Tag: technology

Gradatim ferociter revisited

It’s a funny thing, this Web we weave. I was startled today to see visits to this blog suddenly jumping up from the usual 30 or so a day to (at last count) 260. The last time something like this happened was when Kate at small dead animals linked to a column on curling. So …

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Filtering out and killing cancer cells…

…and harvesting stem cells at the same time. This sounds like very promising technology!

Theatrical lighting that adjusts itself…

…to the mood of the performers and the audience. Sounds like a bad idea to me. If the show stunk, the mood of the audience would give you a black-out on stage and full lights in the house, the better to illuminate the exits. And as for letting the mood of the performers alter the …

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The world’s first underwater luxury hotel…

…is now under construction 20 metres below the waves off the coast of Dubai. This caught my eye both because a) it’s cool and b) large portions of the book I turned in to DAW today take place underwater, although not, alas, in luxury hotels. Looks like a place just waiting for James Bond to …

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"Gradatim Ferociter!"

The veil has been lifted on the secretive Blue Origin private space program created by Jeff Bezos (of Amazon.com fame–and fortune). Their website now boasts photos and video of their recent first test flight. Oh, and the slogan means, more or less, “Bit by bit–ferociously!” And if you happen to be a rocket scientist–they’re hiring! …

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Alarming developments

I’m writing this on January 2, which means that, for more days than not over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been able to sleep in. But today, at 6:40 a.m., the alarm clock went off, and I staggered out of bed, a stumbling, half-blind example of the effects of sleep inertia (not that having …

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Test flying a 70-year-old airplane

A pilot (with a great sense of humour) gets his first chance to fly a DC3, more than 70 years after the famous aircraft first took to the skies. Today, decades later, scores are still in operation. My favorite line: I was much taken by the crew escape hatch on the left-hand fuselage side, just …

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An age of miracles and wonders

Few people appreciate that medicine has advanced more since World War II than in all of earlier history. Read the whole New York Times article. Now, what was that about the “good old days”?

I can see clearly now…

…my transistors are transparent: Imagine a car windshield that displays a map to your destination, military goggles with targets and instructions displayed right before a soldier’s eyes or a billboard that doubles as a window. Only in science fiction you say? Northwestern University researchers report that by combining organic and inorganic materials they have produced …

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Would you buy a book from this machine?

It’s the Espresso from On Demand Books, and books is what it brews: The machine can produce two books simultaneously in seven minutes, a time which includes all the printing, binding and cutting involved. The machine even slaps a snazzy laminated full-color cover on its creations. Cost: about five cents per page. So a 300-page …

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"Researchers demonstrate direct brain control of humanoid robot"

Not only that, the story references science fiction, so I don’t have to. Here’s how it works: The controlling individual – in this case a graduate student in Rao’s lab – wears a cap dotted with 32 electrodes. The electrodes pick up brain signals from the scalp based on a technique called electroencephalography. The person …

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"The only living Canadian with no pulse"

Sounds like the set-up to a joke about some ancient Senator, doesn’t it? But it’s really a remarkable story about a 65-year-old-man whose heart has been replaced (*SEE UPDATE*) by an artificial “turbine heart” designed to last for 10 years. As Paul Simon sang (many years ago now), “This is an age of miracles and …

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