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

[MIKA27]

History Got it Wrong: Scientists Now Say Serpent Mound as Old as Aristotle

Serpent Mound in rural Adams County, Ohio, is one of the premier Native American earthworks in the hemisphere. Its pristine flowing form was enhanced by major reconstruction in the 1880s. That reconstruction now appears to have been the second time in its long life that Serpent Mound has shed some of its skin.

Estimates of the age of the earthwork are now radically revised as the result of a new radiocarbon analysis, suggesting that the mound is about 1,400 years older than conventionally thought. The new date of construction is estimated at approximately 321 BCE, one year after the death of Aristotle in Greece.

New data puts Serpent Mound's construction date around 321 BCE, one year after the death of Aristotle in Greece. This marble bust of Aristotle is a copy of a Greek bronze by Lysippos from 330 BC.

Signs and other interpretive material have been made obsolete virtually overnight, along with ideas about the indigenous culture responsible for the astounding artwork. A paper by an eight-member team led by archaeologist William Romain has been published in theJournal of Archaeological Sciencewith a free-access summary available on Romain’s website.

The new data alters thinking about three things: the culture responsible for the mound; the Native groups that are direct descendants of those builders; and the purpose and iconography of the work. Dispatching other theories about Serpent Mound’s origin, Romain’s summary concludes: “Both the consensus of opinion and radiocarbon evidence suggest an Adena construction.”

Traditionally, Serpent Mound was attributed to the Adena Culture or Civilization, based on an adjacent conical Adena burial mound, and the similarity of style of the effigy with many other Adena earthworks of the Ohio Valley. Just 30 miles southeast of Serpent Mound were the Portsmouth Works, with only a few surviving remnants, interpreted by the pioneering archaeoastronomer Stansbury Hagar as representing the effigy of a rattlesnake 50 times larger than Serpent Mound, both with species identification features indicative of the timber rattlesnake.

However, an investigation in the 1990s found two charcoal samples in Serpent Mound that dated to the later time of about 1070 CE. Site managers then attributed construction to the Late Woodland “Fort Ancient Culture,” even though the so-called “Fort Ancient Culture” has been disassociated from the Fort Ancient earthwork in Warren County, Ohio, and is not known to have built large earthworks. Indeed it has been misnamed a “culture” and is now understood more as an interaction phenomenon involving multiple ethnolinguistic groups that came together in the Ohio Valley in the Late Woodland Period, between 500 CE and 1200 CE.

“Fort Ancient Culture” is neither a fort, nor ancient, nor a culture. Yet it has been identified as the author of Serpent Mound, except in those circles where the mound has been attributed to giants or space aliens or giant space aliens.

Overlay of William Romain’s 1987 survey map of Serpent Mound onto a recent LiDaR image.

The “Fort Ancient” designation has been problematic, because as an unreal entity, the so-called culture has no clear descendants. Adena, on the contrary, is strongly identified from archaeology, genetics, and historical linguistics as Algonquian, its descendants being the Anishinaabeg, the Miami-Illinois, the Shawnee, the Kickapoo, the Meskwaki, and the Asakiwaki.

The new investigation by Romain and others found much older charcoal samples in less-damaged sections of the mound. The investigators conjecture that the mound was originally built between 381 BCE and 44 BCE, with a mean date of 321 BCE. They explain the more recent charcoal found in the 1990s as likely the result of a “repair” effort by Indians around 1070 CE, when the mound would already have been suffering from natural degradation. Late Woodland Period graves at the site suggest the earthwork continued to serve a mortuary function, and that this was the principal nature of the site, directing spirits of the dead from burial mounds and subsurface graves northward, not a place to conduct large ceremonial gatherings as has been suggested by tourism/promotion interests.

Without Serpent Mound as a “ceremonial center” at its geographic core, the notion of a “Fort Ancient Culture” has literally been gutted.

That the new date adds a very sophisticated earthwork to the corpus of the Adena, whom some had considered “primitive,” lends new weight to reconsideration of the non-distinction between “Adena” and “Hopewell” and the need for a general revision of the naming conventions for prehistoric cultures of the Ohio Valley. A simplified revised chronology would see the Adena Civilization leading straight to the historic Central Algonquian tribes in the heartland of the Ohio Valley.

The new study comes just as Serpent Mound is being advanced for addition to the UNESCO World Heritage List, a nomination that will have to be rethought as a result of the new date and its implications. Members of the Central Algonquian tribes now have scientific claim to be considered the heirs of Serpent Mound, raising questions about the structure of site management, now conducted by the Ohio History Connection and Arc of Appalachia Preserve System.

What is certain is that ancient Ohioans were not only building extremely sophisticated geometric works that rivalled or surpassed those of contemporary classical Greece, but they were also repairing or renovating them over millennia.

[Fuzz]

Cristiano Ronaldo Just Starred In The Weirdest Japanese Commercial Ever

MIKA: Seriously... WTF!?

I'm sure Fuzz will be buying one

Hell, I'd buy this just for laughs!

THE AMBUSH | BY SMITH & BRADLEY

Now this I'm seriously considering. If I can get it with their G10 strap, I'd be in for at least 2. Would go well with my MTM Silencer that I just bought recently.

[MIKA27]

The Salmon Cannon Will Launch Live Fish Over Dams

It’s not easy being a migratory fish these days. Not only do you have to deal with natural obstacles like friggin bears, there are also man-made obstacles standing in the way — like 150m tall dams. One enterprising company has figured out a safe and effective way to get around these problems: a fish cannon.

More than two dozen endangered and threatened fish species migrate along the West Coast, 12 of which return each year to the Columbia, Snake and Willamette River basins to spawn. Environmentalists have been working for years to ease their journey, lobbying for the installation of various assistance devices at dams — from fish ladders and lifts, to trap-and-haul schemes where they’re literally scooped out of the water, tossed into tanker trucks, and then dumped out further upstream. Unfortunately, very few dams in the region have actually installed these devices due to their high cost.

In the Columbia River, for example, fish ladders have been installed in a number of the region’s smaller dams all the way up from the sea, until the fish hit the 72m tall Chief Joseph dam. There, the fish must attempt to swim up through the turbines with no protection from the spinning blades or rapid water pressure changes. It’s even worse at the 550-foot-tall Grand Coulee a few miles up river from the Chief Joseph. And for a structure that high, conventional assistance ladders simply wouldn’t be feasible. But that’s where the Whooshh transport tubes come in.

They work much like the transport tubes from Futurama. A series of evenly-spaced soft baffles ring the interior of the tube, which enables the negative pressure within to gently pull the item along — be it an apple, watermelon, Rainbow Trout, or Sockeye Salmon — protected from bruising, or even touching the tube walls. This system is far less labour-intensive (and traumatising) for the fish than flopping up 150m+ of fish ladder.

The Whooshh team (with a second ‘h’ added in order to secure a unique domain name) is currently testing a prototype tube system at the Yakama Nations Roza Dam fish facility. The system lifts fish 4.5m over the course of a 70m pipe set at a 45-degree angle, and the pressure is strong enough to propel the fish through them at anywhere from 24km/h to 35km/h, until they rocket out the other end. And this is a fairly small-scale prototype the company is using. Eventually that tube will extend more than 600m, climb more than 300m vertically, and even move objects straight up at 90 degree angles. Nuts.

What’s more, the fish seem to be totally OK with being gently pulled through tubes. The team reportedly had little trouble prompting them to enter the tubes at the Roza facility. Now we just need them to make a man-sized version to replace all this damnable walking.

[MIKA27]

Corsair's New DDR4 RAM Is Ridiculously Fast, Looks Ridiculously Futuristic

Building a new PC any time soon? You’d best wait a couple of weeks — there’s a new chipset and memory combination that will blow away anything that came before it. DDR4 is the brand new memory standard, soon to replace the now seven-year-old DDR3 as the overclocker’s RAM of choice. Corsair’s new DDR4 RAM, along with other brands’ and the next-gen motherboards that support it, will go on sale at the end of this month.

Corsair has two sets of RAM that it’s pushing, for those super-early adopters that want to jump straight on DDR4 when it is released on August 29th. Corsair Dominator Platinum is a familiar name to anyone who has built an overclocking PC in the past, and joining the DDR3 already available is DDR4 at both 2666MHz and 2800MHz clock rates and in both 4GB and 8GB stick capacities. To use DDR4, you’ll need to justify a complete system upgrade to Intel’s latest and greatest X99 (or ‘Haswell-E’) chipset-toting motherboards.

The also-new Vengeance LPX DDR4 might be slightly downmarket compared to the Dominator Platinum, but it does offer one thing that enthusiasts will be looking for: fancy colours. You’ll be able to buy the LPX sticks in black, blue, red or white, and like the Dominator Platinum it supports Intel’s X99 platform’s upgraded XMP 2.0 auto-overclocking configuration. Corsair sets itself apart from other memory manufacturers with Link, which will let you hook up your RAM to a Link box and monitor temperatures across the anodised heatspreaders.

DDR4 and X99 both drop in Australia on August 29th. I can’t wait — hopefully this drives down existing Z97 kit so I can build a new rig on the cheap.

[MIKA27]

Robin Williams 'had Parkinson's' when he died

Robin Williams was suffering from the early stages of Parkinson's disease at the time of his death, his wife has said.

Susan Schneider said her husband had been sober but "not yet ready to share publicly" his struggles with Parkinson's.

She added that he had also been suffering from anxiety and depression.

The 63-year-old actor was found dead in an apparent suicide in his home on Monday.

Police said he died of asphyxia due to hanging.

"His greatest legacy, besides his three children, is the joy and happiness he offered to others, particularly to those fighting personal battles," Ms Schneider said in a statement, adding her husband's sobriety was "intact".

Susan Schneider (left) said the family hoped "others will find the strength" to seek care for their own battles

"It is our hope in the wake of Robin's tragic passing, that others will find the strength to seek the care and support they need to treat whatever battles they are facing so they may feel less afraid."

Parkinson's is a degenerative neurological disorder.

It is believed that the disease is brought on by a mixture of genetic and environmental factors, but the exact cause is still unknown.

Its symptoms can include tremors and other uncontrollable movements, impaired balance and co-ordination, stiffness, slowness of movement, loss of smell, a decline in intellectual functioning, depression and speech and swallowing problems.

It is estimated to affect about five million people worldwide and usually, but not always, occurs in old age. The statement did not specify when Williams had been diagnosed.

Zelda Williams remembers her father:

Dad was, is and always will be one of the kindest, most generous, gentlest souls I've ever known, and while there are few things I know for certain right now, one of them is that not just my world, but the entire world is forever a little darker, less colourful and less full of laughter in his absence.

We'll just have to work twice as hard to fill it back up again.

An impromptu memorial popped up at the house used in Mork and Mindy

In the past, Williams had talked and even joked about his struggles with alcohol and drugs and had returned to rehab to "fine tune" his sobriety earlier in the year.

Tributes have poured in across the world for the comedic actor and on Wednesday evening the marquees of New York City's Broadway theatres were dimmed in his memory.

Williams will also be remembered at the Primetime Emmy Awards on 25 August.

Williams was famous for films such as Good Morning Vietnam and The Fisher King, and won an Oscar for his role in Good Will Hunting. His break-out role was as an alien on the 1970s TV show Mork and Mindy.

[MIKA27]

MASTER & DYNAMIC HEADPHONES

Master & Dynamic are a recent audio brand that make beautifully designed, technically sophisticated headphones. They are masterfully crafted utilizing heavy-duty materials such as premium leathers and stainless steel, and are designed for decades of use. We love the vintage look of their over ear headphones, check out their website for the full collection.

[MIKA27]

OM/ONE LEVITATING BLUETOOTH SPEAKER

Here’s one of those things you never knew you wanted until you’ve actually seen it: Om Audio’s OM/ONE levitating Bluetooth speaker. This spherical speaker is the world’s first levitating speaker as it floats a few inches off of its base and gets rid of the wasted amplification energy found in normal speaker models.

The OM/ONE gets its levitating ability from, as you might guess, the use of magnets, with the magnets being embedded within the base and the spherical speaker itself. It has built-in Bluetooth 4.0, meaning you can connect it to your music devices from across the room. The speaker has a rechargeable battery that holds for 15 hours of playback on a single charge. You’re also able to pair two OM/ONEs together to create an apparently incredible stereo effect. Om Audio has set pre-orders for the device at $199, although you can get it for $179 if you become an early backer.[Purchase]

http://youtu.be/XCfhdmC7oMY

[MIKA27]

BLUE LAGOON GEOTHERMAL SPA IN ICELAND

Whenever anyone mentions anything about a blue lagoon, all we can think about is that creepy Randal Kleiser film from the 80s–you know, the one with a young Brooke Shields. But, this blue lagoon on the shore of Iceland looks more like something out of a sci-fi flick, even though it’s all very real.

The Blue Lagoon is Iceland’s most popular attraction, likely due to the fact that the water maintains a perfect 102 degrees. The water is fed by Svartsengi, the geothermal power plant that’s nearby, and the water is replaced every two days, so it’s always fresh. Contained within the natural waters are many vital minerals which have been “proven to include a medicinal bonus.” The lagoon gets its blueish glow from the minerals contained within the white silica mud, which is also the reason for the water’s milky appearance.

[MIKA27]

The Bizarre Story Of How The Original Poster For Jaws Went Missing

The first pages of Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel, “Jaws”, as well as the opening minutes of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster, begin with the attack of a young, late-night skinny dipper named Chrissie Watkins, who’s dragged to her watery doom by a great white shark, feeding in the waters off the seaside vacation town of Amity. The book and film struck a chord, in no small part because they capitalised on our fear of the unknown — in this case, of being chomped to death by untold rows of unseen teeth.

Depicting that fear, or at least the very moment before it, was a key part of the book’s and film’s marketing. Paul Bacon, one of the foremost book illustrators of the 20th century, created the original black-and-white image for the Doubleday hardcover (above, left). But the artist credited with creating the quintessential “Jaws” image is Roger Kastel, who became famous in the 1970s for his movie posters, including “The Empire Strikes Back.” Kastel produced the oil-on-board painting that became the cover of the Bantam paperback (above, center) and the Universal Studios “Jaws” poster that followed (above, right).

Like any good thriller, the story of how Kastel’s painting journeyed from his New York studio to Hollywood is riddled with twists, turns, and blind alleys. As for its ending, Kastel’s tale still doesn’t have one — the whereabouts of his valuable original art have been a mystery since it was sent to Universal almost 40 years ago.

Though the cover concept was born in Doubleday’s New York City offices in 1974, it was not the publisher’s first instinct for Benchley’s novel. Instead, Doubleday’s design director, Alex Gottfried, asked book illustrator Wendell Minor to depict Amity as seen through the jaws of a shark.

“I did a painting looking straight at the shark’s open mouth, with this seaside village in the distance,” Minor recalls. “I wasn’t all that thrilled about the concept, I didn’t think it worked, but that was the direction they wanted me to go in.”

As Kastel remembers it, Dystel was not a fan of the Doubleday cover and wanted Kastel to look at the cover with fresh eyes. “He wanted me to read the book to pick out a new part to illustrate. But, of course, the best part was the beginning, where Chrissie goes into the water nude.” Turns out the Doubleday concept, if not the execution, was not so bad after all. Kastel did a sketch for Dystel and Leone to critique. “The only direction Oscar and Len gave me was to make the shark bigger, and very realistic.”

By all accounts Kastel succeeded, although the graphic nature of Kastel’s image (its nudity, not the impending violence) got the paperback banned in Boston, Massachusetts, and St. Petersburg, Florida. “I thought that was the end of my illustration career,” Kastel says. “Boy was I ever wrong. Bantam loved the publicity. It was great for book sales.”

In fact, the attention lavished on Kastel’s cover prompted a lawsuit between Doubleday and Bantam. “Bantam was taking credit for the entire cover,” says Minor, “but Alex said, ‘No. It was our concept, based on our original design’. You can even see the similarity in the typography. It wasn’t exactly the same as on the paperback and movie poster, but it was a very similar look. I got a fairly decent-sized check out of it,” he adds. “Paul got one, too.”

Some “Jaws” fans have complained that Tom Whalen’s poster for a 2010 screening contains a spoiler, but, as the artist puts it, who doesn’t know how “Jaws” ends?

Source aside, it was Kastel’s execution that made the image an instant icon. “I think Kastel’s poster, like much of the best poster art of its era, tells the movie’s story instantly while making you want to learn more,” says Tom Whalen, who has made numerous second-generation, or tribute, movie posters for an Austin, Texas, publisher called Mondo. Whalen also gives props to the unnamed graphic artists at Universal who placed Kastel’s image amid the typography required to promote a movie. “The cool blue water situated opposite the blood red title just seals the deal,” he says.

Would that our story concluded there, with a happy Hollywood ending, but somewhere along the line, Kastel’s painting disappeared. Kastel remembers his last glimpse of his approximately 20-by-30-inch painting. “It was hanging at the Society of Illustrators in New York,” he says. “It was framed because it was on a book tour, and then it went out to Hollywood for the movie. I expected it to come back, but it never did.”

“It was stolen,” asserts Minor flatly. “It’s hanging in Hollywood somewhere. That’s happened to me in the past, too, where a piece of artwork will disappear and then it will show up on eBay, or something. That artwork would be quite valuable today.”

“Antiques Roadshow” appraiser Rudy Franchi wholeheartedly agrees. “Most original art for movie posters does not do that well,” he explains. “The art world treats it as commercial flotsam, while poster collectors believe that if it isn’t on paper, it’s not a movie poster. There are exceptions, of course, and the artwork for ‘Jaws’ would be one. This is one of the most powerful images of the last century, and the fact that it’s not just the art for a tawdry movie poster but also for a proper book would broaden its appeal. There are some fanatic ‘Jaws’ collectors out there who would rent their soul to have this. I would estimate a sales price north of $US20,000, with a much higher price quite probable.”

“A sketch that I did years ago for ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ was auctioned off recently for a lot of money,” says Kastel simply. And what does he think happened to his “Jaws” painting? There are really only two possibilities. “Either someone has it or it’s lost in storage at Universal. They really should report it as stolen.”

[MIKA27]

What Tear Gas Does To Its Victims

Tear gas is banned for use in warfare by the Geneva Convention. It’s allowed, however, to be used by police as “domestic riot control”, as seen in protests in Turkey, Bahrain, and now Ferguson, Missouri. Here’s what you need to know about tear gas: What it is, and what it does to the human body.

What’s in it?

The term “tear gas” is a bit of a misnomer: The canisters in a police department’s arsenal contain a solid powered chemical, rather than a gas. When activated, the chemical is aerosolised, creating a dense plume of crystallised chemicals that hang in the air.

Almost universally, those clouds contain one of two chemicals. Oleum capsicum (OC) tear gas is made of chilli pepper oil, the same ingredient used in pepper spray. CS gas uses a chemical called 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile as its active ingredient, with a couple of variations that range in potency.

Various forms of tear gas have been in use since World War I, some of which are now banned due to toxicity. The ones that remain are said to be nontoxic and — when used appropriately — nonlethal. But it wasn’t until just a few years ago that we fully understood how tear gas works.

What does it do?

Exposure to tear gas causes a trademark set of symptoms: severe burning of the eyes, mouth, throat, and skin. Victims cough, choke, and retch, with tears and mucous streaming uncontrollably from their eyes, noses, and throats. In response to the pain, victims’ eyelids snap shut. Some report temporary blindness.

Depending on the type of tear gas used, symptoms come on nearly instantly. CS gas kicks in within 30 to 60 seconds, causing irritation to the skin, eyes, and breathing passages. Pepper-based OC gas sets in even more swiftly, and can even incapacitate its victims.

Tear gas is so viciously effective because, again, it’s not a gas; it’s a substance that binds and reacts to moisture. The aerosolised crystals glom on to the wet surfaces of a person’s eyes, mouth, skin, and breathing passages. The body’s defence mechanisms go into overdrive, trying to flush the chemicals away with tears and mucus. The pain and panic, combined with the body’s swift reaction, can incapacitate or disorient a victim.

If a victim can escape the tear gas and get to open air, the symptoms usually wear off within one hour, though burning eyes and skin, dizziness, and disorientation can last much longer. While researchers are studying ways to block the chemicals’ effects, currently there’s no cure for victims other than getting away into open air.

Ever since tear gas saw its first use in WWI, scientists assumed it acted as a simple irritant. But recent research shows that the chemicals used today aren’t just aerosolized itching powder: They’re actually nerve agents.

Sven-Eric Jordt is a professor of pharmacology at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Jordt’s research team focuses on the nerve pathways of pain. In 2006 and 2009, the Jordt lab published papers explaining for the first time the neurological basis of how tear gas works. As Dr. Jordt explained to National Geographic in 2013:

Tear gases are nerve gases that specifically activate pain-sensing nerves. Spelled out like that, people can better compare them to other nerve agents out there. That’s the major discovery we made, that they are not benign or just irritants. The receptors are designed to warn a human or animal about exposure to a noxious chemical, so the animal removes itself from the exposure. They increase survival.

In other words, they’re not just there to incapacitate. They act directly to cause pain.

When it goes wrong

Tear gas is meant to work long enough to subdue a crowd, then dissipate with no permanent repercussions. A 2003 study states that there is “no evidence that a healthy individual will experience long-term health effects from open-air exposures to CS”. But that’s not always how it goes.

Reports from demonstrations in Egypt in 2013 state that 37 people died of asphyxiation after a tear gas canister was fired into the vehicle carrying them. Others have been blinded, maimed or killed by tear gas canisters shot from close range. The War Resisters League reports on deaths caused by exposure to tear gas in closed spaces, miscarriages and stillbirths after exposure to the chemicals. People with respiratory diseases like asthma are especially susceptible to tear gas, sometimes requiring long-term hospitalisation. Overexposure can cause burns to the skin or eyes, the latter frequently causing blindness.

Tear gas is meant to be a non-lethal crowd dispersing agent. But to its victims, and the people who study it, that distinction isn’t always so clear. As Dr Jordt told National Geographic, the legacy of tear gas doesn’t always live up to that non-lethal claim:

There are enough examples where people suffered severe injury and burns, especially in enclosed environments or city streets with several-story buildings. Residents who live near Tahir Square in Cairo that have gotten a lot of tear gas have had long-term exposure, leading to respiratory problems. Long-term exposure is very problematic.

People with asthma or other conditions can have very severe reactions. Tear gases are very serious chemical threats. I think it is very problematic to use them.

When asked by National Geographic if tear gas should be used on civilians, Dr Jordt’s response was telling:

Tear gas under the Geneva Convention is characterised as a chemical warfare agent, and so it is precluded for use in warfare, but it is used very frequently against civilians. That’s very illogical.

It’s unknown how many canisters of tear gas have been fired in Ferguson, Missouri. Media reports have been limited, but by all accounts the Ferguson police are relying on it extensively to control and subdue protestors. Given the mixed history of this weapon, and its potential for injury or death, it makes an already unstable situation even more troubling.

[MIKA27]

Let's All Gawk At How Pretty Assassin's Creed: Unity Is In This 11-Minute Gameplay Clip

Ubisoft has tried to crack the Assassin’s Creed nut a few different ways in the past, but still nothing compares to how good the first few games were to play. The climbing has never been as good, the landscapes have never been as compelling that the stories have all just been a bit confusing. Assassin’s Creed: Unity is the latest move in the dance, and d’you know what? It actually looks amazing. This 11-minute hands-on really speaks for itself.

It’s super-nerdy, but even the views through the stained glass windows on Notré Dame Cathedral look amazing. I love next-gen consoles…

[Habana Mike]

What Tear Gas Does To Its Victims

This is one of those posts that I wish there was an 'Unlike' or Not Like' button for. Facebook needs one too.

How can one 'Like' a post about something they seriously do not 'Like'

Not that I don't like the post, i don't like the content.

If a substance is disallowed by the Geneva Convention in warfare but used frequently in 'domestic' situations, what's to 'Like'?

[Fuzz]

Let's All Gawk At How Pretty Assassin's Creed: Unity Is In This 11-Minute Gameplay Clip

Time for me to scrounge together some shekels and buy an Xbox One. What I find really odd is that AC: Rogue (expected 11/11/14) is only coming out on PS3 and 360? Why are these two games released on only PS3/360 or PS4/One?

Boggles the mind that Unity is only the new platform, but they are releasing the next game only on the old platform?

[MIKA27]

Time for me to scrounge together some shekels and buy an Xbox One. What I find really odd is that AC: Rogue (expected 11/11/14) is only coming out on PS3 and 360? Why are these two games released on only PS3/360 or PS4/One?

Boggles the mind that Unity is only the new platform, but they are releasing the next game only on the old platform?

AC Unity will be available on all next gen Consoles 28th october

[Fuzz]

AC Unity will be available on all next gen Consoles 28th october

Oh, I know it is on the nextgen consoles, but I found it odd that AC:Rogue is not. And I'll be getting the AC:Unity Notre Dame edition!

[MrGTO]

Like arming the Syrian rebels blaming the government forces for the chemical attacks then back peddling once the rebels were proven to be the culprits, I see the great fighter for freedom going quiet again. When will the western sheeple wake up are realise the **** they are fed.

Glad you have ALL your **** together over there....LOL!

Pot meet Kettle....

[NJP]

Glad you have ALL your **** together over there....LOL!

Pot meet Kettle....

We're just the puppy running behind the big dogs down hear, still tripping up on our paws we haven't grown into. Part of a pack that will crap up anyone's lawn anywhere, anytime.

All I was saying is that you can brand a ****, package and market a ****, copyright the same **** then give it heaps of air and print time. You will still have people that will see it as a fantastic new product and others still see as just a ****.

Individually, we need to throw old kettles out, they put a taste in your tea. You can get use to the taste or get yourself a glass kettle.

I'm not taking sides just concerned about our western trends, that's all mate.

[ajgagnon]

This is one of those posts that I wish there was an 'Unlike' or Not Like' button for. Facebook needs one too.

How can one 'Like' a post about something they seriously do not 'Like'

Not that I don't like the post, i don't like the content.

If a substance is disallowed by the Geneva Convention in warfare but used frequently in 'domestic' situations, what's to 'Like'?

I have experienced it, and it's not fun. In fact, I would like to see studies that look into the hormone interactions/implications it may cause. Many of the women I know who were exposed reported having spontaneous periods.

[MIKA27]

Your House On Mars Could Look Like This

Your house on Mars could be a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with six-sided rooms laid out in a hex-based grid. It’s designed to shield against the cosmic radiation that humans would be exposed to under the Martian atmosphere using depleted uranium panels, and stay warm using water piped through walls and heated using an exothermic chemical reactor buried under the ground.

Sadly, the house only exists as a 3D-printed model as of now. It was designed by Noah Hornberger, a designer of 3D-printed objects. Hornberger was awarded the first place in the Mars Base Challenge organised by NASA and Makerbot, the creator of desktop 3D printers. This particular creation is called “The Queen B”.

[MIKA27]

This Electron Gun Turns Titanium Powder Into Turbine Blades For Planes

Titanium aluminide is a 3D-printable metal compound that holds great promise for lighter, stronger aircraft turbines but is notoriously difficult to work. That is, it was notoriously difficult to work with, until additive manufacturing firm Avio developed this metal-melting 3 kW electron gun.

Titianium aluminide (TiAl) is an intermetallic alloy developed beginning in the early 1970s for use in automotive and aircraft engines. Its light weight, strength, and resistance to both heat stress and oxidation make it ideal for these applications. It’s also 50 per cent lighter than the nickel superalloys currently employed.

For aircraft turbine blades, for example, using TiAl rather than conventional alloys has shown to boost the engine’s thrust to weight ratio by as much as 20 per cent. “Although the material is expensive, the weight savings and the fuel consumption savings tied to weight reduction more than pay for it,” Mauro Varetti, an advanced manufacturing engineer at Avio, the GE subsidiary that developed the new electron gun. However, TiAl tends to contract, shrink, and crack as it cools in a conventional lost-wax or spin-casting mould, leading to lots of wasted precursor and even higher production costs.

The EBM (electron beam melting) printer from Avio avoids this issue entirely. The system works by drafting the component in a vacuous three dimensional space from a stockpile of molten TiAl powder using a 3kW electron beam 10 times more powerful than any existing 3D metal-printing laser. Because the laser is so much more powerful than existing options, engineers can better control the properties of the TiAl and produce components from layers up to four times thicker (and sturdier) than existing Ni superalloys.

What’s more, the EBM can produce components in a fraction of the time needed by traditional casting. The new system can spit out as many as seven fan blades for the GE GEnx turbine engine every three days, in fact. That’s roughly the same speed as traditional casting — but with a fraction of the loss.

GE is already working with its Italian subsidiary to scale up the printing technology and begin incorporating the blades in its GE9x (for the new 777x) and its Genx engine used in the Dreamliner and 787. The company plans to begin testing engines with these new components at its Peebles, OH, test facility later this year.

[MIKA27]

The Coldest Of The Cold Cases: Using DNA To Identify Century-Old Remains

In a dusty, seemingly empty field 100km east of Los Angeles, Dr Alexis Grey, a forensic anthropologist from the San Bernardino County Sheriff Department, points to a chain-link fence far in the distance, the mountains rising beyond in the hazy heat. “There are 7000 people between us and that next fence there,” she says. For almost a decade, her job has been to confirm the identification of every single one of them.

From 1908 to 2008, this three-acre plot at the edge of one of San Bernardino’s cemeteries was the final resting place for most of the county’s unidentified burials. Not all of the bodies here are unknown: Many of the burials are indigent, meaning that next of kin couldn’t afford a proper funeral or no one stepped forward to pay for one. But about 10 per cent of the people here — around 700 people — were buried without a name. Some are clearly the victims of murders or kidnappings, but most simply erased themselves from society. The county paid for their funerals, and made sure they were properly interred. Yet decades later — over a century later in some cases — no one knows who they are.

Rusted coffin handles sit over a stone grave marker. Many of the people at this site were buried 70 to 80 years ago.

Over the last few years, thanks to advances in forensic science, these people now have a better chance of being identified. Since 2006, Grey and her team have been exhuming the unidentified bodies, confirming the descriptions with burial records, and sending a sample of the remains to Northern California for DNA testing.

So far, they have exhumed 79 bodies. They have identified eight people.

Giving Names to the Dead

The San Bernardino County Unidentified Persons Project is one of many initiatives in the state which were launched in the wake of the 2001 California State Senate Bill 297, which required counties to use modern DNA analysis to identify any unknown remains. The only hitch, and what has been holding up the process for many counties, is there is no financial backing allocated with the bill to get these identifications on the books. Which means scientists had to get creative.

Talking fast with clipped syllables, her hair pulled into a ponytail under her white Stetson, Grey could easily be cast as a whip-smart forensic star of CSI: San Bernardino (in fact, she’s been an advisor to the show Bones). It is not surprising that it was her idea to turn the San Bernardino project into a study program for students through the Institute for Field Research.

“If we had a private company come in here like a mortuary and used their backhoe, each disinterment would cost about $US2000,” says Grey. “By turning it into a field school, it becomes a really unique experience — there’s really nothing else like this in the country.” So instead of spending their summer holidays at the beach, or even working in an air-conditioned lab, these two dozen students have elected to dig up graves in 40C heat.

Grey, in the white hat, stands next to Dr Craig Goralski and gives notes to students who are examining a body.

But some of these students will go on to work in equally uncomfortable or dangerous conditions, identifying victims of genocide or natural disasters. “We’re teaching them how to collect DNA, but we’re also teaching some of these techniques that some of these students will use in other parts of the world like Bosnia or Argentina, places where they have mass graves of the disappeared,” says Grey. In these places they might not have the luxury of GPS or satellite imagery, which also happens to be the case here. She holds up a piece of foam core to illustrate what kind of information students are working with: A 1949 map of the cemetery created by the county’s Board of Supervisors.

The map, with each plot numbered to correspond with burial records, is mostly correct: The graves are arranged in a rough chronological order and have engraved stone markers buried at the corner of each coffin. But as they have discovered already, the map does not account for improvisation over the years. Some gravediggers opted for narrower graves than what were prescribed, shifting an entire row off by a metre in an effort to save space. The width of the aisles between graves grows and shrinks based on the transportation technology used for burials — wagons, trucks, backhoes. The fence used as a reference seems to have been moved three times.

The not-very-reliable 1949 map shows where the 7000 graves are located, kinda.

Ground-penetrating radar, which could usually be employed to locate a single grave, doesn’t work well here — there are too many bodies, too close together, and it’s hard to tell where one grave ends and another begins. Using a compass and a shovel, they have to make an educated guess and start digging. Once they have located the bodies, they’re able to geotag the location and use a total station (what traffic engineers use to build streets) to place it onto their revised grid. Her team is essentially digitising a 65-year-old burial map by hand.

Exhuming the Bodies

Today, four groups are clustered beneath bright blue tents that provide much-needed shade for their worksites. They will each access and analyse a single grave today, a painstaking process due to the nature of an indigent, county-funded burial: Most “coffins”, if you can even call them that, were made from pressboard and have completely deteriorated. Some, due to 500kg of soil pressing down upon them over a century, have collapsed into their occupants, shattering critical bones. It’s delicate work, and Grey’s program partner, anthropologist Dr Craig Goralski, walks me through it.

Wood from a deteriorating coffin peeking through the dirt at a gravesite.

The students begin with shovels. About two or three feet down, they will tap against wood — whatever fragments of the coffin exist, which are lifted off and placed to the side. Then they move to trowels, then chopsticks, then brushes, to ensure that they don’t damage the bodies. They dust off and photograph the remains. Then comes the critical moment: Measuring the bones for clues of age, sex and ancestry. This is how they will know if they have dug up the correct John or Jane Doe.

Cross-referencing the map with the cemetery’s and county’s own records can usually help them confirm the description of who they have exhumed. For each body, there is a coroner’s report which outlines basic anatomical information, including any potential trauma, which is often the most helpful. “If we know that the John Doe we’re looking for had a gunshot wound to the chest and one of their ribs are cracked, we can see that to make sure we got the right guy,” says Goralski. “We need to come to the same conclusions that the coroner came to 60 years ago.”

The bodies are draped in a body bag with all relevant information written on the outside and reburied. None of the remains leave the cemetery.

One detail they often do need to amend, however, is the coroner’s assessment of race. “We’re finding that how ancestry was reported in the past is very different from where we report it now,” says Goralski. Back then, the go-to race for anyone who wasn’t white or black was “Mexican,” even though the person might not even be of Hispanic origin. Here, the team looks for all sorts of osteological markers, skeletal cues which are particular to certain ethnic backgrounds. Shovel-shaped incisors, for example, are a signature feature of many Native American cultures — who might have originally just been labelled “Mexican.”

After confirmation, a part of the body needs to be sent to the state’s Department of Justice for DNA analysis. While the labs used to prefer a bone as large and dense as a femur, they now don’t need as much to get an accurate sampling. “Toes have been proving surprisingly helpful,” says Grey. “We used to go for teeth, and if the teeth are still in the mandible, we will do that. But usually we’re losing a toe.”

Making a DNA Match

It’s at this point that all the information collected by the program goes into the hands of Deputy Bob Hunter, an investigator for the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner, who works with the Department of Justice on all the cases that come out of the field here. “We’ll send a bone from an unknown person up to Sacramento — the actual facility is in Richmond, California — and if they can get alleles out of it, then it goes into the CODIS nationwide database,” Hunter tells me.

Although DNA sampling is high-tech, most of the tools used in the field are old-school, like sifters to find bone fragments.

CODIS is the Combined DNA Index System that’s run by the FBI, a nationwide program that’s responsible for sampling and analysing DNA. Although DNA profiling has been somewhat reliable for the past decade, the tech has improved most dramatically in the last few years, says Hunter. “There are even some older cases that we’ve resampled in the last year and were finally able to get DNA from.” But even with a good sample, CODIS needs to have something to match it to: A relative of the unknown person must also have submitted their DNA to the system, either voluntarily or through a previous criminal investigation.

Which means sometimes Hunter is back on the paper trail. Using all the biometric information confirmed (or updated) by the exhuming process, he’ll dive into the county records, which date back to 1890, or pore over old newspapers. Normally, he wouldn’t have the staff to tackle all these unsolved cases, but with the new leads developed by this research, he’s often able to fill in some blanks. “We are so lucky that IFR put this program together,” he says. “This lets us take these older cases and get them back in the system.”

The graves being exhumed today are four of about 30 that the program will address this year.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the state shares their sense of urgency. There is one part of the process that is out of their hands: The waiting game played with California’s DNA lab, where their scientists must focus on current homicides first. While some results from the Unidentified Persons Project have come back as quickly as several months, they’re still waiting on other cases which were exhumed in 2004. “These are the coldest of cold cases,” says Goralski. “We don’t get priority on these things.”

But there is something to seeing the cold case being resurfaced — both literally and figuratively — through this project. Recently they’d exhumed a man found in a nearby field who was determined to have died of acute alcohol poisoning. This was a case so cold that the letter from the FBI in the file was signed by J. Edgar Hoover. I was able to see the entire case — an autopsy report, newspaper clippings, photographs of the crime scene, the coroner’s estimation of “Mexican” which I now knew to be specious since that label was applied to most people of colour. All of that, compounded with the fact that his body was buried in a plot a few feet from where I stood, it all suddenly made him more of a person.

I still can’t stop thinking about him. Would they ever find this man’s family? Did anyone even care that he was gone?

Finding Closure for Families

As we sipped Gatorade under one of the blue tents, Grey tells me about a girl who had disappeared in the mountains while walking to school in the 1960s. “There’s always a little bit of luck involved because we need the families of the missing to also have submitted their DNA,” she says. “But in this case, her sister had not given up.” When they exhumed a body in 2012 the state found a genetic match — the sister of the missing girl had indeed registered her DNA with the state in the off-chance that her sibling might someday be found. Both her sister and her mother were still alive. Grey was able to give closure to this family, 40 years later.

“That was worth every second of this heat because I’m a mum,” she says, her signature rat-a-tat speech slowing and her eyes softening. “I can’t imagine my child being missing for 40 years. That’s why we do what we do.”

A gravesite that has been exhumed, investigated, and outfitted with a new digital marker, and is now being reburied. DNA results might not come back for years.

Requiring every Californian to undergo DNA profiling would be a controversial and highly contentious issue, and there’s probably zero chance that the state would ever enact any kind of mandatory registration. But if there was a point I walked away from the cemetery with, it was this: If you’re missing someone, anyone, get your DNA registered. Even if you don’t have a family member you’re looking for, Grey recommends submitting your DNA anyway. “What if they can’t speak for themselves? What if they got in an accident and they are unable to talk? A DNA profile would help us figure out who to call.”

A few minutes later, Grey was back on high-speed mode, quizzing members of her team with a series of rapid-fire questions. “Look at the subpubic angle there, would you call that narrow or wide?” “The holes in the skull, do you see one or two?” As the forensic anthropologist for one of the largest counties, area-wise, in the contiguous US, Grey has to cover many cases, on massive amounts of ground, and she doesn’t have the luxury of time. She’s teaching the students to be just as hyper-efficient.

But there’s another reason for this project to move fast. The oldest person they have exhumed so far was determined to have died in 1927. The chance of any of these unknown people having surviving parents or siblings gets smaller with each passing day.

[MIKA27]

Unmanned Drones Landing Autonomously Next To F-18s Is A Very Big Deal

The days of piloted combat aircraft are quickly coming to an end, soon to be heavily augmented if not outright replaced by UCAS, or Unmanned Combat Air Systems. Just yesterday, the Navy’s X-47B demonstrator proved that manned and unmanned operations can take place on the same flight deck.

The X-47B has already shown that is can take off and land autonomously aboard a roiling flight deck. During a series of trial flights aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt yesterday, Navy researchers examined whether the pilotless drone could reliably queue up and landing alongside conventional aircraft without colliding. Per a Navy press release:

The first series of manned/unmanned operations began this morning [Aug. 17] when the ship launched an F/A-18 and an X-47B. After an eight-minute flight, the X-47B executed an arrested landing, folded its wings and taxied out of the landing area. The deck-based operator used newly developed deck handling control to manually move the aircraft out of the way of other aircraft, allowing the F/A-18 to touch down close behind the X-47B’s recovery.

This cooperative launch and recovery sequence will be repeated multiple times over the course of the planned test periods. The X-47B performed multiple arrested landings, catapults, flight deck taxiing and deck refueling operations.

Clearly, there is still much more testing to be done before these autonomous flyers enter active service but technological advance that keeps our airmen out of harm’s way can’t come soon enough, and it’s right on the horizon.

[MIKA27]

Sharp's New Phones Have So Little Bezel It's Ridiculous

Never heard of a Sharp smartphone? It’s not surprising since the company, known best for its televisions, has never brought a handset to the West. But today Sharp announced two new virtually bezel-less smartphones under the “Aquos Crystal” banner and one will be making its way across the Pacific.

The Aquos Crystal proper flaunts premium quality but at heart it’s actually a pretty mid-range option. It comes with a 5-inch, 720p screen, a Snapdragon 400 processor, 1.5GB of RAM and 8GB of onboard storage with expandable microSD storage up to 128GB. It will also ship with Android 4.4.2 and have a decently sized 2040mAh battery. For audio, Sharp partnered with Harman Kardon for sound processing and compatibility with the ONYX Studio bluetooth speaker, according to a SoftBank press release.

But forget the specs because man that bezel! Or more accurately the lack thereof. These are the thinnest bezels we’ve ever seen, even slimmer than the new LG G3. Although whether that makes sense when you’re actually using the thing is still up for grabs. We should know soon though; Sprint is expected to announce its availability at a press event tomorrow.

Sharp will also be releasing a premium, phablet-sized Aquos Crystal X with a 1080p screen, faster Snapdragon 801 processor and 16GB of onboard storage. Unfortunately it seems like this puppy — the one we’d really want — will most liking remain a Japan exclusive. In the mean time, here’s to hoping. And if nothing else this pair of handsets is some serious (practical) bezel-free porn

[MIKA27]

Solar Power Company Wants To Make Up For Frying Birds By Neutering Cats

A few months ago, there were reports on an unsettling consequence of running the world’s largest solar plant. The 350,000 mirrors bounce sunlight back towards the atmosphere with such intensity that it basically creates a giant death ray. The poor little birds that pass by don’t stand a chance — they get scorched in midair.

This is not a small problem. The Associated Press’ sources now say that there’s an average of one so-called “streamer” every two minutes at the $US2.2 billion Ivanpah Dry Lake facility. (They’re called streamers due to the trail of smoke the burned birds produce as their carcasses fall to the Earth.) The problem is bad enough that federal wildlife investigators want to stop the plant’s owner, BrightSource Energy, from opening an even larger solar farm directly in the flight path of over 100 species of birds, including golden eagles and peregrine falcons. That plant would be four times as dangerous to birds as Ivanpah.

But don’t worry. BrightSource Energy has a solution. One of the company’s executives told the AP that BrightSource will cough up $US1.8 million in compensation for the anticipated bird deaths at the new plant. This money, he says, could be used to spay and neuter cats — which kill billions of birds every year.

The idea creates more questions than it answers. How exactly will spaying and neutering keep the cats from killing birds — aside from the simple fact that the cats would reproduce less? Wouldn’t the right solution be to figure out a way to steer the gigantic death ray death away from the poor innocent birds? The AP reports that “opponents say that would do nothing to help the desert birds at the proposed site.” And those opponents sound right!

We’ve reached out to BrightSource for more information on its plan to save the birds, and their silly idea to spay and neuter cats. We’ll update this post when we hear back.

[MIKA27]

The First Touch-Sensitive LCD Basketball Court In The World Is Awesome

Nike has created this huge touch-sensitive LCD basketball court for a training session with Kobe Bryant.

The court has built-in motion sensors that track every player’s movements individually. It can also display training exercises for them to follow and show statistics on performance. Check out the amazing video.

The space — located in Shanghai, China — is called the House of Mamba and was specifically built for the Nike Rise, a competition that searches for the best young Chinese players.