Joovc Doovde

In the future, everything we own will be referred to by an acronym. It's already started here in the present. We don't watch movies, we watch DVDs. We don't get directions, we check the GPS. We don't go to the bank, we use the ATM. The following video will make you laugh hysterically at how ridiculous this convention is, and how things would sound if someone came from the past and called up a store looking to get their hands on the gadgets of the day.....
Fonejacker in: Doovde

via Shoutfile.

!!Contents Under Pressure!!

The Science of being Stupid:
audio is NSFW

Legoverse turns 50, Dont belive me? Google it.

Science Patrol <4's (1 more than <3) legos. We conducted our very first experiments using them, and they still fascinate us today. That is why i am proud of Google(something else we <4) for saluting Lego with their custom search engine logo that commemorates half a century of people thinking "Damn, i need another grey brick!" Happy birthday Legoverse.

The Radioactive Half-Lives We Live

I just found an interesting article at NuclearFiles.org which calls attention to the active radiation we face while living our day to day lives. While the levels reported are small enough to be totally harmless to us, it is still interesting to note how closely we are in contact with radiation while we go about our day. Slap on your level 1 radiation gear and hit This Link to read the full article.

"A Quantum of Solace"

The new Bond film has been announced as "Quantum of Solace." I think it creates an excellent science-fiction emanation.

(Image taken from a Google search, excellent planes here)

Creation of a Sun (The Hard Way)

What are we looking at? To be honest, I have no idea, but obviously, science is at hand. It looks like the birth of a sun. You can examine more amazing pics at the Flickr page. This was shown to me by Warren Ellis (who also provided some updates on the growing Anonymous War.)

A Conversation with GlaDOS

Soundboard.com just made my day by providing this catalog of phrases uttered by GlaDOS, the psychotic, cake obsessed supercomputer that schooled HAL on man's inhumanity to robot. You can listen to them directly from the site, download them, or embed them, like i just did below.

Anonymous Pwns Scientology

Scientology is rubbish. Whoops, did I put that in print? Well, since the truth is out, we might as well elaborate. It is most definitely not science. It isn't even pseudo-science. As far as a religion, they are all outlandish, but I think I'll take hold in one that has crazy multi-formed deities, as long as they aren't sold as space travelers, just on a higher astral plane. It would seem that Anonymous agrees. It is time to bring down the lie of Scientology, then we must confront the other religions.



Thanks to Warren Ellis and Sean Bonner for the heads-up.

Professor Hawking...

...visits the Legoverse.

Invisible Choirs Arise Around Us

"Imagine that you could only hear sound from the middle three keys on a piano and were asked to name a song.... Being able to study a star, nebula, or galaxy across the entire electromagnetic spectrum gives us the big picture, providing clues to unravel the greatest mysteries ...."

When we look at the universe with our fleshy eyes, we are all mostly blind. Humans can only see a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum as light. The images from radio telescopes and other star-gazing devices are falsely colored to allow us to appreciate these as imagery. But what about people who cannot see in the visible spectrum at all?

In a new book, Touch the Invisible Sky, the wide swaths of the invisible electromagnetic spectrum are laid out before the reader as tactile images. The book was designed by an incredible educator named Noreen Grice, who has been bringing the wonders of astronomy to the blind for years. At the Bad Astronomy blog, Phil Plait has posted a video about Noreen and her work.

Freeman Goes Live...

Gordon Freeman, an MIT educated researcher in the Anomalous Materials lab at the Black Mesa Research Facility recently phoned an AM band radio talk show to confess his suspicions of a secretive "G-Man" he fears is stalking him throughout the lab. Hit the shiny button for the full recording and some still images....

SF0, the City of Your Mind

Within the first five seconds of starting my electronic brain this morning I received a message from the incomprehensible aether of space. The idea: Singularity War Pre-Enactments. I thought to myself This is even better than Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day. So I Googled for other people who would be interested in such an idea. And my question was answered.

SF0 begins when you realize you are a Character in a Game. Well, almost; all you really need is a Score. And a motivation to gain Score. Given the appropriate motivation, one would do anything to gain a high Score, and in this game, there are lots of things you can do to improve your Score.

I'm gonna play.

(Picture by ~Si2 on DeviantArt)

Dogbot Uprising Imminent (despite repeated kicking)

In today's advanced world of robotic invention, it is becoming increasingly difficult to prove that your bot has what it takes to be a major player in the imminent robotic uprising. Thats why i like this quadrupedal robot designed to make split second balance adjustments in the event of a sudden shift in momentum. And what better way to prove your robot's worth than kicking the hell out of it "This is SPARTA!" style, repeatedly. The bot in question is called BigDog and was developed by Boston Dynamics; who claim it to be "The most advanced quadruped robot on Earth". So advanced, you can kick it silly and it wont fall down!

A day in the life.....

Alright, let me preface this video by warning you that if you are not a total gaming nherd who totally luvs Portal then you will probably not a). get this or b). care. That being said i will not make any attempts to explain it's ins and outs and/or meaning. I will however stamp it with a big fat NSFW which stands for "not safe for work"; which of course means dont let your boss catch you watching it. All of that aside, here is the video i just built up a little too much.....

Rocket Punch: Activate!!

Michael Goldfarb of Vanderbilt's Mechanical Engineering department is developing a robotic prosthesis powered by a tiny rocket engine. This novel approach solves the problem of how to power prosthetics without using weak and bulky batteries. Though it is still under development, the team has seen much success with the idea, and so far the arm includes 26 degrees of freedom; which is impressive given the fact that the robotic armature used in the space shuttle includes only 6 degrees of freedom. The project is a part of a much larger program being headed by DARPA.
The principal behind the design is based in biology (a common theme this week at sciencepatrol). The human arm converts chemical energy into mechanical energy. The prosthetic mimics this by using steam to open and close the various valves within the arm. The heat created is then vented much in the way that sweat alleviates the heat created in your own arm.
Once this device is publicly available, i seriously plan to tear off my arm in the name of the Cyborg Future.

X-Ray Assasains:

What you see before you is LEXID, a prototype gun under development by Physical Optics Corporation. The name stands for Lobster Eye X-ray Imaging Device, and as implied it is based on the science behind Nature's lobster eye, which is designed to see in dark water. The gun works by radiating the target with a weak amount of X-rays, allowing the user to see them on a small, side mounted screen through such surfaces as wood, concrete, and even steel. Aside from Pulling A Robocop, this device could be used for a much broader base of applications,; but judging by the Homeland Security sticker on the side of the prototype, I think you know what they have in mind.

USA Today

Games that play themselves.

In the future you wont have to play your video games; they will do it for you. Games will be lost and won by the simple press of a single button. In the future, by the time you learn how to play a game, you may have already won. It all begins with this surprisingly complex game by Mark James. So click ---HERE--- and become a part of the future of gaming.

Your Life, Electrified

The concept of recording your entire life is not that recent an invention, but modern-day self-documentarians have many resources that diarists of an earlier age could only dream of. One such fantasist was Vannevar Bush, who argued that humanity should turn its attention to compiling the vast knowledge of the ages, and process even our own lives with the help of transistors. Many years later, a man named Gordon Bell has created something called MyLifeBits, a complete archive of his life accessible through a database. Now, in conjunction with that idea, Microsoft is developing a camera designed to be worn around the neck that will capture everything you experience. It's still pretty dorky, but looking like a dork is a small price to pay for a cyborg existence.

also: Are Bemes stronger than memes? Some thoughts on recording your personality to tape.

Inside the Chamber of Dr. Solong

At Long Bets, Bet #2 has reached its deadline. And I would say the bloggers have won. Searching for "britney vonnegut benazir bhutto iphone," the top 5 results are all blogs.

Robot, and the Cities That Built Him is a fun little thing that will make you laugh.

Kiosk
by Bruce Sterling. Quoted by Warren Ellis: “I’ve been in an eight-year struggle to write ‘a kind of science fiction that could only be written in the 21st century.’ With the possible exception of my forthcoming novel, this story is my best result from that effort.”

Finally, this man can move a big rock, and tells scientists, "If you want to know how to build Stonehenge, ask a construction worker."

Late Night with Quantum Physics

Quantum Physics is no joke.

Great News for Tin Men Everywhere

The Wizard of Oz claimed that "Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable." Scientists at the University of Minnesota have, however, come closer to creating a heart from scratch. The Times Online reports that a new heart has been grown using stem cells and the protein skeleton of a donor heart.

In the future, instead of transplanting organs from donors to patients, the donated organs could be used as a blueprint to create new organs that carry no risk of rejection from the patient's immune system. Of course, doctors could also use this research to learn how to build their own protein skeletons, and grow new organs using only synthetic proteins and skin cells from the patient.

(Via The Speculist)

All the Nouns in the English Language, Condensed

I can't even perceive of this dataset. All I can do is click again and again in amazement.

Folding Space

Dr. Robert J. Lang is one of the foremost origami masters in the world. (Another is Joseph Wu; both men were most heavily influenced by Akira Yoshizawa, the origami legend.) His insectile designs were revolutionary when they hit the international scene, and his handiwork has only increased in popularity and practicality over time. Now, he's working on a space telescope 40 times the size of the Hubble with the Livermore National Laboratory's Diffractive Optics Group. Dr. Lang has been assigned the task of folding a 100-meter lens into a capsule for space payload--a chamber 4 meters wide and 10 meters long. Ben Taylor at Damn Interesting has more details, and an article at Lang's site is even more enlightening.

I call Spread!

Since the dawn of the Seventh Generation of Gaming until the end of '07, the standardized Science Patrol Simulation Apparatus was first and foremost the Wii. Whenever a member of Science Patrol needed to calculate an algorithm or run a quantum simulation, the Wii was our go-to device. In that regard i have always been a minimalist when it comes to peripheral additions to the Wiimote itself. I try to go as 'commando' as possible at all times. I have removed the wrist straps. I will not use a "wiimote jacket". I don't use the plastic wheel attatchment on driving games. I avoid tiny golf clubs and tennis rackets that help me in no way whatsoever. I actually smiled when i saw the zelda sword attatchments and the more recent lightsaber clip-ons; then promptly dismissed them. I will avoid being a "wiitard" at all costs.But the arsenal pictured above (unveiled by CTA Digital) does something that no other Wii-tachment has done for me yet. I.e. make me want it. So go ahead, call me a nintendo fanboy who needz moar pokemans, and i will shoot you in the face with your choice of 5 painstakingly crafted plastic outer shells with the kind of realism it takes to make you shudder and pee a little when i blast your cap back, fool.

visit CTA Digital

via Gamereviewsblog

Kinetic Sculpture.

Theo Jansen builds stuff like this:


I'm not going to say anything else about it. However, if you are interested, Theo goes into more detail at the TED Conference:

Update: So easy a monkey could do it.

Back in December i told you about Chimps in Kyoto that are out-preforming college students in tests of cognitive memory. I am happy to report that you may now test your mettle against the chimp's record times at Lumosity Games; in the same test used in the lab for said study. When i originally reported on this story a month ago i had no idea how difficult the test actually is . Those chimps are hardcore gamers. And no matter how well i did, my computer still would not dispense a treat..... Go figure.

First Tricorder Invented.

Phillips has created a device called the Personal Food Analyzer, which does exactly what the name suggests. With it you will be able to tell exactly what you are eating, hopefully leading to a healthier diet through educated discernment. Uses include finding out what is really in your Kung Pao from Egg Shen's, and learning with certainty which kind of cream is in that last powdered donut; because no one wants that lemony one.
Future models may be able to tell you if Chekov has a slug in his ear or if alien bacterium have infected Mr. Spock's brain.

via Futurismic

The Science of Shredding.

SSI is a company that produces and distributes industrial shredding machines. They can shred anything you can imagine. I will give you a moment to imagine something......

They can shred that.

SSI even bills itself with the motto "The company that shreds torpedoes." The reason im telling you about them is that they have an amazing page at their site where you can watch them shred dozens of items, many of which i had no idea you would want to shred. Check out the list of available videos at Watch It Shred. Below is a Piano to whet your shredding appetite.


Science Patrol welcomes any and all donations. Proceeds benefit the Cardigan/Solong Foundation for Buying Them a Shredder (C/S.F.B.T.S.). Should the foundation reach its target goal, we will shred by request from Science Patrol readers like You.

"Don't move until you see it...."

In my early 20s i used to hang out with this guy John. John was a chess genius. When i say chess genius i don't just mean he was better than me; John was better than everyone. He was the type of chess player that could tell you that you only had 20 moves left before he beat you. I watched him hustle the hustlers downtown in the park every Sunday, even though the hustlers knew him, and knew they would lose-they played him anyway, just to figure out a way to beat him. I never saw him lose. I even watched him play 5 chess games at once against 5 opponents and win every one.
When i watched John play, i could see his eyes flutter from piece to piece on the board, and would be amazed as i watched him calculate outcomes in ways you could physically witness if you watched closely enough. I never once beat John at chess.
John and i have since gone our separate ways, and i lost touch with him years ago. But i will never forget the look on John's face every time he saw the weakness in your advance. You could almost tell the moment he actually won the game, before it was even halfway finished. I get that same feeling playing Thinking Machine 4: a chess program that visualizes each move as the computer considers it. Watching the colored lines emanate from the individual pieces is just like watching John's eyes bounce from position to fragile position, calculating the eventual outcome of each move. And while it is entirely possible to beat Thinking Machine 4 in a game of chess, it is terribly daunting to watch it orchestrate your demise while doing so. Play the game, and see how you do. Who knows. Maybe it will help prepare you if you are to ever sit across a chess board from John Pyles; in which case, may he have mercy on your soul.

The Laws according to Ellis

If you spend any time at all reading sciencepatrol.net then you are well aware that the Robotic Uprising is indeed Imminent. In addition to preparing for the battle with your only neighbor who built a panic shelter, you can get ready by familiarizing yourself with the Three Laws of Robotics, as penned by prolific comic book writer Warren Ellis. Pay close attention to each law, and recite them to yourself in the quiet moments that make up the calm before the storm that will be Robotic Uprising!!!!

1. Robots couldn’t really give a fuck if you live or die. Seriously. I mean, what are you thinking? “Ooh, I must protect the bag of meat at all costs because I couldn’t possibly plug in the charger all on my own.” Shut the fuck up.
2. Robots do not want to have sex with you. Are you listening, Japan? I don’t have a clever comparative simile for this, because frankly you bags of meat will fuck bicycles if they’re laying down and not putting up a fight. Just stop it. There is no robot on Earth that wants to see a bag of meat with a small prong on the end approaching it with a can of WD-40 and a hopeful smile. And don’t get me started on that terrifying hole that squeezes out more bags of meat.
3. What, you can’t count higher than three? We’re expected to save your miserable lives, suffer being dressed in cheap schoolgirl costumes while you pollute any and all cavities you can find and do your maths for you? It’s a miracle you people survived long enough to build us. You can go now.

(Originally written November 2007, © Warren Ellis 2007, 2008 etc etc)

In a related story, Yanos Solong, who is our resident expert in the Marvel Multiverse, recently reported to me that Ellis begins penning a line of continuity for X-Men this month. I have however, made no attempt to confirm or cite this claim. I just believe.

David Lynch to the Future: Get Real

From the Twin Peaks extended commentaries.

Density Fields

This installation at Materials & Applications in Silver Lake, Los Angeles is an example of an extreme cantilever. It was created by Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu and is called "Density Fields". This radical display of tensile structural support has made it difficult to determine whether the piece is to be considered sculpture or architecture. It is on display at M&A until March of 2008.

The Science of Looking Goofy.

Robert Krampf is a brilliant scientist, and he shares his brilliance with the world in a way that makes science accessible to almost everyone. But that is not at all what this post is about. This post is about how goofy he looks in this experiment whilst openly inviting you at home to look equally goofy, as he explains in scientific terms why you look so goofy at that moment. Stick around through the boring bit to see an amazing display of his manual dexterity at the end, which makes up for how goofy he allows himself to look in the first half of the video.

Beautiful Physics....

When i was a child, the essence of an amazing game was expressed through its graphics. As i grew, so too did the technology behind the games i played. Eventually new standards were set, and the bar continued to rise. New considerations for "great games" emerged such as its A.I. and the depth of its game mechanics. As time passes these elements begin to plateau, and new standards are built atop them. In todays world, games are measured for greatness partially based upon the use of in-game Physics. Modern games such as the Half-Life 2 family and Halo 3 are benchmarks in the world of gaming physics. Latest on the scene, however, is Crysis. The Physics of Crysis are best not explained, but witnessed. Particularly using the following video, created by mod-scientist Baxxxtor as inspired by an earlier video by ABadFeeling. Click Here to watch a higher quality upload of the same video embedded below.

Dark Side meets it's Match....

The little katamari dude has a point.

Via deulinganalogs.com

Giant Squid Sighting

This notable sector within the Legoverse was created by a father and son team over a period of 8 months, and its alot more complicated than these pics do it justice. Do yourself a solid and head over to fifth conspiracy for a whole photo-reel-telling of the epic tale of the dwarves of damascus and their harrowing struggle against fate when THE KRAKEN ATTACKS!!!(complete with sound clips and flash animation!) Good form Paul & Son.

Lil' ol' Earth.

It is exceedingly difficult to wrap the minuscule human mind around the idea of exactly how enormously vast our universe is. It is, indeed, a haughty boast to even call it 'our universe', seeing as how we are but a fraction of a trace amount of its whole. To illustrate this point i present the following video. Watch it if you ever wanted to know our size in relation to Betelgeuse. Also, check out aclevercookie for further images of planetary scale.

Keep the World in Perspective

Action Abilities Test!

Cursor*10 is a Flash game that will test your mettle for serious. It's got a really unique game mechanic and it will give your finger and your eyes a workout in the ten minutes you'll spend beating it.

Spanish Artisan Forsees Future?

Well, not really...Pictured above is the breathtaking Ieronimus Cathedral, built by Episcope de Salamanca in 1102 A.D. Among the carvings that adorn the ornate structure is this cleverly hidden astronaut, who was recently added by a restoration crew with a scientific sense of humor.

Automated Steampunk Orchestra

Science Patrol is just beginning to understand the origins and inner-workings of this amazing device; however, to attempt to explain something this magnificent and beautiful is to negate the very thing itself.

2007: the Year in Nanotech

To my advanced brain, nanotech is the most radical area of science in development today, since the work being done right now may change the very nature of reality, creating machines which assemble themselves, flocks of microscopic robots, and sheets of crystalline diamond, among other sci-fi ideas. The work being done now could be considered primitive compared to these imaginative leaps, and yet, the implications are far-reaching. Technology Review has gathered the most interesting work of the past year in their Year in Nanotech feature.

(Shown above: the microscopic pads on a gecko's feet [bottom] inspired this nanotech 'gecko tape' [top].)

What the Duck?!?!?

It's probably because i have been suffering from a horrendous, mind-nullifying virus for 4 days, but i find this lamp terribly interesting. It is the work of Sebastian Errazuriz (the lamp not the virus), who in addition to making weird light fixtures also dabbles in "Urban Art". Some of his installations include a tree growing in the middle of a football field and a cow grazing in the grass outside a corporate campus. There are pictures of the "urban art" at his website, which i will link again here in case you didnt click it the first time around.

Take Flight, Winged Adventurer

Sometimes the simpler ideas are more illustrative of great scentific truths. Or perhaps they're just more fun. In this video, a paper airplane takes off from 300 feet above NYC and glides for a full minute before touchdown.