Nanoparticles carrying a toxin found in bee venom can destroy human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while leaving surrounding cells unharmed.
The finding is an important step toward developing a vaginal gel that may prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
photo { Dan Winters, Dead Bees, Oakdale, California, March 11-15, 2006 }
Here we report on the results of an experimental study of the conditions under which coffee spills for various walking speeds and initial liquid levels in the cup. These observations are analyzed from the dynamical systems and fluid mechanics viewpoints as well as with the help of a model developed here. Particularities of the common cup sizes, the coffee properties, and the biomechanics of walking proved to be responsible for the spilling phenomenon.
{ American Physical Society | Abstract | via Improbable }
Mayer and Krechetnikov have found that noise—potentially caused by uneven steps or small jerks of the cup — plays an important role in amplifying the natural oscillations of coffee into a full-blown spill.
Click by click, Facebook users are building a surprisingly nuanced picture of themselves, even without filling out their social networking profiles. […] Researchers found that they could, for example, correctly guess a man’s sexual orientation 88 percent of the time by analyzing the kinds of TV shows and movies he liked. It also found that few gay men — less than 5 percent in the study — identify with groups that openly declare their sexual orientation, so a man’s preference for “Britney Spears” or “Desperate Housewives” was more useful in predictions.
Similarly, the researchers also found that they could figure out if a Facebook user used drugs with about 65 percent accuracy based on their expressed public preferences.
The study even included “like” predictors that could tell whether users’ parents had separated when they were young vs. whether they had not.
Researchers told the British paper that they hope this study raises users’ awareness about the kind of information they may not realize they’re sharing with a wider audience.
China’s demand for foreign milk powder surged after a 2008 milk powder scandal, in which at least six children died and more than 300,000 got sick from milk laced with melamine. Hong Kong’s wide range of foreign milk powder brands is considered more trustworthy than even the foreign imports available in Chinese supermarkets. […]
Middle-class parents choosing to feed their child foreign milk powder might spend anywhere from 25-40% of their monthly salary. […]
Comprehensive statistics are impossible to gauge, but it is very common to encounter Chinese people overseas who have been asked to send back milk powder to a friend or relative, or who know others that engage in this activity to make money.
We all know that smoking is bad for our health and that eating vegetables is good for it. Yet how bad and how good are they? […]
To answer his own question, Spiegelhalter converted reams of statistical risk tables into a simple metric: a microlife—30 minutes. If you smoke two cigarettes, you lose 30 minutes of your life. Exercise for 20 minutes, and you gain two units of microlife.
Michael Kearney, a former child prodigy, was homeschooled by his parents. He was diagnosed with ADHD and his parents declined to use the offered prescription of Ritalin. His younger sister, Maeghan, is also a child prodigy.
He spoke his first words at four months. At the age of six months, he said to his pediatrician “I have a left ear infection” and learned to read at the age of ten months. When Michael was four, he was given multiple-choice diagnostic tests for the Johns Hopkins precocious math program. Without having studied specifically for the exam, Michael achieved a perfect score.
He attended San Marin High School in Novato, California, for one year, graduating at the age of six in 1990. He enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College in Sonoma County, California, graduating at age 8 with an Associate of Science in Geology. He is listed in the Guinness Book as the world’s youngest university graduate at the age of ten, receiving a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of South Alabama.
{ 1. Terry Magson | 2 }
The paper begins with three individual sports (tennis, golf, and boxing) in which home advantage has been studied. […] It moves on to individual and team sports in the Olympics, where home advantage has also been studied. […] Finally, data are presented for two individual efforts embedded in team sports (free throws in basketball and shootouts in ice hockey). […]
Subjectively evaluated sports such as diving, gymnastics, or figure skating usually show sizable and significant home advantages. […] Except for subjectively evaluated sports, home advantage is not a major factor in individual sports, much less does it play a role in individual sports comparable to its role in team sports.
{ Mannequins from the Korova Milkbar set of A Clockwork Orange, 1971 at LACMA, until June 30 | 2 }
This January, a 21-year-old Canadian tourist named Elisa Lam disappeared while visiting Los Angeles. Lam was last seen at the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where she had been staying. Tuesday, her body was found at the bottom of one of the hotel’s rooftop water tanks. […]
The hotel’s guests were horrified at the news. […] But anyone familiar with Los Angeles’s history couldn’t have been too surprised. Downtown LA has long been seedy, and somewhat dangerous; the Cecil Hotel, for its part, has a long and sordid criminal history [Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger stayed at the Cecil Hotel for five weeks in 1991 while murdering prositutes].
{ Slate }
related/video { Surveillance video of Elisa Lam shows bizarre behavior }
3D printing technology has helped replace 75 percent of a patient’s skull with the approval of U.S. regulators. […]
3D printing’s advantage comes from taking the digitally scanned model of a patient’s skull and “printing” out a matching 3D object layer by layer. The precise manufacturing technique can even make tiny surface or edge details on the replacement part that encourage the growth of cells and allow bone to attach more easily.
Designed for Google’s forthcoming Glass headset, it recognises people by the clothes they are wearing. Their name is then overlaid on the headset’s video.
Research done in the Universities of Granada (Spain), Freiburg (Germany) and University College London (UK) has demonstrated that when we have a low opinion of somebody, we are more likely to reject their money, even though the offer is attractive, because the social information we have on that person influences our decision. Furthermore, people are prepared to even lose money rather than accept it from those they do not hold in high consideration.
The purpose of this paper was to improve the butt lifting effect of tight jeans based on changing parameters of pattern by CAD. In the scope of research, body measurements were carried out and three kinds of hip shape (flat, normal and plump) were identified with K-Mean Cluster Analysis according to the hip convex angle. Then butt lifting effect of jeans was discussed through changing the back crutch angle and the style line angle of yoke. the corresponding sample jeans were fitted by 15 subjects of three hip shapes and evaluated by both subjects and 15 specialist people in fashion field. It was concluded that the butt lifting effect could be enhanced by increasing the back crutch angle and decreasing the style line angle of yoke.
photo { Man Ray, Homage to D.A.F. de Sade, 1933 }
As we noted in 2008, the problem was never liquidity. The problem is that the big banks became insolvent because of stupid gambling.
In other words, the government’s whole approach to the 2008 financial crisis was entirely wrong. And the easy money policy (quantitative easing) of central banks doesn’t help, but instead hurts the economy and the little guy. […]
“The IIF said the US Dow Jones Industrial Average’s had hit an all-time high this week more because of relaxed international monetary conditions than thanks to any recovery in the real economy.”
A proposal by the US to ban cross-border trade in polar bears and their parts was defeated on Thursday at an international meeting. The result marks a victory for Canada’s indigenous Inuit people over their bigger neighbour to the south. […] The latest plan fell far short of the two-thirds needed to pass the Bangkok conference. It garnered 38 votes in favour, 42 against and 46 abstentions.
There are about 25,000 polar bears left in the world with an estimated 16,000 living in the Canadian Arctic. Canada is the only country that permits the export of polar bear parts.
Nigerian Schoolgirls Create Urine-Powered Generator.
Long Island man faces jail for laughing too loudly in own home.
The United States called for a ban on drunk diplomats at budget debates at the United Nations.
The European Union wants to ban all online porn.
British Batman unmasked as joker, not crime fighter.
Why do some people get zits and others don’t? New Research Reveals Secret of Flawless Skin.
Sex Can Relieve Severe Headaches.
Over the past century, the average IQ in industrialized countries has risen to keep pace with the complexity of modern life. IQ researcher James Flynn discusses why those gains have occurred and whether they are likely to continue.
Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that Apple’s revenue grew by about $48 billion dollars, which happens to be more revenue growth than Google, Microsoft, Dell, HP, RIM, and Nokia combined. Yet Wall Street and media fanatics are claiming Apple is doomed.
YouTube to launch music streaming service, take on Spotify.
We Know Nothing About The Correlation Between Videogames And Violence.
Here’s How Much Bacon and Sausage You Can Eat Without Getting Cancer.
How Emperor Penguins Survive Antarctica’s Subzero Cold.
Do You Think Medical Marijuana Should Be Legalized for Dogs?
How can it snow so much when it’s not freezing?
How can you minimize the chances of breaking your hand while punching someone in the head?
Houdini on his Chinese Water Torture Cell, 1914. [audio]
One of the strangest concepts in quantum mechanics is the notion of entanglement. This is the idea that two quantum particles can be so deeply linked that they share the same existence. When that happens, a measurement on one immediately influences the other, regardless of the distance between them.
This “spooky action at a distance,” as Einstein called it, has puzzled and fascinated physicists since it was first discussed in the 1930s. Einstein initially used it as evidence of the failure of quantum mechanics since this instantaneous action clearly seemed to violate relativity.
Later, physicists realised there was no conflict because the “spooky action” cannot be used to send information faster than the speed of light. However, important questions remain about the nature of entanglement and spooky action. “If the spooky action does exist, what is its speed?” ask Juan Yin and pals at the University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai.
Today, they reveal the answer. They say spooky action travels at least four orders of magnitude faster than light.
photo { Arianna Arcara and Luca Santese, Found Photos in Detroit, 2009-2010 }
As a gateway to the city, Los Angeles International Airport could hardly be more dispiriting. A jumble of mismatched, outdated terminals, LAX gives visitors a resounding first impression of civic dysfunction.
The city, which owns the airport, has tried several times to remake LAX. The latest attempt is a master plan by Fentress Architects, which is also designing the nearly $2-billion Tom Bradley International Terminal.
But the truth is that the airport’s biggest liability is not simply architectural. Somehow Los Angeles built a major rail route, the Green Line, past LAX 20 years ago without adding a stop at the airport.
And guess what? We are about to build another light-rail route — this time the $1.7-billion Crenshaw Line — near the airport and make precisely the same mistake again.
photo { Garry Winogrand }
The flip of a single molecular switch helps create the mature neuronal connections that allow the brain to bridge the gap between adolescent impressionability and adult stability. Now Yale School of Medicine researchers have reversed the process, recreating a youthful brain that facilitated both learning and healing in the adult mouse.
