moonbuggy

‘This colored corn syrup is dropped into a mixture, stirred up, and when the direction is reversed, the drops return their original state.’

(4.7meg Flash video)

Coach, it’s the wrong ball!

(1.8meg Flash video)

see it here »

‘You can have a sofa-bed in your living room, OR, you can have a MobelForm “Transformer” furniture.’

There’s quite a few short, interesting and amusing sci-fi stories on this site. Most of them are pretty good.

The Ed stories are some of my favourites.

‘Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours.

His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

“He doesn’t make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die,” said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.’

‘Scientists managed to create an ultrastrong material that has many of the characteristics of the plexiglas, used to make bulletproof glass. The strange thing about this material is the fact that it’s made of a 50-atom-thick layer of gold particles.

Seen under a microscope, the new material, developed by scientists at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory looks like a transparent sheet of closely packed gold nanoparticles separated by organic spacers, placed atop a silicon chip. It consists of gold particles separated by organic “bumpers” to keep them from coming into direct contact.

“It’s an amazing little marvel,” said Heinrich Jaeger, Professor in Physics at the University of Chicago. “This is not a very fragile layer, but rather a robust, resilient membrane.” Some of the properties of this sheet are remarkable, like the fact that it maintains its structural integrity at relatively high temperatures, even when poked with ultrafine tips of metal.’

‘Scientists have converted an organism into an entirely different species by performing the world’s first genome transplant, a breakthrough that paves the way for the creation of synthetic forms of life.

The team, led by Craig Venter, the man who raced to sequence the human genome, wants to build new microbes to produce environmentally friendly fuels.

The group’s study, details of which were revealed in the US journal Science yesterday, proves it is possible to transplant a complete set of genetic instructions into an organism, in effect turning it into the same species the DNA was taken from.’

‘A seagull has turned shoplifter by wandering into a shop and helping itself to crisps.

The bird walks into the RS McColl newsagents in Aberdeen when the door is open and makes off with cheese Doritos.

The seagull, nicknamed Sam, has now become so popular that locals have started paying for his crisps.

Shop assistant Sriaram Nagarajan said: “Everyone is amazed by the seagull. For some reason he only takes that one particular kind of crisps.”

The bird first swooped in Aberdeen’s Castlegate earlier this month and made off with the 55p crisps, and is now a regular.

Once outside, the crisps are ripped open and the seagull is joined by other birds.’

‘Jock Doubleday, director of the California non-profit corporation Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc., has offered $75,000 to the first medical doctor or pharmaceutical company CEO who publicly drinks a mixture of standard vaccine additives.

The additives would be the same as those contained in the vaccines recommended for a 6-year-old according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, and the dose would be body-weight calibrated. It would include, but not be limited to:

* Thimerosal (a mercury derivative)
* Ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
* Phenol (a disinfectant dye)
* Aluminum
* Benzethonium chloride (a disinfectant)
* Formaldehyde (a preservative and disinfectant)

On August 1, 2007, if no one has taken the challenge, the offer will be increased to $90,000 and will increase at a rate of $5,000 per month until someone accepts.’

‘Checkers is solved. From the starting position, black to play can only draw against a perfect opponent. This is the largest non-trivial game of skill to be solved — it is more than one million times bigger than Connect Four and Awari (the previously biggest games that have been solved).

To achieve this results, we had to solve 19 of the 3-move openings. We will continue our computations to eventually solve all the 3-move openings.’

‘Shoppers often choose meat out of the grocery case based on how fresh it looks, but meatpackers have started packaging fresh meat in a “modified atmosphere” that masks telltale discoloration and decomposition of days-old meat. The process involves pumping oxygen out of and carbon monoxide into an airtight container. The deception has occasioned numerous protests from consumer groups.

A U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulation specifically bans using carbon monoxide for packaging fresh meat. But meatpacking companies won exemptions from the rule when they petitioned the FDA in 2001, 2004, and 2005 to declare the gas itself “generally recognized as safe,” and the practice continues to spread. Democratic members of Congress pressed FDA Commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach last year to establish whether masking “the degradation of meat” is a “danger to public health,” but the agency stonewalled. [..]’

‘A convicted killer who had already staged one helicopter-assisted prison break, again escaped from a French prison today using a helicopter.

Pascal Payet, 43, broke out of Grasse prison, southeast France, after a helicopter hijacked by four masked men landed on the roof of one of the prison buildings, said a source close to the investigation.

The helicopter landed some time later at Brignoles, 38 km northeast of Toulon, on the Mediterranean coast. Payet and his accomplices released the pilot unharmed and fled the scene.’

‘A Toronto judge has ruled that Canada’s pot possession laws are unconstitutional after a man argued the country’s medicinal marijuana regulations are flawed. [..]

The man has no medical issues and doesn’t want a medical exemption to smoke marijuana. In 2001, Health Canada implemented the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations, which allow access to marijuana to people who are suffering from grave and debilitating illnesses.

In court, the man argued that the federal government only made it policy to provide marijuana to those who need it, but never made it an actual law. Because of that, he argued, all possession laws, whether medicinal or not, should be quashed.

The judge agreed and dismissed the charges.’

‘So… What happens when you mail a letter to someone, but instead of putting a 39 cent stamp from the post office, you just tape on some loose change adding up to 39 cents?’

‘Brian May, the multimillionaire guitarist who founded the rock group Queen, has finally completed the PhD in astrophysics that he abandoned more than 30 years ago.

The 59-year-old composer of hits such as Fat Bottomed Girls and We Will Rock You turned his back on the stars for international fame with Freddie Mercury and his band. His thesis on interplanetary dust clouds lay gathering dust of its own in the attic of his home in Surrey.

May’s interest in the subject was rekindled last year when he co-authored a children’s science book with the astronomer Sir Patrick Moore. He discovered that remarkably little research had been done in the intervening 33 years.’

(29.3meg Flash video)

see it here »

This prompt used to annoy the crap out of me. Not anymore, hopefully. 🙂

‘A landmark discovery by researchers at McMaster University could radically alter the way scientists can use embryonic stem cells to grow replacement tissues and treat cancer.

In a surprise revelation, a McMaster study found that human embryonic stem cells – “the great grandmothers” of all the other cells in our bodies – build themselves a nurturing cocoon that feeds them and directs their ability to transform into other types of tissues.

And by manipulating the products of this tiny, cellular placenta, it may be possible for scientists to prompt the stem cells to grow into desired tissues and organs, or to switch off tumour growth in cancers, says Mickie Bhatia, the lead study author.

The study will appear in an upcoming issue of the leading scientific journal Nature.’

‘The virtual communities created by online games have provided us with a new medium for social interaction and communication. Avatar Machine is a system which replicates the aesthetics and visuals of third person gaming, allowing the user to view themselves as a virtual character in real space via a head mounted interface. The system potentially allows for a diminished sense of social responsibility, and could lead the user to demonstrate behaviors normally reserved for the gaming environment.’

(2.1meg Flash video)

see it here »

‘The Queensland Water Commission has not ruled out using massive ocean-going bags to transport fresh water to drought-ravaged South-East Queensland.

A Brisbane physicist has come up with a plan to use a strong ocean current to float submerged 60 megalitre-capacity sacks of water from the Tully River, south of Cairns, to the Gold Coast.

The 1600 kilometre journey would take about three days and the plastic membranes would be emptied into the Southern Regional Water Pipeline for pumping around the region.

Proponent Ian Edmonds said his proposal would be much cheaper and more energy-efficient than desalination plants or a controversial plan to build a pipeline to transport water over the same distance.’

‘An engineering student at UNC Charlotte was caught with a device made to block police photo radar. He used a switchable electric window glazing that turned his car license plates to gray at a touch of a button.

The student’s job caused him to work late at a local restaurant. Having to sit at a near by traffic light for what he considered to long made him come up with the idea to make a device to allow him to go through the red light with out the photo radar getting a shot of his plates.

He said he ordered the glass cut to the shape of his plates and wired a switch to his dash so he could darken his plates before going through the red light. After weeks of getting photos of the same car with no visible plates local police waited for him at his usual red light. With in 2 hours they caught him coming home from work.’

‘[..] Anyway, one year there were these two guys who were taking Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the quizzes and the midterms and labs, etc., such that going into the final they had a solid A.

These two friends were so confident going into the final that the weekend before finals week (even though the Chem final was on Monday), they decided to go up to UVirginia and party with some friends up there. So they did this and had a great time. However, with their hangovers and everything, they overslept all day Sunday and didn’t make it back to Duke until early monday morning. Rather than taking the final then, what they did was to find Professor Bonk after the final and explain to him why they missed the final. [..]’

‘A 5-year-old boy grabbed a rabid fox by the neck and pinned it to the ground during a family cookout, protecting six other children until his stepfather could kill the animal.

“I wanted to protect my little brother,” said Rayshun McDowell, who battled the fox in the front yard of his home Sunday in Kingstown, a town about 50 miles west of Charlotte.

The fox bit Rayshun in the leg, but the 61-pound-boy held the animal down for more than a minute. Animal control officials said Tuesday that test results confirmed the fox had rabies, which is fatal unless treated before symptoms appear. Rayshun is undergoing treatment.

“I looked out the window and Rayshun had the fox by the neck and was pushing it into the ground,” said his mother, Shinda Linder. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”‘

‘Whether lying about raiding the biscuit tin or denying they broke a toy, all children try to mislead their parents at some time. Yet it now appears that babies learn to deceive from a far younger age than anyone previously suspected.

Behavioural experts have found that infants begin to lie from as young as six months. Simple fibs help to train them for more complex deceptions in later life.

Until now, psychologists had thought the developing brains were not capable of the difficult art of lying until four years old. [..]

Infants quickly learnt that using tactics such as fake crying and pretend laughing could win them attention. By eight months, more difficult deceptions became apparent, such as concealing forbidden activities or trying to distract parents’ attention.’

‘Scientists say they’ve created embryonic stem cells by stimulating unfertilized eggs, a significant step toward producing transplant tissue that’s genetically matched to women.

The advance suggests that someday, a woman who wants a transplant to treat a condition like diabetes or a spinal cord injury could provide eggs to a lab, which in turn could create tissue that her body wouldn’t reject.

Ethicists disagreed on whether the strategy would avoid the long-standing ethical objections to creating embryonic stem cells by other means.’

‘Cow pies processed in a small Nebraska town may soon be helping to lower the price at the pump.

The Genesis plant near Mead is the first to combine a feed lot operation in its production of ethanol.

“The manure is used to produce bio gas,” said Brian Barber, of E-3 Biofuels.

That gas fires the boilers needed to make ethanol, and the bi-produced from that creates distiller’s grain that is then feed back to the cattle.

“This is truly a historic event,” said CEO Dennis Langley.

At a dedication ceremony on Thursday, Langley said his company’s patented closed-loop system is 12 times more efficient than any other fuel source in the world.’

(3.3meg Windows media)

see it here »

A mechanical binary adding machine.

(11.3meg Windows media)

see it here »

‘A judge ruled Monday in favor of a dry cleaner that was sued for $54 million over a missing pair of pants.

The owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the city’s Consumer Protection Act by failing to live up to Roy L. Pearson’s expectations of the “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign once displayed in the store window, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled.

Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the court costs of defendants Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung.’

Followup to $67 Million Suit Over Pants.