Home
|
« Science: October 2011 | Main | Science: December 2011 » ScienceEverybody Needs to Start Putting the Lid Down Why the hell didn't you people tell me this ages ago??? WTF, people! Now i have typhoidcholeradysentary, and it's all your goddamned fault. And i thought Happy Slip's mom was nuts. She knew it all along! Ooh! Spam! By min | November 24, 2011, 9:25 PM | Science | Comments (2)| Link Actually, it doesn't get into feeding. I like beans. I also don't, i should say, "love long conversations that explore intimate thoughts...". Passionate interests, sure (i assume that means comic books). But "find[s] other people tiring" sounds about right. Oh, not you, though. I like you. By fnord12 | November 22, 2011, 12:51 PM | My stupid life
& Science | Link Toco-chan is an interactive robot that Dr Kabe's students developed with the aim of providing care and comfort to Japan's aging population. Sticking with the cute bear image, the robot Panda was developed to analyze interaction between humans and robot in order to explore the possibility of a future where "human machine interaction is not a one sided relationship". The next logical step is for me to get a bear like the one in AI.
By min | November 19, 2011, 9:02 PM | Cute Things & Science | Link
This week saw the 19th International Robot Exhibition (IREX) held at Tokyo Big Sight displaying the world's most advanced, innovative and sometimes plain bizarre robots. Right. Cause having your pillow move under you and brush your face would in no way wake you the hell up and totally disrupt your sleep entirely. By min | November 19, 2011, 8:51 PM | Science | Link Bad for solar panel manufacturers, but good for the country: This was actually the reason Solyndra went out of business. Solar panels got too cheap for them to compete. It's a good thing in the long run. By fnord12 | November 17, 2011, 11:59 AM | Liberal Outrage
& Science | Link I got in trouble a few months ago for not telling fnord12 about 3D printers. Now when i see an article about them, i feel i need to make sure to let everyone know i read it. With the internet providing resources for research and digital books becoming more available, the feeling is that libraries might soon be obsolete. Make Magazine suggested that libraries ought to become public make spaces, providing free access to machines and software. A public library in Fayetteville, NY has embraced this idea. So far, the Fab Lab is equipped with a MakerBot, a 3D printer that lets you "print" plastic pieces of your own design. The potential for 3D printers to revolutionize manufacturing as we know it is huge: imagine being able to design and then manufacture -- or "print" -- whatever you want. Moreoever, imagine the tools of manufacturing being in the hands of everyone, not just giant factories (and remember, since this is a public library, this is really putting the technology in the hands of everyone, not just those that can afford a membership at a traditional hackerspace). It's an interesting idea. Many libraries currently have a "craft" room available for groups to book and use. It's not such a big leap to go from that to maker-spaces. However, it would take quite a bit of revenue to set up because of all the equipment and software. Whereas, craft spaces are just tables and chairs set up and the public brings their own materials and tools. It's also quite a big difference going from the stereotypical quiet reading space to what has to be a noisy build area. Not sure how people who still want a quiet place to study are going to feel about that. On a different note, it would be awesome to have my own Makerbot. Besides the obvious plus of having anything with "bot" tacked on to the end of it, i'm always looking for shit at stores that apparently doesn't exist. I could make my own! I sucked at CADD, though, so i'm not so sure about the whole 3D design part. By min | November 15, 2011, 11:41 AM | Science | Link It's so bad in Mongolia, they're proposing building an ice shield. That's right. I said "ice shield". Science fiction continues to invade reality. Although, "ice shield" is very B-level sci-fi, not like robots or lasers...or robots that shoot lasers. By min | November 15, 2011, 8:23 AM | Liberal Outrage
& Science | Link This is just a very weird experiment to show that the way we perceive our bodies affects how we perceive the physical world. In order to accomplish this trick of self-displacement, participants in the experiments lay on a bed and wore a head-mounted display connected to two video cameras. These cameras faced a fake body lying on a bed next to the participant; thus, when participants looked down toward their own bodies, they instead saw artificial bodies where their own should have been. These artificial bodies were either huge (a 13-foot form made of chicken wire) or very small (a Barbie Doll). In order to make participants feel ownership over these false bodies, researchers employed a technique well known to those interested in body perception. Participants would place their hands out of view, perhaps under a table, while an artificial hand sat atop of the table. The experimenter then stroked both the obscured real hand and the visible fake hand synchronously. As a result, participants would witness a hand in roughly the same position as their own being touched in precisely the manner that they felt themselves to be touched. This had the effect of making the majority of participants feel the false hand to be their own. This method has been shown to work with whole bodies - it even allows a participant to feel as though he or she is sitting in another person's body, shaking hands with their self! The bit about self-displacement relieves my mind, though. Those of you who don't scuffle very often may have never experienced this, but there have been times when tangled up during a fight that i've actually confused which limbs were mine. So now i know i'm not an idgit (shuts up). Woo. At least this article recognizes this experiment sounds wacky and attempts to justify it with a practical and useful application of their findings. Though to some, these experiments may seem to be no more than glorified parlor tricks, findings from this line of research have a very useful application. The same principles behind this body-swapping illusion were recently established to be an effective treatment for arthritis pain, since they allow sufferers to feel as though their cramped fingers are being stretched to impossible lengths, thus providing relief from their pain. So the question on my mind is does this mean Reed Richards will never experience arthritis or is he screwed cause this type of treatment won't work for him? Mebbe he wouldn't try it anyway because it's too "undignified". By min | November 8, 2011, 5:38 PM | Science | Link Call Bruce Willis! We need him to drill a hole in a space rock! I know how it's going to end. By min | November 7, 2011, 9:40 PM | Science & TeeVee | Link So, we've learned that sitting is very bad for your back, and that it's not just bad for your back, but that it's literally killing you. Well, now it's not just getting fat and getting diabetes or heart disease; it's cancer. Like, all of them. The work adds to a growing body of research indicating that prolonged sitting has lethal consequences, regardless of how active people are the rest of the day. "It seems highly likely that the longer you sit, the higher your risk [of cancer]," said Neville Owen, head of behavioral epidemiology at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Australia, who also presented findings at the meeting. Owen's study showed that U.S. adults, on average, sit 15.5 hours a day. If you follow the link on "prolonged sitting has lethal consequences", it brings you to an article that suggests the "best" type of chair for not killing you. Unlike the above post with the infographic that says it's best to sit at a 135° angle, this article says it's best to be perched on a stool so some of your weight is still on your legs. They also mention this chair (a Swopper) that sits on a spring that's supposedly good. The only problem is it's $700. I think i'll just stand. That's free.
By min | November 4, 2011, 8:40 AM | Science | Comments (1)| Link From Scientific American: One of the brain centers that is thus permanently damaged is the circadian clock. But importantly, it is not just not ticking any more, it is in a permanent "day" state. What does that mean practically? When the clock is in its "day" phase, it is very difficult to fall asleep. Thus insomnia. When the clock is in its "day" phase, metabolism is high (higher than at night), thus zombies require a lot of energy all the time and quickly burn through all of it. Thus constant hunger for high-calory foods, like brains. Insomnia, in turn, affects some hormones, like ghrelin and leptin, which control appetite. If you have a sleepless night or chronic insomnia, you also tend to eat more at night. But at night the digestive function is high. As zombies' clock is in the day state, their digestion is not as efficient. They have huge appetite, they eat a lot, but they do not digest it well, and what they digest they immediately burn. Which explains why they tend not to get fat, while living humans with insomnia do. Finally, they have problems with wounds, you may have noticed. Healing of wounds requires growth hormone. But growth hormone is secreted only during sleep (actually, during slow sleep phases) and is likewise affected by ghrelin. In short, a lot of the zombies' physiology and behavior can be traced back to their loss of circadian function and having their clock being in a permanent "day" state. Although, it is not true that insomniacs must therefore be zombies, i'd say we should all be wary just in case (i'm looking at you, fnord12).
By min | November 1, 2011, 3:11 PM | Science | Link Gaining super powers through science accidents and exposure to radioactivity is a time honored tradition in the comic universe. Japan has been known to use it to make giant, rampaging monsters (that's right. that's a godzilla wiki). Done with the animal testing, it's now time for them to try it out on humans. The 44-year-old had been cajoled into making the gesture by journalists who repeatedly asked him to substantiate government claims that decontamination efforts at the plant were progressing. I mean, sure, he could turn out to be a superhero instead but my money's on villain. If he becomes hideous, he'll blame the journalist for coming up with the idea and then the government for not protecting him against these types of journalists. If he isn't hideous, but just powerful, he's totally going to feel that now he has these fantastic powers, he's going to be opposite of that weenie he used to be, the weenie who got bullied into drinking radioactive water. Clearly. By min | November 1, 2011, 11:22 AM | Comics & Godzilla & Science | Link |