…where science, futurism, and anything else Stephen finds interesting are thrown together in an informational stew for your consumption.

Enjoy!

Follow Stephen on Twitter: @stephentgo

• : “Steampowered flying machines of yesteryear.”

  

• Composite made from reduced graphene oxide and magnetite could effectively remove arsenic from drinking water.

  Is there no end to the amazing properties of graphene?

• Human Trials Next for Darpa’s Mind-Controlled Artificial Arm.
• : “Air Force seeks to make science fiction a reality by developing smart autonomous vehicles + brain machine interfaces.”
• : “New Livers Grown on Scaffolds In Rats.”
• Reuters Science: “Woolly mammoth hunters helped change climate.”
• Marcel Dicke: “The locust is the shrimp of the land.”

  Marcel Dicke laid out the arguments at TED for why we should be eating insects.

• The first law of robotics in action: Developing artificial skin for robots to be safe around humans – that, plus algorithms to stop immediately if their skin contacts a human.
• Doctorow: “Ian McDonald’s amazing novel The Dervish House: Turkey’s mystical nanotech future.”

  

• Bob Richards reported that Dean Kamen received a standing ovation at Singularity University for inspiring millions of kids through FIRST robotics program.

  Bob Richards: “Brainstorming FIRST Robotics Bio-bot ideas over dinner with Dean Kamen and Singularity University students.”

• Great CEO’s or Corporate culture- which is more important?
• Roger Ebert’s 4-star review of “Inception.”
  

  It’s said that Christopher Nolan spent ten years writing his screenplay for “Inception.” That must have involved prodigious concentration, like playing blindfold chess while walking a tight-wire… We have to trust him that he can lead us through, because much of the time we’re lost and disoriented. Nolan must have rewritten this story time and again, finding that every change had a ripple effect down through the whole fabric.

• Wil Wheaton: “Nothing makes me appreciate Pandora, Rhapsody, and Slacker more than being forced to rely on broadcast radio in the car.”

  Its a Wesley crusher.

• Tom Hanks: “Wanna buy my old Prius – hacked for MAX mpg? Go to Welcome Back Veterans auction.

  

  Classy guy.

• Aviation innovations: flying car, autonomous helicopter, paint that makes aircraft radar invisible.

  “Demonstrating that a full-scale robotic helicopter can safely take off, fly at low altitude and land heralds a new era,”

• Which came first, the chicken or egg? MSNBC and NPR reported that “British scientists have proven it was the chicken.” That is not what those scientists said. This was just awful science reporting.

  By the way, the answer to the age-old riddle is “egg.” At some point in the distant past a pre-chicken bird layed an egg, which hatched the 1st chicken (however “chicken” is defined).

• SierraSci: “244,273 compounds screened. 813 Telomerase inducers found! The search for a cure to AGING zooms ahead.”
• junecohen: “The first TED talk from TEDGlobal is up! Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex. Knock out talk on human collaboration.”

  Ridley, of course, is the author of “Rational Optimist” – the book that Phil and I have been raving about for weeks on FastForward Radio.

  : “More detail on TED ‘s Global Conversation Project, launching this fall.”

• The 10 most gorgeous blasters and ray guns in science fiction.

  

  Pictured: Goliathon 83 from Dr. Grordbort

• I think he would have liked this: “Philip K Dick brought back to life as a fully autonomous conversational android.”
• MaryRobinette: “You know what I want? I want a clear sleeve on the back of my ereader so I can slip in a printout of the cover art of what I’m reading.”
• New Scientist: “Time to abandon the black-and-white fiction that human-induced climate change is fact or conspiracy.”
• as social hubs in neighborhoods. Good Social geography will be an increasingly important business model.
• Paperback decline coupled with rapid growth of e-books puts the e-book market at 55% of the size of the paperback market.

  An important milestone for Phil and my “Kindle Bet:”

  I’m betting $1.00 that in ten years [from February 25, 2009] the print market will be diminished because most people will be reading on electronic readers like the Kindle. Phil disagreed and is betting that although most reading will occur on these devices in 10 years [by February 25, 2019], the print market will be bigger than ever.

• June Cohen: “Neil Gershenfeld trying to re-implement biology with semiconductors, conductors, insulators to literally grow technology!”

  June Cohen: “Your brain doesn’t execute lines of code – everything happens everywhere all the time.” ~ Neil Gershenfeld

• without normal cell towers.
  

  Australian scientists have invented software that enables mobile phones to work in remote areas where there is no conventional coverage and in locations where the infrastructure has been destroyed through disaster, or is not economically viable.

  Two methods are being worked on. One allows the wifi function of cell phones to be used to create a web of coverage.

• Suzanne Lee makes BioCouture– textiles grown from bacterial cellulose.

  

• Hudsonette: “There’s something to be said for the pressure to be excellent. R.I.P. George Steinbrenner.”
• : “Body as battery.”

  Harvesting electricity from the human body (anybody remember Matrix), is yet another way to power medical devices with the human body.

  A recent “Short Attention Span” mentioned two other possible methods: using the mechanical energy of blood flow like a hydroelectric dam, and harvesting the ATP to ADP chemical energy that is already powering the human body.