AirPnP Connects Mardi Gras Partiers With Places to Pee

Today is Mardi Gras , and like any booze-fueled street celebration, that means tons of full-bladdered revelers seeking out a place to relieve themselves. Thankfully, technology’s here to save New Orleans from becoming a literal Urinetown . Meet AirPnP , the web app that lets you do your business in the privacy of a stranger’s home. Read more…        

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AirPnP Connects Mardi Gras Partiers With Places to Pee

Make an Awesome First Impression With a Tetris-Playing Business Card

In a time when business cards seem more obsolete than ever , more and more people are coming up with fantastic ways to modernize them. And no one will probably make a better first impression than Kevin Bateske, who created this business-card-sized Game Boy clone called the Arduboy that’s just 1.6 millimeters thick. Read more…        

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Make an Awesome First Impression With a Tetris-Playing Business Card

Israel Is Putting Frickin’ Lasers on Its Commercial Airliners

It’s not just IDF forces and Israeli settlements that come under rocket fire; militant groups have been known to take pot shots at commercial airlines as well—such as when a pair of SAMs narrowly missed an Israeli charter shortly after it took off from a Mombasa, Kenya airfield, in 2002. To protect vulnerable aircraft from future attacks, Israel has developed this belly-mounted laser shield for commercial jets. Read more…        

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Israel Is Putting Frickin’ Lasers on Its Commercial Airliners

Report: Amazon Is Gearing Up to Add Free Streaming Music to Prime

Re/code reports the claims of industry sources who say Amazon is in talks to create a streaming music service that it would bundle with Prime subscriptions. The report makes a lot of sense, and if true, it would make Amazon Prime and even better deal than it already is. Think how amazing that would be! Read more…        

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Report: Amazon Is Gearing Up to Add Free Streaming Music to Prime

The Phone Dragnet That Caught the World’s Top Drug Lord

Daniel_Stuckey writes “The contacts on Zambada-Ortiz’s phone, which officials seized, would prove critical in pinpointing cartel stash houses strewn across Sinaloa state in mountainous northwest Mexico. Crucially, the episode would breathe new life into the joint US-Mexico dragnet that recently caught Chapo, who’d been at large for 13 years after famously escaping from Mexican prison in a laundry basket. Zambada-Ortiz’s capture and the data scraped from his phone led to more and more Sinaloa phones until a month ago, when Mexican authorities (moving on American intelligence work) successfully carried out a number of raids that scored a cache of weapons and the arrests of a few of Chapo’s senior henchmen. With each apprehension came another phone full of leads, ‘a new trove of information for officials to mine, ‘ as TIME reported. Then, sometime last week, Mexican commandos ‘traced a number stored in a seized cell phone to a stash house outside the provincial capital of Culiacan, where they believed Guzman was hiding, ‘ TIME added.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The Phone Dragnet That Caught the World’s Top Drug Lord

Blood Test of 4 Biomarkers Predicts Death Within 5 Years

retroworks writes “The NHS and the Daily Telegraph report on two studies (original and repeat duplicating results) in Estonia and Finland which predict whether an apparently healthy human will likely die within 5 years. The four biomarkers that appeared to determine risk of mortality in the next five years were: alpha-1-acid glycoprotein – a protein that is raised during infection and inflammation; albumin – a protein that carries vital nutrients, hormones and proteins in the bloodstream; very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) particle size – usually known for being ‘very bad’ cholesterol; and citrate – a compound that is an essential part of the body’s metabolism. Researchers found that people in the top 20% of the summary score range were 19 times more at risk of dying in the next five years than people in the lowest 20%.” The NHS’s summary of the news points out that “the implications of such a test are unclear. As this was an observational study, it can only show an association between the biomarkers and risk of death. It does not predict what the underlying cause of death would be for an individual and does not therefore provide an answer in terms of treatment.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Blood Test of 4 Biomarkers Predicts Death Within 5 Years

Architect Zaha Hadid Says 500 Worker Deaths Are Not Her Problem

Qatar’s overtly yonic World Cup facility has also been the cause of a staggering number of construction deaths : More than 500 Indian migrant workers have died at the site since January 2012. This week, the stadium’s architect Zaha Hadid said, well, it’s not her problem. Read more…        

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Architect Zaha Hadid Says 500 Worker Deaths Are Not Her Problem

Whoa, Watch Bacteria Instantly Turn Water Into Ice

Believe it or not, making ice is more complicated than just making water really cold. One thing that helps is bacteria. Yes, bacteria! In this captivatingly magic video, it takes just a second for Pseudomonas syringae to turn a whole jar of water into ice. Read more…        

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Whoa, Watch Bacteria Instantly Turn Water Into Ice

Facebook’s email service, which caused lots of controversy when it changed everyone’s contact info,

Facebook’s email service, which caused lots of controversy when it changed everyone’s contact info , is shutting down. From now on, messages sent to your Facebook email address will be forwarded to your primary address (though you can turn this off). Facebook should notify you as the feature rolls out. [ The Verge ] Read more…        

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Facebook’s email service, which caused lots of controversy when it changed everyone’s contact info,

The Teeny, Tiny Microhouse Revolution That’s Giving the Homeless Homes

When most of us hear the term “microhouse, ” we think of the chic, wedge-shaped homes that have colonized the world’s wealthiest cities. But in a number of U.S. cities, microhouses are being used to house a different demographic—the very poor. Read more…        

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The Teeny, Tiny Microhouse Revolution That’s Giving the Homeless Homes