Charging people to deposit? Really?
It seems an odd problem to have, this “too much cash” thing. I don’t know that most of us can relate. But it seems that in times of economic insecurity, those who used to invest in stocks are simply holding their money in banks, and now bankers are inundated with money. So what’s the solution? Charge people to deposit. Or, at least some of the people, at some banks anyway…
Continue reading… “Banks with too much cash charge for deposits”
Look at the size of that thing!
Dinosaur movies have taught us that things were a lot larger back in prehistoric times, but this is ridiculous! Scientists at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography have found a giant amoeba the size of your hand…
Continue reading… “Giant prehistoric Amoeba the size of your hand”
Earlier this week, the nebulous and notorious international Internet hacktivist collective known as Anonymous exposed a large ring of Internet pedophiles…
Continue reading… “Anonymous exposes pedophile ring – hacks Lolita City”
The knowledge has availed itself.
The Copiale Cipher is a 105-page handwritten document that was composed sometime in the late Eighteenth Century. It has 75,000 characters, both symbols and Roman letters. Until recently, it was indecipherable. But now linguists using translation programs have decoded the first sixteen pages. Here’s how they did it…
Continue reading… “Linguists crack mysterious 300-year old coded manuscript”
Custom printed crab homes.
Hermit crab homelessness is reaching critical levels, leaving many of these fine clawed fellows without a shell of their own.
Now, thanks to 3d printers and our tireless search for new things to print out, there’s a solution: custom printed hermit crab shells! The printed shells will last longer, look cooler and are sure to stir up feelings of jealousy among other hermit crabs. If only we could print houses for homeless humans!
Continue reading… “Printing new homes for Hermit Crabs”
1.) Isabella, a golden retriever in Kansas who adopted 3 white Bengal tiger cubs and nursed them as her own. Zookeepers Tom and Allie Harvey brought the cubs home, and their dog Isabella stepped right up.
Continue reading… “Animals Adopting Animals – Top 10 Crazy Stories”
A new DARPA solicition seeks “swarming robot space vampires” (in JWZ’s evocative phrasing) to disassemble and harvest valuable components from decommissioned satellites before they’re decommissioned, to use as spare parts for the stuff that’s still functional…
A Few Companies Have Power Over Most of the Real Economy
The idea that the few dominate the many will not come as news to those gathered either to occupy wall street or to occupy everywhere. But up until now it has been just an intuition that a few corporations control the world.
Not any more. A team of Swiss mathematicians just proved that out of over 43,000 transnational corporations (TNCs), relatively few control almost 80% of the global economy. Find out who has the power below…
Continue reading… “Proof of global domination by a few corporations”
Matters of war are far too serious to entrust to people
who believe the American political system works
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” – – Albert Einstein
Continue reading… “Top 10 Photos of the Week”
Synthetic Biology Could Change the World.
Daisy Ginsberg is an artist and designer currently exploring the frontiers of possibility in the emergent field of synthetic biology. She just gave what was by far one of my favorite talks at this year’s Poptech conference; she discussed the potential boons and pitfalls that products of synthetic biology may yield in coming years. To showcase the nascent field’s unpredictable future, she pointed to E. Chromi, a bacteria that she and a handful of Cambridge students genetically programmed to secrete colorful pigments when it comes into contact with designated toxins.
Think bacteria that could change color to expose contaminants in groundwater, air pollution in cloud cover — perhaps most strikingly, it can even change the color of your poop if it comes into contact with toxins in your digestive system. This great video details the genesis of the bacteria…
Continue reading… “New synthetic bacteria can detect air pollution & color-code your poop”
Now you see it. Now you don’t.
The ability to see through walls is no longer the stuff of science fiction, thanks to new radar technology developed at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory…
Much as humans and other animals see via waves of visible light that bounce off objects and then strike our eyes’ retinas, radar “sees” by sending out radio waves that bounce off targets and return to the radar’s receivers. But just as light can’t pass through solid objects in quantities large enough for the eye to detect, it’s hard to build radar that can penetrate walls well enough to show what’s happening behind. Now, Lincoln Lab researchers have built a system that can see through walls from some distance away, giving an instantaneous picture of the activity on the other side…
Can you hear it? Well an iPhone will be soon.
In the near future, you might have more to worry about than someone looking over your shoulder—the smartphone beside you could be snooping on what you type. Scientists have programmed phones to spy by feeling. Incredible.
New Scientist reports that the method, although requiring a lot of tweaking before it’s a viable spy toy, can already detect typed words with 80% accuracy…
Continue reading… “An iPhone can tell what you’re typing”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.