STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

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The Bennington Triangle and the Man-Eating Stone of Glastonbury Mountain

There’s been a lot of focus lately, on weird happenings in faraway lands. The middle-east, Russia, Asia, even Australia, which from a Can-Am-centric perspective (I’m Canadian) might provide an expanded view of our world, but there are plenty of weird things to look at right here in North America. And today I bring a story from what is arguably one of North America’s most beautiful destinations: New England.

Known for high society, fine-dining, world class skiing, and mysterious disappearances, Vermont, one of the six US states that make up the New England region, has been the focus of some of the better minds in anomalous or Fortean research over the years. One place in particular has gotten more than its fair share of attention: Glastonbury Mountain, also known as Green Mountain or the Green Mountain Range, is home to some very strange goings on, and has inspired some of the wildest theories you’ve ever heard.

The entire area of New England has been the primary focus of renowned author and Fortean researcher Joseph A. Citro.

Humorously dubbed the Bard of the Bizarre by the Boston Globe, Citro has written extensively on the weird happenings, disappearances and other phenomena of New England, and especially Vermont. He is the originator of the somewhat little known Bennington Triangle theory, which is, as may seem obvious, a play on the Bermuda Triangle, and is his attempt to document and explain the disappearance of some five different people under mysterious circumstances since 1945, all on Glastonbury Mountain.

Citro notes, in his premiere novel Shadow Child (1987), which deals extensively with the mysteries of Glastonbury Mountain, that the area of what is now called Green Mountain has long been known, through Native American culture, as a strange and dangerous place that is to be avoided at all costs. Citro’s apparent familiarity with the history and traditions of the Algonquin peoples, who inhabited the area as early as 8500 BCE, has given him unique insight into the special and dark nature of the mountain.

The disappearances of Middie Rivers (1945), Paula Weldon (1946), James Tedford (1949), Paul Jepson (1950), and Frieda Langer (1950), are something of local legend in the area.

18 year old Paula Weldon, who disappeared while on a solo hike on the Long Trail, became something of a celebrity. As the story goes, several people witnessed her departure from Bennington College, with the knowledge that she was headed out for a short hike. Two elderly hikers reported seeing her on the trail, approximately 100 yards ahead of them, minutes before she disappeared.

They claimed that she rounded a corner on the trail, and when they reached the same corner, she was gone, and was never seen or heard from again, despite extensive searches, FBI involvement and even a $5000 reward for her safe return. Her case became part of local urban legend, as people speculated about her becoming a wild recluse on the mountain, or perhaps fleeing to Canada to marry a boyfriend whose identity she kept secret.

There are several coincidences involved in the disappearances, but no real connection between any of the cases has been found. James Tedford (also spelled Teford or Tetford) disappeared from a bus between stops as it travelled toward Bennington exactly three years to the day from Weldon’s disappearance. Also, 8 year old Paul Jepson, who disappeared from his mother’s truck, while she tended to her pigs, was tracked with dogs. His scent was apparently picked up and followed to a local highway, which happened to be very near where Paula Weldon had disappeared.

The only one of the five to ever have been recovered was 53 year old Frieda Langer, who disappeared during a hike with her cousin only sixteen days after little Paul Jepson. Her body was recovered seven months later, near the Somerset Reservoir, which had been searched extensively at the time of her disappearance. No cause of death could be determined because of the advanced state of decay in which she was found.

Strange coincidences notwithstanding, there isn’t much about these disappearances that warrants Fortean attention, at least on the surface. People go missing, it happens every day, all over the world, and though it’s a tragic event, it isn’t necessarily anomalous or even all that weird.

Except…

According to Citro, the Bennington Triangle, an ill-defined area surrounding Glastonbury Mountain and roughly bordered by the region of Bennington itself, bears striking resemblance to the nearby Bridgewater Triangle of Massachusetts. The Bridgewater Triangle, for those unfamiliar, is an area of approximately 200 square miles in southeastern Massachusetts, wherein sightings of UFO’s, orbs, Bigfoot, and thunderbird, as well as cattle mutilations have been taking place on a regular basis for decades, if not centuries. Citro claims that there is similar folklore and history between these two areas, and has put forward some slightly strange explanations for the weirdness held therein.

Perhaps his strangest explanation is the man-eating stone of Glastonbury Mountain. Making its first appearance in Citro’s book The Vermont Monster Guide(2009), the man-eating stone is exactly what it sounds like…a rock that eats people.

“No one alive has seen this dangerous anomaly on Glastonbury Mountain. Native Americans knew of it, and warned people away.

We can only imagine it as a sizable rock, large enough to stand on. But when someone stands upon it, the rock becomes less solid, and, like a living thing, swallows the unfortunate trespasser. A number of disappearances have been reported on Glastonbury Mountain. Could all these vanished folks have stepped inadvertently on this hungry stone?”

In another of his books, Passing Strange: True Tales of New England Hauntings and Horrors (1996), Citro describes “an inaccessible region, remote, full of dark places, jutting outcrops, vast marshlands and quiet pools.” He seems to regard the entire region as a magical land of mysteries and dangers, almost fairy-tale-like, but describes a wild, almost untouched wilderness sitting in the heart of American society’s upper crust summer vacation destination.

Is there something weird going on at Glastonbury Mountain? Is the Bennington Triangle worth a closer look? Or is a talented author and folklorist trying to sell books through sensational, if difficult to believe theories? The facts are that five people disappeared on that mountain, four of them without a trace of evidence as to their whereabouts or fate. That alone should get our attention, and who knows…maybe there is a boulder with an appetite for man-flesh in Vermont.

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How the Air Force Could Finally Give You a Decent Wi-Fi Connection

The Air Force is eying a new kind of wireless network.

Hoping to improve the way its planes communicate in hostile environments, the aerial branch of the U.S. Armed Forces is sharing $2.7 million with computer science researchers at the University at Buffalo who will spend the next four years developing software that can make wireless radios significantly smarter and more efficient. It’s called cognitive radio, and though the concept has been around for awhile, there are some signs that it’s getting ready for prime time, and it could be used to boost wireless networks well beyond the Air Force. Microsoft has tinkered with cognitive radio, and some think that Google could use it as a way of improving its self-driving cars.

Used inside Air Force planes, the tech could prevent enemy aircraft from jamming signals, and though that may seem far from the everyday world, it could also pay dividends for consumers. After all, the growing universe of extremely chatty mobile devices have a way of jamming our cellular and Wi-Fi networks. “We do not really utilize the concepts of space, time, and spectrum efficiently,” says Dimitris Pados, an electrical engineering professor at the University at Buffalo.

The idea behind cognitive radio is to build smarter, more flexible networking gear with bigger brains. Using these techniques, Pados believes, his research team will be able to speed up wireless networking by tenfold.

In short, cognitive radios use software to figure out what’s going on with the network. Is there interference? Is there a better way to send messages? The radios can then adjust their power, frequency, even their network protocols — all on the fly — so that the computers bits and bytes cross the network more quickly that they do with today’s routers and wireless phones.

Take your Wi-Fi router. The way things work today, Wi-Fi routers use one of a handful of predetermined frequency ranges to communicate with smartphones, gadgets and laptops. If things didn’t work that way, your Wi-Fi signal could interfere with your digital TV, cellular phone signal, or AM radio, which all operate on different ranges. But cognitive radio — at least in theory — is smart enough to use some of these other ranges without causing interference. “We let every radio in the network have access to the whole available spectrum,” Pados says.

Some of the core ideas behind cognitive radio date back to the 1980s — when researchers would have to haul around their gear in the back of a truck. But the mobile revolution has shrunk down radio components to the point where the kind of equipment you’d need to assemble a cognitive radio router is about the size of a hardcover book.

Backed by funding from the Air Force, researchers are testing cognitive radios at the University of Buffalo.

Back in 2005, when Alex Wyglinski first started researching cognitive radio, there were fewer than 100 researchers worldwide looking into it. That has changed. “Nowadays, this topic is the hottest topic in the wireless sector,” says Wyglinski, an engineering professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Both DARPA — the research arm of the Department of Defense — and the National Science Foundation have sponsored research into cognitive radio, and a handful of startups are working to make it a reality.

But there’s a big problem. Cognitive radio simply isn’t in line with FCC regulations, which do not allow devices to jump from one section of spectrum to another. Pados will get to test out his network in a special zone where the FCC’s rules don’t apply — at the Air Force’s Stockbridge Research Facility, just outside of Rome, New York. But getting a real-world license for one of these systems “is nearly impossible under current FCC rules and procedures,” says David Reed. He should know. He’s an internet pioneer who was previously a member of the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council.

Although he is not optimistic that it will happen soon, he’d like to see FCC policy change to allow for use of these bandwidth-enhancing technologies such as cognitive computing and white spaces broadband, which would use the digital television spectrum to provide broadband internet to rural areas. “Subdividing the spectrum or dividing up space into coverage areas actually destroy capacity as the number of radios increases,” he said in an email interview, adding, “while these cooperative techniques, which use computation, create more capacity as the number of radios increase.”

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A Biometric Gun Lock That Even the NRA Might Like

Omer Kiyani’s hands still shake when he remembers the day that changed the course of his life.

He was 16 years old, riding in a car with a group of friends, when someone started firing a gun outside the car. Kiyani — who never identified the shooter and has trouble remembering the incident — was shot in the mouth. After several surgeries, his physical problems faded away, but the shooting left an indelible impression on his psyche.

Yes, he believes in making guns safer, but he’s not your typical safety advocate. He’s a gun owner himself, and he wants to control firearms in the most practical of ways. That’s why he founded Sentinl, a Detroit-based startup that’s designing a biometric gun lock called Identilock. Attaching to a gun’s trigger, it unlocks only when the owner applies a fingerprint. Now that he’s a father, Kiyani says, he’s even more motivated to keep guns out of the wrong hands and prevent his kids from having to go through the trauma he experienced. “I understand what can happen when you’re on the wrong side of a firearm,” he explains.

Gun control has been a contentious issue for decades, but these days, things are about as divisive as they can get. As a recent Pew Research survey shows, the American public is almost completely split on the issue, with 50 percent of Americans saying gun control is more important than gun rights, and 48 percent saying the opposite. The debate is playing out in political arenas around the country. Just weeks after former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged $50 million to gun control initiatives, Georgia governor Nathan Deal signed the so-called “guns everywhere” law, which allows Georgia residents to carry guns in churches, schools, and even parts of airports.

Introducing any type of innovation into an industry so ripe with controversy and partisan politics has traditionally been a nearly insurmountable task. A company called Armatix — one of the brightest lights in the gun safety arena — recently developed a smart gun that authorizes the user by connecting to a radio frequency-enabled stopwatch, but as The New York Times points out, the company has found it nearly impossible to overcome gun rights lobbyists, who say technology like that could cause the gun to malfunction.

Nonetheless, Kiyani believes even gun rights activists will be more amenable to the Identilock, and he’s not entirely crazy for thinking so.

From Air Bags to Guns

An engineer by training, Kiyani spent years working as a software developer building next-generation airbag systems. He worked on calibrating the systems to minimize the chance of injury in the event of an accident, and eventually, he realized he could apply the same basic concepts to guns. “The idea of an airbag is so simple. You inflate it and can save a life,” he says. “I made the connection. I have something in my house that’s very dangerous. There’s got to be a simple way to protect it.”

Initially, Kiyani considered technology that would require installing electronic locking equipment into the guns themselves. But as an engineer, he also understood the inherent complications of designing electronics that could withstand tremendous shock and high temperatures. “Think of the average electronic lock on a door,” Kiyani explains. “Now imagine every time it’s opened, it gets 30 some blows with a huge hammer.” To develop that type of expertise — and to ensure it would work without fail — would have taken Kiyani time and money he didn’t have, not to mention how insanely difficult it would be to convince gun manufacturers to work with him. So he built something that anyone could add to a gun.

His creation is different in three ways: it’s optional, it’s detachable, and it’s quick. Unlike biometric gun safes and other locking mechanisms, Kiyani says, the Identilock makes it as easy to access a firearm as it is to unlock an iPhone. He pitched hundreds of gun owners a variety of ideas over the course of his research, but it was the biometric lock they inevitably latched onto. “That was the key motivator for moving forward,” Kiyani remembers. “As I kept talking to people, not only did the idea get refined, but it was clear people wanted it.”

Today, the Identilock is designed using entirely off-the-shelf components that have been proven effective in other industries. The biometric sensor, for example, has been used in other security applications and is approved by the FBI. Cobbling the sensor together from existing technologies was both a cost-saving endeavor and a strategic way to prove the product’s effectiveness more quickly. “If I were to go out and get one black eye, that would be it,” Kiyani says. “The goal was to take something that has already been validated, not have to reinvent the wheel.”

Beyond the Prototype

The product is still very much in its prototype phase, and Kiyani expects the technology may change as the Identilock goes through a pilot program with local law enforcement loosely slated for later this year. And yet, even the prototype has earned Kiyani notice from some leaders in the field. The Smart Tech Foundation, for one, invited him to take part in the announcement of its Smart Tech for Firearms Challenge. Backed by the likes of famed angel investor Ron Conway and serial entrepreneur Jim Pitkow, the challenge is offering up $1 million in prize and development money to people working on technology to make guns safer. The Identilock is currently one of about 200 applicants in the running.

“I think they’ve provided a really simple approach that anyone could use, regardless of whether or not they’re familiar with technology,” says Pitkow, who believes that because the Identilock is a gun accessory, and not part of the gun, Kiyani can avoid the challenges that have derailed similar technology. “The technologies that don’t require existing manufacturers’ participation will have a lot less friction getting to market.”

Kiyani knows he’s bound to face opposition in the firearm marketplace, but he’s hoping that his light-handed approach will win the Identilock support from gun rights, as well as gun control, activists. “The ultimate win,” he says, “would be when the manufacturers choose to package a gun with this. That would be the ultimate success.”

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This Pianist With No Hands Is An Inspiration To Us All

Whatever insurmountable obstacles you might face, this video is proof you can achieve anything you truly set your mind to.

Originally posted back on November 2011, little is known about gifted pianist in the video, who he is or the origins of his disability.

In fact, the only clue is in the description of the video itself:

God's example of faith and the will to do anything no matter what obstacles lie in front of you. This song will forever be stuck in my head.

One thing we do know though, is that it takes years of practice to play the piano proficiently (and that's with two hands). Can you imagine how dedicated, driven and focused you'd need to be to play a piece like this......without any hands at all.

A true inspiration to us all don't you think?

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Victorian strangeness: The man driven mad by spiders

A new app developed by a British psychiatrist aims to cure a fear of spiders. Sadly it's arrived more than a century late for poor James Payn. Author Jeremy Clay tells the shuddersome tale of the man trapped in a darkened train teeming with tarantulas.

In hindsight, there were better places to hunker down for a kip. But James Payn wasn't to know that as he clambered into the goods van of a waiting freight train. He was just thankful he'd found somewhere to rest.

What's more, it seemed like he'd hit the hobo equivalent of the jackpot - the carriage was loaded with bananas. James cheerfully helped himself to a few, then drifted off to a contented sleep.

But Payn, a Liverpudlian who had been riding the railroads of America, had Goldilocks' luck when it came to stumbling upon free board and lodging. When he woke, it was to a sensation plucked straight from an arachnophobe's nightmare.

The carriage was dark. The door was sealed. The train was rattling along the track - and something had just crawled over his face. Something large. Something hairy. Something leggy.

With quivering fingers, James struck a match. There was the door. There was the fruit. And there, dotted all around, were a multitude of tarantulas.

As he looked up, one tumbled down on to his head. The moment he'd regained consciousness, James dashed to the door, but couldn't force it open. Another strike of a match revealed yet more spiders, all creeping from their hiding spots in the bunches of bananas.

For hour upon horrible hour, Payn stood pinned by fear to the carriage door, too terrified to move, even as the tarantulas scurried over him.

Eventually, inevitably, he fainted again. This time, when he came to, he found himself in a hospital bed in Portland, Oregon, with an angry mark on his head where he had been bitten.

It wasn't the only lasting damage from his ordeal. "It seems that when the car was opened upon reaching its destination, Payn was found in it, mad," said the Hull Daily Mail in January 1897.

"He is now recovering from an attack of insanity."

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Jeremy Clarkson: BBC gave me final warning

Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson says the BBC has told him he will be sacked if he makes "one more offensive remark, anywhere, at any time".

Writing in the Sun, Clarkson insisted he did not use a racist word while reciting the nursery rhyme Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe in an out-take from the show that was published by the Daily Mirror.

Although he mumbles the word, Clarkson begins by saying the letter "n".

The BBC says it "left him in no doubt about how seriously we view this".

'Begging forgiveness'

Clarkson was initially accused of using the "n-word" on Thursday by the Daily Mirror, which said it had hired "audio forensic experts" to analyse the clip it had obtained.

The presenter initially told his 3.3 million Twitter followers: "I did not use the N-word. Never use it. The Mirror has gone way too far this time."

Later that day after the newspaper posted a clip of the incident - which was filmed in 2012 and never broadcast - he released a video statement "begging forgiveness" for the error.

Clarkson has also been in trouble for comments he made in a Top Gear special filmed in Burma and Thailand

This time, he admitted he had appeared to "mumble" the offensive word despite attempting not to.

Clarkson wrote in the Sun, where he has a weekly column: "I've been told by the BBC that if I make one more offensive remark, anywhere, at any time, I will be sacked.

"And even the angel Gabriel would struggle to survive with that hanging over his head.

"It's inevitable that one day, someone, somewhere will say that I've offended them, and that will be that."

He also said the BBC had told him "very firmly" to apologise but added: "Apologising for using the n-word would be the same as apologising for starting the war in Syria. It's something I hadn't done."

Clarkson added: "I use the F-word pretty much constantly and the C-word too, especially when I'm talking about James May. But the N-word? No. It's not in my lexicon."

He also highlighted that the expert used by the Daily Mirror had told LBC that she could only be 75% certain the word was used.

Michelle Bowman of digital forensics company CY4OR told Nick Ferrari: "You can't be 100% certain, it's not an exact science. Ideally you would want to compare that phrase with a phrase where the word is said or where a different word is said."

Mexican ambassador

Although the clip was never broadcast on the BBC Two show, the corporation said it had received more than 300 complaints following recent media coverage. On Saturday, the BBC said it had nothing to add to its earlier statement.

On Thursday it said: "Jeremy Clarkson has set out the background to this regrettable episode. We have made it absolutely clear to him the standards the BBC expects on air and off.

"We have left him in no doubt about how seriously we view this."

Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman has called for the BBC to sack the presenter.

Writing on Twitter Ms Harman said: "Anybody who uses the N-word in public or private in whatever context has no place in the British Broadcasting Corporation."

The prime minister - a friend of Clarkson's - felt it was "absolutely right that there has been an apology", his spokesman said.

But he refused to comment on whether Clarkson should lose his job, saying: "His view is that in terms of actions and the like, that's for the BBC".

It is not the first time the Top Gear presenter has been accused of racism.

The BBC apologised in 2011, after an episode in which co-presenter Richard Hammond called Mexicans "feckless [and] flatulent" and Clarkson joked they would not receive complaints because the Mexican ambassador would be asleep.

Apologies were also made for an episode broadcast in March, in which Clarkson used the word "slope" as an Asian man crossed a newly built bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand.

The use of the word - which is a derogatory term for people of Asian descent - led to complaints.

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ESTES PROTO X: WORLD’S SMALLEST QUADCOPTER

While we’d love to be a fly on the wall in Scarlett Johansson’s trailer, we imagine our lifespan would be a brief one, thanks to one of her assistants and a can of Raid. But the Estes Proto X, now this is a much more durable way of living the insect life, as you can buzz around via remote control and never have to fear the swatter.

At just 1.8 inches wide, this is the world’s smallest nano quadcopter. It’s barely bigger than a quarter, and we’re just floored at how tiny the tech is inside this thing. Thanks to a precision triple-axis, three-accelerometer gyro and an auto-upright system for self-correcting flight, the Estes Proto X zips along for up to 10 minutes before the 3.7V 100mAh LiPo battery needs recharging via USB. A 2.4GHz radio controller lets you guide the little guy, and built-in LEDs mean you can terrorize people at night too. [Purchase]

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CENTR 4K PANORAMIC VIDEO CAMERA

Even if you do wear large glasses and ask DeNiro or DiCaprio to be in every movie you make, there’s only one Martin Scorcese. To even the playing field and not miss so many crucial shots when you’re filming, consider moving to the CENTR, a 4K panoramic camera that captures everything around you.

Already used by Red Bull, FOX Sports, National Geographic, and the US Army, CENTR creates 360° 4K footage. That means what’s in front of you, behind you, and to the side all gets recorded. When you watch that footage back, you can click and drag to change the angles. CENTR also allows individual camera selection, so you’re not locked into 360° footage all the time. It’s splash-proof, has a quick-release battery, and the footage can be viewed in real-time on a desktop, smartphone, or tablet through the CENTR interactive player. [Purchase]

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What Is This Secret Code Hidden In So Many Films And TV Shows?

There’s a mysterious code hidden in an increasing number of films, shows, and video games out there, from The Simpsons to South Park to Toy Story. The list goes forever, including live action features like Avengers, Star Wars and Hunger Games. The code is the key to a secret society limited to a selected few.

A113

If you have ever noticed this number popping up in different media, that’s probably because you studied graphic design and character animation at the California Institute of the Arts. That’s the same school where people like John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, and countless other animators and special effects people started their education and careers. All of them went through a very specific classroom there:

The classroom number became a running gag that has invaded many films. Anytime there’s an occasion to write some random alphanumerical code, if the person in charge of the shot went through that class, there’s a high probability that she or he will leave that Easter egg for other colleagues (and now you) to discover.

Brad Bird was the first person who used A113 for a “licence plate number in the ‘Family Dog’ episode of Amazing Stories.”

Here’s a list of TV shows and movies that contain the Easter egg:

TV Shows

• American Dad!
• Amazing Stories
• Firefly
• Rugrats
• The Powerpuff Girls
• The Simpsons
• Tiny Toon Adventures
• South Park
• Bobby’s World

Pixar films

• Toy Story trilogy
• A Bug’s Life
• Finding Nemo
• The Incredibles
• Cars franchise
• Ratatouille
• WALL-E
• Up
• Brave (written in Roman numerals)
• Monsters University

Other movies (animated and live action)

• Hunger Games: Catching Fire
• Alpha and Omega
• The Iron Giant
• Lilo & Stitch
• Bugs Bunny’s Lunar Tunes
• The Brave Little Toaster
• Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers
• The Princess and the Frog
• Meet the Robinsons
• Terminator Salvation
• Planet 51
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
• DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story
• Terra Nova
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
• The Avengers

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Solar Jet Fuel Has Been Created For The First Time

Maybe we won’t suck up all of Earth’s resources and destroy our planet just yet. Scientists say that they have created solar jet fuel using just sunlight, water and carbon dioxide for the very first time. That’s basically creating fuel from thin air.

It’s a damn impressive feat and puts us closer to the dream of creating renewable energy for our Earth-sucking moving boxes known as planes, cars and other transportation vehicles. European scientists have done this by using simulated, concentrated sunlight at a temperature of over 700°C to convert and separate water and carbon dioxide into a synthetic gas made of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. That synthetic gas can be turned into kerosene.

The scientists, who’ve been working at this for four years under the SOLAR-JET project, have only made a jar of the solar jet fuel so far but they imagine a future where 20,000L of jet fuel could be made per day from a full-scale version.

If they’re able to do that, cars, planes, and other vehicles will have much cleaner and endless amounts of fuel.

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Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be … Paper

Paper books were supposed to be dead by now. For years, information theorists, marketers, and early adopters have told us their demise was imminent. Ikea even redesigned a bookshelf to hold something other than books. Yet in a world of screen ubiquity, many people still prefer to do their serious reading on paper.

Count me among them. When I need to read deeply—when I want to lose myself in a story or an intellectual journey, when focus and comprehension are paramount—I still turn to paper. Something just feels fundamentally richer about reading on it. And researchers are starting to think there’s something to this feeling.

To those who see dead tree editions as successors to scrolls and clay tablets in history’s remainder bin, this might seem like literary Luddism. But I e-read often: when I need to copy text for research or don’t want to carry a small library with me. There’s something especially delicious about late-night sci-fi by the light of a Kindle Paperwhite.

What I’ve read on screen seems slippery, though. When I later recall it, the text is slightly translucent in my mind’s eye. It’s as if my brain better absorbs what’s presented on paper. Pixels just don’t seem to stick. And often I’ve found myself wondering, why might that be?

The usual explanation is that internet devices foster distraction, or that my late-thirty-something brain isn’t that of a true digital native, accustomed to screens since infancy. But I have the same feeling when I am reading a screen that’s not connected to the internet and Twitter or online Boggle can’t get in the way. And research finds that kids these days consistently prefer their textbooks in print rather than pixels. Whatever the answer, it’s not just about habit.

Another explanation, expressed in a recent Washington Post article on the decline of deep reading, blames a sweeping change in our lifestyles: We’re all so multitasked and attention-fragmented that our brains are losing the ability to focus on long, linear texts. I certainly feel this way, but if I don’t read deeply as often or easily as I used to, it does still happen. It just doesn’t happen on screen, and not even on devices designed specifically for that experience.

Maybe it’s time to start thinking of paper and screens another way: not as an old technology and its inevitable replacement, but as different and complementary interfaces, each stimulating particular modes of thinking. Maybe paper is a technology uniquely suited for imbibing novels and essays and complex narratives, just as screens are for browsing and scanning.

“Reading is human-technology interaction,” says literacy professor Anne Mangen of Norway’s University of Stavenger. “Perhaps the tactility and physical permanence of paper yields a different cognitive and emotional experience.” This is especially true, she says, for “reading that can’t be done in snippets, scanning here and there, but requires sustained attention.”

Mangen is among a small group of researchers who study how people read on different media. It’s a field that goes back several decades, but yields no easy conclusions. People tended to read slowly and somewhat inaccurately on early screens. The technology, particularly e-paper, has improved dramatically, to the point where speed and accuracy aren’t now problems, but deeper issues of memory and comprehension are not yet well-characterized.

Complicating the scientific story further, there are many types of reading. Most experiments involve short passages read by students in an academic setting, and for this sort of reading, some studies have found no obvious differences between screens and paper. Those don’t necessarily capture the dynamics of deep reading, though, and nobody’s yet run the sort of experiment, involving thousands of readers in real-world conditions who are tracked for years on a battery of cognitive and psychological measures, that might fully illuminate the matter.

In the meantime, other research does suggest possible differences. A 2004 study found that studentsmore fully remembered what they’d read on paper. Those results were echoed by an experiment that looked specifically at e-books, and another by psychologist Erik Wästlund at Sweden’s Karlstad University, who found that students learned better when reading from paper.

Wästlund followed up that study with one designed to investigate screen reading dynamics in more detail. He presented students with a variety of on-screen document formats. The most influential factor, he found, was whether they could see pages in their entirety. When they had to scroll, their performance suffered.

According to Wästlund, scrolling had two impacts, the most basic being distraction. Even the slight effort required to drag a mouse or swipe a finger requires a small but significant investment of attention, one that’s higher than flipping a page. Text flowing up and down a page also disrupts a reader’s visual attention, forcing eyes to search for a new starting point and re-focus.

Scrolling “took a lot of mental resources that could have been spent comprehending the text instead,” said Wästlund. Like being distracted when memorizing a phone number, scrolling’s interruptions knocked information from short-term memory. That’s the basic level of information processing, laying a foundation for long-term memories and knowledge.

To be sure, electronic reading has changed quite a bit since Wästlund’s experiments, which concluded in 2005. Many applications, such as Amazon’s Kindle software, have scrapped scrolling in favor of page-flipping emulations. Yet Mangen, who in a 2013 study of Norwegian teens found a deeper comprehension of texts on paper, and Wästlund say that e-readers may fail to capture a crucial, generally overlooked aspect of paper books: their physicality.

From this perspective, the feel of pages under one’s fingertips isn’t simply old-fashioned charm. It’s a rich source of information, subconsciously informing readers of their position in a text. Reading experts say that sense of position is important: It provides a sort of conceptual scaffold on which information and memory is automatically arranged, and the scaffold is strongest when built from both visual and tactile cues.

“All those cues like what the page looks like, what the book felt like, all those little pieces help you put together the whole thing,” said Marilyn Jager-Adams, a cognitive psychologist and literacy expert at Brown University. “And they are just impoverished on a Kindle or tablet”—though these devices can be improved.

Electronic interfaces do feature symbolic progress bars or percentage-remaining figures, but these are purely visual stimuli, rather than tactile. Pages also tend to be displayed individually rather than in pairs, further limiting spatial representation. And in a sense, e-readers and tablets really just consist of a single page that’s constantly being re-written. That immateriality could register differently than fixed texts.

Paper books also allow for different types of annotation: underlining and dog-earing and margin-scribbling, which for many people is integral to deep reading. Screen-reading software may allow annotations, but the process is far less tactile—and some researchers say tactility may be important. Studies have shown that close links exist between gesture and cognition. These links are little-studied in the context of reading, but are very much a part of writing, which similarly involves constructing mental models of text.

“Especially for those of us with lots of traditional book exposure, we use physical pages as anchors for deep comprehension,” said cognitive scientist Judith Thomson of Sheffield University. Thomson describes reading comprehension as having several levels: individual words and sentences, which should be equivalent on screen and paper, and ultimately the larger narrative structure they build.

Keeping that structure in mind allows for richer comprehension, weaving themes and threads of thoughts into insight, and for some people, this may be easier with paper. “E-paper takes away this comprehension prop to some degree,” Thomson said, “which I think could have subtle impacts for many people, at least until their reading system learns to adapt.”

Jager-Adams agrees: “I think until they solve those problems, there are a number of people who will find that reading longer, more complex texts is difficult on a Kindle or tablet.”

Other research points to additional differences. Rakefet Ackerman at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has found that students reading on paper and screen may think differently about their own learning processes.

When reading on paper, Ackerman’s students seemed to have a better sense of their own understanding. When reading on screen, they thought they absorbed information readily, but tests showed otherwise. Screens seemed to foster overconfidence. With practice, this could be corrected, said Ackerman, but “the natural learning process on paper is more thorough than on screen.”

Ackerman also noted, however, that preference played an important role. When students preferred screen reading, they learned less when required to read from paper, and vice versa.

Much of this research jibes with my own experience, but the science is far from settled. A study by psychologist Sara Margolin of Brockport University found no difference in reading comprehension in students reading paper, computer screens and e-readers. “It’s really a matter of personal preference,” said Margolin.

Another study of students using paper and electronic textbooks found no significant differences—and for some readers, such as those with dyslexia who find it easier to concentrate on small sections of text, Thomson found that e-readers may already be superior to paper books. “I think as we have more and more ways to present digital text, we will see more of these ‘interactions’ where for one group of readers, we see an advantage, and for others we see the opposite,” said Thomson.

Many questions remain. If reading shorter texts on screen or paper is indeed a matter of preference, does the same hold for deep reading? Can interface designers find better workarounds for the physical limitations of screens? Will people eventually adapt, with screen-trained readers finding new ways of creating structures in the absence of tactile cues?

Jager-Adams thinks it’s possible that deep reading, at least for many people, may eventually prove to be intertwined with the physical form of paper books. If that’s true, it’s all the more reason to appreciate them.

“We should be wary of saying, ‘That’s the way we’re going to read in the future anyways, so why resist?’” said Mangen. “There is something to deep reading and deep thinking that is worth making an effort to preserve.” Whether we need paper to do that remains to be seen. For now, though, there’s still plenty of life in those dead trees.

[MIKA27]

Deadly Middle East Virus in U.S. For First Time

Officials have confirmed a case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in Indiana, the first known incident of the virus in the U.S. There have been more than 400 cases worldwide, a third of which have been fatal, since the virus was first discovered in 2012

A hospital in northern Indiana is treating a patient infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, marking the first time a case of the deadly virus has appeared in the U.S., state and federal health officials confirmed.

The Indiana State Department of Health said the patient at Community Hospital in Munster is a male health care provider who had recently returned from a trip to Saudi Arabia, where cases of the virus have been most prevalent since it was first identified in 2012.

Researchers have been largely stumped by the origin and transmission patterns of the virus, which looks like the flu, as it has gradually spread around the Middle East. It has been linked to both bats and, increasingly, camels but the reservoir remains elusive.

There have been more than 400 cases of the SARS-like virus scattered among a dozen countries, nearly a third of which have been fatal. Saudi Arabia has seen the bulk of the cases—more than 320 with some 94 deaths—but others have also appeared in Jordan, Britain, France and Italy.

Representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Indiana’s state health department released details about the case in a briefing with reporters on Friday after a positive laboratory result was confirmed.

The man had arrived in Chicago from Saudi Arabia and then took a bus to Indiana. (Public Health England later said it was advised of a passenger, now confirmed to have MERS, who was on British Airways Flight 262 when it arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport on April 24. The man then boarded American Airlines Flight 99 to Chicago.)

On April 27, the man began experiencing respiratory symptoms like shortness of breath, coughing and a fever. He went to the emergency room the next day and was admitted as a patient to Community Hospital, where he received immediate care and was placed in isolation.

Hospital officials said in a statement on May 3 the patient remained hospitalized “in good condition” and is improving each day. “The swift diagnosis and precautionary measures taken have undoubtedly greatly helped reduce the risk of this potentially serious virus spreading,” said State Health Commissioner William VanNess II.

Staff at the hospital who had direct contact with the man before he was isolated were taken off duty and placed in temporary home isolation, the statement added. They will be allowed to return to work once the incubation period is over—it could take up to two weeks for symptoms of MERS to appear—and their laboratory results are negative. No additional cases of MERS have been identified.

It remains unclear how the man became infected, how many people he was in close contact with and whether those people became ill. British and U.S. health officials said they had contacted other passengers on the flights but asserted the risk of infection between them appears low.

Public health experts have warned for months that it could be only a matter of time before a case appeared in the states. “It’s something we’ve predicted and expected,” said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based organization that patrols the animal-human health border and has worked closely with researchers looking for MERS’ origin.

Daszak said he remains concerned the virus is widespread in camels in Saudi Arabia and that it’s likely more rampant across the region where camels are common. While the virus doesn’t pose a “high risk” to the public yet, he said, “people continue to get infected and travel with this virus. That’s the concern for something that may have the ability to evolve into a pandemic risk.”

Dr. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University and a leading researcher in the hunt for the virus’ origin and pattern of transmission, said he wasn’t surprised either that a case has appeared in the U.S. and originated in Saudi Arabia.

Officials in Egypt just diagnosed their first case and other infected people have recently traveled from either Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates to the Philippines, Malaysia and Greece. But the caseload in the Kingdom jumped 89 percent in April, highlighting whether its Ministry of Health is doing enough to find the reservoir and warn the public about any threat.

In a rare move in late April, King Abdullah dismissed the health minister without an official explanation. The position was quickly filled by Labor Minister Adel Faqih, who immediately promised “transparency and to promptly provide the media and society with the information needed.”

Saudi Arabia has come under fire for its handling of MERS, as months pass with little or no progress made on nabbing its origin or how it spreads to people. “It’s a difficult place in which to work,” Lipkin said, “but there’s optimism that the change in leadership may be productive.”

[MIKA27]

Meet the Japanese Spider-Man

http://youtu.be/jPX-FX0KStE

The world might be currently abuzz about Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but did you know that Japan has its own Spider-Man as well?

Premiering back in 1978, the Japanese live-action television series was produced by Toie Company under license from Marvel and lasted for 41 episodes. The series revolved around Takuya Yamashiro, played by Shinji Todō, a motorcycle racer who is given spider-like powers after an injection of blood from the last surviving person of the Planet Spider.

Like any self-respecting Spider-Man, Yamashiro can shoot webs, but what separates him from his American counterpart is the fact that he gets his own giant robot. I repeat, he gets his own giant robot.

Named Leopardon, the robot helps Yamashiro defeat a bevy of alien baddies. Toei’s experience with this would help lay the foundation for its Super Sentai franchise, which would eventually be adapted in the U.S. to become the Power Rangers.

A Spider-Man that’s also a Power Ranger? Hollywood, that’s the plot to your next reboot right there.

[MIKA27]

Honduras child killings: Probe into 'gang links'

Honduran authorities are investigating the deaths of at least seven children who may have been murdered after refusing to join criminal gangs.

In the latest case, police found the body of a seven-year-old boy who appeared to have been tortured.

His 13-year-old brother was found dead a day before.

All the crimes took place over the last month in an area dominated by street gangs in the industrial city of San Pedro Sula.

Honduras has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Correspondents say most of the violence is caused by the constant battling between the country's main maras, or street gangs - Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha - which have claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Honduras' attorney general, Oscar Fernando Chinchilla, travelled to the northern city on Friday to oversee the investigations.

The attorney general insisted the involvement of criminal gangs was just one of the lines of investigation.

Police investigators, however, had already said they believed street gangs were behind the killings.

The violent maras are also believed to be responsible for thousands of killings in neighbouring Central American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala.

[MIKA27]

Last Titanic survivor dies at 97

The last survivor of the sinking of the Titanic has died aged 97.

Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when the liner sank after hitting an iceberg in the early hours of 15 April 1912, on its maiden voyage from Southampton.

The disaster resulted in the deaths of 1,517 people in the north Atlantic, largely due to a lack of lifeboats.

Miss Dean, who remembered nothing of the fateful journey, died on Sunday at the care home in Hampshire where she lived, two of her friends told the BBC.

Her family had been travelling in third class to America, where they hoped to start a new life and open a tobacconist's shop in Kansas City.

Miss Dean's mother, Georgetta, and two-year-old brother, Bert, also survived, but her father, Bertram, was among those who perished when the vessel sank.

The family returned to Southampton, where Miss Dean went on to spend most of her life.

Despite having no memories of the disaster, she always said it had shaped her life, because she should have grown up in the US instead of returning to the UK.

She was fond of saying: "If it hadn't been for the ship going down, I'd be an American."

In 1985 the site of the wreck was discovered and, in her 70s, she found herself unexpectedly in demand on both sides of the Atlantic.

"I think sometimes they look on me as if I am the Titanic!" she said after a visit to a Titanic convention in America. "Honestly, some of them are quite weird about it."

Unimpressed

But she never tired of telling her story.

"Oh not at all. I like it, because everyone makes such a fuss of me! And I have travelled to so many places because of it, meeting all the people. Oh I wouldn't get tired of it. I'm not the type."

But she was unimpressed when divers started to explore the wreck, located 3,000m below the surface of the Atlantic, saying: "I don't believe in people going to see it. I think it's morbid. I think it's horrible."

According to BBC South transport correspondent Paul Clifton, she refused to watch James Cameron's epic film of the disaster, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo diCaprio, fearing it would be too upsetting.

But in the last years of her life, she began struggling with monthly bills of £3,000 at her care home and had been in danger of losing her room.

She began selling some of her Titanic-related mementoes to raise funds, and in April a canvas bag from her rescue was sold at auction for £1,500. It was bought by a man from London who immediately returned it to her.

Actors Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, who appeared in the 1998 movie Titanic, also contributed towards her care costs, along with the film's director James Cameron, by donating to the Millvina Fund which was set up by her friends.

John White, managing director of exhibition company White Star Memories, and organiser of the Millvina Fund campaign said Miss Dean was always "very supportive".

She travelled to exhibitions around the country and took the time to sign autographs and write personal messages for adults and children.

"She was a lovely supportive lady and very kind-hearted," Mr White told BBC News website.

International Titanic Society President Charles Haas, from Randolph, New Jersey, met Miss Dean on numerous occasions and described her as an "effervescent person with a wonderful sense of humour".

"It is truly the end of an era," he said.

"She was a truly remarkable woman. She had a marvellous approach to life. It is almost as if God gave her the gift and she really took advantage of it."

David Lawrence, from the Nomadic Preservation Society, was a friend of Miss Dean and said he was "very sad" to hear the news.

"She was very sharp-minded and very sprightly. One of those people who could make a whole room laugh with a story," he said.

Youngest passenger

Built in Belfast, the White Star Line vessel became infamous for not having enough lifeboats onboard, leading to the deaths of many passengers.

Elizabeth Gladys Dean, better known as Millvina, was the Titanic's youngest passenger, born on 2 February 1912.

Another baby on board, Barbara Joyce West, was nearly 11 months old when the liner sank. She also survived.

Barbara Joyce Dainton, as she became when she married, died in October 2007, leaving Miss Dean the last Titanic survivor.

[MIKA27]

Dien Bien Phu: Did the US offer France an A-bomb?

Sixty years ago this week, French troops were defeated by Vietnamese forces at Dien Bien Phu. As historian Julian Jackson explains, it was a turning point in the history of both nations, and in the Cold War - and a battle where some in the US appear to have contemplated the use of nuclear weapons.

"Would you like two atomic bombs?" These are the words that a senior French diplomat remembered US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles asking the French Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault, in April 1954. The context of this extraordinary offer was the critical plight of the French army fighting the nationalist forces of Ho Chi Minh at Dien Bien Phu in the highlands of north-west Vietnam.

The battle of Dien Bien Phu is today overshadowed by the later involvement of the Americans in Vietnam in the 1960s. But for eight years between 1946 and 1954 the French had fought their own bloody war to hold on to their Empire in the Far East. After the seizure of power by the Communists in China in 1949, this colonial conflict had become a key battleground of the Cold War. The Chinese provided the Vietnamese with arms and supplies while most of the costs of the French war effort were borne by America. But it was French soldiers who were fighting and dying. By 1954, French forces in Indochina totalled over 55,000.

At the end of 1953, French commander in chief Gen Navarre had decided to set up a fortified garrison in the valley of Dien Bien Phu, in the highlands about 280 miles from the northern capital of Hanoi. The valley was surrounded by rings of forested hills and mountains. The position was defensible providing the French could hold on to the inner hills and keep their position supplied through the airstrip. What they underestimated was the capacity of the Vietnamese to amass artillery behind the hills. This equipment was transported by tens of thousands of labourers - many of them women and children - carrying material hundreds of miles through the jungle day and night. On 13 March the Vietnamese unleashed a massive barrage of artillery and within two days two of the surrounding hills had been taken, and the airstrip was no longer usable. The French defenders were now cut off and the noose tightened around them.

It was this critical situation which led the French to appeal in desperation for US help. The most hawkish on the American aide were Vice-President Richard Nixon, who had no political power, and Admiral Radford, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Also quite hawkish was the US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who was obsessed by the crusade against Communism. More reserved was President Eisenhower who nonetheless gave a press conference in early April where he proclaimed the infamous "domino theory" about the possible spread of Communism from one country to another.

"You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly," he said. "So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences."

Saturday 3 April 1954 has gone down in American history as "the day we didn't go to war". On that day Dulles met Congressional leaders who were adamant they would not support any military intervention unless Britain was also involved. Eisenhower sent a letter to the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill warning of the consequences for the West if Dien Bien Phu fell. It was around this time, at a meeting in Paris, that Dulles supposedly made his astonishing offer to the French of tactical nuclear weapons.

In fact, Dulles was never authorised to make such an offer and there is no hard evidence that he did so. It seems possible that in the febrile atmosphere of those days the panic-stricken French may simply have misunderstood him. Or his words may have got lost in translation.

"He didn't really offer. He made a suggestion and asked a question. He uttered the two fatal words 'nuclear bomb'," Maurice Schumann, a former foreign minister, said before his death in 1998. "Bidault immediately reacted as if he didn't take this offer seriously."

According to Professor Fred Logevall of Cornell University, Dulles "at least talked in very general terms about the possibility, what did the French think about potentially using two or three tactical nuclear weapons against these enemy positions".

Bidault declined, he says, "because he knew… that if this killed a lot of Viet Minh troops then it would also basically destroy the garrison itself".

In the end, there was no American intervention of any kind, as the British refused to go along with it.

The last weeks of the battle of Dien Bien Phu were atrociously gruelling. The ground turned to mud once the monsoon began, and men clung to craters and ditches in conditions reminiscent of the battle of Verdun in 1916. On 7 May 1954, after a 56-day siege, the French army surrendered. Overall on the French side there were 1,142 dead, 1,606 disappeared, 4,500 more or les badly wounded. Vietnamese casualties ran to 22,000.

In this year marked by two other major anniversaries - the centenary of the outbreak of World War One and the 70th anniversary of D-Day - we should not forget this other battle that took place 60 years ago. In the history of decolonisation it was the only time a professional European army was decisively defeated in a pitched battle. It marked the end of the French Empire in the Far East, and provided an inspiration to other anti-colonial fighters. It was no coincidence also that a few weeks later a violent rebellion broke out in French Algeria - the beginning of another bloody and traumatic war that was to last eight years. The French army held so desperately on to Algeria partly to redeem the honour it felt had been lost at Dien Bien Phu. So obsessed did the army become by this idea that in 1958 it backed a putsch against the government, which it believed was preparing what the generals condemned as a "diplomatic Dien Bien Phu". This putsch brought back to power Gen de Gaulle who set up the new presidential regime that exists in France today. So the ripples of Dien Bien Phu are still being felt.

A memorial in Dien Bien Phu commemorates the French soldiers who died there

It was also in 1954 that France began working on its own independent nuclear deterrent.

For the Vietnamese, however, Dien Bien Phu, was only the first round. The Americans, who had refused to become directly involved in 1954, were gradually sucked into war - the second Vietnam War - during the 1960s.

[MIKA27]

Doctor Who star Matt Smith set for Terminator reboot

Paramount Pictures has announced Matt Smith is to star opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the reboot of the Terminator franchise.

The Doctor Who star will play "a new character with a strong connection to John Connor".

Other stars announced include Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke and Zero Dark Thirty actor Jason Clarke.

The film, which is due to be released in July 2015, is being directed by Thor filmmaker Alan Taylor.

Smith, who has been replaced as the Doctor by Scots actor Peter Capaldi in the BBC hit drama will next be seen on the big screen in the film Lost River, directed by Ryan Gosling.

He was seen earlier this year on stage in London in the musical stage adaptation of American Psycho.

The Terminator franchise was launched in 1984 with Schwarzenegger as the title character, a cyborg sent back through time to kill the mother of the unborn leader of the human resistance in the war against machines.

The film, directed by James Cameron, has since spawned three subsequent films, which have earned more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

[MIKA27]

THE FERRARI 250 GTO SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

“The Ferrari 250 GTO Speaks for Itself” is a short film by fellow gasoline-sniffing friends over at Petrolicious. As with all Petrolicious productions, this film is a glimpse into the life of a person and a machine – in this case Derek Hill and a stunning 1964 Ferrari 250 GTO. Derek won the Ferrari Challenge International Championship in 1995 and the Formula Dodge West Coast in 1996, he also raced a Bugatti EB110 at Le Mans.

MIKA: That vehicle sounds amazing!

[MIKA27]

3D-printed ultrasound cast could save us costly surgeries

Last year the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) approved a low-intensity ultrasound system, known as Exogen, for use in the NHS on bone fractures that fail to heal after nine months. Now, Turkish industrial designer Deniz Karasahin wants to make that healing a more beautiful, and patient-friendly experience.

3D printing hearts and livers might be in the early development stages, but 3D printing medical devices and parts has been ongoing for years—in 2013, iLab Haiti began using MakerBot printers to create umbilical cord clamps on the spot. And if anything is ripe for disruption, it's the sweaty, stinky, itchy plaster cast that has remained relatively unchanged for decades.

3D printing the cast itself is nothing new—there are plenty of designers experimenting with different geometric patterns and last year we featured Jake Evill's beautifully designed Cortex cast that behaves like a brace and is tailored to the individual from a 3D scan. It's washable, breathable, discreet and can be made denser in the areas round the fracture that need more support.

Karasahin's version looks very similar—albeit with a different geometric pattern—clinging close to the subject's skin and wrapping round their thumb. But there are a few key differences. "We share a more contemporary style but this style is also mainstream in the design world," notes Karasahin. "His form/pattern inspiration is geometric-based and also the geometric/algorithmic logic is related to the place of the injury. In my case the form/pattern inspiration is different—I was inspired by the pattern of spongy bone geometry because of its semiotic relation with a medical cast, and the logic behind my algorithm aims for an equally distributed stronger structural integrity of the cast."

Rather than snapping closed the Osteoid, made up of two pieces, also features a secondary, secure locking mechanism to ensure it doesn't open when in use. Of course the most obvious difference, is the proposal for an ultrasound port, where devices similar to Exogen's can be introduced.

"I read the clinical studies about this tech, and some of them were almost 20 years old," says Karasahin. "After talking with an orthopedist MD I learnt about the current application problems which prevent this tech from being widely used."

The most obvious of these, is how you reach the skin to place the ultrasound probes if it's wrapped up in a cast. Typically a hole is cut in the cast to allow a transducer to touch the skin where the fracture is. Karasahin explains that the site of the skin will also swell, causing the patient discomfort. With all the holes in the Osteoid, there's no chance of that.

Clinical studies have shown that the ultrasound waves promote bone healing by stimulating the production of growth factors and proteins that increase removal of old bone, and increase the production of new bone.

The designer has already been contacted by private and government-owned clinics in the US, looking to launch trials (the Osteoid is still at the concept stages right now).

"It is the medical industry that is the most excited—it is all positive," said Karasahin. "I also have received so many emails from people who are willing to put one on instantly."

The design has great promise, but there's a few things to remember. The Osteoid is being touted with a promise that, once hooked up to ultrasound for 20 minutes a day, it will help reduce the time it takes for the injury to heal by 38 percent. The heal rate for non-union fractures that are totally cut in two increases by 80 percent. Those figures are based on clinical trials already carried out separately.

Exogen, the ultrasound device given the okay by the NHS last year following an investigation by NICE, recommends patients receive 20-minute daily sessions they can administer themselves at home each day, speeding up healing by about 38 percent. The Osteoid is simply putting together two already well-established concepts—the 3D printed cast and ultrasound bone healing therapy.

The Exogen system is for non-union fractures, but the lengthy NICE report is very clear in its findings—it does not believe the device is suitable for any fractures that have failed to heal before nine months. This may be largely down to cost-efficiency. The only reason it is cost saving, is it can help prevent last-resort surgeries.

The NICE report concludes that the system, when applied to long bone fractures with non-union that have failed to heal after nine months, "shows high rates of fracture healing." It estimates this could deliver cost savings of "$1,963 per patient compared with current management, through avoiding surgery."

However, of use prior to that nine month stage, it stipulates that although there is some evidence of healing when used before the nine months: "There are substantial uncertainties about the rate at which bone healing progresses without adjunctive treatment between three and nine months after fracture, and about whether or not surgery would be necessary. These uncertainties result in a range of cost consequences, some cost-saving and others that are more costly than current management."

So it could be that using the device before nine months would be suitable one day—there simply isn't enough evidence to back up the measures as being worth the investment. Throw in the cost of a 3D printer and a 3D scanner, along with software and development time, and the NHS will probably tell you where to go. But as the costs of the printers themselves continue to plummet, and this is weighed up alongside the ease with which superior therapies can be delivered to a patient that is far happier with their breathable, comfortable Osteoid, we might see an updated NICE report in the future.

[MIKA27]

Swapping Young Blood for Old Reverses Aging

In what could have profound implications for understanding the process of aging, a trio of scientific papers published today show that infusing elderly mice with the blood of young mice can reverse many of the mental and physical impairments of growing old.

Expanding on earlier research, the three studies—published concurrently in Nature Medicine and Science—demonstrate rejuvenating effects in memory, muscle strength, endurance, and sense of smell. Together, they suggest that there might be factors in the young blood that can produce globally regenerating effects in older animals. In addition to reversing the normal ravages of aging, the papers suggest, young blood might help turn around declines in cognitive function associated with age-related conditions such as heart enlargement and Alzheimer's disease.

"The changes are astounding in terms of rejuvenating the mice both in the periphery of the body and in the brain," said Rudolph Tanzi, professor of neurology at Harvard and director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, who was not involved in any of the three research projects. "I'm kind of blown away, really, by the results."

The study in Nature Medicine, conducted by Saul Villeda at the University of California, San Francisco, Tony Wyss-Coray at Stanford, and their colleagues, builds on earlier work that showed young blood could stimulate the growth of brain stem cells and new neurons, as well as work that indicated that giving old blood to young mice can have the opposite effect, impairing their cognitive abilities.

As described in the Nature Medicine paper, Villeda and his colleagues physically connected the circulatory systems of old mice to young mice via surgery that stitched their abdominal cavities together. Over time, elderly mice tethered to young mice sprouted more new connections between nerve cells in their brains than did controls tethered to other elderly mice. Senior mice invigorated by their juniors' blood also produced proteins associated with neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to reorganize itself in response to experience. The young mice were 3 months old; the elderly mice were 18 months old.

The UCSF and Stanford scientists also directly injected old mice with young-mouse blood plasma, the yellowish liquid base of blood in which proteins and other solids are suspended. Over the course of three weeks, the old mice received eight blood plasma injections from young mice. Afterward, the treated mice remembered how to find a hidden resting platform in a water maze better than the controls did. They also exhibited better recollection of a chamber they had been conditioned to associate with a mild foot shock.

While the ingredient in the young blood responsible for these effects is still unknown, a clue was provided when the scientists heated the plasma before injection, and no such benefits were seen. Since proteins are deactivated by heat, the results are consistent with the relevant circulating factor being a protein.

"When I first heard this story from Tony Wyss-Coray, I thought it was absolutely amazing," said Tanzi. "I thought it was too good to be true." Now that two additional papers have come out in Science with similar findings, and all three papers are by well-respected labs, "now you have to believe it's real," he said.

In the first of the two papers in Science, a team from Harvard found that by either connecting the circulatory systems of young and old mice, or injecting old mice with a signaling protein isolated from young blood, they could strengthen and rejuvenate aged muscles. The improvement was measured in several ways, according to Amy Wagers, professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard and one of the paper's chief authors. The DNA of old muscle stem cells was repaired; muscle fibers and cell structures called mitochondria morphed into healthier, more youthful versions; grip strength improved; and the mice were able to run on treadmills longer than their untreated counterparts.

The protein used in the study, called GDF11, was already known to reduce age-related heart enlargement, which is characteristic of heart failure. But Wagers said the new work shows that GDF11 has a similar age-reversal effect on other tissue, in particular the skeletal muscle and brain.

"That means that this protein is really acting in somewhat of a coordinating way across tissues," she said, and that drugs could be developed to target a "single common pathway" seen in a variety of age-related dysfunctions, including muscle weakness, neurodegeneration, and heart disease.

In the second Science paper, another team from Harvard, led by research associate Lida Katsimpardi, also transferred GDF11 from young mice to old ones either by surgically linking their circulatory systems or through injections. They then looked at cells in the subventricular zone, an area in the mouse brain related to odor perception. The young blood improved circulation in this region, which in turn stimulated the production of new nerve cells. When these cells migrated to the olfactory bulb and matured, the elderly mouse's sense of smell improved, reversing the loss in sensitivity normally associated with aging.

What's most exciting about this work, said Katsimpardi, is that the bolstered blood flow was observed not only in the olfactory regions but throughout the brain. This could also help explain the improvement in memory and learning seen in the Nature Medicine paper. The three papers taken together are "like a whole story now," Katsimpardi said.

The Harvard researchers plan to continue work to see whether GDF11 is the sole factor involved in the rejuvenation, or whether it is one of several. "My bet is that there is more than one protein that is going to explain aging," Wagers said.

Bradley Wise, chief of the Neurobiology of Aging Branch at the National Institute on Aging and the administrator of the team's grant, said it's too soon to recommend wholesale transfusion of young human blood into elderly people. He said any treatments derived from this research will likely come from individual blood factors, either administered directly or via pharmaceuticals designed to mimic their effects. "The big question is: What are those factors?" he said.

Tanzi said the three papers mesh well with recent research into the importance of inflammation in conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer.

"The young blood is to some extent curbing inflammation in the body and brain, which is one of the main problems leading to age-dependent deterioration," he said. Taken together, Tanzi added, the new findings are "a game changer for sure."

[MIKA27]

A guide to the eateries of Spain

Restaurants have been a part of Spanish culture for centuries. Indeed Spain is home to the oldest surviving restaurant in the world. According to the Guinness book that would be Sobrino de Botín (established 1725) just off Plaza Mayor in Madrid. Botín is merely the oldest and you’ll find many other eateries that are well over 100 years old. Most of these restaurants began as coach houses, places where travellers stopped for the night. Or they were like Botín, what today we might call a working-class tavern or pub. It was then a lane full of workshops, smithies, potters and the like. At mealtimes the workmen would come to Botín for bread and wine, a bit of ham or chorizo. And some respite from the afternoon sun.

Horno Asador (Roasting Oven)

At some time Botín developed into that quintessentially Spanish restaurant, the horno asador (literally, roasting oven). The actual oven is typically round, 1½m by 3m with its portals and cooking floor about half way up. It’s made of roofing tiles or adobe. One made of firebrick is said to provide a too intense heat. Beneath the cooking floor burns a fire of wood, preferably pine boughs, ash or broom. Sometimes charcoal is added. Baby lambs or kids, suckling pigs, sometimes fowl are placed in cazuelas (earthenware cooking dishes) and slid into the oven. In Summer, if the horno asador has no air-conditioning, dining in it can be challenging. But in the bitter Spanish winter there can be no better place to be. The air is thick with conversation and convivium. The aromas are maddeningly delicious. Many of them, including Botín, have several floors including a basement where the most romantic setting is. To dine in one of these is almost to slip away from this century into another. Unless you are seated next to a party of cigar smokers. Then it’s best to quietly ask for a table on a floor above. Horno asadors are very popular with tourists and locals alike. During high season it’s good to get reservations.

Terraza (Terrace)

The Spanish love to eat outdoors, so you will find streetside restaurants, known as terrazas (terraces) in every city. All you have to do is walk down the street, and you will eventually encounter several. This assumes you are walking in the centre of the city, its ‘old town’. So take a walk when you get hungry. When you find a terraza there will be awnings, umbrellas, even trees to fend off the sun. Most of them also have an interior dining room, if you prefer to get in out of the weather. Whole blocks will be given over to these establishments. And when you find them thus clustered, you’ll find that they all tend to have very similar menus. So make your choice of restaurant based less on the menu and more on its ambience, service or view of the world passing by. Reservations are generally not taken, but if there is a crowd they will start a waiting list.

Restaurante

A proper sit-down restaurant in Spain is like any other in the western world. The customs and protocols are pretty much the same. No real pitfalls. One style difference is that they tend to be small and intimate. If they want to increase floor space they increase the number of floors, not the space. Real estate is expensive, and besides, the Spanish like intimate. Reservations are accepted, and often required in high season. If it is one of the famous temples to gastronomy like Arzak in the Basque Country or Bulli in Cantalunya, reservations are required year round and often far in advance.

Casa de Comidas (Working-Class Restaurant)

There is one type of restaurant that is never mentioned in guide books. And we are reluctant to do so here. But we trust you not to spread this around. Want a cheap meal of wholesome fare with good service? Unless you are staying at an expensive hotel, you could ask the receptionist “where do you go for lunch?” or ask them “where can I find a working-class restaurant?” They will probably direct you to a place across the street or otherwise very near. Working-class restaurants are, penny for penny, the best deal in Spain.

Tasca (Tapas Bar)

And then there is the tasca. This is the single most common type of restaurant in the Heart of Spain region, and very common everywhere else. They are sometimes large. And they are sometimes the bar of a proper sit-down restaurant. They are often small. They can be grand or grotty. They can have marble floors or floors covered with sawdust, spit, cigarette butts and substances you’d rather not contemplate. But these tascas are sometimes the best! At least the most fun.

One of the great things about tascas is that they’ll sell you any of their wares para llevar (take away). Need a bottle of water or a can of beer as you trudge down the heated highway? Step into the nearest tasca. No problema. Do you like that wine you just had a glass of? Get a bottle. They’ll even open it for you. Carry it with you when you go. And the same goes for tapas when it’s time for an impromptu picnic.

Jamónería (Ham House)

The Spanish don’t merely enjoy, or even love, their jamón (ham). Truth be known they worship the Holy Ham. You will see shrines to it everywhere. Jamónerías, all hung heavily with hams, are among the most common type of restaurant. Inside, hams hang thickly from the ceilings and walls. They grace the bar. Their hammy scent fills the air. And the establishments have names that sing the importance of ham. You will see names like The Palace of Ham; The Jewel of Ham; The Museum of Ham; The Salon of Ham. But the ultimate ham sight in all of Spain, the hammiest, the jamónissimo, is La Catedral del Jamón (The Cathedral of Ham), Palacio de la Bellota, Valencia. ‘Donde jamón es jamón!’ is their proud motto. ‘Where ham is ham!’

[Philski]

The last survivor of the sinking of the Titanic has died aged 97.

Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when the liner sank after hitting an iceberg in the early hours of 15 April 1912, on its maiden voyage from Southampton.

Am I going mad, or isn't it impossible that she was 97 when she died, yet survived a sinking that happened 102 years ago? Or is this an old story?

[Fuzz]

Am I going mad, or isn't it impossible that she was 97 when she died, yet survived a sinking that happened 102 years ago? Or is this an old story?

Yep, old story. She passed 31/5/09.

Can't expect Mika to post fresh material every day!

[MIKA27]

Yep, old story. She passed 31/5/09.

Can't expect Mika to post fresh material every day!

WTF...!? This was posted yesterday via BBC.. Then again... perhaps I was testing to see if you all read the articles I post I obviously didnt read this óne!

[MIKA27]

NEW NEWS! Duff Beer Is Launching In Australia

“Duff Beer for me! Duff Beer for you! I’ll have a Duff! You have one too!” That’s right, the once fictional beer of The Simpsons is now real, and it’s getting released in Australia exclusively.

Duff Beer will hit Sydney first, as the Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel transforms into Moe’s Tavern from 23 May through to 30 May. The hotel will have Duff on tap, as well as Lard Lad donuts and Krusty Burgers.

http://youtu.be/U1fz627Gj2Y

The rest of the nation won’t miss out on the Duff-ness, however, with 355ml cans going on sale at Dan Murphy’s and BWS from $17 for a six-pack and $45 for a case.