First recording from the project's "sound card"
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
After China's multibillion-dollar cleanup, water still unfit to drink | Reuters
BEIJING (Reuters) - China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and
Automakers Shed the Pounds to Meet Efficiency Standards | MIT Technology Review
Decades of increasing vehicle weight may be coming to an end as cars get more lightweight materials.
Creating Hipsturbia in the Suburbs of New York - NYTimes.com
As Brooklyn bohemians reach parenting age, some are moving to the suburbs and bringing a little of their borough with them.
In Russia, Property Ruined and Spared by Meteor Share Space - NYTimes.com
Infrasound waves, scientists say, would explain the apparent randomness of phenomena like cracked dishes and dead electronics behind unscathed windows.
Robot Research Lab Willow Garage Will Look to Become a Business | MIT Technology Review
The lab developed key technologies that have advanced personal robotics, but its funding wasn’t sustainable.
New technique scales up production of graphene micro-supercapacitors
While the demand for ever-smaller electronic devices has spurred the miniaturization of a variety of technologies, one area has lagged behind in this downsizing revolution: energy-storage units, such as batteries and capacitors. Engineers have now developed a groundbreaking technique that uses a DVD burner to fabricate micro-scale graphene-based supercapacitors. These micro-supercapacitors can be easily manufactured and integrated into small devices such as next-generation pacemakers.
The Super Supercapacitor | Brian Golden Davis - YouTube
THE SUPER SUPERCAPACITOR is a Finalist in the $200,000 GE FOCUS FORWARD Filmmaker Competition. Learn more about the Competition and GE FOCUS FORWARD at http:...
DIY forklift for the home shop
[Robert] does a fair bit of metal casting, and of course that means carrying around hundreds of pounds of sand, scrap, and other materials. He came up with a great solution to the inevitable back pain: a small, workshop-sized forklift able to carry around a half ton pallet.
Steam-powered robots and hacked bugs: a visit to I-Wei Huang's garage - Boing Boing
In eastern Ontario, a battery five times the size of Niagara Falls - The Globe and Mail
Northland Power’s man-made waterfall among innovative Canadian projects aimed at bridging intermittent power sources
Russians Prospect for Meteorite Fragments - NYTimes.com
On Friday, terror rained from the skies in Siberia, but by Monday, what fell from the sky had turned to gold for people who rushed to retrieve meteorite fragments.
Video of Russian meteor explosion - Boing Boing
Students get class-wide As by boycotting test, solving Prisoner's Dilemma - Boing Boing
Honda SolarCity Home Solar Financing | MIT Technology Review
Honda signs on installer SolarCity to offer new car buyers an option to have home solar panels financed by Honda.
Affordable ceramic purifier uses nanoparticles to clean water : TreeHugger
Using ceramics and metal nanoparticles, a non-profit organization from University of Virginia is making these simple but effective purifiers that can eliminate up to 99.9% of waterborne pathogens.
Lost PLA Casting from 3D Prints
In love and sex, it’s economics, not romance, at the root of decisions | Canada | News | National Post
If anything puts a price on love, it’s marriage. But economists’ concern with matters of the heart has grown exponentially to put infidelity, dating and the act of sex itself under the microscope
C-section babies missing crucial gut bacteria, study finds - The Globe and Mail
Microbial difference may explain higher risk of developing diseases linked to immune system
BBC News - Fast fibre: A community shows the way
How fast is your home broadband? Seventy to 80 Mbps if you're one of the few with the very fastest fibre broadband services? Perhaps 10Mbps if you've got an average connection, maybe under 2Mbps if you live some miles from your nearest exchange. So how would you fancy a 500Mbps download scheme?
The Rich See a Different Internet Than the Poor: Scientific American
Ninety-nine percent of us live on the wrong side of a one-way mirror
BBC News - How much bigger can container ships get?
Container ships have doubled in size in less than a decade. Are they growing too far too fast?
Russia's massive meteorite: By the numbers - The Week
The big space rock that crashed into the Ural Mountains last week was the largest in a century, and worth more than its weight in gold
Rise of the robots: what will the future of work look like? | Robert Skidelsky | Business | guardian.co.uk
Sooner or later, we will run out of jobs – so, what are people to do if machines can do all (or most of) their work?
Climate Change And Blizzards May Be Connected, Global Warming Studies Demonstrate
WASHINGTON (AP) — With scant snowfall and barren ski slopes in parts of the Midwest and Northeast the past couple of years, some scientists have pointed to global warming as the culprit. Then when a whopper of a blizzard smacked the Northeast with more than 2 feet of snow in some places earlier this month, some of the same people again blamed global warming. How can that be? It's been a joke among skeptics, pointing to what seems to be a brazen contradiction. But the answer lies in atmospheric physics.
Ocean acidification and oysters: Shellfish are already suffering. - Slate Magazine
Behind the counter at Seattle’s Taylor Shellfish Market, a brawny guy with a goatee pries open kumamoto, virginica, and shigoku oysters as easily as other men pop beer cans. David Leck is a national oyster shucking champion who opened and plated a dozen of them in just over a minute...
Antibiotics and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in Meat: Not Getting Better | Wired Science | Wired.com
A few days ago, the Food and Drug Administration released two important documents related to antibiotic use in livestock raising, and what the results of that antibiotic use are. The news is not good. Wired Science blogger Maryn McKenna reports.
'Mass Equals Time' Redefines Weight Standards - IEEE Spectrum
New measurements of the matter-wave Compton frequency presage a quantum-mechanical definition of mass
Something, Something, Something, Detroit | VICE
After suffering through the nation’s worst and most concentrated examples of racial violence, industrial collapse, serial arson, crack war, and municipal bankruptcy following years of municipal
In California, the Snow Tells the Future for the Water Supply - NYTimes.com
California’s snowpack, which supplies water to more than 25 million people and almost one million acres of farmland, is measured monthly in the winter.
‘Bang Goes the Theory’ on BBC America - NYTimes.com
“Bang Goes the Theory,” on BBC America, tries to present science in a way that makes it less intimidating.
Air-powered 3D-printed robot tentacle - Boing Boing
BBC - Future - Health - The psychology of why cyclists enrage car drivers
It’s not simply because they are annoying, argues Tom Stafford, it’s because they trigger a deep-seated rage within us by breaking the moral order of the road.
Mathias Braschler's and Monika Fischer's Chinese Portraits - NYTimes.com
A Swiss couple thought it would be a good project to photograph all of China's provinces. They got a great portrait series, and then some.
Emu Oil Aids the Survival of an Unusual Industry - NYTimes.com
Emu oil, which comes from a block of fat that covers most of the bird’s body, has proved a boon for ranchers in an industry struggling with decline.
Unpretentiousil: de remedie tegen HIPSTER | Flabber
Ook zo'n last van een bril van je opa, de skinny jeans van je zusje en een V-hals tot aan je zak? Dan heb je waarschijnlijk HIPSTER.
The Seductive Allure of the Hotel Bar - Businessweek
My favorite hotel bar in the world? Whichever one I happen to be in. Beyond that, I reject the question. The question misses the point entirely. The key thing about a hotel bar, any hotel bar, is that it doesn’t matter where it is. That’s exactly what distinguishes it from a bar that is not a hotel
‘Lore,’ by Cate Shortland, Views Children in Postwar Germany - NYTimes.com
In “Lore,” which is not a fairy tale but feels like one, five children cross Germany in 1945.
Smarter Wind Turbines Help Wind Power Compete with Fossil Fuels | MIT Technology Review
New technology, including better control algorithms and communications, is improving the performance of wind turbines.
Making a Home in an Old Packard Plant - NYTimes.com
Despite the lack of heat or reliable running water, an old Packard plant has become a home.
Chemical Looping Could Eliminate Coal Power Plant Pollution | MIT Technology Review
A technology for generating electricity from coal without pollution achieves a milestone.
Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
The lithium ion batteries installed on the Boeing 787 are inherently unsafe, says Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and owner of electric car maker Tesla.
"Unfortunately,...
A cheaper way to turn flax into biodiesel - The Globe and Mail
Toronto company has a new method to extract oil from the grain
THIS IS HAS SO MUCH TO DO WITH ATHEISM!!!!!!!!! - Imgur
Imgur is used to share photos with social networks and online communities, and has the funniest pictures from all over the Internet.
Fighting Recession the Icelandic Way - Bloomberg
Fighting Recession the Icelandic Way
The 3-D printing revolution has begun - The Globe and Mail
Sales have skyrocketed thanks to price drop and 'the impact of this technology on small business is huge'
N.W.T farmer battles permafrost to grow potatoes 140 km from Arctic Circle | Canada | News | National Post
Doug Whiteman is a subarctic potato farmer who battles permafrost year-round, lives about 140 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle, and over the past seven years has gone from coaxing 300 pounds to 30,000 pounds of potatoes out of his stubborn land.
1960s Afghanistan - Imgur
Imgur is used to share photos with social networks and online communities, and has the funniest pictures from all over the Internet.
Cool Tools: Create clamps in a pinch - Boing Boing
The secrets of Grand Central Terminal train station - interactive | Travel | guardian.co.uk
Nearly 750,000 people pass through New York's Grand Central every day – but even a place like Grand Central has its secrets
Disney's Beautiful Gamechanger Paperman Debuts Online
Disney's Oscar-nominated Paperman short, which blends hand-drawn and CGI animation into a groundbreaking (and beautiful) whole, is now available online.
A high-tech effort to minimize sound in the New York subway | Narratively
Computer Scientists Find New Shortcuts for Infamous Traveling Salesman Problem | Wired Science | Wired.com
The traveling salesman problem asks: Given a collection of cities connected by highways, what is the shortest route that visits every city and returns to the starting place? The answer has practical applications to processes such as drilling holes in circuit boards, scheduling tasks on a computer and ordering features of a genome. Now, a long-sought advance in the traveling salesman problem is breathing new life into the search for improved approximate solutions.
The History of Wooing Men: a cdza video music experiment - Boing Boing
‘Naked Statistics’ by Charles Wheelan - Review - NYTimes.com
In “Naked Statistics,” Charles Wheelan shows how health has nothing in common with the laws of physics and everything in common with lottery cards, mutual funds and tomorrow’s weather forecast.
Jared Diamond’s Guide to Reducing Life’s Risks - NYTimes.com
The secret to longer life may be to pay more attention to hazards that carry a low risk but are encountered frequently than to worry about catastrophic events like plane crashes.
Novel Vaccine Technologies Could Make Flu Vaccines Easier to Make and More Effective | MIT Technology Review
Researchers are developing quick-brew vaccines and ones that catch multiple strains of flu.
The Surprising Connection Between Food and Fracking | Mother Jones
What Does It Mean to Be Comfortable? - NYTimes.com
As the world’s cultures become more homogeneous, so has the definition of comfort.
Why We Can't See Inside Poultry Production, and What Might Change if We Could | Wired Science | Wired.com
Multi-drug resistant bacteria are present in chicken, apparently because of the use of antibiotics in poultry production, and are passing to people who work with, prepare or eat chicken, at some risk to their health. Why isn't this being addressed? Wired Science blogger Maryn McKenna considers the problem.
Captivating Photos of Detroit Delve Deep to Reveal a Beautiful, Struggling City | Raw File | Wired.com
In the past 40 years, the number of people living in the city of Detroit has halved. This has lead many to write it off – in many ways, wrongly – as a decrepit ghost town. Unbroken Down is a photo project that counters the images of abandoned buildings with personal, vibrant shots of everyday life in Detroit.
How poverty influences a child's brain development - The Globe and Mail
Science is figuring out exactly how the damage is done and what steps can be taken to halt and then heal it
Carpenter builds incredible egg-shaped treehouse hidden from view on Crown land just yards from multi-million homes | Mail Online
Joel Allen built this incredible egg-shaped treehouse on public land in the forests of Whistler, western Canada, without telling anyone.
BBC News - Antibiotic 'apocalypse' warning
The rise in drug resistant infections is comparable to the threat of global warming, according to the chief medical officer for England.
BBC News - Dog evolved 'on the waste dump'
A genetic study indicates the ability to thrive on the starchy food leftovers of early farmers was an important step in the domestication of dogs from wolves.
BBC News - The Nazi prisoners bugged by Germans
A top-secret operation in World War II bugged thousands of German prisoners, gleaning vital information about the Nazi war machine through "secret listeners" who were themselves German refugees
For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine
In 1978, Soviet geologists prospecting in the wilds of Siberia discovered a family of six, lost in the taiga
The Story Behind Banksy | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine
On his way to becoming an international icon, the subversive and secretive street artist turned the art world upside-down
The secret lives of North Korea - Asia - World - The Independent
I had the rare privilege of serving as the UK's ambassador to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (usually referred to simply as North Korea) from February 2006 to July 2008, a tumultuous period that included missile launches and the country's first nuclear test.
How Scientists Stalked a Lethal Superbug—With the Killer's Own DNA | Wired Science | Wired.com
A lethal bacterium was running rampant at an NIH hospital. Antibiotics were useless. Then two scientists began a frantic race to track down the killer — with the superbug's own DNA.
Robot Makers Spread Global Gospel of Automation - NYTimes.com
Manufacturers of robots and similar machines gathered in Chicago, casting automation as an indispensable engine of economic growth.
Quicker Coal Power - IEEE Spectrum
Greater agility in output may keep Old King Coal in place in a nonnuclear Germany
Lowly Dung Beetles Are Insect Astronomers | Wired Science | Wired.com
Even the humble dung beetle, standing barely an inch off the ground, its life spent pushing balls of waste, steers by starlight.
As Graduates Rise in China, Office Jobs Fail to Keep Up - NYTimes.com
Millions of Chinese graduate from college every year, but they struggle to find jobs in an economy that is still dominated by blue-collar industries.
Watch Out, IKEA, Here Comes The Robotic Chainsaw : TreeHugger
Hyperlocal manufacturing comes to the forest and takes a chainsaw to the supply chain
Artificial Donut-Shaped Island Will Store Belgian Offshore Wind Power - IEEE Spectrum
Pumped water storage will help the country move away from nuclear energy.
The 787 Dreamliner’s Innovation, Promise, and Troubles - IEEE Spectrum
The plane's history includes many delays, but it broke new ground in software, materials, and electrical systems
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BBC News - Silbo gomero: A whistling language revived
On a Spanish island, an ancient whistling language that seemed to be dying out is now undergoing a revival.
Dramatic temperature increases could threaten Canadian health, infrastructure - The Globe and Mail
Canada’s infrastructure wasn’t built for this kind of climate; local public health officials are also paying close attention to vulnerable populations as extreme heat and cold become more frequent
A Popular Definition | Structures Workshop Blog
Reluctant thief takes pizza for his hungry family instead of cash | World | News | National Post
A man who went to rob a Papa John's changed his mind when he was given the money and ended up leaving with a pizza to feed his hungry family
Halifax theft: Stash of stolen artifacts worth $500,000 found in home | Canada | News | National Post
RCMP officers are painstakingly cataloguing about 1,000 antiques, rare books, historical documents and paintings they allege were pilfered over two decades and put on display in a suburban Halifax home.
Ecuadorian Tribe Vows to 'Die Fighting' Oil Company - Yahoo! News Canada
From Yahoo! News Canada: A battle is looming between one of South America's largest state-backed oil companies and an indigenous community of about 400 in the Ecuadorian rainforest.
The Skewed, Anamorphic Sculptures and Engineered Illusions of Jonty Hurwitz | Colossal
How Doctors Die - Boing Boing
A DARPA-funded Medical Foam Could Save Soldier’s Lives by Slowing Uncontrolled Internal Bleeding on the Battlefield. | MIT Technology Review
The DARPA-funded advance is designed to keep soldiers alive long enough to reach a hospital.
Chernobyl wildlife: The radioactive fallout zone is a wildlife refuge (PHOTOS). - Slate Magazine
Read Mary Mycio’s story about Chernobyl’s wildlife here. When Mary Mycio tells people she visited the radioactive fallout zone around Chernobyl to study the region’s animals, the questions are always the same. Do the animals have two heads? Do they glow? Actually, according to Mycio and photographer and field biologist...
Make a Frontier stove from a gas bottle
I recently saw a frontier stove online and thought how awesome it'd be for camping.
I also thought the cost was silly and that I could make one just ...
Visitors to Shenzhen zoo toss garbage, rocks, killing crocodiles | Nanfang Insider
Drug cartel violence in Mexico, an animated video explainer - Boing Boing
HOWTO assemble the Powercube, hydraulic power source for the Global Village Construction set - Boing Boing
Guy re-creates a VIA Rail car, in his basement, down to the most minute detail - Boing Boing
Burning Question | Why Is Flu Common in Winter? - WSJ.com
A wintertime spike in flu cases isn't only because of the chill outside, says one researcher.
In a world of challenges, it's time to look at possibilities | Jon Talton | Pacific NW | The Seattle Times
Here's How You Eat Wild Caviar In 2013: You Don't | The Awl
Stereotypical rich people of days gone by, with their brass-buttoned Navy blazers and exotic European sports cars, used to love to feast upon caviar. Why?
Zoologger: The first solar-powered vertebrate - life - 18 January 2013 - New Scientist
The spotted salamander is the first backboned animal known to harness sunlight to make food – with the help of photosynthetic algae
Ripple Credit System Could Help or Harm Bitcoin - IEEE Spectrum
Decentralized, peer-to-peer credit could either be the exchange Bitcoiners want—or the nascent currency’s first credible competition
Berlin Bank Heist Tunnel Pictures Released
Days after a startling robbery in Berlin, police reveal pictures of the 100ft tunnel that was used to get into the bank.
Bio Design in the Home - The Beauty of Bacteria - NYTimes.com
A growing movement called bio design is looking to natural organisms like fungus and algae to shape the interiors of the future.
Daily chart: Choked | The Economist
The most polluted cities of the world's largest economiesBEIJING is frequently shrouded in dense, yellowish smog so thick that the other side of the road is...
Nigeria's Illegal Oil Refineries - In Focus - The Atlantic
Reuters photographer Akintunde Akinleye recently gained rare access to an illegal oil refinery near the river Nun in Nigeria's oil state of Bayelsa
The Next Evolution of the Internet - IEEE - The Institute
The Internet of Things means everything will be connnected
Talk to Al Jazeera - Noam Chomsky: The responsibility of privilege - YouTube
Linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky remains as vigorous as ever at the age of 84. His popularity - or notoriety as some would say - endures because ...
Borderlines: photography special - FT.com
In September 1940 the German-Jewish intellectual Walter Benjamin walked into the French Pyrenees towards the Spanish border and never came back. It seems that when the Spaniards barred his passage, he swallowed morphine tablets to elude the Nazis.
New Generation Confronts Unaffordable Luxury of Food - NYTimes.com
A new generation concerned with ethical cleanliness, environmental sensitivity and expensive, curated victuals is spending much more to eat than it probably should.
TEDxTC - Jonathan Foley - The Other Inconvenient Truth - YouTube
The Other Inconvenient Truth: How Agriculture is Changing the Face of Our Planet We typically think of climate change as the biggest environmental issue we f...
Pollution worst on record in Beijing: Greenpeace | Reuters
BEIJING (Reuters) - Air quality in Beijing was the worst on record on Saturday and Sunday, according to environmentalists, as the city's pollution monitoring centre warned residents to stay indoors with
High Hay Prices Encourage More Thefts From Farms - NYTimes.com
Drought and grass fires have pushed the price of hay to near records, making it an increasingly irresistible target for thieves or desperate peers.
A surprising map of the best and worst countries to be born into today
BBC News - Rheinmetall demos laser that can shoot down drones
A laser weapons system that can shoot down two drones at a distance of over a mile has been demonstrated by Rheinmetall Defence.
‘High Tech, Low Life,’ About Two Chinese Citizen Reporters - NYTimes.com
The documentary “High Tech, Low Life” follows two very different Chinese bloggers who try to report what the government-controlled press won’t.
Build a Small Radar System Capable of Sensing Range, Doppler, and Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging | MIT OpenCourseWare
Are you interested in building and testing your own imaging radar system? MIT Lincoln Laboratory offers this 3-week course in the design, fabrication, and test of a laptop-based radar sensor capable of measuring Doppler, range, and forming synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. You do not have to be a radar engineer but it helps if you are interested in any of the following; electronics, amateur radio, physics, or electromagnetics. It is recommended that you have some familiarity with MATLAB®. Teams of three students will receive a radar kit and will attend a total of 5 sessions spanning topics from the fundamentals of radar to SAR imaging. Experiments will be performed each week as the radar kit is implemented. You will bring your radar kit into the field and perform additional experiments such as measuring the speed of passing cars or plotting the range of moving targets. A final SAR imaging contest will test your ability to form a SAR image of a target scene of your choice from around campus; the most detailed and most creative image wins.
Retrotechtacular: Fluid Coupling
We realize the transmission fluid of an automobile's automatic transmission is used to transfer the power from the engine to the drive shaft. But after watching this Department of Defense video from 1954 we now have a full understanding of the principles involved in fluid coupling.
How plants stay warm - Boing Boing
Oil Sand Industry in Canada Tied to Higher Carcinogen Level - NYTimes.com
Alberta’s oil sands industry has raised the levels of cancer-causing compounds in surrounding lakes well beyond natural levels, researchers reported.
America's Real Criminal Element: Lead | Mother Jones
The Serpent in the Sword - YouTube
The Serpent in the Sword is a paper by Lee A Jones studying early medieval pattern-welded swords. This video shows how to create a pattern-welded sword that ...
How a Pickpocket Cleans You Out | Wired Science | Wired.com
Master pickpocket Apollo Robbins demonstrates his skill on video.
Kandidaat Darwin-award haalt silo neer | Flabber
Echte mannen halen een silo met de hand neer.
Biofuel credits behind mystery cross-border train shipments - Canada - CBC News
The mystery of the trainload of biodiesel that crossed back and forth across the Sarnia-Port Huron border without ever unloading its cargo, as reported by CBC News, has been solved.
German Archaeologists Discover World’s Oldest Wooden Wells | Archaeology | Sci-News.com
7,000-year-old water wells unearthed in eastern Germany suggest that prehistoric farmers in Europe were skilled carpenters.
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