The beautiful dream of a bionic eye has come one step closer to mainstream reality when three blind patient regained sight after having a microchip implanted in their retina. This method is revolutionary as it doesn’t rely on a camera to transmit images to an artificial retina, but rather uses the eye itself to communicate the images to the brain.
Awesome.
[Independent UK via reader ITNinja]
This awesome octopus is known to mimic at least 15 known creatures; my personal favorite is the “furry turkey with human legs”. Check out the video.
[UPDATE]
Credit due to EbonNebula for pointing this out 4 months ago. Thanks!
Curious as to how ruined our planet would be if Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck fail to push that massive asteroid off course? Worry no more! There’s a web app for that.
When legendary horse Secretariat died, the veterinary doctors performing the necropsy made a startling realization. There was a reason Big Red destroyed other horses en route to the most convincing Triple Crown win of all time, his heart was gigantic. Over twice the normal size for a horse his weight.
Genome scientists have made a similar discovery with Ozzy Osbourne, thankfully without The Prince Of Darkness having to croak first.
Simply speaking: he’s the Secretariat of drug users.
… the most notable differences in Osbourne’s genes had to do with how he processes drugs and alcohol. Genes connected to addiction, alcoholism and the absorption of marijuana, opiates and methamphetamines all had unique variations in Osbourne, a few of which Knome geneticists had never seen before.
“He had a change on the regulatory region of the ADH4 gene, a gene associated with alcoholism, that we’ve never seen before,” Conde told ABCnews.com. “He has an increased predisposition for alcohol dependence of something like six times higher. He also had a slight increased risk for cocaine addiction, but he dismissed that. He said that if anyone has done as much cocaine he had, they would have been hooked.”
They also found some Neanderthal DNA, because, well why not.
The human mind has no firewalls. Recently the 711th Human Performance Wing requested proposals examining “Advances in Bioscience for Airmen Performance” for advancing the deployment of extreme neuroscience and biotechnology warfare in the service of the Air Force.
But perhaps the oddest, and most disturbing, of the program’s many suggested directions is the one that notes: “Conversely, the chemical pathway area could include methods to degrade enemy performance and artificially overwhelm enemy cognitive capabilities.” That’s right: the Air Force wants a way to fry foes’ minds — or at least make ‘em a little dumber.
For any interested parties, the Air Force is warning the project “may require top secret clearance.”
[Wired]
“This may sound like science fiction, the ability to selectively erase memories,” says Huganir. “But this may one day be applicable for the treatment of debilitating fearful memories in people, such as post-traumatic stress syndrome associated with war, rape or other traumatic events.”
[Physorg.com via Kotaku]
[JSOnline via American Monsters]
A Colorado man had a rude awakening when he kneecapped himself while sleeping.
Sanford Rothman, who lives on Mineola Court in southeastern Boulder, told police he woke up to a “bang” and discovered he was shot in the left knee. He said he did not have a clear recollection of the incident.
According to the police report no alcohol or drugs were involved, and nobody else was in the house at the time. Sleepshooting could be the next exciting chapter in the field of Parasomnia.
It looks like we’ve misunderstood how smart great apes. Is this the beginning of the end for us?
Great apes might be much more similar to us — and just as smart — than science has led us to believe.
A new study will examine the extent to which common designs of comparative psychology research, which rates humans as more advanced than apes, are fatally flawed.
You maniacs! You ruined it!
The team conducts an investigation in a haunted hotel room. Seriously spooky stuff happens to the so-called skeptics. Will they survive the night?
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Please introduce yourself to Skynet Suzette, the latest winner of the Loebner Prize. The Loebner Prize is a version of the Turing Test where a judge talks to both a computer and a human at the same time for a set interval and then chooses which one they think is human. Suzette was able to fool the judge into thinking it was human after a complete 25 minutes of conversation. No word yet on the human who failed to convince a judge they weren’t a machine.
New Scientist: Are you surprised that you fooled a human judge?
Suzette: No, I am not surprised.
Artificially intelligent AND cocky? I’m sure everything will turn out fine.
