How to survive on less sleep – “With monophasic sleep, you sleep for eight hours and you get about 2 hours of good REM sleep. This is the normal schedule most people use, and it means about five hours of the night are lost to (as far as we know) unnecessary unconsciousness…”

Intelligent brake light: A proposal – “Intelligent brake light: A proposal In today’s dense traffic, traditional brake lights in many situations no longer serve the purpose to warn the trailing vehicle of a slow-down – because they are on anyway during a slope, or because the traffic is so dense that the following vehicle is too close anyway. The article at hand proposes an intelligent brake light system that could do away with these shortcomings…”

Looks Great, Less Nutritious? – “Eating all your vegetables was a lot better for you in the ’50s. Store-bought veggies weren’t as pretty back then, but according to USDA data, they were packed with a lot more nutrients than their modern counterparts. The likely reason for the nutritional drop is that hybrid crops are often bred for size and color, not nutrients. Below, the stats for a few crops that have gone to seed…”

Visilab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge – “After about two decades of continuous research on Intelligent Vehicles, VisLab is preparing to set a new worldwide milestone in the field of Vehicular Robotics. Autonomous vehicles are being prepared and tested to drive with no human intervention from Parma, Italy, to Shanghai, China, along a 13,000 km and 3 months unique journey. Not only the vehicles are unmanned, but they run on electrical power and the whole electronic pilot is powered by solar energy, making this trip unique in history: goods packed in Italy will be brought to Shanghai on an intercontinental route with no human intervention and without using traditional fuel for the first time in history…”

Scientists peer inside a python to see swallowed rat – “Scientists have used the latest imaging techniques to look inside a python that had just swallowed a rat whole….”

Facebook Testing Face Detection in Photos – “Facebook has begun testing face-detection tech to make it easier for users to identify people in photos they upload…”

When the scientific evidence is unwelcome, people try to reason it away – “Research results not consistent with your world view? Then you’re likely to believe science can’t supply all the answers… “

Scientists Cite Fastest Case of Human Evolution – “Tibetans live at altitudes of 13,000 feet, breathing air that has 40 percent less oxygen than is available at sea level, yet suffer very little mountain sickness. The reason, according to a team of biologists in China, is human evolution, in what may be the most recent and fastest instance detected so far…” See also: Mutation in key gene allows Tibetans to thrive at high altitude

Genetic Signatures of Human Exceptional Longevity Discovered – “While environment and family history are factors in healthy aging, genetic variants play a critical and complex role in conferring exceptional longevity, according to a new study by a team of researchers from the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine and the Boston Medical Center…”

Roger Linn Design: New musical instrument prototype.

Magnitka. Camera man’s cut.

Will We Eventually Upload Our Minds? – “Katz believes we are on the cusp of a broad neuro-revolution, one that will radically reshape our views of perception, cognition, emotion and even personal identity. Neuroengineering is rapidly advancing from perceptual aids such as cochlear implants to devices that will enhance and speed up thought. Ultimately, he says, this may free the mind from its bound state in the body to a platform independent existence…”

iPhone 4′s supposed signal woes aren’t unique, and may not be serious – “The debate over the iPhone 4′s supposed reception problems continues, including a new class-action suit. Underplayed in the discussion is the fact that all phones are subject to interference from the human who is using them. And even if the alleged signal loss is real, there’s an absence of hard evidence that iPhone 4 reception is problematic compared to past iPhones; indeed, there’s evidence of just the opposite. For its part, Apple recently suggested that any iPhone 4 signal loss results from little more than faulty software that incorrectly displays signal strengths…” See also: Apple ‘stunned’ to find iPhones show too many bars

Amazon again cuts Kindle price as iPad raises heat – “Amazon.com Inc cut the price on its most expensive Kindle electronic reader, the latest salvo in a price war in response to Apple Inc’s pricier iPad tablet computer…”

Kindle and iPad Books Take Longer to Read than Print [STUDY] – “It takes longer to read books on a Kindle 2 or an iPad versus a printed book, Jakob Nielsen of product development consultancy Nielsen Norman Group discovered in a recent usability survey…”

Life and death of Microsoft Kin: the inside story – “Since our piece on Wednesday, we’ve had more trusted sources step forward to fill in some blanks and clarify the story behind the amazingly swift fall from grace that Microsoft’s Kin phones have experienced since their launch just a few weeks ago. It’s a fascinating tale, and we wanted to share everything we’ve learned…”

The Rise and Fall of Bookmarking the Web – “Digg it, Like it, star it, favorite it, or bookmark it — that’s what many of us do when we see something we enjoy on the Web. But will that piece of content ever be viewed again? Probably not. Sadly, we rarely take advantage of our bookmark collection. It will eventually become a digital junk pile. So is it time for the bookmark to die? Perhaps it is time for the bookmark to evolve…”

The fish that could eat Lake Erie – ” The big, ugly and unbelievably hungry Asian carp has been making its way up the Mississippi for two decades and now appears to be closer than ever to migrating en masse to the world’s largest body of fresh water. If it starts reproducing there, scientists say, it’s likely to eventually consume much of the plankton that forms the basis of the food chain that supports what’s estimated to be a $7 billion sports fishery…”

Presentation for ‘Minority Report Interface’ That Blew People’s Minds at TED (video) – “The movie Minority Report features one of the most discussed and influential user interfaces ever shown on the silver screen. Using a pair of special gloves, Tom Cruise’s character can navigate and manipulate a vast array of digital images and information using intuitive gestures and movements. As we discussed back in February, that interface is real. The concept was developed for the film by John Underkoffler of MIT’s Media Lab who has gone on to recreate it as a marketable system. Known as ‘g-speak’ the revolutionary interface is under development by Underkoffler’s company Oblong. It was debuted at the TED conference this year and now we finally have access to that video….”

Defense Sciences Office – List of programs

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning – “So if a crew member falls overboard and every looks O.K. – don’t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck…”

Medical School Acceptance Rates, 2007-2009 – “For example, for applicants with an MCAT score between 24-26 and a GPA between 3.00 and 3.19, only 1 out of every 25 Asian applicants was accepted, compared to about one out of every 11 white applicants, one of out every three Hispanics, and more than half of black applicants with those same credentials…”

Dear Mr. President: Immigration Reform Won’t Be Enough To Stop The Brain Drain – “The reality is that, no matter how long the debate takes or how it concludes, the poor and unskilled will still be here. But the educated and skilled professionals—who could be creating new jobs and making the U.S. more competitive—won’t be here. They will, instead, be boosting the economies of other countries. The U.S. will need not only to change its immigration policies to welcome skilled immigrants, but also to keep those who are already in the U.S. And it will have to do what countries like China, Singapore, and Chile are doing: send its scouts out to find and recruit the best talent in other countries…”

Top 10 Unusual Uses For Coca Cola – “We have previously published articles on unusual uses for peanut butter and beer which proved very popular – so today we are presenting another fun list of out-of-the-ordinary uses for a rather ordinary product: coke. Coke was introduced by the Coca Cola company in 1886 – making it a rather true and tested favorite of generations of people in over 200 countries (at least according to the company). This list should give you some ideas on how to get more from your coke than usual…”

Chimp memory:

‘Doomsday Ark’ to be Housed on the Moon -A Remote Access Toolkit to Rebuild the Human Race – “If the human species should be destroyed on Earth, our future may reside on the Moon if plans.being drawn up for a “Doomsday ark” on the moon by the European Space Agency are carried through. The Ark will contain the essentials of life and human civilization, to be activated in the event of earth being devastated by a giant asteroid or nuclear war…”

It’s not just BP’s oil in the Gulf that threatens world’s oceans – “A sobering new report warns that the oceans face a “fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation” not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather…”

First Amendment suspended in the Gulf of Mexico as spill cover-up goes Orwellian – “As CNN is now reporting, the U.S. government has issued a new rule that would make it a felony crime for any journalist, reporter, blogger or photographer to approach any oil cleanup operation, equipment or vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. Anyone caught is subject to arrest, a $40,000 fine and prosecution for a federal felony crime…”

Implications of the first sighting of whale sharks in the gulf oil slick – “I recently experienced a moment of genuine dread regarding the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and it was neither a familiar nor comfortable feeling. What is it that invoked such a powerful feeling after a disaster that has been underway for the last 80-odd days, now? Something that struck a little close to home, of course: the first direct impact to whale sharks. You may have seen this story coming across the wires over the past two days about NOAA scientists who, while on an aerial survey of the impacted area, observed 3 whale sharks swimming among ribbons of surface oil, not 4 miles from the epicenter of the Deepwater Horizon spill. This observation has serious implications; let me explain….”

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