An oldschool charleston video with some Daft Punk dubbed on top of it. Yes, I know, this is as old as the Internet, but since it got me in a good mood this morning, I thought to spread the joy to everyone. Enjoy!
Death Star Destroys Mosquito in Mid-Flight
If once again Bill Gates decides to unleash a swarm of mosquitoes at this year’s TED conference, former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold will be ready for him. Designed from parts obtained on eBay by scientists at Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures Laboratory, this Death Star-like laser gun can track and destroy mosquitoes in mid-flight. The main goal of the project is to eventually come up with a solution to control the insect’s population in regions where malaria is present.
[Via Wired]
NASA Geeks Plan To Approach Girl By 2018
The team of scientists says the $19 million dollar mission will put them in direct contact with a woman by 2018.
Warning: Video contains slightly inappropriate language.
From TED: How Should We Approach the War on Cancer?
By Jimmy Rogers (@me)
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Back in April we published “The Cure for Cancer“ and got a fantastic response from our readers. It seems you folks are really interested in the topics of cancer science and cancer research. Maybe because, unlike other diseases, cancer eventually effects everyone because it is a “disease of the aged.”
For a great insight into where modern techniques and philosophies are taking cancer research, check out this latest TED talk by Dr. David Angus at TEDMED:
As a young researcher myself, I agree with Dr. Angus that the next big movement in any molecular research is understanding proteins (hence the proteome) and the pathways that create or modify them. We certainly have come a long way from trying to identify diseases by look and feel alone, but Dr. Angus’s message reminds us that even high-profile fields like cancer are still looking for a workable molecular component.
“Alien” Wedding Cake: Chest-bustingly Awesome
If you’re a fan of HR Giger’s Alien and are planning to get married soon, here’s a cake design you might want to consider choosing:
Ok, we have to admit that a cake like that might freak out your guests just a little, and they might worry ending up having a chest buster trying to get out their stomach a few days later, but who cares, right? It’s your wedding cake after all!
Edit: This work of art comes from Seattle-based Jet City Cakes. Thank you for contacting us Paul!
[Via Walyou]
Google hypes 1Gb broadband
Google is preparing to test a 1 gigabit broadband service in the US. Just to recap, that’s 1000 megabits per second. Put another way, that’s the theoretical ability to download a DVD in 37 seconds.
The plan is to work in partnership with local and state governments to set-up fiber-optic networks reaching between 50,000 and 500,000 people. One analyst says that each network would cost somewhere between $60 million and $1.6 billion to set up. The scary thing is that that’s effectively loose change for Google, which has approximately $25 billion in cash.
Nobody seems to be able to come up with a logical explanation as to how these projects could possibly be profitable at this stage, though it appears that might not be the intention. Instead one theory has it that Google simply wants to supply ridiculously fast broadband to enough people that they’ll sing its praises and prompt the rest of the population to demand faster speeds from their own providers. The idea is that the faster people can access the internet, the more sites they’ll visit and thus the more adverts they’ll see.
It’s also not clear how and why Google went with the 1 gigabit figure. It would certainly be an amazing coincidence if that really was the maximum speed the proposed networks could reach. More likely the firm either thought it made for an impressive figure or simply liked the fact that it started with a ‘G’ (look out for the term “Googlebit”.)
There is a more sinister possibility though. If Google controls your internet access, it means it has the technical ability to know everything you do online. And for a company that makes its money by selling targeted advertising, that could be a goldmine.
Of course, from the company with the slogan “Don’t Be Evil”, it may be hard to see them use such intrusive tactics. It might be hard to imagine any internet provides using your entire internet activity for advertising, but that’s exactly what a controversial firm named Phorm tries to do and has even tested secretly with some ISPs in the United Kingdom. It may turn out that a loss of privacy is the price to play with ultra-broadband.
A Brief History of Everything
Made by Jamie Bell as an end of class project for an art course, A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything is a brilliant stop motion short produced entirely out of biro pens. The whole thing has been drawn on over 2100 pages, which took him about 3 weeks to complete.
Google Buzz Spoof
I don’t know what it is with Google products, but as soon as the company releases something new, it always takes less than 24 hours before people start releasing spoofs about said products on the web. The following one makes fun of Google Buzz, which we quite like by the way!