The Cologne zoo has a special animal exhibition on display: a collection of 20 animals including an elephant, a giraffe, and an ostrich, preserved through a process called plastination. German anatomist Gunther von Hagens became famous for his controversial exhibition displaying plastinated human bodies…
Continue reading… “Dead Animals on Display at Zoo”
A researcher analyzing the sounds in languages spoken around the world has detected an ancient signal that points to southern Africa as the place where modern human language originated. The finding fits well with the evidence from fossil skulls and DNA that modern humans originated in Africa. It also implies, though does not prove, that modern language originated only once, an issue of considerable controversy among linguists…
Continue reading… “Phonetic Clues Hint Language Is Africa-Born”
Scientists could get their first glimpse of the dawn of the universe from a telescope buried up to half a mile underground. This new device is designed to detect gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are an elusive phenomena created by some of the most violent events in the universe such as black holes, neutron stars and the Big Bang.
Digital billboards that display different ads depending on who is looking at them were once only found in Minority Report. But a recently launched startup aims to make targeted billboard advertising as ubiquitous as targeted online advertising.
Immersive Labs introduced its smart billboard technology at TechStars‘ Demo Day in New York on Thursday. The software combines video analytics with environmental factors and Twitter and Foursquare information to decide what the best ad to display at that moment is…
Continue reading… “Startup Aims To Build Billboards That Target You, Personally”
Listening for one Whale of a song.
Just like humans, whales also have “pop songs,” complete with music mania that sweeps across the ocean:
The findings are based on 11 years of recordings from underwater microphones slung over the sides of boats, which were collected by marine biologist Ellen Garland of the University of Queensland in Australia and colleagues. Picking out the patterns took a while; the team had to listen to 745 songs in total from six whale populations across the South Pacific over the 11-year period. The researchers identified 11 distinctly different styles (audio). Sometimes the “hit song” contained snippets from previous seasons, sometimes it was entirely revolutionary…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_lg7w8gAXQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Ah, control + alt + delete. CTRL + ALT + DEL for short. On the Mac, it’s a little more complicated: Command + Option + The Media Eject Key. Still, they all do the same thing… they reboot your computer without yanking the cable out of the wall or hammering a physical button.
You probably never gave the actual provenance of Control + Alt + Delete much thought. Clearly, it’s a shortcut birthed by some coder or another in the early days of computer lore, but you probably assumed that the guy who actually invented Control + Alt + Delete had his name forgotten by history because ultimately no one cared…
Continue reading… “IBM PC Inventor Explains How Control + Alt + Delete Was Born”
On Friday, the FBI shut down three of the world’s most popular online poker sites, replacing their home pages with the message: “This domain name has been seized by the F.B.I. pursuant to an Arrest Warrant.” (as shown above)
Joe Menn at the Financial Times nails the story first and best, and describes it as “the largest crackdown since Congress banned electronic gambling transactions in 2006.”
Continue reading… “FBI Shuts Down Poker Sites in Online Gambling Crackdown”
A new manufacturing process developed by Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) will increase the energy a lithium-ion battery can store by 40%. The technology is similar to that of printed solar cells…
Continue reading… “Researchers Create Printed Battery That Stores 40% More Energy”
Every language can be traced back to a long-forgotten dialect spoken by our Stone Age ancestors in Africa.
From English to Mandarin – Every language in the world evolved from a prehistoric ‘mother tongue. ‘ The mother tongue was first spoken in Africa tens of thousands of years ago, a new study reveals.
Continue reading… “Every Language in the World Evolved From Single Prehistoric Mother Tongue”
Ford–which is about to release an all-electric version of the Focus–just put out the above map of the United States with the cities it feels are best suited to electric car ownership. And with a few exceptions, it looks like the flyover states aren’t making preparations for the messianic arrival of the electric car. What do you want to bet that in the next presidential election, we’ll add “electric-car” to the litany of liberal-associative words like arugula, lattes, and sushi.
Continue reading… “Will Electric Cars Be The Next Red/Blue Divide?”
Marks on a clay tablet fragment found in Greece are the oldest known decipherable text in Europe, a new study says. Considered ‘magical or mysterious’ in its time, the writing survives only because a trash heap caught fire some 3,500 years ago, according to researchers…
Continue reading… “Oldest Readable Writing In Europe Discovered”
Crystal Smith of The Achilles Effect blog looked at the words from TV commercials for toys and used to present the stark gender bias in toy advertising in graphic form…
Continue reading… “Word Clouds Show Gender Bias in Toy Ads”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.