How beads are made -several techniques

Blown, drawn, stamped...

http://youtu.be/DGvtWCX8QD4

photo sphere El Capitan

Cool photo - here's a portion of the whole spherical photo in the link.

Why does the snooze button give 9 minutes more sleep?

By the time the snooze feature was added in the 1950s, the innards of alarm clocks had long been standardized. This meant that the teeth on the snooze gear had to mesh with the existing gear configuration, leaving engineers with a single choice: They could set the snooze for either a little more than nine minutes, or a little more than 10 minutes. But because reports indicated that 10 minutes was too long, allowing people to fall back into a "deep" sleep, clock makers decided on the nine-minute gear, believing people would wake up easier and happier after a shorter snooze.

http://m.mentalfloss.com/article.php?id=22761

there was already a standardized gear system for alarm clocks when snooze buttons were invented. Because of this pre-existing setup, clockmakers had to decide whether a snooze should last nine minutes or longer than ten minutes. If you hit snooze at, let's say, 7:15, the mechanism would know to go off again at 7:24, when the last gear turned to 4. If you're having trouble picturing this, it might help to think about those popular clocks from the '70s and '80s with numerals printed on rotating cards. All four numerals moved independently of one another, so with a nine-minute snooze, the button was only connected to (and trigged by) the rightmost number.

https://unicornbooty.com/why-most-alarm-clock-snooze-buttons-last-for-9-minutes/

Scissor-folding bridge

What a clever idea. A scissor-folding bridge that can be transported to a disaster site where it can be extended across a river to a stranded community.

http://youtu.be/Ef8x6I8PFCA

It appears to take the weight of a car:

http://youtu.be/9RL9IB90M2o

The inventor's journey from observing a child's toy to a folding bridge is described a little bit here:
http://www.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/en/top/kenkyu/now/no20/

From the Popular Science article: "When natural disasters hit, they often destroy bridges first. So engineers from Hiroshima University in Japan set out to build a quickly built, strong replacement. Inspired by origami, the new mobile bridge spans 56 feet and takes three people less than an hour to deploy. Often no foundation work is needed, making it ideal for areas affected by earthquakes or floods. Made of aluminum alloy and steel, it's lightweight and easy to transport, yet sturdy enough for cars to cross."
http://www.popsci.com/best-of-whats-new-2015/engineering

Be My Eyes ~ Lend Your Eyes to the Blind

Cool! Volunteers connect to a blind user's smartphone video feed to tell them what they're looking at.
http://www.bemyeyes.org/

http://youtu.be/Y7bxlR-MxxM

P2 Hoverbike Test Flight

The future is finally here.

http://youtu.be/h7aIXvyBC64

"No Thanks" Best DHS Checkpoint Refusals EVER!

Exercising their rights. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to deal with these drivers? Or what it would be like to be this guy's roommate? It is interesting how, in every case, they let them go on their way.

http://youtu.be/6_3dDNPwJTU

Un-fitbit

Funny! Put your fitbit on a metronome or a power drill to falsify your exercise log

http://www.unfitbits.com/

Big Bertha tunnel in Seattle

Seattle's giant tunnel project is finally restarting tomorrow, after a two year delay from overheating, because "grit penetrated a seal casing that lubricates and protects the rotary drive parts"

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/2-years-after-breakdown-bertha-getting-ready-to-drill-again/

The following article on similar megaprojects makes two interesting points.

China is home to many megaprojects, and China "used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than the United States did during the entire twentieth century..." -Wow. 

And, those proposing civic megaprojects consistently lure public support by over-promising due savings and misleading by under-budgeting: 

"Referring to huge cost overruns during the construction of San Francisco's four-and-a-half-billion-dollar Transbay Transit Center, Brown wrote, "We always knew the initial estimate was way under the real cost…. If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would ever be approved. The idea is to get going. Start digging a hole and make it so big, there's no alternative to coming up with the money to fill it in.""

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/bertha-seattle-infrastructure-trouble-megaprojects

Lots of great photos of the megaproject here. And here.

Cool, crazy, incredible

White Winter Hymnal

http://youtu.be/LrfnmkIoqRY

Meet the real woman behind the voice of Siri

http://youtu.be/z2bTymnb1uE

vocal range of Mitch from Pentatonix

Some fan was really obsessed with his range because I'm sure this took a huge amount of time. The note in the corner of the screen changes color when he sings the actual note. 

https://youtu.be/YjNJL00Y8xs

Drink coffee to live longer

I don't get it. Everything about coffee is bad. Caffeine increases blood pressure, promotes arrhythmias, and usually involves adding sugar and cream, which are also bad. How can there possibly be a dose-related decrease in mortality? They suggest some putative mechanisms with some very big words...

...During 4,690,072 person-years of follow-up, 19,524 women and 12,432 men died...Compared to non-drinkers, coffee consumption one to five cups/d was associated with lower risk of mortality, ...the HRs of mortality were 0.94 (0.89 to 0.99) for ≤ 1 cup/d, 0.92 (0.87 to 0.97) for 1.1-3 cups/d, 0.85 (0.79 to 0.92) for 3.1-5 cups/d, and 0.88 (0.78 to 0.99) for > 5 cups/d (p for non-linearity = 0.32; p for trend < 0.001)...

Conclusions—Higher consumption of total coffee, caffeinated coffee, and decaffeinated coffee was associated with lower risk of total mortality.

Circulation 2015 Nov 16; Association of Coffee Consumption with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality in Three Large Prospective Cohorts. Ming Ding, Ambika Satija, Shilpa N Bhupathiraju, Yang Hu, Qi Sun, Jiali Han, Esther Lopez-Garcia, Walter Willett, Rob M van Dam, Frank B Hu PMID: 26572796

How to calm babies - a specific way to hold babies.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j2C8MkY7Co8#action=share

$45B to charity - wow

That's an unprecedented donation. Wow!

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/technology/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-charity.html?_r=0&referer=https://www.google.ca/

The world's ugliest music | TEDx

Some theory behind the world's worst possible music. More interesting than you'd think.

http://youtu.be/RENk9PK06AQ

Tesla autopilot - what it's like to drive.

I drove a self-driving car in Vancouver. The Tesla, the luxury electric car, just rolled out an autopilot function a few weeks ago that combines laser radar, ultrasound detectors, GPS, and regular camera inputs to recognize the road and obstacles as it drives. Here is the maverick founder of the Tesla company describing (revealing) the technology to the press. Start at 6:40 in the video: 

http://youtu.be/aBYnj10wzbw

So I went to the tiny dealership in downtown Vancouver, accompanied by three friends who were excited to come along when they heard I'd booked it. The Tesla store like to describe themselves as an information center rather than a dealership, because sales and vehicle delivery is all arranged online. There a single vehicle in the showroom and lots of computer screens, and a very different feel compared to other car dealers. 

We took a narrow passage from the storefront to a parking garage where two vehicles were waiting. The car has a luxurious, sleek feel throughout. It has the absolutely largest display console you've ever seen. And a smooth, slightly heavy, remarkably quiet feel when you drive it. And way, way too much power. I never even pushed the accelerator more than half way. Fast acceleration is fun but it's the exact opposite of what interests me about electric cars. (See http://youtu.be/LpaLgF1uLB8)

With a few instructions from the sales agent, I pulled twice on the cruise control lever, and it took over the steering. If you force the wheel a different direction while it's driving, it takes a small amount of force, like the resistance of pulling a magnet off a refrigerator door, and the steering wheel vibrates to acknowledge you've taken over steering. It's very intuitive. 

You have to keep your hands hovering over the steering wheel in case it can't identify the road markings, but it has an eery and smooth feel. 

Here's someone's video where you can see both the view of the road and a close up of the dashboard. 

http://youtu.be/4CZe5DXeYzw

Google Tricks 2015 "I'm Feeling Lucky"

You've probably seen these before. I hadn't seen "gravity" or "sphere"...and they missed "askew"

Passive solar home air heating from recycled pop cans

http://youtu.be/bRZvAAqzXIw

How To Pay For Anything With Blank Paper - clever con

Wow - look how effectively a little distraction allows this guy to pay for things in one store after another with blank paper.

http://youtu.be/D6ezOYm6MHs

Secrets Of The Shoplifters

An interesting documentary on what it takes to catch shoplifters, and the lengths the shops and robbers go to in an ever-escalating battle.
Some shoplifters steal to order for others, and have little compunction over what they feel is a Robin Hood act.

http://youtu.be/7otyVMBXI-M

City fruit harvest - waste not, want not.

Here's a venture going on in several cities, to harvest fruit from neighborhood trees so it doesn't go to waste. Going the next step with this idea would be  to sell fruit trees to homeowners at a discount, maintain their trees and harvest the fruit and give the homeowner back a small percentage of the fruit and keep the rest. The selling point to such a homeowner is that the organization would have the resources to figure out optimal fertilizer, optimal pruning, peak harvest time and all the details to maximize the harvest that an individual homeowner would never have time for, so it's a win-win. The organization would develop a route like a paper route through a neighborhood to visit and maintain all of their trees like a giant urban orchard. 

The group that does this currently (not selling or maintaining the trees) in Vancouver is the https://m.facebook.com/VancouverFruitTreeProject/

and the one in Ottawa is http://ottawa.hiddenharvest.ca/

Reclaimed sunken logs

This company dredges up ancient logs that sank to the bottom of the river a hundred years ago, carefully dries them out, and makes flooring and furniture. Apparently the pine trees at the time grew in thick forests and because they compete for light and space the one few with very narrow rona like a hardwood, so it's a high quality wood.

http://www.logsend.com/wood.html

Better flavor from limes

"Sear your limes in a skillet, then juice them and pass the juice through a coffee strainer to remove any solids. By adding heat, you're caramelizing the natural sugars in the limes to counter the acidity. This also adds an earthy, smoky flavor."

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/a17085/how-to-use-acid-in-a-cocktail/

Massive pileup in the snow

Oh no!

The arrival of two police vehicles at 3:46 and 3:51 does little to slow down the incoming traffic!
http://youtu.be/mgvOHnujspg

DIY sustainability and off-grid projects.

Got to admire these guys!

Here's a guy who is taking salvaged parts and making energy saving devices to live off the grid.

Scrap parts to make electricity (water turbine) and hot water (wood stove percolates hot water into a tank)

 http://youtu.be/0ieFZI4-6K8

A wood fired water heater that gets to 566 degrees with a few little sticks of wood.  http://youtu.be/5IRLVCJ1olA

or some homemade solar panels  http://youtu.be/ouLa4Ftu3O8
or making your own fuel logs from scrap paper  http://youtu.be/2aLZ88_DZz8

or a parabolic lens solar cooker from a sheet of plastic. What happens when it rains? http://youtu.be/f_zKk03CJKU

Where does good judgment come from?

"Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment." -quote from Mulla Nasreddin c.1200

Mondegreens Kiss this guy

Why You Mishear Taylor Swift: "The Science of Us"
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/wellness/why-you-mishear-taylor-swift-the-science-of-us-episode-11/vp-BBmXcOF

See more at kissthisguy.com

Kindergarten mechanic

Cutest "how-to" video ever. replaces wheel bearing on 2001 Corolla

http://youtu.be/f2hUKOchIL8

Battery life and range on the Nissan leaf.

Some interesting points on this wiki. Battery life is optimized at LOWER temperatures.Heat is bad for battery capacity.

Also,

For those that already own a Leaf, there are a few things you can do to minimize battery capacity loss:

• Keep the state of charge in the 30-40% range (on the Gid meter) as much of the time as reasonably possible. This roughly corresponds to 3-4 fuel bars for a new Leaf. Charge to 80% or 100% right before you need to make a longer drive.
• Shallower cycling (DOD) of the battery pack when possible. For example, two cycles of 60% to 30% SOC rather than one cycle of 90% to 30% should be better for the battery pack.
• Avoid parking in the sun when possible. Solar loading may increase the yearly average battery temperature by 1.3-3.1 degrees Celsius for a vehicle always parked in the sun (based on studies of the Prius, Media:HEV_Battery_Life.pdf)
• Drive and accelerate more slowly and more efficiently. This will have two effects:
  • Minimizing waste heat (estimated to be 1% at 10 KW power draw, 3% at 30 KW power draw)
  • Reduced cycling of the battery for the same number of miles driven, which will reduce cycling losses

On October 4, 2012 Nissan released a video of Chelsea Sexton interviewing Andy Palmer, Nissan executive vice president of product planning. The following points were made:

• To establish degradation expectations, Nissan used as a norm the LA4 driving cycle and 12,500 miles per year
• For that norm, expected degradation is 80% at 5 years and 70% at 10 years
• There are 4 variables that affect whether that mean will be achieved:
  • The speed and gradient on which you drive--highway speed will have a greater degradation
  • Frequent fast charging (recommend no more than one QC per day)
  • Miles driven per year
  • Temperature
• Arizona Leafs are averaging 7,500 miles per year (but this was not known prior to sale of the Leaf in Arizona, it is post hoc information)
• Based on 7,500 miles per year, the Arizona Leafs are projected to retain 76% of capacity after 5 years (translation: in order to have "only" 24% capacity loss at 5 years, Arizona Leafs are limited to driving 37,500 miles, and only driving the less demanding LA04 cycle)
• Capacity bar meter reads "pessimistically"
• Leaf has 95% satisfaction rate, the highest of any car Nissan sells
• 2013 model year will have evolutionary, not revolutionary changes; the gauge accuracy is addressed
• Nissan is looking at options to address the complaints about pressing "OK" on the Navigation screen each time Leaf is turned on

http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery_Capacity_Loss#Nissan.27s_Responses_and_Actions

New 'thirsty' concrete absorbs water

Can't use it where there's freezing weather...

http://youtu.be/LWiq0NbJmaw

Time lapse Doppler Radar: 2010 to 2012

Mesmerizing video. I think it rains more at night, which is why you see a pattern flash regularly from right to left. Interesting how certain areas are particularly hard-hit repeatedly.


http://youtu.be/C65qRbD0xTo

Monica Lewinsky: The price of shame

Monica Lewinsky on Cyberbullying 

at 12:47: "Cruelty to others is nothing new. But online, technologically-enhanced shaming is amplified, uncontained, and permanently accessible."

http://youtu.be/H_8y0WLm78U

Nasogastric tube fixed with a loop placed with magnets

When NG tubes come out they are difficult and uncomfortable to replace. This innovation would really prevent a lot of that. AMT Bridle Pro (R)

coolest sound

Cool sound starts at 3:50

Better ice climber after accident - advanced prosthetics

Pretty intense beatboxing

Micro-lending WSJ

Micro-lending WSJ
The uber -ization of money
Lending Club and Prosper, SeedInvest and Fundable
Loyal3 aims to connect public companies to loyal customers who want to buy shares as early as the IPO, while EquityZen and others do the same for private companies.
ZestFinance, founded by former Google executives and flush with venture capital, uses big data to offset the inherent risks.


http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-uberization-of-finance-1446835102?vh=9c3112ace7e71bbdaed10dcdbf16de6a150f2c66&ts=1446905828

Indoor farms, where the weather is perfect every day

"turn a run-down steel factory into a 69,000-square-foot farm. It will be capable of turning out 2 million pounds of produce annually...use 95 percent less water than a field farm, and like others offer more productivity per square acre, and save energy costs such as tractor fuel"

http://www.popsci.com/farms-grow-up-thanks-to-technology

Scale of the solar system distances

"Now the first thing you will realize is that space is extremely well named and rather dismayingly uneventful...
On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with the Earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over 300 meters away, and Pluto would be two and a half kilometers away (and about the size of a bacterium, so you wouldn't be able to see it anyway.) On the same scale, Proxima Centauri, our nearest star, would be 16,000 km away." p.34
A Short History of Nearly Everything. Bill Bryson.

Pump Up the Bass to Douse a Blaze: Mason Students' Invention Fights Fires

Very cool! Using sound waves to displace air and dissipate the heat to extinguish a fire.

http://youtu.be/uPVQMZ4ikvM

The concept of using sound to suppress fire is not new. Pressure waves push away the oxygen a fire needs and spread the flames over a larger area, reducing heat and weakening the blaze. In 2011, DARPA released a video showing two massive speakers extinguishing a fire placed between them. Robertson and Tran were convinced they could develop this idea into a practical, handheld device.

The trick was finding the right frequency. The students tried for eight months before finally identifying the acoustic sweet spot: low-frequency rumblings in the 30- to 60-hertz range. "When we first put out a cigarette lighter, we were pretty excited," Robertson says. Later they were able to snuff a frying-pan fire in a matter of seconds.

Unlike sprinkler systems or traditional fire extinguishers, the pair's backpack-size Wave Extinguisher leaves behind no chemicals, powder, or water. Eventually, Tran imagines fleets of drones using sound to beat back flames from buildings or forests. This would keep firefighters out of danger and alleviate the need for thousands of gallons of water.

The concept of using sound to suppress fire is not new. Pressure waves push away the oxygen a fire needs and spread the flames over a larger area, reducing heat and weakening the blaze. In 2011, DARPA released a video showing two massive speakers extinguishing a fire placed between them. Robertson and Tran were convinced they could develop this idea into a practical, handheld device.

The trick was finding the right frequency. The students tried for eight months before finally identifying the acoustic sweet spot: low-frequency rumblings in the 30- to 60-hertz range. "When we first put out a cigarette lighter, we were pretty excited," Robertson says. Later they were able to snuff a frying-pan fire in a matter of seconds.

Unlike sprinkler systems or traditional fire extinguishers, the pair's backpack-size Wave Extinguisher leaves behind no chemicals, powder, or water. Eventually, Tran imagines fleets of drones using sound to beat back flames from buildings or forests. This would keep firefighters out of danger and alleviate the need for thousands of gallons of water.

http://www.popsci.com/turn-bass-turn-down-heat

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DanOeC2EpeA

Birds encased in glass.

Isn't this the strangest thing you've ever heard of?

"During Wisconsin's Peshtigo fire of 1871, for example, a cold front and twisting winds combined to form a fire tornado... It burned so hot, silica in the soil evaporated. When the thunderheads rained, the mineral fell in molten form. Survivors found birds—suffocated midflight by the fire's insatiable appetite for oxygen—encased in glass."
How Science Is Fighting Wilder Wildfires Than Ever Before | Popular Science, Nov 2015.
http://www.popsci.com/year-wildfire


Sent from my iPhone

Alfa Romeo 4C: You'll Want To Love It - XCAR

A really nice, detailed review of an ultra light new sports car.

http://youtu.be/LrNBCUSqqsE

Glue With More Mussel | Popular Science

Using biomimicry to create better surgical adhesives. Pretty cool research. 

Unlike Gorilla Glue and Super Glue, which become useless when wet, Wilker's formulas are based on the super-sticking power of mussels. And they're some of the strongest glues ever made. 

Inspiration

Wilker drew inspiration from mollusks that cling to rocks in stormy seas. The secret to their adhesion is the cross-linking of special proteins, which he tweaked for even greater effectiveness. "In biomimicry, you don't usually beat out nature," Wilker says, "but we made some stuff that's crazy strong."

Application

Wilker thinks his glues could eliminate the need for surgical screws, plates, sutures, or staples—fixtures he says belong in carpentry or a medieval torture chamber, not modern medicine. Mussel-inspired glues could mend arteries, seal wounds, and serve in airplane and car manufacture too.

Impact

Today, about 99 percent of adhesives are made from petroleum or emit formaldehyde (or both). Wilker's glues provide a more sustainable, nontoxic replacement. "I don't know of anything else out there with this kind of potential," he says, "but I'm biased."

http://www.popsci.com/glue-with-more-mussel


From Wilker's home page:
"The underwater adhesion and high bonding strengths of marine biological materials bring to mind many applications ranging from wet-setting biomedical adhesives to new materials with tailored moduli. Current materials engineering efforts rely on our abilities to alter the polymer compositions and carry out the syntheses on large scales. As we incorporate more advanced functionalities into the polymers we are tailoring the materials for specific uses. Perhaps most in demand are new adhesive materials for biomedical procedures and devices. At the moment there are no adhesives available that are simultaneously wet setting, strong bonding, and non-toxic. Marine biology may have already solved this problem, hence our exploration of these materials"

https://www.chem.purdue.edu/people/directory/faculty/details/69

Also, Here's another glue that's elastic, biodegradable, nontoxic, and cure when you shine a light on it. 
http://time.com/4037531/maria-pereira/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter

"...Pereira’s goal was to develop a glue that could stick in the body’s harshest environment: the heart, which pumps what she describes as “a hurricane of blood” 60 times a minute. An adhesive that could attach under such wet and dynamic conditions must be elastic enough to expand and contract with each beat of the heart, and be hydrophobic (to repel blood away from the surface), biodegradable and nontoxic..."

Here's her product: 

https://tissium.com/

Hobbesian (selfishness)

Hobbesian theory that people have a fundamental right to self-preservation and to pursue selfish aims but will relinquish these rights to an absolute monarch in the interest of common safety and happiness

http://i.word.com/idictionary/hobbism

 he believed that human action was motivated entirely by selfish concerns, notably fear of death

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/Hobbes-Thomas

Sent from my iPhone

Quadcopter athletics

These quadcopters throw a ball, move as if they're in a viscous fluid, or respond to hand gestures.

Reversal neuromuscular blockade nmb rocuronium

Two competing ideas here. On the one hand, a small number of patients given rocuronium will have prolonged blockade, so you need to reverse all patients to make sure you catch the ones with minimal residual blockade. However, the second paper shows that patients whose rocuronium has nearly worn off can actually be paradoxically *weakened* by a dose of reversal. So you're between a rock and a hard place.

Reversal of residual neuromuscular block with neostigmine at one to four hours after a single intubating dose of vecuronium.
Caldwell JE. Anesth Analg. 1995.

The purpose of this study was to measure the degree of residual neuromuscular block at different times after a single dose of vecuronium, and to evaluate the effectiveness of two different doses of neostigmine in antagonizing this residual block. Train-of-four (TOF) ratios were examined for up to 4 h after a single dose of vecuronium, 0.1 mg/kg, in 60 patients during nitrous oxide/isoflurane/fentanyl anesthesia. The effect of neostigmine, 40 micrograms/kg, was studied at 1,2,3, or 4 h. The effect of neostigmine, 20 micrograms/kg, was studied at 2 or 4 h after the vecuronium. Before neostigmine administration, the TOF ratio was less than 0.75 in 17 patients (including one patient at 4 h). Neostigmine produced an increase in TOF ratio in 52 patients and a decrease in 8. The TOF ratio decreased after neostigmine only, at 2,3, or 4 h after vecuronium, when the TOF ratio was > or = 0.9 and when neostigmine 40 micrograms/kg was administered. One patient, at 1 h, had a TOF ratio of 0.00 and this did not reach 0.75 until 57 min after neostigmine, 40 micrograms/kg. There was a high incidence (50%) of adverse cardiovascular effects after both doses of neostigmine. In making the decision as to whether neostigmine should be administered, the risk to the patient of residual neuromuscular block must be balanced against the adverse cardiovascular effects of the neostigmine.

PMID 7762847
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7762847

Neostigmine/glycopyrrolate administered after recovery from neuromuscular block increases upper airway collapsibility by decreasing genioglossus muscle activity in response to negative pharyngeal pressure.
Herbstreit F, et al. Anesthesiology. 2010.
BACKGROUND: Reversal of residual neuromuscular blockade by acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (e.g., neostigmine) improves respiratory function. However, neostigmine may also impair muscle strength. We hypothesized that neostigmine administered after recovery of the train-of-four (TOF) ratio impairs upper airway integrity and genioglossus muscle function.

METHODS: We measured, in 10 healthy male volunteers, epiglottic and nasal mask pressures, genioglossus electromyogram, air flow, respiratory timing, and changes in lung volume before, during (TOF ratio: 0.5), and after recovery of the TOF ratio to unity, and after administration of neostigmine 0.03 mg/kg IV (with glycopyrrolate 0.0075 mg/kg). Upper airway critical closing pressure (Pcrit) was calculated from flow-limited breaths during random pharyngeal negative pressure challenges.

RESULTS: Pcrit increased significantly after administration of neostigmine/glycopyrrolate compared with both TOF recovery (mean ± SD, by 27 ± 21%; P = 0.02) and baseline (by 38 ± 17%; P = 0.002). In parallel, phasic genioglossus activity evoked by negative pharyngeal pressure decreased (by 37 ± 29%, P = 0.005) compared with recovery, almost to a level observed at a TOF ratio of 0.5. Lung volume, respiratory timing, tidal volume, and minute ventilation remained unchanged after neostigmine/glycopyrrolate injection.

CONCLUSION: Neostigmine/glycopyrrolate, when administered after recovery from neuromuscular block, increases upper airway collapsibility and impairs genioglossus muscle activation in response to negative pharyngeal pressure. Reversal with acetylcholinesterase inhibitors may be undesirable in the absence of neuromuscular blockade.

PMID 20980910
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20980910

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NYTimes.com: With G.M.O. Policies, Europe Turns Against Science

Great article. I think the sentence that sums it up is  "a historic injustice perpetrated by the well fed on the food insecure""

I'm enjoying the juxtaposition between a desire for scientific advising on climate change and lack thereof with GMOs. Sent by mfmaster@gmail.com: Opinion With G.M.O. Policies, Europe Turns Against Science By MARK LYNAS An irrational phobia of genetically modified crops is causing real harm. Or, copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://nyti.ms/1R4l6pM

Amazing beatboxing

https://youtu.be/1FZ06eJGyoE

Fun with a capella

This one took months, including one day when his voice went incredibly low.


This team does it all on a single take for each person. (per the description)

femtosecond photography

watch light bathe an object like ripples spreading on a pond. 

https://youtu.be/mfgsQX78hg8

GravityLight: lighting for a billion people

A $5 light source for the third world, powered by lifting a bag of rocks.

http://youtu.be/1dd9NIlhvlI

Masssive metal shredder documentary

This shredder loses a ton of its own metal every day in grinding up steel into tiny handfuls of scrap. (11:25)

Self driving cars

Soon we'll have self driving cars. Have you seen how far this technology has advanced?
The stumbling block has been the conflict between human drivers and a vehicle that strictly flows the letter of the law. NY Times on driverless cars
Here's an owner showing how his car automatically stays in the lane.

http://youtu.be/zY_zqEmKV1k
Here's a customer being given a demo of a self-parking car, so you can see what it's like to park for the first time.

http://youtu.be/4yJcTQrSAs0
Here's a TED talk on developing the driverless technology. Gets most interesting at 7:51

http://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg
Here's another presentation on the challenges of driverless systems...predicting what unpredictable humans are going to do. Doesn't get interesting until 5:24 A google rep entreats a city council to let them test their self-driving vehicles on the roads in Austin. At 8:25, she goes through some unusual situations a self-driving car has to recognize and navigate.

http://youtu.be/br7dV9irIb8

Here's a test model Mercedes going through the driverless paces in real traffic

http://youtu.be/VDwMhSobaOg
Here's a Mercedes concept car showing off for reporters.

http://youtu.be/8aEWHdduPwc

Elon Musk describes the autopilot technology in a Tesla. Skip to 6:31

http://youtu.be/aBYnj10wzbw

Here's a driver in his own Tesla showing the currently-enabled portion of autopilot, the cruise control that stops and starts the vehicle behind cars in front in city traffic.

http://youtu.be/PcwObeGB_mU 

Here's a test of 3 automatic braking systems both against aspired vehicle and a slow vehicle. http://youtu.be/PzHM6PVTjXo Monthly updates on the google project at
http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/
http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/

Shaper Origin - How It Works

I found this intriguing, and symbolic of an evolution in hand tools. A cutter tool makes micro adjustments to your hand movements to trace a design pattern perfectly. Estimated to cost $1500, it would be a lot cheaper than alternatives for cutting a shape drawn on a computer. 

The first video explains the basics, the second one shows the resulting cut object.

http://youtu.be/jxQ_NH4bj9o

http://youtu.be/eoSYjWN2CJ0

A Safer, Cleaner Nuclear Reactor | Popular Science

I can't stop reading about this startup and all the advantages of a molten salt nuclear reactor. It takes waste uranium, and recovers the vast amount of energy left over in it and (in so doing) turns it into far safer waste material. The reactor is "walkaway safe" in that if everything fails it chemically shuts itself down with no intervention. The full-scale reactor makes electricity cheaper than coal.
http://www.popsci.com/leslie-dewan-and-mark-massie-are-reviving-nuclear-dream
http://www.transatomicpower.com/

"Traditional nuclear power plants, however, come with two inherent problems...threat of a meltdown...and the fuel must be manufactured in long rods, each encased in a thin metal layer, called cladding...Dewan and Massie’s design seems to solve both problems at once."..."To explain the second trick—modifying the reactor to run on nuclear waste—Dewan explained a key subtlety of nuclear physics: a neutron can only split an atom if it is moving at the right velocity, neither too slow nor too fast. Imagine cracking eggs: if you bring the egg down too softly on the lip of a mixing bowl, it will not break. In the bizarre world of atomic physics, the egg will also fail to break if struck too hard."
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-new-way-to-do-nuclear
"although there were hard problems left to solve...in 1973, when the program was defunded, it was “in spite of the technical success of the MSRE.""..."One of the main reasons funding for the project was stopped...is that the breeder reactor wasn’t a good source of plutonium...for use in a nuclear weapons program. Today, the lack of a weaponization potential is a selling point, not a showstopper."
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/is-nuclear-power-ever-coming-back/373315/


http://youtu.be/4UXXwWOImm8

A related discussion/tour of salt-based nuclear reactors. This documentary has blunt and choppy editing, but contains some rare and interesting interviews with the octagenarians who worked on the original project and if you pay attention it actually follows a thread explaining a lot about the reactors.

https://youtu.be/xIDytUCRtTA

How do they do it - Ikea

Massive warehouse is 1km long and 23 stories high.

http://youtu.be/fGFB1wAFmwo

http://youtu.be/E_y_PuNdm7E

Cool inventions - streamlined wheelchair etc.

Ferrari Factory Tour

Beautiful photography

http://youtu.be/z6n1lEHCFM0

Animate your coloring book

From coloring book to animated 3-D character on your screen takes a surprising amount of computing.

http://youtu.be/SWzurBQ81CM

How It's Made Mine Truck Engine Rebuild

Rebuilding this gigantic engine takes 700 man hours. It seems like they're saying that they grind some parts down (like the piston arms) to take slightly larger components in the rebuild. I thought that would throw off the balance of the camshaft, but maybe they account for that in reprinting the camshaft also.

http://youtu.be/kULbi1zckXo

Persistence of vision

Interesting discussion of persistence of vision. I can remember hearing as a young boy that persistence of vision was more pronounced for red light. We were looking at flashing red lights for bicycles.

http://youtu.be/_FlV6pgwlrk

How It's Made: Bicycle Tires

More interesting than most in the series. A process includes a surprising number of handmade steps.

http://youtu.be/gm3JJW9wjA0

Dumping slag at Bethlehem Steel in 1994

Wow, that's an impressive amount of energy it takes to make steel.

http://youtu.be/zhJF_hTJ2Rw

It's actually quite a sight as it trickles down.

Archaeopteryx: Fussstart (Foot launch)

This really looks like fun flying. Halfway between hang gliding and piloting a small plane.

http://youtu.be/OpemglwS8XA

Video stabilizer

Thought you'd like this portable gimbal gadget: The All-In-One Camera Stabilizer

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/teamluuv/solidluuv-the-all-in-one-camera-stabilizer

I think this is very cool if you're ever shooting videos. It's a kickstarter campaign.
http://youtu.be/itEhHlEMBVA
Here they show a side-by-side comparison of footage.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu1P9-b-WV4

Big farming - Wheat Australia big lexion

Beautiful photography on this one. Nice HD drone photos.

http://youtu.be/_DIrh-gaIMU

Windsurfing in hurricane

Woah!! That's all I can say. Wow!

http://youtu.be/BuYu_pOqVGM

Moveable barrier - zipper - between lanes of the Golden Gate Bridge

Nice idea - a solid barrier that prevents head-on collisions but moves to allow more traffic in one direction according to the time of day.


Here's a narrated video of its installation.

First Class Apartment Experience A380 London to Abu Dhabi

Sumptuous first class extravagance in an Airbus 380

http://youtu.be/XUmZfifHzBI

Cheetah robot lands the running jump

Impressive computing. That's a lot of geometry it has to do.

http://youtu.be/_luhn7TLfWU

Slow Motion Flipping Cat Physics | Smarter Every Day 58

Cool science on conservation of angular momentum

http://youtu.be/RtWbpyjJqrU

Meet the Female Drift Racers of Palestine

Unexpectedly cool. Surprising.

http://youtu.be/UpVsgeuPNjQ

Concrete documentary

At 10:13, they describe the 8 different gradations of concrete used by the Romans in constructing the Pantheon, going from large aggregate at the base for strength, to using 90% pumice at the peak for light weight. 

At 22:07, the Hoover dam took 21,000 men to build, and took three lives of 100 men, or 0.5%

http://youtu.be/NoD4Vin7Ghc

Super fast boat to combat pirates

Ever heard of a supercavitating hydrofoil? Sounds very fast.

http://youtu.be/ei7Fs-JF2eo

Mentioned in an article about combating piracy: 

http://www.popsci.com/high-tech-battle-fighting-pirates

Threading a caterpillar track back on - takes patience and dexterity

Ants marching

Ants 

Take-no-prisoners ant invasion. 

http://youtu.be/DXaaTQztoI0

A bridging column of ants protects the food procession as a colony of 20 million nomadic ants moves home: 

http://youtu.be/BVkdw5s3joI

Sheer numbers marching

http://youtu.be/XQhivHvsV-s

Insane Downhill Bike Race In Chile 2011

Nerves of steel and good suspension!

http://youtu.be/xIe6hYAdw_I

Tree Shaker harvesting hazelnuts

http://youtu.be/25YhYagC15Q

And olives:


A lot faster than gathering them up by hand:

Weird twin town

Nazi angel of death Josef Mengele 'created twin town in Brazil' - Telegraph

The Nazi doctor Josef Mengele is responsible for the astonishing number of twins in a small Brazilian town, an Argentine historian has claimed. 

The steely hearted "Angel of Death", whose mission was to create a master race fit for the Third Reich, was the resident medic at Auschwitz from May 1943 until his flight in the face of the Red Army advance in January 1945. 

His task was to carry out experiments to discover by what method of genetic quirk twins were produced – and then to artificially increase the Aryan birthrate for his master, Adolf Hitler. 

Now, a historian claims, Mengele's notorious experiments may have borne fruit. 

For years scientists have failed to discover why as many as one in five pregnancies in a small Brazilian town have resulted in twins – most of them blond haired and blue eyed. 

But residents of Candido Godoi now claim that Mengele made repeated visits there in the early 1960s, posing at first as a vet but then offering medical treatment to the women of the town. 

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Shuttling between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, he managed to evade justice before his death in 1979, but his dreams of a Nazi master race appeared unfulfilled. 

In a new book, Mengele: the Angel of Death in South America, the Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa, a specialist in the post-war Nazi flight to South America, has painstakingly pieced together the Nazi doctor's mysterious later years. 

After speaking to the townspeople of Candido Godoi, he is convinced that Mengele continued his genetic experiments with twins – with startling results. 

He reveals how, after working with cattle farmers in Argentina to increase their stock, Mengele fled the country after fellow Nazi, Adolf Eichmann, was kidnapped by Israeli agents. 

He claims that Mengele found refuge in the German enclave of Colonias Unidas, Paraguay, and from there, in 1963, began to make regular trips to another predominantly German community just over the border in Brazil – the farming community of Candido Godoi. 

And, Mr Camaras claims, it was here that soon after the birthrate of twins began to spiral. 

"I think Candido Godoi may have been Mengele's laboratory, where he finally managed to fulfil his dreams of creating a master race of blond haired, blue eyed Aryans," he said. 

"There is testimony that he attended women, followed their pregnancies, treated them with new types of drugs and preparations, that he talked of artificial insemination in human beings, and that he continued working with animals, proclaiming that he was capable of getting cows to produce male twins." 

The urbane German who arrived in Candido Godoi was remembered with fondness by many of the townspeople. 

"He told us he was a vet," said Aloisi Finkler, a local farmer interviewed by Mr Camarasa. "He asked about illnesses we had among our animals, and told us not to worry, he could cure them. He appeared a cultured and dignified man." 

Another farmer, Leonardo Boufler, said: "He went from farm to farm checking the animals. He checked them for TB, and injected those that were infected. He said he could carry out artificial insemination of cows and humans, which we thought impossible as in those days it was unheard of." 

But the Nazi eugenicist did not concentrate on animals alone. 

A former mayor and town doctor, Anencia Flores da Silva, set out to try to solve the town's mystery. He interviewed hundreds of people, and discovered one character who crept on cropping up: an itinerant medic calling himself Rudolph Weiss. 

Dr da Silva said: "In the testimonies we collected we came across women who were treated by him, he appeared to be some sort of rural medic who went from house to house. He attended women who had varicose veins and gave them a potion which he carried in a bottle, or tablets which he brought with him. Sometimes he carried out dental work, and everyone remembers he used to take blood." 

The people of Candido Godoi now largely accept that a Nazi war criminal was an inadvertent guest of theirs for several years in the early 1960s. The town's official crest shows two identical profiles and a road sign welcomes visitors to a "Farming Community and Land of the Twins". There is also a museum, the House of the Twins. 

While the twins birthrate varies widely in different countries, it is typically about one in 80 pregnancies – a statistic that has left Mr Camarasa certain in his claim that Mengele was successfully pursuing his dreams of creating a master race, a real-life Boys from Brazil. 

"Nobody knows for sure exactly what date Mengele arrived in Candido Godoi, but the first twins were born in 1963, the year in which we first hear reports of his presence," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/brazil/4307262/Nazi-angel-of-death-Josef-Mengele-created-twin-town-in-Brazil.html

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