wildcat2030:

There aren’t enough bionic men on the planet to produce a proper stereotype. Even so, David the Farmer seems atypical. Ruddy, red-haired, and impossibly cheerful, he meets us on the ­gravel path outside his workshop. What I was expecting—a grizzled retiree limping stiffly through his daily chores—bears no resemblance to this 30-something mechanic climbing down from a massive tractor without hesitation, weaving between ATVs and scattered engine parts, moving from task to task with no evidence that he’s part machine. After a few minutes, there are clues, though: He always turns on his right leg, and his pants gather around his left ankle, hinting at a limb that’s slightly skeletal and decidedly nonbiological. (via Smart Bionic Limbs are Reengineering the Human - Popular Mechanics)

(Source: bobrossgifs, via loveyourchaos)

nevver:

“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.” #&8212; Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

(via loveyourchaos)

rhea137:

Theoretical Physicist Freeman Dyson     Uncredited and Undated Photograph

“Thirty-one years ago, Dick Feynman told me about his ‘sum over histories’ version of quantum mechanics. ‘The electron does anything it likes,’ he said. ‘It just goes in any direction at any speed, forward or backward in time, however it likes, and then you add up the amplitudes and it gives you the wave function.’ I said to him, ‘You’re crazy.’ But he isn’t.”  Freeman Dyson, 1980

(Source: kvetchlandia)

wildcat2030:

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread..

(via acidhorse)

wildcat2030:

Jazz Shapes the Brain

As does classical music and rock/pop music. We are talking about the complex capacity of producing music, doing it yourself. As one of the most specialized skills that the human organism is able to acquire, it can have big influence on the so-called brain plasticity (a characteristic of the brain structure which can change as a result of experience). Numerous scientists already investigated the musical cognitive skills of musicians versus non-musicians, by looking at the brain structure and function and their results did indeed show differences in the auditory and motor systems. But science always treated musicians as a unified group. Now, the neuroscientists Vuust et al. wanted to know if different genres of music shape the musicians’ brains in different ways. So they did a survey with 11 non-musicians, 7 classical musicians, 10 jazz musicians and 14 rock musicians. The main task for all the participants was to watch a silent movie. Thereby, more or less passively, they heard the auditory stimuli (the Alberti Bass – a simple base line used in all three genres). Within the repetitive stimuli the third note was always slightly changed regarding pitch, timbre, location of sound source, intensity and rhythm. During the experiment, the musical discrimination skills were measured by EEG – significant reactions of the brain whilst hearing a certain sound feature implied a high sensibility towards it. The results confirm Vuust’s assumptions: different kinds of music training are able to challenge different brain functions and influence them for the long run. (via Jazz Shapes the Brain | UA Magazine)

wildcat2030:

Unlike the contents of your inbox, bank statement, or Facebook timeline, your DNA quite literally defines you. It’s strange, then, that in an age where sequencing the genome is becoming trivial, we don’t give a second thought about the privacy issues surrounding the chemicals that make us who we are. In fact, most states in the US have absolutely no laws whatsoever to govern surreptitious genetic testing. If that surprises you, it gets worse. Back in 2006, the particularly forward-thinking state of Minnesota passed a law demanding that written consent had to be obtained for collection, storage, use, and sharing of genetic information. In 2011, however, the Minnesota Supreme Court judged that the state’s own department of health was in violation of that very law. So, quite literally millions of US citizen have their DNA records stored on databases, and there are few laws governing what’s done with the data. Something has to be done about that—but it’s not necessarily as easy as it sounds. Clamp down on DNA privacy… (via How Private Is Your DNA? | Impact Lab)