How do you package a protein bar made from cricket flour? Here’s how . Exo raised $54.9K on Kickstarter last summer, as a pair of Brown roommates took their senior year project to the next level, trying to come up with a sustainable protein source, along with help from molecular gastronomy superstar Heston Blumenthal. The packaging was designed by New York’s Tag Collective .
Researchers borrowed optical techniques from astronomy and ophthalmology to dramatically improve imaging of biological samples. This video, created by scientists at the HHMI Janelia Farm Research Campus, shows neurons in the brain of a living zebrafish embryo. You can see the difference in quality when their new technique of “adaptive optics” is switched on and off. According to physicist/engineer Eric Betzig who led the research, “The results are pretty eye-popping.” Yes. Yes they are. ( HHMI News , via National Geographic )
Zentai (short for “zenshintaitsu,” Japanese for “full body suit”) is a largely obscure Japanese subculture whose adherents go out wearing full-body patterned spandex suits that cover their faces. In a relatively unsensational article in the Japan Times, Harumi Ozawa talks to a few zentais about their hobby, and learns that for some proponents, being completely covered is a liberating experience. The zentais in the article describe the suit as an anonymizer that frees them from the judging gaze of society, which is a fascinating study in contradictions, since the suits undoubtably attract lots of judgmental looks, but these seem to adhere to the suit without penetrating to the wearer within. Some zentais wear their suits in superhero fashion, and do good deeds in public, while others wear the suits for sexual kicks. They are often mocked in Japanese pop culture. One academic cited in the article believes that the wearers use the suits to hide their appearance in order to force others to deal with their “true” underlying identity. By night, she dresses in a skin-tight, all-in-one Spandex body suit that covers everything — including her eyes — and sits in bars, alone but liberated, she believes, from the judgment of others. “With my face covered, I cannot eat or drink like other customers,” said the woman, who is in her 20s and says her name is Hokkyoku Nigo (North Pole No. 2). “I have led my life always worrying about what other people think of me. They say I look cute, gentle, childish or naive,” she said, her lips ruffling the tight, red shiny material. “I always felt suffocated by that. But wearing this, I am just a person in a full body suit.” ‘Zentai’ fans search for identity in fetish suits [Harumi Ozawa/Japan Times] ( via JWZ ) ( Image: Zentai.jpg , MonkeyMyshkin, CC-BY )
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Zentai: full-body masked spandex subculture from Japan
Once again, the “piracy-stricken” motion picture association has had a banner year , with box office revenue breaking all records (as they’ve done in most recent years). The biggest gains this year come from China — a market condemned by the studios as a hive of piracy. Some of the best news in the report is that American movies are seeing success in China, which has become the first international market to reach more than $3 billion in movie sales. The Chinese enthusiasm for US-produced movies comes despite the fact that China continues to restrict the number of foreign-made films that can be released in theaters to 34 imports a year. But the country at the top of the MPAA’s sales charts is also at the top of its piracy target list. Last year, the MPAA placed China on the list of the “most notorious” markets for distributing pirated movies and TV shows. As reported by the LA Times , MPAA spokesperson Michael O’Leary has explained: The criminals who profit from the most notorious markets through the world threaten the very heart of our industry and in doing so threaten the livelihoods of the people who give it life. These markets are an immediate threat to legitimate commerce, impairing legitimate markets’ viability and curbing US competitiveness. Despite prolific piracy, China’s increase in sales has been positively “meteoric,” MPAA chief Chris Dodd said at a press conference yesterday , noting a 27 percent increase. Piracy notwithstanding, MPAA enjoys a “very strong year”—again [Joe Silver/Ars Technica]
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Motion picture industry continues to stagger under piracy with mere record-breaking income
Facebook continues to tighten the screws on the businesses that use the service to market to their customers. Independent research shows that new updates from businesses reach about six percent of the people who follow those businesses. It is rumored that Facebook intends to reduce this number to “between one and two percent” over time. Businesses that want to reach the people who follow them at higher rates will have to pay Facebook to reach them through paid advertisements. If you’re building your business’s marketing and customer relations strategy atop Facebook, take note — and remember that if you have a real website, all your readers see your posts, even if you don’t pay Facebook! Facebook declined to comment on the percentage of fans that see posts from a typical Facebook page (the last publicly disclosed figure was 16 percent in the summer of 2012), but the company admitted in December that posts from Pages are reaching less users. Facebook attributes this change to increased competition as more people and companies join its service. The typical user is inundated with 1,500 posts per day from friends and Pages, and Facebook picks 300 to present in the News Feed. Getting squeezed out are both posts from Pages and meme photos as Facebook shifts its focus to what it deems “high quality” content. The solution for brands with declining engagement, according to Facebook, is to buy ads. “Like many mediums, if businesses want to make sure that people see their content, the best strategy is, and always has been, paid advertising,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. The Free Marketing Gravy Train Is Over on Facebook [Victor Luckerson/Time] ( Image: flaming LIKE , a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from zaigee’s photostream )
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Unless companies pay, their Facebook updates reach 6 percent of followers
The CIA’s Inspector General has asked the Justice Department to consider criminally charging CIA agents who spied on a senate committee that was engaged in writing a report that was highly critical of the CIA’s use of torture. Senator Mark Udall, who sits on a CIA oversight committee and whose staff was spied on by the CIA alleges that the CIA surveilled overseeing senators and their staff with Obama’s knowledge and consent. In a recent hearing, Senator Ron Wyden asked the CIA director repeatedly whether the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, America’s major anti-hacking statute, applied to the CIA, and whether the CIA spied domestically. CIA director John Brennan replied “yes” and “no,” respectively. If Udall’s allegations are correct, this means that Brennan lied to Congress (in the second instance) and committed a felony (in the first instance). The report that caused some CIA agents to spy on their bosses was about how the CIA was wasting time, getting nowhere and doing something illegal and cruel when it kidnapped terror suspects and tortured the shit out of them. McClatchy and the New York Times reported Wednesday that the CIA had secretly monitored computers used by committee staffers preparing the inquiry report, which is said to be scathing not only about the brutality and ineffectiveness of the agency’s interrogation techniques but deception by the CIA to Congress and policymakers about it. The CIA sharply disputes the committee’s findings. Udall, a Colorado Democrat and one of the CIA’s leading pursuers on the committee, appeared to reference that surreptitious spying on Congress, which Udall said undermined democratic principles. “As you are aware, the CIA has recently taken unprecedented action against the committee in relation to the internal CIA review and I find these actions to be incredibly troubling for the Committee’s oversight powers and for our democracy,” Udall wrote to Obama on Tuesday. Obama knew CIA secretly monitored intelligence committee, senator claims [Spencer Ackerman/The Guardian]
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CIA spied on Senate committee writing damning torture report and Obama knew about it
From preparing the bomb to dropping it—the explosion is a few seconds after 8:40. [ Video Link ] This silent film shows the final preparation and loading of the “Fat Man” bomb into “Bockscar,” the plane which dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. It then shows the Nagasaki explosion from the window of an observation plane. This footage comes from Los Alamos National Laboratory. I have not edited it in any way from what they gave me except to improve the contrast a little — it is basically “raw.” I have annotated it with some notes on the bombing and what you can see — feel free to disable it if you don’t want it. I suggest leaving them on. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a video benefit from YouTube annotations! [via Nuclear Secrecy and MeFi ]
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Unedited silent footage of Nagasaki bombing
Naoki Hiroshima had a rare and valuable Twitter handle, @N . It was extorted from him , he claims, by a scammer who figured out that PayPal reveals part of one’s credit card number during security verification—and that GoDaddy accepts the same part of the number during security verification. I asked the attacker how my GoDaddy account was compromised and received this response: From: SOCIAL MEDIA KING To: Naoki Hiroshima Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 19:53:52 -0800 Subject: RE: …hello – I called paypal and used some very simple engineering tactics to obtain the last four of your card (avoid this by calling paypal and asking the agent to add a note to your account to not release any details via phone) – I called godaddy and told them I had lost the card but I remembered the last four, the agent then allowed me to try a range of numbers (00-09 in your case) I have not found a way to heighten godaddy account security, however if you’d like me to recommend a more secure registrar i recommend: NameCheap or eNom (not network solutions but enom.com) GoDaddy outright refused to help him at first, too. It’s shocking how weak account security is there, and at PayPal: “Don’t let companies such as PayPal and GoDaddy store your credit card information,” Hiroshima writes.
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Man loses rare Twitter handle after PayPal and GoDaddy inadvertently help scammer
There’s not much stigma attached to meth use in harsh North Korea, writes Los Angeles Times reporter Barbara Demick. Some take it to treat colds or boost their energy; students take it to work late. The drug also helps curb appetites in a country where food is scarce. It is offered up as casually as a cup of tea, North Koreans say. “If you go to somebody’s house it is a polite way to greet somebody by offering them a sniff,” said Lee Saera, 43, of Hoeryong, also interviewed in China. “It is like drinking coffee when you’re sleepy, but ice is so much better.” More: LA Times .
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Meth offered ‘as casually as a cup of tea’ in North Korea, reports LA Times
Hemp is a useful crop. It’s used to make paper, cloth, food, fuel, and many other products. But hemp farming in the United States has been illegal for 56 years. The government outlawed hemp cultivation because it didn’t want people hiding marijuana crops in hemp fields (they look the same, but hemp does not contain psychoactive compounds, at least not enough to matter). Interestingly, products made from hemp are legal in the US, but they must be imported from countries that aren’t as insufferably schoolmarmish. This year, however, US farmers are starting to grow hemp again. Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana for recreational use, and some farmers are taking this as permission to grow non-psychoactive hemp in those states. (Hemp, both the inert and psychoactive varieties, is still prohibited under federal law). The first company in line to buy US-grown hemp is Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. Alternet’s April M. Short has a good article about the movement. The U.S. is one of the fastest expanding markets for hemp in the world, and imports currently come primarily from Canada and China. America imported $11.5 million worth of hemp products in 2011, up from $1.4 million in 2000, the majority of which is used to make granola bars, cooking oils, and personal care products. Steenstra says in addition to supporting American farmers, a local hemp industry will bring the prices down, and mitigate ecological impacts. Dr. Bronner’s is based in California, where just last month a bill to legalize hemp was passed— contingent upon the Justice Department’s reaction. The law requires California to regulate the farming, processing, and sales of hemp for oilseed and fiber, just as soon as the federal government says it’s okay to do so. Hemp Returns to U.S. Soil After 56 Years — and Magic Soap King Dr. Bronner’s Is Ready to Buy
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US farmers cautiously growing hemp again after 56 years of brain-dead prohibition