Spinal cord damage blocks the routes that the brain uses to send messages to the nerve cells that control walking. Until now, doctors believed that the only way for injured patients to walk again was to re-grow the long nerve highways that link the brain and base of the spinal cord. For the first time, a UCLA study shows that the central nervous system can reorganize itself and follow new pathways to restore the cellular communication required for movement. The lead researcher said, "This pessimistic view [that severe injury to the spinal cord means permanent paralysis] has changed over my lifetime, and our findings add to a growing body of research showing that the nervous system can reorganize after injury."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source:
Slashdot | 9 Jan 2008 | 10:34 am
A Dutch ceramicist gamer is selling a line of clay bricks cast in a mold taken from an original Nintendo Game Boy. At 20€ each, they're a little too pricey for a whole garden wall, but the idea is damned intriguing.
Link
(
Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
Source:
Boing Boing | 9 Jan 2008 | 8:39 am
An anonymous reader writes "Mobile phones with built-in mini projectors will launch later this year, according to 3M, which gave PC Pro a hands-on demonstration of the technology at CES 2008. The projector has a brightness of around 8-10 lumens, and is capable of displaying an image of up to 50 in., although 3M's spokesperson Greg Roberts told us that, with perfect lighting conditions, it's possible to squeeze a 60-in. screen out of the projector."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Slashdot | 9 Jan 2008 | 7:56 am
Eva sez, "My husband and I figured out a way to make 8-bit style cookies with a Play-Doh extruder. We've uploaded a how-to, along with pictures of our Tetris cookies, question blocks,and so forth."
Link
(
Thanks, Eva!)
Source:
Boing Boing | 9 Jan 2008 | 7:44 am
Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels: the Christian Atheism guy who stands quietly at Speaker's Corner in London every Sunday, with signs that proclaim: CHRISTIAN ATHEISM: TO FOLLOW JESUS, REJECT GOD.
Link
Source:
Boing Boing | 9 Jan 2008 | 6:13 am
Gabrielle sez, "This is a youtube of an orchestra entirely comprised of modified vegetables. There's a trumpet made from a carrot and a pepper, a carrot flute, and amazing percussion." Catchy tune, too -- delicious!
Link to video,
Link to Vienna Vegetable Orchestra site
(
Thanks, Gabrielle!)
See also: Web Zen: Food Art Zen
Source:
Boing Boing | 9 Jan 2008 | 6:12 am
A college student is attempting to level two "pacifist" characters up to the top of World of Warcraft's character progression, characters he's playing without attacking anything. It's partly to try out the philosophy of pacifism in the violent virtual world, and partly to see if he can do it:
Show us your kung fu: what's the actual nuts-and-bolts reality of this character?
Both my priest and my rogue try not to hit anything, although there's always a chance of a misclick when trying to open a quest item with mobs fighting near it. Both of them always wield a fishing rod, so any accidental hits won't increase their weapon skills. Neither of them will do quests where they have to kill things. In battlegrounds, my rogue will throw bombs to interrupt flag captures and stun people and may even accidentally kill players low in health or nearby critters. My priest only heals, so he is actually closer in roleplaying terms. Neither will "get around" these limits by grouping and having other players do their dirty work.
In terms of bragging rights, I intend to keep my rogue's weapon skills (dagger, thrown and unarmed) at all 1s. My priest will also have all 1s, but it won't be obvious on WoW Armory that he has no offensive spells beyond the level 1 Smite all priests start with.
Link
(
via Negatendo)
Source:
Boing Boing | 9 Jan 2008 | 6:07 am
The feed brings us a New Scientist review of the repairs and new instruments that astronauts will bring to the Hubble Space Telescope next August (unless the launch is delayed). The resulting instrument will be 90 times as powerful as Hubble was designed to be when launched, and 60% more capable than it was after its flawed optics were repaired in 1993. If the astronauts pull it off — and the mission is no slam-dunk — the space telescope should be able to image galaxies back to 400 million years after the Big Bang.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Slashdot | 9 Jan 2008 | 5:19 am
HalvarFlake writes "With all the hoopla about the remotely exploitable, kernel-level buffer overflow discussed in today's security bulletin MS08-0001, what is the actual bug that triggers this? The bulletin doesn't give all that much information. This movie (Flash required) goes through the process of examining the 'pre-patch' version of tcpip.sys and comparing it against the 'post-patch' version of tcpip.sys. This comparison yields the actual code that causes the overflow: A mistake in the calculation of the required size in a dynamic allocation."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source:
Slashdot | 9 Jan 2008 | 3:18 am
Following up on today's BBtv episode about deepfried cellphones, Dario Agosta writes in...
Just finished watching your exilarating video segment on BBtv about
the cellphone - deep-frying party (hmmm, wonder how my motorola would
taste, tried to get rid of it for years to no avail), and suddenly it
dawned on me: I have a friend, Mirko, who is a designer and an artist
who *actually* fries... well pretty much everything.
Yes, I have weird friends. Um, no, come to think of it he's one of the
most normal ones.
Here is a picture of a deep-fried iPod, more on his site: Link.
Source:
Boing Boing | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:42 am
Next week's MacWorld Conference and Expo may be the place where iPhones, iPods and all the latest Mac hardware are announced, but it's also the annual curtain-raiser for the Mac software industry. Here's what to expect from Apple, Microsoft and the other big names.
Source:
Wired Software | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
Mr. Know-It-All tells how to get through customs (or not) with DVDs, send e-mails that make it past spam filters and whether or not to buy unlocked cellphones on eBay.
Source:
Wired: Top Stories | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
The race to unveil amazing new gadgets sometimes turns ludicrous, but it could be worse. Much worse. Commentary by Lore Sjöberg.
Source:
Wired: Top Stories | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
When cosmetics chief Andrea Jung joins the Cupertino juggernaut, it raises the question: What is Steve Jobs hiding up his sleeve? Commentary by Leander Kahney.
Source:
Wired: Gadgets | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
Apple is playing its usual, tight-lipped corporate self, but ultraslim MacBook tablets, movie rentals, an Apple TV renewal of some sort, HD content and ditching plastic cases for aluminum also look to be on the docket.
Source:
Wired: Gadgets | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
The world's first supersonic jetliner is sleek, sexy, fast ... and ridiculously expensive. Only Gallic stubbornness and generous subsidies keep it flying for over three decades.
Source:
Wired: Top Stories | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
Scott Brown brings geeky back with his five Nerd Year's resolutions. Standing while playing Wii, anyone?
Source:
Wired: Top Stories | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
Next week's MacWorld Conference and Expo may be the place where iPhones, iPods and all the latest Mac hardware are announced, but it's also the annual curtain-raiser for the Mac software industry. Here's what to expect from Apple, Microsoft and the other big names.
Source:
Wired: Top Stories | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
When cosmetics chief Andrea Jung joins the Cupertino juggernaut, it raises the question: What is Steve Jobs hiding up his sleeve? Commentary by Leander Kahney.
Source:
Wired: Top Stories | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
Apple is playing its usual, tight-lipped corporate self, but ultraslim MacBook tablets, movie rentals, an Apple TV renewal of some sort, HD content and ditching plastic cases for aluminum also look to be on the docket.
Source:
Wired: Top Stories | 9 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
Stony Stevenson alerts us to a US Department of Homeland Security program in which subcontractors have been examining FOSS source code for security vulnerabilities. InformationWeek.com takes a glass-half-empty approach to reporting the story, saying that for FOSS code on average 1 line in 1000 contains a security bug. From the article: 'A total of 7,826 open source project defects have been fixed through the Homeland Security review, or one every two hours since it was launched in 2006...' ZDNet Australia prefers to emphasize those FOSS projects that fixed every reported bug, thus achieving a clean bill of health according to DHS. These include PHP, Perl, Python, Postfix, and Samba.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source:
Slashdot | 9 Jan 2008 | 1:20 am
An expression denoting repulsion, derived from an English-to-Chinese-to-English translation of Darth Vader screaming "Nooo!"
Source:
Wired: Top Stories | 9 Jan 2008 | 1:00 am
Recently uncovered code on the Flickr website hints at Yahoo's plans to support OpenID, the identity system which would allow users to manage their logins for all Yahoo properties -- as well as other services such as LinkedIn and MySpace -- from one central, secure location.
Source:
Wired Software | 9 Jan 2008 | 12:15 am
Wireless speakers sound like a great idea, but so far no one has made them work very well -- sound quality and latency are just too problematic. Now a new ultra-wideband, mesh-networked wireless-speaker technology aims to fix that.
Source:
Wired: Gadgets | 9 Jan 2008 | 12:00 am
djmoore writes "Over at Make Magazine, watch this video of a French amateur radio operator making and testing his own vacuum tubes. It looks like he built much of his own equipment as well. The Make poster notes: 'I love the ease with which he performs these rather high-end skills (like glass forming), the gestural flourishes (like it's hand magic), and the Zelig-esque soundtrack.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source:
Slashdot | 8 Jan 2008 | 11:19 pm
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