A "Mood Lamp " That Can Read Minds

A technology called “functional MRI” or fMRI can see what is happening inside someone’s brain when they are thinking specific thoughts. The Psyleron Mind Lamp is a fun way that explores an application of this technology.

Researchers at Princeton University developed the Lamp, and claim that the Mind Lamp changes color due to “electron tunneling”, a quantum-level phenomenon that directs the lamp to change the lamp color.

The lamp has a microprocessor that checks for statistical patterns that adjust the red, green, blue and white color balances on the body of the unit.

Gardens on the Moon

Groundbreaking advancements in the realm of space engineering may see the moon sown with the first gardens to grow on the lunar surface by 2012.

As part of the Google Lunar X Prize, Paragon Space Development Corporation has recently teamed with Odyssey Moon to develop a pressurized mini greenhouse to deploy on the surface of the moon, grow a plant from seed, and hopefully see it flower and seed itself. This marks a critical stage of development for extending life beyond the confines of our planet.

In order to successfully grow a plant on the moon, Paragon has developed a very specialized greenhouse that can safely contain a plant and provide it with all elements it needs to survive.

The greenhouse will need to protect the plant from the sun’s intense rays while providing it with enough water, balanced soil, and carbon dioxide while removing its waste oxygen. They are basically creating a space suit for the plant.

Artificial Blood Vessels

Researchers have developed artificial blood vessels made using a person's own skin cells which could dramatically improve the results of organ transplants.

These new blood vessels are made from a patient's own tissues, which lowers the chance of a harmful immune reaction.

Normally, doctors typically harvest a piece of a vein from a patient to make a bypass called a shunt, but over time, these shunts often fail, forcing doctors to use shunts made with plastics and other synthetic materials that can trigger immune reactions or blood-flow problems.

Researchers led by Cytograft Tissue Engineering of Novato, California, came up with a method for growing replacement vessels using a patient's own cells. They start by harvesting skin cells growing these in a sheet. They then roll up the sheet into the shape of a tube.

Bermuda-Triangle (Mystery)

The “Triangle” in History: a shape takes form

“The region involved, a watery triangle bounded roughly by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico, measures less than a thousand miles on any one side.”
. . .So George X. Sand introduced the Triangle to his readers in October 1952 in a short article for Fate magazine, entitled “Sea Mystery at our Back Door.”
Sand’s article recounted the latest disappearance (the Sandra in 1950) and went on to discuss some of the other recent baffling mysteries like NC16002, Star Tiger and Star Ariel, aside from

devoting most of the article to Flight 19.
The Triangle remained a colloquial expression throughout the 1950s, employed by locals when another disappearance or unexplained crash happened.
By the early 1960s, it had acquired the name The Deadly Triangle. In his 1962 book, Wings of Mystery, author Dale Titler also devoted pages in Chapter 14— “The Mystery of Flight 19”— to recounting the most recent incidents of disappearances and even began to ponder theories, such as electromagnetic anomalies and the ramifications of Project Magnet. His book would set the temper for Triangle

The Deadly Triangle as it appeared in a 1962 book Wings of Mystery by Dale Titler. The idea that Vincent Gaddis invented the shape and mystery is nonsense. It had long been popular before his time. He seems merely to have been the first one to call it Bermuda Triangle. It is also nonsense that Gaddis or anybody else ever thought that Miami, Bermuda, and San Juan were absolute nodal points. Gaddis was merely trying to give the area geographic life to a growing audience.

Fate’s October 1952 issue. The Triangle begins.

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Swine Flu

OVERVIEW

An outbreak of swine flu in Mexico has raised concerns worldwide that the disease could be emerging as a global pandemic. On April 26, 2009, American officials declared a public health emergency after 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed in the United States; by the next day, the number had doubled.

The virus in the American cases looked identical to the A (H1N1) swine flu in Mexico that is believed to have killed 149 people and sickened about 1,600. Health officials in the United States and at the World Health Organization urged the public not to panic, noting that the cases confirmed outside of Mexico had been mild, and that the virulence of the virus remained unknown.

Still, they urged Americans to forego nonessential travel to Mexico, where many schools and public venues had been shut. On April 27, the European Union's health commissioner urged Europeans to avoid nonessential travel to the United States or Mexico. The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Richard Besser, responded that the advisory was unwarranted.

Officials said that 28 of the 50 confirmed cases in the United States were diagnosed in New York City, all among students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, Queens. Officials said they had also confirmed cases in California, Kansas, Texas and Ohio. Diagnoses have also been made in Canada, Spain, Scotland and New Zealand.

Mexican officials said they had traced the origins of the outbreak to a rural area known as La Gloria in the southeastern state of Veracruz, the site of several major pig farms.

SWINE FLU QUESTIONS

The new swine flu cases are caused by an influenza strain called H1N1, which appears to be easily passed from person to person. Doctors have little information yet on the mortality rate, as there is no reliable data on the total number of people infected.

The central question every flu expert in the world would like answered, Dr. Martin Cetron, director of global migration and quarantine for the Centers for Disease Control, said in an interview, is how many mild cases Mexico has had.

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The Most Popular Causes of Death In 2030

At the end of 2008, a list with a prognostic of the most "popular" causes of mortality in the year 2030 was published by the World Health Organization. Nowadays, these are: tumors, ischemic disease of heart and disturbances of the cerebral blood circulation.

According to this list, the 3 causes will still keep their positions in future; more than that, the frequency of these diseases will increase. Other frequent causes of mortality today are infarctions and heart attacks in an older age. Besides, in such cases, the patient's life often depends on the extreme measures taken in the first minutes or hours, which is a problem for doctors both in big cities, and in villages, because of the distance that may separate them. By 2030 the situation is less likely to change.

The number of deaths in car accidents will also increase. It isn't surprising since the number of cars is in a continuous growth and, in the history of humanity, technical development has always outrun culture evolution.

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Pills Against Insomnia Cause Sleepwalking

Ambien and Lunest are often prescribed sleeping pills. These pills, however, cause the most strange side effects. The Food and Drug Administration reported yesterday such strange behavior as eating or driving while asleep.

These reports have provoked the F.D.E. to order the drug makers to make certain fliers for such sleeping drugs, where patients could read detailed instructions on how to use them.

The investigation of such side effects was caused by, but limited to numerous reports from the users of Ambien (the most prescribed sleeping drug). Their complaints ranged from harmless sleepwalking and hallucinations to eating while asleep, violent outbursts and driving, which is the most disturbing.

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