Weeeeeeeee

Squirrel launcher...

Recovering Lost Partition

Used HandyRecovery4, torrent is your best friend.

Recovered 100GB of documents & media files, the only files lost were those with filenames deemed too long.

Brain Implants For Speech

Nature reports that a team from Boston University is working on using implants to produce sounds from merely detecting brain signals. Currently, the subject, a paralysed patient, can produce three vowel sounds, accurately and as fast as normal speech (no time-lag). The team hopes to have the patient produce words directly in five years time.

While we've seen brain signals controlling limbs, this is a first for speech. Needless to say, this is an implant that has to be located in the speech region of the brain, IN the brain, but there are hopes for other non-invasive methods.

Another interesting fact to note is that the electrode encourages neurons to grow into and around the electrode, which implies that with frequent use, the system may become more efficient.

This is one of those times I regret not studying biology, now there's no way I'll be able to do any bio-mechanical stuff. Then again, I wouldn't be good enough to do anything that's neuroscience-related.

Cats The New Skynet

And so, we welcome our new feline overlords.
via Gizmodo

Engineers FTW

Love this advert phrase. This picture is part of an advertisement for International Consumer Electronics Show 2009 (CES). Held in Las Vegas , this is the event where gadget companies unveil their latest products.

JellyFish In Air : Festo's AirJelly

Similar to the AquaJelly, only this time, AirJelly moves through air. Basically, the same mechanism from AquaJelly is attached to a helium balloon. Motion is controlled by remote instead. I want one for my room!!! From Festo.

Bionic Jellyfish : Festo's AquaJelly

AquaJelly is an artificial autonomous jellyfish in water, a self-controlling system which emulates swarming behaviour. The watertight laser-sintered body houses a central electric motor, the two lithium-ion polymer batteries, the recharging control unit and the servo motors.

AquaJelly uses short range radio communication to emulate its real/organic counterpart. Multiple AquaJelly(s) will act like a jellyfish swarm. .pdf on the top right of the page elaborates more on the project.

Exactly the kind of research I wanna be doing in 10 yrs time. Emulating, improving & redefining nature, humans included.

• Festo's official web

Hexapodmeisterschaft

Hexapod dancing to Mambo No.5, work of students from HTL SAALFELDEN, Austria. Awesome programming. Am wondering whether these students are using Lynxmotion.

I couldn't help but break into a big smile when I saw this video. Hexapods, which include Tachikomas, FTW!!!

Nature's Deadly Bong

Caption : I like how the lake is oxidized to a muddy brown, has yet to recover(reduction?) since 1984.

"... limnic eruption is when a large body of water suddenly releases large amounts of carbon dioxide which, being h eavier than air, displaces it at ground level, suffocating oxygen breathers."

While there are only three places where this phenomenon is known to happen, which itself is extremely rare, namely Lake Manoun in Cameroon, Lake Nyos, Cameroon and Lake Kivu(between the Congo and Rwanda). The Lake Nyos explosion killed almost 2000 people, bearing in mind that that was only CO2 displaced from a lake. Reports suggest that limnic explosions could have a greater effect since there is, well, more water.

Conditions for a limnic explosion:
~ Tropical and prone to volcanic activity areas
~ Body of water must be quite deep

So, what does this phenomenon tell us? That we should be hogging around an O2 tank? Or kick start our quest for space colonization? Nah, we should just start seriously researching on bio-mechanical lungs. OK, I have no idea what I'm talking about now.

I'm thinking of a contraption that utilizes plants' photosynthesis, then channel the O2 to somewhere needed, might have to work around that when plants' undergo respiration. Bah, my biology knowledge is near zero.

• http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/nature-deadly-bong/3185

Topics to be covered

As stated in title:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Turing Test
• Dean Kamen's 'Luke Arm'

*marked for deletion*