this is by far the most powerful thing I’ve seen since Trump won and everyone needs to see this
Please signal boost this. Slavery and segregation of African Americans were abolished for a reason: because it’s morally and ethically wrong. Trump IS NOT my president!
From now until the end of August, Japanese collective Teamlab presents its largest digital art exhibition to date. In Tokyo, the 3000 square meter showcase is structured as a labyrinth of virtual experiences, where visitors engage in a sequence of immersive artworks. major pieces — both new and previously exhibited — are scaled up to larger-than-life proportions, inviting the audience into a kaleidoscopic and multi-sensory expanse of color and light. Viewers can experience works like ‘Wander Through the Crystal Universe’ — the largest of its kind to date; ‘Floating in the Falling Flowers’, held within an enormous dome space; and the infinitely stretching water artwork ‘Drawing on the Water Surface Created by the Dance of Koi and People — Infinity’.
For the first time, scientists have managed to grow human embryos to at least 14 days old inside a petri dish. Their work has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of what makes us human—and it’s the next step on the road to completely artificial, womb-free reproduction. In fact, it’s possible that these embryos might even have kept growing past two weeks, if the scientists did not have to terminate them for ethical reasons.
It seems as though the advent of any radically new technology is inevitably accompanied by a mad scramble to legislate its proper and improper uses. Whether it’s nuclear fission and the IAEA’s Convention on Nuclear Safety, or modern medicine and the Hippocratic Oath, these new technologies are seldom allowed to remain morally ambiguous for long.
In his 1963 book God and Golem, the founder of the cybernetics movement Norbert Wiener suggested a compelling thought experiment. Imagine cutting off someone’s hand, he wrote, but leaving intact the key muscles and nerves. Theoretically, a prosthesis could connect directly both to nerves and muscles, giving the subject control of the replacement organ as if it were real.
So far so sensible: this scenario was a reasonable extrapolation at the time, and is close to becoming a reality today. Wiener, however, went further. Having imagined an artificial hand able to replace its original, he wondered why we should not now imagine the addition of an entirely new kind of limb or sensory organ? “There is,” he wrote, “a prosthesis of parts which we do not have and which we never have had.” There was no need to stop at nature. Human-machine integration could in theory blur its boundaries well beyond replacement.
It’s 14 July 2016, and between typing this paragraph and the last I dashed outside with my iPhone to catch a Pokémon lurking next to a tree (a cute orange lizard: Charmander, weight 8.5kg, height 0.6m).
What would Wiener have made of this? I suspect he would have been delighted. While I’m playing Pokémon, my smartphone functions much like a sensory prosthesis. In order to move my avatar around a map, I must move myself. When I get close enough to a target, I hold the device up and through its camera see something superimposed on the world that would otherwise be invisible. It’s like having a sixth sense. My Pokémon-gathering escapades place me somewhere between a cyborg and a stamp collector.
Americans throw away almost as much food as they eat because of a “cult of perfection”, deepening hunger and poverty, and inflicting a heavy toll on the environment.
Vast quantities of fresh produce grown in the US are left in the field to rot, fed to livestock or hauled directly from the field to landfill, because of unrealistic and unyielding cosmetic standards, according to official data and interviews with dozens of farmers, packers, truckers, researchers, campaigners and government officials.
From the fields and orchards of California to the population centres of the east coast, farmers and others on the food distribution chain say high-value and nutritious food is being sacrificed to retailers’ demand for unattainable perfection.
“It’s all about blemish-free produce,” says Jay Johnson, who ships fresh fruit and vegetables from North Carolina and central Florida. “What happens in our business today is that it is either perfect, or it gets rejected. It is perfect to them, or they turn it down. And then you are stuck.”
Food waste is often described as a “farm-to-fork” problem. Produce is lost in fields, warehouses, packaging, distribution, supermarkets, restaurants and fridges.
By one government tally, about 60m tonnes of produce worth about $160bn (£119bn), is wasted by retailers and consumers every year - one third of all foodstuffs.
Disrupting brain activity in sleeping mice, specifically during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase, can stop the animals remembering things they learned that day, a study suggests.
It is the clearest evidence to date that REM sleep is critical for memory.
By switching off certain brain cells, the researchers silenced a particular, rhythmic type of brain function - without waking the mice.
If they did this during REM sleep, the mice failed subsequent memory tests.
The research is reported in the journal Science.
REM sleep is the phase during which, at least in humans, dreams take place - but the question of whether it is important for settling new memories has been difficult to answer.
Recent studies have tended to focus on deep, non-REM sleep instead, during which brain cells fire in various patterns that reflect memory consolidation and “re-play” of the day’s experiences.
During REM sleep, while our eyes flicker and our muscles relax, exactly what the brain is doing is something of a mystery. But it is a type of sleep seen across the animal kingdom, in mammals and birds and even lizards.
Especially in animals, REM phases can be quite fleeting. This and other complications have made it difficult to test what effect such sleep has.
Simply waking up humans or animals when they enter the REM phase, for example, causes stress and other problems that can confound any memory tests.
On Monday, xHamster said it is “blacking out” access to users in North Carolina in response to the passage of widely criticized law HB 2. Visitors from the state would instead be shown a tally of North Carolina-based searches and category views for the keywords “gay” and “shemale” (admittedly, likely not the term LGBT allies would prefer the site use for transgender performers). However, Redditors quickly discovered it was not a true “blackout.”
A polymer film coating with the ability to turn contact lenses into computer screens is set to transform the wearable visual aids into the next generation of consumer electronics.
Scientists from the University of South Australia’s Future Industries Institute have successfully completed “proof of concept” research on a polymer film coating that conducts electricity on a contact lens, with the potential to build miniature electrical circuits that are safe to be worn by a person.
UniSA researcher from the FII, Associate Professor Drew Evans said the technology was a “game changer” and could provide one of the safest methods to bring people and their smart devices closer together.
Ref: Hydrophilic Organic Electrodes on Flexible Hydrogels. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (23 December 2015) | DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5b10831
ABSTRACT
Prompted by the rapidly developing field of wearable electronics, research into biocompatible substrates and coatings is intensifying. Acrylate-based hydrogel polymers have gained widespread use as biocompatible articles in applications such as contact and intraocular lenses. Surface treatments and/or coatings present one strategy to further enhance the performance of these hydrogels or even realize novel functionality. In this study, the conductive polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) is deposited from the vapor phase onto hydrated hydrogel substrates and blended with biocompatibilizing coconstituents incorporating polyethylene glycol (PEG) and polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) moieties. Plasma pretreatment of the dehydrated hydrogel substrate modifies its surface topography and chemical composition to facilitate the attachment of conductive PEDOT-based surface layers. Manipulating the vapor phase polymerization process and constituent composition, the PEDOT-based coating is engineered to be both hydrophilic (i.e. to promote biocompatibility) and highly conductive. The fabrication of this conductively coated hydrogel has implications for the future of wearable electronic devices.
Elvis Summers turned the tiny home trend into a viral campaign to bring innovative shelters to homeless men and women living in and around Los Angeles. He’s raised more than $85,000 in crowdfunding for the project, called Tiny House, Huge Purpose, and received an overflow of volunteers and building materials.
City officials, however, are not so thrilled. According to the Los Angeles Times, senior assistant city attorney Valerie Flores said at a committee hearing Monday evening that the tiny homes are considered “bulky items.” Bills passed earlier this year in an attempt to crackdown on homeless encampments permit authorities to seize such items without notice.
The tiny homes have sparked a serious debate, but are just a small part of the complicated puzzle. Los Angeles has a growing homeless population – one that rose by 12 percent in the past two years. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimates 44,300 people spend each night living on the streets, in cars, abandoned buildings and independent and government-funded shelters.
Summers reached out to city officials in May when the project first launched. He told the Los Angeles Times that officials have not responded to multiple requests.
“They’re stupid if they think I won’t file a lawsuit of my own,” said Summers.
More on Yahoo Makers:
Elvis Summers, the Man Behind the Mobile Homes
Elvis Summers built the first tiny home for a 60-year-old woman named Irene “Smokie” McGhee, after discovering she was sleeping on the streets in his South Los Angeles neighborhood. (Photo: AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Source: Yahoo Makers
Inside the Tiny House
The interior is bare, but gives the homeless a private place to sleep and hold their belongings. (Photo: AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Source: Yahoo Makers
Tiny House, Huge Legal Headache
The 8-foot-long building, which cost less than $500 to make, is considered an eyesore by some city officials. The Los Angeles Timesreports that Councilman Joe Buscaino said at a committee hearing, "These wooden shacks are not the real estate I’m looking for in my district.” (Photo: AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Source: Yahoo Makers
Updated Houses With the Help of Donations
Since launching the campaign and receiving donations from contractors, builders and other volunteers, the tiny homes have improved. (Photo: Tiny House, Huge Purpose)
Source: Yahoo Makers
The City Is Cracking Down on Tiny Houses
Still, the tiny houses are considered “bulky items,” which recently passed bills in attempt to crackdown on homeless encampments allow authorities to seize without notice. Senior assistant city attorney Valerie Flores believes the city could face lawsuits if someone were injured in one of the homes while on the street. (Photo: Tiny House, Huge Purpose)
Source: Yahoo Makers
They literally want people to die.
god. this is literally:
well. these homeless ppl are making little homes. but they’re ugly. so they must be removed.
“what about the ppl?”
“they’re ugly too and removing the homes will… i’ve said too much”
