Monday, February 23, 2009

2009 GREEN WINNER: Fiskar Karma


Designed in California, USA, the 2010 Fisker Karma is the first luxury plug-in hybrid car. 100mpg Fisker Karma Makes its World Wide Premiere at the 2009 North American International Auto ShowDETROIT, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ — Fisker Automotive, Inc., the new American manufacturer of premium green automobiles, unveiled its first production car the 2010 Fisker Karma.
EcoXperience vehicles
Cadillac Escalade Hybrid * Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell * Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid * Chrysler Aspen Hybrid * Dodge Durango Hybrid * Ford Escape * Ford Escape Plug-in * Ford Fusion * G.E.M. * G.E.M. Police Car * GMC Sierra Hybrid * GMC Yukon Hybrid * Mitsubishi iMiEV * Myers Motors * Roush EV * Saturn Vue 2-mode
http://www.naias.com/

WINNER 2009 Best Animated Film: Wall E

UP: Pixar's Teaser Trailer

WINNER 2009 Best Animated Short: La Maison en Petite Cubes

La Maison: part 2

Nominated 2009 Best Animated Short: THIS WAY UP

Nominated 2009 Best Animated Short: PRESTO

OKTAPODI

Friday, February 13, 2009

VOTE: YouTube Orchestra Project



Siftables: Toy Blocks That Think

Inside The Meltdown: $ Worldwide 911

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/
You may want to be watching February 17, 2009.

Futuristic Japanese Cars

Here are some modern designs that will turn your head. There's even one with a silicone covering; but does it stay clean??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpAgUMUlhw4

Peel P50: World's Smallest Car

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Social Traffic: How do I stand OUT?

Flying Medical Stretcher Coming Soon!

Scientists are currently developing a remote-controlled 'flying stretcher' that can rescue accident victims and bring them to hospital. The high-tech invention that can take off and land vertically, hover and climb to 10,000 feet has been developed by Israeli scientists as an unmanned rescue device to help retrieve soldiers injured in war zones, without putting other lives at risk.
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But experts behind the new aid say it is also designed for use in accidents, where ambulances or helicopters cannot gain access to injured victims quickly enough to boost their chances of survival. Because the device does not need runway or a landing pad, it can be used almost anywhere. Besides the hovering capabilities, the beetle-shaped vehicle also has four wheels to enable it to cross rough terrain.

Each 'stretcher,' called the Med-Evacuation Aerial Vehicle, can hold up to four patients plus an on board medic and has enough power to stay airborne for up to three hours. Details as to exactly how it will work are sketchy, although the project was first announced last year by the Aerospace Medicine Research Center at the Fisher Institute for Air & Space Strategic Studies in Israel.

One thing is certain though, the flying stretcher, like unmanned drones, will be flown by an expert pilot on the ground. Image by medgadget:

SugarSync


The world’s simplest online backup with web &
mobile access, file sharing & sync built right in.
http://www.sugarsync.com

Henry Sellick Does It Again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js7wxoqeVK0
If ever there was a nightmare, Henry Sellick can invent a better one.
Coraline is certainly going to be the best animated feature of 2009.

Coraline: A Sneak Peek

The Toughest Questions In The World

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

FYI: 20 Things about the BRAIN

1. The roughly 100 billion neurons in the human brain make it equivalent to a computer able to process 1,000 trillion bits per second. Deep Blue who?
2. But computers may catch up. Moore’s law predicts that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months; at that rate, computers will outpace the human brain after 2020.
3. Righties, rejoice: The brain’s left hemisphere, which controls the body’s right side, has 186 million more neurons than does the right hemisphere.
4. But don’t feel left out, lefties: a 2006 study revealed that southpaws coordinate their hemispheres more effectively, possibly due to better performance of the corpus callosum, a nerve bundle that connects the two halves.
5. Kim Peek, one of the savants who inspired the movie Rain Man, lack a corpus callosum. He has memorized thousands of books.
6. Damage to the corpus callosum can lead to odd consequences. An example is alien hand syndrome, in which a hand performs actions without the owner’s intent.
7. Thinking about all this may give you a headache, but it’s not a brainache. The brain processes the signals of pain but is not sensitive itself. headaches are often due to tight shoulder or jaw muscles.
8. A 2006 study found a gene mutation that prevents distress signals from reaching the brain. Researchers became interested in the topic when they heard about a boy who ran over burning coals without feeling them.
9. Ancient Egyptians considered the heart the center of intelligence & left it in the body during mummification. The brain was pulled out through the nostrils & discarded.
10. Aristotle saw the brain as the body’s air-conditioning. “The brain, then, tempers the heat & seething of the heart,” he wrote.
11. Around 400 B.C., a pre-Incan society in Peru practiced brain surgeries in the form of trepanation, the drilling of holes in the skull.
12. Initially only 1/3 of those patients survived, as indicated by short or long term healing of the skull. By A.D. 1400, survival rates had topped 80%.
13. Those ancient people were lucky to reach the age of 50. Today it takes 15 years of training just to start practicing brain surgery.
14. Neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz won the 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine for inventing the labotomy. In 2005 families of lobotomy patients called for his prize to be revoked.
15. Your brain can grow on the job. Learning to juggle alters the structure of motion-detection areas in the brain in just a week.
16. In 1786 Luigi Galvani noticed that a skinned frog’s legs jumped when he touched its nerves with scissors during a thunderstorm.
17. Galvani later announced that electrical impulses from the brain make muscles contract. his experiments inspired a famous work of Enlish literature: Frankenstein.
18. Your brain on drugs? The brain has receptors for a naturally occurring molecule called anandamide, which acts like marijuana, reducing pain & impairing memory.
19. Intense personal memories that we never forget - like our first kiss or a painful breakup - are managed by the amygdala, best known as the brain’s fear center.
20. Rarely, children with severe seizures undergo hemispherectomy, the removal of up to half the brain. Their cognitive abilities, typically impaired by the seizures, sometimes improve.
(Taken from Discover Magazine: The Brain, Winter 2009)

GET SMART

Ready to BOOST your I.Q.? Best of the Web!
http://www.brainist.com
http://www.fitbrains.com
http://www.brainwaves.com/puzzle-home.html
http://www.brainarena.com
http://www.lumosity.com