Humour: mental asylum

During a visit to a mental asylum, a visitor asked the director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.

“Well,” said Director Epstein, “we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub.”

“Oh, I understand,” said the visitor. “A normal person would use the bucket because it’s bigger than the spoon or the teacup.”

“No.” said the director, “A normal person would pull the plug.”

Fox News geography lesson: Hamid Soryan won gold for Iran in Greco-Roman wrestling. He’s from Iran.

Facepalm.

[gawker]

Meet The 15-Year-Old Who Is Changing How We Test For Cancer

By day, Jack Andraka appears to be a normal high school student. But after school, he goes to the lab at Johns Hopkins, where he’s developing a test for pancreatic cancer that is worlds better than what’s currently available. You may have read about him before, now see him talk about his breakthrough.

No matter how precocious you were as a kid, odds are that you were not spending your spare time developing a revolutionary way to diagnose pancreatic cancer. Thank goodness, then, for 15-year-old Jack Andraka, a high school freshman who won this year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair with his mind-bogglingly simple (and inexpensive) test, which is 90% accurate, 400 times more sensitive, and 26,000 times less expensive than today’s methods. How did he do it? During a boring biology class, Andraka realized that he could use carbon nanotubes that react to a specific protein and … oh, just let him tell it.

WHITNEY PASTOREK

Whitney is a writer and photographer based in Los Angeles and/or wherever the bus just dropped her off. Continued

Do You Understand Higgs Boson?

Residents of Bethel, Alaska recently fell victim to an elaborate hoax at the hands of two of their fellow residents. The ruse claimed Taco Bell was opening an outpost in the town of 6,200 residents. While sky-high hopes crashed down to Earth, the Internets went to work spreading the story, and word eventually reached Taco Bell headquarters.

On Saturday afternoon, Taco Bell tweeted #OperationAlaska had commenced, bringing a temporary Taco Bell to the sleepy town. The relief package consists of 900 pounds of beef, 300 pounds of lettuce, 150 pounds of cheese, 500 pounds of sour cream, and 300 pounds of tomatoes — enough for 10,000 tacos. Enjoy, Bethel!

[foodbeast]

Genes reveal grain of truth to Queen of Sheba story. By Hannah Krakauer

Could they really have met? (Image: Paul Raffaele/Rex Features) The genomes of Ethiopian people hold echoes of the meeting between a legendary king and queen.

About 3000 years ago, the Queen of Sheba purportedly travelled from what is now Ethiopia to meet King Solomon in Israel. Ethiopian folklore even tells of a child between the pair. But that’s just a story, right?

Perhaps not entirely. Luca Pagani of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, examined samples of Ethiopian genomes and noticed that some individuals had components of both African and non-African lineages. Delving deeper, Pagani and his colleagues discovered that the non-African genetic components had much more in common with people living in Syria and around the eastern Mediterranean than in the nearer Arabian peninsula. What’s more, the gene flow probably took place around 3000 years ago.

The finding is backed by linguistic research, which shows that one of the four language families of Ethiopia migrated from the same region about 3000 years ago. “Middle Eastern language came to Ethiopia along with Middle Eastern genes,” Pagani says. “And that is when the Queen of Sheba legend is supposed to have happened.”

The meeting between the queen and Solomon remains a story, but the populations they came from did meet around that time, says Pagani.

Journal reference: The American Journal of Human Genetics, DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.05.015

From issue 2871 of New Scientist magazine, page 15.

Google’s next mission: Save dying languages

Obscure tongues like Arogonese and Navajo are just a few generations away from disappearing. Enter Google, which aims to preserve them digitally

The Endangered Languages website provides maps — like this one of Western Europe and northern Africa — that show the number of endangered languages around the world. Photo: endangeredlanguages.comSEE ALL 101 PHOTOS

By some estimates, about half of the world’s languages could disappear by the end of this century. And that’s why Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, is launching a new initiative called the Endangered Languages Project, which aims to digitally archive the world’s lesser-known tongues and the heritages they’re integral to. Here, a brief guide to the search giant’s noble new undertaking:

What kind of languages are disappearing?
Languages like Arogonese, which can be found tucked away in northern Spain. Spoken by fewer than 10,000 people, the dying language is on the brink of disappearing in a few generations because so few children actually learn it, instead opting for more universal tongues like Spanish. Navajo and Ojibwa, both native to the Americas, are also on the verge of extinction. So is Koro, which is indigenous to a small population living in the mountains of northeast India. It’s spoken by no more than 4,000 people.

What will Google’s website actually do?
EndangeredLanguages.com will catalog roughly 3,500 of the world’s little-spoken tongues — about half of the Earth’s 7,000 total languages. “With every language that dies, humanity is in danger of losing an enormous cultural heritage,” says Loek Essers at Computerworld. As each one vanishes, “an understanding of how humans relate to the world around them, scientific, medical, and botanical knowledge” are all lost, as is “the expression of [a] communities’ humor, love, and life.” (Watch Google’s promo video below.)

How can users experience the languages?
The languages can be identified by their location on a map, or navigated to from a list that’s broken down into four categories: At risk, endangered, severely endangered, or the “ominous-sounding” vitality unknown, says Ingrid Lunden at TechCrunch. Users can upload video or audio samples (this traditional folk song in Koro, for example), as well as share their expertise about a language.

Who will run the project?
The search giant is behind the site’s development and launch, but plans to hand the project off to The First People’s Cultural Council (FPCC), which will handle strategy and outreach, working with the Institute of Language Information and Technology at Eastern Michigan University. “Languages are entities that are alive and in constant flux, and their extinction is not new,” write the site’s creators. “But today we have the tools and technology at our fingertips that could become a game changer.”

Take a look:

Sources: ComputerWorld, Endangered Languages Project, Mashable,TechCrunch

Steve Jobs Almost Named The iMac The MacMan, Until This Guy Stopped Him. By Ken Segall

KEN SEGALL, THE MAN BEHIND APPLE’S LEGENDARY “THINK DIFFERENT” CAMPAIGN, RECALLS HOW HE WRANGLED ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT CLIENTS OF ALL TIME.

The following is an excerpt from Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success by Ken Segall (Penguin Portfolio).

The lump on the table was truly mysterious and held everyone’s rapt attention. Hidden under a gray sheet it was impossible to discern any detail from it. We were going to have to wait for the big reveal when the meeting was called to order. This would definitely not be our typical product briefing. Beneath that sheet was the home computer that was going to save Apple.

Not to get overly dramatic about it, but that’s exactly how it was billed by Steve himself. This was the product that Steve had alluded to back when we had first started on the Think Different campaign. He had told us that the first product out the door was going to be a rethinking of the home computer. He had given his engineers and designers the challenge to do something great, and now at long last we were going to see it.

There would be no saving Apple by churning out more beige boxes that failed to distinguish themselves, by looks or function, from the hundreds of PC models out there. Steve wanted this first product to open people’s eyes and serve notice that Apple was back.

IF STEVE REALLY WAS BETTING THE COMPANY ON THIS COMPUTER, IT HAD TO BE BRILLIANT.

It was the spring of 1998, and we’d been summoned up to Cupertino for our first viewing of this new computer, code-named C1. The “C” stood for “consumer.” Apple didn’t use a lot of creative firepower on code names back then. By this time we felt like we were already well along a journey, having developed the Think Different campaign and placed it strategically on TV, billboards, and magazine back covers around the world. That was the brand-building part, and this was the real thing—a product that would prove that our brand campaign wasn’t just a lot of advertising fluff.

Now we were sitting just a few feet from C1, anxious to see the results of all this reimagining. If Steve really was betting the company on this computer, it had to be brilliant. Apple was out of time, and this was the one shot it had to turn things around. The agency delegation numbered five or six, consisting of creative people and account managers. There were two Apple product managers there to guide us. After some introductions and opening remarks, it was time to get down to business.

One product manager reached for the sheet and revealed C1.

There it was—the computer you’d come to know as iMac—looking like it came right out of The Jetsons. The group let out a collective “holy cow” and simply tried to absorb and appreciate what we were seeing—because it shattered every idea of what computers were supposed to look like. It was a colorful one-piece computer that showed off its inner circuitry through a semitransparent shell.

I’d like to believe we were all so smart that within seconds we were convinced that we were witnessing the start of a miracle resurgence. But it wasn’t quite like that. Later, when the agency team was alone and able to share the thoughts we felt at that moment of reveal, we found that we all had pretty much the same feeling. It was part shock, part excitement, and part hope that Steve Jobs really knew what he was doing—because there was a real chance that this revolutionary computer might just be too shocking for its own good.

More…

Robot string quintet composes and performs music. By Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

It’s not only humans that can compose and perform music: a new installation created by Wilfried Stoll and a team from engineering firm Festo in Germany can compose a melody all by itself and perform it with five robotic string instruments.

The system writes music by listening to a musician play a tune on a xylophone or MIDI keyboard. By using rules derived from mathematician John Conway’s Game of Life, a computer creates a reinterpretation of the melody, which it breaks down into different parts for each instrument. The processed signal is then transmitted to the robotic strings. “The individual acoustic robots are interlinked in such a way that they can listen to each other,” write the team. “This constantly gives rise to new variations, which differ from the original theme while retaining the essence of the composition.”

Although each robotic instrument only has one string, they mimic the sound of two violins, a cello, a viola and a double bass. An electric actuator moves up and down the string to produce the right pitch, like a human musician’s left hand. The bow is replaced by a pneumatic cylinder that moves a hammer to vibrate the string.

The installation was designed to demonstrate how a manual system can be replaced by a network of autonomous robots. The team is looking at how to automate processes based on evolution theory to transform factories of the future.

Retinal Implants Restore Partial Sight To Three Blind. By Peter Murray

A microchip with 1,500 light sensors sits beneath the retina and stimulates neurons which project to the brain’s visual cortex.

The blind really are beginning to see again. After receiving retinal implants in a trial, two people in the UK and one in China – all blind – regained part of their vision. And more good news could be on the way as results from other participants comes to light. But the chip is a bright ray of hope for the estimated 1.5 million worldwide that have retinitis pigmentosa, if not for the 285 million visually impaired.

All of the trial participants were made blind by retinitis pigmentosa in which the light-sensitive rods and cones of the retina deteriorate. British participants Robin Millar and Chris James, whose retinas had not responded to light in over a decade, were able to see immediately after the chip was turned on. Seeing the first flashes of light, James told the BBC, was a “magic moment.” Before receiving the implant neither participant was capable of detecting any light at all. The chip now allows James to distinguish between curves and straight lines. And Millar’s magic moment came when he began detecting light coming in through the windows. Professor Robert MacLaren, of Oxford Eye Hospital who co-led the study with Tim Jackson of King’s College Hospital, said the regained vision was a first for a completely blind Brit.

China scores its own first with Tsang Wu Suet Yun. Like James and Millar, Mrs. Tsang had lost her sight to retinitis pigmetnosa. She had been legally blind for 15 years, barely able to detect light. After receiving the same implant as James and Millar, she was able to read letters projected onto a screen.

The following is 2010 footage of a Finnish man who had regained partial vision after receiving an implant from Retina.

The implants act as a replacement for the lost retinal cells by detecting light and then stimulating neurons which send the signal to the brain. Developed by the world leader in retinal implants, Retina Implant Ag, the devices are tiny microchips 5 mm on each side and a tenth of a mm thick, which are implanted just below the retina. The chip’s surface is covered by a microphotodiode array containing 1,500 light-sensitive units. The light intensity of each point is translated into electrical impulses used to stimulate the underlying neurons. The chip is powered by a wireless power unit connected via a cable that runs over the ear and then under the skin to reach the eye. Settings on the power unit can be adjusted to modify the light sensitivity of the array and maximize its effectiveness for individual patients.

The brain needs a period of time to learn how to interpret the “unnatural” signals sent from the chip.

The implant has been involved in retinal trials for six years now, and the current encouraging results could be just the beginning. Results from the first two trials were published in 2010 and prompted the expansion of the trial to sites outside of Germany, including the UK and China.

Being able to distinguish between straight and curved lines or detecting light through a window may not sound like much but, as Prof. MacLaren points out, just being able to enter a room and know where the doors and tables would be is incredibly useful to a blind person. The vibrant colors of the world, however, will remain hidden for the moment. As the implants only convey light contrast they only see in black-and-white. But one unexpected development that’s as much a benefit to Millar as it is a neuroscience curiosity, he’s dreaming in color for the first time in 25 years.

It’s hard to tell without a direct comparison, but Retina’s chip has the potential to out-see the Argus II implant that is already commercially available and helping the blind to see. The Argus II chip doesn’t receive light directly, but relays signals from a glasses-mounted camera. And the chip only has about 60 electrodes with which to stimulate optic nerves and transmit the signal to the brain. Retina’s 1,500 adjustable, light sensing/nerve stimulating units could potentially work so much better.

To reiterate, the current results are part of a clinical trial and the chip is not yet available as a treatment. Replacing dead or non-functional cells with new ones through stem cell therapies would be the ideal treatment. While these therapies have shown great promise recently, there’s no telling just when they’ll deliver on restoring full vision to the blind, if ever. But the results from the current trial are just getting underway. Hopefully it will be more of the same.

[image credits: Retina Implant Ag and Proceedings of The Royal Society]
[video credit: Channel 4 News via YouTube]
images: Retina Implant Ag, Royal Society
video: Retinal Implant Ag

Oh no, I can’t hear my music! It’s not loud enough! Better roll down my windows

“

—	@mdvaldosta

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13 Incredibly Efficient Vehicles, All Built By High School And College Students. By Ariel Schwartz

One of these cars gets more than 2,000 miles to the gallon.

Feeling hopeless about humanity’s prospects for surviving another century? The annual Shell Eco-Marathon is a balm for the jaded environmentalist’s soul. The competition, held this year in Houston, Texas, challenged high school and college students to “build a vehicle that could go the farthest using the least amount of energy through the streets of downtown Houston.” There were 14 first place winners in two categories: one-seater prototype vehicles and four-wheeled fuel economy vehicles that look like what’s on the road today. One high school team performed the impressive feat of getting 2,188 miles per gallon out of a gasoline-powered vehicle. Click the photos to take a look at all the winners, culled from 113 total vehicles. If you’re having trouble seeing the captions, try scrolling down, they’re probably just hiding.

ARIEL SCHWARTZ

Ariel Schwartz is a Senior Editor at Co.Exist. She has contributed to SF Weekly, Popular Science, Inhabitat, Greenbiz, NBC Bay Area, GOOD Magazine and more. Continued

Creation in the South Pacific

Originally posted in 2006.

Source: http://yacht-maiken.blogspot.com/2006/08/stone-sea-and-volcano.html

Verification: http://www.hoax-slayer.com/new-pacific-island.shtml

A yacht was traveling in the south Pacific when the crew came across a weird sight. Look at these photos and try to imagine the thrill of experiencing this phenomenon.