The machine works by having a magazine of dominoes that is dragged along the table and a slider that moves back and forth sliding one domino out of the magazine at a time. All along, the machine is driving forward, which causes the released dominoes to be spaced out.
[Via Woodgears]
Q: What do Snoop Dogg, David Beckham, and Star Wars all have in common?
A: Shoes.
Adidas is launching a line of Star Wars shoes, and somehow the obvious spokespeople are a rapper and a soccer player. In any case, today saw Darth Vader and a group of stormtroopers along with people in Adidas jumpsuits (who rather looked as if they were being escorted to their execution) marching through Times Square. They were there to hang with Snoop for the product launch at the NYC Adidas store.
There’s probably some joke in here about sneakers being invaluable for Star Wars geeks running from bullies in high school.
It’s been quite some time since Sonic’s heydays in the 90’s when Sega unleashed him to rival Nintendo’s Mario. Since then, the Italian plumber has continued to prosper while the blue hedgehog’s star has petered out miserably. The two icons recently ran into each other in an exceedingly uncomfortable setting:
Thanks Ziad!
Last week we brought you the news that scientists have now found a way to deduce which colors dinosaurs may have been by analyzing the structure of melanosomes. Those are cell bodies which carry melanin, which determines color, and in the case of the Sinosauropteryx had survived in fossils.
Unfortunately there’s some bad news to add to that report. It turns out that the melanosomes had survived because they were inside the tough protein of feathers. The melanosomes which could thus theoretically have survived in other feathered dinosaurs would indicate black, brown, orange or gray colorings.
However, because the relevant pigments come from a different source, it appears unlikely we’ll ever be able to tell which feathered dinosaurs were red, green, yellow or, most disappointingly for multi-national entertainment corporation marketing, purple. It’s also unlikely it will be possible to be sure about the colors of scaly, non-feathered dinosaurs.
That doesn’t mark an end to the work by the researchers, however. They now plan to analyze the entire Sinosauropteryx to attempt to map the coloring across its entire body. That might lend a better insight into whether the colored feathering was designed as a form of camouflage or to make it distinctive enough to attract a mate.
By the way, for those who didn’t notice, a GeeksAreSexy reader kindly shared the lyrics of a song by musician Billy Crockett which deals with a school pupil who disagrees with his teacher about exactly what color a dinosaur should be. In hindsight, the teacher’s arguments no longer appear so convincing!
From the same guy who produced the Amazing Robocop Rap, here comes a new video paying tribute to yet another masterpiece of geek culture: Aliens!
[Via Gizmodo]
Traditional lab tests for disease diagnosis can be too expensive and cumbersome for the regions most in need. George Whitesides’ ingenious answer, at TEDxBoston, is a foolproof tool that can be manufactured at virtually zero cost. Check it out:
Fight off hordes of oncoming enemies in this 25 level game containing 20 enemies, 5 bosses, and over 30 weapons/items to choose from. Medieval Rampage 2 also features Survival Mode, Achievements, and a Level Editor to keep you playing for hours!
Instructions:
Up/Down/Left/Right arrows – Move
Space – Health Potion
Tab – Bomb
CTRL – Mana Potion
‘P’ – Pause
‘M’- Mute
We’ve read the books, we’ve seen the movies (lots of them), but what does a real physicist say about time travel? Sean Carroll of the blog Cosmic Variance is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology. He wrote a book called From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time. In an excerpt at Discover Magazine, Carroll says if time travel were possible (and it might be), there would be no paradox, because we cannot change what has already happened. Ever. Then it gets weird.
Imagine that we have been appointed Guardian of the Gate, and our job is to keep vigilant watch over who passes through. One day, as we are standing off to the side, we see a person walk out of the rear side of the gate, emerging from one day in the future. That’s no surprise; it just means that you will see that person enter the front side of the gate tomorrow. But as you keep watch, you notice that he simply loiters around for one day, and when precisely 24 hours have passed, the traveler walks calmly through the front of the gate. Nobody ever approached from elsewhere. That 24-hour period constitutes the entire life span of this time traveler. He experiences the same thing over and over again, although he doesn’t realize it himself, since he does not accumulate new memories along the way. Every trip through the gate is precisely the same to him. That may strike you as weird or unlikely, but there is nothing paradoxical or logically inconsistent about it.
OK, this is why I’m not a physicist. I know people have a beginning and end. Even Bill Murray got to break out of the loop once he learned how to treat a woman.
[via Digg]
Tags: time, time travel
If you’ve watched Western movies you’ll know that most of the time there’s a predictable pattern to shootouts: the villain draws his gun first, but the hero shoots quicker and wins (before blowing the smoke from the tip of the barrel.)
Ask most people why this is and they’ll guess it’s to tell a moral story: the hero is honor bound not to draw first and shoot a man before there is a proven threat, but prevails through his superior skills. That’s a worthy story but one that appears to stretch credibility.
Now science has shown that there is a more logical explanation why the good guy could win, albeit it rarely. A joint project by researchers in Britain, Germany, China and New Zealand, published in Proceedings B, the biological studies publication of the Royal Society, shows that in tests, the gunfighter who draws first is usually shot by their target before firing their own weapon.
To simulate the action of pulling and firing a gun, participants were put into pairs and asked to hold down the middle of three buttons with their right hand (button 1 in the picture below). The “firing process” involved letting go of button 1, hitting button 2, then button 3 and finally hitting button 1.
In each sequence there was a secret, variable minimum time before which button 1 could be released; if either participant started “firing” before this time an alarm sounded and the sequence was declared void. This delay was intended to make sure the participants were in a situation where one initiated and the other responded, rather than both simply aiming to fire immediately.
When comparing results, the researchers did not compare the two participants in each exchange as this would have been skewed by the simple fact that one might be inherently quicker than the other. (There could also have been a limitation on any left-handed participants.) Instead they compared how each participant performed in the initiator role compared with their performance as respondent. When there was less than 100ms between the two “shots”, it was assumed both had acted in the initiator role and the result was discarded.
The results showed that on average a participant took 20ms less time to complete the sequence when responding to their opponent rather than initiating the process. The bad news for honorable gunfighters is that on average it took 200ms for the respondent to react to their opponent and begin firing.
The main biological conclusion from the study is that planned and reactive movements are controlled by different parts of the brain and work at different speeds. This may help solve some of the mysteries of Parkinson’s disease where the disparity between the two types of action is much greater: in some cases a sufferer can catch a ball more easily then they can pick it up from a table.
The main geek conclusion, however, is that HAN SHOT FIRST.