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Finally, a Shark With a Laser

wesbo — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:00:25 +0000

Relax, Dr Evil. Your inspired request for “sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached” has finally been fulfilled in the real world. Yes, it’s time for you to lay awake in bed at night and run the permutations over & over in your head about just how this will effect your self-esteem levels next time you pay a visit to open water. In short it’s frikking scary.

Marine biologist-cum-TV personality Luke Tipple attached a 50-milliwatt green laser to a lemon shark off the coast of the Bahamas in late April. The escapade was sponsored by Wicked Lasers, a consumer-focused laser manufacturer based in Hong Kong that produces some of the most brilliant — and potentially dangerous — handheld lasers in the world.

“This was definitely a world first,” Tipple told Wired. “Initially, I told them no. I thought it was a frivolous stunt. But then I considered that it would give us an opportunity to test our clips and attachments, and whatever is attached to that clip, I really don’t care. It was a low-powered laser that couldn’t be dangerous to anyone, and there’s actually useful applications in having a laser attached to the animal.”

Tipple said the experiment was instructive in a number of ways. For starters, he was able to further test his clamping apparatus, which is typically used for traditional data-aquisition equipment.

He also wanted to verify anecdotal evidence that sharks avoid laser energy of specific spectrums and wavelengths. Curiously, at least with the Wicked Lasers model, he found the opposite to be true: “Although further testing is necessary, time and time again, sharks were actually attracted to the laser beam,” he said.

Finally, he said the experiment was helpful in measuring a shark’s velocity and trajectory in real time. “We were able to see how their body positioning relates to a target,” he said. “You can get a very clear description, via the laser, of what the shark’s body is doing.”

Other experts find the Wicked Lasers stunt of dubious value, and we’ll get to those criticisms soon. But for now, let’s describe exactly what went down in the Caribbean on Apr. 24.

Wicked Lasers supplied Tipple with the lowest-powered version of its S3 Krypton green laser. Where a simple laser pointer might generate a beam measuring about 2mW in power, the shark-deployed model, operating on its low-power setting, emitted a beam in the neighborhood of 50mW. This isn’t a beam that can be safely shined in anyone’s eye, but it’s nowhere near as dangerous as the 1-watt Krypton model Gadget Lab tested in October 2011.

Tipple says the laser was attached to a lemon shark’s dorsal fin via a “non-invasive clamp” applied by a diver to ensure correct positioning. Tipple says he chose a lemon shark — Negaprion brevirostris — for its “predictable and relatively docile swimming behavior during the day, ease of access in shallow water, and size of the dorsal fin.”

In other words, the shark was easily corralled and size-appropriate, and probably wouldn’t stray very far during the stunt. And, indeed, Tipple’s team was able to retrieve the host shark by the end of the experiment, and remove the clamp.

“The clamp has specially designed gel pads on the inside of its jaws that create a tactile surface interaction with the dermal denticles of the sharks skin, so basically it doesn’t move,” Tipple says. “Zinc elements of the spring device within the clamp are designed to corrode and would lessen the grip of the clamp within a week. In around a month, the spring would be rendered useless, causing the clamp to simply fall off.”

So how did the shark respond to its evil laserfication?

“The shark didn’t really like it when I initially deployed the clamp,” says Tipple, “but after a few seconds it returned to normal behavior. The clamp itself isn’t strong enough to cause any pain, and the dorsal fin is actually not very sensitive due to it being composed primarily of cartilage.”

During our interview, Tipple went to great lengths to explain that neither the shark, nor Caribbean sea life, nor his team of divers were at ever at risk from the laser. “The laser we were using wasn’t strong enough to cause ocular or thermal damage to other sea life,” he says.

What’s more, his credentials as an animal rights advocate are strong. He holds a degree in marine biology from James Cook University, and is the managing director of the Shark-Free Marina Initiative, an organization dedicated to lowering worldwide shark mortality rates.

Granted, these bona fides are tempered by Tipple’s status as a celebrity shark handler — he’s appeared on Mythbusters and various Discovery Channel “Shark Week” shows, among other TV appearances. It all begs the question: What’s the real value of attaching a laser to a shark, other than to generate publicity for Tipple himself, and the Wicked Lasers brand, which organized a Facebook promotion around the stunt?

“Is there a point of it? It has to have an objective,” Neil Hammerschlag, an assistant professor with the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, told Wired.

“I would say the attachment process sounds non-invasive,” Hammerschlag said. “I don’t think it’s going to cause any damage to the shark. It’s temporary. In terms of the goal, without knowing the specific scientific or educational application, it’s hard to say. But if this is just to respond to a scene in the Austin Powers movie, I don’t see value. You’re just causing unnecessary stress on the animal. It’s not respectful.”

Sean Van Sommeran, executive director and founder of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, said he was interested in Tipple’s efforts to build a better fin clamp. “I like the idea of the spring-loaded hinge that’s going to break down over time in the salt water,” Van Sommeran told Wired. “It’s a good alternative to drilling holes through the fins. Sharks are slow growing so something attached temporarily, for even a month, isn’t necessarily going to harm the shark, or impede its growth.”

Still, Van Sommeran said, were the shark to be armed with a laser for an extended period of time, the animal would find its new life in the sea quite challenging.

“The animal would essentially be carrying a roof rack of lights, atracting attention as it swims around,” he said. “Any time the animal goes deep into the water column, it will be more apparent. Predators can notice and take interest. Hammerhands might eat that lemon with a laser on it. And animals that the lemon may want to stalk can see it coming.”

But even serious hardcore shark experts like Van Sommeran can relish in the bold absurdity of a laser-equipped shark: “Everything tilts toward this being a disadvantage for the shark. Its laser might blind a pilot and piss off the FAA. Or North Korea might counter-attack it,” he said.

And, of course, Wicked Lasers, the instigator of Tipple’s stunt, can’t help but have fun with the evil implications of laser-weaponized sharks.

“Depending on the power of the laser that they are armed with, the sharks could be significantly more dangerous,” Steve Liu, Wicked Lasers CEO, told Wired. “If there was a way the shark could operate the laser on its own accord and use it against humans, we wouldn’t even attempt this.”

Nathan Drake – The Uncharted Audition

wesbo — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:59:10 +0000

Ever played Uncharted? Well, now you can win the chance to meet the creators of the PlayStation® game Uncharted and create your own in-game multiplayer character for Uncharted 3. All you have to do is audition and prove you are as good as Nathan Drake. Impress the judges and you go in the running for the final prize!

Check it out here – http://www.theunchartedaudition.com/uk

it’s a pretty immersive game, with real mystery and location and characters that you love and hate. It’s a bit like ‘playing’ inside a film that’s unraveling. What you might not know is that the characters you see in the game are played by real actors, acting out the scenes whilst being motion captured. Their movements and facial expressions are taken and animated by the team at Naughty Dog’s studio where Uncharted is made:

The action heroes of video games are no longer just drawings and pixels, with motion capture your favourite PlayStation® game characters come to life using real actors. Watch to hear from Nolan North and Emily Rose who play Nathan Drake and Elena, about where they draw their inspiration from to play their characters.

Go behind the scenes at Naughty Dog’s studio where they created Uncharted for PlayStation®, and see what inspired the cast and crew including writer and creative director Amy Hennig, to create the most cinematic video game experience ever made.

Uncharted wouldn’t be possible without the cutting edge cinematic technology and creative genius available at PlayStation® and Naughty Dog. Meet the technical experts behind the game and hear what it takes to get from the motion capture studio to the finished product.

For more information around this event check out these links to Facebook and Twitter

Nano Quadrotor Swarm

wesbo — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:10:57 +0000

Experiments performed with a team of nano quadrotors at the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania. If Cyberdyne Systems is going to appear anywhere, my money is on Pennsylvania. These cheeky little bots have been taught to fly in various formations and switch between those formations in three dimensions. It’s just a matter of time before they turn on their creators…

-EDIT-

HOLY HELL. Formations were just the beginning…

Smoking’s Good For You (and a bunch of other stuff)

wesbo — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:40:44 +0000

Every week we read that something we believe is bad for us actually has beneficial health effects. This week it’s coffee, before that it was pizza – and every other day it’s red wine. But can these stories really be true? That depends how you interpret the facts. To demonstrate, we ’scientifically prove’ the benefits of a few risky pastimes……
So what’s going on? And more importantly, who are we supposed to believe?

Two weeks ago, I was happy in the knowledge that two staples of my diet, namely caffeine and pizzas, were inherently bad for me. Now that’s all been overturned. Italian scientists, it seems, have discovered that pizzas act to protect us from all manner of cancers. And they should know. Then it was the turn of the Australians. After a bunch of tests on athletes, scientists at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra have concluded that caffeine is not only going to make me more powerful and exercise longer, but it’s likely to make me lose weight faster too. If I’d been feeling guilty about what I was consuming, it would all have been for nought.

Evidently, I’m not alone in my confusion. “You can’t expect the public to know the real risks of doing something and make a rational judgment. We don’t do it, and why should we?” says risk expert Sir Colin Berry. “Mr Spock might be able to do it, but what a bizarre person he turns out to be.” Could it be that scientific studies will tell you whatever you want to hear if you look hard enough?

Having unprotected sex

It’s never easy getting scientists to harp on about the benefits of having unprotected sex, but a few have stuck their necks out. Gordon Gallup at the State University of New York asked nearly a thousand women about their sex lives and used standard psychological tests to assess how happy they were.

He found that women whose partners didn’t wear condoms consistently came out as happier than those whose partners did. Having ruled out other factors, Gallup says he is convinced semen is the reason. “It suggests there’s something in semen that can alter mood,” he says. “If you could isolate what it is in semen that appears to be doing this, you might be able to use it as an alternative way of treating depression.”

Gallup’s latest results pander less to those smelling a male conspiracy: he found that women who don’t use condoms tend to be more gutted when their relationships break down, yet get into new sexual relationships more quickly than those that do. “They experience rebound more. It’s as if they find semen addictive,” says Gallup.

He isn’t the only one to endorse the virtues of semen. Scientists at the University of Adelaide have found evidence that exposure to a man’s semen makes for a less problematic pregnancy. The team suspect that the semen conditions the woman’s immune system, so it is less likely to attack the growing foetus. Male conspiracy theorists take note: the scientists found the positive effects of semen to be strongest if swallowed. Gulp.

Getting stressed

Our reaction to stress reveals what a lumbering beast evolution really is. Stress makes our nervous system pump out a chemical called noradrenaline, which kicks our heart rate up and breaks down body tissue to give us more energy. “That’s great if you’re trying to run away from a mammoth,” says Ashley Grossman, an endocrinologist at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. “But it’s not much use if someone’s screaming at you in an office and you can’t do Anything but sit there and seethe.”

Fortunately our archaic response to stress does have some modern-day benefit. After an hour or so of being stressed, blood levels of the hormone cortisol rise. “Small amounts of cortisol make you process information faster. If you’re very stressed in an exam and you’re completely lost, your brain will work faster and better,” says Grossman. But it’s only useful on occasion. “Get stressed day in day out and you’ll literally burn that part of your brain out,” he adds.

Using mobile phones

Though demonstrably lethal when stuck to the ear of someone driving through a city during rush hour, the only other confirmed threat a mobile has to health is the kicking you get when the local 14-year-olds mug you for it on your way home.

But there’s good evidence that mobile phones can be good for you too. Alan Preece, who studies the biological effects of mobile-phone radiation at the Bristol Oncology Center, found that people exposed to mobile-phone radiation were 4% faster at certain mental tasks than others. “It has the effect of making you about 20 years younger,” he says. Preece believes the effect is solely due to the phone heating a region of the brain called the cortex. Radiation from phones has also been shown to increase blood flow in certain regions of the brain.

Watching a great deal of TV

Yes, you’ll be labelled a couch potato, but rest assured it could be worse. According to researchers at Vandebilt University in Nashville, you’ll use up 20% more energy watching television than lying in bed. At a burn rate of around 100kcals for an hour’s viewing, television is about as exhausting as reading a book or writing a shopping list.

Listening to loud, repetitive music

Of course it’ll hamper your hearing by causing a permanent ring, or deafen you completely, but since you’re going to do it anyway, you might as well know why it feels so good. “What happens when you listen to loud music is it activates a primitive acoustic sense in the ear which is inherited from our swampy ancestors,” says Neil Todd of the University of Manchester. Todd reckons our ancestors’ mating displays involved lots of noise and prancing about. Loud bass notes trigger the same response in our vestibular system, he says, so loud repetitive bass music stimulates the same areas of our brains that makes us think we might be about to get some. “It’s the pulsing, loud bass frequencies that are particularly effective,” he says. But does the fact that it gives you the horn mean it’s good for you? “Anything which gives you pleasure is good. It keeps you free from stress, it keeps you happy and that’s clearly healthy,” he says.

Smoking

Talk to physicians and they’ll tell you there are few things you can put in your mouth that are worse for you than a cigarette. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Smokers are at least doing their bit to slow down the runaway obesity epidemic that is sweeping through the western world. “In many studies, you often find smokers are slimmer. We’ve certainly seen it in our studies,” says Jodi Flaws at the University of Maryland school of medicine. “Some people think it’s due to certain chemicals in cigarettes somehow making them burn more calories, but others believe it suppresses appetite. It may well be both.”

Drastically upping your chances of cancer and heart disease might not be the best way to avoid obesity, but it’s certainly easier than running round the block.

Scientists have also found evidence that smoking might, in some circumstances, help prevent the onset of various dementias. Many dementias go hand-in-hand with a loss of chemical receptors in the brain that just happen to be stimulated by nicotine. Smoking seems to bolster these receptors, and smokers have more of them. The theory is that smokers may then have more to lose before they start losing their minds. “It does seem that nicotine has a preventative effect, but the problem is that the other stuff in the cigarette tends to rot everything else,” says Roger Bullock, a specialist in dementia and director of the Kingshill Research Centre in Swindon. So if your time is nearly up anyway, and you have somehow managed to steer a course past the Scylla and Charybdis of heart attacks and tumours, smoking might just help you retain your marbles.

Riding fast motorbikes

There are fewer sure-fire ways of decimating your life expectancy than buying a large motorbike you are clearly ill-equipped to control. But spend five minutes with a biker and you’ll soon hear how invigorating it is to hare through the countryside startling the pheasants. Although the thrill of speed is often called an adrenaline rush, adrenaline has nothing to do with it. Instead, the rush comes from the release of chemicals called endorphins in the brain that act to calm your body down, essentially countering the effects of noradrenaline that gets your heart thumping. Is thrill-seeking good for you? “Endorphins are the good guys, they slow down your heart rate and make you relaxed, so if they’re being released frequently, it makes sense to believe that’s good for you, but we don’t have any actual evidence,” says Grossman.

Flying economy class

Deep-vein thrombosis may be the curse of the economy-class majority, but sometimes the cheap seats are the best place to be. In the mid-90s, the Civil Aviation Authority carried out tests to see how passengers sat in different parts of a plane faired during a typical, survivable crash-landing. They found that those in economy class often came out better because they were cushioned against some of the impact by the chair in front.

“Your body doesn’t get so stretched,” says Russ Williams, ex-head of flight operations policy at the CAA. “If you’re in a first-class seat, there’s nothing in front to stop you.” It doesn’t help for all kinds of crashes though. “Clearly if the wing falls off, you’re going to die. Simple as that.” To really up your chances of getting out in one piece, your best bet is to sit no further than three rows from an emergency exit.

Eating fatty food

Fatty food is a great supply of energy, but before you go burger-hunting, you should know that too much (and few of us have too little) will raise your cholesterol, which points you firmly in the direction of heart disease. Regardless of how lame you may feel and barring any eating disorders, it’s unlikely you have too little fat to survive. “Getting enough energy to stay alive isn’t usually a problem in a western industrialised society,” says Ian Johnson at the Institute of Food Research. “But there are some fats the body absolute requires,” he adds. Certain polyunsaturated fats are needed to help cells work properly and are especially vital for nerve cells. “It’s important for pregnant women to have a certain intake as it’s vital for growing the infant’s brain,” he says.

Drinking heavily

We’ve all heard about the health-enhancing properties of the odd glass of red wine, but what about the odd tequila slammer? Studies comparing wine with beer and spirits often find wine comes out best, while spirits have less of a beneficial effect. The bulk of the benefit comes from ethanol which, according to Morton Gronbaek at the Institute for Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen, reduces the tendency of blockages to form in blood vessels.

Up to 21 drinks for men and 14 drinks for women tends to protect against coronary heart disease. “The risk drops by 30-50% if you drink a little alcohol,” says Gronbaek. “By not drinking alcohol, you’re increasing your risk of heart disease the same amount as people who either do no exercise or have high cholesterol,” he says. Other studies have proven alcohol to be a good all-rounder, helping protect against dementia, increase bone mineral density in elderly women and even lower blood pressure.

Eating salty food

Salt is great for raising your blood pressure, which sadly isn’t great for anything. But wipe salt out of your diet completely and not only will your food take on an impressive blandness, you’ll gradually drift into a malaise of muscle cramps, nausea and dizziness. “Ultimately it can be very serious,” says Amanda Wynne at the British Dietetic Association. Salt is necessary to ensure body fluids move in and out of your body’s cells only when they are supposed to. Salt is also needed to send electrical pulses along your nerves. Few people get close to suffering from salt deficiency though. “The average person has around 20 times the minimum requirement in their diet,” says Wynne.

Becoming a boxer

It’s no surprise that people who regularly get thumped very hard in the head occasionally die from it or suffer terrible brain damage. You can’t train your brain to take that kind of abuse. But if you’re good enough to dodge the head shots, or bottle out of going in the ring, boxing is only going to be good for you.

“Boxing is a marvellous form of exercise from the cardiovascular point of view. It exercises the entire body, so it’s better than running or cycling,” says Robert Cantu, chief medical officer at the National Centre for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research in North Carolina. “The only downside is it’s not advantageous to take blows to the head.” The most damaging kind of punch, says Cantu, spins the head on the neck. “Things like left hooks and right crosses are the ones to watch out for.”

Article taken from: www.guardian.co.uk

I’m Rick Perry and I Approve This Message.

wesbo — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:27:07 +0000

Faith made America strong–according to the Fascist mind of Rick Perry–and Rick Perry’s here to make it weak. As weak as his idiotic mind that hearts religion but lacks tolerance. Surely, somewhere in those doctrines there’s something about turning the other cheek (doesn’t matter where that cheek is on the body) and embracing your fellow man and woman. Maybe that’s Rick’s problem, he wants to embrace men and, so, just like when you really fancy someone at school, you act like you hate them, Rick’s doing that with gays. Basically Rick Perry’s a homosexual. The end.

Here’s the original ‘inferior’, official video. For some strange reason they have disabled comments!? (check out the likes/dislikes)

Peace Talks

wesbo — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:19:05 +0000

Words vs bullets – who’s going to win? Well when they’re flying out of two guys’ mouths then probably the words, at least according to this world-wide appeal for ‘International alert’. These two might want to take a closer look at their diet, whatever it is they’re eating is causing some strange symptoms. Thank god it wasn’t two women, it would have been Armageddon…

Glastonbury Festival: The App

wesbo — Tue, 31 May 2011 11:56:15 +0000

If you love listening to live music, there’s really no better place to do that than in a field in the British countryside. But as ever with Glastonbury there’s so much going on, it’s difficult to know what to do with yourself. Which is where this handy app comes in. Featuring customisable line-up, interactive map, festival news and information as it happens, it’s like a festival guru in your pocket. You’ll wonder how you ever got by without it.

The Glastonbury Festival app from Orange is free and acts as an interactive guide to the whole site. The app will show you who’s playing where and will give you the latest news in real time.

Download HERE:

It’s available for iPhone, Android and Nokia. Once you have it installed her is a short video explaining how it will make your Glastonbury experience better:

Huge Freaky Insect Discovered

wesbo — Sun, 01 May 2011 09:32:15 +0000

Deep in the rain forests of the Amazon it looks like the horror of Starship Troopers has finally come true, there is some kind of large smart bug spreading infection amongst the local population and it aint pretty! Scientist Dr Javier Hoolavez has discovered an entirely new genus that has a very distinctive insect bite that changes the genetical behavior of it’s victim into something scary and now it looks like the infection has reached the human population and the virus is spreading FAST!!!

Girl Prays to Cause Japanese Earthquake

wesbo — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:39:27 +0000

As if the devastation befalling Japan isn’t heartwrenching and appalling enough, there’s always one sick, twisted individual looking for attention. And in this instance it’s this douche-faced girl, praying to an absent God for the death of 1000s of individuals. Or just trolling the world? Either way, just how is a person supposed to fap to this?

The original video is no longer on YouTube as the author (Pamela M Foreman) has closed her account. You can find out more about her here. Thank you God for giving someone the wisdom to save it and re-upload it.

This video below puts it all in perspective…

NEWS UPDATE!!!
Well, it turns out she was: YouTuber TamTamPamela, who managed to enrage the entire World Wide Web in the span of a single day with her chilling gratitude to God for shaking Japan, recognized that she may have taken her performance art a tad too far and finally admitted to being a Poe. That’s right: She was just trolling! Hilarious.

Meanwhile, the TamTamPamela account has been removed. The copyright claim notice points to an outfit called “LaughAloneTV” who were in the process of signing the lulzy lady up when she freaked and pressed eject. Reads one tweet: “I guess the hate was too much for her. never got to sign her.”

I can’t decide which is worse: Her sensationalist trolling, or the bankrolling of her sensationalist trolling. It’s the bankrolling one, right?

Either way, God’s not gonna be too pleased he got duped by a troll!

(And YES, i did swipe the last bit of copy from The Daily What)

North Korea – Hell March

wesbo — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:02:49 +0000

The North Koreans marching along like a mass meeting of cub scouts and girl guides with military equipment from the dark ages has something deeply unnerving and yet fascinating about it, the synchronized precision is SCARY, enough to freeze your bones solid. So ronnery.