Turning anger into good: A program helping older drivers get around safely

She started a program to give elderly people rides when bus service isn't an option as a way to get elderly drivers off the roads.
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/08/alternative-transportation-program-helps-older-drivers-get-around-safely.html


-Tom.

Josh Wilson - Amazing Grace guitar with Loop Pedal

Incredible guitar work - hard to believe this all comes from a single player. Very skilful, especially at 4:28 on - beautiful.

NYTimes: Genes Now Tell Doctors Secrets They Can’t Utter

Much genetic research is predicated on study subjects being anonymous, but increasingly researchers are discovering things these subjects, or their relatives, might need or like to know.
""We are living in an awkward interval where our ability to capture the information often exceeds our ability to know what to do with it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/health/research/with-rise-of-gene-sequencing-ethical-puzzles.html


-Tom.

How much electric power does a Google search take?

"A single Google search takes about as much power as turning on a 60-watt light bulb for 17 seconds, and server farms now use at least 1.5% of the world's electricity."

"One minute of streaming YouTube video consumes 0.0002 kWh of energy, which is about the same amount of energy your body uses in eight seconds."

http://techland.time.com/2011/09/09/6-things-youd-never-guess-about-googles-energy-use/

Truck Scales: How They're Made

I like this show, and this was a particularly interesting episode. A huge truck scale with 50-foot steel beams uses a tiny strain gauge chip (seen at 1:54) smaller than a fingernail to measure the weight. The scale is so accurate that the additional weight of a worker shows as 140 additional pounds above the test weight of 10,000 pounds (seen at 5:24-8)



-Tom.

Coffee-grounds-filled robotic trunk: Jamming Grippers Combine to Form Robotic Elephant Trunk

http://m.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/jamming-grippers-combine-to-form-robotic-elephant-trunk

A cheap way to get many degrees of freedom of movement with 3 motors - jamming (vacuuming air out of a section full of coffee grounds) a proximal segment makes a distal segment move laterally when the outer string is tensioned.


Not unlike this German invention where inflation, rather than deflation, controls the arm.



https://youtu.be/86G9DLJEagw
"the jamming-based gripper’s good performance with almost any object, including a raw egg or a coin – both of which are notoriously difficult for traditional robotic grippers – are what sets the device apart from other grippers."   https://newatlas.com/universal-robotic-gripper/16729/
-Tom.

Ax vs Ask

In Chaucer's day, it was correct to say 'axe' or 'aks' which has persisted in today's Ebonics vernacular.
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/138663.page


-Tom.

Diet Soft Drinks Linked to Risk of Heart Disease - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/health/research/diet-soft-drinks-linked-to-risk-of-heart-disease.html


-Tom.

Voice algorithms spot Parkinson's | Digg Topnews

http://m.digg.com/newsbar/topnews/voice_algorithms_spot_parkinson_s_1


-Tom.

All-Carbon Solar Cell Harnesses Infrared Light | CleanTechnicaCleanTechnica

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/06/22/all-carbon-solar-cell-harnesses-infrared-light/


-Tom.

Wheat vs corn in a global warming future

"Wheat production generates less than half the fossil-fuel emissions of corn and returns 63 percent more protein."

""The digestibility of unprocessed corn to humans isn't very high," says Jerry Hatfield, a plant physiologist with the USDA. "We have to put it through processing of some sort, whether that happens in a factory or an animal." Set those problems aside, and a deal-breaker remains:modern corn is more sensitive to heat than any other major crop, and attempts to create drought- and heat-resistant corn through genetic modification are still unproven."

"Jones searches for drought-, disease- and flood-tolerant wheat strains that were grown in Washington a century ago (and which fell out of favor because they didn't consistently produce large yields) and breeds them with modern, high-yield varieties. Farmers sow the resulting seeds and, at the end of the season, collect the seeds from the best-performing plants to use for next year's crop. In as little as eight years, this process creates new wheat strains. And in a 2010 test in Washington's Douglas County, one of these new wheat strains outperformed all 59 competitors, including entries from genetic-engineering giants Monsanto and Syngenta"

http://m.popsci.com/science/article/2012-06/adapting-three-top-crops-hotter-planet

Self-cooling soda can

http://westcoastchill.com/


-Tom.

Who's making plug-in electric vehicles - up-to-date list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_production_plug-in_electric_vehicles

And the timeline for hybrid vehicles:
http://www.hybridcenter.org/hybrid-timeline.html
-Tom.

The 6 Creepiest Lies the Food Industry is Feeding You | Cracked.com

http://www.cracked.com/article_19896_the-6-creepiest-lies-food-industry-feeding-you.html


-Tom.

The Earth Harp

A giant harp with strings dozens of yards long. He barely touches the strings so the sounds must be highly amplified.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ-hukZW8Sk&feature=youtube_gdata_player


-Tom.