Nov 20 2009 Creepy Robot Stares At You So You Exercise
How would you like this creepy little bastard staring at your ass when you're performing squats? Or maybe holding your feet while you do crunches? Or maybe you've got to be out of your got-damn mind!
Bandit is helping the University of Southern California Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems conduct a study on exercise training. 70 volunteers of all ages (including 20 people aged 60 or older living in retirement homes) will have either Bandit himself or Bandit on video as a trainer, and the researchers will try to figure out if the physical presence of the robot makes a difference.
That's right, they named him Bandit. As in, "Give me all your internal organs!" Listen, you want me to tell you whether a robot's presence helps you lose weight? It does -- and I'll prove it. SEND IN THE ROOMBA! *Eeeeeeeeeeeeek!* There, I feel four pounds lighter already. Oh, and I'm not cleaning that shit up either.
Video of the little jerkbag after the jump.
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Nov 18 2009 Dad Only Speaks Klingon To Son For 3 Years
This handsome dapper portly half-Santa isn't the man in the story, but that doesn't matter. What's important is that he practices good dental hygiene. Also, that some cat named d'Armond Speers decided to only speak Klingon to his son for the first three years of his life. But fret not, he did it with good cause: cruelty experimentation. I knew I had kids for a reason!
"I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language," Speers told the Minnesota Daily. "He was definitely starting to learn it."
And get this, Speers says he isn't really a huge Star Trek fan.Does the fact that Speers has a doctorate in computational linguistics explain anything -- or excuse anything -- here? Maybe. His child-rearing habits were part of a larger story on the company he advises, Ultralingua, which develops language and translation software. Including Klingon.
Yeah, I don't know how I feel about that. Besides somebody get this man a 'Father of the Year' ribbon! Are you reading this B.F. Skinner? That air-crib was weak shit!
Local dad spoke only Klingon to child for three years [citypages]
Thanks to Demon Spawn and Kelly, who are only speaking jibberish to their children for six years.
Sep 15 2009 I Smell Hoverboards!: Scientists Successfully Float Mice Using Magnetic Fields
That's right folks, scientists have successfully hovered mice using nothing but magnetic fields. You read correctly: no black magic this time! (I'm still skeptical)
Scientists working on behalf of NASA built a device to simulate variable levels of gravity. It consists of a superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals, with a space inside warm enough at room temperature and large enough at 2.6 inches wide (6.6 cm) for tiny creatures to float comfortably in during experiments.
The researchers first levitated a young mouse, just three-week-old and weighing 10 grams. It appeared agitated and disoriented, seemingly trying to hold on to something."It actually kicked around and started to spin, and without friction, it could spin faster and faster, and we think that made it even more disoriented," said researcher Yuanming Liu, a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They decided to mildly sedate the next mouse they levitated, which seemed content with floating.
I want to float! Remember that time in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Charlie and his alcoholic grandfather drank the Lifting Fizzy Drink and then floated around the bubble room? Yeah, I did that one time when I was tripping. It was awesome. Well, until I swallowed a bubble and got the hiccups. I was hiccuping colors!
Mice Levitated in Lab [yahoonews]
Thanks to Totex, who once made his assistant hover before somebody in the audience yelled, "I can see the wires!" and ruined the illusion.
Sep 10 2009 Military Experimenting With Airless Tires
We've known about airless tires for a while now here on Geekologie, but now the US military is getting involved and testing them sums of beaches out on some of their vehicles. But not their tanks -- they don't have any air to begin with, silly!
The advantages of airless tires are obvious: they can't be punctured and they never go flat. But it clearly takes a lot of science to get the proper material that can stand up to the pressure of a multi-ton military vehicle sitting on top of it.
Nice, military, but how about some REAL airless tires. I'm talking about hover wheels, bitches! I know that shit exists, we stole the technology from the aliens. GET OUT OF MY HEAD GOVERNMENT! Quick, somebody Reynolds Wrap me, STAT!
Jul 28 2009 Blue Dye May Help After Spinal Injuries
FD&C Blue No. 1, a food dye commonly found in Gatorade and other unnaturally blue consumables, is believe do help prevent cell death after a spinal cord injury. Imagine what Purple No. 3 might do!
[The dye] appears to block a molecule that floods the injury site and kills nerve cells, a team reports in the July 28 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Rats dosed with the dye after injury showed greater improvement in motor skills than rats not receiving the dye. And the food colorant's low toxicity suggests a new approach for treating spinal cord trauma in humans, injuries for which there are few therapies."It's not a cure," says neuroscientist Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y., who led the new study. "I don't think that anything can cure this, but for the patient it could be a big improvement."
Blue No. 1 folks, it's the future. Which sucks, because I've been stockpiling Yellow No. 5. Now what am I supposed to do with it all? BESIDES POUR IT INTO THE WATER SUPPLY AND BECOME THIS CITY'S GREATEST LOVER!
Brilliant blue for the spine [sciencenews]
Thanks to dustin and Julian, who only experiment with drugs.
Apr 25 2009 Red Rover, Red Rover: Glowing Puppies
Created in the same fashion as the glowing kitties we posted way back in December, 2007, scientists have bred transgenic (expressing a gene from another, unrelated organism) puppies that glow red under UV light. I don't want one. Ain't no devil dog livin' in this house!
A team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones.
Greg Barsh, a geneticist at Stanford University who studies dogs as models of human disease, says creating a transgenic dog is "an important accomplishment", showing that cloning and transgenesis can be applied to a wide range of mammals."I do not know of specific situations where the ability to produce transgenic dogs represents an immediate experimental opportunity," Barsh adds. But transgenic dogs will give researchers another potential tool to understand disease.
Eh, I thought it was so you wouldn't kick your dog on the way to the kitchen for a midnight snack. I don't know about this whole disease bit. Which reminds me: any of you good at identifying rashes? I can send pics.
Hit the jump for what the puppies look like when they're not glowing. Except the middle one, the middle one isn't a glower.
Sep 15 2008 Uh-Oh: Large Hadron Collider Hacked, Countdown To Destruction Initiated !!
Last week a group of hackers busted all up in the Large Hadron Collider's network and did stuff. Okay, so they didn't really do anything. That we know about.
Calling themselves the Greek Security Team, the interlopers mocked the IT used on the project, describing the technicians responsible for security as "a bunch of schoolkids."
However, despite an ominous warning "don't mess with us," the hackers said they had no intention of disrupting the work of the atom smasher."We're pulling your pants down because we don't want to see you running around naked looking to hide yourselves when the panic comes," they wrote in Greek in a rambling note posted on the LHC's network.
Of course they're not going to disrupt the atom smashing. They have to make sure the LHC is fully functional before they bust back in. Then they'll use the system's time machining capabilities to travel back in time and fulfill man's quest to have sex with dinosaurs. Lizard people yo, lizard people.
Hit the jump for a video explaining the experiments conducted using the LHC.
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Sep 12 2008 Live Large Hadron Collider Webcams
This is a snapshot from one of the webcams positioned on the Large hadron Collider. Hit this link to view them, there's been a bunch of bustling around the past few days and I think I saw a guy trip and fall down the stairs on the left. Definitely worth checking out. And also, a book from the library. Get your read on, bitches!
Hit it for one more shot, but view the cams first for some hot and steamy live action.
Aug 27 2008 This Is What Happens...
When the CERN Large Hadron Collider starts crashing particles into shit next month. I can hardly wait!
Hit the jump for a highly questionable (yet informative) video of some chick singing a rap song about the collider.
