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Despite ubiquitous assurances that "There's an app for that," one thing not included in the "that" is the detection of soil-transmitted helminths in human beings. (Helminths are the scientific name for hookworms and their nasty little friends.) Hookworm is a particular problem in developing nations without access to proper medical screening facilities, and Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a Canadian internal medicine specialist, figured out a clever way to tackle that with an extraordinarily simple smartphone hack.

We transformed a mobile phone into a microscope by temporarily mounting a 3-mm ball lens (Edmund Optics, Barrington, NJ) to the camera of an iPhone 4S (Apple, Cupertino, CA) with double-sided tape (3M, St. Paul, MN)... A small hole was punctured in the middle of the double-sided tape, and the ball lens was positioned in this hole. The ball lens was then centered over the iPhone camera lens, with the tape holding the lens to the camera for stability.

Kato-Katz thick smear slides were directly placed up against the double-sided tape, such that a small space less than 1 mm separated the lens from the slide (Figure 1). The mobile phone microscope was placed on top of a slide, which was illuminated from below by a generic, small, handheld incandescent flashlight powered by one AA battery. Images were viewed on the mobile phone screen, and magnification was increased with the digital zoom function; we estimate that this method could achieve an equivalent of 50-60 u magnification. The microscopist manually manipulated the slide underneath the mobile phone microscope to examine the entire area of stool on the slide.

Dr. Bogoch then tested his hacked iPhone on samples taken from schoolchildren in Tanzania and achieved a detection rate accurate to 69.4%—not good enough to eradicate the problem, but certainly a promising start. Dr. Bogoch's research paper in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene [PDF] estimates the hack can be "easily assembled in less than 5 minutes at a cost of approximately US $15."

We know you're thinking "Doc, that is awesome—but you pressed your phone up against human poo?" Of course he didn't, the man is a doctor!

The thick double-sided tape (3M) that held the ball lens to the mobile phone provided a 1-mm buffer zone between the slide and ball lens. In addition, the cellophane strip placed over stool on the slide prevented the ball lens from becoming contaminated with stool.

Understandably, Apple, 3M, and lens manufacturer Edmunds Optics would probably be squeamish about running a commercial advertising Dr. Bogoch's accomplishment. But the health implications for this hack are not to be underestimated. Hookworms reportedly infect more than 600 million people around the globe.

If you've been searching for a socially important Kickstarter project, I'd say you reach out to Dr. Bogoch and get down to business.

(more...)

An anonymous reader writes "A new study released today (abstract) indicates that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has become the first man-made object to exit our solar system. Instrumentation data sent back to NASA indicate the historic event likely occurred on August 25, 2012, evidenced by drastic changes in radiation levels as the craft ventured past the heliopause. What remains to be seen, however, is whether Voyager 1 has actually made it to true interstellar space, or whether it has entered a separate, undefined region beyond our solar system. Either way, the achievement is truly monumental. 'It's outside the normal heliosphere, I would say that. We're in a new region,' said Bill Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. 'And everything we're measuring is different and exciting.'" Update: 03/20 20:44 GMT by S : Reader skade88 points out that the JPL Voyager team is not so sure: "It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space. In December 2012, the Voyager science team reported that Voyager 1 is within a new region called 'the magnetic highway' where energetic particles changed dramatically. A change in the direction of the magnetic field is the last critical indicator of reaching interstellar space and that change of direction has not yet been observed." So we'll probably be hearing about this again in a couple years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

chuckhistory:

Hahaha! 

via http://obviousmag.org/en/archives/2008/06/the_right_moment_to_photograph.html#0

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joe campbell


neil degrasse tyson


terry pratchett


son house


brussel sprouts


garrison keillor


kurt vonnegut


thom yorke


jean michel basquiat

a brief visual list of men i dig

yes, i know, but i also really dig brussel sprouts.

Big Air Package is the latest project from artist Christo installed at the Gasometer Oberhausen in Germany, a facility that still holds the record as the largest disc-type gas holder in Europe that was converted into an exhibition hall in the 1990s. Big Air Package is the largest ever inflated envelope without aid of a skeleton (Gasometer Oberhausen bills it as “the largest indoor sculpture in history”) and reaches 90 meters high, with a diameter of 50 meters and a volume of 177,000 cubic meters. The work was conceived in 2010 and is Christo’s first major work after the passing of his wife and artistic partner Jeanne-Claude in 2009. Via the official press release:

Big Air Package, Project for Gasometer Oberhausen, Germany was conceived in 2010 by Christo and will be on view from March 16 to December 30, 2013. The sculpture, which is installed inside the former gas tank, was made from 20,350 square meters of semitransparent polyester fabric and 4,500 meters of rope. The inflated envelope is 90 meters high and 50 meters in diameter. It has a total weight of 5.3 tons and a volume of 177,000 cubic meters. [...] The “Big Air Package” nearly spans the distance from wall to wall of the Gasomter, leaving only a small passage to walk around the sculpture. Two air fans creating a constant pressure of 27 pascal (0.27 millibar) keep the package upright. Airlocks allow visitors to enter the package. Illuminated through the skylights of the Gasometer and 60 additional projectors, the work of art creates a diffuse light throughout the interior. Inside the sculpture, an extraordinary experience of shape, space and light is provided.

Christo says that “when experienced from the inside, that space is almost like a 90-meter-high cathedral,” which is easy to see just looking at these incredible images. The installation opened this weekend and will remain on view through December 2013. You can see many more photos courtesy Wolfgang Volz here. (via farewell kingdom)

I’m really enjoying these suspended installations by French artist Isa Barbier who uses feathers hung on filament to create abstract geometric volumes. These two works above are definitely my favorite but you can head over to Documents d’artistes to see much more. (via ferme-asile, jean-louis pitteloud)

via http://printliberation.com/blog/?paged=2

instagram.com/p/W_qFIEM15v/#drewgurian


instagram.com/p/W_kBQ-oVSJ/#natgeo


instagram.com/p/W_VQ0SOlGi/#joemcnallyphoto

@joemcnallyphoto’s #fromwhereistand Atop the Burj Khalifa

Photographer Joe McNally (@joemcnallyphoto) has climbed the antenna of the World Trade Center and all over the Empire State Building on assignments, but two days ago he reached his greatest height yet: summiting the tip-top of the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

The climb took three years to plan and just three hours to complete. Joe’s route took him approximately 450 feet straight up a combination of steps and rung ladders. “The portholes and grating access points are small, so you have to climb and then stop and rope up your gear which has been stuffed into climbing bags.”

Once at the top, Joe calmly snapped a #fromwhereistand photo with his iPhone and shared the image on Instagram. “It was wonderful being up there. A thrilling view, and certainly a bit of a sense of accomplishment,” he says. “I told folks I would send out a picture from the top, which seemed like a fun thing to do in these days of connectivity and instant visual delivery. Of course, I had to be very careful handling the iPhone at that height!”

To see more of Joe’s photos, be sure to follow him on Instagram @joemcnallyphoto and through National Geographic’s account, @natgeo, to which he’s a regular contributor.

Artist Federico Uribe (previously here and here) just released a lovely new collection of work made from electrical and a/v cables called, appropriately, Contectado. Uribe works almost exclusively with multitudes of repurposed objects to create vibrantly colored sculptures and 2D artworks like this. Via Now:

Uribe creates sculptures which are not sculpted but constructed and weaved, in all kinds of different ways, curious and unpredictable, repetitive and almost compulsive. They follow the classics canons of figurative and abstract art, but the result is absolutely unusual, whimsical, of enormous efficacy and communicability. When observed from close, his works reveal various kinds of interpretations; they invite us to touch them, to discover the detail and connection between one element and another. When viewed form further away, they offer volumes, forms, textures and color. Distance, proximity and perception are key factors in the interaction between Uribe’s work and its viewers.

You can see many more artworks from this series on his website.

brooklynmutt:

GOP leader thinks Will McAvoy is a real news anchor

JIMROMENESKO: He deleted his tweet after someone pointed out that McAvoy is a fictitious anchor.

nomadicdreamer:

So I wrote to every single Arkansas Senator and this was Senator Alan Clark’s thinly-veiled contemptuous response. He is clearly unwilling to be civil in a discussion about his legislation and very ready to jump to conclusions and force words into other people’s mouths. It’s interesting that he should be “representing” anyone.

Wow. Alan Clark is a reprehensible scumbag. I hope the people who are represented by him are as appalled by his response as I am, and I certainly hope they’re more decent human beings than he is.

Since Brian worked on the server side, his list of Stupid Feed Tricks didn’t include my very favorite feed screw-up.

A lot of hotels and similar offer wi-fi. When you open a page in your browser, it redirects you to their login page.

Those systems don’t differentiate between an http request made by a feed reader and an http request made by a browser. (Nor should they.)

But what happens is that you launch your reader and it gets a redirect for every single feed, to some kind of URL like http://dumbhotel.com/register.aspx.

Normally that would be fine. It’s just a redirect, and once you have actually logged in you can do a refresh in your reader and all’s well.

But!

No!

A bunch of these dumb systems redirect using a permanent redirect: they use 301 instead of 302.

When a feed reader gets a permanent redirect, it’s supposed to take that to mean: “Hey, the feed moved. It’s over here now. Save the new URL and use the new one from now on.”

And if you don’t do that in your reader, and your feed reader is popular enough, smart people who quite rightly care about proper behavior will call you out. You have to do that.

So you write your feed reader to do the right thing — and then one of your customers goes to a dumb hotel, opens their laptop, and their subscription list is wiped out. Every feed URL is replaced with http://dumbhotel.com/register.aspx. And now they can’t get their news, and they don’t know how to get it back.

ghdos:

pol102:

Via firstbook:

If you work with kids from low-income neighborhoods, First Book can help you get brand-new, high-quality books.

This is how income inequality happens. Read to your kids, people! And donate to First Book, while you’re at it.

SIGNAL BOOOOOOOOST!!!

Yes.

cjwho:

Shards of Turquoise Ice Jut Out of the World’s Largest Lake

David Windestål has dreamed of sending a remote-controlled plane to the stratosphere since 2010, and he’s finally made his dream a reality. Using a Multiplex FunJET equipped with a GoPro, GPS tracker, and video transmitter, Windestål piloted the rig at about 100,000 feet above sea level and got some truly amazing footage from the experiment.

images via David Windestål

via Gizmodo

As Chick-fil-A’s corporate foundation came under heavy criticism last year for its long record of anti-LGBT behavior, the company attempted to distance itself from its political record, claiming it intedend “to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”

But despite suggestions by some that the company’s WinShape Foundation had already scaled back its anti-LGBT giving before that point, its newly released annual IRS filings for 2011 indicate nothing of the sort.

Most of the WinShape’s anti-LGBT giving in previous years went to groups like the Marriage & Family Foundation ($1,188,380 in 2010), the Fellowship Of Christian Athletes ($480,000 in 2010), and the National Christian Foundation ($247,500). Additionally, the group made small donations to the “ex-gay” group Exodus International ($1,000) and the hate group Family Research Council ($1,000).

In 2011, the group actually gave even more to anti-LGBT causes. Its contribution to the Marriage & Family Foundation jumped to $2,896,438 and it gave the same amount to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and National Christian Foundation as it had in 2010. In total, the anti-LGBT spending exceeded $3.6 million — almost double the $1.9 million from the year before.

While the group gave nothing directly to Exodus International or FRC, a large amount of Chick-fil-A/WinShape money still made its way to those groups. The National Christian Foundation (aka the National Christian Charitable Foundation) gave $4,100 to Exodus International and a stunning $1,260,040 to FRC. This was possible, in part, because of the $247,500 it received directly from WinShape and because the WinShape-backed Marriage & Family Foundation also transferred $870,834 to the group — the self-described “largest Christian grant-making foundation in the world.”

In essence, Chick-fil-A’s “charitable” contributions in 2011 were no less hateful than in 2010 — just less transparent.

Submitted by: Nobody-

Tagged: gif , hop , pushing , cars , dog Share on Facebook

Trigger warning: this article frankly discusses the topic of rape.

Five “no”s and one “yes” is not consent.

You cannot pester someone until they finally cave and have sex with you — well, technically you can, but it would make you a rapist. This is one of those really, really, really bad ideas being reinforced again and again and again by the media. Think about the movies and television shows you’ve watched: there’s a scene where a girl is sitting on a bed looking uncomfortable, she tells her boyfriend that she does not want to have sex with him, he’s nagging at her with pleadings of “c’mon…” and “don’t you love me?” and “why not?!” Pretty often, she gives in. More often, the audience is prompted to laugh at this behavior. We really ought to think about what this is teaching young people — teaching them that their “no” is not good enough, that they must explain their “no” or it is not valid (“but WHY won’t you fuck me?!”) and, simply, that their own desires on what is to be done with their body do not matter; that it is okay to put this sort of pressure on their peers and that it’s okay to ignore what they want. It isn’t.

Dating/being married to someone is not automatic consent.

This is the mindset that leads to date rape and marital rape; just because someone has agreed to go out on a date with you, to be your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner, or even agreed to marry you, this does not mean you have the right to help yourself to their body. No one ever owes you sex, and just being in a relationship with someone does not revoke their right to say “no”.

Someone who is drunk/otherwise under the influence cannot consent.

Yet another scene we’re used to seeing in movies: the characters are going to be attending a party that night, one character rejoices in the fact that there are going to be “so many drunk chicks!!!” there that night, presumably because drunk girls are easier to fuck. This sort of predatory behavior — of actively seeking out partners who are not in the right state of mind to deny you — is a rapist’s mindset. Rapists know that a victim who has been drinking is less likely to be taken seriously; her behavior (“why did you go out to a party by yourself?!”) is what’s going to be scrutinized. The rapist knows it, and his victims will probably know it too; which might even prompt them to not even report a rape.

Asking for consent is not difficult.

If it’s not “yes,” it’s no.

Unless it is made obvious to you (you’ve asked them like in the example above, they’re enthusiastically reciprocating your touch, or they’ve blatantly told you “yes, I would like to have sex”) you’ve gotta take it as a “no.” If they’re silent, it’s “no.” If they’re being completely still, it’s “no.” If they’re not kissing you back, not reciprocating, it’s “no.” If they say “I’m not sure…”, “I don’t know about this…”, “wait…”, or some other hesitant response, it’s “no” — and you have to take their answer as final, because as discussed in the first bullet, you also can’t beg someone til they cave. If they end up changing their mind (on their own, without you pushing them to do it), I’m sure they’ll let you know. But for now, you have to back off and leave them alone.

It’s not consent if you make them afraid to say “no.”

This goes for the obvious things, such as rape at gunpoint/knifepoint, but it also counts if you intimidate them without the use of a weapon. Twisting their arm, backing them into a corner, telling them you won’t drive them home unless they comply with your desires. Consent is given willingly; not pulled from someone out of fear.

Someone who is asleep/passed out cannot consent.

It’s appalling that this needs to be stated, but there have been many times when a rapist has taken advantage of someone who is unconscious. Putting your hands on someone who is blacked out on a couch at a party is rape. Sneakily putting your hands on someone who is asleep is rape. If they’re not, you know, conscious, there’s no way for them to say “yes, I want this”, and that makes it rape.

Just because you received consent from someone once doesn’t mean you have consent forever.

Consent is active; it must constantly be reaffirmed. Maybe they slept with you that one time at that one party, but that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to put your hands on them forever and always — because, hey, maybe they only wanted it to happen once! Consent is never something that, under any circumstances, can be assumed, and it can also be revoked in a moment’s notice — even in the middle of a sexual act. It’s also important to remember that just because someone has consented to one sexual act does not mean they’ve consented to every sexual act. If you want to try something new, you must ask.

Someone’s outfit does not imply consent.

If you want to hook up with someone, you have to ask them, not their mini skirt. People often make the mistake of assuming that a person who is dressed in provocative clothing must want to have sex, but this is a product of sexism; it’s a women-are-my-property mindset that leads rapists to think “if they’re dressing this way, they’re dressing this way for me“. It doesn’t even occur to them that this person could be wearing the low-cut dress because they like it.

You’ll notice that this article is an “incomplete” list — because this is not the final word on what consent is not, and sometimes these things need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Sexual consent is something that is enthusiastic; given freely without any pressure or fear. Consent is listening to your partner, taking note of their body language, and asking, “Is this okay? Do you like this?”. And sexual contact without consent is rape. If you’re unsure of whether a person is consenting or is able to consent, then stop.

Written by Hannah Braswell
Reposted with permission from bleedingfeminism.com

Todos os “yeah” berrados pelo vocalista do Metallica ao longo da sua carreira fonográfica.

E nem é o primeiro projeto do gênero.

granny-glass:

b22-design:

David Hockney painting his pool