May 2013
81 posts
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STUDY: Infants who were highly exposed to traffic...
The study is the latest to suggest that pollution may play a role in the developing brain. Previous studies found that particulate matter associated with pollution can find its way into the brain, and that people who are exposed to high levels of air pollution might develop brain swelling. Children exposed to high levels of traffic pollution have also shown decreased memory performance and...
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The parallels between the Tumblr and Flickr...
When Yahoo acquired Flickr for a relatively paltry $30 million in 2005, founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake also took to the company blog. Like Karp, they couldn’t contain their glee – “Woohoo!” and said they would be “working with a bunch of people that Totally Get Flickr and want to preserve the community and the flavor of what is here. We’re going to grow and change, but we’re in it...
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Emoticons are more difficult to create than you...
Sympathy, for example, can be hard to really get across in traditional emoticon form. “It’s an under-appreciated emotion in Western culture,” Keltner explains. “We now know what it looks like and sounds like because of science. They created this dynamic emoticon that when you see it, it’s really powerful.”
— How Facebook Used Science To Design More Emotional Emoticons
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Should technology become more invisible?
Google’s professed goal of making technology “get out of the way” masks what’s truly taking place. By making technology invisible, Google is also making it omnipresent. As software and gadgets become less in-your-face, they also become more pervasive and more influential, as we in turn become more dependent on them, more accepting of their presence in our lives and less...
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Drones have been used to kill terrorists overseas....
In Seraph, a single male dancer slinks around onstage, carefully studying a small, LED-lit object. The machine charges at him and he rolls away, terrified. The machine—a quadrotor helicopter—takes off and his fear quickly turns to intrigue. The copter swoops over his head, he dives under it. Within minutes, a second drone emerges, chasing him offstage.
— Dances With Drones
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The major engineering feats that needed to be...
Seasoning was [a] major issue, which was as much of a challenge of taste as it was for manufacturing. “A Doritos chip is a flat triangle, and it gets seasoned by being tumbled around in a huge seasoner barrel that rotates. But we couldn’t do that with a taco shell because they would break. We could get the seasoning to stick to the top but we couldn’t get it to stick to the...
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Should e-cigarette companies be allowed to market...
A 2010 study published in the journal Addiction found that smokers use e-cigarettes “much as people would use nicotine replacement medications.” The study concluded by saying that more research was needed to ascertain “the safety and efficacy of e-cigarettes for administration of nicotine and other substances, and for quitting and relapse prevention.”
The Addiction study was followed in 2011 by...
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After years of failure, scientists have finally...
Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University say they were able to implant the nucleus from a skin cell into a donated human egg cell with its nucleus removed, creating an embryo-like cell that has the genetic makeup of the patient who donated the skin cell.
— Scientists Convert Human Skin Cells Into Embryonic Stem Cells
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"Google is on the verge of becoming the first tech...
The company’s stock has been on an upward swing for months as Google has once again shown itself to be a major innovator in the tech space, with several promising breakthrough products like Glass and Fiber coming to market. By contrast, Apple’s stock price has fallen below $500 a share as Wall Street is concerned about whether it has another blockbuster product in the...
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This website maps every recurring joke on Arrested... →
An interactive visualization of running jokes in Arrested Development.
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The Heritage Foundation held a panel that alleged...
Matthew Spalding, a vice president of American studies at Heritage, also voiced concerns that allowing gay scouts would affect boy scouts’ “understanding of fatherhood,” their “character formation,” as well as their development into “upright young men.”
— Heritage Foundation Alleges Gays in Scouts Would Lead to More ‘Boy-on-Boy Contact’
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“In order to test the best methods for finding a clandestine grave, Jamie Pringle...”
– To Study Mass Human Graves, Researchers Are Burying Dead Pigs
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No joke: This was an actual presentation given at...
The presentation tells women to dress appropriate according to their personality, body types, skin, hair and eye color. (Did you know that “brunettes can wear more intense colors than blondes”?). It also advises women that a “[c]onservative approach [is] always best” and to avoid anything “flamboyant, gaudy, attention-drawing” (no statement jewelry for you,...
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This isn't the first time the IRS has been accused...
The well-known church, All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, became a bit of a cause célèbre on the left after the IRS threatened to revoke the church’s tax-exempt status over an anti-Iraq War sermon the Sunday before the 2004 election. “Jesus [would say], ‘Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine,’” rector George Regas said from the dais.
The church, which said progressive...
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“If you thought a $12 ticket and a bag of popcorn was the last you’d spend...”
– Here Are Some of the Things Summer Movies Will Try to Sell You
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Scientists think they can regrow human teeth by...
Chuong says that the DNA of humans contains the genetic material necessary to grown teeth and even regenerate other parts of the body, but that code isn’t “turned on.”
Regeneration is relatively common in the animal kingdom—certain types of salamanders can regenerate limbs, lobsters and stone crabs can grow new claws, starfish can grown new appendages and many types of...
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We've heard of Google's driverless cars. What...
The 16-seat plane, dubbed the “Flying Test Bed,” used a pilot to take off and land, but flew autonomously the rest of the time, using “sense and avoid” technology to avoid a series of fake objects that were put in place by ASTRAEA, a British research agency working to make pilotless aircraft a reality.
The perfection of the “sense and avoid” technology is a...
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The major television networks are hemorrhaging...
No matter how optimistic the Big Four networks may feel about their new seasons — TV executives are masters at forgetting last year’s failures and staying on message about the future — the stress factors are enough to make them long for the days of “I Love Lucy,” when 50 million Americans would watch the same show at the same time.
Now NBC and ABC are lucky to get five million to tune in....
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Do mobile device companies have a responsibility...
Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile share the serial number of stolen phones and refuse to activate them. But this registry of numbers doesn’t extend to carriers outside of the US, allowing the phones to retain their value overseas. Apple and Microsoft both offer tools to locate, lock, and wipe their devices remotely, but they have their limitations — thieves may be able to disable the...
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The amazing amount of information available in a...
The company invests untold millions in dreaming up any piece of information that a hedge fund maven or trader at a big bank might wish to have, and getting it. One example I only recently learned of: Zachary M. Seward at Quartz reports that Bloomberg commissions a satellite to photograph America’s largest oil reserve in Cushing, Oklahoma twice a week, so that oil inventories can be estimated...
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Google+ is performing best in developing nations
Google appears to be making headway in emerging economies. Google+ is used by at least 25 percent of Internet users in all four BRIC nations; India standing out with a penetration rate of 38 percent.
— Google+ Hits Big in BRIC Nations
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Do social norms have to shift before the world...
Right now, Google Glass might be the world’s worst spy camera; if you go out in public with a pair on, you are guaranteed to attract attention. Still, the idea of techies mounting a tiny screen and a little camera to their faces makes millions of people uncomfortable.
According to Sarah Rotman Epps, a tech analyst at Forrester Research, that is why Google is rolling out Glass to the world...
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Scientists have found evidence that millions of...
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, found fossilized pollen of Douglas fir and hemlock trees in Russia’s Lake El’gygytgyn, located close to the East Siberian Sea in Northeast Russia. The isolated lake is far from any city, and is about 400 miles west of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia. The research was published Thursday in the journal...
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Do online video outlets need to spend more...
“There is a better chance for increased excitement and engagement around a show if they promoted the show like the offline world does,” said Michael Zuna, Aflac’s chief marketing officer. Spending on digital video ads is expected to reach $4.14 billion this year, while ad outlays on TV should top $66.3 billion, according to eMarketer.
Online outlets are starting to take notice....
Should companies be more transparent when they're...
As one media organization after another has fallen for the Syrian Electronic Army’s tricks, there seemed to be a common thread that ran through the circumstances of each incident. All appear to have fallen prey to some kind of “phishing” attack. These are spoofed emails that look legitimate but which contain attachments or links that are used to gather information like usernames and passwords to...
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Netflix tries to predict how far away from your...
The most rigorous testing concerns recommendations. Netflix has a vast catalog of movies and shows, but much of its content is old and of limited appeal. To make its service feel valuable, Netflix tries to maximize the likability of the titles that get displayed on someone’s home page. One of Netflix’s mathematicians is known as 10-Foot User Interface Guy because the average person watching the...
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ESPN really doesn't want you to run out of phone...
Some media companies whose mobile content gets a lot of traffic are considering arrangements with wireless carriers that would ensure their users can watch, surf and play as much as they want without being hit with stiff overage charges. ESPN, the cable sports channel majority-owned by Walt Disney has had discussions with at least one major U.S. carrier to subsidize wireless connectivity on...
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A new study says water on the moon came from the...
After analyzing volcanic samples collected during the Apollo 15 and 17 missions, researchers at Brown University suggest that the impact that formed the moon also transferred water onto the moon.
The most popular theory for the moon’s formation suggests that it was formed when a giant space object collided with the “proto-Earth,” causing a chunk of debris to break off....
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Belief in global warming has dropped by 10% in the...
As previous polls have shown, Americans’ thoughts on climate change seem to vary with the weather. According to a new Yale University poll, 63 percent of Americans believe global warming is happening, a 10 percent drop from the number who believed it was happening last September, when a similar poll found that 70 percent of Americans believed global warming is happening.
— After Cold...
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Does logging onto social media sites make you more...
The study of 20,000 hourly workers finds “employees who actively used one or two social networking sites on a weekly basis, stay an average of nine days longer than those who don’t use social networks at all,” says Evolv. “Another indicator of attrition is familiarity with other employees at the company. The study shows that employees who know three or more people working at the company are more...
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The man behind Apple's minimalist product...
The team at Apple always has a really well developed shot list and sketches of what they need. I work with their talented art directors to translate those sketches into photos. We start by getting the position of the product and then move forward on lighting. Because Apple products have such carefully selected materials it is incredibly important to light the product in a way that will showcase...
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Should we stop "reflexively" sending our kids to...
First, look internally. Why do you want to go? Is it just because everyone else is going? That’s not a good enough reason. Is it because that’s where the good parties are? That’s not a good enough reason. To get away from the folks? That’s not a good enough reason. What’s your academic interest? How well does the school address that? What will you owe when you finish?...
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