First Human ‘Infected With Computer Virus’
“A British scientist says he is the first man in the world to become infected with a computer virus.
Dr Mark Gasson from the University of Reading had a chip inserted in his hand which was then infected with a virus.
The device, which enables him to pass through security doors and activate his mobile phone, is a sophisticated version of ID chips used to tag pets.
In trials, Dr Gasson showed that the chip was able to pass on the computer virus to external control systems.
If other implanted chips had then connected to the system they too would have been corrupted, he said.
Medical alert
Dr Gasson admits that the test is a proof of principle but he thinks it has important implications for a future where medical devices such as pacemakers and cochlear implants become more sophisticated, and risk being contaminated by other human implants.
‘With the benefits of this type of technology come risks. We may improve ourselves in some way but much like the improvements with other technologies, mobile phones for example, they become vulnerable to risks, such as security problems and computer viruses.’
He also added: ‘Many people with medical implants also consider them to be integrated into their concept of their body, and so in this context it is appropriate to talk in terms of people themselves being infected by computer viruses.’”
Read more at The BBC (thanks, Berber)
Sharks Can Make Themselves Invisible
“In open water, there is often no place to hide. Some sharks have overcome this problem by making themselves invisible to both prey and predators, according to a new study.
Light trickery permits the optical illusion, described in the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. The findings represent the first experimental tests of shark luminescence.
Lead author Julien Claes explained to Discovery News that about 50 different shark species, or more than 10 percent of all known sharks, are luminous. This means they can produce and emit light from their bodies.
Claes and his colleagues chose to focus on one particular luminous shark, nicknamed “the phantom hunter of the fjords”: the velvet belly lantern shark.
This shark’s shimmer originates from light emitting organs called photophores from underneath its body, “effectively creating a glow from that region,” said Claes, a researcher in the Laboratory of Marine Biology, Earth and Life Institute at the Catholic University of Louvain.
“Since many predators have upward-looking eyes, it is a common method of camouflage in the mesopelagic zone (from 656 to 3,281 feet below the surface), although it is the first time it is demonstrated in sharks,” he added.”
Continue reading at Discovery
Dawkins Interview On American Television
Bill Moyers interviewed Richard Dawkins, and old interview but good.
Watch the rest here.
Bleeding glacier spews million-year-old bacteria. Strange Photos
This five-story, blood-red waterfall which pours out of the Taylor Glacier located in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys was first discovered back in 1911. Originally they thought the red color was algal reaction but it turned out to be much more interesting.
Via Treehugger
Man Goes Home With “Total Artificial Heart”
“For nearly two years, 43-year-old Charles Okeke has tried to live a normal life in the hospital tethered to a 400-lb. machine. “It sort of overwhelms you to think, ‘I’m stuck to a machine,’” he says. Okeke was barely 30 when a blood clot destroyed his heart, reports CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton. He had a transplant and for 10 years life was good for this computer consultant and father of three. But in 2008 his body rejected that heart and at that time another transplant was out of the question.
Okeke now has what is called a “total artificial heart.” Both ventricles were removed along with four valves. Connector tubes were sewn in. It pumps blood just like a human heart. “There is an artificial heart inside of me that the tubes connect to from this exit site right here,” he says while pointing to the tubes. “Here is an artificial heart inside of me,” says Okeke. “The tubes connect from this exit site[.]”
When asked about the moment he realized he had a total artificial heart, Okeke says, “For the longest time I could not physically put my hand to my chest because it felt so weird.” But Okeke’s life is about to be transformed. The FDA has just approved this backpack-sized device that runs on batteries and weighs just 13 lbs. It’s the first portable technology to support the entire artificial heart. ”
Read more at CBS News (Thanks @soulmate02)
Does Time Speed Up As You Age?
“Time gets faster the older you are. Or does it? When William Friedman and Steve Janssen asked 49 New Zealand undergrads (average age 21) and 50 older adults (average age 68) to say how fast time passed for them, including the last week, month and year, very few differences emerged. Most participants felt time passed quickly but it was only when considering the speed of the last ten years that the older adults said time had gone by more quickly than the younger participants, and even here the effect of age was small.
This finding, and another like it involving German and Austrian participants published in 2005, casts doubt on some of the classic explanations for time speeding up with age, including William James’ suggestion that time feels slower when younger because it is packed with more memorable events. If true, you’d expect the effect to apply over time periods shorter than ten years.
Friedman and Janssen’s initial study also undermined a novel explanation for time speeding up known as ‘telescoping’. This is the idea that time feels faster when we look back on past events and discover that we underestimated how long ago they occurred. Earlier in the study, the researchers had asked their participants to estimate when 12 newsworthy events from the past had occurred, including Saddam Hussein’s capture in 2003. By giving them false feedback on their accuracy, the researchers exaggerated or reduced the telescoping effect but this didn’t have any effect on participants’ subsequent ratings of how fast time goes by.”
Read more at BPS Research Digest
New portraits
Been trying to sleep off this run-down state and have had to delay my trip by a day to get better. But over the last couple of days have finished Rufus Wainwright and done a fairly speedy Jack Nicholson:
The Jack is a bit more like my old style. I was itching to paint something and it seemed like fun. It’s much smaller than Rufus – 2′x3′ instead of 5′x4′. I imagine I may tinker a little more with it when I get back from my trip. So far it represents about a day’s work. I have yet to get these photographed and up on the site: I shall do that too when I return.
Right – ‘spose I must pack.
Derren Brown Investigates – Ch4 Monday 31st May 10pm
Derren travels to the US to investigate claims of one man who says he has proof of ghosts, demonic possession and evidence of the afterlife.
Opera Singing In The Brain Scanner
“The idea that the brain changes and adapts according to how you use it, including through adulthood, is now widely accepted in psychology and neuroscience. Some of the most striking examples of this have come from studies of musicians. It’s been shown, for instance, that string and keyboard players have more neural tissue given over to the control of the hands and fingers than do non-musicians. However, little researched until now is the brain re-organisation associated with professional singing.
Like the playing of a musical instrument, singing involves skilled muscle movements – indeed, more than 100 muscles are used – but there are also some differences between singing and instrument playing. For example, you can watch your own fingers tap out a tune on a keyboard but you can’t ‘see’ your muscle coordination whilst singing.
Boris Kleber’s team had 10 professional opera singers, 21 singing students and 18 non-singer controls lie in a brain scanner and sing 6 phrases from the first stanza of the Italian aria ‘Cara mio ben’.
The most striking finding was that greater experience with opera singing was associated with more activation of the somatosensory cortex whilst singing. This part of the brain processes incoming signals from the body and the finding suggests that singing expertise is particularly associated with enhanced processing of where the vocal muscles are positioned in space. This makes sense given that you can’t ‘see’ yourself sing and must instead rely on feedback from the vocal muscles.”
Read more at BPS Research Digest
Astronomer Copernicus Reburied As Hero
“Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer whose findings were condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as heretical, was reburied by Polish priests as a hero on Saturday, nearly 500 years after he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave.
His burial in a tomb in the cathedral where he once served as a church canon and doctor indicates how far the church has come in making peace with the scientist whose revolutionary theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun helped usher in the modern scientific age.
Copernicus, who lived from 1473 to 1543, died as a little-known astronomer working in what is now Poland, far from Europe’s centers of learning. He had spent years laboring in his free time developing his theory, which was later condemned as heretical by the church because it removed Earth and humanity from their central position in the universe.
His revolutionary model was based on complex mathematical calculations and his naked-eye observations of the heavens because the telescope had not yet been invented.
After his death, his remains rested in an unmarked grave beneath the floor of the cathedral in Frombork, northern Poland, the exact location unknown.”
Read more at Yahoo News
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