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In this TED video, Anthony Atala talks about the state of the art in growing new organs for people who need them. He talks about the importance and the potential of the research: “Every 30 seconds a patient dies from diseases that could be treated with tissue replacement.” Then he demonstrates the technology that is [...]
Blast from the past – Assembling and driving the Model T Ford
by Marshall Brain | January 27, 2010
I saw one of these demonstrations where they put together a whole Model T Ford in about 5 minutes. In this video they take a little longer, but there is a nice commentary to go with it: What you get from that video is the simplicity of the design. This video shows how it was [...]
Scientology Attacker Gets A Little Less Anonymous
by Jonathan Strickland | January 27, 2010
How do you handle a group of unidentified people who belong to a loosely-defined protest group that grew out of an online community best known for dark humor and shock tactics? It looks like the answer might be “grab them one at a time.”
CNN reports that Brian Thomas Mettenbrink may plead guilty to charges of committing cyber attacks against the Church of Scientology’s Web sites. CNN links Mettenbrink to the group Anonymous. Mettenbrink said he downloaded software that would allow him to commit a denial of service (DoS) attack against the church’s Web servers.
There are a few ways to commit a DoS attack, but the most common is to use a program to send millions of requests to a target Web server. The server gets bogged down trying to respond to all the requests and either slows to a crawl or crashes as a result.
Public Service Announcement – Be careful around street magicians
by Marshall Brain | January 27, 2010
If you live in an urban environment, street magicians can be common, especially in the spring and summer. But be careful around street magicians, especially if they want to touch you. Problem #1 is demonstrated in this video. You may need to watch it twice: Problem #2 is the fact that this can work in [...]
Why are these funny – can you explain it? I cannot. But several of them made me laugh outloud, which is the whole idea behind “Funny…”. So: 25 Cat Fails I will say that #17 is my favorite, for whatever reason. Makes me want to write “How Pelicans Work”. Keep in mind that this has [...]
Under certain circumstances, diesel engines can operate while submerged in water. Find out what it takes to waterproof an engine — and why diesel engines are better candidates than their gasoline counterparts — in this episode of BrainStuff.
Molly and Cristen discuss the phenomenon of dieting — from early “fad” diets to a possible link between dieting and aging — in this episode of Stuff Mom Never Told You.
In this episode of TechStuff, Jonathan and Chris discuss how global politics affect the Web, focusing specifically on the recent controversy between Google and the Chinese government.
When the Haitian revolution broke out, Toussaint L’Ouverture did not originally take part in the violence — at least, that is, until the British became involved. Learn more about Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Haitian revolution in this podcast.
The Difference Between a Sociopath and a Psychopath
by Josh Clark | January 26, 2010
Chemical Ali was hanged yesterday in Iraq. He was the cousin of Saddam Hussein. Under his cousin’s regime, Ali Hassan al-Majid ordered and orchestrated, among other things, the 1988 chemical weapons drops that killed 5,000 of his own Kurdish countrymen. A year before that, he was the official in charge of the massacre of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Kurds in Iraq with poison gas. He ordered the survivors be killed. Ali liked the chemical weapons, which is how he got his nickname, and, not coincidentally, why he was hanged.
On PRI’s The World today, Barim Hasali, the Prime Minister of Kurdistan, is introduced as a person who opposes the death penalty. He made a special exception for Ali. “I am against the death penalty,” Hasali said. “But I have to admit: In the case of people like Ali Hassan al-Majid, I cannot be true to my feelings about the death penalty.”
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