100 million Facebook pages leaked on torrent site

A directory containing personal details about more than 100 million Facebook users has surfaced on an Internet file-sharing site.

The 2.8GB torrent was compiled by hacker Ron Bowes of Skull Security, who created a web crawler program that harvested data on users contained in Facebook's open access directory, which lists all users who haven't bothered to change their privacy settings to make their pages unavailable to search engines.

Bowes' directory contains 171 million entries, relating to more than 100 million individual users - more than one in five of Facebook's recently trumpeted half billion user base.

http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/7/28/100-million-facebook-pages-leaked-torrent-site/

Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future’ of Web Monitoring

The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future.

The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents — both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine “goes beyond search” by “looking at the ‘invisible links’ between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.”

The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online “momentum” for any given event.


http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/exclusive-google-cia/

Whoohoo! - WND Obama pal filing rash of media lawsuits?

A company working on behalf of a Las Vegas newspaper has filed a spate of copyright-infringement lawsuits against as many as 80 individuals and publications since March, and now bloggers reveal the CEO may have crossed paths with Barack and Michelle Obama during their stints at a Chicago law firm.

According to Wired.com, copyright group Righthaven has filed more than 80 federal lawsuits against websites and bloggers who posted articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Wired.com has described the copyright suits as a new "business plan."

The media site said the strategy is to "monetize news content on the backend, by scouring the Internet for infringing copies … then suing and relying on the harsh penalties in the Copyright Act … to compel quick settlements."

According to his online work profile, Steven A. Gibson, CEO of Righthaven, studied law at the Chicago-Kent University of Law and graduated with honors in 1990. The Godlike Productions blog noted Gibson worked as an associate at corporate law firm Sidley Austin LLP – the Chicago firm where Obama met his wife.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=185293

Anthony Weiner Rips Apart Republicans on 9/11Health Bill

The Acroban Humanoid

Parkour 2.0

Catalonia bans bullfighting in landmark Spain vote

The parliament of Catalonia has voted to ban bullfighting - the first region of mainland Spain to do so.

The vote took place as the result of a petition brought to parliament, signed by 180,000 people who say the practice is barbaric and outdated.

Bullfight supporters insist that the corrida, as it is known, is an important tradition to preserve.

They also fear the vote could be the first of many in the country. The ban takes effect in January 2012.

In Wednesday's vote, 68 backed a ban, 55 voted against and nine abstained.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10784611

Intel develops first photonics-based, 50Gbps chip

Intel provided a peek at the future of processors today by revealing the first instance of a chip using complete photonics to send data. Four lasers in the prototype convert light into data at about 50Gbps, or "many" times faster than wired connections. The rate, about 6.25GB per second, would be enough to send an entire 720p movie in one second.

The technology could improve chips themselves but could be particularly useful for when large amounts of data need to be spread over a similarly large area, such as video walls or supercomputers.


http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/07/27/intel.chip.uses.lasers.to.hit.record.speeds/

(Prelude!) Blast hits oil tanker in Persian Gulf July 28, 2010

An explosion, possibly caused by an attack, damaged an oil tanker on Wednesday near the mouth of the Persian Gulf, Japanese shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines said.

The company said the blast on its tanker M. Star caused one minor injury, but did not cause an oil leak.

The ship was damaged due to "an explosion from a suspected attack from the outside" in the waters off Oman, near the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, the company said.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/blast-hits-oil-tanker-in-persian-gulf-20100728-10vvu.html

Earth watch center established in UK

An Earth watch center will be established in the UK in order to monitor earth's climate change, pollution variation, and natural disasters.

The center will be established in Oxfordshire at the Earth Observation Hub at Harwell with a budget of £5m.

“The Earth Observation Hub will help UK scientists make the most of the wealth of information we're collecting about our planet, in vital areas such as monitoring the effects of climate change, so we can respond quickly to natural disasters around the world,” said UK's Science Minister David Willetts said at the Farnborough Airshow on Thursday.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=135929§ionid=3510208

'US psywar plan includes 2 hot wars'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the United States and Israel plan to attack two countries in the Middle East as part of a conspiracy to apply pressure on Iran.

"We have precise information that the Americans have devised a plot, according to which they seek to launch a psychological war on Iran," Ahmadinejad stated in an exclusive interview with Press TV on Monday.

"They plan to attack at least two countries in the region within the next three months," he added.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=136359§ionid=351020101

Apple Magic Trackpad!

Space Weather

"Standing on the summit of Mount Lawu, 3265m above sea level on July 21st, I was treated to one of the most beautiful views of my life," reports Jia Hao of Java, Indonesia. "With reknowed Mount Merapi and Mount Merbabu soaked in twilight colors and city lights from Solo shining like stars, four of the major planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn lined up in a row above western horizon."



"The whole scene was simply surreal," he says, "and it did a much better job taking my breath away than the high altitude!"

Readers, take a deep breath, because this scene is about to get even better. Venus, Mars and Saturn are converging for a rare three-way conjunction in August. The show reaches its peak on August 12th and 13th when the crescent Moon joins them for a sunset gathering of surpassing beauty.

Plastic Bottles

Plastic Bottle Island



The Plastiki, which contains 12,500 recycled bottles + David de Rothschild, arrives in Sydney after crossing the Pacific.

Blind could be cured by stem cells grown in contact lenses, claim scientists

Researchers say the world breakthrough can "dramatically improve" the sight of patients with damage to their cornea – the clear outer shell of the eye – caused by disease or injury.

The effect is achieved within weeks, at little cost, little surgery as well as minimal hospital stay, say the scientists.

If early findings bear out then the treatment could be affective for thousands of patients in Britain and is so cheap it could be used for millions more in the Third World.

"We are very excited by this technique, " said Dr Nick Di Girolamo, lead researcher from the University of New South Wales in Australia. "The procedure is totally simple and cheap."

The research team removed tissue with regenerative stem cells from patients' own eyes and then multiplied them in the laboratory on the surface of a contact lens.

This was then placed back onto the damaged cornea for 10 days, during which the cells, which can turn into any other sort of cell, were able to recolonise and "patch" the damaged eye surface.

Within weeks the patients saw dramatic improvements in their vision.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5395062/Blind-could-be-cured-by-stem-cells-grown-in-contact-lenses-claim-scientists.html

Clint!

BP photo shop over Oil Spill

http://www.americablog.com/2010/07/bp-photoshops-fake-photo-of-command.html

http://www.americablog.com/2010/07/bp-fakes-another-oil-spill-photo-this.html

Why does the meta data show that the photo was actually taken on March 6, 2001? Or is BP next going to tell us that their professional photographer has never set the time and date stamp on his multi-thousand dollar camera?

The Illusion of Gravity

Erik Verlinde, a string theorist and professor of physics at the University of Amsterdam, is shaking the giant box of contemporary science, jumbling what we think we know by declaring that gravity is just an illusion.

Gravity, according to Verlinde, is a microcosmic byproduct of a larger entropic force, which is just one refracted face of a larger field of illusion, much like the Hindu Maya. In physics, entropy and entropic force are determined by the overall effect--the entire landscape--and not by one microscopic path. Verlinde references the standard example in physics of a polymer molecule. "a strand of DNA…curling up." A strand is unique because it offers only one possibility out of the whole realm of possibilities. But due to the infinite nature of outside influences in a macrocosmic entirety, the results are far more probable that the force will cause the "object" to curl and accumulate higher entropic force, like an absorbed sponge or coiled spring.

And that is where the effects of "gravity" come in: gravity is not just one direct acting force onto a particular object, an A>B scenario, but rather the notion of "gravity" is an accumulation of macrocosmic influences, where the law of averages create the propensity for acting entropic force.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/illusionary_story_gravity

Shattering Subconscious Isolation: Inception, Lucid Dreaming and the Collective Unconscious

The upcoming sci-fi movie thriller by Christopher Nolan, Inception, raises many fascinating questions that experienced lucid dreamers (those who become consciously aware of dreaming while in the dream state) have wrestled with for decades:

- If you become consciously aware of dreaming, can you lucidly enter another's dream, or bring them into your dream?

- If they share unknown information with you, would this provide evidence for a shared or mutual dream?

- And if that information proves to be valid, what does that say about the nature of reality?

- Do dreaming minds have access to an individual or collective unconscious where they share information?

The plot of Inception portrays a talented lucid dreamer, who brings unsuspecting dreamers into a mutual dream environment and then "extracts" information from his or her subconscious. The lucid dreamers in Inception rely on a special machine, PASIV and a special drug, Somnacin, to achieve a stable lucid dream realm and enact their underhanded (or under-minded) deeds.

Inception's basic premise resonates with many experienced lucid dreamers who have empirically investigated these questions of gathering information and interacting in an apparent shared or mutual dream. Though complex, the simple answer to the above questions appears to be "Yes. Lucid dreamers have provided numerous instances of acquiring unknown information while consciously aware in the dream state."


Read the entire article.


-------------------------------------

Developers Say Lunar Elevator Could be Built Within a Decade

The idea of a space elevator has been around since the late 1800's, but despite big dreams and years of research, the low-cost, easy access to orbit that a space elevator promises is likely still decades away. The biggest problem rests on the fact that no one has been able to successfully manufacture long ribbons made of ultra-light, ultra-strong carbon nanotubes, the only known material that is strong enough for a space elevator. But entrepreneur Michael Laine believes a lunar elevator – a space elevator from the surface of the Moon – could be created with materials that are available now. With more research and the right amount of capital, Laine says a lunar elevator could be built within a decade.

While Laine said he is still "emotionally very invested" in the concept of a space elevator based on Earth, for now he has shifted his focus to the lunar elevator. "There was a question of where was I going to put my time," he told Universe Today, "and being able to do this soon – perhaps within 5-7 years and not some mythic 15-25 years in the future is enticing."

Since the Moon's gravity is only one sixth that of Earth, it drastically reduces the requirements of the ribbon. A material that is available now, a synthetic polymer material called Zylon (poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) which has high strength and excellent thermal stability, could be used.

http://www.universetoday.com/2010/07/19/developers-say-lunar-elevator-could-be-built-within-a-decade/

China oil spill doubles in size, is deemed 'severe threat'

BEIJING — China's largest reported oil spill more than doubled in size to 165 square miles by Wednesday, forcing nearby beaches to close and prompting one official to warn of a "severe threat" to sea life and water quality.

The oil slick started spreading five days ago when a pipeline at a busy northeastern port exploded, sparking a massive fire that took more than 15 hours to contain. Hundreds of boats have been deployed to help with the cleanup.

At least one person has been killed in those efforts, a 25-year-old firefighter, Zhang Liang, who drowned Tuesday after a wave threw him from a vessel and pushed him out to sea, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. Another man who also fell in was rescued.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38337393/ns/world_news-world_environment/

Monkey See, Monkey Do: The Media Made me do "it"

"Teens who prefer popular songs with degrading sexual references are more likely to engage in intercourse or in pre-coital activities, U.S. researchers say.

Dr. Brian A. Primack of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine says the study demonstrates that, among this sample of young adolescents, high exposure to lyrics describing degrading sex in popular music was independently associated with higher levels of sexual behavior. In fact, exposure to lyrics describing degrading sex was one of the strongest associations with sexual activity.

Surveys were completed by 711 ninth-grade students at three large U.S. urban high schools. The participants were exposed to more than 14 hours each week of lyrics describing degrading sex. About one-third said they had previously been sexually active.

The study, scheduled to be published in the April issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, says those with the most exposure to the lyrics describing degrading sex were more than twice as likely to have had sexual intercourse, compared to those with the least exposure."

Monkey's see Monkey's do. Real Hu-man's think things through.

Thanx! For letting us sell your info... :)

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Bioluminescent Organisms Light Up Russian Caves

Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism. Bioluminescence is a naturally occurring form of chemiluminescence where energy is released by a chemical reaction in the form of light emission. Some creatures produce the chemicals luciferin (a pigment) and luciferase (an enzyme). The luceferin reacts with oxygen to create light. The luciferase acts as a catalyst to speed up the reaction, which is sometimes mediated by cofactors such as calcium ions or ATP. The chemical reaction can occur either inside or outside the cell. In bacteria, the expression of genes related to bioluminescence is controlled by an operon called the Lux operon. Based on its diversity and phylogenetic distribution, it is estimated that bioluminescence has arisen independently as many as 30 times in the course of evolution.



The Vibrionaceae are a family of Proteobacteria, given their own order. Most bioluminescent bacteria belong to this family, and are typically found as symbiotes of deep-sea animals. Bioluminescence is most common in living creatures that has an habitat in pitch black darkness. Eerie white to blue-green bioluminescent bacteria and fungi is seen in the images of a cave in Russia.

http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2010/07/amazing-bioluminescent-organism-light.html



--------------------------------------------
Bioluminescence, the emission of light from a living organism, is demonstrated by the comb jellyfish shown here. This emission also occurs in bacteria, dinoflagellates, fungi, and in many kinds of animals including insects, and fish. Specialized structures called photophores are found on the surface of a bioluminescent organism. The photophores contain the molecule luciferin and the enzyme luciferase, which act together in a cycle to emit flashes of light. Bioluminescence serves a variety of functions. It can be used to attract prey, disguise an organism from a predator, signal a mating partner, or act as a flashlight in the murky depths of the ocean.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2007. © 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

EU to hold atheist and freemason summit

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Brussels is to hold an EU summit with atheists and freemasons in the autumn, inviting them to a political dialogue parallel to the annual summit the bloc holds with Europe's religious leaders.

While the EU is a secular body, the three European presidents, of the commission, parliament and EU Council, alongside two commissioners, on Monday met with 24 bishops, chief rabbis, and muftis as well as leaders from the Hindu and Sikh communities. The annual dialogue, which has taken place since 2005, is for the first time this year made legally obligatory under Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Under pressure from Belgium, which constitutionally protects and financially supports humanist organisations as well as churches, the EU has been forced to hold a mirror-image summit, but of atheists, scheduled for 15 October.

However, in a move that perplexed and annoyed humanist groups, the EU atheist summit will also welcome under the rubric of ‘non-religious groups', the Freemasons, the secretive fraternal organisation, according to commission spokeswoman Katharina von Schnurbein.

http://euobserver.com/9/30506

Ocean Death - Thousands of dead animals washing up on shores of Western Hemisphere

Hundreds of dead penguins wash up on Brazil shores
"The Institute of Environment and Natural Resources said 530 penguins, numerous other sea birds, five dolphins and three giant sea turtles have been found in the coastal towns of Peruibe, Praia Grande and Itanhaem, with more likely on other nearby beaches."
[link to www.google.com]


Marine biologists trying to determine what caused fish kill
"Marine biologists are trying to determine what caused the death of hundreds of thousands of menhaden that washed ashore Monday in Gulfport near Jones Park [in Mississippi]."
[link to www.wreg.com]

2010 Millions of SeaShells appearing on Pakistani Beaches



Hundreds of dead carp on Long Lake near Spokane
"Washington state Ecology and Fish and Wildlife officials say the recent die-off of hundreds of carp in Long Lake near Spokane may be a natural occurrence. State health authorities say it's not a human health emergency."
[link to www.seattlepi.com]

The networked soldier

Debi Dawson, from Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier, discusses the advantages of both the state-of-the-art Land Warrior system and improved body armour.

Soldiers will often enter unfamiliar territory. While locking it down, they lose sight of one another. In urban terrains, the enemy might be anywhere, and the situation could get dangerously confusing. It's a typical situation and anything but a welcome one.

During the past year, soldiers with US Army 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment (also known as the 4-9 or 'Manchus') have faced this and other challenges of asymmetric warfare head-on with unprecedented battle command and tactical awareness, thanks to Land Warrior.

Land Warrior is a modular fighting system that uses state-of-the-art computer, communications, and global positioning technologies to digitally link soldiers on the battlefield. The system is integrated into the soldier's body armour vest and has a helmet-mounted display. A handheld device operates much like a mouse, controlling drop-down menus and icons, and also provides push-to-talk and call-for-medic capabilities.

http://www.defencemanagement.com/article.asp?id=354&content_name=Land&article=10775

Gang Stealing Just Over $5.3 Million Dollars In A Swedish Helicopter Heist

Sony 360-Degree Autostereoscopic Display Prototype

Meanwhile, in the USA

Winscape Intro

Winscape features include:

1.

•Custom Winscape software with configurable screen parameters
2.

•Two HD plasma displays for great contrast and wide viewing angles
3.

•Video playback resolution of 1920x1080 with sound
4.

•Still-image resolution of 4096x4096
5.

•Fully embedded in the wall for aesthetics and silent operation
6.

•Tracking of one person in the room for proper perspective presentation
7.

•Scheduled on/off
8.

•iPhone and web control of sleep/wake/scene selection

http://www.rationalcraft.com/Winscape.html



Breakfast scene from Total Recall (1990)

Revealed: brutal guide to punishing jailed youths

Shocking details of techniques used to inflict pain deliberately on children in privately run jails have been revealed for the first time in a government document obtained by the Observer.

Some of the restraint and self-defence measures approved by the Ministry of Justice include ramming knuckles into ribs and raking shoes down the shins. Other extraordinary passages in the previously secret manual, Physical Control in Care, authorise staff to:

■ "Use an inverted knuckle into the trainee's sternum and drive inward and upward."

■ "Continue to carry alternate elbow strikes to the young person's ribs until a release is achieved."

■ "Drive straight fingers into the young person's face, and then quickly drive the straightened fingers of the same hand downwards into the young person's groin area."

The disclosure of the prison service manual follows a five-year freedom of information battle. The manual was condemned last night by campaigners as "state authorisation of institutionalised child abuse".

Published by the HM Prison Service in 2005 and classified as a restricted government document, the manual guides staff on what restraint and self-defence techniques are authorised for use on children as young as 12 in secure training centres. The centres are purpose-built facilities for young offenders up to the age of 17 and run by private firms under government contracts.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/18/guide-punishing-jailed-youths

A hidden world, growing beyond control

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation's other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/







------------------------


WaPo Will Commit Treason Monday/National Security Staff Warned

Our constitutional rights are being trampled sixteen different ways every day by the Obama administration, the government has made it a felony to cover the Gulf Oil spill too closely, the president may have perjured himself in the Blago investigation, but never mind trying to cover all those worthy news stories: the Washington Post thinks it has found some national security secrets, so it’s going to blabber them all over its newspaper starting Monday—reportedly, complete with an interactive website linking jobs, codenames and missions.

Quinn Hillyer at Washington Times found out Friday. He prints a warning letter which has gone out from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, telling them to do whatever necessary to protect staff in sensitive positions.

http://www.uncoverage.net/2010/07/wapo-will-commit-treason-mondaynational-security-staff-warned/

King Tut's DNA Unwrapped - 99.6 % match with Western European Y chromosomes

Despite the refusal of the Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, to release any DNA results which might indicate the racial ancestry of Pharaoh Tutankhamen, the leaked results reveal that King Tut’s DNA is a 99.6 percent match with Western European Y chromosomes.

The DNA test results were inadvertently revealed on a Discovery Channel TV documentary filmed with Hawass’s permission — but it seems as if the Egyptian failed to spot the giveaway part of the documentary which revealed the test results.

Hawass previously announced that he would not release the racial DNA results of Egyptian mummies — obviously because he feared the consequences of such a revelation.



http://www.eutimes.net/2010/06/king-tuts-dna-is-western-european/

Augmented reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality.











How Augmented Reality Works

On the right way to Minority Report

:)

The Genocide Behind Your Smart Phone

It takes a lot to snap people out of apathy about Africa’s problems. But in the wake of Live Aid and Save Darfur, a new cause stands on the cusp of going mainstream. It’s the push to make major electronics companies (manufacturers of cell phones, laptops, portable music players, and cameras) disclose whether they use “conflict minerals”—the rare metals that finance civil wars and militia atrocities, most notably in Congo.

The issue of ethical sourcing has long galvanized human-rights groups. In Liberia, Angola, and Sierra Leone, the notorious trade in “blood diamonds” helped fund rebel insurgencies. In Guinea, bauxite sustains a repressive military junta. And fair-labor groups have spent decades documenting the foreign sweatshops that sometimes supply American clothing stores. Yet Congo raises especially disturbing issues for famous tech brand names that fancy themselves responsible corporate citizens.

Congo is a classic victim of the resource curse. Its bountiful deposits—in everything from copper to diamonds—are brazenly plundered by corrupt governments and regional warlords while the population goes without basic services. Today, most violence—including mass rape, slavery, mutilation, and possibly even forced cannibalism—is concentrated in the war-ravaged eastern Kivu provinces, where the Congolese Army and ethnic militias bludgeon each other over the right to trade in mineral ore. One study estimates 5.4 million people have been killed since 1998; 45,000 fatalities still occur each month. Infant mortality and death from HIV/AIDS are also rampant—Congo ranks 16th and sixth-highest in the world, respectively, on these measures.




http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/16/the-genocide-behind-your-smart-phone.html

Sinkholes

US fears Gulf seabed oil seepage near stricken BP well

The US fears oil may be seeping from the ocean floor near the stricken Gulf of Mexico oil well.

The official in charge of the clean-up, Thad Allen, said if a substance leaking from the seabed was found to be methane this might mean oil was also leaking.

He ordered BP to submit a plan to reopen the capped well if the seepage was confirmed, so that oil could be funnelled to the surface.

But BP says it would take three days to start this process.

During this time, the daily leakage of tens of thousands of barrels of oil, which had been capped last Thursday, could resume.

The well began leaking oil into the Gulf after BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on 20 April, killing 11 workers, and capsized two days later.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10679973

Classic parkour from the 1930's

Touchable Holography

Ultrasound...now it doesnt just form in your head. It can move it.

Samsung 3D projection

Modern Masks

http://www.spfxmasks.com/

Suitcase Stickers

Make a stand against monotonous travel with Suitcase Stickers. Designed to stick to anything, they will draw attention to your bag making it easily identifiable and sure to make you some new friends.

Caution: Some of these stickers may cause offense to airport and immigration staff. But you would have figured that out whilst enjoying those cavity searches.

http://thecheeky.com/?p=22

FRANCE: Riots in Grenoble after man killed by police

Grenoble was hit by riots early on Saturday after a man accused of robbing a casino was killed by police. Cars and businesses were set alight in the south eastern French city, while young people attacked a tram. A police spokesperson said shots had been fired at police who returned fire four times.

Around 2.30am a youth appeared at the front of the group of rioters and fired a shot at police, who returned fire, police spokesperson Brigette Jullien told the AFP news agency.

Between 50 and 60 cars were torched by rioters, while shortly before midnight about 30 youths armed with baseball bats and iron bars attacked a tram in the La Villeneuve district and forced the passengers off. Police responded with tear gas.

Nobody was injured in the riots. The police said they made five arrests, two for setting fire to vehicles, and three for looting.

The incident started after a memorial service for Karim Boudouda who was killed 24 hours earlier during exchanges of gunfire with police. He was allegedly trying to hold up the Uriage-Les-Bains casino, near Grenoble.

Boudouda’s alleged accomplice escaped during the shootout and police found between 20,000 and 40,000 euros in the back of the getaway car.

The police acted in a legitimate way, according to prosecutor Jean Philippe. They fired in self-defense after being fired on at least three times, he said.


http://www.heralddeparis.com/france-riots-in-grenoble-after-man-killed-by-police-2/98872

Record Collapse of Earth's Upper Atmosphere Puzzles Scientists

An upper layer of Earth's atmosphere recently collapsed in an unexpectedly large contraction, the sheer size of which has scientists scratching their heads, NASA announced Thursday.

The layer of gas – called the thermosphere – is now rebounding again. This type of collapse is not rare, but its magnitude shocked scientists.

"This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years," said John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "It's a Space Age record."

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/puzzling-collapse-earth-atmosphere-100715.html

3 Fake FBI Agents Try To Break, Homeowner Not Fooled, Starts Shooting :)

three men impersonating FBI agents tried to break into a Cooper City, Florida home Monday (July 11). Two of the men wearing T-shirts with the letters 'FBI' on the back tried to gain entry through the front door using a crowbar while the other one acted as a look out,

After failing to get in through the front door the men moved to a window attempting to open it, but the homeowner wasn't having it.

He realized they were not a law enforcement and started letting off shots from a .40 caliber Smith and Wesson through the window.

Which scared the fake agents so the fled to a waiting SUV, lucky to escape

The family's home security cameras caught all of the action.



http://www.justnews.com/news/24256092/detail.html

The music industry exposed - Destroying DMX

Solar Eclipse 2010

Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Warning Parents About I-Dosing

Amateur unearths 52,000 Roman coins worth $1m

Athens 2004(!) Opening Ceremony Hologram

Gangland: Clash Of The Crips

Chinese airport closed after fiery UFO is spotted flying over city

A Chinese airport was closed after this mysterious object was spotted in the sky.

Arcing over Zhejiang's provincial capital Hangzhou, the UFO appeared to glow with an eerie white light and left a bright trail in its wake.

Xiaoshan Airport was closed after the UFO was detected at around 9 pm and dozens of flights had to be diverted.

Stunned witnesses reported seeing a comet-like fireball in the sky and a number of local residents took photos of the strange ball of light.

A local bus driver, giving his name only as Yu, said he had seen a strange glowing object in the sky late on Wednesday afternoon.

'The thing suddenly ran westwards fast, like it was escaping from something,' he said.

Inbound flights were diverted to nearby airports while outbound flights were delayed for three to four hours.

Some Chinese experts claimed that the strange sight was actually debris from a US intercontinental ballistic missile.

Chinese officials later said that they knew what the object had been but were unable to make it public because there was a 'military connection.'

An official statement is expected later today.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1293395/Chinese-airport-closed-UFO-spotted-city.html



Hologram??...

Google Secretly Invested $100+ Million In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games

Google has quietly (secretly, one might say) invested somewhere between $100 million and $200 million in social gaming behemoth Zynga, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. The company has raised somewhere around half a billion dollars in venture capital in the last year alone, including $150 million from Softbank Capital last month and $180 million late last year from Digital Sky Technologies, Tiger Global, Institutional Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. The Softbank announcement was never officially confirmed by the company, however, and the Google investment was likely part of that deal as well.

The investment part of the deal closed a month ago or so. A larger strategic partnership is still in process.

The investment was made by Google itself, not Google Ventures, say our sources, and it’s a highly strategic deal. Zynga will be the cornerstone of a new Google Games to launch later this year, say multiple sources. Not only will Zynga’s games give Google Games a solid base of social games to build on, but it will also give Google the beginning of a true social graph as users log into Google to play the games. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see PayPal being replaced with Google Checkout as the primary payment option. Zynga is supposedly PayPal’s biggest single customer, and Google is always looking for ways to make Google Checkout relevant.

And there’s more. These same sources are saying that Zynga’s revenues for the first half of 2010 will be a stunning $350 million, half of which is operating profit. Zynga is projecting at least $1.0 billion in revenue in 2011, say our sources. This blows previous estimates out of the water.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/10/google-secretly-invested-100-million-in-zynga-preparing-to-launch-google-games/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

1st Implantable Telescope For Vision Cleared By FDA

WASHINGTON — U.S. health officials have approved a first-of-its-kind technology to counter a leading cause of blindness in older adults – a tiny telescope implanted inside the eye.

The Implantable Miniature Telescope aims to help in the end stages of incurable age-related macular degeneration, a creeping loss of central vision that blocks reading, watching TV, eventually even recognizing faces.

The idea: Surgically insert the Implantable Miniature Telescope into one eye for better central vision, while leaving the other eye alone to provide peripheral vision. The brain must fuse two views into a single image, and the Food and Drug Administration warned Tuesday that patients need post-surgery rehabilitation to make it work.

There's little to help such advanced patients today aside from difficult-to-use handheld or glasses-mounted telescopes, while the new implanted telescope – smaller than a pea – can improve quality of life for the right candidate, said Dr. Malvina Eydelman, FDA's ophthalmic devices chief.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/07/implantable-telescope_n_637667.html

Woman 'wakes up' with foreign accent

Bronwyn Fox knows where she is from but has no idea where her accent originated.

The Invercargill woman believes she has foreign accent syndrome – a rare condition believed to be caused by damage to the part of the brain that controls speech.

Fewer than 100 people in the world have been officially documented as suffering from the syndrome, which leaves them speaking with an alien accent.

In the case of Mrs Fox, it is a mixture of Welsh, Scottish and North London accents.

"People say `where do you come from?' And I say 'Winton' and they say `no, no but where are you from originally?'," she said yesterday in her thick accent.

"It's very hard for people to realise it's come from my head."

Mrs Fox has suffered from multiple sclerosis for the past 25 years but always spoke with a Kiwi accent until about two years ago when she woke up one day and could not see.

A subsequent MRI showed two lesions on the back of her brain.

At the same time, her family noticed her speech began to change until it became standard for her to speak in her new accent.

"My sister who lives in Hamilton, I rang her and I was talking to her on the phone and she didn't know it was me, and when my best friend rang from Christchurch she hung up."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/3911551/Woman-wakes-up-with-foreign-accent

Bimbo 101

Photoshop for video's.... This even works with Live shots ;)

All that was needed was 2 photos of Loch Ness and a video of a random pond...

With magnetic nanoparticles, scientists remotely control neurons and animal behavior

Clusters of heated, magnetic nanoparticles targeted to cell membranes can remotely control ion channels, neurons and even animal behavior, according to a paper published by University at Buffalo physicists in Nature Nanotechnology. The research could have broad application, potentially resulting in innovative cancer treatments that remotely manipulate selected proteins or cells in specific tissues, or improved diabetes therapies that remotely stimulate pancreatic cells to release insulin.

The work also could be applied to the development of new therapies for some neurological disorders, which result from insufficient neuro-stimulation.

"By developing a method that allows us to use magnetic fields to stimulate cells both in vitro and in vivo, this research will help us unravel the signaling networks that control animal behavior," says Arnd Pralle, PhD, assistant professor of physics in the UB College of Arts and Sciences and senior/corresponding author on the paper.

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/07/06/with.magnetic.nanoparticles.scientists.remotely.control.neurons.and.animal.behavior

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Remote stimulation of cells has potential

BUFFALO, N.Y., July 7 (UPI) -- Heated magnetic nanoparticles aimed at cell membranes can control ion channels, neurons and even an animal's behavior, U.S. physicists found.

The research has applications beyond making worms reverse course -- as University of Buffalo physicists found -- potentially leading to innovative cancer treatments, improved diabetes therapies or even development of new therapies for some neurological disorders, the university said Tuesday in a news release.

"By developing a method that allows us to use magnetic fields to stimulate cells both in vitro and in vivo, this research will help us unravel the signaling networks that control animal behavior," said Arnd Pralle, assistant professor of physics in the university's College of Arts and Sciences and senior corresponding author of the paper published in the latest issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

Researchers said their method could open calcium ion channels, activate neurons in cell culture and manipulate movements of a tiny nematode, Pralle said.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2010/07/07/Remote-stimulation-of-cells-has-potential/UPI-58911278532931/

Military Use of Silent Sound

Judy Wall 1998

PSY-OPS WEAPONRY USED IN THE PERSIAN GULF WAR

See also another article on this site.

For years, rumours have persisted that the United States Department
of Defense has been engaged in research and development of
ultra-sophisticated mind- altering technology. Confirmation of this
came to me recently in the form of two ITV News Bureau Ltd (London)
wire service bulletins.

The March 23, 1991 newsbrief, "High-Tech Psychological Warfare
Arrives in the Middle East", describes a US Psychological
Operations (PsyOps) tactic directed against Iraqi troops in Kuwait
during Operation Desert Storm. The manoeuvre consisted of a system
in which subliminal mind-altering technology was carried on
standard radiofrequency broadcasts. The March 26, 1991 newsbrief
states that among the standard military planning groups in the
centre of US war planning operations at Riyadh was "an unbelievable
and highly classified PsyOps program utilising 'silent sound'
techniques".

The opportunity to use this method occurred when Saddam Hussein's
military command-and-control system was destroyed. The Iraqi troops
were then forced to use commercial FM radio stations to carry
encoded commands, which were broadcast on the 100 MHz frequency.
The US PsyOps team set up its own portable FM transmitter,
utilising the same frequency, in the deserted city of Al Khafji.
This US transmitter overpowered the local Iraqi station. Along with
patriotic and religious music, PsyOps transmitted "vague, confusing
and contradictory military orders and information".

Subliminally, a much more powerful technology was at work: a
sophisticated electronic system to 'speak' directly to the mind of
the listener, to alter and entrain his brainwaves, to manipulate
his brain's electroencephalograph ic (EEG) patterns and
artificially implant negative emotional states-feelings of fear,
anxiety, despair and hopelessness. This subliminal system doesn't
just tell a person to feel an emotion, it makes them feel it; it
implants that emotion in their minds.

http://www.raven1.net/silsoun2.htm

United States Patent 6,587,729 - Direct Sound/ Voice-to-Skull

A modulation process with a fully suppressed carrier and input preprocessor filtering to produce an encoded output; for amplitude modulation (AM) and audio speech preprocessor filtering, intelligible subjective sound is produced when the encoded signal is demodulated using the RF Hearing Effect. Suitable forms of carrier suppressed modulation include single sideband (SSB) and carrier suppressed amplitude modulation (CSAM), with both sidebands present.

http://www.raven1.net/6587729.htm

"Als men de snelle vorderingen in de elektromagnetische en psychotronische controle technologie bekijkt, is deze trend om masten te verbergen nogal sinister. Als wetenschappers er in kunnen slagen de menselijke spraak in de hersenen van doven te projecteren, zoals Dr. Joseph C. Sharp van het Walter Reed Army Institute voor wetenschap deed in 1974, denk dan eens aan wat ze nu kunnen..."

Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

Studies have found that upon entering an office, people behave more competitively when they see a sharp leather briefcase on the desk, they talk more softly when there is a picture of a library on the wall, and they keep their desk tidier when there is a vague scent of cleaning agent in the air. But none of them are consciously aware of the influence of their environment.

There may be few things more fundamental to human identity than the belief that people are rational individuals whose behavior is determined by conscious choices. But recently psychologists have compiled an impressive body of research that shows how deeply our decisions and behavior are influenced by unconscious thought, and how greatly those thoughts are swayed by stimuli beyond our immediate comprehension.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2000994,00.html


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So is free will really just an illusion? (To most people it is.)

What does it mean to be human, to be in control of one's own mind?

What is the nature of consciousness, the mysterious property of self-awareness that we all have and yet which no scientist understands?

Is there any such thing as free will, or are our minds at the mercy of some unknown force?

These are the fundamental questions that have perplexed philosophers and, increasingly, scientists for centuries.

Until recently they seemed utterly unfathomable; after all, how do you test for something like free will in the laboratory?

But now science is coming up with some fascinating - and deeply uncomfortable - answers.

This week, for instance, Professor John-Dylan Haynes and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in Germany report the findings of an extraordinary experiment which seems to show that "free will" - the most cherished tenet of humanity, which decrees that Man has total control of his own actions - may, in fact, be little more than an illusion.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1015690/So-free-really-just-illusion.html

"If studies have shown top tennis stars like Roger Federer can perform without conscious thought, can killers like Reggie Kray be held responsible for their actions if performed unconsciously?"


And again: Derren Brown - Mind Control And Subliminal Advertising

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjueOXCy3OM

Law VS Law: Cop At Home Has Persistent Census Worker Arrested

Census worker Russell Haas has come to expect a little resistance when he goes door to door to count the residents of the rugged communities near Hawaii's Kilauea volcano. He didn't expect to get arrested.

An attempt to get one resident, a county police officer, to fill out Census forms landed Haas in the back of a patrol car with a trespassing charge.

When the case goes to U.S. District Court on July 22, Hawaii County Deputy Prosecutor Roland Talon will argue that Haas overstepped his authority by opening the resident's unlocked fence, entering his property and refusing to leave until he had been asked several times.

"There were other measures that he could have taken which would not have risen to the level of him trespassing onto the property," Talon said in an interview.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Butrick claims Haas is protected by the U.S. Constitution for actions taken in his capacity as a federal employee. Butrick filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the case.

http://cbs5.com/watercooler/Census.worker.arrested.2.1788642.html

What does 130 million gallons of oil floating in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill look like?

The latest satellite images from the International Space Station (ISS) help us answer the question.



BP admitted yesterday that much more oil was coming from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig then it previously estimated.

Independent scientists say that about 100,000 barrels of oil per day are leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.

Those number look more accurate than ever after BP acknowledges that it was now capturing 5,000 barrels per day using its siphon device and it hasn’t even put a dent into the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.

Over the 31 days since the oil began leaking 3.1 million barrels of oil have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, given an oil spill rate of 100,000 barrels barrels per day.

At 42 gallons per barrel, that puts the total amount of oil floating in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill at over 130,000,000 gallons of oil.



http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/05/21/130-million-gallons-oil-floating-gulf-mexico-oil-spill/