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lukecorp luke fritznews sciencedailywired space.com newscientist beyond 2000 links scientific americancosmic ancestry extropy webmonkey reading The Cyborg Handbook: Chris Hables Graylistening  weblogs eatonwebdamaged vavatch orbital archives 8.1.2000:8.31.20007.1.2000:7.31.2000 6.1.2000:6.30.2000
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10.2.2000 I'm sorry about the lack of posts, but basically I don't even have 30 minutes to spare anymore. I will post whenever I can, but they will be sporadic at best. If anyone wishes to take over bitek processor, send me an e-mail and I will hand over the keys... Anyway, the NEWS: I came across an article that if confirmed would seriously f*** up all our notions of the age of species and evolution, etc. It says that our mitochondrial clocks may run 100 times faster than previously thought, and as such, evolution may have happened at a much faster rate. If so, it may have took only a few thousand years for us to evolve from our ape ancestors. Freaky. Watch this development closely.
A little speculation about 3D printers and possible applications, a good read. GENETIC ART: A genetic art exhibit is currently in progress at Exit Art in NYC. It's called: Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution OSU researcher Marc Madou has created an implantable "smart pill" that utilizes recent advances in artificial muscle technology. Of course the pill is still huge (2cm x 4mm), but it promises to drastically improve drug-delivery. Thanks to these muscles, precise amounts of drug can now be dispensed over a long period of time.
Hmm, is Japan ready to get back into the superpower game? Prime Minister Mori, outlining his plan for "Japan's rebirth" stated: "I will make Japan the world's leading information and telecommunications nation in five years," One of the reasons for Japan's lag in the great IT race is it's high telecommunications fees. Mori will work to build a network infrastructure, as well as work to make internet access more affordable. FACT: Sagittarius A is in fact the Milky Way's resident supermassive black hole, weighing in at about 2.6 million times the mass of our sun. An Arizona sized ice-reservoir has been discovered south of Valles Marineris. The implications are obvious, as human colonization will depend on plentiful water sources. This discovery makes colonization that much more realizable. FACTOID: The X-32 makes it's maiden voyage. BIZARRO: A fluorescent green bunny has been created.
An initiative to free the wireless web! Free access to anyone with the right equipment. Starting in East London. I'm very sorry, but I am having trouble getting a reliable internet connection back at school. I just moved into an apartment, and we only have one telephone line, which contrasts greatly from my previous T3 connection. Hopefully when classes start, I can resume regular programming. I hope you don't abandon my site because of this, and I am doing everything possible to rectify this situation. Cheers, Luke Celera Genomics announced it has found more than 2.8 million gene variations, called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP's, pronounced "snips"), which account for subtle variations such as hair color, pre-disposition to disease, etc. which is much higher than the 800,000 the SNP consortium originally thought. While reading through this Celera stuff, I noticed the Howard Hughes Medical Institute being mentioned for signing up to use Celera's SNP information. I also remembered that HHMI has created a protein chip, capable of measuring the function of thousands of proteins simultaneously, which could be a boon to proteomics research. My question is: Is HHMI planning to use Celera's SNP to identify proteins useful for medicine? If so, HHMI could come out with some awesome stuff in a few years. The town of Selma elects its first black mayor, to the rejoice of the black population of the town, and the dismay of the white trash that live there. It seems that, even in a city that was prominent in the civil rights movement, bigotry and predjudice still appear. Hopefully, the new mayor, James Perkins, will help reconcile this town. Here was a quote from the mayor I heard on the radio (may be slightly distorted in words but not meaning, I heard it this morning): I will not be the mayor for the black citizens of Selma, but for all citizens of Selma [...] When I say truth, I mean truth. When I say reconciliation, I mean reconciliation. New York is forcing its jail population to give up their DNA or face solitary. Hmm. FACTOID: Cows are genetically 83% identical to humans.
Hi, very busy, here's an article about Echidnas, and how they can help us find out about how our evolutionary survival strategies evolved, as well as making it possible for humans to finally get hibernation tech.
GADGET: If you've ever wondered why we don't yet have displays that look like sunglasses, it is because current consumer displays have low resolution, low refresh rates, and few colors (They also look dorky). Developments in light emitting organic displays have made Gibson-esque fantasies of donning your shades to jack in to the internet a reality. inViso and eMagin are coming to market with a revolutionary display-on-a-chip that are high resolution (800x600 to 1024x768), refresh rates of up to 106Hz, and even 16-bit color. It is now possible to make your own wearable computer using a laptop, a twiddler-style keyboard and one of these new displays. I'm still holding out for laser-based display technologies, because I'm still worried I will look like a complete dork. Something a little more like this below would be more acceptable...
During my plunge into the vast sea of information today, I encountered an interesting site dealing with cyberpunk (CP) information. If you don't know what CP is or what the theory behind it is, I suggest checking it out. Some good news (finally) from the Northwestern research circles... Apparently one of my chemistry professors, Chad Mirkin, has developed a technique for analyzing DNA that is much more cost effective than previous techniques. Without getting into the nitty-gritty, gold nanoparticles are coated with hundreds of copies of the target DNA, then they latch on to the targets and then the DNA is immersed into photograhic liquid, and silver ions attach to the gold, making the particles 100,000 times larger, which is scanned by a photo scanner. Your DNA could be scanned for as little as 100 bucks.
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