DNA 11 Sucks Major Oat Tote [FrinkTank]

DNA 11 Sucks Major Oat Tote [FrinkTank]: "

Anyone who has ever run a gel on some DNA will recognize the 'art' generated by DNA 11. And that's sort of the problem—all DNA 11 does, for a low special introductory offer of 390 big ones, is take some random snippet of your DNA—not even a deliberately meaningful one, mind you—and run a gel on it. You know, like any high school kid could do.

Then they blow it up real big so you can hang it o'er top of your italian leather sofa. (lyrics)

Far be it from me to poo-poo the convergence of science and art, but this is neither good science nor great art. Rather it trades, like so many of its ilk, on the fact that nobody else is simultaneously geeky, precious and greedy enough to even attempt it. Read the entire post | Read the comments on this post"

Digital sky-scope auto-locates and identifies stars

Digital sky-scope auto-locates and identifies stars: "Cory Doctorow: The SkyScout is a sky-watching digital scope that automatically identifies stars, provides directions to other stars, and recites mythology about celestial bodies:

Simply point the SkyScout at any star in the sky and click the 'target' button. The SkyScout will instantly tell you what object you are looking at...

To locate a star or planet, select the object's name from the menu and follow the directional arrows through the viewfinder...

The SkyScout includes entertaining and educational audio and text information, including facts, trivia, history and mythology about our most popular celestial objects.
Link (via Red Ferret)

"

UK to US: we'll only buy open-source fighter jets

UK to US: we'll only buy open-source fighter jets: "Cory Doctorow: The UK government has threatened to cancel an order for US-built Joint Strike Fighter jets unless America turns over the source-code for the jets' firmware.

Britain is worried that the jets could contain back-doors that let the US remotely disable them.

Lord Drayson, minister for defence procurement, told the The Daily Telegraph that the planes were useless without control of the software as they could effectively be 'switched off' by the Americans without warning.

'We do expect this technology transfer to take place. But if it does not take place we will not be able to purchase these aircraft,' said Lord Drayson. This is the big fight for the next twenty years: do your devices take orders from you or someone else? Whether it's the box on top of your TV, the phone in your pocket, or the fighter-jet in the hangar, no one wants to own a device that can be 0wned by its manufacturer or whomever that vendor sells you out to. Link (via /.)

"

Airline charges for aisle seats

Airline charges for aisle seats: "David Pescovitz: I'm surprised it took this long, but the first airline is now charging extra for emergency-exit row and aisle seats. According to a Reuters article, Northwest's 'Coach Choice' will save some of those seats for sale to passengers as $15 upgrades at check-in. Meanwhile, American Eagle announced that they'll stop charging for soft drinks because nobody was buying. Link (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

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Small Birthweight And Premature Births Associated With Higher Risk Of Child Abuse

Small Birthweight And Premature Births Associated With Higher Risk Of Child Abuse: "Small birthweight and premature birth may be associated with a higher risk of child abuse and neglect, suggests research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health."

Heart Science

In heart news today

Thiamin Deficiency Common In Hospitalized Heart Failure Patients
"Among patients hospitalized with heart failure, about one in three has deficient levels of thiamin, although thiamin deficiency was less common among those patients who were taking vitamin supplements, according to a new study in the Jan. 17 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology."[link]:

People Who Restrict Calories Have 'Younger' Hearts
"The hearts of people who follow a low-calorie, yet nutritionally balanced, diet resemble those of younger people when examined by sophisticated ultrasound function tests, and they tend to have more desirable levels of some markers of inflammation and fibrosis, according to a new study in the Jan. 17 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology."
[link]:

Caffeine Limits Blood Flow To Heart Muscle During Exercise
"In healthy volunteers, the equivalent of two cups of coffee reduced the body's ability to boost blood flow to the heart muscle in response to exercise, and the effect was stronger when the participants were in a chamber simulating high altitude, according to a new study in the Jan. 17 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology." [link]:

Laser Weapons Still a Long Ways Off?

Gizmodo writes:

"A Space.com article took at look at Doug Beason's book, The E-Bomb: How America's New Directed Energy Weapons Will Change the Way Wars Will Be Fought in the Future, shorten the title of that book for sakes. The Space.com article is reporting that the book says that the U.S. is close to deploying a new generation of weapons including lasers. Basically Mr. Beason is full of poo. The Tactical High Energy Laser was cancelled last year and the Airborne Laser is billions over budget and a couple years past its deadline. The main reason laser weapons are so difficult to produce is because the weapons use giant vats of toxic chemicals to produce the laser light, so this creates a big mobility issue. Solid state lasers (powered by crystals) could be used, but those are like kiddie toys compared to what chemical lasers can do. Sorry Star Wars and Star Trek cosplay junkies, no RL bew-bew guns to go with your outfit for a while."

However from the source article a Defense Tech Reader states:

An effective version of laser weaponry is ready for use today. The Chinese have installed it on the turret of the Type 98 MBT

"The procedure of the laser weapon would first use a low-powered beam to locate the optics of the enemy weapon. Once the enemy weapon was located, the power level of the laser would be immediately and dramatically increased. Such an attack would disable the guidance optics of the enemy weapon and/or damage the eyesight of the enemy gunner."

Using lasers as blinding weapons would be a most efficient way of rendering your enemy "combat ineffective" and is available today. Apparently the Chinese have no qualms about using them in this manner.

Gizmodo:[link]
Defense Tech:[link]

Sift through interstellar dust in your free time!

Alright! Another attempt by NASA to bring a space craft to earth, hopefully with little impact. This is scheduled to land on the 15th early Sunday morning (3:12 am) and being in Southern Idaho we have an excellent chance of viewing its decent. So, if your up and you have your camera in hand grab some shots. I will do my best in capturing the event and share it all with you that morning. Location and Maximum Elevation map

Science Daily says: Comet Dust Brought Back To Earth: Paving The Way For Rosetta

"Mark Frauenfelder: Gareth Branwyn reports in Street Tech: 'You likely already know about Seti@Home and Folding@Home, but did you know that you'll soon have the opportunity to rummage through intersellar dirt at home, thanks to UC Berkeley's Stardust@Home project?

'When the Stardust spacecraft returns to Earth later this week (Sunday), its dust-bag will be filled with what it vaccumed out of the tail of comet Wild 2. While bringing this material back home is exciting enough, the spacecraft will also have a few grains of interstellar dust in its hoppers. And that's where Stardust@Home comes in. Scientists only expect to find 45 or so grains of such dust in the craft's collectors, creating a needle in a haystack scenario. So they decided to use the distributed eyeballs of the Internet to help speed the search. They've created a Virtual Microscope which will allow volunteer researchers to digitally scan the aerogel tiles where the submicroscopic grains have been trapped. Scientists hope that by finding and studying this interstellar dust, they can learn more about the internal processes of the supernova, flaring red giants, and neutron stars that would likely produce such dust.'

link
[link, BoingBoing]:


UPDATED
"Xeni Jardin: NASA Stardust mission on final approach for landing

John Parres says,

Stardust is completing a 2.88 billion mile round-trip odyssey to capture and return cometary and interstellar dust particles to Earth in two days (2:12AM PST).

Sunday) The spacecraft performs its last maneuver on Friday, Jan. 13, at 8:53 p.m. Pacific time (9:53 p.m. Mountain time) to put it on the correct path to enter Earth's atmosphere. The speed of the sample return capsule as it enters Earth's atmosphere at 46,440 kilometers per hour (28,860 miles per hour) will be the greatest of any human-made object on record. The previous record was set in May 1969 by the returning Apollo 10 command module. Cool stuff. I will definately be tuning into NASA TV! Link to mission, Link to animations.

[link]:

How Elasticity Affects The Market For Illegal Goods

An interesting article about how enforement and market respond to illegal goods.

In an important new study, world-renowned economists -- including a Nobel Prize winner and a MacArthur 'genius' -- argue that when demand for a good is inelastic, the cost of making consumption illegal exceeds the gain. Their forthcoming paper in the Journal of Political Economy is a definitive explanation of the economics of illegal goods and a thoughtful explication of the costs of enforcement.

The authors demonstrate how the elasticity of demand is crucial to understanding the effects of punishment on suppliers. Enforcement raises costs for suppliers, who must respond to the risk of imprisonment and other punishments. This cost is passed on to the consumer, which induces lower consumption when demand is relatively elastic. However, in the case of illegal goods like drugs -- where demand seems inelastic -- higher prices lead not to less use, but to an increase in total spending.

In the case of drugs, then, the authors argue that excise taxes and persuasive techniques -- such as advertising -- are far more effective uses of enforcement expenditures.

'This analysis ... helps us understand why the War on Drugs has been so difficult to win ... why efforts to reduce the supply of drugs leads to violence and greater power to street gangs and drug cartels,' conclude the authors. 'The answer lies in the basic theory of enforcement developed in this paper.'

[link]Source: ScienceDaily

NYT on indigo children

My aunt believes her son (my cousin) can see auras. They both have commented on the seeing indigo more so they they have before. This is not to say I believe in what they see, to me it coincides with the first occurence (1970) and where we are in the world today Vietnam/Iraq, Nixon/Bush. I have no doubt that this "research" is US based and that sociopolitical views are hoping that our children see what we are doing and fight to change this for them in the future.

"David Pescovitz: Today's New York Times has a long article about 'indigo children' and, well, the new age parents who love them. According to believers, indigo children are psychologically and spiritually more advanced than other kids. Some apparently even have telepathic powers. From the article:

Indigo children were first described in the 1970's by a San Diego parapsychologist, Nancy Ann Tappe, who noticed the emergence of children with an indigo aura, a vibrational color she had never seen before. This color, she reasoned, coincided with a new consciousness.

In 'The Indigo Children,' (authors Lee) Carroll and (Jan) Tober define the phenomenon. Indigos, they write, share traits like high I.Q., acute intuition, self-confidence, resistance to authority and disruptive tendencies, which are often diagnosed as attention-deficit disorder, known as A.D.D., or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D.

'To me these children are the answers to the prayers we all have for peace,' said Doreen Virtue, a former psychotherapist for adolescents who now writes books and lectures on indigo children. She calls the indigos a leap in human evolution. 'They're vigilant about cleaning the earth of social ills and corruption, and increasing integrity,' Ms. Virtue said. 'Other generations tried, but then they became apathetic. This generation won"

[link](thanks, boing boing):