There are a lot of things that I take for granted in life, like water, electricity, food, my wife (I need some brownie points). This poor man has the worst amnesia in the world. Watch the video to find out more about his story. It is truly amazing and makes me grateful for the simple thing called memory!
Astronomy picture of the Day is nothing new to my students over the past few years but I thought that I would write about this and share some of my favorite pictures that I have seen over the years. I was introduced to this website when I was taking a Universe class at the University of Lethbridge. To access APOD go to the following URL: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Here are some of my favorite pics
If you want to see more head on over to Astronomy Picture of the Day
Found this video the other day on YouTube and thought that I would share it here. Take a look and see what a karate chop looks like slowed down thousands of times. Enjoy!!
Here is one of my favorite illusions of all time (second only to the peripheral drift illusion). To see this illusion it is simple. All you need to do is stare at the black dot in the center of the picture for about 30 seconds. When the time is up you need to move your mouse over the image without moving your eyes from the black dot. Do you notice something strange? This illusion was originally found here at johnsadowski.com. He also has a tutorial on how to make your own version of this illusion if you so please. Just to give you some idea of what you are looking at, it is the castle in Disney Worlds Magical Kingdom that I took on holidays. Enjoy!!
I really love seeing new illusions that pop up on the web once and a while. To be honest I think that I have seen almost every single optical illusion available on the web. The reason why I have included this video below is because it is a sound illusion which I am not very familiar with but found it fascinating and I am sure you will as well. If you would like to watch this video in it’s original context click here.
When watching this video the pitch of the sound you hear drops no matter how many times you replay the video. I was amazed that even on the fifth time watching the video it still got lower even though it was the same exact sound. Very interesting. If you read the comments on the original page someone mentions how the illusion is achieved, but I will save you the explanation so you can enjoy the illusion. ENJOY!!
Could it be true that humans could live for 800 years? According to researchers at the University of Southern California they have been able to increase the lifespan of yeast bacteria up to ten times their normal life spans. All that the researchers did was change two genes and limit the calorie intake.
Here is some quoted text from an announcement by PLoS Genetics:
“Researchers have created baker’s yeast capable of living to 800 in yeast years without apparent side effects. The basic but important discovery, achieved through a combination of dietary and genetic changes, brings scientists closer to controlling the survival and health of the unit of all living systems: the cell. “We’re setting the foundation for reprogramming healthy life,” says study leader Valter Longo of the University of Southern California.
Longo’s group put baker’s yeast on a calorie-restricted diet and knocked out two genes – RAS2 and SCH9 – that promote aging in yeast and cancer in humans.
“We got a 10-fold life span extension that is, I think, the longest one that has ever been achieved in any organism,” Longo says. Normal yeast organisms live about a week.
“I would say 10-fold is pretty significant,” says Anna McCormick, chief of the genetics and cell biology branch at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and Longo’s program officer. The NIA funds such research in the hope of extending healthy life span in humans through the development of drugs that mimic the life-prolonging techniques used by Longo and others, McCormick adds.
Baker’s yeast is one of the most studied and best understood organisms at the molecular and genetic level. Remarkably, in light of its simplicity, yeast has led to the discovery of some of the most important genes and pathways regulating aging and disease in mice and other mammals.
Longo’s group next plans to further investigate life span extension in mice. The group is already studying a human population in Ecuador with mutations analogous to those described in yeast.
“People with two copies of the mutations have very small stature and other defects,” Longo says. “We are now identifying the relatives with only one copy of the mutation, who are apparently normal. We hope that they will show a reduced incidence of diseases and an extended life span.”
Longo cautions that, as in the Ecuador case, longevity mutations tend to come with severe growth deficits and other health problems. Finding drugs to extend the human life span without side effects will not be easy.”
After taking many genetics classes at University I always thought increased lifespans might be possible, I just didn’t realize that it would be on this type of scale. This also raises a lot of questions in terms of the social network of society; how long would you work for?; how long should your retirement be?; what will your quality of life be like say after 600 years?. Will you live for 200 years feeling like a geriatric? Lots of interesting questions but I still think it is really neat.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! After taking a month off from writing posts I am now on Christmas holidays from teaching so I have some extra time to browse around the net. I found this video on Youtube and thought I might share it here. It is a new force field developed to protect military vehicles from attack in all directions. I am not sure why the US government hasn’t adopted such technology but as one of the comment suggests they may have a contract with another company (Raytheon) to build a similar technology by the year 2011. Although this looks pretty cool on the video I am not sure that I would trust my life to it quite yet. It doesn’t stop the attacking weapon like a brick wall it just disables it before it hits the target. Great for a tank that can take some shrapnel but pretty useless for most other army vehicles or aircraft. Anyway take a look and see what you think. I still think it is pretty neat!!
During my years at University I had the opportunity to take quite a few psychology classes as I have mentioned before in my previous posts. I came across this next site and it reminded me of my psych 2320 class called cognition and perception. I find it amazing how our body can take in so much stimuli all at once and sort through it all to give us some meaningful interpretation as to what is happening around us. This site deals with the auditory part of our senses and shows us the real magnificence of our brain and ears. This site called Virtual Barbershop gives you what you will come to see as almost the real thing. You must listen to it with only your headphones so you cut out as much noise as possible. The best part of the whole thing is when he whispers in your ear at the very end.
I noticed however a small flaw in the file that plays the audio. When you listen to it after a few seconds it will shut off. All you need to do is press the play button and it will start again. For those of you who want to take this little gem with you I have extracted the audio so you can put it on your mp3 player and listen to it there with your headphones. The link to download it is here. Enjoy the cut!!
I found this video on the internet and was amazed at how good Rowan Atkinson really is. Take a look for yourself.
I was stumbling the other day and was reading the Webup.com blog article about useful websites. I thought all that they listed were interesting but I had heard of most of them before. Some examples are HowStuffWorks.com, WebMD, and RetailMeNot. At the bottom of the list was a site I hadn’t heard of before so I clicked on it. The site is called Musicovery.com, which basically is an interactive online music player. If you look at the image below you will see that on the left hand of the site is the control panel for the site. At the top you can choose to listen to Hits, nonHits or Discovery music or all of them. A little further down you can choose what decade you want your music to come from. The decades begin with before the 1950′s all the way up to present day also with the option of listening to music from all decades. If you then go to the bottom of the control panel you are able to select and de-select what genre of music you want to listen to.
Now here is the cool part of the site. In the middle of the control panel you will have a click-able mood changer. Depending on what mood you are in you can listen to that type of music. I clicked on Energetic and the song that played was “One more time” by Daft Punk. I clicked on Calm and the song “18″ by Moby. If you click on the tabs at the top of this mood changer you can listen to dance at different Dance music at whatever tempo you want just by clicking. If you click on the Me tab you can listen to your favorite songs that you have stored although you have to be registered to use this feature.
To register you have two options:
For me the free lo-fidelity sounds just fine on my cheap speakers.
I really enjoy this site and will go back often. I usually in the past have use Winamp and Shoutcast to listen to music online but I think I may change and give this new service a try. Check out the screen shot below.
Hi my name is Sam Bennett. I am a school teacher in Taber, Alberta, Canada. I hope that you enjoy this blog of the interesting sites that I stumble upon as I surf the net. HAPPY SURFING!!
