Pre-Inspired

Transplant creates embryos with three parents

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:59:00 -0500

Transplant creates embryos with three parents:

Ten human embryos each containing the DNA from one man and two women have been created in a project that within three years could lead to the first genetically altered babies being born in Britain.
The form of gene transplant proposed in Newcastle will be bitterly opposed by pro-life campaigners but offers the first realistic hope of an effective treatment for an entire class of serious genetic diseases.

Progress is such that Lord Walton of Detchant has tabled an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would allow this radical treatment to be used without seeking the permission of Parliament by seeking the approval of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority instead. Although the Government rejected it Monday, it has assured Lord Walton that this issue will be debated soon and that there should be “full public consideration.”

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NPR: Blind Man 'Sees'

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:05:01 -0500

NPR: Blind Man 'Sees':

It took almost 50 years, but slowly, slowly David Stewart went blind. A former long-time executive at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., Stewart has a hereditary disease, retinitis pigmentosa, which affects the rods and cones in his eyes. In his 20s, his vision narrowed. By the time he hit 80, he was almost totally blind. But then he discovered that sometimes blindness comes with a bonus. One day while listening to a book on tape — 1776 by David McCullough — he heard how American sailors helped George Washington sneak cannons and horses across the Hudson River to escape the British. As Stewart mused about those sailors, very strangely, one of them appeared in his head — not a dreamy fantasy, but a vivid, highly detailed, very real-like hallucination.

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The pee shivers

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:02:25 -0500

The pee shivers:

The [phenomenon of pee shivers] is an example of the human body’s autonomic nervous system (ANS) at work. We are not conscious of the ANS. It runs on automatic, hence its name, “autonomic”, which literally means “self controlling, working independently”. The urination reflex is relayed through the ANS. The reflex is directly related in strength to the amount of stretch of the bladder. Thus, the degree of shivering is generally related to how full the bladder is at the time of urination.

(…)

In any case, at the moment of urination, there is a slight blood pressure rise and a momentary flushing or euphoria shortly after relaxing the urethral sphincter. Some find this feeling pleasurable. At such moments, some people say “ah”. This same response in its most extreme forms causes fainting. All of this is the ANS doing its job.

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"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:58:41 -0500

“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”

- Quote: Oscar Wilde on Sincerity

Energy Independence: How Denmark Kicked Its Foreign Oil Habit

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:07:00 -0500

Energy Independence: How Denmark Kicked Its Foreign Oil Habit:

In 1976 the Danish public got behind an ambitious (and expensive) program to become entirely energy-independent, and, with the development of new, clean energy systems, to get out of the foreign oil business completely. Some of the steps taken:
• Strict energy-efficiency standards were placed on all buildings.

• Gas and automobiles were heavily taxed (Today new cars are taxed at more than 105% of the cost of the car.) • “District heating systems” were implemented throughout the country, reusing normally wasted heat produced by power plants by piping it directly into homes. Today more than 60% of Danish homes are heated this way.

• The government invested heavily in clean and renewable energy systems, especially wind power. Today 21% of Denmark’s energy production comes from wind farms. On top of that, they lead the world in wind-power technology - another product to export. The industry has created more than 20,000 jobs.

• Rebate campaigns helped people buy more energy-efficient - and therefore more expensive - home appliances. Today more than 95% of new appliances bought in Denmark have an “A” efficiency rating. (“A” is the best; “G” is the worst.)

• They started drilling for - and finding - more oil and natural gas within their own waters in the North Sea. (Showing that no plan is perfect, these efforts have long been opposed by environmentalists.)

• In 2005 the government committed $1 billion to develop and integrate better solar, tidal, and fuel-cell technology.

Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:02:00 -0500

Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean:

The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man’s land between San Francisco and Hawaii. Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, said his group has been monitoring the Garbage Patch for 10 years. “With the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it’s the perfect environment for trapping,” Eriksen said. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, except do no more harm.” The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco. Ocean current patterns may keep the flotsam stashed in a part of the world few will ever see, but the majority of its content is generated onshore, according to a report from Greenpeace last year titled “Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans.”

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"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:33:43 -0500

“Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.”

- Bertrand Russell on Patriotism

New landmarks for the 21st Century Panopticon n. Structure,...

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:13:00 -0500

New landmarks for the 21st Century

Panopticon n. Structure, space or device providing a comprehensive or panoramic view. Panopticons is a unique and ambitious arts and regeneration project at the heart of the East Lancashire Regional Park initiative, led by the Lancashire Economic Partnership. The project was set up to erect a series of 21st-century landmarks, or Panopticons, across East Lancashire as symbols of the renaissance of the area. Four of these iconic structures are now in place. Panopticons is funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency, the Lancashire Economic Partnership, the Northern Way, Arts Council England North West and Lancashire County Council.

4 Noble Truths

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:04:31 -0500

4 Noble Truths:

The core of the Buddhist teaching is the Four Noble Truths: There is suffering. There is a cause to suffering. There is an end to suffering. The is a path out of suffering (the Noble 8-fold path).

The Reality of Suffering—dukkha

The Cause of Suffering—samudaya

The Cessation of Suffering—nirodha

The Path to the Cessation of Suffering—magga

Frozen Grand Central at Improv Everywhere On a cold Saturday...

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:40:44 -0500

Frozen Grand Central at Improv Everywhere

On a cold Saturday in New York City, the world’s largest train station came to a sudden halt. Over 200 Improv Everywhere Agents froze in place at the exact same second for five minutes in the Main Concourse of Grand Central Station. Over 500,000 people rush through Grand Central every day, but today, things slowed down just a bit as commuters and tourists alike stopped to notice what was happening around them. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our mission report and photos.

China Plans to Halt Rain for Olympics

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:26:08 -0500

China Plans to Halt Rain for Olympics:

Determined not to let anything spoil their party, organizers of the 2008 Summer Olympics said Wednesday that they will take control over the most unpredictable element of all — the weather.

(…)

The Chinese are among the world’s leaders in what is called “weather modification,” but they have more experience creating rain than preventing it. In fact, the techniques are virtually the same. Cloud-seeding is a relatively well-known practice that involves shooting various substances into clouds, such as silver iodide, salts and dry ice, that bring on the formation of larger raindrops, triggering a downpour. But Chinese scientists believe they have perfected a technique that reduces the size of the raindrops, delaying the rain until the clouds move on. The weather modification would be used only on a small area, opening what would be in effect a meteorological umbrella over the 91,000-seat Olympic stadium. The $400-million stadium, nicknamed the “bird’s nest” for its interlacing steel beams, has no roof.

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Sax Notes Lead to Off-Beat Boiler

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:34:39 -0500

Sax Notes Lead to Off-Beat Boiler:

Inventor and saxophone player Peter Davey has come up with a device that he claims boils water in no time. He calls it the “sonic boiler” because he claims it uses the power of sound. How the heater actually works has confounded experts. The device looks oddly like a bent desk lamp, with a metallic ball at the end instead of a lightbulb. When plugged into the power supply, and the ball is lowered into water, it boils the liquid within seconds — even as little as a tablespoonful.

(…)

He said he first came up with the concept 50 years ago and it took him half of those years to figure out how to make the device. “The principle is beautiful. I have cashed in on a natural phenomenon and it’s all about music,” he said. “If I hadn’t been playing the saxophone, I probably wouldn’t have come up with the idea.” Davey noticed as he played the saxophone at home that everything resonated at a different frequency. “The glasses will tinkle on one note. Knives and forks in the drawer will tinkle on another note and I realised that everything has its point of vibration,” he said. “In the same way, a component in the ball is tuned to a certain frequency.”

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The New Shapes of Garden Produce

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:26:00 -0500

The New Shapes of Garden Produce

In the U.S. south, is Canadian a new racial slur?

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:20:33 -0500

In the U.S. south, is Canadian a new racial slur?:

(…)The bigger mystery is how “Canadian” came to be code for black. An online directory of racial slurs defines Canadian as a “masked replacement” for black. Last August, a blogger in Cincinnati going by the name CincyBlurg reported that a black friend from the southeastern U.S. had recently discovered that she was being called a Canadian. “She told me a story of when she was working in a shop in the South and she overheard some of her customers complaining that they were always waited on by a Canadian at that place. She didn’t understand what they were talking about and assumed they must be talking about someone else,” the blogger wrote. “After this happened several times with different patrons, she mentioned it to one of her co-workers. He told her that ‘Canadian’ was the new derogatory term that racist Southerners were using to describe persons they would have previously referred to [with the N-word.]” A similar case in Kansas City was reported last year on a Listserv, or electronic mailing list, used by linguistics experts. A University of Kansas linguist said that a waitress friend reported that “fellow workers used to use a name for inner-city families that were known to not leave a tip: Canadians. ‘Hey, we have a table of Canadians…. They’re all yours.’ ” Stefan Dollinger, a postdoctoral fellow in linguistics at University of British Columbia and director of the university’s Canadian English lab, speculated that the slur reflects a sense of Canadians as the other. “This ‘code’ word, is the replacement of a no-longer tolerated label for one outsider group, with, from the U.S. view, another outsider group: Canadians. It could have been terms for Mexicans, Latinos etc. but this would have been too obvious,” he said. “What’s left? Right, the guys to the north.”

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Acoustic "Invisibility" Cloaks Possible, Study Says

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:39:09 -0500

Acoustic "Invisibility" Cloaks Possible, Study Says:

If sound could bend around objects in just the right way, submarines could evade sonar detection and large beams and columns wouldn’t obstruct

concert-hall acoustics. This type of acoustic invisibility is possible, according to physicists who hope to develop the theoretical sound-wave-bending materials. The result would be a shell that acts as an acoustic cloak—something like an invisibility cloak, but for sound, not light. Sound waves would bend around a cloaked object and then continue on their original courses. It would appear as though they had passed directly through the shell, “as if nothing had been there at all,” said Steven Cummer of Duke University, lead author of a new study.

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Books That Make You Dumb rtur Bergman says: ...

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:30:00 -0500

Books That Make You Dumb

rtur Bergman says: “Wikiscanner hacker Virgil Griffth told me a while ago about his latest data mining project, to visualise the relationship between books and SAT scores. Today he released his findings at Booksthatmakeyoudumb. He does this by cross referencing the 10 most popular books at every college, as given by Facebook, and the average SAT score. He then presents it all in this nifty little visualisation.”

History of Trepanation

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:39:00 -0500

History of Trepanation:

Trepanation is the practice of removing a piece of the skull to expose part of the brain. It’s one of the oldest known surgical procedures, dating back at least to 6500 BC. It’s still practiced today, for medical reasons and also voluntarily to achieve enlightenment. Ten years ago, I wrote an article for bOING bOING Digital about Peter Halvorson, a guy who drilled a hole in his head to yield a permanent high. Peter is now the director of the International Trepanation Advocacy Group. For even more on trepanation through the ages, check out “An illustrated history of trepanation” newly posted to the Neurophilosophy blog. From the article:

“In the earliest European trepanned skulls, the holes were made by scraping the bone away with sharp stones such as flint or obsidian; later, primitive drilling tools were used to drill small holes arranged in circles, after which the piece of bone inside the circle was removed. The late Medieval period saw the introduction of mechanical drilling and sawing instruments, whose sophistication would continue to increase for several hundred years. There is a great deal of speculation about why ancient civilizations used trepanation, as it was - and still is - carried out in the absence of head trauma. However, it is almost certain that all those who used it did so because they somehow linked the brain with behaviour. Some anthropologists suggest that trepanation was performed as part of tribal or superstitious rituals. Other researchers believe that the procedure was used as a treatment for conditions such as headaches, epilepsy, hydrocephalus and mental disorders. These were presumably attributed to possession by evil demons, such that a hole in the skull would have provided the spirits a passage for escape. Although the reasons for trepanning and the instruments used for the procedure differ with time and from culture to culture, the result is always the same: a hole in the head, usually made when the individual was fully conscious and, often, unanaesthetized.”

"Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all other philosophers are..."

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:34:39 -0500

“Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all other philosophers are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.”

- Quote: H.L. Mencken on Philosophers

kdka.com - Study: 2 Years Of Lies Led To Iraq War

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:33:36 -0500

kdka.com - Study: 2 Years Of Lies Led To Iraq War:

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks. The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.” The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

and…

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Mr. Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al Qaeda or both.

finally…

Mr. Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to al Qaeda, the study found. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al Qaeda. The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

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Paper Sculpture by Richard Sweeney The work emerged as part...

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:28:00 -0500

Paper Sculpture by Richard Sweeney

The work emerged as part of an investigation into form generation using paper folding techniques. Paper was ideally suited to this experimental work, as it is readily available and can be easily manipulated by hand. I find it very important to work hands-on, as this is the most effective means of gaining knowledge about a material, such as how it behaves when subjected to various manipulative techniques. I am sure my experience with origami as a child has influenced my decision to work with paper, although my sources of influence are by no means restricted to the field of paper craft. I absorb influence from a vast number of sources, taking elements from both the natural and man-made world. I am intrigued by the principles of growth that dictate the morphology of organic structures. The principles of material and structural efficiency in nature has for a long time been a major source of inspiration for artists, architects and designers, and continues to aid in the discovery of new materials while expanding the application of existing materials.

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