Help keep the Busuu language alive.
Busuu is a language that is only spoken by eight people in the world (according to Wikipedia this may be as low as three people as of 2005) in Cameroon. To help save this dying language the folks at Busuu.com have created a music video in the Busuu language.
Continue reading… “Busuu: A Language That Only 8 People Speak”
Daniel Kish had both eyes removed at the age of 13 months after being diagnosed with retinoblastoma, an aggressive form of cancer. He didn’t let that slow him down. Though blind he can mountain bike, navigate the wilderness alone and recognize a building as far away as 1,000 feet. Kish is president of a nonprofit organization called. World Access offers training on how to interact with one’s environment, using echolocation as a primary tool. Kish hears echos and interprets their meaning to visualize objects, similar to the way bats, beluga whales and dolphins ”see” objects…
Continue reading… “Daniel Kish Uses Sound To See”
Are Anti-gravity Devices Just Around the Corner?
The Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) at the CERN particle physics laboratory announced that they have been able to hold 309 atoms of antihydrogen in a magnetic trap for 1000 seconds, approximately 10,000 times longer than before.
When they experimented with the anti-atoms last year they verified that they were in fact antihydrogen atoms by releasing them from the trap and observing them being annihilated by hydrogen atoms. During that experiment they were only able to contain the atoms for 170 milliseconds.
They have repeated this experiment, but have made a few changes. By cooling the antiprotons that create the antihydrogen they were able to lower their energy, this allowed for more atoms to be contained with a longer life span. The longer life will allow scientists to do more experiments, like checking if antihydrogen has the same energy level as hydrogen…
Continue reading… “Antihydrogen Could Lead to Anti-gravity”
Fractal art from before computers were doing it.
Benoit Mandelbrot was a Polish-born mathematician. He received a doctorate from the University of Paris and emigrated to the U.S. in 1958. He is best known for his work with fractals, geometric patterns that are repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes and surfaces that cannot be represented by classical geometry.
But before anybody knew Mandelbrot, artists were seeing fractals in nature and transfered the patterns in painting, design and sculpture…
Continue reading… “Pre-Fractal Art”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaN7Kxk1_e8&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
A Japanese research group looking into ways to build the next generation of high-speed trains has set their sights on ground-effect vehicles, or vehicles that move just fast enough to fly at very low altitudes and use the fast-moving air under them as a cushion to keep them airborne. In this case, when we say “ground-effect,” we don’t mean neon lighting on the underside of the chassis.
We already know a lot about high-speed rail, and in European and Asian countries, high-speed trains are the best and even preferred way to travel long distances. Still, the speed of today’s breed of high-speed trains is limited by the fact that they ride on rails that they’re physically connected to. Trains that use a rail or track only as a guide, and hover or fly over it could potentially travel much faster and farther on less fuel…
Continue reading… “Future High-Speed Trains Could Ride on Cushions of Air”
MIT scientists discover that bee venom can detect explosives and some pesticides.
Scientists from MIT have discovered that by coating carbon nanotubes in bee venom, they can create ultra-sensitive detectors for explosives such as TNT, as well as at least two different types of pesticides. This means that bees and their stingers could become important to making better environmental sensors.
Who likes their tap water nice and fiery? I know I do — I simply won’t drink any water that doesn’t catch fire when held over an open flame. That’s why I drink all my water from underground aquifers that have been contaminated by hydro-fracking operations. Yes, a scientific study, the first of its kind, has discovered a link between flammable drinking water documented in communities around the nation, and everyone’s favorite method of extracting natural gas from the ground…
Continue reading… “New Study Traces Flammable Drinking Water to Fracking”
In the May-June issue of the journal American Mineralogist, a team of scientists announced the discovery of the new mineral krotite, one of the earliest minerals formed in our solar system. It is the main component of an unusual inclusion embedded in a meteorite (NWA 1934), found in northwest Africa. These objects, known as refractory inclusions, are thought to be the first planetary materials formed in our solar system, dating back to before the formation of Earth and the other planets…
Continue reading… “New Mineral Discovered: One of Earliest Minerals Formed in Solar System”
Just a walkin’.
The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center has release its list of the most pedestrian-friendly cities in the US, with 11 getting rankings from Platinum to Bronze and 8 more getting ‘honorable mentions’. Only one city received the highest honor. Find out which one below…
Continue reading… “The 11 Most Walkable Cities in the U.S.”
Whisky. Is there anything it can’t do? Here’s what the Scots are going to do with the byproducts of whisky-making process:
It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland’s best-known distilleries…
Who needs males when you have parthenogenisis? With a little help from science, biologist Peter Baumann and collagues have created an all-female lizard species…
Continue reading… “Scientists Create All-Female Species of Lizard”
If you’d been putting your money on a bet that SSDs will edge out traditional hard drive technology entirely, you might want to rethink your gamble. Traditional high-capacity moving hard drives will be around for a long time, most likely, and researchers at Nottingham University think they have a way to make them even denser: use depleted Uranium.
Depleted uranium, the same material that the military uses for tank shells and gun turret rounds, may one day be used for super-high density storage in hard drives. The trick is to keep the uranium cold…
Continue reading… “Uranium Could Be The Future of Hard Drives”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.