Tricorder XPrize Finalists

"10 Finalist Teams Announced for Tricorder XPrize".

BTW, this is one of the technologies I discussed in my earlier Forbes piece, "8 Star Trek Technologies Moving From Science Fiction To Science Fact".

Contagious Wolf Yawns

"Scientists stake out wolves to see whether their yawns are contagious"

Jellyfish Stinger

CNet: "See how a jellyfish stings in microscopic slo-mo"

Incredible Dragon Body Painted in a Single Brush Stroke

"Incredible Dragon Body Painted in a Single Brush Stroke"

[Off Topic] Hsieh Forbes Column: UK To Experiment on Cardiac Arrest Patients Without Their Consent

[Off topic] My latest Forbes column is now up: "UK To Experiment on Cardiac Arrest Patients Without Their Consent".

CPR being performed on a medical training manikin.  (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

Thinner Semiconductors

"Scientists craft a semiconductor junction only three atoms thick". (Via H.R.)

Architecture and Hospital Rooms

NYT: "In Redesigned Room, Hospital Patients May Feel Better Already"

ATM Skimmers Are Getting Very Hard To Detect

ATM skimmers are getting extremely hard to detect.

If You're Born In The Sky, What's Your Nationality?

NPR: "If You're Born In The Sky, What's Your Nationality?"

Feyman Lectures on Physics Now Completely Online

"The Feynman Lectures on Physics, The Most Popular Physics Book Ever Written, Now Completely Online"

Knee Defender Fight Diverts Plane

"Here's The $22 Gadget That Started A Huge Fight, Causing A United Airlines Flight To Get Diverted"

Related story: "Denver flight diverted over 'knee defender' fight"

Curiosity Wheel Damage

"Curiosity's Wheels Are Falling Apart (And How We Can Solve It)". (Via H.R.)

Airport Sleeping Pods

A great idea: Sleeping pods (aka "capsule hotels") at airports.

Haikus found in Supreme Court opinions

Eugene Volokh: "Haikus found in Supreme Court opinions"

World's Spiciest Noodles

"Is This the World's Spiciest Bowl of Noodles?"

Fu Niu Tang, a recently opened beef noodle restaurant in Beijing, is trying to take the spicy crown for Hunan. It claims to have the world’s spiciest rice noodles and is challenging patrons to finish a bowl of the signature dish in 10 minutes. Those who can finish the task are awarded with a T-shirt and a card that entitles them to a permanent 10% discount.

The restaurant says the hot sauce for its rice noodles is 125 times hotter than Tabasco sauce...

Click through to see the video.  (Via Marginal Revolution.)

Why You Should Break A "Pay-It-Forward" Chain

FastCompany: Breaking A "Pay-It-Forward" Chain Isn't Being A "Cheap Bastard." It's Good Economics.

Butter Knife 2.0

Wired: "The Cutting-Edge Butter Knife of Your Dreams Is Finally Here":

Australian designers -- Craig Andrews, Sacha Pantschenko, and Norman Oliveria—have come together to revamp breakfast with a new knife/grater combo that can transform a densely packed brick of butter into easily spreadable strands of creamy delight...

Star Trek: Axanar

I just watched the 20-minute fan-made short film "Prelude to Axanar", and it looks awesome. I look forward to the full-length 90 minute film coming next year.

For more information, go to either their Kickstarter page or their official ST: Axanar page. (I also donated to the project.)

New "What If?" Book From xkcd Author

Experience Armageddon in Sneak Peek at 'xkcd' Author's New Book"

Viking War Game

"This 1,600-year-old Viking war game is still awesome".  (Via C.M.)

Some excerpts:

The game is similar to chess, but with several important differences. Instead of two identical and equal opponents facing each other, Hnefatafl is a game where one side is surrounded and outnumbered -- like a Viking war party caught in an ambush.

The game might seem unbalanced. The attacking black player has 24 total pieces — known as "hunns" -- to white's meager and surrounded 12 hunns. But white has several advantages.

White has an additional unique unit, a king, which must be surrounded on four horizontal sides to be captured. Hunns require being surrounded on two sides, and that's pretty hard by itself. White's goal is also simple: move the king to one of four corner squares known as "castles." Black's goal is to stop them.

Other rules? All pieces move like chess rooks. Black makes the first move. Black cannot occupy a castle, which would end the game in short order. But black can block off several castles by moving quickly, forming the equivalent of a medieval shield wall...

Hnefatafl is a Viking's worst case scenario: Outnumbered, cut off from their boats — and on the verge of being massacred. Understanding the game played by Viking war parties on the way to raid England of its booty meant understanding something about the way the Vikings saw themselves. The total time spent playing the game may have been more than any individual warrior spent sacking the Anglo-Saxons, for instance.

200-Year-Old Alcohol Found in Shipwreck Is Still Drinkable

"200-Year-Old Alcohol Found in Shipwreck Is Still Drinkable"

Icelandic Volcano

"What Happens When A Volcano Erupts Under A Glacier?" (Via H.R.)

Denser Data

"Computer memory that can store about one terabyte of data on a device the size of a postage stamp". (Via H.R.)

Why Smart People Fall for Fake News

Slate: "Why Smart People Fall for Fake News"

40 Maps That Explain the Roman Empire

"40 maps that explain the Roman Empire".

My favorite is this map comparing the size of Rome with the size of the continent US:

"The Roman provinces of Britain and Egypt were about as far apart as the American states of Florida and Washington. One obvious difference is that the Roman empire had the Mediterranean in the middle of it, which helped to move people and supplies over vast distances. Still, it's remarkable that emperors operating many centuries before the railroad and the telegraph — to say nothing of airplanes and the internet — were able to hold together such a vast domain for so long."

17 Impossibly Satisfying Avocado Snacks

BuzzFeed: "17 Impossibly Satisfying Avocado Snacks".

 One of the actually useful BuzzFeed posts. #9 and #14 look especially good. (Via J.S.)

Why It’s So Hard to Catch Your Own Typos

Wired: "Why It's So Hard to Catch Your Own Typos"

How Long Do CDs Last?

"How Long Do CDs Last? It Depends, But Definitely Not Forever"

This Staircase Is A Work of Art

"This Staircase Is A Work of Art".

More images here.

Police Camera Policies

Radley Balko: "Police cameras are important, but they're useless without policies to ensure they're used properly"

Immune Reset

"Reactivated Gene Sets Immune System Back 500M Years". (Via M.B.)

Computer Eyesight Gets a Lot More Accurate

NYT: "Computer Eyesight Gets a Lot More Accurate"

A Brief History of USB

Ars Technica: "A brief history of USB, what it replaced, and what has failed to replace it"

Perspective on Mining

"What All the Metal From a Single Mine Would Look Like As a Giant Orb".

Related: "18 Awe-Inspiring Aerial Images of the World's Mega Mines" (Links via H.R.)

See Through Mouse

"Clearing up anatomy with a see-through mouse".

Sexbots And Screwflies

Glenn Reynolds on sexbots, the battle of the sexes, and Screwfly Solutions.

Waterproof Kindle

TechCrunch: "This Waterproof Kindle Paperwhite Is Humanity's Greatest Achievement".

Here's where to buy one.

Prostitution and the Internet

As with music and book publishing, the Internet is also shaking up the sex trade.

Charles Schulz Draws Charlie Brown

Charles Schulz draws Charlie Brown. It only takes him 35 seconds:

Swarm of Self-Assembling Robots

"Programmable Self-Assembly in a Thousand Robot Swarm"

Space Junk

"How Much Stuff is in Orbit Around the Earth?"

Marie Curie At War

"As German Bombs Fell on Paris, Marie Curie Decided to Go to War". (Via Debby Witt.)

Stanford Biologist Explains Science Behind Captain America And Hult

"Stanford University Biologist Explains the Science Behind Captain America & the Hulk's Amazing Superpowers"

Superintelligence Book

Kottke discusses Nick Bostrom's latest book on "superintelligence".

Here's the Amazon link to hardcopy/Kindle versions.

Fishy X-Rays

Smithsonian: "A Two-Headed Shark and Other X-Rayed Beauties at the Smithsonian". (Via Debby Witt.)

What Happens If You "Like" Everything On Facebook

Wired: "I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days. Here’s What It Did to Me".

Basically, your newsfeed content gets skewed very quickly. And not in a good way.

Top 20 Technological Screw-Ups Of the 20th Century

"Top 20 Technological Screw-Ups Of the 20th Century"

Fast Camera

World's fastest camera shoots at 4.4 trillion frames per second.

New Siri AI

Wired: "Siri's Inventors Are Building a Radical New AI That Does Anything You Ask"

Extra Robotic Arms

"MIT researchers augment humans with extra robotic arms". Halfway to "Doctor Octopus" and his 8 arms!  (Via Joost Bonsen).

Identify a Bomb from 1 Kilometer Away

"Identify a Bomb from 1 Kilometer Away"

Water Tractor Beam

"Physicists create water tractor beam":

Physicists at The Australian National University have created a tractor beam on water, providing a radical new technique that could confine oil spills, manipulate floating objects or explain rips at the beach.

The group, led by Professor Michael Shats, discovered they can control water flow patterns with simple wave generators, enabling them to move floating objects at will.

“We have figured out a way of creating waves that can force a floating object to move against the direction of the wave,” said Dr Horst Punzmann, from the Research School of Physics and Engineering, who led the project...

(Via Marginal Revolution.)

Awesome YoYo Routines

A pair of awesome yoyo routines from the 2014 world championship.

Single yoyo:



Double yoyo

Precision Guided AR-15

"GUN Linux: On the range with TrackingPoint's new AR-15s"

The Most Distant Star in the Milky Way

"Far Out: The Most Distant Star in the Milky Way"

Slot Machine Psychology

"Slot-machine science: How casinos get you to spend more money".

The applied psychology is pretty impressive.  Which is not surprising, given all the money that's at stake.

New Encrypted Email Proposal

Time: "Hackers Unveil Their Plan to Change Email Forever".

Related video:

Marine Vs. Knight

"Could Modern Troops Defeat Medieval Knights in Hand-to-Hand Combat?"

Short answer: Probably not.

War in the Womb

Mother-fetus game theory: "A ferocious biological struggle between mother and baby belies any sentimental ideas we might have about pregnancy". (Via Marginal Revolution.)

Update: Link was missing, now fixed!

19th Century Physics Brainteasers

Ars Technica: "The never-ending conundrums of classical physics".

For example:

If you force air out of the sprinkler depicted here by squeezing the bulb or connect it to a hose to water your lawn, there is little doubt that, if the top part is allowed to rotate freely, it will spin in the direction indicated by the large arrow. That's opposite to the direction of the expelled fluid.

But what happens when you release the bulb and suck air back in? Or, say, immerse the contraption in a container and force water into the arms through pressure?

Since the sprinkler was first discussed by the great physicist and philosopher of science Ernst Mach in the late nineteenth century, it has periodically reappeared to challenge the intuition of physics students and Nobel prize winners alike. It is now usually referred to as “Feynman’s sprinkler,” partly as a result of the popularity of Feynman’s memoirs, where the young physicist exploded a tank full of water in Princeton’s cyclotron facility while attempting to settle the question experimentally.

When encountering this puzzle for the first time, physicists tend to think the answer is clear. About half think it’s obvious that the sprinkler will rotate counterclockwise, while the other half think it’s obvious that it won’t move at all...

(Click here for the answer.)

Sneaky New Surveillance Method

Algorithm recovers speech from vibrations of potato-chip bag filmed through soundproof glass".

Related story: "Scientists Can Now Eavesdrop By Watching a Soundless Video of a Glass of Water"

Explanatory video: "The Visual Microphone: Passive Recovery of Sound from Video":



(Via Dave J.)

Inside the Flying Quarantine Ward Used to Transport Ebola Patients

Wired: "Inside the Flying Quarantine Ward Used to Transport Ebola Patients". (Via Instapundit.)

Self-Folding Robots

Alex Knapp: "Origami Robots Fold Themselves And Walk Away"

Here's a short explanatory video:

Welcome To The Future

BuzzFeed: "22 Pictures That Prove We’re Living In The Damn Future"

AOL Profits

"AOL's only profitable because 2 million forgot to cancel their subscriptions"

IBM's Brain-Inspired Chip

Alex Knapp: "IBM Builds A Scalable Computer Chip Inspired By The Human Brain"

Working With "Stupid" People

Good advice from Jason Crawford: "How to work with 'stupid' people"

9 Design Ideas That Shaped The Web

"9 Design Ideas That Shaped The Web"

More Google Tricks

"Ten Things You Didn’t Know Google Now Could Do"

Wireless Charging, At A Distance

NYT: "Wireless Charging, at a Distance, Moves Forward for uBeam"

USB Security Flaw

Wired: "Why the Security of USB Is Fundamentally Broken"

Telegraphic Disruption

Atlantic: "In 1858, People Said the Telegraph Was 'Too Fast for the Truth'". (Via SDW.)

Dodging The Solar Bullet

Slate: "The 2012 Solar Disaster That Almost Was"

Slow Motion Supercut

"Here's a Great Supercut of Cinema's Best Slow Motion Scenes"

How Manual Transmission Works

Vintage video: "How manual transmission works"

Kids Confused By Typewriters

"Today's kids confused by old-fashioned typewriters"

EU’s ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Law Hits Wikipedia

"EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ law hits Wikipedia".

Related Guardian story: "Wikipedia link to be hidden in Google under 'right to be forgotten' law". Includes quote from Jimmy Wales, "It's completely insane and it needs to be fixed".

Times Square Tech

"How Times Square Works". (Via H.R.)

Why Correct Spelling Is Important

"37 Times When One Tiny Grammar Or Spelling Fail Ruined EVERYTHING"

Loopholes Beget Loopholes

NPR's "Planet Money" had an astonishingly good podcast on the 3 rules of taxes:

1. Taxes inevitably get more complicated.
2. The more complicated the tax, the harder people will work to avoid it.
3. When taxes get complicated enough, the only people who are both motivated and capable of following the ins and out of tax policies are the professionals (e.g., tax lawyers).

As they say, "Loopholes beget more loopholes". For more details, listen to, "How The Burrito Became A Sandwich".

GOTG Screenwriter Triumph

Great story about the screenwriter for Guardians of the Galaxy: "How Guardians Of The Galaxy Triumphed Over The Film Industry's Backwards Thinking".

Space Drive Skepticism

"Don't buy stock in impossible space drives just yet". (Via H.S.)

You Are Not Late

"You Are Not Late"