Weekly Science Headlines

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Cable firms starting to shit themselves about the existence of the internet:
http://bgr.com/2013/12/09/anti-cord-cutting-ad-campaign-wtf/

The cable cutter continues to embrace the bunny, and offers the small creature a ride on his bicycle. The rabbit then leaps up and latches on to the man's neck, biting down and continuing to hold on despite the man's struggles.

"And because he didn't get the news," a tablet tethered to a cactus reveals, "he didn't know mutant bunnies were on the loose."

Of course had you given the poor guy cable, disaster would have been averted. The tablet tethered to the cactus would have been revealed in time and it would have been streaming a breaking newscast informing the man that mutant bunnies escaped from a nearby lab. He would know, then, to put on a falconry glove and tame the mutant beast before taking it for a ride on his bike.

I lack the words.

I could not make heads nor tails of that. What? They are trying to convince people that having tv on 24/7 would prevent tragic accidents, or something like that?

[Junkenstein]

Cable subscriptions are down so people are going batshit crazy. At least that's what I understand.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Cable subscriptions are down so people are going batshit crazy. At least that's what I understand.

MADNESS!

It's sad when companies that offer an old technology miss the bandwagon for moving to a new technology and then freak out when they finally realize.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You know what Austrailia really needs? More danger.
http://gizmodo.com/miners-spill-a-million-liters-of-radioactive-acid-in-a-1479708013

About a million liters of radioactive acid sludge accidentally poured out of a tank at the Ranger uranium mine in northern Australia. As if the spill itself weren't bad enough, the mine is also located in the Kakadu National Park, where most of Crocodile Dundee was filmed. That place is a national treasure.

Luckily, this catastrophic-sounding event might be resolved without too much destruction. The people who run the mine say they can clean up the mess easily and there's been "no impact to the environment," because the spill was confined to the mine. Whether or not this is actually true remains to be seen, as the radioactive acid sludge is strong enough to damage the local ecosystem if it makes it into the nearby water supply. Again, this would be bad since this mine is sitting smack dab in the middle of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It's an impressive level of bribery that lets you do this in the middle of a heritage site.

They're trying to close the gap with Arizona.  RADIOACTIVITY IS OUR SCHTICK, ASSHOLES!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This is quite interesting: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131205141629.htm

Astronomers Discover Planet That Shouldn't Be There

Dec. 5, 2013 — The discovery of a giant planet orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance has astronomers puzzled over how such a strange system came to be.
An international team of astronomers, led by a University of Arizona graduate student, has discovered the most distantly orbiting planet found to date around a single, sun-like star. It is the first exoplanet -- a planet outside of our solar system -- discovered at the UA.
Weighing in at 11 times Jupiter's mass and orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance, planet HD 106906 b is unlike anything in our own Solar System and throws a wrench in planet formation theories.
"This system is especially fascinating because no model of either planet or star formation fully explains what we see," said Vanessa Bailey, who led the research. Bailey is a fifth-year graduate student in the UA's Department of Astronomy.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131209152259.htm

Neural Prosthesis Restores Behavior After Brain Injury

Dec. 9, 2013 — Scientists from Case Western Reserve University and University of Kansas Medical Center have restored behavior -- in this case, the ability to reach through a narrow opening and grasp food -- using a neural prosthesis in a rat model of brain injury.

Ultimately, the team hopes to develop a device that rapidly and substantially improves function after brain injury in humans. There is no such commercial treatment for the 1.5 million Americans, including soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, who suffer traumatic brain injuries (TBI), or the nearly 800,000 stroke victims who suffer weakness or paralysis in the United States, annually.
The prosthesis, called a brain-machine-brain interface, is a closed-loop microelectronic system. It records signals from one part of the brain, processes them in real time, and then bridges the injury by stimulating a second part of the brain that had lost connectivity.
Their work is published online this week in the science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

BABIES: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/08/newborn-babies-more-developed-cognitive-development

My baby could not look more like a subject in a laboratory experiment. Wearing a soft white skullcap attached by long wires to an EEG machine measuring his brain activity, he is also surrounded by computer equipment and fussing researchers at University College London. "Hopefully you'll be contributing to high-powered science!" one coos at him.

Before I'm written off as a bad mother, I should explain: this is the London Babylab, part of UCL's cognitive development research group, which studies how infants perceive the world around them. The tests aren't uncomfortable, and are supposed to be fun. They're also a rare chance for me to peer inside my baby's mind. Scientists have him, a healthy 15-week-old, look at shapes and cartoon characters while they track his gaze and brain responses. Cradled in my lap, he watches the screen, and thinks.

I have spent hours wondering what he's thinking. The problem is that getting inside the head of a baby is like deciphering the thoughts of a kitten. And a wriggly three-month-old who is just as interested in the ceiling tiles as what's on the screen doesn't always make for the best research subject. "Lots of people don't like working with babies because it's super difficult. With adults, you can just ask them questions. With animals, you can make them do things. Not with babies," says UCL researcher Zita Patai.

But with creative, highly targeted experiments (the key, as any parent knows, is to turn everything into a game) scientists are starting to understand the baby brain. At the same time, this growing body of research is adding weight to a popular theory that our little bundles of joy are far more intelligent than we have assumed.

...

[minuspace]

You know what Austrailia really needs? More danger.
http://gizmodo.com/miners-spill-a-million-liters-of-radioactive-acid-in-a-1479708013

About a million liters of radioactive acid sludge accidentally poured out of a tank at the Ranger uranium mine in northern Australia. As if the spill itself weren't bad enough, the mine is also located in the Kakadu National Park, where most of Crocodile Dundee was filmed. That place is a national treasure.

Luckily, this catastrophic-sounding event might be resolved without too much destruction. The people who run the mine say they can clean up the mess easily and there's been "no impact to the environment," because the spill was confined to the mine. Whether or not this is actually true remains to be seen, as the radioactive acid sludge is strong enough to damage the local ecosystem if it makes it into the nearby water supply. Again, this would be bad since this mine is sitting smack dab in the middle of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It's an impressive level of bribery that lets you do this in the middle of a heritage site.

They're trying to close the gap with Arizona.  RADIOACTIVITY IS OUR SCHTICK, ASSHOLES!

Cue the Mutant Crocknado: derivative options on futures available upon inquiry, restrictions may apply.

[Telarus]

Cue the Mutant Crocknado: derivative options on futures available upon inquiry, restrictions may apply.

Where do I bribe?

[Junkenstein]

More Future:
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scientists-create-a-controlled-cyborg-sperm-that-can-sw-1481503095/@jesusdiaz

Scientists at the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Dresden, Germany, have created "the first sperm-based biobots"—a cybernetic microorganism made of metal and a bull's sperm cell that can be remote controlled and used to impregnate an egg or deliver a drug to a target anywhere inside your body.

Price of Bull semen set to rise even further.

[minuspace]

Cue the Mutant Crocknado: derivative options on futures available upon inquiry, restrictions may apply.

Where do I bribe?

Proverbs 17:8 

[minuspace]

More Future:
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scientists-create-a-controlled-cyborg-sperm-that-can-sw-1481503095/@jesusdiaz

Scientists at the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Dresden, Germany, have created "the first sperm-based biobots"—a cybernetic microorganism made of metal and a bull's sperm cell that can be remote controlled and used to impregnate an egg or deliver a drug to a target anywhere inside your body.

Price of Bull semen set to rise even further.

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind meets Flight of the NaviGator, Part III 

[Reginald Ret]

More Future:
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scientists-create-a-controlled-cyborg-sperm-that-can-sw-1481503095/@jesusdiaz

Scientists at the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Dresden, Germany, have created "the first sperm-based biobots"—a cybernetic microorganism made of metal and a bull's sperm cell that can be remote controlled and used to impregnate an egg or deliver a drug to a target anywhere inside your body.

Price of Bull semen set to rise even further.

Mwahahaha spermcyborgs!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

More Future:
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scientists-create-a-controlled-cyborg-sperm-that-can-sw-1481503095/@jesusdiaz

Scientists at the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Dresden, Germany, have created "the first sperm-based biobots"—a cybernetic microorganism made of metal and a bull's sperm cell that can be remote controlled and used to impregnate an egg or deliver a drug to a target anywhere inside your body.

Price of Bull semen set to rise even further.

What the FUCK.

[Salty]

Best headline ever.


Maybe NSFW, depending,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131220113359.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fearth_climate+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Earth+%26+Climate+News%29

Ok, maybe not ever.