Firefighting is dangerous enough without your two-way radio failing behind collapsed walls or in smoke-filled buildings. That’s why the DoD has developed the a new disposable router system, dubbed WISPER, that may one day replace traditional radios. More
John “Doctor Hot Licks” Taylor prides himself on playing the guitar very well, very quickly. Back in April, he tried to break the world record as the fastest guitar player. In this video from the event, he started playing “Flight of the Bumblebee” at 170 beats per minute. Taylor gradually worked his way up until he played the piece at 600 bpm at 11 minutes, 30 seconds into the video. Guinness World Records confirmed this effort and declared that Taylor is the fastest guitar player in the world. Link -via Snowflakes in Hell
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The World’s Fastest Guitar Player
If you’re annoyed by the New York Times’ stupid paywall, here’s the secret trick to destroy it and read as many articles as you want. As this video shows, it only takes three seconds: More
There’s a terrific article in the Smithsonian today about “beer archaeologist” Patrick McGovern, a scholar who has unearthed millennia-old alcohol recipes by analyzing residues in ancient pottery. Now he’s working with a brewer, Sam Calagione, whose pub Dogfish Head serves up beers based on recipes that are thousands of years old. More
HP makes $52.00 in profit for every PC they sell. Apple makes $370.55. In short: Apple makes more money from the sale of one Mac than HP does from selling seven PCs. [Matt Richman] More
According to Apple’s new MobileMe site, most of MobileMe, including email, Find My iPhone, and everything from iSync, will remain intact. iDisk, iWeb, and Gallery, are gone, but they’ll be replaced by iCloud features with different names. More
chrb pointed out a story at BBC News about the discovery of a light-sensitive protein in the human eye that acts like a “compass” in a magnetic field. The molecule at the center of the study is called cryptochrome and is found in every animal on Earth. If removed from the eyes of flies, the flies lost the ability to respond to a magnetic field. From the article: “Despite much controversy, no conclusive evidence exists that humans can sense the Earth’s magnetic field, and the find may revive interest in the idea. Although humans, like migratory birds, are known to have cryptochrome in their eyes, the idea of human magnetoreception has remained largely unexplored since pioneering experiments by Robin Baker of the University of Manchester in the 1980s.”
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Human Eye Protein Senses Earth's Magnetism
maroberts writes “According to a research paper produced from a collaboration between the University of Texas and the Centre for European Economic Research, violent video games may induce aggressive behavior, but the incapacitation effect outweighs this and produces a genuine reduction in violent crime. This paper was referenced in a BBC news story giving reasons why the US crime rates are falling (at least outside the prisons!)”
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Violent Games Credited With Reducing Crime Levels
Attila Dimedici writes “Tesla has announced that their business model has failed. Their basic idea was to sell a boutique electric car to fund the development of a regular consumer electric car. With this announcement they are saying that they did not sell enough of the Roadster to make producing it profitable. If that is the case, it is only a matter of time until Tesla closes its doors. I thought their approach was the most likely to create a successful fully electric car. Although it is possible that the technology they have developed will allow the existing car companies to develop successful fully electric cars, it is a shame that Tesla has failed to become a successful car manufacturer.”
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Tesla Will Discontinue the Roadster
KentuckyFC writes “The published human genome is contaminated with DNA sequences from mycoplasma bacteria, according to bioinformatics researchers who blame an epidemic of mycoplasma contamination in molecular biology labs around the world. The researchers say they’ve also found mycoplasma DNA in two commercially available human DNA chips made by biotech companies for measuring levels of human gene expression. So anybody using these chips to measure human gene expression is also unknowingly measuring mycoplasma gene expression too. The mycoplasma genes are clearly successful in reproducing themselves in silico raising the possibility that we’re seeing the beginnings of an entirely new kind of landscape of infection. One option to combat this kind of virtual infection is to protect databases with the genomic version of antivirus software, a kind of virtual immune system. But this in itself could make things worse by triggering an evolutionary arms race that selects genes most capable of beating the safeguards.”
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