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Cellphones

What Clown On a Unicycle? 284

Posted by Soulskill from the walking-into-stationary-objects dept.
R3d M3rcury writes "The New York Times has an article about walking and using a cellphone. 'The era of the mobile gadget is making mobility that much more perilous, particularly on crowded streets and in downtown areas where multiple multitaskers veer and swerve and walk to the beat of their own devices.' But the interesting part was an experiment run by Western Washington University this past fall. There was a student who knew how to ride a unicycle and a professor who had a clown suit. They dressed a student up as a clown and had him ride his unicycle around a popular campus square. Then they asked people, 'Did you see the Unicycling Clown?' 71% of the people walking in pairs said that they had. 51% of the people walking alone said that they had. But only 25% of the people talking on a cellphone said that they saw the unicycling clown. On the other hand, when asked 'Did you see anything unusual?' only about one person in three mentioned a unicycling clown. So maybe unicycling clowns aren't enough of a distraction at Western Washington University..."
Medicine

Submission + - Alzheimer's disease could be detected by eye test (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by SpuriousLogic
SpuriousLogic writes: A simple eye test might be able to detect Alzheimer's and other diseases before symptoms develop, according to UK scientists.
The technique uses fluorescent markers which attach to dying cells which can be seen in the retina and give an early indication of brain cell death.
This new technique enables scientists to track the progress of brain disease by looking at dying cells in the retina.
The cells show up as green dots because they absorb the fluorescent dye.
The research has so far been carried out on mice, but the team is optimistic that the technique can be translated to humans.
Professor Francesca Coredeiro, lead author from University College London Institute of Ophthalmology said: "Few people realise that the retina is a direct, albeit thin, extension of the brain."
Math

Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes 538

Posted by samzenpus from the less-math-more-social-science dept.
artemis67 writes "A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend. Peter Backus, a native of Seattle and PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, near London, in his paper, 'Why I don't have a girlfriend: An application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK,' used math to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. In describing the paper on the university Web site he wrote 'the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'"
Idle

Submission + - The World's Most Southerly ATM: An Interview (needcoffee.com) 1

Submitted by Widgett
Widgett writes: After hearing about the ATMs in Antarctica, I got curious. So I pinged Wells Fargo and wound up with an interview with one of their VPs. The end result is the story about how one services machines at the end of the world, plus--and most importantly--what are the service fees like?

Comment Threatening the emotional health of children? (Score 1) 204

by Draele (#30626798) Attached to: China Arrests Thousands In Internet Porn Crackdown
I see where they're coming from, but doesn't it seem like the very children they're trying to protect from this stuff will now have no choice but to make it themselves if they desire to see it? Or are they just going to crack down on that by banning webcams, cell phones, cameras, camcorders, paper, writing impliments, and anything else that might be theoretically used to scar our childrens' minds?

Submission + - Lava Tube Found Maybe Ideal Spot for Lunar Base (cnn.com)

Submitted by Camel Pilot
Camel Pilot writes: A Lava Tube has been found on the moon that could serve as an ideal structure to host a lunar base or colony. The tube is estimated by a paper in the American Geophysical Union as being over 200 feet wide and close to 300 feet deep. Such a tube provides protection from the severe lunar temperature swings, solar radiation and other hazards of space. What are we waiting for?
NASA

Submission + - SPAM: NASA Mars rover Spirit has survivability option?

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: As NASA celebrates its Mars rover Spirit’s sixth anniversary exploring the red planet it is hunting for a way to keep the machine, which is mired in a sand trap, alive to see a seventh year. On its Web site, the space agency this week noted there may indeed be such an option. That option would be spinning the wheels on the north side of Spirit, letting it dig in deeper in the Martian sand but at the same time improving the tilt of the rover’s solar panels toward the Sun.
[spam URL stripped]
Link to Original Source

Comment Re:Newgrounds... (Score 2, Interesting) 36

by Draele (#30589140) Attached to: Google Might Get Into Hosted Gaming Via YouTube
I was just thinking that. Being something of a regular Newgrounds user, I kinda felt my heart sink when I saw that. It doesn't look like it's quite the same, but it still bothers me that this is happening. All I can hope is that it's different enough to leave Newgrounds some space, or, failing that, its expanded fanbase will keep it alive. If it doesn't, Google is officially one small step closer to total domination of the internet.
Google

Google Might Get Into Hosted Gaming Via YouTube 36

Posted by Soulskill from the chrome-console dept.
bizwriter writes "A recent patent application from Google describes a way to provide 'the collaborative generation of interactive features for digital videos, and in particular to interactive video annotations enabling control of video playback locations and creation of interactive games.' Get into the description and you find it's about building games on top of video submissions, making it sound that Google plans to extend its YouTube site into an associated gaming site."
Image

PhD Candidate Talks About the Physics of Space Battles 361

Posted by samzenpus from the load-photon-torpedoes dept.
darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."
First Person Shooters (Games)

Open Source FPS Blood Frontier Releases Beta 2 113

Posted by Soulskill from the now-with-bloodier-frontiers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The open source FPS Blood Frontier has now made their beta2 release. From the article: 'After many months of development, and massive amounts of input from the public, we are proud to present you with the new release of Blood Frontier, v0.85 (Beta 2). This new version totally redefines and improves the game in many ways, creating a whole new style that makes it almost nothing like its predecessor.'"

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