26.12.08

Muistilinkkejä

Research quest for the fountain of youth - Biodesign Instituten ja Methuselah Foundationin yhteistyöstä. Ympäristömyrkkyjen hajottamista mikrobeilla sovelletaan kehoon kertyvän roskan hajottamiseen. Ei enää tukkeutuvia verisuonia, jos keho voidaan muunnella tuottamaan roskaa hajottavia entsyymeitä.

New"smart" materials for the brain - Hiilinanoputket sopivat hyvin aivoihin ja voivat ohittaa luonnolliset, vialliset kytkennät.

Foresight Institute antoi Feynman Prizen nanoauton keksijä Jamer Tourille.
Tour and his team of postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers not only built a car, but also constructed a nanotruck capable of carrying a payload. Asked why he did it, Tour's answer was simple: so that we can someday construct buildings and other large objects with molecular-size vehicles.
First cases of touch-emotion synaesthesia discovered
Both women have developed ways to cope with their experiences. When AW touches an aversive texture, she sings to distract herself from it. Feeling something made of silver - a positive texture - can also cancel out unpleasant tactile-emotions. The same trick helps her feel better after a bad day.
The Legend of Master Legend
As the superheroes see it, the fact that they can't project energy bolts or summon force fields only adds to the purity of their commitment. Their heroism, in a sense, derives from their lack of powers. What they have instead is the power to craft themselves anew.

Blast Knuckles - Sähköshokkinyrkkiraudat.

Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home - Biohakkereista.
But critics of the movement worry that these amateurs could one day unleash an environmental or medical disaster. Defenders say the future Bill Gates of biotech could be developing a cure for cancer in the garage. Many of these amateurs may have studied biology in college but have no advanced degrees and are not earning a living in the biotechnology field. Some proudly call themselves "biohackers" — innovators who push technological boundaries and put the spread of knowledge before profits.

18.12.08

Kaikki lähtevät omille teilleen

The Future of Man--How Will Evolution Change Humans? - Tai paremminkin kuinka ihmiset tulevat muuttamaan evoluutiota.

Pitt Researchers Create Nontoxic Clean-up Method for Common, Potentially Toxic Nano Materials - Tänään niksinurkassa: piparjuuri pysäyttää villiintyneet hiilinanoputket.

MIT's Huggable Robot Teddy Enhances Human Relationships - Spielbergin visiot nallekarhuroboteista ovat lähempänä todellisuutta.

Man becomes his own Big Brother using GPS - Itsensä seuraamista kartalla. Jos istuu päivät pitkät paikallaan tuijottamassa paikallaan olevaa pistettä niin silloin itsensä seuraaminen ei ehkä tuota infoa eikä iloa.

Face Transplant a First for U.S. - Ensimmäiset kasvosiirrot tehdään vaikeasti vammautuneille ja lopulta kasvoja vaihdellaan huvikseen.

Set in Our Ways: Why Change Is So Hard
- Jos tarkoituksesi oli muuttaa elämäntapojasi ja tehdä jotain aivan uutta vuoden vaihtuessa.
In fact, those who seek to make large changes often end up failing even to make the most minor corrections. The more an individual believes he can set his own rudder as he pleases, the more likely he is to run aground. That’s one reason why so many smokers who tell you that they can quit whenever they want are still smoking 20 years later. -- The cure for false hope is to set more reasonable goals and recognize that achieving even modest change will be difficult. And if you are older than 30, remember that your openness to new experiences is slowly declining, so you are better off making a new start today than postponing it until later.

17.12.08

Pieni symbolinen ele

Joulu tulee ja lahjoja voi antaa lahjoittamalla muutaman symbolisen dollarin verran, jos ei enempää. Methuselah Foundation uusi sivustoaan ja Peter Thiel tuplaa lahjoitukset edelleen vuoden 2009 loppuun asti, joten sinne kannattaa suunnata ensimmäisenä. SIAI on toinen kestosuosikki ja Alcorillekin voi tehdä lahjoituksia nykyään.

Kryoniikkapostauksia muistiin Overcoming Biasista: We Agree: Get Froze, You Only Live Twice, Hated Because It Might Work

'Pioneering' arm for 7/7 victim - Metalli yhdistyy käteen kuin sarvet hirven päähän.
"We've been able to prove that we can get osteocutaneous integration - that's to say the soft tissue fuses with the surface of the metal."
Quantifying Myself - Seuraa tapojasi, löydä toistuvia kuvioita ja tunne itsesi paremmin. CureTogether tarjoaa seurantaan soveltuvan palvelun ja uusi vuosi on sattumoisin erinomaisen sopiva aika aloittaa uusi myware-projekti.

In Colombia, they call him Captain Nemo - Huumeiden salakuljettaja rakenteli lasikuitusukellusveneitä.

Web or sex? Nearly half of women would rather go online - Minäkin valitsisin mieluummin netin.


"Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present."
- Albert Camus

9.12.08

Tee se

Allekirjoita.fi - Pekka Piraatti muistuttaa: Allekirjoita Piraattipuolueen kannattajakortti.

Silmäborgi

Eyeborg - Rob Spence haluaa samaa kuin Tanya Vlach eli installoida kamerasilmän puuttuvan paikalle. Wiredin juttu: Filmmaker Plans to Install Camera in His Eye Socket

Metamodern - Muistinko jo mainita, että nanoteknologian grand old man K. Eric Drexler on ryhtynyt bloggaamaan?

L5 First City in Space - Lagrangen pisteessä olevasta O'Neillin sylinteristä kertova koko perheen puolituntinen 3D IMAX-leffa vuodelta 1996 YouTubessa.

"injectable bone" - Ruiskutettava tahna kovettuu sopivasti ruumiinlämmössä.

8.12.08

Terveyden tuolle puolen, tervettä järkeä käyttäen

Scientists back brain drugs for healthy people -> Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy - Yhä useammat ymmärtävät, että ihmiset haluavat muuttua paremmiksi kuin terveiksi ja lääkkeitä tulisi kehittää tehokkaammin tätä tarkoitusta varten.
Drugs may seem distinctive among enhancements in that they bring about their effects by altering brain function, but in reality so does any intervention that enhances cognition. Recent research has identified beneficial neural changes engendered by exercise, nutrition and sleep, as well as instruction and reading. In short, cognitive-enhancing drugs seem morally equivalent to other, more familiar, enhancements.
Departure 2093 - Finnairin visioita tulevaisuuden lentämisestä.

7.12.08

Muistilinkkejä

A Marriage Manifesto... Of Sorts
Suddenly the majority gets to feel what the minority feels. In a moment they feel what it’s like to have their relationship downgraded, and to have a much taken-for-granted right called into question because of another’s beliefs. Just replace the words husband, wife, spouse, or fiancé with boyfriend, girlfriend, special friend, or longtime companion. -- They say their beliefs don’t recognize my marriage, I say my beliefs don’t recognize theirs. Simple.
Never Say Die: The Search for Longer Life
Telomere biologist Bill Andrews of Sierra Sciences is taking a telomerase-boosting supplement called TA-65. "I believe it's safer than driving my car to work," he says. Since he started taking it a year and a half ago, Andrews says he has moved from the back of the pack to the front in 100-mile runs known as ultramarathons. But don't expect to find TA-65 at your local Vitamin Shoppe. It is available only from TA Sciences—for $25,000 a year.

H. M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82

Grasshopper - Kokoon taittuva ekopolkupyörä-kuntopyörä.

5.12.08

Muistilinkkejä

The Mad Scientist Bringing Back the Dead... Really. - Mark Roth, rikkivety ja Ikaria.

Raising the World’s I.Q.
An educated guess is that iodine deficiency results in a needless loss of more than 1 billion I.Q. points around the world.
Do We Overrate Basic Research? - Enemmän keskitason katukäyttöä.
Mr. Bhidé derides the conventional view in science and technology circles as “techno-nationalism,” needlessly alarmist and based on a widely held misunderstanding of how technological innovation yields economic growth. In his view, many analysts put too much emphasis on the production of new technological ideas. Instead, he observes, the real economic payoff lies in innovations in how technologies are used.
Born to Run? Little Ones Get Test for Sports Gene
Speed Gene: Fact of Fiction?
Lacking the ACTN3 protein does not seem to have any harmful health effects, but there does seem to be an effect on sports performance. Several studies have found that Olympic-level power athletes always have at least one working copy of the ACTN3 gene.
How the president-elect tapped into a powerful—and only recently studied—human emotion called "elevation."
Keltner believes certain people are "vagal superstars"—in the lab he has measured people who have high vagus nerve activity. "They respond to stress with calmness and resilience, they build networks, break up conflicts, they're more cooperative, they handle bereavement better." He says being around these people makes other people feel good. "I would guarantee Barack Obama is off the charts. Just bring him to my lab." -- The vagus nerve works with oxytocin, the hormone of connection. -- "We had to evolve these emotions to devote ourselves into social collectives," he says.

Google on tehnyt ratkaisevan sopimuksen kirjailijoiden ja kustantajien kanssa.

2.12.08

Pyrkimys panna toimeksi

The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind - Internetin ekosysteemiä on suojeltava tekijänoikeusmafialta kuin viidakon ekosysteemiä saastuttavilta yhtiöiltä.
The environmental movement gained much of its persuasive power by pointing out that for structural reasons we were likely to make bad environmental decisions: a legal system based on a particular notion of what “private property” entailed and an engineering or scientific system that treated the world as a simple, linearly related set of causes and effects. In both of these conceptual systems, the environment actually disappeared; there was no place for it in the analysis. Small surprise, then, that we did not preserve it very well. I have argued that the same is true about the public domain. The confusions against which the Jefferson Warning cautions, the source-blindness of a model of property rights centered on an “original author,” and the political blindness to the importance of the public domain as a whole (not “my lake,” but “the Environment”), all come together to make the public domain disappear, first in concept and then, increasingly, as a reality. To end this process we need a cultural environmentalism, an environmentalism of the mind, and over the last ten years we have actually begun to build one.

Procrastinating Again? How to Kick the Habit
- Ole aina yhden askeleen päässä maalista, Get Things Done.
Working with Richmond, molecular geneticist Edward Ginns used a molecular decoy called DNA antisense to partially shut down production of a receptor for dopamine in a region of the monkeys’ brains called the rhinal cortex that associates visual cues with reward. The treatment diminished dopamine’s effects to the point that the monkeys could no longer predict when any given trial would earn them a juice treat. Thus, they hedged their bets, working hard all the time as if “they are always one trial away from the penultimate,” Richmond says. -- “Habits become nonconscious brain processes,” Pychyl says. “When procrastination becomes chronic, a person is, essentially, running on autopilot.” Some experts suggest replacing the reflex to postpone with time-stamped prescriptions for action. Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer of New York University and the University of Konstanz in Germany advises creating “implementation intentions,” which specify where and when you will perform a specific behavior. So rather than setting a vague goal such as “I will get healthy,” set one with its implementation, including timing, built in—say, “I will go to the health club at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow.”

A Soldier, Taking Orders From Its Ethical Judgment Center
- Seuraava yhdistelmä herätti hilpeyttä monella tasolla.
“My research hypothesis is that intelligent robots can behave more ethically in the battlefield than humans currently can,” said Ronald C. Arkin -- -- Dr. Arkin, a Christian who acknowledged the help of God and Jesus Christ in the preface to his book --
Terminaattori voisi kyllä helposti olla eettisempi valinta taistelukentälle kuin kiihkouskovainen itsemurhapommittaja, mutta ovatko taistelukenttien tapauskovaiset tarpeeksi robotteja omasta takaa? Vai tarvitsemmeko paremmin "Älä tapa" -käskyä suorittavia taistelurobotteja? Tarvitsevatko sotarobotit oman sotilaspapin? Mitä jos nämä terminaattorit menevät sekaisin, lopettavat sotimisen ja kääntyvät ateisteiksi? Jonkinlainen itsetuhojärjestelmä sellaisen skenaarion varalle olisi varmaan rakennettava... mistä muistuikin mieleeni tämä video.