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DNA extracted from museum specimens shows the strain that changed history is different from modern day epidemics, and is probably now extinct.

Cards Against Humanity

Wish Pearl

Self-Balancing Electric Unicycle

Full Auto Book Scanner

HABIT

Seamless and GrubHub

Windcatcher

Intelliscope

The Dipr. (I am not making this up.)

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Researchers have identified a cell that aids limb regrowth in Salamanders. Macrophages are a type of repairing cell that devour dead cells and pathogens, and trigger other immune cells to respond to pathogens. In humans, they’re also important to muscle repair, which led Dr. James Godwin, of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University, to research whether the macrophages found inside Salamanders are related to the animal’s ability to regenerate limbs.

But of course it will take any treatments based on this knowledge twenty years and millions of dollars to filter through the FDA, so you might as well just forget about it.

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Need a job? Come to Texas. Just sayin’.

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While batting around the idea of a food-replacement smoothie we’ve had a range of responses, ranging from the bemused, to the angry, to the deeply skeptical, and even the hopeful: “This stuff would make it a lot easier for me to do school lunches,” wrote one of our hacks.

You, too, can live the way we’ll all have to if the Democrats get their way.

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A criminal serving a five-year sentence “for supplying gadgets to an organized crime gang used to conceal ATM skimmers” has invented a device that prevents ATMs from being susceptible to such thefts, Reuters reported today.

Valentin Boanta, who is six months into his sentence in a Romanian prison, developed what he calls the SRS (Secure Revolving System) which changes the way ATM machines read bank cards to prevent the operation of skimming devices that criminals hide inside ATMs.

Book deal under negotiation, I assume.

    The main characteristic of the SRS device is highlighted by the insertion of the credit card on its width (not on its length like in present cases), with the magnetic tape facing down. Considering this innovation, the magnetic tape cannot be copied under any circumstance by skimming devices, devices which need to read the magnetic tape on its length in a sequential manner. SRS assumes the credit card and its mechanical and electronic devices rotate it, inserting it into the ATM (or any other device that uses plastic credit cards). After the transaction is completed the released credit card is again assumed by the SRS and with the same rotary motion, but in an opposite direction, it is returned back to the user in the same position as it was initially inserted (on its width and with the magnetic tape facing down). Using this manner of inserting the credit card, on its side, the translation motion of reading the tape is no longer possible, making it useless to install skimming devices on ATMs.

Let’s see how long it lasts….

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Things are heating up fast in the far north. The lands and sea of the Arctic — which have been ice-filled, inhospitable and treacherous for most of human history — are experiencing the effects of climate change more rapidly than anywhere else on Earth. All of the Arctic’s sea ice is expected to melt completely, every summer, beginning around 2050 or sooner, according to one recent study, clearing the way for unprecedented oil and gas drilling. But oil companies and world governments aren’t waiting until then to spur an oil boom in the Arctic — they’re starting now.

I’m guessing that ‘peak oil’ means ‘have a peak at all the oil we’re gaining access to’.

Human nature aside, I’m still waiting for someone to explain precisely why global warming (if it really exists) is such a bad thing.

And I’m still looking forward to seeing Manhattan, D.C., and L.A. under three feet of water.

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Classmates complain that it has no lunch money to pillage. And stuffing it in a locker is totally no fun.

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A group of scientists from the University of Alberta have created a process that makes graphene-like nanomaterials out of hemp waste, suitable for use in supercapacitors.

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It’s in the New York Times, so it must be true.

Read it. And watch the video.

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Truly, you can find anything on the Internet.

Alex Tabarrok reports from the field.

In a large, randomized experiment Bowen et al. found that students enrolled in an online/hybrid statistics course learned just as much as those taking a traditional class (noted earlier by Tyler). Perhaps even more importantly, Bowen et al. found that the online model was significantly less costly than the traditional model, some 36% to 57% less costly to produce than a course using a traditional lecture format. In other words, since outcomes were the same, online education increased productivity by 56% to 133%! Online education trumps the cost disease!

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Once, being a college professor was a career. Today, it’s a gig.

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For centuries, Egypt’s pyramids have been a point worldwide fascination. Scholars have long asked, how did the egyptians build them at all, much less so beautifully? But, when structural engineer Peter James looked at the pyramids, he asked why they were falling apart. The longstanding explanation is that looters have picked apart the pyramids over the years. But James wasn’t convinced by that idea, which led him to a new theory that he wrote about in Structure. The engineer believes that the pyramids were constructed so precisely that they weren’t built to deal with the contraction and expansion of the limestone in the desert heat, and that ironically, the most crudely built one — the Bent Pyramid — has thus held up best over the eons.

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We see many advantages to these kinds of contracts. In addition to eliminating the stress and “publish or perish” madhouse that comes with pursuing a tenured position, this system promises to keep bad teachers and academic hacks in the classroom for only set amount of time instead of a lifetime. Perhaps the biggest advantage for students will be the opportunity to learn from professionals who know about the world outside of academia.

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Working with a continuous record of Arctic climate reaching back 3.6 million years, researchers have documented a period when the region was significantly warmer and wetter than it is today and when the atmosphere’s inventory of carbon dioxide was comparable to today’s levels.

Arnold Kling reviews an important new book.

Weiner looks at the problem of social order from the perspective of legal history and anthropology. He finds a pattern of order that he calls the rule of the clan, which does not require a strong central state. However, he shows that rule of the clan relies on a set of rules and social norms which are inconsistent with libertarian values of peace, open commerce, and individual autonomy. He argues that the atrophy of the state would lead to an undesirable resurgence of the rule of the clan.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

The bottom states are, of course, all Blue states.

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It’s not a secret that replicating what the human brain and senses do naturally still presents a substantial challenge in engineering. New advances in restoring and improving hearing are getting closer to the real thing by going mobile and taking cues from nature.

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Oh, boy.

Read it. And watch the video.

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen: Which fascist Democrat legislator will be first in line to ban it?

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And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

We’ve been saying for some time that Obamacare will be a central issue in the 2014 election, and that it offers Republicans the hope, if they nominate solid candidates, of taking control of the Senate. Now, Senate Democrats have figured this out, as well.

It’s not as if they’d be sacrificing anything like a principle, after all.

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

The Other McCain is on the case.

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

Christos Anesti

Indeed, He is risen.

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Much to the consternation of scientists, the cylindrical platinum-iridium artifacts that represent the kilogram (see image above) have been gradually packing on extra weight due to surface contamination. Since that unit of measure is the last to be based on an artifact and not a physical constant of nature — for instance, a meter is the distance light travels in a vacuum during 1/299,792,458 of a second — it means that scientists no longer know exactly how much a kilogram is. That makes experiments requiring extreme precision more difficult, so researchers from Mettler Toledo, CERN and the EPFL have been working for the last 15 years on a so-called Watt balance, which works on the principle of electromagnetic force restoration. The team managed to created a “load cell” that’s accurate to a 0.3 µg resolution for a 2kg weight, well below the desired level of 1 µg — meaning the goal of replacing a hunk of metal from 1878 with something more, ahem, solid is within reach by the 2015 target date.

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Oxford English Dictionary Chief Editor John Simpson is to retire after 37 years at the famous reference work. Here he writes of a life hunting for the evidence behind the birth of words.

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The operation represents a crucial milestone for Geodynamics, which has spent ten years working to get geothermal power a seat at the table in Australia’s renewable energy debate. Its original Habanero 1 heat exchanger in 2003 first demonstrated the potential of the site, and the power plant construction was completed in 2009, but the project has suffered setbacks and some drilling disappointments.

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What does he know that you don’t? (Well, aside from the fact that he’s got a yacht longer than the street you live on….)

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Hundreds of mysterious spheres lie beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, an ancient six-level step pyramid just 30 miles from Mexico City.

The enigmatic spheres were found during an archaeological dig using a camera-equipped robot at one of the most important buildings in the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacan.

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My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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It’s a surprisingly rare treat to see inside a very expensive and very unique timepiece. Although the video below is a render, it shows almost every important part of this wild watch including something called the chain-and-fusee, a method used for centuries to improve the accuracy of watches by ensuring constant force is applied to the balance wheel over time.

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We spend one third of our lives sleeping, it’s crucial for muscle recovery, fact retention and preparing the body to operate at full speed the next day, sleep is one of the most important things when it comes to day-to-day happiness. From students studying late into the night reducing the amount of information they retain to athletes sleeping in warm and loud environments missing out on crucial muscle and immune system recovery.

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With land prices at a premium in Singapore, vertical farms with rotating vertical racks present a sustainable solution while cutting down pollution.

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If you take three ordinary gears and put them together so that each gear meshes with the other two, then none of the gears can turn because neighbouring gears must turn in opposite directions. Triple gear avoids this problem by having the three “gears” arranged like linked rings – the gears then rotate along skew axes, and the opposite direction rule no longer applies (although see also Oskar van Deventer’s Magic Gears for another possible solution).

Astonishing. I don’t see anyway to make such a gear except with 3D printing.

Steering Wheel Drum Set

Talking Hand Strengthener (Sometimes the hand talks back….)

Golf Will Drive You To Drink

Talking Star Wars Pizza Cutter

Slate has the dirty.

Wait long enough and everything bad for you is good again. Sugar? Naturally better than high-fructose corn syrup. Chocolate? A bar a day keeps the doctor away. Caffeine? Bring it on.

Lard, however, has always been a ridiculously hard sell. Over at least the last 15 years, it’s repeatedly been given a clean bill of health, and good cooks regularly point out how superior this totally natural fat is for frying and pastries. But that hasn’t been enough to keep Americans from recoiling—lard’s negative connotations of flowing flesh and vats of grease and epithets like lardass and tub of lard have been absurd hurdles. But no longer. I’m convinced that the redemption of lard is finally at hand because we live in a world where trendiness is next to godliness. And lard hits all the right notes, especially if you euphemize it as rendered pork fat—bacon butter.

‘Bacon butter’. I like that.

(Peasant food has cachet only if you are not forced to live on it.)

Truth.

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A newly discovered mechanism for cooling the planet – potentially, according to its discoverers, more significant even than the well-known chilling effects of volcanic eruptions – has now been further investigated.

The mechanism in question is the action of difficult-to-study atmospheric molecules known as “Criegee intermediates”, whose existence was first theorised in the 1950s by German chemist Rudolf Criegee but not confirmed until recent years by boffins using methods which have only lately become available.

So — how’s that whole Global Warming thing working out for you?

Bryan Caplan gives you the news.

Here’s what the CBO found:

1. After adjusting for education, occupation, work experience, and other observable characteristics, federal salaries are only 2% higher than in the private sector.

2. HOWEVER, federal workers’ fringe benefits are 46% higher than in the private sector.  As a result, total compensation (salary + benefits) is 16% higher for federal workers than comparable private sector workers.

3. Overcompensation is highest for the least-educated federal workers – +36% if you’ve got a high school diploma or less.  As education rises, the federal worker premium falls.  Federal workers with professional or doctoral degrees actually earn 18% less than private sector counterparts.

And why would they do that? The power, my friend, the power.

Fantasy Caskets

The Fisher Wallace Stimulator

Interactive Headstone

Portable Wine Glass

Waterless Washing Machine

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During famines, desperate people often try to survive by eating things like grass and tree bark. That doesn’t do much to alleviate their hunger since trees and grass are chiefly composed of cellulose which people’s guts cannot digest. Starch, found in wheat, corn, rice, and potatoes, makes up a big portion of the modern human diet. Now researchers at Virginia Tech have announced in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they can turn cellulose into edible starch.

Think of it as biodiesel for people.

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HSAs are tax-advantaged savings accounts used for health expenses, to meet your insurance deductible.  Nearly 15 million Americans have adopted HSA plans in recent years. These HSA accountholders will collectively save $2.3 billion for the 2012 tax year.

During the debate over Obamacare, many experts feared that its enactment would destroy Health Savings Accounts. But in a surprise turn of events, the exact opposite appears to have happened.

It has become clear—even to President Obama—that in the near future HSAs will be the most “affordable” options in the “Affordable” Health Care Act. As a result, the administration is clearing the way for HSAs to be the low cost option on public exchanges.

A possible silver lining to ObamaCare. I am a big fan of Health Savings Accounts; they effectively allow individuals to get the same tax break for health care expenses that businesses get.

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Gallup noted that the most recent high of Americans viewing taxes as fair came in 2003, after then-President George W. Bush implemented tax cuts weeks after the Iraq War started. Sixty-four percent viewed their federal income tax as fair at the time.

“Perceptions of income tax fairness, perhaps surprisingly, vary little by household income level. Fifty-seven percent of those whose annual household income level is below $75,000 say their taxes are fair, as do 54 percent of those whose income is $75,000 or above,” Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones wrote in the release. “In fact, there are no notable differences by most major demographic groups. The biggest differences are based on political affiliation, with Democrats and political liberals much more likely than Republicans and conservatives to believe their taxes are fair.”

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

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If I ever get out of here,
Thought of giving it all away
To a registered charity.
All I need is a pint a day
If I ever get out of here.
If we ever get out of here.

Tagatose

Air Mail Launcher

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My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

I’m also sure that this will be dead on arrival just like every previous Obama budget. Pretty sad when you can’t even get your own party in Congress to support your budget. I guess that’s what Democrats call ‘leadership’.