June 22, 2012
Dirtying Up Our Diets
Increasing evidence suggests that the alarming rise in allergic and autoimmune disorders during the past few decades is at least partly attributable to our lack of exposure to microorganisms that once covered our food and us. [more inside]
Turing's 100th Birthday
Happy 100th birthday, Alan Turing! 2012 is the Alan Turing Year, with celebratory academic events around the world all year. BBC News has a set of (brief) appreciations, including one in which two of Turing's colleagues share memories. Google has an interactive Doodle of a Turing Machine today (that article has some explanation and links to a useful video if the doodle's confusing). [more inside]
Gou Miyagi - overground broadcasting skate video
Marriage and the Modern Conservative
As a marriage advocate, the time has come for me to accept gay marriage and emphasize the good that it can do. I’d like to explain why.
The founder and president of the socially conservative Institute for American Values has changed his mind on same-sex marriage. If not much else.
The founder and president of the socially conservative Institute for American Values has changed his mind on same-sex marriage. If not much else.
They say it's your birthday
President Obama: Birthday Cake Giver-in-Chief (12-photo slideshow)
Americana
These Americans is an historical photo narrative with such gems as "Photobooth", "Last Prisoners Leave Alcatraz", Dorothea Lange:"Internment", and the very sexy "Tally Ho". *Nudity and other possibly offensive photos for some*
Belated Happy Birthday, Murray Leinster
Murray Leinster wrote more than fifteen hundred works of speculative fiction. Technovelgy notes the science fiction tropes and devices that he invented, as well as other writers. Chee!
Gorgeous fantasy photos
Kirsty Mitchell's late mother Maureen was an English teacher who spent her life inspiring generations of children with imaginative stories and plays. Following Maureen's death from a brain tumour in 2008, Kirsty channelled her grief into her passion for photography.
She retreated behind the lens of her camera and created Wonderland, an ethereal fantasy world.
Little Rascals
Bending in the Modern World
The season finale of The Legend of Korra is upon us - airing in the United States tomorrow on Nickelodeon. Korra creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko answer questions at the Wall Street Journal about the show and the finale (season spoilers) ahead of time. It's not too late to catch up by watching all 10 previous episodes here. [more inside]
Who forgot what about Poland?
Poland shaken by case alleging an illicit CIA prison there. 'For years, the idea seemed unthinkable, absurd. A secret U.S. detention center in a remote corner of Poland, where Al Qaeda suspects were brutally interrogated by the CIA? About as likely as "the Loch Ness monster," is how one Pole described it recently. That monster is now rearing its head.' [more inside]
Kandinsky eye candy
Where to see Kandinsky in the world's museums. Each museum page links to images, including many early works. Eye candy. [more inside]
River. Of. Ducks.
The Economic History of the Last 2,000 Years in 1 Little Graph
GDP since Jesus. That headline is a big promise. But here it is: The economic history of the world going back to Year 1 showing the major powers' share of world GDP, from a research letter written by Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at JP Morgan.
everything to the left of 1800 is an approximation of population distribution around the world and everything to the right of 1800 is a demonstration of productivity divergences around the world. [more inside]
Adaptive sports for all levels of ability
Adaptive sports are generally limited to people with disabilities. What if everyone participated in adaptive sports?
Seven minutes of Martian terror
Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror is a YouTube video guaranteed to get you excited about NASA again. It shows the elaborate process that will get the Curiosity rover onto the Martian surface on August 5. It involves the largest supersonic parachute ever built, multiple vehicles, 76 explosive devices, and a skycrane.
Author interviews
"Book TV's After Words features the author of a recently published hardback non-fiction book interviewed by a guest host with some knowledge, background, or connection to the subject matter of the book." There's also a podcast version (link goes to XML feed), for those who'd rather listen. Many more non-fiction author interviews can be found at Booknotes (transcripts and streaming video). If your tastes run to interviews with authors of fiction, check out the BBC's Modern Writers archive. (BookTV (but not specifically After Words) previously, Booknotes (but before the series ended) previously.)
Girl Crisis
The female bandmembers of Chairlift, Au Revoir Simone, Class Actress, and This Frontier Needs Heroes get together with "an essentially revolving cast of indie Brooklyn sirens, twice a year in a living room in Greenpoint to cover a single, classic song that they learn and arrange right before they perform. Calling themselves Girl Crisis, the group covers a classic (mostly a capella) from a male artist each Winter and a female artist each Summer. The performances are are filmed with a Super 8 camera, are not open to the public and exist only online. Their latest: Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me To The End of Love". (Via) [more inside]
You can do anything with on{X}. Anything at all.
on{X} is an automation framework that allows you to program and customize various aspects of your Android Smartphone using JavaScript. The developers at Microsoft have also provided a set of customizable pre-baked recipes for the JavaScriptially-challenged. [more inside]
Peter Gentenaar: Sculptor in Paper
These pictures of Petere Gentenaar's large sculptural paper flowers floating in the Abbey Church of Saint-Riquier are fantastic. [more inside]
The Sound of a Fermi Gamma-ray Burst
A gamma-ray burst, the most energetic explosions in the universe, converted to music. What does the universe look like at high energies? Thanks to the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT), we can extend our sense of sight to "see" the universe in gamma rays. But humans not only have a sense of sight, we also have a sense of sound. If we could listen to the high-energy universe, what would we hear? What does the universe sound like?
This is what the Internet is for.
What's squishy, pureed, and comes in a pouch?
Have food pouches become the mainstay of the eating culture of young American children? "Mr. Grimmer believes the pouch’s popularity can be attributed to the emergence of a new way of relating to our children. He calls it “free-range parenting.”Parents, he explained, want to be as flexible as modern life demands. And when it comes to eating, that means doing away with structured mealtimes in favor of a less structured alternative that happens not at set times, but whenever a child is hungry." Some people have concerns about the trend.
"Citizenship is a tough occupation which obliges the citizen to make his own informed opinion and stand by it."
'The Hubris and Despair of War Journalism:
What Martha Gellhorn teaches us about the morality of contemporary war reportage.' [more inside]
"They're killing machines designed for one thing: SEARCH AND DESTROY!"
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glitch + gifs = glitchgifs (SLTumblr, blinky)
Feed Me
Payhole.me. The Rules: Feed me money. Put in an address. Get something in the mail. [via mefi projects]
Wellcome Image Awards 2012
Wellcome Image Awards 2012 "Wellcome Images is the world's leading source of images of medicine and its history, from ancient civilisation and social history to contemporary healthcare, biomedical science and clinical medicine. More than 180 000 images ranging from manuscripts, rare books, archives and paintings to X-rays, clinical photography and scanning electron micrographs are available on the Wellcome Images website." (Previously & Previously) [cortex, is that you?]
the dawn of a Star Trek generation
In Praise of Leisure - "Imagine a world in which most people worked only 15 hours a week. They would be paid as much as, or even more than, they now are, because the fruits of their labor would be distributed more evenly across society. Leisure would occupy far more of their waking hours than work. It was exactly this prospect that John Maynard Keynes conjured up in a little essay published in 1930 called 'Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren.' Its thesis was simple. As technological progress made possible an increase in the output of goods per hour worked, people would have to work less and less to satisfy their needs, until in the end they would have to work hardly at all... He thought this condition might be reached in about 100 years — that is, by 2030." (via) [more inside]
Science: It's a Girl Thing!
An EU campaign called Science: It's a Girl Thing! has released a promotional video that has not gone over well. [more inside]
Gash Backlash
Femfresh is a product designed for making one's ladygarden more fragrant. Yet despite the success of their TV ad campaign, which took euphemisms for one's velvet glove and spun them into a fifties song (previously), their Facebook page is seeing a backlash from users who believe that vaginal deodorants are unhealthy, unnecessary and sexist and that euphemisms for the sticky bun are infantile. [NSFW content in links, Facebook page may require login to view]
"It is unlikely, I think, that this will generate a lot of media publicity," [Judge] Baer sighed to the jury in his preliminary instructions.
The Scam Wall Street Learned from the Mafia is Matt Taibbi's take on the recent convictions in the municipal bond bid-rigging case of United States v. Dominick P. Carollo, Steven E. Goldberg, and Peter S. Grimm. These three fraudsters are among the fifteen convicted so far with regard to the federal government's investigation into nationwide municipal bond bid-rigging schemes. [more inside]
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