Newly Found Copy Of Declaration Of Independence

"Second Handwritten Copy of the Declaration of Independence Discovered in England". (Via H.R.)

US Senate Security Theater

US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR): "[M]ost Senate staff ID cards have a photo of a chip printed ont them, rather than a real chip."

Machine Learning For Infrastructure Management

"How Mathematicians in Chicago Are Stopping Water Leaks in Syracuse"

Influential Images

Time Magazine: The 100 Most Influential Images of All Time

Rare Color Images of World War II

"Rare Color Images of World War II"

DNA Testing For Identical Twin

Not-a-soap-opera-story: Judge rules on whether special DNA test allowed to distinguish which identical twin committed rape.

Short answer: No, the test is considered too experimental still.

NASA Images Galore

"Finally, NASA has its universe of images in one happy, searchable place". (Via H.R.)

Cheap Wine

"The Science Behind Your Cheap Wine".

Of course, if you don't want to look like a loser you can always order the "Second Cheapest Wine":

Ornery Landowners

"The World's Most Stubborn Real Estate Holdouts"

Amazon Disrupts Literary Translation Market

"Amazon expands its literary horizons, making big imprint in translation niche"

Can Criminal Intent Be Measured With Neuroimaging?

"Predicting the knowledge–recklessness distinction in the human brain".

I'm always a little bit cautious about stories discussing neuroimaging and the law. But this preliminary research looks intriguing:

This study uses neuroimaging and machine-learning techniques to reveal different brain activities correlated with these two mental states. Moreover, the study provides a proof of principle that brain imaging can determine, with high accuracy, on which side of a legally defined boundary a person's mental state lies.

AI Medicine Update

"Self-taught artificial intelligence beats doctors at predicting heart attacks"

Russian Doomsday Device

"The Soviets Made A Real Doomsday Device In The '80s And The Russians Still Have It Today".

Curiously, the USSR "Dead Hand" doomsday system may have been for the Soviet nuclear commanders' benefit:

Dead Hand, it turns out, may not have been primarily a deterrent against the Americans launching a nuclear attack against the Soviets, but rather was a Soviet-built safeguard to prevent themselves from launching a nuclear attack unnecessarily.

Science of Smiles

"There are 19 types of smile but only six are for happiness"

Genetically Modified Astronauts?

"Engineering the Perfect Astronaut"

Smart Glasses

"These Smart Glasses Automatically Adjust to Your Eyes". (Via H.R.)

Underrated Places

"The Most Underrated Place in Every State"

21st Century Annoyance

"Burger King launches TV ad that triggers Google Home"

On Wednesday, a Burger King television ad likely became the first ever to intentionally trigger smart devices like Google Home and Android phones. In the commercial, an actor faces the camera and clearly enunciates the phrase, "Okay, Google. What is the Whopper burger?" at the end of the advertisement.

Around the country, the audio clip prompted a response on a number of devices, with phones and smart speakers listing off the ingredients in the burger from the Whopper's information page on Wikipedia.

The new ad, however, was not well received by all...

This would seriously piss me off.

Existential Craigslist Furniture Ads

"These Existential Craigslist Furniture Ads Are The Best"

Magnonics

"Move Over Spintronics, Here Comes Magnonics to the Rescue of Electronics". (Via H.R.)

X-Prize "Tricorder" Winner Announced

"Self-funded team led by an ER doctor wins 'Star Trek'-inspired competition":

Harris and his team built the 65 kits required for testing with a trio of 3-D printers in his home office, each plastic part taking as long as 24 hours to fabricate and with his three children, ages 11 to 15, often overseeing sanding and wiring. HTC produced the models for Peng’s team...

The competition’s tricorder, weighing five pounds or less, has the potential to revolutionize home health care. It can tell a person whether he or she has pneumonia or diabetes or other conditions, while monitoring blood pressure, heart rate and other health vitals. Additionally, it can share real-time information with medical professionals and could help millions of patients in medically underserved communities.

The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI

MIT Technology Review: "The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI".

Shoelace Science

"Scientists can at last explain why shoelaces come undone"

Reliability of Drunk Witnesses

"Is a Drunk Witness a Bad Witness?"

Maybe not:

Most experimental research (like this study and this study and this study) has found that intoxicated eyewitnesses are actually no different from sober eyewitnesses in their account accuracy or vulnerability to distortions. One study published this year even found that consuming alcohol after witnessing a crime made witnesses more reliable, by making them less likely to accept false details given to them by the researcher...

AI Poker Update

"A Top Poker-Playing Algorithm Is Cleaning Up in China"

When Pixels Collide

Spontaneous art order: "When Pixels Collide":

For April Fool's Day, Reddit launched a little experiment. It gave its users, who are all anonymous, a blank canvas called Place.

The rules were simple. Each user could choose one pixel from 16 colors to place anywhere on the canvas. They could place as many pixels of as many colors as they wanted, but they had to wait a few minutes between placing each one.

Over the following 72 hours, what emerged was nothing short of miraculous. A collaborative artwork that shocked even its inventors...

Fascinating story of spontaneous disorder/order. (Via J.A.)

Overbooking Stats

"Don’t Blame Overbooking for This United Mess"

Inaccurate Fitness Trackers

"Your fitness tracker can count your steps, but it's not that good at monitoring your heart rate"

3 Genetic Parents Update

"A Baby With 3 Genetic Parents Seems Healthy, But Questions Remain"

Walk Out Groceries

"How Amazon Go (probably) makes 'just walk out' groceries a reality". (Via H.R.)

Gruber On Mac Pro

John Gruber (aka Daring Fireball): "The Mac Pro Lives"

Here's the opening:

Let’s not beat around the bush. I have great news to share:

Apple is currently hard at work on a “completely rethought” Mac Pro, with a modular design that can accommodate high-end CPUs and big honking hot-running GPUs, and which should make it easier for Apple to update with new components on a regular basis. They’re also working on Apple-branded pro displays to go with them.

I also have not-so-great news:

These next-gen Mac Pros and pro displays “will not ship this year”. (I hope that means “next year”, but all Apple said was “not this year”.) In the meantime, Apple is today releasing meager speed-bump updates to the existing Mac Pros...

If High School and College Textbooks Were Honest

Honest Ads: "If High School and College Textbooks Were Honest"

Vacation Foods

"Why new foods taste better when you're on vacation"

Adidas 3-D Printed Sneakers

"Adidas wants to sell 100,000 3-D printed sneakers: 'A personalized shoe that can "adjust the strength, durability, and the shape."'"

94-Year-Old Genius

NYT: "To Be a Genius, Think Like a 94-Year-Old"

(Link was broken, fixed now!)

Self-Healing Material

"Groundbreaking new material can repair itself like human skin". (Via H.R.)

Riemann Update

"A New Approach To The Riemann Hypothesis Could Be Worth $1,000,000"

Transistor Density

"Intel Now Packs 100 Million Transistors in Each Square Millimeter". (Via H.R.)

Graphene To Desalinate Seawater

"Scientists Have Invented a Graphene-Based Sieve That Turns Seawater Into Drinking Water".

Original Nature article: "Tunable sieving of ions using graphene oxide membranes". (Via J.W.)

[Off Topic] Hsieh Forbes Column: Doctors Should Not Record Immigration Status Nor Gun Ownership

[Off-topic] My latest Forbes column came out last Friday: "Doctors Should Not Record Immigration Status Nor Gun Ownership In Patient Charts".

Patients routinely disclose sensitive personal data to their physicians. Doctors can and should be mindful of information that might someday be used against their patients by unscrupulous government authorities.

In particular, with increasing use of electronic medical records that can be data-mined by those with access, physicians can help protect the doctor-patient relationship by leaving some information out of the records.

Related earlier piece, “Why Doctors Should Not Ask Their Patients About Guns.”

Circumventing Laptop Ban

"Airlines Sidestep Electronics Ban, Offer Passengers Free In-Flight Laptops and Wi-Fi"

SF, Cool War and Civil War

David Brin: "Science Fiction, Cool War and Civil War"

Light Posting Notice

Admin note: Posting may be lighter than usual next week because of external obligations.

Way Overdue Book

"Case of the purloined library book solved 35 years later"

Math Quiz

"Would You Rather Get $1 Million or $5000 a Month for Retirement?"

Of course, the correct answer depends on assumptions about rate of return. But it's a reasonable starting point for analysis.

Space Elevator Variant

"A 20-mile long 'spacescraper' dangling from an asteroid: Could it work? "

AI And New Jobs

Alex Knapp: "How Artificial Intelligence Creates New Job Opportunities"

Anti-Encryption Politics

UK government official says strong encryption is unacceptable, because it helps terrorists.

Pound Coin Update

"Britain's New Pound Coin Has 12 Sides and Foolproof Security"

Brain-Machine Interface Update

"Elon Musk is setting up a company that will link brains and computers".

Personally, I'm looking forward to that "I know kung-fu!" moment.

Musk Vs. AI

"Elon Musk's Billion-Dollar Crusade to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse"

Leaf Scaffold For Heart Tissue

"Spinach Leaf Transformed Into Beating Human Heart Tissue"

Bitcoin and Venezuela

"Venezuela has a serious food shortage, but electricity is subsidized. People are mining bitcoins because it's worthwhile to use bitcoins to buy food across the border. Bitcoin is a way for Brazillians to get around currency controls and tarriffs." (Via Metafilter.)

Chatbots That Read Your Facial Expressions

"Customer Service Chatbots Are About to Become Frighteningly Realistic"

Skateboarding on Frozen Sand

Video: "Skateboarding on frozen sand"

Surgery While Awake

"More surgery is being performed with the patient awake and looking on, for both financial and medical reasons. But as surgical patients are electing to keep their eyes wide open, doctor-patient protocol has not kept pace with the new practice."

Mars Rocket

"These Scientists Sent a Rocket to Mars for Less Than It Cost to Make 'The Martian'

Big Mammals

"How Big Can a Land Animal Get?"

Bot Language

"It Begins: Bots Are Learning to Chat in Their Own Language"

Sperm App

"Scientists develop a phone app that can track and analyze sperm"

Cooking At Your Desk

"Watch This Chinese Woman Make the Most Insane Desk Lunch Ever"

Neuroevolution

"Researchers are using Darwin's theories to evolve AI, so only the strongest algorithms survive"

Aristotle And Computers

"How Aristotle Created the Computer":

The history of computers is often told as a history of objects, from the abacus to the Babbage engine up through the code-breaking machines of World War II. In fact, it is better understood as a history of ideas, mainly ideas that emerged from mathematical logic, an obscure and cult-like discipline that first developed in the 19th century. Mathematical logic was pioneered by philosopher-mathematicians, most notably George Boole and Gottlob Frege, who were themselves inspired by Leibniz’s dream of a universal “concept language,” and the ancient logical system of Aristotle...

Pandemic Prep

NPR: "How To Prepare For A Pandemic"

Light Posting Notice

Admin note: Posting may be lighter than usual this week due to external obligations.

Test For Hidden Hearing Loss

"How well can you hear in a noisy background? Try it here":

You will be asked to repeat a series of sentences. The exercise begins in quiet, but then it will introduce background noise. The noise comes in six levels, faint at first but eventually louder than the words.

People with hearing loss start to have some trouble understanding the words at the second or third level, according to Robert Fifer, director of audiology and speech pathology at the center. That doesn’t mean that they can’t understand anything, but they show increasing difficulty understanding accurately what is said compared to someone with normal hearing abilities, he said...

Fake Friends Market

"Japanese company offers fake friends photo service to help customers look popular on social media".

The article notes:

However, there’s one weakness to such schemes that’s pretty glaring. If you don’t have enough friends to get together for a birthday party, is anyone really paying attention to your social media posts? However, Family Romance is also billing its Real Appeal service as a way to affect a specific group or individual’s perception of you. If you want your coworkers to think you’re a more sociable person than you appear to be under normal working conditions, or if you’re romantically interested in an acquaintance with whom you’ve got an online connection and want to present yourself as someone who’s fun to be around, Family Romance can help you craft images that make it look like you’re having an absolute blast on the weekends.

The Scientific Way to Cut a Cake

Numberphile: "The Scientific Way to Cut a Cake"

Numberphile on Terry Tao

Numberphile has a great profile of legendary UCLA math professor Terry Tao.

CIA Board Games

"The CIA uses board games to train officers -- and I got to play them"

Spider Silk Update

"In the Future, We'll All Wear Spider Silk"

When The Wife Likes Ikea But The Husband Doesn't

Photo gallery: "My wife and I visit IKEA again and I try to figure out why".

My favorite line: "Our other measuring spoons do not strike me as structurally unsound."

(Make sure you click the "Load 11 more images" button to see the full saga.)

DNA Computing Update

"A DNA computer has a trillion siblings and replicates itself to make a decision"

Dogs Are Good Liars

"Trick or Treat: Conniving Behavior Discovered in Dogs"

Remote 5 Star Restaurant

"Inside the Loneliest Five-Star Restaurant in the World"

Countersignalling

"The American wealthy have been redefining social status through a practice known as 'countersignaling'".

FWIW, I was wearing crappy clothing before it was cool.

Film Projection Tech

Peter Suderman: "On the fascinating history of film projection, and why it matters to your cinematic experience"

CD-ROM EOL

"Your old CD-ROMs are probably rotting"

Digital Privacy at the U.S Border

"Digital Privacy at the U.S Border: A New How-To Guide from EFF"

Reverse Turing Test Update

"Google's reCAPTCHA turns 'invisible,' will separate bots from people without challenges". (Via J.J.)

Simpler Ikea

"IKEA is going to save your relationship with new furniture that simply snaps together".

No more fighting over who lost the hex wrench!

More TSA Gropings

"U.S. Airport Pat-Downs Are About to Get More Invasive".

Basically, the TSA has determined it doesn't do a very good job looking for contraband with the x-ray machines, so it needs to do more aggressive groping of travelers.

Also from the article, "TSA officials didn’t immediately address whether the new universal pat-down protocol will mandate touching of passenger genitals."

I feel much safer now.

Chocolate Replacement?

"This Little-Known Waste Product Could Provide A Chocolate Replacement".

They can have my chocolate when they pry it from my cold dead gooey-brown covered hands.

Bad Science Reporting

"Reports Of Medical Breakthroughs Often Don't Prove Out". Key quote:

Only about half of the medical findings reported in 199 English-language newspapers actually turn out to hold up when tested in further studies, the study found. And sorry, dear reader, you're not likely to hear about those refutations.

Gene Therapy Success

BBC: "Teenager's sickle cell reversed with world-first therapy".

More details in the NEJM article: "Gene Therapy in a Patient with Sickle Cell Disease".

Good Plane

"The plane so good it’s still in production after 60 years"

DNA Encoding Update

"To make better computers, researchers turn to molecular biology"

Cursed Emerald

Wired: "The Curse of the Bahia Emerald, a Giant Green Rock That Ruins Lives"

AI Medicine Update

"Detecting Cancer Metastases on Gigapixel Pathology Images". (Via Dave Jilk.)

Rocketry Lesson In One GIF

"This Crazy Gif Shows How Fast a Rocket Has to Launch From Each Planet in the Solar System". (Via H.R.)

Amazon Shipping To Moon?

"Amazon boss Jeff Bezos wants to start delivering packages to the Moon."

If I have Amazon Prime, will it be free and within 2 days?

Glass Battery Technology

"Will a New Glass Battery Accelerate the End of Oil?" (Via H.R.)

Plasma Rocket Engine

"NASA's longshot bet on a revolutionary rocket may be about to pay off". (Via H.R.)

Human Echolocation

"Humans' Hidden Ability to Navigate the World With Tongue Clicks"

Fake WW2 Radio Show

"The Fake British Radio Show That Helped Defeat the Nazis"

Flying Cars

Flying cars are now for sale. Only $400k from Dutch company PAL-V.

Measuring Pee

"Just How Much Pee Is In That Pool?"

But up until now, just how much urine has been difficult to measure, says chemist Xing-Fang Li of the University of Alberta. Li and her colleagues report they can now tell roughly how much pee is in a pool by measuring the artificial sweeteners carried in most people's urine. Certain sweeteners can be a good proxy for pee, she says, because they're designed to "go right through you" and don't break down readily in pool water.

The scientists calculated that one 220,000-gallon, commercial-size swimming pool contained almost 20 gallons of urine. In a residential pool (20-by-40-foot, five-feet deep), that would translate to about two gallons of pee. It's only about one-hundredth of a percent, but any urine in a swimming pool can be a health concern for some people, not to mention that smell that never quite goes away...

Artificial Blood

"The quest for one of science's holy grails: artificial blood"

Back To The Moon

NYT: "SpaceX Plans to Send 2 Tourists Around Moon in 2018"

Robot Overlord Update

WSJ: "Supersmart Robots Will Outnumber Humans Within 30 Years, Says SoftBank CEO "