to start the day. She kept experimenting, adding just a bit more to her recipe. The pancakes have chocolate chips and a touch of cream cheese. The bacon is candied with cocoa powder, brown sugar and cinnamon. The syrup has equal portions of maple syrup and Nutella. It's an extreme food that remains classy and appealing.

Link -via That's Nerdalicious!

There's a lovely vineyard in St. Peter's Abbey in the heart of Ghent, Belgium. For short time, there's a library right in the middle of it. Browse the stacks under natural sunlight and buy or borrow a book.

Link | Photo: TRACK

If this is considered professional by your boss and co-workers, then you work a great company. Etsy seller Woody turned a vintage NES console and controller into a study briefcase and wallet. He also sells a briefcase made from an Atari 2600 console.

Link -via Walyou