Travel Photo of the Week

Borobudur Temple, Java

Processed Foods Hijack Your Appetite

That's the conclusion of Stephen J. Simpson (academic director of the University of Sydney's Charles  Perkins Centre) and David Raubenheimer (Leonard P. Ullman chair in nutritional ecology and nutrition theme leader at the Charles Perkins Centre) in their new paper in Nature.

Their work shows that as the balance of natural to processed foods we consume has tilted more towards processed food containing more fat and sugar, our brains have been hijacked to consume more of them. From the paper.....

"As long as the animal eats the foods that it evolved to consume, this balance is maintained. The trouble comes when it eats a diet with a disproportionate quantity of a particular macronutrient, either because of a lack of appropriate foods in the environment or because its appetite control systems have been fooled or subverted. This is now happening in humans, as we live in a foodscape scarcely recognizable to our forebears."

"Many processed food products are protein-poor but are engineered to taste like protein. Many people therefore eat far too much fat and carbohydrate in their attempt to ingest enough protein. In this way, engineered foods subvert the appetite control systems that should be helping to balance the consumption of macronutrients."

Maybe we should eat to live, instead of live to eat.

The Honey Hunters Of Nepal

An amazing set of images from photographer Andrew Newey.

Rejoice Moog Synthesizer Fans! It's Really True!

When Moog Music announced that the synthesizer Genome Project had created a replica of Keith Emerson's famous Moog Modular system on April 1st of this year, we all thought that it was just another of their little jokes. After all, the past two April Fool's Day offerings were complete frauds. But we were punked again. They weren't fooling this time. From the horse's mouth....

"Moog Music unveils one of its largest engineering undertakings, the new Emerson Moog Modular System. On the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the Moog Modular, the first voltage controlled synthesizer, Moog Music is proud to honor Keith Emerson and his seminal collaboration with Bob Moog. Today, for the first time at Moogfest 2014, Moog Music reveals its three year effort faithfully recreating the iconic Emerson Moog Modular."

"In the intervening 50 years since the advent of the first Moog synthesizer, people have steadily come to appreciate the power and flexibility of the early Moog modular systems. Now in 2014, 60 years after Bob Moog started his electronic musical instrument company, with great respect for the tradition, design, and craftsmanship of the original Moog modular systems, Moog Music proudly announces the recreation of arguably the most famous synthesizer in history--Keith Emerson’s Moog Modular System."

It's really true. It's really here. It's really expensive.

Fun Time! Boomer, The Robotic Dinosaur!

Only a prototype, Boomer is set for production later this year.

Cardboard Cities

Photographer Andy Rudak and model maker Luke Aan de Wiel created an amazing set of street scenes in miniature from cardboard. Each scene contains a single wild animal figure.

"I knew I wanted the shots to portray a scene of serenity and create an almost dreamlike scenario. No movement, merely a feeling of calm stillness....without the people there the city falls silent, its just you, the buildings and the animal," Rudak told Smithsonian. "The fact that the animal didn’t really belong in the habitat was to aid the feeling of being in a dream."

255 Square Mile Iceberg Drifts Away From Antarctic Glacier

I'm sure all those folks who think that global warming is a liberal myth still won't be convinced by this massive iceberg that is now headed into the open ocean. They'll probably delude themselves into thinking that it's just liberal Hollywood lending a hand with special effects.

But this is a problem whose time has arrived. Large chunks of slowly melting ice scattered throughout the ocean is going to be one huge maritime disaster. Below is a short video to get you up to speed.

Travel Photo of the Week

Ragusa Ibla, Italy

The Knowledge: How To Rebuild Our World From Scratch

A couple of years ago I profiled Marcin Jakubowski who was developing a group of modular machines that would allow you to rebuild civilization after a disaster. Now comes the instruction book from Lewis Dartnell.

"The Knowledge: How To Rebuild Our World From Scratch" shows us that human knowledge is collective and distributed across the population. It has built on itself for centuries. It has becoming vast and increasingly specialized. and most of us are ignorant about the fundamental principles of the civilization that supports us.

From the book....

"Maybe it was a viral pandemic, or an asteroid strike, or perhaps nuclear war. Whatever the cause, the world as we know it has ended and you and the other survivors must start again. What key knowledge would you need to start rebuilding civilisation from scratch?"

"Once you’ve scavenged what you can, how do you begin producing the essentials? How do you grow food, generate power, prepare medicines, or get metal out of rocks? Could you avert another Dark Ages or take shortcuts to accelerate redevelopment?"

Living in the modern world, we have become disconnected from the basic processes that support our lives, as well as the beautiful fundamentals of science that enable you to relearn things for yourself."

Seems like a good time to read this, doesn't it?

Man Compares His New $50 3D Printed Hand To His Old $42,000 Prosthetic

Jose Delgado Jr. was born without a left hand. He had been using a $42,000 prosthetic hand for over a year when he met up with Jeremy Simon of 3DUniverse.org. Jeremy 3D printed Jose a Cyborg Beast hand.

Let's see what Jose thinks of his new $50 replacement.

Closing Surgical Incisions With A Paintbrush And Nanoparticles

From the German Chemical Society journal Angewandte Chemie...

"Stopping bleeding (hemostasis), preventing body fluid leakages, wound closing, and organ repair are everyday challenges in medical and surgical practice. Sutures and staples are standard and efficient tools. Still, suturing can be demanding in inaccessible body regions or within minimally invasive surgery. Moreover, sutures are traumatic to tissues especially soft tissues such as liver, spleen, kidney, or lung."

"Polymer tissue adhesives require complex in vivo control of polymerization or cross-linking reactions and currently suffer from being toxic, weak, or inefficient within the wet conditions of the body. Herein, we demonstrate using Stöber silica or iron oxide nanoparticles that nanobridging, that is, adhesion by aqueous nanoparticle solutions, can be used in vivo in rats to achieve rapid and strong closure and healing of deep wounds in skin and liver. Nanoparticles were also used to fix polymer membranes to tissues even in the presence of blood flow, such as occurring after liver resection, yielding permanent hemostasis within a minute. Furthermore, medical devices and tissue engineering constructs were fixed to organs such as a beating heart. The simplicity, rapidity, and robustness of nanobridging bode well for clinical applications, surgery, and regenerative medicine."

In other words, it looks like very soon there will be a way to heal wounds and repair organs virtually instantaneously. Ain't science great?

Fun Time! Happy Bicycle Day!

Open Source Seeds For Gardeners

Jack Kloppenburg , Irwin Goldman,  and Claire Luby fill envelopes
 with non-patentable seeds in the Horticulture office in Moore Hall.

From the University of Wisconsin-Madison....

"This week, scientists, farmers and sustainable food systems advocates will gather on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to celebrate an unusual group of honored guests: 29 new varieties of broccoli, celery, kale, quinoa and other vegetables and grains that are being publicly released using a novel form of ownership agreement known as the Open Source Seed Pledge."

"The pledge, which was developed through a UW-Madison-led effort known as the Open Source Seed Initiative, is designed to keep the new seeds free for all people to grow, breed and share for perpetuity, with the goal of protecting the plants from patents and other restrictions down the line."

Finding Vivian Maier

During the 1950s and '60s, Vivian Maier took over a hundred thousand photographs of life in Chicago while she worked as a nanny.

The photos have only recently been discovered and Ms Maier is enjoying in death what she would have never tolerated in life: fame. Here is the trailer for the upcoming documentary on her work and its discovery.



And here is a slideshow of some of her work.

Travel Photo of the Week

Cinque Terre, Italy

Oldest Living Things In the World - The Photography Of Rachel Sussman

2,180-7000 Year Old Japanese Cedar

Rachel Sussman has braved some of the world’s harshest climates from Antarctica to the Mojave Desert in order to photograph the oldest continuously living organisms on Earth.

Sussman’s photographs have been published for the first time in "The Oldest Living Things in the World", a new book published by the University of Chicago Press.

New York City In Three Minutes

Jeremy Mann's Impressionistic Cityscapes

I was looking at the art blog Colossal and found these. All so beautiful and apparently a perfect combination of realism and impressionism. Here's a link to Mann's website, also.

Fun Time! 360° Timelapse Video Using 6 GoPro Cameras!

Watch the Construction Of Andy Scott’s 100 Ft. Steel Equine Statues, The Kelpies

322 Square Foot Floating Eco Lodge On A Balsa Raft

"Completed in eight days by Catholic University of America students, the Floating Eco Lodge is an ironwood structure set atop a balsa raft. The thatch roof allows some natural light inside but blocks the most intense rays and heat. The pitched roof also creates a chimney effect, drawing hot air out of the 322-square-foot space inside." - from the Los AngelesTimes.

Travel Photo of the Week

Copenhagen, Denmark

The Birth Of Ubiquitous 3D Printing - The Micro3D Printer

This Kickstarter project just went live yesterday. I reported on it in my February 20th post. I was probably the second or third to sign up yesterday, seconds after it went live and I will be anticipating its February 2015 delivery greatly.

In ten hours, this project had raised over a half million dollars, ten times what was needed to fund it. Sometime this morning it will hit $1M. This could be the device that really jump-starts a maker revolution.

Watch the video.

The Open Bench Project - A Maker Space In Maine

"The Open Bench Project is conceived as a shared learn/work facility in Portland Maine, cultivating a community of makers by providing access to studio/work space, tools, and resources around skill and capacity building. We provide an opportunity for makers of all types — amateurs, professionals, hobbyists, entrepreneurs, youth, artists, scientists, engineers — to explore ideas, hone and learn new skills, and collaborate with thought partners across disciplines."

Enrico Dini 3D Printing Coral Reefs To Prevent Coastal Erosion

And since I brought up Enrico Dini on Friday's entry, I thought I might add what he's up to today.

Fun Time! Kids Doing Movie Sound Effects!

10 Completely 3D Printed Houses Built In Shanghai In Under A Day

Two years ago I put up an article about Enrico Dini, who was working on a 3D printer that would build a house. Well, it looks like someone in China liked that idea.

From the article on 3ders.org......

"While Hobbyist models of 3D printers are currently available for only a few hundred dollars and lets users feed plastics and polymers into a machine, the company takes this technology to a bigger level. Using concrete, instead of plastic, WinSun wants to revolutionize the way homes and other structures are built. "

"WinSun's 150(L) x 10(W) x 6.6(H) m gigantic 3D printer is capable of printing entire building within hours. The 'ink' it used is based on high-grade cement and glass fiber. Like traditional 3D printers, the system carefully spills out those materials layer by layer, consistently building upward."

Make the future happen faster is my new motto.

Humans Arrived In The Americas 22,000 Years Ago

For over half a century school children have been taught that people first arrived on the American continents around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

It looks like that history lesson is about to change. From the New York Times article where I found this...

"Researchers here say they have unearthed stone tools proving that humans reached what is now northeast Brazil as early as 22,000 years ago. Their discovery adds to the growing body of research upending a prevailing belief of 20th-century archaeology in the United States known as the Clovis model, which holds that people first arrived in the Americas from Asia about 13,000 years ago."

What other little "details" do we have wrong? Time to update the "History" books.

Travel Photo of the Week

Atlantic Ocean Road, Norway

Soft Robots With No Hard Parts

"We’ve been developing methods for creating durable, inexpensive soft body robots. Fundamentally, the technology involves designing a robot in CAD, 3d printing molds for the interior and exterior of the bot, and casting it in silicone."