John Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor was a name that you
did not see on the Mainstream media. Most recently he publicly spoke
about the drone program calling it moral and ethical and just. According
to reports from the Associated Press, John Brennan has now seized the
lead in choosing who will be targeted for drone attacks and raids.
According to the AP, under the new plan, Brennan's staff compiles the
potential target list and runs the names past agencies such as the State
Department at a weekly White House meeting.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Plan for self-driving cars passes California Senate hurdle
A bill that allows for the use of self-driving cars on California’s roads passed the California State Senate.
SB1298 by State Sen. Alex Padilla
(D-Pacoima) would establish guidelines for such "autonomous vehicles"
to be tested and operated in California. The bill now goes to the
Assembly for consideration next month.
Tech giant Google Inc.,
Caltech and other organizations have been working to develop such
vehicles, which use radar, video cameras and lasers to navigate roads
and stay safe in traffic without human assistance. Google has said that
computer-controlled cars should eventually drive more safely than
humans, who, after all, get sleepy and distracted and can't see in every
direction at once.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-autonomous-cars-20120521,0,331233.story?track=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=71041
Monday, May 21, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Paralyzed woman uses thought-controlled robotic arm to drink coffee
he Force is strong at Braingate. The woman and a 66 year-old man,
identified only as S3 and T2, respectively. Both of them had lost the
use of their limbs years ago, due to brainstem strokes. They manipulated
two different robotic arms, designed by the DLR Institute of Robotics
and Mechatronics, and DEKA Research and Development Corp.
When the participants thought of their arm performing a certain action, neurons adjacent to the array fired accordingly. Due to the subjects’ paralysis, this did not result in the movement of their arm, which it would do in a non-handicapped person. The electrical activity of the neurons was, however, picked up by the electrodes. This data was fed (via the cable) to a linked external computer, which translated the activity into instructions for the robotic arm.
Over the course of four days, the woman and man used this setup in a series of exercises. Some of these involved trying to grab foam targets, within 30 seconds of their popping up in different locations. When using the DEKA arm and hand, which has a wider grasp, the woman was successful 66.7 percent of the time, while the man managed a figure of 62.2 percent. Both subjects experienced much higher success rates when it came to simply touching the targets.
When the participants thought of their arm performing a certain action, neurons adjacent to the array fired accordingly. Due to the subjects’ paralysis, this did not result in the movement of their arm, which it would do in a non-handicapped person. The electrical activity of the neurons was, however, picked up by the electrodes. This data was fed (via the cable) to a linked external computer, which translated the activity into instructions for the robotic arm.
Over the course of four days, the woman and man used this setup in a series of exercises. Some of these involved trying to grab foam targets, within 30 seconds of their popping up in different locations. When using the DEKA arm and hand, which has a wider grasp, the woman was successful 66.7 percent of the time, while the man managed a figure of 62.2 percent. Both subjects experienced much higher success rates when it came to simply touching the targets.
Suicide Forest in Japan
The Aokigahara Forest is the most popular site for suicides in Japan.
After the novel Kuroi Jukai was published, in which a young lover
commits suicide in the forest, people started taking their own lives
there at a rate of 50 to 100 deaths a year. The site holds so many
bodies that the Yakuza pays homeless people to sneak into the forest and
rob the corpses. The authorities sweep for bodies only on an annual
basis, as the forest sits at the base of Mt. Fuji and is too dense to
patrol more frequently
.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
As Bank Withdrawals Surge, Athens Relies More on ECB
Greek depositors withdrew €700 million ($898 million) from the country's
banks on Monday, fueling fears of a bank run amid the growing political
disarray.
With deposits falling, Greek banks become even more dependent on the
European Central Bank to meet their funding needs, exposing the central
bank to potentially huge losses if Greece leaves the euro area.
Greek President Karolos Papoulias told the country's political
leaders that bank withdrawals plus buy orders received by Greek banks
for German bunds totaled some €800 million on Monday, a transcript of
his comments said. A central bank official confirmed the figures.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303505504577406310678151998.html
http://online.wsj.com/video/greece-heads-for-elections-as-euro-slumps/EE653E5C-F82B-4A3E-AB5E-F9650B7F3582.html
Bankia customers pull out over 1-billion euros
Customers of troubled Spanish bank Bankia, nationalized last week, have taken out over 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) from their accounts over the past week, El Mundo newspaper reported on Thursday.
http://www.businesslive.co.za/world/int_companies/2012/05/17/bankia-customers-pull-out-over-1-billion-euros
Autistic boy,12, with higher IQ than Einstein develops his own theory of relativity
A
12-year-old child prodigy has astounded university professors after
grappling with some of the most advanced concepts in mathematics.
Jacob
Barnett has an IQ of 170 – higher than Albert Einstein – and is now so
far advanced in his Indiana university studies that professors are
lining him up for a PHD research role.
The
boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and
trigonometry in a week, is now tutoring fellow college classmates after
hours.
And now Jake has embarked on his most ambitious project yet – his own ‘expanded version of Einstein’s theory of relativity’.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Scientists switch mouse’s insuling-producing genes off and on with radio waves
Some laboratory mice were given specially engineered insuling-producing genes. These genes were then remotely activated using radio waves. This could mean a whole new field of medical procedures in which we turn genes on and off at will.
This breakthrough is the work of geneticists at New York's Rockefeller University. It's a pretty circuitous path from the initial burst of radio waves to the activation of the gene, and there's still a lot of refinement and improvement that needs to be made before this can be used in medical treatments, but still - we're talking about the ability to modify the behavior of genes without ever going inside a patient's body. That's a potentially colossal advance.
Admittedly, while the treatment itself is totally non-invasive, the researchers did first have to inject some nanoparticles onto the mice's cells in order to affect their genes. It's a bit of a complex process, but Nature has a good explanation of just what was involved:
http://io9.com/5908065/scientists-switch-mouses-genes-off-and-on-with-radio-waves?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_twitter&utm_source=io9_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
Encouraging Eye Contact May Disturb Autistic Kids’ Thinking
Synesthesia May Explain Healers Claims of Seeing People's 'Aura'
Researchers in Spain have found that at least some of the individuals claiming to see the so-called aura of people actually have the neuropsychological phenomenon known as "synesthesia" (specifically, "emotional synesthesia"). This might be a scientific explanation of their alleged ability.
In synesthetes, the brain regions responsible for the processing of each type of sensory stimuli are intensely interconnected. Synesthetes can see or taste a sound, feel a taste, or associate people or letters with a particular color...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120504110024.htm
DNA-Destroying Chip Being Embedded Into Mobile Phones
According to Dr. Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, terahertz (THz) waves destroy human DNA. The waves literally unzip the helix strand. Now a team of technologists at UT Dallas are planning to take chips broadcasting THz waves and embed them into mobile phones for use as an imaging system for consumers, law enforcement and medical personnel… a potentially deadly technology that could eventually kill or sicken millions of people.
The controversial THz scanner technology used by the TSA at many of the nation’s airports is being adapted for cell phone use. Studies of terahertz radiation have caused experts to raise alarms over the significant health risks to humans.
Recently major media touted a new chip that permits the adaption of a THz generating device to be embedded into cellular phones.
The excited press painted grand pictures of such technology being used by consumers to see through walls and objects, while health professionals like physcians might incorporate the technology to seek out small tumors inside patients without the need for invasive surgery
http://redicecreations.com/article.php?id=19687
Former R&B Singer Houston Arrested On Suspicion Of DUI
Augmented Reality Sandbox with Real-Time Water Flow Simulation
Video of a sandbox equipped with a Kinect 3D camera and a projector to project a real-time colored topographic map with contour lines onto the sand surface. The sandbox lets virtual water flow over the surface using a GPU-based simulation of the Saint-Venant set of shallow water equations.
We (the UC Davis W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences, http://www.keckcaves.org) built this for an NSF-funded project on informal science education. These AR sandboxes will be set up as hands-on exhibits in science museums, such as the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) or Lawrence Hall of Science.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Grow Your Own Organs
There's an 80% chance that in five months Bill Weir will be the first person ever to see his cardiac tissue beating outside his body.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/this-could-be-big-abc-news/grow-own-organs-173451147.html
What this means is that in the future you may be able to go to your doctor and deposit a batch of cells, and if you have a stroke or heart attack later in life they'll be able to use those cells to repair the damage.
London 2012 Olympics: 'missiles left unguarded' outside east London flats
Posted online by Mr Whelan, the video appears to show crates of rockets and other military equipment piled up at the foot of a tower the Army plans to use as a surface-to-air missile base.
In the footage, Mr Whelan says: “I’m standing in the Bow Quarter at the bottom of the Lexington Tower beside the unguarded military rockets.
“There’s nobody around and there’s military equipment here, crates clearly full of missiles and not a person in sight."
Three soldiers arrive at the end of the clip, which lasts less than a minute and was posted on the 28-year-old journalist’s website.
The Ministry of Defence insisted that the items in the video were "dummy missiles" and posed no threat and that three military personnel were nearby.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9243658/London-2012-Olympics-missiles-left-unguarded-outside-east-London-flats.html
Starbucks to stop using red food colouring made from crushed beetles
NEW YORK - Starbucks Corp. says it will stop using a red dye in its drinks that is derived from crushed bugs.
The Seattle-based coffee chain said in a blog post on its website Thursday that it made the decision to reformulate its drinks after feedback from consumers prompted a "thorough" evaluation.
The company says it will swap out cochineal extract, which is made from the juice of a tiny beetle, and instead use lycopene, a tomato-based extract.
http://www.globalnews.ca/starbucks+to+stop+using+red+food+coloring+made+from+crushed+beetles/6442624378/story.html
Infectious disease researcher, 25, dies from rare bacteria in San Francisco
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Homeland Security To Test Biological Sensors In MBTA Tunnels
BOSTON (CBS) – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be releasing bacteria into the MBTA tunnels to test the safety of the subway.
The DHS has installed sensors in the MBTA system to detect biological agents and they’ve been testing to see how the air moves.
Now they want to release particles in the tunnels to see how well the sensors work.
The tests will be held at stations in Cambridge and Somerville.
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/04/30/homeland-security-to-test-biological-sensors-in-mbta-tunnels/#.T5_tvsKLbYQ.facebook
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