Cutting edge imaging technology isn’t just helping us tiny humans — it’s helping solve a dinosaur identity crisis. Researchers have developed a brand-new imaging technique that builds a 3D image of a dinosaur skull, creating a CAT scan-style readout. They say this technique proves that what we thought were three separate species of dinosaur are actually the exact same creatures. Read more…
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Dinosaur CAT Scan Shows 3 Different Species Are Actually The Same
theshowmecanuck writes “According to the Montreal Gazette, ‘The owner and operator of a well-known ‘real gore’ website is charged with corrupting morals for posting a video allegedly depicting the murder of student Jun Lin by Luka Magnotta. Magnotta, 30, is currently in custody charged with first-degree murder in the death of the 33-year-old Chinese international student, who was killed in Montreal in May 2012. The victim’s severed limbs were then mailed to political parties and elementary schools, and his torso found inside a discarded suitcase.’ A news interview with the detective in charge of the case, airing on CTV as I type this, says he believes the web site hosts a lot of racist content and unimaginable violence. You should note that Canada has less free speech than in America (we have ‘hate crime laws’), but there will likely be some arguments in this vein. The charge against the operator is quite rare and no-one so far remembers it ever being used before.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Gore Site Operator Arrested For Posting Video of Murder
“For the first time, encryption is thwarting government surveillance efforts through court-approved wiretaps,” reports David Kravetz at Wired.com , citing a report by the U.S. agency that oversees federal courts. This report also shows that authorities armed with wiretap orders are encountering increasingly more encryption.
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Feds say encryption to foil wiretaps is on the rise
Rich Lee, a “grinder” (someone who has surgical enhancements and/or modifications conducted upon their person), implanted a magnet in his ear that he can use as a speaker; he wears a coil on a necklace that he can use to transmit to it (he was inspired by this Instructable ), and is now branching out into some serious experimentation: Listening to music is nice and probably the most obvious answer, but I intend to do some very creative things with it. The implant itself is completely undetectable to the naked eye. The device & coil necklace are are easily concealed under my shirt so nobody can really see it. I can see myself using it with the gps on my smartphone to navigate city streets on foot. I plan to hook it up to a directional mic of some sort (possibly disguised as a shirt button or something) so I can hear conversations across a room. Having a mic hooked up to it and routed through my phone would be handy. You could use a simple voice stress analysis app to detect when people might be lying to you. Not to say that is a hard science, but I’m sure it could come in handy at the poker table or to pre-screen business clients. I have a contact mic that allows you to hear through walls. That might be my next implant actually. He also wants to hook it up to an ultrasonic rangefinder and learn to echolocate. He’s going blind, so being able to use his hearing for physical nav is going to be important to him. He also wants to hook it up to a Geiger counter. DIY Headphone Implant ( via M1k3y )
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Implanted invisible headphone
Digital Grotesque is an ambitious architectural project using 3D printers and game-of-life-style algorithms to produce a room whose walls, baseboards, ceiling and moldings are all a-crawl with the most astonishing array of forms and complexities. They’ve completed a 1:3 prototype, which is presently on exhibit in Basel, and are proceeding to print out the full-scale item. the prototypes show a regard for both material sensitivity and the limits of technologically manipulated form– millions of grains of sand bind together to create a new typology of sandstone and subsequently treated to be glazed and gilded. drawing from the algorithmic confines of the game of life and cell division, a set of simple geometries met with minimal parameters begets a highly involved form. the result is rich, shimmering composition ridden with impossible undercuts and a transcendental sense of the limits of technology. the term grotesque is derived from the unplanned complexities of a water-shaped grotto, itself a naturally occurring architecture long regarded for the uncanny presence of human-sized spaces in various landscapes. digital grotesque showcases 3-d printed room by michael hansmeyer ( Images: Digital Grotesque ) ( via Dvice )
schwit1 sends this news from Businesweek: “After 2,000 years, a long-lost secret behind the creation of one of the world’s most durable man-made creations ever — Roman concrete — has finally been discovered by an international team of scientists, and it may have a significant impact on how we build cities of the future. Researchers have analyzed 11 harbors in the Mediterranean basin where, in many cases, 2,000-year-old (and sometimes older) headwaters constructed out of Roman concrete stand perfectly intact despite constant pounding by the sea. The most common blend of modern concrete, known as Portland cement, a formulation in use for nearly 200 years, can’t come close to matching that track record. In seawater, it has a service life of less than 50 years. After that, it begins to erode. The secret to Roman concrete lies in its unique mineral formulation and production technique. As the researchers explain in a press release outlining their findings, ‘The Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock. For underwater structures, lime and volcanic ash were mixed to form mortar, and this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden forms. The seawater instantly triggered a hot chemical reaction. The lime was hydrated — incorporating water molecules into its structure — and reacted with the ash to cement the whole mixture together.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Ancient Roman Concrete Is About To Revolutionize Modern Architecture
Over at Fast Company, our pal Chris Arkenberg wrote about how advances in synthetic biology and biomimicry could someday transform how we build our built environments: Innovations emerging across the disciplines of additive manufacturing, synthetic biology, swarm robotics, and architecture suggest a future scenario when buildings may be designed using libraries of biological templates and constructed with biosynthetic materials able to sense and adapt to their conditions. Construction itself may be handled by bacterial printers and swarms of mechanical assemblers. Tools like Project Cyborg make possible a deeper exploration of biomimicry through the precise manipulation of matter. David Benjamin and his Columbia Living Architecture Lab explore ways to integrate biology into architecture. Their recent work investigates bacterial manufacturing–the genetic modification of bacteria to create durable materials. Envisioning a future where bacterial colonies are designed to print novel materials at scale, they see buildings wrapped in seamless, responsive, bio-electronic envelopes. ” Cities Of The Future, Built By Drones, Bacteria, And 3-D Printers ”
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Buildings built by bacteria
An anonymous reader writes “New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly thinks that now is a great time to install even more surveillance cameras hither and yon around the Big Apple. After the Boston Marathon bombing, the Tsarnaev brothers were famously captured on security camera footage and thereby identified. That just may soften up Americans to the idea of the all-seeing glass eye. ‘I think the privacy issue has really been taken off the table,’ Kelly gloats.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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NYC Police Comm’r: Privacy Is ‘Off the Table’ After Boston Bombs
The new US$100 bill will go into circulation on October 8, 2013. New security features include a “3-D Security Ribbon” woven into the paper. The image changes from bells to 100s with the viewing angle, and “color-shifting” bell graphic that changes from copper to green, “an effect which makes the bell seem to appear and disappear within the (copper-colored) inkwell.” ” The Redesigned $100 Note ”
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New US$100 bill in circulation 10/8
There was no small amount of technology that went into the capture of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev , but perhaps none was more impressive than the helicopter-mounted, forward-looking infrared camera that confirmed once and for all that there was someone hiding in a boat in Watertown, Massachusetts. And that he was almost certainly Dzokhar Tsarnaev. More »
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The Crazy Accurate Thermal Images That Saw Dzokhar Tsarnaev Through a Boat Tarp