Something cool thread

[StillUnknown]

 

[China]

Gold-FANG-er: Tiger who cracked her tooth chewing on toys is fitted with a golden replacement at an animal shelter in Germany

 

[China]

MR. TRASH WHEEL™:  A PROVEN SOLUTION TO OCEAN PLASTICS

 

 

 

[China]

14-Year-Old Genius Solves Blind Spots

 

Using some relatively inexpensive and readily available technology you can find at any well-stocked electronics store, Alaina Gassler, a 14-year-old inventor from West Grove, Pennsylvania, came up with a clever way to eliminate the blind spot created by the thick pillars on the side of a car’s windshield.

 

Gassler’s actually too young to have a driver’s license in most states and has never experienced the frustration of trying to see around those pillars while driving, but that didn’t stop her from tackling a problem that automakers have largely ignored. Her solution involves installing an outward-facing webcam on the outside of a vehicle’s windshield pillar, and then projecting a live feed from that camera onto the inside of that pillar. Custom 3D-printed parts allowed her to perfectly align the projected image so that it seamlessly blends with what a driver sees through the passenger window and the windshield, essentially making the pillar invisible.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Jumbo]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/were-other-humans-first-victims-153310350.html

 

charts, graphs, pics and bunches of fun people stuff 

much more at link

 

 

Quote

 

Nine human species walked the Earth 300,000 years ago. Now there is just one. The Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were stocky hunters adapted to Europe’s cold steppes. The related Denisovans inhabited Asia, while the more primitive Homo erectus lived in Indonesia, and Homo rhodesiensis in central Africa.

 

Several short, small-brained species survived alongside them: Homo naledi in South Africa, Homo luzonensis in the Philippines, Homo floresiensis (“hobbits”) in Indonesia, and the mysterious Red Deer Cave People in China. Given how quickly we’re discovering new species, more are likely waiting to be found.

 

By 10,000 years ago, they were all gone. The disappearance of these other species resembles a mass extinction. But there’s no obvious environmental catastrophe – volcanic eruptions, climate change, asteroid impact – driving it. Instead, the extinctions’ timing suggests they were caused by the spread of a new species, evolving 260,000-350,000 years ago in Southern Africa: Homo sapiens.

 

The spread of modern humans out of Africa has caused a sixth mass extinction, a greater than 40,000-year event extending from the disappearance of Ice Age mammals to the destruction of rainforests by civilisation today. But were other humans the first casualties?

 

 

[RemoveSnyder]

 

[redskinss]

A friend of mine just wintered over in Antarctica. 

The pictures of the lights he was posting were amazing. 

 

When he started talking about the temperatures of 150 below with wind chill I lost interest in joining him though. 

 

Ps, he's not the one holding the sign upside down. 

 

Edited November 25, 2019 by redskinss

[China]

Scroll down.

 

The Deep Sea

[Bang]

That was pretty cool

 

~Bang

[CousinsCowgirl84]

 

 

 

well, i think it’s cool.

[Jumbo]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/world-s-oldest-hunting-scene-shows-half-human-half-animal-figures-and-sophisticated

 

World’s oldest hunting scene shows half-human, half-animal figures—and a sophisticated imagination

 

pics at link

 

 

Quote

 

Some 44,000 years ago, an artist climbed high onto a cave ledge on an Indonesian island, paintbrush in hand. Perhaps inspired by spiritual visions, the artist sketched a dynamic scene featuring tiny, animal-headed hunters armed with spears cornering formidable wild hogs and small buffaloes.

 

In a new study, researchers argue that the scene's visionary storytelling—which they claim represents the oldest known figurative art made by modern humans—shows that people already had imaginations much like our own at the time of the cave painting, and likely much earlier.

 

"We think of the ability for humans to make a story, a narrative scene, as one of the last steps of human cognition," says the study's lead author, Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Nathan, Australia. "This is the oldest rock art in the world and all of the key aspects of modern cognition are there."

 

For the past 5 years, Aubert and colleagues have been exploring dozens of caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and have turned up hundreds of hand stencils, cave paintings, red pigment crayons, and carved figurines. Archaeological data suggest the artists came with an early wave of modern humans some 50,000 years ago. (Modern Sulawesians hail from successive waves of Australasian populations that began to arrive much later, between 3500 and 4000 years ago.)

 

In 2017, co-author Pak Hamrullah, an Indonesian archaeologist and caver, noticed a small opening in the ceiling of a previously explored limestone cave. Scrambling up a fig tree vine, he found his way into a small grotto. Its far wall bore a panel, painted with a red ocher pigment. When Aubert saw it, he was astounded.

 

"I thought, ‘Wow, it's like a whole scene,’" he says. "You've got humans, or maybe half-human half-animals, hunting or capturing these animals … it was just amazing."

 

The hunted animals appear to be the Sulawesi warty pig and a small horned bovine called an anoa, or dwarf buffalo, both of which still live on the island. But it was the animal like features of the eight hunters, armed with spears or ropes, that captivated Aubert. Several appear to have elongated muzzles or snouts. One seems to possess a tail, while another's mouth resembles a bird beak.

 

The features could depict masks or other camouflage, but the researchers argue that dressing like small animals would be a poor disguise for hunters. More likely, the figures represent mythical animal-human hybrids, Aubert says. Such hybrids feature in several instances of early artwork, including a 35,000-year-old ivory figurine of a lion-man found in the German Alps.

 

To date the Sulawesi cave painting, Aubert carefully pried out a few centimeter-wide shards from the painted cave wall—avoiding the figures and trying to do as little damage as possible—and brought the shards back to his lab. Over the years, as rainwater trickled through the cave's porous limestone and seeped down its walls, it left small mineral deposits called cave popcorn on top of the paint.

 

The popcorn holds trace amounts of uranium, which over time decays into thorium at a fixed rate. By analyzing the ratio of uranium to thorium in the mineral layer directly on top of the pigment, the researchers calculated the painting's minimum age: 44,000 years old, they report this week in Nature.

 

That would make the cave scene at least 4000 years older than other instances of figurative ancient rock art found in Indonesia and Europe, and some 20,000 years older than the oldest depictions of hunting scenes in Europe. In 2018, scientists dated some examples of disks and abstract designs from caves in Spain to 65,000 years ago, but these were attributed to Neanderthals, and some scientists have challenged the dating.

 

The ability to imagine beings that don't exist is a critical cognitive milestone, Aubert says, and forms the roots of religion and spirituality. Seeing this ability fully formed 44,000 years ago in Sulawesi suggests it was probably already present in the early modern humans who left Africa and populated the rest of the world.

 

Nicholas Conard, an archaeologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany who wasn't involved in the work, says that scenario makes sense given that every modern human society has its own creative and mythic traditions. "These depictions underline the great antiquity of narratives and storytelling," he says. "It is encouraging to find concrete evidence for narrative depictions at this early date."

 

The findings should also help dispel the outdated and mistaken notion that humanity first became fully modern in Europe, adds April Nowell, an archaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada. "We have long known this view is no longer tenable, and the richness of [this and other recent findings] continues to underscore … the importance of the record outside Europe."

 

[China]

Well, you don't see this everyday:

 

 

[twa]

CHICAGO — A novel MRI-guided procedure that uses therapeutic ultrasound effectively treats prostate cancer with minimal side effects, according to a new study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Researchers said the incision-free technique could also be used to treat benign enlargement of the prostate gland.

Download photo

Steven S. Raman, M.D.

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death in men after lung cancer. Treating disease in the small gland that surrounds the urethra just outside the bladder is challenging. Surgery and radiation are not always effective and can result in incontinence, impotence and bowel dysfunction. Other currently available techniques lack sophisticated imaging guidance and temperature monitoring.

In recent years, a minimally invasive method called MRI-guided transurethral ultrasound ablation (TULSA) has emerged as a promising treatment option. TULSA works by delivering precise doses of sound waves to diseased prostate tissue while sparing the healthy nerve tissue surrounding the prostate.

TULSA relies on a rod-shaped device that is inserted into the urethra. The novel device has 10 ultrasound-generating elements that can cover the entire prostate gland. One or more of the elements are used to send out sound waves that heat and destroy the target prostate tissue. The elements are controlled automatically by a software algorithm that can adjust the shape, direction and strength of the therapeutic ultrasound beam. The entire procedure takes place in an MRI scanner so that doctors can closely monitor treatment and assess the degree and location of heating.

"Unlike with other ultrasound systems on the market, you can monitor the ultrasound ablation process in real time and get immediate MRI feedback of the thermal dose and efficacy," said study co-author Steven S. Raman, M.D., professor of radiology and urology, and director of Prostate MR Imaging and Interventions and Prostate MR Imaging Research at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). "It's an outpatient procedure with minimal recovery time."

In the new multicenter study, researchers reported on the 12-month outcomes from the TULSA-PRO® ablation clinical trial (TACT). The trial enrolled 115 men, median age 65, with localized low or intermediate risk, gland-confined prostate cancer. Clinicians delivered TULSA treatment to the entire gland. Treatment time averaged 51 minutes. 

Prostate volume in the study group decreased on average from 39 cubic centimeters pre-treatment to 3.8 cubic centimeters a year after treatment. Overall, clinically significant cancer was eliminated in 80% of the study participants. Seventy-two out of 111 men, or 65%, had no evidence of any cancer at biopsy after one year. Blood levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a marker of prostate cancer, fell by a median of 95%. There were low rates of severe toxicity and no bowel complications.

"We saw very good results in the patients, with a dramatic reduction of over 90 percent in prostate volume and low rates of impotence with almost no incontinence," Dr. Raman said.

 

https://press.rsna.org/timssnet/media/pressreleases/14_pr_target.cfm?id=2129

[China]

Seals With High-Tech Hats Are Collecting Climate Data in the Antarctic

 

Elephant seals in funny-looking hats are helping NASA study climate science.

 

Outfitted with specialized sensors that resemble lumpy metal yarmulkes with antennae, these pinnipeds are collecting data that’s helping researchers track how heat moves through ocean currents. In a paper published this week in Nature Geosciences, a team of climate scientists led by Caltech oceanographer Lia Siegelman used this clever technique to track changes in temperature as the seal swam the icy waters of the Antarctic.

 

 

With the help of one particularly intrepid female seal, the researchers discovered that heat stored at the ocean’s depths can sometimes get swirled back up to the surface thanks to some deeply penetrating currents. While researchers have known that these currents can ferry heat downward into the ocean’s interior, the new findings suggest the reverse is true as well—driving a process that can warm the sea’s topmost layers as well.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[twa]

 

[Burgold]

Godzilla Christmas Tree in Tokyo

 

 

[China]

 

[PokerPacker]

On 11/25/2019 at 6:45 AM, redskinss said:

A friend of mine just wintered over in Antarctica. 

The pictures of the lights he was posting were amazing. 

 

When he started talking about the temperatures of 150 below with wind chill I lost interest in joining him though. 

 

Ps, he's not the one holding the sign upside down.

Is that sign upside down, or is the earth upside down in the antarctic?

Edited January 13, 2020 by PokerPacker

[redskinss]

1 hour ago, PokerPacker said:

Is that sign upside down, or is the earth upside down in the antarctic?

Good point, I don't know if it was intentional or not.

[twa]

Israeli Water-From-Air Technology Named ‘Energy Efficiency Product of Year’

 

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/01/10/israeli-water-from-air-technology-named-energy-efficiency-product-of-year/

 

 

 

 

[redskinss]

Sounds like a dehumidifier with a filter.

 

Am I missing something?

[Dan T.]

i really like this obituary:

 

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/desmoinesregister/obituary.aspx?n=ken-fuson&pid=194969073&fbclid=IwAR3FYRuKHUf0u9SZQMSLI1NqF74lsCNBjZJTxD-DijKfSXnhSO1_7gi7vZM

 

 

[China]

 

[China]

Bumblebees can create mental imagery, a 'building block of consciousness', study suggests

 

Humans are one of very few animals known to be able to recognise objects across senses.

 

For instance, if we know what a jar of honey looks like we could probably find it by touch alone from the top shelf of the pantry.

 

Scientists think this ability — called cross-modal object recognition — exists at least partly because we are able to imagine the object in our brain, a skill that is a "building block" of consciousness.

 

But now a team of scientists believe they have evidence bumblebees can also create mental imagery, they report in the journal Science.

 

The tiny insects are able to recognise objects by sight that they've only previously felt, and vice versa, according to study co-author Cwyn Solvi from the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and Macquarie University.

 

"Many have thought that bees' small brains simply react to stimuli and output motor behaviours without any internal representations of the world," Dr Solvi said.

 

"In humans, the ability to solve a cross-modal recognition task, like those the bumblebees solved, requires mental imagery."

 

The question now is whether we have underestimated the intelligence of bees, or overestimated how complex a brain needs to be to perform cross-modal recognition.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[RemoveSnyder]