Nick Bostrom's Home Page Damanhur - Temples of Humankind Tree of Life Exploring Tomorrow Whether you are baking them at home or buying them from the store, cupcakes seem to be a welcomed treat by many. With the various combination of flavours and the creative designs that bakers have presented the world with, the cupcake trend continues to rise. But how else can a cupcake company innovate to meet the demands of their customers, around the clock? Sprinkles in Beverly Hills just introduced their cupcake ATM last week that allows customers to buy their delicious treats 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Photo Courtesy of Droog.com We’ve talked about these MUJI and Echo Design touchscreen gloves before and since then, there seems to have been a variety of similar type products on the market. Birthdays are a special time and are definitely a cause for celebration! I love tree houses! Inspired by nature and the process of photosynthesis, this usb charging station has been designed to look and act like a bonsai tree. image source
THE MAYAN CALENDAR PORTAL NETWORK | The Mayan Calendar Portal At the core of the Mayan Calendar Portal, version 2.0, is the Network. The Network is organized by geographic region (see the links above) and includes the web sites, pages and links to information, research and materials about the Sacred Calendar of the Maya. This list continues to grow, and is by no means exhaustive. To learn more about how this new version of the Mayan Calendar Portal works, click here. If you know of a web site or link you feel should be included here, please fill out our Content Submission Form, or simply email us. And be sure to explore the Resources section, which contains a lot more information about institutions, events and conferences, publications, and other sources of knowledge related and relevant to the Maya and their Sacred Calendar.
Everything I Thought I Knew About Velociraptors Was a Lie Today I found out everything you probably think you know about Velociraptors is a lie. Now to be fair, everything I “knew” about Velociraptors came from the Jurassic Park movies and so I shouldn’t really be surprised it was all wrong. So if, like me, you thought that Velociraptors were slightly bigger than a human; reptilian looking; hunted in packs; were found in what is now the United States; and were ridiculously intelligent. Velociraptors were actually only about the size of a domesticated Turkey, being only about 3 feet tall and 6 feet long, with most of the length coming from the tail and weighing in at around 20-30 pounds full grown. As Mark Norell, curator of fossil reptiles, amphibians, and birds at the American Museum of Natural History, stated, “The more that we learn about these animals the more we find that there is basically no difference between birds and their closely related dinosaur ancestors like Velociraptor. Were they intelligent? Bonus Facts: Expand for References:
Grathio Labs Incredible Space Pics from ISS by NASA astronaut Wheelock Go Discovery! It was October 23, 2007 at 11:40am EST when I had my first ride to space on Discovery. She’s beautiful… just sad that this will be her last voyage. Looking forward to climbing aboard the flight deck when Discovery arrives at the Space Station in November. (9-23-2010). On September 22, 2010, with the departure of the Expedition 23 crew, Colonel Douglas H. We thought that we should put some of the space photos together as a tribute to him and the whole ISS crew. The following space photos are all visible on Astro_Wheels’ twitpic account, and we are eternally grateful to him for sharing these space photos with the world. Incredible Photos from Space: ‘Earthshine’… The Space Station basking in blue Earthshine as the rising sun pierces our razor-thin atmosphere to cover the Space Station with blue light. NASA astronaut Douglas H. Incredible Photos from Space: Isle Juan de Nova In the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and the African mainland.
4 Rare Earth Elements That Will Only Get More Important Sir William Crookes, a 19th century British chemist, once wrote that, "rare earth elements perplex us in our researches, baffle us in our speculations and haunt us in our very dreams." These weren't easy elements to isolate or to understand, and so there was a very long lag time between the discovery of the rare earths, and the discovery of practical uses for them. It didn't help that individual rare earth elements don't occur by their lonesome—they travel in packs. Europium was the first isolated, high purity rare earth element to enter the public marketplace, in 1967, as a source of the color red in TV sets. At the time, rare earth mining wasn't even a twinkle in China's eye. Today, europium is still used as a phosphor, but as cathode ray tube TVs go the way of the dodo, it's more likely to turn up in white LED-based lights, which could someday be an energy efficient replacement for both incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs.
The Complexity of the Creative Personality Researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi includes in his books and other writings descriptions of the diversity and multiple characteristics of creative people. In a post of hers, Juliet Bruce, Ph.D. notes that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced me-high chick-sent-me-high-ee) wrote, “If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude.” “Like the color white that includes all colors, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. Creativity allows for paradox, light, shadow, inconsistency, even chaos – and creative people experience both extremes with equal intensity.” Here are a few qualities he lists, as Bruce summarizes: A great deal of physical energy alternating with a great need for quiet and rest.Highly sexual, yet often celibate, especially when working.Smart and naïve at the same time. Do you relate to any of these qualities?
Order and Randomness Gary AntonickIf you have just three buttons on your music player, how can you select a specific song for your valentine in the fewest number of steps? (See text for details.) Today is Valentine’s Day, a day when you want to set the romantic mood by choosing the perfect music. To inspire us, last night was one of the music world’s biggest nights: the Grammy Awards. All you have to do now is to pick the right songs – today’s digital musical players and smartphones make it a snap to select them from your playlist to suit every mood. 1. For our word puzzle today, let’s introduce the shuffle move into the classical game of word ladders, converting it into something like “word spiral staircases” or “word double helixes.” Try changing PIANO to MUSIC and GRAMMY to OSCARS with the shuffle step allowed. And while we are tinkering with the rules, let’s add another one that will enable us to build ladders between words of different lengths. Here’s wishing everyone a very happy Valentine’s Day.
Why do we believe in electrons, but not in fairies? by Benjamin Kuipers No one has directly observed either electrons or fairies. Both of them are theoretical constructs, useful to explain observations that might be difficult to explain otherwise. The "theory of fairies" can actually explain more things than the "theory of electrons". Is the issue a political one, where the "electron" fans got the upper hand in the nineteenth century, so by the twentieth century the "fairy" fans were a scorned and persecuted minority? No, to both. Fairies are much more free. It's always possible that there really are fairies. The scientific method is an amazing procedure for incrementally improving certain kinds of theories: those that make testable predictions. The theory of evolution is a scientific theory, because it implies a large number of specific testable claims. The theory of intelligent design could be true. The scientific method is an enormous intellectual asset to the human race. Atheism is a religion, too! Teaching better science
Cornell Fabrication Lab Makes Edible Objects With 3-D Printer Here at PopSci we often write about emerging technologies like 3-D printing, perhaps almost as often as we write about space launches and rocket ships. And every now and then the use of high-tech gadgetry in the kitchen gives us reason to write about things like scallops and cheese. But until Cornell University teamed up with Dave Arnold and New York's French Culinary Institute to create miniature scallop-and-cheese space shuttles using a specially equipped 3-D printer, we never thought we'd ever write about all three at the same time. Cornell's computational synthesis lab has created software tools that allow engineers to create edible objects using complex geometries that even a skilled chef would have a great deal of trouble creating by hand. So far the team has printed with all kinds of ingredients: cheese, chocolate, hummus, turkey, celery, scallops, etc.
Autologous Stem Cell Therapy Institute :: Creating long-term facial rejuvenation