moonbuggy

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‘Eighties television icon MacGyver has beaten Indiana Jones, James Bond and Jack Bauer as the fictional hero most Americans would want by their side in the event of a disaster.

In the survey, commissioned by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, participants were given a choice among seven fictional heroes for help in an emergency.

Twenty seven per cent of respondents said they would want MacGyver to help them out should disaster strike.’

‘These firemen rig a contraption that lets them lift a car up in the air using water pressure from multiple hoses. I guess this is what they do when there arent any fires going on, where do I sign up?’

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‘What else can inkjet technology be used for? Injecting drugs into humans, according to Hewlett-Packard.

The company is licensing a medical patch it has developed to Ireland’s Crospon that potentially can replace hypodermic needles or pills for delivering vaccines or other types of medication to patients. The patch contains up to 90,000 microneedles per square inch, microprocessors and a thermal unit.

Medications contained in the patch are heated and then injected through the needles. Processors can monitor drug delivery, deliver doses over extended periods of time or deliver drugs in response to a patient’s vital signs (e.g., blood pressure or heart rate), depending on how it is programmed.’

‘Police say a burglar has stolen narcotics from three pharmacies by walking in during business hours, climbing into the space above the ceiling and hiding there until the store closes. [..]

In the first two instances, Denver Police say the suspect hid in a false ceiling inside a bathroom. Police say he also hid in a false ceiling in the most recent incident. Police say the man is extremely patient, in some cases hiding up to eight hours. They also say he seems to be pretty knowledgeable about prescription drugs as he picks and chooses what he steals.

Police say the burglar has not been violent so far, but that could change.’

‘SABLE-3 was launched on Saturday, August 11th, 2007, at 9:31 AM with a payload, consisting of a Nikon Coolpix P2 digital camera set to take 1 image every minute and a Byonics MicroTrak 300 APRS Tracker, that the Kaysam 1200 gram balloon carried to over 117,597 feet. The last payload camera photo from the ground was just before it was launched, at 9:31 AM, and the last photo before the balloon burst was the photo above, at 12:01 PM, exactly 2½ hours or 150 images later. And what a photo. The composition couldn’t have been better or the horizon more level and out of the 196 images taken during the flight, only 1 other image is as good. What are the chances?’

‘Federal health experts declared a small victory against a fatal and untreatable virus on Friday, saying canine rabies has disappeared from the United States.

While dogs may still become infected from raccoons, skunks or bats, they will not catch dog-specific rabies from another dog, the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

“We don’t want to misconstrue that rabies has been eliminated — dog rabies virus has been,” CDC rabies expert Dr. Charles Rupprecht told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Rabies evolves to match the animals it infects, and the strain most specific to dogs has not been seen anywhere in the United States since 2004, Rupprecht said. [..]

“Even though we still live in a sea of rabies and even though we have rabies viruses circulating among raccoons and foxes and bats, the dog rabies virus, which is the most responsible for dog-to-dog transmission and which is still the greatest burden to humans … it is that virus that has been eliminated.”‘

‘Many new ideas bubbling up in restaurant kitchens aren’t of much use to a home cook without a machine shop and acres of counter space. But some are simple and flexible enough that they just may trickle down to everyone else. In the case of an easy technique called gelatin filtration, that would be a very slow trickle.

Gelatin filtration is a way to make sparklingly clear liquids that are intensely flavored with … well, whatever you like: meats, fruits, vegetables, cheeses, breads, any and all combinations of ingredients.

Why would anyone want to make such a thing? Think of such liquids as essences. They have no fibers, no pulp, no fat, no substance at all. They’re just flavor in fluid form, perhaps with a tinge of color, like a classic beef consommé. In fact chefs are calling these essences consommés, and they often use them the same way, as a soup or a sauce. And they can be delightfully surprising, because their appearance often gives no hint of the pleasure they’re about to deliver.’

Using your bare hands and a bit of cavitation is enough to blow the bottoms out of glass bottles, apparently.

I’ll have to try this one day, tho I’m sure I’ll just end up slicing my hand open. 🙂

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‘Tackling a dilemma right out of a science fiction novel, the state Senate passed legislation Thursday that would bar employers from requiring workers to have identification devices implanted under their skin.

State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) proposed the measure after at least one company began marketing radio frequency identification devices for use in humans.

The devices, as small as a grain of rice, can be used by employers to identify workers. A scanner passing over a body part implanted with one can instantly identify the person.

“RFID is a minor miracle, with all sorts of good uses,” Simitian said. “But we shouldn’t condone forced ‘tagging’ of humans. It’s the ultimate invasion of privacy.”‘

‘Saturday May 26th the VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK group attempted to host a hate rally to try to take advantage of the brutal murder of a white couple for media and recruitment purposes.

Unfortunately for them the 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came and handed them their asses by making them appear like the asses they were.

Alex Linder the founder of VNN and the lead organizer of the rally kicked off events by rushing the clowns in a fit of rage, and was promptly arrested by 4 Knoxville police officers who dropped him to the ground when he resisted and dragged him off past the red shiny shoes of the clowns.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.’

‘Vermont’s clothing-optional capital is stripping off its temporary ban on public nudity.

A month after passing the temporary ban, the Brattleboro Selectboard voted 3-2 on Tuesday to reject a proposed ordinance that would have made it permanent. When the emergency temporary ordinance expires next month, public nudity will no longer be illegal.

It’s all about tolerance, one board member said.

”We in this country are going down a slippery slope these days,” said Dora Bouboulis, noting a national newspaper recently published an article about the emergency ordinance under the headline ”Tolerant town gets intolerant.”’

‘During World War II the Army Corps of Engineers needed to hide the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant to protect it from a Japanese air attack. They covered it with camouflage netting and trompe l’oeil to make it look like a rural subdivision from the air.’

‘Minuscule wind engines could help to take computing power to the next level, scientists believe.

US researchers have developed a prototype device that creates a “breeze” made up of charged particles, or ions, to cool computer chips.

The “ionic wind”, the scientists say, will help to manage the heat generated by increasingly powerful, yet ever-shrinking devices. [..]

“A 250% improvement (3.5 times the cooling rate of a conventional fan) is quite unusual.”‘

This one doesn’t really make much sense. Fake? Or clever dog?

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‘Crows have shown that two tools are better than one when it comes to problem solving, scientists say.

A University of Auckland study has revealed that New Caledonian crows can use separate tools in quick succession to retrieve an out-of-reach snack. [..]

The scientists said the crows’ performance was comparable to that of the great apes in similar experiments.

The team believes that because the birds were able to solve the problem on their first attempt they were using analogical reasoning rather than trial and error.’

‘So, driving home from work today I have some fuckwad tailing me, just banging on the horn. I look in my rear view and it is some dork in a BMW or Mercedes or some other overpriced piece of shit. I can see dude’s veins bulging in his forehead and literally I can see the specks of saliva splashing off the windshield and he is LEAAAANNNNNING over the steering wheel yelling at me as if this was going to help me hear him better.

By the looks of him, he is a pretty big dude. So, unluckily for me, I have to stop at a light. [..] So, of course Mr Testosterone has to get out of his car and confront me. [..]

So, I continued to look straight ahead, I rolled my window down, maybe a 1/3, not quite half and asked him if he was having a bad day. Without warning, Road Rage Guy punches at me. Fucking longest light in the history of Vancouver right here…sadly for him, his big fucking mitt hit most of my window–shaking his hand he yelled for me to get out of the car–LOL, here is where it gets funny. [..]’

‘The ultimate solution to the Rubik’s cube has come closer thanks to hours of number crunching on a supercomputer.

The research has proved that a Rubik’s cube can be returned to its original state in no more than 26 moves.

The supercomputer took 63 hours to crank out the proof which goes one better than the previous best solution. [..]

The study brings scientists one step closer to finding the so-called “God’s Number” which is the minimum number of moves needed to solve any disordered Rubik’s cube.

It is so named because God would only need the smallest number of moves to solve a cube. Theoretical work suggests that God’s Number is in the “low 20s”.’

‘Their experiments focused on the travel of microwave photons – energetic packets of light – through two prisms.

When the prisms were moved apart, most photons reflected off the first prism they encountered and were picked up by a detector.

But a few appeared to “tunnel” through a gap separating them as if the prisms were still held together.

Although these photons had travelled a longer distance, they arrived at their detector at the same time as the reflected photons. This suggests that the transit between the two prisms was faster than the speed of light.

Dr Gunter Nimtz, of the University of Koblenz, told the magazine New Scientist: “For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of.”‘

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‘A monkey that freed himself two weeks ago from a Mississippi zoo has escaped again, zoo officials said. Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo Manager Kirk Nemecheck and other employees noticed the white-faced capuchin’s cage open and lock on the ground around 8:30 a.m. Monday.

Oliver and another capuchin named Baby were found wandering nearby. Workers easily captured Baby, but Oliver fled the park headed in the direction of the Tupelo Country Club, Nemecheck said.

“This is the craziest thing I have ever seen,” Nemecheck said. “I have heard of chimps and orangutans that can pick locks. I’ve also heard a guy who swears his raccoon can pick a lock, but I’ve never heard of a monkey who can pick a lock.”‘

Followup to Tupelo Zoo Searches For Escaped Monkey.

‘US researchers say they have invented a lightweight paper battery that could serve as an enhanced power storage device for the next generation of consumer electronic devices.

The battery produces electricity in the same way as the conventional lithium-ion batteries that power so many of today’s gadgets, but all the components have been incorporated into a lightweight, flexible sheet of paper.

An early prototype of the device, just big enough to be held between thumb and forefinger, kicks out 2.5 volts, enough juice to power a small fan, or illuminate a light, and its inventors say the battery can be easily scaled up to provide enough power to run any number of electronic gadgets.

“You can stack one sheet on top of another to boost the power output,” said Robert Linhardt, a biology and chemistry professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and a project team member.’

‘To observe the motion of an electron – an elementary particle with a mass that is one billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a gram – has been considered to be impossible. So when two Brown University physicists showed movies of electrons moving through liquid helium at the 2006 International Symposium on Quantum Fluids and Solids in Kyoto, they raised some eyebrows.

The images, which were published online on May 31, 2007, in the Journal of Low Temperature Physics, show scattered points of light moving down the screen – some in straight lines, some following a snakelike path. The Matrix it’s not. Still, the fact that they can be seen at all is astounding. “We were astonished when we first saw an electron moving across the screen,” said Humphrey Maris, a professor of physics at Brown University. “Once we had the idea, setting it up was surprisingly easy.”‘

It seems in 1994 Dick Cheney actually talked sense.

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This is apparently some footage from a human powered boat competition.

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‘Even by astronomical standards, Roger Angel thinks big.

Angel, a leading astronomer at the University of Arizona, is proposing an enormous liquid-mirror telescope on the moon that could be hundreds of times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope.

Using a rotating dish of reflective liquid as its primary mirror, Angel’s telescope would the largest ever built, and would permit astronomers to study the oldest and most distant objects in the universe, including the very first stars.

“It’s an idea that’s been around, and we decided to flesh it out,” Angel says. [..]

Angel dreams of a 100-meter mirror, which would be larger than two side-by-side football fields and would collect 1,736 times more light than the Hubble.’

‘A library patron suspected of selling hundreds of books, tapes and DVDs he had borrowed has cost Denver-area libraries tens of thousands of dollars, officials said.

Thomas Pilaar, 33, was suspected of using different names to obtain seven library cards from the Denver Public Library, then checking out 300 items per card and selling at least some of the items, KCNC-TV in Denver reported.

“It appears his intent was to sell 2,100 (items) from the Denver Library collection,” Denver Public Library spokeswoman M. Celeste Jackson told the station. She estimated the losses at about $35,000.’

‘Australia’s top heart specialists believe they have found a treatment to stop heart disease in its tracks, potentially saving millions of lives worldwide.

Experts from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital will today unveil the groundbreaking discovery which involves using adult stem cells from patients to repair their own hearts.

The world-first treatment has been shown to generate new blood vessels and repair dead tissue in the heart.

Importantly, the changes appear to be permanent.’

‘Orangutan communication resembles a game of charades, a study suggests.

Researchers from St Andrews University have shown that the animals intentionally modify or repeat their signals to get their messages across.

The scientists said they believed all great apes could have this capability, suggesting that the skill may have evolved millions of years ago.

The study, which is published in the journal Current Biology, involved six orangutans living in two zoos.’

‘Scientists have jump-started the consciousness of a man with severe brain injury in a world-first procedure in which electrodes were inserted deep into his brain.

The 38-year-old, who had been in a minimally conscious state for six years after an assault, could only move his fingers or eyes occasionally and was fed through a tube.

Now he can chew, swallow and carry out movements like brushing his hair and drinking from a cup, say the US neuroscientists who carried out the procedure, known as deep brain stimulation.

“He regularly uses words and gestures and responds to questions quickly,” said Ali Rezai, of the Cleveland Clinic’s Centre for Neurological Restoration.’