Interesting News Stories...From Your Communities and the World....

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WASILLA, Alaska — The Wasilla Senior Center has a full event schedule for it's residents. Bingo, fitness classes, arts and crafts and card games keep everyone occupied most days, and they seem to like it that way. But every once in awhile a unique visitor comes along and, for a few minutes at least, bingo is put on hold.

Jimmy Ball has been entertaining crowds since he was 12-years-old. Now, at 76, he knows just what an audience likes, and so the Kansas resident thought he'd volunteer a little time on his Alaska vacation and put on a show for the people at the senior center with his rare skills.

Ball is a sword-swallower, the oldest practicing one in the world he claims. No one-trick pony, he also swallows stretched-out coat hangers.

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Every password you use can be thought of as a needle hiding in a haystack. After all searches of common passwords and dictionaries have failed, an attacker must resort to a “brute force” search – ultimately trying every possible combination of letters, numbers and then symbols until the combination you chose, is discovered.

If every possible password is tried, sooner or later yours will be found.
The question is: Will that be too soon*.*.*. or enough later?

This interactive brute force search space calculator allows you to experiment with password length and composition to develop an accurate and quantified sense for the safety of using passwords that can only be found through exhaustive search. Please see the discussion below for additional information.
https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm

[Dumah]

Spin_drift, thank you for taking the time to compile this collection, gotta say the wedding got me..................

Cheers, Dumah,
Halifax, NS

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Spin_drift, thank you for taking the time to compile this collection, gotta say the wedding got me..................

Cheers, Dumah,
Halifax, NS

I'm glad to know you enjoyed this. You're welcome to post anything you think interesting.

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Researchers have invented a new noninvasive way to steer robots with brain activity.



This technology could give locked-in patients who can’t communicate with the outside world a way to interact with friends and family. ScienceNOW reports.

Brain-machine interfaces make it possible to control robots, computer cursors, and prosthetics with just conscious thought… but these often take a lot of effort and intense concentration, and sometimes things have to be implanted in the brain.

The goal of José del R. Millán from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland is to make control as easy as driving a car on a highway. (So, easy, but not that easy.)

A partially autonomous robot would allow a user to stop concentrating on tasks that could normally be done subconsciously, like not running into walls. BUT, if an unexpected event requires a split-second decision, the user’s thoughts can override the robot’s AI.

They modified a commercially available bot called Robotino (pictured), which is essentially a platform on 3 wheels that can avoid obstacles on its own using infrared sensors.
On top of the robot, they placed a laptop running Skype over a wireless internet connection. This allows the human controller to see where the robot is going. And since the laptop screen also shows a video of the controller, other people can interact with you as though you’re there.
The user wears a cap of tiny EEG electrodes that measure brain activity. The system translates the EEG signals into navigation instructions and transmits them in real-time to the robot.
Then the team recruited 2 patients whose lower bodies were paralyzed and who had been bedbound for 6 or 7 years.
After 6 weeks of hour-long training sessions, the patients (in the hospital) were able to control the robots (in the lab) from 100 km away. Or just over 62 miles. They drove the robot to various targets – furniture, people, objects – around the lab for 12 minutes.

In the future, Millán imagines modifying the shared control brain-machine interface so the user can control a prosthetic limb or a wheelchair. They may eventually add an arm to the current robot so it can grab objects.

The findings were reported this week at the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society conference in Boston.

Via ScienceNOW.

Image: Festo Didactic

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Scientists have created motors tiny enough to swim through your blood vessels and spidery enough to spin strands of polymer thread.

The microspiders – made by Ayusman Sen from Pennsylvania State University and colleagues – are spheres less than one micrometer wide, with one hemisphere of gold and one of silica.

They’re also self-propelling. How it all works (pictured):



The team attached a Grubbs catalyst – a molecule that builds long chains of smaller molecules – to the silica side.
When dropped into a solution containing a chemical called norbornene, the catalyst spins polymer threads from the chemical molecules. (This reaction is called polymerization, and it’s what’s going to power the micromotor.)
When there are more unpolymerized single molecules (or monomers) around the gold side of the sphere than the silica side, you get a gradient: fluids move between the region with lots of particles and the region with fewer ones.
When solution rushes toward the gold side, the whole sphere moves.
The researchers were able to control the direction of the sphere’s movement by placing lumps of gel soaked in norbornene at one corner of the tank. That way, the sphere follows the trail of leached norbornene towards the gel lumps.
Sen hopes to develop versions of microspiders that can run on chemicals available in the body, such as glucose. New Scientist explains their potential uses:

In the future, more sophisticated microspiders attached to nanobots that detect chemicals secreted by damaged tissue could swim through the bloodstream, weaving a medical glue to help heal tears in vessel walls. Decorated with other micromachines and enzymes, they could swim through the circulatory system scouting out tumours, scouring plaque from vessel walls and helping the immune system battle infections.

The study was published in Angewandte Chemie last week.

Via New Scientist, Chemistry World.

Image from R.A. Pavlick et al.

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Jan Wiriden/GT/Scanpix/Sipa Press

Yesterday, 7:40 AM

A seemingly intoxicated moose has been discovered entangled in an apple tree by a stunned Swede.

Per Johansson says he heard a roar from his vacationing neighbor's garden in southwestern Sweden late Tuesday and went to have a look. There, he found a female moose kicking about in the tree. The animal was likely drunk from eating fermented apples.

With the help of police and rescue services, the 45-year-old Johansson later managed to set the moose free in part by sawing off tree branches.

But the animal appeared confused and wandered into Johansson's garden, where she was still resting Thursday.

Other neighbors in the Goteborg suburb Saro had seen the animal sneaking around the area for days. Johansson said the moose appeared to be sick, drunk or "half-stupid."

[Soundbounder]

The animal was likely drunk from eating fermented apples

I've heard stories of that happening to bears.

I might just have to use this as an excuse the next time I get loaded.

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I've heard stories of that happening to bears.

I might just have to use this as an excuse the next time I get loaded.

LOL... Try some Amarula liqueur. It's made of the fruit of African Marula tree. Elephants eat the fermented fruit and go on stampedes through villages. I love Rhe taste of Amarula liqueur. Yummy.

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Fans of the hit movie “Back to the Future” are getting a real kick out of Nike’s latest creation.



Boasting an electroluminescent outsole, space-age materials and a 3,000-hour rechargeable battery, the Nike MAG is designed to be an exact replica of the futuristic shoes worn by Michael J. Fox’s character Marty Mcfly. It even lights up, however, some may be disappointed to learn that a pair can end up costing as much as a new car. And even so, the shoes still won’t lace themselves.

Related: Is time travel possible?
As of Thursday evening, Nike put 1,500 pairs of the limited edition sneakers up for auction on eBay. Prospective buyers have until Sept. 18th, with the bidding battle to snatch up a pair is on pace to reach five figures. All proceeds from the sale will go to the Michael J. Fox foundation for Parkinson’s Research.






The announcement came on the heels of a rumor that Nike was planning to launch a shoe featuring an innovative automated lacing system that the company patented sometime last year. Fans had been clamoring for such a shoe for several years and had even put together an online campaign a few years ago called “McFly 2015, Make it Happen.” The result was thousands of signatures urging Nike to bring the shoe to market. So you can imagine their excitement over the MAG, with some fans going so far as hailing the MAG’s arrival to be nothing short of historic.

“This is the biggest thing that has happened to sneakers since Michael Jordan, hands down,” Matt Halfhill of nicekicks.com told the Associated Press. “Other than the birth of one of my children, I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”

And for those who had been hoping for a bonafide self-lacing version, you might still get your wish. According to the the FAQ section of the Ebay ad, the vendor representing Nike (AuctionCause) stated that the “power-lace” feature should be available in, you guessed it, 2015. Still, I’m assuming you’d probably have to be the type that has a time-machine capable of predicting the stock market to even considering running around in something this expensive.

This report has been updated: While an earlier bidding war for a pair of Nike MAG sneakers brought the price to $75,100, that figure has since been re-adjusted. The ad states that only pre-approved buyers are allowed to place a bid.

(via Associated Press)

Related *on SmartPlanet:

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09 September 11 17:23 ET



A Bolivian man who was the sole survivor of a plane crash has been found alive in the Amazon jungle three days after the plane went down.
Rescue officials said Minor Vidal, 35, was found with head injuries away from the site of Tuesday's crash.
Mr Vidal told his rescuers he escaped after being trapped in the wreckage and survived by drinking his own urine and water from a lagoon.
Eight people were killed in the crash near Trinidad, in north-east Bolivia.
The Aerocon Airlines flight was travelling from Santa Cruz to Trinidad when air traffic controllers lost track of it. All nine passengers and crew were originally reported to have been killed in the crash.
The head of the rescue mission, Captain David Bustos, said they began searching further away from the wreckage when they found only eight bodies at the crash site.
"From several kilometres (miles) away, we saw a man on the river bank signalling to us. When we got closer, he knelt down and thanked God," Capt Bustos said.
"He said he'd been trapped in the plane for more than 15 hours and that when he finally escaped he began to walk and survived by drinking his own urine and water from a lagoon," Reuters quoted Capt Bustos as saying.

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09 September 11 12:16 ET



A Russian army major who alleged his men had been fed dog food has been jailed for four years for beating up two soldiers in a separate case.
Igor Matveyev was immediately arrested and sent to serve his sentence after the trial in the far eastern city of Vladivostok.
Matveyev said the case against him had been fabricated after he posted videos of allegedly re-labelled dog food.
He said it had been substituted for food stolen from his soldiers.
His defence lawyer said she would appeal against the verdict of the military tribunal.
Just two days before the verdict, Matveyev, a major in the Russian interior troops, told the BBC's Russian Service he was innocent but expected to be unjustly convicted.
Russia is plagued by corruption and fears have grown in the past decade that the security forces have become a law unto themselves.
Bloggers reacted angrily to Friday's verdict, which was one of the themes most discussed on the Russian internet. "From dog food to lawlessness," wrote one, while another wrote that it was "jail for the one who talked about the dog food, not the one who gave it to soldiers to eat".
'Tinned beef'
The major was sent to the reserves immediately after he posted the videos online in May, addressing himself to President Dmitry Medvedev.
The beating case, in which he was accused of assaulting two non-commissioned officers, was launched shortly afterwards.
Matveyev was stripped of his rank and banned from working for the state for three years as part of his sentence, Interfax news agency reports.
Military officials have denied Matveyev's allegations which centre on the claim that dog food was re-labelled as ordinary tinned meat and supplied to his garrison.
In one video, he shows a large warehouse of cardboard boxes appearing to contain tinned food.
At one point, he holds up a tin marked "beef". Under the torn label can be seen a different one, which he says is dog food.
The major accused his military superiors of allowing theft and corruption to flourish in his garrison.
Military officials in the region confirmed that some abuses had taken place but said they had been dealt with before Matveyev posted his videos.
In court, the regional commander of interior troops, Viktor Strigunov, denied any soldiers had been fed dog food.
An attempt by Matveyev's unit to sue him in a civilian court was rejected.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-europe-14858858

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Getty Images


Dolphins don't whistle, but communicate using a method that's similar to the way humans talk.
By Jennifer Viegas
Discovery Channel
Dolphins do not whistle, but instead "talk" to each other using a process very similar to the way that humans communicate, according to a new study.

While many dolphin calls sound like whistles, the study found the sounds are produced by tissue vibrations analogous to the operation of vocal folds by humans and many other land-based animals.

Communicating similar to the way that humans do solves what would otherwise be a major dolphin problem.

"When we or animals are whistling, the tune is defined by the resonance frequency of some air cavity," said Peter Madsen, lead author of the research appearing in Royal Society Biology Letters.

"The problem is that when dolphins dive, their air cavities are compressed due to the increasing ambient pressure, which means that they would produce a higher and higher pitch the deeper they dive if they actually whistle."

NEWS: Dolphin Whisperer Could Help Us Talk to E.T.

Madsen, a researcher in the Department of Biological Sciences at Aarhus University, and his team studied how dolphins communicate by digitizing and reanalyzing recordings made in 1977 of a 12-year-old male bottlenose dolphin.

The dolphin breathed in a "heliox" mixture consisting of 80 percent helium and 20 percent oxygen — a concoction that causes humans to sound like, as the scientists put it, Donald Duck. The reason is because the mixture has a sound speed that's 1.74 times higher than normal air. If a person whistles after sucking in helium, the pitch of the tune will then be 1.74 times higher than if he or she whistles after breathing in just air.

"We found that the dolphin does not change pitch when it is producing sound in heliox, which means that its pitch is not defined by the size of its nasal air cavities, and hence that it is not whistling," Madsen said. "Rather, it makes sound by making connective tissue in the nose vibrate at the frequency it wishes to produce by adjusting the muscular tension and air flow over the tissue."

"That is the same way that we humans make sound with our vocal cords to speak," he added.

NEWS: Are Dolphins the Second Smartest Animal?

The researchers believe the finding applies to all toothed whales, since they have similar nasal anatomy and they "all face the same problem of making sound during deep dives."

In terms of what the dolphins are communicating, it's known they share information about their identity, helping them to stay connected even while traveling in vast bodies of water.

Acoustics engineer John Stuart Reid and Jack Kassewitz of the organization Speak Dolphin have created an instrument known as the CymaScope that reveals detailed structures within sounds, allowing their architecture to be studied pictorially.

Similar to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, the researchers may then be able to figure out the meaning of dolphin calls. In addition to the whistle-like sounds, dolphins produce chirps and click trains, suggesting they engage in very complex and sophisticated social interactions.

"There is strong evidence that dolphins are able to 'see' with sound, much like humans use ultrasound to see an unborn child in the mother's womb," Kassewitz *said. "The CymaScope provides our first glimpse into what the dolphins might be 'seeing' with their sounds."

He added, "I believe that people around the world would love the opportunity to speak with a dolphin. And I feel certain that dolphins would love the chance to speak with us — if for no other reason than self-preservation."

Yet another interesting component of the new research is demonstrating how animals can evolve an ability, lose it, and then evolve it again. The land-based ancestors of dolphins likely produced sounds as humans do, lost that skill when they went into water, and then evolved it again, but by "using a completely different anatomy in their noses," Madsen said.

As for actual whistling, dolphins can be trained to do it, just as humans sometimes whistle for fun, but Madsen doesn't "think they do it in the wild, because they have evolved a much more effective way to make the same sound."

© 2011 Discovery Channel

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SOLDOTNA: Grizzly likely attracted by a fresh caribou head in the area.



A police officer in Soldotna shot and killed a large brown bear in a busy residential area Thursday after the animal charged him, police said.

Police Chief John Lucking said Officer Victor Dillon spotted the bear crossing into a yard Thursday afternoon. Dillon thought it was likely an injured one that had been reported scavenging in the area for several days.

The officer went looking for the bear on foot, armed with a shotgun, the chief said in a written account distributed to news media Friday.

"The animal temporarily disappeared from sight near an outbuilding as the officer approached. Officer Dillon was stopped near a car parked in the driveway when he again observed the bear from a distance of about 25 yards. When the bear saw him, it charged straight on for a distance of about 14 yards at which time it quartered slightly away. Officer Dillon took that opportunity to step away from the parked vehicle and fire a single shot, dropping the animal."

The chief said the bear likely was attracted by a fresh caribou head within a few feet of where the bear was shot. Lucking says someone apparently had just butchered the caribou and the smell and head attracted the bear.

The bear was first noticed in Soldotna on Sunday "when it tore the lid off a chest freezer at a residence on South Fireweed." It was seen raiding garbage bins in town, and later charged two officers, police said. They weren't able to fire at the animal, though, "because of low visibility and nearby residences."

The animal was seen several more times around Soldotna after that, police said.

"It was unfortunate that the bear had to be destroyed, but the animal could easily have attacked someone and badly injured or killed them," the police chief said.

Anchorage Daily News/adn.com
Published: September 9th, 2011 11:54 PM
Last Modified: September 10th, 2011 07:15 PM

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Something light hearted.

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The University of Leicester in the UK has developed a hi tech £1 million (about $1.6m) medical suite to diagnose hospital patients, sci-fi style.



The new tech would help assess patients more quickly and speed up the detection of a range of illnesses including infections, heart failure, and cancer. In particular, it’s designed to detect the ‘sight, smell and feel’ of disease without the use of invasive probes and blood tests.

“Dr. McCoy in Star Trek had a tricorder that he waved over the patients to help diagnose diseases,” says Paul Monks, who helped develop the facility. “The stage we’re at is the medical bed in the sci-fi series, which it tells you how well you are.”

Some cool tech found on the space-age converted hospital bed (pictured) at the Accident and Emergency department of Leicester Royal Infirmary:

A mass spectrometer breathalyzer – developed from atmospheric chemistry research – helps make diagnoses based on gases and compounds exhaled from patients. These can indicate asthma, sepsis, and even several types of cancer.
A group of imaging instruments uses space science tech developed for exploring the universe. These include thermal, multi-, and hyper-spectral imagers that look at temperature, color, and light coming from the patient’s body to say something about metabolism. For example, liver disease is linked with yellowing of skin; the tech can also see veins close to the skin’s surface.
And yet a third group of monitors measure blood flow and oxygenation to analyze the heart’s activity and blood circulation in real-time. (Not cool by itself, but it’s never been combined with all this other stuff before.)
“We are replacing doctors’ eyes with state-of-the-art imaging systems, replacing the nose with breath analysis, and the ‘feel of the pulse’ with monitoring of blood flow using ultra sound technology and measurement of blood oxygen levels,” says Leicester’s Mark Sims.

In a video on the Diagnostic Development Unit, Leicester’s Tim Coats says: “We’re looking at noninvasive ways of assessing things that, at the moment, we have to use invasive means – like sticking a needle into someone to get a blood sample – to get the same information.”

In the long term, according to Monks, scientists want to develop the ultimate non-invasive diagnostics, reducing “those time-consuming and uncomfortable procedures that patients would have to undertake” and freeing doctors to actually treat people.

Because all those things (and apparently more) can be done in 15 minutes.

Three years were spent creating this sensory suite, and the new facility could be ready to use in 2 weeks. (And in 2019, an international space probe that’s scheduled to arrive on Mars to look for life will employ similar technologies.)

“In the old days, it used to be said that a consultant could walk down a hospital ward and smell various diseases as well as telling a patient’s health by looking at them and feeling their pulse,” Sims reminds you.

Via BBC, University of Leicester release.

Image: University of Leicester

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Most cities are just big laboratories. But people, quite frankly, can get in the way of turning crumbling, city infrastructure into a smart one.



A Washington D.C.-based tech company wants to create a ghost town in New Mexico, to give companies and organizations a place to check the limits of renewable energy systems, smart grid cyber security, wireless systems, and traffic on a large scale before they implement it into a real city.

The planned city is expected to help understand the challenges of upgrading cities to the smart grid.

Pegasus Global Holdings is the tech company behind the so-called The Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation, or The Center for short.

“The idea for The Center was born out of our own company’s challenges in trying to test new and emerging technologies beyond the confines of a sterile lab environment,” Robert H. Brumley, Pegasus Global’s CEO said in a statement. So the tech company decided it should built that sterile environment. It is spending $200 million to create the modern day ghost town.

Roads, new and old buildings, and other city structures will give companies, not for profit, educational institutions, and government agencies an uninhabited place to test out their technology.

The planned ghost town may lack all the variables that make a city tick, but at least, the city-scale laboratory will create jobs. The Center is expected to create 350 jobs in New Mexico (and possibility a few thousand more down the line).

Photo: flickr/ Wolfgang Staudt

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By Leila Battison
Science reporter

Scientists have shown that the Earth's surface became enriched with precious metals by impacting meteorites.




The Earth's crust and mantle has considerably more gold than expected from favoured models of planetary formation.
A study from the University of Bristol looked at some of the oldest rocks on Earth, demonstrating that gold was delivered by meteorites long after their formation.
Their results are published in Nature.
While the Earth was forming, iron sank to the centre of the planet, forming the core.
Any precious metals in the planetary mix would have gone with this iron and concentrated in the core, leaving the mantle devoid of elements such as gold, platinum, and osmium.
But this is not what we observe. In fact, the silicate mantle has up to 1,000 times more gold than anticipated.
Several reasons for this enrichment were proposed in the past, including delivery by meteorites, although until now it has not been possible to prove.
By measuring isotopes in rocks that are nearly four billion years old from Greenland, the team has managed to date the gold delivery, and to relate it to an event known as the "terminal bombardment".
Impact theory
Earth formed by a snowball-effect known as accretion 4.55 billion years ago. The iron core with its accompanying mixture of precious metals formed very soon after that, within just a few million years.
A final impact of a Mars sized body with the Earth formed the Moon and finalised our planet's formation. By this time all gold would be locked up in the core.
A final burst of meteorite impacts around 3.9 billion years ago is known as the "terminal bombardment" and caused the cratering that we still see on the Moon.
It was during this last impact event that the gold which we can access in the crust was delivered.
"The proportions of gold and other precious metals are difficult to measure because they concentrate into nuggets, and we need to analyse a lot of rocks to get meaningful data." said lead researcher Dr Matthias Willbold.
They have therefore developed a way of telling this remarkable story of gold's extraterrestrial origin using a completely different element - tungsten.
Tungsten acts very similarly to precious metals like gold, but importantly it comes in different forms, or isotopes.The team have looked at the proportions of the different isotopes in modern rocks and in the most ancient rocks in Greenland.
They found a small but significant difference in the proportions, indicating that the modern rocks had received a dose of tungsten, and therefore also gold, from meteorites.
The Greenland rocks showed no such enrichment, giving a date to the input of gold. This date corresponds to the time of the terminal bombardment around 3.9 billion years ago.
During this time, the Earth would have been hit with 20 billion billion tonnes of asteroid material, although "it is not clear whether this would have come in the form of many small impacts, or just two or three mega-impacts", Dr Willbold said.
The research group at the University of Bristol are the first to successfully make such high-quality measurements of tungsten in ancient rocks, but so far have only analysed samples from Greenland.
"We hope to find more," said Dr Willbold, "and look at a time sequence for one billion years after the Greenland rocks, to see how the tungsten anomaly develops."

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There are two AIDS pandemics in the world: one in humans and the other in cats.



In their quest for ways to combat AIDS in humans, scientists have been studying feline immunodificiency virus (FIV) for insight into the human virus.

Afflicting mostly feral cats and big cats such as lions, FIV causes AIDS in cats the same way HIV causes AIDS in people — by causing the loss of infection-fighting T cells.

Now, a group of researchers mostly from the Mayo Clinic report in the journal Nature Methods that they have genetically engineered three cats so they potentially have resistance to AIDS — and so they glow in the dark.




Genetically engineering the cat
Previous genetically engineered cats had to be cloned through delicate surgery. As New Scientist says,

The first cloned cat, born in 2001, was the only one to survive from 200 embryos, each created by taking an ear cell from cats, removing the nucleus and fusing it with a cat egg cell emptied of its own nucleus.

The new technique allows scientists to genetically modify the egg cells directly using viruses and is much simpler and more efficient than the previous method. Out of 22 implantations, three genetically modified cats were born.

Live Science reports,

The amount of genetic material they implanted within the cats was tiny — if the entire string of DNA that is the cat genome were unraveled and depicted as a highway reaching across the United States from New York to Los Angeles, the inserted material would be equal in length to one of the dashed yellow lines in the middle of the highway somewhere out in Nebraska, [Eric Poeschla, a molecular biologist and infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine] said.

The reason the cats now glow in the dark is because they were given the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene, which originates from jellyfish and has been used in a number of science experiments to make animals, including mice, fruit flies, rabbits and pigs, glow in the dark. Seeing the cats glow in the dark helps the researchers know that the genetic engineering was successful.



Application to AIDS research
The cats were also given a monkey gene that protects rhesus monkeys from FIV. The team is hoping that this will protect them from FIV, and if so, that it could then lead to similar ways to protect humans from becoming infected with HIV.

So far, when white blood cells from the cats are cultured in the lab, those cells are protected from FIV. The scientists intend to give the virus to the cats to see whether they are also immune to it. Poeschla told New Scientist,

The animals clearly have the protective gene expressed in all their tissues including the lymph nodes, thymus and spleen. That’s crucial because that’s where the disease really happens, and where you see destruction of T-cells targeted by HIV in humans.

One male has already sired eight kittens with three non-genetically modified females, and each of the offspring had the implanted genes.

But the question remains whether this FIV research will ultimately prove helpful to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Theodora Hatziioannou of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center told New Scientist, “It’s fantastic they’ve created GM cats. But what makes research in monkeys so much better is that SIV in monkeys is much more closely related to HIV, so it’s more straightforward to draw conclusions than it would be with FIV.”

photos: Mayo Clinic

via: Live Science, New Scientist

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In the era of dual-functionality clothing, including solar-powered bikinis, air-conditioned clothing and air-purifying apparel, it was only a matter of time before someone invented a water-purifying raincoat — which, in this case, is called the Raincatch.



This multipurpose raincoat collects rain through its collar, filters it down the back of the coat with charcoal filters, purifies it in a chemical process and stores the water around the hips of the coat, where its weight will be most comfortable to the wearer.

(Charcoal, which is carbon, filters water because it has millions of tiny pores, giving it a lot of surface area with which to bond to odors and substances in the water. Many water filters, such as the popular Brita brand, use carbon.)

The coat, designed by students Hyeona Yang and Joseph Noble, of the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, designed the prototype you see in the video below.

(sorry, I have to get you the video link a bit later)
And hey, it’s not as whimsical as it seems. Remember that climate change will likely cause more hurricanes, which, as many East Coast residents recently found out, will also cause lots of flooding.

In times of torrential floods that could disrupt local water supplies, it might be handy to have an alternate way to purify all that water pouring from the sky.



Raincatch from Hyeona Yang on Vimeo.

via: CNET

photo: screenshot

[Syed]

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Oh Syed, that's absolutely beautiful. Thank you.

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By Hamish Pritchard
Science Reporter, Bradford



A sophisticated new camera system can detect lies just by watching our faces as we talk, experts say.
The computerised system uses a simple video camera, a high-resolution thermal imaging sensor and a suite of algorithms.
Researchers say the system could be a powerful aid to security services.
It successfully discriminates between truth and lies in about two-thirds of cases, said lead researcher Professor Hassan Ugail from Bradford University.
The system, developed by a team from the universities of Bradford and Aberystwyth in conjunction with the UK Border Agency, was unveiled today at the British Science Festival in Bradford.
This new approach builds on years of research into how we all unconsciously, involuntarily reveal our emotions in subtle changes of expression and the flow of blood to our skin.
We give our emotions away in our eye movements, dilated pupils, biting or pressing together our lips, wrinkling our noses, breathing heavily, swallowing, blinking and facial asymmetry. And these are just the visible signs seen by the camera.
Even swelling blood vessels around our eyes betray us, and the thermal sensor spots them too.
Real-world test
Traditional lie detection depends on the venerable polygraph, first developed in 1921, a much more invasive apparatus with a set of wires attached to the skin. This new device promises non-invasive, even covert truth tests in real time.
"We bring together all this well-established work on expressions, these recent developments in thermal imaging, techniques for image tracking of subjects and our new algorithms into one operational system," said Professor Ugail.
So far, the team has only tested its lie detector on willing volunteers rather than in a real-life, high stakes situation. Later this year, though, they plan to deploy it in a UK airport, probably running alongside experienced immigration officers as they conduct security interviews. The algorithms can then be tested against the verdicts of these officers.
"In a real, high-stress situation, we might get an even higher success rate," noted Professor Ugail, who believes he'll eventually be able to detect around 90% of those who are lying, which is similar to the performance of the polygraph.
The researchers acknowledge, though, that these tests can never be 100% accurate.
What they detect are emotions, such as distress, fear or distrust, and not the act of lying itself. Fear can sometimes be the fear of not being believed rather than the fear of being caught.

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By Ken Hess | September 13, 2011, 3:30am PDT

Summary: The world’s most famous hacker discusses his new book, his exploits, his imprisonment and his success. Meet the Ghost in the Wires, Kevin Mitnick.



I can count on one hand the number of people who’ve significantly influenced a generation of IT professionals: Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, Steve Jobs, Richard Stallman and Kevin Mitnick. I’ve had the unique privilege of interviewing two of the people in this list (Stallman and Mitnick). Each of the men in this list has his own unique approach to shaping the world in which he lives but they all have one thing in common: Passion for what they do.

But, it’s not a normal passion, it’s an all-consuming passion that seeps from every pore of their being. It’s rare and it’s what sets them apart from everyone else. There is a special pace to their speech–a cadence of thought–and a childlike thrill in their hearts for what they do.

This is a summary of my interview with Kevin Mitnick, the world’s most famous and most passionate hacker.

Kevin Mitnick was the first famous hacker that I remember. He had a face and a name. He looked like a regular guy to me. He certainly didn’t fit into the Ectomorphic Cerebrotonic somatotype that I expected. He didn’t look like an evildoer and he didn’t sound like an evildoer. But, to law enforcement, including the FBI, he was just that. To them, he was a name and a face on a Wanted poster and they wanted him under arrest. The world’s largest and most influential telephone and technical companies just wanted him out of their wires.

He was unstoppable like a ghost that could walk through walls.

His new book, Ghost in the Wires, chronicles his exploits into phone systems, into computer systems, into FBI operations and into prison.


Little, Brown and Company; (August 15, 2011) 115 Amazon.com Customer Reviews: 5 Stars.

Curiosity, Mr. Decker. Insatiable curiosity.

KH: What was your motivation for hacking into phone systems and computer systems?

KM: Pranskterism. It was fun. I was curious. I wanted to know how things worked, especially operating systems. I read the source code. I didn’t sell it or distribute it.

You’d think that someone who hacks into a major company would actually steal something, even if to expose it to the world. Not so with Kevin. He just wanted to read the code and understand how it worked. Apparently, the FBI placed a value on that learning exercise that was higher than his freedom.

“No company that I ever hacked into reported any damages, which they were required to do for significant losses. Sun didn’t stop using Solaris and DEC didn’t stop using VMS.”

Instead, the FBI estimated Kevin’s hacks and code reading into the $300 million range, which accounted not only for any break-in mitigation but also for the entire cost of operating system research and development. It was extreme and unfair but it was to send a message to Kevin and others like him that such actions would not be tolerated.

The punishment became more about the message rather than any actual damages. No one, not even Kevin himself, is saying that what he did was OK but the punishment should fit the crime.

“What I did was illegal and I should have been punished. But, the punishment should have been for any real damages that I caused.”

KH: What is the purpose of Ghost in the Wires? What do you hope to accomplish with it?

KM: Its my story. And, I want to get my story out. I want people to know the true story. There’s a lot of myth and false information about me out there.

FREE KEVIN

KH: Was the Free Kevin campaign to help you with attorney’s fees?

KM: No, it was to educate people about the unfair treatment I was receiving: solitary confinement, exaggerated claims, poor representation and outlandish damage estimates.

KH: How did you pay for your attorney’s fees? The cost must have been overwhelming.

KM: I had a court-appointed attorney. And, the court didn’t want to spend a lot of money defending me, so I sat in prison for more than four years without a trial. About one year of that was in solitary confinement.

Ass Burgers

KH: I’ve heard that a lot of hackers, including you, have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. What do you think of that?

KM: I was diagnosed with it but I think it was my attorney’s effort to help my defense. It was never used in the case. I don’t think I have it. I’ve heard that Adrian Lamo, Gary McKinnon and John Draper have it. I might believe that Draper has it. I don’t know about the others or the Lulz guys.

Thank you for calling Cheyenne Mountain, how may I direct your call?

KH: Can you really whistle the launch codes to our nuclear arsenal?

KM: No, that is a gross exaggeration and part of what got me placed in solitary confinement. They wouldn’t allow me to have access to a telephone because of accusations like that.

Welcome to McDonald’s, may I take your order?

KH: Do you have a favorite hack?

KM: Hacking into the communications at McDonald’s. That was a lot of fun.

How it works: Customers pull up to the drive-through box to place an order and instead of hearing the employee inside, they hear your greeting. The employees can also hear you and the reactions of the customers. Hackers who do this use some form of modified CB radio or telephonic device to tune into the frequency used by the wireless sets in fast food restaurants.

“One guy was so frustrated that he went out and looked into the drive-through box to see if he could find something in it. Of course, I was across the street watching it all.”

Danger, Will Robinson!

KH: What kind of threats are big right now? It seems that full frontal attacks are down.

KM: Successful attacks these days are hybrid. Attackers use a combination of*Social Engineering and*Spear Phishing to compromise systems and networks.

One example of this hybrid technique is that a “vendor representative” will call an unsuspecting person in a company and ask which software versions they’re using. They would ask for an email address along with that information. The hacker will then send an email with malicious code attached to deliver a payload that gets the hacker inside the company’s network.

Close enough for government work?

KH: From our conversation, it seems that there’s no way to fully protect ourselves from hacks. Is that true?

KM: It is. You can never protect yourself 100%. What you do is protect yourself as much as possible and mitigate risk to an acceptable degree. You can never remove all risk. For example, if you accept email attachments as part of your business, you’re introducing risk. But, if your customers need to send attachments, you have to accept that risk.

Got Security?

KH: What do you do now?

KM: I’m still a hacker. I get paid for it now. I never received any monetary gain from the hacking I did before. The main difference in what I do now compared to what I did then is that I now do it with authorization.

The Good Hacking Seal of Approval?

KH: Which operating system do you use?

KM: I use Mac. Not because it’s more secure than everything else–because it is actually less secure than Windows but I use it because it is still under the radar. People who write malicious code want the greatest return on their investment, so they target Windows systems. I still work with Windows in virtual machines.

KH: Do you use Linux?

KM: Yes, I use Ubuntu and Gentoo.

Just the VAX ma’am, just the VAX

KH: What is your favorite OS?

KM: VMS. I’ve always liked it.

None shall pass

KH: What’s the most secure OS? Is there one that you can recommend?

KM: I don’t know of any secure OS. In the past eight years, I’ve had 100% success at penetration testing on all of them. Wait, ChromeOS, ChromeOS is the most secure because of its very limited attack vector–there’s just nothing to exploit.

Eep Op Ork Ah Ah

KH: What else can you tell me about Ghost in the Wires, are there any secrets that you haven’t revealed?

KM: Yes, at the beginning of each chapter, I’ve placed cryptograms there for readers to solve. If you solve all of them, then I’m going to draw names of the winners and give a piece of evidence from my case in the actual FBI bags. It would be a cool piece of*memorabilia for people interested in the case or hacking. You can answer the questions by reading the book. I’m currently setting up the website now for this.

Deep vengeance is the daughter of deep silence

KH: Do you have any recourse or do you want any vengeance against anyone for the wrongs that were done to you?

KM: No. None. The best vengeance for me is that my book is number eight on the best seller list right now, my business is successful and I have my family.

To Kevin: It’s better that you feel that way. Unfortunately, I am neither so wise nor so forgiving. I’m glad you’re on our side and using your powers for good.

Personal Notes: I interviewed Kevin just a few days after his appearance on The Colbert Report and we had a good time trading hacking stories, discussing his new book and talking about security issues facing individuals and companies. I believe that he was treated unfairly by the courts, the FBI and the media (at the time). Accusations against him were ridiculous and exaggerated because he made fools of law enforcement. They took it personally. I also don’t believe that he has Asperger’s. That is nonsense and am glad that it never came up in his proceedings. I want him to have his vengeance through the success of his business, his books and his life. Godspeed, Kevin.

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By Zack Whittaker | September 12, 2011, 2:03pm PDT

Summary: Facebook, in retrospect, can be addictive — not in the “society is addicted to Facebook” but in a very serious way. Here are five symptoms to look out for.

Hi, I’m Zack, and I’m a Facebook addict.

Addiction is partly in the mind, and we can all be gripped by something that throttles everything else in our life. From social media to hardcore broadband connections; even knitting. Well, maybe not knitting as the core Generation Y activity of choice, but you can see where I’m going with this.



My relationship with Facebook is on a rocky edge at the moment. Though I accept I spend a great amount of time on the mobile application and site as so many of us do, I have taken a break for my own sense of sanity.

While I argue that Facebook has become so intrinsic to our social relationships, we have yet to develop the filtering skills to take away the emotionless, draining energies from the site that we do not get in real life.*Facing social exclusion, the need to detach myself from the overly sensitive minutiae that comes with over-use, it’s important to highlight the genuine symptoms of Facebook addiction.

1. You become paranoid: “Why hasn’t this person messaged me back?”
A common symptom, it seems, paranoia can grip anyone from a small amount to a dangerous level.

The problem is that Facebook only tells you a little amount, rather than everything. Idle times are displayed with a sleep icon, but Facebook mobile users are always ‘online’, but may not have their phone with them.*Though Facebook has chat presence, it does not guarantee that the person will respond, let alone see the message in the first place.

Also, what is the maximum time to respond to someone?*Sites like Facebook do not take into account individual patterns of usage, and all but expects others to be online all the time too.

For those waiting for a response, the temptation is to call or to text, or to follow up with another Wall post or message. “Why haven’t they responded?”; logical processes go out the window and paranoia sets in, questioning why they haven’t replied. Who hasn’t been there?

2. You spend more than an hour or five on the site.
Excessive use of anything is all-relative. I, personally, have a massive oxygen addiction. I love to breathe, and have no plans to kick the habit just yet.

But spending more than an hour or two on Facebook per day is probably too much, for an ordinary ‘consumer’ user. Granted, many use Facebook for work or in some corporate setting, but most should not spend more than an hour on the*social*network.

Running through the day, we spend about half an hour in the bathroom per day, excluding showering and whatnot. We take an hour for lunch. We often spend an hour or so travelling to and from work or campus. Relatively speaking, if you are spending more time on Facebook than you do “on the john” — or using Facebook whilst you are on the toilet — please seek help.

3. A confusion of the divergence of real life and Facebook
There have been times — no doubt you will have to — where you have seen something posted on Facebook as a status update, and later on it has been rekindled as an actual memory.

It’s not uncommon, as often statuses are updated of what people are doing, thinking or going to do. But to actively forget when something has not happened in person but ‘remembered’ through a passing update, is somewhat worrying.

It’s indicative that you’ve spent a great deal of time on the site too, which again goes as a strike against the addiction from the second point.

4. Excessive friend building and Wall posts
Sometimes people find that Facebook is an ego-related thing, and the need to build up an online ‘portfolio’ is a social need, in order to fully represent whom they want to be in real life.

To add a constant stream of statuses and photos, videos and application updates may be one way of filling up time — time that could be better spent elsewhere.

It can be an addiction in itself; the need to constantly update people on what you are doing, where and why you are doing it; something that could be construed as ’showing off’ or boasting.

5. Depression sets in during downtime, and other withdrawal symptoms
Often, addictions are formed around a lacking something. It would not be amiss to suggest that those who spend a lot of time on Facebook do so because of a lack of other engagements.

When that void is not filled but the addictive matter is taken away, withdrawal symptoms set in — such as anger, anxiety, depression and other similar feelings. It’s not quite as though you have been deprived from coffee all day, but does share some similarities.

When depression or other hidden, mind-orientated symptoms set in, such as frustration or as though you are missing out on something, then this again should be a cause for concern. Breaking up with an addiction is incredibly hard to do, but to do it in stages makes the arduous task easier.


Zack Whittaker, a criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, Canterbury, is a freelance journalist and broadcaster.

[Syed]

You are welcome, Spin.

And thank you for keeping a very interesting thread going.

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I'm glad you are enjoying this thread Syed

[Uncle Duke]

It is always pleasing to see people, strangers, come together to help in a moment of crisis, even at the risk of injury to themselves.
This bunch, for example:

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"No matter what fiscal crisis we face, no matter how divided we may be over approaches to cutting our debt and deficit, no matter how heated the rhetoric here in Washington D.C. gets, we have to keep our commitments to our veterans and service members," Chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Patty Murray said in a speech to the Senate.


Chairman Murray is right. With all of the financial uncertainty occurring within our government, it's important that we don't allow the confusion and dissent among parties negatively affect funding for veterans' care.

As Congress continues to debate how to allocate finances and where to cut funding, Congress members must keep in mind the dedicated service our veterans have demonstrated. While we may need to reexamine where we are spending our money as a country, we need to also ensure veterans don't suffer.

Sign the petition telling Congress to keep Veterans' care funding off the table!



http://"http://www.thehungersite.com...etsDebtCrisis"

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It is always pleasing to see people, strangers, come together to help in a moment of crisis, even at the risk of injury to themselves.
This bunch.....

Thanks. That was nice to see.

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By Melissa Mahony | September 14, 2011

A new website launched this week aiming to give more people access to local, fresh foods that are not only cheap but convenient. Organic and local foods have become a bigger portion of mainstream meals over the decade, but finding the foods you want at the price you want can still be challenging. Show up late to your favorite booth at the weekend farmer’s market and you may find yourself on a scavenger hunt for your preferred produce.



Farmigo is essentially a cross between a CSA (community-supported agriculture) membership and a Groupon deal. Once enough people in your area buy-in with orders for a local farm, the producer will schedule deliveries—veggies, meat, fish, dairy and other goods—to a set location. This could be your company, your kid’s school, your church, YMCA, or in my case, the neighborhood wine store.

Debuting at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference on Monday, Farmigo has 1,500 pick-up locations so far, but there is room to grow. At last count in 2007, the USDA puts the country’s total number of CSAs at 12,549. Farmigo hopes to enlarge the member base for existing CSAs as well as create more of them by providing a platform for people to connect with their local food producers. If there isn’t a pick-up location near you, you make one through the website. This is what the Palo Alto-based company is banking on in order to reach more diverse regions and people across the U.S.

Take my area of Brooklyn. Within a mile, I can get a half box of veggies, a seasonal subscription for flowers, 5 months of eggs, some milk and coffee add-ons, and a whole hog, hooves and all. One location even accepts food stamps, a crucial step some CSAs take to help poorer families gain access to healthier foods. This particular hood, however, already has multiple foodie establishments, farmers’ markets, organic food stores, community gardens and co-ops. In that sense, Farmigo’s service might be redundant for some but still convenient enough to do well and spread to other areas. This is where the Groupon-like element of the network comes in.

For the company to have the most meaningful impact on what’s cooking on the country’s countertops, word of mouth is key. By encouraging friends, relatives and co-workers to join, more people could start seeing food-shopping as a social affair, a relationship that benefits farmer and consumer. According to The Financial Times, participating farmers get a much higher percentage of each sale than they would typically from conventional supermarkets. The idea is that those savings show up on the subscription prices.

For its part cutting through administrative hassles for farmers and CSA operators, Farmigo receives 2 percent of every sale (or a minimum of $150 a month).

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Wednesday, September 14, 2011 1:06 PM
By Sylvia Booth Hubbard

A vitamin pill that costs about a dime a day could help prevent millions of people from developing Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at Britain's Oxford University found that seniors who took a combination of three B vitamins for two years did 70 percent better on memory tests than those who took a placebo.
Specific B vitamins — B-6, folic acid (B-9), and B-12 — are known to control the levels of homocysteine, an amino acid in the body that rises with age. High levels of homocysteine are a known risk factor for Alzheimer's. The researchers decided to see if supplementing seniors with homocysteine-lowering vitamins could slow the rate of brain shrinkage seen in dementia and Alzheimer's.
For the double-blind study, scientists divided 270 senior citizens who had been diagnosed with mild memory problems into two groups. One group took a placebo daily for two years, and the other took a high-dose B vitamin tablet every day. The pill contained 0.5 mg of B-12, 0.8 mg of folic acid, and 20 mg of vitamin B-6. Although B vitamins are found in many foods, including meats and whole grains, the amounts used in the study were much higher than can be obtained from a normal diet.
The progression of the patients' disease was monitored by MRI scans that measured brain shrinkage or atrophy, and they were also given a series of cognitive tests.
After two years, the research team found that the brains of those taking the vitamins shrank 30 percent less than the brains of those taking a placebo. Seniors who had the highest levels of homocysteine to begin with got the best results; their rates of atrophy were 50 percent less than those who took a placebo. In one subject, blood levels of homocysteine were reduced by 500 percent.

The researchers also gave all of the subjects a series of cognitive tests. They found that scores were the highest in the patients with the lowest rates of shrinkage — they performed 70 percent better on memory tests than those who took the placebo. In addition, some of the patients who took the highest doses found that their memory lapses had completely disappeared by the end of the two-year study.
To keep homocysteine levels in check, the researchers suggested people eat more meat and green vegetables, and to reduce their intake of alcohol, which depletes the body of vitamin B-12.
Study leader Dr. Celeste de Jager of Oxford University advises people in their 40s and 50s to consider taking vitamins. "A lot of the time brain changes start in your forties and fifties before you get clinical symptoms," she said at the British Science Festival. "I would ask the doctor to check my B-12 and my folic acid levels for starters."
© 2011 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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Hero rabbit who woke owner of burning house dies in blaze. The Associated Press () 09/14/2011 10:13 PM
KETCHIKAN -- Fire officials said a pet rabbit woke its owner when the house was on fire, allowing the woman to get herself and her daughter safely out of the burning building. But the rabbit ended up dying from smoke inhalation.

The woman was awakened early Tuesday by the rabbit scratching her chest, and she saw the house was full of smoke.

She rushed to get her daughter out of the home, but the rabbit was left behind in the confusion.

Ketchikan Fire Capt. Tracy Mettler tells the Ketchikan Daily News pets often find their own way out of a burning building but not this time.

The fire's cause is under investigation. The fire department wouldn't identify the home's two residents.

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Juneau Empire (ABBY LOWELL) 09/14/2011 1:38



JUNEAU -- Like an elder who teaches lessons of significance, one local bear, who recently returned to her fishing grounds near the Mendenhall Glacier, has proved a teacher to not only her own kind, but also the humans who have had the privilege of interacting with her.

Those who know her best have come to call her by her Tlingit name Naa Tlaa -- meaning Clan Mother. Laurie Craig, lead naturalist at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, said it's because this sow could very well be related to more than a few bears who call that area home.

She's a small bear with fur that turns cinnamon-tinged when she's shedding, like a youngster who's spent too much time in the summer sun. During the rest of year, she's a rich black, like the earth of the region she calls home. She has a small blue tag on her right ear, which -- perhaps fittingly -- bears the number one. Experts believe she is roughly 24 years old, based on tracking data received from collars and the wear on her teeth. Her home range is small, compared to some, and extends back into the wilderness near Nugget Creek. This past week she has been seen successfully catching fish, despite the fact many of her teeth are likely missing or broken. She has also been feasting on ground cones, another important food source for bears this time of year.

Last year, however, many thought she was dead, said Craig. She didn't return to fish the banks or walk the trails she had for so many years.

It certainly wouldn't be unusual for a bear to die at such a ripe age, said Neil Barten, Region 1 management coordinator for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. He said in all the years he's studied black bears in and around Juneau, he's seen few survive into their mid-20s; it is, however, possible.

This week, the sow put the skepticism to rest.

"I saw this small form sitting back a ways on the bank," Craig said. "I looked a little closer thinking, hoping she just might be (Clan Mother); because we really don't have very many cinnamon-colored bears around the glacier. Then I saw it, the blue tag. I was just thrilled to see her."

Craig isn't the only local who cracked a smile when they heard of her reappearance.

Barten chuckled a bit over the phone. He was present both times the bear was caught and collared in 2006 and then again in 2007. He was the researcher who originally tattooed the number 200 on her lip and he was the one who headed into the exceptionally rough rainforest terrain to recover the collar she shed in an effort to retrieve the important data it held.

"We started collaring bears about 10 years ago," Barten said. "It brings to light information about the bear from an educational standpoint."

That information includes the size of a home range, den and day-bed locations, when and where a bear visits certain areas, which can then be compared against things such as salmon runs or a berry season. The overarching goal, he said, was to determine if bears that frequented the glacier were also those getting into the garbage cans of valley residents.

"We found that bears might go into a neighborhood for one or two nights, likely because someone left their garbage out, but then a day later they'd be up on top of Thunder Mountain, presumably feeding on blueberries. Then they'd be in an entirely different drainage for fish," he said.

In other words, researchers found it all came down to availability -- if the garbage wasn't available, the bears went elsewhere.

But researchers found there was another group of bears that never ventured into residential areas, despite the temptations. Clan Mother was one of those bears.

Barten said they found her range was quite predictable. She'd use the same trails through the woods and the same dens every year.

"I don't think this bear ever visited a residential area," Barten said.

Craig said it was the bear's calm predictability that helped her teach visitors at the glacier about bear behavior. She said bears, like Clan Mother, who came back every year to the creek, showed how humans and wild animals can coexist when mutual respect is fostered.

"(I try to instill in people to be) cautious, but not fearful. Because when people come to visit they are prepared to run," she said. "But when they experience bears from the platforms, they are able to see bears at peace."

And this is a very different picture than the one painted by many news reports and Hollywood movies.

Kristen Romanoff, who works in Wildlife Education and Outreach for ADF&G, said the elderly bear became something of a middle-school teacher for two groups of local students.

She said students with Dzantik'i Heeni and Floyd Dryden middle schools shadowed biologists in 2007 in an effort to learn how and why bears are collared and tagged. ADF&G teamed with teachers Mary Hausler and Kathleen Galou to allow the students to watch a bear be darted, weighed, marked and then track and follow the bear to answer questions on behavior and habitat.

Romanoff said she remembers a day when a group of students was using a VHF receiver to locate a collared bear they'd been tracking. They hoped to get close enough to download data from the collar onto a laptop computer. Clan Mother was the bear they'd been tracking and before the students' eyes she walked directly across the trail in front of them. Romanoff said it was the best a teacher could hope for; the students no longer saw the subject of their study as a blip on a screen, all of a sudden it was a living, breathing entity in front of them.

"We learned that this older bear was a little different (from the other bear we'd tracked)," Romanoff said. "She was not food conditioned. Her patterns of movement were different. It appeared this bear was really tuned in to the fish runs. Her timing was within a day of the arrival of the sockeye in Steep Creek."

Romanoff was surprised when she heard the bear was still alive and reflected fondly on the memories she had of the animal who had made a lasting impression on the students.

"When I run into those same students around town today, they still comment on that experience," she said.

Craig, who has seen a lot of bears during her eight years working at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, will never forget her up-close learning experience with Clan Mother.

Craig was with Barten when the elderly bear was collared a second time in 2007.

"We tracked her into the woods after darting her," Craig said. "She was laying there, as bears do. In the past, I've heard visitors say 'Oh, it smells like bear around here,' as if they smell bad. So, I had to find out. I put my nose right down in her fur. She smelled like the forest and like moss and dirt and rain. I had a very intimate moment with this bear. It was wonderful."

Cultures from around the world respect their elders for the wealth of knowledge they possess, but it's rare that humans get a chance to learn from the elders of an entirely different species.

This old bear, who has taught both her own kind and those from the human race, will likely live to see another spring, Barten said -- provided she continues to fatten up before winter.

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Black bears invading Juneau. The Associated Press () 09/13/2011 8:21 PM
JUNEAU -- More and more black bears are cruising Juneau's downtown.

Department of Fish and Game biologist Ryan Scott told the Juneau Empire that several calls came in over the weekend about bears spotted downtown.

Scott said winter is on its way and the bears are looking for food. He said there have been reports of at least one black bear family consisting of a sow and two cubs, as well as a lone adult that has been showing up. A car hit a bear on Saturday.

Scott said it's not unusual to have bear sightings in town this time of year.

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By Tuan C. Nguyen | September 15, 2011, 6:37 AM PDT



For outdoor enthusiasts who can’t decide whether to go camping or boating, a new invention will soon enable them to do both.

On the surface, the Sealander amphibious trailer looks like your typical towable camping contraption, but the “amphibious” part means you can back it right onto a lake — at which point it becomes a motorized boat.

Although the trailer is built to operate on shallow waters, it’s comprised of fiberglass reinforced plastic, meaning it can float with the best of them. The chassis even features a double hull design, which prevents the boat from sinking even if the outer shell suffers a puncture.

The interior offers all the basic mobile living amenities such as cooking, washing, cooling, heating as well as two benches from which passengers can stretch out and gaze up at the starlit night sky, thanks to the camper’s removable roof. All onboard facilities are powered by a 5 hp electric motor that doubles as a boat engine.

The trailer’s designer, a German fellow named Daniel Straub, plans to produce more sophisticated versions that offer deluxe options like a bathroom and would also be capable of cruising more challenging water environments.

“In future I hope to develop larger versions of the floating caravans which can run on other waters,” he told the Daily Mail.



The Sealander, which debuted at Caravan Salon in Dusseldorf, is scheduled to go into production at the beginning of 2012 with an early estimated price of $20,500.

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Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

http://"http://www.space.com/12899-n...fographic.html

Last week, NASA warned that large fragments from a satellite may survive when it re-enters the atmosphere sometime between September and early October. Now the agency has revised their forecast and predicts that the debris is due to fall back to Earth sometime between Sept. 23 and 25th.

Scientists came up with the latest projection after factoring in some newly detected atmospheric conditions, primarily the fact that the sun has become more active as of late. The effect of this is that it creates more atmospheric drag for satellites in a stage of decaying orbit.

Researchers are still gathering data and tracking the satellite as it approaches it’s descent. But here are a few facts that we do know:

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite weighs six tons and will disintegrate into pieces as it barrels down from the skies. The biggest chunk is expected to weigh 300 pounds.
The geographic range of where it’ll land will likely be anywhere in latitude between northern Canada and southern South America.
An analysis shows that satellite bits will likely scatter within an area of 500 miles (800 kilometers)
There’s a chance that people in the U.S. will get to see debris passing through the skies as UARS makes a final drop.
Now here’s the part that’s got more than a few people on edge about this whole situation: There’s a 1 in 3,200 chance that the debris will actually strike a human earthling.

Personally, I think the possibility is so remote that it’s not worth losing sleep over. But I can see how the circumstances surrounding this possible life-threatening event strikes at the core of people’s anxieties — rational or not.

Here’s why this whole satellite-going-rogue business is so scary:

It’s going to happen (fall to earth) and there’s no way to prevent it.
It’s unpredictable. No one can pinpoint the exact location of where it’s going to land. Otherwise we can just draw an X at the specific coordinates and evacuate the area around that spot.
People are left defenseless. Unless we all can walk around with some impenetrable shield hovering over us then, yeah, we’re sitting ducks.
Fortunately NASA does offer some semblance of reassurance. They’ve repeatedly reminded the public that throughout the history of plummeting space junk, no one has ever been hit. And since UARS was launched in 1991, the agency has enacted stringent safety requirements to avoid these kinds of scenarios.

“Now, they have to save enough fuel to either put the satellite in a graveyard orbit or guide it back in” to Earth in a controlled manner, Victoria Samson, Director of the Secure World Foundation, told SPACE.com. “That wasn’t actually standard operating procedure back then.”

In the meantime, NASA will continue to monitor the situation closely and provide constant updates along the way. There’s even a website for users to track the satellite’s location in real-time.

(via Space.com)

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Here is a link where you can track the above satellite in real time. I find it interesting to do, especially when it's time to hit earth is closer.
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http://www.n2yo.com/?s=21701"]http:/...o.com/?s=21701

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By*Janet Fang*| September 15, 2011, 1:27 AM PDT

Using laser Doppler imaging, Swiss startup*Aïmago*has just developed the*EasyLDI Microcirculation Camera, which offers real-time images of blood circulating under the skin.



The FDA-approved, diagnostic imaging device is designed to help assess the extent and severity of burns, and it’s been trialed by burn specialists and reconstructive surgeons atCHUV University Hospitalin Lausanne, Switzerland.
In particular, doctors and nurses can take instantaneous digital photos of, essentially, heart beats and the resulting changes to blood vessels – in the OR or at the bedside. This helps them decide whether to undergo surgery or not, up to 3 days sooner.

Connected to a flexible arm, the camera can be placed over the burn area.
On the other side, facing the picture-taker, a video screen displays color variations for differences in the intensity of circulation (pictured).
“Red means high blood flow, blue means low blood flow,”*explains Michael Friedrich of Aïmago, based atEcole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. With this information, the user can see whether the burnt tissue still has blood supply or not; it can also determine the viability of skin tissue before it’s transferred between different body parts.

If the tissue has no blood supply, it can’t recover: “it’s going to die so you need to do skin grafting,” Friedrich adds. But if the skin is perfused – with blood still flowing through – then “it’s going to heal spontaneously without scarring.”

By making use of the Doppler Effect,*laser Doppler imaging*(LDI) tracks the movement of the red blood cellsto discriminate between perfusion, concentration and average speed of the blood flow.



The camera fires laser beams at the skin using a near-infrared laser.
These are reflected by red blood cells in small vessels in the skin.
The movement of red blood cells results in a tiny shift in the frequency of the light as it impacts upon the cells.
These Doppler shifts are detected by the device and transformed into color variations on the screen.
By delivering more than 12 images a second, the camera can detect the effect of the patient’s heart beat in the circulation images – and quickly, to limit time wounds are kept exposed.
There are a range of burn depths between a superficial and a full-thickness burn where even experienced burn clinicians will misdiagnose about a third of the time, but if you add the laser Doppler to clinical judgment, you get it right about 98% of the time.

A rival laser Doppler imager built byMoor Instruments*is already in use at several UK hospitals. But it only provides static images. EasyLDI promises to be the real-time, high resolution alternative.

Clinical data from the trial was being presented at the14th European Burns Association Congress*in the Hague on Wednesday. Via*BBC.

Images:*Aïmago

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Speaking of bears in Juneau. From here http://www.kinyradio.com/juneaunews/...ek/friday.html

Boy talks about sighting drown bear cub in Douglas Harbor
With the permission of his parents, we have interviewed the 10 year old boy who spotted that black bear cub that was in danger of drowning in Douglas Harbor Sunday afternoon.

Cedar Miles, the son of Lisa and Tim Miles, was on the stern of the Challenger, their tugboat home at the time reading.

He saw what looked like a dog having trouble swimming along the new breakwater. Cedar that scared him because the animal kept falling off and going under water and Cedar was afraid he was drowning.

So he went and told his mom who alerted his dad.

Tim sought the help of his neighbor and they took Tim Sexton's skiff out to make the rescue.

Cedar wishes now he would have been on the skiff to help in the rescue.

When we asked at the end of the interview if he had anything to add, Cedar took an opportunity to make this plug on a totally different subject.

He urged everyone to participate in Ocean Clean Up Day Saturday.

We're told Cedar is home schooled.



Jim

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Great bear rescue story Jim. Thanks.

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KMBC-TV
PECULIAR, Mo. — A Peculiar, Mo., widow who was hit with an unusually large water bill is getting help from strangers to help pay it.

Liana Crane said her $941.80 water bill was way out of line with what she usually has to pay. She said she thought there was a mistake, and city officials said it was possible.

“My normal usage is around 6,000 gallons a month,” Crane said. “This month they’re telling me I used 60,300 gallons.”

"Any time you have a bill of that magnitude, it's alarming to anybody," said Peculiar City Administrator Brad Ratliff.

The city checked Crane's meter and the line leading up to it and both tested fine. Since the city buys water from an outside source, it couldn't just waive the excessive fees.

Crane, a mother of three whose husband died in Afghanistan, said Thursday that she wasn't sure how she would be able to find the money to pay the bill.

"I don't have it. I don't have it," she said.

A series of anonymous donors who heard about Crane's story on KMBC Thursday stepped in to help. They sent emails to KMBC offering money to help pay her bill.

"I'm just thankful for being in the position to help another," said one.

"Please tell her that she has guardian angels around her and know that there are people that truly care," said another.

Crane said she has been overwhelmed by the response. She said she plans to pay the kindness forward however she can.

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It has wings and a powerful engine that allows you take to the great blue skies. But just don’t call it an airplane — alright?

The FlyNano personal aircraft, developed by inventor Aki Suokas, recently debuted at the Aero 2011 show in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The aircraft, which takes off and lands on water, is compact and quite speedy. It has a wingspan of about 16 feet, a top airspeed of about 90 mph and can travel a distance of up to 43 miles on a full tank of fuel, depending on the model.

However, it doesn’t have enough room for passengers or cargo — but there’s a reason for that.

Consisting entirely of a lightweight carbon fiber composite material, the single-seat FlyNano weighs less than 155 pounds, which means it isn’t technically considered an airplane and can be operated in some countries or districts without a pilot’s license.

In the U.S., the aircraft would probably be classified as a “light-sport aircraft.” According to the Federal Aviation Administration, an aircraft is considered light-sport if it has a top speed less than 140 mph, a landing speed less than 52 mph and weighs under 254 pounds.* Pilots would still have to obtain a Sport Aircraft certificate, though the requirements are less stringent than what’s needed to fly a plane.



The aircraft comes in three versions:

The Series E 200 features a 20kW all-electric engine with a top speed of 87 mph and a range of 25 miles on a full charge.
The Series G 240 comes with a 24 bhp petroleum-powered engine that allows for a cruising speed around 80 mph and a range of 44 miles.
The Series R 260/300 is a racing model that’s equipped with a 35 bhp petroleum-powered engine capable of a 90 mph top speed and a range of 44 miles.
If you’d like your own FlyNano, the company is taking orders and plans to deliver the earliest batches in the summer with the least expensive model starting at $39,000 dollars.

Check out their website at www.flynano.com to learn more.

Photo: FlyNano

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If you like to know about your privacy, the lack of, and how to gain more of it. Here is Cnet. It is one place I like to get email from. This link takes you to their site and opens an article with many interesting things you can check out.

http://m.cnet.com/Article.rbml?nid=2...&bcid=&bid=-83

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Electric cars currently in the market are limited by their range and charging times. But now researchers at Toyota Central R&D Labs*and*Toyohashi University of Technology think they*may have come up with a solution that will allow electric cars to drive unlimited distances - electrified roadways.

While the idea of electrifying roadways has been mulled for decades — previous efforts have included*attempts to charge coils attached to a car through electrified coils placed on the road — this technology would allow energy to enter a car through its tires (which makes far more sense considering it’s unreasonable to expect coils in a moving car to perfectly align. Tires, on the other hand, have direct contact with the road).

Electrified metal plates buried under the streets would send energy via a radio frequency to a steel belt inside a car’s tires, as well as to a plate sitting above the tire, Fast Company reports.

The Toyohashi Newsletter says, “The source of energy from power*lines is up-converted into radio frequency (RF) by high-speed inverters implanted along tracks in the road. The RF voltage is applied to a balanced metal track embedded under the surface of the road. The EV picks up the RF voltage via electrical capacitance between the metal and a steel belt installed inside of the tires of the EV.”

While the tests have only been used on low voltages, researchers believe energy transfer onto a running automobile is feasible and can provide enough power to run a standard electric car. In the long run, the set-up would allow electric vehicles to use smaller battery packs as well, considering they could get their remaining power from the electrified highways.

The concept does raise some concerns about the expense and time that is required to dig up roads to install the infrastructure or from the dangers to the public caused by*stepping on an electrified metal strip — but a version of the the idea is currently being implemented at Boston’s Logan Airport, so we’ll wait and see what the outcome is.

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BALLOONING: Arachnids were using silk to catch air, relocate.
By ROSEMARY SHINOHARA Anchorage Daily News
Published: September 20th, 2011 09:28



Tom Underwood was walking his golden retriever near the Huffman Park Drive post office earlier this month when he came across an extraordinary sight: a field with silky, white webs strewn over the tops of a wide swath of yarrow, fireweed and other plants, in a strip maybe 20-feet deep and 40-feet long.The gauze was filled with lots and lots of spiders -- itself unusual since most spiders don't gather in groups.

Underwood's discovery was interesting enough to a Cooperative Extension Service pest technician that he collected some of the spiders, preserved them, and sent the specimens and photos to a spider expert in Fairbanks.

The spiders, says expert Brandi Fleshman, were trying to use their silk to catch air and migrate somewhere else. It's called ballooning.

"I would say the event is somewhat unusual," Fleshman said in an e-mail. She said it's not something you see every day, but it's not unheard of. *Fleshman is a University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student who is expanding scientists' knowledge of spiders in Alaska. Starting in 2007 when she was an undergraduate, she has been researching, collecting and adding to the list of kinds of spiders known to be inhabit Alaska. It's now over 500, from less than 300 that had been listed by others.

Ballooning, she said, "involves climbing up on some high surface like the tops of vegetation, raising their body up (basically standing on their tip-toes), and letting out strands of silk into the wind. If the updraft is enough to catch the silk and produce lift, the spider lets go and is carried off as far as the breeze will take it."

It may take many tries, and with a lot of spiders doing it, the silk may accumulate, she said.

Derek Sikes, curator of insects for the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks, said in the Aleutians spiders get from island to island this way.

The spiders next to the Huffman post office were pea-sized (including their legs) of a species that is widespread across much of the world. They are Centromerus sylvaticus, Fleshman said.

The species has not been reported as gregarious, she said. "However, there are numerous accounts in the literature of mass dispersal events of spiders" -- a bunch of them attempting to move from a particular spot at once.

When she first saw photos of the Huffman spiders and their silk, she thought they might be leaving because of poor conditions for overwintering there, she said in an e-mail to the Cooperative Extension technician in Anchorage, Michael Rasy. But on further study, she learned that there would likely be more species of spiders migrating with them if that were the case.

Another likely conclusion found in spider literature is that such migration is "a natural part of the life cycle of some spiders, and just something they do after maturing," said Fleshman.

Spiders from the a single species would mature around the same time, which might be why so many tried to go at once, she said.

"I can only speculate."

Where the spiders from Huffman ended up is a mystery.

Underwood, the dog-walker who found them, said he went back a few days after he spotted the spiders and gauze -- which was around Sept. 6 -- and the spiders and most of the silk were gone.

Reach Rosemary Shinohara at*rshinohara@adn.com*or*257-4340.*

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According to the research of the Heinz Ketchup Road Trip, 63 percent of people are ‘dippers’ and 37 percent are ’squeezers’. The redesigned individual ketchup packets combine both functions into one convenient container.



The new packet is a flat tray similar to individual jelly packets but with the silhouette of a squat ketchup bottle. The ‘mouth’ end tears off easily for squeezing and the bottom peels back for convenient dipping. The new container holds three times as much ketchup as the typical tear-and-squeeze model. The company hopes customers adapt to the larger size and reduce the quantity normally grabbed.

The development of a redesigned package is over forty years in the making. When the individual packets were first introduced in 1968, the company received complaints the following year. The biggest quibbles were the inability to dip on the go and messy accidents from hard to open packets. Much like the original ketchup recipe, the complaints haven’t changed. Modern day rants have led to anti-ketchup packet Facebook pages.

Design research incorporated french fries and user observations in situ–minivans used for actual road and meal tests. The studies found that customers wanted a package that could easily be set on an armrest, offered the choice to dip or squeeze, and held an adequate amount for a meal in one packet.



The redesigned packets were introduced in select restaurants in the fall of 2010 and the overwhelmingly positive response convinced the company to release the design in restaurants nationwide. Now for the first time, Heinz is making the individual packets available for purchase in retail stores.

The world’s largest producer of ketchup has created a YouTube page for fans to spread the good condiment news. Watch a video showing the new packet in action below:




Via: WSJ online

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By Meghan Casserly
You can pick your friends; you can pick your job. But you can’t pick your colleagues any more than you can the next assignment to come down from upper management. It’s no surprise, then, that not everycolleague is a good one. A recent study cosponsored by TODAY.comand SELF.com revealed that 84% of women have a friend who is “toxic” in their lives—and many of them are found on the job.
And when workplace friendships go sour, job performance can suffer. One in four people in the survey said that ending a workplace friendship at work left them in a strained “working” relationship as well.
“There’s a difference between working with friends and making friends with the people you work with,” says TODAY’s senior editor Julia Sommerfeld on workplace friendships. “Most people don’t get the choice, so you just have to make the best of it.”
In Pictures: Toxic Workplace Friends
The best way to avoid a toxic workplace friendship that could potentially derail your career? Learn to identify the tell-tale signs of the nine most poisonous personality types—and be sure to keep your (at least emotional) distance.

The Big Mouth
Twenty-seven percent of us have had a friend who blabbed our secrets, and at work one slip can be the difference between respect and embarrassment—especially when it comes to the goings-on after the latest company happy hour. A too-talkative cubicle mate can be worse than a public Facebook wall. Keep your personal details and at-work secrets close when you work with an overly social butterfly.
The Bad Influence
The bad influencer is probably your most fun work friend, which could make her the most insidious. The happy-hour-organizing, long-lunch-taking, “one-more-cocktail” having good time pal. Problem is, those bad habits have rubbed off in 23% of survey respondents. So enjoy her company, but be wary of her leaving-early-coming-late attitude. And never stay till last call.
The Betrayer
The betrayer will sell you out to the first questioning supervisor who comes your way. Thirty-five percent of survey respondents said that they’ve been thrown under the bus by a friend, and at workplace this toxic pal is most easily spotted as the type who never takes the blame for her own mistakes. You don’t want to be her next scapegoat, do you? Be warned.
The Chronic Downer
“A work buddy who is a chronic downer may actually be the most hazardous to your career—and your mental health,” says Sommerfeld of the 59% of survey respondents who say they know the type. Attitude can be contagious. Having a downer of a friend can take you down a path of negativity and the next thing you know, “you and your friend are having gripe-fests that drain your time and energy.” Worse, management could get wind of your b---- sessions and your reputation could suffer. Make a conscious effort to abstain from complaining with colleagues and workplace friends. If your friendship with this Negative Nancy fizzles once you stop feeding the flames, better a lost friendship that a lost job.
The Critic
Fifty-five percent of us have a high-horsed pal who is wont to judge our actions. But surprisingly, Sommerfeld says, very few survey respondents placed these critical pals in the workplace. “The judgmental friend phenomenon doesn’t seem to be what really raises hackles at work as much as personality,” she says.
In Pictures: Toxic Workplace Friends

TheFlake
You know the flake—your colleague who always needs to be rescued or calls in sick on the day of a big meeting without so much as sending you an email heads-up. “The flake can be a real time suck and leave you feeling bitter and taken advantage of,” says Sommerfeld. Avoid partnering with this hazardous homie at all costs. Or at the very least, enforce strict daily deadlines so you’re never left in the lurch. Better to be the productivity police than to be left unprepared on the morning of the biggest meeting of your career.
TheNarcissist
The most commonly cited toxic friend, narcissists are all about themselves. Sixty-five percent of survey respondents have endured an egomaniacal pal, but for the wary worker, they’re easily spotted—and managed. “If you have a narcissistic friend,” says Sommerfeld, “enjoy her elaborate stories and know she’s probably not going to ask how you’re doing in return. Just don’t give her the chance to steal the credit for something [you’ve accomplished] at the office.”
The Rival
The rival is a friend who is way too competitive, which seems like the biggest workplace threat, but Sommerfeld stresses that there’s a simple “straightforwardness” to a super-competitive pal. “When you’re vying for the same promotion, you know where you stand. You probably aren’t going to leave yourself open with such a friend, especially at work.”
The Underminer
Forty-five percent of survey respondents have friends that serve up compliments with a side-dish of digging, and at work, this can be especially pervasive. “This is the friend who acts like he or she is on your side,” Sommerfeld warns, “but subverts you with backhanded compliments, especially in front of a boss or colleague.” As in: “You did a great job with that RFP, Kaitlyn, it was almost good enough that I’d want to take credit for it myself!”
Read full story "Toxic Colleagues: Nine Coworkers To Watch Out For" on Forbes.com

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Have you ever been primed? I mean has anyone ever deliberately influenced your subconscious mind and altered your perception of reality without your knowing it? Whole Foods Market, and others, are doing it to you right now.

Derren Brown, a British illusionist famous for his mind-reading act, set out to prove just how susceptible we are to the many thousands of signals we're exposed to each day. He approached two creatives from the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi for the "test." On their journey to his office, Brown arranged for carefully placed clues to appear surreptitiously on posters and balloons, in shop windows, and on t-shirts worn by passing pedestrians.

Upon their arrival, the two creatives were given 20 minutes to come up with a campaign for a fictional taxidermy store. Derren Brown also left them a sealed envelope that was only to be opened once they'd presented their campaign. Twenty minutes later, they presented and then opened the envelope. Lo and behold, Derren Brown's plans for the taxidermy store were remarkably similar to the ad campaign, with an astounding 95% overlap.

An interesting experiment, you may say, but hardly a trick you'd fall for. But bear this in mind — it's more than likely you were well primed the last time you went shopping.
Let's take for example Whole Foods, a market chain priding itself on selling the highest quality, freshest, and most environmentally sound produce. No one could argue that their selection of organic food and take-away meals are whole, hearty, and totally delicious. But how much thought have you given to how they're actually presenting their wares? Have you considered the carefully planning that's goes into every detail that meets the eye?

In my new book "Brandwashed," I explore the many strategies retailers use to encourage us to spend more than we need to — more than we intend to. Without a shadow of doubt, Whole Foods (Nasdaq: WFM - News) leads the pack in consumer priming.

Let's pay a visit to Whole Foods' splendid Columbus Circle store in New York City. As you descend the escalator you enter the realm of a freshly cut flowers. These are what advertisers call "symbolics" — unconscious suggestions. In this case, letting us know that what's before us is bursting with freshness.

Flowers, as everyone knows, are among the freshest, most perishable objects on earth. Which is why fresh flowers are placed right up front — to "prime" us to think of freshness the moment we enter the store. Consider the opposite — what if we entered the store and were greeted with stacks of canned tuna and plastic flowers? Having been primed at the outset, we continue to carry that association, albeit subconsciously, with us as we shop.

The prices for the flowers, as for all the fresh fruits and vegetables, are scrawled in chalk on fragments of black slate — a tradition of outdoor European marketplaces. It's as if the farmer pulled up in front of Whole Foods just this morning, unloaded his produce, then hopped back in his flatbed truck to drive back upstate to his country farm. The dashed-off scrawl also suggests the price changes daily, just as it might at a roadside farm stand or local market. But in fact, most of the produce was flown in days ago, its price set at the Whole Foods corporate headquarters in Texas. Not only do the prices stay fixed, but what might look like chalk on the board is actually indelible; the signs have been mass-produced in a factory.

Ever notice that there's ice everywhere in this store? Why? Does hummus really need to be kept so cold? What about cucumber-and-yogurt dip? No and no. This ice is another symbolic. Similarly, for years now supermarkets have been sprinkling select vegetables with regular drops of water — a trend that began in Denmark. Why? Like ice displays, those sprinkled drops serve as a symbolic, albeit a bogus one, of freshness and purity. Ironically, that same dewy mist makes the vegetables rot more quickly than they would otherwise. So much for perception versus reality.

Speaking of fruit, you may think a banana is just a banana, but it's not. Dole and other banana growers have turned the creation of a banana into a science, in part to manipulate perceptions of freshness. In fact, they've issued a banana guide to greengrocers, illustrating the various color stages a banana can attain during its life cycle. Each color represents the sales potential for the banana in question. For example, sales records show that bananas with Pantone color 13-0858 (otherwise known as Vibrant Yellow) are less likely to sell than bananas with Pantone color 12-0752 (also called Buttercup), which is one grade warmer, visually, and seems to imply a riper, fresher fruit. Companies like Dole have analyzed the sales effects of all varieties of color and, as a result, plant their crops under conditions most ideal to creating the right 'color.' And as for apples? Believe it or not, my research found that while it may look fresh, the average apple you see in the supermarket is actually 14 months old.

Then there's those cardboard boxes with anywhere from eight to ten fresh cantaloupes packed inside each one. These boxes could have been unpacked easily by any one of Whole Foods' employees, but they're left that way on purpose. Why? For that rustic, aw-shucks touch. In other words, it's a symbolic to reinforce the idea of old-time simplicity. But wait, something about these boxes looks off. Upon close inspection, this stack of crates looks like one giant cardboard box. It can't be, can it? It is. In fact, it's one humongous cardboard box with fissures cut carefully down the side that faces consumers (most likely by some industrial machinery at a factory in China) to make it appear as though this one giant cardboard box is made up of multiple stacked boxes. It's ingenious in its ability to evoke the image of Grapes of Wrath-era laborers piling box after box of fresh fruit into the store.

So the next time you happen to grab your wallet to go shopping, don't be fooled: retailers for better or for worse, are the masters of seduction and priming — brandwashing us to believe in perception rather than reality.

Martin Lindstrom is a 2009 recipient of TIME Magazine's "World's 100 Most Influential People" and author of "Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy" (Doubleday, New York), a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller. His latest book, "Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy," will be released in September.
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Hydrogen car: Femme fatale?

By Mark Halper | September 21, 2011, 5:05 AM

Honda's FCX Clarity hydrogen sedan, somewhere other than Swindon

Honda opened the UK’s first hydrogen filling station this week, not too far from where I live. Just as I was about to say “yay,” I hesitated and wondered out loud: “Wait, is that safe?”

As someone once said to me, “remember the Hindenburg,” the hydrogen blimp that exploded 74 years ago, killing 36 people in New Jersey.

My understanding of hydrogen is that it’s extremely volatile. It wants to explode. To give you one example from the energy industry: Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors blew up when hydrogen pulled away from water and went boom in the heat buildup.

I’m not suggesting that we go nuclear over the prospects of hydrogen cars bursting into flames when, say, they get rear-ended. And I’m not singling out Honda. Their opening in Swindon, England, which supports the Honda FCX Clarity hydrogen sedan, simply marks an occasion to ask level headed questions.

As long the industry is taking considerable time to work out the economics and distribution of hydrogen, I’d like to hear more about whether these cars are safe. I’d hate to see fireproof jumpsuits added to the list of government-mandated driving requirements, along with seat belts. After all, the fledgling blimp resurgence is using helium, not hydrogen.

I’ve quickly trawled the Internet and noticed that some hydrogen supporters are fed up with Hindenburg comparisons. They claim that hydrogen cars are as safe as gasoline vehicles (your choice as to whether that’s reassuring). Birmingham University professor and hydrogen expert Kevin Kendall reiterates that, noting in a BBC video, “Like petrol, you’ve got to be careful.” (You probably know that “petrol” is Brit speak for gasoline, but I translate nonetheless).

In the spirit of blogging, I ask: Is that gorgeous car pictured above (good looking for a sedan, anyway) a femme fatale beckoning you into a fireball? Or is it a symbol of a fossil fuel free automobile future where, by the way, refueling will take minutes rather than the hours of electric battery charging? None of the above? Or, as is usually the case, does the truth lie somewhere in between?

Your comments, please.
Photo: Paul Moak Honda/Flickr
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