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Comment Effect on kidneys and blood vessels? (Score 1) 109

by Knutsi (#28863161) Attached to: Healing Wounds With Diamonds
I cannot help wonder what happens if these diamond particles get into your blood flow though. Even though they are stated to be "nano-size", any chance they might get stuck in the nephrons in the kidneys, or capillary blood vessels around the body? I mean, usually the stuff you get into your blood stream are macro-mo
Image

English DJ Claims Wi-Fi Allergy 515

Posted by samzenpus from the TV-gives-me-hives dept.
path0$ writes "British Ex-DJ Steve Miller claims that his Wi-Fi allergy is making his life one big misery , forcing him to live in an iron-clad home far from any neighbors. According to the article, more and more people are suffering from an allergy like his. The only positive side to this is that at least Miller didn't think of suing anybody yet, like these people did, who claim to suffer from the same condition and were mentioned in a Slashdot article in 2008."
Earth

Submission + - New Evidence of Shrinking Arctic Ice Sheet 1

Submitted by unapersson
unapersson writes: The Guardian reports new evidence that has come to light after the US Military has declassified some of its Satellite photographs:

Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.
Idle

Submission + - A bear who's smarter than the average engineer

Submitted by gyrogeerloose
gyrogeerloose writes: The San Diego Union-Tribune reports in a New York Times wire service story that a black bear known as "Yellow-Yellow" (named for the two yellow ear tags she sports) has solved the problem of opening a food container that was previously thought to be bear-proof. The container, known as The Bear Vault, was constructed in a manner similar to a child-proof pill bottle and had passed tests at zoos where bears were given a certain time to break in. The only bears able to open it were grizzlies large and strong enough to rip the lid off using brute force--up several years ago, when campers in the High Peaks region of New York's Adirondack Mountains started reporting successful break-ins. A redesigned canister was introduced last year; Yellow-Yellow, a relatively petite 120-pound black bear, figured that one out too. The manufacturer is working on a new design expected to be released next year. New York state officials have agreed to test it by filling it with food and placing it in Yellow-Yellow's territory.
Medicine

Submission + - At What Price Life? 1

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "A week ago, Princeton prof Peter Singer made a case in the NY Times for Why We Must Ration Health Care, questioning whether it's worth paying $54,000 to provide an advanced kidney cancer patient with a drug called Sutent to give him an extra six months. This week, the Chicago Tribune looks at the same question from the perspective of pet owners, including a couple who felt $14,000 for a kidney transplant for their cat was money well spent. As the United States faces the possibility of explicit health care rationing to get value for billions spent on universal care, a bigger question than ever will be: How much we should spend to save a life?"
Education

Submission + - 26 Years Old and Can't Write in Cursive 1

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Back in 1942, Chicago mail-order house Spiegel's looked to handwriting analysis to identify inconsistent, unreliable, poorly adjusted people. Ah, those were the days. TIME reports we are witnessing the death of handwriting, noting that Gen Y struggles with cursive and the group following them has even less of a need for good penmanship. And while the knee-jerk explanation is that computers are to blame for our increasingly illegible scrawl, literacy prof Steve Graham explains that kids haven't learned to write neatly because no one has forced them to. 'Writing is just not part of the national agenda anymore,' he says. So much for 100 Years of Handwriting Success!"

Comment Re:don't believe it (Score 4, Insightful) 539

by Knutsi (#28792877) Attached to: Artificial Brain '10 Years Away'

I sometimes wonder though, if the component that gives intelligence is not necessarily that complicated. We seem very capable of adapting to new, abstract input, and this indicates to me that intelligence might be a generic mechanism. Allot of organisms are capable of learning, not just us. That's intelligence as far as I see.

My personal hypothesis (for what it's worth) is that what we will be able to build will be intelligent, but not necessarily very human. Humans have a genetic component, which includes instincts such as social behavior, and I think intelligence is a layer on top of this that helps us achieve the goals these instincts sets out for us. In the end, the instincts dictate what outcome appears good and bad, and reinforces the patterns of behavior that led to those outcomes.

It might be that once we set out to explore these underlying insticts, and how to replicate them in a brain like system, they might also prove to be surprisingly simple:

  • A smile from a human = good outcome (social) - possible by image analysis
  • Aggressive sounds from a human looking at you (that is stronger than you) = bad outcome - possible by sound/image analysis
  • Spider or snake-like shape near you = bad outcome - image analysis
  • Smell of fruit = good outcome - chemical analysis of air

Probably it will be somewhat more complex than this, but I think we might be surprised once we get there. We might also find that tweaking instincts will make the brains, and their attached bodies, be human like or very very different. We might be able to create a brain for whom life is ALL about good feedback from humans (these creatures already live amongst us :p), or ones that are merciless killing machines.

I think no field will yield more knowledge and understanding of ourselves than the brain-builders in the decades to come.

Comment Why should one be more important than the other? (Score 1) 506

by Knutsi (#28633895) Attached to: What's the Importance of Graphics In Video Games?
Games are not a uniform thing. There are games where the graphics are stunning, and really pull you into the world. Then there are games where even the simplest graphics perform all the function needed to make a beautiful game. Why should we not have both? Independent games with interesting gameplay mechanism, an interesting visualization as well, are highly popular - it's not like we have lost anything?

Comment Re:Please let it be!! (Score 3, Interesting) 557

by Knutsi (#27770513) Attached to: WHO Raises Swine Flu Threat Level
A Norwegian health authority official stated "our worst case scenario is that 1,4 million gets sick, 13.000 dies" then went on to underline this was the WORST case scenario, and it might even end up being nothing. What does the headlines say in the media? "13.000 might die!", and "1,4 million fall ill!". Why? To scare me? What kind of people are these editors and journalists?
Medicine

Submission + - Role of Social Networks during a Pandemic?

Submitted by
Knutsi
Knutsi writes: "With many people from the age group that seems to he hit hardest of the new swine flu being hyper-connected to hundreds of friends a relatives on social networks, it is almost unthinkable not to have a direct feed from someone affected during a major pandemic. How will a pandemic affect social networks, and could social networks potentially affect it? Could local authorities use social networks to help the sick, or prevent further spread?"
OS X

Submission + - Advanced Google Docs + Safari = true?

Submitted by
Knutsi
Knutsi writes: "With the rumors of a tighter Apple/Google collaboration coming up, it may be worth speculating as to why Apple is releasing Safari on the Windows platform. A brief look Safari's preferences dialog reveals that the GUI kit running is actually Aqua, unlike iTunes which uses the native Windows kit. Is it possible that Safari for Windows is a strategic move to extend a.Mac/Google collaboration into the Windows domain, leveraging Aqua and enabling more advanced interfaces than what has traditionally been possible in a browser? With millions of Mac-users already having the technology installed, they could reach critical mass quite fast."
The Internet

Submission + - Social Networking a new Internet Basic-Service?

Submitted by
Knutsi
Knutsi writes: "There are some services we all expect from the internet today, such as email and the world wide web. The recent explosive growth of social networking site Facebook here in Norway has made many people I know think of it to be just as basic an internet service as email. Some people do however resist it due to the many other sites offering such services, thinking that it's not really dependable since the information you enter is lost, or has to be duplicated. Given the long timeframe and workload needed for social networking, it ineviably raises the question if the sites should be replaced by a desentralized system, more akind to email."

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