by Brian Logee
March 5, 2010 in Science, Weird by Brian Logee
Snake eats alligator move over for we have found a fossilized proof of a snake eating a dinosaur. At first I thought it was like something out of a 50’s B movie.
Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective it turns out that the snake was 11.5 foot long and the dinosaur was a new born 1.6 foot long.
Read the full fascinating tale over at National Geographic
by Brian Logee
February 15, 2010 in Culture, Philosophy, Science, Weird by Brian Logee
Breakthrough pill to help people live to 100
The pill is based on immitating [sic] the effects of three super-genes that make people 20 times more likely to live to be 100 and 80 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s or other similar diseases. The new pill is expected to be ready for testing within three years.
This would be awesome! Not only give a nice extension on ones lifespan but to reduce the chances of Alzheimer’s or other similar diseases.
Sounds too good to be true?
Possibly, The quest for the philosopher’s stone goes back for millennium and shows up in speculative fiction in many forms. My first reaction to this is to sigh and think ‘ah, another snake oil salesman.’ What is fun with this pill concept is that they gave it some credibility by tying it to the longevity effects of genes.
There is ongoing research into human longevity. Most of the successful results are tied to tweaking the subjects (mostly worms) genes. A while back I watched a fascinating news piece on the longevity research and it’s results. They were successful in extending even doubling the life span but there was a catch. It doubled all of the lifespan which means twice as long as an infant, puberty twice as long, and the declining years taking twice as long. Would this extension and payoff for the extension of life really be any increase in the quality of life?
The ethical questions raised were fascinating. If one could live longer what quality of life would they get for it?
Would you be willing to take a pill to extend your life to 100 years? Would you still be willing to take a pill if it had to be taken on a regular basis?
(via Unexplained Mysteries)
by Brian Logee
September 28, 2009 in Culture, Science by Brian Logee
Life can be stranger then fiction sometimes and Mr. Tianzhuan knows better then most. He had dark brown hard shells growing all over himself that looked like coral.
At the age of 13 he noticed some growths on his feet and hands. These spread and got worse covering his arms, legs, back and head.
Like a slow real life version of petrification.
Thankfully the hospital was able to reverse the process. After a year of surgery and treatment he has just a few discolored skin patches.
I’m glad we have Sanctuary to help the public to grow. Treat people with rare conditions with dignity celebrating their diversity and getting help if it’s a harmful condition.
(via Telegraph)
by Eric
August 6, 2009 in Science by Eric
Japanese researchers have grown the first-ever fully functional bioengineered tooth inside the mouth of a mouse (Pink Tentacle).
This is a breakthrough that we all need to start paying attention to.
If we can teach the body to repair itself, then the future of medicine is a bright and beautiful place.
by Brian Logee
June 15, 2009 in Science, Space by Brian Logee
Nearby star Betelgeuse has been noticably shrinking over the past decade indicating that it may by now have gone supernova, at 600 light years distant the explosion would pose no threat but would provide a spectacular fireworks display.
Since Betalgeuse is located on Orion’s shoulder does this mean that Orion’s shoulder blew up!
(via Unexplained Mysteries)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c45b0ca0-93f2-42a1-a2b3-5168c9ac883c "Orions Shoulder May Have Blown Up!")
by Brian Logee
May 27, 2009 in Culture, Funny, Robots, Science by Brian Logee
I love the growing robot technology and how it can better everyone’s lives. The idea that one day I could crawl into a Mech suit to “run around in” excites me and is one of the things I’m looking forward to in the new G.I. Joe movie. This suit is of no exception it uses sensors attached to the skin of the wearer to operate.
“HAL catches these signals through a sensor attached on the skin of the wearer. Based on the signals obtained, the power unit is controlled to move the joint unitedly with the wearer’s muscle movement, enabling to support the wearer’s daily activities. This is what we call a ‘voluntary control system’ that provides movement interpreting the wearer’s intention from the biosignals in advance of the actual movement. Not only a ‘voluntary control system’ “HAL” has, but also a ‘robotic autonomous control system’ that provides human-like movement based on a robotic system which integrally work together with the ‘autonomous control system’. “HAL” is the world’s first cyborg-type robot controlled by this unique Hybrid System.”
The humor of the company working on this is at no loss to me either:
I’m not sure if I like their use of all the darker films where the robots turned on the humans and killed them but being an optimist I go to my happy place and think that the ominous warnings given in the films is what was on their minds… besides the suit needs us so if it gained sentience and went crazy it would merely assimilate humans instead of killing us off.
(via /Film)
by Brian Logee
February 19, 2009 in Science, Science Fiction, tv/series by Brian Logee
On Monday after watching Dollhouse I found myself in a conversation debating whether Dollhouse was Scifi or Science Fiction. We got into the technology and psychology used on the dolls and how close are we as a society to being able to do what they do in real life. After reading io9’s article I figured it would be neat to share what we discussed and update what was included in the article.
The Dollhouse uses a technology that allows the operators to wipe the memories of their “dolls”, like erasing a hard drive, leaving them in a passive state. Then as needed they can put in a new memory collective, like installing a new computer program, thus creating an “active” that fits the clients needs.
Some real life technologies used:
It’s quite fascinating to think how close we are as a society to reproducing what we see in the Dollhouse. The important question is how do we go about using these technologies responsibly? How can we violate what a person wants when we can merely change their desires?
For more on Dollhouse and to watch it streaming online read: Review: Dollhouse Ghost
by Eric
February 4, 2009 in Science by Eric
This is the freakiest snake that ever lived:
Titanoboa was at least 43 feet long, weighed 2,500 pounds (1,140 kg) and its massive body was at least 3 feet (1 meter) wide, they wrote in the journal Nature.
It lived 58 million to 60 million years ago, when Earth’s animal kingdom was still recovering from the mass extinction that doomed the dinosaurs and many other creatures 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit near the Yucatan coast of Mexico (Reuters via Yahoo!).
by Brian Logee
January 7, 2009 in Movies, Tech, tv/series by Brian Logee
LG Electronics will start selling high-definition TV sets that stream Netflix videos directly from the Internet, without an additional device.
This is great news for several reason!
I am overjoyed that LG Electronics is making it easier to stream internet content directly to a TV. My entertainment center has so many devices, wires, plugs, and switchers that I can not hook up another device. I finally got fed-up with having to switch between devices and buying new switchers and having to sort through wires and plugs that I had to draw a line in the sand deciding there needed to be a simpler process. Why can’t I have my streaming shows, DVD’s, and video game consoles fed through just a few devices. Thank you LG Electronics, hopefully this will begin a trend for other TV designers. Thank you Netflix for offering options to your customers and not forcing us into another single purpose device.
With Netflix and LG making it easier for the mainstream market to stream content through the internet more people will realize the joy of breaking free from appointment content. For many years I have worked irregular schedules which forced me to miss all of the appointment content provided through cable. Because of that I had to find alternative means to get that content. I have been an advocate of the process of breaking free of appointment TV for almost a decade now I just didn’t have a name for it. Now thanks to Jeff over at Command N I have a term for the process which is to Decable.
(via Fandango: Entertainment News)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=ab7d60d9-d568-4557-8809-1d9413583b88 "TV to Stream Netflix Videos Directly")
by Eric
December 18, 2008 in Tech by Eric
After years of watching animations, computer simulations, and wondering what the clockwork computer found at Antikythera would look like in action, I finally know… and now I want one.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=effdf1ef-9789-4eba-8d17-0134eb8b08c2 "Antikythera Mechanism works!")
To start connecting please log in first. You can also create an account.
