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Is Phaistos Disc a forgery?

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:52:04 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: If Dr. Jerome Eisenberg's claims are true, then it means the Phaistos Disc discovery of 1908 deserves to be recorded as "the biggest archaeological hoax of the century". Could it be possible? Could all the archaeologists and experts of the past 100 years who curiously examined the disc, fail to spot a professionally done forgery? I doubt it but we'll learn the truth soon.

Clip Source: entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

Some say that its 45 mysterious symbols are the words of a 4,000-year-old poem, or perhaps a sacred text. Others contest that they are a magical inscription, a piece of ancient music or the world's oldest example of punctuation.

But now an American scholar believes that the markings on the Phaistos Disc, one of archaeology's most famous unsolved mysteries, mean nothing at all — because the disc is a hoax.

Jerome Eisenberg, a specialist in faked ancient art, is claiming that the disc and its indecipherable text is not a relic dating from 1,700BC, but a forgery that has duped scholars since Luigi Pernier, an Italian archaeologist, “discovered” it in 1908 in the Minoan palace of Phaistos on Crete.

Tags: phaistos disc, archaeology, forgery, hoax, minos, undeciphered scripts

Emancipate Yourselves from Mental Slavery

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:27:22 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

Redemption Song

wrote the song, circa 1979,

At the same time, the song also urges listeners to "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery," because "None but ourselves can free our minds". These memorable lines appear to have been taken from a speech given by Marcus Garvey in Nova Scotia during October 1937 and published in his Black Man magazine:

We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind....^[1]

Tags: bob marley, marcus garvey, slavery, mind, freedom, psychology, music, history, 1937, wiki

Will "Th!nk" Ignite an Electronic Car Revolution in the U.S.?

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:55:18 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Think City is one of two models that are out already, together with the Think Ox, with a choice of either lithium or a sodium battery, it's range is enough to take a suburban dweller to the downtown office and back, with zero carbon footprint. The car is thoughfully fully computerized and allows a key-less entry. It features real time navigation, web, e-mail and open source interfaces, intelligent and sustainable driving and route calculations. The DNA-key gives the user feedback on charging status and sends messages, for example, for pre-heat or pre-cool options via GPRS.
Pricing has yet to be announced, but the company's current vehicles cost less than $25,000.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Th!nk Global, yes, think with an exclamation mark, gas-free, city cars are poised to invade the U.S. from its Norwegian where some 1,200 Think concept vehicles are driving on European, mostly Norwegian, roads today. Th!nk is buoyed by undisclosed funding injection by Silicon Valley venture capital firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and RockPort Capital Partners, will be introducing the Ox, Open and City models starting in 2009 -and it can't be too soon!

With an an overnight power charge it’s ready to go in the morning -up to 200 kilometers (124 miles) in city driving on a fully charged battery, with a top speed of 100km/h. The lithium-ion batteries have capacity to charge to 80% capacity in less than an hour, and slender solar panels integrated into the roof power the dashboard electronics.

Tags: cars, green

Children are naturally prone to be empathic and moral

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 05:45:36 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: news.uchicago.edu

Children between the ages of seven and 12 appear to be naturally inclined to feel empathy for others in pain, according to researchers who used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans to study responses in children.

The research also found additional areas of the brain, those connected with moral reasoning, were activated when youngsters saw another person intentionally hurt by another individual.

"This study is the first to examine in young children both the neural response to pain in others and the impact of someone causing pain to someone else,"

The programming for empathy is something that is "hard-wired" into the brains of normal children, and not entirely the product of parental guidance or other nurturing,

Understanding the brain’s role in responding to pain can help researchers understand how brain impairments influence anti-social behavior, such as bullying,

There is Magic in Reading Books

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:38:19 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.bookstove.com

There is Magic in Reading Books

No other footprints are louder than those of the footprints of the characters in your book.

The book-lovers belong to a wonderful world of their own! Their affinity to the books takes them to places where an ordinary person does not dare to go! The reading makes the mind wander into the wonderlands of magnanimous mountains and the cool splashing oceans; into the highest offices of the land and into the different terrains and weathers of the nations. The reader travels through all these fantasies and some more, when he becomes one with his characters, while his body sits relaxed, happy and content, forgetting about the worries and troubles of the real life and living, at least temporarily!

The silky touch of the new book covers, the amazing trials and turbulences of the lives of the people within the colorful covers, the sheer volume of the books, the photos and the pictures, the life-long journey of the characters! There is magic in reading the books!

Privacy protections disappear with a judge's order

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:40:48 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

(AP) -- Credit card companies know what you've bought. Phone companies know whom you've called. Electronic toll services know where you've gone. Internet search companies know what you've sought.

It might be reassuring, then, that companies have largely pledged to safeguard these repositories of data about you.

But a recent federal court ruling ordering the disclosure of YouTube viewership records underscores the reality that even the most benevolent company can only do so much to guard your digital life: All their protections can vanish with one stroke of a judge's pen.

"Companies have a tremendous amount of very sensitive data on their customers, and while a company itself may treat that responsibly ... if the court orders it be turned over, there's not a lot that the company that holds the data can do," said Jennifer Urban, a law professor at the University of Southern California.

U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed privacy arguments as speculative.

Tags: privacy, online, what privacy?, anonymity, digital life

The next generation of baby in the womb

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 04:00:58 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "Prominent in the news this week were breathtaking, high-definition images of babies in the womb,"

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

New 4-D scanning technology has fuelled the so-called 'leisure scanning' industry

Prominent in the news this week were breathtaking, high-definition images of babies in the womb, as MPs voted not to lower the upper time limit on abortions. The debate was made more poignant by these extraordinary pictures of foetuses, which were made possible by giant leaps in baby-scanning technology.

Until recently, scans of unborn children were used solely by doctors to diagnose foetal abnormalities. But baby scanning is rapidly moving into the commercial sector, being billed as high-tech family entertainment. According to the sales pitches of growing numbers of non-diagnostic scanning packages advertised in baby magazines and on websites,

The private scanning company www.beforethestork.co.uk claims on its website: “Ultrasound scans are believed to enable families to form an early affectionate bond to their unborn child.”

cigarette alternatives and smoking substitutes

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:42:17 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: has anyone tried this?

Clip Source: www.ruyanamerica.com

Welcome to the Ruyan America information website. The Ruyan family of products, including the V-8 E-cigarette, the Ruyan Vegas E-cigar, the E-pipe, the varieties of replacement cartridges and other accessories, are designed to be used as cigarette alternatives and smoking substitutes, allowing smokers to satisfy their cravings for nicotine in places and situations where they otherwise would not be allowed to smoke by law, regulation or common courtesy.

Ruyan smoking substitutes use cartridges that contain nicotine, flavoring and other ingredients determined to be safe by international organizations and regulatory bodies. The products contain no tobacco and do not produce smoke of any kind. Rather, they produce a vapor that is primarily made up of water and pose no harm to the user’s associates or environment.

Tags: cigarette, alternatives, smoking, substitutes

The future of Mind Control

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:08:10 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: research is showing that the brain can act independently of the body. One day, you could be sitting in an office and controlling a device from across the room—or in another building. And it’s not just flicking a switch. It could be a nanotool that’s moving through a tiny environment, and you can control it and see what it’s seeing.”

That kind of extension could lead to new spectrums of scale and force, not to mention new kinds of sensory input altogether. Instead of merely imagining that you’re grasping a nanotool with virtual fingers, you could learn to pilot it like a minuscule spaceship—only with your mind. And if that device had any sensors, you might be able to process the data as though it were a tiny camera.

Clip Source: www.popularmechanics.com

Building Postprosthetic Cybernetics

the backbone of mind-machine interfaces is the ability to analyze neural activity

Sure, the system demonstrated at Pitt in May accessed information from 100 neurons at once. But Nicolelis’s lab has managed five times that amount, with data coming from up to 10 different brain structures

“We’re able to look at brain dynamics on a scale that no one else has been able to

With a physical neural connection, Nicolelis believes that brain plasticity can be achieved quickly and with greater precision than current prosthetic control systems.

So the brain would not only respond to data from sensors in the bionic limb, but would account for unfamiliar amounts of speed and force. For sci-fi fans, the implications don’t need spelling out: prosthetics that are faster and stronger than normal limbs, with roughly the same level of control as their flesh-and-blood predecessors

Tags: brain, robotics, brain implants

If It Feels Good to Be Good, It Might Be Only Natural

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:39:08 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

If It Feels Good to Be Good, It Might Be Only Natural

"You gotta see this!" Jorge Moll had written. Moll and Jordan Grafman, neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health, had been scanning the brains of volunteers as they were asked to think about a scenario involving either donating a sum of money to charity or keeping it for themselves.

The results were showing that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.

Scientists uncover secret of eternal youth

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:11:12 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: A revolution in the making

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

A new scientific study has uncovered the secret of eternal youth. Roger Highfield reports.

The secret of eternal youth, at least at the cellular level, has been uncovered by scientists.

The work is of fundamental importance for understanding the self renewing properties of embryonic stem cells, "parent cells" in the early embryo that have the potential to turn into more than 200 specialised cell types, which are being studied by many groups worldwide as the basis of new treatments for a vast range of conditions, from Parkinson's Disease to stroke.

Studies are now under way to back the hope that the fundamental discovery will help to grow them in the laboratory and to improve an embryo free method of making stem cells, developed in Japan, to make sure that adult cells, for instance skin cells, can be turned into an embyronic form so patients can be treated with their own cells.

"Our study suggests that what we believe about how embryonic stem cell self-renewal is controlled is wrong,"

Tags: youth, stem cells, embryonic stem cells

Lefts Are Smarter

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:15:08 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: mwcnews.net

Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show.

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported todayin the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of the minds between conservatives and liberals looked difficult given the study results.

Tags: ;)

Philippe Starck designs wind turbine for the rest of us

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 11:53:09 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: dvice.com

It’s about time somebody rolled out a windmill for you and me, and it took famed designer Philippe Starck coming out of retirement to do it. This simple-looking $633 thingamajig is said to be able to crank out 20-60% of the power needed in a house, but we assume that would be on a day the wind is blowing, and the house in question’s occupants don’t feel like baking a cake while chilling down the place to 65 degrees.

We’ve seen plenty of personal wind turbines before, but this one brings more power at the lowest price point yet. Starck’s turbine is looking great, too, decked out in stainless steel, signal orange or crazy transparent style. This is not just some spacey concept, either — the new electricity generators will be shipping to everyone in September. Let’s just hope it’s not too noisy, or the neighbors might generate a whirlwind of complaints.

Tags: renewable energy, design

State of the plumbing art: 10 examples of cutting-edge bathroom design

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:25:11 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: dvice.com

Regardless of who you are, you’re going to come in contact with plumbing fixtures every day.

Where a simple outhouse festooned with a half-moon might have sufficed in days of yore, now there’s a 21st-century renaissance going on with toilets, faucets and the like.

Designers, and the plumbing companies employing them, are encouraging us to make the most of our daily ablutions, and have risen to the occasion with admirable aplomb.

Design Odyssey Vertebrae

Here’s a space-saving idea that’s decidedly space age.

Hansgrohe Showerpleasure XXL

Lacava Embrace

This is a faucet?

Toto Neorest Air Bath

Its flume waterfall cleanses while you control the water temperature, depth and flow speed with its LCD touchpanel.

Mastella Vov Bathtub

This one will practically take you back to the womb.

Touch360 Ripple Faucet

This Touch360 Ripple faucet is not just a plumbing fixture, it’s “a new way to interact with water.”

Wet X-Light Surround Sink

Yes, it’s a speaker, and it’s iPod-friendly, too

Tags: design

'Great Green Wall'- will stop Sahara desert

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:39:29 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: in.news.yahoo.com

Washington, July 9 (ANI): Preparations for an African 'wall of trees' to slow down the southwards spread of the Sahara desert are getting underway.

North African nations have been promoting the idea of a Green Belt since 2005. The project has been scaled down to reinforce and then expand on existing efforts, and will not be a continent-wide wall of trees, despite the name of the project.

According to a report in ENN (Environmental News Network), the 'Great Green Wall' will involve several stretches of trees from Mauritania in the west to Djibouti in the east, to protect the semi-arid savannah region of the Sahel, and its agricultural land, from desertification.

A plan for the proposed 3 million dollar, two-year initial phase of the project, which involves a belt of trees 7,000 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide, was formally adopted at the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (Cen-Sad) summit on rural development and food security in Cotonou, Benin, last month (17-18 June).

Tags: wall, trees, sahara, desert