Naut's Tidbits & Snippets

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

And at MIT: Viruses Build Superbatteries...

A team of engineers at MIT has harnessed viruses to make components for a remarkable new kind of battery, half the size of a human cell and far more efficient than your usual AAA. The researchers used a threadlike virus that had been genetically engineered so that electrically conductive materials,... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Nautikos at 12:34 PM | add or view comments (15) | link to this | view only this entry

Monday, January 5, 2009

And in the Amazon: A Tribe without Numbers...

A small group of hunter-gatherers living in the Amazon rain forest is overturning some fundamental assumptions about the mind. Although linguists have long believed that counting and having words for numbers are basic, if not innate, to human cognition, the Piraha people in Brazil have no words to... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Nautikos at 1:28 PM | add or view comments (14) | link to this | view only this entry

Sunday, January 4, 2009

And Wherever there is Winter: There is Snow...

Snowflakes are complex and symmetrical – usually, variations on six-sided figures. In nature there are no eight, seven, five or four sided snow crystals, as Kenneth Libbrecht, professor of physics at Cal Tech, calls them in his book The Snowflake, Winter’s Secret Beauty. A typical snow crystal... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Nautikos at 8:59 AM | add or view comments (12) | link to this | view only this entry

Saturday, January 3, 2009

And in Sweden: It ain’t an Ingmar Bergman Movie, but...

One of the year’s most remarkable motion pictures lasts just 3 seconds – and that’s after it has been slowed down a billion billion times. The film documents an electron in motion the instant after it was booted from an atom by an ultrviolet pulse. Created by an international team of physicists, the... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Nautikos at 9:16 AM | add or view comments (11) | link to this | view only this entry

Friday, January 2, 2009

And in Spain: Legal Rights for Great Apes...

On June 25 the Spanish Parliament’s environmental committee approved a resolution to grant legal rights to great apes, covering chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans. The resolution, expected to be enacted into law by June, 2009, gives great apes the right to life and protects them from... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Nautikos at 8:58 AM | add or view comments (9) | link to this | view only this entry

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

And in Toronto: Nappies and Bare Bottoms...

[Provincial] Health Minister George Smitherman says he is seriously considering wearing adult diapers for a day to determine whether they are adequate for seniors living in nursing homes. [And roughly at the same time] some 100 TTC [Toronto Transit Commission] riders dropped their drawers... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Nautikos at 6:07 AM | add or view comments (11) | link to this | view only this entry

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

And in China, via Detroit: The Latest in Automotive Technology...

Chinese automaker Geely, in a brochure handed out at the Detroit Auto Show, describes it’s anti-lock brakes: "Under the supervision of ABS system, when the detective system of the wheel is going to send locking information, the running of the wheel discontinuously enables the driver to control the... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Nautikos at 12:49 PM | add or view comments (9) | link to this | view only this entry

Sunday, December 28, 2008

And Almost Everywhere: The World in an Uproar over the Middle East...

“International pressure is mounting on Israel and the Palestinians to halt violence in Gaza, with the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and other countries all calling for an immediate restoration of calm.” CNN, Dec 28, 2008) Restoration of ‘calm’? What ‘calm’? Can anyone please... Sign in to see full entry.

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Saturday, December 27, 2008

And in Florida: A Woman Who Knows Her Priorities...

A woman in St. Augustine, FL, was arrested and charged with numerous offences, including drunk driving. Police found her 16-month old daughter unrestrained in the back seat; riding up front, safely buckled in, was a case of beer. (J. McIntosh, Toronto Star, Dec 27, 2008 ) She definitely had her... Sign in to see full entry.

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Thursday, December 25, 2008

And Today: to All My Blogit Friends...

A MERRY CHRISTMAS! ( I'm afraid that's all the decoratin' you'll ever see on this site, LOL ) Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Nautikos at 5:40 AM | add or view comments (8) | link to this | view only this entry