Wednesday, October 20, 2010

This Guy Makes X-Games Competitors Look Like Amatuers

Organ donor? No Thanx...: French cancer patient wakes up 14 hours after being pronounced dead.

Staff were so convinced that Lydia Paillard, 60, had passed away they asked her family if they could switch her life support machine off. Then she suddenly woke up.

Mrs Paillard had walked into a clinic in Bordeaux, southwestern France, on Monday for a chemotherapy session but after being put on a drip and taking pills, she went blue, fell into a coma and was pronounced "dead".

"We were told that she had passed away, that ... she wouldn't come back," said Sébastien Paillard, one of her three sons at their mother's bedside.

Despite the doctors' assurances, the sons could not bring themselves to switch off respiratory support and she was transferred to another wing of the hospital.

That afternoon, staff in the new clinic said they had noticed encouraging signs of brain activity.

Finally, some 14 hours after she had officially died, Mrs Paillard suddenly woke up. Turning to her incredulous son, Sébastien, she said: "Ah, I feel so good, I had a wonderful sleep."

"To think we were about to give permission to kill our mother," Mr Paillard told France's Sud Ouest newspaper, adding that until now his family had full confidence in hospital staff.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8076243/French-cancer-patient-wakes-up-14-hours-after-being-pronounced-dead.html

$340M Marijuana Drug Bust in Mexico

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Neuroscience: You're Just a Machine & There's No Free Will

"What happens if someone commits a crime, and it turns out that there's a lesion in that brain area? Is that person responsible? Is the damage to the machine sufficient for us to exempt them from that very basic human idea that we are responsible for our actions? I don't know." He refers to a major project in America, where "lawyers, neuroscientists, philosophers and psychiatrists are all trying to work out what impact brain science has on our socio-legal sense of responsibility".

http://redicecreations.com/article.php?id=12857

Mexican Army Receives Beheaded Body Of Investigator In David Hartley Killing In A Suitcase

The lead investigator in a high-profile murder case involving pirates on a Mexican border lake has been killed, his decapitated body delivered to the Mexican military in a suitcase.

Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, head of state investigators in the border city of Ciudad Miguel Aleman, had been investigating the death of David Michael Hartley. Hartley, a Colorado native, is believed to have been shot by pirates while jetskiing on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake near Laredo, Texas.

The incident gained exposure after Texas Governor Rick Perry publicly pressured the Mexican government to step up efforts to find Hartley's body and his killers.





http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/12/mexican-army-receives-beh_n_760092.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/12/texas.falcon.lake.head/index.html

Strange Signal Comes From Alien Planet, Scientist Says

The recent discovery of Gliese 581g, an alien planet in the habitable zone of another star, has been an exciting development for scientists probing the galaxy for signs of extraterrestrial life. At least one claim of a possible signal from the planet has already surfaced – and been met with harsh skepticism among the science community.

Following the Sept. 29 announcement of the discovery of Gliese 581g, astronomer Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, claimed to have detected a suspicious pulse of light nearly two years ago, that came from the same area of the galaxy as the location of Gliese 581g, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail online.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/11/scientist-claims-strange-signal-comes-alien-planet/?test=latestnews

Armless Pianist Liu Wei Performes 'You Are Beautiful'

3 Years At The Same Place

3 Years At The Same Place (english version) from Ramon on Vimeo.

CEATEC 2010: Hitachi’s Awesome LCD Projector



Projectors might be great for movies and essential for presentations, but they are rarely sexy. A notable exception currently showcased at CEATEC 2010 is the ultra-short throw LCD projector (the follow-up model to the CP-A200) showcased at Hitachi’s booth or rather the combination of the device and a whiteboard with touch control.

Measuring just just 45x303x85mm and weighing less than 4kg, the projector itself is the smallest, lightest and shortest-focus projector out there. It produces 80-inch images from a distance of just 56cm.

The whiteboard type display is 78 inches large. In the videos below, you can see a Hitachi employee showing how the system (projector plus screen) works. He tries hard to boost the wow-factor (which, for me at least, worked well).

Reactable mobile for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Darpa's Self-Aiming "One Shot" Sniper Rifle Scheduled for Next Year

A sniper crouches near an open window and zooms in on his target, who sits a half-mile away. He peers through a scope and holds his breath, preparing to squeeze the trigger. But it’s windy outside, and he can't afford a miss. What to do?

A new DARPA-funded electro-optical system will calculate the ballistics for him, telling him where to aim and ensuring a perfect shot, no matter the weather conditions.

Lockheed Martin won a $6.9 million contract this week for the second phase of DARPA’s One-Shot system, which will provide direct observations of a target, measure every variable that influences a bullet’s flight, and calculate the aim offset in a sniper’s rifle scope.

During the project’s first phase, which started in 2007, Lockheed developed a down-range system that measured average crosswind; range to target; spotter scope position; air temperature, pressure, and humidity; and more, according to Military Aerospace. Using all those variables, it calculated the ballistics for a .308 bullet at ranges as far as 3,600 feet.

While that’s impressive, the system was too heavy and unwieldy, and it couldn’t be used with standard rifle scopes. The phase two design will be more compact and able to operate in real time and over longer distances.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-10/aiming-help-snipers-lockheed-develops-one-shot-solution

CNN: Marijuana & Alzheimer

The active ingredient in marijuana may stall decline from Alzheimer’s disease, research suggests. Scientists showed a synthetic version of the compound may reduce inflammation associated with Alzheimer’s and thus help to prevent mental decline. They hope the cannabinoid may be used to developed new drug therapies. The research, by Madrid’s Complutense University and the Cajal Institute, is published in the Journal of Neuroscience. We would warn the public against taking marijuana as a way of preventing Alzheimer’s – Dr. Susanne Sorensen The scientists first compared the brain tissue of patients who died from Alzheimer’s disease with that of healthy people who had died at a similar age. They looked closely at brain cell receptors to which cannabinoids bind, allowing their effects to be felt. They also studied structures called microglia, which activate the brain’s immune response. Microglia collect near the plaque deposits associated with Alzheimer’s disease and, when active, cause inflammation. The researchers found a dramatically reduced functioning of cannabinoid receptors in diseased brain tissue. This was an indication that patients had lost the capacity to experience cannabinoids’ protective effects. The next step was to test the effect of cannabinoids on rats injected with the amyloid protein that forms Alzheimer’s plaques. Those animals who were also given a dose of a cannabinoid performed much better in tests of their mental functioning.

Young Money Stuntin With Their Own Branded Debit Cards, Available Soon To Fans.

Bugatti's, million dollar watches, now their own credit card. Looks like Cash Money/Young Money is stuntin a little bit.

Well, the credit cards are actually pre paid debit cards branded with the YM logo. Mack Maine told Boombox that fans will soon have the opportunity to cop one of their own. Possibly with the logo of their favorite crew member on it.

"It is true, so make sure the fans and the people that are interested sign up. It's a prepaid card. We're not starting it out with each member having their own card just yet. It's just pretty much a Young Money card and then we'll branch out to like Nicki Minaj pink cards, maybe having Wayne and Drake cards being like the black cards. You know, just different levels of it. Maybe have Twist and Chuckee for the younger crowd. We'll make sure each member has it as we learn the ropes." Mack said.

While on the set of Mack Maine's upcoming video "All In One Swipe", Mack and Bow Wow show off their black and platinum YM cards.

Once the cards are available, stores like Target will offer discounts to customers who use them instead of cash.

ON SET ON MACK MAINE's "ALL IN ONE SWIPE" FT BIRDMAN AND MANY MORE FROM YMCMB from DERICK G on Vimeo.

Monday, October 4, 2010

China Launches Second Moon Mission: Is Mining Rare Helium 3 an Ultimate Goal?

On Friday China marked 61 years of communist rule with the launch of the Chang'e-2 lunar orbiter. The Chang'e-2, which is a part of country’s second lunar probe, blasted off from an isolated corner of Sichuan province just some seconds before 7 a. m. EDT. The launch will provide a boost to China’s ambition to emerge as a major space power capable of landing a man on the moon and perhaps one day exploring far beyond. The rocket will shoot the craft into the trans-lunar orbit, after which the satellite is expected to reach the Moon in about five days.

Chang'e-2 will be used to test key technologies and collect data for future landings. The latest launch, to test key technologies and gather data, is China's second lunar mission. China says it will send a rover on its next mission, and it also has ambitions to put humans on the surface of the lunar body at some future date.

The Xinhua News Agency said Chang'e-2 would circle just 15km (nine miles) above the rocky terrain in order to take photographs of possible landing locations. This is China's second lunar probe - the first was launched in 2007. The craft stayed in space for 16 months before being intentionally crashed on to the Moon's surface.

So far, only three countries have managed to independently send humans into space: China, Russia and the US.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/10/china-launches-second-moon-mission-is-mining-helium-3-an-ultimate-goal.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond+%28The+Daily+Galaxy%3A+News+from+Pl

Gold Vending Machines to hit the USA Soon


Originally launched in Dubai and currently availabled in the Middle East, Italy, Spain and Germany these gold dispensing machines will be coming to the US soon. You can buy gold in increments of 1 gram, 5 gram, 10 grams and a 28 gram (1 ounce) gold bar. They're currently only scheduled to be in Florida and Las Vegas but we know that won't last long.


2012 here we commmeeeee!