Articles! Articles galore!

As a typical late night of internet reading goes, have so many tabs open and thus, another over the place, article compilation post is born.

Ageing stem cells from centenarian rejuvenated
PARIS: Age-degraded cells from elderly patients upwards of 100 years old have been successfully transformed into rejuvenated stem cells “indistinguishable” from those found in their embryonic state. [full article]

Kids are watching too much TV; if they’re under two, any TV is too much
That message isn’t reaching parents, however; 66 percent of children under two have watched TV, even though their brains can’t actually process the information meaningfully. [full article]

How Celebrities Took Over Cartoon Voice Acting
… when it comes to movies, recent years have seen big-screen Hollywood voice acting dominated by A-List actors like Bruce Willis, Angelina Jolie, and Robert DeNiro. The latest celebrity-dominated animated film comes now in the Shrek-inspired Puss in Boots, which represents the unholy trinity of Hollywood’s recent favorite trends: 3D, prequels, and spinoffs. [full article]

Lung regeneration closer to reality with new discovery
the research team reports that they have uncovered the biochemical signals in mice that trigger generation of new lung alveoli, the numerous, tiny, grape-like sacs within the lung where oxygen exchange takes place. Specifically, the regenerative signals originate from the specialized endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels in the lung. [full article]

She’s Her Own Twin
Lydia Fairchild was a proud mother who faced the most unusual of challenges. She had to fight in court to prove the children born from her body were her own.
The Department of Social Services called Fairchild and told her to come in immediately. What Fairchild thought was a routine meeting with a social worker turned into an interrogation. The proud mother was suddenly a criminal suspect. [full article]

Finally, after the internet got so saturated with ‘platitudes’ from every tom, dick and dickhead to the point it was impossible to distinguish the genuine ones from the fakes… a properly heartfelt tribute to Steve Jobs from his once long lost sister… https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

“We’re not in infinity; we’re in the suburbs. “

Scientists discover tsunami on the Sun
In what is a surprising discovery, scientists have found tsunami-style towering waves that race across the face of the Sun. [full article]

Rumours that first dark matter particle found
The physics blogs are abuzz with rumours that a particle of dark matter has finally been found. If it is true, it is huge news. Dark matter is thought to make up 90 per cent of the universe’s mass and what evidence there is for it remains highly controversial. That’s why any news of a sighting is seized upon. [full article]

Innovation: Making a map for everyone, by everyone
Crowdsourcing a map of the world is a supremely democratic project – now new smartphone and online apps will let anyone join in… [full article]

The Original Coming Anarchy: Violence in West Africa
“…(Guinea’s military ruler) Camara was shot in the head, either during the coup, or in the violence that followed, or just days ago (reports vary wildly). Whether or not this is affecting his mental condition is unknown, but the stories we read coming from Guinea suggest a James Bond-esque mad villain ? he sleeps all day and emerges only after dark, broadcasts rambling tirades on the radio that last for hours, and has his official guests wait to meet him in a gallery adorned with life-size portraits of himself…” [full article]

A bit of a mash up post here…

Am also approaching that ‘need to get a haircut’ point. Telling factor is after a shower my hair becomes this almost Beatles like bob cut. But anyways…

A pretty good list of what one man considers The 10 best long tracking shots ever filmed which I can wholeheartedly agree with.

An article and sample of Philip Glass’s new opera can be found here.

A rather bizarre article on a Vietnamese man dug up wife’s corpse ‘so he could hug her’.

For Empire’s 20th anniversary, they’ve gotten a whole slew of actors to recreate some of their more famous roles. It’s pretty neat-o and can be found here.

And then lastly some science articles…

Why we shouldn’t release all we know about the cosmos

A trio of astronomers have warned that, unless we use the information sparingly, we risk squandering a once-in-eternity opportunity. If the whole data set is released at once, as is planned, any new ideas that cosmologists come up with may have to remain untested because they will have no further data to test them with. [full article]

Death of rare giant star sheds light on cosmic past
An enormous explosion observed in 2007 was the death of one of the most massive stars known in the universe, new calculations suggest. Similar blasts may have polluted the early universe with heavy elements, altering its evolution. [full article]

More interesting things from the series of tubes…

The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia
Self exploratory. There’s also a follow up article of 50 more of Wikipedia’s most interesting articles.

Gang ‘killed victims to extract their fat’
A Peruvian gang that allegedly killed people and drained fat from their corpses for use in cosmetics may have been inspired by a grisly Andean legend. [full article]

I traced my dad… and discovered he is Charles Manson
In particular, he hoped that discovering his father’s identity would help him to work out what made him the man he had become. But nothing could have prepared him for being told his dad was… serial killer CHARLES MANSON. [full article]

From The Outer Regions…

Will California become America’s first failed state?
Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state government is issuing IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong? [full article]

World’s largest dino footprints found
Found in the Jura plateau near the south-eastern city of Lyon, the prints are thought to belong to a giant vegetarian sauropod. The round prints are about one and a half metres wide, which palaeontologists at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) reckon were made by animals around 7.5 metres tall, weighing around 40 tonnes. [full article]

Cheap naked chips snap a perfect picture

HOW can image sensors – the most complicated and expensive part of a digital camera – be made cheaper and less complex? Easy: take the lid off a memory chip and use that instead. [full article]

Pirates hit navy ship ‘in error’
A group of Somali pirates has been captured after attacking a French navy ship by mistake, apparently thinking it was a harmless cargo vessel. [full article]

Goddamn Mondays

Woke up this morning to the sound of glass smashing. Thanks crappy garage door and insane winds combo. You’re a winner.

Meanwhile, well aware how behind I am, have taken measures to catch up on the fact that I’ve not been watching movies that much. Not as much as usual anyhow. And I seem to be buying lots of DVDs buts not watching them all. I won’t mention the exact number/ratio to the total number of DVDs, but it’s pretty bad. So the current aim is to watch about two or three movies watched per day till I’ve caught up, which ain’t too impractical of a number, it’ll just take a while… maybe a few months. (yeah, that many).

Internet has been pretty quiet the last few days and everything else in general really. Well… nothing worth blogging about. Unless you can write about writing? Pfft. Boring.

So here’s an article of pure baddassery where a man wrestled with a 12 foot tiger shark for two hours to save his friend (with pictures!) here.

And a video of epic wtf proportions…

Yeah, I’m just as confused as to why I posted that too. And now I go in search of coffee, cause Mondays suck and my head feels a little like this Gary Busey gif…

Quick Articles Links…

The awesomest job requirement, a real life jewel heist, space stuff still rules and freaky gross nature video…

Shooting the boss (and getting paid for it)
To thank him for letting them spend the last two hours of their workweek playing video games on the company dime, Kevin Grinnell’s employees often single him out and shoot him in the head.
&nbsp &nbsp To be fair, the employees at Grinnell Computers aren’t firing real weapons at their boss but are instead releasing the stresses of their week in a multiplayer online game known as Combat Arms.
[full article]

>£1m reward offered over gems raid
A £1m reward has been offered for information leading to the capture of robbers who stole jewellery worth £40m during a raid in central London. [full article]

US probe captures Saturn equinox
Raw images of the moment Saturn reached its equinox have been beamed to Earth by the US Cassini spacecraft. [full article]

‘Alien scene’ of tadpoles’ feast
“Alien-like” scenes of tadpoles feasting on eggs emerging from their mother have been caught on camera. [full article]

A Frankenstien Monster Post

Well shit, I’ve taken a bit more of a break from blogging than intended, but ah well here’s the catch-up…

Been working well too much in the last week, balancing filming and working. Still have to work on actually combining the two into a one regular thing.

48 Hours continues to be prevailing. C4 is currently screening three 48 films from this year every night at 11pm on a weeknight. Starting Wednesday, they’ll be screening the regional winners, Friday will be the wildcards as picked by Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro (super cool) and Saturday will be the televised finals (at 9pm if you are interested in watching). Our film will be screened last on Wednesday night which will be really cool and you’ll get to see our retarded intro and possibly my retarded interview as well. Past that, we don’t have any illusions of actually winning the entire competition and while it is an international competition and there’s no telling who could be picked for whatever reason, I highly doubt we’d win anything and it’s basically just cool, if not still surprising, to have gotten this far again.

Oh and if you’re unable to watch any of the episodes of the 48 Hours tv show, they’re online at the C4 website here. It’s pretty much how I’ve been following the show as I’m working when its on and come to think of it, might not even be available to watch the finals when they screen.

There’s plenty of other things to mention, but I’ll save it for another post. This week shall just be catch up week really as I start sorting out what I need to do next. Room currently looks like a post-tornado site and the boot of my car is filled with just as much junk to go through.

In the meantime here are some videos:

A very cool ‘stop motion’ video with post its and computer who ha.

An online comedy video series thing that’s pretty funny and manages to keep being so in subsequent videos.

And my current favourite awesome, the latest N.A.S.A. music video for the tract “A Volta”. Totally brilliant.

Also a few New Scientist articles I’ve enjoyed and cause the tabs are still open…

Seven things that don’t make sense about gravity.

10 scientific objects that changed the world.

And the very cool article on The inside story of the Conficker worm.

More Science Loving and Tab Closing

Bizarre animals that are new to science
About 15,000 new species are still discovered every year, from psychedelic fish to pink millipedes, and from lungless frogs to the Dracula fish. Take our tour of some of the strangest species to be discovered in recent years. [full article]

Possible site of free will found in brain
Free will, or at least the place where we decide to act, is sited in a part of the brain called the parietal cortex, new research suggests.

When a neurosurgeon electrically jolted this region in patients undergoing surgery, they felt a desire to, say, wiggle their finger, roll their tongue or move a limb. Stronger electrical pulses convinced patients they had actually performed these movements, although their bodies remained motionless. [full article]

MI6 urged Churchill to nuke Berlin
The diaries of Guy Liddell, the head of the espionage “B” Branch of MI5 between 1939-1945, reveal that concern about the Nazis’ V2 programme was so great that the possibility of using the nuclear bomb as a deterrent was discussed with Winston Churchill. [full article]

13 things that do not make sense
No quotes or anything from this one. Just read the whole damn thing and go… the fuck? [full article]

Science Be Praised…

Lots of tabs left open, better blog a few of them…


Flat universe may be the new flat Earth

When it comes to the universe, “flatness” refers to the fate of light beams travelling large distances parallel to each other. If the universe is “flat”, the beams will always remain parallel. Matter, energy and dark energy all produce curvature in space-time, however. If the universe’s space-time is positively curved, like the surface of a sphere, parallel beams would come together. In a negatively curved, saddle-shaped universe, parallel beams would diverge. [full article]

Telescopes poised to spot air-breathing aliens

The Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have both detected gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapour in the atmospheres of a handful of gas-giant exoplanets as they pass in front of their parent stars. The gas molecules absorb light at characteristic wavelengths, and this shows up as dark lines in the spectrum of the starlight which has been filtered through the planet’s atmosphere. [full article]

Women’s menstruation genes found

A UK-led team located two genes on chromosomes six and nine that appear to strongly influence the age at which menstruation starts [full article]

Scientists hail stunning fossil

The fossil, nicknamed Ida, is claimed to be a “missing link” between today’s higher primates – monkeys, apes and humans – and more distant relatives.
In addition, Ida bears “a close resemblance to ourselves” he said, with nails instead of claws, a grasping hand and an opposable thumb – like humans and some other primates. But he said some aspects of the teeth indicate she is not a direct ancestor – more of an “aunt” than a “grandmother”.
[full article]

The last article is pretty amazing stuff and there’s a few interesting videos to supplement it. Another recent surge in topic is the moon which BBC is doing a thematic cover over over the weeks. The lastest is on Lunar Orbital Rendezvous. Still have a soft spot for the moon and having recently reread the facinating book Moondust I’m still giddy all moon related stuff.