wired
cagapakis | March 31, 2010Because of my recent interest in autonomous, biologically inspired robots, my friend Tami sent me some fascinating links about designs and concepts for future flesh eating robots.
From New Scientist, furniture that captures vermin and uses the biomass to power fuel cells that run small electronics:
From Wired, Human corpse powered robots being developed by the Defense Department:
From the file marked "Evidently, many scientists have never seen even one scary sci-fi movie": The Defense Department is funding research into battlefield robots that power themselves by eating human corpses. What…
sastyk | February 10, 2010Increasingly, the cost of staying wired is eating up a huge part of people's budgets accordinging to The Times:
It used to be that a basic $25-a-month phone bill was your main telecommunications expense. But by 2004, the average American spent $770.95 annually on services like cable television, Internet connectivity and video games, according to data from the Census Bureau. By 2008, that number rose to $903, outstripping inflation. By the end of this year, it is expected to have grown to $997.07. Add another $1,000 or more for cellphone service and the average family is spending as much on…
terrasig | October 27, 2009
Case in point:
A few days ago, I sang the praises of last week's article in Wired magazine by Amy Wallace on pediatric infectious disease and immunology specialist, Dr Paul Offit, and the anti-vaccination movement in the US.
Wallace's article has been widely heralded by the scientific community but has evoked the wrath of several anti-vaccination groups and individual followers.
When the target is a man, their motives are questioned and their intellect maligned. But when the target is a woman, guess what happens? Here is a compiled thread from a series of tweets yesterday from Amy Wallace…
ddobbs | March 10, 2009"How We Decide" author Jonah Lehrer, fresh from a book tour of the UK, offers what he calls a "spluttering answer" (it's really quite lucid) to a question he says he's getting a lot these days: What decision-making errors were involved in our current financial meltdown??
The short version of his answer -- well worth reading in its entirety -- is that we (and big investment outfits particularlyl) succumbed to an abhorrence of uncertainty.
We hate not knowing, and this often leads us to neglect relevant information that might undermine the certainty of our conclusions. I think some of the…
sporte | October 4, 2008Long Branch, NJ, is a lovely town on the Atlantic Ocean, with long beaches and brand new shops and condos. It is also part of an area in, central New Jersey, where biotechnology education is entering an exciting time thanks to efforts of NJBEC, Bio-1, and a WIRED grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.
NJBEC, Bio-1, WIRED? What do all these acronyms mean?
I get these things confused all the time, so I'll take a quick moment and explain.
NJBEC is the New Jersey Biotechnology Educators Consortium. Bio-1 is a partnership between five counties and several schools in central New Jersey, that…
sporte | September 29, 2008This First Annual Conference for New Jersey Biotechnology Educators will be held on Saturday, Oct. 4th at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey.
I'm excited about attending this conference, not only because of the biotechnology part, but because I've reading Sarah Vowel's book Assassination vacation and I'm looking forward to seeing the last resting place of President James Garfield. Sarah Vowel is an incredibly funny commentator on NPR's "This American Life" and so, even though I don't usually read about people making pilgrimages to famous presidential sites, I had to read…