The Andy Warhol Museum has recovered a series of artworks created by the famed pop artist in the mid-1980s using a Commodore Amiga home computer. Newly retrieved from old floppy disks, they’re now available for all to see. Read more…
See more here:
Andy Warhol’s Lost Amiga Computer Art Rediscovered 30 Years On
Cochlear implants already help those with auditory damage to hear better , but what if they could also grow new nerves while they’re there? Scientists at the UNSW have discovered a way to do just that, at least in hamsters. After they introduced a gene therapy solution, a modified cochlear implant used electrical pulses to deliver the treatment directly to auditory nerve cells. That successfully re-generated so-called neurotrophins in the animals, which in turn aided nerve development and significantly improved the implant’s effect. Such therapy could one day help the hearing-impaired to pick up sounds better, especially the subtle tones in music. There’s a long ways to go prior to human trials, however, since it was only effective in the hamsters for a short time. But it could one day be included as part of cochlear implant therapy and even help other nerve-related conditions, like Parkinson’s disease or depression. [Image credit: UNSW Translational Neuroscience Facility] Filed under: Science , Alt Comments Via: The Verge Source: UNSW
See original article:
Amped-up ear implant helps to re-grow auditory nerves
Putnisite is a newly discovered purple mineral that, unlike the many minerals found each year, is not closely related to already-known minerals.
Read More:
New mineral discovered in Australia
Despite how far we’ve come with technology, malaria is still a serious threat for huge chunks of the developing world. A prototype tool from UK-outfit QuantuMDx, however, could help stave off mosquito-related deaths by giving health-workers the power to diagnose the disease in 10 – 15 minutes. As the team tells it , typical DNA sequencing can take days, weeks or even months, but its “lab on a chip” can rapidly diagnose a disease and accurately predict which drug and what dosage to administer — all based on the virus’ genetic code. That last bit is key because malaria has a nasty habit of being resistant to medications. The device hitting prototype phase is one of the first steps along the way to mass-deployment, and its initial round of clinical trials is scheduled for later this year. QuantuMDx stresses that the device is a low-cost way for workers in developing countries to help battle the disease; the team’s aiming for, “around the price of a smartphone, ” with test cartridges costing $5-10. {Image credit: Dmitrijs Bindemanis/Shutterstock ] Filed under: Science , Alt Comments Source: QuantuMDx
View article:
Hand-held malaria tester sequences DNA, suggests meds quickly
For centuries, before refrigeration, an old Russian practice was to drop a frog into a bucket of milk to keep the milk from spoiling. In modern times, many believed that this was nothing more than an old wives’ tale . But researchers at Moscow State University, led by organic chemist Dr. Albert Lebedev, have shown that there could be some benefit to doing this, though of course in the end you’ll be drinking milk that a frog was in. Read more…
More here:
How to Keep Milk from Spoiling Without Refrigeration
Getting crews out to patch roads is sometimes more trouble than its worth. It snarls traffic for hours at a time, costs counties and states hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, and typically only fixes the problem for a short time. But this gravel-blasting utility truck aims to make the permanent patch process faster than firing a gunstick. Read more…
View post:
This Utility Truck Can Exterminate a Pothole Every 120 Seconds
Cool map alert: Donut Holes in International Waters is an interactive map that shows which countries have sovereignty over the high seas. It shows how we’ve diced up the waters with international law—and what all the left-over bits and pieces look like. Read more…
See the original article here:
A Pirate-Friendly Map of the Pieces of Ocean That No Country Owns
In Post-Industrious Society: Why Work Time will not Disappear for our Grandchildren , researchers from Oxford’s Centre for Time Use Research argue that there has been a radical shift in the relationship between leisure, work and income. Where once leisure time was a mark of affluence, now it is a marker for poverty. The richer you are, the more likely you are to work long hours; while the poorer you are, the fewer hours you are likely to work every week. The researchers theorise multiple causes for this. Poor people are more likely to be underemployed and unable to get the work-hours they want (and need) to support themselves. Rich people are likely to work in jobs that disproportionately advance and reward workers who put in overtime, so a 10% increase in hours worked generates more than 10% in expected career-gains. They also claim that rich workers are more likely to be satisfied with their jobs, but I’m skeptical of this — I think that relative to unskilled workers doing at-will 0-hours temp work whose every move is constrained and scripted by their employers, this is probably true, but I don’t think that the white-collar world is producing a lot of people who think that their work is meaningful and rewarding. In today’s advanced economies things are different. Overall working hours have fallen over the past century. But the rich have begun to work longer hours than the poor. In 1965 men with a college degree, who tend to be richer, had a bit more leisure time than men who had only completed high school. But by 2005 the college-educated had eight hours less of it a week than the high-school grads. Figures from the American Time Use Survey, released last year, show that Americans with a bachelor’s degree or above work two hours more each day than those without a high-school diploma. Other research shows that the share of college-educated American men regularly working more than 50 hours a week rose from 24% in 1979 to 28% in 2006, but fell for high-school dropouts. The rich, it seems, are no longer the class of leisure. There are a number of explanations. One has to do with what economists call the “substitution effect”. Higher wages make leisure more expensive: if people take time off they give up more money. Since the 1980s the salaries of those at the top have risen strongly, while those below the median have stagnated or fallen. Thus rising inequality encourages the rich to work more and the poor to work less. Nice work if you can get out [The Economist] ( via /. ) ( Image: Lonely Hammock , Micky Zlimen, CC-BY-SA )
Taken from:
Having leisure time is now a marker for poverty, not riches
Amazon’s dead-set killing off the grocery store, with a same-day delivery service and even a Dash gadget for restocking items around the house. Now the retailer’s going one step further, unveiling a new program called Prime Pantry for household essentials like paper towels, soda and snacks. If you’re a Prime member, you can ship 45 pounds’ worth of eligible items — in “everyday sizes, ” not in bulk — for a flat fee of $6. (Yes, that’s on top of your Prime membership payment.) Rumors about Amazon introducing a Pantry service began circling late last year, and while the service now appears to be live, the company hasn’t formally announced it. To help you stay within that weight limit, a virtual Amazon cardboard box will show you how much room is left. While you could easily fill a Prime Pantry box with obscene amounts of Fruit by the Foot and gummy bears, the program is especially attractive for customers who want to stock up on heavier and bulkier items that don’t usually ship for free. Check out a video introduction below, and find more info at the source link. Filed under: Internet , Amazon Comments Source: Amazon Prime Pantry
Read More:
Amazon’s Prime Pantry service lets you ship 45 pounds of groceries for a $6 fee
Tesla won’t answer the Los Angeles Times on specifics, but city officials in the small California town of Lathrop told a reporter that “work is underway converting a 431,000-square-foot facility that once housed a Chrysler-Daimler distribution center into a Tesla factory.” More: Is Tesla planning another electric car factory in California? [latimes.com]
Read More:
Electric car maker Tesla said to be planning new factory in California