Trace Your Route | Popular Science

Web Internet routing shows map of the path your web search took to reach you.
http://www.popsci.com/content/trace-your-route

Here's the trace tool:
http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/visual-tracert/

anesthesia and changed mental function

Does postoperative cognitive deficit predict the onset of Alzheimer's? Yes. 

"[It is...] More likely in the elderly with pre-existing declining mental functions, termed MCI (Mild Cognitive Impairment) (Silverstein 2007). MCI is a transitional zone between normal mental function and evident Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. It is insidious, and seldom recognized, except in retrospect after affected persons are evidently demented."

http://www.anesthesiaweb.org/dementia.php

Fracking vs the alternatives

This Op-Ed New York Times piece mitigates against the outcry over fracking and makes the point that fracking occurs at 5 times the depth of any surface water, and the natural gas it yields causes much less carbon loading of the atmosphere than coal (the alternative fuel source grown in America). The author admits that the chemicals used are not regulated or monitored. I worry that the hydrocarbons (diesel, benzene) used to extract the sticky mess are by necessity more volatile than either coal or crude oil and more likely to contaminate overlying water sources no matter how much more superficial they are.

http://nyti.ms/Zzp8u8

Hagfish Slime Makes Super-Clothes : Discovery News

A nasty smelly fish that emits a protective protein defense that happens to be a useful protein filament which may one day be made by bacteria through recombinant engineering.
http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/hagfish-slime-super-clothes-121203.htm

Solar water heating

Flat plate collectors - run fluid through a black tube, basically.
Since the system can't be turned off, it has to be drained. Just one hour of excessive temperature chemically converts the glycol into glycolic acid, which erodes the pump and copper pipes, necessitating glycol replacement at considerable expense.

Even when properly drained, a thin film of glycol remains and degrades into glycolic acid, damaging the components and lowering the heat-transfer capacity.

An evacuated tube system captures the heat in a thermos-like glass cavity, increasing efficiency and allowing hot water generation in sub-zero conditions.
The system can't be drained in over-temperature conditions, so it has to have a radiator to waste excess heat not being used on very hot days. This means complexity - an extra pump and tubing and controls.

http://www.suntracsolar.com/downloads/SunTrac_Care_and_Maintenance.pdf

Rostropovich bio

Fwd: NYTimes.com: Mediterranean Diet Can Cut Heart Disease, Study Finds

Nuts, olive oil, and avoid red meat, baked goods, soda... Mediterranean Diet Can Cut Heart Disease, Study Finds By GINA KOLATA Until now, evidence that the Mediterranean diet reduced the risk of heart disease was weak, and some experts had been skeptical that the effect of diet could be detected

Rapid winter chains

Thule rapid winter tire chain

World's Top3 Humanoid Robots - Asimo vs HPR-4 vs NAO!

Thought you'd enjoy seeing these very lifelike robots, especially the third one which seems to have quite a personality!

http://youtu.be/N_m56irWKeI

Kicking a robot off balance!

Robot walking is some very complicated terrain:

http://youtu.be/cNZPRsrwumQ