March 31, 2007

Videokatsaus

The Science of Living Longer - Charlie Rosen ohjelmassa keskustellaan kalorirajoitteisesta ruokavaliosta, resveratrolista, Longevity Dividendistä ynnä muusta.

Project Future Bound - 7 Ponies Productions tekee ilmeisesti uutta dokumenttia kryoniikasta.

Muppet Cryonics - Jonkinlainen koululaisten tiedeprojekti.

Videoita aivokäyttöliittymistä. Ensin NeuroSky ja Brainloop, sitten pelataan Pongia ja Space Invadersia.

WiiBot - Wiimotella ohjattava robotti.

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March 30, 2007

Sävy sävyyn

The X-Mice - Geenimuunneltu hiiri erottaa enemmän värejä. Saman voisi teoriassa tehdä ihmisille.

Looking for Madam Tetrachromat - Joillakin naisilla (ehkä 2-3 prosentilla) saattaa olla tetrakromaattinen näkö, jolloin he erottavat enemmän värisävyjä kuin tavikset. Jos siis sisustusta suunniteltaessa mies ei näe mitään eroa pinkinvalkoisen ja roosanvalkoisen välillä, sille voi olla selvä syy: nainen on mutantti, joka näkee enemmän värisävyjä.

Would there be any practical advantages to tetrachromacy? Dr. Jordan notes that a mother could more easily spot when her children were pale or flushed, and therefore ill. Mrs. M reports that she has always been able to match even subtle colors from memory -- buying a bag, for example, to match shoes she hasn't laid eyes on for months. And computers, color monitors, and the Internet raise a whole raft of possibilities. Just as someone with normal three-color vision surfs rings around a dichromat on the Internet, a tetrachromat, looking at a special computer screen based on four primary colors rather than the standard three, could theoretically dump data into her head faster than the rest of us.

Impaired emotional processing affects moral judgements
For example, subjects had to say whether they would throw a person in front of a train if doing so would stop the train from barrelling into five workmen, killing all five. In such a situation, most people would find it morally unacceptable to push someone to his or her death – even if doing so would save the lives of others. And this was the reaction of the healthy participants or those that had injury to brain regions excluding the VMPC. But people with damage to the VMPC showed a willingness to take this type of "utilitarian" action.

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March 29, 2007

March 28, 2007

Varaosia

Building the Bionic Man - Listausta kyborgiosista, samoin kuin Wiredin Interactive Bionics Tour.

Biologisista varaosista: israelilaiselle pikkutytölle tehtiin kuuden elimen siirto.

Älykkäät aurinkolasit - väriä ja tummuutta voi vaihtaa nupista kääntämällä.

The Seven Essential “Stations” Every Home Should Have

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March 27, 2007

Uusi kokoonpano

In the Lab: Robots That Slink and Squirm
Evolution, the engine of development, is brilliant but not necessarily efficient, he said. “The biological solution is always a little bit messy — it’s based on previous systems,” he said. Working without precedent, he said with a touch of hubris, a researcher can shape a more elegant solution than nature has. -- Like Dr. Ijspeert, Dr. Shen says nature can be a bit limiting. When he has to get up to write on a whiteboard, he says, he thinks, “If I can reconfigure myself and take off my left arm and connect it to my right arm, I can do so without standing up or leaving my chair.”

SpaceNet - Planeettojen välistä logistiikkaa.

Olkapääkamera seuraa pään liikkeitä.

Croquet SDK 1.0 julkaistiin tänään.
"We’re seeking to enable the creation of a rich series of interconnected ‘Croquet worlds’ where people can engage in productive collaborative interactions in support of learning and commerce -- worlds that can be created, maintained and continually modified without the constraints of proprietary computer code," said Julian Lombardi, assistant vice president of Duke’s Office of Information Technology.

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March 26, 2007

Arvoitus: Kuka haluaa elää 200-vuotiaaksi? No tietysti 199-vuotias.

"I will argue that ageing is a genetic disorder, or rather, it is many genetic disorders, some of which afflict us all, others of which afflict only some of us. This point of view goes against the grain of most definitions of disease. Medical tradition distinguishes between 'normal' ageing, about which nothing much is done, and 'age-related diseases', such as arteriosclerosis, cancer and osteoporosis, that consume vast amounts of national health budget. But this distinction is an illusion, a necessary medical fiction that allows physicians to ignore a disease that affect us all but which they are impotent to cure or even ameliorate. Properly understood, ageing is precisely what it seems: a grim and universal affliction."
- Armand Marie Leroi, Mutants

An even more apt analogy might be a Mafia protection racket. Humanity is the shopkeeper, the helpless elderly man cowering behind the cash register, while God is the trench-coated mob enforcer making the proverbial offer we can't refuse. "This sure is a nice soul you've got here," the mobster sneers. "It would be a terrible shame if it were to meet with some unfortunate accident."
- Divine Blackmail

Cruel Leonidas demanded that you stand. I require only that you kneel.
- Xerxes, 300

If I had free will, I would choose to be funnier. I would choose always to have the right witty riposte ready to disarm adversaries and delight friends. But sadly, it is not so.
- I think therefore I am, I think

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March 24, 2007

Jatkuvasti hätätilassa

How caffeine works
The problem with caffeine is the longer-term effects, which tend to spiral. For example, once the adrenaline wears off, you face fatigue and depression. So what are you going to do? You take more caffeine to get the adrenaline going again. As you might imagine, having your body in a state of emergency all day long isn’t very healthy.

From Virtual Sex to No Sex?
Also, as we gain complete control over the neurochemistry of sex, love and bonding we can make conscious, explicit choices about our feelings and desires. Just as we have prenuptial contracts for property, partners may agree to lock their love and sexual desire onto their partners for a specified period, or at least go to marital counseling to have adulterous feelings modified.

Michael Jantzenin tuulivoima-arkkitehtuuria.

Olen myös törmännyt Edward Tuften nimeen useamman kerran eri paikoissa viime aikoina.

Artificial intelligence within our lifetime? No idle speculation - Kaj Sotalan essee.

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March 21, 2007

Varsinainen kohentaja

Darpa Wants Talking "Replicator"
In Darpa's eyes, "the disposable transmitter" would be about the size and weight of "a sheet of paper… possibly with an adhesive backing for deployment on all surfaces." -- Using a 3-D printer, perhaps, the paper-like transmitter would also have circuitry stamped on it. And that circuitry would be used to broadcast the message, using pulses of light – an idea which sounds about as crazy as a replicator, but has actually been around since the days of Alexander Graham Bell.

Katso myös: Disposable Cell Phone

Brain damage turns man into human chameleon
“AD seems to have lost the capacity to keep his own identity constant, as he adapts himself excessively to variations in the social contexts, violating his own identity connotations in order to favour a role which the environment proposes”, the researchers said.

Is the Key to Creativity in Your Pillbox, or in Your PC?
By now it is clear that Big Pharma and Big Computing are running an unspoken race, to decide which technology — the electronic or the biochemical — can first deliver the magic elixir that gives humans vastly improved creative powers. Might we be heading, however fitfully, toward a new industrial age when Microsoft buys Merck to better compete with Google?

The three D’s of planetary defense - Detection, Deflection, Decisionmaking.

2020: Last Days on Earth - Video seitsemästä pahasta eksistentiaaliriskistä. 1h 22min.

Psolar.EX -kasvosuoja saa näyttämään Hannibal Lecteriltä. Tällainen täytyy hankkia.

Religion 101: Final Exam - Uskonnon koe.

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March 20, 2007

Vaihda väriä

World First In Medical Robotics: Researchers Successfully Control Wireless Device Inside Artery - Suonensisäisten robottien aika on taas hieman lähempänä.

Change your eye colour and skin tone with the popping of a pill - Kameleontti-ihmiset vaihtavat ihonväriään kuin vaatteitaan.

BBC Culture Shock - Nick Bostrom ja David Brin puhuvat sivilisaation selviytymisestä.

Ihminen tuottaa päivittäin arviolta 12 000 - 50 000 ajatusta. Suurin osa niistä melko hyödyttömiä. Kannattaa vähän ajatella mitä ajattelee.

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March 19, 2007

Vertailun vuoksi

Facing Life With a Lethal Gene - Mitä teet, kun geenitesteissä selviää, että tulet saamaan tulevaisuudessa Huntingtonin taudin, samoin kuin isäsi ja luultavasti lapsesikin. Tai voisi kysyä, että mitä teet, kun geenitesteissä selviää, että tulet kuolemaan vanhuuteen keskimäärin 78-vuotiaana, samoin kuin vanhempasi ja lapsesikin.

In October, one of Ms. Moser’s aunts lost her balance while walking and broke her nose. It was the latest in a series of falls. “The cure needs to be soon for me,” Ms. Moser said. “Sooner for everybody else.”

Aptera - Hybridiauto maailman pienimmällä ilmanvastuksella, hinta noin $20,000.

The History of Creationist Thought


A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
- Bertrand Russell

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March 18, 2007

Masinointipäivä

Tietoyhteiskuntakelpoiset ehdokkaat - Tänään menet äänestämään näitä.

"Rauhalan voitto vaaleissa olisi kuin Lordin voitto Euroviisuissa."

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March 17, 2007

Enemmistön huume on vähemmistön lääke

Wi-Fi heartbeat - Tee itsellesi lisäsydän, joka sykkii langattomien verkkojen tahtiin.

Towards a society of cyborgs? - Antropologi Daniela Cerquin puhe Kevin Warwickista LIFT07-konferenssissa.

NicStic - Savuton tupakka. Lisäksi varoittava tarina: tietokone kuoli tupakansavuun.


I understand that debates are not conducted in front of perfectly rational audiences. We all know what happens when you try to trade off a sacred value against a nonsacred value. It's why, when someone says, "But if you don't ban cars, people will die in car crashes!" you don't say "Yes, people will die horrible flaming deaths and they don't deserve it. But it's worth it so I don't have to walk to work in the morning." Instead you say, "How dare you take away our freedom to drive? We'll decide for ourselves; we're just as good at making decisions as you are." So go ahead and say that, then. But think to yourself, in the silent privacy of your thoughts if you must: And yet they will still die, and they will not deserve it. That way, when Sebastian Thrun comes up with a scheme to automate the highways, and claims it will eliminate nearly all traffic accidents, you can pay appropriate attention.
- Blue or Green on Regulation?

In the time of the Roman Empire, civic life was divided between the Blue and Green factions. The Blues and the Greens murdered each other in single combats, in ambushes, in group battles, in riots. Procopius said of the warring factions: "So there grows up in them against their fellow men a hostility which has no cause, and at no time does it cease or disappear, for it gives place neither to the ties of marriage nor of relationship nor of friendship, and the case is the same even though those who differ with respect to these colors be brothers or any other kin." Edward Gibbon wrote: "The support of a faction became necessary to every candidate for civil or ecclesiastical honors." Who were the Blues and the Greens? They were sports fans - the partisans of the blue and green chariot-racing teams.
- A Fable of Science and Politics

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March 16, 2007

Mielilukutaidoton

The Maes-Garreau Point - Kevin Kelly ehdottaa nimeä ilmiölle, joka on pyörinyt tähän asti nimettömänä: ihmiset ennustavat suuria asioita (esim. singulariteettia) tapahtuvaksi yleensä siten, että se tapahtuu juuri sopivasti ennen kuin he itse ehtivät kuolla. Eli ennusteissa on omaan odotettuun elinikään sidottua puolueellisuutta.

2040 is when we expect Moore's Law to reach the computational power of a human on a desk top. 2040 is also about when the population of the world is supposed to peak once and for all, and environmental pressure decrease. This grand convergence of global scale disruptors are all scheduled to appear – no surprise – at exactly the date of this generation’s Maes-Garreau Point: 2040.

Sitten ennusteiden epäonnistuminen toimii motivaattorina: kun odotettu asia ei tapahdukaan, ihmiset katsovat ympärilleen ja miettivät, että eihän tämän näin pitänyt mennä ja ryhtyvät tekemään työtä asian hyväksi pelkän odottelun sijaan: "Olisinpa tajunnut ryhtyä aktivistiksi aikaisemmin, niin olisin ehkä pysynyt ennusteeni aikataulussa."

Mitä korkeampi status, sen huonompia vitsejä voit kertoa; mitä matalampi status, sitä useammille jutuille naurat
When the woman watching was the boss, she didn't laugh much at the muffin joke. But when she was the underling or a co-worker, she laughed much more, even though the joke-teller wasn't in the room to see her. When you're low in the status hierarchy, you need all the allies you can find, so apparently you're primed to chuckle at anything even if it doesn't do you any immediate good.

Mind games - Lisää Emotivin ja NeuroSkyn aivokäyttöliittymistä.

First, although human brains are similar to one another in general, they are different in detail, so a mass-produced headset with the electrodes in standard locations may not work for everyone. Second, about one-third of the population is considered “illiterate”, meaning in this context that not even a full-fledged medical EEG can convert their brain activities into actions. Third, electrical signals generated by muscular activity such as blinking are easily confused with actual brain-wave readings.

Marsissa on paljon vesijäätä
Pimeässä hohtavat värit

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March 14, 2007

buy' ngop

Transvision 2007 Chigagossa - Kunniavieraana tänä vuonna myös William Shatner! Trekkerit pakkaavat jo laukkujaan.

Liikunta kasvattaa aivosoluja
"Our next step is to identify the exercise regimen that is most beneficial to improve cognition and reduce normal memory loss, so that physicians may be able to prescribe specific types of exercise to improve memory," Small said.

The 300 Workout - Kolmisatasen näyttelijöiltä mallia liikkumiseen.

Net creator says bionic will boom
The line between human and machine is becoming finer, according to the father of the internet, Vint Cerf. -- "Where do we draw the line between repairing impairments and actually enhancing capabilities? I think the answer is we don't and should not draw that line," he told journalists during a press conference. "There is nothing that should stop us from taking the same technologies that bring someone into the normal mainstream of hearing, for example, and actually allowing people to hear sound that other people could not hear."

EFF: Who Controls Your Television? - Viihdeteollisuus yrittää taas vaikeuttaa ihmisten elämää täysin älyttömillä käyttörajoitteilla.

Imposing controls on where you watch a program. Even if you are given permission to move a program to your laptop or other portable devices, "geography controls" may kick in and stop playback once you leave home or a particular locale. These restrictions may be enforced using tamper-proof GPS receivers built in to your devices. CPCM can also be used to block sending video to yourself over your own home network or the Internet, among other things.

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March 13, 2007

Luonto laahaa perässä

Be More Than You Can Be
But before the program could start, DSO’s performance-enhancement push ran into trouble in Washington. The President’s Council on Bioethics was publishing reports decrying body hacks. Some in Congress worried about being accused of funding a Frankenstein army. In response to those critics, the agency already predisposed to clandestine research — decided to go underground. Program names were changed to dull their mad-scientist edge. Metabolic Dominance became Peak Soldier Performance. Augmented Cognition became Improving Warfighter Information Intake Under Stress. Researchers were told to keep their mouths shut; many current and former program managers still won’t talk on the record, requesting anonymity for this story. The Surviving Blood Loss program, meant to fund Roth’s work, was itself put into suspended animation.

Blade Runner
So, sure, artificial legs are lighter than natural ones. Pistorius will never blow out his ankles or break a toe, though presumably his knees are as vulnerable as anyone’s to old age and trauma. But does any of that constitute an unfair advantage? Does being able to modify and tune a prosthetic limb belong to the same category as blood doping (banned) or altitude training (A-OK)? If there’s an issue of fairness here at all, it’s not that Pistorius is using technology superior to what evolution has built for human beings. As Robert Gailey, who studies the biomechanics of prosthetics at the University of Miami, puts it, running on stilts isn’t exactly a plus. The real asymmetry is that Frasure and Shirley each still have one natural leg, and it’s holding them back.

Video Dean "Segway" Kamenin kehittämästä kyborgikädestä.

Aurinkotorni-animaatio ja Discovery Channelin haastattelupätkä.

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March 12, 2007

Kuluttaja-lainaaja-keräilijä

Prospects for a Transhuman mind? - Evoluutiopsykologian pioneeri Leda Cosmides puhuu transhumanismista. Puheesta jää lähinnä sellainen kuva, ettei Cosmides ole tutustunut TH-aiheisiin kuin pintapuolisesti, mutta ihan kiva silti. Mp3, pituus 30 min.

g.MOBIlab - Ensimmäinen kaupallinen aivokäyttöliittymä Guger Technologiesilta. EEG-pipo vain päähän ja voit ohjailla läppäriä ajatuksen voimalla tai vaihdella TV-kanavia. Hinta ei tiedossa.

Rajoitettu amnesia: rotan aivoista pyyhkäistiin yksi muisto pois U0126-lääkkeellä.

An Introvert Stands Up for The Right to Stand Alone
As Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in a Time magazine column about personality tests, "Their chief function as far as I could tell . . . was to weed out the introverts. When asked whether you'd rather be the life of the party or curl up with a book, the correct answer is always, 'Party!' "

IEET Book Projects

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March 11, 2007

Rajaseutujen valloittajat

Explorer Bill Stone: "The traditional approach to space exploration has been to carry all the fuel you need, and to carry everybody back in case of emergency. But to prime the pump that will take us beyond, boldness is required: the first expeditionary team must travel to the Moon without the fuel to come back, and produce it there. It can be done in 7 years, and I intend to lead that expedition. There was a time when people did bold things to open new frontiers. We have collectively forgotten that. Now we are at a time when boldness is required again."

Medievalizing Biotech Regulation
It turns out that the proposed agency is largely just a vehicle for Fukuyama to impose his moral choices on other people. What Fukuyama is proposing is a step backward to the bad old days in which strangers get to vote on what kind of children their fellow citizens will be allowed to bring into the world. A government bureaucracy, rather than parents, would get to make eugenic decisions. As the sorry history of attempts to regulate human reproduction shows, the truly moral thing to do is fiercely resist this proposal.

Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next?
The political systems inherited from the 20th century, whether democratic or totalitarian, are neo-feudal, incompatible with a 21st century when electors vote every so many years, but consumers vote and bloggers blog 24/7.

Piratismi hallitsee online-musiikkimarkkinoita 99.6% markkinaosuudella
-- piratismi hallitsee musiikin verkkolevitystä murskaavan ylivoimaisesti - noin 99.6% markkinaosuudella verrattuna laillisen musiikkikaupan neljän promillen osuuteen. Nämä luvut asettavat musiikkiteollisuuden antipiratismi-propagandan terveeseen perspektiiviin. Piratismi ei ole musiikkikulttuurin kannalta suinkaan mikään marginaalinen ilmiö, joka nakertaa laillisen musiikkikaupan kannattavuutta. Todellisuudessa ns. laillinen musiikkikauppa on itse täysin marginaalinen ilmiö musiikin leviämisen kannalta --

Zeroes-video

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March 09, 2007

Lumitykit ovat in

Not Enough Snow for You? Talk to Your Father - Lumentekijöiden alakulttuuri. Snowguns-foorumilla keskustellaan joka kodin lumitykeistä.

“It’s hard to stop when the weather is right,” he said. “You can set the guns up and go to sleep, but I like to go and mess with them. My neighbors are going to work at the casinos at 3 a.m. and I’m out there, too, messing with the guns. I just like being out in it. It’s really hard to turn the guns off; it looks so good piling up.” -- When real snow falls, Mr. Young said, “my daughter thinks I made it.”

Infohoarding may be the first psychiatric dysfunction born of digital age.
Dr. Michael Jenike, a psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has also seen cases of infohoarding, but curiously, one of them was cured by Google. "Last year we had a retired nurse who did this with all kinds of data," he said. But "once the person realized that she could get any information she wanted by a simple search, her need to hoard diminished dramatically."

Vulcan Flipstart tulee kai viimein myyntiin tässä kuussa.

The Big Brother State - Päivänpoliittisesti ajankohtainen video.

LexKarpela.info

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March 07, 2007

Jos yksikin kopio selviää, voimme kopioida lisää

New Scientist: Sea squirt fragment regenerates entire body
Out of 95 fragments they examined, 80 underwent whole body regeneration (WBR). Cells first grouped into hollow spheres, then cell layers in-folded and organs developed until after two weeks an adult sea squirt had grown, capable of sexual reproduction. -- “To think that even one attached blood vessel survives storm damage and regenerates the entire colony,” says Reshef. “What an advantage this provides!”

Bacteria Save Your Data, Make Multiple Backups
The first time I read about this idea was in an excellent series of fantasy novels by Barbara Hambly. In her 1982 Darwath trilogy, she writes about how wizards of several thousand years ago succeeded in tying information to the DNA of selected individuals. In the story, several people from 1980's California find themselves transported across the Void to another planet and the Realm of Darwath. They face a deadly species of queerly magical beings - the Dark - who destroyed civilization thousands of years ago. Everything that was made of paper (like books and records) were burned to stave off attacks by the Dark. Tying memories to a few suitable bloodlines was the only way to preserve a record of that period that would endure.

Paranoid androids 'in 10 years'
Other scientists have found that by replicating the feeling of hunger, their robots will realise their batteries are getting low and seek to "feed" themselves by recharging.

Mathematical model accurately predicts which couples will divorce
The key turned out to be quantifying the ratio of positive to negative interactions during the talk. The magic ratio is 5 to 1, and a marriage can be in trouble when it falls below this. The mathematical model charts this interaction into what the researchers call a "Dow-Jones Industrial Average for marital conversation." "When the masters of marriage are talking about something important, they may be arguing, but they are also laughing and teasing and there are signs of affection because they have made emotional connections," Gottman said.

The Scientist: What if Humans were Designed to Last? - Kuinka korjata ihmiskehon vikoja. Lisäksi We Die Too Soon

Ten Good Reasons To Get Out Of Bed In The Morning
There we have it, the final reason to get your ass out of bed: we need you. We need you on our side - the side of hope and action - and we need you now. Every decade is a scientific milestone, which means that every year counts as well, and every month, every week, every day. Indeed, at this point, every act of our lives is either a step toward the achievement of all our visions of glory or a step back toward the stupidity and self-pity that can destroy us.

Ja kiitos jälleen Alarille linkkivinkeistä.

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March 06, 2007

Oikeusjuttu: Kafka oli optimisti
Effi ei ole maksanut palkkoja tai palkkioita, kaikki työ on tehty vapaaehtoistyönä. Vastaajat, siis syytetyt, olivat päinvastoin itsekin tehneet lahjoituksia. Syyttäjä oli siis perimässä valtiolle myös vastaajien väitetysti itse itseltään keräämiä varoja!
--
Effi aikoo tiedotteensa mukaan julkaista lahjoitussivun uudestaan, kunhan sen laillisuudesta on saatu lainvoimainen päätös. Syyttäjän mielestä tämä osoittaa, että "lahjoitussivu lahjoitusohjeineen oli osoittautunut tärkeäksi ja tehokkaaksi keinoksi kerätä rahaa yhdistykselle". Syyttäjän logiikka on käsittämätöntä: tietysti Effi palauttaa minkä tahansa verkkosivunsa, joka on jouduttu poistamaan lakiin perustumattoman syytteen vuoksi.

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March 05, 2007

Täydellinen immersio

Calerie.org - Vapaaehtoisia kaksivuotiseen kalorirajoitteisen ruokavalion tutkimukseen etsitään.

Alcorilla on työpaikka vapaana biologille, biokemistille tai vastaavalle.

Nanosauvapinnoite on heijastamattominta materiaalia.

You Snooze, You Lose
Remember these names, because they’re your future: Modafinil, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1998 for the treatment of narcolepsy and marketed in the U.S. as Provigil, is already giving a competitive edge to everyone from Air Force pilots on 40-hour missions to (less legally) college students cramming for exams. The drug’s maker, Cephalon in Frazer, Pennsylvania, is awaiting FDA approval for armodafinil, which promises even longer periods of wakefulness on a single dose, and Irvine, California–based Cortex is working on its own drug, code-named CX717 and developed with funding from the military. The drugs are targeted at sleep disorders like narcolepsy, but it’s their dramatic potential influence on the workplace that has researchers and efficiency experts buzzing.

Project Epoc - Aivo-ohjain peleille.

Total Immersion D'FUSION videoita.


One should bear in mind that there is nothing more difficult to execute, nor more dubious of success, nor more dangerous to administer than to introduce a new system of things: for he who introduces it has all those who profit from the old system as his enemies, and he has only lukewarm allies in all those who might profit from the new system.
- Niccolo Machiavelli

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March 02, 2007

Vaksinaattorit

Vaccination was deplored not only because it was risky or unsanitary but also because it contravened deeply held beliefs about the integrity of the body and its fluids. ‘Pure blood’, anti-vaccinators insisted, was the key to health: adulterating blood, like adulterating food, was a form of poisoning. Children, it was feared, would become dehumanised or cowlike on contact with calf lymph; if treated with paupers’ lymph, they could become degenerate and immoral. In her most intriguing chapter, Durbach shows how, in popular treatments, the figure of the vaccinator morphed easily into the figure of the vampire: a foreign and predatory man who sucked the blood of his victims, leaving them disfigured or dead. -- Still, the eradication of smallpox happened not only because 18th-century inoculation had begun a process of protection, not only because viral strains had become less virulent, but also because doctors and officials in many countries and then in the World Health Organisation insisted – over parental objections and doubtless to some individual children’s cost – that the health of humanity would best be protected through mandatory vaccination. The last case of smallpox – a disease that had been with humans for two thousand years – occurred in 1977.

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March 01, 2007

Masinointia

Lex Karpela -mainos - Ostetaan kimpassa Helsingin Sanomien pe 9.3. Nyt-liitteeseen koko sivun mainos. Osallistuminen käy vain tänään torstaina 1.3. Toimi heti.

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