Technology
pharyngula | October 28, 2007You would not believe what I just caughtSkatje doing — I am horrified at what my own child was perpetrating.
She was installing some abomination called "Ubuntu" on her computer.
My copy of Mac OS X Leopard is supposed to arrive tomorrow, and I am not going to share it with her. I may have to cut her out of the will.
sciencetolife | October 28, 2007Last week the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (at the Woodrow Wilson Center) and Consumer's Union hosted a dialogue about nanotechnology consumer products.
The dialogue was a major effort to reach out to the American public and engage conversation about the potential benefits and risks of nanotechnology and nano in consumer products.
I think it's a great initiative. The site provides a wealth of information concerning the numerous (over 500) consumer products that use nanotechnology.
Access the site here for more information.
clock | October 28, 2007Back at ConvergeSouth, Leonard Witt did several short video interviews with cool participants.
Among others, you should definitely see brief interviews with Anton Zuiker, Kirk Ross and Ruby Sinreich.
clock | October 27, 2007Paul announced it and I will try my best to be there on Tuesday:
Who: Bob Young, founder of Lulu.com, Lulu.tv and Red Hat
Date: Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Time: 3:30pm - 5:00pm
Location: Sonja Haynes Stone Center, Room 103
pharyngula | October 25, 2007The Seed editors asked us to reminisce about our quaint experiences with computing in the Old Days. Old nerds are so pathetic.
I'm much more enthused about an event in future computing: Leopard is coming out tomorrow! Laelaps has an anticipatory video of what Leopard is going to do to Windows — haul it up a tree and eat it for lunch.
jlynch | October 24, 2007Over at Page 3.14, there’s a post where us old farts reminisce about computing when we were young ’uns. I’m quoted as saying
"My first computer was a ZX81 (Timex/Sinclair here in the US). Had 1k of memory. Taught myself assembly.
In high school and college, virtually everything was hand written. Didn’t even use a calculator until college (wasn’t allowed in high school - I remember log tables!)"
Below the fold, I give some more reminiscences. Gentle reader, feel free to add your memories as comments.
These are somewhat free-form and disjointed ...
My first computer was a ZX81 (Timex/…
sb admin | October 24, 2007 Omni Brain met its fundraising goal of $1000 for music education programs through DonorsChoose. Thank you to everyone who's donated. You rock! Now 30 kids will too.
But it'd be okay, you know, permissible (haha) to exceed our goal if you'd still like to help a Lisa Simpson. A few of the programs Omni Brain earmarked are still seeking fulfillment. Here, an Indianapolis music teacher describes his/her wish to teach kids science and music together:
I want to set up a program for fourth through sixth grade having students work on the scientific method of experimenting with sound. The resources I…
neurophilosophy | October 21, 2007Researchers from the Microsoft Corporation recently filed an application for a patent for a brain-computer interface that can "classify brain states".
They say that the device is needed to obtain accurate feedback about the effectiveness of computer-user interfaces, because the conventional way of getting this information - by interview - is often unreliable.
To me this sounds a bit like the overblown claims that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can be used to determine whether an individual is lying or telling the truth. Except that this seems like an even bigger exaggeration.
drorzel | October 20, 2007While I'm passing on announcements from my email, there's an online event scheduled for Tuesda and Wednesday about nanotechnology and the consumer:
Nanotechnology--the ability to measure, see, manipulate and manufacture things between 1 and 100 nanometers (1 billionth of a meter)--is seen as the driver of a new industrial revolution emerging with the development of materials that exhibit new properties and potential new risks and benefits at this tiny scale. However, according to recent polls, the majority of Americans have heard little or nothing about nanotechnology, even as consumer…
neurophilosophy | October 19, 2007
A mussel clinging to a sheet of teflon. (Image credit: Haeshin Lee/ Phillip Messersmith)
The marine mollusc Mytilus edulis inhabits ecological niches in the intertidal zone, which is exposed to air during low tide and submerged in water during high tide. Being so turbulent, these niches are inhospitable to many forms of life; the organisms that do inhabit such harsh conditions are suitably adapted, and the success of the mussel is due largely to its ability to adhere to virtually any kind of surface.
The mussel's steadfast grip is achieved by means of collagenous threads consisting of…
hrynyshyn | October 16, 2007Just about everyone pushing civilization to kick its fossil-fuel habit includes photovoltaics in the list of renewable technologies that will be required to fill the power supply gap. And just about every week one can read about a new breakthrough that promises to make in solar cell technology cheaper and more efficient. But how reliable are those reports? Not very according to one expert.
Solar power is expensive, says the conventional wisdom. Too expensive to be competitive with oil, coal and gas. True in most places, thought not in remote areas far from the grid. I once lived on a…
pharyngula | October 15, 2007Prepare yourself for the true religious wars: I'm asking for advice on a new laptop.
I usually stretch out the usefulness of my computers for four or five years, and it is now time for me to invest in a new laptop. I'm planning to purchase the new tool sometime around the end of this month, when the Leopard OS X version is released. It will be a MacBook Pro; don't even think of suggesting some Windows piece of crap, heretics, and although I can sympathize with the Linux crowd a little more, there's no way I'm going to go back to tinkering obsessively with gadgets again. I like my BSD.
What I'…
neurophilosophy | October 15, 2007Scientist and journalist Sunny Bains discusses how Swiss researchers are using central pattern generator (CPG) chips to develop self-organizing furniture.
CPGs are networks of spinal neurons that generate the rhythmic patterns of neural activity which control locomotion. I wrote about them earlier this year, in the context of the "robo-salamander" designed and built by Auke Jan Ijspeert and his colleagues, of the Biologically Inspired Robotics Group at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland.
The robo-salamander is a modular robot, as it consists of identical units…
grrlscientist | October 12, 2007tags: book review, science essays, technology, Present at the Future, Ira Flatow
Many months ago, I was signed up for the HarperCollins email list that briefly describes their books that are hot off the presses, prior to their public release. The publisher then holds a contest where they ask you to email them a little essay describing why you would be the best person to review a particular title in their list, then they choose the winners and mail the books. Even though HarperCollins published several scientific books this past year, including one that dealt with evolution, my essay was…
neurophilosophy | October 12, 2007
Researchers from the Biomedical Engineering Laboratory at Keio University in Japan have developed a brain-computer interface that enables users to control the movements of Second Life avatars without moving a muscle.
The device consists of a headset containing electrodes which monitor electrical activity in the motor cortex, the region of the brain involved in planning, executing and controlling movements.
All a user has to do to control his/her avatar is imagine performing various movements. The activity monitored by the headpiece is read and plotted by an electroencephalogram, which…
hrynyshyn | October 11, 2007Anyone needing a good rebuttal to arguments in favor of reviving the nuclear power industry -- like this hopelessly amateurish, anachronistic and ill-informed screed on the SciFi Channel's technology page -- need look no further than a concise summary by Walt Patterson, an associate fellow at Chatham House in the UK.
The bad news is it's posted behind the Nature subscription wall at em>Nature 449, 664 (11 October 2007). The good news is Mr. Patterson's got a website with much of the arguments freely available. Plus I have a few spare moments to post the nub of his brief essay, titled "…
purepedantry | October 10, 2007University of Washington researchers have developed a vocal mouse that moves the cursor around the screen with clicks and phonemes:
The Internet offers wide appeal to people with disabilities. But many of those same people find it frustrating or impossible to use a handheld mouse. Software developed at the University of Washington provides an alternative using the oldest and most versatile mode of communication: the human voice.
"There are many people who have perfect use of their voice who don't have use of their hands and arms," said Jeffrey Bilmes, a UW associate professor of electrical…
revere | October 7, 2007Since most of you know from this blog what a nerd I am now, in late adulthood, you can only imagine how nerdy I was when I was a teenager. Nerdy enough to be part of a rocket club. Not sponsored by the school. Just five of us who got together and built solid fuel rockets. This was 50 years ago. We had a test stand and everything. We experimented with nozzle configurations we machined ourselves on a lathe we had access to. We tried different burst diaphragms and fuel mixtures. No one sold kits for this then. We made everything ourselves. We entered a science fair and we had our pictures…
neurophilosophy | October 1, 2007
A team of researchers from Yamaguchi University in Japan has submitted a patent application for an implantable brain cooling device that would be used to develop a new treatment for severe cases of epilepsy.
Epilepsy is a condition that is characterised by abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Many epileptics experience seizures, during which they convulse - sometimes violently - before losing consciousness. These seizures are caused by an "electrical storm" of abnormal neuronal activity that spreads from the locus (or point of origin) to adjacent tissue.
The brain cooling…