gift-for-geeks – Tech Today w/ Ken May

The Resort Where You Can Swim in Beer

Do you love beer so much that you want to feel it all over your body? The Starkenberger Brewery in Austria can give you that experience: Residing in the old fermentation brewery, there are seven total pools in a Turkish-bath-like room, each of which are heated and contain 12, 000L of water enriched with 300L Biergeläger (remote yeast). Fun fact: ever since the days of ancient Egypt when Cleopatra bathed in beer while Mark Anthony was off conquering empires, beer bath’s have been rumored to have a healing, restorative effect. You’ve gotta make reservations in advance but for $298/ pool (and an additional $6.50/ person) this could be you sharing a beer pool with blonde coeds. Your two hours of beer bathing also come with beer crackers and a “Tyrolean meat spread” plus one non-swimmed-in bottle of suds per person; because actually drinking the pool beer would be insane… right ?? You can do this cheaper in your bathtub with a couple cases of Bud Light, but the ambiance is different. Link -via American Digest (Photo: Starkenberger )

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The Resort Where You Can Swim in Beer

What Are the Weirdest Languages in the World?

According to Idibon, a company that makes language processing applications, these are the weirdest languages on different continents: In North America: Chalcatongo Mixtec, Choctaw, Mesa Grande Diegueño, Kutenai, and Zoque; in South America: Paumarí and Trumai; in Australia/Oceania: Pitjantjatjara and Lavukaleve; in Africa: Harar Oromo, Iraqw, Kongo, Mumuye, Ju|’hoan, and Khoekhoe; in Asia: Nenets, Eastern Armenian, Abkhaz, Ladakhi, and Mandarin; and in Europe: German, Dutch, Norwegian, Czech, and Spanish. But is weirdness relative? Maybe the World Atlas of Language Structures provides a source for objective evaluation. Here’s what Idibon did with it: For each value that a language has, we calculate the relative frequency of that value for all the other languages that are coded for it. So if we had included subject-object-verb order then English would’ve gotten a value of 0.355 (we actually normalized these values according to the overal entropy for each feature, so it wasn’t exactly 0.355, but you get the idea). The Weirdness Index is then an average across the 21 unique structural features. But because different features have different numbers of values and we want to reduce skewing, we actually take the harmonic mean (and because we want bigger numbers = more weird, we actually subtract the mean from one). In this blog post, I’ll only report languages that have a value filled in for at least two-thirds of features (239 languages). What’s the weirdest language (subjectively speaking) that you’ve ever encountered? Link -via Marginal Revolution (Photo: Amazon.com)

Oldest Grave Flowers

The tradition of burying loved ones with grave flowers turns out to be quite an old one. Archaeologists Daniel Nadel and colleagues discovered the oldest example in a grave in Israel’s Mount Carmel, dating back 12, 000 years ago: Ancient mourners lined four graves with the flowers, most notably one that holds the bodies of two people. The pair—an adult male and an adolescent of undetermined sex—belonged to the primitive Natufian culture , which flourished between 15, 000 and 11, 600 years ago in an area that is now Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. The Natufian society was one of the first—possibly the first—to transition from a roaming hunter-gatherer lifestyle to permanent settlements, and was also the first to establish true graveyards, said study leader Daniel Nadel , an archaeologist at the University of Haifa in Israel. The new discovery indicates that the Natufians were also among the first to use flowers to honor their dead. Link

Unlooted Tomb of the Wari is Filled with Treasures and Human Sacrifice

Photo: Daniel Gionnoni Archaeologists have discovered something truly stunning, the first unlooted imperial tomb of the Wari, an ancient civilization in South America that existed between 700 and 1000 A.D. The tomb, located in modern day Peru, is filled with treasures, precious artefact and – cue the ominous music – human sacrifice: Tomb robbers had long dumped rubble on the ridge. Digging through the rubble last September, Giersz and his team uncovered an ancient ceremonial room with a stone throne. Below this lay a large mysterious chamber sealed with 30 tons of loose stone fill. Giersz decided to keep digging. Inside the fill was a huge carved wooden mace. “It was a tomb marker,” says Giersz, “and we knew then that we had the main mausoleum.” As the archaeologists carefully removed the fill, they discovered rows of human bodies buried in a seated position and wrapped in poorly preserved textiles. Nearby, in three small side chambers, were the remains of three Wari queens and many of their prized possessions, including weaving tools made of gold. “So what were these first ladies doing at the imperial court? They were weaving cloth with gold instruments,” says Makowski. National Geographic Daily News has the scoop: Link

Cellograff: How to Graffiti A Mural Without A Wall

Want to practice your tags but don’t want to commit a felony by vandalizing property? Then head to the forest with a few rolls of cellophane. Bam -instant disposable walls you can spray paint as much as you want. Link

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Cellograff: How to Graffiti A Mural Without A Wall

Madonnas of Science

Madonna of the Microscope (2013) by Chris Shaw Madonna of the Particle (2013) Artist Chris Shaw , whom you may know from his rock poster art, has a new art series centered on the Madonna icon , which is currently on exhibit at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He wrote: I’m not sure exactly where my fascination with Madonnas was born, but I’ve loved Icons of all kinds for a very long time. As an artist I’m intrigued with the the way icons present their ideas — an easily understood, blunt central image juxtaposed with deep symbolism and cryptic geometric foundations. Icons also have a reason for existing, they are conveyers of information. The modern icons I create also convey information, it could be a scientific concept, a political statement, or a pop-culture reference. Regardless, each icon has a story and a reason for existing. In this body of work I use the Madonna as the vehicle to literally carry the ideas I’ve chosen to portray. The titles are straight forward. However, underlying and obfuscated by the image is a rigid geometric base, over which the Madonna icon is constructed. The geometry within this base is a riddle to decipher as are many of the symbols within. I’ve mainly learned about hidden geometry and symbolism in art by deconstructing an artworks composition, then researching what I find, something I like to do for fun. Golden ratios, spirals, and fibonacci sequences are easily found in many types of art, but especially deeply woven into icons. How and why this geometric language was used fascinates me, it ultimately led to creating my own icons with their own meanings. View more of Chris’ Madonnas of Science (and other pop culture Madonnas) over at his website and blog: Link Madonna of the Dark Matter (2013) Madonna of the Magnet (2013) Madonna of Evolution (Simian Vanitas)

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Madonnas of Science

College Students Invent a Shoe That Generates Electricity with Every Step

Undergraduate mechanical engineering students at Rice University built a shoe that recovers and stores energy generated by walking. This energy could be used to power small electronic devices, such as cell phones: The Agitation Squad – Carlos Armada, Julian Castro, David Morilla and Tyler Wiest – decided last fall to focus their attention on where the rubber meets the road to create a shoe-mounted generator. Another device to draw energy from the motion of the knee had already been developed and patented and led them to analyze other sources of energy. Working with the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Shriners Hospital for Children in Houston, the team determined the force at the heel delivered far more potential for power than any other part of the foot. “We went to the lab and saw the force distribution across the bottom of your foot, to see where the most force is felt,” Morilla said. “We found it would be at the heel and at the balls of your toes, as you push off. We went with the heel because, unless you’re sprinting, you’re letting gravity do the work.” […] The prototypes deliver an average of 400 milliwatts, enough to charge a battery, in benchtop tests (and a little less in walking tests, where the moving parts don’t move as far). They send energy through wires to a belt-mounted battery pack. A voltage regulator keeps it flowing steadily to the battery. The PediPower hits the ground before any other part of the prototype shoe. A lever arm strikes first. It is attached to a gearbox that replaces much of the shoe’s sole and turns the gears a little with each step. The gears drive a motor mounted on the outside of the shoe that generates electricity to send up to the battery. You can watch a video of their device at the link. Link -via Inhabitat

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College Students Invent a Shoe That Generates Electricity with Every Step

Famous Authors’ Handwritten Outlines for Great Works of Literature

Many authors make outlines of their novels to keep the story arc in place, make sure the important parts are not missed, and to keep up with each character. They each have their own style, as well. See some handwritten outlines from James Salter, J.K. Rowling, Sylvia Plath, William Faulkner, and more at Flavorwire. The chart shown is how Joseph Heller kept up with the characters and their plot lines in Catch-22 . You can click the image twice at Flavorwire to bring up the large size, but you might need to put on your glasses to read it anyway. Link

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Famous Authors’ Handwritten Outlines for Great Works of Literature

See Inside a Butterfly Chrysalis

Just like everyone else, you learned about how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly (or moth) inside a chrysalis (or cocoon) and you desperately tried to envision what happens inside and what it looks like. Scientists who’ve opened a lot of chrysalises will tell you the caterpillar turns to goop and then a butterfly, but that’s not completely accurate, and the process of opening one destroys the structure anyway. But now, two teams of scientists have started to captured intimate series of images showing the same caterpillars metamorphosing inside their pupae. Both teams used a technique called micro-CT, in which X-rays capture cross-sections of an object that can be combined into a three-dimensional virtual model. By dissecting these models rather than the actual insects, the teams could see the structures of specific organs, like the guts or breathing tubes. They could also watch the organs change over time by repeatedly scanning the same chrysalis over many days. And since insects tolerate high doses of radiation, this procedure doesn’t seem to harm them, much less kill them. Ed Yong explains more about this technology, and you’ll more pictures of an insect going through the metamorphosis at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Link (Image credit: Lowe et al. 2013. Interface)

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See Inside a Butterfly Chrysalis

The Most Sleep Deprived Students in the World

Who *yawn* are the most sleep deprived students in the world? Students from the United States, according to new research by Chad Minnich of Boston College: “I think we underestimate the impact of sleep. Our data show that across countries internationally, on average, children who have more sleep achieve higher in maths, science and reading. That is exactly what our data show,” says Chad Minnich, of the TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Center. “It’s the same link for children who are lacking basic nutrition,” says Mr Minnich, based at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College. But what about those Asian students who study all the time? Asian countries are the highest-performing in maths tests – and Mr Minnich says this has often been associated with long hours and cramming in after-school classes. “One would assume that they would be extremely tired,” he said. “And yet when we look at the sleep factor for them, they don’t necessarily seem to be suffering from as much sleep deprivation as the other countries.” Minnich placed the blame on smartphones and laptops. Sean Coughlan of the BBC has more: Link