A new sting.
This is an x-ray of a new stingray that was just discovered in the Amazon rainforest. Dubbed the “pancake” stingray due to it’s resemblance to the breakfast food..
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An Up-Close View of Seizures
A tiny array of microelectrodes, shown here, was implanted into the brains of epilepsy patients,
allowing scientists to gather data about seizures at the level of single cells.
For the first time, scientists have recorded activity from hundreds of single cells in the human brain during a seizure. The research, published this week in Nature Neuroscience, is part of a growing movement to employ new technologies to study brain processes at the single-cell level, which until recently has been impossible to do in living humans.
In an epileptic seizure, the normally orderly activity of neurons goes haywire. The abnormal amounts of electricity that get discharged can be temporarily disabling. Scientists typically monitor human seizures using electroencephalogram (EEG), which measures electrical activity across millions of neurons at a time, an approach that has revealed much about the overall patterns of activity in seizures. But researchers hope that by studying single cells, they’ll learn how seizures spread…
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World’s First Cell Phone Call
Martin Cooper with first cell phone.
On April 3rd, 1973, 38 years ago, Martin Cooper made a phone call while walking down the street in New York City. At the time, he was the general manager of the company’s communications division. He had promoted the idea that phone numbers shouldn’t be tethered to a place, but to people. And they should be able to take their phones with them, anywhere they went.
When Martin Cooper made that first cell phone call, he did not make it to another cell phone. People didn’t have them yet — who could he call?
Living in 90 Square Feet
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZSdrtEqcHU&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Felice Cohen lives in a Manhattan “microstudio” that measures 12′ x7′. My home office on the back porch is twice that! She pays $700 a month rent and considers it a bargain. That’s because the average apartment rent in this Upper West Side neighborhood is $3,600.
Continue reading… “Living in 90 Square Feet”
A New Entertainment Platform Called Instagram
Instagram has exploded in the iPhone.
Somewhere between yesterday afternoon and last night, Instagram hit 3 million users after only six months of existence. To put that into perspective, that’s like 1% of the population of the US using a service that currently only fully exists on a iPhone…
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Scientists Are A Step Closer To Conquering The ‘Magic’ Of Invisibility
Now you see it, now you don’t.
Many earlier cloaking systems turned objects invisible only under wavelengths of light that the human eye can’t see. Others could conceal only microscopic objects. But a new system, developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre, works in visible light and can hide objects big enough to see with the naked eye.
The cloak is made from two pieces of calcite crystal stuck together in a certain configuration.
Calcite is highly anisotropic, which means that light coming from one side will exit at a different angle than light entering from another side. By using two different pieces of calcite, the researchers were able to bend light around a solid object placed between the crystals. Whatever is put under this gap, it looks from the outside like it is not there.
VIA The Presurfer
Lady Gaga Launches Fashion Line Made from Discarded Meat
Flying Gaga, Now in Bacon Flavor.
Pop icon Lady Gaga will launch a line of meat-based clothing this Fall using food waste. The line will be a “contemporary interpretation of her stage outfits,” according to the Haus of Gaga.
Exactly what that means remains unclear but I suggest you don’t wear the clothing camping (or store them in a bear box if you do). Unlike her infamous meat dress, the line will actually be…clothing. And unlike her meat dress, it comes PeTA-approved. Yes, PeTA approved!
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Inside the Drug Smuggling Submarine
Remember the drug smugglers’ submarine that was captured by Ecuadoran police last year? The 75-foot boat was capable of shipping about 9 tons of cocaine. Jim Popkin of Wired wrote a detailed look at its design after reading a report by the US Navy:
The hull, they discovered, was made from a costly and exotic mixture of Kevlar and carbon fiber, tough enough to withstand modest ocean pressures but difficult to trace at sea. Like a classic German U-boat, the drug-running submarine uses diesel engines on the surface and battery-powered electric motors when submerged. With a crew of four to six, it has a maximum operational range of 6,800 nautical miles on the surface and can go 10 days without refueling. Packed with 249 lead-acid batteries, the behemoth can also travel silently underwater for up to 18 hours before recharging…
The 6 Personality Types of Gadget Owners — Which Are You?
Gadget, gadget, do you have a pile of old gadgets?
We all have our preferences when it comes to buying and using gadgets. The way we purchase, care for, use, and dispose of our gadgets can vary widely. But when it comes to gadget ownership, it seems as though a few distinct personality types shine through. Awhile ago we made up two personalities, the Gadget Minimalist and the Gadget Gottahavist, as we took a look at energy savings. But now, we’re prying the lid to the can of worms open just a little farther and taking a more detailed look at the styles of electronics consumers. So it’s gut check time — which personality type are you, and how green can you get?
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UK’s First Fuel Cell-Powered Black Cab Hits the Streets of London
The First Fuel Cell-Powered Black Cab
It may not look much different than your average black cab on the outside (decals aside), but it’s quite a different story under the hood of this taxi, which has just been deemed road legal in the UK. Developed by Intelligent Energy, the cab actually includes both a fuel cell with a 30 kW net output and a 14 kWh lithium polymer battery pack, which combined promise to provide enough juice for a full day of operation — along with a top speed of 81 MPH and acceleration from zero to sixty in fourteen seconds. Londoners won’t be seeing them everywhere just yet, however, as the company only expects the first fleet to be ready sometime next year in time for the 2012 Olympics.
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Egyptian “Dog Catacomb” Has 8 Million Mummified Dogs
Egyptologist Hendrikje Nouwens examines a dog buried in a special wall niche –
the remains of the wooden coffin can be seen. Many of the dogs
would have been offered to the gods when they were just hours old.
In a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the Egyptian desert lies a truly remarkable catacomb containing the mummified remains of dogs and jackals.
Now, since this is Egypt, mummies aren’t exactly unusual – what made the Dog Catacomb so different is that it contains an immense amount of mummified puppies:
They estimate the catacombs contain the remains of 8 million animals. Given the sheer numbers of animals, it is likely they were bred by the thousands in puppy farms around the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, according to the researchers. The Dog Catacombs are located at Saqqara, the burial ground for the ancient capital Memphis…
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Builders in Chile Find Mastadon Remains
The remains of a mastodon discovered on the building site of a hydroelectric plant in Chile.
The skull and tusks of a giant primitive elephant that died up to 2million years have been discovered by builders in Chile, it emerged today.
The mastodon, around the same size as modern elephants, is thought to have roamed forests and plains before dying and sinking into a swamp that preserved it.
The find, beside a river, could allow scientists to piece together more information about the DNA they share with their much bigger relative, the woolly mammoth…
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