Accepting his 2005 TED Prize, inventor Robert Fischell makes three wishes: redesigning a portable migraine treatment, finding new cures for clinical depression, and reforming the medical malpractice system. He also shares three new inventions that could improve the lives of millions: His Angel Med Guardian System — a pacemaker-sized device wired into the heart — detects an elevation in the electric signal of the heart, the first sign of a heart attack. His transcranial magnetic stimulator treats migraines with a magnetic pulse. Finally, the Neuropace prevents epileptic seizures by transmitting electric signals in the brain.
Daily Archives: January 12, 2008
Evolution and Politics in Florida
Florida has a purifying effect on politicians. Around the nation, there is a range of opinion among politicians about science education and other issues, but it seems that in Florida, we have a purified strain of politicians. They are pure idiots. Continue reading Evolution and Politics in Florida
Bill Stone: Journey to the center of the Earth … and beyond!
Bill Stone, the maverick cave explorer who invented robots and dive equipment that have allowed him to plumb Earth’s deepest abysses, explains his efforts to build a robot to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa. The plan is to send the machine to bore through miles of ice and swim through a liquid underworld that may harbor alien life. And if that’s not enough, he’s also planning to mine lunar ice by 2015.
Continue reading Bill Stone: Journey to the center of the Earth … and beyond!
Do you hire this kid or put him in jail?
A 14 year old kid in Lodz, Poland, modified a TV remote to control the public transit train system. Continue reading Do you hire this kid or put him in jail?
Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?
Armed with a backhoe and a handful of markers, Deborah Gordon studies ant colonies in the Arizona desert. She asks: How do these chitinous creatures get down to business — and even multitask when they need to — with no language, memory or visible leadership? Her answers could lead to a better understanding of all complex systems, from the brain to the Web. Continue reading Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?
Why cooperate?
Cooperation in nature is very common, and papers about how unlikely cooperation in nature would be are also common. Especially in Nature. (The Journal.) Continue reading Why cooperate?
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) song
Hat tips:EvolgenBioradBiosingularity..And, pretty much everybody else on the Internet. Can you identify the singers that are being parodies? (or at least, imitated?)
Biggest black hole evah…
There are about 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Imagine taking twenty percent of those stars and stuffing them into one, single black hole. That would be one hell of a black hole. Continue reading Biggest black hole evah…
Cute PC with Smiley Face
Or, one of those 1960s flowers similar to bathtub decals. Who cares, it runs Linux and is only $199.00 US.
It’ll have an Intel Celeron processor, a 945GC chipset, 512MB of memory and either a 60GB or 80GB hard drive. What it won’t have: an optical drive or a PCI Express slot. Despite that, it’s a pretty good-looking box, and comes in red, blue, white, and black, each with a different icon stamped on the front.
Details here.