Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Image

Nuns Donate Their Brains to Alzheimer's Research 148

Posted by samzenpus from the bring-me-a-pious-brain dept.
Many Catholic religious orders are participating in a long range Alzheimer's disease study. Rush University's Religious Orders Study began in 1993 and tracks the participants' mental abilities through yearly memory testing. In addition to the annual tests, the study subjects agree to donate their brains. From the article: "The researchers sought members of religious orders, hoping they would be willing to donate and would not have children or spouses interfering with that arrangement at the last minute. More than 1,100 nuns, priests and brothers across the country representing a wide range of ethnic groups are taking part."

Comment Re:No problem, long as they charge at night (Score 1) 438

by tigerbody1 (#32893502) Attached to: Electric Cars Won't Strain the Power Grid
"I think the bigger question, which I didn't see answered in TFA, is whether these things are truly better than ICE vehicles on the environment." This has been discussed many times over many years, I just dont happen to have any links for this at the moment. And don't forget - there are tons and tons of Lithium in Afghanistan!
Image

Antidepressants In the Water Are Making Shrimp Suicidal 182

Posted by samzenpus from the crustacean-frustration dept.
Antidepressants may help a lot of people get up in the morning but new research shows they are making shrimp swim into that big bowl of cocktail sauce in the sky. Alex Ford, a marine biologist at the University of Portsmouth, found that shrimp exposed to the antidepressant fluoxetine are 5 times more likely to swim towards light instead of away from it. Shrimp usually swim away from light as it is associated with birds or fishermen.
United Kingdom

Boy Builds Wall-Climbing Machine Using Recycled Vacuums 96

Posted by samzenpus from the hello-true-believers dept.
Joe McIntosh writes "Hibiki Kono just might be a boy genius. The 13-year-old decided he wanted to climb vertical surfaces like his hero, Spiderman. So, he used two 1,400-watt recycled vacuum cleaners and a little bit of elbow grease to make a machine that allows him to scale walls. Kono has been scaling the walls of his UK school and has told the media that he hopes his invention will help window washers eliminate clumsy ladders from their daily routine."

Comment Re:Generator (Score 1) 260

by tigerbody1 (#31131124) Attached to: UPS Setup For a Small/Mid-Size Company?
Yes, get a generator with some kind of auto-start feature. At an ISP I started, we put the generator on the roof. We still had some UPS's, because a generator is not "instant on." And get some of the UPS's that you add External batteries to, as you can manage those batteries.
Music

Grateful Dead Percussionist Makes Music From Supernovas 57

Posted by kdawson from the music-of-the-exploding-spheres dept.
At the "Cosmology At the Beach" conference earlier this month, Grammy-award winning percussionist Mickey Hart performed a composition inspired by the eruptions of supernovae. "Keith Jackson, a Berkeley Lab computer scientist who is also a musician, lent his talents to the project, starting with gathering data from astrophysicists like those at the Berkeley Lab’s Nearby Supernova Factory, which collects data from telescopes in space and on earth to quickly detect and analyze short-lived supernovas. 'If you think about it, it's all electromagnetic data — but with a very high frequency,' Jackson said of the raw data. "What we did is turn it into sound by slowing down the frequency and "stretching" it into an audio form. Both light and sound are all wave forms — just at different frequencies. Our goal was to turn the electromagnetic data into audio data while still preserving the science.'"
Image

Police Called Over 11-Year-Old's Science Project 687

Posted by samzenpus from the duck-and-cover dept.
garg0yle writes "Police in San Diego were called to investigate an 11-year-old's science project, consisting of 'a motion detector made out of an empty Gatorade bottle and some electronics,' after the vice-principal came to the conclusion that it was a bomb. Charges aren't being laid against the youth, but it's being recommended that he and his family 'get counseling.' Apparently, the student violated school policies — I'm assuming these are policies against having any kind of independent thought?"

Comment Re:The original plastics were plant based (Score 1) 226

by tigerbody1 (#26866711) Attached to: "Liquid Wood" a Contender To Replace Plastic
" the body panels were made of hemp fiber and resin." Sorry - Jack got it wrong. I went to the Henry Ford Archives and looked at the files themselves.
George Overley actually talks about the mistake others made about Hemp plastic in that car. Dr Overley said that any of 7 oil pants COULD be used, but that they used Soy. It is in a Mechanical Engineering mag in 1952.
The plants I can remember on his list are: soy, corn, hemp, kenaf, castor, palm
I have the book somewhere....
sorry I can't remember the ones Dr Overley talked about.
Henry Ford the great had 24,000 acres of Soy all around his estate in Ypsilanti, Michigan. His airport was called "Willow Run." They invented the Soy margarine there, among all the other inventions.

Comment The original plastics were plant based (Score 4, Interesting) 226

by tigerbody1 (#26861969) Attached to: "Liquid Wood" a Contender To Replace Plastic
In the early days - 7 plants were named and shown to be excellent oil sources.
And these oil sources can be combined with a hardener to become a "plastic"
Soy oil was one of the first.

George Overley was the chemist working for Henry Ford to create many plant based components for Ford cars and trucks. Around 30 different components were plant based until Henry Ford was kicked out of the company he started.
The most famous is the Soy plastic bumpers that are mostly mistaken as Hemp Plastic by Jack Herrer in
"The Emperor Wears No Cloths"

Slashdot Top Deals

"Life is a garment we continuously alter, but which never seems to fit." -- David McCord

Close