Posted on Techdirt - 21 May 2013 @ 5:00pm
Completely autonomous drones that can decide who or what to strike are still many years away from becoming a reality, but the military has already developed various unmanned aircraft that it's been using primarily for gathering intelligence (rather than for attacking targets). Here are a few more examples of some of the high-tech flying weapons that exist today.
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Posted on Techdirt - 17 May 2013 @ 5:00pm
Is it still junk food if you make it yourself? If you feel guilty about buying junk food and have lots of time on your hands, here are a few links that might inspire you to try recreating some popular snacks at home.
- Here's a recipe for homemade Cheez-It crackers, which supposedly taste better than the store-bought version. By the time you're done making these, you'll wish that you had just gone to the store and bought a box of Cheez-Its. [url]
- McDonald's Canada has revealed exactly how they make their fries, "from the farm to the fryer." If you've ever wondered whether their fries are made from real potatoes, the answer is yes. Their fries are cut from whole potatoes harvested from farms in New Brunswick, Alberta, and Manitoba. [url]
- Read about one junk food enthusiast's attempts to recreate Twinkies, Hostess Cupcakes, Oreos, and Fritos. While some of the homemade versions were somewhat "healthier" calorie-wise, the general concensus was that there's just nothing like the real thing. [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 15 May 2013 @ 5:00pm
In lean times like these, it's getting tougher to get funding for science and technology research, especially for innovative but high-risk ideas. It's no surprise that both the government and the private sector seem to feel more comfortable investing their money in more conservative "sure thing" efforts these days. While the scientific funding system is far from perfect, some of the attempts to "fix" it are making it even worse. Here are just a few (good and bad) examples.
- Canada's scientific research and development agency, the National Research Council, has announced that it will now only conduct research that has "social or economic gain." Apparently, the President of the NRC actually said, "Scientific discovery is not valuable unless it has commercial value." Unfortunately, that's one giant leap backwards for mankind. [url]
- U.S. House of Representatives chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) is proposing to replace the National Science Foundation's peer review process with a new set of funding criteria chosen by Congress. Smith's "High Quality Research Act" would require the NSF to judge grants based on three criteria -- that the research will: advance national health, prosperity, welfare, and security; solve problems that are important to society at large; and not duplicate other research projects being funded by the government. [url]
- On a more positive note, the Thiel Foundation's Breakout Labs is aiming to change the way early-stage science is funded. Their grants of up to $350,000 over 1-2 years will enable startups to chase some risky ideas with groundbreaking potential, returning a small percentage of any commercial success back to Breakout Labs to help fund the future ventures. [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 8 May 2013 @ 5:00pm
The QWERTY keyboard layout, which was created around 1875, was originally designed to prevent typewriter keys from jamming. This was done by arranging letters that were most commonly used together farther apart. While the QWERTY layout is still used today, it may not be the best layout for virtual touchscreen keyboards, so there have been many efforts to design alternative keyboard layouts. Here are just a few examples.
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Posted on Techdirt - 3 May 2013 @ 5:00pm
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been trying to get the meat industry to reduce its use of antibiotics, even proposing a set of voluntary guidelines in 2012, but it hasn't done much with it since. In the meantime, antibiotic (ab)use on livestock farms continues to grow. According to data from the FDA, the livestock industry now uses almost 80% of all the antibiotics used in the U.S. The main concern is that the practice of dosing healthy farm animals daily with antibiotics will create drug-resistant bacteria. About three-quarters of Salmonella found on ground turkey and chicken breast are now resistant to at least one antibiotic, and almost half of the Campylobacter found on chicken products are resistant to tetracyclines. Here are some other examples of antibiotic abuse in the food industry.
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Posted on Techdirt - 23 April 2013 @ 5:00pm
In the wake of the Great Recession, many young adults are still having a hard time finding jobs. The recent unemployment rates for young adults (age 20 to 24) is about 13%, which is much higher than the rest of the adult population. Even worse, it seems like young workers (even college graduates) are increasingly taking low-wage jobs. Perhaps it's time for our youth to consider taking a chance and going into business for themselves. Here are a few links that might help convince them to take the plunge.
- Upstart, founded by a team of ex-Googlers, is an all-in-one loan agency, investment fund, mentoring network, and dream factory for up-and-comers in their early 20s. To find the most promising candidates, applicants are screened using sophisticated algorithms that can predict their likely future income based on GPA, educational background, past job offers, etc. Upstart helps them raise enough money to get their startups going, and in return, they pay their backers up to 7% of their future income each year for 10 years. [url]
- Check out these class notes from Peter Thiel's course on startups at Stanford, written in essay form. In 2010, venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel created the Thiel Fellowship, which awards $100,000 to 20 students under 20 years old, with the goal of encouraging them to create their own startups instead of going to college. [url]
- Read the Upstart blog for founder Dave Girouard's account of how he came up with the idea for Upstart. The blog also has other personal accounts, information about Upstart, and interesting articles and perspectives on entrepreneurship. [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 12 April 2013 @ 5:00pm
These days, it actually takes some effort to find food at the grocery store that contains fewer than five ingredients. Processed foods contain so many ingredients that it might be better to just avoid them altogether. But even when you think you're getting "whole foods," they may actually contain hidden ingredients. When did food get so complicated? Here are a few things that will make you think twice before you decide to eat something.
- Potentially harmful ingredients that have been banned in other countries around the world are still legal in the U.S. What's worse is that many food companies have already reformulated their products to be safer for the foreign market, but they continue to sell Americans the "original" versions. [url]
- Olive oil, milk, honey, and saffron are the most commonly adulterated foods. The U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention has created a database of more than a thousand cases of food adulteration from 1980-2010, noting what the foods were mixed with, and providing links to press reports and scientific papers on each case. [url]
- Some people choose to eat organic food because they think it's more nutritious, but studies seem to suggest that the health benefits are minimal. Buy organic if you have deep pockets, want to avoid ingesting small amounts of pesticides, and want to support more environmentally friendly agriculture, but don't be fooled into thinking that it's necessarily more nutritious. [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 11 April 2013 @ 5:00pm
Tarantulas are huge, hairy, and venomous. Thankfully, these giant spiders look creepier than they are dangerous -- for humans, at least. While they do pack a painful bite, their venom is actually less potent than a bee's. There are hundreds of species of tarantulas that have already been identified. Here are a few more.
- A new species of tree-dwelling tarantula that's about the size of an Alien facehugger has been discovered in Sri Lanka. It has a leg span of about 8 inches across, and has unique and colorful leg and abdominal markings. It's a type of tiger spider, which are known for being colorful, fast, and venomous. [url]
- Several colorful new tree-dwelling tarantulas have been discovered in Brazil. Red, pink, orange, yellow, and blue are just some of the colors that can be found on these spiders. Apparently, scientists are actually concerned that people will want these colorful tarantulas as pets. [url]
- An asbestos-covered tarantula might be on the loose in Cardiff, Wales. Workers who were removing asbestos from an abandoned house found a large molted tarantula skin in the attic, which means the spider could be roaming around town somewhere covered in asbestos. While it's not a new species (experts think it's a Chilean rose tarantula), it could actually be up to twice as large as the molted skin, since tarantulas swell in size after shedding their skin... [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 3 April 2013 @ 5:00pm
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? Apparently, some people will go to great lengths to achieve a certain look -- such as by injecting their face with various foreign substances. Here are a few examples of some scary things people will do for beauty.
- Celebrities, both young and old, tend to be big fans of botox. You know, that wrinkle-eliminating, muscle-immobilizing miracle -- botulinum toxin -- best known for killing and paralyzing unsuspecting diners, before it was approved for cosmetic use. [url]
- Some "bagel heads" in Japan actually enjoy having 300-400 mL of saline solution injected into their forehead to create a bagel-like shape that lasts 18-24 hours. First, the saline is injected over 2 hours, resulting in a big round lump under the skin of the forehead. Then, to create the bagel shape, a thumb is pressed into the center of the lump. [url]
- Ever heard of a "blood facial"? Blood is first drawn from your arm, and then centrifuged to separate the plasma and platelets from the red blood cells. The platelets are then "infused" back into your face. This involves having your face poked all over with micro-needles. The platelets supposedly contain growth factors that might stimulate new collagen growth in the face. [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 29 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
There's nothing like the taste of real sugar, but since people want to be able to indulge in sweet things without having to worry about the calories, there's a huge market for sugar substitutes. There's no shortage of choices -- stevia, aspartame, sucralose, sorbitol, acesulfame potassium, saccharin, etc. -- some are natural, while others are artificial. However, sugar substitutes tend to leave a weird aftertaste, or they may have undesirable gastrointestinal side effects. There is also some concern that artificial sweeteners may pose health risks. Since no sugar substitute is perfect, the search continues... Here are a few interesting links about sugar alternatives.
- Tagatose, which looks, tastes, and cooks like real sugar, may be nearly perfect as a sugar substitute. Marketed under the brand name Naturlose, the FDA-approved natural sweetener is 92% as sweet as table sugar, but it contributes only 38% of the calories. [url]
- Xylitol, a natural sweetener, is apparently toxic to dogs. It only takes 3 grams of xylitol to kill a 65-pound dog. When dogs ingest xylitol, it can cause a surge in insulin resulting in a dangerous drop in blood sugar. In higher doses, xylitol may also cause severe liver damage in dogs. [url]
- Synsepalum dulcificum, also known as "miracle fruit," can make sour foods taste sweet. Native to West Africa, miracle fruit is a red berry that contains a protein called miraculin, which binds with taste buds and makes acidic foods taste sweet. The berries, which can cost $2 or more each, have acquired a bit of a cult following, with some fans even hosting "flavor tripping" parties. [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 27 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) efforts are an important part in the mitigation of global warming, but unfortunately, progress has been rather slow, and at its current pace, the world won't be able to meet climate change targets by 2020. There are only eight active CCS projects worldwide right now, and most of them involve pumping waste carbon dioxide down into oil wells to flush out hard-to-reach crude oil, while also storing 23 million tons of carbon dioxide underground each year. Here are a few other CCS ideas.
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Posted on Techdirt - 26 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
The internet, which now connects almost everything in the world, has changed every aspect of the way we live, work, and socialize. It has also changed the way we do science, particularly in facilitating the dissemination of research results, but also in enabling scientific discoveries in ways previously unheard of. Here are a few examples of how the internet has affected (and even effected) genetic research.
- The Rare Genomics Institute may have enabled the first crowdfunded gene discovery. Pioneering a new funding model for rare disease research, RGI used crowdfunding to raise $3,550 to help sequence the genes of a 4-year-old girl with a rare genetic disorder, and identify a previously undocumented gene mutation. [url]
- The online game Phylo is tapping gamers from all over the world to help solve the Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) problem. The game is designed to take advantage of human visual intelligence to improve the sequence alignment of promoter regions in 521 genes associated with diseases from 44 vertebrate species. So far, the game has produced over 350,000 solutions, with 70% of them being more accurate than the alignments produced by a state-of-the-art computer program called MULTIZ. [url]
- Is it even possible to protect the anonymity of genetic information that has been posted online? Apparently, it isn't that difficult to uncover the identities of people whose DNA has been made public for research purposes. Using an online genealogy service, in addition to information from public records, social networks, and other websites, researchers were able to find 5 out of 10 people in their study, including their relatives, identifying 50 people in total. [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 25 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
Apparently, Japanese is the most difficult foreign language for native English speakers to learn. Not only does it have different written and spoken codes, it also has three different writing systems. Furthermore, Japanese syntax is left branching, which is the complete opposite of English syntax, which is right branching. Learning a foreign language is never easy (although some people seem to have an easier time than others), but it's not impossible with enough time and effort put into it. Here are a few more links about learning foreign languages.
- A father spoke to his son in only Klingon for the first three years of his life. He was apparently interested in whether his kid, who was just going through his first language acquisition process, would pick up Klingon just like any human language. And, yes, the kid did start to learn it. [url]
- What it takes to learn Chinese, or any other foreign language, is simply lots of hard work. You don't have to be talented. Just follow the "10,000 Hour Rule," and practice, practice, practice. [url]
- Scientists in China think they've figured out a better way to teach Chinese. Using network theory, they developed a learning strategy that exploits the structural relationships between Chinese characters, which are actually composed of a fairly limited number of sub-characters. [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 20 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
People tend to have an irrational fear of spiders, which are more often than not completely harmless and also beneficial because they help control the insect pest population around homes and gardens. Perhaps, instead of focusing on their "creepiness," people should learn about how cool these little creatures really are. Here are a few examples of some interesting behavior in spiders.
- Yes, spiders eat bats too. Apparently, bat-eating spiders live on every continent (except Antarctica). Most of them catch bats in their webs, but huntsman spiders and tarantulas have been observed eating bats on forest floors. [url]
- Spiders can adapt to zero-gravity. A "Johnson Jumper" spider named Nefertiti survived 100 days on the International Space Station, during which it demonstrated a new technique for catching fruit flies in zero-gravity. Instead of jumping on its prey, it would sidle up to it. [url]
- Contrary to popular belief, spiders can be sociable. Of the more than 43,678 species of spiders out there, about 24 social spider species have been identified. In a most recent discovery, researchers found that females from a social species of spider called Chikunia nigra were surprisingly tolerant of other spiders from the same colony and were willing to look after another's eggs/hatchlings as if they were her own. [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 19 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
The National Science Foundation, which funds a lot of basic research at American colleges and universities, is facing a budget cut of $283 million this year, eliminating (up to) ~1,000 research grants. It's a shame because over the years many NSF-funded projects have resulted in discoveries that have turned into commercial products with significant benefits to society. Unfortunately, for people outside the scientific community, it's easy to overlook these impacts when trying to decide where to cut spending. Here are a few examples of why basic science deserves some respect.
- Sad fact: Funding for basic science research makes up less than 1% of the federal budget. Even sadder is that cutting the small amount the government spends on basic science will have little impact on short-term fiscal goals, but its negative effects on the economy will be felt for decades to come, potentially costing the U.S. billions of dollars in missed future opportunities. [url]
- Lasers are an example of how a discovery in basic science can eventually lead to a revolutionary invention. The first laser was built in the 1950s, but practical applications for lasers didn't appear until decades later. Today, lasers are a multi-billion dollar industry and are key to many technologies used in manufacturing, communications, medicine, entertainment, and scientific research. [url]
- Cutting funding for basic science research will impact young investigators the most. Actually, brand new tenure-track professors are somewhat insulated because there's always some money set aside for them. It's the just tenured professors that will feel it the most, as they try to compete for grants against the entire population, which includes Nobel laureates, National Academicians, and more well-established researchers. [url]
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Posted on Techdirt - 18 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
"Terminator"-like cyborgs may still be just a thing of science fiction, but modern technological advances in bionics are enabling people to regain or enhance their ability to do everyday things that most people take for granted. Here are just a few examples of some bionically enhanced people (and animals).
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Posted on Techdirt - 15 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
While it may be a bit late for New Year's resolutions, it's never too late to start counting calories as part of a sensible weight loss (or maintenance) plan. But before embarking on a crusade to cut out all those extra calories, it might be wise to learn more about this unit of energy. For example, scientists are still debating whether all food calories are equivalent from a metabolic perspective -- are calories from fat the same as calories from carbohydrates? The answer still isn't clear, but one thing is for sure: eat fewer calories and you'll lose weight. Here are a few more interesting tidbits about calories.
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Posted on Techdirt - 14 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
Math geeks rejoice! It's Pi Day again! Why is the number pi so awesome? Because, as Mr. Spock once explained, "the value of pi is a transcendental figure without resolution." Here are a few more cool pi-related links.
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Posted on Techdirt - 12 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
Online education is set to revolutionize higher education, making it more affordable, more accessible, more efficient, and more effective. Of course, online education works only if it's done right. It's not enough to simply lecture to students through a computer. Online courses also need to be dynamic and interactive to compensate for the lack of human contact through a physical classroom. Here are some other considerations about online education.
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Posted on Techdirt - 11 March 2013 @ 5:00pm
Things that we use every day, like cell phones, computers, and other consumer electronics, actually contain a wide variety of valuable metals, such as europium, dysprosium, neodymium, terbium, and yttrium. When these electronics reach the end of their useful life, these metals are often lost to landfills if they're not properly recycled. Rather than let these useful materials go to waste, the U.S. Department of Energy is now working to recover rare earth elements from used consumer products, using methods employed in nuclear fuel reprocessing. Here are some other examples of ways to get at valuable metals.
- Researchers at Murdoch University have developed a faster and cheaper microfluidics approach to recover precious metals like platinum and palladium from spent automotive catalyst. The new technique could also be used for the purification of rare earth elements. [url]
- British company Metalysis is hoping to isolate useful metals like tantalum, titanium, neodymium, tungsten, and vanadium from their oxides via electrolysis in molten salt at 1,000 degrees Celsius. The electrolysis is done directly on the powdered oxide, which acts as the cathode and is gradually transformed from the oxide to the metal. [url]
- Companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries have ambitious plans to mine asteroids for useful metals (and water). Planetary Resources plans to build a couple of low-cost robotic prospecting spacecraft that can survey, intercept, and process asteroids, and then deliver the resources directly to where they're needed. DSI has similar plans, but it's also developing a 3D printer ("Microgravity Foundry") that will be able to create high-quality metal components in orbit. [url]
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More posts from Joyce Hung >>
Re:
I wasn't suggesting that McDonald's should sue – they already know that doesn't work. Since they felt the need to respond to an April Fool's joke, I think they should have just ignored the story and the tweets -- unless they were actually willing to "embrace" the attention and give people real answers, not just the usual runaround.
Some clarification
Sorry for the confusion about this story. What I failed to make clear is that after posting that "humorous" tweet, McDonald's Twitter contact was hit with a bunch of questions about the company's plans for reducing waste. It's here that McDonald's brushed off consumer concerns by simply providing a link to their "environmental responsibility" page, rather than giving people a real response by providing specific examples of what they're actually doing. The company missed an opportunity to engage their audience on an issue that some obviously find pretty serious. So, jokingingly responding to the outrageous claim about their food, and then ignoring the more serious concerns about their plans to manage waste, just shows that they believe they can get away with that kind of response due to their size. And perhaps they can. Many businesses, however, do not have the same luxury. And it's probably not the best idea for McDonald's either.