Link: BBC News – Electric current to the brain ‘boosts maths ability’
Applying a tiny electrical current to the brain could make you better at learning maths, according to Oxford University scientists.
They found that targeting a part of the brain called the parietal lobe improved the ability of volunteers to solve numerical problems.
Link: Interactive documentary set in highrises around the world – Boing Boing
HIGHRISE/Out My Window is a brand-new interactive documentary. It features first-person stories from 13 cities internationally, with an eclectic soundtrack, exploring the experience of life in the concrete highrise – the most common built form of the last century.
Designed to be experienced online, the project launches the viewer inside a 360-degree panorama, into an almost game-like environment. Toronto-based documentary maker Katerina Cizek directed the project largely via Skype, Facebook and email, in a collaborative process with photographers, journalists, architects, researchers, activists, digital developers and artists from around the world. The credit list rivals a feature film.
The stories of Out My Window span the globe: from Latin America’s largest squat in Sao Paolo to a hugely renovated post-soviet concrete suburb in the south of Prague. Durdane in Istanbul describes how her squatter highrise community came about in the eighties, as people moved from the countryside and built towers one floor at a time. John from Johannesburg talks about the phenomenon of ‘highjacked buildings,’ where tenants are forced to pay rent to illegal landlords even as their buildings fall to ruin. Amchok from Toronto, who escaped Chinese-controlled Tibet by walking to India, talks about how his work as music teacher and performer brought him to Canada and helps make a home in his building in Toronto.
Link: Nuclear bunker houses world’s toughest server farm
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2010/11/features/20-thousand-terabytes-under-the-ground"><img src="https://blog.davidcantatore.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Terabytes.jpg" height="281" width="674" /></a>
Link: Bruce Wayne almost, but not quite, admits he’s Batman – The Globe and Mail
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/bruce-wayne-almost-but-not-quite-admits-hes-batman/article1783963/?cmpid=rss1"><img src="https://blog.davidcantatore.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/wBatmanWayne_984588cl-3.jpg" height="123" width="220" /></a>
Link: Revealed: The amazing pictures lost at sea capture divers’ miracle survival | News.com.au
<a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/revealed-the-amazing-pictures-lost-at-sea-capture-divers-miracle-survival/story-e6frfkvr-1225946372866" target="_blank"><img src="https://blog.davidcantatore.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/370866-peter-trayhurn.jpg" height="366" width="650" /></a>
Amazing story!
Link: The Neighbourhood Mixtape: Shadow Season <<<clicky
If you like your Halloween mix dark, this one’s for you!
Link: This Is What A Nuclear Test Site Looks Like From Above
<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5677487/this-is-what-a-nuclear-test-site-looks-like-from-above" target="_blank"><img src="https://blog.davidcantatore.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/500x_nuclear-test-site-pockmarks.jpg" height="374" width="500" /></a>
Link: Best Hallowe’en card EVER <-clicky
You’ll need sound to fully enjoy it! Happy Hallowe’en everybody!
Link: The boiling, erupting Sun | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
<a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/10/28/the-boiling-erupting-sun/"><img src="https://blog.davidcantatore.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/alanfriedman_sun_halpha.jpg" height="510" width="510" /></a>
Holy solar retinopathy! That’s the Sun?
Yup. But this is not a space-based image from some bazillion dollar observatory! This phenomenal picture was taken by astrophotographer Alan Friedman with this relatively small (but very, very nice) ’scope. He shot it on October 20th, and it shows our nearest star in the light of hydrogen, specifically what astronomers call Hα (H-alpha). I’ll get to that in a sec…
In this picture you can see sunspots, giant convection cells, and the gas that follows magnetic loops piercing the Sun’s surface. When we see them against the Sun’s surface they’re called filaments, and when they arc against the background sky on the edge of the Sun’s disk they’re called prominences.
Read more by going all clicky-clicky, it’s a great read (and an awesome blog)!
Link: Neutron star packs two Suns’ mass in London-sized space -BBC News
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11639458" target="_blank"><img src="https://blog.davidcantatore.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/49682299_49682298.jpg" height="171" width="304" /></a>
Link: British Airways Boss Blasts ‘Redundant’ TSA Airport Security Checks
LONDON (Oct. 27) — The chairman of British Airways has launched a scathing attack on the “completely redundant” airport checks requested by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration and urged the U.K. to stop “kowtowing” to American demands for ever more security.